Once Upon a Future Page 16

  For example, Cassandra Austen pointedly asked, just after Shorter had stepped outside the room: “Wherever did you find such interesting servants?”

  I mumbled something about the staff being long attached to the family, and Jane responded: “Truly? I had the sense that they were entirely new.”

  Are we being played with? Or was this just another seemingly innocent, offhanded remark? I honestly don’t know. Maybe Pat will have some additional insights.

  We did get an excellent series of videos of the entire session, so we’ve now met about 60% of our mission objectives. I think Shorter and Long were both very pleased. I certainly hope so.

  Log Entry #18: Patricia Wardon

  Shorter has asked me to record my impressions of this morning’s meeting with the Austen sisters, but I am less certain now whether my initial assessment of the situation was even close to being accurate. These ladies are extraordinarily subtle, I think, and possess more intelligence and discernment than we have given them credit for.

  I found Cassandra Elizabeth Austen both quick and observant, very much like Mrs. Chamberlayne in that regard. I tried to minimize my own participation in the early conversation, and watched C.E.A. quite closely. I think I caught her at least twice trying to do the same thing to me.

  I also noticed her exchanging at least one careful glance with Jane, who nodded slightly in response, and that alone has convinced me that we are completely out of our league here, and do not understand even one measure of what is actually occurring. I’m sure that Shorter will debunk me for an idiot for having changed my opinion once again, but I really do believe that women possess (in general) a keener sense of these things than do the male sex. The Austens are playing some kind of elaborate game, and I think we’re the damn fools, every blasted one of us, for not realizing it.

  They kept referring to Mrs. Chamberlayne’s party tomorrow evening, as if that would somehow resolve everything, but what is it precisely that needs resolving? One of their male friends is apparently going to be joining us there, and they’re anxious to show him off.

  There was one point right at the end of our tête-à-tête when Cassandra leaned over to me, and said, in a conspiratorial tone, “You really do understand, my dear.” She looked me right in the eye, and I had this irrational, momentary thought that she was just so very old, so weary and beset by time. Yet, she’s only two years further along than Jane, both being in their twenties.

  And then Jane said, “She does indeed, my dear, dear Elder sister.”

  There’s that word again. Elder. It means something, I know it does, but Jake and Shorter just laugh at my notions.

  Fools, fools, we’re all of us fools here.

  Log Entry (Personal): Patricia Wardon

  Jowell still wants me to run away with him, which is wholly impossible. It could change history, even though I can’t bear his children so long as I have an implant. But maybe he actually did sire children in our timeline, and maybe one or more of them had children of their own, and...oh, lordy, it is just all so complicated. I must think. I will see him again at tonight’s party.

  Log Entry #19: Jake Lawson

  Our soirée takes place this evening. Yesterday, Long and Newton surreptitiously wired Mrs. C.’s place, so we’ll have a complete record of the occasion. Shorter has already ordered us to begin preparations for our withdrawal, with a target date of no later than this weekend. All things considered, I won’t miss this place much, but I suspect Pat will. For Shorter, Long, and the rest, though, it’s just another job.

  Those who lack imagination are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

  * * * *

  Inquiry into Time Survey #A0860:

  Official Transcripts of the Trial:

  Testimony of Defendant

  Patricia Elinor Wardon

  Question from Judge Number Two: Please explain to us your relationship to Jowell Chandler Mancefield.

  Response of Ms. Wardon: As I have already stated, I entered while on duty into an entirely inappropriate and unprofessional affair with Mr. Mancefield, a native of the target timeline, and I very much regret having done so. I do not fully understand myself how this could have happened. However, there can be no possible excuse for my actions.

  Question from Judge Number Six: Please relate to us the events of the evening of Wednesday, the third day of June, in the year 1801.

  Response of Ms. Wardon: I respectfully request an hour’s recess to consult with my attorney.

  Ruling of Judge Number One: Petition granted. This Court will now take an early break for lunch and reconvene promptly at one p.m. [bangs gavel]

  * * * *

  Log Entry (Personal): Patricia Wardon

  After we broke for lunch, I did spend fifteen minutes talking with my lawyer, Aaron Adrian, about one specific point of law, but then I left the courthouse, just wanting to get away. I wandered slowly down to Olvera Street, where I bought some carne asada tacos from a street vendor, and found a bench in the shade.

  My life is such a mess, Theo. There’s no doubt whatever that my career’s completely shot, and the only question is whether I’ll be spending the next ten years laboring in the maximum security facility on northern Santa Catalina Island, or maybe in Baja.

  I bit deeply into the greasy goo. It was so good, but I could feel the indigestion already grabbing hold of my gut, and I knew I had a long afternoon to look forward to.

  “Mind if I sit here?” someone said.

  I didn’t even bother to look up, I was so pissed.

  “No, go ahead,” I said.

  What could I possibly tell the judges? How could they ever believe my cockeyed theory of what really happened at Bath in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and One?

  Well, they wouldn’t, of course. I stuffed down the second taco and brushed my hands together, shaking them out over the concrete. Then I sipped deeply from my iced tea. Anything to put off my return.

