by Adrian Speed
“You returned to England on the 12th of October, 1919, sir,” the butler replied without pausing to think. “I believe you left on the 11th of June of the same, and the delay was your decision to return through Spain and France.”
“Easily nine years then,” the man shook his head and laughed. “Oh Hannah it has been such a long time. Come in, come in, allow me to show you—”
“Ahem,” Sir Reginald coughed and tipped his hat. “Sir Reginald Derby, at your service. Albert Fairfax, I presume?”
Albert turned back to face Sir Reginald. “Oh yes, you telegrammed to say you were coming. Odd, I thought you were still...travelling. You're not travelling with my nephew are you, Hannah?”
“We sort of bumped into each other in London a few years ago,” I said, mentally adding that it was over eighty years in the future.
“Well what a small world it is,” Albert laughed and took my arm. “Now you simply must come and see this. I told you I would make something of myself!” Sir Reginald and I shared a glance as Albert pulled me away. Sir Reginald shrugged with his eyes.
A monster of a car almost eighteen feet long, shaped almost like a bullet, filled the garage. A single silver bullet someone had nailed wheels to. The bodywork had been lifted up and I gazed along twenty-six pistons in grey-stained metal. Behind the wheel sat an unassuming man in a bowler hat.
“This is what I'm going to break the land speed record with,” Albert waved a hand at it and brought it to rest on his hip. “African Courage, she'll be called. Rather apropos, eh?”
“Er, yes,” I smiled.
“Got into it down at Pendine Sands, you know, in Wales?” Albert said. “That damn fool Jones finally got a book published so he invited me down to his place to celebrate, and some fellows were racing on the sands. Of course, that's old hat now. Daytona is where they do the real speed race, that's in Florida. Once I've proven she runs at the local track and has a chance of beating the record, we'll pack her up and across over to the States. Get the record back in British hands and beat the yanks on their home turf. It's going to be quite an adventure, isn't it Jules!”
“Yes sir!” the man in the seat replied heartily, tipping his bowler to me.
“If it weren't for that man Jules there it would all be just so much hot air,” Albert went on. “He's the one who turns my sketches and ideas into a real engine and a real car.”
“Me and the lads, sir, me and the lads,” Jules said modestly. “I couldn't do it all alone.”
“He's a marvel, don't let him tell you anything different,” Albert said. “Want to hear her start up again?”
“I don't think my ears have quite recovered from the first time,” I tried to smile.
“Good point,” Albert said and nodded. “Jules, you take a rest. Help yourself to a beer. Now we know she runs again we won't get much more done today.” He glanced at his watch. “Not if I'm entertaining. We'll pick it up tomorrow morning and take her down to the track.”
“Yes sir,” Jules stood up and tugged his bowler hat. “If you'll let me sir, I'll take the bottle back home to St Albans. The wife has been getting her goat up about the late hours I've been working and I think most of the afternoon with her will buy me another month's good will.”
“Oh the joys of married life,” Albert gave a bark of a laugh. “Go on, be off. I promise I won't smash it into a wall before you get back.”
“Thank you sir,” Jules winced at the idea of the smash and then stepped out.
“If you would be so kind, uncle,” Sir Reginald stepped into Albert's field of view. “Could we go somewhere and talk?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I can do the whole hosting business, yes, good thinking.” Albert clapped his hands together. “We can have cook rustle us up some tea and cucumber sandwiches served on the daintiest of plates. Is cucumber even in season? I don't know. Let's have a go at it anyway.”
*****
As far as I could see, Sir Reginald and his uncle were alike in only two ways, firstly in their enthusiasm for everything, mundane and extraordinary. However, while Sir Reginald occasionally played stoic, Albert bounced with enthusiasm all the time. Secondly, their age. Albert and Sir Reginald both looked like gentlemen in the last days of their twenties.
