The River of No Return

stepped into the sunlight that he recognized her as Julia Percy, his sister Arabella’s best friend. She lived at Castle Dar with her old grandfather, the earl.
    Nick could never remember what they’d said then, to each other. They must have spoken, but his memory was only of the smile, and of her stepping out of the shadow and into the light, coming toward him and pushing all the bad feeling away, before he even realized who she was. He must have seen her again, after that day, but he couldn’t remember. He had left Falcott House at age fifteen for Oxford, and he had avoided returning. After Oxford he had gone to London and then to Spain. And then to the future.
    Her calm, and that feeling that had come over him when her eyes and mouth had smiled together . . . her eyes and smile had followed him down two hundred years.
    Nick wondered if she was buried in the churchyard in Stoke Canon. Most probably she was not buried there. She had been a pretty girl, and he was sure she had grown into a lovely woman. Old Lord Percy probably shot her off at seventeen or eighteen, married her to some baron or earl halfway across the country. She would be buried under that man’s name, in his churchyard, in his county. The green lichen on her tombstone would have filled in even that name long ago. I hope you were happy, Julia of the dark eyes, he thought to himself. I hope your husband loved you and I hope your children were healthy and that you lived to see them flourish.
    “You are sighing like a furnace, my friend.” Arkady spoke, but Nick kept his eyes closed. “It is sad to see that Castle Dar is gone?”
    “I suppose I’m sad it’s gone, yes. But I was thinking more of the people who lived there.”
    “Castle Dar,” Arkady said. “A good name. Almost it could be Russian. I am very eager to visit this castle. We will see it soon, in 1815. Yes, and enter it too, I hope. Will you be happy to see the people there again?”
    Nick had no desire to see Castle Dar again, for that would mean seeing it in the nineteenth century, and Nick was still unable to grasp the reality of the return that he was about to make. He hadn’t cared much for the blustery old earl, and Julia, at twenty-two, would certainly be married and gone. But still. It was easier to think of visiting Castle Dar than Falcott House. Which did still exist, and which he would soon be facing. The thought made him feel slightly sick.
    “We are here,” Arkady said, slowing and turning the car. Nick kept his eyes closed, feeling the tarmac unroll beneath the car wheels. This must be the long drive up to the house. He pictured it in his mind, the beeches his grandfather had planted, the sweeping lawn dotted with sheep, the windows reflecting back the afternoon sun. . . .
    “Stop it.” Arkady slapped Nick’s thigh. “Do you want to pull us back out of a moving car?”
    “What?” Nick opened his eyes. There it all was. Falcott House, its Palladian symmetry unmarred, its graceful marble dome glowing almost pink in the afternoon light. The trees much bigger, the lawn sheepless, but otherwise . . . “Stop the car.”
    Arkady pulled over. Nick opened the door, leaned out, and vomited his pub lunch onto his ancestral land.
    “Nice,” Arkady said. “Classy.”
    Nick straightened up and closed the car door, took the handkerchief Arkady held out, and wiped his mouth. He waved his hand in a lordly fashion. “Drive on.”
    * * *
    Arkady parked the MG and together they walked up the broad steps leading to the grand entranceway. A gray-haired woman of about seventy opened the door before they could ring the bell. “You must be Mr. Davenant and Mr. Altukhov. I’m Caroline. I have your keys here, but I’m off duty in half an hour, so if you want a tour of the house you’ll need to come with me now.”
    “We will take tour,” Arkady said, at exactly the same moment that Nick said, “No thank you, we don’t need a tour.”
    Caroline looked back and forth between the two men. “Well, which is it? Tour or no tour?”
    “Tour,” Arkady said, his voice implacable.
    Nick sighed.
    “The tour isn’t so bad,” Caroline said to him. “It will only be the two of you. Interest in the Second World War is declining, I’m afraid.”
    The Second World War? But Nick breathed a sigh of relief when Caroline ushered them into the grand hallway. The graceful staircase remained but thankfully looked unlike itself, since it was flanked by glass cases filled with