Julius and the Watchmaker (16 page)

Julius's ears pricked up.
Cripes, Springheel's a time-traveller too. I bet the professor didn't know that!

‘I see you're surprised, Julius,' said Springheel. ‘You can imagine how I felt. Somehow I had travelled more than two hundred years through time. How could it be possible? It must have been the perpetual-motion machine. Somehow, in all my contriving, tinkering and adjusting I had turned it into some manner of a time-machine.

‘My first thought was to build another one, travel back in time and tell Dr Dee what I had done. But, I had three obstacles to overcome. I had to build the thing, adjust it to the correct contrivance to travel through time, and then figure out how to travel
back
to the time and place I had left behind. And, in the meantime, I had to find food and lodgings for myself. As I was even younger than you are now, Julius, I was somewhat daunted by the tasks.

‘I wandered the streets of London. My belly was nagging at me and I looked like a vagabond from a circus in my doublet and pantaloons. As soon as I could, I swapped my clothes at a second-hand clothiers and set off to roam the streets in more fitting beggar's rags. I was becoming thinner and dirtier and closer to the gallows every day.

‘One day, I spied a pretty young woman coming out of a bookshop. She carried a parcel of books, tied up with string. I followed her, my intention being to snatch the books and be off. But I had a stroke of luck, Julius. The string was coming loose as she walked. One of the smaller volumes fell out and bounced, unnoticed by the woman, on the pavement. In a second I had pounced upon it and disappeared into the crowd. I would get a few pennies for it from a second-hand book dealer.

‘I sat down on the edge of a horse trough to examine my prize and to have a good read. It was called
The Traveller's Guide to the Italian Lakes
. There was an inscription on the first page. It read:

To my dearest Percy,
For our travels.
Your ever-loving wife,
Mary

‘Suddenly, I had an idea. I almost fell back into the water with the sheer brilliance of it. I sprang up and sprinted through the crowd to follow the young lady. My keen eyes soon found her as she could not move very fast in her crinolines. I watched her enter a small but respectable house in Ealing, and, after a few moments, I knocked on the front door.

‘A maid not much older than myself answered.

‘“Yes,” she said, curtly.

‘“Begging your pardon, miss,” I said. “The lady dropped her book. I'm returning it to her.”

‘“Oh, I see,” said the little minx and then snatched it from me.

‘Just then, a young gentleman appeared at the door. “What's the trouble, Mabel?” he said.

‘“This…er, boy, found this book, Mr Shelley. 'E says Mrs Shelley dropped it on the way 'ome and 'e wants to return it,” she said.

‘“I read the inscription inside the cover, sir,” I said. “And I thought you'd be needing the book when you get to Italy.”

‘I could see that Mabel was scandalised at the free and easy way I spoke, but Mr Shelley laughed. “You are a fine fellow. Where did you learn the art of reading, pray tell?”

‘“An old man taught me to read a very long time ago, sir, so I'd stop asking him questions and look up the answers for myself.”

‘Mr Shelley laughed, and fished a coin from his waistcoat. “Never stop asking questions, my boy,” he said. “Thank you for taking the trouble.”

‘“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said. “It's not money I'm wanting.”

‘“No?”

‘“No, sir. I'm seeking a position.”

‘And so, Julius, to cut a long story short, I found myself in Italy with Mr and Mrs Percy Bysshe Shelley. We went first to Rome, a splendid and decrepit city all in one, bad for the health but good for the mind and definitely a delight to the eye. Mr Shelley and his wife were from the artistic set: forever talking about poetry and the rights of man and that sort of thing. They went to the Galleria Borghese to see the Titians and Raphaels, the Chiesa del Gesú where the light of angels flooded the dome. Oh, the libraries and fountains, they visited them all, with me carrying and fetching while they marvelled at the beauties of creation. I listened to everything. You see, I was determined to improve myself. For I had set myself a new task. I was going to become a
gentleman
. Gentlemen, I noticed, could command and compel those around them. That, my friend, was an art I needed to learn if I was ever even to begin to build my perpetual-motion machine.

