Lavender Dreaming: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 5)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  “She didn’t even like me,” Violet protested.

  “Maybe not,” Mrs. Rolfe hinted darkly. “But she owed you a debt and now it’s about to be paid.”

  Though Violet asked questions about this perplexing statement and tried to urge the other woman to explain, Mrs. Rolfe shut her mouth tightly and, showing Violet to the library where she placed several account books in front of her, she departed for her work in the kitchen.

  Warne wasn’t the only one who was less than anxious to return to Lavender. Mrs. Clarence feared her small daughters would melt away as they tried to cross the time line with Betsy’s help and protested that rather than risk Rosie and Mary Sue she would stay forever in this strange place.

  Her husband told her she was being silly and that Betsy and her sister crossed back and forth all the time. When she refused to budge from the safety of her home, he yelled that she was his wife and she would do as he wished or he would take his daughters and go without her.

  So far it was an impasse with neither giving way by so much as an inch and the two little girls looking ready to cry.

  “It’s your choice,” Betsy said, sounding tired, “but while you’re deciding the rest of us are going back. Mama and Papa will be worried sick and even Caleb will be wondering where I am.”

  Eddie and Zan got to their feet, prepared to accompany her, but Warne stayed where he was. “I’ve got to go find Violet,” he insisted.

  Betsy shrugged. “She’s no more here than she is in Lavender. She’s dream-walking in both places, Warne.”

  “Let’s give it some thought,” Zan suggested. “We’ll work it out, but come back to Lavender with us now.”

  He needed Zan’s thoughts. He knew that. He couldn’t come up with a single workable idea himself.

  “Wait!” Mr. Clarence said as Warne started to follow the others out the door. “You can’t leave us here alone. The police might come back and this time they’d throw us out of our own house and off our own land. They say we don’t belong here, but we don’t seem to belong anywhere . . .’cept in Lavender.”

  He looked pleadingly at his wife, the two girls hovering close to her side. “But if it’s what you want, Ruby, I’ll stay.”

  Her stolid expression broke. “We won’t have neither home nor land if we go back,” she said, “but I reckon we’ll have each other.”

  They went out the door together, Mr. Clarence closing and carefully locking it behind them. Warne knew the routine by now, but he waited while Betsy took her sister and brother-in-law, each by the hand, and walked to the west until all three disappeared.

  He heard Mrs. Clarence’s quick intake of breath and the youngest of the girls started to cry. “It’ll be all right,” Mr. Clarence said, though his voice wavered.

  When Betsy came back it was for the two little girls, the older at her left side and the younger held encircled in her right arm. Mrs. Clarence grabbed hold of Betsy and Mary Sue and they walked together in rather crab-like fashion until they too vanished from sight.

  Mr. Clarence watched open-mouthed as his family departed, then abruptly shouted, “Daisy! Clover!” and took off running. When Betsy came back for them, Warne told her that he thought the man would be back in a minute or two.

  “Everything go all right?” he asked, nodding toward the west and she nodded back. “They’re waiting for us.”

  The farmer, his face red and his breathing audible, came driving two rather thin old cows in front of them. “Can’t leave Daisy and Clover over here to starve.”

  Betsy grinned. “Well, sometimes Zan brings his dog in for visits,” she admitted. He wasn’t sure this was going to work, but somehow he and Mr. Clarence allowed their hands to rest of Betsy’s back while she reached out to grab and ear of each of the docile old cows. Mr. Clarence ordered them ahead, “Hey, on, cows!” he shouted in a loud voice and the ungainly group moved forward.

  Only a few steps and Warne looked around to see the familiar figures waiting for them. The two little girls cried out and then ran to their father’s waiting arms while their mother commented, “Oh, good, you brought Clover and Daisy.”

  “But where’s my cat?” Ruby asked Betsy plaintively.

