As I responded with a soft laugh, she regarded me again with that expression of mock severity. "I warn you, Mr. Collier," she said, "I am a very jealous person. I will mangle any woman who so much as glances at you." I smiled at her happily. "Mangle away." She ran a fingertip across my lips, following their outline with a delicate touch. "Have you loved other women, Richard? No," she added instantly, "don't tell me, I don't want to know. It doesn't matter."
I kissed the tip of her finger as it stopped on my lips. "There have been no others," I told her. "Truly?"
"Truly. Never one. I swear it."
"Oh, my love, my love." She pressed her cheek to mine. "How can such happiness exist?"
We held each other tightly for a while before she drew back, eyes glistening as she looked at me. "Tell me all about yourself," she said. "Whatever you can, I mean. I want to love everything you love."
"Love yourself then," I told her.
She kissed me on the Ups, then moved her gaze over my features. "I love your face," she said. "Your nightbird eyes.
Your dust-in-sunshine hair. Your gentle voice and touch.
Your manner-" she repressed a smile "-and your means."
Smiling, I ruffled her silky hair.
"And I love your smile," she said. "As though you are getting the humor of something all to yourself. I yearn to share that humor yet I love that smile." She pressed against me, kissing my shoulder. "Tell me that composer's name again." "Mahler."
"I will learn to love his music," she said. "It won't be difficult," I told her. And, perhaps, I thought, one day, when we have gotten old together, I will tell you how his Ninth Symphony helped bring us together.
I placed a palm on each side of her face and gazed at it; the face in that photograph come to life, its warmth against my hands, its expression not haunted now but at peace. "I love you," I said.
"And I love you," she answered. "Now and always." "You're so lovely."
"Possessed of delicate and hautein beauty, grace, and charm," she said, her expression perfectly serious. "What?"
Babbie's grin of mischief burst through. She began to splutter. "Unquote," she gasped.
My smile must have been confused for she pressed herself against me suddenly, raining kisses on my cheeks. "Oh, I mustn't tease," she said. "It's only that I feel so bursting full of happiness that I can't be serious another moment. And you looked so grave when you told me I was lovely." She kissed me five times on the lips, quickly, gently. "It's a tribute to you, really," she said. "I could only tease the man I love. No one knows this aspect of me; I always keep it to myself. Well, perhaps I show it in my acting sometimes."
"Always."
She sighed with feigned remorse. "Now I shall have to act exclusively in tragedies," she said, "because I'll use up so much happiness in life that there'll be nothing left for the stage." She stroked my cheek. "You do forgive me, don't you? You don't mind if I tease?"
"Tease all you like," I told her. "I may tease a little too."
"All you want, my love," she said, clinging to me.
It began a third time as we kissed. Her lovely face grew flushed and her eyes took on that abandoned gaze which, simultaneously, aroused and overjoyed me. When I pressed apart her lips with mine and slipped my tongue inside her mouth, she shuddered and began to lick it fiercely with her own, then use her teeth to draw it toward her throat. In moments, I was deep inside her once again and, once again, she , was bucking frenziedly against me, head twisting from side to side, an expression of total freedom on her features. She cried out as she had her third release, "It isn't possible!"
Then it was over and we clung together, her body warm and damp against mine, her sweet breath on my lips as she fell asleep. I tried to stay awake and look at her but couldn't. With a sense of ecstatic calm, I drifted into bottomless sleep.
� � �
When I opened my eyes, she was still asleep though no longer in my arms. We were lying, side by side, beneath a sheet and blankets. She must have wakened long enough to cover us, I thought.
