Interloper at Glencoe

by Julianne Lee

  “You’ll need a swimsuit.”

  “I cannae swim.”

  “When summer comes you’ll want to try the pool. It gets pretty hot around here in July.”

  “Pool?”

  “The one outside the apartment. It’s for swimming in.”

  “Indeed?” That sounded rather fun. She’d bathed in the river, but had never ventured into the current. There was no current in the blue pond. “Perhaps I’ll try it, then.”

  They chose a “suit” that barely covered her most private parts and tied in strings at her neck, back and hips, colored a bright blue. “It brings out your eyes,” said Nick.

  “Aye, and I’m certain it’s my eyes you’re looking at,” she replied, feeling quite naked and she knew everyone in the shop must be gawking at her.

  With a chuckle, he shook his head. “Mmm... no. I confess they’re not. But you’ll be glad to have a small suit once you’re in the water and the cloth gets wet.”

  “I generally bathe naked.”

  “Mmm... no, the pool isn’t private enough for that. We’ll buy the suit.”

  “Very well. If you like it.”

  He grinned. “Oh, yeah. Bigtime.”

  The cart now filled with clothing, in another section of the shop Nick gathered brushes for hair and for teeth, and some soap and perfume he let her choose by scent. Most of them she rejected for being too sharp, some for smelling like animals or food, but she finally found one of each she liked well enough to approve. On the spot he sprayed some on her wrist, and she held it near her face for a long time, thinking how she’d never in her life dreamed of one day wearing perfume like a lady. Even Lady Glencoe had never been so pampered.

  Then Nick promised payment to the storekeeper by showing another servant woman his card and signing a note of exchange, and they returned to Nick’s carriage with several sacks of clothing and small items. Outside the shop where the carriages were parked Nick watched out for her as they walked, to keep her from wandering in front of the slow-moving carriages, for she was fascinated with the bright blue sacks and couldn’t help feeling of them. They were like paper, but far softer and lighter. And difficult to tear. They stretched before they would tear. She began poking holes in one of the sacks to watch the stretching and turning white. Nick chuckled as he drew her along.

  “God help us when you get hold of your first sheet of packing bubbles.”

  “Which bubbles?”

  “Nothing. You’ll find out soon enough, I guess.”

  Beth shrugged and played some more with the blue bag in her hand.

  The ride home was far more relaxed than the ride away had been, and Beth thrilled to watch things speed past. By now she realized Nick had told the truth about his skill at driving, and would keep them safe. They arrived in the stone stable without smacking into anything, and Nick let her out of the carriage to return to his chambers.

  The lamps inside burned just as brightly as they had when they’d left, and the room was exactly as warm. No fire to burn down or to bank for the night, no candles or rush lights to replace. Beth followed Nick into his bedroom, where he busied himself with the bags, shifting some of his things out of one of the drawers in his chest and shoving back some clothing that hung in the armoire hidden inside his wall behind a sliding door. “This drawer is yours now,” he told her and indicated the chest. “And this side of the closet. We’ll get you some more dresses and stuff later, but this ought to do for now.”

  “More dresses?” She’d never had more than one overdress and two shifts at a time, and never mind all these other things Nick deemed so necessary.

  “You don’t want to wear the same thing every day. Not if you don’t need to.”

  She had to allow as that much was true. But she’d always needed to, and had never imagined otherwise.

  “And here. Come here.” Nick reached for the case he’d carried with him to work, and set it on the bed to open it. From it he produced a small, oblong black box. “I stopped to buy this on the way home from work.” He handed it to her, then stuffed his hands in his pockets to watch her open it.

  For a moment Beth couldn’t get the box open, but after some fumbling discovered the lid was on a hinge and so she lifted it. Inside, laid across a bed of black velvet, was a tiny silver chain, so shiny it almost appeared a sliver of light. Hung on it was a silver crucifix the length of the first knuckle of her finger. It dangled from a jewel setting through which the chain was threaded. In that was a stone: a tiny ruby so dark as to be nearly black. It glinted, and showed its red heart like a whispered secret.

  Nick was saying, “I know you guys are Catholic, and I think this is the kind of cross you wear. With the body on it.”

  Beth was stunned. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.” She touched the stone with the tip of her finger. “It looks like a drop of blood.”

  “Put it on. Here, let me help you.”

  She gaped at him as he took the chain from the box, fiddled with its clasp, and put it around her neck. “For me?”

  “Of course, for you. I don’t want a cross. I wanted to give you something that would mean something to you.”

  “It must have been terribly costly.” Her voice shook, and she was terrified she might start crying. Nobody before had ever even thought of giving her anything so fine. Nor anything that would mean something to her, for that. No ring from Gòrdan, nothing from Father but Mother’s cooking pot.

  He grunted. “It set me back a bit, but I think I’ll live. I used to work at an Internet startup, and didn’t blow all my cash like a lot of people did before the bottom fell out, so I’ve got some money set aside.”

  None of his words, beyond the word “cash,” made the least sense to her, but she didn’t dwell on what she couldn’t understand. She said, “You dinnae care if I wear the crucifix, even though you’re not Catholic?”

