Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine

by Brian Stableford

  For the moment, however, Michael was glad that the duty the two men had sought to impose upon him by means of their invitation was not particularly burdensome. Although he continued to lend a reverent ear to the erratic course of their flamboyant dispute, the painter soon allowed his attention to wander. His eyes strayed to the window, while his mind relaxed into a pleasant reverie, the principal image of which was Cecilia Langstrade’s lovely face. How he longed to paint her cornflower-blue eyes and silky blonde hair! How he longed, in fact, to reach a far greater intimacy with that face than mere paint could ever permit!

  Michael did not have the faintest idea what the probability was that he would ever achieve that kind of intimacy. That Cecilia liked him a great deal he had no doubt, but they had only met on formal social occasions, surrounded by crowds, and the letters they had exchanged had so far been rather tentative in their affectionate tone. He was very hopeful that the weekend house-party at Langstrade Hall would give him more than one opportunity to speak to her in private, far more confidentially than the formality of a letter would allow, and he was also very hopeful that such circumstances would confirm and enhance her manifest regard for him—but the small steps he might be able to take between a Thursday evening and a Tuesday morning were a long way short of the social ground that he would eventually have to cover if their relationship were to mature.

  In theory, differences in social status were far less important nowadays than they had been in his late father’s day—and if Mr. Hope could be believed, the erosion of that importance could only accelerate in future—but the fact remained that the Langstrades were now fully-fledged members of the aristocracy, while the Laurels were not. Horatio Laurel’s highly distinguished naval career had won him sufficient social status to launch Michael into Society—in which circles a painter had to move if he were to have any chance of making a living—but could not give him “quality”. The Langstrades’ elevation to the aristocracy had, by contrast, provided the family with an inalienable certificate of quality, and the fact that it was recent inevitably served to make the present Earl even more conscious of that status than he would have been had he been the thirty-second instead of the second. The fact that the first Earl had insisted on regarding the entitlement as a re-elevation rather than a simple promotion, and as a long-belated recognition of an ancient due, was a further complication. Michael had no idea how the second Earl might react to the possibility of acquiring a mere painter as a son-in-law, even if Cecilia could be completely won over to the prospect.

  The first Earl of Langstrade had been appointed to the peerage at the behest of the Academy, for his contributions to industry. He had been one of the pioneers of mechanization in textile manufacture even before the advent of steam engines, and had become famous in political circles for his stout resistance to Richard Arkwright’s monopolistic maneuvers—a resistance that had become known as the Second War of the Roses, even though Arkwright’s enterprise was based in Derbyshire rather than Lancashire. The first Earl had, however, always been insistent that his family had been aristocrats long before the Norman Conquest or the “Saxon Tyranny” that had preceded it. He claimed to be a direct descendant of Celtic Longstrides, who had fought for centuries to keep the Viking invaders of his beloved dales at bay before being trapped between two implacable forces in the series of contests that had divided England between Norse and Germanic invaders.

  Indeed, Old Harry’s antiquarian fantasies had extended far beyond that, asserting that the settlers in Britain who had become the Celts had been the descendants of Cretans who had escaped the catastrophic destruction of the Minoan civilization in the volcanic upheaval that had been responsible for the mythical Deluge, and that the Longstrides were the descendants of the greatest of all the ancient world’s engineers: Dedalus. In Old Harry’s contention, the revolution he had helped to bring about in the textile industry had been an extrapolation of family tradition, the modern mechanical loom being merely “a recapitulation of the Labyrinthine principle”.

  The only item of “evidence” supporting the first Earl’s insistence on linking the Langstrades and the probably-imaginary Longstrides with Dedalus was a diagram of a maze inscribed on a piece of parchment that had been found in the ruins of Cribden Abbey, which had once occupied the site on which Langstrade Hall now stood. Just as the old hall had replaced the Abbey, Old Harry had insisted, the Abbey had replaced a pagan place of worship, whose central feature must have been the maze described on the parchment. Although the first Earl had been able to confirm, during his sojourn in the ruins of Knossos, that the design on the parchment bore no significant resemblance to the design of the actual Cretan Labyrinth, parts of which had now been excavated, he had merely concluded that the Cretan Labyrinth had been Dedalus’ first draft, and that the engineer had spent the time in which he had been imprisoned in his own construction by the tyrant Minos dreaming of the new design that he had carried away to England when the volcanic eruption set him free.

  The second Earl had inherited his father’s eccentricity along with his wealth, and had thought it his filial duty to complete the grand plans that the first Earl had made, perhaps more in hope than expectation. Michael knew that he ought to be grateful for that, given that it was the expression of Lord Langstrade’s whim that had generated his commission to paint “Harold Longstride’s Keep”, but he couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy about it. The instructions he had received were detailed, and there seemed to be an awful possibility that his picture would somehow fail to meet the Earl’s expectations. He had been told that he must establish the perspective of the Keep very carefully, taking in both the immediate background of the wall of the reconstructed Maze and the more distant background of Bancroft Scar, positioning a symbolic yew tree within the field of view with the utmost care.

