by Winona Kent
Nick went around two corners, which took him to the High Street running along the west side of the Village Green. He popped into the Village News for a paper, and then decided to buy some boiled barley sugar sweets as well. He lingered over a copy of All About Space until Gavin, the proprietor, cleared his throat and he was forced to buy a copy if he wanted to finish reading about pulsars and antimatter.
Nick carried his purchases outside, and crossed the road.
That was what he had believed had happened to Charlie. A temporary brain blip.
Until now. And nothing in his experience, or in his research, could adequately explain it.
The makings were there, like all of the ingredients for soup, waiting to be stirred and cooked. Sprites were real. And tachyons, in theory, did exist. And there had been that one bold lightning strike, cracking into the Village Oak and across the roofs of nearby cottages.
Was Mrs. Collins, in fact, not Charlie at all, but someone from another time?
And if that was the case…where was Charlie?
It was too early for Emmy Cooper to be feeding the pigeons on the green, and far too early for the village children to be kicking a football around. The grassy triangle was deserted.
Nick wandered over to the old oak, still deep in thought. He barely noticed the heavy machinery that Ron Ferryman had parked nearby, an ever-present reminder of what he had planned as soon as he was granted permission by the council. The tree was looking very sad, he thought, treading through an overnight dropping of dead leaves.
Nick’s phone buzzed and he reached into his pocket. His eldest daughter was learning to drive and had been hinting about a car for her birthday, in a month’s time.
He unlocked the screen.
A text message.
But it was not from Naomi.
It was from Charlie.
Nick read it over, quickly, and then went back and read it once more, this time very slowly.
His first thought was that she was playing an amazing practical joke on him.
And then, his first thought was replaced very quickly by a sobering second thought. It was not a practical joke at all. It was real. And it was the answer to his theory. If Mrs. Collins had appeared from somewhere in the past…then Charlie must obviously have gone where Mrs. Collins had been.
Nick read his cousin’s message a third time, and made note of the date at the top of the screen. Sent on Thursday, June 30, 1825.
1825.
Completely impossible.
Yet there it was, in black and white, on his mobile.
I seem to be back in 1825, Nick.
The Village Oak’s got some kind of Wi-Fi thing going!
And then:
Do you or Sam know anything about a cousin, Catherine Collins? Married to someone who died before 1825. Need to find out more.
Nick did the logical thing.
Greetings from now to 1825, he wrote. Message safely received. We know about Catherine Collins. Will try to find out more.
He read over what he’d written. Too brief. He added a post-script.
Will try to work out how to bring you back. Don’t panic.
He touched Send, and watched as his message hung for a moment in cyberspace, as if trying to decide for itself whether this was a genuine request, or a joke. And then…it was gone.
Sent.
And now his phone was ringing properly. A caller.
Edwin Watts. Antiques Olde and New, a shop at the bottom end of the green, where the tour buses stopped.
“Edwin,” Nick said. “Sold that Commodore 64 yet?”
“Oi,” Edwin said back. “Less of your humor, mate, and a bit more attention to your nearest and dearest. I’ve got your cousin here and if she don’t stop stabbing at me with her sword I’m ringing the coppers.”
“I thought,” Nick said, “that you promised me you’d stay put.”
“The window box ceased to function,” Mrs. Collins replied. “And, as I was unable to summon its tiny inhabitants for further amusement, I became weary of my surroundings, and thought I might acquaint myself further with the environs of your village.”
“You on drugs?” Edwin Watts said, narrowing his eyes at her.
Mrs. Collins lowered the antique sword so that it was pointing at Edwin Watts’ heart, and not his neck.
“Do not vex me, sir. I am skilled in the use of this weapon. My lately departed husband fought under the Duke of Wellington.”
Edwin Watts raised his hands a little higher in the air.
“I think you ought to put that down,” Nick suggested. “Really.”
“I shall,” Mrs. Collins replied, “when Mr. Watts agrees that the sword rightfully belongs to me.”
