Time Travel 02 Nothing but Time

by Angeline Fortin

  “No we don’t,” he answered, turning into the room to his right, leaving her to follow or not. “I did what I had to do to survive here and, let me tell you, it’s been no picnic. So I deprived some unknown inventor his moment of notoriety and inspired a child with tales of the future. So what? I did it for you, too, you know?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I did what I did so I would have a good place to bring you and nice clothes for you to wear when you got here,” he explained in that illogical manner that told Kate his priorities were completely out of whack. “You should be glad I got here first, Kate. You have no idea how difficult it was to earn money so quickly. You know what happens to women here when they have no money, Kate?”

  “You are completely mad, did you know that?”

  “Not mad, Kate,” he replied, sending a hesitant smile over his shoulder. “Simply in love. I know this might not be the time to mention it, but I love you, Kate. I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. And look what I’ve given you! A home. A glimpse into the past and we can share it together! How many people get this kind of opportunity?”

  “Oh, no,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. This could not be happening to her. Getting stuck in the past she could almost handle, but getting stuck in the past with a delusional, lovesick man was just too much to bear. It was all her fault. She had known from probably their third meeting in the cafeteria that David was perhaps just a little too fanatical about her, a little too insistent on dating her. How could she not have seen this coming?

  And now he expected her to live with him on top of everything else? She was just supposed to play house with him here in the 1800s until he managed to figure out the problem with the machine and then hope that it would get them home? What if it never happened? What if she were stuck here with him for the rest of her life?

  “This is too much,” she muttered loud enough to draw his attention.

  “Think nothing of it, my dear,” he replied, misinterpreting her words. “It’s all been for you, for us.”

  Kate cringed away from his adoring eyes.

  “You do look splendid in that gown, Kate,” he carried on softly. “It gladdens me to see that I was able to estimate your size so well and I have a dozen more inside for you to choose from. Come, let’s get you settled, shall we? It's been a long night and as they say, the sun always shines brighter after a good night’s sleep. You’ll see, it will all work out.”

  He turned and lit an oil lamp on a nearby table that he then held aloft. “This is the parlor, obviously.”

  Helplessly, Kate looked around at the room. It was everything she’d ever imagined of the era right down to the lacy antimacassars on the arms and headrests of the tufted back settee. Her grandmother had a dainty sofa that looked just like it. From there they went back through the center hall circling around a marble-topped table set with fresh flowers in a crystal vase, through a formally furnished dining room and into the kitchen. A long worktable dominated the center while a large trough sink with a long-handled water pump and huge cast iron stove sat against the wall.

  Completing the rotation of the ground floor, David pointed out another informal parlor at the back of the house before turning Kate toward the stairs. “Everything is brand-new,” he told her as they climbed. “And not to worry, I’ve hired a cook to make our meals since getting a knack for the stove takes some practice.”

  There were four bedrooms above, one of which David was using as his workroom. Stopping at the lone bathroom, David showed her the basic workings. “Spent the most time and money updating here and putting this in. Fairly new technology actually for the average home these days. That’s why I had to buy in a newer neighborhood with the proper systems available. But, and I know you’ll thank me for this, the loo flushes almost every time and we have running water. The cistern and boiler are above in the attic but not over your chamber so there shouldn’t be any noises to disturb your sleep.”

  Kate knew she should be grateful for the efforts David had put toward her comfort, but she just couldn’t find that bit of generosity in her heart. She felt nothing but anger, spite and fear. This was all madness, like a bad dream, but Kate was all too aware of the reality. She was here in 1876…with David. Granted there were probably worse people to be stuck in the past with – Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber…certainly that Snooki chick – but it was still a bad situation.

  The eager, loving looks he kept giving her spoke of an expectation Kate wasn’t ready to acknowledge, much less fulfill. She wasn’t prepared to move in with anyone, much less a man she’d been on a single date with. She knew nothing about him! How was she supposed to share so much with him?

  And what guarantee was there that David would ever figure out the problem with the cabling? What if there were more problems, one after the other? What were the real odds that he could send them home…that is, safely home? Accurately home? Who was to say another trip through the machine wouldn’t just send them back to the Stone Age? Kate realized that she couldn’t rely on hope or on David Fergusson’s skills for that matter. She liked to think of herself as a realist and the realist in her said she was never going back to her own time. She was here for good and she had just better make the best of her situation.

  Kate stumbled then, thinking of her parents back in Minnesota, her sister who lived in the Cities, her adorable nephew, Nate. They had all been so proud of her when she’d gotten her scholarship to MIT, had stood by with delight when she’d been hooded with her Masters. They had been thrilled when she had been offered the job at ISIS. When she’d gone home for Christmas a couple of weeks ago, they’d promised to visit her at next summer to see her home, visit her work. What would they think had happened to her? What kind of grief would David’s little stunt deliver them? She would be willing to bet he hadn’t even thought about that yet.

