The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (9 page)

Devonny had plenty of will.

He was eager to see how Devonny managed his
mother. Lord Winden’s mother was overwhelming, especially to Lord Winden. A wife like Devonny might actually be an ally; together, he and his new wife might … No. These things rarely happened. The marriages he knew were full of trauma. Men and wives led separate lives.

He counted bridesmaids.

To his amazement, Hugh-David could hardly wait to see his bride. What will the gown look like? he thought. Will she be the vision I’m expecting? Will she be hidden by a veil? Will she be weeping? Will she smile?

Gordon whispered in his ear. “She’s so embarrassingly American, Hugh. You shall have to perform radical surgery on her.”

Hugh-David allowed a slight smile to decorate his formal expression. Gordon had witnessed Devonny beating him at tennis, riding her bicycle with a split skirt, and even, when she fell off the bike, jumping up in disgust and shrieking a swear word. Gordon had been horrified and amused, muttering that Hugh-David would have to be very careful, lest the girl turn into her father: fat, stomping and vulgar. But Hugh-David had found her immensely attractive. Not ladylike. But attractive.

He knew he had been a tiny bit mean to Devonny, but it was essential, with a headstrong young girl, to be sure she knew whose world she was entering. His.

It was his hunt, his shoot, his yacht, his party, his estate.

He would be kind to her during the voyage, but he would structure their lives so that she learned to obey.

One bridesmaid to go.

Then the flower girls.

Then the bride. His bride. His new property.

In the space where pink ruffled skirts and white baskets of flowers had been, Devonny began to see something very odd.

An angel was joining them.

Devonny could see the angel quite clearly, and just as the Bible said, the angel was a beautiful man.

He did not have flesh, just form. She could make out his outlines, but not his body. He was kneeling, which seemed fine for an angel.

Her father was not looking.

Devonny whispered to the angel, “Am I to die? Is that to be my fate?”

Now the angel did not look like an angel at all, but more like a devil, strangely familiar. Devonny narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on him.

Her father said, “Come, Devonny.”

She could not move. He put his large heavy hand on her waist, half circling it, and, with the church ladies, launched her forward. The gown followed, the train weighing so much it was like towing furniture.

The angel stood up.

It was no angel. It was Tod Lockwood.

Her father continued to walk, in the slow awkward shift of body they called “the hesitation step.” His great weight pulled her along.

Tod had come for her, as his sister, Annie, had once come for Strat.

Flossie yanked the crinoline down, stepped out of it, smashed the enormous stiff undergarment beneath her feet and crammed it behind some old pew, pulled silk and ribbons out of her hair and chucked them into the umbrella stand. Flinging her arms into her old coat, she turned the circular handle of the old wooden door and eased herself out onto the street.

This was the back of the church; the crowds were massed out front for the best view. If people turned, all they would see was a woman in an ill-fitting coat, tying an old scarf over her messy hair. Flossie walked away. The bridesmaid skirt was a little too long, and she kept catching her slippers on it. Around the corner, on a park bench, she sat down to rip the lowest ruffle right off. There. Now she wouldn’t fall.

She stuffed the pink satin strip into a pocket of the coat and ran on. The delicate slippers were not designed for pavement, and began to tear apart in only a few blocks.

The sky was not yet winter gray, but still autumn blue. The sun was thin but friendly, and the city seemed buoyant and happy to Flossie. She jumped puddles and broken sidewalk slates. She circled peddlers and cabbies and shoppers and nannies.

Laughter bubbled in her throat and smiles danced on her face. She, Florence Elizabeth Ruth Van Stead, was going to become Mrs. Gianni Annello.

By now, the wedding procession would be finished. Her mother and father, neatly seated in their pew, her father’s top hat on his lap, her mother’s egret feathers towering above anybody else’s, would be proudly turning to see their daughter.

But between Rose and Eunice there would be no Flossie.

They must have changed the order, her mother would think. Flossie will be next.

But instead, the flower girls would come.

How on earth did I miss her? Mother would wonder, trying to discern the girls already near the altar. Mother would not dream of disfiguring her face with spectacles, and would not be able to see. Father, though he would be confused, would not remark on it, for weddings were the stuff of females, and he would just assume he had misunderstood.

The ceremony would last over an hour because of all the music and scripture Devonny had added. By
that time, Flossie and Johnny would have reached City Hall. By the time Devonny and her groom finished with the receiving line, why, Flossie and Johnny might have said their
own
marriage vows!

She was hugging herself with joy. She could feel the shape of Johnny inside her arms. She could hardly wait to see his beautiful smile, hear his exuberant laugh.

She reached Washington Square and rushed to the elm under which they had agreed to meet.

No Johnny was there.

Benches lined the park. Oak and ash and plane trees were bare now, and the fallen leaves swirled about her ankles. Flossie walked carefully, neatly, not letting herself think about it, past every bench sitter. She smiled at the pretty little dogs on leashes and the sweet children in perambulators.

No Johnny.

The magnificent new arch, in honor of George Washington, made a brilliant gateway. She walked calmly to the arch, and around it, and through it, but Johnny was nowhere to be seen.

She stood beside the statue of Garibaldi, presented by the Italians of New York, but her own personal Italian was not there.

She found a bench. She sat on the very edge, ready to leap into the air at the first sight of him.

The minutes passed.

The sun moved down in the sky.

Johnny Annello did not come.

Hiram Stratton liked the idea of a title in the family. England ruled the world, and Parliament was her voice. And what a world England was! India and Hong Kong and Australia and Kenya …

His daughter would enter that world; her money would give that man more power; Hiram’s grandchildren would inherit everything: the Stratton millions, the Winden estates, the power of the British Empire!

