Somewhere in Time

by Richard Matheson

  Beyond the parlor compartment of the car was her private sitting room. Here, the “ornate” quality she had mentioned became almost stifling. The carpeting was orange, the walls and ceiling quilted, the ceiling a light gold tone, the walls regal purple matched by that of the thickly upholstered sofa and chairs. Along the wall were a writing table and straightback chair with a small lamp hanging over them, its cloth shade the same color as that of the ceiling. At the end of the room was a paneled door in a blond color with a narrow, shade-drawn window on it. If I had misinterpreted Robinson’s attitude toward Elise in any way, I could not fail to understand it now. To him, she was a queen—albeit one who, hopefully, would rule alone.

  I wonder if the feeling started to arise when we were standing in the open doorway of her bedroom.

  I find it difficult to believe that such an obvious evocation as the sight of her large brass bed could have been a determinant at a time like that, after everything that had been said about our mutual need for understanding.

  Then again, perhaps it was exactly that symbolic reminder of the basic attraction between us which made us fall into a heavy silence as we stood there, side by side, looking into the shadowy compartment.

  Very slowly, I began to turn toward her and, as though compelled to movement by the same wordless impulse, she, too, turned until we were standing face-to-face. Was it because, at long last, we were totally alone, apart from any threat of outside intervention? I don’t know. I can only write with authority about the aura of emotion which was building, steadily and irresistibly, around us.

  Reaching up as slowly as we’d turned to face each other, I took hold of her shoulders. She drew in sudden breath; at once an indication of her fear, perhaps a recognition of her need. Still slowly, very slowly, I drew her against me and, leaning over, pressed my forehead to hers. I felt the perfume of her shaking breath warm my lips and never have I known such fragrant warmth in all my life. She spoke my name, her voice muted, sounding almost frightened.

  Drawing back my head a little way, I reached up further with my hands—still slowly, slowly—pressed one palm to each side of her face and tilted it back as gently as I could. Her eyes peered deeply into mine. She was searching for the last time, with a desperate, pleading need; as though she knew that, whether or not she found the answer now, involvement was upon her.

  Leaning over, I kissed her softly on the lips. As I did, she shuddered and her breath flowed lightly in my mouth like warm wine.

  Then my arms were around her, holding her close as she murmured, almost desolately, “I wish I knew what was happening; Lord, I wish I knew.”

  “You’re falling in love.”

  Her reply was weak, defeated. “More fallen,” she said.

  “Elise.” I tightened my arms around her, my heart pounding. “Oh, God, I love you, Elise.”

  Our second kiss was impassioned, her arms around my back now, holding tightly, such strength in those arms that it astonished me.

  Abruptly, then, she pressed her forehead to my chest, words pouring from her. “Acting is the only life I’ve ever known, Richard; I grew up in it. I thought it was the only way for me, that if I concentrated all my efforts on it, other things would follow and, if they didn’t follow, that they weren’t important. But they are, they are, I know they are. I have such a sense of need right now; a need to divest myself of—what shall I call it?—power? will? resources? Everything I’ve spent a lifetime building in myself. Here, with you, these moments I have such a longing to be weak, to give myself entirely, be taken care of; to release that bound-up woman from my mind, the woman I have held a captive all these years because I felt that it was what she needed. I want to let her go now, Richard, let her be protected.”

  She groaned. “Dear Lord, I can’t believe these words are coming from my lips. Do you know how deeply you have altered me in such a short time? Do you? There has never been anyone; ever. My mother always told me that, one day, I would marry a man of wealth, a man of title. I never believed her, though. I knew, inside, that there’d be no one in my life. But now you are here; suddenly, so suddenly. Taking away my will, my resolution, my breath, Richard. And, I fear, my heart.”

  She drew back quickly, looking up at me, her lovely face suffused with color, eyes shimmering with tears about to fall. “I will say it; I must,” she said.

  At that very second, the most maddening thing that might have happened in the world did happen. Totally alone, did I say? Apart from any threat of outside intervention?

