Ruby Red (16 page)

Dr. White’s head jerked up. He looked straight at me for the first time. “What did you say?”

“Oh, never mind,” I said.

Dr. White muttered something to himself that I couldn’t make out. Mr. George gave me a conspiratorial smile.

There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Jenkins, the secretary with the big glasses, came in.

“Ah, there you are at last,” said Dr. White. “You can clear out now, Thomas, and Mrs. Jenkins will see to the proprieties. You can sit over there,” he told her. “But keep your mouth shut.”

“Charming as ever,” said Mrs. Jenkins, but she obediently sat down on the chair he pointed out.

“See you soon,” said Mr. George to me. He held up one of the little tubes with my blood in it. “I’ll just go and put this in the tank,” he added with a grin.

“Where’s the chronograph kept? And what does it look like?” I asked as the door closed behind Mr. George. “Can you sit in it?”

“The last person to question me about the chronograph stole it nearly two years later.” Dr. White took the needle out of my arm and pressed a piece of gauze on my skin to stop the bleeding. “So I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m reluctant to answer such questions.”

“The chronograph was stolen?”

Robert, the little ghost boy, nodded vigorously.

“By your delightful cousin Lucy herself,” said Dr. White. “I remember the first time she sat here. Apparently just as innocent and naive as you seem now.”

“Lucy’s nice,” said Robert. “I like her.” Being a ghost, he probably felt as if he’d last seen Lucy only yesterday.

“Lucy stole the chronograph? But why?”

“How would I know? Schizoid personality disturbance, probably,” growled Dr. White. “Obviously runs in the family. Hysterical females, all these Montrose women. And Lucy had a great deal of criminal spirit in her.”

“Dr. White!” said Mrs. Jenkins. “That’s not true!”

“Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut?” said Dr. White.

“But if Lucy stole the chronograph, how can it still be here?” I asked.

“How, indeed?” Dr. White undid the strap around my arm. “There’s a second one, of course, you clever child. When was your last tetanus jab?”

“No idea. So there are several chronographs?”

“No, only those two,” said Dr. White. “You obviously haven’t been vaccinated against variola major.” He tapped my upper arm as he examined it. “Any chronic sicknesses? Allergies?”

“No. I haven’t been inoculated against the plague either. Or cholera. Or smallpox.” I thought of James. “Can you inoculate people against smallpox? I’ve an idea that a friend of mine died of it.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” said Dr. White. “Smallpox is just another name for variola major, and no one’s died of it for a very long time.”

“Well, my friend has been dead for a very long time.”

“I thought variola was another name for measles,” said Mrs. Jenkins.

“And I thought we’d agreed that you’d keep your mouth shut, Mrs. Jenkins.”

Mrs. Jenkins said no more.

“Why are you so unfriendly to everyone?” I asked. “Ouch!”

“That was only a little prick,” said Dr. White.

“What was it for, then?”

“Believe me, you really don’t want to know.”

I sighed. The little ghost called Robert sighed as well. “Is he always like this?” I asked him.

“Mostly,” replied Robert.

“He doesn’t really mean it.” said Mrs. Jenkins.

“Mrs. Jenkins!”

“Oh, very well.”

“Well, I’m through with you for now. By next time I’ll have your blood group, and maybe your charming mother will be so good as to come up with your inoculation record and any records of illness.”

“I’ve never been ill. Am I inoculated against the plague now?”

“No. Not really worth it. The jab lasts only six months, and the side effects are nasty. And if I have it my way, you’ll never travel to a plague year at all. You can put your things back on, and Mrs. Jenkins will take you back up to the others.”

Mrs. Jenkins rose from her chair. “Come along, Gwyneth. I’m sure you’re hungry, and supper will soon be ready. Mrs. Mallory has roast veal with asparagus on the menu today, delicious.”

I certainly was hungry. Even for roast veal with asparagus, and I wasn’t normally a big fan of eating baby cows.

