1894

11. 1894

When the room stopped trembling and came into final focus I found myself staring straight into the barrel of a Webley 38. In the dim half-light, just above the revolver a grim face looked down at me. It was Major Banning. Not surprising. He was supposed to be here when I “came back,” and indeed, here he was. But he looked… somehow different. And for God’s sake, why the pistol!? Something was wrong, terribly wrong. I continued to look up, with my eyes going back and forth between his face and that horrid weapon. “Major Banning?” I said weakly.

His weapon barrel did not waver a micron; yet when I called his name his eyes widened. He said, “I’m Captain Banning. Who are you? How did you come here?” Translation: Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t scatter your brains all over the carpet.

I hit the depths then. In this new world he was not the queen’s trusted equerry sharing a crucial mission with me. He was not a major. He was a captain in the Windsor guards, and he was my enemy.

What else was strange and different? Jane? Did I still have Jane? Would she know me?

“My name is Wells,” I said mournfully. “H. G. Wells.” Just then I thought of one last possibility of salvation. “Major… Captain, I mean… would you please call Sergeant Roper. He knows me. He can vouch for me.”

He frowned. “There’s no one around here named Roper, sergeant or otherwise.”

No Sergeant Roper, either. Of course.

“And now, Mr. Wells, I’ll thank you to raise you hands and step out of that infernal machine. Real easy, now.” He made an imperious motion with his pistol.

“All right,” I said. Very quickly, I looked about the study. It was night, that much was per schedule. The only light in here still came from a small electric bulb sconced on the study wall. I could see no changes. In the half light I surreptitiously unscrewed the back-time lever from its stud and stuck it up my sleeve. A desperate idea was forming.

“Up, up!” Captain Banning commanded. “And tell me, what is this thing?”

I stood up slowly from the saddle, raised my hands, and stepped down out of the vehicle. “Captain, I’ll explain everything. But first, please tell me what day it is.”

He looked puzzled. “Thursday, of course.”

“The full date?” I persisted.

“June 7, 1894, about one-thirty in the morning.” He glowered at me. “All right young man, your turn. What is going on here?”

I sighed. Right place, right time—but everything was wrong. I said, “This is a machine for traveling in time, Captain. I’ve just come from the year 1861. I was attempting to prolong the life of Prince Albert.” First the captain frowned, then he grimaced, and finally he grinned. (This was not going well.) I said, “I know how this must sound, Captain, but I can assure you, it’s true. I’m not crazy. But tell me, is Prince Albert alive or dead?”

That got him to frowning again. “You really don’t know?”

“I don’t know. Please tell me.”

“Dead these many years, laddie.”

That could mean anything. “Did he die in 1861?”

“Something like that.”

It was ironic that I, who had been there, had to ask these questions. The whole world knew the answers, but not I. So the prince had died pretty much according to history. Too bad for the queen, I thought. But in this world she probably doesn’t even know she tried to save him. So what else happened, or not happened? What was the great defining fact for this new 1894? “Captain Banning,” I said, “I know this sounds like another very strange question, but I have to ask. Who won the American Civil War?”

“Why, laddie, you’re not only crazy, you’re ignorant. The North won it—the Feds.”

“We didn’t intervene on the side of the Confederacy?”

“Where were you schooled, young fellow? No, we didn’t intervene. We stayed neutral.”

“And France didn’t grab Quebec and Mexico?”

He peered at me curiously. “Sonny, enough of this. You’re over my head. Maybe Scotland Yard can make some sense out of you.”

That would not do. I realized now that I had surfaced in a world that had been greatly altered by my visit to 1861. I also realized that I was now in a place I should not be and that I faced prison. And Jane—?

I had to get out of here.

“Captain, I hope you’ll permit a personal question?”

“Go ahead, not that I have to answer it.”

“Of course. Are you married?”

“No, no time for that foolishness.”

“That’s fine. Parents depend on you?”

“They’re both dead and buried.” He crossed himself.

“You’re all alone.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Captain,” I said, “I’ll be happy to go with you. I’m sure I can explain everything to the police. But first, let me turn off the machine. We can’t let it overheat. I’ll have to get back in it to shut it off.”

The machine was, in fact, still humming, as indeed it should. Even though the battery current was turned off, the piezoelectic core would continue vibrating for a few moments as a result of the residual interplay between the alumina atoms in the sapphire crystal. But it couldn’t last long. Already the oscillations were audibly damping. I had to move fast. I held a finger to my lips. “Listen!”

He could hear it, and I could see it worried him. He looked at me, then at the machine. Obviously his mind was working carefully. I knew what he was thinking. He wasn’t sure he believed the machine would overheat, but on the other hand he certainly didn’t want to be held responsible for a disaster in the study of the late prince. “How do you turn it off?”

he asked.

“Simple. See that little white lever? I sit in the saddle and pull the lever slowly to the right.” I took a step toward the machine.

“Not so fast, me bucko. You stand in front there, where I can keep an eye on you. I’ll turn it off.”

“But—”

“Move!”

“All right, all right.” Meekly, I moved over to the front of the machine.

The captain pointed his pistol with his left hand and grasped the time-forward lever in his right.

“Move it slowly, all the way to the right,” I said.

He did. The machine shimmered, vibrated, and vanished. The last I saw of Captain Banning was a mouth wide with horror. And the last sound was a kind of “pop.” He had pulled the trigger on his revolver, but of course by the time the bullet reached the spot where I had been, it would be the 1990s, and my brains would not be spread about on the carpet as intended.

