by Winona Kent
“He requires your attention.”
Mr. Deeley obliged, excusing himself, and with a bemused look, followed Charlie back to the open kitchen door. Mr. Rankin was bent over in the garden, examining the tall foxgloves growing up on either side of the path.
“Ned,” said Mr. Deeley. “Do Mrs. Foster’s flowers meet with your approval?”
Mr. Rankin stood up.
“The flowers are handsome and well-tended,” he said. “And I am sorry to interrupt your evening, Shaun, but the lesser Monsieur Duran appears to be in urgent need of our assistance.”
His first name was Shaun. Charlie had wondered what it was, but hadn’t been certain of the etiquette involved in finding out.
Mr. Deeley was Shaun, and Mr. Rankin was Ned.
She smiled as she followed Shaun Deeley and Ned Rankin down the road. Tom and Jack had decided to trail along as well, although Mary had been forbidden by Sarah, and had therefore been left behind, in a very poor mood indeed.
They walked in a small group towards The Dog’s Watch Inn, with Mr. Deeley leading Marie-Claire.
“I heard a very pleasant melody as I walked up the road to the cottage,” Mr. Rankin commented. “Was that you, Shaun?”
“It was,” Mr. Deeley confirmed. “Ably assisted by the talented Mrs. Collins. Did you like it?”
“The music was unfamiliar to me,” Mr. Rankin replied, with a great deal of thought. “Yet it was not displeasing. I found it…” He paused, to think of the word. “Indelible.”
“I shall play it again for you at the manor,” Mr. Deeley promised. “You will be able to learn it on Monsieur Duran’s guitar.”
Lemuel Ferryman, Charlie knew from her research, was an enterprising individual whose father had been a butcher, and whose father before him, an undertaker. In fact, the entire Ferryman family seemed to have prided itself on their canny ability to detect what would always be in demand.
Fanny Ferryman, Lemuel’s older sister, was the madam of a highly-sought after house of ill repute in a notorious neighborhood in Portsmouth.
And Edgar Ferryman, their younger brother, was a tax collector.
“Mr. Deeley,” Lemuel Ferryman said, greeting him at the door to the inn. “And Mr. Rankin. And half of the Foster family. I appear to have no shortage of diversions this evening. If you would be so kind.”
He nodded at a group of locals who had gathered in a circle in the centre of the floor, creating a kind of improvised boxing ring.
Charlie, Tom and Jack stayed where they were, in the safety of the doorway, while Mr. Deeley and Mr. Rankin waded into the crowd.
Occupying the centre of the boxing ring were the lesser Monsieur Duran—looking rather the worse for wear, Charlie thought, his shirt-tails askew, his buttons torn open, his face bloodied—and a gentleman Tom recognized as George King, from the village.
“He is the older brother of Rose,” Tom provided, “who was employed as a housemaid at the manor. But she was dismissed last week.”
“For the honour of my sister,” Mr. King said, landing his fist squarely on the lesser Monsieur Duran’s nose, “I swear, sir—you shall die!”
Another villager, identified by Tom as John Wallis, who had been given temporary custody of George King’s tankard, cheered him on. “You tell him, sir! Remind the croque-monsieur just who it was won the Battle of Waterloo!”
Mr. Wallis’s friend, a soldier called Henry Cole, who, according to Jack, was missing most of his left arm as the result of an altercation with one of Napoleon’s best swordsmen, drained his own mug of ale. “Send the damnable frog back to his stinking swamp!” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“You are all beneath my consideration,” the lesser Monsieur Duran scowled, drunkenly. “You are all the commonest of scum!”
“A fine way to speak to the citizens of the country that offered you sanctuary,” George King countered. “It is a great pity Madame la Guillotine was not able to entertain you in her parlour following your peasants’ popular revolt!”
The lesser Monsieur Duran responded to this with a wild swing at Mr. King’s nose, missing it completely.
Clearly unused to hand-to-hand combat, and even more clearly, somewhat of a coward when it came to actual physical pain, the lesser Monsieur Duran then immediately lost his footing. The momentum propelled him backwards and directly into Mr. Wallis’ awaiting arms.
