"Not a word, I'm afraid. The professor has informed me that the entire fabric of time is a delicate material, like old silk, and that the very sound of my voice might rip it to shreds. Very poetic of him, I think."
"He talks like a fool, if I'm any judge," St. Ives said angrily. "And you can tell him that from me. Poetic . . .!"
"Of course, sir. Just as you say. We'll need to powder your hair."
"Powder my hair? Why on earth . . .?"
"Professor Fleming, sir, up at Oxford. He knows you as a considerably older man. Due to your fatigued and malnourished state, of course, you appear to be an older man. But we mustn't assume anything at all, mustn't take any unnecessary risks. You can appreciate that."
"Older?" said St. Ives, looking skeptically at himself in the mirror again. It was true. He seemed to have aged ten years in the last two or three. His face was a depressing sight.
"You'll be young again, sir," Hasbro said reassuringly, and suddenly St. Ives wanted to weep. It seemed to him that he was caught up in an interminable web of comings and goings in which every action necessitated some previous action and would promote some future action and so on infinitely. And what's more, no outcome could be certain. Like old silk, even the past was a delicate thing . . .
"What does this Fleming have, exactly?" asked St. Ives, pulling himself together.
"I really must insist that we forego any discussion at all, sir. I've been instructed that you are to be left entirely to your own devices."
St. Ives sat back in the chair, regarding himself in the mirror once more. The stubble beard was gone, and his hair was clipped and combed. He felt worlds better, although the clothes that Hasbro fitted him with were utterly idiotic. Who was he to complain, though? If Hasbro had been instructed that it was absolutely necessary to hose him down with pig swill, he would have to stand for it. His future-self held all the cards and could make him dance any sort of inconceivable jig.
Together they went back out through the window, Hasbro insisting that St. Ives not see anything of the rest of the house. A long sleek motorcar sat on the drive. St. Ives had seen motorized carriages, had even toyed with the idea of building one, but this was something beyond his dreams, something—something from the future. He climbed into it happily. "Fueled by what?" he asked as they roared away toward Harrogate. "Alcohol? Steam? Let me guess." He listened closely. "Advanced Giffard injector and a simple Pelton wheel?"
"I'm terribly sorry, sir."
"Of course it's not. I was testing you. Tell me, though, how fast will she go on the open road?"
"I'm afraid I'm constrained from discussing it."
"Is the queen dead?"
"Lamentably so, sir. In 1901. God bless her. Royalty hasn't amounted to as much since, I'm afraid. A trifle too frivolous these days, if you'll pardon my saying so."
St. Ives discovered that he didn't have any real interest in what royalty was up to these days. He admitted to himself that there was a good deal that he didn't want to know. The last thing on earth that appealed to him was to return to the past with a head full of grim futuristic knowledge that he could do damn-all about. It was enough, perhaps, that Hasbro was hale and hearty and that he himself—if the interior of the silo was any indication—was still hard at it. Suddenly he wanted very badly just to be back in his own day, his business finished. And although it grated on him to have to admit it, his future-time self was absolutely correct. Silence was the safest route back to his destination. Still, that didn't make up for the hard tone of the man's note.
OXFORD, THANK HEAVEN, was still Oxford. St. Ives let Hasbro lead him along beneath the leafless trees, toward the pathology laboratory, feeling just a little like a tattooed savage hauled into civilization for the first time. His clothes still felt ridiculous to him, despite his harmonizing nicely with the rest of the populace. Their clothes looked ridiculous too. There wasn't so much shame in looking like a fool if everyone looked like a fool. His face itched under the powder that Hasbro had touched him up with in a careful effort to make him appear to be an old man.
Professor Fleming blinked at him when they peeked in at the door of the laboratory. They found him hovering over a beaker set on a long littered tabletop. His hair hung in a thatch over his forehead, and he gazed at them through thick glasses, as if he didn't quite recognize St. Ives at all for a moment. Then he smiled, stepping across to slap St. Ives on the back. "Well, well, well," he said, his brogue making him sound a little like Lord Kelvin. "You're looking . . . somehow ..." He gave that line up abruptly, as if he couldn't say anything more without being insulting. He grinned suddenly and cocked his head. "No hard feelings, then?"
