Ruby Red (5 page)

Something was wrong with this street. It didn’t look the same as usual. Everything had changed so suddenly.

The rain had stopped, but an icy wind was blowing, and it was much darker than a moment ago, almost night. The magnolia tree had no flowers or leaves. I wasn’t even sure whether it was still a magnolia at all.

The spikes of the fence around it were gilded at the tips. I could have sworn they’d been black when I’d seen it not a moment before.

Another vintage car came chugging around the corner. A strange vehicle with tall wheels and shiny spokes. I looked along the pavement—the puddles were nowhere to be seen. Nor were the traffic signs. The paving was bumpy and out of shape, and even the street lamps looked different. Their flickering yellowish light hardly reached the entrance to the next building.

Deep down inside me, a nasty idea stirred, but I wasn’t about to entertain it seriously yet.

I forced myself to breathe deeply. Then I looked around again, more thoroughly this time.

Okay, strictly speaking, there wasn’t that much difference. Most of the buildings really looked the same as usual. But still—the teashop where Mum bought the delicious Duchy Originals made by the Prince of Wales had disappeared, and I’d never set eyes on the colossal columned building on the corner.

A man wearing a hat and a dark coat looked at me with a touch of curiosity as he passed, but he didn’t try talking to me, or even helping me to stand up. Finally, I did it myself and brushed the dirt off my knees.

The nasty thought that had occurred to me was slowly but surely becoming a ghastly certainty.

Who did I think I was kidding?

I hadn’t run into a vintage car rally, and the magnolia hadn’t suddenly lost all its leaves. And although I’d have given anything to see Nicole Kidman suddenly come around the corner, this was not, unfortunately, the set of a film from a Henry James novel.

I knew exactly what had happened. I simply knew. And I also knew that there must be some mistake.

I’d landed in another time.

Not Charlotte. Me. Someone or other had gotten the whole thing wrong.

My teeth immediately began chattering. Not just from nerves but with cold as well. There was a bitter chill in the air.

I’d know what to do
. Charlotte’s words were still echoing in my ears.

Of course Charlotte would have known what to do. But no one had told me.

So I stood there shivering, teeth chattering, at the corner of my own street while people gaped at me. Not that there were many of them out and about. A young woman in an ankle-length coat with a basket over her arm passed me, and behind her came a man in a hat with his collar turned up.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can you by any chance tell me what year this is?”

The woman acted as if she hadn’t heard me and walked faster.

The man shook his head. “What impertinence!” he growled.

I sighed. Although the information wouldn’t really have helped me much anyway. Basically it didn’t make much difference whether this was 1899 or 1923.

At least I knew where I was. I lived less than a hundred yards away. The obvious thing was just to go inside my house.

I had to do something, after all.

The street seemed calm and peaceful in the twilight as I slowly walked back, looking all around me. What was different, what hadn’t changed? The buildings looked very like those of my own time, even on closer examination. I did have the feeling that I’d not seen certain details before, but perhaps it was just that so far I hadn’t noticed them. Automatically I glanced at number 18, but the entrance to it was empty—no man in black anywhere in sight.

I stopped.

Our house looked just as it did in my own time. The windows on the ground floor and the first floor were brightly lit, and there was a light on in Mum’s room up at the top of the house as well. I felt really homesick as I looked up. Icicles hung from the dormer windows.

I’d know what to do.

So what would Charlotte do? It would soon be dark, and it was already bitterly cold. Where would Charlotte go to keep from freezing? Home?

I stared up at the windows. Maybe my grandfather was still alive in there. Maybe he’d even recognize me? After all, he used to let me ride on his knees when I was little.… Oh, don’t be so stupid, I thought.

Even if he were alive now, he could hardly recognize me when he hadn’t met me yet.

The cold was creeping in under Mum’s raincoat. Okay, I’d just ring the bell and ask for shelter for the night.

The only question was how to go about it.

“Hello, my name is Gwyneth, and I’m Lord Lucas Montrose’s granddaughter, but he may not have been born yet.”

I couldn’t expect anyone to believe that. I’d probably find myself in a psychiatric hospital much sooner than I liked. And psychiatric hospitals were probably dismal places at this period. Once inside, you might never get out again.

On the other hand, I had few alternatives. It wouldn’t be long before it was pitch-dark, and I had to spend the night somewhere without freezing to death. Or being spotted by Jack the Ripper. Why couldn’t I remember when Jack the Ripper had prowled the streets of London? And where? Surely not the elegant surroundings of Mayfair, I hoped.

If I did manage to speak to one of my ancestors, I might be able to convince him that I knew more about the family and the house than any normal stranger could. Who but me, for instance, could say straight off that the name of Great-great-great-great-great-uncle Hugh’s horse was Fat Annie?

A gust of wind made me shiver. It was so cold. I wouldn’t have been surprised if snow soon swirled down on top of me.

“Hello, I’m Gwyneth, and I come from the future. I can prove it—take a look at this zipper. I bet those haven’t been invented yet, right? Or jumbo jets or TV sets or refrigerators…”

Well, it was worth a try. Taking a deep breath, I went up to the front door.

The steps seemed, in an odd way, both familiar and strange. Automatically I felt for the bell-push, but there wasn’t one. Obviously electric bells hadn’t been invented yet. Unfortunately, however, that still gave me no hint about the exact date. I didn’t even know when they’d found out how to use electricity. Before or after steamships? Had we learnt that in school? If so, I couldn’t remember it now.

I found a handle hanging from a chain, like the one that flushed the old-fashioned toilet in Lesley’s house. I pulled it, hard, and heard a bell ring behind the door.

Oh, my God.

