Dancers at the End of Time Read online

  She sighed. She had a dazed look on her face now as she looked down at him. It seemed as if she were about to faint. "How can a Christian refuse? But now you must leave, Mr. Carnelian, while I consider the full implications of this situation."

  Again he got to his feet.

  "If you say so. I think we're making progress, aren't we? When I have learned virtue — may I then become your lover?"

  She made a weary gesture. "If only you had a bottle of sal volatile, I think it could make all the difference at this moment."

  "Yes? You shall have it. Describe it."

  "No, no. Leave me now. I must proceed, I suppose, as if you were not trying to make a joke of my situation, though I have my suspicions. So, until I have complete evidence to the contrary … Oh, dear."

  She fell back on the ottoman again, having just enough strength to adjust her grey skirt so that its hem did not reveal her ankle.

  "I will return later," he promised. "To begin my lessons."

  "Later," she gasped. "Yes…"

  He stepped, with a rippling of silk, through the door. He turned and bowed a low, gallant bow.

  She stared at him glassily, shaking her head from side to side and running her hand through her chestnut curls.

  "My own dear heart," he murmured.

  She felt for the pendant watch lying on her shirt front. She opened the case and looked at the time.

  "I shall expect lunch," she said, "at exactly one o'clock."

  Almost cheerfully Jherek returned to his bedroom and flung himself upon his cushions.

  The courtship was, he had to admit, proving more difficult, more complicated, than he had at first imagined. At least, though, he was soon to learn the secret of that mysterious Virtue. So he had gained something by his acquisition of Mrs. Underwood.

  His reverie was interrupted by Lord Jagged of Canaria's voice murmuring in his ear:

  "May I speak to you, my tasty Jherek, if you are not otherwise engaged? I am below. In your main compartment."

  "Of course." Jherek got up. "I'll join you directly."

  Jherek was pleased that Jagged had come. He needed to tell his friend all that had so far taken place between himself and his lady love. Also he wished to seek Lord Jagged's advice on his next moves.

  Because really, when he thought about it, this was all Lord Jagged's idea…

  He slipped down into the main room and found Lord Jagged leaning against the bole of the aspidistra, a fruit in his hand. He was nibbling the fruit with a certain clinical interest but no great pleasure.

  He was dressed in ice blue fog which followed the contours of his body and rose around his pale face in a kind of hood. His limbs were entirely hidden. "Good morning, Jherek," he said. He disseminated the fruit. "And how is your new guest?"

  "At first she was unresponsive," Jherek told him. "She seemed to think I was unsympathetic. But I think I have broken down her reserve at last. It will not be long before the curtain rises on the main act."

  "She loves you as you love her?"

  "She is beginning to love me, I think. She is taking an interest in me, at any rate."

  "So you have not made love?"

  "Not yet. There are more rituals involved than you and I guessed. All kinds of things. But it is extremely interesting."

  "You remain in love with her, of course?"

  "Oh, of course, Desperately. I'm not one to back out of an affectation just like that, Lord Jagged.

  You know me better, I hope."

  "I do. I apologise," murmured the Lord of Canaria, displaying his sharp, golden teeth.

  "But, if the story is to assume true dramatic, even tragic, dimensions, she must, of course, learn to love me. Otherwise the thing becomes a farce, a low comedy, and barely worth pursuing at all!"

  "Agreed — oh, agreed! " said Jagged. And his smile was strange.

  "She is to teach me the customs of her people. She is to prepare me for the main ritual which is called 'marriage'. Then, doubtless, she will pledge her own love and the thing can begin in earnest."

  "And how long will all this take?"

  "Oh, at least a day or two," said Jherek seriously. "Perhaps a week." He remembered another matter. "And how did My Lady Charlotina take my, um, crime? "

  "Extremely well." Lord Jagged strode about the room, leaving little clouds of blue fog behind him.

  "She has vowed — let me see — everlasting vengeance upon you. She is even now contemplating the most exquisite form of revenge. The possibilities! You should have been there last night. You would never guess some of them. Retribution, my darling Jherek, will strike at the best possible dramatic moment for you, rest assured. And it will be cruel! It will be apt. It will be witty!"

