the clock had finished chiming.
But if that wasn’t what I’d done, then that would mean that what I had experienced was real. The man in brown was real.
I shook my head. It simply wasn’t logical. I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it. Traveling through time was something people did in books or films. It didn’t really happen. Yet the dressing gown here in my hands, and its obvious age, seemed to stand in denial of that line of reasoning, and I couldn’t think of how else to explain it. I’d tried. I had spent the whole night trying hard to come up with another excuse for the dressing gown’s being here, and I’d come up empty-handed, with nothing to show for the effort except a real headache in place of the fake one I’d used last night as an excuse to miss supper.
I would have skipped breakfast this morning as well if there hadn’t just then been a knock at my door.
‘Eva?’ Susan’s voice.
Thrusting the dressing gown back in the wardrobe I crossed to the door and unlocked it to open it.
‘Still have the headache?’ she guessed when she saw me. ‘Poor you. I’ve made tea and some toast. You can’t go without eating.’ She brought the tray in with her, setting it down on the bed. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’
‘No, really, this—’ Looking down at the tray, I deliberately dragged my mind back from my own worries, into the here and the now. ‘This is perfect. And so thoughtful. Thank you. You have to stop spoiling me.’
‘Well,’ Susan said, ‘you’re our guest.’ And when she saw me start to protest, she put in, ‘Besides, it’s not as though you’re doing nothing in return. You’ve spent the past week building us a website.’ With a smile she said, ‘That’s likely how you got your headache.’
‘No.’ But since I couldn’t very well explain how I had got it, I took a bite of my toast instead. Then I remembered. ‘It’s ready, by the way. Your website.’
‘Really? Can I see it?’
I was hesitant to go back into Uncle George’s study after what had happened last time, but I couldn’t think of any good excuse to make. My indecision must have shown on my face because she said, ‘If you’re not up to it this morning—’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I squared my shoulders slightly. ‘I’m fine. I’d love for you to see it.’
She insisted that I finish off my toast first, but I brought the tea along with me and sipped it for its steadying effect as we ran through the different pages of the site.
It wasn’t until later, when we’d finished with the website and we’d talked about the next step of publicity—the press release—and she’d gone off to fetch some details of the gardens’ history to include in it, that it suddenly occurred to me that history might be one thing I could use to help shed light on what had happened to me yesterday.
The Irishman, as I recalled, had said a name: the Duke of Ormonde.
Though it had meant nothing to me then and didn’t now, it sounded real enough. And real dukes would be mentioned in Burke’s Peerage .
There were, in fact, two Dukes of Ormonde listed on the Internet, but since the man named Fergal had said something about Queen Anne too, I chose the second duke, who’d lived through Queen Anne’s reign.
I wished my mother had been here to give me one of her amazing history lessons, but she wasn’t, so I settled for the basics, starting off in 1714 with Queen Anne’s death and the dispute over who should inherit the throne—her half brother James Stuart, who was Catholic and living in exile near France, or the properly Protestant German Prince George, a more distant relation. I read the accounts of how deeply divisive the politics were at the time, with the Tories who favored the rights of young James locking horns with the Whigs who supported Prince George. And I read of the riots and public unrest that had followed George’s coronation as the King of all Great Britain.
Which brought me to the spring
But if that wasn’t what I’d done, then that would mean that what I had experienced was real. The man in brown was real.
I shook my head. It simply wasn’t logical. I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it. Traveling through time was something people did in books or films. It didn’t really happen. Yet the dressing gown here in my hands, and its obvious age, seemed to stand in denial of that line of reasoning, and I couldn’t think of how else to explain it. I’d tried. I had spent the whole night trying hard to come up with another excuse for the dressing gown’s being here, and I’d come up empty-handed, with nothing to show for the effort except a real headache in place of the fake one I’d used last night as an excuse to miss supper.
I would have skipped breakfast this morning as well if there hadn’t just then been a knock at my door.
‘Eva?’ Susan’s voice.
Thrusting the dressing gown back in the wardrobe I crossed to the door and unlocked it to open it.
‘Still have the headache?’ she guessed when she saw me. ‘Poor you. I’ve made tea and some toast. You can’t go without eating.’ She brought the tray in with her, setting it down on the bed. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’
‘No, really, this—’ Looking down at the tray, I deliberately dragged my mind back from my own worries, into the here and the now. ‘This is perfect. And so thoughtful. Thank you. You have to stop spoiling me.’
‘Well,’ Susan said, ‘you’re our guest.’ And when she saw me start to protest, she put in, ‘Besides, it’s not as though you’re doing nothing in return. You’ve spent the past week building us a website.’ With a smile she said, ‘That’s likely how you got your headache.’
‘No.’ But since I couldn’t very well explain how I had got it, I took a bite of my toast instead. Then I remembered. ‘It’s ready, by the way. Your website.’
‘Really? Can I see it?’
I was hesitant to go back into Uncle George’s study after what had happened last time, but I couldn’t think of any good excuse to make. My indecision must have shown on my face because she said, ‘If you’re not up to it this morning—’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I squared my shoulders slightly. ‘I’m fine. I’d love for you to see it.’
She insisted that I finish off my toast first, but I brought the tea along with me and sipped it for its steadying effect as we ran through the different pages of the site.
It wasn’t until later, when we’d finished with the website and we’d talked about the next step of publicity—the press release—and she’d gone off to fetch some details of the gardens’ history to include in it, that it suddenly occurred to me that history might be one thing I could use to help shed light on what had happened to me yesterday.
The Irishman, as I recalled, had said a name: the Duke of Ormonde.
Though it had meant nothing to me then and didn’t now, it sounded real enough. And real dukes would be mentioned in Burke’s Peerage .
There were, in fact, two Dukes of Ormonde listed on the Internet, but since the man named Fergal had said something about Queen Anne too, I chose the second duke, who’d lived through Queen Anne’s reign.
I wished my mother had been here to give me one of her amazing history lessons, but she wasn’t, so I settled for the basics, starting off in 1714 with Queen Anne’s death and the dispute over who should inherit the throne—her half brother James Stuart, who was Catholic and living in exile near France, or the properly Protestant German Prince George, a more distant relation. I read the accounts of how deeply divisive the politics were at the time, with the Tories who favored the rights of young James locking horns with the Whigs who supported Prince George. And I read of the riots and public unrest that had followed George’s coronation as the King of all Great Britain.
Which brought me to the spring
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