The Space Between Time Read online

  “Do you think you really saw a Martian?”

  “Yes. Or a creature like it. It was sitting on the globe. And to answer your question - yes. We should go and see what he is up to.”

  -----------------------------

  J.

  As we approached the door, he came out.

  “What did you see?” I said, hoping the creature was a figment of my imagination generated by the highly charged static in the cavern.

  He turned and carefully closed the door. Then he whispered, “There are Martians in there.”

  The plural didn’t escape me.

  “How many? I only saw one before I dropped the torch.” I whispered.

  “There were at least three.”

  “At least?”

  “The shadows from the candle made it difficult to see them.”

  “Did they contact you?” said Elizabeth.

  He hesitated then said, “I felt a communication.”

  “Come on! Talk straight for once. Where did they come from?”

  “They came here because they picked up the signal from your apparatus.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and it has set up a portal between here and Mars.”

  “You mean we or they can travel between here and Mars?”

  “It would seem so.”

  Elizabeth brought us back. “Never mind those creatures. Has your infernal machine caused the world to change? Are we back in our time?”

  “No idea.” I said. “I reckon we have two choices. One: go back and see what the Martians are up to and how they got here or two: run away. I’d like to opt for the second one. All we know is we’re in a passage. We have no idea what’s outside.”

  “And we have only these candles for light. Unless you want to go back into the cavern and retrieve your torch,” she said.

  My look gave her my answer.

  “Then I suggest,” she said, “we use what is left of these candles to our advantage and return to the world above and whatever it holds for us, or at least to the Vestry to borrow more candles.’

  There was no arguing with that. We returned quietly up the passage leaving the Martians behind. Though on several occasions we did look back to see if they were following us.

  ------------------------

  E.

  We eventually arrived at the vestry door. After spying through the latch hole to ascertain no one was in sight we quietly opened the door and all three of us entered. My heart sank. It was as we had left it, including an absence of the few candles we had borrowed. My fears were finally confirmed that the experiment had failed when we entered the nave and found the same Romanesque windows and star-studded ceiling.

  Without any exchange of words, we moved as one to a pew and sat down.

  It was getting late in the evening and the great hall was lit by only half a dozen electric lamps. In their weak glow the pillars cast long dark shadows across the floor. It took me a few minutes to summon up sufficient energy to bring my thoughts back into focus. Mr Wells was writing in his notebook and poor James was looking dejectedly at the floor. I tried once again to recount silently to myself the events of the past two days. There were many unexplained gaps which I eventually realised all pointed to the person in the blue jacket as their source. I turned to him.

  “Mr Wells, I need to ask you some questions.” I said.

  “Please do.” He said, still writing notes.

  “Good luck,” said James with his head buried between his knees.

  “When you arrived at the river were we not already in this world?”

  “Yes.”

  “And pray tell me from where had you come?”

  “Why, Midhurst, at the Angel.”

  “And were you staying there when the Martians informed you of the world change?”

  “No. I was staying at my grandparent’s hostelry at the Unicorn in Chichester.”

  James awoke from his despondency. “Isn’t that pub supposed to be haunted?”

  “I have heard such stories from my father. He told me of ghostly apparitions. One was of a Roman soldier.”

  “Not surprising being on top of a Roman city. Made a good story I presume to attract the locals. Sorry, Elizabeth, I interrupted. What did you do next?”

  I was gratified to see a glimmer of enthusiasm from James. Mr Wells continued.

  “When the world changed, I took a cab and tram to Midhurst and lodged at the Angel, from whence I hired the launch to find you.”

  “You were lucky finding us there, weren’t you?” said James suspiciously.

  “I did not know when you would appear. I travelled up and down the river for almost two weeks before I found you.”

  “But I thought you said you went up to London to see your publisher. You could have missed us.” James said, now awakening a little.

  “That only occupied a morning via the express on Stane Street. They were most insistent that I went. It was a risk but as it turned out quite fortuitous.”

  “Quite some risk.”

  “They were very persuasive.”

  “How?”

  “They said they had information on a person who had time travelled and wished to know my view on it. I thought it might have been about you.”

  “Us?”

  “Remember, I had been asked to find you. I thought it might be a clue to your whereabouts. There are not many people whom I know who can travel across time. It seemed too much of a coincidence to reject.”

  I said, “Perhaps the Martians wanted you to obtain information on Mr Tesla’s accident.”

  “Afterwards the thought occurred to me also.”

  As I contemplated this, James said, “OK. I’ll go along with that but you said you borrowed clothes from Elizabeth’s sister. Where or when was that?”

  “I contacted her by telegram at Hamgreen and she brought the…”

  “You can talk to my sister Flory?” I interjected rather loudly; my voice unfortunately echoing off the walls and disturbing some parishioners whom I was glad to see could now hear us.

  “Yes. By telegram”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  The man is incorrigible! Our Mr Wells seems to be devoid of any social skills or empathy. Heaven help Isabella Wells if her husband is the same. I will remember to go easy on James next time he merits a verbal lashing.