  Jherek was hardly listening. "She is very imaginative," he said.

  "Highly."

  "But she plans nothing immediate?"

  "I think not."

  "Good. I would rather have time to establish the ritual between Mrs. Amelia Underwood and myself before I have to think of My Lady Charlotina's vengeance."

  "I understand." Lord Jagged lifted his fine head and looked through the wall. "You're neglecting the scenery a bit, aren't you? Your herds of buffalo haven't moved for quite a while. And your parrots seem to have disappeared altogether. Still, I suppose that is in keeping with someone who is nurturing an obsession."

  "I must, however, extinguish that sunset." Jherek removed the sunset and the scenery was suddenly flooded with ordinary sunlight, from the sun. It clashed a little, but he didn't mind. "I'm becoming bored with all the peripheral stuff, I think."

  "And why shouldn't you be? And who is this come to see you?"

  An ornithopter, awkward and heavy, came lumbering through the sky, its huge metal wings clashing as they flapped unevenly earthward. It slumped into the corral near Jherek's locomotive. A small figure emerged from the machine.

  "Why!" exclaimed Lord Jagged of Canaria. "It's Brannart Morphail himself. On an errand from My Lady Charlotina perhaps? The opening sally?"

  "I hope not."

  Jherek watched the hunchbacked scientist limp slowly up the steps to the verands. When he did not use a vehicle, Brannart Morphail insisted on limping everywhere. It was another of his idiosyncracies. He came through the door and greeted the two friends.

  "Good morning, Brannart," said Lord Jagged, moving forward and clapping the scientist upon his hump. "What brings you from your laboratories?"

  "You remember, I hope, Jherek," said the chronologist, "that you agreed to let me see that time-machine today. The new one?"

  Jherek had forgotten entirely his hasty — and lying — conversation with Morphail the previous evening.

  "The time machine?" he echoed. He tried to remember what he had said. "Oh, yes." He decided to make a clean breast of it. "I'm sorry to say that that was a joke, my dear Morphail. A joke with My Lady Charlotina. Did you not hear about it?"

  "No. She seemed pensive when she returned, but I left soon afterward on account of her losing interest in me. What a pity." Brannart ran his fingers through his streaky, multi-hued beard and hair, but he had accepted the news philosophically enough. "I had hoped…"

  "Of course you had, my crusty," said Lord Jagged, tactfully stepping in. "Of course, of course, my twisted, tattered love. But Jherek does have a time-traveller here."

  "The Piltdown Man?"

  "Not exactly. A slightly later specimen. 19th century isn't it, Jherek?" said Lord Jagged. "A lady."

  "19th century England," said Jherek, a trifle pedantically, for he was proud of his thorough knowledge of the period.

  But Brannart was disappointed. "Came in a conventional machine, eh? Did she? 19th — 20th — 21st century or thereabouts. The kind with the big wheels, was it?"

  "I suppose so." Jherek had not thought to ask her. "I didn't see the machine. Have you seen it, Lord Jagged?"

  Lord Jagged shrugged and shook his head.

  "When did she arrive?" old Morphail asked.

  "Two or three da
ys ago."

  "No time-machine has been recorded arriving then," Morphail said decisively. "None. We haven't had one through for more than a score of days. And even the last few barely stayed long enough to register on my chronographs. You must find out from your time-traveller, Jherek, what sort of machine she used. It could be important. You could help me, after all! A new kind of machine. Possibly not a machine at all. A mystery, eh?" His eyes were bright.

  "If I can help, I'll be pleased to. I feel I have already brought you here on a fool's errand, Brannart,"

  Jherek assured the scientist. "I will find out as soon as possible."

  "You are very kind, Jherek." Brannart Morphail paused. "Well, I suppose…"

  "You'll stay to lunch?"

  "Ah. I don't lunch, really. And my experiments await. Await. Await." He waved a thin hand.

  "Good-bye for now, my dears."

  They saw him to his ornithopter. It began to clank skyward after a few false starts. Jherek waved to it, but Lord Jagged was looking back at the house and frowning. "A mystery, eh?" said Jagged.

  "A mystery?" Jherek turned.

  "A mystery, too," said Lord Jagged. He winked at Jherek.

