Time After Time (13 page)

By the time she came to
the year 1939, Liz not only knew when, she knew how.

****

"So how's the Vineyard
working out?" Liz asked Victoria in a resolutely cheerful voice
when they talked on the phone that night.

"Better than my wildest
dreams," Victoria said happily. "You remember the internist who
treated me after the accident? I told you about him — dark eyes,
beard, funky sense of humor? He's here, on vacation too, and boy oh
boy, he's
alone.
He's a windsurfing nut. So guess what? I've decided
that
I
want to
learn."

"You, windsurf? I don't
think so." Victoria was the most unathletic woman Liz had ever
known.

"I know — I fall
constantly. Ben thinks it's hysterical. This morning I fell right
out of my top. Unfortunately, the water's so damned cold that we
had to go out and buy me a wetsuit." Victoria sighed and added, "I
hope that's not the end of the attraction."

"If that's all he cares
about ...," Liz said, in a motherly way.

"Well, it's not as if he
can love me for my
mind."

"Victoria — you've lost
your memory, not your mind. And anyway, he knows it. Stop being so
defensive."

"You're right. God, he's
such a doll. Funny, patient, kind. Too bad his ex-wife couldn't
handle his years of med school. But not too bad for
me."

"Go for it, kiddo," said
Liz, suffering an odd and unexpected pang.

"Are you reading the
letters?
I
haven't had the time I thought I would," Victoria confessed
without guilt. "One thing's clear, though: Victoria St. Onge was a
conniving little ... whatever. She did make some enemies. I'm
surprised she lasted so long."

"Yeah ...," Liz said in a
vague way.

"What?"
said Victoria at once. "What did you find out?
Who did what to her?"

"Good lord, Tori — you've
read my mind!" said Liz. Immediately she thought of the other
Victoria — the other mind-reader. It was too eerie. With a wince in
her voice, Liz said, "I was at the library, so I thought I'd do a
little investigating. It turns out that Victoria St. Onge was ...
well ... murdered. In 1939."

"Murdered!
How?"

"Um ... a blow to the
head."

"Now
that
pisses me off. That was
supposed to be a safe time to live. I expected to die in my sleep!
Really, it's too much. The streets aren't safe. I may never come
back, you know? Maybe I'll just buy a house on the Vineyard. Ben
and I were looking at these
adorable
teeny-tiny cottages at Oak
Bluffs ..."

Victoria's bouncing back
and forth between lives had Liz reeling, but at least she wasn't
taking the news tragically. Obviously Dr. Ben was a hell of an
effective distraction. Relieved, Liz said, "Look, I'd better let
you go. Susy's been waiting patiently for her bedtime
story."

She was able to get off
the phone without having to explain that before the final blow to
the head, Victoria St. Onge had suffered a brutal beating at the
hands of a thirty-yearold con-man who'd been living with her —
thank God, in some other house than Liz's — at the time of her
murder. The murderer's name was Johnny Ripen, and he was sent to
jail, at the end of 1939, for life.

It was all so predictable.
A senile woman with no family and a fair amount of money, along
comes a charming ne'er do-well, and the rest is history. How
brutally ironic, Liz thought as she walked her daughter upstairs to
her room: the con-woman got conned, and she paid with her
life.

After she put Susy to bed,
Liz washed up with every intention of turning in at seven-thirty
herself; she was desperately behind in her sleep. She washed Susy's
milk glass and her own tea things and began heading up the stairs,
then made the mistake of glancing at the pine seaman's trunk that
served as her coffee table, where the letters were stacked like
full-color slides of another age.

Just one,
she told herself.
And
then I've got to get some sleep.

After turning off the
ringer to her phone, she settled into the down-filled cushions of
her chintz sofa and picked up a letter at random. It was dated in
July 1890; she read through it quickly, looking for — she didn't
know what. For answers. For clues. For something to explain the red
box and the chimes and the ghost and Victoria's bizarre
behavior.

My dear sister,

I am out of sorts today
with what I fear is the grippe. In any case, I am too weak and
trembly to take part in the endless round of boredom that has
become known as the Bellevue Avenue coaching parade.

You left Newport too soon,
my sweet. Yesterday there was a great to-do when Mrs.
Olivia-Pemberton had her coachman cut directly in front of Mrs.
Vanderbilt ‘s maroon barouche-and-six. (I was approaching from the
opposite direction in Peter Trumble‘s phaeton and saw it all. It
truly did happen.)

Mrs. V. will never, of
course, forgive the impertinence. My advice to Mrs.
Olivia-Pemberton is to cease construction on her Versailles folly,
pack up her bags, and return at once to New York. She is quite
through in Newport. Perhaps Bar Harbor will take her.

"Tough town," Liz said,
smiling, as she laid the letter back on its pile. It was
interesting to learn that Mercy had managed to visit Newport after
all. Liz would have to read back from the letter to find out what
scams
she‘d
been
up to. It was like a historical soap opera.

She picked up another
letter — absolutely, positively her last of the night. It was dated
in late June of the following year.

Dear Mercy,

I have made inquiries
about the mystery man who so enchanted you at the Black and White
Ball. Only one man there dared dress all in black, without even a
shred of white. He is, alas, a younger brother with only modest
prospects.

Even less encouraging, he
is known to be a wild thing, taking up society's best women and
then breaking their hearts. He is an artist by vocation, if not by
trade. I understand that his parents, despite their disappointment,
dote on him to the extent that they have allowed him to build a
small studio on the grounds of their estate.

In any case, I hardly see
how he will ever have enough money or ambition to suit you. His
older brother, who manages the family empire in New York and on
this island, would be much more worthy a catch for you — but he is
engaged to be married. It will surely be one of the most
extravagant nuptials ever to be celebrated here; I am desperate to
receive an invitation.