  All of this was going through her mind as David showed her around her bedroom with its small desk, dressing table, the promised wardrobe full of gowns… and the door connecting her room with his. This last bit of information was accompanied by a smile and Kate winced again. She knew what David wanted from her. She’d known it for months because, even if his hints had been subtle – which they weren’t – they’d been plentiful and detailed.

  His more broadly delivered hint upon their arrival had only cemented her dread. She wasn’t prepared for this especially with a self-satisfied guy like David, but Kate knew, when it came right down to it, she had no one to blame but herself – oh, not for this time travel incident but for not nipping David’s lovesick crush in the bud.

  She’d known what he had wanted from her before she had agreed to go on this date with him and now she heartily regretted caving under the constant pressure and doing it. Now, David had set a whole scenario for them as a happy couple. He had probably spent the last eleven months building on his little fantasy and would most likely blow a gasket if she told him flat out that she wasn’t interested in him that way. She’d heard stories of what happened when things like that got out of hand. Boyfriends turned stalker. She couldn’t live with him here, couldn’t play into whatever expectations David had of her.

  And, as far as she could see, if she was to be stuck in this time for the remainder of her life, the best thing she could do was get as far from David as possible before he lined up a priest for them and had her nestled away as the little woman.

  She had to get away.

  But where?

  How?

  Kate curled up on the bed without getting undressed. She needed to face the facts and the facts told her she had no idea what or who was outside those doors. Unlike David, she remembered little about her required history classes beyond wars and disasters. American wars and disasters. As with any egocentric country, she hardly learned a thing about what went on beyond US borders. This was 1876. It was the centennial of America’s independence. Thanks to her genealogy-crazed mother, she knew 1876 was the year her Norwegian ancestors arrived in
America and moved to Minnesota to begin farming. However, as far as British history went, it might as well be entitled ‘the year in which nothing happened’. She couldn’t think of a single event from this year that could help her now.

  So what was she to do?

  Kate felt a shiver of child-like fear shake her. For the most part, at twenty-four, she considered herself mature if occasionally given to bouts of immaturity but – in that moment – she just wanted her dad to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right.

  However, her dad, the one she’d always gone to with her problems, was a lifetime away. Here, there was no one she could run to for help.

  The only one who could help was Dr. David Fergusson. If there was a key to their return to the future, he held it. Only he could take her home.

  And she had very little faith in him.

  Chapter Four

  Two Weeks Later

  “What is it now, Kate?”

  “I’m just watching, David,” Kate rested her elbows on David’s worktable and propped her chin in her palms, scrutinizing the work he was doing. Cables of different materials and diameter were strewn across the workbench as David assembled what was to be his third attempt at fabricating a sustainable power transfer cable for the siphon/time machine since she’d been there.

  Two weeks now.

  “Why don’t you–”

  “So help me,” Kate cut him off before he had a chance to finish the thought, “if you tell me one more time to ‘run along’ and like a ‘good little woman’, I might have to kick you where you’d rather I not. This might be the nineteenth century, but please try to remember I’m not a nineteenth century woman. I want to help. I want to go home.”

  “I’m used to working alone, so please just run…” David cast her a look from the corner of his eye before his gaze slid away. “Besides, you’ve already said you know nothing about power cables.”

  She didn’t, but Kate was bored. Scared. Nervous. And tons of other things that she didn’t want to think about. Including the fact that she was rapidly losing whatever minuscule iota of faith she’d ever had in David’s ability to get them home…ever. After two weeks of watching failure after failure pile up, Kate could only wonder how many other attempts had gone to the wayside before she arrived. Not that watching him fail made things better, but Kate liked to think that progress was being made. She wanted to be witness to some sign that the big moment would one day come.

  Besides, there was nothing else for her to do.

  At first, she’d tried to take an interest in the new world around her – without treading as ruthlessly over Star Trek’s Prime Directive as David had. A couple of days after her arrival, David had let slip that they were mere blocks from the northern end of the Beatles’ famous Abbey Road. She had walked for miles up and down its length only to be strangely disappointed when she did not find that iconic zebra crossing from the album cover or even the zigzagging painted lanes or crosswalk that existed in her time.

  With the exception of a few missing modern residences, a dramatic lack of cars and those distinctive zebra crossings of her time, St. John’s Wood didn’t seem to have changed much in the intervening years. The Bobbies looked essentially the same as well. Overall, it was still a quaint residential area. Occasionally it was almost even easy to forget when she was.

  In just a few days, Kate had seen all there was to see within the limited range of her ramblings. After that, she’d stuck to the house and indoors when spring rains came daily making outdoor excursions impossible. In these two long weeks, she’d read every scrap of reading material in the house. She’d tried to cook on that big cast iron stove, managing to burn every meal she’d attempted – she’d never take temperature control as a given ever again in her life – and had even asked their part-time cook to teach her how to knit.

