Dancers at the End of Time (14 page)

"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.

She wished that things had been different, sometimes, and that she really was a widow. Or, at least, single. Or single and in her own time where she and Jherek might be married in a proper church by a proper priest. When these thoughts came she drove them away firmly.

It was her duty to remember that one day she might have the opportunity of returning to 23 Collins Avenue, Bromley, preferably in the spring of 1896. Preferably on the night of April 4 at three o'clock in the morning (more or less the time she had been abducted) so that then no one might have to wonder what had happened. She was sensible enough to know that no one would believe the truth and that the speculation would be at once more mundane and more lurid than the actuality. That aspect of her return was not, in fact, very attractive.

None the less, duty was duty.

It was often hard for her to remember what duty actually was in this — this rotting paradise. It was hard, indeed, to cling to all one's proper moral ideals when there was so little evidence of Satan here — no war, no disease, no sadness (unless it was desired), no death, even. Yet Satan
must
be present. And was, of course, she recalled, in the sexual behaviour of these people. But somehow that did not shock her as much as it had, though it
was
evidence of the most dreadful decadence. Still, no worse, really than those innocent children, natives of Pawtow Island in the South Seas, where she had spent two years as her father's assistant after Mother had died. They had had no conception of sin, either.

An intelligent, if conventional, woman, Mrs. Amelia Underwood sometimes wondered momentarily if she were doing the right thing in teaching Mr. Jherek Carnelian the meaning of virtue.

Not, of course, that he showed any particular alacrity in absorbing her lessons. She did, on occasions, feel tempted to give the whole thing up and merely enjoy herself (within reason) as she might upon a holiday. Perhaps that was what this age represented — a holiday for the human race after millennia of struggle? It
was
a pleasant thought. And Mr. Carnelian had been right in one thing — all her friends, her relatives and, naturally, Mr. Underwood, her whole society, the British Empire itself (unbelievable thought
that
was!) were not only dead a million years, crumbled to dust, they were
forgotten
. Even Mr. Carnelian had to piece together what he knew of her world from a few surviving records, references by other, later, ages to the 19th century. And Mr. Carnelian was regarded as the planet's greatest specialist in the 19th century. This depressed her. It made her desperate. The desperation made her defiant. The defiance led her to reject certain values which had once seemed to her to be immutable and built solidly into her character. These feelings, luckily, came mainly at night when she was in her own bed and Mr. Carnelian was elsewhere.

And sometimes, when she was tempted to leave the sanctuary of her bed, she would sing a hymn until she fell asleep.

Jherek Carnelian would often hear Mrs. Amelia Underwood singing at night (he had taken to keeping the same hours as the object of his love) and would wake up in some alarm. The alarm would turn to speculation. He would have liked to have believed that Mrs. Underwood was calling to him; some ancient love song like that of the Factory Siren who had once lured men to slavery in the plastic mines.

Unfortunately the tunes and the words were more than familiar to him and he associated them with the very antithesis of sexual joy. He would sigh and try, without much success, to go back to sleep as her high, sweet voice sang "Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light…" over and over again.

Little by little Jherek's ranch began to change its appearance as Mrs. Underwood made a suggestion here, offered an alternative there, and slowly altered the house until, she assured him, it was almost all that a good Victorian family house should be. Jherek found the rooms rather small and cluttered. He felt uncomfortable in them. He found the food, which she insisted they both eat, heavy and somewhat dull. The little Gothic towers, the wooden balconies, the carved gables, the red bricks offended his aesthetic sensibilities even more than the grandiose creations of the Duke of Queens. One day, while they ate a lunch of cold roast beef, lettuce, cucumber, watercress and boiled potatoes, he put down the cumbersome knife and fork with which, at her request, he had been eating the food and said:

"Mrs. Amelia Underwood. I love you. You know that I would do anything for you."

"Mr. Carnelian, we agreed…"

He raised his hand. "But I put it to you, dear lady, that this environment you have had me create has become just a little boring, to say the least. Do you not feel like a change?"

"A — change? But, sir, this is a proper house. You told me yourself that you wished me to live as I had always lived. This is very similar, now, to my own house in Bromley. A little larger, perhaps, and a little better furnished — but I could not resist that. I saw no point in not taking the opportunity to have one or two of the things I might not have had in my — my past life."