"None at all," St. Ives said, wondering what on earth the man was talking about. Hard feelings? Of all the confounded things . . .
"My information was honest. No tip. Nothing. You've got to admit you lost fair and square."
"I'm certain of it," St. Ives said, looking at Hasbro.
"That's two pounds six, then, that you owe me." He stood silently, regarding St. Ives with a self-satisfied smile. Then he turned away to adjust the flame coming out of a burner.
"For God's sake!" St. Ives whispered to Hasbro, appealing to him for an explanation.
Past the back of his hand, Hasbro whispered, "You've taken to betting on cricket matches. You most often lose. I'd keep that in mind for future reference." He shook his head darkly, as if waging sums was a habit he couldn't countenance.
St. Ives was dumbstruck. Fleming wanted his money right now. But two and six? He rummaged in his pocket, counting out what he had. He could cover it, but he would be utterly wiped out. He would go home penniless after paying off the stupid gambling debt run up by his apparently frivolous future-self.
"This is an outrage," he whispered to Hasbro while he counted out the money in his hand.
"I beg your pardon," Fleming said.
"I say that I'm outraged that these men can't play a better game of cricket." He was suddenly certain that the cricket bet had been waged merely as a lark—to tweak the nose of his past-time self. The very idea of it infuriated him. What kind of monster had he become, playing about at a time like this? Perhaps there was some sort of revenge he could take before fleeing back into the past . . .
Fleming shrugged, taking the money happily and putting it away in his pocket without looking at it. "Care to wager anything further?"
St. Ives blinked at him, hesitating. "Give me just a moment. Let me consult." He moved off toward the door, motioning at Hasbro to follow him. "Who is it that I lost money on?" he whispered.
"The Harrogate Harriers, sir. I really can't recommend placing another wager on them."
"Dead loss, are they?"
"Pitiful, sir."
St. Ives smiled broadly at Fleming and wiped his hands together enthusiastically. "I'm a patriot, Professor," he said, striding across to where Fleming filled a pipette with amber liquid. "I'll wager the same sum on the Harriers. Next game."
"Saturday night, then, against the Wolverines? You can't be serious."
"To show you how serious I am, I'll give you five to one odds."
"I couldn't begin to . . ."
"Ten to one, then. I'm filled with optimism."
Fleming narrowed his eyes, as if he thought that something was fishy, perhaps St. Ives had got a tip of some sort. Then he shrugged in theatrical resignation. Clearly he felt he was being subtle. "I normally wouldn't make a wager of that magnitude," he said. "But this smells very much like money in the savings bank. Ten to one it is, then." They shook hands, and St. Ives nearly did a jig in the center of the floor.
"Well," Fleming said, "down to work, eh?"
St. Ives nodded as Professor Fleming held out to him a big two-liter Mason jar full of clear brown liquid.
"A beef broth infusion of penicillium mold," he was saying.
"Ah," St. Ives said. "Of course." Mold? What the hell did the man mean by that? He looked at Hasbro again, hoping to learn something from him.
; "I've been constrained . . .," Hasbro started to say, but St. Ives ignored him. He didn't want to hear the rest.
"I'm not certain of the result of an oral dosage," Fleming said. "I'm a conservative man, and I hesitate to recommend this even to a scientist such as yourself. It needs time yet— months of study ..."
"I appreciate that," St. Ives said. "It's a case of life and death, though. Literally—the life of a child who, for the sake of history, mustn't be allowed to die." He realized suddenly that this must sound like the statement of a lunatic, but Professor Fleming didn't seem confused by it. What had his future-time self told the man? Did Fleming know? He couldn't know; otherwise Hasbro wouldn't hax-e gone through the rigamarole with the powder. "Can you give me a rough dosage, then?"
"Pint a day, taken in two doses until it's used up. Keep it cold, mind you."