  There was a knocking on the rear door of the car and what other voice in the entire universe but that of William Fawcett Robinson, calling loudly, “Elise!”

  The impact on her was severe. In the instant she heard his voice, every motivation which had made her stay aloof from men so many years seemed to rush back and she jerked away from me with a startled gasp, twisting toward the rear of the car, her expression one of shock.

  “Don’t answer him,” I said.

  Words on deaf ears. As Robinson called her name again, Elise stepped hastily to a mirror on the wall and, seeing her reflection, made a pained sound, both palms jumping to her flushed cheeks as though to hide them. Looking around, she moved hurriedly to a counter, poured a small amount of water from a pitcher to a bowl, and dipped her fingers in it, patting it against her cheeks. Compromised, I thought, the wonder being that I really felt that way. I was submerged in a perhaps absurd yet all too real and disquieting Victorian drama in which a woman of quality is caught in an intolerable trap, a trap which threatened, as they usually put it, “to tear the very fabric” of her social position. And it wasn’t funny; it wasn’t funny at all. I stood immobile, watching as she dried her cheeks, her lips pressed hard against each other, whether from anger or to keep them from trembling I had no idea.

  Robinson called, “I know you are in there, Elise!”

  “I’ll be out in a moment,” she answered, her tone so cold it chilled me. She brushed by me without a word and started through the sitting room. I followed numbly. He followed us, I thought. It was the only possibility.

  I was halfway through the parlor compartment when I wondered if she wanted me to remain out of sight. The conjecture ended quickly. If Robinson had been watching us, it would only make it worse if I hid. Anyway—I felt myself bristle—who was he to force me to hide? I stepped forward again and was close behind Elise when she opened the door.

  Robinson’s face was a mask of such intense hostility that I felt a bolt of fear. If he had a revolver in the pocket of his suit coat, I was finished. A headline flashed across my mind: MANAGER OF FAMOUS ACTRESS SHOOTS MAN. Or would it be SHOOTS LOVER?

  “I think you had better go and rest,” he told Elise in a low, trembling voice.

  “Have you been following me?” she demanded.

  “This is scarcely a time for discussion,” he responded tightly.

  “I am engaged to you as an actress, not a doormat, Mr. Robinson,” she said, with such an autocratic tone that, had it been addressed to me, I would have wilted. “Do not attempt to wipe your boots on me.” There it was, in full force: the background she’d explained to me so patiently and, now, assailed him with so vitriolically.

  Robinson seemed to pale at her words—if it was possible for him to be any paler than he was already. Without a word, he turned and descended the steps of the rear platform. Elise went outside and I followed. I stood watching her lock the door for several moments before it came to me that a gentleman would have locked it for her. By then it was too late; she was descending the steps ahead of me. Robinson held up his hand but she ignored him, features hardened with resentment.

  As I reached the ground, Robinson looked at me so venomously that I almost drew back. “Mr. Robinson,” I started.

  “Leave off, sir,” he interrupted in a rumbling voice, “or I shall have a shy at you.” I didn’t know what he was saying exactly but sensed that it was in the area of physical violence.

  Robinson looked at Elise and extende
d his arm. Dear Lord, the look she gave him. A goddess in unearthly rage could not have exceeded it. “Mr. Collier will escort me,” she said.

  I think I could have bounced a ball off Robinson’s cheeks, they became so rigid. His eyes, somewhat bulbous already, threatened to erupt from their sockets. I have never seen a man so angry in my life. I felt both arms begin to tighten, hands fisting automatically as I prepared to defend myself. If it had not been for his unquestioning respect for Elise, I’m sure there would have been a bloody skirmish.

  As it was, he turned abruptly on his heel and started toward the hotel with long, furious strides. I didn’t raise my arm for Elise but took hold of hers instead, feeling how it trembled as we walked away from the railway car. I knew she didn’t want to talk so I kept silent, holding her arm in a firm grip and matching her disturbed pace, stride for stride, glancing occasionally at the stiffened whiteness of her face.

