The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [137]
"What-what's happening here?" mumbled the time traveller.
"Ha!" roared Beresford. "I'm giving this trollop all she deserves, man! And it's costing me but a few shillings! The cheap whore!"
His whip cracked down again. He laughed.
Oxford tried to say something, failed, and watched the floor swing toward him. He felt his forehead impact against it.
He knew no more.
By Wednesday afternoon, he was sitting up in bed sipping tentatively at a bowl of chicken broth. The events of the night before seemed like a vague dream.
His host entered the room dressed in his riding clothes. The marquess had just returned from a hunt and was, once again, uproariously drunk-a not infrequent occurrence. He stumbled as he crossed to a chair and hurled himself into it.
"Back from the brink, I see! How the devil do you feel?"
"Weak," replied Oxford. "Henry, I'm sorry about the way I spoke to you."
"Fetch the damned bootjack, Brock," ordered Beresford. He grinned at his guest. "I can never get the bally things off without the old codger's help."
"What I said to you was unforgivable," continued Oxford. "I shouldn't have called you an ape."
"Pah! Forget it! Water under the bridge, what! So the Original wasn't having any of it, hey? You couldn't dissuade him? You've been babbling about it in your fever."
"Rather than talk him out of it, I think I talked him into it," admitted Oxford.
"Hah! So Victoria is fated to die, it seems! Ha ha!"
Oxford slopped soup onto his bedsheets and, with a shaking hand, placed the bowl onto the bedside table.
"I seem to have said rather too much," he croaked.
"Not at all, old man. I have no love for our little prim and proper bitch queen, and I feel I have a better grip on the affair now that I know the full story. I take it, then, that Her Majesty becomes a figure of some importance in your history?"
"She oversaw the expansion of the British Empire and a period of remarkable technological advancement."
"Brock!" yelled Beresford. "Where are you, man? These blasted boots are killing me!" He shook his head at Oxford. "We're well on our way to such circumstances anyway, Edward; I don't see how the snooty tart can possibly influence the country's advancement one way or the other."
"She's a figurehead."
"Figurehead be damned! Disposable, Edward! Disposable! Bollocks to the queen, that's what I say! Ah, Brock, at last! Get these blessed things off me, would you, you doddering old goat!"
The stony-faced valet pulled over a small three-legged stool, sat on it, lifted Beresford's right leg, placed it on his knee, and began unbuttoning the long riding boot.
"No, Edward," continued the marquess, "if you ask me, you've been placing too much emphasis on the events of that day in 1840. We should concentrate our efforts elsewhere."
Brock inserted the jack into Beresford's boot and began to lever it off.
"There's little choice," replied Oxford. "I'm at the event in triplicate now, and on each occasion I seem a little more displaced; pushed away both geographically and chronologically, as the suit prevents me from meeting myself."
"So, as I say, perhaps you should abandon that side of it," suggested Beresford. He gave a sigh as his boot came off and Brock got to work on the other one.
"What do you suggest?"
"Leave history to run its course. Perhaps what matters is not the shape and order of events, but that you, ultimately, are in them. If you can ensure that the right girl has a child with an Oxford, you'll reestablish your ancestry. Who gives a damn that, without Victoria, history might unwind a little differently? At least there'll be a 2202 with an Edward Oxford in it! You'll be able to go home, man!"
The time traveller stared at his hands thoughtfully.
"It's true," he muttered, "the Original did-I mean, does have brothers. Even if I can identify the girl, though, which won't be easy, I don't see how I can force them together."
The marquess gave a roar of laughter and, as his second boot came off, waved Brock away. The valet bowed and left the room with the footgear in