  “How can I contact her?”

  “At the Telegraph Office.”

  I turned to James. “We must go there now!”

  James looked at his watch. “It’s past midnight. It’ll be closed.”

  He saw my impatience and said, “We’ll go first thing in the morning. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “Just a minute. Is she of this world or ours?”

  “She is of ours.” said Wells, “It seems your home continues to have special qualities making it impervious, or resistant, to time.”

  “Then she is out of her time and alone! We must go to her!”

  “We have to wait till the morning, Elizabeth. Even if we try to go there now, how are we going to get there? Do you think we’ll get a cab or tram at this time of night?”

  I turned to Mr Wells.

  “I am afraid there is no transport at this time of night. You must wait until the morning.”

  I could see no argument with this and reluctantly returned to the Inn. I did not sleep well.

  -----------------------------

  J.

  Despite what I thought was the pressing need to get back to our world I realised I wasn’t going to get the full use of Elizabeth’s faculties until we’d seen her sister. And Wells insisted that we check on Isabel before we went to Hamgreen. I kept out of the ensuing argument over breakfast as to which task should take priority.

  Elizabeth won and we were dragged off, almost running, to the Telegraph Office. After some heated discussion on what to say we managed to send a telegram. We waited and waited for a reply, while Elizabeth pa
ced around the foyer. It was almost two minutes before the answer came.

  ‘Am safe and well. Do come.’

  Then the three of us took the tram to Isabel Wells’ house. It had started raining and it made the town look shabbier. Here and there coal smoke rose from chimneys.

  When we got to the road where Isabel lived, I whispered to Elizabeth, “I hope she hasn’t found the other Wells.”

  “My god! Supposing he’s in the house!”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to see TWO sociopaths get in a fight.”

  “Maybe you should go in first,” she suggested.

  “Me?”

  “No. You’re right. Another man turning up may not help. I will do it.”

  When we arrived at the house we explained the situation and possible consequences to Wells who eventually understood enough to agree to Elizabeth’s plan.

  She knocked on the door and to our surprise an old lady dressed in black answered. I presumed it was Isabel’s mother and I could see Elizabeth was having difficulty explaining her presence. Probably the woman was deaf as a post I thought. I was about to join Elizabeth when she came back looking flustered.

  “What happened?” I said when she returned.

  “She said she is the maid and told me Isabel is visiting a friend!”

  “Did she say when she’d be back?”

  “No. she does not know. But does not expect to see her until this evening.”

  “Then we must go into town to search for her,” said Wells.

  “I am not delaying seeing my sister. And who is to say she has gone to town?”

  Elizabeth had that entrenched expression she used when nothing was going to persuade her from the path she’d chosen.

  “Maybe we can persuade that old lady to leave a note for her.” I said, hoping to calm things down a little.

  “Yes! What should we write? Oh, I know, we will tell her if she turns up to come to my home.”

  Wells said, “I agree.” And pulling out a note book, he scribbled Elizabeth’s address on a page and was about to march off to the house when she grabbed him and said, “No, let me do it. I think you turning up may cause confusion.”

  And with that accomplished we walked down to the tram station in the rain to find a way to Elizabeth’s home at Hamgreen.

  ---------------------------

  E.

  At Cocking, we alighted from the electric tram and enquired at a bakery, which seemed to be the only place with signs of life in the village, for a cab to take us to the Lodge at Hamgreen. The lady, who had the white powdery complexion of one exposed to a lifetime of flour, directed us across the road to a young man dressed in dark green livery, fast asleep on the driving seat of an open carriage, with a tarpaulin draped over him to keep off the rain. James managed to wake him and explain our requirement. For some reason, he seemed reluctant and on further enquiry he said it was because it was outside the pale. What this meant I did not at first understand but I was pleased to see he eventually agreed to an over-generous offer for the fare and we clambered into the open and rather wet carriage while the man made a makeshift cover with a tarpaulin sheet to shelter us.

  I expected him to retrieve horses from somewhere but instead he climbed into the front seat and pulled a bronze lever. At first nothing happened. Then we heard a swooshing noise beneath us which gradually got faster until after about a minute it became a smooth hum.

  James thought it might work on the principle of a Stirling engine though he could not ascertain the heat source.

  Then with the pull of another lever, the carriage jolted forward on to the road, just missing the Midhurst Chichester tram which sounded its horn in annoyance several times. Our cabbie in reply made a number of gesticulations, despite the presence of a lady, which were more than obvious in their implication. I was about to admonish him but James stopped me as he worried I would not react well to receiving a similar response. When I suggested that I would expect him to defend my honour if such an event occurred, he said that judging by the girth and fitness of the cabbie, he might be unable to fulfil my expectations.

  I should record that the attitude of men of his time in defending a woman’s honour is sometimes difficult to understand. James says his philosophy is simple and follows Tacitus’ dictum. I must concur that on occasion running away to live another day has been the most appropriate option.