  No word was spoken until we reached the door of her room. There, she turned and looked at me, attempting to smile but managing only a faint grimace.

  “I’m sorry about what happened, Elise,” I said.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” she answered. “This is Robinson’s doing. He is playing it low-down now.” She actually bared her teeth, giving me a momentary—and, I admit, startling—impression of a tigress lurking underneath her carefully restrained exterior. “Of all the cheek,” she muttered. “I will not be ordered about by him.”

  “He does have rather a kingly manner,” I said, attempting to lighten the moment.

  She would not accept the attempt but made a scoffing sound. “It would take an epidemic to make him a king.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her remark. Seeing it, she tightened, thinking for a moment, I suppose, that I was laughing at her, then realizing why I smiled, managing a smile herself, though one devoid of humor. “I have always been his most malleable—and most remunerative—of stars,” she said. “He has no reason whatsoever to behave toward me like this. As though we were wed by marriage contract rather than business.” Again, the scoffing sound. “People have actually thought we are secretly married,” she added. “He has never sought to dissuade them.”

  I took both of her hands in mine and held them gently, smiling at her. She tried, I could see, to control her anger but, obviously, what Robinson had done had struck too deeply and her anger would not be dismissed. “Well, he is wrong,” she said. “If he thinks this scandalous and tawdry, that is his lack. It is my heart, my life.” She drew in shuddering breath. “Kiss me once and let me go,” she said.

  It may have been a request but it sounded more like a demand. I did not argue with it. Leaning over, I touched my lips to hers. She did not respond in any way and I wondered if her telling me to kiss her was, in her mind, more a personal defiance of Robinson than a desire for my kiss.

  Then, as though by magic, she was gone and I was staring at her closed door, thinking that nothing had been said about our seeing each other again. Did that mean she didn’t intend to see me anymore? I could not believe that, in light of what had happened in the railway car. Still, my confidence was not exactly at a crest either.

  With a sigh, I turned and walked from the public sitting room onto the Open Court. Crossing to the outside stairs, I trudged up to the third floor and my room. Unlocking the door, I went inside, removed my coat and boots, and lay down on the bed. Stretching out, I realized how tired I was. Thank God there hadn’t been a fight, I thought. Robinson would have killed me.

  The entire experience with him had drained me. How fiercely he protects her. Obviously the man’s feeling for her far exceeds the regard of manager for client. I can hardly blame him for that.

  I tried to think of a way by which to see her again. Clearly, she had to rest now but what about later? Had any arrangement been made for me to see the play? It might not have. The thought of showing up at the Ballroom door and being turned away made me cringe. Yet it could occur.

  I tried to recall the entire scene which had taken place in her railway car but only one thing kept repeating in my mind: her murmuring to me, weakly and defeatedly, “More fallen.” I heard her say it again and again, each time tingling with the memory. She loved me. I had reached Elise McKenna and she loved me.

  When I woke up, it was dark. Instantly, I felt alarm and looked around. Seeing nothing that could help me place myself, I sat up quickly, trying to remember where the light switch was. I couldn’t recall having seen it but knew it had to be near the door and, standing, lumbered in that direction. I felt around the wall with clumsy movements until my fingers touched the switch.

  The flare of light evoked a sigh of deep relief from me; I was still in 1896. The sigh led to a smile of confidence. I had, now, slept four times without losing hold, four times without waking to a headache.

  My next alarm was that I’d overslept; that, already, the play was being performed. While less of an anxiety than the previous one, it was enough to dismay me and I wondered how to find out what time it was. Phone the desk, my mind suggested. Immediately, I reprimanded it with a scowl. Would it never catch on?