  Wearily, Jherek returned the wink.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Something of an Idyll: Something of a Tragedy

  The days passed.

  My Lady Charlotina took no vengeance.

  Lord Jagged of Canaria disappeared upon an errand of his own and no longer visited Jherek.

  Mongrove and Yusharisp became enormously good friends and Mongrove was determined to help Yusharisp (who was no engineer) build a new spaceship.

  The Iron Orchid became involved with Werther de Goethe and took to wearing nothing but black.

  She even turned her blood a deep black. They slept together in a big black coffin in a huge tomb of black marble and ebony.

  It was, it seemed, to be a season of gloom, of tragedy, of despair. For everyone had by now heard of Jherek's having fallen in love, of his hopeless passion for Mrs. Amelia Underwood, of his misery. He had set another fashion into which the world was plunging with even more enthusiasm than it had plunged into Flags.

  Ironically, only Jherek Carnelian and Mrs. Amelia Underwood were largely untouched by the fashion. They were having a reasonably pleasant time together, as soon as Jherek realised that he was not to consummate his love for a while, and Mrs. Underwood understood that he was, in her expression, "more like a misguided nabob than a consciously evil Caesar." He did not really really know what she was talking about, but he was content to let the subject go since it meant she agreed to share his company during most of her waking hours.

  They explored the world in his locomotive. They went for drives in a horse-drawn carriage. They punted on a river which Jherek made for her. She taught him the art of riding the bicycle and they cycled through lovely broadleaf woods which he built according to her instructions, taking packed lunches, a thermos of tea, the occasional bottle of hock. She relaxed (to a large extent) and consented to change her costume from time to time (though remaining faithful to the fashions of her own age). He made her a piano, after some false starts and peculiar mutations, and she sang hymns to him, or sometimes patriotic songs like Drake's Drum or There'll Always Be An England. At very rare moments she would sing a sentimental song, such as Come Into the Garden, Maud or If Those Lips Could Only Speak. For a short time he took up the banjo in order to accompany her, but she disapproved of the instrument, it seemed, so he abandoned it.

  With a sunshade on her shoulder, with a wide-brimmed Gainsborough hat on her chestnut curls, wearing a frothy summer frock of white cotton trimmed with green lace, she would allow him to take a punt into the air and soar over the world, looking at Mongrove's mountains or the hot-springs of the Duke of Queens, Werther de Goethe's brooding black tomb, Mistress Christia's scented ocean. On the whole they tended to avoid Lake Billy the Kid and the territory of My Lady Charlotina. There was no point, said Mrs. Amelia Underwood, in tempting providence.

  She described the English Lake District to him and he built her fells and lakes to her specifications, but she was never really happy with the environment.

  "You are always inclined to overdo things. Mr. Carnelian," she explained, studying a copy of Lake Thirlmere which stretched for fifty miles in all directions. "Though you have got the peculiar shifting light right," she said consolingly. She sighed. "No. It won't do. I'm sorry."

  And he destroyed it.

  This was one of her few disappointments, however, although she had still to get him to understand the meaning of Virtue. She had given up the direct approach and hoped that he would learn by example and through conversations they had concerning various aspects of her own world.

  Once, remembering Brannart Morphail's request, he asked her how she had been brought to his world.

  "I was abducted," she told him simply.

  "Abducted? By some passing time-traveller who fell in love with you?"

  "I never discovered his feelings towards me. I was asleep in my own bed one night when this hooded figure appeared in my room. I tried to scream, but my vocal cords were frozen. He told me to dress. I refused. He told me again, insisting that I wear clothes 'typical of my period'. I refused and suddenly my clothes were on and I was standing up. He seized me. I fainted. The world spun and then I was in your world, wandering about and trying to find someone in authority, preferably the British Consul. I realise now, of course, that you don't have a British Consul here. That, naturally, is why I am inclined to despair of ever returning to 23 Collins Avenue, Bromley."

  "It sounds very romantic," said Jherek. "I can see why you regret leaving."

  "Romantic? Bromley? Well…" She let the subject go. She sat with her back straight and her knees together on the plush and ermine seat of his locomotive, peering out at the scenery floating past below.