  “My name’s Jack,” came the voice of my neighbor.

  “What?” I said, startled from my reverie.

  “Jack,” he said. “My name?”

  Shit, I thought to myself, now someone’s hitting on me.

  I looked at him. He was really old, in his late forties at least, maybe early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair just starting to turn gray. There was something vaguely familiar about him.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  Now that was a really stupid question, girl, I thought to myself.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He had a disarmingly disingenuous smile. “I’m waiting for my wife. She’s supposed to meet me here for lunch.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Oh, thank God!

  “Uh, do you come here often?” I asked.

  Jesus, I was starting to sound like a teenager.

  “All the time,” he said. “When you get to be my age, you try to enjoy life one day at a time.”

  He smiled at me again. “You know, I couldn’t help noticing that you seemed, well, a little preoccupied. I’m not trying to butt in, really I’m not, but if there’s anything I can do....”

  Yeah, right, fella, like maybe give me back my life? I have been so stupid, so goddamned dumb about things.

  I just shook my head in response. “I don’t think there’s much anyone can do,” I said, surprising myself with my candor. “I have to decide whether to tell someone an unbelievable truth or to fly with the more convincing lie.” I snorted. “I lose either way.”

  “Well,” he said, “if it’s a toss-up, then I always go with the truth. It’s the elder and more sincere child of fantasy.”

  What? I thought, looking at him again. God, I’ve seen that face before. But where?

  “Ah, there she is,” he said, rising to his feet. “Katie!” he yelled, waving his arm.

  Then he turned to me, smiled rather sadly at my down-turned face, dropped a small package onto my lap, and ran to his waiting wife. I couldn’t really see her from w
here I sat: too many people were now crowding the Square.

  So I picked up the envelope, looked down at the address, and my world turned topsy-turvy around me. I knew that hand. I knew it! My eyes started leaking suddenly, I just couldn’t stop them dribbling, so I stuffed the thing into my purse without even opening the seal, pulled out some tissue, and then headed back toward the courthouse.

  * * * *

  Inquiry into Time Survey #A0860:

  Official Transcripts of the Trial:

  Testimony of Defendant

  Patricia Elinor Wardon

  (Continued)

  Order from Judge Number Six: Would the Clerk please read my last question back to the defendant?

  Response from the Court Clerk: “Please relate to us the events of the evening of Wednesday, the third day of June, in the year 1801.”

  Response of Ms. Wardon: Mr. Lawson and I took a phaeton from Green Park to Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlayne’s residence on Gay Street about six p.m., where we were graciously welcomed. Already present were the two Miss Austens, their parents, Rev. and Mrs. Austen, Mr. Mancefield, and Mr. William Sax, an out-of-town friend of the Austens. Soon to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Dunn, Miss Anabell Wickheizer, Mr. Gilbert, Miss Caroline Worthing, and several members of the local community. Altogether the group averaged about fifteen individuals, coming and going at various times throughout the evening.

  At first, the party seemed much like any other get-together of the era. Mrs. Chamberlayne gave an impromptu recital, and Miss Worthing sang several French pieces, accompanied on the pianoforte by Miss Wickheizer. Later, I participated in two small dances, each with three or four couples.

  At some point in the evening Mrs. Chamberlayne introduced me to Mr. Sax, who had arrived the previous day from London. He was about forty or forty-five years of age, and had a large bald head, strikingly clear blue eyes, and a receding chin. I found him absolutely riveting. His flamboyance, his theatrical gestures, his penetratingly clear voice, all combined to heighten his presence among our otherwise low-key group.

  But he was not very happy, as we were soon to discover. After an hour or so he and the Chamberlaynes and the Dunns went off by themselves into an adjoining room, where they began a muted but very animated argument over something. I tried to overhear, but could not make out the details. Then I heard him exclaim, “I will not agree!” and he rushed out into the main parlor where the rest of us congregated.

  His face had turned beet red, his eyes were wild. As he lurched towards the table with the bottles of spirits, he unintentionally ran headlong into Mr. Mancefield, dashing a glass from his hand.

  “Watch your step, sir,” the latter exclaimed, pushing Sax backwards. He stumbled and fell heavily to the floor, bumping the back of his head. Then he swore an obscene oath, and despite his injury, swiftly came to his feet, brandishing a short knife. He rushed at Mancefield, but the squire pulled a small pistol from under his coat, and let fly. There was a loud bang and a noisome cloud of smoke.

  The ball just grazed Sax’s left side, leaving no more than a minor flesh wound, but continued onward to strike the person standing behind him. Jake was now writhing in agony on the floor, clutching at his midsection.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” he gasped.

  Edmund Chamberlayne pinioned Sax’s arms behind him. I heard him hiss into Sax’s ear the words, “We will deal with you later. For your own sake, get the hell out of this country. Europe or the Americas, I do not care which, but leave us now.”

  “Very well,” the much subdued Sax mumbled. He shook himself free from his friend’s grasp, picked up his cloak, and headed out the door.

