TEENA THYME
by
JENNIFER JANE POPE
Teena Thyme first published in 2001 by Chimera Publishing. Published as an eBook in 2011 by Chimera eBooks.
ISBN 9781780800684.
www.chimerabooks.co.uk
Chimera (ki-mir'a, ki-) a creation of the imagination, a wild fantasy.
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This novel is fiction - in real life practice safe sex.
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Copyright Jennifer Jane Pope. The right of Jennifer Jane Pope to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
Author's Preface
Prologue - Part One
Prologue - Part Two
1. Fortune Favours
Epilogue
Author's Final Note
Author's Preface
Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to be able to bring you an assortment of heroines (and even some heroes) in a variety of predicaments, worlds and ages. During that period I've received letters and e-mails, expressing your reactions and comments to all my characters and storylines, so I like to think I now have a pretty good idea of your favourites and I'd like to thank you all for taking the time and trouble to give me such valuable feedback.
I should now like to introduce you to my latest heroine, a young lady, born in the nineteen-fifties, growing up as a child in the so-called 'Swinging Sixties' and finally reaching adulthood in the even more outlandish mid-seventies, at which point she first begins her adventures. However, if you think that this tale is set amidst the glam-rock days of Gary Glitter, David Bowie and The Sweet, then think again!
Because, when Teena is bequeathed the estate of a great-great-great aunt she never even knew she had, she inherits far more than a country cottage and several trunks full of early Victorian clothes. There is also a locket, a small gold keepsake containing the miniature portraits of a man and woman. Who they might be, Teena has no idea, but something tells her that they, too, are long dead ancestors and so she decides to wear the locket and set about trying to trace something of her family tree.
However, before she can try for even the first branch, things start to happen and Teena finds herself whisked back in time, where she awakes to find herself trapped in the body of poor Angelina and at the mercy of the truly awful Sir Gregory Hacklebury, who is intent on seizing Angelina's own inheritance, whatever it takes.
This is an age when women had few, if any, rights; women were simply regarded as chattels, the possessions of their fathers and then their husbands. It had always been so and very few females were possessed of the temerity of spirit to challenge that status quo.
However, Teena is no shrinking Victorian heroine and to her, Status Quo means head-banging, loud music and attitude, which she has aplenty. On the other hand, this is hardly an age that is likely to welcome a 'girl with attitude' and Teena has to learn even more lessons than she is able to teach and endure hardships and abuse the like of which she can scarcely believe.
How will Teena get on, do we think? Well, if you've read any of my earlier books, you'll probably be quite confident that she'll pull through in the end, but then what is the end? Where is the end? Even more important, when is the end?
So, come join me and let us meet our gal, the amazing Teena Thyme and her even more startling adventures through the centuries, which begin here, quite shortly now, around about Christmas nineteen seventy-four. Elvis was still alive, the Beatles were still fresh in the memory, Mr Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust dominated our screens and radios and even Madonna was still quite young, though whether or not she was still like the virgin of whom she sang, only she will know.
But then, none of that is at all relevant to our story, as you are about to discover...
Prologue - Part One
The two maidservants uttered not a single word between them, neither did they pay the slightest heed to Angelina's screams of protest and she quickly fell as silent as they and ceased the pointless struggling.
Held firmly between them, she now allowed them to lead rather than to drag her, as they had initially done. Along the top passageway they went, until they came to the spiral stairway used by the servants. The way here was too narrow for them to pass three abreast, but the older woman, Meg, descended first, though all the time maintaining her vicelike grip on Angelina's slender wrist, whilst Polly followed behind, one hand grasping Angelina in the same manner, the other entwined in her now dishevelled hair, as a warning to the hapless girl not to try to pull free.
They passed beyond the ground floor, descending further, until they emerged at the end of another passage, which Angelina knew ran along through the length of the extensive cellars. They passed several open rooms, each one stacked with an assortment of crates, barrels and sacks, apart from the wine cellar itself, which was racked from floor to ceiling, the racks themselves laden with dark bottles.
Beyond the main wine store they stopped at another door, which Meg kicked open without ceremony. Inside, a single lantern burned with a guttering flame, casting the palest of lights amidst the gloom, so that only when they had fully entered the room was Angelina able to make out the racking which extended the length of the farther wall.
Breathing heavily, she peered into the shadows and realised that this room had also, at one time, been used for storing wine, though the racks now stood empty and seemed to be covered by a fine layer of dust, other than one section in the centre, which appeared to have been recently swept clean. And there, hanging from the horizontal batten that ran along about a foot above head height, Angelina saw how they had prepared for her.
Two stout lengths of rope had been tied to this batten, short pieces of hemp, to the free ends of which had somehow been fastened two even shorter leather straps, the one end of which was tapered, like a belt, the other end terminating in a heavy buckle.
