To Say Nothing of the Dog

CHAPTER SIX

I know, I had said the naiad was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, but she had been wet and dirty, and, even though she looked like she’d risen out of a Pre-Raphaelite pond, unmistakably Twenty-First Century.

Just as the creature on the bridge was unmistakably Nineteenth. No historian, no matter how casually she caught up her trailing white skirts with a kid-gloved hand, no matter how erect she held her head on her aristocratic neck, could hope to capture the quality of stillness, of clear-eyed innocence of the girl on the bridge. She was like a delicate blossom, capable of growing only in a single time, adapted only to the select hothouse environment of the late Victorian era: the untouched flower, the blooming English rose, the angel in the house. She would be extinct in only a handful of years, replaced by the bicycling bloomer girl, the cigarette-smoking flapper and the suffragette.

A terrible melancholy swept over me. I could never have her. Standing there with her white parasol and her clear greenish-brown-eyed gaze, the image of youth and beauty, she was long since married to Terence, long since dead and buried in a churchyard like the one at the top of the hill.

“To port,” Terence said. “No, to port!” He rowed rapidly toward the side of the bridge, where there were several stakes, presumably for tying the boat up.

I grabbed the rope, jumped out into squishy mud, and looped the rope.

Terence and Cyril were already out of the boat and climbing the steep bank up to the bridge.

I tied a very lumpish-looking knot, wishing Finch had included a subliminal tape on half-hitches and sheepshanks, and that there were some way to lock the boat.

This is the Victorian era, I reminded myself, when people could trust each other and the earnest young man gets the girl and is probably already kissing her on the bridge.

He wasn’t. He was standing on the muddy bank, looking vaguely round. “I don’t see her,” he said, looking directly at the vision, “but her cousin’s here, and there’s the landau,” he pointed at an open carriage standing on the hill next to the church, “so she must still be here. What time is it?” He pulled out his pocket watch to look at it. “You don’t suppose they’ve sent her cousin to tell me she’s not to see me. If she—” he said, and broke into a wide smile.

A girl in ruffles appeared on the bank above us. Her white dress had ruffles on the skirt and ruffles on the yoke and ruffles on the sleeves. Her parasol had ruffles round the edges, too, and her short white gloves, and all of the ruffles were in motion, like flags being carried into battle. There weren’t any ruffles on her hat, but, to compensate it had a large batch of fluttering pink ribbons, and her blonde hair under the hat curled and bounced with every stray breeze.

“Look, Cousin, it’s Mr. St. Trewes,” she said, and started down the slope, which set everything into a flurry of motion. “I told you he would come!”

“Tossie,” the vision in white said reprovingly, but Tossie was already running toward the towpath, catching her flounced skirts up just enough to reveal the toes of very small feet in white boots, and taking dainty little steps.

She reached the edge of the riverbank and stopped — comparatively, that is — fluttered her eyelashes at us, and addressed Cyril. “Did the dearie doggums come to see his Tossie? Did he know his Tossie missed her sweetums Cyril?”

Cyril looked appalled.

“He’s been goodums, hasn’t he?” Tossie cooed. “But his master’s been a naughty bad boy. He didn’t come and didn’t come.”

“We were delayed,” Terence interjected. “Professor Peddick—”

“Tossie was afwaid her tardy boy’d forgotten all about her, wasn’t her, Cywil?”

Cyril gave Terence a look of resignation and ambled forward to have his head petted.

“O! O!” Tossie said, and somehow managed to make it sound exactly like I’d seen it written in Victorian novels. “O!”

Cyril stopped, confused, and looked at Terence, and then started forward again.

“Bad, bad dog!” Tossie said, and pursed her lips into a series of tiny screams. “The horrid creature will muss my dress. It’s silk muslin.” She fluttered her skirts away from him. “Papa had it made for me in Paris.”

Terence lunged forward and grabbed Cyril, who had already backed away, by his collar. “You frightened Miss Mering,” he said sternly, and shook his finger at him. “I apologize for Cyril’s behavior,” he said, “and for my tardiness. There was a near-drowning, and we had to save my tutor.”

The cousin came up. “Hello, Cyril,” she said kindly and bent to scratch him behind the ears. “Hello, Mr. St. Trewes. How nice to meet you again.” Her voice was quiet and cultured, without a hint of baby-talk. “Does your being here mean you’ve found Princess Arjumand?”

“Yes, do tell us,” Tossie said belatedly. “Have you found my poor lost Juju?”

“Alas, no,” Terence said, “but we intend to continue the search. This is Mr. Henry. Mr. Henry, Miss Mering and Miss Brown.”

“How do you do, Miss Mering, Miss Brown,” I said, tipping my straw boater as the subliminals had instructed.

“Mr. Henry and I have hired a boat,” he gestured toward the foot of the bridge, where the nose of the boat was just visible, “and we intend to explore every inch of the Thames.”

“That’s very good of you,” Miss Brown said, “but I have no doubt that when we return home this evening, we shall find she has returned safe and sound.”

“Home?” Terence said, dismayed.

“Yes!” Tossie said. “We’re to return to Muchings End tonight. Mama has had a message that we are needed there.”

“I hope nothing unfortunate has happened to call you home,” Terence said.

