The train began to move. And just like that, Beth learned the most important lesson of all: it didn’t matter if someone loved you, trusted you, was sure to come and rescue you, when the locomotive power of steam engines was involved.
There now existed a real and present danger of her winning Birder of the Year, and only she could save herself from it.
Thud! Thud!Someone outside bashed on the compartment door, no doubt furious that the departure time had been advanced without warning.“Stop!”they shouted, confirming her hypothesis. Gladstone chuckled, puffing on his pipe with triumphant equanimity, even as the vine reached out to twine around his bowler hat.
Closing her eyes, Beth repressed tears as the train carried her south toward London and tenure.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When the going gets tough, find a shortcut.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
Three days later
“What a darkmoment!” Mr. Flogg groaned, staring into the depths of his coffee. Across the table from him, Mr. Fettick sighed in solemn agreement.
“I don’t see why,” Schreib said, taking the last cream puff on the three-tiered communal plate. “Miss Pickering will win Birder of the Year, which is at least half of what you wanted, and IOS is happy.”
“But the British Tourism Board is not,” Mr. Flogg said. “It was supposed to take longer than this for the caladrius to be ‘captured,’ so people throughout Europe would be inspired to come across, join in the excitement. And newspaper editors are not happy, since the grand romance they’d been touting has just fizzled away. Not even a dramatic breakup, not even a tragic but interesting death. Furthermore, our plan for a proper finale—ourexpensive, already-paid-for plan—has been ruined. We’ll be lucky if anyone employs us after this debacle.”
“I’m going to miss sitting in coffeehouses, arranging great adventures,” Mr. Fettick said.
“I’m going to miss having an income,” Mr. Flogg added.
This time, they both sighed in mournful unison.
Schreib cast a bemused glance at Cholmbaumgh, who shrugged. “But it’s not over yet, is it?” the latter ventured. “They haven’t handed out the award.”
“And Mr. Lockley hasn’t rushed to Miss Pickering’s rescue,” Schreib pointed out.
Mr. Fettick raised his gaze to Mr. Flogg, eyes glinting with hope. “That’s true.‘Hope Remains.’What say you, Otis? Do you think we can go for one more spin?”
Mr. Flogg smiled, reaching across the table to grasp Mr. Fettick’s hand. “Chester, let’s dance.”
—
Beth woke tothe sound of sparrows. They were scratching at the windowsill, and for a moment Beth thought she was home again in Oxford, with the city awakening reluctantly to another week of lectures, and her landlady downstairs burning the breakfast eggs. But the pillow beneath her head was soft, wrapped in silk, and she did not smell the familiar greasy smoke.
Her mind lurched through time (pausing here and there as it spotted an interesting bird), then crashed into the present. She sat bolt upright, looking around blearily at the hotel room in which Gladstone had locked her three days ago while word went out that the caladrius had been captured by“The Extraordinary Professor Pickering from Oxford!”…because“Girls Can Do Anything (with a Quality University Education)!”…and that Birder of the Year would be awarded in the same hotel’s conference room.
Strong light suggested that the morning was well advanced—unsurprising, since she’d sat awake most of the night worryingabout the caladrius, Devon, the newspaper headlines, the Dover railway clerk’s horse, and even Hippolyta. She’d paced the room, tried for the sixteenth time to pick the door’s lock, considered screaming for help again although it had achieved nothing thus far, and torn her fingernails in what she knew was a futile effort to open the bolted window. She’d even waved to passersby on the road below, not caring that such behavior was the height of vulgarity. But no one had seen her to be scandalized, let alone to rush in and perform a rescue. Finally, near dawn, she’d slipped into a troubled sleep.
She missed Devon with a physical sense that took her by surprise, since they had not been together for long. The air at her side seemed achingly empty of his presence. Her hand reached for him over and over again, as if wanting the balance he offered. And the sound of his voice echoed in her mind, warm and smiling, threaded through with the slightest American tone beneath his English vowels.Beth, he whispered to her, and she stopped, closing her eyes, listening to it, feeling his strong arms enfolding her.
How had this man quickly become so integral to her experience of being in the world that she felt incomplete now without him?
When the nights began to burn with silence and boredom, she imagined herself back on the moor again, tangled naked with him, loving deep and slow while magical bird stars floated and spun through the darkness beyond the sheltering tree. She remembered walking hand in hand with him on the long, climbing road, and discussing ornithological science over lunch as the train took them north, and working in easy professional harmony to catch the whopper swan in Oxford. So many wonderful memories, so much happiness—more thanshe’d known in all her life. When she let herself sink into them, she understood why she’d so rapidly fallen in love with Devon. He was extraordinarily lovable.
Why he loved her was more of a mystery, but she clung to the fragile belief of it. Far too often for good sense, she opened her field journal to the page on which he’d drawn her a dancing carnivorous lapwing, and hugged it to her heart as if she were some passionate art student.
She knew that Devon would come for her—perhaps not swinging in through the hotel window heroically, since (a) he did not know where she was and (b) it would cause an atrocious mess of broken glass; but certainly he would save her from winning Birder of the Year.
Not that she didn’t intend to save herself, but a girl does like to have someone waiting in the wings,wantingto rescue her.
Apart from these dreamy figments of her lover (her lover! squee!echoed a gaggle of delighted thoughts, hugging each other and kissing framed memories of Devon), the only people she saw were the servants who brought her food, a suitcase of clothes and toiletries, and last night, a note.
We will come for you at ten o’clock.