“You’re bonkers,” said Edwin Watts.
“You are my witness,” Mrs. Collins replied, lowering the weapon at last, and placing it on a display table next to a collection of runny glass bottles and a selection of vintage Victorian hand bells. “This is the undress sword of a British Cavalry officer. It was fashioned in 1796, and it was in use at the Battle of Waterloo. As you can see here, and here, and here.”
She indicated a series of nicks and deformations in the long, heavy blade.
“It’s yours,” Edwin Watts said. “For nine hundred and fifty quid.”
“And I shall have it, sir,” Mrs. Collins replied, “though I intend to pay nothing for its retrieval. For I know it to be the very same sword that my late husband brought back from the battle. It is a sword given to him by Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe, a reward for his bravery in attempting to save the life of a fallen Cavalry officer. It is that fallen man’s sword. See—here—it has his initials carved into the back of the guard. An F and an H. It disappeared from my residence some months ago, under mysterious circumstances. And you, sir, appear to have been responsible—and if not you, then some wicked accomplice. And, for that, I intend to remove it from your possession now.”
“I’m calling the coppers,” said Edwin Watts.
“She’s not herself,” Nick answered, hastily. “She’s under a lot of stress.”
“Nine hundred and fifty quid,” Edwin Watts replied, picking up the phone. “Or it’s the Old Bill.”
Chapter 14
With much energetic advice from Tom and Jack, and a great deal of giggling from Mary, the large table from the kitchen had been moved into the sitting room.
A white linen cloth had been placed over its top, and spread across the cloth was a light supper that had been hurriedly put together by Sarah using leftovers from their picnic lunch. As well, there would a very fine soup, with turnips and carrots and onions, and mushrooms and parsley, and salt and pepper and stock, which was still simmering over the fire in the kitchen.
This was, all agreed, a Very Special Occasion.
“You have gained an admirer,” Sarah remarked, to Charlie.
“I must confess,” Charlie replied, “I have discovered Mr. Deeley to be an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.”
“If only the same could be said of his employer,” Sarah said, dipping the ladle into the soup to sip, and taste.
There was a jaunty knock at the door, which Charlie went to answer.
“An even more unexpected surprise,” she laughed.
It was Mr. Deeley, and he had picked a cheerful bouquet of wildflowers on his way down the hill from the manor.
He presented them to Charlie with a bow.
“Thank you, Mr. Deeley. Please do come in.”
“A pleasing combination,” Sarah remarked, to herself, as she put away the soup ladle and stepped forward to welcome Mr. Deeley. “And it certainly does not lack for want of simmering.”
The veal and ham pie was just as delicious cold as it had been warmed for lunch. And there was another salad, there being no shortage of little farms surrounding Stoneford, and therefore, an almost endless supply of greens and other offerings from their fields.
There was fresh bread and butter, and there was a feast of cheese: two kinds of Cheddar, a g
enerous helping of Cheshire, and a fine wedge of Wensleydale.
And afterwards, there was a trifle. Charlie had managed to concoct it, recalling a recipe she’d read in a six-months-old women’s magazine in her dentist’s waiting room. She’d incorporated biscuits, custard, cream, and rather a lot of wine, which she’d discovered lurking in a corked bottle in the cupboard next door to where the candles were kept.
Seated at the head of the table, Sarah poured tea for their guest.
“I apologise, Mr. Deeley, for the meagreness of our fare. No doubt you are accustomed to more lavish meals in Monsieur Duran’s household.”
Mr. Deeley laughed. “There is no meagreness in the fare here, Mrs. Foster.”
He glanced impishly at Charlie.
“And I expect that my appetite, having been tantalized this once, will in future be well rewarded.”
“I do not think you will be disappointed, Mr. Deeley,” Charlie replied.
She looked at Sarah.
“This morning I had the pleasure of meeting Monsieur Duran’s father. He has come to visit from France.”
“Has he?” Sarah said, plunging into the trifle with a very large spoon. “And does Monsieur Duran’s father share his son’s infelicitous distemper?”
