A Summer in Amber

by C. Litka

  Chapter 11: Tuesday 2 July

  01

  Market day again in Strayfeller. It was mild and overcast but without rain so I rode out early for fresh bread and a few other supplies.

  On the way back I came upon Lady Flora walking with the dogs. She saw me coming and made a laughing show of holding the dogs back and edging to the far side of the lane to stay well clear of me.

  I veered off to the other side and pulled up, 'Good Morning, Lady Flora. I take it you've been told to stay well clear of me?'

  'Oh my, yes, Mr Say. In no uncertain terms. Both Nessie and I have been ordered to avoid you at all cost, yet again. From now on I'm to only go out with Willie and Watt in tow, just to be safe.'

  I shook my head. 'I really don't understand his concern. He told me I'm an employee – which I'm not, by the way – and warned me to stay clear of you and your sister. I can see staying clear of your guests, but from his daughters? He can't possibly imagine I'm some sort of Casanova, could he?'

  'I find that hard to believe myself,' she admitted, shaking her head as she released the dogs to bound around me. 'Honestly, Mr Say, seeing you as Casanova is beyond my powers of imagination.'

  'Mine too. I don't understand why he goes out of his way to make my life miserable, but I've decided not to give him a chance. I'll make it a point go off somewhere for the weekends when he's to be around.'

  'Isn't that rather cowardly?' she laughed.

  'Prudent. I'd a feeling that at the end of our last confab, he had to either bolt or risk strangling me. I could see his fingers twitching... But he's your father and I shouldn't be talking to you like this.'

  'Oh, we all know what he's like these days – since Mother died. But where will you go?'

  'I've been invited by a friend of mine – an associate professor at Glasgow University – to visit him while I'm in Scotland. I'm thinking I'll take his offer up and go down to Glasgow one of these weekends. He's a member of a cycling club and I can ride with him as a guest whenever I care to. Otherwise, I'll spend my weekends touring Scotland. I'll let Professor Blake deal with your dad.'

  'Father won't like it, you going off the reservation,' she warned.

  'He doesn't like anything.'

  'True...' she laughed.

  'By the way, I meant to ask you what you were trying to signal to me when Lonsdale arrived the other night. It would've been rude to keep him worried and looking.'

  'Casanova or not, Say, I didn't care risking any misunderstandings. My life's happiness depends on Nessie marrying Renny,' she replied seriously. 'Renny's pretty easy going, but I didn't want to risk giving him the wrong impression.'

  'Why is their marriage necessary for your life's happiness?'

  'Because I can't marry Ham until I know Nessie's safely married to Renny. It's just that simple. And I'm hoping to marry Ham next summer, after I graduate, but Nessie and Renny are dragging their feet. I don't want some misunderstandings to delay things even more,' she replied.

  'Why must Lady Nesta marry first?'

  Lady Flora sighed, 'Oh, there are reasons. Suffice to say, I'm not comfortable marrying Ham until Nessie's married.'

  'Oh,' I said, recalling that first conversation I happened to overhear. 'Because you stole Ham from Nesta?'

  'I did not steal Ham from Nesta!' she flared. 'That's a lie. Nesta had no romantic interest in Ham, at least before Ham and I fell in love. Who did you hear that from?'

  'Oh, that's what everyone says,' I teased. Two can play that game. 'Still, all's fair in love and war, so what difference does it make?'

  'The thing is, we all grew up together. Our histories are all tied together. It was our parents’ idea that I'd marry Renny and Nesta would marry Ham. We don't really know why. One of those mysteries we're likely never to know. We never took it seriously as kids, though we used to tease each other about it,' Lady Flora said in a rush.

  'I was the little tomboy who occasionally got to hang around with Ham and the older kids,' she continued. 'And even as a little girl, I always had a crush on Ham. However, when I went down to London three years ago, I wasn't a tomboy any more, and I can assure you, I didn't have to steal Ham's affection from Nesta. It was mine from the beginning. She'd never paid Ham any romantic attention, at least not until Ham and I were already in love.'

  She gave a little shrug. 'But I think she did fall in love with him after a while, when it was too late, though she'd deny it. So I'm afraid she'll give Renny a miss – she may love him – but there are times you'd never know it. But that's Nessie, you just never know. I'm afraid she'll decide not to marry and spend her life as a spinster, wishfully thinking that my husband and my kids could have been hers... And so, with things being the way they are, I don't need anyone, even someone as goofy as you, gumming up the works. It isn't as if Renny doesn't have the attention of lots'a girls who are...' she paused.

  'More pleasant?' I suggested.

  She gave me a fleeting smile. 'More eager,' she said after some thought, adding, 'Nessie's pleasant enough. She's just been under a great deal of stress. And being around Father doesn't help.'

  'I'd imagine not...' I didn't actually have to imagine. 'anyway, sorry I teased you. I only know about Ham because I inadvertently overheard a conversation between your father and Lady Nesta on that subject. And she said it was all just gossip.'

  'Well, there's just enough truth in it all to make me nervous. Renny's a wonderful person, I just hope she realizes that before...' she paused, either seeing something in my expression or just realizing that I knew Lonsdale from the uni.

