Out of Time

by Deborah Truscott

  “Yes,” I told him, puzzled.

  “No manservant lurking about anywhere at all, I imagine.”

  I shook my head.

  He dropped his hands. “Or a bootjack.”

  I smiled. We had bootjacks everywhere at home. Lila loves to ride and so do I.

  “No bootjacks here,” I told him. “But if you sit down, I can loosen your boots.”

  “No,” he said a little stiffly. “Thank you. I’ll manage.”

  But I argued with him until he finally sat in the little boudoir chair and extended his left foot. I grabbed the heel of his boot in one hand and the toe in the other, gave a sharp tug with a quick upward jerk, freeing his heel. Then I extended my palm for his right one, repeated the process, and left him to figure out modern bathing on his own.

  In Uncle Bennett’s bedroom I pulled open the doors to the old-fashioned wardrobe and stared without interest at its contents. Even bent with age, Bennett had been fairly tall. When I saw him last August I had to stand on my toes to embrace him — and I was five-foot-seven. Clearly something would fit the Colonel. I dragged out a pair of khaki trousers, a white broadcloth shirt still in its laundry wrappings, and raided dresser drawers for shorts and socks. Then I dug up a canvas belt and a pair of moccasins like the kind Cameron always referred to as boat shoes. (Cameron himself owned two pairs of boat shoes but no boat.)

  I dropped the clothing on the bed and left. A narrow passage off the landing led me to the back of the house and my own bedroom and bath, where I spent a long time in the tub soaking off garden shed grime, praying that by the time I dressed and went downstairs, the Colonel would have disappeared.

  My room was above the kitchen and two of its four windows looked out over the drive. The other two overlooked the back of the property and a neighboring farm. I was staring out one of the driveway windows, developing scenarios for the disappearance of my visitor (the trap door relocates to the threshold of Bennett’s bedroom … the Colonel reaches for the door knob and Poof!), when I spotted a man walking up the drive. White shirt, khaki trousers and dark hair. I peered down as he passed under my window and saw that his hair was tied pony-tail fashion at the nape of his neck.

  It had been too much to hope for. I let out my breath and descended the stairs, entering the kitchen to the sound of the screen door banging. A moment later the Colonel was at the sink, his hands under a stream of running water.

  “Wonderfully convenient, this.”

  Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

  “I walked along the Pike,” he told me, turning off the faucet. “I went all the way past the privet to the field and back again. ”

  He picked up a tea towel that was folded on the drainboard and carefully dried his hands. “Not a trace of anything,” he added, putting down the towel and turning around.

  “Trap doors?” I asked. “Or horses, coats and so on?”

  “Any and all,” he replied, eyeing me. “My dear Mrs. Finlay. What an intriguing costume.”

  I was wearing jeans, sandals, and blouse. “It’s very … typical,” I explained, feeling a little self-conscious.

  “Is it? Women in trousers? You make me blush.”

  “I was hoping it wouldn’t matter what I wore,” I said thoughtlessly. “I was hoping, actually, to find you gone.”

  “I was hoping to be gone, madam.” He turned back to the sink and stared out the window at the fields and trees behind the house.

  Instantly, I regretted my words. None of this was his fault. I was the smart one, the clever one, who spent precious time arguing with him while the “door” that got him here was busy clanging shut, sealing up, shifting, or simply ceasing to exist.

  “I’m sorry,” I said simply.

  “Actually,” he said, still facing the window, “I came in to get your little…electrical lantern.”

  “It’s still light outside,” I pointed out.

  “It’s for the shed. Perhaps I’ve overlooked something.” He turned to looked at me. “So I’d like to use the lantern, if I may.”

  “Flashlight.”

  He smiled. “Flashlight, then.”

  “You need to eat something. We both do.” My eyes went to the wall clock by the door. “It’s almost seven.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t eat.”

  To be honest, I couldn’t either. I crossed the room to the pantry where I retrieved a sturdy, battery operated lantern and carried it to the counter by the sink.

