Continuously having her back to Robin would be rude and impractical. Robin strolled into the living room. “Do you want to sit in the kitchen,” she smiled, “or is that not done?” Focusing on her for the first time, Margaret realized that Robin was wearing a man’s shirt, probably on loan from Jasper or one of his brothers. On any other woman, it would have looked ridiculous and bordering on indecent, but Margaret couldn’t imagine her in anything else. “The kitchen will be fine. Usually we don’t have, um, tables to eat on in the kitchen, but this house is too small to have a dining room.”
“It’s warmer in here,” Robin said over her shoulder as Margaret settled into a chair. Robin set a cup of tea in front of her. “I hope it tastes all right. The tea here is a little stronger than I’m used to. I don’t know if I’ve compensated correctly.”
Margaret lifted her cup and took a tentative sip, surprised at her steady hands. She said what she would have said whether the tea had tasted delightful or horrid. “Thank you. It tastes fine.” She expected Robin to sit across from her, but Robin set her tea down at the place to Margaret’s right and pulled out the chair.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Margaret sipped her tea again, even though it was still too hot to comfortably drink. “Jasper showed you how to operate the stove?” Robin nodded. “We sort of already knew. I think this is less jarring for us than it was for you and Jasper. In some ways.” She paused. “At least we have some knowledge of this time period.”
“Yes.” They lapsed into silence, but not the companionable silence they’d enjoyed the evenings Margaret had knitted while Robin worked. This silence was uncomfortable, fraught with tension and unsaid words. Why had she kissed Robin? Why hadn’t she had the strength to deny herself? Margaret stared miserably at her tea.
“Do you want to talk about it or forget about it?” Robin asked softly.
Feeling as if her heart were leaping from her chest, Margaret lifted her head. Robin’s eyes contained only sympathy, not the condemnation Margaret had expected to see. “I owe you an apology,” she stammered. “I don’t understand what came over me. I—when you—I couldn’t help—” Her voice choked off as the shame of it overwhelmed her. She buried her face in her hands.
“It sounds like you want to talk about it.” Silence. “Margaret?” Still covering her face, Margaret nodded. The conversation would be excruciating, but she desperately wanted what she didn’t deserve: Robin’s forgiveness. “I know what you must think of me,” she said, removing her hands from her face but avoiding Robin’s eyes. “I would—” Robin cut across her. “If we’re going to have an honest conversation about it, let me say something first.”
Certain that she was about to hear exactly what Robin thought of her, Margaret clenched her hands on her lap and braced herself. “All right.”
“Okay, bear with me, because I don’t know what words you’re using right now for people who are attracted to members of their own sex.”
“I am not a deviant!” Anger, shock, and a touch of fear had Margaret quaking inside.
“I am,” Robin said.
Flabbergasted, Margaret gaped at her. How could she sit there and admit it so calmly and unapologetically? Robin? No, she couldn’t be. Margaret had lived with her for a month. She would have known, spotted signs of Robin’s sickness. Robin was normal—but did dress like a man. Then again, so did Pam at times, and so had many of the women strolling along the boardwalk and shopping in the crafts store. “You’re lying! Why? Are you trying to provoke me into saying that I am? I’m not! Something happened to me when I travelled through time. I—” She hesitated. “I have never felt for a woman what . . .” Oh, what was the point of denying her feelings for Robin? The kiss had already betrayed her. “What I feel for you. It won’t happen again.”
“I’ll go back to 2010 and you’ll go back to normal? For your sake, I wish that were true.”
“It is!”
“So up to this point, you’ve only ever been attracted to men?” A reflexive and vehement yes! died on her tongue as the many times she’d sat bewildered and confused during those conversations with her friends came rushing back. She’d never experienced what they described—until Robin. If she was a deviant—she wasn’t, but if she entertained the hypothetical notion for a minute—why had she never been attracted to any of her girlfriends?