  “I do care. I want you to wear it because it matters to you. So it matters to me.”

  She laid her fingers over it on her chest, and looked up at him. Words for what she was feeling wouldn’t come. Nobody had ever cared to even know what might be important to her, not even Father, who always attended more to his son’s thoughts than hers. The gift of a crucifix from a man who was not of her religion was an unheard of gesture that cut to the center of her soul. Tears tried to come, and though she struggled to defeat them, they succeeded. She said, nearly choking as she spoke, “It does. It matters a great deal to me. Ye cannae possibly imagine.”

  He bent to kiss her, and she slipped her arms around his neck to hold him close. Then she held his face between her palms and whispered, “I love ye so much!” That made him smile, and she kissed him again.

  Finally he cleared his throat and said, “It’s late. Come with me while I lock up; I’ll show you the things you need to know that I didn’t have time for this morning.”

  It took quite a while to tour the chambers, for Nick explained many of the things Beth had found stupefying earlier. He showed her the “switches” on the lamps that made them light up and go dark, the wires and where they plugged into the walls; he explained the buttons on the black boxes, and even made music come from them. “Recordings,” he called them. The little square boxes contained disks that were called “seedies,” though what was so seedy about them she couldn’t tell. He showed her a box in the kitchen that made things hot very quickly and tweeted like a bird when it was finished with its work, and explained how to make the “stove” do what she wished. Then he showed her how to operate the lock on the outer door, which she already knew but let him explain regardless so he wouldn’t know she’d opened the door earlier against his wishes. Then he drew her to the bedroom and began to strip for bed.

  “Tomorrow if you get bored while I’m at work, you can fool with the stereo or TV. Or you can read a book. There are about a zillion of them in my office.” He tossed his brogues into the bottom of the armoire, then his stockings in the general direction of a basket standing in a corner. One
landed inside, but the other missed entirely and he ignored it.

  “I cannae read.”

  He stopped in the midst of pulling his sark over his head, poked his head back out the neck hole, and stared at her. “You don’t read?”

  She shook her head.

  “At all?”

  “Nae. My brother learned some, but the schooling is far too costly to waste on a girl.”

  Nick grunted and continued undressing. “Well, we’re going to have to deal with that. Around here, it’s way too costly to not know how to read.”

  “The women here do?” Beth also pulled her sark over her head, then removed the brogues and stockings from her feet.

  He nodded. “Pretty much everyone. At least a little bit. There are signs, instructions, labels... too many things you need to know that you get from reading. I’ll have to teach you.”

  Her heart fluttered at the prospect of schooling. It had never crossed her mind to want it, and now she realized she wanted it very much. It was an exciting prospect.

  Nick slipped under the covers, and folded them back for her to get in. He wore no nightshirt, and she had no gown. Obviously his intention was not to sleep.

  “I’m very tired, Nick.”

  There was a brief flicker across his face, then he replied, “Yes. So am I. That’s why we’re going to bed. Come on, so I can turn out the light.”

  Hesitant, she complied and finished undressing to slip under the covers. He reached to the lamp at the bedside and clicked it off, then settled into the bedclothes beside her. At first the linens were cool against her skin, but with Nick there the warmth soon enveloped her. He rolled toward her to slip an arm over her, settled more deeply into his pillow, and in only a few seconds was breathing his heavy near-snore.

  Beth touched her fingertips to the crucifix, turned her face toward his chest to fill her head with his scent, pressed her lips to his skin, and soon was also insensible.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning while Nick readied for work, he realized Beth needed help getting started. She looked lost, not knowing what to wear or where to start her day. He helped her with her new clothes, choosing a pair of jeans and a tank shirt for her, and in the bathroom introduced her to the toiletries he’d bought. He hoped to get through this quickly and not have to go into too much detail, for being late to work again today would be a bad idea. His employer liked to come and go at will, and depended on Nick to be there so he could. The mechanics were good mechanics, but they tended to lose customers if Nick wasn’t there to take care of business.

  “This stuff goes under your arms.” He held out the deodorant. “It makes you smell better.”

  She frowned at the bottle, looked at the soft stick, sniffed it, then started to apply it to her elbows.

  “No. Here.” He indicated his own armpit, then pointed to hers.

  “For what?”

  His brain scrambled for a reply she wouldn’t misunderstand. Though he’d grown accustomed to the strong odors of earlier times and liked the way she smelled—mildly earthy and sexy—he knew others in the present would not find it so agreeable. But he couldn’t tell her that. So he said, “It’s customary. It’s something everyone does, like a ritual.”

  “Ritual, you say? A scenting ceremony?”

  “Aye.”

  “Ye liar.”

  He chuckled, but glanced around the room in search of some way out of this. “Okay, busted. But it’s still something you do because everyone does it, and they’ll think badly of you if you don’t.”

  “Very well, then I shall.” She applied the stuff appropriately, checking with each stroke of the stick to see how much it was leaving. “As with your fork, which is a pleasing novelty but will certainly become an annoyance over time.”

  “Well, you like the perfume. With this stuff you need less perfume.”