“Oh, no,” Tossie said, “it wasn’t a message like that. It was from the Other Side. It said, ‘Return to Muching’s End to await your happy Fate,’ so Mama is determined to go at once. We’re taking the train this evening.”

“Yes,” Miss Brown said. “We should be returning to Madame Iritosky’s.” She extended a kid-gloved hand. “Thank you for your kindness in looking for Princess Arjumand. So nice to have met you, Mr. Henry.”

“Oh, but we mustn’t go back now, Cousin Verity,” Tossie said. “Our train isn’t till half-past six. And Mr. St. Trewes and Mr. Henry haven’t seen the church.”

“It is a long way to Madame Iritosky’s home,” Cousin Verity protested, “and your mother particularly said we were to be back for tea.”

“We’ve plenty of time,” Tossie said. “We’ll tell Baine to drive very fast. Wouldn’t you like to see the church, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“I’d love to,” Terence said fervently. Cyril trotted happily up between them.

Tossie hesitated prettily. “Shouldn’t Cyril stay by the boat?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Terence said. “Cyril, you must stay.”

“He could wait outside the lychgate,” I offered, but it was no use. Terence was too far gone.

“Stay, Cyril,” he commanded.

Cyril gave him the look Julius Caesar must have given Brutus, and lay down on the shadeless bank, his head on his paws.

“Don’t let any bad, bad mans steal the boat,” Tossie said. “You must be a brave, brave doggums.” She unfurled her parasol and started up the path. “It’s the cunningest little church. So quaint and old-fashioned. People come from miles about to see it. I do love sights, don’t you? Mama has promised to take us to Hampton Court next week.” She led the way up the hill, chattering to Terence, and the vision and I followed.

Tossie was correct about the church, and people did “come from miles about to see it,” if the signs posted were any indication. They began at the foot of the hill with a hand-lettered placard that said, “Keep to path.” This was followed by, “No tours during church services,” “Keep off grass,” and “Picking flowers forbidden.”

“Mama says we’re to have a séance in the Gallery at Hampton Court. The spirit of Catherine Howard walks there, you know. She was one of Henry the Eighth’s wives. He had eight wives. Baine says he only had six, but if that were true, why would his name be Henry the Eighth?”

I glanced at Miss Brown, who was smiling gently. At close quarters she was even more beautiful. Her hat had a veil, caught up behind into a fall of sheer white over her auburn hair, and through it her fair skin and pink cheeks looked almost ethereal.

“Henry the Eighth’s wives were all beheaded,” Tossie was saying. “I should hate to be beheaded.” She gave her blonde curls a toss. “They clipped off your hair and dressed you in a horrid plain shift without any decoration at all.”

Or ruffles, I thought.

“I do hope it won’t just be Catherine Howard’s head,” she said. “It is sometimes, you know, not the entire spirit. When Nora Lyon came to Muchings End, she materialized a spirit hand. It played the accordion.” She looked coyly at Terence. “Do you know what the spirits told me last night? That I would meet a stranger.”

“What else did they tell you?” Terence asked. “That he was tall, dark, and handsome, I suppose.”

“No,” she said, perfectly serious. “They rapped out ‘Beware,’ and then the letter ‘C.’ Mama thought it was a message about Princess Arjumand, but I think it meant the sea, only we aren’t anywhere near it, so it must mean the stranger will arrive by the river.”

“Which I have,” Terence said, far gone.

We were nearing the crest of the hill. An open carriage stood at the top with a driver in, of all things, full morning dress: swallowtail coat and striped trousers. He was reading a book, and the horse was grazing listlessly at the grass. I was surprised there wasn’t a “No parking” sign.

As we came up, the driver closed the book and sat up stiffly at attention. “I was afraid we couldn’t come after all,” Tossie said, walking past the carriage without so much as a glance at the driver. “Madame Iritosky’s boy was to have driven us, but he was in a trance, and Mama wouldn’t let us take the landau alone. And so then I thought, Baine can drive us. That’s our new butler. Mama stole him from Mrs. Chattisbourne, who was dreadfully angry. Good butlers are so difficult to find.”

That explained the striped trousers and the stiffness — Finch’s tape had been very clear. Butlers did not drive carriages. I looked at him. He was younger than I’d expected, and taller, with a rather haggard expression, as if he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. I could relate to that. I felt as though I’d been up for centuries.

Finch’s tapes had said that butlers were supposed to be poker-faced, but this one wasn’t. He looked distinctly worried about something. I wondered what. This outing, or the prospect of working for someone who thought Henry the Eighth had eight wives? I tried to sneak a look at his book as we passed. It was Carlyle’s The French Revolution.

“I don’t like our butler,” Tossie said as if he wasn’t there. “He’s always cross.”

Apparently Cousin Verity didn’t like him either. She kept her gaze straight ahead as we passed. I nodded to the butler and tipped my hat. He picked up his book and resumed reading.

“Our last butler was much nicer. Lady Hall stole him from us when she came to visit. Imagine, while she was staying under our roof! Papa says servants shouldn’t be allowed to read books. It ruins their moral fibers. And gives them ideas.”

Terence opened the gate to the church. It had a sign on it which read, “Close gate when you leave.”