  According to what Old Harry had passed off as a family legend, scrupulously handed down over the generations, the mighty Harold Longstride had once emerged from behind a yew tree to surprise and confront Emund Snurlson, the leader of a host of Viking marauders, on a late summer’s day corresponding to the modern August seventeenth, in the year that would now be reckoned as 822 A.D. In consequence of his victory in the ensuing single combat—in which, for some unaccountable reason, Snurlson’s followers had not intervened—the Vikings had retreated and their heroic conqueror had built the “original keep”, in order that the Norsemen should never conquer the shallow valley in which his lands were situated.

  Almost everyone except the present Lord Langstrade and his dutiful mother—including his wife and daughter—believed that the legends of Harold Longstride and the Dedalus Maze were the pure stuff of dreams, but that did not matter to Michael. It was in expectation of celebrating the millennial anniversary of Harold’s supposed duel with Emund Snurlson that the new Keep—or the Folly—and its surrounding Maze had been built over the course of the last seven years; Michael, like Signor Monticarlo, Augustus Carp and Gregory Marlstone, had been invited to Langstrade Hall in order to provide an apt commemoration of the occasion. Lady Phythian had been included in the party because she, like the absentee Geoffrey Chatham, had long been a regular visitor to the Hall, while Hope and Escott had been preferred to the present Earl’s other acquaintances because of their auspicious meeting in the ruins of Knossos.

  Michael was able to take some comfort in the fact that he seemed, at present, to be the only intended contributor to the supposedly-momentous occasion whose contribution seemed fully assured. Gregory Marlstone’s time machine had already failed to function twice at more widely-advertised and much better-attended exhibitions, and the London newspapers had turned against him in no uncertain terms, branding him a philosophical failure and freely referring to his third intended trial, even in advance, as “the folly in the Folly”. Augustus Carp’s reputation as a mesmerist had also taken a severe knock since he had suffered the sudden loss of his long-time somniloquist, a woman of delicate const
itution carried off by the influenza; the replacement he had recently recruited was said to be mediocre at best. To cap it all, Carmela Monticarlo—who usually accompanied her father on the piano when he played sonatas—had sprained her wrist badly, forcing the violinist to restrict his intended program to solo pieces, in the performance of which he was reputed to be far outshone by his more famous contemporary, Signor Paganini.

  Taking everything into consideration, Michael thought, as he stared out of the window of the carriage, looking over Lady Phythian’s bulky shoulder, his performance with the brush ought to be the most reliable on offer—but that had to be balanced against the fact that he was far less famous in his own field than any of the other three “performers” was in his, and none of them had the burden of anxiety that arose from being hopelessly in love with his host’s daughter.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LADY PHYTHIAN AND THE LANGSTRADE GHOSTS

  “I don’t agree that the current vogue for Medievalism, of which Langstrade provides a prime example, is inherently anti-progressive,” Quentin Hope said to his loyal adversary—presumably in the response to the suggestion that it was, although Michael had not returned his attention to the argument in time to catch Escott’s last remark. “Progressiveness doesn’t require the past to be forgotten—quite the contrary. Without a keen awareness of the past, progress couldn’t be perceived, let alone properly measured and appreciated, and it’s entirely right that we should loyally celebrate centenaries and millennia of every sort, including imaginary ones. Centenary and millennial celebrations are inherently comparative, forcing us to observe and calculate how far we have come in the interim. It’s entirely justifiable for the present Earl of Langstrade, as the heir to an industrial fortune forged in loudly-clattering automated mills and secured by democratic hegemony, to set himself up in contradictory juxtaposition with the legendary Harold Longstride, a pre-feudal chieftain for whom life was little more than eternal agricultural labor, punctuated by occasional bloody struggles against violent marauders.”

  “Langstrade’s not interested in drawing comparisons to demonstrate the superiority of modern civilization over ancient barbarity,” Escott retorted, scornfully. “His interest in the past is a purely nostalgic one, which represents a calculated antithesis to the mechanized source of his fortune and status. He’s trying to identify himself with the imaginary Harold Longstride, who was invented by his father for precisely that Romantic purpose. The reason that Langstrade is so insistent that his fictitious ancestor still haunts the grounds of the Hall, along with his retinue—even though the modern building bears not the slightest resemblance to whatever might have stood there in the ninth century, and in spite of the fact that no presently-discernible trace of any keep existed before the foundations of the Folly were laid—is that aristocratic privilege is based in the prestige of the past, and requires endorsement by it. The imaginary ghost of Harold Longstride is a quasi-paternal figure, symbolic of an imagined heritage, and his actual non-existence is testimony to the force of the longing that Langstrade experiences to turn his back on the bewildering present and the prospect of an even stranger future: a longing for continuity, stability and an end to the madness of progress.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Escott,” Lady Phythian put in, sharply, “but the ghosts of Langstrade are certainly not non-existent, any more than they are quasi-paternal. As you know perfectly well, I have seen the phenomenon with my own eyes, on more than one occasion, and the number of other witnesses, in the course of the last twenty years, must run into the hundreds.”