With a deep sigh he contemplated the fireplace with its mantelplace crammed with little china articles, the absolutely tiny aspidistras and potted palms, the occasional tables, the sideboard, the thick carpets, the dark wallpaper, the gas-mantles, the dull curtains (at the windows), the pictures and the motifs which read, in Mrs. Underwood's people's own script VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD or WHAT MEAN THESE STONES?

"A little colour," he said. "A little light. A little space."

"The house is very comfortable," she insisted.

"Aha." He returned his attention to the animal flesh and unseasoned vegetables before him (reminiscent, he feared, of Mongrove's table).

"You told me how delighted you were in it all," she said reasonably. She was puzzled by his despondent manner. Her voice was sympathetic.

"And I was," he murmured.

"Then?"

"It has gone on," he said, "for a long time now, you see. I thought this was merely
one
of the environments you would choose."

"Oh." She frowned. "Hm," she said. "Well, we believe in stability, you see, Mr. Carnelian. In constancy. In solid, permanent things." She added apologetically: "It was our impression that our way of life would endure pretty much unchanged for ever. Improving, of course, but not actually altering very much. We visualised a time when all people would live like us. We believed that everyone wanted to live like us, you see." She put down her knife and fork. She reached over and touched his shoulder. "Perhaps we were misguided. We were
evidently
wrong. That is indisputable to me, of course. But I thought you wanted a nice house, that it would help you…" She removed her hand from his shoulder and sat back in her mahogany chair. "I do feel just a little guilty, I must say. I did not consider that your feeling might be less than gratified by all this…" She waved her hands about to indicate the room and its furnishings. "Oh, dear."

He rallied. He smiled. He got up. "No, no. If this is what you want, then it is what
I
want, of course.

It will take a bit of getting used to, but…" He was at a loss for words.

"You are unhappy, Mr. Carnelian," she said softly. "I do not believe I have ever seen you unhappy before."

"I have never
been
unhappy before," he said. "It is an experience. I must learn to relish it, as Mongrove relishes his misery. Though Mongrove's misery seems to have rather more flair than mine.

Well, this is what I desired. This is what is doubtless involved in love — and Virtue, too, perhaps."

"If you wish to send me back to Mr. Mongrove…" she began nobly.

"No! Oh, no! I love you too much."

This time she made no verbal objection to his declaration.

"Well," she said determinedly, "we must make an effort to cheer you up. Come —" She stretched out her hand. Jherek took her hand. He thrilled. He wondered.

She led him into the parlour where the piano was. "Perhaps some jolly hymn?" she suggested.

"What about 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'?" She smoothed her skirt under her as she sat down on the stool. "Do you know the words now?"

He could not get the words out of his mind. He had heard them too often, by night as well as by day. Dumbly he nodded.

She struck a few introductory chords on the piano and began to sing. He tried to join in, but the words would not come out. His throat felt both dry and tight. Amazed, he put his hand to his neck. Her own voice petered out and she stopped playing, swinging round on the stool to look up at him. "What about a walk?" she said.

He cleared his throat. He tried to smile. "A walk?"

"A good brisk walk, Mr. Carnelian, often has a palliative effect."

"All right."

"I'll get my hat."

A few moments later she joined him outside the house. The grounds of the house were not very large either, now. The prairie, the buffalo, the cavalrymen and the parrots had been replaced by neat privet hedges (some clipped into ornamental shapes), shrubs and rock gardens. The most colour was supplied by the rose garden which had several different varieties, including one which she had allowed him to invent for her, the Mrs. Amelia Underwood, which was a bluish green.

She closed the front door and put her arm in his. "Where shall we go?" she said.

Again the touch of her hand produced the thrill and the thrill was, astonishingly, translated into a feeling of utter misery.

"Wherever you think," he said.

They went up the crazy-paving path to the garden gate, out of the gate and along the little white road in which stood several gas lamps. The road led up between two low, green hills. "We'll go this way," she said.

He could smell her. She was warm. He looked bleakly at her lovely face, her glowing hair, her pretty summer frock, her neat, well-proportioned figure. He turned his head away with a stifled sob.

"Oh, come along now, Mr. Carnelian. You'll soon feel better once you've some of this good, fresh air in your lungs." Passively he allowed her to lead him up the hill until they walked between lines of tall cypresses which fringed fields in which cows and sheep grazed, tended by mechanical cowherds and shepherds who could not, even close to, be told from real people.