He and Tossie walked up to the door. It was plastered with signs — “No visitors after four o’clock.” “No visitors during services.” “No photographs or daguerreotypes allowed.” “For assistance contact Mr. Egglesworth, Churchwarden, Harwood House, do not disturb except in case of EMERGENCY.” I was surprised Luther’s Ninety-Nine Objections weren’t on there, too.

“Isn’t the church cunning?” Tossie said. “Look at those sweet zigzags carved over the door.”

I recognized them even without tapes as dogtoothed ornamentation dating from the twelfth century, the result of having spent the last several months on Lady Schrapnell’s cathedral. “Norman architecture,” I said.

“I do so love dear old-fashioned churches, don’t you?” Tossie said, ignoring me. “So much simpler than our modern ones.”

Terence opened the simple old-fashioned note-covered door, Tossie furled her parasol, and went in. Terence followed her, and I expected Cousin Verity to follow suit. Finch’s tapes had said Victorian young ladies were never allowed to go anywhere unchaperoned, and I had assumed that Cousin Verity, vision though she was, was that chaperone. She had certainly looked disapproving enough down on the riverbank, and the church would be dimly lit and full of opportunities for hanky-panky.

And it was clear from the sign on the door that the churchwarden wasn’t inside. But Miss Brown didn’t so much as glance toward the half-opened door or the shadowy darkness within. She opened the iron gate, which was decorated with a sign that read “No spitting,” and walked into the churchyard.

She paced silently among the graves, past several signs directing us not to pick the flowers or lean against the tombstones, past a badly tilting obelisk, against which somebody obviously had.

I tried to think of what one said to a Victorian young lady when alone with her. Finch’s tapes hadn’t given any guidelines as to proper topics of conversation for a young man and a young lady who’d just met.

Not politics, since I had no idea what they were in 1888, and young ladies weren’t supposed to bother their pretty heads about affairs of state. And not religion, since Darwin was still controversial. I tried to remember what people had said in the Victorian plays I’d seen, which consisted of The Admirable Crichton and The Importance of Being Earnest. Class issues and witty epigrams. A butler with ideas was clearly not a popular idea in these parts, and I couldn’t think of any witty epigrams. Besides, humor is always fraught with peril.

She had reached the last of the tombstones and was looking at me expectantly.

The weather. But how was I supposed to address her? Miss Brown? Miss Verity? Milady?

“Well,” she said impatiently. “Did you get it back all right?”

It was not exactly the opening line I had expected. “I beg your pardon?” I said.

“Baine didn’t see you, did he?” she said. “Where did you leave it?”

“I’m afraid you’ve confused me with someone else…”

“It’s all right,” she said, looking toward the church. “They can’t hear us. Tell me exactly what happened when you brought it back through the net.”

I must be having some sort of relapse of the time-lag. None of this was making any sense.

“You didn’t drown it, did you?” she said angrily. “He promised he wasn’t going to drown it.”

“Drown what?” I said.

“The cat.”

This was worse than talking to the nurse in Infirmary. “The cat? You mean Tossie — Miss Mering’s cat that’s lost? Princess Arjumand?”

“Of course I mean Princess Arjumand.” She frowned. “Didn’t Mr. Dunworthy give her to you?”

“Mr. Dunworthy?” I gaped at her.

“Yes. Didn’t he give the cat to you to bring back through the net?”

The light began to dawn. “You’re the naiad in Mr. Dunworthy’s office,” I said wonderingly. “But you can’t be. Her name was Kindle.”

“That’s my name. Miss Brown is my contemp name. The Merings don’t have any relatives named Kindle, and I’m supposed to be a second cousin of Tossie’s.”

The light was still breaking. “You’re the calamity,” I said, “who brought something forward through the net.”

“The cat,” she said impatiently.

A cat. Of course. That made much more sense than a cab or a rat. And it explained the peculiar look Mr. Dunworthy’d given me when I mentioned Lady Windermere’s fan. “It was a cat you brought through the net,” I said. “But that’s impossible. You can’t bring things forward through the net.”

Now she was the one gaping. “You didn’t know about the cat? But I thought they were going to send the cat through with you,” and I wondered uneasily if they had intended to. Finch had told me to wait when I was standing there in the net. Had he gone to fetch the cat, and I’d made the jump before he could give it to me?

“Did they tell you they were sending it back with me?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Mr. Dunworthy refused to tell me anything. He told me I’d caused enough trouble already, and he didn’t want me meddling any further. I just assumed it was you because I saw you in Mr. Dunworthy’s office.”

“I was there to speak to Mr. Dunworthy about my time-lag,” I said. “Infirmary prescribed two weeks’ bed rest, so Mr. Dunworthy sent me here to get it.”

“To the Victorian era?” she said, looking amused.

I nodded. “I couldn’t get it in Oxford because of Lady Schrapnell—”

She looked even more amused. “He sent you here to get away from Lady Schrapnell?”

“Yes,” I said, alarmed. “She isn’t here, is she?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “If you don’t have the cat, do you know who they sent it through with?”

“No,” I said, trying to remember that conversation in the lab. “Contact someone,” Mr. Dunworthy had said. Andrews. I remembered now. Mr. Dunworthy had said, “Contact Andrews.”

“They said something about contacting Andrews,” I said.

“Did you hear them say anything else? When they were sending him through to? Whether the jump worked?”

“No,” I said, “but I was dozing a good deal of the time. Because of the time-lag.”