  “I see. Well, then ’tis good to save the costly perfume.”

  In short order she was well turned out, her hair combed and tied back in a red ribbon, in jeans that hugged her hips just so, and a tank shirt that revealed curves and lines of her body quite disguised by the heavy, laced overdress she had worn over a shift and baggy blouse. She seemed more thin now, lithe and graceful. As he gazed at her, a fluttering started up in his belly, and he had to take a deep breath and remind himself it was time to leave for work.

  “I’ve got to go.” He kissed her and went to get his briefcase.

  “But you went yesterday.”

  “Yeah. Five days a week. I manage a repair shop.”

  “Every day?”

  “Monday through Friday. I get weekends off for good behavior.”

  “Ye couldnae stay with me for some time?”

  He touched his fingertips to her face and looked into her eyes. How he wished he could stay! But he said, “Not and keep my job. Worse, if I did let someone else take over for the week, the place would go completely to hell.” She blinked at that, and he clarified, “I mean, the place would be a mess by the time I returned. I’m like...” He held his palms out as he searched for description, “...like the thing that holds everything together so everyone does their job and the money goes where it’s supposed to, and parts get ordered properly, and all that stuff.”

  “Overseer.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you carry a whip, then?”

  He chuckled. “Only figuratively.”

  That seemed to puzzle her, and he thought what an odd combination she was of naiveté and knowing. He said, “Seriously, I’ve got to go.” He gave her a quick kiss.

  It would have been a joy to stay at home and take her around to all the places he knew she would love to see, to teach her about his world and the terrific things in it. Saturday. He would be free on Saturday, and then they could be together.

  Then he remembered the game. Most Saturday mornings he spent playing football with a bunch of guys at a park in North Hollywood. After the game, then. Saturday afternoon they could hang out together. But for now it was time to go to work. He showed her how to turn the television on and off, kissed her goodbye at the door, and left.

  Three steps out the door, he stopped, turned around, and went back. “Beth,” he said as he set his briefcase on the floor, then he took her in his arms and kissed her. In that kiss were all the things he wanted to say but couldn’t express in mere words. His joy at having met her, his intense desire for her, his overwhelming relief that she would not be murdered. He held her to him, and hoped she would understand. Then he retrieved his briefcase from the floor and left again before he might change his mind and stay.

  o0o

  Beth watched Nick hurry away, and sighed. Not so frightening as yesterday, and she was able to contemplate the day ahead of her with less confusion and more curiosity. She still didn’t like to look at the magical portraits on the shelves, so she placed them face-down and ignored them after that.

  Today she couldn’t resist going outside, for the sunshine was welcoming and warm. More bright than even the loveliest summer in Glencoe. And noisy. She could hear the sounds of the cars everywhere from within the stone courtyard. A thudding sound came from a distance, grew louder until she could almost feel it move the air around her, then it faded into the distance until it was gone. She thought it sounded like the heartbeat of God passing by.

  The courtyard was surrounded by buildings where other people had their own chambers like Nick’s, and between walkways around the pond were plants and flowers that were a sight to behold. Big, broad leaves and enormous flowers everywhere. And trees so strange she almost couldn’t tell they were trees. Straight, gray trunks, and no branches, but ridiculously large leaves sticking out of the top. They cast very little shade, leaving the courtyard open to the strong sunshine.

  A man passing through slowed to peer at her. He wore the blue trews that everyone seemed to have, and a black sark. He seemed older than Nick, but she doubted she could know anyone’s age in this place. Not if Nick was as old as he said he was.
r />   “Good morning,” she said to him.

  The man stopped walking and glanced around the courtyard. Then he smiled at her and said, “You live here?”

  A moment’s hesitation, then she nodded.

  “Hi, I’m Randy.” That raised Beth’s eyebrows, for him to admit such a thing on first meeting, but he went on without dwelling on how randy he was. “I live up there.” He nodded toward the door above Nick’s. Which apartment are you in?”

  Apartment? Chambers, she guessed. Nick’s chambers. “Those there.” She nodded toward the door.

  The fellow grunted. “I didn’t know Mouliné had a roommate.” Then he looked at her. “Or are you his S.O.?”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Significant Other.” He crossed his arms and stuffed his hands under his arms. “You his girlfriend?”

  Beth reckoned she was Nick’s friend. And she was certainly a girl, so she nodded.

  “Ah.” He sounded disappointed to learn this, and that puzzled Beth until she remembered his comment about being so randy. Perhaps this was the way men approached women in this time. If it was, she thought it a bit strange though it was good he hadn’t tried to touch her yet. She wondered what she would do if he did try, and stepped back a bit.

  “Is that a Scottish accent?”

  “Indeed, it is.”

  “Been in the country long?”

  “Nae. But a few days.”

  The man nodded, then shifted his feet. “Well, enjoy your stay in the U.S. Tell Nick hi for me.”

  “I will. And to you, as well.”

  He nodded, waved, and went on his way. She looked after him, and thought he was singularly friendly. And for a man, also, to chat so casually with a woman as if he were one. As he climbed the steps to the upper walk, she wondered what his name might be.