by Gloria Gay
“It was not the same woman that my mother had known but rather, her twin sister, Madame Enlia that I saw that day.”
Kate recounted to Lanquest her experience as the psychic woman had led her under the magical golden canopy and also told Kate that for many generations her family had been entrusted with guarding the canopy that led to the time portal.
“Madame Enlia then appeared to have changed her mind about allowing me the same youth potion she had given my mother, for without explanation she returned me back to the bus from which she had told me to get down from in a very strange manner. One moment I was with her and the next moment I was inside the bus, going home again!”
Lanquest listened quietly, without asking questions, Kate then told him how at the company where she worked in the office, two of the tour guides had come down with the influenza so they had asked her to take the place of one of them.
She had been eager to advance to tour guide but after spending twelve hours with her co-workers and the tourists in cramped seats in the airplane, she had decided that tour work was not for her and she would instead go on to seek the journalism major she had decided on before her plans had been interrupted by her marriage.
“A detour in our tour had forced us to England on our way to France. Then as I traveled with the tour group in one of the buses from one airport to another in England I awakened suddenly to the realization that I was falling through space and then, to my astonishment, I landed softly in the middle of your forest.”
“The only thing that survived the fall other than myself was this small ring,” she added, glancing at the ring on her finger that she had used to replace her wedding band and engagement set. “I had forgotten to take off.”
“It’s strange that it survived the fall,” said Lanquest. “How did you come to be dressed in leaves, Miss Shallot?”
“I was transferred to your era completely nude.”
“My mother taught me how to sew so that the first thing I did was to weave the leaves of a linden tree and tie them with rushes I found nearby. I was appalled that I would be found naked by someone coming suddenly into the wood.”
“As I did,” said Lanquest with a smile.
Then he added, “Tell me about this world you come from. What year was it?”
“2017. You believe me?”
“I will suspend disbelief, Miss Shallot, because I hardly think you would go about without clothes unless they had been taken from you. If what you say is true then you would be the only person who has successfully travelled through time, at least that we know of.
“Several things point to your telling the truth, at least as you know it: your accent, your manner of speaking and your vocabulary. I deal with some merchants and seamen from the Colonies, or from America, as they prefer for it to be called, and not a single one of them speak as you do, nor introduce words that have no bearing in my time.
“And from what I have learned of your personality in the time that I have known you, Miss Shallot, I would highly doubt that you would purposely go around in the nude.
“I am impressed that from the moment you found yourself without clothes, you ingeniously covered yourself with a gown of your own creation. That is very commendable.”
“I hope,” he added, “that the time you spend at Arcadia will be as pleasant as I am able to make it for you.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
CHAPTER 7
Kate’s first day at Arcadia was quiet.
Romy acquainted her with the clothes press Kate had inherited from Lanquest’s sister, Lucy and they spent two hours going over the clothes.
Kate partook of mid-morning luncheon with both Lanquest and his aunt, Lady Donney and Lady Donney’s welcome was warm. She volunteered to give Kate a tour of the back gardens.
During the afternoon, Lanquest and Kate continued their chat in the library, and Kate related all she knew about her experience with Madame Enlia, whom she held responsible from her fall into the past.
Kate also related all she knew about her mother’s contact with Madame Xalia. Lanquest then asked her to relate her own experiences with the psychic woman’s twin sister, Madame Enlia.
“Perhaps I may pick up something you may have overlooked in her words that may help you to figure out how to return to your time,” he said.
Kate sat back and her mind drifted to that fateful Saturday that seemed to have happened so long ago.
Lanquest gazed at Kate as she spoke of her experiences with the psychic woman and wondered why a warm frisson toward her made him receptive to anything she told him. No woman had ever affected him at first sight as Miss Shallot had. In fact, he was astounded that in his thirty-four years he had never been so instantly attracted and drawn to any woman as he had to Miss Shallot.
He had not known that such an intense exploding feeling existed. His interaction with young women when he was younger and throughout his life had been as bland as vanilla pudding.
The woman he had considered until now the love of his life, Lady Lorraine, he now realized was a pale ton-approved version of a great love, similar to a figure in the cardboard dioramas that were in vogue.
And he was certain that had Kate arrived at his forest in her true age, which she stated was thirty, he would have been just as attracted as he was to her twenty-year version, for it was something that came from within Kate that he was intensely drawn to, a something that had no age to it.
Lanquest erroneously thought that because he had been allowed to choose his own bride his choice was not to be compared to the love his father and mother shared. Their gentle agreement to get along well with each other had grown as they aged together, but not by much, for his father had the occasional discreet tryst. It was hard to keep such things quiet in the compact world of the ton.
Lanquest was now astounded that his mother had turned a blind eye on his father’s occasional escapades. He realized that she appreciated the discreet way in which his father took care of such matters. Had his father taunted his mistresses in front of his mother and hurt and humiliated her, that would have been a different matter.
And that, he realized, was the way of his life.
