Trapped in Time

by Evangeline Anderson

  But Mrs. E. B. Duffey wasn’t done.

  “The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual encounters monthly—and as time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency. Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among her best friends in this matter.”

  “This is the stupidest thing I ever read!” This time Caroline did throw the book across the room in complete disgust.

  If the other Caroline had actually been following this manual of marital bliss, no wonder she and Richard hadn’t gotten along! Of course, it sounded like that was the other mother’s plan from day one. She didn’t want her daughter married to a Kindred and she was willing to do anything to break up or end the marriage.

  “Of all the meddling, insufferable, manipulative—-” she began but just then the door creaked open and Mary Ann appeared, carrying a heavy silver tray.

  Chapter Eight

  “Miss Caroline, are you quite all right?” the lady’s maid asked, frowning as she entered the room. “It sounded like you were shouting in here. And did I hear a thump? Did you drop something?”

  “I, um…” At once Caroline was on shaky ground. She still hadn’t decided if her lady’s maid was a friend or foe—someone she could trust or someone who might be looking to get her thrown into the closest mad house. “I dropped my book,” she said at last, not sure what else to say.

  “This book?” Mary Ann put down the tray, which held a teapot, a cup and saucer, and a plate with some plain-looking crackers on it and went across the room to pick up Mrs. E. B. Duffey’s Guide.

  “Um, yes. That book. Thank you,” Caroline said, as Mary Ann returned it to her. “I was just looking it over.”

  “I see.” Mary Ann returned it to her without another word, for which Caroline was very grateful. Instead she poured Caroline a steaming cup of tea and passed it and the plate full of plain brown crackers to her.

  “Thank you.” Caroline took a sip of the sweet, hot tea with real pleasure. She had always found a hot cup of tea immensely soothing during stressful situations and she was presently in one of the most stressful situations she’d ever experienced in her entire life.

  The crackers didn’t appear too promising, but maybe they tasted better than they looked. Experimentally, Caroline picked one up and dunked it in the tea before taking a bite. She chewed and then had to work hard not to spit it out—it was like eating wet cardboard!

  “These are awful!” she exclaimed, putting the offending cracker back on the plate with only a single bite gone. “What are they? They’re so bland they don’t taste like anything at all—it’s like eating paste.”

  “Well, they’re meant to be bland, aren’t they, Miss Caroline?” Mary Ann looked surprised. “They’re graham crackers and they’re made especially plain on purpose.”

  “What purpose?” Caroline looked at the plain brown cracker again, which bore no resemblance to the graham crackers she’d grown up eating as a child. Those were sweet and spiced with cinnamon and delicious. These, on the other hand, really were like eating sawdust.

  “Why, the purpose of keeping young ladies pure of course!” Mary Ann looked scandalized that she even had to tell Caroline this. “Everyone knows that spicy, hot, exciting foods like mustard and pepper and the like rile a body up and make them more…amorous than they should be.” She cleared her throat, her cheeks going pink. “Bland foods, on the other hand, calm a person down and help her remain chaste.”

  This was the stupidest thing Caroline had ever heard but of course she couldn’t say so.

  “Well, I don’t like them,” she said, pushing the plate away. “Couldn’t I have something like a muffin or a crumpet or something like that?” she asked, trying to think of the kinds of things the heroines were always dining on in period dramas.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much time for eating just now, Miss Caroline,” Mary Ann said, clearing away the plate of crackers. “And you won’t want a full belly when I put on your corset anyway. Your Ma-ma has ordered me to tight-lace you tonight. You won’t be able to breathe if you eat first.”

  “I won’t?” This sounded ominous to Caroline.

  Mary Ann shook her head. “In fact, if I were you, I’d stop drinking tea now too—not another sip. You know how difficult it is to use the necessary once you’re all dressed in your best.”

  “It is? I mean, of course it is,” Caroline said quickly. She put down the half-drunk cup of tea and got out of the bed. “All right—I guess we’d better get started. Are you going to help me into my dress?” She certainly hoped so—she had no idea how to get into the wide-skirted dresses everyone wore here and she had an idea that getting in and out of such elaborate outfits was a two person job.