  “We’ll just have to think about her a little later,” Betsy answered, sounding tired

  They had to walk a few miles to the nearest farm where they were greeted jubilantly and the Clarences and their cows were offered shelter until they could get themselves resettled. Betsy, Warne, Eddie and Zan were driven into town in the farm’s hay wagon, a bouncy, uncomfortable trip, though even Zan who was used to speeding around in automobiles admitted it was better than walking.

  They dropped Warne off at his mother’s house so he could assure her about his wellbeing, which proved to be unnecessary because she hadn’t even known he was gone. Once he’d allowed her to fuss over him a little, evading questions about Violet and her whereabouts, he hurried on over to the Stephens house on Crockett Street, increasingly anxious to talk to Zan about how he could either get Violet back or join her in 1940’s London.

  Chapter Twenty One

  After several hours of searching out the books that detailed Worthington’s financial operations, Violet’s head ached and figures danced in front of her eyes. The business manager, who never come back from Dunkirk, had been a sound man with a mind for details, but since his departure a half-literate sporting nephew of the Downing family had been doing the reports in so-so fashion.

  So far Violet hadn’t even been able to determine if they were solvent and suspected it would take someone with superior skills to her own to provide the answer.

  She sagged back against her chair and wondered what had become of Maudie. No doubt she was exploring the house or off in the company of Mrs. Rolfe. She was too tired to investigate.

  Even though it was mid-day the huge room rested in half darkness, sunlight only glancing from the small windows at the top where dust motes danced and were quickly overwhelmed by shadows.

  One of the oldest rooms in a house that was over five hundred years old, it seemed to reach out of sight into dark rafters while the glistening dark woods of the old furniture and the walls enclosed the room in near night. Alcoves dug their way in between the tall book shelves and the few glass-fronted cabinets where books that looked to be as old as books could be rested undusted on the shelves.

  She guessed that once Worthington books had been cared for in the most cherishing way, but now with the men in the family away at war or even dead on its battlefronts and most of the servants gone, it was a neglected part of the house and work was kept up only in more essential areas like the places where people slept and ate. She would have to take on dusting the books herself if she was to use this as her work area.

  She remembered hearing Lady Laura say this had been her favorite room in the house as it had been her father’s and now she could almost feel that the both of them lurked back in one of the more remote corners seated for a tete-a-tete father-daughter conversation.

  Violet did not believe in ghosts but she could believe that the shadows of ancient times lingered in this center of the old house, shades of the past reluctant to leave a beloved home wandering in and out of time.

  Oddly enough this notion did not spook her, but made her feel more at ease. Drowsy from her unfamiliar efforts of the morning, she sank deeper in her chair and her head nodded as she fell into dreaming sleep.

  In her dream the room brightened and she knew that snow outside cast its white glow into the house so that she was tempted to draw closer to the red fire that burned in the stone fireplace. She hesitated, however, seeing that two figures already sat in chairs in front of its glow and wasn’t sure she would be welcome to join them.

  “The winter has been a peculiarly cold one,” she recognized Lady Laura’s voice as she spoke to the man in the chair next to her.

  She saw his profile and watched as he nodded agreement though he did not speak. She frowned, thinking this man could not be Lady Laura’s fathe
r. He was a young man. She got up to creep closer and saw that neither was this the Laura Smythe-Hatton she remembered, but a young woman, changed but still the same.

  She saw the same angular face, never beautiful, but striking somehow. Lady Laura would have said the features, even the very bones that underlined her face betrayed evidence of ancient and aristocratic blood lines. The hair that had been gray for longer than Violet could remember was dark and as burnished as the wood in the room, a deep mahogany with reddish lights in its depths.

  The man was as young as she and as striking. They made an exciting pair.

  “Come closer, Violet,” Lady Laura said suddenly without even turning to look at her. “We have things that must be said and time is short.”

  Her mouth dry and her hands trembling, Violet crept closer, hearing the sound as her damaged foot dragged slightly against the rug that was not there in the present time.

