THE TIME THIEF Read online

  “Naturally I stand corrected, Kate. We grown-ups need keeping in check.”

  Peter smiled to himself. His father never could not stand being in the wrong. And he was managing to rub Kate the wrong way just as Peter recalled he used to do to him…. Poor Kate, thought Peter. Saying sorry and backing down did not come easily to her traveling companion. It was wonderful, Peter realized, how, with the perspective of age, and the distance of years, and this mask of anonymity, he was able, for the very first time, to clearly see his father for the person he was. The stormy relationship they had when he was a child was no longer distorting his vision. And, in spite of any shortcomings his father might have—and he certainly wasn’t alone in that—Peter found, to his delight, and a little to his surprise, much to like about his father. He admired his energy and his directness, he even appreciated his stubbornness. He actually liked his father. A glow of relief suffused him.

  Kate, on the other hand, was still flushed with discomfort after Mr. Schock’s tactless comments. Peter looked at her sympathetically as she stared fixedly through the tall windows at the goings-on in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

  Peter pushed back his chair and stood up.

  “I suggest we depart for Golden Square at eleven o’clock. Hannah, will you be so good as to help Miss Dyer to get ready? She may need to purchase some additional items.”

  He bowed to Kate and then turned to his father.

  “My wardrobe is at your disposal, sir. It seems to me that we are of a similar height and build.”

  “Thank you, Joshua. I suspect the Marquise won’t appreciate me turning up in these,” replied his father. “May I call you Joshua?”

  “By all means,” said Peter.

  “And you must call me Nick.”

  “If you wish it. Yes, thank you … Nick.”

  Peter left the room and closed the double doors behind him. He leaned against the wall for a moment, resting his back against the cool plaster. He closed his eyes and slowly let out his breath. I cannot allow myself to be his son, he thought, but I can be his friend and I will treasure what little time we have together before we must say good-bye. Then he ran up the curved staircase to his dressing room three steps at a time.

  Hannah started to remove cups and saucers from the table, then called for John, the footman, to help her. Kate and Mr. Schock were left alone in the dining room and for a while there was an uncomfortable silence which was broken by Kate.

  “Joshua has really taken to you, hasn’t he? He’s very … what’s the word? Respectful.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t he be?” joked Mr. Schock. “I’m a very nice fellow! But no, I think it must be because of Peter. They must have practically grown up together. Perhaps he can see a resemblance. In any case, I think we were lucky to bump into him as we did. Don’t you like him?”

  “I do. But there’s something … oh, I can’t put my finger on it. There’s something … a bit funny about him.”

  “Not being blessed with feminine intuition, I don’t know what you mean,” said Mr. Schock sarcastically. “I like him.”

  Kate frowned. She wanted to say that it wasn’t a question of not liking Joshua Seymour. It was more that she sensed he was hiding something. But she decided to hold her tongue.

  “You have reached the voicemail of Dr. Anita Pirretti. Please leave a message after the tone and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”

  There was a long beeping sound.

  “Anita, it’s Andrew Dyer. For goodness’ sake pick up if you’re there! … Ed Jacob just called me from MIT to say that Russ Merrick’s antigravity prototype has gone missing. You’ve taken it, haven’t you? And I can guess what you’re going to do with it…. Anita, I’m asking you, as a friend, please think of the consequences before you do anything drastic….”

  There was a click on the line. Dr. Pirretti put the receiver to her ear and looked out at her backyard. Golden bamboo rustled in the dry wind and strong Californian sunlight filtered through clumps of feathery grasses.

  “I’m here,” she said quietly.

  “Anita!”

  “Is there any news of Kate?”

  “None.”

  “I’m so sorry, Andrew…. I’ve been lying low. NASA have been calling every five minutes to find out what’s going on. Your Inspector Wheeler continues to wind everyone up at the office from the janitor upward. He’s like one of those turtles that once it gets its jaws into you won’t let go even when it’s dead.”

  “Anita,” interrupted Dr. Dyer. “I’m going to go after her. In the end Ed Jacob couldn’t bring himself to destroy Russ’s prototype. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  Dr. Pirretti did not answer.

