Katie did ride – and in the best English tradition. Mimi thought riding lessons were posh, ‘very Ralph Lauren’, as she put it. But all that posing and posturing was useless when faced with a very old, very stubborn mule. There were no reins, no stirrups and no mincing English ‘riding master’ to help Katie now. She circled the animal, and then took a running leap at it. The mule gave her a sour look, and stepped aside, leaving her face down in the mud.
‘Really,’ Miss Nightingale commented drily, and signalled to an orderly, who was moving pallets of the wounded nearby. Without ceremony he flipped Katie, stomach down, over the mule. The animal bolted and Katie just had time to scramble onto its back and follow Florence Nightingale – who was not only sitting bolt upright, but riding side-saddle – without the saddle. Katie didn’t bother to ask where they were going. Miss Nightingale was not one for explanations, and besides, Katie wouldn’t have understood the answers anyway.
Katie had pitched and rolled through two sea voyages. She’d only had a couple of hours’ sleep. Now she was scrambling to stay on top of a very unhappy mule. She knew that if she fell off, Florence Nightingale might leave her there, all alone, in the mud. So she clung on with every muscle in her body. Long after nightfall they came to a halt in front of a long, low-roomed building – still and dark, except for a brightly coloured Union Jack waving over the door.
Miss Nightingale did not dismount, but called into the darkness, ‘I am in need of Miss Mary Seacole of Jamaica.’ The stillness exploded into racket and confusion. A dozen boys burst from the house and tugged open a corrugated iron gate. They swatted the mules, who, with a final stumble, passed into a yard crowded with horses, sheep, goats, stables, huts and pigsties. The sheep tried to bolt and the boys threw themselves on their woolly bodies. The pigs squealed loudly.
‘Mary Seacole be within,’ one of the boys shouted. ‘We not be help’n you ladies; we’s here to be guarding de pigs.’
This reasoning seemed perfectly civilized to Florence Nightingale. ‘Fresh pork, such a delicacy in an outpost like this,’ she commented with sympathy. ‘I’m certain every man within a ten-mile radius would like to get his hands on your pigs. Guard them well.’ She leapt easily from her mule. With a groan, Katie let go and landed with a thud.
Candles flared behind the rough-hewn windows, and voices could be heard within. The door flung open, and silhouetted in the light was a most amazing woman. She wore a bright yellow dress with a red calico scarf tied firmly around the neck. On her ample bosom a large golden amulet shaped like a flask swung from a chain. Her flapping Leghorn hat was royal blue and sported several sweeping feathers. Under the brim was a reddish, brownish face, with kindly eyes and a broad freckled nose.
The woman ran forward and, taking Katie by the arms, supported her up the stairs. ‘Child, you do look half-dead,’ she cried in a sunny, sing-song voice. ‘And you,’ she said, turning to Florence Nightingale, ‘don’t you know better than traipsing through a battlefield in the dark of the night?’
Miss Nightingale took the rebuke calmly. ‘So, Mary Seacole, this is your establishment?’ was her only response.
The woman gave a little skip and, throwing her arms wide, exclaimed, ‘Welcome to de British Hotel!’ To Katie, sick with exhaustion, it could have been the Ritz.
It was more of a storehouse than a hotel. The long iron room was chock-a-block with counters, closets and shelves; all heaped with burlap bags, rusting tins and knobbly paper packages.
Mary Seacole pulled a wooden chair up to the metal camp stove and Katie sank into it gratefully. ‘Now child, you just warm your bones. I’ll get you a bite to eat. It’s rice pudding day, nice and hot.’ The camp stove, though small, gave out a great deal of heat, and Katie began to doze off. She could hear Mary Seacole bustling about, yelling to the boys in the yard and scolding Florence Nightingale.
After a while, Katie was given a strong cup of tea and a tin bowl of thick rice pudding. Florence Nightingale seated herself nearby, with her own tin bowl. ‘I don’t know how you manage it,’ she said to Mary Seacole. ‘A lovely nutritious pudding and you say it’s made with no milk?’
‘Cow’s gone dry,’ Mary Seacole replied. ‘Poor old Bess. No milk to be had there. I’m thinking of making her into a curry; Tuesday next if you’re still about.’ Giving Katie a long curious look, she turned to Florence Nightingale. ‘Is this the one?’ she asked.
