The River of No Return (40 page)

“I love you,” he said again. “I didn’t know it. But I now do. I think I always did.”

Her smile seemed to die, although it stayed in place. Or perhaps it was a trick of the light, for she spoke immediately. “I love you,” she said, quite flatly for all that the words were sure and strong. She let it be at that.

It wasn’t a moment of jubilation, somehow. But it was enough. He reached for her.

She held up a hand, stopping him. She looked resolved. It was strange. “You were right,” she said. “We must descend.”

“We must also talk, Julia. Make plans. I must tell you—”

“I know,” she interrupted him. “I know you have things to tell me.” She glanced down at her hands and his eyes followed hers. Her fingers were tightly, tensely entwined. “But not now. Let now be . . . now.”

“I don’t want there to be secrets between us,” he said. She was as lovely as a woodland dryad. But she was harboring some care. He could sense it.

She shook her head matter-of-factly, then sat up and began repinning her hair. “No,” she said. “Tomorrow.” She moved with calm purpose, as if she weren’t naked at all. He decided he loved the way she sat. He loved the way she was just this second unconsciously scratching her knee as she looked at him. He loved the way she . . .

“Are you daydreaming?”

He came back to earth. “Yes. About you.”

Now she smiled, and her strange mood seemed to vanish. “Foolish man. Shall we meet here again tomorrow? After breakfast? And tell one another our secrets?”

“Breakfast? That’s tomorrow.” He frowned.

“Yes. I just said so.”

“I can’t wait that long.” He reached for her, pulling her to her feet and against him. “You are too delicious, Julia. I must have you again today. Tonight at the latest. Come to my rooms after everyone is asleep.”

She pushed her hands against his chest. “You stayed away effortlessly before. For days.”

Nick nipped her back in against him, stroking his hands down and up again. “That was before. When I still had a fragment of self-control and sanity. Although I did come up here several times looking for you.”

She snuggled close. “You did? So did I.” She reached up on tiptoes for a kiss.

But when they pulled apart this time, Julia was all business. “I shall not come to you tonight, Nick,” she said, stepping out of his embrace. “It’s too great a risk. Shall we meet here tomorrow? To talk.”

“Oh, yes, to talk.”

“Good.” She looked about her at the clothes that were strewn across the floor. “Will you hand me my shift, over there? To teach thee, I will dress first.”

N
ick found he couldn’t bear the thought of making polite and proper conversation over dinner with the woman who had just turned his life inside out. Instead he left via the kitchens, grabbing a wedge of game pie for himself and a bone for the dog. Then he struck out with Solvig, who had chewed off her bandage and seemed as good as new, for a long evening’s walk north, up through Camden Town and then over the fields to Highgate Hill. He leaned against a stile, ate his pie, and considered the story of Dick Whittington. It was here that young Dick, discouraged and leaving the big city behind, had heard the Bow Bells ring out his fate: “Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.” The young man had gone back down the long hill to find that his cat had made him a fortune. Whittington married, and led the city into the future.

The sun was thinking about setting now, and the city below—so small by twenty-first-century standards—was beginning to glow in the lengthening light, the river uncurling through it like a silver chain. The great, soot-stained dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral looked like the round breast of a contented gray goose, the other, smaller steeples like her goslings, beaks pointing upward. Nick scratched Solvig’s broad forehead. She sighed.

Dick Whittington, Nick Davenant . . . could he, Nick, be called back again to the London he loved, this London? Bells were ringing, tolling across the city, their discordant conversation carried to him on the breeze. Could they tell him the future? He listened for a moment. But they were just bells. He supposed the bells didn’t need to talk to him, for he knew the future of London Town.

Down there in the Houses of Parliament the lords were probably still giving their speeches. The Marquess of Blackdown was not among them. And those venerable medieval buildings gleaming now in the long light—they would go up in flames soon enough. Nick couldn’t remember now why Parliament would burn, but he could see Turner’s painting of the conflagration in his mind’s eye—a terrible inferno. “‘Then the fire of the Lord fell,’” Nick said to the city, “‘and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust.’” Nick thought about the Blitz, and that three-dimensional image of St. Paul’s dome that Ahn had shown him. The dome, blasted half away. And then . . . the Pale.

Swallows were swooping back and forth across the sky. It was a five-mile walk back to Berkeley Square. “Come on, Solvig,” Nick said. The huge dog got to her feet, the bone he’d brought for her clamped fast in her jaws. She clearly intended to carry it all the way home. Nick let his hand find the acorn. The bells were still ringing.

* * *

Julia wanted no dinner, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She certainly didn’t want to see Nick tonight. She needed to think.

