A Question of Time

by Helen McCloy

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries; Thrillers

Synopsis

They told Lisa she was the daughter of an American aristocrat and an Italian princess both of whom died shortly after Lisa's birth. They told Lisa she was heiress to a vast Boston fortune, and that her American family cherished her and wanted her to stay with them.

At first Lisa tried to believe it all. Then she tried to separate the truth from the lies. Finally, she would know one thing for sure. Somebody or something was out to destroy her ...

Release date: March 14, 2014

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 256

Sample

SOPHRONIA HOLLAND always kept open house on New Year’s Eve. She saw no reason for altering her custom because this New Year’s Eve coincided
with a crisis in her own life.

Her mother had taught her, long ago, to behave as if everything were all right when everything was all wrong. It was a lesson women of her generation rarely forgot.

For several days Number 8-A Louisburg Square had hummed with a subdued frenzy. Now everything that could be washed was washed, everything that could be waxed was waxed, and everything that could
be polished was polished. The house was still again.

Unusually still for a town house. Old, thick walls cut off traffic noises. Old, thick rugs muffled every step. In the stillness, Sophronia could hear the measured, stately tick of the
grandfather clock.

Its great brass face was the only timepiece she could read without glasses these days but that was not the only reason she delighted in the clock. Its case was a miracle of Jacobean
craftsmanship, the cobweb marquetry that makes wood look like black lace. There were glass windows in the wood sides, London style, exposing the anatomy of time indecently to public view. Whenever
the hours struck she could see a small hammer rise and fall ponderously striking a row of eight chimes. All strike, the last kills . . .

She heard the doorbell. Ephraim Standish. Now she could hear his voice murmuring to Maggie in the hall.

She rose and stood waiting for him, her back to the fireplace. She did not spare a glance for the looking glass on the opposite wall. She knew how she looked, ravaged by symptoms of that
incurable disease we call old age. She could no longer pretend to be charming, but on occasions like this she could still be defiantly magnificent in claret-colored velvet with her mother’s
rubies set among seed pearls.

“Happy New Year, Ephraim!”

He had aged well. Small, spare, neat men do. The lines in his face had recorded only the sunny hours. His color was high. She was one of the few who knew this was not ruddy health, but the
distress flag of a tired and laboring heart.

“Please light the fire, Maggie, and bring in the punch. Or would you rather have something milder, Ephraim?”

“My dear Sophy, are you suggesting that I am too old for your famous punch? I shall have at least one glass, if I may, to drink a toast to the new decade.”

“But it’s already nineteen sixty.”

“Precisely. We don’t count anniversaries until the first year has passed. Only the Chinese do that.”

“So the sixties begin tonight with nineteen sixty-one?”

“Yes, and—Do let me help!”

Maggie was staggering under the weight of several pounds of silver, ice, and punch.

“Thank you, sir. A pint’s a lot more than a pound, if you ask me.”

Between them they got the punch bowl onto the round table without spilling any punch. Maggie filled two silver cups and presented them on a tray.

Sophronia raised hers. “To the next ten years!”

Ephraim drank and sighed. “I cannot even imagine them.”

“Why not?”

“What’s going to happen in Southeast Asia?”

“As the soldier said: ‘I’m not sure whether this place rhymes with louse or chaos.’”

“Perhaps it rhymes with both. Perhaps Laos will be another Korea.”

“I doubt it. The State Department has not confirmed that border clash between Laos and . . . What’s the name of that other little country?”

“Vietnam.”

“One place that will never give us any trouble thanks to Ngo-Dinh-Diem.”

Ephraim had remained friends with Sophronia for sixty years by always changing the subject whenever she mentioned politics. Now, with the agility of long practice, he shifted his attention to
the personal. “When do you expect your granddaughter?”

“This evening. Hugh and Amelia met her plane in New York today.”

“I thought they would fly to Milan and bring her back with them.”

“We’ve given up trying to get Hugh to fly.”

“The war?”

“Nothing so rational. Nothing to do with his past. And my daughter won’t fly without her husband. So they arranged for the child to come to New York by plane. They’re meeting
her there and bringing her on to Boston by car.”

“How old is the child?”

“Thirteen. We must stop calling her ‘the child.’ Her name is Elisabetta.”

“Still no trace of any Italian grandparents?”

“Apparently there are no Italian relatives at all.”

“Then what is worrying you, Sophy?”

“Too many unanswered questions.”

“Such as?”

“Why did Rupert never write me about his marriage?”

“Too busy perhaps. Italy was chaos thirteen years ago.”

“In nineteen forty-seven? The year our occupation ended?”

“It was still swarming with escaped prisoners, displaced persons, deserters, spies, partisans, Communists, Fascists, and Nazis. No place for anything and nothing in its place.”

“Others may have been busy. I doubt if Rupert was. By that time he was in Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives. He’d been too badly wounded at Salerno for any sort of active duty. In
another week or two he’d have been out of the army and sent home. So . . . why didn’t he write?”