The two maids drew her towards this part of the rack and now, as Angelina understood the purpose of these embellishments, she renewed her struggles, though she knew that by now it was too late. One at a time, her arms were pulled up and the straps buckled tightly about her wrists, so that she was forced to stand facing the obsolete wine rack, with her arms held wide above her head.
'No, please!' she wailed. 'Please, this is too cruel. Oh, won't someone help me?' Her pleas fell upon stony ground, however, and the two women turned away again. In the doorway Meg paused and looked back and Angelina, craning her neck to meet her gaze over her shoulder, saw the look of sheer contempt that passed across the serving woman's face.
'Meg, please,' she whispered. 'Why do you treat me this way?' At last, the maid broke her silence.
'Master's orders, miss,' she said curtly. 'And the master expects his orders to be carried out. Maybe if you'd remembered this you wouldn't be where you are now, eh? Next time, maybe you'll think twice before you flounce your pert little arse and swirl your silken skirts in temper.'
'But you can't know what he was suggesting!' Angelina protested. 'I can only thank the good Lord that I am not yet married to that beast and when I t
ell my aunt what has transpired here this day, the wedding will never take place!'
Meg's features twisted into a curious grimace and she leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe, a pose she would never have dared adopt above stairs.
'Is that so?' she said, her tone as mocking as her posture. 'So the little madam thinks herself too good to marry our master, does she? Well, time will tell, missy, and I think maybe you'll be singing a different song come the morning.'
Prologue - Part Two
When you've got a dad who's mildly dyslexic and who is also prone to downing several pints of 'best' at the slightest excuse, it's not a particularly good idea to let him go off, unchaperoned, to register your birth, but then how many four-day-old girl babies get a say in such things, eh?
Come to think of it, how many females get a say in anything much anyway, but then that's a different story and you don't want to get me going on that one, believe me. Women's lib? Equal rights? Don't make me laugh, please. See, there I go and you never said a word, did you?
Okay, so let's get around to the important things, the reason you decided you might find my story interesting enough to shell out whatever your local bookshop is charging you for this stunning piece of literature.
My name is Teena Thyme. Well, to be honest, it's actually Teena Felicity (how the hell dad managed to spell that one right and not manage something as simple as Tina, I'll never know) Spigwell-Thyme, but would you want to admit to a handle like that? No, thought not; so Teena Thyme it is, and now I'll tell you a little bit about me.
I'm forty-five now (at least, I am at the time of writing this, but then time, as you'll see, is a peculiarly elastic concept) but I don't look a day over (say) twenty-seven. Okay, okay, twenty-nine, but in a poor light and if I've had a decent night's sleep, I've been known to pass for twenty-five. Neat trick, eh? Forty-five, going on twenty-five.
How's it done, you may ask? Of course, you may not ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway and it's all very simple and at the same time a bit confusing, but then that sums up life in general and I'm taking no responsibility for that, believe me. We'll just concentrate on the facts ('The facts, lady, just the facts') no matter how unbelievable or inexplicable you may find them. Believe me, even I can't fully explain the thing and I was there.
And there. And there.
Ad infinitum.
Ad nauseum, if you prefer.
Ever heard that expression: 'It's only a matter of time'? Covers a mass of situations, a multitude of sins, doesn't it? I often wonder who first coined that one, back there in the mists of... time. If only they knew!
You see, I'm a time traveller.
Oh, for heaven's sake, sit down and give me a chance to explain and no, I'm not drunk - that was dad's department. And before you ask, no, I'm not from the distant future and neither am I one of Merlin's naughty little acolytes who just happened to peek into a spell book that he left unguarded on his bedside table.
Yes, there was a Merlin and yes, he did have a bedside table. Why not? The poor old bugger had to sleep sometime and everyone knows that if you don't have a bedside table you end up kicking all manner of stuff over the rug when you stumble out of bed, bleary-eyed, in the wee small hours, and even wizards and sorcerers need to take a pee after a particularly heavy session on the wine and mead.
But again, I digress.
I, Teena Thyme, was born in 1956 - December, to be precise - in a small hospital, not very far from a place called Hayling Island, which is in Hampshire, England, and I promise I won't be offended if you haven't heard of it. Go there between October and April and the entire place looks like it's shut. Go there the rest of the year and you can spend hours in a traffic queue, trying to get on or off the place via its one and only road bridge link with the mainland.
There used to be a railway bridge, too, back in the days when I was a little girl, but they scrapped that, along with the railway proper, sometime back in the late sixties, if my memory serves me right (which it often doesn't). Apparently they now have a sort of railway there again, but as I tend to spend most of my time not just in somewhat more interesting places, but in more interesting times, I really couldn't give a flying fuck, if you'll pardon the unladylike expression.
Actually, although my present-day friends might refer to me as a bit of a tomboy (what a quaint expression that is!) I do know how to be a real lady - and why not? After all, to date I've been a lady in, let's see now, a total of nineteen different centuries and girls, I tell you this now, you don't know how lucky you are to have been put on this earth after the demise of corsets, not to mention witchcraft trials, bashing your washing on rocks by river banks and Attila the Hun.