He realized with a jolt that the moment he fell in love with Kate, which was almost instantly, there would never be another woman for him in his life. And if he had the great good providence to have her in his life, he would never be untrue to her.
He was embarrassed by the many hours he had spent mourning the loss of Lady Lorraine when she left him for another man.
He was astounded at the effect Kate had on him and had had almost instantly. He likened Kate to fire, ice, passion and eternal love.
Just the thought of her weakened his knees and sent a swirl of passion to his loins. He felt her in his veins, his heart, his mind and each breath he took. And, sadly, he knew she would somehow manage to find the way to return to her wondrous future.
Before setting his eyes on Kate, he had scoffed at any of his friends who mentioned love at first sight, for he did not believe in it. Neither did he consider love as the grand passion poets and some men believed it to be. His experience with his parents’ comfortable agreement was all he believed in. Even his grandparents had shared a similar arrangement as his parents.
He believed in love now.
There was a need in him to protect this lovely young woman from a world that was as alien to her as hers was to him. And his need to care for her and shield her from anyone who would harm her grew by the minute. How to explain that he couldn’t stop thinking about her every second since he first set his eyes on her?
He realized his mind had wandered as she seemed to be waiting for his response.
“Please go on, Miss Shallot,” he said.
“It was early spring when I boarded the bus and went looking for the psychic woman,” Kate began. “I also feared I might not find her. My mother’s visit had taken place many years before and the woman might have died or she might be old and in a home for old people.�
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“Why was it that knowing your mother’s visits to that woman had not brought happiness to her, you went there yourself, Miss Shallot?”
“Well, I wanted to absorb my time in something that would take my mind away from my horrid marriage but that did not include dating other men. I was just not in the mood for that.”I take it ‘dating’ is your form of saying you would allow another man to court you?”
“In my time ‘courting’ went out with the tide decades ago and was replaced by dating. Dating does not mean a woman must now be almost pledged in marriage to that man. Such a description died with the Victorian age, thankfully.
“It’s really more like casually ‘going out’ with someone, both for men and for women. I won’t go into the details, but you know what I mean. After all, I live in an age two hundred years from yours and women have achieved rights almost on par with men.
“And as for what that dating entails, well, it can go the gamut, depending on how many dates you’ve had with the person. I’d rather just let it go at ‘courting’.”
“Very well,” said Lanquest, suppressing a smile, “I think I understand the general idea. Please go on, Miss Shallot.”
“I was eager for adventure, eager to experience what my mother had experienced.
“My sister Stacy was afraid of what would happen if I followed my mother’s footsteps but I was deaf to her entreaties. I assured her nothing would happen and if I thought something was dangerous I would back off.
“How little I knew of what could happen!”
“Go on with your story,” said Lanquest when he saw her hesitate. He realized he also loved the sound of her voice and had developed a need to hear it.
“I was so lost in thought while riding the bus that I almost missed the place I was supposed to get down at and was startled when a woman dressed in what appeared to be a gypsy costume tapped my shoulder and told me I was going to miss my stop.
“She was dressed just as my mother had described the psychic, Madame Xalia.
I was startled that this complete stranger knew where I was going but still, I stood up, pulled the stop cord and got off the bus. Then next thing I know the same woman was walking down the street ahead of me! I had seen her remain in the bus as I got down from it and I was the only one who got off the bus. And the bus had not stopped to let her off, yet there she was, walking briskly ahead of me on the sidewalk!
“There seems to be some element of the supernatural concerning this woman,” said Lanquest.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Kate agreed. “When I caught up with her, I asked her if she was Madame Xalia and she said she was Madame Xalia’s twin sister, Madame Enlia.
“The woman then led me under the golden canopy in the same way my mother had described.
“Did this Madame Enlia speak to you when you were with her under the canopy? Did she say anything of importance?”
“She was talking, but I hardly listened to her as she spoke, so awed I was by the magical canopy. You would not believe how incredibly beautiful, spectacular and difficult to describe it was—even ethereal.
“She said something like…’There will be a delayed reaction so you must be careful where you are during the next few weeks…
“Oh, my god, she did warn me! She just didn’t know that I was going to travel. I didn’t know I was going to be traveling, either, because it was an unexpected request from my boss at work—the tour thing that happened a few days after—so I took no notice of what the woman said to me. Sorry, you must think I’m rambling.” Kate stopped with a sheepish grin.
“I’ll write down her warning of a delayed reaction,” Lanquest said.
“Think back, Miss Shallot,” he added. “Maybe you missed some other things. Try to concentrate. Would you like a little sherry or brandy?”
He realized that not only was he very interested in Kate’s story, he was also unconsciously extending the time he spent with her.
“Yes, perhaps a little brandy. Maybe it’ll relax me enough so that I can think back, let my mind wander without my interference.”
When Kate turned to him and looked at him with her deep blue eyes, Lanquest pressed the bottle of brandy between both his hands, for he felt he might drop it. Such an effect Kate Shallot had on him.