  There was nothing else for her to do.

  It was endless. Tedious.

  Kate could hardly imagine living the next two days in the same manner much less the next two weeks, months or even years until David figured out how to get them home. She’d go simply mad without something to occupy her time.

  And David was right. She couldn’t help him. So it would need to be something else.

  “I think I might look for a job then,” Kate said as the idea formed in her mind. “So I won’t be around to bother you.”

  “What?” David’s head popped up. “You’re joking, right?”

  Kate’s brows rose in surprise. “No, I’m not. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing and you don’t seem to like having me around.”

  “Kate, I love having you here,” he argued. “But you must understand, if you truly want to go home…”

  “Of course, I want to go home! Don’t you?” Kate asked, thinking the question nothing more than rhetorical, but when David didn’t answer immediately, she studied him hard and was scared by what she saw there. “You do want to go back, don’t you, David? Don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” he answered finally. “But what’s the rush?”

  “What’s the rush?” Kate gaped at him. “Are you kidding me? My parents probably think I’m dead, David. I want to go home, I want my life back.”

  With a wave of his hand, David dismissed her concerns. “When we get back, it will be as if we never left. No one will ever know we were gone. We should have our fun here while we can.”

  Fun? Kate’s mind nearly scrambled at his indifferent attitude. There was nothing fun about being here, while back home was everything she lived and worked for. Couldn’t he see that? Clearly, not. Surely, there must be something… “What about your time machine, David?” she asked. “Don’t you want to go back home for all the kudos that will be waiting for you when they find out what you’ve invented?”

  With a wistful sigh, David nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “So…?”

  “But, on the other hand, I have so enjoyed the time here. Sometimes I feel that this is where I was truly meant to be.” David had a gleam in his eye as he studied Kate up and down, taking in another of the gowns he’d bought for her to wear. It was all Kate could do not to shudder. She knew exactly what he thought when he looked at her like that. David was definitely an old-fashioned guy. He would have done – ha! he was doing well – in this era of ‘barefoot-and-in-the-kitchen’. She simply could not figure out how he thought she played into that fantasy because she certainly wasn’t an old-fashioned girl! “This is exactly how I hoped things might be when you arrived. I think it’s all been rather wonderful.”

  Kate grimaced. She hadn’t found it all as wonderful as David did. In the evenings – those long, long evenings – without a TV or movies to fall back on, they had taken to playing cards or chess together. Admittedly, it hadn’t been as bad as she initially imagined it would be. As if sensing that he’d gotten close to completely alienating her with his talk of love and a future together, David had backed off his declarations of love and become once more the moderately interesting date he’d been back in Oxford.

  However, Kate didn’t want to date him every night. She didn’t want him thinking that those evenings were going to fill the remainder of their days. She couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life just like that. The monotony of it all might be the end of her.

  “I know you enjoy the quiet life, David,” Kate began slowly, thinking that she’d rather tell him she had no plans to rub his feet and cater to him the rest of her life. “But I’m used to having more to do than that. I used to rock climb, run, bike or go camping and fishing with my dad. I’m just not used to long days and longer nights sitting in a house with nothing to do. I can’t even research my dissertation here. If nothing else, at least a job will keep me busy.”

  David just shook his head with a snort of amusement. “And what do you think you will do? No university here will hire a woman to do research even if there is a subject matter that would interest you.”

  “I could teach,” Kate shot back.


  He scoffed. “Unlikely given this day and age. No one will hire a woman as a teacher.”

  Kate couldn’t stop herself from bristling as she blinked at him in surprise. “Are you telling me that you think I can’t get a job because I’m a woman?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” He grinned down at his work before picking up his tools and refocusing his attention on his task. “I told you when you arrived that women with no prospects usually end up in the very worst situations.”

  “I am a bright, educated woman, David!” she told him with her hands on her hips.

  “Mmm.” He smiled even more broadly with a patronizing nod.

  “I have dozens of marketable skills,” she went on. “You just wait. You’ll see. I bet I can go out there and get a job just like that!” Kate snapped her fingers.

  “Ten pounds says you couldn’t get a job for anything better than waiting tables at the local pub,” David told her snidely.

  “You’re on.”

  Chapter Five

  London, England

  Two Days Later

  It seemed Kate had no marketable skills. It was quite lowering for a woman who had spent the better part of her life educating herself.

  David had given her money for a hackney and an address where he thought he recalled an employment agency being located. At eight o’clock on Monday morning, Kate rolled along in the back of the creaky old hack southeast in the direction of London’s center. If the thickening population of church spires had not provided direction, a smoggy haze clearly marked that more populated area. Upon arriving at a busy business district, it hadn’t taken much asking around to find an employment agency within walking distance. Kate had to sit on a hard wooden chair in the offices for over an hour before she had been called in. That long period had provided her ample time for reflection and also an opportunity to wallow in a little self-pity and grieve for her future and family.