The Space Between Time

by Bruce Macfarlane

  When he had recovered and let go of my arm, he said. “Sorry. I’m in a forest in a strange world, out of my depth and a bit stressed.”

  But before I could reply Mr Wells added to the situation in the way that only Mr Wells can. “There is something else to worry about.”

  “What’s that?” said James.

  “It has stopped raining.”

  We all looked up. It had.

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” said James.

  “Possibly. But what is more,” he continued, “there is no water dripping off the trees.”

  He was right! The wood was completely dry and very silent. Not a sound. It took a moment before I realised what he meant. It had not rained here. But it was James who realised the implication.

  “Don’t tell me we’ve passed through another damn portal?”

  “It would seem so,” said Mr Wells.

  “God! What time or place are we in now? I bet that cabbie knew something. Should have asked him if he knew if anybody ever came back out of this wood.”

  Usually when one of us is at a loss the other is able to come up with a distraction but I could not but agree with his sentiments. It was so quiet you could hear our breathing and to compound our predicament it was getting darker. Seeing no other choice, we decided to go onwards and follow the wires in the hope that they led to my home.

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  J.

  After about a hundred yards it had become so dark we couldn’t see the wires and had to rely on looking for the next telegraph pole. This involved one of us standing by a pole then the other two going off looking for the next one and keeping in sight of each. Any locals watching this would have thought we’d all escaped from the local sanatorium. Then suddenly a light appeared in the distance in front of us. I pointed it out and we all concluded, not just me I would like to emphasise, that it must be Hamgreen and like three moths we were off towards it, until we realised as it rose higher in the sky it was the moon.

  We were now off the path and had not only lost the wire but any sign of any poles. We tried to retrace our steps which was quite difficult as although fir woods are virtually devoid of undergrowth, they look the same in any direction. Then just as we’d decided we were completely lost and would never be found, save as a pile of white bones and rags, Wells stopped us.

  “Listen!” he whispered.

  We listened and after a while I thought I heard a fluttering high above.

  We strained our ears in the silence. Then again, the sound of something in the trees.

  “It might be an owl.” whispered Elizabeth.

  “Or bats.” I said.

  “Thanks.” She said, “First Orcs, now I have the thought of bats tangling in my hair.”

  “That’s a myth,” I said.

  “I will be the judge of that.”

  Then a white shadow flew across the moon.

  “Phew! It was only an owl.”

  But as we carried on along the track I was sure I could hear fluttering sounds again in the trees.

  Elizabeth whispered, “I think it is following us.”

  “No. I think it’s just making sure we leave its territory. Birds are like that.”

  Then Wells, who obviously thought that just being lost in a dark wood in a different world was not sufficiently scary, said, “I think it could be a Martian.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Look there.” he pointed at a branch in front of us and for a moment before it vanished we saw a small white cat or rabbit-like creature with its shimmering gossamer wings.

  We stood for a moment saying nothing then Elizabeth hissed, “There it is again! See about fifty yards down the track.”

  Wells whispered, “I think it might be fortuitous to follow it.”

  And before we could argue on the merits of following alien creatures in the middle of a dark wood, he started walking off in its direction.

  With no poles or wires anywhere in sight to guide us we decided to go along with him.

  But as we approached the creature it vanished again and reappeared another fifty yards down the track. After about the fourth appearance I was beginning to lose all hope when Elizabeth shouted. “There’s the gate to the Lodge!”

  And there, illuminated by the moon which shone through a gap in the trees, were two old stone gate posts straddling the track. I recognised them immediately. We passed through them out of the wood and on to a gravel drive and then half-walked, half-ran as fast as we could until we saw the lights of the Lodge come into view. By the time we reached it I was convinced that we’d made enough noise on the gravel to wake up the whole forest. It was gratifying to see Elizabeth’s home again, not least because it seemed it hadn’t changed since our last visit. There were the stone ashlar walls and the vines growing up around the windows up to the roof.

