On the other hand, I had a great deal of luggage for a boat.
I looked across the tracks to the platform. On the far side of the green bench was a glass-covered notice board. The train schedule. I could look at it, and if Something End was listed, I’d know I was supposed to take the train, especially if one was due shortly.
The platform was empty, at least for the moment. The distance up to it looked high, but not impossible, and the sky was unsullied blue in both directions. I looked up and down the tracks and then at the door to the waiting room. Nothing. I checked the tracks three or four more times, just to be safe, and then sprinted across them, heaved my luggage over the edge, and clambered up after it.
The platform was still uninhabited. I piled my luggage on the end of the bench and strolled over to the notice board. I read the headings: Reading, Coventry, Northampton, Bath. It was very likely one of the smaller stations: Aylesbury, Didcot, Swindon,Abingdon. I read the entire list. There wasn’t a single End among them.
And I couldn’t go into the station and ask when the next train to Something End was. What was it? Something End. Howard’s End? No, that was a novel by E.M. Forster. It hadn’t even been written yet. Something End. There was a pub in the Turl called The Bitter End, but that didn’t sound right either. It began with an “N.” No, that was the naiad. An “M.”
I went back over to the bench and sat down, trying to think. Mr. Dunworthy had said, “Here are your instructions,” and then something about oyster spears and tea with the Queen. No, that had to have been the headrig. And then, “We’re sending you through to the seventh of June, 1888.”
Perhaps I’d better find out if I was really on the seventh of June, 1888, before I worried about anything else. If I was in the wrong time, I had no business going anywhere, by train or by boat. I needed to stay here till Warder got the fix, realized I was in the wrong time, and set up a rendezvous to take me back. At least it wasn’t a field of marrows.
And it had occurred to me, now that I was recovering a bit, that Warder would have set my watch for the time in the past. In which case, it proved absolutely nothing at all.
I stood up and went over to the station window to see if there was a clock inside. There was. It said twenty to eleven. I pulled out my pocket watch and checked it against the clock. Twenty to XI.
In books and vids there’s always a newsboy hawking papers with the date neatly visible for the time traveller to see, or a calendar with the dates marked off with an X. There was no sign of a calendar, a newsboy, or a friendly porter who’d volunteer, “Lovely weather for June seventh, isn’t it, sir? Not like last year. We hadn’t any summer at all in ‘87.”
I went back to the bench and sat down, trying to concentrate. Marlborough End, Middlesex End, Montague End, Marple’s End.
A train whistle (which I instantly recognized as such) sounded, and a train tore through the station without stopping, with a roar and a sudden wind that blew my boater with it. I went running after it, caught it, and was putting it back on when a paper, apparently caught in the same draft, blew against the back of my legs.
I unwrapped myself from it and looked at it. It was a sheet from a newspaper. The Times. 7 June 1888.
So I was at the right time, and all I had to work out was what I was supposed to do now.
I sat down and put my head in my hands, trying to concentrate. Carruthers had come through without his boots and Warder had slammed her clipboard down and Mr. Dunworthy had said something about a river and a contact. A contact.
“Contact Tennyson” he’d said, only that wasn’t the name. But it had begun with a “T.” Or an “A.” And Finch had said something about a contact, too. A contact.
That explained why I didn’t know what to do. All I’d been told was that I was to meet a contact, and he or she would tell me. I felt a surge of relief. The contact would explain everything.
So now the only question was, who was it and where was he or she? “Contact someone,” Mr. Dunworthy had said. What was the name? Chiswick. No, that was the head of Time Travel. Correction, the ex-head of Time Travel. “Contact—” Klepper-man. Ensign Klepperman. No, that was the sailor who’d been killed in the line of duty. Because he hadn’t known what he was doing.
“Contact—”Who? As if in answer, another train whistle blew several deafening blasts, and a train pulled into the station. Spitting sparks and great whooshes of steam, the train came to a stop. A porter jumped down from the third car, deposited a plush-covered stool in front of the door, and got back on the train.
