All in Good Time Read online

  by Edward Ormondroyd

  illustrated by Roger Bradfield

  cover by Charles Geer

  Purple House Press

  Kentucky

  Published by

  Purple House Press, PO Box 787, Cynthiana, KY 41031

  All rights reserved.

  All in Good Time copyright © 1975 by Edward Ormondroyd

  Copyright © renewed 2003 by Edward Ormondroyd

  Illustrations copyright 2011 by Purple House Press

  Foreword copyright © 2011 by Edward Ormondroyd

  Cover illustration copyright © 2011 by Purple House Press

  Summary: A spunky but lonely girl finds herself transported back in time to 1881, courtesy of her apartment building’s elevator.

  Read more about our classic books for children at

  www.PurpleHousePress.com

  First Electronic Edition

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  November, 2011

  More books by Edward Ormondroyd

  Time at the Top

  David and the Phoenix

  Castaways on Long Ago

  For younger readers

  Jonathan Frederick Aloysius Brown

  Michael the Upstairs Dog

  Theodore

  Theordore’s Rival

  Broderick

  Johnny Castleseed

  Author’s Foreword

  I never intended to write a sequel to Time at the Top. That was a standalone book, I thought, and its story was so tidily wrapped up that it seemed nothing more about Susan’s adventures could be said. It took me a long time to realize I was wrong. All unknowingly, I had set up in the last few chapters of Time at the Top a perfect opportunity for a further story — the success of the plot hatched by Susan and Victoria to combine their two families. The old photograph tells us that it has happened, but we’re left without a clue as to how. And again all unknowingly, I had given Susan a diary to take with her back to 1881. So I had provided myself with a story — how the girls’ plot had succeeded — and a way of telling it, based on the diary. All I needed was the diary itself. The mysterious way it is put into my hands becomes the beginning of All in Good Time.

  It was a pleasure to plunge in, returning to old scenes and familiar faces. Mrs. Walker and Maggie could now become flesh-and-blood people instead of overheard voices. Jim Perkins and the Hollisters, only names before, could now come forth as real persons too. The embodiment of another name, Cousin Jane, could now burst catastrophically on the scene as that fearsome battle-ax, Jane Hildegarde Clamp. It was a lot of fun to bring her and Mr. Sweeney face to face! (Oh yes, Mr. Sweeney is back, more of a scoundrel than ever.) And to make the story a cliff-hanger, I put in as many obstacles and disruptions as I could invent.

  A warning: you will see that the book ends with a hint that another sequel might be possible. Ignore it, please. One sequel is enough, and the one in your hands is it! My editor was pleased by it, my first publisher was pleased, and I was pleased. It is my sincere hope that you will be pleased as well.

  Edward Ormondroyd

  2011

  For Joan,

  and the anonymous toucans who started it all.

  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Edward Ormondroyd

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Foreword

  Chapter 1. Susan Shaw Again

  Chapter 2. Mr. Shaw at the Top

  Chapter 3. Cloud on the Horizon

  Chapter 4. A Familiar Face

  Chapter 5. Plotting

  Chapter 6. Meeting

  Chapter 7. Mr. Hollister Discourses

  Chapter 8. Singular Behavior of Maggie

  Chapter 9. Cousin Jane Prohibits

  Chapter 10. Susan at the End of her Rope

  Chapter 11. Lady in Distress

  Chapter 12. The Elevator’s Last Trip

  Chapter 13. Mrs. Walker Weeps

  Chapter 14. Mr. Swingle States his Business

  Chapter 15. An Old Photograph

  Chapter 16. Mr. Shaw’s Plan

  Chapter 17. Waiting

  Chapter 18. Mr. Hollister Defends the Widow’s Hearth

  Chapter 19. Corporal Walker’s Ordeal

  Chapter 20. The Plan in Ruins

  Chapter 21. Mr. Shaw Goes Under

  Chapter 22. The Battle of Elevator Hall

  Chapter 23. An Old Photograph Reviewed

  About the Author

  About Time at the Top and All in Good Time

  1. Susan Shaw Again

  One Friday in August, late in the morning, Susan Shaw came into my life again, more than a year and a half after she had vanished from Ward Street and the twentieth century.

