Neville surprised himself. He squirmed in his chair. Sir William is good at this work after several decades of it, he reflected, taking a slow sip of brandy. He avoided Sir William’s gaze by looking into the dying fire in an attempt to gain himself some moments to think. He has his mouse in a small room and will top it the cat for some time. He has told me his fantastic theory and wants me to join in. Does he mean me harm? This would destroy my career, as he admits it would have for the others he has interviewed. Why would he do that to me, of all people? I have not heard rumors of this. The secret is being kept. Does he desire some hold over me – to continue his intrigues, his espionage? He already has that…
He looked sheepishly down, then up directly at Sir William and said, “Missing, Sir? Is my name not still on the list? I don’t believe I’ve been unconscious, and I certainly had no idea of other Neville Burtons. Do you suspect we are related?”
“Related? An interesting question.” Sir William paused and looked down for a moment into his empty glass before continuing: “I am afraid I take liberties with you because of our familiarity. I have a need to take you into my personal confidence and ask your trust in more than your own career, if I may?”
Sir William slapped his knees with both hands and in one motion stood, turning round to face the fire and saying, “Please do not think me mad if I do not believe your predecessors were related to you. I believe they were you. Do you deny it?”
Neville felt his entire upper body flash bright red, and the hairs from his back to the top of his head bristle as Sir William turned to face him: “I see you do not. Your body will tell no lie, even if your mind tells you that you should. I have seen no such lack of composure since I confronted Captain-. Never mind. –Another - With the same.”
“And the others? What becomes of them? Do they go mad? Do they always return?”
“I am sorry to say that I cannot answer your questions at all, at all. Believe me when I say that this must remain a military secret. A military secret, you understand?”
“That’s just as well,” muttered Neville.
“Have you seen your father?”
“My father?” said Neville after a short, startled pause. “What sort of question is that? He was lost when I was born. Has he returned?”
“No, no. Not returned. I have no idea, Neville. I know less about all this than you do. Remember, as we – and by that word I mean any of us mortals who have not had such an experience – as we know it your father disappeared in a manner identical to your disappearance in the Battle of Camperdown. Might he not simply be elsewhere? In time, I mean. I must also ask, Neville, how this happens. How do you come to fly through time?”
“As the latter, Sir William, I can’t explain it. I have thought of it much, of course, and have only recently had the second experience for comparison. I can’t work out much more than some phenomenon of impending death. Both times I was almost surely dead, yet I was saved by time itself. There must be more, though, for I have been very close to death on other occasions and had no voyage of time. The sun at its zenith, perhaps? Other celestial coincidences? You mention others. What do they say?”
“Not much more. Some have no recollection at all. But the death experience has been mentioned.”
“Forgetting the others you spoke of – and my father - for a minute; what did you find of me? What did your precious historical records say of me? And what is Camperdown?”
“The Battle of Camperdown was the last action you were involved in with Venerable. Where were you after that? I assure you that what I am about to say is not the rambling of an old madman. This is a scientific hypothesis based upon months of research. It’s not something I would propose to the Royal Society, however. I think you went from the HMS Venerable to the Swan, in 1690, as Lieutenant Burton. I can only assume that was your first – shall we say – untimely – posting. The age of the Lieutenant aboard the Swan was right. I cannot but guess whether your ‘untimely’ postings are chronologically in order whither you go. If indeed it was you, then you spent a very profitable three years in Jamaica until being lost in the Port Royal earthquake of 1692. I should like to hear of it, of all things!”
“I, ah, I… What do you mean ‘profitable’?” questioned Neville, feeling a visible twinge of suspicion. Could Sir William somehow know of my treasure that I hope is still awaiting me at Hoare’s?
“Profitable I would say for certain. You left as a lieutenant and returned as a commander. A handsome step up, I think, although a step backward from captain. Assuming that Lieutenant Burton is the same as Captain Burton of the British frigate Experiment, Governor Codrington of Antigua wrote high praise of him to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, particularly as to his defiance of Admiral Wright’s cowardice. Wright was court-martialed, you know.”