‘But then, Julius, I learned the real reason for our trip to Rome. Shelley had arranged a rendezvous with a man who was to become the means of my changing the course of my life once more. The man's name was Lord Byron.'

Julius started.
Lord Byron?

‘I see you've heard of him, Julius,' said Springheel.

‘Yes, er, in the newspapers.'

‘He was a splendid fellow—a man both charming and terrifying. His face was handsome, open and gentle, and yet it was a mask concealing infinite mystery. It was as if he had the souls of a hundred men locked within his heart. I adored him, Julius. I sought to cast myself in his mould.

‘I listened at keyholes and strained my ears to hear conversations while I served wine and truffles. What did I learn through my eavesdropping?'

Springheel paused.

‘What did you learn?' said Julius, before he could stop himself.

Springheel smiled.

‘Byron was a messenger for a secret guild. His mission was to pass on a device to Shelley and to teach him the rudiments of its use. Shelley was then to travel to a remote uncharted region, to the south of China, for further training in the use of the device. The two men talked endlessly into the night about the device and about “the Guild”. Byron would only hint at it and speak in maddening generalities, but this I did gather, or imagine I gathered, from the scraps I overheard: there was a secret Guild guarding the planet, and each member had his own special device. They were positioned all over the globe, in major cities and places of influence. They watched and waited, only acting when extraordinary forces threatened mankind. They were men of uncommon abilities, capable of outstanding feats of mind and body. They were fighters and thinkers, Julius. Warriors and philosophers.

‘As you can imagine, I was in a fever of excitement. The perpetual-motion machine was forgotten. I wanted to journey across continents and…and…I wanted to be a part of it, Julius. I did my utmost to be agreeable to Mr Shelley and to impress him with my wit and good sense. I wanted to become his factotum, to be as indispensible as his own right hand.

‘Strange things began to happen as we continued to holiday in Italy. The first thing I noticed was that Mr Shelley had a new watch. He was forever tinkering with it. Could this be the device that Lord Byron had given him? I wondered.

‘One day, as we walked through the streets of Naples, Mr Shelley and I, we stopped aghast at what we saw before us. There, at the end of the street, was
another
Mr Shelley. He was in his nightgown and nightcap and he appeared to be lost and confused. Mr Shelley, the Mr Shelley I was with, grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me into a doorway.

‘“He must not set eyes on me, Charles, or who knows what will happen?” he said. “Thankfully the trip was only for a few seconds.”

‘“What trip, sir?” I asked.

‘“A time-trip, my boy. I was experimenting last night,” he said. “I should leave the watch alone until I get to Tibet,” he added, more to himself than to me.

‘But that was enough information for me, Julius—the Guild had a time-travel machine, and it was the very watch in Mr Shelley's pocket.'

Julius gasped.

‘Unbelievable, isn't it, Julius,' said Springheel.

‘Yes,' said Julius. He turned away so that Springheel could not see his face.
Cripes, it's all true, Higgins.

‘Julius, I felt at that very moment that I might snatch it and make my escape, such was my desire to possess the device.

‘But I resolved to stick with my plan, Julius, to travel to the east with Mr Shelley. I did not know how to operate the device and I knew there were many things I must learn before it could truly be mine.

‘The Shelleys continued their tour of Italy, and I followed wherever they went, pursuing my own plan. Then everything changed.'

He paused. Julius waited.

‘Mr Shelley and I were sailing in his schooner,
Ariel
, off the Italian coast. A storm blew up unexpectedly. Truth be told, neither of us were proper seamen. We struggled to lower the sails and our little vessel was taking in water at a dangerous rate. We were doomed.

‘“I'm sorry for getting you into this, Charles,” Mr Shelley said, as he removed his pocketwatch from his waistcoat. The waves heaved around us and the rain pelted down. “There is a way to escape this storm. That is, I think I may have a way. Do not be alarmed by whatever may happen—all will be well. We will survive this storm, you and I, and we will travel to Tibet and—”

‘Before he could finish, a wave crashed into the side of the schooner and the craft tipped up like a teacup and tossed us into the brine. I recall flying through the air and then splashing into the freezing sea. When I managed to come up for air Mr Shelley was nowhere to be seen. But I was clutching something in my hand. It was the pocketwatch.

