Chapter 7
Hetty was still shaking from her second terrifying cab ride when she registered her surroundings. The three women stood together, facing a house Hetty vaguely recognised from childhood trips to London doctors.
‘Oh, goodness. How … enlivening.’
Aggie was amused, now. ‘Oh yes. The neighbours hate it. But the colour was very much Jemima’s choice.’
‘Goodness me, Aunt Jemima. The family townhouse is transformed. Most … Most unique.’
Jemima rubbed her hands together mischievously. ‘Thank you, dear. There have been petitions, you know.’
Hetty smothered a smile. ‘I can’t think why.’
‘Well, you know, it surprises me too. But apparently lavender isn’t in keeping with our historic environs, or some such crap.’
‘Oh. Goodness.’
Aggie smiled broadly and turned to Hetty. ‘Well, Hetty, there’s no point in standing around. Grab your bags.’
‘My own bags?’
‘Yes, dear. Welcome to 2023.’
The Bainbridges’ London townhouse was absolutely not decorated in the same fashion as it had been in the early 1800s.
As she entered the hallway, Hetty could only stare.
Black and white striped wallpaper – ‘zebra print’, Aggie called it – clashed with a huge ornate mirror in a shade of pink that Hetty couldn’t have dreamed up.
Meanwhile, paintings of bold shapes and lines contrasted with the more traditional portrait paintings Hetty was used to seeing, some of which she recognised from her family’s time there.
Ornaments could be found on every surface: china shepherdesses, black marble statues of naked men, brightly glazed vases, ill-made bowls and golden lamps.
‘Leave your bags there. We’ll show you your room later,’ said Aggie, shepherding Hetty towards the vast kitchen at the back of the house. There was not a servant to be seen, Hetty thought, as she registered gleaming surfaces everywhere. Everything in 2023 was so … shiny.
Suddenly feeling exhausted, she inelegantly flopped into a reassuringly un-shiny kitchen chair as her new aunts bustled around. A plate of what could only be biscuits appeared in front of her.
‘What is this coating? A preserve?’
‘Solid chocolate, dear. Try it – it’ll change your life,’ said Aggie.
‘And your waistline,’ added a cheerful Jemima, holding a tray of oddly shaped bread. ‘Sandwiches,’ she explained, as the tray clattered onto the table. ‘Thought we’d start you off on something familiar.’
Hetty poked at one. ‘Ham. In between two slices of bread? I suppose one could eat it with one’s fingers and have both ham and bread at once. How ingenious!’
She looked up and saw the aunts looking at each other. A whole conversation seemed to happen, in complete silence, before they looked back at her.
Aggie delicately picked up a sandwich, placing it on a small plate, while Jemima stuffed hers straight into her mouth and chewed loudly.
Hetty decided to copy Aggie and pushed the boat out a little by selecting one of the crispy, thinly sliced potato wafers from a bowl. It was delicious, if oddly sweet.
‘Prawn cocktail,’ Jemima announced, as though this was a perfectly adequate explanation for everything that was happening to the inside of Hetty’s mouth at that moment.
‘So, tell me, Hetty. What has happened to our other distantly related niece?’ asked Aggie.
Hetty hesitated. ‘Well … She’s probably …’
How to explain?
‘Spit it out, dearie,’ said Jemima, though a mouthful of sandwich.
Hetty sighed. ‘Well, I expect that by now Charlie will have found her. I anticipated she might be a little …’
‘Surprised?’ supplied Jemima helpfully.
‘Indeed. So I thought I would conduct things in a remote part of the house where she could be safely discovered after a few moments to … adjust.’
Aggie smiled wryly. ‘Attics?’
‘The cellar. My brother Charlie helped me down there and left briefly to fetch his oldest friend, who always treated me kindly. They will have found her within perhaps ten minutes.’ Hetty decided not to add that she’d instructed Charlie to strap her to a sturdy-looking chair, in the event that Etta was so overwhelmed she fainted or went into complete hysterics.
It had been a close-run thing for her and Hetty herself had been relatively well-prepared.
Or she thought she had, anyway.
‘What next for Etta, then?’
‘I daresay we could find out from the history books, couldn’t we?’
‘Not quite, dear. There’s your diary, of course.’
‘Yes, I suppose we could look at that more closely,’ Hetty added, suddenly hit by another wave of exhaustion.
Aggie stood up. ‘Bed,’ she commanded.
Hetty was too overwhelmed and tired to do anything except take her bags, be led through confusing surroundings and sink into an unusually comfortable bed.
But this was more than any ordinary physical fatigue which might be expected from the act of travelling through time.
She might have left her home, her family, even her body in the past, but her troubles had followed her all the way through two centuries: she knew the feeling of it deep in her bones.
The familiar darkness was spreading through her again, like a black cloud pressing her down into the mattress.
The last thought that ran through her head was a desperate hope that she had done the right thing.