Part 2: Red Rover
Chapter 12
"She's all right," Julia reported. "We merely have to retrieve her from this deep sleep. You did well to get her out of there, hopefully Stokes and North won't find their way here. Shall I … shall I go into the dumbwaiter and look for David, so that you can remain here with her?"
Barnabas didn't answer her for a moment, then blinked and stared at her afresh.
"No. No. Of course not! I'm going right back there and get David. Julia, they're hunting him! They want to put him—Claude North wants to take Roxanne away, and substitute David in her place!"
"What? What happened over there? You were gone such a long time—"
"Surely not? I stepped out of the dumbwaiter, saw a cottage, entered, found Roxanne. Hid while those two talked briefly. Then we fled. That wasn't all of forty-five minutes."
"Barnabas! You were gone seven hours. At least, by our time. By parallel time, less than an hour was used? Well, that's to our advantage; if you return now for David, you might only have lost, oh, seconds."
"Then I must go, now!"
"Well," Julia asked, "how am I to get her to the Old House by myself? I presume that that is what you want? Or do you want me to put her up in my bedroom at Collinwood? I suppose there's room for the both of us. Two to a bed. But you're thinking that we will need the generator and the laboratory equipment, yes? Willie is over there, and in the time it takes for one of us to trot over to get him, we could have brought Roxanne there ourselves. If I go to get Willie, you have to watch Roxanne. We can't waken Quentin or Roger or Harry Johnson to help, because it's got to be a great big secret." Julia took her stethoscope from around her neck and threw it at a chair.
"Therefore, you're going to have to help me carry her over there, and I'll put her to bed. And I'll cover her with something," Julia added wryly.
If she had thought that her irony would be unheard by Barnabas in his present state, she was wrong. He looked at her in surprise, his eyes still wet, and she sensed the shattered feelings that must be crashing inside him. And felt a devastation in her heart.
"After all," Julia added, "Roxanne is mostly nude. Once again." Why can't I stop talking? she thought to herself miserably.
"Julia," Barnabas ventured, coming close to her in one stride, his eyebrows wrenching upwards in his confusion, "Julia, do you—resent my having rescued Roxanne?"
Trying to govern her feelings and push down a dangerous flood that was rising within her, Julia snorted. "Resent my patient? Of course not. We'll have to watch her carefully and as soon as you return with David, we will have to, oh, hammer the dumbwaiter door shut, or solder it closed, or something, so that Stokes and North don't get over here." She whirled on her heel and thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her smock. She strode across the room, then turned and paced back to him.
"Well, you'll go and retrieve David, yes? Yes. Shall I go and get Willie, or shall you? Or will you accompany me? It's just after four a.m., so presumably we won't be seen spiriting an unconscious body over to the Old House. But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather go and get Willie up and bring him over here while you, ah, watch her."
"What? Why? Julia, I don't understand your tone of voice."
"My tone of voice is letting you know that you have presented me with an awful problem tonight, and that I'll probably leave for Windcliff as soon as the sun is up."
.
.