“When exactly did you hear them mention Andrews?”

“This morning, while I was waiting for my jump,” I said.

“When did you come through?”

“This morning. At ten o’clock.”

“Then that explains it,” she said, looking relieved. “I was worried when I got back and Princess Arjumand wasn’t there. I was afraid something had gone wrong, and sending her back through the net hadn’t worked, or that Baine had found her and thrown her in again. And when Mrs. Mering insisted on coming to Oxford to consult Madame Iritosky on her disappearance, and your young man showed up, I got truly worried. But everything’s all right. They obviously sent her through after we left for Oxford, and the visit was a good thing. It put us all out of the way so no one would see her being put back, and Baine’s here, so he can’t drown her before we get back. And the jump must have been successful, or you wouldn’t be here. Mr. Dunworthy said he was suspending all drops to the Nineteenth Century till the cat was returned. So everything’s all right. Mr. Dunworthy’s experiment worked, Princess Arjumand will be there waiting to greet us when we get back, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Wait,” I said, thoroughly confused. “I think you need to begin at the beginning. Sit down.”

I indicated a wooden bench with a sign on it: “Do not deface.” Next to it was a carved heart with an arrow through it and under it, “Violet and Harold, ‘59.” She sat down, arranging her white skirts gracefully about her.

“All right,” I said. “You brought a cat forward through the net.”

“Yes. I was at the gazebo, that’s where the drop is, just behind it in a little copse, it’s on a ten-minute on and off rendezvous. I’d just come through from reporting to Mr. Dunworthy, and I saw Baine, that’s the butler, carrying Princess Arjumand—”

“Wait. What were you doing in the Victorian era?”

“Lady Schrapnell sent me here to read Tossie’s diary. She thought there might be some clue in it as to the whereabouts of the bishop’s bird stump.”

Of course. I might have known all this had something to do with the bishop’s bird stump. “But what does Tossie have to do with the bishop’s bird stump?” I had a sudden horrible thought. “Please tell me she isn’t the great-great-grandmother.”

“Great-great-great-great. This is the summer she went to Coventry, saw the bishop’s bird stump—”

“—and had her life changed forever,” I said.

“An event she referred to repeatedly and in great detail in the voluminous diaries she kept for most of her life, which Lady Schrapnell read and became obsessed with rebuilding Coventry Cathedral, and had her life changed forever.”

“And ours,” I said. “But if she read the diaries, why did she have to send you back to 1888 to read them?”

“The volume in which Tossie originally recorded the life-changing experience — the one Tossie wrote in the summer of 1888 — is badly water-damaged. Lady Schrapnell’s got a forensics expert working on it, but she’s only made limited progress, so Lady Schrapnell sent me to read it on the spot.”

“But if she referred to it in great detail in the other diaries—?” I said.

“She didn’t say exactly how it changed her life or on what date she went there, and Lady Schrapnell thinks there may be other details in the volume that are important. Unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately, since Tossie writes the way she talks, she keeps her diary under better lock and key than the Crown Jewels, and so far I haven’t been able to get at it.”

“I’m still confused,” I said. “The bishop’s bird stump didn’t disappear till 1940. What use is a diary written in 1888?”

“Lady Schrapnell thinks there might be a clue as to who gave it to the church. The donations records for Coventry Cathedral were burnt up during the air raid. She thinks whoever donated it, or their descendants, might have taken it away for safekeeping at the beginning of the war.”

“Whoever donated it was probably trying to get rid of it.”

“I know. But you know Lady Schrapnell. ‘No stone unturned.’ So I’ve been following Tossie around for two weeks, hoping she’ll leave her diary lying out. Or go to Coventry. She’s got to go soon. When I mentioned Coventry, she said she’d never been there, and we know she went sometime in June. But so far nothing.”

“So you kidnapped her cat and demanded her diary as ransom?”

“No,” she said. “I was coming back from reporting to Mr. Dunworthy, and I saw Baine, that’s the butler—”

“Who reads books,” I said.

“Who’s a homicidal maniac,” she said. “He was carrying Princess Arjumand, and when he got to the riverbank, a perfectly lovely June. The roses have been so pretty.”

“What?” I said, disoriented again.

“And the laburnum! Mrs. Mering has an arbor of laburnum that is ever so picturesque!”

“Begging your pardon, Miss Brown,” Baine said, appearing out of nowhere. He gave a stiff little bow.

“What is it, Baine?” Verity said.

“It’s Miss Mering’s pet cat, ma’am,” he said uncomfortably. “I was wondering if Mr. St. Trewes’s being here meant that he had located it.”

“No, Baine,” she said, and the temperature seemed to drop several degrees. “Princess Arjumand is still missing.”

“I was concerned,” he said and bowed again. “Do you wish the carriage to be brought around now?”

“No,” she said frostily. “Thank you, Baine.”

“Mrs. Mering requested that you return in time for tea.”

“I am aware of that, Baine. Thank you.”

He still hesitated. “It is half an hour’s drive to Madame Iritosky’s home.”

“Yes, Baine. That will be all,” she said and watched him till he was nearly to the carriage before she burst out, “Cold-blooded murderer! ‘I was wondering if Mr. St. Trewes might have found the cat.’ He knows perfectly well he hasn’t. And all that about being concerned! Monster!”

