THE TIME THIEF Read online

  Mr. Schock folded up the newspaper. “It’s hard even reading about this carnage,” he commented. “Joshua, my friend, we haven’t chosen an exactly brilliant moment for our little French holiday.”

  “Arras isn’t Paris,” said Peter. “As long as we are discreet, and do nothing to draw attention to ourselves, I’ll warrant that we encounter few obstacles.”

  The yellow stagecoach, with its cargo of mail destined for France, arrived on the quayside with a thunderous clatter of hooves on cobblestones. A handful of sailors immediately jumped to and started transferring the mail boxes to the ship. Meanwhile, amidst some commotion, the final passenger arrived. He was an intense, dark-haired man, dressed in sober clothes, crumpled from traveling. He had a portly companion who wore a red, white, and blue rosette on the side of his large black hat. They heard the captain order a couple of sailors to escort Mr. Thomas Paine and his companion on board.

  “So that’s him!” said Mr. Schock.

  Some of Mr. Paine’s supporters followed on behind. They were being jostled and threatened by a rowdy group of locals who shouted insults and made as if to snatch the man’s luggage. However, once the sailors had got Mr. Paine on board, the trouble-makers soon dispersed. One of his trunks, however, ended up in the water and it bobbed up and down next to the gangplank until one of the sailors fished it out with a grappling hook. As the creaking vessel left the shelter of Dover harbor, Mr. Paine’s supporters sent him off with a rousing alternative version to the national anthem, “God Save Great Thomas Paine.” They heard the captain offer the use of his cabin to Mr. Paine and watched the two men disappear down below. Neither reappeared until the Dover packet was enter … ing Calais.

  The party, on the other hand, chose to remain on deck. The wind was fair for France and the giant sails billowed noisily above them. The sun shone on the soaring, white cliffs, the English Channel sparkled, and the good sea air somehow filled everyone’s hearts with hope. They spotted a large shoal of mackerel, clearly illuminated by the rays of the sun just beneath the surface of the water, and, barely visible on the horizon, they saw what the captain of the ship assured them was a whale.

  By noon they were growing tired and cold and spent more time sitting on the little wooden benches provided for passengers and less time looking at the sea. Kate took a surreptitious photograph, with Megan’s mobile, of Joshua cutting a fine nautical figure, shading his eyes and looking out toward France. He was nicely framed against a background of sea and ship’s sails. Then she snuggled up next to Hannah to keep warm and pulled her paisley shawl tight around her. She had been working herself up to confront Joshua for some time and was rehearsing her words. The more she thought about how he had deceived them, the angrier—and the more puzzled—she became. Why had he done it? Didn’t he want to go home? But just as she had mustered up enough courage to stand up, she saw Mr. Schock approach Joshua where he stood on the bow, looking toward France. He tapped him on the shoulder and soon they were deep in conversation, and judging from the intense expressions on both their faces, she thought it best not to interrupt them.

  “It would be comforting to know a little more about my son’s life in this century,” said Mr. Schock. “If you are willing …”

  Mr. Schock looked intently into Peter’s face. Peter was taken by surprise and, for a few moments, was tongue-tied. Mr. Schock waited patiently while he marshaled his thoughts. Where to begin? Oh, this was hard, Peter thought. Too hard.

