Future Indefinite (13 page)

It was February. It was almost dark. It was raining. To say rain was falling would be inaccurate—it moved in gray sheets parallel to the ground, sweeping horizontally across the sodden flatland of Norfolk so that it could needle into Alice’s face, insinuate its cold presence under the edges of her sou’wester to soak her hair, creep down the tops of her Wellingtons, trickle icily into the neck and sleeves of her raincoat. The wind tugged and wrestled at the coat, which was much too large for her and probably Tudor, or at least Georgian. She had found it in hanging on a nail in the cottage, overlooked or unwanted by those who had taken all the other contents. No wonder the English had conquered half the world—a race toughened by such weather could overcome anything.

Her hands and face ached with the cold. She had been a fool to come out for a walk and an even bigger fool to head downwind. Now she had the gale in her face all the way back and the going was much harder. She had wanted some fresh air, but not quite this much, thank you. She was still so weak that it had blown her over twice already, sliding her feet from under her in the mire, so she was almost as muddy as the track itself. She would have no one to blame but herself if she caught a chill; the doctor had warned her not to get overtired, but he had not thought of hypothermia. Wistful dreams of hot, steaming tea in large quantities drove her onward.

But not far now. She turned into the little driveway to her door. The hugely overgrown hedges on either side gave her shelter from the wind.

She ought to fill up the coal scuttle before she went in, while she had her coat on. Had she ever truly appreciated the gas fire in her flat in London, or the roof there that did not leak? Even the screaming boredom of the office had taken on a certain nostalgic glow now. Frailty, thy name is Alice! She had made her decision and would live with it. Tonight she would finish painting the ceiling if it killed her. She had started four days ago and she could still see more mildew than paint.

As she left the shelter of the hedges, the wind grabbed at her, flapping her coat, making her stagger. She almost walked into the car before she saw it. She stopped in astonishment, wiping rain from her eyes.

It was a very large motorcar, parked right at her door. Large and black. Just for a moment, it reminded her of D’Arcy’s old Vauxhall. A wild, crazy fantasy…
It was all a horrible mistake, darling. I’ve been in a German prison camp….

No, that was madness. Even if it were true, she had seen the Vauxhall wrecked by bombs in Greenwich eighteen months ago during those few chaotic days when Edward had returned from fairyland. And the other, corresponding, daydream, of Terry turning up saying,
No, love, I wasn’t drowned…
that was even more impossible. If Terry were to come back from the dead, he would not do so in a car.

But who did she know who had an automobile and access to petrol? No one. The war had not been over long enough for such luxuries to have reappeared. And almost nobody would have known where to find her anyway. She had not yet written all the letters she meant to write, ought to write, must get around to writing.

A neighbor coming to call? Leaving cards? She would not expect the locals to drop around and leave cards—that seemed a ludicrous idea in a rural wilderness like this. She had been expecting someone to drop in before now, just to check out the newcomer. She had not been expecting a car to come by itself, and this one was certainly unoccupied.

She fingered the big key in her pocket. She was quite certain she had locked the door, although that would probably seem an unfriendly act to the locals. There were no other houses within a mile of her and she had no telephone. Until now, that situation had not bothered her. She really should not let it trouble her now….

But where was the driver? In the outhouse? In the shed at the back? It made no sense to take shelter in either of those, for the car itself would be more comfortable. If her visitor had evil intentions, it made even less sense to lie in wait for her somewhere with the car standing in full view. She moved slowly to the door. The cottage’s two tiny, secretive windows both faced the front, and few people would be able to clamber in through them anyway. Neither was broken or showed conspicuous signs of tampering. The long grass under them had not been trampled.

Very gently she depressed the latch; the door was still locked. More relieved than she cared to admit, she twisted the key in the keyhole and heard the antique lock clatter. The wind hurled her into the cottage in a cloud of rain. She heaved the door back and slammed it. She shot the bolt.

Panting and shivering, she stood for a moment, hearing the patter of mud and water on the newspapers covering the floor at her feet, grateful to be in out of the storm, unable to see anything except the twinkle of firelight. Bring in more coal? Coal could wait. If her unknown visitor had merely gone to visit the privy, she would hear him return to the car.