  But Mary Ann only laughed.

  “Gracious no, Miss Caroline! Not until we do something with your hair and face first! Now just you have a seat at the dressing table there and let me put the straightening tongs in the fire so we can get started.”

  Rather unwillingly, Caroline went and sat on the narrow, padded wooden bench her lady’s maid had indicated, which was in front of a small, daintily carved dressing table with an oval mirror attached. Scattered across the top of the table were various pots and brushes and some cut-glass bottles with crystal stoppers that must be perfume.

  She really did need to do something, Caroline had to admit to herself. Her hair was a mess from being soaked in the rain and had dried into a curly nest around her head. Her cheeks looked pale except for the smattering of freckles which dotted them and the bridge of her nose and her eyes looked big and uncertain.

  If she were back home and wanted to look nice, she would have used some powder and blush and maybe a touch of lip-gloss—she wasn’t one for heavy make-up. But eyeing the many pots and brushes on the dressing table, she was beginning to think her doppelganger might have different views.

  I thought they wore hardly any makeup in the Victorian era, she thought, eyeing the dressing table uncertainly. Didn’t they think it made them look like “fallen women” to have an obviously made up face?

  But then she reminded herself that she wasn’t really in her version of the Victorian era. She was in a whole different universe which, while it clearly mirrored her own in some respects, also had plenty of differences. In this universe’s version of Victorian times, everyone might wear enough makeup to make a whore blush, as her mother would have said. Her real mother, that was.

  “Well now—the tongs are heating so let us see about those freckles,” Mary Ann said, coming over to her. She had a little china cup half filled with liquid in one hand and a small brush in the other. Without asking, she dipped the brush in the pot and began dabbing it all over Caroline’s cheeks and nose.

  “Hey…” Caroline sniffed suspiciously at the liquid. “Is that…lemon juice?”

  “Of course, Miss—it’s the best way to fade freckles, as everyone knows. Well, other than going out on a sunny day and allowing your face to get nice and red so that when the skin peels, the freckles come right off with it. But we don’t have time for that!” She gave a little laugh.

  Caroline stared at her, uncomprehending. Did people really give themselves severe sunburns in this universe just to get rid of their freckles? Apparently so because Mary Ann didn’t appear to be joking. Caroline told herself she was getting off lightly just having lemon juice painted on her face, no matter how bizarre it might seem.

  “Well now, that’s the best I can do for now.” The lady’s maid put down the lemon juice and brush and frowned critically at Caroline’s face. “I have been working on those for ages and ages and they were nearly gone this morning. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how they all came back so strong!”

  Caroline had never much minded her freckles herself—they went with her strawberry-blonde hair and there weren’t too many of them. Her mother—her real mother—had always assured her they were cute.

  Well, not in this universe, apparently.

  “You…don’t think they’r
e, uh, faded enough?” she asked the maid.

  “Not really, no—but we’ll smooth them out with the top layer of powder, so we will,” Mark Ann declared. “In the meantime, let’s see to your rouge and lip paint.”

  She opened one of the little pots, which was filled with dark pink paste, and began dabbing it liberally on Caroline’s cheeks.

  The stuff felt thick and unnatural and it had a strange, somehow familiar smell. Caroline didn’t like to complain but when Mary Ann picked up a small brush and began painting her lips with the same stuff, she began to feel uneasy. Running out her tongue, she tasted a bit of the stuff from her upper lip.

  “Hey—is this…is this bacon grease?” she exclaimed, unable to be silent any longer.

  “Bacon grease? Gracious no, Miss!” Mary Ann exclaimed.

  “Oh.” Caroline frowned. “Because I just thought…”

  “Colliers Fine Cosmetics for Young Ladies would never use common bacon grease in their products,” Mary Ann continued. “They use only the purest rendered hog lard. I know it for a fact because it’s in all their advertisements.”

