The Reluctant Time Traveller

by Janis Mackay

  A tear rolled down my face and I stared down at my bare feet on the grass. “She’s dead.”

  One woman put a strong arm around my shoulder. “Don’t cry pet. She’ll be in a better place and Lord knows we’ll all follow her there soon enough.” Then with a damp hankie she wiped my face. “They don’t tell you much up in that poor house, do they? Stop the tears, lassie, and I’ll tell you about poor John Hogg.”

  16

  “Wake up, Blackie.”

  “Mum,” I said, mumbling, “I don’t want to eat frog’s legs. Tell them I don’t want any.”

  “Get up, quick. He’s here. I can hear him. Shift!”

  “Where’s Mum? What?” I blinked, and blinked again. I felt this huge disappointment crash inside me. I thought this was a bad dream. It wasn’t. Noble was shaking me. He looked seriously worried. I felt so tired, but he was grabbing me and hoisting me up to my feet.

  “Let’s flee tae the coal shed,” he said. “Pretend we’ve been there all this time. Me showing you the ropes.” He flung open the back door, ran outside then beckoned wildly for me to follow.

  I could hear Gaunt shouting at the other end of the house, calling for someone to take his horse and swearing about his servants and how lazy they were.

  “Quick!” Noble hissed. He was already pelting across the backyard.

  I ran, my bare feet jabbing over sharp stones. Trying hard not to yell out I followed him round the back of the house.

  There were a few dilapidated stone outhouses. Noble shoved me into the dingiest-looking shed. I felt coal dust smother the back of my throat. “Right then, Blackie,” Noble said, panting like mad as I was choking my head off, “this is the coal shed and here’s where you fetch coal. This is a bucket and that over there’s a shovel. Shovel as much coal into the bucket as you can and break your back hauling it up a hundred stairs. Any room on the first floor wi’ a stick of furniture in it and a fireplace needs a fire. That’s his majesty’s quarters. First, clean oot the ash. Ye’ll need another bucket for the ash. Then set the fire, then light it. And for God’s sake, be quick about it! I’ll open the back door. Go in that way.” Then he turned and fled. Off to take the saddle off the horse probably.

  “Matches?” I wailed to his flying ragged jacket. “What about matches?” Surely matches were invented? If I was expected to rub stones together, I’d never get as much as a spark. Thankfully Noble heard me. He stopped, pulled a small box from his pocket and hurled it to me. Phew! Matches did exist! I hurried back into the gloomy coal shed, grabbed the shovel and set about filling the tin bucket with coal. What a clatter. I sneezed. My arms ached. My feet were cold, and sore. My jeans were manky. But I’ve never worked so fast. I remembered everything Noble told me, even though he spoke in practically a foreign accent. With sooty hands I lifted the full bucket and an empty one for the ash then hobbled over the cobbled stones towards the big house.

  Noble was right about breaking my back. This was heavier than carrying both the twins together. Heavier than lugging my bike up a hill. I staggered into the house through the back door. It was agony.

  My arms had gone numb. But I did it. I reached the first-floor landing and pushed open a door. There was a four-poster bed in the room and a fireplace. I hobbled over to the fireplace, panting like I’d run a marathon. It was full of grey powdery ash. I sunk to my knees and scooped up the ash with an old brush. I coughed and spluttered but kept scooping with ash puffing up and floating everywhere. I got as much as I could and filled the empty bucket. Then I heaped fat pieces of coal onto the fire grate. I struck a match, put it under the coal… and nothing happened. The match flickered then went out. I tried another one. And another.

  I felt like crying but suddenly remembered the fire Agnes and I had made for our time travel. It felt like years ago, but this was still the same day. We had used twisted pieces of paper to catch the flame. I looked around frantically for newspapers. I looked under the big bed. Nothing. But next to the bed there was a wooden writing desk. I pulled open the drawers and my eyes fell on a sheet of paper. Suddenly I forgot about newspapers. I should be looking for the deeds! Here I was, inside the house. Suddenly finding myself trapped as a servant in 1914 was bad, but looking on the bright side, this was my chance to find out more about this place, and to look for nooks and crannies where title deeds might be hidden away. I know that’s how Agnes would see it. From now on, I would be keep my eyes and ears open for any information that might save our den. I’d start with this desk. I opened all the drawers. There were sheets of blank paper in different sizes, envelopes and a leaflet. The leaflet had a grainy black-and-white photo of the house on it, and the words –

