Mrs. Downing looked around with distaste. “This place certainly isn’t a possibility,” she said, ignoring the fact that she had condemned Worthington’s three new owners to continued living in the bombed out shell.
“A few weeks to gather your personal possessions,” Mrs. Rolfe went on, “and I’m sure you’ll be ready to move on.”
Violet, staring at this new version of Mrs. Rolfe with awe, understood that Mrs. Downing would find it desirable to move elsewhere.
Betsy jumped with surprise when a soft knock sounded at the Clarence’s front door. Somehow, in spite of her experiences as a time walker, she’d felt caught in limbo, lost in isolation in this house that belonged back in Lavender’s little community. And here somebody was knocking on the door just like at any ordinary house.
“The police have come back,” Mrs. Clarence whispered and then it was that Betsy realized that all four members of the family looked absolutely frozen with fear. Of course, the arrival of a house and its outbuildings as well as several acres of land alongside a modern Texas highway could hardly have gone unnoticed.
And the Clarences would have been the wrong people from which to demand answers when they didn’t know what had happened themselves.
The older girl, Rosie, was the first to move. She tiptoed over to once again peek through the lace curtains to see who was at the door.
She gave a happy little laugh and turned to point to Betsy. “It’s her sister again.”
“That’s good,” Mr. Clarence said hurrying to open the door. “It’s only Eddie and Zan.”
When he opened the door to show a slender, dark-haired woman with a face that guarded itself from emotion, Betsy gave a little scream and rushed to grab her in a hug to which her sister surrendered somewhat awkwardly, her form stiff in Betsy’s arms.
Edith ‘Eddie’ Stephens, now wife of Zan Alston, sometimes had trouble expressing the emotion she felt so deeply, but when Betsy stepped back to see the wide grin on the familiar face and the sparkling eyes she had no doubt that Eddie was just as glad to see her as she was to see Eddie.
Zan, even more socially inept, looked equally happy, his handsome face aglow with pleasure even as he stumbled over the threshold to follow his wife into the house. Perhaps the most brilliant person Betsy had ever met, Zan sometimes seem to lose himself in thought, inhabiting only lightly his own physical form. He allowed Warne to shake his hand, but stepped back in alarm when the Clarences would have greeted him in the same way.
He stood quietly while Eddie and Betsy began to chatter anxious questions at each other.
“Where have you been?” Eddie asked. “Is everyone okay in Lavender? How were this house and these people flung outside?”
Betsy asked her own questions at the same time. “You and Zan are safe? What do people over here think about a house landing on them like in the Wizard of Oz? Well, not actually on them . . .” Betsy paused to break into laughter in which her half-sister quickly joined.
She and Eddie were so different, but had gradually merged into best friends in their years of growing up together in their conjoined families.
Now they hugged once again and then stepped apart. “Not like the Wizard,” Zan said. “This house wasn’t smashed and didn’t hit a witch.”
Zan was always so literal. It took a special person to love and understand him and Betsy felt he was lucky to have Eddie. But then any man would be fortunate to be her sister’s choice.
Zan was kind of a wizard himself, she thought now. More than anyone still alive he seemed to understand both the magic and science behind the experiments made by Eddie’s great-grandfather Tyler Stephens that had brought Lavender out of time and into its own unique existence.
She was so glad he was here now.
Warne stood in bemused silence. These last days had been hard on him. Even though he’d known and accepted Lavender’s status all his life, the way things were had seemed fairly normal since they’d always been that way and all he knew about it was what he heard from others. Even Violet’s shadowy presence in his life had seemed less than extraordinary. Like Lavender set aside in time, Violet had always been there, a make-believe friend who was solid and real.
But these last few days, he had himself been flung into the river of changing events. And now he was standing here in an amazing world outside of Lavender with Violet and little Maudie lost in that dangerous other place. He felt miserably helpless.
Alexander Alston was not a man to number many among his close friends, but somehow he and Zan had struck it off from the first. Warne liked to listen to tales of the wonders the older man had seen and was struck by the amazing way in which his mind worked.
And somehow Zan had not mistaken Warne’s lack of education for simplicity or his narrow experience as rendering him unsophisticated. They had become friends and now he couldn’t help but be pleased to see the young couple who he thought, along with Betsy Carr, were most likely to help him find a way out of his dilemma.
Zan who loved Eddie so much, would understand how he felt about the little English girl and would find a way to help him get to her before something terrible happened.
Chapter Nineteen
The folk of Worthington didn’t exactly greet the new owners with open arms. Most of them had worked on the estate lifelong, as had their parents before them, and though Mrs. Downing was only a somewhat distant cousin to Lady Laura and not particularly liked, still she was family and they’d had no expectation of anyone else taking over on her ladyship’s death.
They weren’t even sure Lady Laura had a right to leave Worthington outside the family. Surely the law would prevent such a thing and besides that how could servants with no more pretention to entitlement then themselves come into such.
They’d known Mrs. Rolfe’s mother who had served in various capacities and as for that scrap of unfortunate girl Violet James, she’d never been fit for more than work in the scullery.