  Elizabeth ran up to the door and pulled the bell loudly. Immediately the door opened and a young woman dressed in a knee length, black skirt and a green T-shirt opened the door.

  “Hello, Elizabeth. You made it. Oh, hi, James and who’s this? Mr Wells, isn’t it? Come on in and have some tea.”

  It took us a moment to recognise Flory for she was dressed in the fashion of my era in what we had presumed was 1895.

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  Chapter Eight

  E.

  My mind was awash with confusion. I had left my sister in 1873. Twenty years had passed yet here she stood before us not a day older and in one of my modern dresses. There was only one question.

  ” Flory. When are we?”

  “Why Elizabeth, we are in your time.”

  “Then we’ve got back to our world! Fantastic!” said James.

  Oh, the relief.

  But then Flory said. “No. I mean 1895.”

  “What is the date?” said James.

  “I believe it is Monday, the 25th of March.”

  “But why are you in that dress?” he said.

  She drew her skirt closer to her and said rather defensively, “I have come to enjoy their comfort and when I am not receiving guests I relax in them. It is the Lycra; it is so forgiving. Is it not, Elizabeth?”

  “Yes, I can’t deny it,” I said, “But how are you, I mean we, in this time?” for the hall still looked of my period with the pale green walls and the old Georgian table except it was lit by electrical lamps.

  “First things first.” said Flory before I could comment further, “You must all change out of those damp clothes before you catch a chill. James, you can wear your gardening clothes our father borrowed. Mr Wells, I have nothing for your girth and I would suggest a dressing gown ‘till we have dried your clothes.

  “In the meantime Lilly will prepare some warm refreshments.”

  “Lilly, my maid, is here?” I exclaimed.

  I must remember that Lilly’s main skill is knowing everything about me and letting me know it. James, unfortunately, is aware of this and despite my efforts to keep them separate, if an opportunity arises to get my old maid on her own, he will immediately quiz her for any gems from my upbringing.

  Flory said, “Oh yes. We are all here. By the by, I see you received the clothes I sent you, although James, I notice you are not wearing the breeches and mustard stockings. Did you not like them?

  “The stockings didn’t fit, I’m afraid.”

  “Pity. I was looking forward to seeing you in them. I thought you would look very fetching.”

  “Not as fetching as your legs which I see have the perfect shape of your sister’s.”

  “It is not etiquette to comment on a lady’s legs in her presence, Mr Urquhart,” she said trying unsuccessfully to pull down her skirt.

  “In my limited experience,” he said, turning to me quickly to ascertain whether he was treading in dangerous water and then ignoring my affirmation that he was, “that’s the best time to compliment a lady on her pins.”

  A lifetime of not showing a leg or ankle, let alone revealing on
e to a gentleman, is a habit hard to break. James knows I still feel uncomfortable with this although it does not dissuade him from drawing attention to mine when he thinks an opportunity arises. However, his comments in this direction are always difficult to counter for, as any girl with sense knows, a compliment regarding her form from someone she admires should not be rebuked.

  Once we had changed, Flory said, “Now come into the parlour. I have a surprise for you.”

  We followed her into the parlour. On entering, the first thing I noticed was a strange typewriter with a bright red glowing light bulb next to the keyboard. The second and more important item was Isabel Wells standing next to the window.

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  J.

  My first thought on seeing Mrs Wells was to wonder if she was the same one we had met earlier, because by this time if someone told me I was in Timbuktu in a fairy dell on the other side of the Moon I’d have believed it.

  Wells, in his usual non-passionate self, said on seeing her, “Oh, hello. How did you arrive here? Did you see our note?”

  “What note, Herbert?” She said with equal dispassion and remained by the window. And they say romance is dead.

  We then explained our plan to contact her, following which, to use Elizabeth’s vernacular, she regarded us with not a little incredulity. When we’d finished, she said simply, “No. The reason I am here is that Miss Bicester and I,” looking at Flory, “became acquainted at the library in Midhurst.”