I hefted the back-time lever in my left hand. Without it, the captain could never return here.

I walked over to the study window and looked down. It was still dark, but by dim moonlight I made out a big clump of bushes—probably the queen’s prize azaleas—beneath the window. I dropped the lever into the bushes.

Was it a cruel thing that I had done to the captain? Well, yes and no. The captain will emerge in Albert’s study in the closing years of the twentieth century, in possession of a sapphire brooch worth millions. Overnight he will be rich and famous.

There might be one little problem. Banning had fired one shot before leaving our mutual 1894. I don’t pretend to be a ballistics expert, but it appeared to me that when the bullet finally emerged it might strike the socket of the electric light. If it did that, a serious electrical fire could result. Windsor had a stone veneer, true, but inside it was 90 percent wood. Very dry wood. The bullet would emerge simultaneously with Captain Banning, and there would be a memorable blaze.[3] I hope the captain finds the brooch and gets away safe and sound.

I finally got around to looking at my watch. It was 1:40 A.M. The time was exactly right, so why did I feel strange? I took a hurried look at my face in the little hand mirror in the prince’s desk. The upper lip of the new Wells sported a rakish mustache. I could not remember acquiring it. I touched it tentatively. Not bad, not bad. But how would I explain it to Jane? When I left her yesterday morning I had been clean-shaven. Oh well… sort it all out later.

Within the next ten minutes I climbed out the window, dropped into the azaleas, and strode brazenly to the servant’s way-in, where I signed the check-out book and bid a cheery farewell to the sleepy guard. I started walking to the town and the G.W. station, mumbling all the while, “Jane, Jane…” Finally, the morning trains began arriving. I caught one and was back in Paddington Station within the hour. Next, I awakened a sleeping cabbie in the stalls. “Twelve Mornington Place,” 1 said. And off we went.

In leaving 1861 I regretted but one thing. I had wanted to see the face of Dr. James Clark when he realized there would be no war, and no cotton for his Lancashire mills. Of course, in this new world, perhaps history records him as a simple quack, and not at all an evil creature who tried to hurry the death of the prince. I hope so.

How much of this should I tell Jane? The answer was simple: nothing, not a word. It would be too much for her. In the first place, she wouldn’t believe it. She was a well-adjusted citizen of a different world, a world where America was whole and intact, and had been ever since the close of the American Civil War; a world where Quebec had never broken away from Canada, and France did not claim Mexico.

It was now broad daylight, and I was home. I paid off the driver with my remaining coins and ran up the stairs to the door. I paused for a moment and read the names on the mail slot: Mr. & Mrs. H. G. Wells. We still existed! I fought back tears. We were as yet not truly married, of course. But we would be, as soon as my divorce from Isabel became final.

I opened the door and picked up the mail lying there. There were two letters. They could wait. I wanted to shriek “Jane! Jane! Be there, Jane!” But of course I didn’t. That would wake everybody up, including the landlady.

So I burst unannounced into our little bedroom. She was lying there, huddled against the cold, on my side of the bed, hugging my pillow. I looked down at her, speechless. All I could think was, oh Jane, how beautiful you are, and how I do love you!

She must have sensed something. She opened one eye and looked up at me. “Back so soon? How was your walk?”

“Walk?” In this world I must have told her I was taking an early morning walk.

She sat up, clutching the blankets about her chest. “I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon, or I’d have put the tea on.” She looked at my right hand. “Mail? So early?”

“From yesterday, I think. We must have missed it.” I looked at the letters for the first time. One was from the Patent Office. I broke into a sweat as I opened the envelope.

“Your invention?” she asked mildly.

“I guess so.”

“Well, read it.”

I did. “Dear Sir… blah blah blah… Please find below a communication from the Examiner blah blah… First ground of rejection, neither the machine described nor the method of using it appears to fit any of the classes of patentable inventions. Second ground of rejection: the contrivance appears to lack utility. To meet this rejection it will be necessary to present and successfully demonstrate a working model. Third ground of rejection: the invention is anticipated by prior publications, viz., Wells, H.G., Science Schools Journal (1888). In sum, the Applicant should not expect a grant of a patent on the alleged invention. Respectfully, for the Comptroller, blah blah, and so on.”

“They turned down your patent?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t satisfy her. “So why do you look so happy?”

“I didn’t really want to bother with it.” I pictured the Patent Office. At least now it had that big beautiful building all to itself. In this world, no Confederate Resident Office, no spittoons. The United States of America was whole and sound, and cotton was still pouring into Liverpool. I had a lot of history and geography to catch up on, and I’d probably make a few silly mistakes in the process. Right now, though, I was broke, and I had rent to pay and mouths to feed.

“What’s the other letter?” Jane asked.

I’d almost forgotten it. I opened it carefully and took out a folded paper. A smaller piece of paper escaped and fluttered to the floor. Jane pounced on it like a hawk.

“A cheque!” she cried. “A hundred pounds! From the New Review!” She kissed it. I didn’t blame her. “Henley?”[4] she asked.

“Yes. Listen to this. He wants me to rewrite the time travel articles as a novel. He’ll serialize it as The Time Traveler, starting in January next year. And that’s not all. He’s arranged for a book contract with Heinemann. They pay an advance of & 50, with a 15 percent royalty. Heinemann will call it The Time Machine.”

Jane summed it up. “We eat.”

And it was time for me to get busy.