The three of us sat in a drawing room that could have swallowed the entirety of my London flat. Sitting across from both men I could easily see how very different they were. Though small, Sir Reginald’s charisma carried him through situations and he had the gravitas of a king. It was easy to see Albert, tall, broad shouldered and dark haired, in army uniform, both in the imagination and in the picture frame on the drawing-room table. Albert and three other uniformed men laughed, trapped in the past in a frame of metal poppies.
Another photograph caught my eye. A wide-eyed beauty with a stunning smile shone from the picture. You could see the vibrant blue of her eyes even through the sepia tone of the photograph.
“Mildred Osborne,” Albert said, catching my eye. “She's a daft old thing and I'll probably end up marrying her. Ha!” he barked with laughter again. “I tell you, I might be attempting the land speed record but she's the real danger hound. Aeroplanes, don’t you know? I keep telling her Zeppelins are the future of air flight, but she won't listen. If I see the day when we can fly in an aeroplane to America with as much speed and comfort as a Zeppelin I'll eat my hat.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Oh, not you as well! Must I be cursed to be surrounded by women who cannot understand the value of airships?!” Albert shook his head.
“It is their tendency to explode in balls of fire that concern me,” I said.
“Oh, they're all very fire conscious,” Albert said. “And if the Americans would export their helium reserves...”
“But isn't the skin also highly flammable oil silk?”
“Ahem,” Sir Reginald coughed again for attention. “Albert, we did come here for more than a social call.”
“Hmm?” Albert turned to Sir Reginald and a maid brought out a tray of tea and cucumber sandwiches, which were indeed in season, to Albert's delight.
“I believe my father willed to you a large purple pearl.” Sir Reginald held up a hand to quell the protest bursting to escape Albert's mouth. “We don't want to take it away, or even study it. But he willed it to you along with a presentation cabinet and I believe a number of his notes on the pearl. If you would be agreeable, I should like to study those papers.”
“Er, no can do, Reginald old chap,” Albert glanced from Sir Reginald to me and back again. “They were stolen. Years ago.”
“What?” Sir Reginald almost dropped his teacup.
“In Nigeria. The pearl, the box, the notes, the whole thing went missing.” Albert looked at me with a worried expression. “Hannah, don't you remember? That awful business with that, oh what was his name? That fellow, he was...” Albert clicked his fingers as he struggled to think.
“I can't say I do.”
“But you were the one who—” Albert's voice choked in his throat. “Oh. It's one of those things isn't it?” he turned on Sir Reginald and glared. “One of...your things.”
“Yes, well, it appears that way, certainly,” Sir Reginald coughed out of embarrassment and drained his cup.
“You really are your father's son,” Albert glowered across the table.
“I am nothing like my father,” Sir Reginald placed his cup on its saucer gently. “The pearl went missing in Nigeria then?”
“On the river Niger, about two nights out from Onitsha,” Albert crossed his arms. “We set sail on, urgh, the third of June, I think? 1919, at least. I'm only telling you this because I know you have to know. Because it already happened. Or is already going to have happened. Or whatever it is from your cracked perspective.” He turned to me. “You're journeying with him, aren't you?”
“Well, sometimes.”
“Go home, Hannah,” Albert glared. “Go back to wherever and whenever you're from and stay there.” Albert ran his tongue a
round his teeth and then spoke slowly. “You're quite like Evelyn. I don't want to see you go the same way.”
“I am utterly unlike my father,” said Sir Reginald, standing up. “I solve problems.” He headed for the door. “Come along, Hannah.”
“And what solutions have you found recently, eh?” Albert shouted after Sir Reginald. “Or have you just made things worse?”
Sir Reginald stopped at the door, hand on handle.
“The thirteenth cylinder on the left-hand side of your new car, from the driver's perspective,” Sir Reginald said softly, “has a metallurgical weakness. If you take it out and do a stress test you will find it weakens significantly. Replace it at once or it will explode during your land speed attempt.”
“And you can tell all that at a glance?” Albert frowned.