  "However, I should very much like to go back, Mr. Carnelian."

  "I fear that's not possible," he said.

  "For technical reasons?" She had never pursued this subject very far before. He had always managed to give her the impression that it was totally impossible rather than simply very difficult to move backward in Time.

  "Yes," he said. "Technical reasons."

  "Couldn't we visit this scientist you mention? Brannart Morphail? And ask him?"

  He didn't want to lose her. His love for her had grown profound (or, at least, he thought it had, not being absolutely sure what "profound" meant). He shook his head emphatically. Also there were indications that she was beginning to warm towards him. It might be quite soon that she would agree to become his lover. He didn't want her sidetracked.

  "Not possible," he said. "Particularly since, it seems, you didn't come in a time machine. I've never heard of that before. I thought a machine was always required. Who did you think it was abducted you?

  Nobody from my age, surely?"

  "He wore a hood."

  "Yes."

  "His whole body was hidden by his garments. It might not even have been a man. It could have been a woman. Or a beast from some other planet, such as those kept in your menageries."

  "It really is very strange. Perhaps," said Jherek fancifully," it was a Messenger of Fate — Spanning the Centuries to bring Two Immortal Lovers Together Again." He leaned towards her, taking her hand.

  "And here at last —"

  She snatched her hand away.

  "Mr. Carnelian! I thought we had agreed to stop such nonsense!"

  He sighed. "I can hide my feelings from you, Mrs. Amelia Underwood, but I cannot banish them altogether. They remain with me night and day."

  She offered him a kind smile. "It is just infatuation, I am sure, Mr. Carnelian. I must admit I would find you quite attractive — in a Bohemian sort of way, of course — if I were not already married to Mr.

  Underwood."

  "But Mr. Underwood is a million years away!"

  "That makes no difference."

  "It must. He is dead.
You are a widow!" He had not wasted his time. He had questioned her closely on such matters. "And a widow may marry again!" he added cunningly.

  "I am only technically a widow, Mr. Carnelian, as well you know." She looked primly up at him as he stalked moodily about the footplate. Once he almost fell from the locomotive so great was his agitation. "It is my duty to bear in mind always the possibility that I might find a means of returning to my own age."

  "The Morphail Effect," he said. "You can't stay in the past once you have visited the future. Well, not often. And not for long. I don't know why. Neither does Morphail. Reconcile yourself, Mrs. Amelia Underwood, to the knowledge that you must spend eternity here (such as it is). Spend it with me!"

  "Mr. Carnelian. No more!"

  He slouched to the far side of the footplate.

  "I agree to accompany you, to spend my time with you, because I felt it was my duty to try to imbue in you some vestige of a moral education. I shall continue in that attempt. However, if, after a while, it seems to me that there is no hope for you, I shall give up. Then I shall refuse to see you for any reason, whether you keep me prisoner or not!"

  He sighed. "Very well, Mrs. Amelia Underwood. But months ago you promised to explain what Virtue was and how I might pursue it. You have still not managed a satisfactory explanation."

  "Nil desperandum," she said. Her back grew imperceptibly straighter. "Now…"

  And she told him the story of Sir Parsifal as the gold, ebony and ruby locomotive puffed across the sky, trailing glorious clouds of blue and silver smoke behind it.

  And so the time went by, until both Mrs. Amelia Underwood and Jherek Carnelian had become thoroughly used to each other's company. It was almost as if they were married (save for one thing — and that did not seem as important as it had, for Jherek was, like all his people, extremely adaptable) and on terms of friendly equality, at that. Even Mrs. Amelia Underwood had to admit there were some advantages to her situation.

  She had few responsibilities (save her self-appointed responsibility concerning Jherek's moral improvement) and no household duties. She did not need to hold her tongue when she felt like making an astute observation. Jherek certainly did not demand the attention and respect which Mr. Underwood had demanded when they had lived together in Bromley. And there had been moments in Mrs. Underwood's life in this disgusting and decadent age when she had, for the first time ever, sensed what freedom might mean. Freedom from fear, from care, from the harsher emotions. And Jherek was kind. There was no doubting his enormous willingness to please her, his genuine liking for her character as well as her beauty.