  “You must know that Ed Jacobs isn’t going to keep all this under wraps for much longer—NASA isn’t just piling the pressure on you! And as for Tim Williamson, he is increasingly anxious to carve his name in the annals of great scientific discoveries. Of course they understand that we’re playing with fire, but—”

  “Playing with fire!” Dr. Pirretti exclaimed. “This is like letting a bonfire get out of control in your backyard and the whole world goes up in flames!”

  “We all understand your point of view. We do. It’s only natural to fear the unknown and I’m not saying that time travel might not have catastrophic consequences—but, you know, this is the third time that the machine has gone back in time and, well, we’re all still here, aren’t we? The universe hasn’t collapsed. Napoleon hasn’t won the Battle of Waterloo and America isn’t suddenly a British colony again…. And sometimes good does come from taking risks! You’ve only got to think of radioactivity and heart transplants and gene therapy…. People used to think traveling at high speed in cars would bring on a heart attack….”

  “I’m on my own now in this, aren’t I?” Dr. Pirretti shouted. “The bottom line, Andrew, is that you’ve changed your mind, you’re retreating. Now you say, yes, keep it secret but don’t destroy the machine. Soon it will be: Let’s go public, this is too important to keep to ourselves. Somehow we’ll find a way to contain it, to make it safe…. Well, my bottom line is that the past is sacrosanct. You keep your hands off history. If you could travel back in time and not change stuff, okay—but you can’t!”

  “And where do your high principles leave me and my family?” exclaimed Dr. Dyer. “I’m struggling here to do the right thing but my first duty is to them! All I want right now is to get my Kate back. Her mother is beyond comfort. I haven’t seen her brothers and sisters smile or heard laughter in our house since she left. They’ve been through too much already. All our lives are in limbo. Are you going to let me have Russ Merrick’s machine or do I have to go begging to Tim and ask him to help me build one from scratch?”

  “The antigravity prototype is already packed up and ready to go. All I ask is that once you’ve brought Kate and Mr. Schock back, and hopefully Peter, too, you’ll destroy the machine.”

  “Anita! You’d already made up your mind!”

  “I’m not a monster, Andrew. I’ve seen you with Kate. I was hoping against hope that she would get back under her own steam. I’m not kidding myself—destroying the second machine won’t stop the research but it will slow it down. It’ll give me a window to build up an anti–time travel campaign. And trust me, there’ll be more folk who agree with me than with the rest of you. I just hope that we can fine-tune the prototype to get you back to 1763. History is an awfully big place to get lost in.”

  That night Dr. Pirretti slept badly. She awoke a dozen times and each time, alone in the dark, she sensed the brooding, ominous finger of fate wagging at her to rouse herself before it was too late. At the crack of dawn she awoke again. She swung her legs around and sat perched on the edge of her bed, gripping her mattress. Her head was full of a jumble of transient sounds that mocked her and denied her any repose. She put her hands over her ears and shook her head from side to side, desperate for some respite. Suddenly she went rigid and he
r eyes opened wide with surprise and recognition. She stretched out her hand, switched on the bedside lamp and opened the drawer where she kept a pencil and notepad. She scribbled down a couple of sentences and lay back down again, puzzlement and relief flickering over her face. How can I know these things? And yet I do….

  The next morning she decided to follow in the tracks of the antigravity machine and booked herself on the next plane to Manchester.

  TEN

  THE SWING OF A CHANDELIER

  In which Kate takes a dislike to the Marquise de Montfaron and the party makes the acquaintance of Louis-Philippe

  The Marquise de Montfaron had rented a narrow, Dutch-gabled house of red brick some six storys high, located at the better end of Golden Square. It was an attractive part of London, although not as fashionable as in former years, and while the square was far enough removed from the bustle of the main thoroughfares to be peaceful, it was not too quiet, either. Children played with hoops, small dogs scampered about, and a succession of carriages and sedan chairs picked up and dropped off the well-heeled residents and their visitors. The hackney coach moved away, having deposited the party in front of a highly varnished black front door which put Kate in mind of number ten, Downing Street. The door knocker was unusual for London houses: a lady’s hand covered in rings emerging from a frilled cuff. Peter knocked smartly and they waited for an answer. Kate felt a sudden tug of anxiety at the thought of meeting a family of French aristocrats, particularly given what was happening on the other side of the English Channel. What should she say? “I’m terribly sorry to hear about the French Revolution but perhaps you could have been a little kinder to the peasants … ?”