“A glance at a newspaper, yes,” Sir Reginald flashed us a smile and left.
Albert and I were left alone in his drawing room.
“Um, sorry.”
“No, don't be sorry,” Albert said. “It's not your fault, so there's no point in you being sad about it.”
“Sir Reginald really does help people,” I said getting up. “I don't know what happened to your sister, but Sir Reginald has done a lot of good for a lot of people.”
“Free movement in time and space is not something mankind should have power over,” Albert said, and slunk over his sandwiches. “But whether you decide to keep working with Sir Reginald or not,” Albert sighed, “you are welcome back here whenever you like.”
“Thank you.” I nodded to him and made for the door.
“And it will be good to meet you,” Albert waved to me as I left. “I might not think it at the time, but it was!” Seeing some of his enthusiasm recovered, I went out of the room.
I almost immediately walked into Sir Reginald, holding his head in his hands and leaning against the wall for support. His face froze in a grimace.
“Sir Reginald?” I went to support him but he wriggled out of my grip.
“It's fine, it's nothing, it's a headache I gave myself,” Sir Reginald staggered towards a door. “I just gave myself a paradox.”
“You warned him to change a piston in the engine because you read it exploded on the track, but now it never exploded on the track so you can never read about it?” I said.
“Precisely,” Sir Reginald nodded. “And now my brain is trying to sort that problem out logically and it can't; because it can't. It is an experience similar to, oh...what is that word Americans have for eating an overabundance of ice cream?”
“Brain freeze?”
“Precisely again.” Sir Reginald staggered out of the front door and into the sunshine. “Only the Americans need a word for eating a superfluity ice cream, and only Americans would make it so displeasing to the tongue; however, yes, that is exactly what it feels like.” He shook himself, apparently recovering. “We should head back to the time-machine.”
“Are there any other repercussions?” I stepped out of the house and towards the car into which Sir Reginald was already climbing.
“Time is a mill pool, my corn-rose,” Sir Reginald said, taking off his hat. Without it he looked much, much smaller. “A paradox is like a stone thrown into the water. At first the time stream struggles to keep the facts together, but it quickly ripples away and becomes smaller ripples until eventually it fades away to nothing.”
“So it's consequence-free? I could make as many paradoxes as I like? I could become my own grandmother?” I pulled on my gloves.
“It isn't consequence-free, it, well, whatever happens...happens. The universe bends over backwards to keep it that way. Sometimes what needs to change to make the paradox hold together isn't something you'd want to change,” Sir Reginald struggled. “This isn't the time for a chrono-quantum-dynamics lecture, but suffice to say, it is not entirely unreasonable in this new timeline for all the molecules that make up my memory to spontaneously make me remember the image of a newspaper that never really existed to warn my uncle about a faulty component that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.”
“One day you'll explain it all to me,” I slid into the car seat and started the engine. “No matter how long it takes and how much mathematics I need to learn.”
“Of that, my dear, I have no doubt.”
Chapter XVI
The time-machine appeared with a flash in 1919, sinking a few inches as it landed in some scrubland surrounded by bushes. The muddy, sandy soil struggled to contain its weight. A distant steamer dominated the view. I had never seen such a ship in the flesh. The river wound through the landscape and came as close as twenty feet. The entire landscape was one of mud and water. Heat and humidity hit me like a physical blow.
“We must find out who stole the pearl, Hannah,” Sir Reginald said. “I believe this Order of the Pearl business is involved, and is perhaps rather more sinister than we thought.”
“How much more sinister does it get than being willing to stab me in the chest?” I said, recovering from the shock of the new climate. Sweat was beading around my brow already.
“I do not wish to find out,” said Sir Reginald with all sincerity. He stepped off the time-machine and cleared a few bushes with his cane, revealing a muddy trackway beyond. “But I do not think the theft from my uncle Albert was opportunistic, or more would have been stolen and it would be more easily found. The thief or thieves knew what they were looking for and where they would find it. The contents of a will must be made public, Hannah, you understand. The moment my father was declared legally dead the Order would have been able to find out where the pearl was.”