“Perhaps he was afraid to.”

“Afraid?”

“Of you.” Ephraim smiled gently. “You are rather formidable, Sophy. At least, you might seem so to an only son. He must have known you would hardly be happy about a hasty,
wartime marriage to a complete stranger.”

“If there was a marriage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Rupert’s commanding officer wrote me that a woman in the same car with Rupert was killed at the same time. No hint that this woman was Rupert’s wife, or that she was pregnant,
or that the child survived.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know all that.”

“Apparently he didn’t know anything. He was in Milan, and never bothered to go up to the Brenner Pass where it happened. Bianca—Rupert’s wife—was not killed
instantly. She survived two days, without recovering consciousness, and died giving birth to Elisabetta by caesarean. No one seems to have suspected she was Rupert’s wife. They assumed she
was a hitchhiker to whom he gave a lift because she was pregnant.”

“No passport or other papers?”

“The car burned with all her belongings in it. The only identification was some sort of missal in her handbag. On the flyleaf was the name ‘Bianca Urbano’ and an address in
Milan. The building at that address had been bombed. If there were any survivors, no one knew where they had gone. So the police put Elisabetta in a convent near Como.”

“And then?”

“The nuns kept on trying to trace the families of war orphans left in their care. A year ago, looking up records for another child, they discovered a marriage in Milan between Bianca
Urbano and Rupert Holland. They recognized the names of Elisabetta’s mother and the man driving the car in which she was killed, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Could some other man have married Bianca, hiding his identity behind Rupert’s name?”

“What makes you think of anything so fantastic?”

“How else can I explain Rupert’s not writing me that he had a wife?”

“When he married, he may have thought it wiser to wait a few months longer until you could meet Bianca and see for yourself why he had married her.”

“And once she was pregnant?”

“Even then I can see him putting it off, telling himself there was plenty of time. Only there wasn’t. There never is.”

“So I’ll never know the truth.” Sophronia sighed. “Elisabetta may be my granddaughter, or . . . the whole thing may be a mistake . . . or worse.”

“Worse?”

“As Rupert’s only child, Elisabetta will get the income from his estate immediately, to be paid to her guardian for her support, and she will get the capital at twenty-one, but
that’s not all. I have my own money, so my late husband left his estate to be divided equally among all three of his grandchildren when they are twenty-three. That means Elisabetta will get
one third in nineteen seventy.”

“Why twenty-three? Why not twenty-one?”

“He had some Puritan idea that security is a mixed blessing for the very young, that they need to taste insecurity before they inherit.”

Ephraim smiled. “But only a play insecurity if they know they are going to inherit eventually.”

“Perhaps. And, of course, the estate is not half as much as it used to be, but there’s still enough to tempt an adventurer.”

“And where is this adventurer?” demanded Ephraim. “The only claimant is a child of thirteen. Her claim was put forward by nuns not related to her in any way. If there were
older people in the background, claiming to be Elisabetta’s Italian relatives, you might have reason for feeling suspicious, but you have just said there were no Italian relatives, and surely
your lawyers investigated every possibility of fraud.”

“They did so far as they could. They engaged a firm of Roman lawyers to help, but . . . I can’t help wondering if this child will look at all like Rupert.”

“Sophy, my dear, you must not allow yourself to think in those terms. The assumption of paternity is always an act of faith. It cannot be proved legally or biologically. You will have no
peace unless you give this child the benefit of the doubt.”

“You’re right, of course. The mere possibility that she may be Rupert’s child should be enough . . .” Sophronia’s hearing, sharpened by tension, caught a sound
outside. “Is that a car?”

“I think it is.”

A breath of winter cold came into the room with Amelia and Hugh. They were a comely pair, both tall, blond, and charming in their obvious affection for each other. In her daughter, Sophronia saw
all she had missed in her son—stability, continuity, a happy marriage, and loving grandchildren.

She let her glance linger on Hugh and Amelia for the sheer delight she took in their handsome appearance before she allowed herself to look beyond them.

Amelia made the presentation. “This is Elisabetta, Mother.”

Titian. Some of his women had that hair, the color of cut amber, not quite red, not quite gold. Rupert’s hair had been dark, almost black.

Sophronia collected herself. “You are very welcome, Elisabetta.”

“She doesn’t understand a word of English,” said Hugh.

She was a solemn little thing. Immature for thirteen. More like ten or eleven. She probably hadn’t had enough to eat during her first years. “Economic warfare” was a polite
term for starvation. No economy recovered instantly.

“Ben tomato . . .” No, that meant “welcome back.” Elisabetta had not been here before. “Benvenuto . . .”

The stumbling word won her curtsey. “Grazie, signora.”

“I am not signora. I am Grandmother,” said Sophronia in Italian.

“And this is Grandfather?”

“No, this is an old friend, the Dr. Standish. You must be tired after such a long journey. Your Uncle Hugh and Aunt Amelia will take you to their house now. You are going to live
there.”

