Prelude to Eternity. Brian Stableford

us to see into the past—not that we’ll be able to see very much, since we’ll be enclosed by tall hawthorn hedges.”

      “That is exactly the point, as I understand it,” Carp suggested. “Because the hedges are recently-grown, and the Keep recently-built, he hopes that we might be able to see them shrink and expand, perhaps even to vanish and let us watch the Hall in the process of construction. I haven’t discussed the matter with Marlstone personally, mind—but that’s the inference I draw.”

      “You’re probably right,” Michael conceded, readily enough. “In that respect too, the Keep and its environs might be reckoned a particularly suitable location for his third full-scale trial. Will it be suitable, do you think, for your own endeavors?”

      “Marlstone and I have the same objective, even if our instruments are very different,” Carp observed, reflectively. “We both aspire to cross commonplace boundaries, and rumor has it that he also expects to make contact with phantoms if he should ever succeed in getting his apparatus to work. I too am dependent on an instrument whose unreliability can be frustrating—but if there are phantoms at Langstrade, as I’m assured that there are, I certainly hope that I might be able to make contact with them, and perhaps elicit some explanation of their presence.” He glanced sideways as he spoke at Mademoiselle Evredon, who blushed slightly at the reference to her unreliability, but pretended not to have heard it because she was concentrating on whatever Hope was saying. Michael winced on her behalf, and dropped his fork, which clattered embarrassingly on the table-top.

      “Personally,” Carp continued, “I wish Mr. Marlstone every success. If his machine really can permit people in the present to catch glimpses of people in the past or the future, if only as silent phantoms, that would be a wonder to outshine all the others that we have recently seen. It might change the world far more profoundly than the steam engine.”

      “If we were to receive news from the future rather than the past, it surely would,” Michael reflected. “If we were able to discover today what we would otherwise not discover for a hundred years…well, that way lies paradox.”

      “Only logic fears paradoxes,” Carp said, in a rather mechanical fashion, as if quoting a saw. “We should be braver, if we are not to be prisoners of our own intellectual inventions.”

      “That’s a nice thought,” Michael said. “Even so, if Marlstone ever does get his time machine to work, there might be hazards involved, just as there must be in your work. If you or he can obtain accurate knowledge of the world to come, or transmit information from the present into the past, it seems to me that history itself must be at risk. The world would be in danger of dissolving into the kind of chaos that could only gladden the heart of a woemonger like Mr. Escott.”

      Carp was wise enough to appreciate that this was as much a challenge to the pretensions of Mesmerism as a comment on the potential dangers of chronovisual technology, but he did not take offence.

      “People did wax lyrical about the potential dangers of animal magnetism when somniloquists first began claiming that they could obtain visions of the future,” Carp admitted, gloomily, “but the utility of such visions has proved to be little greater than that of the enigmatic pronunciations of the pythoness of Delphi. When there is truth in what such visions offer, it tends to be cloaked in sufficient mystery to prevent the whole truth from being perceived until after the event, when rational reaction can no longer be effective.”

      “If you’ll forgive me saying so, Dr. Carp,” Michael said, “you sound a trifle disenchanted with your science.”

      “I have reached an age at which it is difficult to preserve a sense of enchantment,” Carp told him. “To tell the truth, I suspect that tomorrow night’s séance might be the last I shall ever hold, not merely at Langstrade but anywhere. Perhaps I should have retired when I lost my previous somniloquist, with whom I had built up a fine and irreplaceable rapport, but one is always tempted to continue one’s life’s work a little too long…not that you need to think of such things, Mr. Laurel, given that you’re at the very beginning of your own life and career. For you, this weekend will be a stepping-stone to success, and you are fully entitled to rejoice in that. Forgive my bad mood—comfortable as the railway train is, at least by comparison with the mail-coach, I found the experience of traveling in it rather stressful.”

      Michael did his best to reassure the old man by telling him that he was looking forward very eagerly to seeing a demonstration of somniloquism for the first time, but his efforts seemed to be in vain.

      “You must forgive Dr. Carp,” Mademoiselle Evredon eventually put in. “I am the one who has vexed him. He is disappointed in me.” Like Carmela Monticarlo, she spoke English fluently, with only a hint of an accent, but she spoke relatively slowly, choosing her words with care.

      “I have no right to be disappointed, my dear,” Carp was quick to say. “You are in no way responsible for what happens while you are entranced. Your own personality is set aside, and the part of your brain that takes over the control of your voice is very different from the part that comprises your waking personality. I should not chide you for what you cannot help.”

      “Perhaps it’s simply a matter of settling into a new partnership,” Michael suggested. “With luck, tomorrow night’s séance might cement the relationship and produce revelations that will restore your enthusiasm, Dr. Carp.”

      “Well,” said the Mesmerist, making an obvious effort to rally his spirits, “we must certainly hope so. I would certainly like to repay Lady Langstrade’s faith in me, if I can—and as you say, Mr. Laurel, the Hall certainly does seem to be haunted. If we can, indeed, produce revelations that might be of some use to the Earl, or to anyone else in the audience, that would be very gratifying. It is, after all, an auspicious occasion, even if it is one that has been invented by legend-making rather than occasioned by an actual event. Perhaps, if we cannot contact Harold Longstride, we might be able to contact Emund Snurlson, of whose real existence history seems reasonably certain.”

      The dinner was over soon enough, Yorkshire coaching inns having no inclination toward sweet desserts. As the inn offered surroundings in which few diners would be tempted to linger, the travelers immediately made preparations to continue their journey. As they got up from the table and began making token protests against Hope’s insistence on settling the entire bill himself, Jeanne Evredon slid close to Michael and said: “Thank you for that, Mr. Laurel. Dr. Carp was in need of a boost to his morale, and I think you have provided it.”

      Michael attempted to insist that he had done nothing at all, but that only made the somniloquist smile at his modesty—and Michael could not help noticing that Carmela Monticarlo, who was watching them, lost her own smile in response. He was so embarrassed by that occurrence that he stubbed his toe on the table-leg as he moved away, and limped all the way back to the diligence.