“Seven hundred years is a long time, Sir Reginald,” I scoffed.
“The Order of the Garter has existed for that long, serving the English kings,” Sir Reginald adjusted his cuffs after the exertion of clearing a way to the road. “I do not see why the Order of the Pearl could not do the same. Certainly its purpose might shift slightly, especially when the pearl hides from history's eyes, but I doubt it would ever die, nor forget its original designs. “
“I suppose.” I mopped my brow with my sleeve. I thought it would be cooler by the river, but it was worse. The air was thick and heavy with moisture.
“You must befriend my uncle and gain his confidence,” Sir Reginald ordered. “You must either be able to get a good look at the papers and photograph them with your telecommunications machine, or you must be trusted enough to uncover who stole the pearl.”
“What, me? On my own?”
“Yes, my dear,” Sir Reginald took off his hat and bowed apologetically. “At this time my uncle knows that I am...away. It would cause a paradox if he met me now.”
“Won't it cause a paradox if I discover who stole the pearl when I didn’t know in 1928?”
“There are innumerable ways of avoiding that. The simplest of which would be to not return the pearl when you discover it.”
“You've never sent me off on my own before.”
“I am sure you will rise to the occasion, my dear.”
“But what if I screw up? What if I mention Hitler and change the future?”
“Hardly a concern,” Sir Reginald shrugged. “None of the people on board could prevent the rise of Mr Hitler and right now nobody knows who he is in any case.”
“But what if one of them sees my phone and—”
“And what, my dear? Reverse engineers the silicon chip based on a glimpse they had of a rectangular magic box filled with light? Do not worry my dear; I have great confidence in you. Almost everything surprising about you can be explained by you being Canadian.”
“What?” I glared.
“Your strange way of talking, your odd attitudes to all manner of things, your level of education and erudition,” Sir Reginald listed off his fingers. “Everything that links you to the early twenty-first century, in fact, can all be explained by the fact you're Canadian, and as far as everyone on earth who is not from Canada is concerned, Canadians are a little strange.”
I turned up the intensity of the glare.
“The same would be true if you were from Chinese Malaysia or the deepest Argentine,” Sir Reginald smiled apologetically. “It is simply the most convenient explanation. People will think it whether you want them to or not.”
“Right, well, can such a strange Canadian at least be allowed to wear trousers during her journey?” I tugged at my jeans.
“It would probably be best not,” Sir Reginald gave a weak smile. “However, you quite liked the medieval dress.”
“Because I was allowed to choose it—” my growl was cut short by the sound of a whinnying horse on the road. In our agitation neither of us had heard the hoof beats that had crept up on in the soft muddy soil.
“I believe this is your carriage, to take you to the ship.”
“But–”
“I plan to go back in time and send for one when you leave.” Sir Reginald interlocked his fingers. “If you can follow the timelines there.”
“Yeah, I think I get it.” I sighed and pushed my way through the hole Sir Reginald cleared in the scrubby trees. A horse-drawn carriage waited on the road for us with a native driver. He doffed his hat to me.
“You will find a suitcase inside packed with clothes,” Sir Reginald explained, following me through the hole, “including the twenty-first-century undergarments you so favour.”
“Thanks, I think.” I couldn't decide whether I liked the idea of my underwear being chosen and packed by Sir Reginald.
“There is also your steamer ticket, and official papers such as a passport that will allow you to pass for Hannah Delaronde, travelling debutante and heir to the Quebec-Delaronde Mining Company, along with enough money to back up your claim.”
“But there is no such company,” I frowned.
“No-one is going to check,” Sir Reginald said cheerfully. “It’s Canadian.”
“How nice,” I gave Sir Reginald a foul look, but he seemed immune to it.