“Are you certain he was trying to drown her?” I said.

“Of course I’m certain. He flung her as far out as he could throw her.”

“Perhaps it’s a contemp custom. I remember reading they drowned cats in the Victorian era. To keep the population down, of all things.”

“That’s newborn kittens, not full-grown cats. And not pets. Princess Arjumand’s the thing Tossie loves most, next to herself. The kittens they drown are farm cats, not pets. The farmer just up the road from Muchings End killed a batch last week, put them in a sack weighted with stones and threw it in his pond, which is barbaric but not malicious. This was malicious. After Baine threw her in, he dusted off his hands and walked back toward the house smiling. He clearly intended to drown her.”

“I thought cats could swim.”

“Not in the middle of the Thames. If I hadn’t done something, it would have been swept away in the current.”

“The Lady of Shalott,” I murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. Why would he want to murder his mistress’s cat?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he has something against cats. Or perhaps it isn’t just cats, and we’ll all be murdered in our beds some night. Perhaps he’s Jack the Ripper. He was operating in 1888, wasn’t he? And they never did find out his true identity. All I know is, I couldn’t just stand there and let Princess Arjumand drown. It’s an extinct species.”

“So you dived in and saved it?”

“I waded in,” she said defensively, “and caught hold of her and brought her back on shore, but as soon as I did, I realized no Victorian lady would have waded in like that. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes. I didn’t think. I just acted. I ducked in the net, and it opened,” she said. “I was only trying to get out of sight. I didn’t mean to cause a problem.”

A problem. She had done something temporal theory said was impossible. And possibly caused an incongruity in the continuum. No wonder Mr. Dunworthy had asked Chiswick all those questions and been grilling poor T.J. Lewis. A problem.

A fan was one thing, a live cat was another. And even a fan won’t go through. Darby and Gentilla had proved that, back when time travel had first been invented. They’d built the net as a pirate ship for plundering the treasures of the past, and they’d tried it on everything from the Mona Lisa to King Tut’s tomb and then, when that didn’t work, on more mundane items, like money. But nothing except microscopic particles would come through. When they tried to take any object, even a halfpence or a fish fork, out of its own time, the net wouldn’t open. It didn’t let germs through either, or radiation, or stray bullets, which Darby and Gentilla and the rest of the world should have been grateful for, but weren’t particularly.

The multinationals who’d been backing Darby and Gentilla lost interest, and time travel had been handed over to historians and scientists, who’d come up with the theories of slippage and the Law of Conservation of History to explain it, and it had been accepted as a law that if one tried to bring something forward through the net, it wouldn’t open. Till now.

“When you tried to bring the cat through, the net opened, just like that?” I said. “You didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary about the drop, no delays or jolts?”

She shook her head. “It was just like any other jump.”

“And the cat was all right?”

“She slept through the whole thing. Fell asleep in my arms in the drop and didn’t even wake up when we got to Mr. Dunworthy’s office. Apparently that’s how time-lag affects cats. It puts them right out.”

“You went to see Mr. Dunworthy?”

“Of course,” she said defensively. “I took the cat to him as soon as I realized what I’d done.”

“And he decided to try to send it back?”

“I pumped Finch, and he told me they were going to check all the drops to the Victorian era, and if there weren’t any indications of excessive slippage, that meant the cat had been returned before its disappearance could cause any damage, and they were going to send it back.”

But there was excessive slippage, I thought, remembering Mr. Dunworthy asking Carruthers about Coventry. “What about the trouble we were having in Coventry?”

“Finch said they thought it was unrelated, that it was due to Coventry’s being an historical crisis point. Because of its connection to Ultra. It was the only area of excessive slippage. There wasn’t any on any of the Victorian drops.” She looked up at me. “How much slippage was there on your drop?”

“None,” I said. “I was spang on target.”

“Good,” she said, and looked relieved. “There was only five minutes on mine when I came back. Finch said the first place an incongruity would manifest itself was in the increased slip—”

“Oh, I do love country churchyards,” Tossie’s voice said, and I leaped away from Verity like a Victorian lover. Verity remained serene, opening her parasol and standing up with a calm grace.

“They’re so delightfully rustic,” Tossie said and hove into view, flags flying. “Not at all like our dreadful modern cemeteries.” She stopped to admire a tombstone that had nearly fallen over. “Baine says churchyards are unsanitary, that they contaminate the water table, but I think it’s wonderfully unspoilt. Just like a poem. Don’t you, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“ ‘Beneath those rugged elms that yew trees shade,’ ” Terence obligingly quoted, “ ‘where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap—’ ”

The bit about “the mouldering heap” seemed to confirm Baine’s theory, but neither Terence nor Tossie noticed, Terence particularly, who was declaiming, “ ‘Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.’ ”

“I do love Tennyson, don’t you, Cousin?” Tossie said.

“Thomas Gray,” Verity said. “ ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.’ ”

“Oh, Mr. Henry, you must come and see the inside of the church,” Tossie said, ignoring her. “There’s the dearest decorated vase. Isn’t it, Mr. St. Trewes?”

He nodded vaguely, gazing at Tossie, and I saw Verity frown. “We must see it, by all means,” she said, and caught up her skirts with a gloved hand. “Mr. Henry?”

“By all means,” I said, offering her my arm, and we all went into the church, past a large sign that read, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.”