  “This is better,” I said, testing the light. “Besides, the batteries are shot in the flashlight.”

  Wordlessly, he took the Coleman lantern, opened the screen door, and stepped out on the little back porch. I followed behind him.

  “No,” he said, turning. “You can’t go.”

  He was right, of course. I stood on the porch steps and watched him cross the lawn. At Bennett’s garden he stopped, turned back, and offered me a brief bow.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Finlay,” he said.

  The last sign I had of the Colonel that night was around midnight when I caught a flash of light from the shed. After that I went to bed.

  Chapter 9

  I awoke to the sound of groaning pipes. It was a unique feature of the house that if water was running anywhere, you heard it everywhere. That’s how I knew the Colonel was still with me.

  A little later we met in the kitchen where I was frying up a distinctly unhealthy breakfast and exchanged polite greetings. The Colonel, I decided, looked tired and out of sorts.

  “I’m afraid I had to purloin more of your uncle’s clothes,” he said. “The others are in a rather sorry state from my evening in the shed. Which, as you may have surmised, unearthed nothing but dust.”

  “Yes, I gathered.”

  “And I took another bath,” he added. “Is that an extravagance?”

  “No,” I smiled, my eyes on the skillet. “People generally do that everyday.”

  “Infinitely better than washing from a basin twice a day. And in cold water, more often than not.”

  “I would die,” I said, with only minimal exaggeration.

  “Water piped indoors and illumination without flame or fuel,” he mused. “It almost makes up for your century’s appalling lack of buttons.”

  Buttons? I lifted potatoes, perfectly browned and crisp, from the frying pan onto a paper towel. “Come now, Colonel,” I said calmly. “We certainly have buttons.”

  “Not where one would expect them. Although I think I’ve finally mastered that little metal … that little metal slide mechanism.”

  “You mean zipper.”

  “And I cannot tell if things fit the way they’re intended,” he went on irritably. “These breeches, for example. They seem rather loose to me.”

  I turned away from the stove and studied his fresh khaki trousers and clean, blue-striped shirt. “You look perfectly fine, Colonel,” I smiled encouragingly. “Like a regular person. An ordinary citizen.”

  I was busy cracking eggs into the pan, but I heard his sharp intake of breath. “A citizen? Did I hear you aright?”

  I paused, eggshells in my hands, and met the Colonel’s eyes. He looked vaguely unwell.

  “Oh dear. We haven’t discussed this, have we?”

  “You can’t mean you actually won this little rebellion.”

  “Revolution.”

  “Revolution my eye!” He spluttered. “A rebellion, and a minor one at that.”

  “Revolution.” I pointed a fork at him.

  “We just whipped you,” he insisted. “We beat Washington at Brandywine just last month. We beat him at Germantown barely three weeks ago! Right now we own Philadelphia. You can’t have recouped from that!”

  “Well, we did! And in 1781 we beat Cornwallis at Yorktown,” I said, neglecting to mention Lafayette and his helpful French troops.

  He was absolutely incredulous. “The war’s gone on that long?”

  “It took us awhile,” I conceded.

  “Does this mean Cornwallis too
k command from Howe?”

  He meant Sir William Howe, who had command of the British army the day the Colonel rode down the Pike. “Eventually,” I told him. “I think it passed through a few hands first.”

  “And this defeat at, uh, Yorktown … it was especially telling, I suppose?”

  “It was especially final,” I said.

  “Damn,” he hissed. “Damn it to bloody hell, and damn Sir William, too. Three times he had the chance, and squandered each.”

  “Chance for what?”

  “To pursue!” he ranted. “Last August in New York! And then at White Plains … and again last month after Brandywine. Howe’s had Washington in almost continuous retreat but not once has he pursued! Even now he lingers at Philadelphia with Washington just within his reach.”

  I tuned him out and turned my attention to the eggs. Continuous retreat indeed. I debated mentioning Washington’s rather clever strategy in New Jersey but decided I could afford to be generous.