  Neither of them looked directly at her as though that would be rude, but still she was conscious of the glances sent her way. She settled on the rug next to the fire, feeling the need of its warmth in the depth of her bones as she sensed that both of these people were vanished from the earth of her today and that the visit was taking place in another time.

  “This is her, Tyler,” Lady Laura said, a certain undertone of amusement in her voice. “The child we hid from each other.”

  “You were a cruel jade,” he said in a tone that made an observation rather than delivered an insult. His accent was strange to Violet, neither the proper English of Lady Laura, nor the street mixture of her own. There was a foreign tinge to it, though she was too inexperienced to identify it more closely than that.

  “And what were you?” she asked mockingly. “Abandoning me like that, leaving me alone with your child anticipated.”

  “Our child,” he corrected, “A child in which the worthy Smythe-Hattons would allow no part to a poor stranger who had no touch of their noble blood.”

  Her face sobered, swept of its vanity and pride. “It seemed to matter then.”

  “You told me to go away,” he accused.

  “But you went,” she made the counter accusation.

  Violet felt even more chilled by the force of what she perceived as the powerful personalities of these two people. They talked as though she were a pawn between them, a child they’d shared. But how could that be possible? Lady Laura had been old enough to be her own great-grandmother and she sensed this man, young though he looked, shared her great age.

  “I hid her where she would be safe,” Lady Laura insisted, color flushing along the skin above her etched cheekbones.

  “You got rid of her because you didn’t want her in your life,” he said calmly.

  “Women did not have bastard babies back then.”

  “Of course they did.”

  She smiled, real amusement in her long, narrow and still beautiful eyes. “If they did not manage well, then they were ruined. My father made his plans for the girl; she was to be given to a couple on the estate. I couldn’t let him have his way in this at least. So I walked, as you had taught me, into the future where another war had just ended. I left her in the kitchen where a servant I knew to be trustworthy worked. In the townhouse in London, all tucked snugly into her little basket.”

  “Mrs. Rolfe,” he said, “whose mother had been your nanny .”

  “I loved her mother and she was perhaps the only one who truly loved me.”

  “I loved you,” he said.

  “Not enough.”

  Violet cleared her throat. “You invited me over,” she pointed out. The pleasant scent of some unrecognized wood burned in the air and she felt only half awake when she knew she should be conscious and alert. Somehow this was all about her and might be the only explanation she’d ever get. But still she felt lost in the warmth and closeness, knowing that she might dispel the whole scene if she came fully awake.

  “So we did,” the man said, smiling at her. “Violet, you remind me of my mother, the sweetest woman I’ve ever known, and of my granddaughter Edith.”

  “Edith?” she asked. “Eddie?” She shook her head. “But that’s back in Lavender.”

  “Past and present,” he said, still smiling. “It’s turned out well enough for all of them, at least so far.”

  Thinking of Warne and the others, she didn’t much like that qualification, that ‘so far.’ It sounded as though something bad was headed toward Lavender.

  “Not your granddaughter,” Lady Laura chided, “your great-granddaughter. Your son is her grandfather.”

  “So he is.” The man nodded.

  “Wait a minute,” Violet spoke up. “You’re Grandpapa Forrest’s father? You’re Tyler Stephens, the man who set Lavender in its own time? But you were old even when you did it back in the 1800 somethings. I know because Warne told me.”

  “Who is Warne?” he asked with interest.

  “A friend.”

  “In Lavender. You’ve been there?”

  She nodded. “In a way. It’s complicated.”

  Sudden sunlight seemed to slant through one of the high windows, breaking into the spell. “No time for explanations now,” Lady Laura urged. “We’ve got to tell her, Tyler, for the sake of them all.”

  The first thing she saw was that the fire died to ashes and the room was warm with the mildness of an English fall. Maudie came running into the room, followed by Mrs. Rolfe.

  The two chairs beside the fireplace were empty.