‘It is one of them at least,’ Miss Nightingale replied. ‘The only one to which we have access. It was Bernardo DuQuelle who found her. Much against his will, he called her back. A stroke of luck for us.’
‘Yes,’ Mary Seacole agreed. ‘We are lucky to get our hands on her, before she falls into less caring hands. Now let’s see what we can do with her.’
Katie shook herself awake. ‘I am sitting right in front of you,’ she protested. ‘I have a name, other than her. I am Katherine Tappan – really Katie Berger-Jones-Burg, but you probably know that.’
The two women frightened her. They spoke a kind of coded language and seemed to have some master plan – but they were not choosing to share all the details. She should have put up more of a fight to stay in Scutari. Why had she ever left Alice and James? For that matter, why had she left New York City? It seemed a hundred years since she had held the walking stick high and chanted the strange words. She could have walked away then, and simply gone back to bed. Instead she’d taken up the challenge and left her warm bed, left Mimi sound asleep . . . would Mimi still be sleeping?
Mary Seacole was rummaging through Katie’s things. She took the walking stick, examined it closely and pushed it aside. ‘There must be something here,’ she muttered, plunging into the carpet bag. ‘Something that links her to . . . ahhh . . . this looks about right.’ She pulled out Katie’s yellow flannel pyjamas, patterned with the orange and green frogs. The Nightingale nurses had been under strict instructions about packing: four cotton nightcaps, one umbrella, modest and functional underclothing. Katie had instinctively taken the stick, then jammed the pyjamas in at the last minute, along with her fuzzy slippers. They were certainly functional, if a bit too garish to be modest.
Florence Nightingale fingered the garments with distaste. ‘They quite set my teeth on edge,’ she said, ‘but the design is excellent in terms of comfort and warmth. There is some type of material in the waistband that allows the trousers to expand with such ease . . .’
‘It’s elastic,’ Katie explained sheepishly. ‘Sometimes I eat too much pizza at night, so it’s handy.’ She reached for her pyjamas, but Miss Nightingale held onto them tight. Searching the pockets, she pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
‘This might make things easier,’ she said, sniffing the paper, ‘it has that acrid smell, from the friction of travel.’
Mary Seacole took it, and sniffed it too, then rubbed it against the amulet hanging around her neck. Pushing back her hat, she held the paper against her forehead. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, ‘this will do.’ Turning to Katie, she smiled and, nodding encouragement, handed her the paper. ‘Now, child,’ she said in her husky sing-song voice. ‘You’ve had your supper, and warmed yourself. So now you just sit yourself down and read your letter to yourself. That’s all you have to do.’
Katie had no idea what the letter was. She could have scrunched it up and jammed it in her pocket at any time. As she unfolded the paper, Mimi’s swirling, girlish hand leapt out at her.
Katie-Kid – I’m off to the Hamptons!!! Yeah, I know, suntan equals skin cancer, but I’m gasping for sun. And there’s a big rave in the works – bongos on the beach – so the bikini and I have split. Talking of bikinis – NO CARBS FOR YOU WHILE I’M GONE . . . !!! Take care, be cool, but stay out of the refrigerator!!!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Mimi
It was classic Mimi: careless, selfish, unthinkingly cruel; but also warm, vibrant, adventurous and funny. Instead of the usual resentment building up, Katie felt a surge of affection. And then she could see Mimi, hear her, smell her distinct scen
t of patchouli and chamomile. Mimi was in front of her. She was still asleep, exactly as Katie had left her, her pink velvet eyeshade firmly in place, the earplugs with purple tassels stuck in her ears. Time obviously didn’t move in the same way when you journeyed back several centuries. Katie had travelled far, but Mimi continued to sleep through one night.
She still had chocolate crusted around her mouth, a hangover from her doughnut binge. It must have got colder though, because she had wrapped the beige cashmere duvet round and round her. She looked like a large slumbering caterpillar. One arm was flung outside the duvet. Katie could see age spots on the back of her hand. Poor Mimi! When she saw this, there would be a worldwide search for the perfect anti-ageing cream. The panic over the onslaught of age would ratchet up a notch. But for now, Mimi was asleep. Her world was at peace.