Rooted in generations of the English class system, many of them were still of the opinion that birth and blood were necessary for leadership and Mrs. Rolfe and Violet hadn’t a bit of either. They were just common folks.
Only a few of them actually knew Violet since most of her life had been lived in the London town house, but Mrs. Rolfe in her younger years had been cook at Worthington, a respectable position that carried its own status. But to be jumped over the heads of even family members like this was simply something that didn’t happen.
Surely even God in his heaven could not agree with such a thing.
Violet felt the waves of disapproval, saw the cold stares as the two of them walked in with Mrs. Downing and Pamela, word of their change of status having already arrived by way of the footmen who had proceeded them from London, bringing some few undamaged valuables from the bombed house.
Having been legally advised that she had little choice, Mrs. Downing introduced the two to what remained of the staff and made a little speech about the ‘sad days’ to which Worthington and England had been reduced.
Only a few had been left in the house after conscription and voluntary enrollment in war efforts and farms were being operated by women, old men and children. To Violet’s surprise and Mrs. Downing’s chagrin, Mrs. Rolfe also made a brief address to the household staff, saying that together they would hold things together and move ahead for the betterment of all.
Apparently the elderly cook meant something to the staff and Violet saw several faces brighten at her words even as Mrs. Downing said, “Come, Pamela, we must see to safeguarding our personal property.”
Pam obeyed, though not without a grin and a cheeky wave at Violet and the rest of the staff once her mother had rounded a corner and was out of sight.
Violet couldn’t help thinking that good old England was headed for some major changes and not all of them for the worse.
Betsy explained the happenings of the last few weeks to Eddie and Zan while Mrs. Clarence placed the food she’d prepared for dinner, roast pork with sweet po
tatoes and home-canned green beans, served with slices of fresh baked bread and glasses of apple juice. She’d made more than enough to serve her family so he supposed she’d halfway expected company. In spite of his worries, Warne ate heartily as he followed the details of Betsy’s story, only chiming in with a word or two when he thought she’d left something out.
“So you think our Maudie is safe?” a white-faced Mrs. Clarence asked eagerly, ignoring her own plate as she hung on every word. “But in a far-off land.”
Warne swallowed a mouthful of potato before saying, “Saw her myself and left her with Violet in this big old house where they both should be safe.” It was lying in a way to say that since nothing much was safe in London right now and the house had been twice bombed, but he couldn’t see that it did any harm to refrain from making Maudie’s family even more fearful.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Betsy said eagerly, “that Maudie was transported and somehow when Violet was swept back to her own place and time, she went as well. I trust what Warne is telling me.”
Mr. Clarence nodded. “When you suddenly find yourself and your house set down in a strange place not like any you’ve seen in your life afore, you’re about ready to believe anything, Miss Betsy.”
In his anxiety he’d forgotten that she was now Mrs. Carr, a grown lady with children of her own instead of the little girl he’d known much of his life, Warne thought. But Betsy didn’t seem to mind but was smiling at them all with warm friendliness.
“Does my heart good just to hear my Maudie’s alive and well,” Mrs. Clarence added. “We’ve been dreadful fearful as to what might have happened to her.”
Maudie’s sisters, their eyes huge, nodded enthusiastically. “She’s a pest sometimes,” Rosie said, “but I wouldn’t want nothing bad to happen to her.”
Warne nodded gravely at them, sharing their sentiments. Nothing bad must happen to either Violet or Maudie.
After dinner, he washed dishes while Eddie and Betsy dried and Zan sat in silent contemplation in a nearby chair. Practical matters were not the scientist’s best talent.
The Clarences were outside doing the evening chores, what was left of them. Warne figured their regular routine was the best method of soothing their troubled souls.
As he scrubbed the last cook pot in the warm sudsy water in the dishpan, Zan finally looked up. “It’s all about this Violet person,” he said. “She’s the new factor.”
Warne scowled. “What about Lady Laura and Miss Margaret?” he asked. “They’re new to Lavender as well.”
“At least Lady Laura was. She’s dead and buried now,” Betsy supplemented his remark as she left the last dish for her sister to dry.
Zan considered. “Doesn’t mean she isn’t significant. There she is buried in land never meant for her. All three of them are strangers to Lavender and could have disturbed the rhythms.”
“Hey!” Betsy countered. “Once I was strange and so was my mom. And for that matter, Caleb is a newcomer.”
Zan nodded. “You were all outliers and brought change to Lavender, but nothing like this has happened before.”
Warne was reluctant to speak, but did so anyway. “Violet’s been around for ages,” he pointed out calmly. “At least for me. Of course most folk just thought I was imagining things.”
“Her appearances in Lavender show extraordinary ability,” Zan agreed, “and that’s why I think she’s the key and not these others who came with her. As she took the little Clarence girl with her, she must also have carried her two companions here.”
“Not on purpose,” Warne protested, ready to defend his friend.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter. But while she was here, Betsy was not able to time walk. With her gone, she is able to cross the line once again.”
“Does that mean Violet shouldn’t come to Lavender?” Betsy asked anxiously. “That it’s dangerous in some way and that she’s caused this eroding that shoved the Clarences out.”