  “Hog lard?” Caroline really didn’t see the difference and the thick, greasy stuff on her cheeks and lips felt gross—like she was wearing a thick layer of bacon-flavored Vaseline on her face. Plus, Mary Ann really had put the stuff on awfully thick. She looked like a clown about to apply the white grease paint they always wore.

  “Yes, hog lard.” Mary Ann smiled complacently as she shut the small pot and reached for a large, round container and a powder puff that apparently went with it.

  “Um, well didn’t you put it on kind of thick?” Caroline objected. “Won’t I look like a, uh, fallen woman or something wearing all this make-up?”

  “Well, if we let you go out just like that, you would indeed,” Mary Ann said. “But a good powdering with the lead-sugar will tone down the rouge considerably and give your skin that fine, white glow all the young ladies love so much.”

  She picked up the puff and dipped it into the large round container, bringing it out coated in bright white powder.

  “Wait a minute, did you say lead sugar?” Caroline asked, eyeing the puff nervously.

  “Well of course, Miss Caroline.” Mary Ann spoke as though it was an everyday thing to spread poison dust all over one’s face. “No proper lady’s toilette is complete without lead sugar.”

  “Well, this lady is just fine without it,” Caroline said, dodging when the maid tried to press the lead-laden puff to her face. “No thank you!”

  “What? But you can’t go out without being powdered down—you look incomplete and your skin will be an awful tan shade instead a lovely, creamy white,” the lady’s maid protested.

  “I don’t care,” Caroline said grimly. “You’re not putting that stuff on my face—it’s poison!”

  “What, lead? Poison?” Mary Ann made an incredulous face. “Miss Caroline, I know your wits are a bit addled from your accident in the park but please—everyone knows that lead is completely harmless.”

  “Maybe that’s what most people think,” Caroline said. “But, uh, I read an article in a lady’s publication just the other day saying that it was bad for you. The source seemed very reputable,” she added, hoping that her reasoning would keep Mary Ann from trying to slather her in lead.

  “Well, that sounds silly to me but just as you please, Miss.” Sighing, Mary Ann put the “lead sugar” and the puff away. “I suppose if you want to have fashionably white skin, you’ll just have to take an arsenic tablet instead.”

  “A what?” Caroline stared at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked, looking at Mary Ann in the mirror. “I mean, you’re making a joke?”

  Mark Ann gave her a strange look.

  “Oh, no, Miss Caroline. Matters of beauty are no joke for how else is a girl to land herself a husband?”

  Caroline thought about pointing out that it wouldn’t do a girl much good to land a husband if she was dead from lead or arsenic poisoning before they even got to the altar. But Mary Ann was already eyeing her strangely—probably wondering if she was crazy—so she bit her lip and said nothing except,

  “I don’t want any arsenic either. But, uh, thank you for offering.”

  “Well I’m sure I don’t know how you’re to get your skin looking white and fine if you won’t have either lead or arsenic,” Mary Ann complained.

  “Let’s not worry about my skin—let’s move on to something else,” Caroline suggested.

  “Very well, Miss—I’ll see to your hair then.”

  Mary Ann went to the fire and pulled out two long, flat pieces of metal joined at one end. The handle of the tongs was wrapped in something resembling oven mitt material—probably because they were red hot from being in the fire so long, Caroline thought uneasily.

  She really didn’t want the lethal looking tongs anywhere near her head and face but she had already balked at so many of Mary Ann’s suggestions, she didn’t know if she could reasonably refuse to have her hair straightened without causing even greater suspicion that something was wrong with her.

  “All right now, Miss Caroline—let us see what we can do with those curls, shall we?” Mary Ann said cheerfully. She took a long, curly piece of Caroline’s hair, clamped it between the heavy, flat metal pieces, and began to pull downwards, hard.

  “Ouch!” Caroline jumped, which caused her ear to brush the hot tongs-which made her jump again and almost pulled her hair out of her head. “Ow-ow-ow! Stop it—just stop!” she begged the maid.