  Tweedside Hotel

  A first-class establishment nestled among the sloping and green hills of the Scottish Borders. Magnificent prospects. An ideal retreat for those wishing to get away from the hustle and bustle of life…

  Weird. Had the house been a hotel at some stage? Anyway, a leaflet wasn’t the deeds. With my heart racing like mad I fumbled about. Was there anything hidden in the desk – false bottoms to the drawers? A concealed drawer anywhere? A locked compartment? No, only the pieces of blank paper. Well, they would do for starting the fire anyway. I twisted some up and stuffed them under the coal. “Please work,” I muttered, “please!” With my hand shaking I struck the match and held it under the paper. A small blue flame caught light. I shoved loads more matches into the fire, so they would light and help the coal catch. Thankfully it worked. Gradually one small piece of coal started to glow, but I had used up half the box of matches, and a pile of Gaunt’s writing paper.

  I grabbed the bucket full of ash, and the bucket that was now half full of coal and hurried on. Next to the bedroom was a kind of living room, with armchairs and a few more stuffed stag heads on the wall. Creepsville! Was there anywhere here that someone might file important papers and then forget about them? I ran my fingers over panelling in case any of it felt loose or sprung open. I lifted a few dusty books then put them back. I slid my fingers under the cushions. There were no important papers.

  This fireplace was heaped with ash – more than I could fit in the ash bucket. Noble had said something about spreading it on the compost heap. I grabbed the heavy ash bucket and dashed downstairs.

  Outside, I looked around for the compost heap and found it behind the coal shed, up against the high back wall of the garden. It didn’t look like a compost heap; it looked like a rubbish tip. Broken chairs and tables lay in a pile, like they were waiting for Guy Fawkes Night. Mingled in with the broken furniture I could see potato peelings, broken plates and raggedy old blankets. I took my bucket of ash and threw it over the rubbish.

  I was ready to turn and race back when I heard three whistles from behind the wall. The gang signal. Agnes!

  17

  I glanced over my shoulder. No one was about. I dropped my ash bucket and ran to the wall beside the rubbishy compost heap. “Agnes?” I hissed, “are you there?”

  “Saul! I heard footsteps. Thought I’d try the signal.” She was just over on the other side of this great wall.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Yes, I’m a bit hungry, but I’m ok. What about you?”

  I felt like crying. I was not ok. I was sore. I was more than a bit hungry. I was trapped. I was doing work I’d never have imagined doing in my life. “Kinda.” I said.

  “Meet me at the iron gates at midnight, if you can get out safely. Then we can talk.”

  Agnes had no idea how difficult that might be. Maybe I would be locked in? But I couldn’t stand here talking at the wall. “I’ll try,” I said.

  At that moment a bell clanged. I heard a voice at the back door call out, “Servants’ tea time!” I was starving. I grabbed my empty ash bucket and ran.

  “So!” In the kitchen, the housekeeper looked me up and down. “We’ve got a thief for a servant now, have we?”

  I didn’t know what to say in my own defence. I was too busy re-adjusting my image of Mrs Buchan,
who wasn’t a six-foot giant after all. She was what you might call stocky, with a broad forehead, tired-looking eyes and a long black dress. She didn’t exactly seem pleased to see me.

  “Well, come in and have a cup of tea,” she said, shaking her head, “and for heaven’s sake put down that bucket. I don’t want ash all over the kitchen.”

  Next thing, there I was, in the servant’s poky kitchen, drinking tea and wolfing down a biscuit. The homemade shortbread Elsie gave me was probably a few days old. And the tea was stewed, but I was getting used to that. As Mrs Buchan drank her tea she inspected us over the rim of her cup. Then she set her cup down in a saucer. “Gaunt,” She announced, “is expecting a foreign guest and has ordered that the whole house be put in perfect order.” Elsie sighed. Frank drained his tea. Mrs Buchan shook her head like she didn’t approve. “Aye, it is to be warmed up and polished up and for the love of goodness go about your duties smartly and be neither seen nor heard.”