"Cold," said St. Ives, suddenly worried. He would have to have a word with the mother. They could keep the stuff outside, on the roof. The London autumn would keep it cold. He hoped that the woman wasn't too far gone in gin to comprehend. But how could she comprehend? Here he was, a gentleman with ajar of beef broth, stepping in out of the future. He could claim to be the Angel of Mercy, perhaps show her the bathyscaphe in order to prove it. Better yet, he would show her a purse full of money, promising to come back with more if she carried out his instructions. Damn it, though; he didn't have any money. He would have to go back after some. Suddenly he was fiercely hungry, and he realized that he hadn't eaten in— how long? About eighty-odd years as the crow flies.
He took the jar from Fleming. He had what he came for, but this was too good an opportunity. Here he was in 1927, in the pathology- lab of a man who was apparently one of the great minds in the field. Now that he looked about him, St. Ives could see that the laboratory' was filled with unidentifiable odds and ends. He must at least know more about this beef broth elixir. "I'm still confused on a couple of issues," he said to Fleming. "Tell me how it was that you came across this . . . penicillium."
Fleming clasped his hands together, stretching his fingers back as if he were loosening up, warming to the idea of telling the tale thoroughly. "Well," he began, "it was almost entirely by accident . . ." At which point Hasbro pulled out a pocket watch, contorting his face with a look of dismay.
"Our train," Hasbro said, interrupting.
"Oh, damn our train, man." St. Ives cast him a look of thinly veiled disgust.
"I'm afraid I must insist, sir.'' He put a hand into his coat, as if he had something in there to enforce his insistence.
St. Ives was filled with black thoughts. Here was an opportunity gone straight to hell. They had him on a leash, and they weren't going to reel out any slack line. Hasbro was deadly serious; that was the only thing that kept St. Ives in check. He knew too well that one didn't argue with Hasbro when the man was serious. Hasbro would prevail. You could chisel that legend in stone without any risk. And when Hasbro was in a prevailing mood, he generally had reason to be. It wouldn't do to argue.
The two of them left, proceeding directly to the station, and then, after no more than five minutes' wait, back to Harrogate where they drove once again out to the manor, St. Ives holding on to the jar of beef broth all the way home.
At last they stood awkwardly on the meadow, near the silo door. Hasbro held the keys in his hand. It was clear that they weren't going back into the manor. St. Ives would have liked another small glass of port before toddling off to the past again, but there he wasn't about to ask for it. Like as not, Hasbro would have complied, but there was still such a thing as dignity. Best to do what the note had instructed, leave straightaway. He had what he came for. "I'll be setting out now," he said.
"Best of luck, sir."
"I'll see you, then, when this is through."
"That you will, sir. I'd like to buy you a drink when the time comes."
"You can buy me two," St. Ives said, striding away through the weeds toward the silo. "And then I'll buy you two," he shouted, turning to wave one last time. Hasbro stood on the lonely meadow, watching him depart, the picture of an old and trusted friend saddened at this dangerous but necessary leave-taking. Either that or he was hanging about to make damn well certain that St. Ives wouldn't cut any last-moment capers.
Seated in the bathyscaphe at last, he wrapped the jar in his new coat and secured it beneath the seat, then turned his attention to the instruments. He had the wide world to travel through, but ultimately he left the spatial coordinates alone, returning simply to his own time, some two hours after his first departure so that he wouldn't run into an astonished Parsons still snooping around the silo.
He was filled with relief at being back in his own time at last, and he sat back with a sigh, regarding his surroundings. Grinning, he thought all of a sudden of the bet he'd made with Fleming. All the hindsight in the world hadn't been worth a farthing to his future-self, had it? He still couldn't believe that he had taken to betting on cricket matches. He simply wouldn't. He was warned now. Who the hell had that been? The Harrogate Haberdashers? He laughed out loud. What a lark! His future-self would be hearing the news from Hasbro about now: 'T what . . .!"
He climbed out of the machine, weary as a coal miner but still smiling. There was no sign of Parsons, nothing but silence round about him. The silo was dim, but even in the gray twilight he could see clearly enough to know that something had changed—something subtle. Terror coursed through him. This wasn't good. This was what he had feared. It was exactly what his future-time self had been desperate to avoid.