The church was chilly and smelled faintly of old wood and mildewing hymnals. It was decorated with stout Norman pillars, a vaulted Early English sanctuary, a Victorian rose window, and a large placard that proclaimed “Keep out of chancel” on the altar railing.

Tossie blithely ignored it and the Norman slate baptismal font and swept up to a niche in the wall opposite the pulpit. “Isn’t it the cunningest thing you’ve ever seen?”

There was no question she was related to Lady Schrapnell, and no question where Lady Schrapnell had got her taste from, though Tossie at least had the excuse of being a Victorian, and part of an era that had built not only St. Pancras Railway Station, but the Albert Memorial.

The vase that sat in the niche looked like both, though on a less grandiose scale. It only had one level and no Corinthian pillars. It did, however, have twining ivy and a bas-relief of either Noah’s ark or the battle of Jericho.

“What is it supposed to be depicting?” I asked.

“The Slaughter of the Innocents,” Verity murmured.

“It’s Pharaoh’s Daughters Bathing in the Nile,” Tossie said. “Look, there’s Moses’ basket peeping out from among the rushes. I do wish we had this in our church,” Tossie said. “The church at Muchings End hasn’t anything in it but a lot of old things. It’s just like that poem by Tennyson,” Tossie said, clasping her hands together. “Poem to a Greek Vase.”

And the last thing we needed was Terence quoting Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” I looked desperately at Verity, trying to think of something to get us out of here and somewhere we could talk. The dogtoothed ornamentation? Cyril? Verity was looking round calmly at the stone vaulting, as if we had all the time in the world.

“ ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ ” Terence said. “ ‘That is all ye know—’ ”

“Do you suppose it’s haunted?” Verity said.

Terence stopped quoting. “Haunted?”

“Haunted?” Tossie said happily and gave a miniature version of a scream, a sort of screamlet. “Of course it is. Madame Iritosky says that there are certain places that act as portals between one world and the next,” she said.

I glanced at Verity, but she looked serene, untroubled by Tossie’s having just described the net.

“Madame Iritosky says that spirits often hover near the portal by which their souls passed to the Other Side,” Tossie explained to Terence. “That’s why séances fail so often, because they’re not close enough to a portal. That’s why Madame Iritosky always holds her séances at home, instead of travelling to people’s homes. And a churchyard would be a logical portal.” She looked up at the ribbed vaulting and gave another screamlet. “They could be here with us now!”

“I should imagine the churchwarden would know of any spirits,” Verity said helpfully.

Yes, and would have put up a sign saying, “No manifestations,” I thought. “Absolutely no ectoplasm.”

“Oh, yes!” Tossie said and gave another of her little screamlets. “Mr. St. Trewes, we must ask the churchwarden!” They went out the door, consulted the sign, and started off for Harwood House and the churchwarden, who would no doubt be delighted to see them.

“All Mr. Dunworthy would tell me was that he was sending me back to two hours after I’d rescued the cat,” Verity said, picking up where she’d left off, “and to report back if there was any unusual slippage or coincidental happenings, and I assumed that meant Princess Arjumand was already back at Muchings End. But when I came through, she wasn’t there. Tossie had discovered she was missing and had the whole household out searching for her, and I began to worry that something had gone wrong. And before I could report back to Mr. Dunworthy and find out what had happened, Mrs. Mering had hauled us all off to Oxford, and Tossie had met Count de Vecchio.”

“Count de Vecchio?”

“A young man at one of the séances. Rich, handsome, charming. Perfect, in fact, except that his name begins with a ‘V’ and not a ‘C.’ He’s interested in theosophy,” she said. “He was also interested in Tossie. He insisted on sitting next to her at the table so he could hold her hand, and he told her not to be afraid if she felt a touch on her feet, that it was only the spirits. That’s why I suggested the walk by the Thames, to get her away from him, and then Terence came rowing by, and his name doesn’t begin with a ‘C’ either. And he seemed so smitten with her. Not that that’s unusual. Every young man who meets Tossie is smitten with her.” She looked up at me from under her veil. “Speaking of which, why aren’t you?”

“She thinks Henry the Eighth had eight wives,” I said.

“I know, but I’d have thought with your time-lag you’d have been in poor Titania’s condition, wandering about ready to fall in love with the first girl you saw.”

“Which was you,” I said.

If she had been the untouched English rose she looked like, she’d have blushed a becoming pink under that veil, but she was Twenty-First Century.

“You’ll get over it,” she said, sounding just like the Infirmary nurse, “as soon as you’ve had a good night’s sleep. I wish I could say the same for Tossie’s suitors. Especially Terence. Tossie seems so taken with him. She insisted on coming to Iffley this afternoon even though Mme. Iritosky had arranged a special séance for finding Princess Arjumand. And on the way over in the carriage, she asked me what I thought of plum cake for a bride’s cake. That’s when I got truly worried that my taking the cat had caused an incongruity and Count de Vecchio and Terence would never have met Tossie if she hadn’t come to Oxford, and neither of their names begins with a ‘C.’ ”

I was getting lost again. “Why do their names need to begin with a ‘C’?”

“Because that summer — this summer — she married someone whose name begins with a ‘C.’ ”

“How do you know? I thought the diary was unreadable.”