  The coincidences were piling up again. We all immediately turned to Flory who told us to sit down. I flopped onto a sofa, exhausted, and Elizabeth joined me, wrapping her arms around my body and pressing her head against mine. She smelt deliciously of rain and new perfume. The Wells family however, decided to remain standing in their respective corners. Flory then told her story.

  “I will start from the beginning when the anomaly occurred.”

  She sat down on a straight-backed chair and leaning forward, said in an almost confiding voice, “I did not notice a shift in time until the morning of the 13th March when I came down for breakfast. It was the electric lights which first drew my attention to it. Then I heard a bell in the parlour followed by a strange clattering sound. When I entered, I found it was that machine over there,” pointing to the sideboard, “which had appeared out of nowhere.

  “That red light was flashing and from out of the apparatus came a stream of white tape which on examination had typed writing on it. When it stopped, I laid it out on the table and I found it was a message from Mr Wells who said he had instructions to meet you both and could I bring clothes suitable for 1895 to the coaching inn at Midhurst. As I thought I was living in the 1870s I had no idea what was required! Nevertheless I picked up some garments for Elizabeth then Smithers drove me in the carriage to Cocking to catch the Midhurst coach. My fears that time had changed were reinforced when I regarded the countryside and were confirmed when an electric tram appeared at Cocking.

  I said, “That was brave of you, out on your own and in a different time.”

  “I did not find it easy but the need to find you outweighed my fear. Anyway, at Midhurst, I bought clothes for James then took them to the coaching inn where I gave them to Mr Wells. I was disappointed to find you were not there. Mr Wells could not tell me when or where you would arrive except that you would somehow appear on the river and for that reason he had hired a launch to look for you. I must admit I did not regard his plan with much hope. He was of the same opinion and after some discussion we eventually agreed that I should return home and wait for a message which would appear on that machine.

  “For nearly two weeks Mr Wells sent me messages informing me that he had still not found you so yesterday I took it upon myself to return to Midhurst to help search for you.”

  “Did you not send Mr Wells a telegram that you intended to visit him?” said Elizabeth, who by her warmth of her body against me told me she was nearly off to slumber land.

  “I tried but I could not understand its operation. I went to the inn but Mr Wells was not there. Presuming he was on the river I filled my time with a visit to the library to try and ascertain from the periodicals what had happened, but to my surprise although everything was different there was no news of the change. In fact, apart from Mr Wells nobody else seemed to notice. It was there that I met Mrs Wells who was also examining the periodicals and I gleaned during our conversation that she was suffering from the same experience as me but had lost her husband. When she informed me who she was I said I thought he was out on a launch. She then became rather agitated and to help I convinced her to tell me her story.”

  Isabel took over, “I described our meetings and Miss Bicester concluded that you, Mrs Urquhart, were her sister. We returned to the inn but Herbert was nowhere to be found. Miss Bicester then suggested that I return to her home where she concluded, quite rightly it seems, that your journeys would eventually involve a visit to her home.”

  “So,” I said, “we are all here together and it seems no further forward. What do we do now?”

  “We return to the cavern and build another coil.” said Wells trying to unsuccessfully light a pipe with damp matches from his dressing gown, below which protruded two stockinged legs with suspenders.

  “I’m not doing that again.” I said with some force.

  “Do you have any better ideas?” he said, still trying to light his pipe.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, raising herself from my body, “I suggest we all go to bed and have a good night’s sleep after which we may find ourselves in a better position to discuss our problem. Is my bedroom available, Flory?”

  “Yes. We prepared rooms in anticipation of your arrival. I will inform Lilly to provide some hot water.”

  She then turned to the Wells. “I hope you do not mind. It is a delicate matter. But are you to share a room or...?”

  “Certainly not!” they both said in unison.

  “I apologise. Please forgive me but I...”

  “We are not married to each other.” said Wells. “I will sleep on the sofa if you will bring me blanket or two.”

  And with that he plonked himself on the sofa and said, “Good night.”