“Not here with you, Grandmother?”

“You’ll be happier in their house, on the other side of my garden. They have a daughter, Susan, just your age, and a little son, Roland, who is ten. They will be your
playmates.”

“I am thirteen, Grandmother. Too old to play with a boy who is only ten.”

“But he is your cousin,” said Sophronia, as if kinship abolished all other distinctions.

“Come, Elisabetta!” Amelia held out a firm, shapely hand.

Hugh opened the door and followed them out. The voices that floated back from the hallway were still speaking Italian.

“Do we have to go outdoors in the cold again?”

“No, we can go under cover all the way by going through the ballroom to our house.”

“A ballroom?”

Amelia’s voice answered. “It used to be an orangery. That’s why it’s in the garden between the two houses. My grandfather—your great-grandfather—turned it
into a ballroom. There used to be more private ballrooms here than in any other American city. When you’re eighteen . . . dance . . . white dress . . .”

The sound of voices died away. They were going downstairs.

“Hugh is wrong about one thing,” said Ephraim. “That child does understand English. I watched her face.”

“You think she was pretending not to understand? Why?”

Before Ephraim could answer, the stillness in the old house was torn apart by a scream.

Sophronia picked up her skirts and ran downstairs like a girl of sixteen. Ephraim was close behind her.

The single light in the stairwell did not shine as far as the farther end of the hall, where two leaves of a double doorway were standing open. There everything was in deep shadow.

Hugh had one hand on a doorknob as if he had just opened the doors. Amelia was kneeling on the threshold, holding Elisabetta. The child’s face was buried against her shoulder.

Beyond them, moonlight slanted through tall windows on one side of a long, empty room, its ceiling lost in darkness.

Sophronia lapsed into English. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Amelia went on in Italian “Did you hurt yourself, Elisabetta?”

A muffled sob.

“Did she fall?” asked Ephraim.

“No,” said Hugh. “I just opened the doors and the moment she saw the ballroom, she screamed.”

“She can’t have seen much of it in this light.”

Ephraim pressed a switch beside the doorway. Sconces, spaced along the walls at eye level, bloomed softly with simulated candlelight.

The room was pure Mozart. The old, French wainscoting, once painted white, was now yellow as cream. Its scrolls and acanthus leaves, picked out in gilt, were a little tarnished. The parquet
floor was an intricate mosaic, waxed to a high gloss. Small gilt chairs were lined up along the walls, like soldiers on parade.

At the far end, a musicians’ dais was fenced off with balusters. There was a white and gold piano. The old music stands of wrought iron were painted white and gold, too. Their desks were
made to look like Grecian lyres, strings and all. Each desk stood between a pair of gilt candleholders with white candles, quite useless for illuminating sheet music adequately, but wholly
charming.

“Look, Elisabetta!” said Hugh. “There is nothing to be afraid of here.”

Amelia detached Elisabetta’s grasp from her sleeves and rose. Elisabetta promptly clutched Amelia’s skirt with both hands, a reflex of quadrumana young in danger.

“What is the matter, child?” said Sophronia. “Why did you scream? Why are you afraid?”

Elisabetta made a great effort to speak. The words dropped from her lips one by one.

“Because . . . I . . . have . . . been . . . here . . . before.”

Hugh broke the silence. “Nonsense! You’ve never even been in this country before!”

Elisabetta looked up at him. “You do not understand. All this has happened before. When you opened the door, it was like being in a play that you and I had rehearsed many times. I knew
what was going to happen. I knew that it could not be changed because it had already happened.”

Hugh looked helplessly at Amelia. “I’ve heard that long journeys by jet distort the time sense, but . . .”

“She’ll be all right tomorrow,” said Sophronia. “What she needs is hot food and a good night’s sleep. Elisabetta, go on with your Aunt Amelia. She’s going to
take you through the ballroom to her own house.”

Elisabetta clutched Amelia’s skirt more tightly. “I will not! I will never go into that room again! If I do, I shall die.”

“Why don’t we take her through the garden?” suggested Amelia.

“And yield to a whim?” demanded Sophronia.

“This time, yes.” Hugh picked up Elisabetta bodily and carried her into the garden through a French window in the hall. He gave her no time to protest. Amelia followed them.

In the drawing room once more, Ephraim refilled cups with punch and handed one to Sophronia.

“That was not just a whim,” he said.

“What was it then?”

“I don’t know. I doubt if anyone knows. It’s what the French call déjà vu, and it’s quite common. There’s even a medical term for it.
Paramnesia.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Literally, I suppose it might be translated as ‘beyond forgetfulness.’”

WHEN SUSAN HEARD a step outside her door, she put out her flashlight and slid it under the pillow with the book of verse she had been reading. Snuggling
down under the covers, she closed her eyes and allowed her lips to part slightly.

There was a crisp rustle of taffeta as th. . .