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Chapter Eight

I open my eyes to find that I’m in a breathtakingly elegant oak-panelled drawing room, sitting at a square table with two formally dressed men either side of me and a voluptuous, bejewelled woman seated opposite.

I’m holding in my small hands a fan of cards, but I have no idea what game we’re playing.

I can only play racing demon, but this is definitely not that!

I’m seized with panic. I don’t know who I am, where I am, and who these people are that are seated around this table studying their cards.

I have taken over the body of someone, a woman, but I know nothing about her.

Once again, I feel as if I’ve been thrown onto a stage, in front of an expectant audience, but I have forgotten my lines and which part I’m playing.

Fears shoot through my mind, but I don’t have time to consider them.

One is more urgent than the others: I have a duty to the woman I possess.

I mustn’t let her down. But I have no way of finding out who she is.

I run my eyes around the room, taking everything in.

There are tables and chairs scattered about, and armchairs and sofas, upholstered in green and gold, arranged around a marble fireplace, but there are few people occupying them.

I wonder whether I have slid back to the Aldershoff during the Gilded Age.

Somehow, it doesn’t feel like a private home in Manhattan.

It feels more like a country house hotel in England.

There’s something oddly familiar about it, as if I’ve seen it before, in a photograph, perhaps.

It’s dark outside the tall bay windows, so it must be night-time.

Perhaps the other guests have gone to bed.

The ceiling is high and lavishly moulded.

The place looks as if it’s been modelled on Versailles.

Are we at Versailles? Surely not. Frantically, I try to work it out while, at the same time, breathing consciously to calm my hopping nerves.

I know from my history degree that Napoleon chose not to settle in that palace, but in Paris instead.

So, we’re definitely not at Versailles. That’s a relief because I don’t speak French.

I do hope these people speak English! There’s something unusual about the room, though, but I can’t put my finger on it.

I don’t have time to figure it out. I’m in the middle of a card game I don’t know how to play. What the hell am I going to do?

I try to catch my reflection in a silver teaspoon that lies on a saucer beside an empty teacup. Brown hair, pink face, the indigo and black feathers in my headdress, all distorted in the concave curve of the spoon. Not helpful.

I turn my attention to the woman sitting opposite me.

She’s stout with thick auburn curls pinned in an updo and a spectacular diamond necklace sparkling above the low neckline of her black dress.

She wears an extravagant spray of black feathers in her hair and heavy diamond-and-pearl drops on her fleshy ear-lobes.

Her big eyes are the colour of honey and brimming with vivacity and warmth.

I can tell at once that she’s an intelligent, straight-talking woman with a good sense of humour.

She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t care what people think of her and is not afraid to speak her mind.

One of those gutsy feminists, like Emmeline Pankhurst, blazing the trail for women’s rights.

She has about her an air of rebellion and courage, and I know that I like her.

The two men at the table are studying their cards.

They’re wearing black tailcoats with stiff white shirts and bow ties, but they’re very different.

One is middle-aged, thin-faced and serious, with bright china-blue eyes and round spectacles on the bridge of a strong nose.

His brown hair is greying at the temples and swept off a high forehead creased with worry lines.

He is still handsome in a rugged way. The other is young with a clean-shaven, angular face, pale blue-green eyes and full, sensual lips.

Really, he is so good-looking – he might even put Ulysses in the shade!

His light-brown hair is tousled and falling over a wide brow.

He pushes it back and I notice the gold signet ring on his little finger and then the diamond studs on his shirt and the sapphire cufflinks on his cuffs.

They glint sharply in the electric lights.

He might be young but he’s wealthy. As I stare at him, he lifts his eyes languidly off his cards and grins at me, the familiar, playful grin of someone who knows me very well.

At that moment I realise who he is. He’s Lester Ravenglass – young and fresh, before alcohol and unhappiness takes their toll.

How different he is from the solemn man staring out of the photograph Mrs Aldershoff gave me.

Now his expression is playful and full of fun.

‘No luck tonight, Aunt Constance?’ he says, looking at me from under his brows.

I’m an aunt! I glance at my hands in surprise. I cannot tell how old I am, but I see to my dismay that I’m not young. I might even be as old as forty!

The auburn-haired woman laughs heartily and winks at me in collusion.

