Chapter 15
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, ANNABEL SAT IN THE KITCHEN ON A wood stool at the far end of the marble-top table, where Mary had cleared her a space to write after finding her a sheaf of foolscap, an inkwell, and a good working pen.
Cassie and Billy were still asleep, and Annabel didn’t see the harm.
She was surprised how much she liked the feel of the quill in her hand, the way it glided across the paper—the deep blue-black of real iron gall ink.
It started as a whim, a way to pass the time until the desk arrived, as she assumed it would.
Part of her thought the desk might not work as hoped, but she hadn’t shared her doubts.
Everyone needs hope. But another part didn’t want the desk to work, though she found it hard to admit even to herself.
She would keep her word to Cassie, but until they knew for sure, just in case, she didn’t want to miss a single moment of the experience, and Mary was flesh and blood and flour-dusted proof of it all.
She was rolling out pastry dough, listening intently as Annabel read aloud the first sentence of what she’d written.
“ ‘Whether a single waltz might be sufficient to alter the course of one young woman’s life was the last whisper on many lips on the eve of Clara Winter’s first ball.’ ”
She looked up at Mary, bright eyed. “I think I remember the whole first chapter!”
“Ooh, I ’eard a waltzin’, miss. T’ain’t never seen it, mind you.”
“It’s a little early for waltzing, I know. But that’s just it! It’s like I’m before my time . . . Your time . . . This time.”
“You think it’ll catch on, then?”
“Waltzing?” said Annabel.
“No,” said Mary. “Novels.”
Annabel smiled knowingly. “Oh, I feel sure of it.” She dipped her pen in the inkwell. “But I don’t think I’ll mention it to Cassie, or William, my writing this . . . Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“I suppose, in case our plans . . . don’t work out.”
“Then, they won’t ’ear it from me,” said Mary, “locking her lips and throwing away the key. “Wot do I look like, a talker?”
“Thank you, Mary,” Annabel said, and started up with her pen again.
***
An hour later, James stood in the foyer with a small packet of her folded and sealed pages in his hand. “Nicholas . . . Bickles . . . Esquire,” he read haltingly, with his index finger under each word. He looked at Annabel, pleased with himself.
“If you could post it for me, in Wakefield?” Annabel was pleased with herself too.
“Course, miss.”
“And do you mind, James, keeping it our little secret? Besides Mary. Just you and Mary, if that’s all right?”
James took off his cap and scratched his head. “It’ll be easy keepin’ yer secret when I don’t even know what’s inside!”
Annabel put both hands over her heart. “Only everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
James didn’t understand, but smiled, gap-toothed. “As good as delivered, miss.”
He turned for the door when Cassie and Billy came padding down the stairs in their morning dress, one after the other.
“It’s here!” said Cassie. “Harriet’s desk. Look!”
She skirted around James and reached for the door, swinging it wide open. Two men were unloading the blanket-wrapped desk from a wagon. James went out to offer a hand. They let him carry the matching chair.
“Delivery,” one of them called, “for the Misses Blake!”
“It’s like it was meant to be,” said Billy. “I mean, who has an extra Hepplewhite lying around?”
“I guess Harriet Lackington does,” said Annabel, squinting into the morning sun and facing the possibility that this was really the end of their brief but marvelous journey.
If it worked, there was no guarantee she could return on her own.
And maybe Cassie was right that it was time for her to face reality.
Always leave the party while you’re still having a good time, she reminded herself.
But what if you were having the time of your life?
Annabel swallowed her disappointment, since Cassie was practically vibrating with excitement, guiding the men through the door and toward the library, where they turned the wrapped desk on its side to maneuver it through.
“Careful! Careful! We don’t want to hurt it.
” She directed them to the vacant spot under the window, a little left, then a little right.
“There! Stop there! Perfect.” Cassie thanked them profusely and shooed them away, shut her eyes, pressed her hands together, and clicked her heels three times.
“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home . . .”
Annabel walked James to the library door.
“Almost forgot this!” He handed her a sealed note from his pocket. “Came with the desk.”
“Thank you, James,” she said as if saying goodbye for good. “From the bottom of my heart.”
“Not at all.” He patted her pages tucked into his coat. “Don’t you worry. I’ll have this posted in the blink of an eye.”
With one last wink, he was gone. Annabel read the brief note from Harriet wishing her well on her novel, another pang of regret.
If the desk worked, she’d never know what Mr. Bickles thought of her chapter, whether she had any hope of being a novelist here, now.
But it was probably too much to wish for, like D’Evercy.
“Hello? Earth to A-bel?” said Cassie, trying to wrest her sister’s attention to the matter at hand.
Annabel turned to see Billy holding the edge of the blanket like a magician about to perform a trick.
“Okay. I’m doing this, okay?” said Billy.
Annabel pocketed the note, took a brave breath, and nodded.
“Do it,” said Cassie, hands over her eyes.
Billy yanked the blanket away, revealing a prim and perfect Hepplewhite desk perched prettily under the window, a just-right fit.
Cassie tiny-clapped; Billy did a mini-Griddy.
Annabel walked to the desk and ran her hand along the grain of polished wood. “You guys. It’s not the same desk.”
“How do you know?” said Cassie.
“Because I sat here. This is where I wrote those letters.”
“Two letters, max. It’s not like you lived with it for two hundred years. I mean, I can’t even remember what our kitchen table at home looks like.”
“The rattan table with the glass top cracked at one end from where your soccer ball hit it?”
“Impressive. You have to admit.” Billy turned to Annabel. “But I’m with Cassie. We don’t really know how this works. We have to at least try.”
“Okay,” said Annabel. “We’ll try.”
They all stared at the desk, unsure what to do next.
“We think it has to be you,” Cassie said.