“The doctor has a kind heart, really, you know,” said Mrs. Jenkins on our way up. “He just finds it rather difficult to be friendly.”

“So I notice.”

“He used to be quite different. Cheerful, always good-tempered. He did wear those dreadful black suits, even then, but at least with colored ties. That was before his son died—such a tragedy. He’s been a different man ever since.”

“Robert.”

“Yes, the little boy was called Robert,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “Has Mr. George been telling you about him?”

“No.

“A dear child. He drowned in a pool at a birthday party. Imagine that.” Mrs. Jenkins counted years on her fingers as we walked along. “It was eighteen years ago now. Poor Dr. White.”

Poor Robert. But at least he didn’t look like a drowned body. Some ghosts thought it was fun to go around looking the way they did when they’d just died. Luckily I’d never yet met one with a hatchet in his head. Or without a head at all.

Mrs. Jenkins knocked at a door. “We’ll just look in and say hello to Madame Rossini. She’ll want to measure you.”

“Measure me? What for?” But the room Mrs. Jenkins let me into gave me the answer. It was a sewing room, and in among the fabrics, clothes, sewing machines, tailor’s dummies, scissors, and rolls of thread, a plump lady with a lot of sandy hair stood smiling at me.

“’Allo,” she said. She had a slight French accent. “You must be Gwyneth. I am Madame Rossini, and I look after your wardrobe.” She held up a tape measure. “We can’t have you traveling in time in zat dreadful school uniform,
n’est-ce pas
?”

I nodded. My school uniform really was dreadful, today or any other time.

“There’d probably be a riot if you went out in the street like zat,” she added, wringing her hands, tape measure and all, at the sight of it.

“I’m afraid we have to hurry. They’re waiting for us upstairs,” said Mrs. Jenkins.

“I’ll be quick. Can you take that jacket off, pliss?” Madame Rossini put the tape measure around my waist. “Wonderful. Now the ’ips. Ah, like a young colt! I think we can use most of what I made for the other one, with maybe some leetle alterations ’ere and there.”

By “the other one” she must mean Charlotte. I looked at a pale yellow dress with white lace trim hanging on a coat stand and looking like one of the costumes for
Pride and Prejudice.
Charlotte would have looked lovely in that.

“Charlotte’s taller than me,” I said. “And slimmer.”

“Yes, a little bit,” said Madame Rossini. “Like a coat ’anger.” I couldn’t help giggling. “But that is no problem.” She measured my neck and my head as well. “For the ’ats and the wigs,” she said, smiling at me. “Ah, how nice to make dresses for a brunette for once. You must choose colors so carefully for red’eads. I’ve had this lovely taffeta for years, a color like sunset. You could be the first that color suits—”

“Madame Rossini,
please
!” Mrs. Jenkins pointed to her watch.

“
Mais oui,
nearly finished!” said Madame Rossini, scurrying around me with the tape measure and even measuring my ankles. “Men, always in such a ’urry! But with fashion you cannot ’urry.” Finally she gave me a friendly pat and said, “We will meet again soon, my little swan-necked beauty!”

She herself had no neck at all, I noticed. Her head seemed to be set directly on her shoulders. But she was really nice.

“See you soon, Madame Rossini.”

Once we were out of the room again, Mrs. Jenkins walked faster, and I found it quite difficult to keep up, even though she was wearing high heels and I had my comfortable dark blue school shoes on.

“Nearly there.” Yet another long, long corridor lay ahead of us. It was a mystery to me how anyone could ever find her way around this maze. “Do you live here?”

“No, I live in Islington,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “I leave work at five and go home to my husband.”

“What does your husband think about you working for a secret lodge with a time machine in its basement?”

Mrs. Jenkins laughed. “Oh, he has no idea of any of that. I had to sign a secrecy clause when I took the job. I can’t tell my husband or anyone else what goes on here.”

“Suppose you did?”