One of the domestic staff would probably open the door. What could I say to make him or her take me to a member of the family? Maybe Great-great-great-great-great-uncle Hugh was still alive? Or already alive. Alive, anyway. I’d simply ask for him. Or Fat Annie.

Footsteps were coming closer, and I plucked up all my courage, but I never saw who opened the door, because once again the strange feeling swept me off my feet, flung me through time and space, and spat me out on the other side.

I found myself back on the doormat outside our house again, jumped up, and looked around. Everything seemed the same as when I’d left just a little while ago to go and buy Great-aunt Maddy’s sherbet lemons. The buildings, the parked cars, even the rain.

The man in black at the entrance of number 18 was staring across the road at me.

“And you’re not the only one to be surprised,” I muttered.

How long had I been gone? Had the man in black seen me disappear at the corner of the street and then appear again on our doormat? If so, I bet he couldn’t believe his eyes. It served him right.

I rang the bell frantically. Mr. Bernard opened the door.

“In a hurry, are we?” he asked.

“Maybe not you, but I am!”

Mr. Bernard raised his eyebrows.

“’Scuse me, I forgot something important.” I made my way past him and ran upstairs two steps at a time.

Great-aunt Maddy looked up in surprise when I raced through the door. “I thought you’d already left, my love.”

Out of breath, I stared at the clock on the wall. It was now exactly twenty minutes since I had left the room.

“I’m glad you’re here, though. There’s something I forgot to tell you. They have the same sherbet lemons at Selfridges but sugar-free, and the packaging looks just the same. But don’t buy the sugar-free sherbet lemons, whatever you do, because those give me … well, diarrhea.”

“Aunt Maddy, why is everyone so sure that Charlotte has the gene?”

“Because … oh, ask me something simpler, can’t you?” Great-aunt Maddy was looking rather confused.

“Have they tested her blood? Couldn’t someone else have the same gene too?” My breathing was slowly calming down.

“Oh, Charlotte is definitely a gene carrier.”

“Because it’s been found in her DNA?”

“My little angel, you’re asking the wrong person. I was always useless at biology—in fact, I don’t even know what DNA is. I was no good at maths either. Anything about numbers and formulas goes straight in one ear and out the other. I can only tell you that Charlotte came into the world on the very day calculated for her hundreds of years ago.”

“So your date of birth decides whether you have this gene or not?” I bit my lower lip. Charlotte had been born on the seventh of October, and I’d been born on the eighth. We were only a single day apart.

“More like the other way around,” said Great-aunt Maddy. “The gene decides the time of the carrier’s birth. They’ve worked it all out.”

“Well, suppose they made a mistake?”

One day’s difference!
It was that simple. Someone had mixed the dates up. It wasn’t Charlotte who had this wretched gene, it was me. Or maybe we both had it. Or else … I sat down on the stool.

Great-aunt Maddy shook her head. “They didn’t make a mistake, my little angel. If there’s one thing these people are really good at, you can bet it’s arithmetic.”

Who were “these people,” anyway?

“Anyone can make a mistake now and then,” I said.

Great-aunt Maddy laughed. “Not Sir Isaac Newton, I’m afraid.”

“
Newton
worked out the date of Charlotte’s birth?”

“My dear child, I understand your curiosity. When I was your age, I was just the same. But for one thing, it’s sometimes better not to know all the answers, and for another, I really, really would like my sherbet lemons.”

“None of this makes any sense,” I said.

“That’s only how it looks.” Great-aunt Maddy patted my hand. “Even if you’re no wiser now than you were before, this conversation must stay private. If your grandmother finds out all I’ve told you, she’ll be furious. And when she’s furious, she’s even worse than usual.”

“I won’t say anything, Aunt Maddy. And I’ll go and get your sherbet lemons right now.”

“You’re a good child.”

“Just one more question. How long after gene carriers have first traveled in time do they do it again?”

Great-aunt Maddy sighed.

“Please!” I said.

“I don’t think there are any rules,” said Great-aunt Maddy. “Every gene carrier is probably different. But none of them can fix the times for themselves. If the travel is uncontrolled, it can happen every day, sometimes several times a day. That’s why the chronograph is so important. With its help, as I understand, Charlotte won’t be flung around helplessly in time. She can be sent to times that aren’t very dangerous, where nothing can harm her. So don’t worry about your cousin.”

To be honest, I was much more worried about myself.

“Then when a gene carrier is in the past, how long has she been gone in the present?” I asked breathlessly. “And the second time a traveler goes back in time, could it be all the way to the dinosaurs, when there was nothing but swamps around here?”

My great-aunt cut me short. “That’s enough, Gwyneth. I’ve no more idea than you have!”

I got to my feet. “Thanks for answering my questions, anyway,” I said. “You’ve been a great help.”

“I don’t think so. I have a dreadfully guilty conscience. I really shouldn’t be satisfying your curiosity, particularly since I’m not supposed to know about any of it myself. In the old days, when I used to ask my brother—that’s your dear grandfather—about all these secrets, he always told me the same thing. The less you know, he said, the better for your health. Now, are you going to get me my sherbet lemons? And
not
the sugar-free kind, remember!”

Great-aunt Maddy waved as I left.

How could secrets be bad for anyone’s health? And how much had my grandfather known about it all?

*   *   *

“
SIR ISAAC NEWTON?
” repeated Lesley, baffled. “Wasn’t that the force of gravity guy?”

“That’s him, all right. But he also calculated the date of Charlotte’s birth.” I was standing in front of the yogurts in Selfridges Food Hall, holding my mobile to one ear with my right hand and covering the other ear with my left hand. “Only the crazy thing is that no one will believe he made a mistake. Who’d expect Newton to get his sums wrong? But he must have been wrong, Lesley. I was born one day after Charlotte, and
I
traveled back in time. Not her.”