A brief smile crossed Neville’s face like a ray of reflected sunlight, but faded entirely. “But my loss wears hard on my heart, I am afraid,” responded Neville. “The thought of my mother despairing over the loss of her son as well as her husband is truly awful. Two loves lost. First Mary here in town, because I could not even write a letter; she has certainly thought me a cad now that I am back with no excuse I can offer for not writing. In Jamaica, I would have married Miss Maria Fuller in only another two months, had she not died in the earthquake that sent me home. For me it is only a month ago I held her in my arms,” he admitted with a tear forming in his eye. “She was a most beautiful and amazing creature, Sir, and was carrying my child, as well. I expected to spend the rest of my life with her there, with no chance of return here – no desire to return. And my career? I cannot expect to advance with such holes in my records.”
“I am truly sorry for your losses in love and for those who love you. Your mother, sister, and Mary as well have all come to me, as I said, to ask if there was some inquiry I could make. I could find nothing to comfort them, although I must admit that while our historical records can be very revealing, they can also be very vague. They show, for example, only that you were missing after the action at Camperdown. No one could report that you were dead or taken by the French; only that you were gone. This on top of the pain of your father’s similar disappearance about which I also can provide no information. Then you re-appear now with your story of voyage of discovery. So do not despair of ‘holes in your records’ as long as you continue to serve honorably.” Here Mulholland made a sarcastic face with raised eyebrows. “As far as I am concerned, I must say that your current record, as well as your historical ones, show you to be a particularly capable officer. A speaker of Spanish, I noted with interest, and something of a remarkable navigator in the 1690’s, I think.”
At the last remark, Neville could not repress a chuckle, together with a somewhat devilish smile, remarking, “Not so difficult if you can use a sextant before one has been invented.”
“What? Oh yes, it’s not that old an instrument, is it?”
“Sir, you said ‘historical records’, a plural. What else did you find of me?”
Before Mulholland could answer, Neville interrupted. “No, stop!” he almost shouted. “I don’t want to hear it! To you, it is historical records, but to me, if it comes to pass, it is my future. Neither do I want to know it nor do I think it healthy for one to know his future. It would be terrible news to know that I could not plan a life here in this time. I’m sorry, Sir William. This has been too much. I must think on it all before any further discussion.”
With that, Neville stood and moved for the door.
“Wait, Neville. I must say more. I will be brief. If it was indeed you in the past… and we are now in the future of your former life, then my whole theory may have merit. We possibly have an opportunity to affect our future; political events; the outcomes of wars; the fortunes of Britain herself might be changed.”
“That is, of course, your profession, isn’t it?” Neville asked the questions with a nasty edge to it.
“Yes, it is always in my thoughts. I don’t know how we can do
anything yet, but please do think on it and come back tomorrow.”
“I would say this to no other person alive, including my mother. That in itself brings up not one, but two conundrums, Sir. First, how can I possibly tell my mother that her husband did live a happy life after he departed this one; that he had another family and founded a prosperous shipping company in Norfolk in the Virginia Colony before it became the United States? How could I do that? Secondly, I need to ask you two favors.”
It was Mulholland’s turn to be set aback. He had known Elliott Burton. The man was not just another research subject. “Lived on, you say?”
Neville was cooling. “He did. We spent a wonderful three months in the late summer of 1691. The colonies were more … ‘rustic’ … than here at the time, but the experience was more than I could ever have hoped for – and will probably never have again.”
“I should like to hear much more of it, but it must be at another time. And the favors?”
“Sir William, could you possibly find anything about a Lieutenant Vincent Verley in your archives? – also 1689 to ‘92. Possibly with your records of my time aboard the Experiment. He was my first lieutenant.”
“Yes, I’ll look. And the other?”
At last, a grin came over Neville’s face, and he said, “I need to recover pirate treasure.”