She informed Bella that her head ached and asked her to please make her excuses. Then Julia kept to her room. It was a glorious evening, and if she were in the country she would have struck out on a walk, or saddled Marigold and gone for a good, long gallop through the golden light and unfurling shadows.

Instead she curled up in the armchair by her window, looking out into the branches of the plane trees. Birds were settling in for the evening. Julia realized that the trees were populated, just as a city is, by different characters. Pert sparrows, cocky magpies, elegant turtle doves. She watched them for a while as they flitted up and down, strutted along branches, argued over matters that were clearly of enormous importance but were comprehensible only, she supposed, to birds.

She snuggled down into her chair, tired, as if she had actually walked a long way. She’d had no idea that loving was so completely physical. Somehow she had imagined it being contained, confined to the nether regions, as writing is confined to the hand. She had thought that the rest of the body and perhaps even the mind simply went to sleep until the event was over. How wrong she had been. He had kissed the backs of her knees. She had explored him with hands and kisses. She had gripped his shoulders, his behind, his strong arms, and clung to him for dear life, crying his name as she shattered.

She closed her eyes. Her body was tired. But if there was a change, it felt more emotional than physical. She was calm, in soul as well as in body.

That calmness could not last. He’d said he loved her and she believed him. She had answered him with the truth. She loved him, too. They loved each other. But he was still keeping confidences from her, and she from him. Indeed, betwixt the two of them, they had licked the platter of secrets clean. He was a time traveler caught between an Ofan mistress and a Guild master. Both mistress and master were seeking the Talisman. As for Julia, his supposedly Natural love? Julia smiled to herself, too content to not see the humor in the situation—she was the Talisman they sought, and Nick didn’t know it.

Julia curled still more comfortably in her chair. It was a conundrum. One she couldn’t solve tonight. She felt herself drifting into sleep, the happy satisfaction of her body and soul winning over the confusion of her mind.

Some time later—the room was duskier—she opened her eyes from a dream. She and Nick had been in the tack room in the stables at Falcott House, and he was searching for a favorite currycomb. She asked him why he didn’t just leave brushing the horses to the groom, and he said that in his new life, he had become used to doing everything for himself. He was desperate as he searched, tossing the tackle here and there in his single-minded desire to find what he was looking for. Then, when he finally found the palm-sized tool, he turned triumphantly to show it to her. But it wasn’t a comb at all. It was a small hedgehog, curled up in his palm. She stepped forward to see the animal, and it uncurled to reveal its pointed little nose and beady eyes. It looked straight at her and said, in Grandfather’s voice: “Then you shall be orphaned after all.”

She stretched, remembering the dream. Grandfather
was
such a hedgehog. And Julia was an orphan. She had been since she was three months old. Her mother and father were dead. So why had Grandfather said “after all”? Julia mused on it, almost tumbling again into sleep . . . then suddenly she sat bolt upright. Grandfather had said exactly those words, just a few moments before he died. You shall be orphaned after all . . . you shall be orphaned after all . . . what if instead he had been saying that she would be
Ofan
after all? Grandfather could play with time. Had he known these people, these Ofans? Had Grandfather been Ofan himself?

Julia got to her feet and stared blindly out of her bedroom window. Pretend, Grandfather had said. Pretend, and trust the angels to watch over you. You shall be Ofan after all. Was it a message? Pretend to be something other than you are. Do not reveal that you are the Talisman. Find the Ofan and trust them to watch over you.

Miss Blomgren was Ofan.

The sky had darkened yet another few shades. The birds in the trees were quieter. All across the city, the bells were tolling seven o’clock. Julia adored bells, the way each one had its own distinct voice. “My America, my Newfoundland.”

Several new worlds had risen up on her horizon today.

The bells rang on.

* * *

Julia stayed up late, thinking about her mother, whom she very rarely considered; thinking about Miss Blomgren; and thinking about the Ofan . . . but most of all, she was thinking about Nick Davenant. She drifted off sometime after her bedside candle guttered and went out . . . and now it must have been very late in the morning indeed, for the maid had been in to build up the fire, and the logs were fallen to embers. Julia remembered that she had made a plan to meet Nick after breakfast in order to tell all. Instead she had slept the morning away.

She swung her legs out of bed and saw that there was a note slipped under her door, the paper folded in half. Julia swooped on it, knowing it would be from Nick. It was.

He had received word that the lords were finally voting on the Corn Bill today, and he was desolate to postpone his appointment with Julia—but he had to go and vote against it. She would of course rejoice with him that he need not wear his robes in order to make this hopeless stand against the inevitable; he would be allowed to raise his futile protest dressed like a rational man. If she would please fold along the dotted lines and follow the agreed-upon procedure he would sign himself sick with longing for the way the curtain of her hair fell around his face when she kissed him: Nick. But, if she felt she could not follow those instructions, then he must sign himself regretfully—and then an absurdly flourishing signature: Blackdown.