  “Yes, Mrs Buchan,” Elsie mumbled. With that the housekeeper up and left, muttering to herself about how there was so much to be done – and precious few experienced servants to do it, not like the old days when the house had been bursting with housemaids and footmen, scullery maids and groomsmen.

  When Mrs Buchan had gone, Elsie got up, fished about in the biscuit tin and next thing placed half a bit of shortbread on my plate, like she was doing me a great favour. If it wasn’t for her I would be free to explore 1914 with Agnes, not sit in the servant’s kitchen, exhausted. Elsie had been the one yelling and telling on me. Now she was acting like she felt sorry for me.

  While I gobbled up the shortbread, Noble leant towards me. “How many more fires you still to lay?”

  “Let him finish his biscuit, Frank,” Elsie said, “for Lord knows we must have our food. The poor lad is famished.”

  Frank? Who was Frank? I didn’t ask until I’d licked the crumbs and drained the last drop of tea. “Who’s Frank?” I said, sitting back.

  “Him,” said Elsie, pointing at Noble with her fork, “my own dear and good brother. The only family I have in this big wide world.”

  Noble put his cup down and thrust out his hand across the table. “Frank Noble,” he said. “Pleased to meet yea.”

  “I’m Saul Martin,” I said, and shook his hand.

  “This here,” he nodded to where the little maid sat, “is Elspeth Noble, my dear and good sister.”

  So I shook her hand too, and for some reason they laughed. Maybe it was my name, or my voice, or the way I shook hands. Maybe they were having me on with this ‘dear and good’ stuff. Maybe they just thought it was funny that the thief was turning out to be so friendly. Whatever the big joke they laughed so much their shoulders shook. I joined in and soon we had tears rolling down our faces.

  Frank was first to stop. Elsie finished with a fit of her coughing.

  “Now, Saul Martin,” Frank said, all formal, “how many more fires?”

  I shrugged. Just thinking about fires and heaving buckets of coal made me tired. My arms seriously ached. It even hurt lifting the cup of tea.

  “Ye best get on. Mrs Buchan gave orders. Elsie will be here polishing the spoons. Gaunt is out snooping about down the Mill. Best stoke up the fire in his study. He likes it roaring. Summer, winter, all the same. Tell you what, I’ll show you. You’ve not got much clue, have you, Saul? I watched you working and I says to Elsie, that boy hasn’t got a clue.”

  I wanted to tell him how I was the gang leader. How I could do loads of things. How I could fix bikes and play guitar, take cool photos, shoot films, make pancakes and climb trees. I was good at drawing, and basketball. But I just shrugged and followed him out to the stables. He scooped up a handful of hay. I thought he was going to feed the horses but he stuffed it on top of my coals. “For starting the fire,” he said, and sent me on my way.

  “Keep at it,” Elsie said with a cough as I went back through the kitchen, “or there’ll be no porridge for you later.”

  “Porridge?” I threw her a quizzical frown. Breakfast? It couldn’t be morning already – we hadn’t slept.

  “Aye, porridge, nincompoop,” Elsie said, banging the teacups onto the washboard and giggling, “for supper.”

  Believe it or not, once I got used to the idea, I was actually drooling, looking forward to my evening porridge.

  The hay worked. It was just as good as newspaper. Or writing paper. I built up the fire in Gaunt’s study and kept going from room to room, carrying buckets, stacking up coal, trying to get the rest of the matches to last. I looked for secret hiding places too. Crevices in alcoves, slots by windows, paintings that didn’t hold together properly. I found precisely nothing.

  When I was dusting ash on the floor of a parlour room, I found myself thinking about Will and Robbie. I hardly noticed the dust I was pushing about. I thought about going to Paris. How we’re actually going to go up the Eiffel Tower and then get a boat along the River Seine. The teacher said we’ll also go to the art gallery and see the famous pictures.

  Robbie had groaned loudly when the teacher said we were all going to the art gallery. Agnes had said to him afterwards that was pretty ignorant behaviour. They practically got into a fight about it. But they made up the next day. Or rather Agnes made the effort and Robbie came round. She gave him a postcard of the Mona Lisa, which is a famous painting of a woman with a little smile on her face. I mean, it’s ok, but I don’t quite get why it’s worth millions of pounds. Anyway she had written on the back of the postcard:

  Dear Robbie, sorry. We are all different. We all like different things. This is a picture of the Mona Lisa. You will see her in the Louvre Art Gallery. Maybe you will like her. So can’t wait to go to Paris.