“I can’t imagine that the psychic woman would be so cruel as to not tell me how to get back to my time. Do you, my lord? My mother never mentioned time travel in her journal so it seemed this Madame Enlia was making experiments with me.”
Once Kate had taken a couple of small sips of her brandy, she sat back in the leather chair and closed her eyes.
Lanquest smiled as he gazed at her. “Tell me what else she said, Miss Shallot,” he pressed.
“After that, Madame Enlia got close to my face, looked deeply into my eyes and said: “You had a great sadness in your life that you must heal. I will help you.”
“I supposed she referred to my divorce and I dismissed her silly words, for I had completely erased Alex from my mind, and it was certainly not the great sadness she imagined it to be. In fact, since I had thrown all his pictures in the trash can, I hardly even remembered what the skunk looked like and certainly never thought of him if I could help it.”
Lanquest smiled, pleased at her words. “Did she say anything after that?” he asked when Kate stopped.
“The tattoo!”
“She mentioned a tattoo?”
“Yes! She said something like, ’Look for the tattoo on your knee when it appears, the reverse will allow you to take…’ Oh! I can’t remember the rest of that sentence!”
“Did you check your uh—knee for the tattoo?”
“There was no tattoo on either of my knees when I bathed.”
“Oh. Well, the psychic woman did say it would appear, she just didn’t say when. You must be patient.” Lanquest jotted down this last.
“I’m impatient and impulsive, a very bad combination,” Kate responded.
“Do you have some paper I can have, my lord? I’d like to write all that down exactly as I remember it. I wish I had known how important what she was saying was and listened more carefully. So much now depends on remembering.”
Lanquest handed Kate foolscap and the quill and inkwell.
Once she had written down the psychic’s words as she remembered them, Kate sat back on her chair with a sigh of relief.
“Not exactly and expert with the quill and pen,” she said as she glanced at the blotches she had made on the paper.
“It takes practice if that is not your method of writing,” Lanquest smiled.
Everything about Kate Shallot fascinated him. She made him laugh, she made him dream, she excited him and absorbed him. She made him realize that the orderly way he kept his desk, with everything in its place, was silly. He wanted now to take handfuls of objects in a desk drawer and toss them up in the air.
She also made him realize he had lived his life in the same orderly way he kept his desk, with everything in its place, as his father and grandfather had.
“We use ink-filled pens,” Kate said, looking at her quill, and added, “but even pens and pencils will soon become obsolete as people type on their computers and phones.”
“Tell me about your world, your world of the year 2017,” said Lanquest. “Describe that ‘airplane’ you mentioned.”
For more than an hour Kate spoke and Lanquest listened, never once interrupting her as she told him of the differences between her world and his.
He gasped when she spoke of airplanes and fast cars and buildings of over a hundred stories, of computers that could be held in the palm of the hand and rockets that had landed on the moon and even Mars.
When she stopped to catch her breath, he spoke quietly.
“I am a student of the great artist and inventor, Leonardo Da Vinci, Miss Shallot, and I believed, before I met you, that his genius was the basis for many of the innovations of our time and am now convinced even more that some of those things you mentioned had rud
imentary beginnings in his brain. The helicopter you described, for instance, and the airplane. There are drawings of vaguely similar such contraptions among Da Vinci’s drawings.
“In school I wrote many essays and papers on his life and work.”
Lanquest expanded on his interest in Da Vinci’s writings and art and Kate listened with great interest.
“I’m so glad you became interested in Da Vinci’s work,” said Kate, “for you seem to have an open mind that few in your age would have.”
“Thank you so much for your help, my lord,” she added. “You cannot imagine how I bless the day it was on your property that I fell. How would I have fared if I had fallen somewhere else? I shudder to think of it!”
“I welcome you to my home, Miss Shallot,” Lanquest assured her as they both stood up, “and will do everything in my power to help you in your quest to return to your time. You may make your residence with my aunt and with me for as long as that takes.”
He chastised himself for wishing that her departure from his world would not be too soon, but he shuddered to think how empty life would seem once she was gone from his life.
“Thank you,” said Kate, her eyes filling up with tears, so that Lanquest felt a grip in his heart as he said good-night to her. He wanted her to stay in his world, with him. Yet he felt this will o’the wisp beautiful woman could never really belong to him. He turned away so that she would not see his eyes fill with tears.
He had fallen in love in one day with the one woman he could never have.
Could he ever convince her to stay in his world? He was certain of the answer and he felt a pain in his heart that could not compare to any pain he had ever felt in his life.
CHAPTER 8
Next day Lanquest told Kate that he would be gone for a few days from the estate, for there were problems in several of the tenant farms in his estate in the North, Silver Sky, the farthest ones from that estate. The flood had caused problems, both to the farms and to the farmers. Two of the farmers were bedridden from injuries in one of the landslides and he was going there to arrange for medical care for them.