  It had been a phone call that told me of her disappearance, and it was another that served to bring our paths so curiously together again. But this time I had no inkling that she would be involved; her name wasn’t metioned, and what I heard on the phone was mostly noise. It was the kind of call you can’t take seriously. If I hadn’t been in trouble with my work, nothing would have come of it. But I was in trouble. I had been trying to write for two hours, without any success whatsoever. When the idiot phone began to ring, my first impulse was to tear it off the wall and throw it out the window into Ward Street; and when I finally answered, it was in a very surly fashion.

  There was a moment of silence at the other end, followed by a thin, tremulous gasp, as though someone very far away were trying to catch a breath. And then I jumped. Out of the receiver came a BL-L-LA-A-AAATT BL-L-LAAAAMMBRMRMRM that nearly ruptured my eardrum. It sounded like some fool revving up an engine without a muffler. I was just about to slam the phone down when a little quavery feminine voice began to talk through the racket. I heard the word “books.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Books,” the voice doddered. “A box of —”

  BLAHAHAHAAAAMMM!

  “Can’t hear you!”

  “At the” brmmm-rm-rm “Historical Association” vrooooooOOOM! “very important” blat-blat-blammm.

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right number?”

  She mentioned a number. It came through a lot of rrrrrr and fap fap fap, but it was mine.

  “Who is this, please?” I asked.

  She gave a wavery little gasp, and then there was such an insane crescendo from that motor that I had to jerk the phone away from my ear; and when I was ready to listen again, there was only the sound of the dial tone.

  Some kind of dumb practical joke …

  I went back to my desk. It was hot outside; a heat wave had been predicted. It was even hotter inside. For half an hour I waited for the next word to come, and then stood up again with a sigh. It was going to be one of those days … Well, sometimes when my head is stuck I can get it moving again by taking a walk. And now that the place had been mentioned, why not drop in on the Historical Association? It was the right distance, and I hadn’t seen Charles for a while. He is Vice-President of the Association, and a good friend of mine.

  I headed for the elevator — the same elevator in which Susan and her father had disappeared. But I didn’t give them a thought as the old machine groaned its way with me down to the first floor. Why should I? That affair was over and done with.

  The headquarters of the Historical Association is a solemn old brownstone house. The hush of the past falls over everything as you step inside. Even the air has a kind of antique taste to it — much more breathable than the yellow-tinted stuff out in the streets.

  “Edward! Good to see you again. Did you drop in for another look at your favorite mysterious picture?”

  “Hello, Charles. No, not really — just out for a walk to clear my head. But now that yo
u’ve mentioned it, I think I will.”

  And while he regarded me with an ironic air, I went over to the reading room wall where an old dark brown photograph was displayed. It showed a Victorian family group standing in front of a tall, narrow, much-decorated house. The group, from left to right, consisted of a boy in uniform, a lovely woman holding a baby, a man with a mustache, and two girls. The girl on the far right had a satisfied little smile on her face; and as always, I found myself smiling back at her.

  “By the way, Charles,” I said, turning back to him, “there wouldn’t happen to be some books here for me, would there?”

  “No, not that I know of. Why?”

  “Oh, somebody called me up, and imitated a little old lady in the middle of a motorcycle race, and said there was a box of books here.”

  “Oh? I’m the only one here who knows you — and I don’t do imitations.”

  “Well, it must have been somebody trying to be funny, then.”

  “People do dump books on us, though — old junk from attics and so forth. Want to see if any have come in recently?”

  “Oh …” I began to shrug, but he had already turned away; so I followed until we came to a room in the back of the building, where boxes and manuscripts and pictures and bundles of letters and antique household articles and weapons were stacked all over.