Mr. Wallis immediately propped the lesser Monsieur Duran upright, which allowed Mr. King to respond with a neat upper cut to his chin, sending him to the floor, where he lay for a moment, stunned.
The assembled villagers cheered, toasting George King’s victory with their ale.
“A swift kick in the canards would suit him well now!” Mr. Cole suggested, encouragingly.
“Come on!” Mr. King shouted, at the crumpled heap that was the lesser Monsieur Duran, cowering on the floor. “Up! I will not strike a man when he is down!”
The lesser Monsieur Duran, ever mindful of his own sense of self-preservation, wisely remained where he was.
“Vous êtes un cochon dégoûtant,” he replied, sourly, spitting out some blood, and most of a tooth.
George King removed his tankard from Mr. Wallis’s hand and hurled the dregs of its contents at the lesser Monsieur Duran’s face. “Get up! And speak the King’s English while you call England your home, you snail sucking swine!”
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Mr. Deeley said, good-naturedly, at last deciding the time had come to take action. “Monsieur Duran, sir, you seem to be in need of some assistance. Come—we will ensure your safe journey back to the manor.”
Mr. Deeley bent down, firmly grasping a left arm, while Mr. Rankin took hold of the right. To a chorus of boos, the lesser Monsieur Duran was hauled to his feet.
“You leave him to us, Shaun,” Mr. Wallis advised.
“We shall see him home safely,” Mr. Cole added, in a voice that was less a reassurance than a promise of certain malice.
“We never learn, do we, sir,” Mr. Rankin added, in the lesser Monsieur Duran’s ear, as he and Mr. Deeley assisted him past Charlie, Jack and Tom, and deposited him, head first, face down and mostly sideways, over Marie-Claire’s accommodating saddle.
Chapter 15
Do you or Sam know anything about a cousin, Catherine Collins? Married to someone who died before 1825. Need to find out more.
“Mrs. Collins,” Nick began, his notepad at the ready, and his excellent note-taking pen—which he’d been given the Christmas before by Naomi—poised above it. “Please tell me…”
What? He had no idea where to start. Please tell me everything about your life, from the very beginning until now? Whenever now might happen to be?
Mrs. Collins wasn’t even listening to him. She’d found Nick’s iPod, hidden under some papers on his desk. And she would not now relinquish it, having discovered three Shadows tunes that Charlie had transferred over from Jeff’s collection years earlier: Apache, Wonderful Land and Atlantis. As well as a number of songs by Cliff Richard, and the full soundtracks for both Summer Holiday and The Young Ones.
“But this is wondrous,” she marvelled, holding her hands over the ear buds, to the exclusion of all other sounds, including Nick’s voice. “If only these musicians were to inhabit the sitting rooms of London, we should witness an expeditious end to the torment of ponderous women who cannot sing, inflicting songs on a pianoforte they cannot play!”
“Might we get on with my questions?” Nick said, very loudly.
She’d agreed to be interviewed in exchange for Nick paying for her sword. It was an expensive trade-off. But Charlie was worth it.
With great reluctance, Mrs. Collins removed the ear buds, and switched off the iPod.
“Can you tell me your full name?”
“Certainly. I was born Catherine Mary Harding, in Christchurch, in the county of Hampshire. Although, as you know, my married name is Collins.”
“And how are you related to Sarah Foster?” Nick asked.
Nick took a moment to think this through. Family relationships had always confounded him, in spite of his having a meticulous brain when it came to fundamental science.
Seeing his confusion, Mrs. Collins continued: “My cousin’s name before her marriage to Mr. Foster was also Harding. Her father was Mr. Ebenezer Harding, the eldest of five siblings, who were, in order of birth following him, Mr. Bernard Harding, Mr. Darwin Harding, Mr. Lyndon Harding and Mr. Osbert Harding. The last, Mr. Osbert Harding, is my father.”
Mrs. Collins paused, to give Nick a chance to write it all down in his notebook.