He couldn't at first determine what it was, though. His tools lay scattered as ever . . . Then he saw it suddenly—the chalk marks on the wall. The message was different now. In clean block letters a new message was written out: "Harriers 6, Wolverines 2."
THERE WAS TOO much danger in staying. St. Ives would have liked to sleep, to eat, to sit in his study and look at the wall. The beef broth, though, wouldn't allow for it. Time— that commodity that he ought to have had plenty of—wouldn't allow for it. It would insist on going on without him, piling up complications, altering everything. Never had he been so aware of the ticking of the clock.
He sneaked into the manor by way of the study window, remaining long enough to fetch out a purse containing twenty pounds in silver, and then, without so much as a parting glance, he loped back out to the silo, climbed into the machine, and sailed away in the direction of midcentury Limehouse.
He arrived a week earlier than he had on his previous visit. The child wouldn't be so far gone this time around. It was just after midnight, and to St. Ives, looking down over Pennyfields, it seemed as if nothing had changed. There was no fog, and the moon was high in the sky. But the old woman sat as ever, smoking her pipe amid the scattered junk slopping out of the door of the general shop. Sailors came and went from public houses. The seething Limehouse night was oblivious to the tiny tragedy unfolding in the attic room above.
He pulled the garret window open and stepped in carefully, setting the jar beneath the sill. The child slept on the floor, although not under the window now. He breathed heavily, obviously already congested, lying on his back with the ragged blanket pulled to his chin. But for the sleeping child, the room was empty.
"Damn it to hell," St. Ives muttered. He must talk to the mother. He couldn't be popping back in twice a day to feed the child the beef broth. He could think of nothing to do except leave, climb back into the bathyscaphe and reset the coordinates, maybe arrive three hours from now, or maybe yesterday. What a tiresome thing. He would make the child drink the broth now, though, just to get it started up. Trusting to the future was a dangerous thing. A bird in the hand ... he told himself.
There was a noise outside the door just then, a woman's high-pitched laughter followed by a man's voice muttering something low, then the sound of laughter again. A key scraped in the lock, and St. Ives hurried across toward the window, thinking to get out onto the roof before he was discovered. The door swung open, though, and he sto
pped abruptly, turning around with a look of official dissatisfaction on his face. He would have to brass it out, pretend to be—what? Merely looking grave might do the trick. Thank heaven he had shaved and cut his hair.
In the open doorway stood the woman who must have been the child's mother. She was young, and would have been almost pretty but for the hardness of her face and her general air of shabbiness. She was half drunk, too, and she stood there swaying like a sapling in a breeze, looking confusedly at St. Ives. Sobering suddenly, she peered around the room, as if to ascertain that she hadn't opened the wrong door by mistake. Then, as her countenance changed from confusion to anger, she said, "What are you doing here?"
The man behind her gaped stupidly at St. Ives. He was drunk, too—drunker than she was. A look of skepticism came into his eyes, and he took a step backward.
"Who's this?" asked St. Ives, nodding at the man. He pitched it just as hard and mean as he could, as if it meant something, and the man turned around abruptly, caromed off the hallway wall, and scuttled for the stairs. There was the sound of pounding feet and a door slamming, then silence.
"There goes half a crown," she said steadily. "I'm not any kind of bunter, so if you've been sent round by the landlord, tell him I pay my rent on time, and that there wouldn't be half so many hunters if they didn't gouge your eyes out for the price of a room."
"Not at all, my good woman," St. Ives said, surprised at first that she was moderately well-spoken. Then he realized that it wasn't particularly surprising at all. She had been the wife of a famous, or at least notorious, scientist. The notion saddened him. She had fallen a long way. She was still youthful, and there was something in her face of the onetime country girl who had fallen in love with a man she admired. Now she was a prostitute in a lodging house.
She stood yet in the doorway, waiting for him to explain himself, and St. Ives realized almost shamefully that she held out some little bit of hope—of what? That she wouldn't have lost her half crown after all? St. Ives, her eyes seemed to say, was the sort of man she would expect to find in the West End, not your common sailor rutting his way through Pennyfields before his ship set sail.
Blaylock, James P - Langdon St Ives 02 Page 21