She balled a handful of her dress within her hands as another memory surfaced: her loneliness and despair when Ruth’s family had moved to Montreal. Mother had chided her, told her that she had plenty of other friends and that she and Ruth could write to each other. But as Ruth quickly forged new friendships, her letters became few and far between, then stopped altogether. Hurt that Ruth had so easily cast her aside, Margaret’s longing had turned to resentment. She’d rashly cut up Ruth’s letters and thrown them into the trash, only to regret it later. But when she and Ruth had sometimes linked arms when out for a walk, Margaret hadn’t reacted in the same way she had with Robin. Had she been too young? Or had she not allowed herself those feelings in her time, but had in 2010, where she’d expected—wrongly—that anything she felt and did would have no bearing on her real life back in 1910.
“I read the last entry in your diary. I know you don’t feel anything for Jasper. Well, not anything you should feel for the man you’re engaged to, anyway.” Robin sipped her tea.
How could Robin sit there and drink tea as if they were discussing the weather? The conversation was tying Margaret in knots. “If you were a man, I would feel the same way about you. I’m—I’m attracted to you, not your—” Margaret hunched her shoulders “—body.”
“I told myself that at first, too. But when I kept being attracted to only, uh, women-persons, I had to admit that the woman part was important. And if what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t you be attracted to Jasper? You seem to like him and enjoy yourself when you’re out with him, so if it’s all about the person and not whether they’re a man or a woman, why aren’t you attracted to Jasper?”
“Why aren’t I attracted to everybody whose company I enjoy, then?” Margaret snapped. “I should be in love with half of Toronto!” Her face flushed. She’d said too much!
Robin held up her hands. “Hey, you’re the one who’s claiming you’re attracted to the inner person, not me.”
“And you claim you’re a—” No, she wouldn’t use such a disparaging term for Robin. “One of those people, yet you told me you want to get married.”
“I do, eventually. To a woman.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous!” Tears sprang to Margaret’s eyes. “Think what you will, but don’t laugh at me. I am sorry, I truly am. I don’t know why I feel what I feel for you, just that I do. I’ll understand if you never wish to see me again, but I . . .” She swallowed. “I would ask your forgiveness. If you could extend me that one kindness. I wish I hadn’t revealed how I feel because I’d hoped you’d remember our time together fondly, but I suppose that’s no longer possible. Please, forgive me, and then I’ll leave you alone. You can tell Jasper and Pam that I wasn’t feeling well and went to the main house.”
Her soul bared, Margaret stared at her teacup and waited for Robin to absolve her of her sin and ask her to leave. Either way, she’d have to live with her indiscretion for the rest of her life.
Most people regretted transgressions in their pasts. She’d regret a transgression that had taken place in the future, and one for which she could never make amends. Years after her body had been returned to the earth, Robin would think ill of her. The clothing Margaret had lovingly knitted for her wouldn’t be worn and evoke cherished memories, but be discarded, an unpleasant reminder of a kiss Robin would rather forget.
When Robin leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, Margaret wanted to flee the house so she wouldn’t have to listen to words that would cut. But this may be the last time they spoke, and her desire to remain with Robin was too strong. She was truly lost.
“You don’t need my forgiveness, Margaret. You
didn’t do anything wrong. You surprised me when you kissed me, but that’s not a cardinal sin.” Robin raised her hand when Margaret twisted toward her. “And I wasn’t being facetious when I said I’d marry a woman. A lot’s changed—will change over the next hundred years. I can marry a woman, back in 2010. And if I do get married, that’s exactly what I’ll do. It’s also why I need to get back. Here, I’m a deviant and would constantly have to hide who I really am. At home, I can be me. Sure, there are still those who wish we’d go away, but there will always be idiots.” Her face lit up with amusement.
“That hasn’t changed, and probably never will.”
It was as if Robin were speaking a foreign language. She could marry a woman? She didn’t have to hide her deviance? But she had. “If that’s true, why didn’t you tell Jasper and I about yourself?”
“There was no need—or at least, I thought there wasn’t. If everything went according to plan, you were only going to be with us for a short time. I honestly didn’t have to hide anything.