  Agnes.

  Robbie had muttered thanks and stuffed the postcard into his rucksack. He showed it to me later and I said he should be kind to Agnes. She wasn’t well off like he was. I noticed he was definitely friendlier to her after that, and even gave her a bar of chocolate, pretending he didn’t want it. Agnes has got a seriously sweet tooth.

  The time passed quickly in that gloomy parlour room when I thought about home and how things used to be, though I had swept right round the huge fireplace. I imagined how I could grow rich in 1914 by inventing things like vacuum cleaners. Gaunt House didn’t even have electricity. Some houses did, Frank said, but Gaunt House was still in the dark ages. It had gaslights, but Elsie said Gaunt was so mean the lights were never lit from May till September. And when they are, she said, they hiss and stink and hardly give enough light to see your porridge by.

  My knees were cold and sore. I went over to the window and looked into the garden. I’d only been in this house one day but it felt like a week. It was so strange to know exactly what it would look like in the future. It wouldn’t be long before the weeds would grow, the house would crumble. I glanced up at the wooden beams, imagining them broken, cobwebby and with birds nesting in the rafters.

  I heard clanging from the kitchen, like someone was banging two metal lids together. “Porridge!” Elsie shouted. BANG! BANG! BANG! I was actually looking forward to it. Maybe it was all this work, but I was ravenous. I would have eaten a horse, or a pigeon. I was so hungry I think I would even have tried frog’s legs!

  As soon as I had licked that porridge bowl clean I was so ready for bed, but I helped with the cleaning up and watched for a chance to meet Agnes at the gate. Frank had gone out to check the horses had water and Elsie was sitting up in her box bed in the corner of the kitchen doing a cat’s cradle with a piece of string. I mumbled a sleepy “Good night!” like I was heading for the damp little cupboard where I was meant to sleep, then I slipped out the back door, into the night.

  18

  Being midnight, it was really dark in the garden, though I could see a faint light coming through the hut window. The gardener must have a candle burning there in our den. Well, his hut now, but our den in the future. Our den forever, I hoped.

  As I hurried up to the tall iron gate
s I made three low owl calls. I got three calls straight back. Agnes was there waiting, clutching the bars like she was the prisoner, not me. It was great to see her. I passed her a crust of bread I’d found in the kitchen.

  While she chewed, I poured out everything about Gaunt and Frank and Elsie and coal fires and my tired arms.

  “But Saul,” she whispered, her voice all muffled, “have you searched for the deeds of the house? Have you, Saul?”

  “I’ve looked in loads of places,” I whispered back. “I found a weird thing about this house being a hotel, but I don’t think it’s the deeds. Agnes,” I shot a glance back over my shoulder. “I saw a calendar in the house. The war is going to start in two days. Maybe we should just go. This isn’t working out like we thought.” Gaunt’s ‘terms and conditions’ were freaking me out, plus I was exhausted. “And,” I said. “I don’t like being a servant.”

  “But Saul, think about it, it’s perfect.” I was ready to go on about how totally not perfect it was, but Agnes was on a roll. “You’re actually in the house. What an opportunity. Let’s try for a bit longer. I’ll find out what I can on the outside and you keep looking inside.” She had a point. “But for goodness sake, take care,” she whispered, uneasily. “The women in the town have been telling me about this place. My gran was right. This house was in our family. The horrible man that dragged you off, he cheated my relative. My relative was called John Hogg.” Agnes was speaking quite loudly now. Part of me was listening and part of me was listening out for the sound of horse’s hooves. “He owned the mill and needed a manager when he got old,” she went on. “The women said poor old John went soft in the head. He hired Gaunt to take care of things, and then he got too old and confused to stand up to someone greedy and pushy like Gaunt. They said Gaunt convinced John Hogg that as manager he should be living in the big house, and next thing old John Hogg dies and the manager is telling everyone he left the house to him. For the debts of the mill, he said. And the women said many folks are scared of Mr Gaunt and don’t want to get in his bad books, because they don’t want to lose their jobs at the mill. So he gets away with it. Oh, Saul, imagine if we could find those deeds.”