“Fortunately, he does not,” Mr. Deeley replied.
“He’s a Count, you know,” Tom offered, as Charlie passed his bowl up to the top of the table.
“Yes,” Jack added. “And he lives in a very draughty chateau near Amiens that he hates.”
“And,” Mary said, “he has six dogs, three cats, and four pet geese, who are all named after French kings: Charles the Wise, Charles the Bald, Charles the Simple and Charles the Fat.”
Sarah spooned a small helping of trifle into Tom’s bowl.
“Goodness, children,” she said. “How on earth have you managed to acquire this knowledge?”
“Because Mr. Deeley acquainted us with Monsieur Duran’s father when he came to visit from France the last time,” Tom answered. “And I should like a slightly larger portion of trifle than that, Mother, thank you.”
“Last summer,” Jack added, “Monsieur Duran’s father showed me how to cut silhouettes from coloured paper.”
“Last summer, Monsieur Duran’s father showed me how to stand on my head,” Mary countered, not to be outdone.
“Perhaps you might consider going to Monsieur Duran’s ball tomorrow night,” Charlie said, “in order to acquaint yourself with the person who is held in such high esteem by your children.”
“Certainly not,” Sarah replied, perfunctorily.
“I should like a much larger portion of trifle than Tom, please,” Mary said. “And I do think you should go to the ball, Mama.”
“If only to give the greater Monsieur Duran the opportunity to teach you to stand on your head as well,” Mr. Deeley suggested, cheekily. “And I should like a much larger portion of trifle than Mary, please.”
An hour or so later, the plates and bowls, glasses and cups and saucers, knives and forks and spoons had all been carried to the sideboard in the kitchen for washing up. Headstands and silhouettes had been discussed and dissected, as well as the greater Monsieur Duran’s eclectic and peculiar menagerie, and all of the French kings from Charlemagne onward. And there had been delicate confirmation by Mr. Deeley of the lesser Monsieur Duran’s apparent obsession with the invention of a sanitary water closet.
Mary, Jack and Tom, Mr. Deeley and Charlie were all now gathered around a small pianoforte in the sitting room. Addressing the keyboard, Sarah played a pretty melody she had learned from her mother, but had found no occasion to perform in recent years.
She was a competent musician, Charlie thought. Not overly musical, but educated ladies in Sarah’s time were expected only to master those skills which were consequential to domesticity. Cookery and sewing. Embroidery. How to draw and how to dance. How to speak passable French, how to recognize countries on a globe. And how to play the pianoforte, whether they had a talent for it, or not.
Sarah finished, competently, to polite applause.
Charlie stood up.
“May I?”
“Of course!” Sarah exclaimed. “I expect you have had much more opportunity than I to entertain, living in London. The lower keys are fond of sticking a little—it is the sea air. But otherwise, the tuning is tolerable.”
Charlie took Sarah’s seat at the keyboard. It had been a very long time since she’d done that.
Five years.
She used to rock out the tunes. Jeff had a day job, in Southampton, in an office. But every weekend, she used to join him and his musician friends, playing at a club, or sometimes just practising in an upstairs room over a pub.
Charlie had a portable electric keyboard she used to carry around to all their gigs. The drummer, the bass player and the fellow on rhythm guitar were old enough to be their parents. And Jeff was their lead guitarist, twanging away on his old Fender Strat, channeling Hank Marvin when they invariably reverted to Apache or Wonderful Land at the end of an evening.
She’d given away the electric keyboard. And the Strat had been tucked into its hard travelling case. Charlie had not opened it since Jeff had died.
Here and now, she had suddenly felt a long-buried leap of anticipation. There was someone in attendance that made her want to play.
She sat at the pianoforte, and picked out the first tune that came into her mind. Used to be her favourite, that one. One of Jeff’s favourites, too. The one that made him joke that he was channeling Hank Marvin. F.B.I.
