Текст книги "The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack"

Автор книги: Mark Hodder

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

"Then obey I shall," said Swinburne, and without further word, he took the proffered lantern and walked back the way they'd come.

Burton waited until his friend had disappeared from sight, then, keeping his head low, ran across the junction to the other side of the corridor. He moved ahead until the gloom enveloped him. If this ballroom was anything like the many he'd visited in the past, there should be a staircase to the gallery nearby. Pulling a box of lucifers from his pocket, he struck one and moved ahead until its unsteady glow revealed a door. Opening this, he entered a large cloakroom. He saw a staircase rising up to his left. Light entered the room from the top of it. He blew out his match.

Placing his feet softly and applying pressure to each step with infinite care, he silently ascended. As he neared the gallery, he dropped to all fours. He could clearly hear Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ringing, and with his remarkable ear for languages was soon able to discern words. The famous engineer was actually speaking English, but his mechanically generated voice possessed such a bell-like quality that, for most men, the sound obscured the meaning. His current audience, though, evidentially followed him, as did the man who now wriggled forward on his belly across the gallery to the balustrade and peered down through its carved uprights.

"The experimental ornithopters have proven too unstable to fly," Brunel was saying. "Human reactions are not fast enough to make the constant adjustments to yaw and pitch required to keep them in the air. We are seeking a mechanical means to achieve this. A babbage would be the obvious solution, but Sir Charles is currently working in seclusion and refuses to share his knowledge."

"Then force him!" came a harsh voice from below Burton. He could not see its author but the words were spoken in a grating tone that sounded wholly unnatural to the eavesdropper.

"We do not know his current location," chimed Brunel. "And, besides, he is extremely well protected."

"Find a way! Nurse Nightingale, your report, if you please. Have you found a solution to your problem?"

There were six individuals below gathered around a long banqueting table, the end of which disappeared beneath him. Next to Brunel sat Lau rence Oliphant, his white face swollen and cut, one eye a mere slit, his right hand encased in plaster. Opposite him, upon a cylindrical metal base, stood a thronelike seat. In it, Darwin sat with his huge head supported by a brace. The long metal needles were still embedded in his cranium, held in place by a circlet, with wires running from them into cables which coiled across the floor and out of the room's veranda doors. Another cable ran from the base of the chair into the electric brain of the Galton body, which stood silently nearby, blank-eyed and motionless.

Nurse Florence Nightingale was also present at the table. She was a thin, severe-faced woman, tightly corseted in a dark dress, her hair pinned back and concealed by a white bonnet.

"No, sir," she said, her voice surprisingly soft. "In every case but one, where we've raised an animal up to a human level of evolution, spontaneous combustion has sooner or later destroyed the beast. Mr. Oliphant, of course, is the exception. He is the only instance where parts of a human brain-the original Laurence Oliphant's-have been grafted to the animal's. We are currently raising a second white panther, which will not receive a brain graft. If it survives, we will know that combustion is a risk associated with the species used. If it doesn't, we shall experiment further with human-to-animal brain grafts. I should also point out that since taking a beating from Captain Burton, Mr. Oliphant's temperature has been fluctuating erratically. We are monitoring the situation."

"I'm fine," mumbled Oliphant. He spoke awkwardly through split lips and broken teeth.

"Thank you, Nurse," came the horrible voice from below. "Darwin, what progress?"

"We have so far treated nineteen chimney sweeps. Nine were rejected and destroyed on the basis of their height. The rest have been liberated."

"Will they remember?" interrupted the voice.

"No. Mr. Oliphant used mesmeric influence to dominate their minds and block all memory of what occurred to them while in our hands. We will continue the programme until a hundred boys have received the treatment. As you know, we have revised our theory of pangenesis and have incorporated into it the work of the German monk Gregor Mendel. We shall see, in the children of our sweeps, and their grandchildren and subsequent generations, the new theory-which we have named Genetic Inheritance-in action. The male offspring will become smaller until an average height of just three feet is established. With each generation, the descendants will also grow thick bristly hair-spines, almost-over their entire body. Thus they will become ideally suited to their vocation; able to fit into any flue, scraping off the soot with their bristles. Living brushes!

"If the experiment succeeds with this group of workers-which we selected due to their relative unimportance in social terms-then we will expand it to create specialists in all fields of society. Of course, our ability to monitor the future generations is dependent upon you."