I lay on my side for a long time, staring at her face. This woman is my life now, I kept thinking. I actually-experimentally- tried to remember Hidden Hills and Bob and Mary, finding it next to impossible; all of it seemed a universe distant. The feeling of disorientation is fading now. Soon it will be gone completely; I am sure of it. My presence is 1896 is like that of an invading grain of sand inside an oyster. An invader of this time, I will, bit by bit, be covered by a self-protecting-and absorbing-coat, being gradually encapsulated. Eventually, the grain of me will be so layered over by this period that I will be somebody else, forgetting my source, and living only as a man of this period. That has to be the secret practicality of traveling through time. If Ambrose Bierce, Judge Crater, and all such disappearing people actually moved back in time, they would, by now, have no remembrance whatsoever of where they came from. Nature protects her workings. If a rule is broken or an accident occurs in the order of existence, compensation must be made, the scales brought back to level by some counterweight. In this way, the flow of historical incidence is never altered more than temporarily by anyone who circumvents time. The reason, then, no traveler has ever returned from this bourn is that it is, of natural necessity, a one-way trip.
All these things I thought of as I lay there, gazing at Elise. By the time I'd finished thinking them, I was wide-awake and didn't want to sleep again but 'wanted, instead, to savor those precious moments, my love sleeping nearby, the memory of our giving and taking imbued in my mind and flesh. Very carefully and slowly, I eased myself from the bed. The caution was unnecessary. Elise was heavily asleep. No wonder, I thought. The emotional and physical drain of the past twenty-four hours must have been exhausting to her.
As I stood, I saw that my clothes were no longer on the floor and looked around. Catching sight of them hanging in the open closet, I walked over and checked the inside pocket of my coat. The papers were as I had left them. She must have seen them, I thought; they were too bulky to miss. Yet, if she had read them, would she be sleeping so peacefully? Even if she had been unable to interpret them because of my shorthand, wouldn't the very sight of the truncated words have disturbed her? I looked across the room at her. Whatever else she might be, she did not appear disturbed. I decided that she hadn't noticed the papers or, if she had, had ascribed no importance to them.
It was a propitious time to bring those papers up to the present, I decided then. I turned to move to the writing table, then turned back, drawn by the sight of her clothes. Reaching out, I touched her dresses one by one. I stepped close to the dress she had been wearing earlier, raised its skirt with both hands, and pressed the softness of it to my face. Elise, I thought. Let time do me one more service by stopping entirely in this most glorious of moments, so I can experience it forever.
Time, of course, did not and could not stop and, after some of its unending quantity had ebbed away, I let the skirt fall with a rustling back into place and turned toward the writing table.
There was a letter lying on it, two sheets folded over, my name written on the back of one. A sense of anxiety beset me. Had she, after all, read and translated my words? Quickly, I unfolded the sheets and began to read.
From the first sentence on, it seemed apparent that she hadn't discovered my secret.
Dear Sir,
Yr. esteemed favors of 21st inst. duly noted and regret that I am not in your arms at this inst. What foolery made me leave your embrace?
It is well beyond the witching hour-when churchyards (and sleepy actresses) yawn. I should be there in bed with you-I have just looked at your dear face and blown a kiss to it-but will, as dutiful female, brush my hair a hundred times before retiring to your side again. I was brushing said hair moments ago when, suddenly, I thought: I love you, Richard! And my heart leaped with a shock of joy so violent that I had to write down what I feel. If I do not, I will likely jostle you awake and tell you and I would not, for any kingdom on this earth, disturb your peaceful sleep.
I love you, Richard mine. Love you so that, were I outside, I would dance and collect a crowd and cheek a policeman and get took up and thoroughly disgrace myself with happiness. I would beat a drum and blow a horn and cover the walls of the world with twenty-four sheet posters all declaring that I love you, love you, love you!
And yet, for all that, I am not as happy as I want to be, as happy as I should be. Some darkness seems to stalk me always. Why cannot our love dispel it?
One thought ever comes to frighten me and I grow haggard brooding on it. That I will lose you as you came to me-strangely, as you call it, in shadows and beyond my control. I am so fearful, love. I imagine awful things and have no rest from worrying. Tell me not to worry. I know you have but keep on telling me-again, again, and yet again-until this fear is washed off by the tide of your reassurances. Tell me all is well. I am haunted endlessly by the dread that our marriage will be prevented in some horrible way.
No, I must stop on this darkling course and think only of our love. We are meant for one another and none else. I know that to be true. I seem, tonight, to know exactly what love is. (I could play Juliet to perfection at this moment!) It is the key to all hearts and your love has opened mine forever. For me, this world begins and ends with you.
