"Rude! Oh, lor!" And turning her head she shouted back into the hall. "Mum! Mum! There's a maniac outside. I can't 'old him all be meself!"
A door opened. The hallway grew lighter. A figure in a dress of maroon velvet appeared.
"Mrs. Underwood!" cried Jherek. "Mrs. Amelia Underwood! It is I, Jherek Carnelian, returned to claim you for my own!"
Mrs. Underwood was as beautiful as ever, but even as he watched she grew gradually paler and paler. She leaned against the wall, her hand rising to her face. Her lips moved, but no sound issued from them.
"Help me, mum!" begged the maid, retreating into the hall. "I can't manage 'im be meself. You know 'ow strong these loonies can be!"
"I have returned, Mrs. Underwood. I have returned!"
"You —" He could barely hear the words. "You — were hanged , Mr. Carnelian. By the neck, until dead."
"Hanged? In the time machine, you mean? I thought you said you would go with me. I waited. You were evidently unable to join me. So I came back."
"C-came back!"
He pushed his way past the shivering maid. He stretched out his arms to embrace the woman he loved.
She put a pale hand to a pale forehead. There was a certain wild, distracted look in her eyes and she seemed to be talking to herself.
"My experiences — too much — knew I had not recovered properly — brain fever…"
And before he could take her to him she had collapsed upon the red and black Moorish-patterned carpet.
12. The Awful Dilemma of Mrs. Amelia Underwood
"Now look wot you've gorn an' done!" said the little maid accusingly. "Ain't you ashamed of yerself?"
"How could I have made her swoon?"
"You frightened 'er somefink crool — jest like you frightened me ! All that dirty talk!"
Jherek kneeled beside Mrs. Amelia Underwood, patting ineffectually at her limp hands.
"You promise you won't do nuffink nasty an' I'll go an' get some water an' sal volatile ," said the girl, looking at him warily.
"Nasty? I?"
"Oo, yore a cool one!" The girl's tone was half-chiding, half-admiring as she left the hall through a door under the staircase, but she no longer seemed to regard him as a complete menace. She returned very quickly, holding a glass of water in one hand and a small green bottle in the other. "Stand back," she said firmly. She joined Jherek on the floor, lifted Mrs. Underwood's head under one arm and put the bottle to her nose. Mrs. Underwood moaned.
"Yore very lucky indeed," the maid said, "that Mr. Underwood's at 'is meeting. But 'e'll be back soon enough. Then you'll be in trouble!"
Mrs. Underwood opened her eyes. When she saw Jherek, she closed them again. And again she moaned, but this time it seemed that she moaned with despair.
"Have no fear," whispered Jherek. "I will have you away from all this as soon as you have recovered."
Her voice, when she managed to speak, was quite controlled. "Where have you been, Mr. Carnelian, if you were not hanged?"
"Been? In my own age, of course. The age you love. Where we were happy."
"I am happy here , Mr. Carnelian, with my husband, Mr. Underwood."
"Of course. But you are not as happy as you would be with me."
She took a sip from the glass of water, brushed the smelling salts aside, and began to get to her feet. Jherek and the maid helped her. She walked slowly into the sitting room, a rather understated version of the one Jherek had created for her. The harmonium, he noticed, did not have nearly so many stops as the one he had made, and the aspidistra was not as vibrant; neither was the quality of the antimacassars all it could have been. But the smell was better. It was fuller, staler.
Carefully she seated herself in one of the large armchairs near the fireplace. Jherek remained standing. She said to the girclass="underline"
"You may go, Maude Emily."
"Go, miss?"
"Yes, dear. Mr. Carnelian, though a stranger to our customs, is not dangerous. He is from abroad."
"Aeow!" said Maude Emily, considerably relieved and illumined, satisfied now that she had an explanation which covered everything. "Well, I'm sorry about the mistake then, sir." She made something of a curtsey and left.
"She's a good-hearted girl, but not very well trained," said Mrs. Underwood apologetically. "You know the difficulties one has getting — but, of course, you would not know. She has only been with us a fortnight and has broken almost every scrap of china in the house, but she means well. We got her from a Home, you know."
"A home?"
"A Home. A Girl's Home. Something like a Reformatory. The idea is not to punish them but to train them for some useful occupation in Life. Usually, of course, they go into Service."
The word had a faintly familiar ring to it. "Cannon fodder!" said Jherek. "A shilling a day!" He felt at something of a loss.
"I had forgotten," she said. "Forgive me. You know so little about our society."
"On the contrary," he said. "I know even more than before. When we return, Mrs. Underwood, you will be surprised at how much I have learned."
"I do not intend to return to your decadent age, Mr. Carnelian."
There was an icy quality in her voice which he found disturbing.
"I was only too happy to escape," she continued. Then a little more kindly, "Not, of course, that you weren't the soul of hospitality, after your fashion. I shall always be grateful to you for that, Mr. Carnelian. I had begun to convince myself that I had dreamed most of what took place…"
"Dreamed that you loved me?"
"I did not tell you I loved you, Mr. Carnelian."
"You indicated…"
"You misread my —"
"I cannot read at all. I thought you would teach me."
"I mean that you misinterpreted something I might have said. I was not myself, that time in the garden. It was fortunate that I was snatched away before we … Before we did anything we should both regret."
He was not perturbed. "You love me. I know you do. In your letter —"
"I love Mr. Underwood. He is my husband."
"I shall be your husband."
"It is not possible."
"Anything is possible. When I return, my power rings…"
"It is not what I meant, Mr. Carnelian."
"We could have real children," he said coaxingly.
"Mr. Carnelian!" Her colour had returned at last.
"You are beautiful," he said.
"Please, Mr. Carnelian."
He sighed with pleasure. "Very beautiful."
"I shall have to ask you to leave. As it is, my husband will be returning shortly, from his meeting. I shall have to explain that you are an old friend of my father's — that he met your family when he was a missionary in the South Seas. It will be a lie, and I hate to lie. But it will save both our feelings. Say as little as possible."
"You know that you love me," he announced firmly. "Tell him that. You will leave with me now."
"I will do no such thing! Already there has been difficulty — my appearance in court — the potential scandal. Mr. Underwood is not an over-imaginative man, but he became quite suspicious at one point…"
"Suspicious?"
"Of the story I was forced to concoct, to try to save you, Mr. Carnelian, from the noose."
"Noose of what?"
A note of desperation entered her voice. "How, by the way, did you manage to escape death and come here?"
"I did not know death threatened! I suppose it is always a risk in time travel, though. I came here thanks to the help of a kindly, mechanical old creature called Nurse. I had been trying for some while to find a means of returning to 1896 so that we might be reunited. A happy accident led to a succession of events which finally resulted in my arrival here, in Collins Avenue. Do you know a Mr. Wells?"
"No. Did he claim to know me?"