"You need not worry about that," snapped the voice. "I will uphold my part of the deal. The time is drawing near."

"Then tell us!" demanded Darwin. "It is time we knew the truth about Spring Heeled Jack!"

A figure shuffled into view. Burton stifled a gasp. It was an orangutan, a large red-haired ape! Like Galton, the top of its head was missing, but rather than machinery, it had been replaced by a bell jar filled with a yellowish liquid in which the creature's brain was immersed.

The mysterious Mr. Belljar.! thought Burton.

The primate, walking with its knuckles to the floor, circled the table.

"I brought you here for that very purpose," it grated. "Though I warn you, the story is unbelievable and contains references to things you will not understand; things that I don't understand! Parts of it I shall tell from my own experience. Other parts were told to me by a man who spoke in a strange accent, who used the English language in a way I have never heard it spoken before, and who said a great deal that was incomprehensible."

Burton tensed. His two cases had become one, and had led him to this group of rogue scientists. Now, finally, he was going to learn who-or what -Spring Heeled Jack was, and how the stilt-man fitted into the picture.

"Gentlemen, dear lady, for me the story began in 1837, shortly after I gained notoriety for a childish prank in Melton Mowbray a month after I purchased and moved into this estate."

Bismillah! thought the king's agent. Henry Beresford didn't die two years ago! That ape is the Mad Marquess of Waterford!

"But the true beginning of the tale begins a great many years from now. It begins, my friends, far into the future!"

BEING THE TRUE HISTORY OF SPRING HEELED JACK

Who you think you are is who you ARE.

But what if you think you are nobody?

What if you banish all the limits that define YOU?

What then?

WHO ARE YOU?

– LIBERTINE PROPAGANDA

PREVENTION

Every time we are faced with a choice, and we are faced with them every minute of every day, we make a decision and follow its coarse into the future. But what of the abandoned options? Are they like unopened doors? Do alternative futures lie beyond them? How far would we wander from the coarse we have steered were we to go back and, just once, open Door A instead of Door B?

His name was Edward John Oxford, and he was born in the year 2162. He was a physicist, engineer, historian, and philosopher. At the age of thirty, he invented the fish-scale battery, a flake of material no bigger than a fingernail, which soaked up solar energy on one side and stored it in vast amounts on the other. The battery transformed technology and technology transformed the world.

A journalist asked, "How does it feel to single-handedly change history?"

"I haven't changed history," he replied. "History is the past."

He chuckled, as if enjoying a private joke, for though he was a genius, he was also an eccentric and obsessive, and the past was his primary fixation; specifically, the year 1840, which was when his ancestor, also named Edward Oxford, had fired two pistols at Queen Victoria.

Both shots had missed, and the original Oxford had been acquitted on grounds of insanity and committed to Bedlam. Years later, he was released and emigrated to Australia, where he met and married the granddaughter of a couple he'd known back in London, prior to his crime. History didn't record her name, just that she was far younger than he, which wasn't unusual for the period. They began a family whose descendants wound through the generations to the Edward John Oxford of 2162.

The fish-scale battery couldn't change the past. It was, however, an element of a far grander project that could, for its inventor had created it to power time-travel technology.

Edward John Oxford had a plan: he was going to visit 1840 to clean the stain from his family name.

There were, of course, numerous technical challenges, the relationship between time and space being the most awkward of them. He solved this by "tethering" his device to gravitational constants: the Earth's core and distant galaxies whose position remained comparatively static. This enabled him to select an exit point in the past relative to his terrestrial position in the present; and if that exit point was already occupied by something, his device was programmed to shift him to a safe place nearby.

It was an essential function, but it caused an immense drain on his batteries, so, retaining it as an emergency measure, he found another way to minimise his chances of materialising inside a solid object.

There can be no doubt that the insanity of his ancestor had resurfaced in the inventor, for his solution was bizarre to say the least. Oxford wove his miniaturised time-travel technology into a suit, the boots of which he mounted on two-foot-high spring-loaded stilts. With these, he could leap twenty feet into the air, vanish from his current time, and appear in the past twenty feet above the ground in nothing more solid than air molecules.

It was crazy, but it usually worked, and when it didn't, the programming took over and moved him out of danger.