I don’t conduct secret rituals in the study every night or anything like that. I didn’t volunteer the information, that’s all.” Robin shrugged. “I had the advantage of knowing about your time, about what the attitudes are toward so-called sexual deviance. I figured you and Jasper wouldn’t be comfortable sharing a home with a, uh, deviant. I didn’t want to create a tense atmosphere.” Margaret admitted that if Robin had told them when they’d first arrived, they probably would have treated her rudely.
“Unfortunately you’re a deviant in your time, though I wouldn’t call you that.”
“What would you call me?” Margaret asked. She understood why Robin raised her eyebrows. While Margaret couldn’t suddenly embrace her deviance, she wouldn’t deny it, either, especially when this could be her only opportunity to have a truly honest conversation about a part of herself that nobody else would ever understand or accept. She didn’t want to squander it.
“A lesbian.”
How queer! “The meaning of the word must have changed. We don’t use it that way.
Lesbianism, yes, but we don’t refer to such women as lesbians.” Robin’s mouth twitched. “Women like me, you mean?” Her brow furrowed. “I read about the history of the word once. Give it a few more years.” Yes, to Robin, this was history. Yet it wasn’t, because the future hadn’t happened yet. Was Margaret wrong for wishing that Robin’s history would ultimately become Robin’s present? Her conscience shouted, Yes! It was the height of selfishness to wish such a thing for Robin, to want her trapped in a time when her kind—their kind—were, at best, mentally ill, and at worst, filthy sinners whom God and respectable folk rejected. Jasper and Pam had better find that book, and soon. “Does Pam know about you?”
“Of course.”
They’d shared a bed! Was Pam feigning her attraction to Jasper, perhaps to protect herself and Robin? “Is Pam . . . like you?”
“No! Pam’s as straight as they come.”
“What do you mean?”
“Heterosexual.” Then, when Margaret shook her head, Robin added, “Attracted to men and only men.”
Oh. “Does your family know?”
Robin’s face grew wary. “Yes.”
Margaret recalled Robin’s distress after the dinner with her father. “Is that why you and your father don’t get along?”
Robin heaved her shoulders. “One of the reasons, yes.”
“But you said things have changed.”
“I also said there are still idiots.” She waved a dismissive hand. “But if it weren’t that, he’d find something else to criticize.”
“What about your mother?”
“She doesn’t care.”
Robin sounded so bleak that Margaret wasn’t sure if she meant that her mother didn’t care about her deviance or her in general. When Robin drank some tea, Margaret did the same, wanting to finish it before it grew cold. She set the cup back in its saucer and tried to sort out the multitude of questions running through her mind. One in particular begged to be asked: how did Robin feel about her? Dare Margaret ask it?
Robin eyed Margaret’s empty cup. “If we’re to do the sensible thing, you’ll go to the main house, as you said, and then never come to see me again.” Shocked and wounded, Margaret stiffened and blinked back tears. Robin would send her away? Then . . . she must not feel the same way, and Margaret was a fool. It was too late to mask her distress, but she lowered her head anyway and wiped her eyes with her hand.
“I’m thinking about what’s best for you,” Robin said softly.
A glimmer of hope welled within her. “Then answer one question, and answer it honestly.
Do you want me to leave and never come back?” Not brave enough to face Robin, she kept her head down. But when no answer came, she looked up.
Robin stared at her, chewing her lip. Was she searching for more diplomatic words than a simple yes? Perhaps she was weighing the merits of lying to avoid hurting Margaret’s feelings—
after all, assuming they found the book, she’d soon be gone. Or did she want Margaret to stay, but was struggling to put aside her desire for what she believed would be best for Margaret?
“Answer me honestly,” Margaret said again, in case her latter guess was correct.
After what felt like an eternity, Robin sighed. “I don’t want you to leave.” Margaret sagged with relief, but one burning question remained unanswered, and she might as well ask it. If she horribly embarrassed herself or the air grew too awkward between them, she could still do the sensible thing and flee the guest house for good. “If I—” She faltered. Perhaps she should be grateful that Robin still wanted to see her, and leave things as they were. Courage!