  Warne had taken part in one of the Stephens family brainstorming sessions on more than one occasion, but never before had he felt such urgency.

  They were gathered in the front room, what Eddie called the parlor and Betsy the living room. It was a warm evening and the long windows were opened to the outside air. Forrest sat in his usual chair, the big brown one, while Cynthia and Evan were together on one of the sofas and Betsy and Eddie sat on the edge of the other. Caleb sat quietly in the background as he so often did, though even Warne knew that the civil war veteran often provided the voice of reason in this volatile family.

  Sylvie, the youngest daughter, reluctant babysitter, was upstairs with the two children, and Zan, center of the activity, paced the long room restlessly, his excellent brain no doubt whirling.

  Warne, the only one present who was not a member of the family either by blood or marriage, stood over next to the window, looking out on the street, watching and hoping for sight of Violet. He hadn’t seen her in hours and couldn’t help worrying. She lived in the middle of a city under attack. Anything could be happening to her and little Maudie Clarence.

  Somehow the focus of this gathering was on three of the younger members of the family: Betsy, Eddie and Zan. They were the most experienced with the science and magic of time walking and surely must have some ideas about what could be done for Violet and Maudie.

  Surprisingly Forrest Stephens spoke first, his neat mustache quivering with intensity as he said, “We rode out to the edge again this morning,” he said. “Warne and me.”

  Warne had kept his word and not mentioned this trip to anyone. Forrest had wanted to talk to other council members before making the announcement.

  Family members looked to where Warne stood, but he only nodded confirmation. This was Forrest’s announcement to make. As a town constable, he was an employee of the council, not a decision maker.

  “We’ve lost more land, about five acres I calculate most of it lengthwise along the edge, good pasture land gone.”

  Obviously most of them had not expected this, though Zan nodded as though he’d seen it coming.

  “I thought we might lose more,” Dr. Evan said calmly, “in a year or two. But it’s only been a matter of days.”

  They all looked to Zan for an explanation. “The erosion is occurring with unnatural swiftness. Were there people living in the lost area, Grandpapa Forrest?”

  Forrest looked shocked. “Good Lord, no!” he said. “It was only pasture land with maybe a few cows and a horse
or two.”

  “But the Bolgers are only about five miles from there and the Clarences are staying with them,” Cynthia spoke up, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “Does that mean they’re in danger?”

  They still looked at Zan. He shrugged. “Who knows? This could be all there is to the switch over, but I’d guess otherwise.”

  “We’ll need to evacuate the areas next to the east edge,” Grandpapa Forrest decided.

  “What about the other edges?” Warne asked. “We’ve checked and nothing’s happened so far, but things could change at any moment.”

  Forrest nodded. “We need to widen our margins,” he said grimly.

  Warne could guess what they were all thinking. Was Lavender going to vanish, acre by acre, as it moved back into the mainstream of time?

  “My theory is still that all this has something to do with the woman from England, that in coming here she changed something vital. Tell me, Eddie, didn’t you say once that your great-grandfather came from over there? Didn’t he study science somewhere in the middle of Europe?”

  Warne glared at Zan, wanting to refute what seemed to him an accusation. “The last thing Violet would ever want is to hurt anybody in Lavender,” he insisted. “She loves it here.”

  Zan frowned. “Not what I mean, Warne. Don’t know anything about her except that she seems to be drawn here without any choice of her own.”

  Thoughts clicked through Warne’s mind until something stuck. “Lady Laura said she had to go back or something awful would happen here. She said that when she was dying and she asked Violet to forgive her.”

  “What could that be about?” Cynthia asked, sounding puzzled. “Of course she was badly injured and in pain. Perhaps her mind was wandering.”

  “She was one hell of a woman,” Warne said, once again lost in memories and not even realizing he had spoken out of turn. “Violet was in awe of her from the time she was a little girl.”

  Zan shook his head. “So many questions. I would certainly like to talk to this Violet of yours, Warne.”