Several minutes went by, and the porter reappeared, carrying a hatbox and a large black umbrella. He extended his hand to a frail old lady, and then a younger one, as they stepped down.
The elderly lady was wearing crinolines and a bonnet and lace mitts, and for a moment I was afraid I was in the wrong year after all, but the younger one had a long, flared skirt and a hat that tilted forward over her brow. She had a sweet face, and when she spoke to the porter, telling him what bags they had, her voice was both softspoken and demure.
“I told you he wouldn’t be here to meet us,” the old lady said in a voice with Lady Schrapnellian overtones.
“I’m certain he will be here shortly, Auntie,” the young woman said. “Perhaps he was delayed on college business.”
“Poppycock,” the old lady said, a word I had not ever expected to hear anyone say. “He’s off fishing somewhere. Disgraceful occupation for a grown man! Did you write to tell him when we were coming?”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“And told him the time, I hope?”
“Yes, Auntie. I’m certain he’ll be here shortly.”
“And in the meantime we’re left to stand here in this dreadful heat.”
The weather had seemed pleasantly warm, but then I wasn’t wearing black wool buttoned to the neck. Or lace mitts.
“Absolutely sweltering,” she said, fishing in a small beaded purse for a handkerchief. “I feel quite weak. Careful with that!” she boomed at the porter, who was struggling with a huge trunk. Finch had been right. They did travel with steamer trunks.
“Quite faint,” Auntie said, fanning herself weakly with the handkerchief.
“Why don’t you sit down over here, Auntie,” the young woman said, leading her over to the other bench. “I’m certain Uncle will be here momentarily.”
The old lady sat down in a whoomph of petticoats. “Not like that!” she snapped at the porter. “This is all Herbert’s fault. Getting married! And just when I was coming to Oxford. Don’t scratch the leather!”
It was obvious neither of these ladies was my contact, but at least I no longer seemed to be having Difficulty Distinguishing Sounds. And I could understand what they were saying, which isn’t always the case in the past. My first jumble sale I hadn’t understood one word in ten: skittles and shies and sales of work.
Also, I seemed to have overcome my Tendency to Sentimentality. The younger lady had a pretty heart-shaped face, and even prettier ankle-shaped ankles, which I’d caught a white-stockinged glimpse of when she alighted from the train, but I hadn’t felt any inclination to dissolve into rapturous comparisons with sylphs or cherubim. Better still, I had been able to come up with both words without any trouble. I felt completely cured.
“He’s forgotten us completely,” Auntie said. “We’ll have to hire a fly.”
Well, perhaps not completely cured.
“There’s no need for us to hire a carriage,” the young woman said. “Uncle won’t have forgotten.”
“Then why isn’t he here, Maud?” she said, arranging her skirts so they took up the entire bench. “And why isn’t Herbert here? Marriage! Servants have no business marrying. And how did Herbert meet anyone suitable to marry? I absolutely forbade her to have followers, so I suppose that means it’s someone unsuitable. Some person from a music hall.” She lowered her voice. “Or worse.”
“It’s my understanding that they met at church,” Maud said patiently.
“At church! Disgraceful! What is the world coming to? In my day, church was a duty, not a social occasion. Mark my words, a hundred years from now, one will not be able to distinguish between a cathedral and a music hall.”
Or a shopping center, I thought.
“It’s all these sermons on Christian love,” Auntie said. “Whatever happened to sermons on duty and knowing one’s place? And punctuality. Your uncle could benefit from a sermon on—where are you going?”
Maud was heading for the station door. “To look at the clock,” she said. “I thought perhaps the reason Uncle isn’t here yet is that the train might have been early getting in.”
I helpfully pulled out my pocket watch and opened it, hoping I could remember how to read it.
“And leave me here alone,” Auntie said, “with who knows what sort of persons?” She crooked a lace-mitted finger at Maud. “There are men,” she said in a stage whisper, “who hang about public places waiting for their chance to engage unaccompanied women in conversation.”