Write me as soon as you
arrive at Biarritz. I assume you stay at the Palace until you are
taken up somewhere.

By now, Liz had made up
her mind that little Mercy was a gold-digging masseuse; she saw
nothing in the letter to dissuade her. And yet this particular
letter, of all the ones she'd read, held Liz fast. She read it
through again, disappointed that Victoria hadn't named the brothers
in question. What good was a mystery man if he stayed a mystery? He
was an artist; too bad. Newport society didn't take kindly to
Bohemians — look what a hard slog it had been so far for Victoria
and Mercy. On the other hand, the two sisters were still in the
game, so who knows? Mrs. Astor's rule that you had to be rich for
three full generations before the money cooled down was obviously
being bent every day. Maybe you
could
be an artist and get away with
it. Especially if you had an older brother to lend you an air of
respectability.

Liz had no trouble
imagining the wild young brother in black. Melodramatic,
temperamental, egotistical — oh yes, she could see him now,
swashbuckling his way through a quadrille. Had it been a masked
ball? So much the better.

She curled her legs
underneath her, propped her chin on her hand, and gave herself an
invitation to the Black and White Ball. Why not? Fantasies were
free. Like most Newporters, Liz had toured the biggest and best of
Newport's mansions (run as museums now, and open to the hoi
polloi); she had a pretty good idea what a castle-size ballroom
looked and felt like.

Liz let the fantasy wrap
itself around her like warm sleep. It was such an easy, pleasant
thing to do, and her bed upstairs was so empty.

All she had to do was
corset her waist to an impossible size, strap on a bust improver,
slip a white gown by Worth over her head, encircle her neck with a
dog choker of creamy pearls highlighted with an onyx medallion (her
bit of black), pile her thick brown hair on top of her head — and
she was ready for him.

He strode across the
ballroom floor with the quick, easy strides of the dark hero in
every woman‘s dreams. Heads turned; fans fluttered; there was a
rustle of taffeta and silk as blue-eyed debutantes jockeyed to be
noticed. No matter. It was brown-eyed Liz — Elizabeth — and no one
else that he wanted. He took the full dance card that dangled from
her wrist and tossed it aside, then swept her up in an immensely
graceful waltz that she knew all the steps to.

He was strong, well-built,
utterly in command. His touch was electric, thrilling; it left her
giddy from the shock of it. His scent was all male — and maybe a
little turpentine, which puzzled her, but she let it pass. He spoke
not a word, but she let that pass, too: words seemed unnecessary
between them. She wanted to see his face, but his elaborate mask
hid all but his jaw with its faint shadow of a beard.

And when the dance was
done, he ignored the cutting glances and hostile stares of every
other woman at the ball and led Elizabeth through huge French doors
onto an exquisite balcony. There, under a brilliant canopy of stars
and with the sound of the ocean crashing against the granite ledges
of nearby Cliff Walk, he pressed her up against the marble
balustrade and kissed her deeply, repeatedly, hungrily, begging her
to let him make love to her, pounding her into submission with
words of love and deep, wet kisses.

And she said
yes.

And then they took their
masks off ….

And Liz bolted upright out
of her daydream on her down-filled, chintz-covered sofa.

"Damn!" she said aloud.
"That's who it was! My God! Damn!"

He wasn't a murderer at at
all; he was an artist. That wasn't blood on his shirt; it was
paint. It was bloody paint! The ghost lounging against Jack
Eastman's clock was Victoria St. Onge's mystery man.

Still goosebumpy with
desire for the rake in black, and completely confused about how and
why she was so convinced that he was her ghost, Liz plunged into
the 1891 shoebox and began to read. She went through one letter
after another, searching for an identification; her eyes ached and
burned until she whimpered from the pain of sleeplessness. She
found herself nodding off, like a tired sailor slumping over the
helm of a boat during the dog watch, and still she read. Finally,
bitterly disappointed, she fell into a sleep that was deep and
senseless.

Except for the sound: the
seductive, haunting chime-sound that penetrated her oblivion — and
every once in a while, turned into an arrogant laugh.

****

"Mom-mee ... I'm going to
be late for school
,"
wailed Susy, tugging at her mother's sleeve.

Liz awoke with a start and
stumbled out of her exhaustion, murmuring automatic reassurances to
her daughter as she quickly got Susy dressed, fed, and into the
car. On the way to school Liz rolled right through a stop sign,
forgot to signal almost every turn, and only by the grace of God
remembered that a red light meant you probably didn't have the
right of way.

"Mommy, why are you
driving like this? You remind me of Aunty Tori," Susy
complained.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," Liz
said, distracted. "I'm thinking about something else."

"About the picnic for the
people who work at the boatyard?" Susy asked. For some reason the
child was fascinated by the upcoming event. "Do you think they'll
get to go for boat rides?" she asked wistfully. "That would be so
much fun."

"I'm afraid the picnic
isn't going to be so much fun at all," Liz said. How much fun could
you have in an asphalt-covered boatyard?

"Amy said there would be
boat rides," Susy persisted. "She's so lucky she gets to
go."

Amy's father, a neighbor
of Liz's parents, worked as a welder at the shipyard.
So.
The employees were
getting their hopes up. Liz took it personally. How was she going
to make this event work?

"Don't worry about some
dumb old boat ride, Susabella.
You
get to go to Disneyland in a couple of
weeks."

It continually surprised
Liz how enthusiastic Susy was about boats and boating. She seemed
to have salt water in her veins; where did she get it from? On the
rare occasions when they'd been invited out on the water, Susy had
proved absolutely fearless. Liz would've signed her daughter up for
sailing lessons, but Susy was a little
too
fearless. If anything ever
happened to her .... Well, nothing was going to happen to her.
Period.