  The front door opened and a diminutive footman took the note which Peter had addressed to the Marquis de Montfaron. Soon he reappeared and admitted Kate, Peter, and his father into the hall.

  “Pleez to enter,” he said, and led them up a curved staircase to the first-floor morning room where large windows looked out over Golden Square. “Madame la Marquise will welcome you directly.”

  Unlike the simple furnishings of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Montfaron residence was primped and preened and beautified in a most ornate manner. Although, curiously, Kate thought, the house did smell strongly of fish. She sat on a gold-framed armchair, upholstered in sumptuous silk the color of cherry blossom, feeling self-conscious and ill at ease. She sensed that the aristocratic residents would expect her to be on her best behavior which of course made her want to do the exact opposite. It seemed to Kate that Joshua felt as uncomfortable as she did. He can’t stop fidgeting! she thought. It was true that Peter constantly crossed and uncrossed his legs and fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat as if the presence of his father had made him forget all adult restraint. Mr. Schock, on the other hand, reclined on a chaise longue in front of the arched window looking every inch the gentleman, composed and elegant. His borrowed clothes fit him perfectly. In fact, as Joshua commented, anyone would have thought they had been made for him. Kate dearly wished she had taken Hannah up on her offer to walk down to the Strand to buy a silk shawl to smarten up her old-fashioned dress. She was now painfully aware that in this setting she must look seriously underdressed.

  Everyone had time to make a detailed study of the morning room, since their hosts thought fit to keep them waiting a full three quarters of an hour. This Marquis de Montfaron had better be worth it, thought Kate. Despite Sir Joseph and Joshua’s conviction that the machine could be mended, she wondered whether anyone from the eighteenth century was capable of repairing such a sophisticated device. On the other hand, she and Peter’s dad, the two representatives of the twenty-first century, were no better. Kate sighed heavily and tapped her foot on the polished wood floor. She idly observed the massive ormolu mirror, which reflected blue sky and scudding white clouds, and some oil paintings of overdressed shepherdesses displayed in deep, carved frames. Kate could imagine the reaction of her sheep-farming neighbors in Derbyshire to such fanciful costumes. These pouting shepherdesses would be more at home floating across ballrooms than stomping through mucky fields. The room also housed several impressive pieces of Chinese furniture in red and black lacquer, the most impressive being a tall cupboard which Kate imagined was full of secret compartments. Every surface was decorated in shades of gold: pagodas and rocky landscapes and graceful trees weeping over streams. Kate longed to pull open one of the many doors to see what was inside but did not dare.

  Growing tired of looking at the comings and goings in Golden Square and at the fine examples of chinoiserie, Mr. Schock got up and paced around the room. He paused to stretch underneath a magnificent chandelier. It had six candle arms, all made of glass, and six spire arms, each pointing toward the ceiling like crystal stalagmites, while the whole was draped with cascades of pear-shaped drops of cut glass that sent rainbows skimming around the sunny room. As Mr. Schock’s arms reached upward, his knuckles collided with the chandelier, which started to sway back and forth like an exquisite pendulum, and all the crystal drops started to tinkle like wind chimes.

  Peter shot up to grab hold of it before the momentum pulled the fixture out of the ceiling, but Mr. Schock held up his hand to stop him. Instead, he moved his arm in time with the creaking chandelier as if he were conducting music. He laughed, as did Kate, and hummed a little tune in time to its swaying. Peter, however, did not find it funny. Having brought down a chandelier at Baslow Hall while still a teenager, the image of a livid Parson Ledbury, head ghost-white with plaster and wielding a stout stick, still haunted him. The Parson had pursued him through the orchard, intent on teaching him a lesson he would not forget. And, indeed, he had not forgotten it. Crystal chandeliers like these cost a king’s ransom and Peter did not want to pick up the bill. He caught a glimpse of Kate giggling and her eyes sparkling with merriment, the value of this costly item the last thing on her mind. I used not to give a fig for such matters, he reflected. Faith, I have become more sensible than my father! And he looked at the chandelier beating out the passage of time but did not try to stop it.