“It is.” She walked over to a pew and sat down next to a sign that read, “Sitting in pews allowed only during services.”

“Then couldn’t the ‘C’ refer to that trip to Coventry that changed her life forever?” I said. “Coventry begins with a ‘C.’ ”

She shook her head. “Her diary entry for May 6, 1938 says, ‘This summer we shall have been married fifty years, and I am happier than I ever thought possible being Mr. C-something’s wife,’ but the middle of his name is blotted out, and the letter ‘w’ of ‘wife.’ ”

“Blotted?”

“An ink stain. Pens did that in those days, you know.”

“And you’re certain it’s a ‘C’ and not a ‘G’?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to rule out not only Count de Vecchio and Terence but also Professor Peddick and Jabez. And thankfully, me.

“Who is this Mr. Chips or Chesterton or Coleridge she’s supposed to marry?” I said.

“I don’t know. It’s no one she’s ever mentioned and no one who’s ever been to Muchings End. I asked Colleen, the parlor maid. She’d never heard of him.”

There was the sound of distant voices from outside. Verity stood up. “Walk with me,” she said. “Pretend we’re examining the architecture.” She strolled over to the baptismal font and looked interestedly at it.

“So you don’t know who this Mr. C is, but you know it’s someone Tossie hasn’t met yet and you know she married him this summer,” I said, examining a sign that said, “Do not remove church furnishings.” “I thought Victorians went in for long engagements.”

“They do,” she said, looking grim, “and after the engagement, the banns have to be read out in church for three successive Sundays, not to mention meeting the parents and sewing a trousseau, and it’s already nearly the middle of June.”

“When were they married?”

“We don’t know that either. The church at Muchings End was burned during the Pandemic, and her later diaries don’t mention the date.”

I thought of something. “But surely they mention his name, don’t they? The May sixth entry can’t have been the only time she mentioned her husband in fifty years.”

She looked unhappy. “She always refers to him as ‘my darling husband’ or ‘my beloved helpmeet.’ ‘Darling’ and ‘beloved’ underlined.”

I nodded. “And exclamation points.” I’d had to read some of the diaries for references to the bishop’s bird stump.

We strolled over to the side aisle. “The diaries stopped for several years after this summer’s,” Verity said, “and then started up again in 1904. By that time they were living in America, and he was working in silent films under the stage name of Bertram W. Fauntleroy, which he changed to Reginald Fitzhugh-Smythe in 1927, when the talkies came in.”

She stopped in front of a stained-glass window half-covered with a sign that read, “Do not attempt to open.” “He had a long and distinguished career playing British aristocrats,” she said.

“Which means it was likely he was an aristocrat himself. That’s good, isn’t it? It means at least he wasn’t a tramp who wandered by.” I thought of something. “What about his obituary?”

“It lists his stage name,” she said, “and so does hers.” She smiled wryly at me. “She lived to the age of ninety-seven. Five children, twenty-three grandchildren, and a major Hollywood studio.”

“And nary a clue,” I said. “What about Coventry? Could she have met this Mr. C there, while she was looking at the bishop’s bird stump, and that’s the event that changed her life forever?”

“It’s possible,” she said. “But that’s another problem. They haven’t said anything about a trip to Coventry. Mrs. Mering’s talked about going to Hampton Court to see Catherine Howard’s ghost, but they’ve never so much as mentioned Coventry, and they didn’t go before I got here. I know because I asked—”

“—the upstairs maid,” I finished.

“Yes. And we know Tossie went there sometime in June. That’s why I’ve been so worried about their coming to Oxford to see Madame Iritosky. I was afraid Princess Arjumand’s disappearance had made them come to Oxford when they should have been going to Coventry, or that Mr. C might have come to Muchings End while Tossie was here and missed meeting her. But if Mr. Dunworthy and T.J. have returned Princess Arjumand, that means the cat’s simply wandered off. And who knows? Mr. C may be the one who finds her and brings her back. Perhaps that’s why they got engaged so suddenly, because she was grateful to him for returning Arjumand.”

“And it isn’t as if you’ve been away from Muchings End long,” I said. “Only a day. If Mr. C did come calling, the maid would no doubt ask him to wait in the parlor till you returned.”

“What do you mean?” she said. She stood up abruptly, her skirts rustling.

“I just assumed,” I said, surprised. “Weren’t the Victorians the ones with parlors? Didn’t their maids ask callers to wait?”

“When did you come through?” she demanded.

“This morning,” I said. “I told you. Bang on target. Ten o’clock, June the seventh, 1888.”

“This is the tenth of June,” she said.

The tenth. “But the newspaper—”

“—must have been an old one. I came through on the night of the seventh. We came to Oxford on the eighth, and we’ve been here three days.”

I said blankly, “Then there must have been—”

“—increased slippage,” she said, “which is an indication that there’s been an incongruity.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I left rather in a hurry.” I explained about Lady Schrapnell. “Warder might not have finished setting the coordinates. Or she might have made a mistake. She’d done seventeen drops already.”

“Perhaps,” she said doubtfully. “Where did you come through? Folly Bridge? Is that where you met up with Terence?”

“No, the railway station. He was there to meet his tutor’s relatives, but they didn’t arrive.” I explained about his asking me if I were going on the river and about his financial problems. “So I paid the balance on the boat.”