There was also a psychological issue. Oxford knew that in travelling to the Victorian age he was risking severe disorientation. He therefore included in his suit a system whereby Victorian reality would be, from his perspective, overlaid with his own twenty-second-century reality. His helmet would alter the way his brain interpreted sensory data, so that when he looked at a hansom cab, he would see and hear a modern taxi; when he observed Victorian people, he would see citizens of his own time; and towering over the skyline of 1840, he would see the skyscrapers of the 2200s. Also, because the sense of smell is most intimately connected with memory, he ensured that his would be completely nullified.

He knew that moments after his arrival in the past, he'd have to remove his suit and face Victorian London without the filter. This would only be for a short period though, and, once he'd completed his mission, he'd quickly don the suit and crank up the illusion. He hoped that he could thus avoid culture shock.

On his fortieth birthday, Edward John Oxford completed his preparations.

He dressed in mock Victorian clothing, then pulled his time suit on over the top. It was a white one-piece garment of fish-scale batteries, with a rubberised cloak hanging from the shoulders that he could wrap around himself to protect the suit when it wasn't charging.

He affixed the round, flat control unit to his chest and lowered the heavy helmet, which was large, black, and shiny, over his head. Intricate magnetic fields flooded through his skull. Information began to pass back and forth between his brain and the helmet's powerful processor.

Bouncing on the stilts, and with a top hat in his hand, he left his laboratory and tottered into the long garden beyond.

His wife came out of the kitchen-the house was at the other end of the garden-and walked over to him, wiping her hands on a towel.

"You're going now?" she asked. "Supper is almost ready!"

"Yes," he replied, "but don't worry-even if I'm gone for years, I'll be back in five minutes!"

"You won't return an old man, I hope!" she grumbled, and ran a hand over her distended belly. "This one will need an energetic young father!"

He laughed. "Don't be silly. This won't take long."

Bending, he kissed her on the nose.

It was nine in the evening, on February 15, 2202.

He instructed the suit to take him to five thirty on the afternoon of June 10, 1840; location: the upper corner of Green Park, London.

He looked at the sky.

"Am I really going to do this?" he asked himself.

In answer, he took three long strides, hit the ground with knees bent, then projected himself high into the air. His wife saw a bubble form around him and he vanished.

Edward Oxford literally jumped through time.

A moment of disorientation.

A short fall.

He thudded onto grass and bounced.

Glancing around he saw a rolling park surrounded by tall glass buildings with advertising flashing upon their sides. In the near distance was the ancient form of the Monarchy Museum, once known as Buckingham Palace, where the relics of England's defunct royal families were displayed.

A sonic boom echoed as a shuttle headed into orbit. People zipped overhead in their personal fliers.

Oxford ran into the wooded corner of the park, ducked into the trees, and pushed through the undergrowth until he felt safe from prying eyes. Then he stripped off the time suit and draped it over a low branch.

He reached up to his helmet, switched it off, and removed it.

A foul stench assaulted his nostrils: a mix of raw sewage, rotting fish, and burning fossil fuels.

He started to cough. The air was thick and gritty. It irritated his eyes and scraped his windpipe. He fell to his knees and clutched at his throat, gasping for oxygen. Then he remembered that he'd prepared for this and fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out a small instrument, which he applied to the side of his neck. He pressed the switch, it hissed, he felt a slight stinging sensation, and instantly he could breathe again.

Oxford put the instrument away and rested for a moment. His inability to catch his breath had been a perceptive disorder rather than a physical one. The helmet had protected him from the idea that the atmosphere was unbreathable; now a sedative was doing the job.

Unfamiliar sounds reached him from the nearby road. Horses' hooves, the rumble of wheels, the shouts of hawkers.

He stood and straightened his clothes, placed the top hat on his head, and made his way to the edge of the thicket. As he emerged from the trees, a transformed world assailed his senses, and he was immediately shaken by a profound uneasiness.

Only the grass was familiar.

Through dense, filthy air, he saw a massive expanse of empty sky; the tall glass towers of his own time were absent, and London clung to the ground. Ahead, Buckingham Palace, now partially hidden by a high wall, looked brand new.

Quaintly costumed people were walking in the park-no, not costumed, he reminded himself; they always dressed this way-and their slow pace appeared entirely unnatural to him.

Despite the background murmur, London seemed to be slumbering under a blanket of silence.

He started to walk down the slope toward the base of Constitution Hill, struggling to overcome his growing sense of dislocation.