“Ah,” he said, as it all began, slowly, to make sense. “First cousins, then.”
“I have five sisters, all younger, all happily married, all happily contributing to my father and mother’s occupation as doting grandparents. I myself am childless, for I am widowed, as my dearest Mr. Collins was sadly taken from me five years ago, a victim of pneumonia.”
Mrs. Collins stopped again, and waited for Nick to catch up.
“And your husband’s name was…?”
“Mr. Joseph Collins, of London. We were married on Sunday, the 27th of August, 1815 at St. Mary’s, Lambeth, following his return from Belgium, where he fought as a Private with his regiment at Waterloo. You have already heard about the sword, which was given to my husband to reward him for his bravery.”
Nick acknowledged the weapon—which was resting upright against his desk—with a renewed appreciation.
“And your birthday?” he inquired.
“The second of September, 1796,” Mrs. Collins replied. “I am very close in years to Mrs. Foster, who was born on the 16th of August, 1793.”
“And Mrs. Foster was married…when?”
“She and Mr. Aiden Foster were wed on Saturday, the 28th of May, 1814, in Christchurch. They relocated to Stoneford when Mr. Foster’s uncle died without issue, and his home was bequeathed to the newly wedded couple.”
Mrs. Collins was showing signs of impatience.
“This device has enticed my imagination,” she decided, putting the ear buds back in, and switching the iPod on again. “And this gentleman who is singing about going to where the sun is shining brightly and the sea is blue—a most appealing voice.”
Nick abandoned the interview. But he’d gathered enough information to convince him that Mrs. Catherine Mary Harding Collins was exactly who she claimed to be. And the answers she’d provided had done more to shake his faith in pragmatic science than anything—anything—ever before encountered in his long and, until now, completely unremarkable career in Physics.
Charlie knew how to research her ancestors, and had come up with blanks when Sarah Foster was concerned. But Mrs. Collins had provided all of the answers.
Still sitting at his desk, with Mrs. Collins happily singing along to Cliff Richard, Nick composed a new message to Charlie that contained all of the information she’d asked for. He re-read it several times before making the final decision to launch it into whatever ripple in space and time was going to allow it to reach its destination, two hundred years in the past.
Stay calm, he finished. Hope this helps.
He touched Send, and watched the little screen.
Nothing.
For a moment, Nick had a horrible thought. Charlie’s partially disinfected laptop was sitting nearby. What if he’d wiped out the only connection there was to his cousin in 1825?
And then, he remembered. Charlie had mentioned it in her message.
The Village Oak.
The growl of heavy machinery coming from the direction of the Village Green was as alarming to Nick as it was surprising. He quickened his pace, as much as his damaged leg would allow.
Ron Ferryman did not have the Village of Stoneford’s permission to proceed with any kind of work on the green, regardless of his highly touted claim to the property. The bulldozers were there purely for show, meant to intimidate—in much the same way that Reg and Ron had generated fear, followed by compliance, in the schoolyard they’d tyrannically ruled as children.
As he crossed the road, Nick saw, to his horror, that a crew of tree cutters, armed with chainsaws, had assembled a few yards away from the Village Oak. They were prevented from actually approaching the tree by a group of angry-looking villagers who’d arranged themselves in a defiant circle around its trunk, their arms linked in solidarity.
“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Nick demanded, confronting Ron Ferryman, who was trying his best to look important in a blue hardhat and a bright yellow high-visibility vest.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Ron Ferryman countered.
The Brothers (as they’d been referred to in the schoolyard) had never been able to bully Nick, in spite of escalating threats and several intimidating confrontations in the lane behind the church.
“Whatever it is, it’s illegal,” Nick replied, standing his ground.
“And inevitable, Weller. I’ve brought in my own experts, and they’ve advised me that tree’s not likely to survive. It’s coming down. I don’t see why there should be any further delays.”
“And what have your experts concluded is the cause of the tree’s declining health?”
“Failure to thrive?” Ron Ferryman guessed.
“Failure to survive having poison poured into its roots,” Nick corrected.