  But he took a deep breath and plunged in. He began to tell his father something of his early life with Gideon at Hawthorn Cottage. Those early, mostly happy years seemed so long ago that, as he spoke, he half convinced himself that he was talking about someone else. He tried to paint the best picture that he could of his teenage years in Derbyshire, of riding and hunting and of being tutored with Sidney at Baslow Hall, of the kindness of Mrs. Byng and his fondness for Parson Ledbury, of the excitement of weeks spent in London in the company of Sir Richard P icard, of learning how to dance with the Byng girls and how to behave in high society. But his memories of the long summer days spent exploring the craggy hills and dales of the county with Gideon Seymour were the brightest. He described how Gideon had taught him how to skin rabbits, track deer, and defend himself against a footpad in a dark alley, as well as counseling him on love and honor and keeping faith with himself. Peter did not talk of the hard times, when he had cried into the night because he could scarcely recall what his mother and father looked like and because he felt like an exile in a foreign century. Nor did he mention how Gideon had proved his friendship to him over and over again during those times and had remained steadfast and true even when Peter had screamed at him to go away because it was his father that he wanted and not him. But it was precisely because Gideon’s own life had not been easy, and he had himself faced grief and regret and despair, that he was able to help. Gideon would always be patient with him and would wait until his young friend came to himself again. But how could Peter tell his own father the truth of how it had been? What good would it do? So, instead, Peter spoke from Joshua’s point of view of other, lighter, things, of harvest balls and Parson Ledbury’s gambling and how, on warm nights, they would build a fire under the oak tree at Hawthorn Cottage, and Gideon would tell him stories far into the night.

  Peter keenly observed his father as, hanging on his every word, Mr. Schock tried to imagine how his son had lived his life with neither mother nor father and how he must have had to learn so many things as well as unlearn much that his own technological age had taught him. Peter read in his father’s face the pain and the fleeting pleasure which his words provoked. He suddenly felt exhausted with the effort of it and stopped. Mr. Schock gripped his hand.

  “How can I ever begin to thank you, Joshua? And how much I find I owe to Gideon. I hope I might meet him one day. If we are lucky enough to find a way back to my son and I can return home with him, I swear I’ll spend time with him just as your brother did. Childhood is short and that time can never be recaptured. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.”

  Mr. Schock walked away and stood alone gazing at the swell of the sea. But no sooner had he gone than Hannah joined Peter, leaving the frustrated Kate on her own on the bench.

  “Forgive me, sir,” she whispered, “but I have rarely seen two gentleman warm to each other’s company so well as you and Mr. Schock. It is breaking my heart that you do not tell him that you are his son. Please, sir, I beg you to reconsider.”

  All emotional energy spent, Peter was caught off balance by Hannah’s request and he turned furiously on her.

  “I will thank you to remember your place, Hannah!” he hissed. “You gave me your word to help me in this and I shall expect you to stick to it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said simply, “if that is your wish.” And she walked sadly away.

  Seeing Joshua alone again, Kate made her move. Now or never, she said to herself.

  He was looking toward the cliffs of the Côte d’Opale, which were looming ever larger on the horizon. He did not notice her at first. She tapped him on the shoulder and he turned round with a start. Kate took a deep breath and spoke.

  “Joshua, I think you have lied to us. I think you are really Peter Schock.”

  Peter’s heart missed a beat and his gaze slid anxiously over toward his father, hoping that he was out of earshot. What was he going to reply? He needed a moment to reflect.

  “Kate! I was deep in thought, you shocked me. Forgive me, what did you say?”

  Kate repeated her question but she did not manage to say it with such conviction this time. Peter forced himself to laugh, which he did most convincingly.

  “I know that Peter and I resembled each other, for Gideon oft remarked on it, but to accuse me of lying to you about my identity! What should cause me to do such a thing? You are not serious?”

  Kate stared back at him. She had been so sure that he was just going to admit it…. Could she really be wrong about this? Were the shape of his nos
e and her instinct not sufficient evidence?

  “Upon my word, Kate, you are serious…. I assure you that you are wholly mistaken in this. Do you not think my own father would have recognized me, even after such a passage of time?”

  Peter saw doubt flickering across Kate’s features and quickly pressed home his advantage.

  “I do hope you will not refer to the matter again—it would be deeply distressing for Mr. Schock to hear of such a suggestion. And, as I am sure you must be aware, your accusation is deeply insulting to my person.”

  One look at Kate’s distraught gray eyes, peering up at him from her pale, freckled face, and he knew. He had won this round. She had believed him. Kate gulped and mumbled her apologies and went back to the bench. Her cheeks burned with the embarrassment of it. She wanted to run away and hide. What a fool she was! Why had she let her imagination run away with her like that? And it suddenly occurred to her that if Joshua were Peter, it would mean that Hannah and Queen Charlotte herself would have had to have been involved in the deception—and how could that possibly be true? She picked up The Times and buried her head in its pages.