  “Have a care, gentlemen, that is one of a pair by William Parker. The other hangs in our château in Arras and I hope to reunite them one day.”

  It was a woman’s voice, deep and resonant with only a slight French accent. Kate and Mr. Schock stopped laughing and looked—gawked was nearer the truth—at the woman who stood in the doorway. Viscountess Cremorne had not exaggerated. There are few true beauties in the world, but the Marquise de Montfaron was one of them: She was tall and blond with a graceful figure, dark blue-violet eyes, and a complexion that brought to mind ripe peaches. Her thick golden hair was artfully arranged to show off a swanlike neck to perfection.

  She stood and smiled, in her lavender and ivory silk gown, perfectly conscious of the effect her appearance was having on the little group.

  “And to whom do I have the honor of addressing myself?” She glanced down at the note which Peter had given to the footman. “Which of you gentlemen is Mr. Seymour?”

  Peter stepped forward and bowed low.

  “Madame la Marquise,” he said, “thank you for agreeing to see us at such short notice. Permit me to present Mr. Nicholas Schock.”

  “How do you do?” said his father, holding out his hand to the Marquise.

  Peter cleared his throat noisily to indicate that this simply was not done, but the Marquise, laughing at his forward behavior, took Mr. Schock’s hand in her lace-gloved one and shook it.

  “I do very well, Mr. Schock, despite the meanness of the accommodation which we are forced to endure since leaving France.”

  Mr. Schock glanced around him, incredulous.

  “But your home is lovely. I’ve been admiring the view of Golden Square from your window.”

  Kate waited her turn to be introduced and looked expectantly at Joshua and Mr. Schock, but both of them seemed too overawed by the Marquise de Montfaron to pay any attention to her. The latter took in Mr. Schock’s haircut and outfit appreciatively:
cream worsted britches with black waistcoat and jacket over a snowy-white shirt and cravat.

  “My dear sir, anyone who has witnessed the glory that was the Court of Versailles could not conceive of this,” and here, with a graceful sweep of her arm, she indicated the morning room, or possibly Golden Square, or perhaps the whole of London, “as lovely. Whereas, if I close my eyes I can still fancy myself walking down the broad alleyways of Le Nôtre’s gardens to the music of fountains. I can see Queen Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting gliding down the Hall of Mirrors, ostrich feathers swaying above their heads, a small army of courtiers bowing in their wake. Images such as these are lovely. To use the selfsame word to describe Golden Square would be to debase it. Why, if you can imagine such a thing, a coal merchant resides not twenty houses away from where we stand.”

  “You speak perfect English,” said Mr. Schock, clearly bowled over by this beautiful woman who actually knew Marie Antoinette. Kate cleared her throat meaningfully but everyone ignored her.

  “It is no hardship for me to speak English—my father insisted on an English governess when I was twelve years old. Miss Gunn’s French was execrable and as a consequence my English became fluent. Her Latin was poor, too, and her knowledge of the classics little better, yet she taught me more about life than any other person had until then. My father would have been appalled, I am sure of it, if he had known the nature of some of our lessons. But we had a diverting time for a few years … and then I married.”

  The Marquise looked into Mr. Schock’s eyes, eliciting precisely the response she had intended, and Mr. Schock felt weak at the knees. His grown-up son felt strangely annoyed. Kate began to feel impatient with her two companions and it was the Marquise herself who turned her attention to Kate. Her searching blue gaze hovered over her, scrutinizing her from top to toe, lingering on her hastily arranged hair, her none too clean fingernails, her lamentably provincial cotton dress, and the lack of stays. If Kate was being subjected to some kind of test, the Marquise de Montfaron had clearly given her bottom marks. She made no attempt to conceal her contempt. Kate was mortified. Rising from her curtsy she caught her heel on a small polished table. It toppled over and the porcelain bowl which had been displayed on it smashed into pieces.