The only sound in Mimi’s room was her own soft snoring. But something else was going on in Apartment 11C. There was a kind of scratching and clicking. Katie’s mind wandered down the hall, she could see the front door. It was moving slightly, rattling gently on its hinges. With a final sharp click, the door swung open. A figure stood on the threshold, dressed entirely in black. Katie knew with dread this wasn’t Dolores. She made a point of barging in after her Sundays off, bringing the virtuous bustle of a Baptist church meeting into Mimi’s scandalous life. No, it couldn’t be Dolores. A stray beam of street light reflected on a pair of oval metal spectacles. A wispy grey goatee was divided into three braids. ‘No!’ Katie cried out. It was Professor Diuman. He was back and he was breaking in.
He crept down the hallway and through the living room. But this wasn’t his destination. Softly opening one door after another, he rejected the kitchen, the guest bathroom, the den. Opening a fourth door, he nodded slightly, and entered silently. Over his shoulder Katie could see her own bedroom. A wad of pillows under her duvet looked like a sleeping body. The light from the bathroom that had transported her to another time was gone. It wasn’t exactly dark, as the city lights meant New York was never really dark. Professor Diuman could see quite easily – the large pink bed, the painted white chest of drawers, the wide closet with the fold-back doors. With a drawn-out creak, he pushed back the closet door and began to methodically search through Katie’s things. She had a good idea of what he was looking for – the walking stick.
‘Stop!’ Katie cried, ‘stop!’ Suddenly she saw he was carrying a thick metal rod.
Dolores was in the Bronx, Katie was in the Crimea, and Mimi was alone in their apartment, with a madman. What would Diuman do when he couldn’t find the walking stick? What if Mimi woke up? Katie struggled to try and reach Diuman. She leapt to her feet, the note falling to the floor. Lurching forward, she grabbed for a man who wasn’t really there, shouting for police who would not be born for over a hundred years.
Florence Nightingale raised her eyebrows. ‘This isn’t what I expected.’
Mary Seacole shook her head and whistled low. ‘No, it ain’t. She’s gone to the wrong place. That’s one bad trip she’s taking. I’ll get something to calm her down and cool her off.’ Mary disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a tin cup. Taking Katie by the shoulders, and holding the cup to her lips, she coaxed her to drink.
Florence Nightingale leaned forward, sniffing the cup. ‘Spirits? For a girl her age?’ she questioned.
‘Spirits for them who see spirits,’ Mary Seacole replied. ‘She’ll settle now and sleep, and hopefully forget most of it.’
‘We’ll have to try again,’ Florence Nightingale said, ‘though with more care, more caution.’
‘She’s one loose cannon,’ Mary Seacole commented. She held the vessel-shaped amulet between her thumb and forefinger as if taking its pulse. ‘Her power is great, but where it leads her, who can tell?’
Katie was coming to, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes. Had it been a horrible dream, or was Professor Diuman really alone with Mimi in Apartment 11C? ‘I have to go!’ she cried.
‘Where to, child?’ Mary Seacole asked.
Katie’s voice grew strong. ‘To New York, to 89th Street, to Apartment 11C, to the twenty-first century.’
Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole exchanged worried looks. ‘That is impossible,’ Florence Nightingale rapped out. ‘Would you desert your friends? And we need your help, there is much you can offer – not just to the sick and infirm soldiers, but to the British army, the British Empire. You could be pivotal to victory in the Crimea – you could be pivotal in the problems that beset this world. Yet you wail, “I want to go home”. For shame!’
‘But, Mimi!’ Katie protested.
‘Yes, Me, Me – it is selfish of you to be thinking of abandoning your post.’ Miss Nightingale turned to Mary Seacole. ‘Whatever is in that tin cup, give her more.’ Katie drank again. The room began to darken, her thoughts were growing fuzzy. The note from Mimi was on the floor where she’d dropped it. Stealthily she picked it up, and, careful not to read it again, stuffed it in her bodice. She could hear Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale, their voices growing further away.
‘Could you pick up anything from her vision?’ Florence Nightingale asked. ‘Anything we need?’
‘Yes,’ Mary Seacole replied. ‘It was hard, with all the interference from her own time, but there was more. Her energies run so high. They are mightily heightened.’
‘Heightened?’
‘Yes,’ Mary Seacole said softly. ‘She has linked into something, or someone else. She’s made some kind of new connection and this has magnified her abilities.’
Florence Nightingale’s voice rose. ‘Then that must mean . . .’
