Chapter 39
“Where was he?” Ivy’s mother asked, as they brought the shivering Aaron into the cottage. Ivy had wrapped her shawl around his shoulders. Alder had given up his saddle and led the horse with Ivy holding Aaron to her all the way home to keep him warm. She settled him on a comfortable stool before the fire and wrapped his hands around a bowl of broth her mother had dished up for him. Aaron still hadn’t said a word.
“Near as I can figure, a ditch near the Hubert farm,” Alder said. “A dairy farmer’s wife on the Stafford road saw him climb up out of the stream, as wet as wet. The barn caught fire this morning, so it seems. Ever since Mistress Hubert died and they sold off her cows, the place has been empty. Did the fire happen while you were near it, Aaron?” The secret that he knew English had long ago been revealed in the Wilkinson home. Even her father had let his resentment pass. The Americans may be mysterious visiting strangers from the future, but Aaron and Martin were their visiting strangers, and no harm would befall them in their care.
Aaron seemed to hear them inside the trance he was in, and nodded slightly. Ivy, overjoyed that he had reacted, hugged him tightly. She couldn’t stop touching him, as if she didn’t believe he was there with her.
“I’d best go tell the squire and Mistress Margaret,” Alder said. “They’ll be glad that he’s safe. I’ll bring his bay back again.”
“Don’t you dare take that horse out again,” their mother said. “It deserves a rest after the morning it’s had. Borrow Hugh Green’s plough horse. It’ll be fresh.”
Alder nodded and dashed out, the prospect of a ten-pound reward clear on his face.
“We’ve chores to get done with,” her mother said, turning to Ivy. Ivy felt stricken. Her mother saw her expression, and her own softened. “Ah, well, you can take care of the boy until we can get him home again. I’ll milk the cow, but it’s your task for the evening. Get him dry, and take some of Alder’s clothes out of the press for him.”
“Yes, Mum,” Ivy said. Her mother slipped on her clogs and went outside.
Ivy held onto Aaron’s hands. They were cold. She willed the warmth of her own body into his. He was so still. He’d been reserved around her, but not like this. It was as though his soul had flown elsewhere, leaving the shell.
“Come back to me,” she said. “You’re safe here now, I swear it.”
She studied his face. It still looked stiff, but the left corner of his mouth turned up just a little.
“There, now,” she said, pleased and relieved. She stroked his cheek with gentle fingers. As they passed his mouth, he turned his head and kissed her hand. Ivy couldn’t help herself. She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth.
For the first time, he moved. His hands came around her, crushing her to his half-dried, wrinkled and soiled shirt. She laughed, and helped him pull it off over his head. The feel of his bare skin made tingles run up her body. The two of them fumbled with the fastenings of her bodice until the two halves of the stiffened cloth fell open. Then she felt his hands moving down her body, as she had wished he had done weeks ago. Their lips joined again, and Ivy couldn’t stop kissing him, on his cheeks, his lips, the sides of his neck. Aaron drew back and searched her eyes.
“I…I’ve never done this before.”
“Don’t worry,” Ivy said. “I have.”
She pushed him back on the settle and cuddled up against him, running her hands down his body, undoing the drawstring of his wrinkled trousers. He kissed her frantically everywhere he could reach, and she guided his hands along her torso, sighing when he touched the sensitive skin of her breasts.
“Sorry I stink,” Aaron murmured at last. She laughed again.
“I don’t mind at all.”
* * *
Margaret sat on the front of the wagon with Martin Craig as Percy drove them, Hettie, and Alder back to the Wilkinson house. When they turned at last into the lane, she spotted Aaron and Ivy sitting on a bench beside the door. They stood up to await them. Margaret saw that they were holding hands. She felt enormous relief that he seemed to be unharmed, but the youth’s expression was odd, a mixture of many emotions at once. That didn’t surprise her, considering the terrible experience he had gone through, but he seemed…happy. She studied him, looking to see if he had been badly injured. He was wearing unfamiliar clothes that were rather too large on him, and no shoes. His feet looked bruised and scratched.
“Those will take some physicking,” Hettie said, in a businesslike tone, which belied the concern that both of them had had during the long night of worry. “I’ve got poultices that will lighten those purple marks in a day.” Margaret felt a rush of warmth for her maidservant’s good common sense. “Are those his clothes?”