“Since you’re the one who did get it to work,” said Billy. “Twice.”
Annabel nodded, nervous. She pulled out the chair, tucked the skirts of her morning dress, and sat down.
“Okay, so what did you do?” Cassie said.
“I opened the drawer . . . and found paper, a pen . . .”
“So, do that.”
Annabel bit her lip. With a slow deliberate gesture, she opened the drawer, and there they were, paper, quill, an inkwell. Billy and Cassie looked at each other and fist-bumped.
Annabel laid a single page on the desk, set the inkwell, opened it, and picked up the pen.
“What should I say?”
“What did you say before?” said Billy.
“Not much. Mostly that I looked forward to the festivities?”
“So, say that,” said Cassie. “Only how you look forward to, you know, all the great stuff we have.”
Annabel’s pen was poised over the paper. “I don’t even know who to write to.”
“Maybe someone you miss?” said her sister. “Like Mom and Dad?”
Annabel looked out at the idyllic garden. The truth was that the only person she missed in that moment was the man who’d swept her into his arms yesterday morning, in a world that seemed to welcome her and reward every hope she’d ever had. She looked back at her sister with an apologetic shrug.
“I just want to go home, Annabel,” said Cassie, with no pretense or deceit. “Maybe you could write that?”
Annabel nodded and turned back to the blank page.
“’S only natural, wantin’ to be ’ome,” said Mary.
They all turned to see her standing in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Bloomin’dale’s must be, well, bloomin’ this time o’ year. I’ll ’ave ya a nice breakfast soon, and then you’ll all feel a might better.”
“Thank you, Mary,” said Billy, surprised that he meant it.
“We’ll all miss you, Mary,” said Annabel.
“Miss me? I’m only to the kitchen. Not far at all!”
They listened to her chuckling to herself as she went.
Annabel dipped her pen and began to write.
***
Breakfast was a lavish affair, for a Tuesday, but they took it that Mary went the extra mile, seeing that they were homesick and needed something to buoy them.
Still, they ate in anxious silence except for the occasional crunch of toast or click of silver on china.
Once, Cassie asked Billy not to slurp his coffee, and did he have to chew quite so loudly, and would he pass the fresh fruit, please, but the truth was that all their nerves were lightly frayed.
The three travelers tried to be gentle with each other while they waited to be delivered by some magic they didn’t understand through the possible portal of a Hepplewhite desk.
They waited through several strikes of the longcase clock, counted its quarter-hour carillon bells, bore the change out of morning to afternoon dress; they took turns about the garden, skimmed books in the library, and even acceded to Annabel trying to teach them the rules of whist, which they gave up on the very first round.
By early evening, Billy was reclining on the chaise longue, literally twiddling his thumbs, while Cassie sat on a settee, clutching a needlepoint pillow to her lap with one hand and twisting her drooping ringlets with the other.
Annabel sat on the opposite settee trying to mask her relief, though she felt awful for them both.
“Okay, fine,” said Cassie. “I admit it. Harriet’s desk didn’t work.”
“I guess it really does have to be that desk,” Billy agreed. “And, okay, maybe it wasn’t a Hepplewhite, after all.”
“I forgot what an expert you are in time traveling,” said Cassie, throwing the pillow at him.
Billy caught the pillow and put it over his face, muffling a scream.
“Look, we know that desk, the original desk, has to come back,” said Annabel.
“And we know that because . . . ?” Cassie said.
“Bunty told me. ‘It’s been in the family forever.’ That’s what she said.”
“Forever?!” said Cassie. “Annabel, I would like to go home sometime this century!”
“Okay, okay,” said Annabel, thinking as fast as she could. “Right, okay, so, ten years from now they won’t even make desks like that anymore!”
“Ten years!” Cassie whimpered.
Billy handed the pillow back to Cassie for her own muffled scream.
Annabel waited for her to finish. “Ten, at the most.”
After another long silence, Billy moved to sit next to Cassie, trying in his clumsy way to comfort her. Desperate, she leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Well, at least we’ve got that one party, you know, coming up,” he said.
“What, we’re just gonna party for ten years?” said Cassie.
Billy shrugged. “It’s probably what I was gonna do anyway.”
Annabel stood and started to pace slowly in front of the hearth, thinking out loud.
“But Cassie’s right, in a way. I mean, however long we’re here, we have to find something to do, to make money. And fit in!”
“Fit in like how?” said Billy.
“Well, okay, like Wickham, in Pride and Prejudice. He’s a penniless, feckless young man, but he manages a commission in the regiment . . .”
“Wait. With real guns? Have you met me?”
“You were playing that one video game.”
“Everyone plays it! It’s a game!”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to use an actual gun,” said Annabel. “But, you are—”
“Penniless and feckless!” said Cassie.
Annabel’s eyes lit up with an idea. “Or Reverend Tudor seemed to like you! And lots of Oxford people end up in the clergy.”
“Reverend Doofus?” said Cassie.
“Actually, he’d probably start as a curate.”
“What’s a curate do?” Billy wanted to know.
“Help the vicar?” said Annabel.
“What’s he do?”
Annabel rubbed her forehead. “I don’t really know. You never actually see anyone working in the novels.”
“Oh my god, we’re basing our life on novels?” Cassie screamed into the pillow again.
“I’m sorry, Cassie. About your show. I know this is a terrible blow.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said from behind the pillow.
Billy lightly rubbed her back while staring out the window, looking lost himself.
Annabel gave them the moment.
After a while, Cassie lowered the pillow and looked at her sister.
“Okay. What about us? You and me. The girls. What happens to us?”
“Well, apart from governess? Or seamstress?”
“Yes!”
Annabel steeled herself to deliver the blow. “For us, there’s really only marriage.”