Chameleon in a Mirror Read online

  Next time. She'd been so desperate to get back to this century, and now here she was, already considering what she would do when she went back to the Restoration. But she didn't have a choice. She had to get the museum lute back. Besides, she wanted to see Aphra again, wanted to explain her disappearance. She didn't want to remain in Aphra's memory as an ungrateful sponge.

  Here she was, thinking about Aphra as if she were on another continent, not someone dead for over three hundred years. Somehow, she couldn't get her mind around it; when she'd left Aphra a few hours ago, she'd been alive and well.

  She rubbed the corner of one eye with her knuckle. The past was much closer than it was supposed to be, making Billie all the more determined to go back to the Restoration. And it wasn't just to retrieve an old lute from the Victoria and Albert. She needed to do something to give Aphra's reputation in the twenty-first century a boost. Getting information out of Aphra didn't seem to be an option, but there must be something else she could uncover: a lost play, a connection to the writers who went after her, proof that there was some truth to Aphra's claim of having been in Surinam. It didn't much matter what, so long as it would be enough to raise Aphra above the status of icon exclusively for feminist scholars, and a footnote here and there in mainstream criticism. Some of Aphra's words had even achieved the status of cliché, after all, a sign of being heard and repeated enough to conquer a spot in collective memory. So why did so few people know her name when so many knew her words?

  Billie ate the last chip and crumpled the wax paper in her fist. Heading back in the direction of the college, she contemplated what she could do this time to be better prepared for a trip to the seventeenth century. Perhaps there was something she could take back with her that she could sell, so that she wouldn't be dependent on charity. Aphra had been very admiring of her pearls, and Katherine so possessive of her pins, that would be a place to start. And even if she couldn't sell them in Restoration London, they would still be great gifts for her hostesses.

  But would she screw up history if she took industrially made pins back to the seventeenth century? When it came right down to it, though, that was exactly what she wanted to do, screw up history. She wanted to either find something in the past that would make Aphra's reputation in the present, or persuade her idol to write her memoirs — or something else as yet unwritten that would become a part of Behn scholarship and make Aphra as famous as she deserved to be.

  She shook her head; it was a strange thought. What if she really could do something that would make it impossible for Richard to give the kind of paper he had this morning? How different would Billie's own present be? Would she even have a research topic anymore? Not that she had one now, when it came right down to it.

  Billie found herself wondering what her physicist brother would think about the time-travel problem. She glanced at her watch and subtracted eight hours for Seattle. Breakfast. Bruce had probably not yet left for work, so she could still catch him. Cell phone calls to the States were not cheap, but in subjective time, she hadn't talked to him for months — and for a while she'd been afraid she might never talk to anyone in her family again. She punched in his number as she walked back to the college.

  “Hello.” Bruce's voice wasn't as groggy as hers would be before eight in the morning, but then he'd always been the disciplined one. By the time he was her age, he already had a position as an assistant professor. He hadn't seen nearly as much of the world, though.

  Or its history.

  “Hi, Bruce. It's me, Billie.”

  There was an astonished pause. “Something the matter?”

  “No, nothing's the matter. I just wanted to talk to you. It's been a while.”

  Bruce chuckled, and Billie clutched the phone tighter. It was so good to hear his voice.

  “I called you on your birthday,” Bruce teased. “That was only a month ago. And if you would just install Skype finally, we could talk a lot more often.”

  “I'm not complaining. It just seems like longer than a month.” It had been longer than a month. Billie had lived through two months overnight. Birthdays would never be the same again.

  “It's not like you to call impulsively,” Bruce said, a hint of suspicion in his voice. “Are you sure something isn't wrong?”

  Billie laughed. “Naw. I just wanted to touch bases.”

  “Something is wrong,” Bruce mumbled.

  She really had to keep in touch with her family more. “Well, this symposium on Aphra Behn is getting a bit irritating,” Billie admitted. “I wish someone could go back to the past and persuade Aphra to write her memoirs or something.”

  “I see something has inspired the missionary in you.”

  “Yeah — superior male professors who won't give Aphra her due.” She didn't want to admit just yet that her boyfriend had become part of that crowd.

  “Well, Bill, look at it this way: even if you could go back in time, it wouldn't help,” Bruce said in his reflective tone. Billie imagined him in front of a classroom, contemplating a question from a student. “Either whatever you do in the past has always been done — your going back to the past was always a part of that past, making it impossible for you to change things — or you come back to a parallel universe.”

  “Then since I'm not very interested in a parallel universe, I guess I'll just have to stay here.”

  “You mean you've discovered the secret of time travel? Let me in on it, and my career's made!”

  “Hey, I'm the one who still needs to make my career.”

  “You're in the wrong field for time travel, Bill. But I could always give you some lessons on the curvature of space and time if you want to change over.” Billie gave a little yelp of objection. “Hardly the thing to do on an international call, is it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I guess it's a good thing I have to head off to work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for the call. Take care, little sis. And don't let those superior professors get you down.”