"Steady, Edward," he muttered to himself. "Hang on, hang on. Don't let it overwhelm you. This is neither a dream nor an illusion, so stay focused, get the job done, then get back to your suit!"

He reached the wide path. The queen's carriage would pass this way soon. My God! He was going to see Queen Victoria!

He looked around. Every single person he could see was wearing a hat or bonnet. Most of the men were bearded or wore moustaches. The women held parasols.

Slow motion. It was all in slow motion.

He examined faces. Which belonged to his ancestor? He'd never seen a photograph of the original Edward Oxford-there were none-but he hoped to see some sort of family resemblance. He stepped over the low fence lining the path, crossed to the other side, and loitered near a tree.

People started to gather along the route. He heard a remarkable range of accents and they all sounded ridiculously exaggerated. Some, which he identified as working class, were incomprehensible, while the upper classes spoke with a precision and clarity that seemed wholly artificial.

Details kept catching his eye, holding his attention with hypnotic force: the prevalence of litter and dog shit on the grass, the stains and worn patches on people's clothing, rotten teeth and rickets-twisted legs, accentuated mannerisms and lace-edged handkerchiefs, pockmarks and consumptive coughs.

"Focus!" he whispered.

He noticed a man across the way standing in a relaxed but rather arrogant manner, looking straight at him and smiling. He had a lean figure, round face, and a very large moustache.

Can he see that I don't belong here? wondered Oxford.

A cheer went up. He looked to his right. The queen's carriage had just emerged from the palace gates, its horses guided by a postilion. Two outriders trotted along ahead of the vehicle, two more behind.

Where was his ancestor? Where was the gunman?

Ahead of him, a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white breeches, straightened, reached under his coat, and moved closer to the path.

Slowly, the royal carriage approached.

"Is that him?" muttered Oxford, gazing at the back of the man's head.

Moments later, the forward outriders came alongside.

The blue-coated individual stepped over the fence and, as the queen and her husband passed, he took three strides to keep up with their vehicle, then whipped out a flintlock pistol and fired it at them. He threw down the smoking weapon and drew a second.

Oxford yelled, "No, Edward!" and ran forward.

The gunman glanced at him.

He looks just like me! thought Oxford, surprised.

He vaulted over the fence and grabbed his ancestor's raised arm. If he could just disarm him and drag him away, tell him to flee and forget this stupid prank.

They struggled, locked together.

"Give it up!" pleaded Oxford.

"Let go of me!" grunted the would-be assassin. "My name must be remembered. I must live through history!"

A distant voice yelled, "Stop, Edward!" and a flash of lightning caught the time traveller's eye.

He looked across the park toward it. The man with the pistol did the same.

The flintlock went off, the recoil jolting both men.

The back of Queen Victoria's skull exploded.

Shit! No! That wasn't meant to happen!

He gripped the gunman, shook him, and heaved him off his feet.

His ancestor fell backward and his head hit the low cast-iron fence. There was a crunch and a spike suddenly emerged from the man's eye.

"You're not dead!" exclaimed Oxford, staggering back. "You're not dead! Stand up! Run for it! Don't let them catch you!"

The assassin lay on his back, his head impaled, blood pooling beneath him.

Oxford stumbled away.

There were screams and cries, people pushing past him.

He saw Victoria; she was tiny, young, like a child's doll, and her shredded brain was oozing onto the ground.

No. No. No.

This isn't happening.

This can't happen.

This didn't happen.

The smiling round-faced man was suddenly at his side. "Bravo, my friend!" he muttered. "Jolly good show!"

Oxford backed away from him, feeling terrified, fell, got up again, shoved his way out of the milling crowd, and ran.

"Get back to the suit," he mumbled as his legs pumped. "Try something else!"

He raced up the slope and ran into the trees.

What had caused that bolt of lightning? It had come from the same direction as the shout: "Stop, Edward!" Who had that been? He hadn't seen anyone clearly; there was too much happening.

He found his suit, slipped on the helmet, and activated it.

A sense of well-being flooded through him as the distant noise of electric cars, passenger jets, and advertising billboards assailed his ears. He pulled on the suit and set the navigation system for three months into the past. His lunatic ancestor would be working in a public house-the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street; that was a recorded fact.

"I'll go and talk him out of it," he whispered. "It's what I should have done in the first place."

A terrifying feeling of inevitability sank into his bones.