  We all looked at him then Elizabeth turned to me. “Come on, James, get up and take me to bed before I drop asleep here and you have to carry me.” And she pulled me reluctantly off the sofa.

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  E.

  When I awoke, the sun was shining through the curtains and for a moment, as I gazed around my familiar room, I thought everything had been a dream. And thus, the presence of the man sprawled across my legs and snoring gently on my bed, dressed only in his underclothes, I confess, momentarily gave me quite a shock regarding my virtue.

  As I tried to remove my legs from under him, his eyes opened and seeing me, he smiled and slowly crawled under the covers uninvited until he was nestled up beside me. We lay together for a while, wearing what little clothing we had not discarded, in our safe cocoon drifting in and out of sleep until a gentle knock at the door took us from our slumbers.

  “Good morning, Lizzy and Mr Urquhart. I hope you slept well. Flory and the other guests are at breakfast.”

  “Thank you, Lilly. Tell them we will join them in a while.” said James.

  When she had left, he said, “God! I could sleep here all day.”

  I agreed but also reminded him we had agreed we would form a plan today.

  “And that plan doesn’t involve lying under the covers with you all day, I presume.” he whispered.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, carefully removing a hand which had somehow evaded my defences and found my breast.

  His sister and I, on our occasional afternoon teas, while James was busy re-arranging the garden or ‘working’ in his attic, have often exchanged humorous anecdotes from our respective periods on the skills a lady needs to defend against ‘wandering hands’ so to speak and found, not surprisingly, much commonality. Jill told me
once that she knew a cad who was referred to as ‘The Octopus’ on account that even if a lady held both his mischievous hands securely she would still find her garments compromised. I replied that I believed that at every soiree I attended one would be found and it was a duty to point such persons out to warn naïve debutantes.

  But to return. We dressed and joined Flory and the Wells in the parlour where we spent over an hour recounting our experiences fortified by copious quantities of coffee, tea and toast. Eventually we all agreed, having verbally trodden over the paths to my home numerous times that the only solution to our predicament was to build a new machine and that the place of choice was the time cavern. There was however, as James reminded us, the question of the presence of the Martians.

  Mr Wells led the discussion on this topic. “I think we must agree that the appearance of the Martians at the cavern and in the forest, confirms that Mr Urquhart’s apparatus restored a link to Mars which allowed the creatures to transport themselves to our world. And the fact that one guided us to the Lodge suggests they are here to help us.”

  “But how do we contact them? They’re elusive little beasts at the best of times. Never quite in or out of our world,” said James, carefully applying the last morsel of confiture to his toast.

  “That’s easy.” said Mr Wells.

  “How?” I asked.

  “There is one sitting on the mantelpiece.”

  We all turned around in shock and there it was! As I regarded the small white creature, it caught my eye. Its wings shimmered and before I could resist I felt my mind falling and spiralling into an abyss. Somewhere outside me I was vaguely aware of James holding my arm and his voice faintly calling me but it was not enough.

  After a moment, the room came back into view but it was distorted in some way and out of focus. James and the others were but dark shadows, almost like smoke and growing smaller. Then I realised I was rising into the air. I passed through the ceiling of the parlour then my bedroom and the roof until I found myself suspended or floating high above my home. As I looked around me I saw the great forest stretching to the horizon towards the east, but to the west it stopped along a straight line, beyond which were miles and miles of fields. Then I, or the countryside, began to slowly revolve and I felt myself gently pushed through the air by an invisible force. After a few moments, I had left the forest and as I floated across the landscape I saw for the first time the north of the county. Mr Wells was right. It was desolation itself punctuated by great factories belching clouds of white and brown smoke. Canals and railways criss-crossed the landscape. Between them wooden shanty towns filled with wretched humanity to serve the great furnaces. I wondered whether they were slaves. Then I dived down to towards a village. As I got closer I recognised the church of Midhurst. It came towards me faster and faster. I expected to be impaled on the weather vane but instead I passed straight through it, through the nave and the earth below until I arrived in a dark cave.