I snapped the pocket watch shut, put it back in my waistcoat pocket, and tried my best to look harmless.
“Their object,” she whispered loudly, “is to steal unprotected women’s luggage. Or worse.”
“I doubt if anyone could lift our luggage, Auntie, let alone steal it,” Maud whispered back, and my opinion of her shot up.
“Nevertheless, you are in my care, since my brother has not seen fit to meet us, and it is my duty to protect you from harmful influences,” Auntie said, looking darkly at me. “We are not staying here one moment longer. Put those in the cloakroom,” she said to the porter, who had succeeded finally in wrestling the trunks and three large bandboxes onto a luggage barrow. “And bring us the claim check for them.”
“The train is about to leave, madam,” he protested.
“I am not taking the train,” she said, “And engage us a fly. With a respectable driver.”
The porter looked desperately at the train, which was emitting great gouts of steam. “Madam, it is my duty to be on the train when it departs. I shall lose my job if I’m not on board.”
I thought of offering to get them a carriage, but I didn’t want Auntie to take me for Jack the Ripper. Or was that an anachronism? Had he started his career by 1888?
“Pish-tosh! You shall lose your job if I report your insolence to your employers,” Auntie was saying. “What sort of railway is this?”
“The Great Western, madam.”
“Well, it can scarcely call itself great when its employees leave the passengers’ luggage on the platform to be stolen by common criminals” another dark look at me. “It can scarcely call itself great when its employees refuse to aid a helpless old lady.”
The porter, who looked as though he disagreed with the word “helpless,” glanced at the train, whose wheels were starting to turn, and then at the station door, as if gauging the distance, and then tipped his hat and pushed the barrow into the station.
“Come, Maud,” Auntie said, rising out of her nest of crinolines.
“But what if Uncle comes?” Maud said. “He’ll just miss us.”
“It will teach him a useful lesson on punctuality,” Auntie said. She swept out.
Maud followed in her impressive wake, giving me a smile of apology as she went.
The train started up, its great wheels turning slowly, then faster as it gathered steam, and started out of the station. I looked anxiously at the station door, but there was no sign of the poor porter. The passenger cars moved slowly past, and then the green-painted luggage van. He wasn’t going to make it. The guard’s van pulled past, its lantern swinging, and the porter burst through the door, ran down the platform after it, and made a flying leap. I stood up.
He caught the railing with one hand, swung himself up onto the bottom step, and clung there, panting. As the train cleared the station he shook his fist at the station door.
And no doubt in future years he became a socialist, I thought, and worked to get the Labour Party voted in.
And what about Auntie? No doubt she had outlived all her relatives and left her servants nothing in her will. I hoped she’d lasted well into the Twenties and had to put up with cigarettes and the Charleston. As for Maud, I hoped she’d been able to meet someone suitable to marry, though I was afraid she hadn’t, with Auntie’s eagle eye constantly on her.
I sat on for several minutes, contemplating their futures and my own, which was decidedly less clear. The next train from anywhere wasn’t until 12:36, from Birmingham. Was I supposed to meet my contact here? Or was I supposed to go into Oxford and meet him there? I seemed to remember Mr. Dunworthy saying something about a cabby. Was I supposed to take a hansom cab into town? “Contact,” Mr. Dunworthy had said.
The station door burst open, and a young man shot through it at the same speed as the porter had previously. He was dressed like I was, in white flannels and slightly crooked mustache, and was carrying his boater in his hand. He ran onto the platform and strode rapidly to the far end of it, obviously looking for someone.
My contact, I thought hopefully. And he was late, which was why he hadn’t been here to meet me. As if in confirmation, he stopped, pulled out his pocket watch, and flipped it open with impressive dexterity. “I’m late,” he said, and snapped it shut.