Mary Seacole gently pulled a blanket over Katie. ‘I think it does,’ she murmured, sounding worried. ‘It just might be . . . the time has come . . . the three, the Chosen, the Tempus – they are all here.’
Chapter Seventeen
Women Must Weep
Katie knew that if she opened her eyes there would be daylight, and she just wasn’t ready for that. It felt as if her head was full of thick, wet cotton balls. She could hear the boys outside – shouting and laughing and chasing each other. Beyond them was another noise, a continual popping and banging far in the distance. Katie listened for a long time, until she figured out where she was. Gradually she recalled another sea voyage, the wounded soldiers and the long mule trek to Mary Seacole’s British Hotel. There was something else, something about Mimi, drifting ghost-like through her befuddled brain. It all made her feel very lonely and anxious. She would have given much for the company of Alice and James. Florence Nightingale, though a nurse, was hardly a comforting companion.
Eventually, the anxiety got the best of her. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on a bed in a room with bare plank walls and a corrugated iron roof. In the corner, a camp stove burned brightly. As she watched the sunshine flicker across the walls there was a brisk knock.
Mary Seacole bustled in carrying a basin and jug. ‘How are you feeling, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Last night was quite a night, but I suppose you don’t remember much, being so tired and all.’
‘Not much,’ Katie said. Mary Seacole’s smile broadened. Katie stretched and, rolling on her side, looked at her. She was an even more extraordinary sight by daylight, and had added a violet and pink apron to her outfit. ‘I remember meeting you, but not much more. Why can’t I remember last night?’ Katie asked.
Mary Seacole busied herself, pouring water into the basin. ‘There must be a reason. Maybe it was the journey; yes, the journey must have been too long. Florence does push people far too hard. I tell her, not everyone is a martyr, afire with a cause. But does she listen – no, no, no. Then she drives herself harder than anyone else. Just think, she’s already on the move. Rushed back to Scutari. You hear those funny, booming noises. That’s our men, firing the big guns. The siege of Sebastopol has begun. We’re hitting the Russians with everything we’ve got, we’re going to bring that city to its knees – but those Russians won’t go down without a fight
. Where there’s war, there’s wounded. Already they’re reporting boatloads of our men being shipped to hospital in Scutari. It seems the doctors will need Florence after all. She left in the middle of the night, with plans to sail with the British wounded this morning.’
‘She’s left me here, all alone?’ Katie panicked. Florence Nightingale might be a difficult woman, but she was certainly a competent one. Of course the wounded men needed Florence Nightingale more – but how was Katie to manage without her?
Mary Seacole flashed a genuine smile. ‘Don’t you worry, Miss. I’ll look after you. And you’re not so alone as you think. You’ve got callers. Now quit fussing and have a nice fresh wash.’
Katie swung her legs off the bed as Mary Seacole bustled out of the room. Company? This was hardly the place, or the time – or even century – for her to expect company. She hoped it would be James or Alice. But the voices she heard shortly were not those of her friends. One of them was completely new – a deep, bluff rolling voice with the lilt of the Irish about it. The other she had heard before. There was no mirror in the room, but she tried to tidy her wild hair and smooth out the wrinkled tweed dress. ‘I must smell terrible,’ she thought, but consoled herself by thinking ‘and so must everyone else.’ With a final pinch to her cheeks, she threw the grey wool cloak over her shoulders and went to meet her guests.
There were two men. Jack was standing in the middle of the room, blushing and shaking his head as Mary Seacole offered him cakes and brandy. The other man had no such qualms. Patting Mary Seacole on the shoulder, he popped two cakes into his mouth at once, and stuffed a third in his pocket for good measure. Katie recognized him: she’d seen him when the troops had paraded before the Queen at Buckingham Palace. It was William Howard Russell. He was stout, though quite tall, with a round face, black hair and whiskers. As a reporter for The Times, he was not in uniform, but had created his own semi-military outfit: a Commissariat officer’s cap with a broad gold band, a Rifleman’s patrol jacket, cord breeches and a pair of leather butcher’s boots with huge brass spurs. Despite the cumbersome boots and spurs, he practically danced across the room and, clicking his heels together, bowed to Katie. ‘And this is the young lady,’ he said ‘ten times more beautiful and larger than life.’
The Chronicles of the Tempus Page 38