  “I’m sorry, Miss!” Mary Ann quickly unclamped her hair and took a step back, much to Caroline’s relief. “But you know you mustn’t move while I straighten your hair, lest you get burned.”

  “I was burned!” Caroline put a hand to her right earlobe, which was throbbing with pain. “And I jumped because you were pulling my hair!”

  “Well, yes—it does pull.” Mary Ann spoke as though to a young child who didn’t quite understand the situation. “That’s part of it, you know—I have to pull hard in order to straighten out your curls. They are so stubborn.”

  “You mean it’s supposed to feel like that—like you’re yanking the hair out of my head with a hot branding iron?” Caroline demanded.

  Mary Ann nodded. “I thought you’d be used to it by now,” she remarked. “I’ve been straightening your hair since you were twelve, Miss.”

  “Well, you don’t have to straighten it tonight,” Caroline told her. “I’m sorry, Mary Ann, but I just can’t stand it,” she added when the lady’s maid started to protest. “My…my head is still too tender from the, uh, lightning strike. Please understand—I just can’t bear it right now.”

  “Your Ma-ma will not be pleased, Miss Caroline,” the maid said, frowning. “She gave very particular orders about how she wanted you to look for the ball tonight.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Caroline said, frowning. “I’m a grown woman and I’m entitled to look how I want.”

  This statement seemed to shock Mary Ann almost more than anything else Caroline had said for her eyes widened and her mouth formed a little “O” of surprise. But the look of determination in Caroline’s eyes must have persuaded her not to argue.

  “Just as you please, Miss,” she said at last. “May I at least darken your brows and lashes?”

  “I guess so,” Caroline said apprehensively. “Do you have some kind of mascara in one of these pots?” she asked, looking at the dressing table.

  “Oh goodness no!” Mary Ann laughed as though the idea was funny. “I’ll just use some soot from the fireplace.”

  She went and gathered some in a small pocket handkerchief and before Caroline could protest, she had taken up another little brush and was dipping it into the black pile of soot and applying it liberally to Caroline’s brows and lashes.

  Ugh! Caroline winced and tried not to jerk but some of the soot particles got into her eyes and she couldn’t help blinking as they teared up.

  “Oh, so
rry Miss,” Mary Ann said, sounding not a bit remorseful. “Never mind though—we’ll wash it out directly.”

  She got a small glass bottle with an eyedropper attached and directed Caroline to open her eyes as wide as she could. Caroline was is so much pain, she did as she was told, not even asking what was in the bottle until the lady’s maid had dripped several drops into each eye.

  But as Mary Ann dabbed at her eyes with a dainty lace handkerchief, she noticed that everything seemed to be getting fuzzy around the edges. She looked around the room, which had taken on a decidedly blurry cast. Was the fire brighter than it had been before? It hurt her eyes to look at it.

  “What was in those eye drops?” she asked, blinking rapidly as she tried, in vain, to make the world come back into focus.

  “Only belladonna, Miss Caroline,” the lady’s maid replied.

  “Only belladonna?” Caroline couldn’t believe it—here was yet another poison used for cosmetic purposes! What was wrong with the people in this universe? “Isn’t that another name for deadly nightshade?”

  “Yes, of course, but it’s only poison if you take too much internally,” Mary Ann replied complacently.

  “But it’s still a poison,” Caroline pointed out with some asperity. “Why in the world would you put that in my eyes?”

  Mary Ann gave her a surprised look—at least Caroline thought she looked surprised. It was hard to tell when everything was so blurry.

  “Why, because a few drops of belladonna makes your eyes big and bright as stars—Mrs. Lambert has cook grow it special in the garden just for you,” she explained.

  “Big and bright, huh? I suppose it must dilate the pupils,” Caroline muttered, more to herself than the maid. That would explain why she felt as she had when the eye doctor had dilated her eyes during her last exam so he could see all the way back to the retinas. That had taken hours to wear off and Caroline had been forced to wear dark glasses, even indoors, and go lay down in a dark room until her eyes finally went back to normal. She wondered dismally how long the belladonna would take to wear off.