Nick realized, as he said it, that Mike Tidman had only theorized that was what was killing the oak. He hadn’t officially said anything, publicly. It was Charlie who’d confided to him what Mike had said about the poison. And tests were still being done.
“Watch yourself, Weller. I’d say that kind of statement constitutes slander.”
In the schoolyard, Ron was the boy who could be counted on to provide names and details to the headmaster whenever there had been mischief afoot. Unless, of course, the mischief had involved himself, or his brother.
“No slander,” Nick said. “I’ve merely stated a fact. Poison has been identified as the probable cause of the tree’s failure to thrive. Did my statement include any names?”
“Names were inferred.”
Ron Ferryman turned to the circle of villagers surrounding the oak.
“You heard him.”
“I heard nothing of the sort,” replied one of the tree-protectors, a retired bus driver named Morris Adams who had once saved a little boy from drowning by jumping into a river.
Another of the protectors, Peter King, who was behind the campaign to save the hedgehogs, tapped his hearing aid. “What did you say, Ferryman? Your digger’s making a terrible racket!”
“I’d advise you to step out of the way,” Ron Ferryman said, sourly, to Morris Adams. “Before I set the police on you.”
“Go on then,” Morris Adams replied. “Fetch the Stoneford constabulary.”
“One of ’em’s down the pub,” Peter King added, “and the other’s in Southampton on a course.”
“Typical,” Ron Ferryman said. “Never about when they’re needed most.”
“Haven’t caught your vandal yet, then?” Peter King taunted. “Too quick on his feet?”
“It was a ‘she’,” Ron Ferryman replied. “And ‘she’ will be arrested on Monday, once her ‘medical complications’ are proven to be nothing more than amateur stalling tactics.”
“Your family wouldn’t have a claim to this property,” Nick said, “if it wasn’t for our family letting it go two hundred years ago.”
“Then I shall be forever indebted to Mrs. Lowe for her ancestors’ lack of foresight and utter stupidity,” Ron Ferryman answered.
“Can you produce the papers?”
“You know as well as I do they no longer exist. They were destroyed by fire.”
“Then I challenge you,” Nick said, boldly, “to prove your official ownership.”
The assembled protectors—most of them in their sen
ior years and all of them with ancestors who had grown up alongside Ferryman’s forebears—muttered their collective agreement.
“Another stalling tactic,” Ron Ferryman replied. “Very well. I’ll bring in the solicitors.”
He retreated—but only as far as the safety of one of his hired bulldozers, in the lower corner of the green. He was followed, in short order, by the workmen with their chainsaws.
Taking out his mobile, Nick placed himself in close proximity to the ancient tree. Then, standing just outside its circle of protectors, and glancing up into the spreading branches and wilting leaves, he touched Send.
It had to work this time. If not…
He watched the little screen as the message he had prepared for Charlie hovered uncertainly in the space between Here and There.
And then…it was gone, replaced by two simple words:
Message Sent.
Chapter 16
In the cottage kitchen, a bucket of water was simmering over the fire. There had been an excited recounting of events at The Dog’s Watch by Tom, with actions handily provided by Jack. And Charlie was now helping Sarah wash and dry and put away the plates and knives and forks from their tea.
For Charlie, who, two centuries into the future, tended to rely solely on her dishwasher, it was a sobering experience. There were no powders or tidy pouches containing pre-treat, food-dissolver, rinse and shine.
There was a bowl with hot water for washing, and a second bowl for rinsing. And there was a soft brown soap supplied by Mr. Rigby, the same man who provided the tallow candles. He was distantly related to Lemuel Ferryman, and he rendered animal fat at his premises on the other side of the village.
“Thankfully downwind,” Sarah said, as she washed, and Charlie rinsed, and at the end of the line, Mary dried, employing an old piece of linen that had been cut from a worn out bed sheet.
The dried and polished plates were stacked on the sideboard with the hope that Jack or Tom would eventually put them away.
It was, Charlie thought, a profoundly optimistic wish. Clearly, Jack and Tom considered the kitchen the domain of females, and had made themselves conveniently scarce.