There were tiny dots in pale, watery ink beneath his black script, showing her how to fold the sheet of paper into a glider. She considered what to do. This was her first love letter, but only if she burned it. If she didn’t burn it, it wasn’t a love letter.

She shook her head and started folding.

* * *

The day passed slowly. Clare fretted about the possibility of a riot but wouldn’t say that out loud in the presence of the dowager marchioness or Bella, both of whom she considered too volatile to handle the greater knowledge she had of what might occur. Bella could tell Clare was withholding something, and that talk of the riot annoyed her sister, so she mentioned it at every turn. The servants were also worried. They clattered the china and dropped the silverware, thus sending the dowager marchioness into a pet. Wasn’t it always the way that on a clear, lovely day one’s griefs and trials seemed too much to bear? The marchioness took to her bed.

It was, indeed, a lovely day, but no one suggested going out, and no one came to call. Berkeley Square itself was strangely deserted. Gunter’s was shut up tight; no ices today. No carriages dashed by, no ladies from either half of the world paraded their fashions beneath the trees.

At around four in the afternoon, Clare and Julia stood by a drawing room window and watched as the butler of a house across the square from them slipped out and carefully removed the knocker from the door. “Cowards,” Clare muttered. “They are not leaving town. I know for a fact that they are holding a ball in four days’ time.” She turned on her heel. “It would serve us right if we were all burned to cinders tonight.” At that moment Bella burst into the room, announcing that it was teatime, and that if Clare was going to insist on pretending that no riot was looming, then she must carry the pretense to its logical conclusion and have tea, as usual. Clare folded her lips tightly on her feelings.

* * *

After dinner Julia escaped to the upstairs drawing room, where she spent a half hour writing to Pringle. It was a jolly letter about London fashions as observed by a young lady in deep mourning who rarely left the house, but Julia knew that poor Pringle was starving for details. As she finished the last sentences, she became aware that the quiet square outside her window was not so quiet anymore. She could hear voices. She got to her feet and crossed to the window.

Berkeley Square was filling up with people. Men and women were streaming in from the north and the east. They talked quietly, but their faces were intent, serious, like the faces of people who watch a fire consume a building. They passed the Falcott mansion, pressing toward some destination on the other side of Berkeley Square. Julia watched them from above, her brow to the glass; she could not cast more than a glance upon each impassioned visage. Still it seemed that she could frequently read, even in that brief interval, the history of long years in the passing faces.

She heard the door open and she turned. It was Bella and Clare. They greeted Julia quietly, but they were there to look out of the windows, which had the best view down onto the square. Clare and Julia stood at one casement, Bella at the other. “Soho is flowing into Mayfair,” Clare said. “They are getting ready.” Apparently she and Bella were on speaking terms again.

“What will they do?” Bella did not turn from the window to ask her question.

“I do not know. Make their displeasure known. Attack the homes of politicians known to have supported the Corn Bill.”

“This house?”

“I do not know.” Clare glanced at Julia. “Do you know how Nick was planning to vote?”

“Yes,” Julia said, amazed at the power of sisterly discernment; apparently they simply understood that Julia knew the secrets of Nick’s soul. “He stands against the bill.”

“Thank God! I knew he could not be so blind.” Clare grasped Julia’s hand and held it tightly.

“I wonder whose house it is that they are all pressing toward,” Bella said.

At that moment, Julia sensed it. A rushing of blood at the back of her head. A shuddering in the air around her.

Someone in the house was shifting time.

Someone was slowing time down, freezing it.

Whoever it was, they were coming closer. She could feel time coming to a standstill not so very far away. She could feel it like an aching in her bones.

She had successfully feigned immobility, yesterday. But that had been in Miss Blomgren’s dark basement kitchen, when Miss Blomgren was distracted by Peter—and when the last thing Miss Blomgren would have expected would be to find that Bella’s lovelorn little friend could control time. That trick wouldn’t work up here in the bedroom, which was aglow with evening light. If whoever it was were to enter this room, he would see two women turned apparently to stone, and one who was only holding very still, her breast rising and falling as she breathed. He would see her fingers twitch in Clare’s stiff grasp. Then he would know about her. He would know she was the Talisman.

The aura reached them. Julia glanced at Bella. Her eyes were fixed.

Julia spun away from the gruesome vision and ran to the door. She wrenched it open and looked into the hall. It was empty, but she could hear footsteps coming up from the floor below.

The door at the hallway’s end, the one that opened onto the back staircase! She raced to it, glancing once over her shoulder, then opened it as quickly and quietly as she could and slipped inside, closing it behind her. She whirled around, then crouched, eye to the keyhole.