“Pirate treasure?” queried Mulholland. “Do you mean we must outfit an expedition?”
“Yes, Sir. An expedition to Hoare’s Bank – and maybe to the Clerk of the Cheque, as well. Your position allows for the creation of all manner of documents. I simply need to prove that I am… a descendant, I suppose, of the person who deposited a large amount of gold to Hoare’s Bank in the autumn of 1691 and who should also share in the capture of the French merchant ship Liberté off Finisterre in 1690. A man of the same name,” he concluded with a wink.
“By the way, Duncan won at Camperdown….”
“Now that is to me, as it is to you, three-year-old news. Though I may be glad of it, it don’t signify, as they say in the Navy.”
“Tomorrow, then. Good night,” said a more enlightened but somewhat disheartened William Mulholland.
26 - “Home and Away”
Neville spent a fitful night in his London lodgings wrestling with the combination of the ghosts of his very recent past and his new future. Thomas Fuller, Vincent Verley and Ann, his father and his father’s family in Norfolk, in addition to Maria, must somehow coexist in his mind together with his mother and sister, his duty, Sir William and … Mary.
What of Mary? Could there be any peace there? It had never been in his mind to do the girl any harm. She had certainly been an infatuation. He would wish her the best of all things, but facing her would be difficult. He would have written if he could have, but she would never understand the circumstances.
It was late before he fell asleep. After a quick stop to leave a note for Sir William that he was at Mulholland’s disposal, Neville left early in the morning for Bury St. Edmunds, fearing the worst.
Smelling of horse and sweat and wearing the dust of the summer road, Neville dismounted the coach at the Angel Hotel and began the trek to his mother’s house. He carried only a small bag, but he had shifted the weight of that from one hand to the other five times before reaching the flat-fronted stone house where he had last seen his family. Raising his hand to the bell, he remembered the previous time when the bell had summoned a noisy dog, and steeled himself for even that small annoyance. He was not expecting this visit to go well.
He rang the bell and waited. There was no sound inside. He tried again. With no other sound, the door began to open slowly, and an almost toothless middle–aged woman stopped its motion at about four inches.
“Who are you?” asked the flinty little woman. “What do you want here?”
Neville’s first reaction was to look at the number plate by the door. Yes, it was the same.
“I am on Garland Street, am I not?” he asked timidly.
“Aye. Who be ye?”
“Neville Burton, ma’am. I’ve come look -”
The woman’s face brightened immediately, all hint of suspicion gone. “Mrs. Blake’s boy, then,” she said, opening the door another few inches and giving him a gap-toothed grin, “They all thought you was dead. She’s gone to Mr. Blake’s on Southgate these two years past, she has. Do you know it?”
“Ahhh, how stupid of me. No, not dead, you see. I know where. Sorry to bother you.”
He was feeling even more tired and out of sorts by the time he walked across town to Blake’s, but the hike gave him time to readjust his thoughts to his mother being remarried.
At a turn of the bell handle Saidie the dog began her greeting. It was well past tea-time now, and quiet within, but the dog roused his mother directly. She opened the door properly – not like the timid gap-toothed woman in her old house. Ellen’s’ eyes went wide and the color of them changed three times before a single word came out of her mouth. She leaped for him much the same as Elizabeth had done years earlier on his last visit, while at the same time almost yelling, “Three years and not a letter? We thought you dead! We went to Sir William, but he said he knew nothing.” She hung on his neck and he knew she was crying, so he waited patiently for her to let go. He could think of nothing to say.
When Ellen pulled back to look in his face her cheeks were wet, but she smacked him hard on the arm before giving him a kiss. “Come in,” she said almost resignedly. “I’ll send ‘round for Elizabeth this evening and you can tell us all. By the look and smell of you, though, you should clean up first. Little Gage will gag of it. There’s a room up top on the left. Take that.”
