‘Prawn cocktail,’ Jemima announced, as though this was a perfectly adequate explanation for everything that was happening to the inside of Hetty’s mouth at that moment.
‘So, tell me, Hetty. What has happened to our other distantly related niece?’ asked Aggie.
Hetty hesitated. ‘Well … She’s probably …’
How to explain?
‘Spit it out, dearie,’ said Jemima, though a mouthful of sandwich.
Hetty sighed. ‘Well, I expect that by now Charlie will have found her. I anticipated she might be a little …’
‘Surprised?’ supplied Jemima helpfully.
‘Indeed. So I thought I would conduct things in a remote part of the house where she could be safely discovered after a few moments to … adjust.’
Aggie smiled wryly. ‘Attics?’
‘The cellar. My brother Charlie helped me down there and left briefly to fetch his oldest friend, who always treated me kindly. They will have found her within perhaps ten minutes.’ Hetty decided not to add that she’d instructed Charlie to strap her to a sturdy-looking chair, in the event that Etta was so overwhelmed she fainted or went into complete hysterics.It had been a close-run thing for her and Hetty herself had been relatively well-prepared.
Or she thought she had, anyway.
‘What next for Etta, then?’
‘I daresay we could find out from the history books, couldn’t we?’
‘Not quite, dear. There’s your diary, of course.’
‘Yes, I suppose we could look at that more closely,’ Hetty added, suddenly hit by another wave of exhaustion.
Aggie stood up. ‘Bed,’ she commanded.
Hetty was too overwhelmed and tired to do anything except take her bags, be led through confusing surroundings and sink into an unusually comfortable bed. But this was more than any ordinary physical fatigue which might be expected from the act of travelling through time. She might have left her home, her family, even her body in the past, but her troubles had followed her all the way through two centuries: she knew the feeling of it deep in her bones. The familiar darkness was spreading through her again, like a black cloud pressing her down into the mattress.
The last thought that ran through her head was a desperate hope that she had done the right thing.
Chapter 8
1817
Charlie dumped Etta at the door to a room full of extremely elegant antique furniture. Alone at long last, Etta retrieved the letter Bessie had given her from her bodice and unfolded it.
Dearest Descendant,
I am sorry for what I have done, but only a little. I hope that this age will benefit immensely from your presence in it, and that you shall, too.
I have suffered from a darkness that has threatened to overtake me over the past years. It has become insufferable to live, and yet I feel certain my fate is not to die. Discovering a solution to this dilemma has been the focus of my life’s work, and if you are reading this I must have succeeded. I hope you shall humour me as we live out the consequences; at least for a while. I hope you can find it in your heart to take pity on me and give this era a try.
For the sake of posterity and so that you may be found, I request that you complete the diary. I feelconvinced that you shall be braver than I: that you will achieve great things.
You will find it is safe to remove the bracelet, so long as you do not break the chain. Break it, and we will both be instantly returned. But I beg you to give this life a chance. For my sake, but also for yourself.
Yours,
Henrietta Bainbridge
Etta folded the letter carefully, feeling a wave of immense pity. She felt so sorry for this poor woman: a time-travelling genius ahead of her time, yes, but also clearly showing symptoms of what would be recognised in her time, she felt sure, as depression. ‘I have suffered a darkness’, Hetty had written, and Etta remembered her father, in his worst moods, talking about the black cloud he always felt on his shoulder.
It would explain a lot – why everyone was so stunned at Etta turning up to breakfast, even her ability to speak. After all, so far nobody seemed to be able to label what Hetty had been suffering from; did depression even have a name in 1817?