  When I looked up from the stove I caught the Colonel staring at me. “I simply cannot believe,” he muttered darkly, “that an ill-equipped, underfed, undisciplined rabble … defeated the King’s army.”

  “I suggest you learn to deal with it, Colonel Upton. It’s ancient history now.”

  Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, he laughed. “Put that way, Mrs. Finlay, I suppose I have no choice. Though when I return to the battlefield, I suspect my enthusiasm for the war will be considerably dampened.”

  *****

  All things considered, he took the news pretty well. Naturally, he wanted to know the details, so we sat at the breakfast table for more than an hour while I told him what I knew about the battles of the Revolution and the first few decades of the new republic. I had gotten as far as the War of 1812 (the second War of Independence, I told him) when the phone in the passage by the back stairs began to ring.

  “What the Devil is that annoying racket?” the Colonel asked.

  “Oh God!” I said suddenly. “I forgot to call Mother last night. She’s probably frantic.” I pushed back my chair, ran into the hall and snatched up the receiver.

  “Kathy Lee! Oh, good, I caught you!”

  It wasn’t Lila. It was Terri Gannon.

  “Terri!” I squealed, trying to sound thrilled instead of panicked. The fact was, I should be delighted to hear from her, considering that the last time I saw her was when we buried Earl. “Where are you calling from, Terri?”

  Terri and her husband Steve were constantly on the road. They could leap out of the bushes any time, any place, and be on your doorstep in a heartbeat. Steve had some sort of incredibly successful vending machine business (of all things), headquartered in Atlantic City (of all places). He was the third (and last, Terri swore) in a line of ever richer husbands she had been assembling since graduating from Brown with a degree in Romance languages which, as far as I could see, she had never used at all. Terri and Steve — who never seemed to actually work — cruised around in a massive, highly conspicuous gold tone Cadillac with license plates that read “VEND” (vend what? Drugs? How else could you explain the appearance of such easy money?), as if they were on some sort of perpetual vacation, leaving a trail of dollar bills behind them.

  “Well, I’m calling from the car,” Terri confided. “We just left Edison. Steve had some sort of boring meeting there yesterday with some associates.”

  My overworked mind seized on the word “associates.” Associates wearing black shirts, white ties and pointed shoes. Non-musical associates carrying violin cases.

  “Edison, New Jersey?” I squeaked, rapidly calculating how many miles away Edison actually was.

  “Actually, we’re on our way to Chicago.”

  Immediately, I sent up a prayer of thanksgiving.

  “It’s for another meeting,” Terri said. “But first, Stevie wants to see Gettysburg. He’s never been there, can you imagine? Growing up in New Jersey, so near by? So he decided we should visit it, and then I said we ought to see Valley Forge, too. Really do Pennsylvania, you know?”

  My relief promptly vaporized. Please God, not Valley Forge. I could almost see it from my bedroom windows.

  “And since I’ll be so close,” Terri went on, attributing my speechlessness to joy, “I just dialed your number at Bennett's on the chance that you might be there.”

  Terri travelled with her rolodex, an essential aid in planning surprise visits. Moreover, when we were in college, she had come down from Brown one spring break and I had come up from Old Dominion, meeting on Uncle Bennett’s doorstep to spend a long weekend exploring Philadelphia by day and cooking elaborate dinners for our kindly host each evening. So Terri, who had an infallible memory, would know exactly how to find her way to Bennett’s house.

  “But this is just too awful,” I interrupted, my voice (as usual) taking on Terri’s sing-song inflection. “I just tossed my bag into the car!”

  “You’re not leaving!” Terri’s voice pleaded.

  “I promised I’d be home this afternoon,” I said, stretching the truth a little. “The children are at Mother’s and I’m already running late.”

  “Oh, Kathy Lee. Call Lila. Tell her we’re going to take you to dinner or something and you’ll be home late. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better. That way you won’t have to drive at night.”