But the pianoforte keys didn’t bend the way guitar strings did. And without that accompanying guitar, it all sounded a bit…eerie.
“Will you permit me to join you?”
Charlie glanced up, surprised, to find Mr. Deeley dragging his chair over to hers.
“The senior Monsieur Duran may have excelled at silhouettes and headstands,” he said, making himself comfortable beside her, “but his lasting contribution to my proficiency in social intercourse has been a passable intimacy with these keys. Show me the notes. We can play a duet.”
F.B.I. as a piano duet. The idea made Charlie smile. A song never intended for the piano at all, now arranged for four hands. She played the simple introduction on the lower keys for Mr. Deeley.
“Just do that, over and over again.”
Mr. Deeley obliged, with a far more competent ear than Sarah possessed. In fact, Charlie thought, he was quite brilliantly, and improvisionally, good!
She joined in with the melody line, filling the sitting room with the joyous harmony she and Jeff had shared two centuries later, in the future—but now, through the oddity of a timeslip, a tune transposed back into 1825.
The duet finished with a grand flourish, and to much delighted laughter.
Mr. Deeley stood up to bow, and Charlie performed a slightly unsteady curtsey.
“Later on I’ll teach you the special Shadows’ Walk that goes with that song,” she promised, whimsically.
“I believe there might be opportunity for an excellent dance to accompany this piece,” Mr. Deeley remarked. “If circumstances were favourable, I would introduce a version of it at tomorrow night’s ball to amuse and entertain Monsieur Duran’s guests.”
“Oh!” Charlie exclaimed. “Will you be there?”
“I shall be,” Mr. Deeley confirmed.
“How so?” Sarah inquired. “Surely Monsieur Duran would never allow his groom to attend such a grand function…”
“He would not at all,” Mr. Deeley agreed. “However, at the annual celebration three years ago, a trio of musicians had been hired, and the pianist was discovered, too late, to be entirely too fond of imbibing. He was found beneath his instrument midway through the evening, having lost control of most of his faculties, and, indeed, an embarrassment of his bodily functions. The Grand Summer Ball teetered on the verge of disaster, until it was suggested to the lesser Monsieur Duran by the greater Monsieur Duran that I might be an excellent replace
ment. And so I was summoned—and I performed exceedingly well. Thus saving the evening, as well as the reputation of the gentleman of the manor.”
“How fortuitous for the lesser Monsieur Duran,” Sarah remarked. “I hope you received compensation for your contribution.”
“A half day away from the stables,” Mr. Deeley said, “which I spent at the seaside, with a picnic lunch, the sun, and an enjoyable book. And an invitation, assured each year by the greater Monsieur Duran, to the Grand Summer Ball. Although I am certain he only does it to annoy his son.”
Sarah smiled, and Charlie laughed.
“Would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to the aforementioned ball tomorrow night?” Mr. Deeley asked, turning to Charlie very formally, and looking rather serious.
“But I haven’t been invited,” Charlie said. Impulsively, Mr. Deeley took her hand, and got down on one knee.
“Mrs. Collins, would you therefore do me the very great honor of accepting my invitation?”
“I would be greatly honored, Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said, pulling him to his feet.
Mr. Deeley, looking very relieved, turned to Sarah.
“Your presence at the ball would also honor me greatly, Mrs. Foster.”
“No,” Sarah replied, with finality. “I thank you for your kind invitation. But no.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock upon the kitchen door.
Charlie went to see who it was.
“Mr. Rankin,” she said, recognizing him from their brief meeting at the manor. And there was Marie-Claire, saddled and waiting patiently in the road beyond, her reins looped through the garden gate.
“Good evening, Mrs. Collins,” Mr. Rankin said. “I must speak with some urgency to Mr. Deeley.”
“Of course. I’ll fetch him for you.”
Charlie returned to the sitting room.
“Mr. Deeley,” she said. “It is your gardener. Mr. Rankin.”
She paused.
Rankin. No. Couldn’t be. And yet…