  What a skilled liar I am, thought Peter, not without a twinge of guilt. He looked over at his father, who had regret and sadness written on his face. How strongly he desires to prove the father he could be to his son—I must not doubt that what I do is for the best.

  Clouds had been gathering as the afternoon progressed and the sea and sky had gradually taken on a gray and dismal hue. The ship was now hugging the coastline of northern France and they had just passed Wissant and Cap Gris Nez. All being well they would reach Calais in half an hour. The motion of the waves proved to have a soporific effect on Hannah, who had been drifting in and out of sleep for some time, while poor Mr. Schock, who had felt increasingly sick, now hung over the side of the ship, back heaving. Kate, meanwhile, had recovered herself and had come to a decision. She must try and make amends with Joshua. If she didn’t, she reasoned, it might make the journey awkward. And he had been so very generous to them…. So she carefully eased Hannah’s dozing head from her shoulder and walked over to Peter.

  “Will you shake hands with me, Joshua?” she asked, holding hers out toward him. “I am really sorry for upsetting you….”

  But Peter did not reply. In fact he did not move. His face was frozen in a smile. Kate looked at him expectantly for a moment and then her blood ran cold. She whipped her head around but she had already guessed what scene would confront her. She was fast-forwarding. The ship was littered with statues. Hannah slept, her head tipped backward and mouth half-open. Mr. Schock stood with a handkerchief to his mouth, his windswept hair rigid as cardboard. The ship’s cook was throwing a bucket of scraps on to waves sculpted as if out of ice and a gull dived toward them, wings folded backward in a V, curved yellow beak open in what would have been a raucous cry. Kate put her hands over her ears, for the roar of the wind and the waves had slowed down into an unbearable and deafening growl. She looked slowly around at her frozen, lonely world. How long would she have to endure it this time? Peter still smiled warmly at her, his hand outstretched. She tried to smile back bravely at him.

  “You don’t think I’m going to be stuck here forever, do you, Joshua? … I only wanted to say that I was sorry but it looks like it’s going to have to wait. I am sorry, though….”

  Something made her want to reach over to take his hand, perhaps for comfort, but no sooner had she touched it than her stomach lurched, and like the explosive vertical descent of a roller coaster, she re-entered the torrent of normal time. The roar of the waves deafened her and the sea breeze hit her like a violent slap in the face.

  “Is anything wrong, Kate?” asked Peter.

  He hadn’t noticed a thing! It must have all happened in the blink of an eye! What had brought her back so quickly? Was it Joshua’s touch?

  “No, no, I’m fine … I just … I just wanted to say that I was sorry.”

  Kate, Hannah, Peter, and his father were the first to disembark at Calais. The party now stood on the quayside in front of the Dover packet, surrounded by their luggage and ignored by everyone. But they all detected a palpable feeling of excitement and anticipation in the air. Groups of official-looking gentlemen stood in huddles, deep in conversation. There were soldiers, too, milling about near their ship or standing at their ease, laughing and joking among themselves. Kate wondered what was going on. If this was supposed to be the French Revolution, she thought, it felt more like a holiday…. It was beginning to drizzle, and although they had expected to find a carriage without difficulty, they could find none free to take them. Peter announced that he would go into the town in search of one and Mr. Schock, because he spoke French well, insisted on accompanying him.

  “All this fuss couldn’t be on account of Thomas Paine, could it?” asked Kate.

  “Surely not! He’s only a writer,” said Hannah.

  As Kate watched Mr. Schock and Joshua walk away, side by side, she could not help noticing that their backs were of a similar width and that they both had square shoulders and swung their arms in the same way. Stop it! she told herself. You’re becoming obsessed….

  “How are you, Mistress Kate?” asked Hannah kindly. “Are you very tired?”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you…. How are you doing?”