“And if you hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t be here,” she said, looking even more worried. “Could he have gotten the boat if you hadn’t lent the money to him?”

“Not a chance,” I said, thinking about Jabez, and then, at her worried expression, “He said something about trying to borrow money from someone named Mags at the Mitre,” I said. “But he was determined to see Tossie again. I think he would have run the entire way to Iffley if he hadn’t had the money.”

“You’re probably right,” she said. “There’s a great deal of redundancy in the system. If he hadn’t met her here, he might very well have met her at Muchings End. He said yesterday he had been thinking of going downriver. And three days’ slippage isn’t all that much.” She frowned. “Still, though, it seems a lot for a pleasure trip. And it’s more than on the other Victorian drops. I’d better report it to Mr. Dunworthy when I get back to—”

“—certain the spirits will bring us word of Princess Arjumand,” Tossie’s voice said, and she fluttered in with Terence, who had his hat in his hands. “Madame Iritosky is famous for locating lost objects. She told the Duchess of Derby where her lost brooch was and the Duchess gave her a reward of a thousand pounds. Papa said, of course she knew where it was, she’d put it there herself, but Mama,” she said, putting the accent on the last syllable, “knows it was the workings of the spirit world.”

Verity stood up and draped her skirts. “What did the churchwarden say?” she said, and I was amazed at her composure. She looked the serene English maiden again. “Is Iffley Church haunted?”

“No,” Terence said.

“Yes,” Tossie said, looking up at the vaulting. “And I don’t care what he says, cross old bear. They are here now, spirits from another time and place. I can feel their presence.”

“What the churchwarden said was that it wasn’t haunted, but he wished it were,” Terence said, “because ‘hants’ didn’t get mud all over the floor or take down his notices. Or bother the churchwarden when he was having his tea.”

“Tea!” Tossie said. “What a lovely idea! Cousin, go and tell Baine to serve tea.”

“There isn’t time,” Verity said, pulling on her gloves. “We are expected back at Madame Iritosky’s.”

“Oh, but Mr. St. Trewes and Mr. Henry have not seen the mill yet,” Tossie said.

“They shall have to see it after we are gone,” Verity said, and swept out of the church. “We do not want to miss our train to Muchings End.” She stopped at the lychgate. “Mr. St. Trewes, would you be so good as to tell our butler to bring the carriage round?”

“My pleasure,” Terence said, tipping his hat, and started toward the tree where Baine sat reading.

I’d hoped Tossie would go with him so I could talk to Verity, but she stayed by the lychgate, pouting and snapping her parasol open and shut. And what sort of excuse could give us a few moments alone? I could hardly suggest she follow Terence with Verity already concerned about her attraction to him, and she was the type to give orders, not take—

“My parasol,” Verity said. “I must have left it in the church.”

“I’ll help you find it,” I said, and opened the door with alacrity, scattering notices everywhere.

“I’ll return to Oxford and report to Mr. Dunworthy as soon as I get the chance,” she whispered as soon as the door was shut. “Where will you be?”

“I’m not certain,” I said. “On the river somewhere. Terence talked about rowing down to Henley.”

“I’ll try to get word to you,” she said, walking toward the front of the nave. “It may be several days.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Keep Terence away from Muchings End,” she said. “It’s probably just an infatuation on Tossie’s part, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

I nodded.

“And don’t worry. It’s only three days’ slippage, and Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t have sent you through if Princess Arjumand hadn’t already been safely returned. I’m certain everything’s fine.” She patted my arm. “You get some sleep. You’re supposed to be recovering from time-lag.”

“I will,” I said.

She retrieved the white parasol from underneath the kneeling rail and started toward the door, and then stopped and smiled. “And if you meet anyone named Chaucer or Churchill, send them along to Muchings—”

“Your carriage, miss,” Baine said, looming in the door.

“Thank you, Baine,” she said coldly and swept past him.

Terence was handing Tossie into the carriage. “I do hope we shall meet again, Mr. St. Trewes,” Tossie said, no longer pouting. “We take the train home this evening to Muchings End. Do you know it? It’s on the river, just below Streatley.”

Terence took off his boater and held it over his heart. “ ‘Till then, good-bye, fair one, adieu!’ ”

The carriage lurched forward. “Baine!” Tossie protested.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” Baine said and clucked the reins.

“Goodbye,” Tossie called back to us, waving a handkerchief and everything else on her person. “Goodbye, Mr. St. Trewes!” The landau rolled away.

Terence watched it till it was out of sight.

“We’d better go,” I said. “Professor Peddick will be waiting.”

He sighed, looking longingly after the dust cloud it had left. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We must start immediately for Muchings End,” he said, and started down the hill.

“We can’t,” I said, trotting after him. “We have to take Professor Peddick back to Oxford, and what about his agèd relicts? If they’re on the afternoon train, they’ll need to be met.”

“I’ll arrange with Trotters to meet them. He owes me a favor for that translation of Lucretius I did,” he said without stopping. “It will only take an hour to row Peddick back. We can put him off at Magdalen by four. That will still give us four hours of daylight. We should be able to make it past Culham Lock. That will put us at Muchings End by noon tomorrow.

And so much for my blithely promising Verity to keep Terence away from Tossie, I thought, following him down to the boat.

It wasn’t there.