It won't work.

Try anyway!

It won't work.

He pushed through the undergrowth, returning to the edge of the woods.

"Step out into the open, sir!" came a voice.

Oxford froze. What now?

He crept ahead, trying to see whoever it was through the trees.

"I saw what happened-there's nothing to worry about. Come on, let's be having you!"

He remained silent.

There! A policeman!

"Sir! I saw you trying to protect the queen. I just need you to-"

Oxford plunged out into the open.

The policeman gasped, stepped back, and fell onto his bottom. He threw his truncheon.

The club whirled through the air and crashed into the control unit on the front of the time traveller's suit. Sparks exploded and a mild electric shock jerked through his body.

"Damn!" he cried, and bounded away. He slammed his stilts into the ground, leaped high, ordered the time jump, and winked out of June 10, 1840.

The suit malfunctioned.

Instead of sending him back three months, it sent him a good deal further; and rather than shifting him half a mile northward to a secluded alley behind the Hog in the Pound, it threw him twenty-one miles beyond.

He blinked into existence fifteen feet in the air with an electric charge drilling through him and crashed into the ground, unconscious. His limbs twitched spasmodically for thirty minutes, then he became very still.

Four hours later, a horseman narrowly avoided riding over him. The man reined in his mount and looked down at the bizarrely costumed figure.

"By James! What have we here?" he exclaimed, dismounting.

Henry de La Poet Beresford, the 3rd Marquess of Waterford, bent and ran his fingers over the strange material of the time suit. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before. He grasped Edward Oxford by the shoulder and shook him.

"I say, old fellow, are you in the land of the living?"

There was no response.

Beresford placed his hand on the man's chest, beside the lanternlike disk, and felt the heart beating.

"Still with us, anyway," he muttered. "But what the devil are you, old thing? I've never seen the like!"

He pushed an arm under Oxford's shoulders and lifted him; then, with no small amount of difficulty, shoved him onto the horse's saddle, so that the helmeted head hung on one side of the animal and the stilted boots on the other. Beresford took the reins and led his mount back homeward, to Darkening Towers.

Oxford regained his senses five days later.

Henry Beresford had tried and failed to remove the time suit; he could find no buttons. He'd succeeded, however, in pulling off the boots and in sliding the helmet from the comatose man's head. He'd then placed his unexpected visitor onto a bed, with his shoulders and head propped up against pillows, and had covered him with a blanket.

Unprotected by augmented reality, Oxford's first intimation of consciousness arrived through his nose. He was forced from oblivion by the stench of stale sweat, the mustiness of unlaundered clothes, and the overwrought perfume of lavender.

He opened his eyes.

"Good afternoon," said Beresford.

Oxford blinked and looked at the clean-shaven, moon-faced man sitting beside him.

"Who are you?" he croaked, his hoarse voice sounding to him as if it came from someone else.

"My name is Henry de La Poet Beresford. I am Marquess of Waterford. And who-and, indeed, what-are you? Here, take this water."

Oxford took the proffered glass and quenched his thirst.

"Thank you. My name is Edward Oxford. I'm-I'm a traveller."

Beresford raised his brows. "Is that so? To which circus do you belong?"

"What?"

"Circus, my friend. You appear to be a stilt-walker."

Oxford made no reply.

Beresford considered his guest for a moment, then said, "Yet there are no carnivals or suchlike in the area, which rather begs the question: how did you end up in a dead faint inside the walls of my estate?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you could tell me where I am, exactly?"

"You're in Darkening Towers, near Hertford, some twenty miles or so north of central London. I found you in the grounds, unconscious, five days ago."

"Five days!"

Oxford looked down at the control panel on the front of his suit. It was dead. There was a dent on its face and scorch marks around its left edge.

Beresford said, "I apologise for the indelicacy of my next statement, but the fact is, I was unable to get you out of your costume and I fear you may have fouled it whilst in your faint."

Oxford nodded, reddening.

Beresford laid a hand on his arm. "I shall have my man bring you a basin of hot water and some soap, towels, and fresh clothing. You look to be about my size, a little taller, perhaps. I shall also instruct the cook to prepare you something. Will that be satisfactory?"

"Very much so," replied Oxford, suddenly realising that he was famished.

"Good. I shall leave you to your ablutions. Please join me in the dining room when you are ready."

He stood and walked toward the door.