She hauled off her hat. The reek of turpentine in the room was sickening. Gradually her eyes adjested to the light and she saw the sink and counter in the corner, the stepladder, the tins of paint, the paraffin lamp, the sofa and chair draped in dust covers as if veiled for a funeral. All the rest of the furniture had been crammed away into the bedroom. The woman on the sofa was drinking tea.

Yelping with shock, Alice jumped back and cannoned into the door.

The visitor frowned and lowered her cup into the saucer she held in her other hand. “Good afternoon, Miss Prescott. I’m sorry if I startled you.” She sat tall and erect in a sensible brown tweed coat with a fur collar. A cumbersome handbag lay beside her on the sofa. Her bright-glinting eyes and angular features were oddly birdlike.

For a moment Alice had no breath to speak but every muscle in her body tried to move independently in all directions. Then she croaked, “You’re younger!”

The visitor raised carefully penciled eyebrows to suggest that the remark was in questionable taste. “Younger than what? Magna Carta?”

“Than when I last met you, of course. Are you still Miss Pimm?”

She was completely dry, from her neat hat to her practical, square-toed shoes, although the path outside was awash in mud. There was no sign of moisture on her fur collar.

“That name will do, I suppose, Miss Prescott.”

Suddenly shock gave way to anger. “And mine is Pearson.” Alice struggled with the buttons on her coat.

The witch glanced briefly at the ringless fingers and considered that information for a moment. “You are living alone, though, Mrs. Pearson. I take it that condolences are in order?”

An explanation would be much more in order. Not the locked door. That was easy enough to understand, for Miss Pimm had once removed Alice herself from a bicycle and placed her in the backseat of an automobile while the two vehicles were approaching each other at a hundred miles an hour. Why, though, had she invaded Alice’s hard-won solitude in the depths of darkest Norfolk? Could she not recognize a hermitage when she saw one?

Then understanding and excitement: “Edward? You have news of Edward?”

“He is alive and well, as of a couple of weeks ago. And he is the reason for my intrusion, of course. He always is, isn’t he?” Miss Pimm shook her head in mild exasperation. “I must have an impacted mother instinct where that boy is concerned.”

“He has returned?”

“No. He is still on Nextdoor. He never came Home, as he promised. I should have informed you promptly if I had had word of him. This is the first definite news I have heard.”

And the first Alice had heard of either of them in years. She hung her hat and muddy coat on the nail by the door. “You had had
in
definite news?”

“I received a report that he had announced his intention of fulfilling the prophecy and had then left Olympus. The details were so vague and so unlikely that I chose not to trouble you with them.”

Alice chafed her cold and aching hands, then pulled her feet out of the Wellingtons. “And what is more definite this time?”

“I shall get to that in due course. I made some tea.” Obviously. And the teapot in its cozy was perched on the ladder, one step up from the milk jug, the sugar bowl, and a second cup and saucer. All those things had come out of the jumble in the bedroom. Miss Pimm was a very efficient busybody, for Alice had not been gone more than twenty minutes.

“It was very kind of you to come so far to let me know,” she said sweetly, heading for the tea. She had no need to ask how the old hussy had tracked her down.

“You have been ill.”

“Is it so obvious?”

“Not to most people, no.”

“I had a touch of the Spanish flu.”

“You were in good company. You must find this place very lonely after London?”

“By choice.” Anger made her hands shake as she poured the tea. In the month she had been here, no one had come to call except tradesmen: milkman, butcher, grocer, and the postman twice. Not a single neighbor. She had wanted solitude and found a ton of it. Until now. Now her privacy had been raped. She sat down on the lumpy, shrouded chair and sipped at the tea while trying to face down Miss Pimm’s penetrating scrutiny. “How is Head Office?”

Miss Pimm pouted. “Licking our wounds.”

“But you won, didn’t you?”

“The result might best be described as a draw. We won in the West. We definitely lost Russia and we are seriously concerned about the Peace Conference. The struggle against evil continues; the Blighters have regrouped. They outwitted us with the Spanish flu.”