‘I’ve only known Miss Fleet two days, but I can tell you, Ravenglass, that your aunt is a dark horse.

Just when you think you’ve got her, she’ll whip out an ace!

’ She speaks with a southern American drawl, but her laugh is universal and delightfully contagious.

I laugh too, because of the raffish way she arches her eyebrows and smiles, but also at the absurdity of the situation in which I find myself – I’m Miss Constance Fleet, poised to make a move in a game I know nothing about. How the hell am I going to wing it?

Just then my attention is drawn to a man pushing out his armchair near the fireplace a short distance from us. He gets to his feet and says something to the two elderly men seated with him.

My heart stops.

I recognise him immediately, even before I see his face. I would recognise him anywhere, even in a crowd of thousands. His back is towards me, but I know him, every inch of him, for he is engraved deep into my memory, into my soul. It’s Cavill.

Cavill.

What on earth is he doing here? How did this happen?

A sudden understanding stuns me, like an arrow of fire burning through my consciousness.

Did my love for him, by the law of attraction, draw me to him?

Did it somehow pull me back through time like a powerful magnet?

Did the universe, God, higher power, whatever one wants to call it, somehow engineer for us to be reunited?

But I’m confused. Am I here for Lester Ravenglass or for me ?

I want to run to him. I want to forget my purpose – and I almost do – and throw my arms around him.

To feel him solid and alive in my embrace.

Oh, to press my cheek to his and tell him that I’m back.

I never thought it was possible. I saw his gravestone in the chapel yard in St Sidwell and mourned his death.

Those dates 1867–1943 are carved into the wound in my heart.

But he’s alive and he’s here! However, the realisation that I am not Hermione Swift, that I’m not even Pixie Tate, but Constance Fleet, hits me like a slap in the face.

He won’t know who I am.

I feel lightheaded, as if the very floor is moving.

Indeed, it’s as if the room is moving. I grab the edge of the table for balance.

Of course, Cavill won’t recognise me for I’m Miss Constance Fleet, not Hermione Swift whom he loved and subsequently married.

The realisation that he won’t know me is overwhelming and I put down my cards.

‘I’m feeling faint,’ I declare in a voice that sounds nothing like mine – it’s lower and richer. I push out my chair.

What if Hermione Swift is here ? What if we come face to face – me, Pixie, and the body I inhabited, staring back at me? What will that feel like? A prickly heat crawls over my skin and nausea churns in my belly.

I don’t want to know.

‘My dear, you have gone very white,’ says the woman, alarmed.

‘Is your hand so very bad, Aunt Constance?’ jokes Lester.

‘Perhaps you ought to retire,’ suggests the older man kindly. Like the woman, he’s American. ‘Mrs Brown, perhaps you’d better escort Miss Fleet to her room.’

‘Most certainly, Mr Rowland. Come on, my dear. Let’s get you to bed.’ She stands and both men stand with her.

I get to my feet, but feel strangely unsteady. It’s as if the earth beneath my feet is rocking. ‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘I’m sorry I can’t finish the game. I don’t know what’s come over me.’

‘Defeat.’ Lester laughs, but not unkindly.

‘You’re forgiven, my dear Miss Fleet.’ The older man smiles at me sweetly. ‘There are four more days to go before we arrive in New York. Plenty of time to play cards.’

New York? We’re going to New York? I look around in bewilderment and then, with a jolt of panic, I realise why the room looks strange.

Why I feel as if the floor is rocking. Because it is rocking.

We’re not in an hotel or a country house.

We’re on a ship. A magnificent ship. It truly is a palace.

‘We’ve been at sea for two days already,’ says Lester, frowning at me.

‘One would have thought you’d have found your sea legs by now! ’

Mrs Brown comes round the table and takes me by the arm. She has an air of efficiency as if she’s used to bossing people around and being obeyed. Mrs Brown …

I go cold suddenly as I’m hit by another flash of comprehension.

Mrs Brown. A vast ship. New York. ‘Molly Brown?’ I mutter incredulously, nausea rising again. Surely not!

She flinches and gazes at me with concern. ‘Well, no one calls me by that name, my dear. My friends and family know me as Maggie. Molly, indeed! Come, let’s get you to bed. You’ve taken a nasty turn.’