I will write no more. Sweetheart, goodnight. Perhaps you are dreaming of me at this very second. I hope so, for I love you with my heart and soul. Oh, to be within that dream entire!
I am too dazed and brain-weary to write another word now. Yet I shall write three more before I sleep. I love you.
Elise
I saw through tears of joy as my eyes moved down beneath her signature. "P.S. I love you, Richard." I looked at the second sheet and smiled even more. "P.P.S. I wasn't sure I'd mentioned it."
My smile faded. She had written something else.
I did not intend to mention this but feel, in honesty, I must. When I rehung your coat, a sheaf of folded papers fell out from an inner pocket. I did not mean to read them (I would not without your permission) but could not help seeing some of the writing on it. I have a feeling that the answer to your being with me lies therein and hope that you will tell me what you've written when the time is right. It cannot change my love for you. Nothing could.
E.
Now I have written everything which has occurred to this moment. And writing it has brought me this resolve: I will never show her what I've written. I am going to dress now, go outside, find some matches and a corner of beach, and burn these pages, letting the wind blow their ashes far into the night. She will understand when I tell her that I did it to remove the only remaining barrier between us so that nothing in this world or any other can ever separate Elise and Richard.
� � �
Standing quietly, I carried her letter and my sheets of writing to the closet where I folded the sheets and placed them in the inner pocket of my coat along with the letter.
For several minutes, I was torn between an urge to proceed immediately with my plan and my hunger to return to bed and lie beside her warmth again. I walked to the bed and stood beside it, looking down at her. She slept so sweetly, like a child, one hand back against the pillow, her cheeks the shade of rose petals, her lips slightly parted. My intense desire to bend across the bed and kiss those lips gave me the resolve I needed. I adored her so, I could not rest until the final contact with my past was ended. Turning, I went back to the closet and began to dress.
I watched the mirror as a man of 1896-albeit bruised, with left eye bloodshot-took shape before me. I pulled on the undersuit and socks, the shirt and trousers, then the boots. I set the tie in place, pulled on the coat, and combed my hair; R. C. Collier, Esquire, stood reflected in the mirror. I nodded to him, smiling with approval. No further doubts, I told myself. You belong to now.
Walking to the writing table, I picked up my watch and put it in place; now I was complete. Smiling, I crossed the room as quietly as possible, looking at Elise as I walked. "Be back in a moment, my love," I whispered.
I unlocked the door carefully so as not to wake her, opened it, and stepped outside. Closing the door without a sound, I started away from it, leaving it unlocked; I'd be returning in a short while. I hummed as I crossed the public sitting room and out onto the Open Court.
I had barely started to my left when a movement to the right caught the corner of my eye and I glanced in that direction. Heart pounding suddenly, I whirled to face Robinson as he jarred to a halt.
His expression was terrible; the instant I saw it, I knew that he'd returned to kill me. Lunging forward, I grappled with him, holding his right wrist with all the strength I had. His face was like a mask of stone, unmoving but for the tick of a bulging vein by his right eye. He didn't speak, his lips drawn back from clenching teeth, his breath ragged, hissing sound as he struggled to reach into the right pocket of his coat for the pistol I knew was there.
"You cannot kill me, Mr. Robinson," I said slowly and distinctly. "I come from the future and know all about you. You cannot be hanged for murder for you are meant to drown in the North Atlantic twenty years from now."
It startled him enough from his intent to give me the chance I needed. Shoving him as hard as I could, I sent him flailing backward, making him fall. Lurching around, I dashed back into the sitting room and ran to the door of Elise's room. Stepping inside, I shut it, locking it softly. Dizziness swept over me. I had to lean against the wall, my heart still beating so violently that I could hardly breathe. I thought I heard his running bootfalls in the sitting room and drew back frightenedly. What would he do now? Pound on the door until he'd woken her? Shoot the lock apart, burst in on me? I turned away and stumbled toward the bed. Don't wake her, I told myself. I changed direction, moved unevenly to the closet. I couldn't seem to get enough air in my lungs; the feeling of disorientation returned in full force now. I had to get back in bed with her, hold her close.