At their places before the magical barrier on the long table they had
two daiquiris apiece, followed with melon and prosciutto, chicken
marengo with white wine and grapes, avocado salad and spumoni.
"Indeed," Deborah said dimpling, "if this be the food of thy age,
Darling Charles, then Belvoir can be but a small miracle to thee."
He shook his head and replied, "We do have what must seem miracles of
living to thee--to you, Debby--but Belvoir is years, perhaps centuries,
and billions of miles beyond our reach. So marvelous is it, in fact,
that I'm becoming once more persuaded this is all a dream.
"Certainly," he went on softly, "I've dreamed for years of having
a girl like you, dear--and you're here and seem to show a certain
fondness for me."
"Charles," she said simply, "don't jest about that." She regarded him
gravely, then said, "Prithee, Charles, if I be thy dream, then how is
it that thou art mine? For surely, never in my deepest sleep, have I
e'er dreamed of a man like thyself."
He reached out and touched her and the softness of her flesh, beneath
the now-limp nightgown, was as real as the touch of his own. Sudden
terror struck him as he accepted emotionally for the first time
the fact that Belvoir might not be a substance created by his own
subconscious. If Belvoir were real, then he would never see her again.
"Charles darling, are you ill?"
He looked down, discovered that he was gripping the dessert spoon
in his fingers as if it were a weapon. He unlocked clamped jaws and
said, "Sorry, Debby, I'm okay. Now--I'd like to take a look at the
arrangements Ortine has made for our return."
She rose quickly and he followed her out.
The gates to and from Belvoir, she showed him, were directly opposite
the cubicles, one to each cubicle. Deborah entered the one opposite her
own chamber, revealing a featureless room, just large enough to contain
her portable bed. At its far end was an opaque wall.
She shivered, said softly, "I like not this place, Charles. Yet it is
through these chambers that all of us were brought to Belvoir, through
them that we must make our return journeys. Charles, I am afeard."
"You and me both," he told her. "Come on to my place and let's see if
we cannot dope something out."
She looked puzzled by his twentieth-century phrases but went with
him dutifully. Before entering he tested the portal opposite his own
cubicle, found it exactly similar to hers.
Deborah had to pluck at his sleeve to remind him she was there. She
said, "Verily thee are far from me much of the time."
"Not so far," he replied, leading her into his cubicle. At once her
soft strong young arms went around him, her lips sought hungrily for
his. He summoned the strength to thrust her from him, said, "Not now,
honey--we've got a lot of thinking to do and we may not have much time
to do it in."
She subsided meekly and sat down beside him on the portable cot. She
said, "I too have the same feeling, Darling Charles."
"Listen, honey," he told her after a minute. "You say you have never
dreamed of a man like me?"
"How could I?" she countered simply. "In my time no man such as thee
exists. Perhaps the king in London Town, or the Crown Prince...."
"Listen, honey--the only chance we have to stay together is to go out
of here together on the same bed." He gave the couch beneath them a
slap.
"Durst we?" Her voice was tiny but there was a compensating blaze of
sudden hope in her blue eyes.
"We'll dare anything," Justin retorted, "because the worst thing
that could happen to either of us right now is to be separated. We
durst--now the question is, who goes back into whose time?"
"I should love to visit thine era, Darling Charles."
"I'd love to have you," he replied. "But for ten years now I've been
wanting to see yours. We're going back to your life together."
"But Charles!" Her eyes grew round with fright. "Ye can't! Think on
it--we might awaken in bed together and--"
"Would that be bad?" he asked.
"Nay--but there is my mother. She well might--"
"And what about my wife?" he countered quietly.
* * * * *
She seemed to leap a full foot away from him, her eyes blazing. She
whispered, "Charles--you never told me you were married!"
"I'd be a pretty poor man if some woman hadn't picked me out," he
replied. "Furthermore, I have not been in love with my wife for a good
many years--nor she in love with me."
"But this is horrible!" the girl moaned.
Justin scowled at her, utterly taken aback by her reaction. Other hints
she had dropped came back to him, Dr. Phillips' pitying words about her
problem. He said, "I take it then that you are involved with a married
man in your time."
She flared at him, "Nay, I am _not_ involved--though all about me, even
my father, aye, even my mother, seem to wish me on my backside with
this horrid old man. They say 'tis for the good of this or the welfare
of that that I should give myself to him--_me_, who cannot stand the
stench of his very breath!"
Justin had slipped from the cot. Facing her he said softly, "All the
more reason that I should go with you. _I_ can take care of this
unwelcome suitor and at least I shall not have a wife in your time for
almost two hundred years to come--unless of course I marry you."
"That would be highly improper, not to say felonious," she retorted but
he could sense the softening in her voice.
He said, "No more improper than coming to my world and having my wife
catch us in bed together. How would you explain that to your sweet New
England conscience? Or perhaps we'd better call off the whole thing."
"Nay, Charles," she said simply and stood up and was briefly in his
embrace. After a little, her face puckered with worry, "But Darling
Charles, how _am_ I to explain thee? And how will ye survive? Ye'll
arrive in midwinter in ye'r outlandish costume without a groat to ye'r
name."
"Wait a minute." He thrust her from him again and pondered the problems
that would face him should he and Deborah actually be successful in
their effort to flee Belvoir together.
"Yes, Charles?" she asked him after awhile.
"It'll be all right," he told her, "if we can just get over the hurdle
of your parents. I'll need a little money, some clothes."
"Those I can get ye," she replied promptly. "I have a small savings
in my cupboard--'tis not much--just what I've saved from dress-making
these two years past. And I can get ye some of father's cast-off
garments. But what will ye do then, Darling Charles?"
"I'll have my problems, never fear," he told her. "But you seem to have
forgotten one thing in my favor--I have lived two centuries in the
future, Debby."
"And prithee, how will't avail thee in my time?" she asked him.
"Just this way," he stated confidently. "I know what the course of
great events will be in thy--in your time, honey. Once I have obtained
the ear and trust of someone with money to speculate I'll be able to
take care of myself, never fear."
"And that is work for a man like yourself?" Deborah looked at him
doubtfully. "Somehow it seems to me dishonest," she told him. "Ye'r
taking unfair advantage."
"And what is fair in love and war?" he countered.
"'Tis a wicked and foolish saying--or so my mother has told me," the
girl replied.
"But you'll do it--you darling!" He pulled her close to him and she
made no resistance. They were still locked together when a throat was
cleared in the doorway.
Dr. Phillips regarded them benignly. "I must say," he remarked,
"that compared to some of the lewd sights I have witnessed here in
Belvoir, it is refreshing to see a couple as well-favored as yourselves
embracing. But that was not the purpose of my visit. I have come to say
farewell."
"Then it's coming soon?" Justin asked him quickly.
"Perhaps you two have been too--er--occupied to hear but the
five-minute signal sounded a brief while ago. I wish you both good
luck."
Deborah broke from Charles, ran to the elderly don and planted a buss
on his cheek. He fluttered like a moth, visibly touched, said, "Thank
you, my dear," and added quite irrelevantly, "'Twill be a great relief
to return once more to my breeches."
"Come quickly!" Deborah whispered when they were once more alone.
He needed no urging, raced on tiptoe behind her to her cubicle.
Hurriedly she scrambled onto her portable bed, reaching for Justin as
he climbed on from the other side. There was scarcely room for both of
them.