  “With all due respect, Lady Phythian,” said Hope, his voice dripping skepticism in spite of his conscientious attempt to feign a polite and placatory tone, “you can’t be sure that what you saw was Harold Longstride and his retinue tracking Emund Snurlson, as the more credulous witnesses to the phenomenon contend.”

  “I never claimed that the apparition was Harold Longstride and his retinue tracking Emund Snurlson,” the dowager replied, tartly. “That was Old Harry’s interpretation, and it is not for me to question his opinion, but I had no way of attributing any particular identity to the apparition myself. I never had the slightest doubt, however, that what I saw and felt was supernatural in origin. Over the years, in fact, I am convinced that I have got to know it very well, and can certainly feel its presence whenever it is manifest—but I am still uncertain as to whether it is the spirit of a human being, or several spirits of several human beings. I am hoping that Dr. Carp might provide some illumination on that point, although his present somniloquist is something of a disappointment.

  “The mere shadow of her predecessor, no doubt,” Escott suggested, merrily. In spite of his deep interest in the mysteries of the past, Michael concluded, the pessimist was obviously a Sadducee when it came to apparitions of the dead and other spiritual entities.

  “I know that you have never seen any apparition when you have visited Langstrade in the past, Mr. Escott,” Lady Phythian said, sternly, “but that does not give you the right to disparage those who have. I’m no somniloquist myself, but I am sensitive to such otherworldly manifestations in my own fashion. I must insist on the absolute reality of the Langstrade ghosts, although I reserve my judgment as to the nature and identity of the spiritual entities in question.”

  “That’s very wise as well as conscientious, Lady Phythian,” Hope was quick to put in. “Progress in the nascent science of psychognosis has been slow, I fear, compared to recent progress in mechanics, despite the best efforts of men like Dr. Carp, but people with open minds hope and expect that the situation will improve dramatically as time goes by. Your attitude does you credit, as does your insistence.”

  The dowager did not seem particularly grateful for this intervention, and obviously suspected that Hope was insincere. Michael had the same suspicion.

  “We’re being a trifle rude, I fear,” Escott countered. “We have three people with us who have not visited the Hall before, and even if Mr. Laurel has heard tales of the ghost, Signor Monticarlo and Signorina Carmela surely have not. Perhaps, Lady Phythian, you’d care to explain to them what it is that you have seen?”

  Lady Phythian looked at Signor Monticarlo. Obliged to respond—and perhaps grateful for an opportunity to make a contribution to the conversation at last—the violinist nodded his head. “Si, Milady,” he said. “I will be most grateful—and Carmela too.”

  Carmela nodded in agreement, and smiled, but could not manage even the faintest of “si’s.”

  Lady Phythian nodded in her usual imperious fashion, then paused for effect before continuing, apparently slightly inflated by pride now that the distinguished violinist’s handsome dark eyes were fixed upon her, full of respectful curiosity.

  “I’ve known the dowager Lady Langstrade since she was Millicent Houghton,” she said, “and I’ve been a frequent guest at the new Hall ever since the reconstruction rendered it fit to live in—at least once a year for nearly twenty years now, in good times and sad times alike. I’d heard vague tales of the ghost long before I ever got to see it, but they were generally regarded as servants’ gossip in those days. Although the old manor house was called Langstrade Hall, no Langstrades had lived in it for centuries—it was even owned, for a while, by relatives of mine, the Ashersons—and all the ghost stories associated with it were old enough to be treated with contempt. The reconstruction of the new Hall seemed to change that, though. Perhaps the ancient ghosts were disturbed somehow, and prompted to walk again—but I make no claim as to that.

  “The first time I experienced an apparition for myself was seventeen years ago, but it was so slight—the merest of suspect presences—that it was only in hindsight that I realized what it must have been. The first time I saw ghosts, clearly and unequivocally, was in 1811. It was late at night, in August, during a heat-wave. I was in my usual room—the Yellow Room, it’s called now—which faces east. I couldn’t sleep, and
I got out of bed in order to go to the window, in the hope that I might catch a breeze by leaning out, since none seemed to be capable of making its way into the room. That was when I saw a group of uncanny lights, moving slowly and methodically over what was, in those days, a vast lawn.…”

  Escott opened his mouth as if to interrupt—presumably, Michael guessed, to inform the Monticarlos that the location in question was now the site of the Langstrade Maze—but Lady Phythian, intent on telling her story in her own way, silenced him with an irritated frown.

  “I woke Millicent,” the dowager continued, “who woke the late Lord Langstrade, who summoned his butler, Heatherington, and his gardener, Jefferies, in order to mount an investigation. We all went out together, taking courage from our numbers. All five of us saw the lights from a distance, as we approached and agreed that they were not natural, but by the time we reached the ground over which they were moving, they had vanished into thin air. Jefferies declared that they must have been swarms of fireflies engaged in mating dances, but no one else believed that ridiculous suggestion for a moment.”

  This time it was Hope who tried to interrupt, quite possibly to offer a learned discourse on the mating habits of fireflies, but again Lady Phythian refused to relinquish the floor.