“Yes,” Ivy said, picking up a damp bundle beside the bench.
Martin hadn’t waited for the cart to come to a halt. He jumped off the seat and ran to hug his son. They clung together for a long while. The American spoke in a low voice with Aaron, then guided him toward the cart. Aaron pulled back. Martin looked a question at him, then smiled as Aaron gathered Ivy in his arms and kissed her. The gesture looked a little clumsy and inexperienced, but the girl beamed as though Aaron was a noble courtier.
Margaret smiled. If only they weren’t so young, their parents would surely be arranging a marriage for them. She sighed to herself. Thank Heaven that Aaron had been returned safely.
She thanked Fred and his wife for their good care, and presented Alder with a small leather bag containing ten silver pounds.
“We’d have done it for nothing, ma’am,” Alder said, his fair cheeks red. “Aaron’s a good fellow.”
“Let’s get you back,” Martin said. This time Aaron didn’t resist. He climbed up on the cart and waved farewell to Ivy. She touched her hand to her lips and extended it out toward him.
* * *
An hour later, the Reverend Mr. Olney had a visitor appear in his study at the Church of St. John the Baptist. He looked up from the sermon he was penning and smiled.
“Ivy Wilkinson, be welcome,” he said.
The girl looked very nervous. “I wish to make a confession, Father.”
“Of course, my daughter,” Mr. Olney said. He escorted her into the nave of the church and gestured to the small wooden booth adorned with angels with gilded wings and sympathetic eyes.
He listened through the screen to her outpourings, his heart full of sympathy albeit tempered by the rules of his office. The boy had told her all of the harrowing experiences, and the aftermath between them. He sighed. It was only to be expected.
“God absolves you, my daughter,” he said at last, making the sign of the cross. “I exhort you to not step out of the protection of the Scriptures, no matter what the temptation.”
“Oh, he won’t,” Ivy assured him. “He’s a good man.”
“I’m not talking about him, my dear. It was Eve who plucked the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. You have learned things in this age that no man has known.”
“Oh, I have, Father! I have learned so much from Aaron!”
The vicar was taken aback. “Is it a matter that you must confess? Of sin?”
“No, of the future! The music, Father! He has brought music from the future. Oh, Father, you would love it. One of them is a hymn asking blessings from God’s lady mother. It is so beautiful.”
Mr. Olney had to gather his thoughts. “Music?” He loved music. One of the greatest joys of his vocation was listening to the prayers buoyed up to heaven on a cradle of song from the throats of his congregation and the huge church organ. He was aware of the sin of pride he suffered for that glorious instrument, so much better than a humble house of worship like his would otherwise have deserved. And to hear songs vouchsafed to this time from the future? “I am curious, my daughter. Do you think he will let me hear it?”
“I am sure he would! Who could he trust more than you?
“Do not attribute more to me than any man, my daughter,” Mr. Olney said, abashed. “I am as fallible as anyone else. Only God is perfect.”
“Yes, Father. You won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you, will you, Father?”
“Never. The seal of the confessional is absolute. Only our Heavenly Father will have heard what you said today.”
“Do I need to do penance?”
“For what? You saved a man’s life, and he showed his gratitude to you. Be blessed, my child.” He intoned the litany. And may our Heavenly Father keep her from having a child so soon, he thought. She has more growing up to do than that boy has.
“Come with me, Father. You shall hear the songs.”
“I would like to hear the one that seems like a hymn,” Mr. Olney said. His mind raced like water tumbling over a weir. She had given him so much to absorb. Americans here in their village! He thought that the wonders that they had already bestowed upon Barlaston were enough for one lifetime. Listening to a song from three centuries hence was beyond what he thought God would ever have in store for him.
* * *
At the soft tapping on the door, Margaret stood up from the edge of Aaron’s bed. Her brother Nat, on the floor with his five-string guitar, left off his strumming, moved to conceal the record player from view. Hettie opened the door a crack. Ivy peered in, and Margaret relaxed. She had been standing unofficial guard over Aaron since he had been returned to them. Two of the undergardeners were in the corridor, preventing anyone from intruding into the room. That excepted, of course, people that they trusted.
“Ivy!” Margaret felt a rush of affection and gratitude, since she and her brother Alder had been the ones to bring Aaron home.
