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The Victorian era. Long dreamy afternoons boating on the Thames and playing croquet on emerald lawns with girls in white frocks and fluttering hair ribbons. And later, tea under the willow tree, served in delicate Sèvres cups by bowing butlers, anxious to minister to one’s every whim, and those same girls, reading aloud from a slim volume of poetry, their voices floating like flower petals on the scented air. “All in the golden afternoon, where Childhood’s dreams are twined, In Memory’s mystic band—”
Finch shook his head. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Mr. Dunworthy.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Listen to him. He’ll fit right in.”
“…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Finch said. “He’s already suffering from advanced time-lag. Won’t that large a jump—?”
“Not necessarily,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “And after he’s completed his assignment, he can stay as long as he needs to to recover. You heard him, it’s a perfect holiday spot.”
“But in his condition, do you think he’ll be able to—” Finch said anxiously.
“It’s a perfectly straightforward job,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “A child could do it. The important thing is that it be done before Lady Schrapnell gets back, and Ned’s the only historian in Oxford who’s not off somewhere chasing after misericords. Take him over to the net and then ring up Time Travel and tell Chiswick to meet me there.”
The telephone bipped, and Finch answered it, then listened for a considerable length of time. “No, he was at the Royal Free,” he said finally, “but they decided to run a TWR, so they had to transport him to St. Thomas’s. Yes, in Lambeth Palace Road.” He listened again, holding the receiver some distance from his ear. “No, this time I’m certain.” He rang off. “That was Lady Schrapnell,” he said u
“What’s a TWR?” Mr. Dunworthy said.
“I invented it. I think Mr. Henry had best get over to the net to be prepped.”
Finch walked me over to the lab, which I was grateful for, especially as it seemed to me we were going completely the wrong direction, though when we got there, the door looked the same, and there was the same group of SPCC picketers outside.
They were carrying electric placards that read, “What’s wrong with the one we already have?,” “Keep Coventry in Coventry,” and “It’s Ours!” One of them handed me a flyer that began, “The restoration of Coventry Cathedral will cost fifty billion pounds. For the same amount of money, the present Coventry Cathedral could not only be bought back and restored, but a new, larger shopping center could be built to replace it.”
Finch pulled the tract out of my hand, gave it back to the picketer, and opened the door.
The net looked the same inside, too, though I didn’t recognize the pudgy young woman at the console. She was wearing a white lab coat, and her halo of cropped blonde hair made her look like a cherub rather than a net technician.
Finch shut the door behind us, and she whirled. “What do you want?” she demanded.
Perhaps more an archangel than a cherub.
“We need to arrange for a jump,” Finch said. “To Victorian England.”
“Out of the question,” she snapped.
Definitely an archangel. The sort that tossed Adam and Eve out of the Garden.
Finch said, “Mr. Dunworthy authorized it, Miss…”
“Warder,” she snapped.
“Miss Warder. This is a priority jump,” he said.
“They’re all priority jumps. Lady Schrapnell doesn’t authorize any other sort.” She picked up a clipboard and brandished it at us like a flaming sword. “Nineteen jumps, fourteen of them requiring 1940 ARP and WVS uniforms, which the wardrobe department is completely out of, and all the fixes. I’m three hours behind schedule on rendezvous, and who knows how many more priority jumps Lady Schrapnell will come up with before the day’s over.” She slammed the clipboard down. “I don’t have time for this. Victorian England! Tell Mr. Dunworthy it’s completely out of the question.” She turned back to the console and began hitting keys.
Finch, undaunted, tried another tack. “Where’s Mr. Chaudhuri?”
“Exactly,” she said, whirling round again. “Where is Badri, and why isn’t he here ru
“She didn’t send him to 1940, did she?” I asked. Badri was of Pakistani descent. He’d be arrested as a Japanese spy.
“No,” she said. “She made him drive her to London to look for some historian who’s gone missing. Which leaves me to run Wardrobe and the net and deal with people who waste my time asking stupid questions.” She crashed the clipboard down. “Now, if you don’t have any more of them, I have a priority fix to calculate.” She whirled back to the console and began pounding fiercely at the keys.
Or perhaps an arch-archangel, one of those beings with enormous wings and hundreds of eyes, “and they were terrible to see.” What were they called? Sarabands?
“I think I’d better go fetch Mr. Dunworthy,” Finch whispered to me. “You’d best stay here.”
I was more than glad to comply. I was begi
What were they called? Hylas had come upon them while he was fetching water from a pond, and they had pulled him into the water with them, twining their white arms about him, tangling him in their trailing auburn hair, drowning him in the dark, deep waters… .
I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes, Mr. Dunworthy was there, and the tech was threatening him with her clipboard.
“It’s out of the question,” she was saying. “I’ve got four fixes to do, eight rendezvous, and I’ve got to replace a costume one of your historians got wet and ruined.” She flipped violently through the sheets on the clipboard. “The soonest I can fit you in is Friday the seventh at half-past three.”
“The seventh?” Finch gurgled. “That’s next week!”
“It must be today,” Mr. Dunworthy said.
“Today?” she said, raising the clipboard like a weapon. “Today?”
Seraphim. “Full of eyes all around and within, and fire, and out of the fire went forth lightning.”
“It won’t require calculating new time coordinates,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “We’re using the ones Kindle came through from. And we can use the drop you’ve got set up at Muchings End.” He looked round at the lab. “Where’s the tech in charge of Wardrobe?”
“In 1932,” she said. “Sketching choir robes. On a priority jump for Lady Schrapnell to see whether their surplices were linen or cotton. Which means I’m in charge of Wardrobe. And the net. And everything else around here.” She flipped the pages back down to their original position and set it down on the net console. “The whole thing’s out of the question. Even if I could fit you in, he can’t go like that, and, besides, he’d need to be prepped on Victorian history and customs.”