Warne glanced around and spotted Violet where she’d been most of the evening, standing over near the front window, seeming to look out into the deepening dusk, but listening intently. Now she turned to him with an indignant expression, her dark eyes flashing. “I would never do such a thing,” she said.
He didn’t acknowledge her presence or the voice only he, and perhaps Betsy, could hear. “She wouldn’t do anything like that,” he said. “She likes it in Lavender. She has an awful life in that place where she lives working hard and waiting on other people. It’s a shame the way they treat her.”
Violet shook her head as though denying that she’d had special hardship, but smiled her thanks to him for defending her.
“Something else is going on,” Zan said, his absorption such that he didn’t even see that Warne was focusing on something or someone who wasn’t even there. Zan rarely noticed the expression on other faces so such subtlety escaped his notice, but Betsy posed as though listening for Violet’s voice and Eddie frowned slightly, picking up her cues from her sister.
Zan might be the brightest in the room, Warne thought with amusement, but there were things he missed even so. “The main thing to me is getting them both home to Lavender,” he said now.
Zan shook his head, a dark lock of hair slipping unnoticed by him down onto his forehead. “The little girl belongs back with her family,” he said, “but bringing your girlfriend back could be big trouble. Something about her, or the atoms in her body, sets off things in Lavender. You got off lucky last time with only a bit of land and one house moved, but next time, who knows? A chain reaction might be set off that sends the whole of Lavender somewhere else, or maybe even into oblivion.”
Warne’s heart seemed to halt as he saw the look of horror on Violet’s face just seconds before she vanished from sight.
Chapter Twenty
Back in her bedroom at Worthington, Violet sat up in bed, breathing hard. That man, the one who had married Betsy’s sister and only rarely came to Lavender, had said such dreadful things. Lavender was the one place dear to her, almost like a fairy land from a storybook, and he was saying she could destroy it.
She would never, never go there again. But how could she not, considering that she only went in her dreams and had no control of her actions. She could hardly stay awake for the rest of her life.
She did not, in fact, manage to escape sleep for the rest of the night, but after Maudie tiptoed in, murmuring something about bad dreams, and had been tucked into the bed next to her, she found herself inevitably drifting off again and was thankful when morning came and she could remember no further dreams.
Headed for the kitchen with Maudie in tow, she was stopped by Mrs. Rolfe. “We eat in the dining room now,” she said, turning her in the other direction.
Violet balked. “I’m not sure . . .”
“If we are to take charge here we must act the part. The Downing ladies are gone with several large wagons full of property, some of which most likely should have stayed with the house, but I’m just glad to see the backs of them. Now it is our task to see that Worthington is properly run.”
Violet still hesitated. Mrs. Rolfe had served many years on this place and doubtless knew Worthington and its people as well as anyone, but it was unfamiliar territory to her. She was more concerned with Warne and Lavender than she was with her new inheritance.
She’d hated so much being told what to do that she didn’t look forward to giving orders to anyone. Most likely they would just hate her as fiercely as she’d once hated those most cruel to her in her own servitude.
“Breakfast,” Mrs. Rolfe said firmly. At the mention of food, Maudie’s face brightened and Violet found herself following them into the large dining room that had until now served the family.
She’d never felt as out of place as they ate porridge covered with home-grown cream and a spoonfuls of honey, knowing that the food available here in the country would be better than that available in London since it was mostly produced on Worthington farms. Exp
ecting every minute that Mrs. Downing would appear and order her back into her proper sphere, she looked down the too-long table, designed for large families and formal dinners, glad that Maudie was seated at her right. Mrs. Rolfe seemed far away at the other end and, in her old clothes, she was less well dressed than the very young maid who served in place of the butler and footmen who would have gone off to war.
Mrs. Rolfe nibbled at toast and drank two cups of tea. When she put her empty cup down, she said, “Violet, you can read, can’t you?”
Violet nodded, not at all insulted since she would not have that skill if Warne had not taught her. Of course it had helped that in her dreams she’d spent many a day in a Lavender classroom with him, absorbing knowledge like a thirsty child presented with a cup of water.
“And do sums?”
“Yes, Mrs. Rolfe.”
“Good.” The former cook folded her napkin and laid it on the table with an air of satisfaction. “I will be seeing to the purchasing and visiting the farms while you go over the accounting. We will have some expert advice, of course, but I always say a person should know his own business best.”
Suddenly feeling choked by too much porridge and cream, Violet put down her spoon, watching with some satisfaction as Maudie ate enthusiastically. The poor child looked like she’d never had quite enough at a meal before and Violet supposed her family had sometimes been thin of rations.
“Do you think this is quite right, Mrs. Rolfe?” she asked, trying not to sound so much like a timid mouse and more like an equal partner. “I mean this land belonged to the family for generations, it doesn’t seem fair for us to just step in and take over.”
Mrs. Rolfe made a little indignant huffing sound. “It belonged to Lady Laura, who was the last of her family. The Downings were only upstart cousins and she left it to those she considered closest. You needn’t think any of this is a surprise to me, Violet James. I was in her confidence for years as was Margaret to a smaller degree. She trusted us.”
Lavender Dreaming: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 5) Page 12