Chapter Ten #3
Then there’s Cavill. I shiver with nervous excitement at the anticipation of possibly seeing him tonight.
I close my eyes and indulge in a moment’s reflection.
He kissed me. He really kissed me. And it was blissful.
If I have manifested this, then I’ve done a marvellous job.
I bask in the warm water and contemplate the five days leading up to the fire that stretch out before me.
Five days of kisses. For a while I see nothing but those kisses.
Perhaps we’ll visit the beach again. Maybe we’ll find a small hotel hidden out of sight where we can spend more time together, just the two of us.
A room with a big soft bed where we can be alone.
That delicious thought occupies me until I feel the water getting cold and my fingertips puckering.
I open my eyes and Nessa’s anguished face floats into my mind like a bright moon, eclipsing Cavill’s. My joy evaporates in the glare of what is to come. In five days, she will die in the fire. There’s no avoiding it. What a horrible way to go. What an unbearably horrible way to go.
Once again, I will have to stand aside and allow a story, whose ending is within my ability to rewrite, to take its natural course.
I must not interfere. It’s the primary rule of a timeslider.
Do not alter the past. Leave the smallest possible footprint on the timeline so as not to influence the future.
Of course, I’m aware that everything I do and say will influence the future to some degree.
It’s unavoidable. But saving Nessa Blunt from the fire would make too great an impact.
I know that. I will have to stand aside and allow it to happen.
I dread growing fond of her as I grew fond of little Felix Pengower. After that slide, I told myself I wouldn’t get attached again. I would remain coldly impassive. But how is that even possible, when one so easily gets lost in the dream?
I wash myself with the bar of soap. I think it’s tallow.
I appreciate the Victorian taps again. They’re those classic brass crosshead ones which, in my time, are copied in chrome to give a vintage feel.
Where I come from they’d be highly sought after by collectors and fetch a high price.
In fact, most things here would, were I able to take them home with me.
They’re nothing special now, however. Everyone takes these things for granted, as we take things for granted in our time.
Perhaps decades into the future iPhones will be collectors’ items.
My skin is wrinkled like a prune. I climb out of the bath and wrap myself in a towel.
With Crocker’s help I get dressed in front of a full-length mirror.
I’m delighted by the lingerie Eddie wears.
It’s a kind of cream-coloured silk teddy – a combination of a camisole and knickers in one.
Beneath is a suspender belt that holds up silk stockings.
I feel incredibly sexy and my eagerness to see Cavill intensifies.
I want him to see me like this. How can a man resist a woman when she looks like this?
Except this is not me. This is Eddie Skipton.
I swat that thought away like an annoying fly about to drop into my most delicious dessert.
I won’t allow a minor detail to ruin this slide.
Possibly, my final slide with Cavill. So what if he’s not seeing me?
Does it really matter? I’ll enjoy being in his arms. I’ll savour him kissing me and loving me, even though I’ll be living vicariously through another. Does it really matter?
I stare at my lovely reflection in the mirror.
At the face gazing back at me that isn’t mine, and I’m accosted by a stark realisation.
Yes, it does matter. It matters very much.
I wish it didn’t, but it does. There’s no escaping the fact that I yearn with all my soul for him to know me.
That yearning is so powerful that for a moment my heart aches so severely I put a hand against my chest to nurse it.
I recognise then what it is that is tying our destinies together.
It dawns on me like a blood-red sunrise breaking onto the sky.
It’s not Cavill. No, Cavill is powerless.
He’s helpless against a force he’s not even aware of.
It’s my yearning. By the Law of Attraction, my yearning is a magnet, and while it burns with this ferocious intensity, it will draw Cavill to it over and over again.
He cannot resist it, and I cannot dampen it.
But it must burn itself out or we will be fated to live a kind of Groundhog Day, meeting and leaving each other over and over again. But how?
I sit at the dressing table as Crocker curls my hair and arranges the headband and ostrich feather.
Avril said that Cavill must know the truth of who I really am in order for the love that I have started to fulfil itself.
That’s the only way this terrible yearning in my heart will be satisfied and the connection severed.
But if I tell him, I will risk everything – not just for me, but for Eddie.
Crocker stands back and admires her handiwork. ‘There, ma’am. Don’t you look handsome?’
I smile at her in the mirror. ‘I do, Crocker. Thank you.’
She places a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I sense that she and Eddie are very close. ‘I wish Mr Skipton could see you looking so fine,’ she says, and the gaze she settles upon me is maternal.
I put my hand on hers. ‘So do I,’ I reply in the same sorrowful tone.
She’s satisfied with that and withdraws her hand after a moment’s pause. ‘You had better get going or you’ll be late,’ she says, blinking away the mist in her eyes. ‘Those young ladies will want to arrive on time. They do love a party.’
‘Then I must not keep them waiting,’ I reply and get up off the chair with a twinge of apprehension. I will recognise no one tonight besides Cavill, yet I will have to pretend to know them all.
Nessa and Lavinia are in the hall. I descend the stair slowly, taking in Nessa’s scarlet dress embellished with fringes and Lavinia’s green one adorned with sequins that catch the light and sparkle festively.
They both wear glittering headbands and plush feathers to match their dresses.
To my modern eye they look like they’re in fancy dress on their way to a 1920s-themed party.
but of course, this is the 1920s. This is the fashion. How colourful and fun it is.
As I approach the hall two other women come into view, hovering in the corridor.
One is a corpulent woman of about sixty, in a white apron with a white cap covering her hair.
I guess she’s Cook. The other woman is small and skinny with an angular, wan face, in a black dress and white apron.
I guess she’s a maid. It seems that everyone at this time dresses appropriately for their station or form of employment.
In my time you simply cannot judge a person by what they wear.
A duke can dress like a vagrant and a vagrant can dress like a duke. There’s often no telling who anyone is.
Cook and the maid give me appreciative glances as I alight into the hall.
‘You all look smashing,’ says Cook and her soft Cornish brogue curls warmly around her words.
From her hard features I deduce that she’s the sort of woman who can be curt and abrasive but who, nonetheless, has a big heart.
‘What do you say, Nancy, or have you lost your tongue?’ she adds brusquely to the maid, and my analysis proves correct.
Poor Nancy is forced to give an opinion. ‘Beautiful,’ she repeats shyly, and I sense she’s a little afraid of the cook.
‘Now off you all go,’ comes Crocker’s voice behind me. She’s making her way down the stairs with the air of a headmistress in a boarding school. ‘And have a lovely time.’
‘Oh, we will,’ cries Lavinia excitedly.
Nessa grins at me. ‘I think your silly therapy might have worked,’ she says. ‘At least, I’m feeling much better.’
‘I’m happy to hear it,’ I reply.
We walk out of the gate into the street and Nessa links her arm through mine. ‘We must encourage Gilda to move to London,’ she says. ‘Then you can buy back the theatre and Lavinia and I can be your leading ladies.’
‘What a good idea,’ I say, knowing that Nessa is only including Lavinia because she’s here.
Nessa giggles. ‘Either that or she must break a leg.’
‘Oh, really, Nessa. That’s wicked,’ says Lavinia.
‘Then she must move to London,’ Nessa declares. ‘I’m glad we’re all agreed.’