  “I would just love to. I really would. But—” But what? I wondered frantically. “I’ve just got piles of things to do,” I plowed on inventively, “and I’ve been away from the children all weekend—”

  “Rats,” Terri interjected. “I really wanted to see you. Steve made reservations at that Hilton with the golf course. Or is it the Marriott?” I could almost see her turn her head toward her husband.

  “Stevie, is it the Marriott?”

  I didn’t wait for Stevie to tell us. “Well, darn,” I said. “What bad timing!”

  “We just wanted to come by and snag you along with us. You know how Stevie is about golf, and I wanted some company at the pool.”

  Pool? Golf? Weren’t they going sightseeing? (Did I, at this point, really care?) I filled up the next few minutes with regretful noises of disappointment and goodbye, and then I put down the phone. As soon as I did, the Colonel picked it up.

  “Amazing,” he breathed. “How does it work?”

  “Voice is carried through line,” I said absently. “Sometimes for great distances.”

  “And you call this a…”

  “Telephone,” I supplied, my mind on Terri.

  “Telephone,” he repeated reverently, examining this new marvel (in reality a black desk model, decades old) while sharing with me the Greek root of the word: tele, far off, and phone, which, he informed me, means sound or voice.

  Finally, I lost patience. “We’ve got an issue,” I said, interrupting his lecture.

  “Issue?” His eyes never left the phone, whose receiver he was in the process of dismantling.

  “That was Terri.”

  “Terrence?”

  “Teresa.” I watched as he proceeded to unscrew the mouthpiece.

  “Sister? Cousin? Friend?”

  “Friend.” I began to pace. “We’ve been friends forever, since we were kids, and the thing is … Terri’s hugely bright.”

  “Bright,” the Colonel prompted idly, his attention focused on phone parts.

  “Nothing ever gets by her. Even if I hid you, she’d know, she’d figure out from my manner that something’s…weird.”

  “Weird,” he repeated, frowning at some wires extending from the mouthpiece.

  In fact, Terri’s call hit me like a bucket of ice water. I had not realized, until I found myself inventing excuses not to see her, how completely and utterly every aspect of my life had changed. The Colonel’s presence isolated me from everyone I knew and loved, obliterated all my normal habits and routines, and rendered the world as alien to me as it surely was to my houseguest.

  Any sensible person would have homed right in on the troublesome element her
e and eliminated it. Anyone with any sense would have ditched Colonel Upton in a heartbeat. And for a brief minute, coward that I was, I actually considered it. Just walk away from him, Kathy Lee. Give the guy some cab fare and send him on his way.

  But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t explain why any more easily than I could explain why I left the children with Lila, or why I believed the Colonel sane, or why I entertained with such apparent ease the monstrous concept of a laundryshoot in time.

  I watched as the Colonel began reassembling the phone. I saw him fit one piece back into another, rebuilding what he had taken apart. We can solve this, I thought. If we work at it, we can fix everything. After all, Terri was on her way to Chicago, Julie was busy with work, and Lila hated to drive anywhere north of the Beltway. If we stayed here, we’d be left alone. If we stayed here, no one was likely to bother us. But first, I’d have to get the children. I could drive home right now and bring them back with me this evening. Lila wouldn’t be happy about it, but selling the house would lend plausibility to an extended stay. Wouldn’t it?

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Colonel carefully slip the transmitter back into the mouthpiece.

  And besides, I reasoned, hadn’t I actually wanted to live here? Hadn’t I considered it just a few days ago? This is no big deal, I told myself. We’d simply stay here as long as it took to get the Colonel back, and if it took longer than we thought I’d tell Lila I had decided to keep the house after all. That I would live here. And then we’d set up camp — the children, me, and, um, oh hell, Uncle Robert. And hope to God that no one came to visit us.

  It was a plan. In fact, it was the only one we had. I paced back and forth, figuring out logistics and working through obstacles. Gradually, however, I felt the Colonel’s gaze on me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I had a thought.”

  “A thought.” I stopped my back and forth motion. “A good one, I hope.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Oh swell. Bad thoughts. Just what we needed. I narrowed my eyes. “You look a little … pale,” I said.