Time Out of Mind (33 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
Lesko half ran toward the subway on Queens Boulevard.
Nine
Twin beds.
Twin beds are the latest thing.”
Now he hated them. The beds had made no particular impression on him when he entered Harry Sturdevant's
guest room and when Cora Starling, who now seemed to
be watching him closely, turned them down at one corner
and fluffed the pillows. If anything, he appreciated that twin
beds would probably make Gwen's uncle more comfortable
about their sharing a room together in his house.
Everyone is talking about twin beds and I intend to be
among the first to have them.”
All the other furnishings, Corbin noted dimly, had a turn-
of-the-century look. Not Victorian, really, like the Homestead, but almost as old and probably more valuable. Had
Gwen told her uncle about the Homestead, he wondered,
and about some of the peculiar thoughts and memories it stirred up? He didn't know. Maybe Dr. Sturdevant got the
idea all by himself of putting them together into a room
whose furnishings could help to send him back in time or
to bring someone else forward. Corbin didn't know that,
either. But it wasn't going to work. He was just too beat.
He waited patiently until Mrs. Starling finished her fussing
with the towels and washcloths, and when she closed the
door he kicked off his shoes and settled back against the
cool pillow.
“
I
will not be denied this, Tilden. I've made quite enough sacrifices as a good little wife and I've seen far too little
consideration in return,”`
Corbin jerked his head off the pillow and brought his
hand to his eyes. Get up, he told himself. Do a few push
ups or splash cold water on your face. He knew what was
happening to him. Half-dreams, he called them. The kind
that come when you're not fully asleep and you're not fully
awake. The trouble is you can never get yourself to wake
up all the way. Four in the morning is when these usually
come. What time is it now? It can't even be nine o'clock.
To
think that I gave up Philadelphia, where I would
probably be the wife of a Drexel by now, for the excitement
and glamour of New York society only to find I've wed a
man who prefers a baseball game to a cotillion and who has no greater goal in life than to see to the construction
of an appallingly ugly railroad for the convenience of a lot
of smelly factory workers.”
He did warn me, Corbin thought. He did say we might have different views concerning what constitutes worth
while achievement and, for that matter, who constitutes a
worthwhile acquaintance. Wait a minute. Who warned me?
Teddy. Teddy Roosevelt? That can't be right.
“
But thank you. I'm grateful for a friend's concern.
However, she's actually quite excited about the elevated
project and the development of the West Side. And she
loves to hear me talk about athletics. And as for my ac
quaintances, the most appealing thing of all about New
York to Miss Ella is its social democracy. You know the
saying. In Boston they ask how much you know, in New
York they ask how much you have, and in Philadelphia
they ask who your grandfather was. She is more than eager to meet new and vital people who've made their own mark, people who would never be received in Philadelphia. Men
like Cyrus Field and Jim Brady. Even pariahs like Gould
and Russell Sage.”
These men are all rich and powerful, Tilden. Not all of
your friends are either. Even you and I have had to learn to look for a man's worth in his heart and in the honesty
of his gaze. Ella will not easily overcome a lifetime of
Philadelphia insularity and a congenital contempt for any
man whose hand is not soft and any woman who owns less
than a dozen gowns from Paris.”
”
I think that you do not know her, Teddy.”
“
And I think that I've probably said too much.”
“
She's quite beautiful.”
“
She is that. Yes.”
And she has a lot of fire. I know that there have been whispers about her. I am aware that there are some who
consider her to be headstrong and willful and selfish. I
know also that she has a worrying habit of running about
unchaperoned and yet no real misconduct has ever been
linked with her name. These are youthful high spirits,
Teddy. If she were other than high-spirited she would have
remained entombed on Philadelphia's Main Line forever.
Good Lord, if only you could have seen some of the wispy,
swooning dullards my father has dragooned me into meet
ing, I believe you'd look a good deal more favorably upon
my choice of Ella Huntington.”
“
Hah!” Roosevelt flashed a grin so huge it seemed there
were more teeth than face. ”I believe I would, my friend.
By George, I believe I would.”
“
You'll stand up with me then.”
Saint Thomas's on the eighth. Depend on it, sir.”
Teddy Roosevelt offered his hand. “Depend on it.”
Ella, you didn`t actually believe that babies were born in
cabbage patches, did you?”
“
No. Not actually. But this? This simply can't be how
it's done.”
“‘
Adam and Eve were the first. Married couples have
deviated very little since then.''
“‘
Do not mock me, sir.''
“‘
Have you never seen a servant throw water upon two
dogs, one dog seeming to climb upon the back of the
other?`'
“
Yes. It was because they were being filthy.”