  'Really, he is, Say. We all know – Nessie knows as well – what Renny was like at the University. He never made any secret about that sort of thing, amongst us anyway. And well, their engagement came about rather quickly as a result of my mother's health. They were both busy with their studies, Nessie at Glasgow and Renny in Cambridge and well, Nessie didn't want to take on the duties of a fiancée, so she just told him to carry on, sow his wild oats and they'd sort things out later when they had more time. So you see, he wasn't really being a cad, he cares for Nessie and they understand each other, however strange it may seem...'

  'Oh, I'll not argue with you over Lonsdale. I've a far better impression of him after seeing him with Lady Nesta than I did while he was at the uni,' I said.

  She nodded. 'We all grew up together. Ham, Renny, Nessie, me and a dozen other friends and cousins. We had our occasional differences, but we've never fallen out. Renny will look after Nessie and treat her right,' she said.

  'I'm sure he will,' I said, and thinking back to when I saw them last, asked, 'Oh, by the way, how was Lady Nesta after she joined the party? I gathered she wasn't thrilled to see the clothes you picked out for her.'

  Flora laughed, 'Renny was, and that's what counts. Besides, nobody missed seeing Nesta when she was around in that dress, so father can't complain. Though he did, of course, and wanted her to change into something more respectable. Nessie being Nessie, declined to do so, indeed she made a point of talking to all father's business associates and their wives. And I don't think Renny ever left her side. A triumph, a triumph! But I don't know why I'm standing around gossiping with you, Mr Say. Father would be furious,' she added with another laugh. 'Good day, sir!'

  'And good day to you, Lady Flora. And thanks,' I added.

  She nodded with a smile, and called the dogs over to continue on her way.

  I have a feeling there's a lot of her father in her, and a big tease, but still, I like her.

  02

  I made an early lunch before returning to the tedious task of prying apart and placing in the sleeves TTR's manuscript. A little after six, I called it a day, made myself supper after which I rode an hour into Maig Glen. A storm seems to build up every day in the Maig River glen around sunset, which is to say, not much before 10:00. Still I keep a wary eye on the sky while in Maig Glen. Its storms notwithstanding, I'm growing fond of it. It's wild, but cheerful, full of bird calls and insect buzzes, and
the bleating of sheep in the green river valley between the rugged hills and overgrown pine plantations. It seems to lack the sinister air I find in the dark forests of Lonon Glen.

  I made a cup of tea on my return and sat on my front bench to read some of the material TTR had used for his theory. Near sunset Guy came by on his rounds and we gossiped for a while. This week, I gather, there are no guests worth worrying about, just the young cousins, so I won't feel as caged as I did last week.

  Perhaps I should include a quick outline on what my search through the Cavendish and Oxford libraries dredged up to give some idea what TTR was up to.

  The first set of books and papers deals with quantum entanglement. Simply put, this involves a pair of elementary particles that are linked in such a way that neither of the particles can be observed without effecting the other one. Any change to one of the entangled particles is reflected in the other, instantaneously, regardless of distance. This would seem to involve the transmission of information at speeds in excess of the speed of light. How this works is still not understood, though theories abound. While one could imagine energy being transmitted in a similar manner to achieving the effect of TTR's alleged machine, the gap between sending information and electrical energy would seem to be far beyond the powers of quantum entanglement.

  The second set includes papers on the uncertainty principle treated in the classical Copenhagen quantum interpretation. Which is to say simply (though nothing can be said simply in quantum mechanics) that reality, at a sub-atomic quantum level is a matter of probabilities. Nothing is certain until its wave function collapses, or to put it even simpler, nothing is determined until it has to be. Again, one could imagine electrical energy being somehow sent off in a state of quantum uncertainty to be received and collapsed once again into electrical energy. However, these principles have been around for well over a century and a half, and there has never been a suggestion that this could be done on the scale TTR proposed.

  The third piece seems to be an out of mainstream paper by Hugh Gallagher Ph.D. which seems to be a variation of the holographic universe theories. Simply put, it says the universe is “written” and static. It is complete end to end in all dimensions, including time. Elementary particles in this theory are simply the expression of the small autonomous bits of code used to describe the universe. The complete code-set describes, or rather described, the universe rather like a self-formed fractal. Everything then is, in a sense, virtual, or simply described. How this fits in with the rest is an open question.

  Everything that I've read to date, suggests that TTR found a way to send electrons by some sort of super-entanglement, which allowed electrons to be in one place and then instantly appear at another place, at any distance. Nothing in my experience suggests this is possible. And yet his invention was said to have worked. Hopefully “how” it worked will be found, someday, in what remains of his handwritten notes.

  When I finished my tea, I went inside and spent several hours playing with the page order of his handwritten notes, picking out a few words and trying to put them into order according to those words and the appearance of the page and hand writing. After midnight I put it away, without having accomplished much, and tried to clear my mind for sleep. It's been too warm to sleep up in the attic, so I'm back to camping on the sofa for now.

  I wish I were done.