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Chapter Twenty

I too go to my room. I ring the bell for Ruby and she comes to help me out of my clothes.

I have learnt that ladies who are lucky enough to have maids wear corsets that do up at the back, but those who have to dress themselves wear corsets that do up at the front.

‘They’re all talking about your singing below stairs,’ she tells me as she pulls the laces.

‘I’m not very accomplished,’ I reply, but I imagine Constance Fleet, being a lady, is very accomplished.

‘You’re just being modest, ma’am.’

‘Nonetheless, I’m glad I’ve entertained them.’

‘And the spirit board. Everyone is talking about that too.’

‘What with that and the Titanic , we’ve brought them a great deal of excitement, haven’t we?’ I say with a laugh.

‘Indeed, you have. Is it true that Mr Aldershoff’s ghost appeared and gave Mrs Aldershoff a dollar bill in a book hidden in the bookcase?’

I laugh at how quickly stories get exaggerated. ‘I wouldn’t say that his ghost appeared, but he did communicate through the board and tell us to find a book in the bookcase that contained a dollar bill in a secret compartment.’

Ruby gasps. ‘Astonishing.’ The laces are undone and I’m free of the dreaded corset.

I can breathe freely again. ‘Your dresses will be delivered tomorrow and then you can go out,’ she says brightly, draping it over the back of a chair.

‘They tell me that Mr and Mrs Aldershoff are out every night during the season. But the season is over now and most of their friends have departed for the coast. They have a mansion in Newport. There are picnics and tennis tournaments. It sounds exciting. Mrs William Aldershoff gives a grand ball in July for four hundred people. Can you imagine how wonderful that must be? It’s a shame we will be back in England by then. ’

‘It is a shame,’ I agree, although I’ll be back in 2014.

I bid her goodnight and go to bed. I allow my thoughts to drift to Cavill like rock doves returning home to roost – whatever the obstacles in the way, they always find their way home.

The joyful anticipation of seeing him the following day is tempered by the knowledge that it will surely be the final time.

I cannot bear the thought that after tomorrow we might never meet again.

Will love bring me back to him another time?

Is it possible? If I will it with all my power, might the law of attraction draw me back to him on my next slide?

Surely not. It cannot be. And yet I’m unwilling to extinguish the little flame of hope that flickers valiantly in my heart.

However, that hope is tempered by the cold reality of being a timeslider.

When I see him at midday on those iconic steps, I will be Constance Fleet – and if our paths join on another slide, I will be someone else.

Cavill can’t imagine Pixie Tate with her pink hair and biker boots, and, if he could, he probably wouldn’t fancy her.

He will never know the real me and that fills me with sadness.

But it is an immutable truth – he will never meet me in my own time.

But what if I do have the courage, or recklessness, to tell him?

What then? If I tell him the truth, might he be sufficiently open-minded to believe me?

I can prove it, after all, with the thousands of little details that only he and Hermione would know.

He would have to believe me. What would be the consequences of that knowledge?

How would he interact with Constance after I’ve returned to the future.

She won’t remember any of the conversations we’ve had.

Perhaps that would be another piece of evidence in my favour.

Am I foolish enough to do the unthinkable?

The little flame of hope in my heart grows stronger.

Am I mad enough to do the unimaginable?

I awake to a pair of hands on my shoulders, violently shaking me.

My reaction is to fight back, but the hands belong to a man and he’s stronger than I am.

I open my eyes and see Glover’s distraught face staring down at me, his eyes popping out with terror.

‘Miss Fleet,’ he hisses. ‘It’s Lord Ravenglass. You have to come at once.’

My mind snaps to wakefulness. My senses sharpen. ‘What’s happened?’ I demand, sitting up.

‘He’s downstairs in the library. You have to go at once. Something terrible has happened.’

I scramble out of bed. Glover throws me my dressing gown. ‘What’s he done?’ I ask, my stomach clenching with dread, my thoughts scrambling to predict what horror awaits me downstairs. ‘Oh, God, what has he done?’

I’m about to discover the reason for my slide. At last, I will know what I came to find out. A sense of purpose grips me and I spring into action.

Glover practically pushes me through the door. ‘You have to hurry or it will be too late,’ he says, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘I can do nothing for him.’

As I make for the doorway, he looks at me with utter despair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

My breath catches in my throat. What has he done to Lester?

I lift my gown and hasten down the corridor. The gilded light of dawn is just seeping into the night, glowing through the glass and lighting my way. I reach the top of the staircase at a run. The gold leaf glints on the balustrade. It has an otherworldly quality.

Something catches my ankle. It momentarily bites into my skin. I stumble. I cannot save myself. I reach out to grab whatever I can to break my fall, but it’s no good. I fly into the air. I’m falling. Falling.

I feel a sharp bang against my head as it smashes into the banister. Then I’m above my body looking down.

Constance is falling like a ragdoll down the staircase.

BEWARE THE STAIR

I have slid out. I’m suspended in limbo, alert to everything that’s happening around me.

It’s then that I see Constance. She’s not in her body either.

She’s with me, watching her material form tumbling inelegantly down the steps until it comes to a sudden stop at the bottom, where it lies, twisted and still.

A pool of crimson blood flowers around her head and spreads over the marble floor, glistening richly.

She stares at it with a mixture of horror and fascination.

It takes her a moment to realise what has just happened.

That she is dead. She looks at her hands and moves them.

Then she looks down at her feet and moves them too.

She understands that her physical body is dead, but she still lives.

And I wonder whether it surprises her how natural it feels, how very normal, as if she has lived and died a thousand times, only forgotten.

Then she looks at me and slowly an understanding passes between us.

She smiles as the truth dawns on her and the veil lifts before her eyes.

Her soul has known all along what her human mind did not, that I had taken possession of her.

And that, on that deep, eternal level, she had been complicit.

Her smile says a thousand words. Her life is complete.

She’s done what she came to do, and she’s ready to step off the stage and return to whence she came. And she’s very happy about it.

With joyful surprise she takes the hand that now extends towards her. Pink and green colours shift into focus. A woman materialises like a hologram. I have seen her before. I have been her. Hermione Swift. She has come to take Constance home.

It was she who tried to warn Constance of danger. First, she warned her daughter of the sinking ship. Then she warned Constance of the stair. But nothing can stand in the way of fate. I realise that now. Not even I with my meddling can alter what is meant to be.

I turn to the stair where Glover is now untying the Japanese golden thread that he fastened across the top step to trip her up.

His apology was not for harming Lester, but for killing Constance.

There he is, a murderer in the shadows, and the full impact of what he has done hits me hard.

I never saw it coming. Probably because I wasn’t meant to.

But why did he do it?

And where is Lester?