  Mancefield had been wounded in the shoulder and arm by Sax’s knife, and was trying to struggle back to his feet. Mrs. Chamberlayne restrained him, murmuring small words of consolation while she tried to stop the bleeding. One of the Austens—Jane, I think—brought her a flask containing an oily swirl of dark liquid, and Mrs. C. forced it down his somewhat unwilling throat. Within moments he began to relax.

  Cecil caught me watching the scenario, and mouthed, “Laudanum.” I nodded, my mouth gaping wide with shock.

  Cassandra Austen was bending over the prone body of my “brother.” She motioned to me and I hurried over.

  “This is life-threatening,” she said. “You must get him back to home immediately, if you wish him to live. Where do you want us to take him?”

  Without thinking, I responded, “The cassoon.” Then I put my hand to my mouth, having suddenly realized what I had just said.

  “This is no time for pretense,” she said, giving me a wry smile. “We know what you are. We know who you are. We have often encountered such visitors to the past.”

  Then she rose, and motioned again with her hand. “Mr. Dunn,” she yelled, “come quickly.”

  “We will take care of Mr. Mancefield,” she said, staring right at me. “He will trouble neither of us again. But you must remove yourselves and your things at once, and return whence you came. And you must not take anything away with you from this house.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Then I went to find Shorter and Long. I ordered them, under the provisions of Article VIII-g, which gave me command of the expedition as the sole surviving primary investigator during a time meltdown situation, to destroy our equipment and records in the Chamberlaynes’ home, and to prepare everything at Green Park for immediate transit uptime.

  When I returned to Lawson, they had put an emergency compress of some kind on poor Jake’s wound, slowing the bleeding to a mere ooze, and had got him to swallow laudanum or some other tranquilizing drug, greatly easing his immediate suffering. They were sliding several sheets under his body as a makeshift sling, preparatory to lifting him onto a door that someone had found.

  Once they had secured him, several of the servants raised the slab of wood and carried it out front. A flatbed wagon pulled up at the same time, and they hoisted his body into the back, gently covering it with a quilt.

  I joined him there with Jane Austen, holding his hand tightly as we started down the road. Even with the drugs in his system, Jake was wide awake, and kept turning his head in all directions, trying to see where he was being taken. I soothed him the best I could. When we reached the caisson, they eased him down the bank and onto the belled bottom of the ruin.

  Jane hugged me and wished me well, and Cassandra and the others shook my hand one by one, and then they departed, all of them. I was left standing there alone in the night, listening to the chirping of the crickets, until the carriages from Green Park started arriving some fifteen minutes later. It took us three hours to complete our emergency evacuation, but Jake survived, and so did the videos, audios, and transcriptions we had made at Green Park.

  Question from Judge Number Six: You state that Austen and her friends seemed to know who you were. How could this be possible?

  Response of Ms. Wardon: I don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is that, to the best of my knowledge, none of us made any gross errors. I’ve noted the several small verbal lapses that may have occurred, but these were very minor, certainly insufficient to have garnered this kind of response. My relationship with Mancefield, while inappropriate, in no way compromised our identity or mission. I was very careful what I said and did, and I’m sure the others were as well.

  No, I truly believe that the Austens, the Chamberlaynes, the Dunns, and possibly others, knew precisely who and what we were from the very beginning of our investigation, and played some elaborate sort of game with us, something which they found quite amusing, perhaps even entertaining. I had the sense that they regarded us much in the same way as you might view the inhabitants of a third world country, as backward primitives who understood nothing of modern society.

  I’ve thought about this a great deal, but I have no better sense today of who they were and what they were about than I did then.

  Response from Judge Number One: Are there any other questions for the defendant? Hearing none, I declare these pro
ceedings adjourned for the day. This court will begin its deliberations on a final judgment at ten a.m. tomorrow morning.

  * * * *

  Log Entry (Personal): Patricia Wardon

  So it’s over, all but the shouting. I’ll certainly be dismissed from the service. As for the rest, well, “kumquat may,” as they say, I’ll survive. Maybe I’ll luck out, and just get a slap on the wrist. It’s been known to happen.

  I did some searching last week in the old Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage. Sir Jowell Mancefield, Bart., inherited his uncle’s title and manor house three years after our visit, married Lady Bénine and had eleven children by her, and lived to a ripe old age. Although such emoluments were abolished years ago, the title yet survives, at least in theory, unto the present day.

  Jane Austen, of course, died in 1817, and her sister Cassandra in 1845; neither one ever married. Cassandra was Jane’s sole heir, and she sifted through the family papers before she passed on, burning any letters that she thought revealed too much of a personal nature, and cutting passages out of the others that do survive.

  They’re all long dead now, or so we’re led to believe.

  There’s just one little problem, something which I haven’t mentioned (and never will) to those distinguished gentlemen who currently sit as judge and jury on my case, or even to my former employers. Just a single sheet of paper, bearing the letterhead of the Beverly Hilliard Hotel, personally signed, sealed, and delivered by one Jack (or John) Donne (for that’s who I think it was). On it was penned a message in an archaic hand, a style and form that I immediately recognized. It went something this:

  Letter #11: Jane Austen to Patricia Wardon

  Beverly Hills, California

  Tuesday 1 June 2032

  My dear Patsy,