  “You take care too, Bruce. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Billie. Bye.”

  Billie held the cell phone in her hand for a moment, subjecting it to an unfocused stare before she snapped it shut and put it away.

  The department store was packed. Billie wound through the crowds to the counter with the less expensive jewelry, the costume stuff and the semi-precious stones. She was in luck. They had a decent selection of the colorful strings of seed pearls Billie liked to buy and drape around her neck in shocking combinations. She would stay away from the hot pinks this time, though. In addition to some freshwater pearls, Billie chose a relatively inexpensive string of cultured pearls, several pairs of simple pearl-drop earrings, and some silver earrings inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The baroque era definitely suffered from a pearl fetish, and these little trinkets might well provide her with enough funds to buy herself a new suit or three back in the seventeenth century.

  The pearls in her shopping basket, she made her way to sewing goods. An employee stocking the shelves looked at her askance as she deposited the complete stock of pins without plastic heads in the basket on her arm. Billie shrugged and put a couple back before she raided the cards of inexpensive needles. Next she hit the fabrics section. A wide linen lace caught her eye, as well as a white cotton lace on sale; both landed in the basket with the pins and pearls. She wandered longingly through the bales of silk, testing the textures between her fingers, but decided against it; enough silk to make a Restoration dress would be too much to lug around with her.

  Billie flashed her credit card, thanking the powers of the modern age for plastic. In this century, she had just spent her “pin” money for at least a month. But if she'd chosen correctly, the loot just might help support her in the seventeenth, so it was for a good cause.

  Just as she was about to leave the store, she recalled the way Aphra had hoarded her paper and turned back to find the office supplies. A ream of 500 sheets would surely still fit
into her bag.

  As Billie approached the door of the lecture hall, Aileen came darting out, her freckled forehead divided down the middle by creases of impatience. At the sight of Billie, she gave a wry smile.

  “You do not want to go in there,” she said in her lilting Scottish accent. Billie was used to British by now, but the rhythm of Aileen's speech still sounded exotic to her.

  “What is it this time?” Billie asked.

  “Behn's sources,” Aileen said. “Seems she had very little that's original to contribute to English literature. It's curious that they're doing a symposium in her honor, isn't it?”

  Billie stared at the door and sighed. “It certainly is. Perhaps it's just a last gasp?”

  Aileen shook her head. “Those blokes'll be gasping for a while yet. Come, I'll buy you a cup of coffee and we can plan our line of attack.”

  On their way down the hall, Aileen briefed her on the afternoon lecture. “Nothing more than a list of what Behn stole. After the third obscure dramatist who was apparently more original than Behn, I left.”

  Downstairs in the small cafeteria, Billie opted for tea rather than instant coffee. The tables were all taken, so they dragged a couple of vacant chairs over to a spot against the wall. Billie shrugged out of her black brocade jacket and hung it on the back of her chair.

  “I love your outfit,” Aileen commented. “Very bohemian. Where on earth did you get the jacket? That beautiful material, and so dashing!”

  “It was a gift.”

  “I wish I had friends who gave gifts like that.” She wrapped her hands around the plastic cup and blew on the coffee. “What time should we meet tomorrow to write a new paper together?”

  “You really are serious about this?” Billie asked with a smile.

  “Aren't you?”

  “Very much so.” Billie sipped her tea, which she barbarously drank without milk, and considered her arrival at the exhibit this morning. It had been about the time she usually woke up, the day after she'd left — as if it had been a dream. She had to assume the time travel would always follow the same rules, since she seriously planned to disappear again tonight. “Would 9:00 tomorrow morning be alright?” Billie asked.

  Aileen nodded. “Could you meet me at my hotel? We can't work here, after all.”

  “Sure. Where are you staying?”

  Aileen gave her a card with the address, and Billie tucked it in her wallet. “This afternoon I'll try to put together copies of some of the sources that have been misused at the symposium.” And perhaps she would even be able to find more leads in the past, once she returned to the Restoration — something that would make it easier for them in the present.

  “Good. I hope you're up to a little extra work.”

  Billie smiled. “I'll be sure to bring lots of paper.” At Aileen's raised eyebrow, she added, “I like to brainstorm in hard copy.”

  The dust jacket of the Behn biography was torn in several places and curling at the edges. Billie smoothed them down absently, inspecting the Beale portrait on the cover, the portrait she had watched take shape under the painter's brush. She put her collection of Behn biographies in a canvas bag at her feet and looked around her corner of the office space she shared with several other graduate students. Did she have a copy of that old Bernbaum article here, or was that in the flat? Billie knelt down next to one of the bottom shelves and pulled out a binder full of Xeroxed pages. She was leafing through the collection when the door opened behind her.

  “So this is where you're hiding,” Richard said.

  Billie closed the binder and got up. “I was just looking for the Bernbaum article you cited in your paper.”

  “Hard to believe you're still interested, you've been so scarce.” He spoke slowly as he always did, giving the words added significance through the articulation of his deep voice.