All in all, the visit home did not go even as well as he had hoped. While he knew they were more than pleased to see him and to know he was alive and safe, they sat in a state of mourning suspended. He knew they had experienced what he was going through. Denial had gone long ago, and anger and the ‘what if’s’. They had advanced to the depression of having lost two men to the sea, and were probably almost ready to accept that they would never see him again – when he walked back in. The story he had concocted with Sir William’s help did not ring completely true with them. They could not believe he would or could not write – even to Mary – on his passage out to South America to begin his voyage of discovery, and his answers about what they discovered were equally thin. They remained unsatisfied. He couldn’t make up lies big enough to improve his situation, and they could tell that something else was wearing on him. He was not the same cheerful boy they had last seen, and when Elizabeth picked up his watch from the foyer table and looked in it, he snapped meanly, “That’s not yours to look in. I’ll take it, if you please.”
“What is it, dear?” Ellen asked.
“There’s been a girl,” answered Elizabeth, braving her brother’s wrath. The watch is engraved ‘Capt. Nev. Burton – With all my love, Maria, 1691’.
“Well, they’ve got the date all wrong, then, haven’t they? I didn’t know they made pocket watches in 1691.”
“I only bought it because it had my name in it,” lied Neville. He softened a bit and added, “And it makes me out a captain.”
“Hmmpf,” said Elizabeth in a manner so like Maria that he felt as if he’d been struck in the chest. Tears popped into his eyes. He turned to hide it, but Elizabeth saw and drew a breath to excoriate him. A thought of losing her own husband, Gage, must have run through her mind, because her manner changed as rapidly as it had come.
“Have you heard that Daniel has married Angelica?” she asked immediately, “He’s made lieutenant, too.”
The remembrance of his boyhood friend had a sobering effect on him. They had gone to sea together in HMS Castor, enduring the Blockade of Toulon, a simoom in the Atlantic, convoy duty from Newfoundland and the capture of their ship. They had suffered the ‘Battle of the Glorious First of June’ as prisoners aboard the French Sans Pareil and they had come home together and met their sweethearts. He had met Mary M
itchell and Daniel had met Angelica at the same engagement party for his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Army Major Gage Hall. They had gone on to other commands and had not seen each other in over three years. The thoughts may have been sobering, but they brightened him.
“Married is he?” He stared off into space for a moment wondering what life would have been like for him if he had stayed here, and whether he would be married to Mary. “What more’s happened with him?”
“He’s now second lieutenant in the Frigate Amazon, and as I said, has married Angelica six months ago. She has just told us she’s pregnant. You should go see her.”
“And maybe Mary, too, to show her I’m alive?” He posed this as more of a question than a suggestion.
“I don’t know. She was very angry for a long time, but she’s got over it and met another bloke.” Elizabeth seemed to be reticent to complete her thoughts.
“Another bloke?” He asked.
“Yes, she’s married Lieutenant John Towers. He’s with Gage’s unit. She’s pregnant as well.”
Elizabeth noticed his mood went very odd, dreamy might describe it, or oddly confused, and he said, “I’d quite like to see Daniel again, and I’ll be happy to call on Angelica. I think you’re right about Mary. Do tell her I’m alive, though, I think she’d want to know that much….and that I thought of her for a long time and wish her the best of all things. Where’s Amazon?”
“Down Plymouth way, I believe.”
Neville spent the next two weeks in a rather listless condition, often keeping to himself. When Sir William came home from London for a bit of rest, he went to visit. He knew that Mulholland had an excellent library of historical reference books and requested time do some research of the history of Jamaica. After a couple days of looking in the musty old books, he found what he was looking for. It was with a very sad heart that he read that Thomas Fuller did not survive long after the death of his daughter. No cause of death was given, but Neville knew. The next paragraph indicated that there had been no heirs – Of course there were no heirs, you idiot historian – Maria was killed. She’s dead. I’ll never see her again. I should throw this stupid book in the fireplace.
A Journal of The Experiment at Jamaica (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 2) Page 39