“
That
was their doing too?”

“Indeed it was—influenza is not normally so deadly. It was an attempt to keep the Americans out of the war. It began in America, you know, and turned up in all forty-eight states within a week. It has already killed more people than the war did. It may not be over yet. Does that sound like ordinary flu to you?”

A tale so outrageous ought to defy belief but did not when spoken by Miss Pimm.

“Pestilence! The fourth horseman?”

“Quite. In the end, it backfired. It was the flu that crippled the German Army and ended the war.” A thin, gloating smile came and went quickly.

“That is not true!”

“That is what General Ludendorff says.” Miss Pimm dismissed the German High Command with a shrug. “But we did come out better in the war than we initially feared, yes.”

The light from the window was failing. The fire threw the visitor’s shadow on the wall, larger than life and ominously like the shape of a bird of prey. “Why Norfolk?” she demanded.

“I inherited this place. It has been in the Pearson family for generations.” Irrelevant! Alice took another sip of tea, feeling its warmth running hot down inside her.

Miss Pimm eyed the ceiling acerbically. “Obviously none of them believed in paint. So why did you throw up your London job and bury yourself here in the swamps?”

That was absolutely none of her business, but one did not say such things to Miss Pimm.

“I’m not sure. The war was over. I needed a new start? Turn a new leaf? Or just postflu depression. Now, what news of Edward?”

Miss Pimm nodded briskly, as if agreeing that the time for small talk was now over and the meeting could get down to business. “He has apparently decided that he is Jesus Christ.”

“I consider that remark to be in poor taste.”

“Moses, then. Or Peter the Hermit. He is trying to fulfil the Filoby prophecy.” Miss Pimm might have shed thirty years, but she had not shed her stranger’s authority.

“He swore he never would.”

“Apparently he has changed his mind.”

“His privilege,” Alice said carefully.

“Not if his whim endangers others, it isn’t. We have a visitor from the Service, a Mrs. Euphemia McKay. She says that your cousin is now openly proclaiming himself the Liberator of the prophecy. He is going up and down the landscape preaching a religious revolution.”

“
Edward
is?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, I expect he has his reasons.” Alice’s memories of her cousin and foster brother were mostly memories of a boy, but she had seen a very strong-willed young man in 1917. He would not do anything lightly.

Miss Pimm sighed. “I am sure he does have reasons, and I must confess that my presence here today is largely prompted by sheer curiosity. I should love to hear what those reasons are. His father was most adamant that the Liberator gambit would be a grievous error, and from what I know of the matter, I tend to agree. That is irrelevant. Mrs. McKay was sent over because the Service are seriously worried. What Edward is doing could have catastrophic consequences for them.”

“In what way?” Alice asked. And why should that concern her? Why, even, should it concern Edward? The Service had done nothing for him except shanghai him to Nextdoor and then frustrate his efforts to return Home. It had also tried to kill him—or one of its members had. She could not see that he had any obligations to the Service. She certainly did not.

“I believe they are mainly concerned that he will fail,” Miss Pimm said thoughtfully, “and that their work to date will thereby be discredited. That is a charitable view. I could present less favorable hypotheses.”

Alice decided not to pursue that train of thought. She did not like the direction this conversation was taking. “I am glad to hear that he is alive. It was kind of you to bring the news in person. Thank you.”
Good-bye.

Again, Miss Pimm’s smile was fleeting but sinister. “Mrs. McKay crossed over to this world specifically to appeal to you for help.”

“Me? How? Write a letter…No, that’s not possible, is it? My help to aid Edward or try and stop him?”

“The latter.”

“Why should I? I fail to see that whatever he is up to is any concern of mine.”

“Or of mine. I am becoming a trifle peeved that the Service keeps appealing to us for help. We did not seek to involve them in our struggles with the Blighters.”

That remark seemed irrelevant, so Alice ignored it. “He is of age. I have every confidence in his judgment.”

“So do I. That is why I am curious.” The admission was appealing, suddenly making Miss Pimm seem almost human…normal.