"Incidentally," he said, pausing, "your accent is unfamiliar-where are you from?"

"I was born and raised in Aldershot."

The marquess grunted. "No, that's not a Hampshire accent."

He opened the door to leave.

"What news of the queen?" Oxford blurted.

Beresford turned, with a puzzled expression. "Queen? Do you mean young Victoria? She's not quite the queen yet, my friend, though His Majesty is said to be on his deathbed."

Oxford frowned. "What date is it?"

"The fifteenth of June."

"Still June!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What year?"

"The year? Why, 1837, of course!" Beresford looked at his guest curiously. "Are you having problems with your memory, Mr. Oxford?"

"I-yes-a little."

"Perhaps you'll remember more once you have some food inside you. I'll see you downstairs."

He left the room and moments later his valet, a thin and stiffly mannered gentleman, sidled in carrying a large porcelain basin, two towels, and a bar of soap. The valet departed then returned with a full set of clothes. For a third time, he went away and came back, this time with a bucket of steaming water, which he poured into the basin.

Finally, he spoke: "Will you require anything else, sir?"

"No, thank you. What's your name?"

"Brock, sir. May I offer you a shave?"

"I'll do it myself, if you don't mind."

"Very good, sir. There is a bellpull beside the bed, here. Summon me when you're ready, and I'll escort you down to the dining room. May I take your, er, costume to be laundered?"

"The costume, no, Brock; I'd rather take care of that myself, if you don't mind. However, I have a suit on underneath and I'd be very grateful if you'd arrange for it to be washed. I'm afraid it's in rather a state."

Brock nodded.

Oxford sat up, removed the control panel from his chest, and slid his finger down the time suit's front seal. Brock's eyebrows rose slightly but his face remained impassive as the strange material fell open and Oxford shrugged out of it.

The suit beneath followed and was handed to the valet, along with the soiled underclothes.

Wordlessly, Brock departed.

Oxford washed, shaved awkwardly with the cutthroat razor, and put on the clothes Beresford had loaned him. They felt rough and irritating against his skin.

He turned the time suit inside-out and wiped the inner surface clean. The fish scales held no charge and, he guessed, had been flat for the past few days. A few minutes beneath the open sky would revitalise them. The control panel was severely damaged. Until it was repaired, he would be unable to travel. The most pressing problem, though, was that it was no longer able to transfer power from the suit's batteries to the helmet, which meant he had to somehow survive without augmented reality. Here, inside the house, with just a few people present, that wouldn't be a major issue. However, wider exposure to this time period might result in culture shock, which, in theory, could be intense enough to threaten his sanity.

He rang the bell and Brock reappeared.

"This way, sir," said the valet.

Oxford followed him out onto a broad landing and down an ornate staircase. As he descended, he noticed that the house was in an extreme state of disrepair. Its onetime opulence had sunk into a lazy decadence; the moulded trim around the edges of the ceilings, once painted in bright colours, was now flaked and faded; the wood-panelled walls were warped and split; the rugs, hangings, and curtains were threadbare; plaster had cracked; dust and cobwebs had gathered.

They reached the foot of the stairs and passed along a corridor, turned into another, and another.

"What a house to get lost in!" muttered Oxford.

"Darkening Towers is a very old mansion, sir," commented Brock. "The man who built it was somewhat eccentric and it has been added to many times over the years. The master purchased the estate less than a month ago and has not yet had the opportunity to effect repairs."

"It's a veritable maze!"

"The dining room, sir," said Brock, opening a door.

Oxford passed through into a long, shadow-filled room. It was hung all around with portraits of stern-looking elders. A chandelier was suspended over a banqueting table. Beresford rose as he entered.

"Ah, my dear Mr. Oxford, you appear much refreshed. I trust the clothes fit you?"

"Yes, thank you," replied the time traveller, though in truth they were a little tight.

Brock ushered him to the opposite end of the table and pulled out the chair for him.

He sat.

The valet bowed toward Beresford and left the room. His place was taken by a butler, who stepped to the table and poured red wine for the two men. A couple of maids hurried back and forth, bringing plates of meat and vegetables. The various odours seemed thick and cloying to Oxford; too rich and intense, as if the meal had been marinating in butters and fats before it was cooked. He eyed the food uncomfortably, noting the rivulets of grease on its surface, but, nevertheless, his stomach rumbled.