“I’d be fired, plain and simple,” said Mrs. Jenkins, sounding as if she didn’t like that idea at all. “Anyway, no one would believe me,” she added cheerfully. “Least of all my husband. He has no imagination at all, bless him. He thinks I work on boring files in an ordinary set of legal chambers all day— Oh, my word! The file I had out—I just left it where it was. Dr. White will murder me.” She looked undecided. “Can you find your way without me from here? It’s only a few yards. Left around the corner, then the second door on the right.”

“Left around the corner, second door on the right. No problem.”

“You’re a darling.” Mrs. Jenkins was on her way, at top speed. How she did it in those high heels I couldn’t think. Well, now I could take my time over the last “few yards.” At last I could look at the paintings on the walls properly, tap a suit of armor (rusty), and run my forefinger cautiously around a picture frame (dusty). As I turned the corner, I heard voices.

“Wait, Charlotte…”

I quickly retreated back around the corner and leaned against the wall. Charlotte had come out of the Dragon Hall, with Gideon behind her. I’d just had time to see that he was holding her arm. I hoped they hadn’t noticed me.

“This is all so embarrassing and humiliating,” said Charlotte.

“No, it isn’t. It’s not your fault.” How gentle and friendly his voice could sound!

He’s in love with her
, I thought, and for some silly reason, that made me feel a slight pang. I pressed even closer to the wall, although I’d have liked to see what the two of them were doing. Holding hands?

Charlotte seemed inconsolable. “Phantom symptoms! I could sink into the ground. I really did think it was going to happen any moment—”

“That’s exactly what I’d have thought myself in your place,” said Gideon. “Your aunt must be crazy to have kept quiet about it all these years. And I really do feel sorry for your cousin.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Well, think about it! How on earth is she going to manage? She hasn’t the faintest idea.… How will she ever catch up with all the things you and I have been learning for the last ten years?”

“Yes, poor Gwyneth,” said Charlotte. Somehow she didn’t sound really sorry for me. “But she does have her strong points.”

Oh. Well, that was nice of her.

“Giggling with her girlfriend, sending text messages, rattling off the entire cast list of films—she’s really good at that sort of thing.”

Not so nice after all.

I cautiously peeped around the corner.

“I thought as much when I first saw her earlier today,” said Gideon. “Hey, I’m really going to miss you.”

Charlotte sighed. “We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yes, but think of all the new opportunities open to you, Charlotte! I envy you that! You’re free now. You can do anything you like.”

“I never wanted anything but this!”

“That was because you had no choice,” said Gideon. “But now the whole world’s before you. You can study abroad, you can go on long journeys, while I can’t be away from that damn … from the chronograph for more than a day, and I spend my nights in the safety of the year 1953. Believe me, I’d happily change places with you!”

The door of the Dragon Hall opened again, and Lady Arista and Aunt Glenda came out into the corridor. I quickly withdrew my head again.

“They’ll regret this yet,” Aunt Glenda was saying.

“Glenda, please! We’re a family, after all,” said Lady Arista. “We must stick together.”

“You’d better tell that to Grace,” said Aunt Glenda. “She’s the one who got us all into this mess.
Protect her!
Ha! No one in possession of their senses would believe a word she says! Not after all that’s happened. Still, it’s not our problem anymore. Come along, Charlotte.”

“I’ll see you to the car,” said Gideon.

I waited until the sound of their footsteps had died away, and then I ventured to leave my listening post. Lady Arista was still standing there, rubbing her forehead wearily with one finger. She suddenly looked as old as the hills, not her usual self at all. The ramrod-straight, ballet-teacher look seemed to have deserted her, and even her features weren’t as composed as usual. I felt sorry for her.

“Hello,” I said quietly. “Are you all right?”

My grandmother straightened up at once. Everything about her seemed to slip back into place and stay there.

“Ah, there you are,” she said, inspecting me. Her critical gaze went to my blouse. “Is that a dirty mark? Child, you really must learn to take a little more pride in your appearance.”