Devonny had wanted to marry a man who would accomplish something. With my money, my dear, thought Hiram Stratton, patting her little gloved hand as he studied the famous faces along the church aisle, perhaps he will. After all, somebody is going to have to rule India. Why not Winden?

Ruling an entire country was an attractive thought. Hiram thought he would practice saying India the way the British pronounced it: Innn-jah!

A moment ago, they had been moving forward, but now they stopped. Hiram Stratton assumed the flower girls were slow, and he thought nothing of it. The church pleased him: filled with people come to admire his daughter’s beauty and his daughter’s titled catch. Wives would stare at Lord Winden and be
jealous, because this great catch had gone to somebody else’s daughter. Husbands would stare at Devonny and wish they were young again.

There was nothing quite so wonderful as Society feeling jealous of you.

He was oddly impressed by his ex-wife’s strategy. Aurelia had done an excellent job. He hated to admit how readily he had been conned into action he had not planned. The woman had almost gotten away with it. But Aurelia had given him two great gifts: the gift of this wedding and glorious future … and the gift of her punishment.

He felt a frisson of pleasure at the thought of her life to come.

He planned her next few hours. The wedding, of course, would be a triumph. Aurelia, unknowing of her fate, would be escorted back to the seashore mansion, while Devonny and her groom left for their journey on one of the great cross-Atlantic ships. Devonny would quickly forget her mama. And he, Hiram Stratton, who forgot nothing, ever, would enjoy watching the carpenters nail boards over the windows, while Aurelia chose which blanket to keep with her in the unheated attic.

Hiram felt a strange cold tug, as if some fool had opened a door to winter and let in a vicious wind.

He turned, and his face hurt slightly, icy in spite of the brushy thick beard and draping mustache. He put
his hand up as if to wipe away snow, and in doing so, he realized that Devonny’s arm was not resting on his, and that Devonny—

—that Devonny—

Devonny!

Tod’s university sweatshirt was a size extra large, although Tod himself was medium. It hung to his hips, and the cuffs went past his fingertips. His sneakers were his old ones, without decent laces, so they hung open like dogs’ mouths. His base ball cap was on backward, and his hair, which badly needed a trim, stuck out irregularly along the edges. His braces had broken during the week but Tod had not been in the mood to see the orthodontist, so he’d just smudged on that gummy wax the dentist gave you to cover rough braces edges.

Time was ice, was zero.

His skin, his teeth, his fingers, his gut hurt from the cold. He closed his eyes, but the brutal wind burned through his lids. He felt like a skier going down an advanced slope in Canada in February wearing only a T-shirt. His skin would come off, he would die or be hospitalized.

Tod tried to come to grips with his sister’s courage, doing this willingly, but the cold and wind and speed were too terrible. He could only wait it out. He was Time’s property.

He had agreed to come, but he had expected to run the show.

He had a sense of landing, and a sense that he could refuse to let his body arrive completely, and a sense that even for one who wanted to travel to dangerous places, this was not wise. He could not find a grip, or a purpose, just cold and fear. His stretching hand found Devonny’s, and he seized it, and flung himself back the way he had come.

In their pew, Mr. and Mrs. Van Stead smiled at one another.

How well they had handled the potential disaster with the Italian boy! Luckily, a loyal servant had showed them yet another of those foolish letters. The ridiculous girl had actually intended to
marry
the stonecutter! It was revolting, but whatever silly little plan their daughter had cooked up would not work now.

Mr. Van Stead had had the boy picked up. Gianni Annello was on his way back to Italy.

The captain of the cargo ship had promised to keep him locked up until the ship was safely out to sea, and that took care of that.

Scandal had been averted. And if Flossie’s heart was broken—well, headstrong young girls needed to be broken before marriage, like colts.

Mrs. Van Stead could not see Flossie among the
pink blurs at the front, but she hoped that Gordon or Miles was looking at her fondly. Hoped Gordon or Miles was sufficiently broke to want Flossie, because it was certainly necessary to get Flossie married instantly. Why, the girl’s behavior implied a low-class, animal, physical attraction to that boy!

Rearing girls was so difficult, and so unrewarding.

Hiram Stratton said thickly, “Where is my daughter?”

The church ladies stared at him, looking wildly around, as if Devonny were a teacup that must be sitting on a shelf somewhere.

The flower girls went down the aisle, strewing their rose petals. The trumpet music ceased. There was a pause in which everybody straightened, for this was the one time in a lady’s life in which she was important: this short walk, in this long gown.

But there was no bride.

FIVE
 

T
he guests were having a wonderful time.

No bride!

They were thoroughly enjoying the humiliation of the groom; most eager to witness the fury of the father. Some of the guests stood on the velvet-cushioned pews for a better view.

The bridesmaids could do nothing but stand in their semicircle, clinging to their baskets.

The groom remained calm. How British! He stood as coolly as if this were merely a problem with the gown, a torn hem perhaps, and any moment his bride would glide into his arms.

How could Devonny complain about securing a catch like this? thought Constanza. The man is handsome, courteous and needs her money. There’s nothing quite so nice in a marriage as being needed.

Then came a thought so hideous and exciting that
Constanza had to share it with Rose. “What if Devonny has jilted him?”

“She wouldn’t dare,” whispered Rose without moving her lips. “Leave the man standing at the altar? In front of everybody? With a crowd of hundreds outside to know about it, and a dozen reporters to put it in every paper?”

“Nobody would forgive her,” added Eunice, who hoped it was a jilting. She had always wanted to witness such a thing, and here she was, only a few feet from the groom. Such a handsome fellow. Perhaps—