No, belay that, as Captain Hornblower was wont to say. Attila wasn't that bad a guy and if his mother had really understood him then history might have read a whole lot different today. But what an artiste with a whip!
There you go, I'm off the track again - but then so was that Hayling Island railway engine for several years! - and you really don't want to listen to all this stuff without I take you right back to the beginning, do you? So, back to the beginning we shall go; back to the beginning of my adventures, anyway - after all, who wants to go back to the real beginning, whenever that was? Attila and his whip I could handle, but a few thousand bloody great dinosaurs, or even a few hundred sweaty cavemen, well that's a different story.
But first...
(Oh rats, I didn't explain, did I? The reason I look nearly twenty years younger than I really am, that is. Well, it's quite simple: whenever I spend time in a different era, that time doesn't seem to count towards the aging process and when I return to the present, even if I've been away for months, not an extra wrinkle is to be seen.
Actually, you're right, that's not really simple at all, but if you think I'm going to try to explain that further, you've got another think coming. I mean, do you think I understand it? Don't be silly. Girls aren't supposed to be any good at that sort of thing, are they? Ask good old Albert, he'll tell you. It's got something to do with relativity, he reckons.
Oh sorry, I forgot, you can't ask him, can you? He's been dead for years in this time zone).
1. Fortune Favours
I suppose I ought to begin by telling you a bit more about myself. Don't worry, there's plenty of juicy stuff still to come; sex and drugs and rock and roll - apart from the drugs, that is - but I did say I'd start at the beginning and it will help you understand a bit about me and how everything that's happened to me over the past quarter of a century and more has come about, so be patient.
You already know my name and the fact that I was born in December, 1956, which momentous event actually took place a few miles from the house where I grew up, which was - and still is - in an area known as Sandy Point, on Hayling Island. It was quite a nice area then, before the developers got busy sticking little shoebox houses onto every bit of land they could find, but it was nothing really remarkable and though some people might have considered the area to be 'posh', we certainly weren't especially well off.
Dad worked as an engineer for the sewage people; that didn't mean he spent his days up to his neck in muck and pellets - his job was to tell less fortunate men where and when to hit things with hammers, what size hammer to use and, when all else failed, to get out the oxyacetylene stuff. He earned quite good money but, like I said, nothing exceptional, so mum also worked, albeit part-time, teaching in the local infants school.
I came along quite late in both their lives. Mum was forty-two, dad forty-seven, and I suppose I was actually a bit of a surprise, in that they'd given up the idea that they could ever have a family some two or three years before. So when I arrived, precisely one week before Christmas, cute and blonde and full of wind as most babies are and, apparently, not resembling Winston Churchill at all, I was a sort of gift the way they saw it, and they had this idea that I should be named to reflect the season.
Mum thought of Noele. Dad fixed on Christina (probably spelt Christeena in his way
of things). My granny, Felicity, who was by then somewhere in her seventies, didn't agree with either of them, but then that was nothing unusual, so I later learned. They considered Mary (for obvious reasons), Josephina (oh, please no!) and even Gabriella. Quite how they ended up with what they did, no one was ever able to explain lucidly and then, as I've already said, dad went and misspelled it anyway, so ever since I've been Teena, with the Felicity bit tagged in there to appease a basically unappeasable granny.
I grew up and my hair stayed blonde. I did okay at school, was good at English and history, rubbish at needlework and played netball and hockey, eventually representing the county in the former, where my unusual height - I'm five feet eleven and a bit (in this time zone, anyway) - more than compensated for any lack of skill I might have suffered and, in any case, I was quite good.
Our full name was Spigwell-Thyme, as I've already mentioned, and we still used the full moniker then, though none of us really knew anything much about our family tree. Dad's dad had been killed in a bombing raid at the beginning of the war and another German bomb had put paid to most of the local records soon after, but in any case, we weren't too fussed about our lineage, so we didn't have a clue about any of the things our ancestors were responsible for.
It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to me, to say the least, when, upon reaching my eighteenth birthday late in nineteen seventy-four, I received a letter from a firm of solicitors based in nearby Chichester, asking me to present myself at their offices at my earliest convenience, together with proof of who I was, where I would learn something to my advantage.
Oh-ho! The old mercenary antennae started to twitch immediately. I knew that phrase, 'something to your advantage', from books and films and it meant someone had left me something. It wasn't Granny Fliss, because she was still very much alive and kicking, even though she was by now well into her nineties, and it wasn't anyone from mum's side of the family, as she had frequently told me that she had been one of eight kids, born in the East End of London, where they had been 'poor as church mice' and where, in 1944, when the Blitz was supposed to have been finished, a lone German bomber crashed into the family home, killing all within.
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