  “Me, Miss Kate? Oh, there’s never anything the matter with me, thank you for asking. I have the constitution of an ox, always have had.”

  Hannah had an instinct for diagnosis. She had always known when Master Peter was going to be ill before he did, and she was certain that all was not well with Kate. It was her pallor that bothered Hannah and it reminded her of something. It was, she thought, a little like what happened to fabric or wallpaper that is exposed to sunshine. Over time, imperceptibly at first, the colors become less vivid, the pattern less clean and defined. She scolded herself for being so fanciful. But then she scrutinized Kate’s face again and thought, no, she was not mistaken. If she didn’t know better she would have said that Miss Kate was fading.

  “Why are you staring at me like that, Hannah?”

  “Forgive me, Miss Kate, I didn’t mean to … but if I was, I wasn’t the only one. Look.”

  Kate followed Hannah’s gaze and looked around her at the bustling harbor. Soldiers, in their blue and white uniforms trimmed in red, balanced the ends of their muskets on the quayside; fishermen mended their nets; old women, dressed in black, sat in doorways, making lace or spinning; a young lad, stick-thin, swept the cobbles in front of them. But every last one of the good citizens of Calais, as far as Kate could tell, was wearing a revolutionary cockade. And Hannah was right, they were beginning to attract people’s attention. If Kate returned their gaze they quickly looked away, but as soon as she turned back again she could feel their stares burning into her. The hairs rose on the back of her neck.

  “Why are they looking at us like that?” whispered Kate to Hannah.

  “No doubt they take us for spies or aristocrats. Unless I grew an extra head while I was asleep!”

  “I don’t like it … ,” started Kate, but then gasped in fright as someone took hold of her arm.

  “Does Calais not please you, mademoiselle?”

  Kate wheeled around, half expecting to be arrested on the spot.

  “How did you get here?” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “Are you acquainted with this young gentleman, Mistress Kate?” asked Hannah, taking in the stranger’s glossy hair and firm jaw, his aquiline nose and limpid blue-violet eyes.

  “Yes, I am! This is …”—Kate dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper—“This is Louis-Philippe de Montfaron, son of the Marquis de Montfaron.”

  Hannah tried hard not to gawk at the striking young man. Unfortunately her eyes kept sliding back despite her best efforts. Handsome was too poor an epithet. But Louis-Philippe was plainly so accustomed to provoking this kind of reaction, that he took no notice whatsoever. Kate introduced Hannah in her turn. Louis-Philippe
inclined his head.

  “Welcome to France, madame!”

  “Were you on the Dover packet?” asked Kate. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Had I known you were on board, I should have come up on deck—even though the sight of so much water makes me melancholy. I played cards instead, down below, with the ship’s cook and a Dutch farmer who shared his bottle of Madeira wine. The journey passed most agreeably.”

  “Was that you I saw last night at the inn?” asked Kate. “Asleep on the table?” She tried not to smirk.

  “It might have been—traveling is very tiring.”

  “But why are you here?” asked Kate.

  “It occurred to me—after you left Golden Square—that despite my mother’s fears, I should not be sending messages to my father. I should go in person and persuade him to leave our estate. And, as you did not return the books, I hoped that I might encounter you en route. Now you shall have a guide to direct you to the Chêteau de l’Humiaire and I shall have companions for my journey. Naturally Maman will be enraged when she finds that I am gone, but, if all goes well, we should soon all be back in London….”

  “Your mother doesn’t know where you are!”

  Louis-Philippe shrugged his shoulders. “She would only have refused me permission….”

  “I’m not surprised! You’re an …”—Kate whispered the last word—“aristocrat.”

  “Am I?” said Louis-Philippe, taking off his hat with a flourish and indicating the tricolor cockade. “And how, pray, would anyone guess such a thing?”

  Kate and Hannah exchanged glances.

  Louis-Philippe was in the middle of explaining how the Swedish ambassador’s son had purloined his father’s carriage to take him to Dover, when a large, mud-spattered coach pulled by four scraggy horses appeared. Peter and Mr. Schock were inside.