“
They were mating, Ella. It is how little puppies come
into being. Is it possible that no one has ever explained such things to you?”
“
I
do not know about New York, but it is hardly a fit
subject in Philadelphia
”
“
I
believe that. Sad to say, I believe that.''
biting hard as if she were being flogged and trying not to
breathe or make a sound. Soon, however, she became tolerant, almost willing. The martyred protests decreased in
length if not in frequency and her expressions of disgust subtly shifted from the act itself to Tilden's apparent in
capacity to control his animal urges. Ella, though it would never do to let Tilden know, not Tilden or anyone, was
beginning to like it. She was discovering that for all her
revulsion toward the messy physical act, it sometimes produced a most remarkable inner thrill. She kept this secret
strictly to herself, quite sure that no other woman could possibly experience such a sensation.
havior. The same woman who began as a block of stone
had progressed to being critical of the way he deported
himself in the bedchamber. After dismissing him to his own
twin bed, which he minded less and less, she would make the most maddeningly obscure references to the quality of the act that had just taken place between them. Tilden had
no idea what she was talking about, nor would she express
herself plainly on so delicate a subject. She would simply
and aggravatingly point out that it was not the business of
a woman to instruct a man on the business of being manly.
As for Tilden, it was only a matter of months before marital
congress with Ella became an altogether unpleasurable ex
perience.
Unlike the ladies at the fancy houses he'd sometimes
visited as an unmarried blade, though with considerable
trepidation because he'd heard stories of diseases that led
to insanity, Ella showed no interest at all in pleasing him.
The ladies at Georgiana Hastings' house at least pretended to be pleased by him. And interested in his conversation.
Which was another thing. Ella's interest in any of Tilden's
activities, any at all, seemed to have evaporated the moment
the wedding vows were spoken. She now considered many of his recreational activities to be loutish. His business ac
tivities were dull and tedious, to say the least. His reluc
tance to ingratiate himself within the correct social circles,
circles in which his family was already well established,
was both selfish and stupid. She was quick to notice other
men who knew how to seize opportunity and wring full
advantage from it. Some of Gould's associates, for exam
ple, to say nothing of Gould himself. Imagine a man being
denied a box at the Academy of Music, then determining
to destroy the Academy of Music by organizing and building the new Metropolitan Opera House in competition with
it. Imagine a man being denied membership in the New
York Yacht Club, then promptly founding the American Yacht Club up in Westchester. There was a man. A powerful man. Gould himself had neither the time nor the eye
for ladies, more's the pity, but there was no shortage of
men in his circle who did. Strong, daring men. Buccaneer types like the heroes of Robert Louis Stevenson. Polished
men like Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and dangerous men like
his Mr. Hyde. Men like Ansel Carling. What was Tilden to
a man like Ansel Carling?
Although Ella now found room for improvement in every
aspect of Tilden's being, she resented most of all his de
cision to choose as their residence that ridiculous apart
ment. An apartment, heaven save us! Not a home oh Fifth
Avenue, not even a home off Fifth Avenue, but an apart
ment. An apartment on the West Side in the bargain. So
far to the west she might as well have stayed in Philadelphia. A scant two blocks from the Ninth Avenue nigger-
town, so close one must either close one's windows when
the breeze came from the west or endure the scent of musk
all day.
It wasn't, after all, as if Tilden could not afford a proper
home. He and his father owned several excellent properties
in and out of the city and Tilden has earned enough on his
New York Elevated stock alone to buy a house at least as grand as the one that silly cowboy Roosevelt has down the
way, practically right on Fifth Avenue. But instead, mouth
ing some nonsense about the air being cleaner this close to
the park and the two of us having more time together if we
kept some distance between ourselves and the ''social
straitjacket” as he so coarsely refers to the communion of
everyone worth knowing, he entombs us in this stone war
ren filled to its seams with nobodies. There is even an
actor
in residence on the fourth floor, that Nat Goodwin man who
compounds his disreputability by being divorced every sec
ond or third year and Tilden actually
speaks
to him in that steam elevator which, by the way, is certain to blow us all
into eternity at any moment. As if the actor were not
enough, Tilden had the temerity to invite a prize-ring ruffian, an Irishman no less, into our parlor and sit him down
with a brandy in my fine crystal until I made it clear that
he might be more comfortable in other surroundings. And
on the subject of other surroundings, if it is my penance to live, however temporarily, in an apartment, the apartment building chosen might at least have been one with a mod
icum of cachet such as the Navarro Flats, where Ansel Car
ling keeps his suite of bachelor rooms. Speaking, not least, of power. It radiates from him. I see it in his eyes when he
looks at me and I feel it on my cheeks and I feel it here,
deep inside me.