  “Well!” he said. “How’s that for a coincidence?”

  On the floor stood a breakfast-food carton heaped with dingy volumes. We picked them out, one by one: sixty-year-old novels, a book of verse entitled Heart Throbs, Stodgeley’s Lectures, little green Latin textbooks … At the bottom of the heap a battered blue leather volume caught my notice. There was no title on the spine, none on the front cover. I opened it: lined pages; handwriting — a fast loopy scrawl. Some kind of journal or diary … On the first page—

  “Hey!” Charles cried. “Are you all right?” He swept a pile of letters from a chair and pushed it toward me. I sat, or rather fell, on it. He hovered over me, saying, “Glass of water?”

  “No,” I gasped. “It’s all right — just shock. Oh, good lord! Oh, my word! Charles I — I want this book.”

  He took it from my shaking hands and riffled through it. “Hmm — an original document. Well, I don’t know, Edward, I don’t know. Mmm …” A little curl appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I might consider it.”

  I reached for the book, but he put it behind his back. “Not just yet,” he said. “I’m going to blackmail you a little. You want this book. I want an explanation. Ever since I first showed you that old photograph out there you’ve been acting like the cat that swallowed the cream. You know something about that picture that I don’t and I want to know what it is.”

  “Charles, I told you I was going to write a book about all that, and I did. It’s coming out next month, as a matter of fact, you can read —”

  “I don’t want to wait another month. I’ve already waited more than a year.”

  “Well … you’re not going to believe any of it.”

  “I want to hear it anyway.”

  “Oh, all right,” I sighed. “Brace yourself.”

  “Let’s see, now … I guess I’d better identify everybody first. The name of the family in the photograph is Shaw. The woman with the baby was a widow when she married Mr. Shaw — her name before all that was Walker. The boy in the uniform and the tall, dreamy-looking girl are her children, Robert and Victoria. The girl on the right with the little smile is Susan. She’s Mr. Shaw’s daughter. Got it all straight?

  “It looks like a typical nineteenth-century family, doesn’t it? Well, it is — and it isn’t. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Shaw and Susan come — came — from the twentieth century. They were living in my apartment building on Ward Street not two years ago. Don’t make those faces, Charles; you asked for this. Mr. Shaw was an accountant for a firm in the city, and Susan went to school somewhere in this part of town.

  “One day in March last year she was coming home from school when she met a strange old lady in the street. The old lady asked for help, and Susan gave it to her, and the old lady thanked her by saying, ‘I’ll give you three.’ She was a witch, you see. Don’t look like that, Charles. It turned out that she meant three rides on the elevator in our apartment building — rides into the past. Susan took the first one when she got home, although all she intended to do was go up to the seventh floor, the top, to look at the view. What happened was that the elevator kept on going past the seventh floor; and when it stopped, and she got out, she was in a hallway of that house in the photograph, and it was early summer of the year 1881.

  “She landed in an interesting situation. A beautiful widow named Mrs. Walker was living in the house. She had a daughter, Victoria, who was Susan’s age, and a son, Robert, who was younger. There was also a servant named Maggie, and a cat named Toby. Mrs. Walker was being courted by a man named Sweeney. She wasn’t in love with him, but she was on the point of accepting him because her money was almost gone, and she wanted to secure a future for her children. Victoria was sure that Mr. Sweeney was a scoundrel who was only interested in her mother because he thought she was rich. So Victoria had gone to a wishing well and dropped her locket in and wished for someone to come and chase Mr. Sweeney away. That’s apparently why the witch had sent Susan there.

  “And she did chase Mr. Sweeney away, too. She and Victoria and Robert made up a story that Mrs. Walker had been robbed of all her money by a swindler, and had just caught smallpox as well. Susan pretended to be a servant girl who was running away from all this disaster. She met Mr. Sweeney in the back yard of the house next door, where he was boarding with some people named Hollister. She was an excellent actress, and convinced Mr. Sweeney that the story was true. He took to his heels at once, proving that Victoria’s suspicions had been correct.