  Billie shook her head. “Can you blame me? What were you trying to prove this morning?”

  He leaned against his desk and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What were you trying to prove last night?”

  Unfortunately, she couldn't answer that one. “Nothing.”

  Richard stared at her for a moment, silent. “Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?”

  “Ah, damn.” Billie pulled her hair back from her forehead and looked down at the floor. She hated scenes, and this was shaping up to be one of the worst kinds — an ending. “I can tell you what you did wrong several hours ago.”

  “It obviously started before this morning.”

  “Yes, it did. But I can't believe the revenge you took.”

  “It wasn't revenge.”

  She looked straight into his eyes. “Then it's even worse.”

  Richard nodded, silent again. “You should probably be a bit more visible at the symposium,” he said finally. “Fogerty has already asked me if you were ill.”

  Billie could hardly believe the change of subject when she could see Richard's unasked questions in the way he was gripping his upper arm, but she went along with it. “He didn't seem to like my presence this morning much.”

  “I like your presence.”

  “You sure have a lousy way of showing it.” Despite that awful paper this morning, the tight line around his mouth made her long to tell him everything was okay. But she couldn't, she had a date to keep with the past. If she met him for the first time tomorrow and he looked at her like that with those drowned eyes, said something killing in that low voice, she would fall for him all over again. Why did so many men wait until it was too late to be charming?

  “I've got to go,” Billie said, picking up her bag full of pins and needles.

  “And you're not going to tell me where?” He was half-sitting on the edge of the desk, one leg kicking the air idly, but his heavy-lidded eyes seemed more wide-open than usual.

  Billie took a deep breath. “Richard, I can't.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” The hand on his upper arm clenched and unclenched with an almost regular rhythm.

  Billie shook her head. “Not right now. Bye.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and fled to the classroom holding the exhibit. Most of the symposium participants were off having dinner with colleagues, so she locked the classroom door behind her to make sure no one would interrupt her escape.

  The sight of Aphra's tranquil smile on the poster calmed her. She took several deep breaths and considered her options. Aphra had not produced a play positively identified as hers for three years after the failure of The Dutch Lover — not until Abdelazer in 1676. Three years. Aphra might have forgotten Clarinda in that time, but Billie would have to take that risk.

  She dug the key out of the pocket of her jeans, opened the glass case, and took out the lute Ravenscroft had given her. She didn't know what would happen to her if anyone else with a key happened by tonight and noticed the lute was gone, but that was just one more risk she would have to take.

  Gripping the lute under one arm, the bag full of treasures slung over the other shoulder, Billie took a stance in front of the mirror and began to recite Aphra's famous song from Abdelazer:

  “Love in fantastick Triumph sat,

  “Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow'd,

  “For whom fresh pains he did create,

  “And strange Tyrannick Pow'r he shew'd....”

  She clutched her stomach at the familiar feeling of nausea. Billie was jubilant. She'd hardly dared to consider that the trick might not work again.

  “From thy bright Eyes he took his Fires,

  “Which round about in sport he hurl'd;

  “But 'twas from mine he took Desires,

  “Enough t'undo the amorous World.”

  Billie put her hand to her mouth and crumpled to the floor.

  15

  ... methinks wit is more necessary than beauty, and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome woman agreeable without it.

  William Wycherley, The Country Wife

  Fighting back the bile threatenin
g to rise to her throat, Billie opened her eyes and looked around. It was either the dressing room of the Dorset Garden Theatre or one very like it. The furniture looked different but it was the same mirror, and the size and shape of the room were the same as well. She pulled herself up on an overstuffed chair she didn't recognize and placed the lute gently on the seat. Resting both hands on the arm to catch her breath, head sunk forward, she didn't notice the door open behind her. At the sound of a gasp she looked up, and her eyes met those of Elizabeth Barry in the mirror.

  “Are you not Astrea's young American friend?” the actress asked after a moment, her gaze shifting from the reflection directly to Billie herself.

  “I am.” Billie turned around. “And are you not the actress, Elizabeth Barry? I believe we met at the music meeting when I was in London before.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “You were quite the talk of the town at the time, as I recall.” Her wide mouth spread across her face in a friendly smile, transforming her arrogant features. “Oh, yes, I remember you. When you disappeared, there were a number of disappointed bucks with bets placed at Will's Coffee House.”

  Billie adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “Why, that no one had been able to solve the mystery of you and your cousin. Where is your cousin by the way?”

  So Ravenscroft had not betrayed the secret of her sex. “She has not arrived in London yet,” Billie said smoothly, and Elizabeth Barry's smile grew almost impossibly wider.

  “It has been interesting meeting you again, Mr. ...?”

  “Armstrong,” Billie supplied. “Will Armstrong.”

  “Mr. Armstrong, the play begins soon, and I must get ready for my entrance.”

  “Certainly.” Billie took the proffered hand to lead it to her lips in a courtly kiss. “I was just leaving.”