  Just before the hill up to the Downs the cabbie turned the carriage left on to a straight chalk street and worked up to a speed of about fifteen miles an hour, which we all agreed, judging by the meandering of the carriage and the depth of the rifes either side, was more than adequate. The rain grew heavier and much time was spent trying to avoid water dripping or pouring through the various holes in the tarpaulin on to our clothes. To add to our misery the wind had risen and sudden squalls of rain would blow in from the sides just when we thought we had found a dry place to hide. On one occasion, I inadvertently pushed the slack tarpaulin roof up to relieve its pressure on my head from the accumulated water. Unfortunately, this caused a deluge of water to be released through a hole into James’ lap. I confess I had some sympathy with his short tirade on my temporary idiocy although his language could have been less anatomical. After a little further discussion involving slurs on our respective characters and tempers and trying to dry his wet trousers we eventually agreed it should not be brought up in conversation again.

  During the temporary silence that followed, now and again through a gap in the tarpaulin, I saw glimpses of the countryside. I was struck by the absence of woodland and it reminded me of eastern parts of Sussex which had been denuded of forests for the ships of the Napoleonic wars. We passed dozens of little fields bounded by small hedgerows, except in this world they were square or oblong and the tracks ran straight between hedgerow borders. In fact, I do not think we saw a bend in a road anywhere. James said it reminded him of a visit by a friend from the Americas who after travelling about twenty miles along the winding, twisting, main roads of Sussex suggested England could save a fortune in the import of motor fuel by just straightening out all the roads.

  After about half an hour of some discomfort, and with water beginning to seep down my neck the carriage suddenly came to a halt and the driver pulled back the awning sufficiently to let us see his rain-soaked face and also, unfortunately, to let in the rain which by now was pouring down in buckets.

  “The road ends here at the pale. This is as far as I go.”

  I looked out from under the tarpaulin and saw that the road and fields had abruptly stopped at a thirty-foot-high chalk and earthen wall stretching right and left into the distance behind which stood a dense fir tree forest.

  James spoke to the driver, “We paid you to take us to Hamgreen.”

  “It’s just down that track,” he said, ignoring him and pointing at a gap in the wall into the forest.

  “Why don’t you carry on? Is it a magical forest full of strange beasts?”

  “Do you take me for a primitive?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Magic is for children.”

  “So what’s the wall for?”

  “Keep the wild life off the fields.” He replied giving us a look indicating that that was the most obvious thing in the world. Then taking pity on us, he said, “Look. The cab can’t travel on this track ‘cos it’ll break the under-carriage”

  “But it’s raining! We haven’t got any coats!” James continued.

  “This is as far as I go. If you want to change your mind, I’ll take you back to Cocking. No extra charge.”

  “What do we do if we can’t find it?”

  “You will. Now make up your minds I have other customers waiting.”

  “Ok, take us back and we’ll find someone who will.” said James.

  I immediately protested. “We cannot go back! I must see my sister.”

  “I’m not being abandoned in the middle of countryside I don’t even know. We haven’t even got a map.”

  I was
saved from further argument by Mr Wells.

  “Those telegraph wires,” he said pointing at a line of wooden poles along the road. “Do they go to Hamgreen?”

  I looked to the side of the road and saw the wires disappear into the woods.

  “Must do,” said the driver, “There’s no other place in the forest.”

  “Thank you. Then we will take your leave and follow them.”

  James shrugged. “Well, if you two want to try it, I suppose I’m coming.”

  Then with no more ado we decanted from the carriage into the rain.

  We watched the cab turn and go back to Cocking and comfort. James said, “Come on then. Let’s get in the woods. It’ll be drier there until it stops raining.”

  We passed through the earthen wall towards the trees following the poles. Puddles were already forming. I was thankful we were wearing our walking boots although an umbrella would have been useful, for I was nearly soaked to the skin.

  As we entered the wood I was immediately struck by its darkness. It felt quite eerie. This feeling was not helped by James who said, “This reminds me of Mirk Wood. I hope we don’t meet any Orcs.”

  I started. “I thought you said Orcs weren’t real.”

  “Not in my world. God knows what they’ve got here.”

  The thought of Orcs made me shudder a little for one of the first moving pictures James had shown me was entitled Lord of the Rings during which I spent much of the time during its performance hiding behind a cushion trying to believe that none of the creatures portrayed were real.

  We followed the wires further into the forest. Thankfully they followed a wide track. James was holding me quite closely but I was not quite sure whether it was for his support or mine. He whispered, “The cabbie said the wall was to keep out the wildlife. What do we really expect to meet in the woods in your time? Deer, boar, wolves?”

  “In my world,” I said, “I only ever saw deer and rabbits.”

  “Let’s hope it’s the same here.”

  As if to prove my point, three frightened roe deer followed by a stag suddenly emerged from the trees in front of us and ran across our path. I refrained once again from admonishing James on the language of his exclamation.