  “Well, the children didn’t know it, but Mrs. Walker really had lost all her money. She told them — Robert and Victoria, that is — she never did learn about Susan until much later — she told them what the situation was, and started making plans to sell the house, and wrote to her Cousin Jane for advice and help.

  “But Susan thought she could save the situation because she knew where a treasure was buried. Just before she’d come up the elevator she had been reading the newspaper. There had been a front-page story about a bulldozer operator who had uncovered thousand of dollars in pre-Civil War gold coins at a construction site not far from the apartment house. There was a map with the story. Susan’s idea was that she would go down the elevator to the twentieth century — she had three rides through time, remember — get the newspaper with the map, take it back to 1881, and then she and Victoria and Robert could find the treasure themselves. And that’s what happened. It was all open country back then, you see, and following the map and pacing off what would someday be city blocks, they found the place and dug up the treasure. It was a lot harder than I’m making it sound, or course.”

  “Hold it — hold it!” Charles interrupted. “If they dug up the treasure in 1881, how could a bulldozer operator dig it up again last year?”

  “Well, as it turned out, he didn’t. He couldn’t. After the children found the treasure, they happened to look at the newspaper — and there was no longer any such story on the front page. It hadn’t happened after all, because now it couldn’t. The kids called it ‘changing history.’ ”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s what’s known as a time paradox, Charles. All it means is that if you can travel in time, you can, oh, sort of erase things that have happened where you came from so that they won’t happen when you go back. For all I know, you might even be able to do something in the present that could change the past.

  “Anyway, they had the treasure, and they were bringing it back that night to hide it in the stable when Susan sprained her ankle. They couldn’t carry her and all that heavy gold too, so they hid the treasure under a bramble bush by the roadside. Next morning she had an idea. She loved Vict
oria and Robert, and she thought Mrs. Walker was marvelous. Her own mother had been dead several years. Why couldn’t she go back to the twentieth century and bring her father up the elevator? She and Victoria thought that if Mr. Shaw and Mrs. Walker met, they would fall in love and get married, and then they could all live happily ever after in the nineteenth century. If they didn’t fall in love, then Susan and her father would come back to the twentieth century. At least the Walkers would be saved from their predicament, because the treasure would stay with them.

  “She thought it was worth trying, anyhow. So she came down the elevator, and found that she had created quite a mystery by her absence. She’d been gone from the apartment building for several days, you know, and everyone thought that she’d been kidnapped. There was a detective working on the case, and her father was half crazy with worry. So there was quite a hullaboo when she suddenly appeared again wearing nineteenth-century clothes. When she was finally alone with her father she told him the whole story. There was a snoopy cleaning woman, Mrs. Clutchett, who had been in on the mystery from the beginning, and she listened to Susan through the keyhole and told me — that’s how I know about it. (Mrs. Clutchett married a flying saucer crank last year and moved across town, but I can put you in touch with her, Charles, if you want to hear all this from another source.)

  “Nobody believed Susan’s story, including me at first. Her father thought she had had some sort of mental breakdown, and he was determined to get her to a psychiatrist. She made a bargain with him; she’d go to the psychiatrist if he would first go up the elevator with her to see for himself whether or not her story was true. She didn’t hide anything from him, either. She told him frankly that she intended to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Walker, and that she hoped they would fall in love and get married. He agreed to go because he was afraid her madness might become worse if he refused. She even talked him into wearing a nineteenth-century costume for the occasion. They went up on a Saturday night. Our janitor, Mr. Bodoni, saw them getting into the elevator. He thought by the way they were dressed that they were going to a costume party. He was the last person ever to see them. They vanished without a trace. That’s a fact, Charles. Whatever you think of the rest of the story, Susan and her father did disappear. I’ve got newspaper clippings to prove it.”