If she didn’t ask, she’d only wonder. She gulped and forged ahead. “If I were from your time—
living in your time—would you call on me?”
Robin’s brows drew together. “Take you out, you mean? Like, on a date?” Margaret nodded and held her breath. Once again, the silence stretched as Robin fought an inner battle. She grimaced, downed the remains of her tea, and blew out yet another sigh. “Yes.” The word had never sounded so beautiful to Margaret’s ears, nor had her smile ever been wider. “Then don’t ask me to leave and never see you again. Assuming they find the book, that awful time will come soon enough. If I could, I’d come see you every day. Unfortunately my engagement book is full, and I can’t offer excuses for everything without causing a fuss. But I’ll reschedule what I can. I know that once the search for the book has successfully concluded, we won’t have an opportunity to be alone.”
Disappointing, yet in a way, she was relieved. According to the standards of her time, she’d already behaved scandalously and recklessly by admitting to and openly discussing her feelings for Robin. She couldn’t deny her elation—but to go further, to act on those feelings in a physical manner . . . She no longer regretted the kiss and would kiss Robin again in a heartbeat. But to do more . . . as much as she might desire it, turning her back on the norms of her society would be difficult, despite her love for Robin. Even if that weren’t so, the possibility of Jasper and Pam coming back at any moment would deter her. Robin would return to 2010—oh Lord, Margaret’s heart ached—and when she did, Margaret would desperately need a semblance of a life to return to, her reputation intact, if she weren’t to hopelessly despair for the rest of her life. “It will be enough to be in your company.” She moistened her lips. “I’m not sure we should risk acting upon our—I would want to, but—”
“As you said, it will be enough to be together.” Robin hesitated. “But when we’re alone, like we are now, maybe you’ll let me hold your hand while we talk.” She smiled, her eyes bright. “If we stick to that, I won’t have to worry about messing up your hair.” Thoughts of how Robin might mess up her hair intrigued and excited her. “I would like that,” Margaret said faintly, then felt a rush of heat as Robin’s fingers touched, then curled around hers, under the table. Yes, best not to do anything beyond th
is, or her reputation, be damned!
“This is a little strange for me,” Robin said.
“Holding hands?” What did women normally do together in Robin’s time?
“No, having to worry about it. I hope knowing that people like you—like us—will be accepted in the future will help you accept yourself. But I guess knowing that we can live openly as lesbians in the future will be small comfort to you.” Margaret silently agreed. What type of life would she have? She’d never feel for Jasper what she felt for Robin. She’d hoped—assumed—that, over time, love would grow between them. It still might, but for her, it would be the love she might feel for a cherished friend, not a lover. She had no choice but to marry him, though. Not true, she told herself. She could break off their engagement, defy her parents, and have all her friends believing she’d lost her mind. But to what end? To spend her life alone instead of marrying a decent man and a good friend? Things had been distant between her and Jasper lately, but that would change when Robin and Pam were gone. Not only would they be planning their wedding together, but who else could they talk to about the two people who’d so touched their lives in such a brief time?
Theirs would be a marriage between two friends, and under other circumstances could have served them quite well, especially Jasper. Perhaps if he hadn’t met Pam, he would have fallen in love with Margaret eventually, but not now. Any happiness they might manage would always be marred by his longing for Pam and her longing for Robin. She wouldn’t be the only one settling for someone she’d never love.
Robin was correct. The knowledge that people like them didn’t have to hide their preferences in the future wouldn’t do her much good. “I suppose since you can marry, you can truly be yourself. How did that come about?”
Robin pursed her lips. “There’s no harm in telling you, I guess. But would you like me to make more tea first?”
“Only if you’ll take my hand again when it’s ready,” Margaret quickly said, bringing a grin to Robin’s face.
Threaded Through Time, Book One Page 14