“May we come in?” Ivy asked.
“Of co— We?” she asked, suddenly on her guard. “Who else is here?”
“The vicar is with me,” Ivy said, looking sheepish. Hettie stood between them, looking over her shoulder for Margaret’s permission. She had no choice but to accede, and nodded. Hettie, very reluctantly, retreated a few paces. The vicar offered a polite nod.
“Mistress Margaret? Master Nathaniel? Master Aaron, I trust that you are recovering?”
Aaron sat up. Margaret hurried to straighten the pillows under his back. He was in fresh pajamas, and had undergone both a bath and physicking from Hettie. The maidservant sat upright upon a cushion on the floor, ready to leap upon her patient at a moment’s notice.
“He’s doing well,” Margaret answered. “His feet have been rubbed raw, and his mind is troubled by his experience, but he is on the mend.”
Mr. Olney smiled at her. “I believe he can answer for himself, can he not?”
Margaret stared in horror. “Ivy!”
“Ye must be able to trust a priest, mistress,” Ivy said, looking guilty.
“Please, do not fear, Mistress Margaret,” the vicar said. “I am but paying a pastoral visit to one of my…temporary…parishioners, to offer God’s blessing for health and well-being. Consider this room to be now under the seal of the confessional. Nothing that takes place here and now will ever be revealed.”
“Thank you,” Aaron said. “I’m okay, I guess.”
Mr. Olney’s smile spread wide across his gentle face. “So the rumors are true.”
“The secret seems to spread far afield, no matter how much care we take to keep it,” Margaret said. Her back stiffened into its most formal posture. Ivy looked stricken at her disapproval.
“I only want the best for Aaron, mistress,” she pleaded. “Surely God already knows and offers His blessing to him.”
“That is right, Mistress Margaret,” Mr. Olney said. “I am but His humble servant. But I confess to the curiosity of a mortal creature. Learning that we harbor not just visitors from abroad but from the future is like learning that we entertain angels unaware. Do not be angry with Ivy. I’m afraid that I pressed her, perhaps unfairly. Especially when I learned of the music that Aaron shared with her. She told me of the sacred music that one of these future troubadours has written. May the Lord forgive me, but I have an obsession for music, which I consider the language of the angels. I beg that you would allow me to hear it.”
Nat started laughing like a deranged cuckoo, and played a cocky thread of melody on his guitar. Margaret stuck her tongue out at him. Mr. Olney looked quizzically from one sibling to the other.
“Of course, Vicar,” Margaret said, in resignation. “Pray make yourself at home. Hettie, will you see to some refreshments for our visitors?”
“Of course, Mistress,” Hettie said, rising from her seat. Margaret was scandalized to see a twinkle in her eye and understood that she was the only one still trying to maintain the situation. Word of the record player and the black disks had escaped entirely from her control. She simply had to accept it, in light of the other revelations with which Aaron had returned.
Aaron, albeit still looking the worse for wear, began to act as what he called the disk jockey, leading the new listener through a playlist of his favorites. He switched from one album to another, accompanied by his opinions, and what his mother had told him about all of the “old time” artists and songs. The vicar, as she guessed he would, was astonished and delighted by the magic of the recordings, and the association with a neighboring city, albeit many years from then. He seemed to like all the same songs that Margaret did, but he went back over and over again to the simple song adorned by the thrill of the pipe organ.
“By Heaven’s grace, listen to that chord progression! You are right, Ivy, that would make a good hymn,” Mr. Olney said, his eyes shining. He turned to Nat, who was strumming along. “Can you teach Mistress Tamsin the notes?”
“I’m sure that I can,” Nat said. “I’ve learned a number of these songs already, enough to set them down in manuscript.”
At last, the automobile battery was beginning to lose its charge, and the record player began to slow down. The vicar stood and made the sign of the cross over Aaron.
“You have done a good thing, my son. Thank you for bringing a new iteration of the word of God to this time and place. And your secrets are safe with me. Mistress Margaret, Master Nathaniel, thank you again. I will take my leave now. Pray give my regards to your parents. Master Aaron, my prayers are with you for your healing.” He went to the door and looked back, a small smile on his face. “God does work in mysterious ways. We will take the singer’s advice to let all things be.”