‘Well, Julius, my escape from a watery grave is still a foggy nightmare. I swam all night, trying to keep my head above the waves, fighting for every breath.

‘The next morning I woke up on a beach, barely alive. I still had the pocketwatch—the cold had frozen my hand into a fist as hard as granite around it.'

Springheel fell silent. He took the pocketwatch from his waistcoat pocket and unclipped it from the chain. He spun it in the air and left it there bobbing like a cork on water. Julius watched it spin.

‘So there you have it, Julius. That is how I came to be in possession of this time-machine. I made it back to London, but I will not tell you how. It involved more dark deeds than I care to remember. Then, while trying to pawn a stolen handkerchief, I chanced upon our friend Clements. He is a credulous fellow, God bless him. He believed me, he believed
in
me, and we agreed to go into partnership, he and I.

‘That was many years ago. In all that time I have been building a perpetual-motion machine, while at the same time trying to find out how to make this watch perform the task it was built for.

‘One day I noticed a tiny inscription on the side of the watch. I cursed myself for not seeing it before. Two simple letters:
J.H
. Could this be John Harrison, the inventor of the chronometer? The greatest watchmaker in history. Had
he
made this time-machine? I searched for clues, and they led me to the rumour that Harrison had kept a diary while he was toiled for nineteen years to build his third prototype, the H3.

‘And so, Julius, that is when we first met. I was enquiring of your grandfather if he knew of the diary, and the rest, as they say, is history.'

Springheel relaxed back into the sofa and let out a satisfied sigh.

Julius watched the bobbing pocketwatch and tried to work his face into an expression of awed innocence.

‘I have silenced you, Julius. An amazing story, is it not?'

Julius kept his eyes on the pocketwatch.

The sound of footsteps came from the hallway.

‘That will be Clements back with breakfast,' said Springheel. ‘He is a good fellow, isn't he? Even if he's not the shiniest penny in the vault.'

Clements burst into the room with three paper bags in his arms.

‘Grub's up, gentlemen. Sorry about the delay. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in the pantry so I went to the pie shop round the corner. These are fresh from the oven. Have you told him about our little business venture yet, Springheel?' he said breathlessly, as he pulled up a chair and winked at Julius.

‘Not yet,' said Springheel. ‘I was just getting to it.'

CHAPTER 15

Friday 7th July, 1837
6:04 AM

Julius wiped the gravy from his chin and dusted the pastry flakes off his clothes. Springheel made adjustments to his contraption and Clements snored on the divan. Julius walked slowly around the device and studied it in the candlelight.

‘You are looking at thousands of hours of toil, Julius,' said Springheel. ‘I discovered the unique abilities of the Springheel Shaker purely by chance, you know. I was trying to make a perpetual-motion machine, but I seem to have made a device that opens doors—portals, I call them—to parallel worlds. It's all done by vibration, somehow. I set the wheels to spin, but—and this is the ingenious part—I set its cog ratios slightly
off
balance so that it vibrates when it gets to extremely high speeds. Using this cone at the front I can project the oscillation to a point in space and then…well, I'll show you in a minute.'

‘I know what is does. That odd fellow came into my bedroom, remember?' said Julius.

‘Oh yes, that. Probably gave you a bit of a scare. Clements wet himself. I don't blame you for scarpering; I'd have done the same. But I have been contriving and readjusting the ratios ever since so there should be no more “phantasmic inconsistencies” as I call them. The main problem is that if the machine is left running for too long the oscillation becomes unstable and everything in the immediate vicinity begins to shake, walls and all. We had to do a flit from Warwick Lane because of that. I haven't sorted out that little problem to my complete satisfaction yet.'

Springheel tossed his last bit of pie crust into his mouth, screwed up the paper bag and threw it at Clements' head.

‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. It's time to venture forth.'

‘What? What?' said Clements jumping to life like a startled overfed hedgehog.

‘Get the rope, Clements, and I'll explain our little plan to young Julius.'