And if he was my contact, would he announce himself as such, or was I supposed to whisper, “Psst, Dunworthy sent me”? Or was there some sort of password I was supposed to know the answer to—“The marmoset sails at midnight,” to which I was supposed to respond, “The sparrow is in the spruce tree”?
I was debating “The moon sets on Tuesday” versus the more straightforward “I beg your pardon. Are you from the future?” when he turned back my way, gave me the barest of glances, strode past me to the other end of the platform, and peered down the tracks. “I say,” he said, coming back, “has the 10:55 from London arrived yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “It pulled out five minutes ago.” Pulled out? Was that an anachronism? Should I have said “departed” instead?
Apparently not, because he muttered, “I knew it,” and clapped his boater on his head and disappeared into the station.
A moment later he was back again. “I say” he said, “you haven’t seen any aged relicts, have you?”
“Age-ed relicts?” I said, feeling as if I were back among the jumble sales.
“A deuce of dowagers, ‘fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,’”he said. “Crookbacked and crabbed with age. ‘You are old, Father William,’ and all that. They would have come in on the train from London. In bombazine and jet, I should imagine.” He saw my incomprehension. “Two ladies of advanced age. I was supposed to meet them. I don’t suppose they’d have come and gone, would they?” he said, looking vaguely round.
He must be referring to the two ladies who’d just left, though he couldn’t possibly be Auntie’s brother and Maud could hardly be described as of advanced age.
“They were both elderly?” I said.
“Antiquated. I had to meet them once before, during Michaelmas term. Did you see them? One was very likely in a crotchet and a fichu. The other’s a spinster of the sparse, sharp-nosed sort, all blue stockings and social causes. Amelia Bloomer and Betsey Trotwood.”
It wasn’t them, then. The names were wrong, and the stockings I’d seen descending from the train had been white, not blue.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t see them. There was a young girl and a—”
He shook his head. “Not my party. Mine were absolutely antediluvian, or they would be if anyone still believed in the Flood. What would Darwin call it, do you suppose? Pre-Pelasgian? Or Ante-Trilobitian? He must have got the trains mixed again.”
He strode over to the board, examined the schedule, and straightened in disgust. “Drat!” he said, another word I’d thought existed only in books. “The next train from London’s not until 3:18, and by then it will be too late.”
He slapped his boater against his leg.
“Well, that’s that, then,” he said. “Unless I can get something out of Mags at the Mitre. She’s always good for a crown or two. Too bad Cyril isn’t here. She likes Cyril.” He clapped his boater back on his head and went into the station.
And so much for his being my contact, I thought. Drat!
And the next train from anywhere wasn’t until 12:36. Perhaps I was supposed to have met the contact where I’d come through, and I should take my luggage and go back to that spot on the tracks. If I could find it. I should have marked the spot with a scarf.
Or was I supposed to meet him down by the river? Or go somewhere by boat to meet him? I squeezed my eyes shut. Mr. Dunworthy had said something about Jesus College. No, he had been talking to Finch about getting the provisions. He had said, “Here are your instructions,” and then something about the river and something about croquet and Disraeli and . . . I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the memory.
“I say,” a voice said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
I opened my eyes. It was the young man who’d missed meeting the age-ed relicts.
“I say,” he said again, “you weren’t going on the river, were you? Well, of course you are, I mean, boater, blazer, flannels, you’re hardly dressed for an execution, are you, and there’s nothing else on in Oxford this time of year. Occam’s Razor, as Professor Peddick would say. What I meant was, had you made plans to go with friends, a house party or something, or were you going on your own?”
“I—” I said, wondering if he could be my contact after all, and this was some sort of intricate code.
“I say,” he said, “I’m going about this all wrong. We haven’t even been properly introduced.” He shifted his boater to his left hand and extended his right. “Terence St. Trewes.”
I shook it. “Ned Henry,” I said.
“What college are you?”
I was trying to remember if Mr. Dunworthy had mentioned someone named Terence St. Trewes, and the question, phrased so casually, caught me off-guard.