  I opened the door quickly. As I did, I saw two small envelopes lying on the carpet, one white, one pale yellow. I picked them up and looked at the handwriting on them. Both were very neat and orderly but, on the butter-colored envelope, there was a seal of pale green wax, the delicate figure of a rose imprinted on it. The sight of it was so evocative of the charm of this period, as well as moving to me because I knew it had to be from her, that I stood there smiling at it like a happy schoolboy.

  I wanted to read it instantly but first had to find out what time it was. Stepping out into the corridor, I looked in both directions. Not a soul in sight. That panicked me, making me believe that everyone was at the play. I started hurrying along the corridor and went outside onto the balcony.

  The Open Court was once again a fairyland of colored lights. Shivering at the chill of the night air as it pierced my shirt, my eyes searched the Court, finally catching sight of a man walking across it. I called down to him and, at my second call, he stopped and looked up in surprise.

  I must have made a startling vision standing in my shirtsleeves, two letters clutched in my hand, my hair sticking up in clumps from where I’d slept on it. He made no mention of my disarray, however, as I asked him for the time but, slipping his watch from its vest pocket, released its cover and informed me that it was thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds after six o’clock; highly precise fellow, he.

  Thanking him profusely, I returned to my room. There was plenty of time to wash up, dine, and get to the play. Shutting the door, I sat on the bed and opened the white envelope first, wanting to save Elise’s for last.

  Inside the envelope was a white card about four by five inches in size on which were printed the words: The management of the Hotel del Coronado requests the pleasure of your presence on (the following written by hand) Friday, November 20, 1896, at 8:30 p.m. Added below were the handwritten words: In the Ballroom—The Little Minister—starring Miss Elise McKenna. I smiled at it gratefully. She’d seen to the arrangement.

  Hastily, I opened the other envelope, trying not to break the seal but unable to avoid it. It was from her; and I confess to being flabbergasted at the quality of her penmanship. Where did she learn to write so beautifully? My scrawl will be an insult to her eyes.

  Too, her written words are so much more effusive—and certain—than they were when she spoke to me. Is it absence from my presence that permits this freedom of expression? Perhaps, in 1896, letters are the only medium through which women can express emotion.

  Richard [she wrote], Please forgive the “gone to bad” envelope. [It was a little wrinkled, I forgot to mention.] It is the only one I have. Which tells you how often I write to men.

  Forgive me if emotion and expression are simultaneous in this note. Ever since we met on the beach, I have been living in a kind of folie lucide, each sense heightened, everything I see strangely d
efined—every sound sharp and distinct, every sight vivid to my eyes. In brief, since meeting you, I feel things more.

  Was I very pale when I looked at you after we had first come into the hotel last night? I feel that I must have been. It seemed as though I had no blood in my veins. I felt weak and most unreal—as, I am sure you know, I felt this afternoon when we were in my car.

  I confess to you that, despite this intensified sense of perception which your arrival in my life brought forth, I thought you, at first, to be no more than a very capable and clever fortune hunter—forgive me for saying it! I only do so because I want you to know everything. God save my suspicious nature, I even suspected Marie (my wardrobe mistress, you remember) of working some arrangement with you to gull me. I apologize a hundred times for that. I would not even tell you but I must be honest.

  When we were together this afternoon, I felt such happiness flooding through me, my emotions fairly drowned in it. I have the feeling still as I sit in my room, writing to you—though the waves, thank Heaven, have quieted to a constant, flowing stream.

  Despite my pendulumlike behavior on our walk, you must know that I enjoyed it. No, that is too mild a word. You must know that I was moved. So much so that to be away from you has filled me with a sadness which conflicts with my aforesaid flow of happiness. How confused my emotions are this afternoon.

  I keep thinking of my faults. From one extreme of looking (in vain, I admit) for faults in you, I, now, can only see my own. I feel I ought to be much better than I am to deserve your devotion.

  Richard, I have never been romantically involved before. I told you so and want to repeat it in writing. There has never been anyone—and I am glad, so glad. I never truly believed—despite childlike dreams—that any man could make me feel this way. Well, dear Mr. Collier, I am beginning to see the error of my ways.