It echoed through Darkening Towers, that horrible laughter.
Maybe it echoed through time.
DISSUASION
Nothing is permanent, least of all the thing you think of as I.
Edward Oxford raved all evening until Beresford summoned Brock and together they half pushed, half carried him up the stairs and into his bedroom. They pulled off his clothes-both had learned how to unfasten the time suit-and put him to bed. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep, muttering to himself, groaning, tossing and turning.
When he shuffled into the morning room the next day, he looked gaunt and fevered, with dark circles around his eyes.
"Eat," commanded Beresford, indicating the food the butler had placed on the table.
Oxford sat and ate in a desultory manner, his eyes glazed.
"I have a question," said the marquess.
His guest grunted.
"Where is your ancestor now, at this moment, June 1837?"
"He's fifteen years old. He lives with his mother and sister in lodgings at West Place, West Square, Lambeth."
"And where will he be when you kill him?"
"Green Park."
"Then you must go to Lambeth, find him, and convince him that he'll be murdered if he visits Green Park in 1840."
Oxford leaned back in his seat and looked at the marquess.
"Yes," he mumbled. "Yes. If I can manage it; if I can bear the exposure and hold myself together, it could work."
"Do you know where West Place is?"
"Yes, it's right beside the Imperial War Museum."
"The what?"
"The Imp-No, wait, that hasn't been built. It's-It's the Bethlem Royal Hospital!"
"Bedlam, you mean?"
"The very place where my ancestor will spend twenty-four years of his life if I prevent myself from killing him."
"He was-is, I mean-a lunatic, then?"
"At this point in time, 1837, he's beginning to show symptoms of mental disturbance. The illness reaches its peak in 1840, when he commits a criminal act. He's caught, tried, and committed to Bedlam. Over the next couple of decades or so, he recovers his wits, though he remains incarcerated. They eventually move him to Broadmoor, then he's freed and deported to Australia where he meets and marries a girl. They have a child who is my Idon't-know-how-many-times-great-grandfather. "
Beresford leaned forward and rested his chin upon his hand, contemplating his strange houseguest.
"But now," he muttered, "none of this will happen?"
"I came back in time to prevent his crime," answered Oxford, "but instead killed him."
"So no happy ending in Australia, then."
"He didn't have a happy ending anyway, Henry. Look at this."
Oxford pulled a wallet from his pocket and took a folded sheet of paper from it. He slid it across to Beresford. The marquess unfolded it and saw that it was a letter, though written in no type of ink that he'd ever seen before. He read it:
Brisbane, 12th November, 1888 My Darling There was never any other but you, and that I treated you badly has pained me more even than the treasonable act I committed back in '40. 1 desired nought but to give you and the little one a good home and that I failed and that I was a drinker and a thief instead of the good husband I intended, this I shall regret to the end of my days, which I feel is a time not far off, as I am sickly in body as well as in heart. I do not blame you for what you do now. You are young and can make a good life for yourself and our child back in England with your parents and I would have brought more misery upon you had you stayed here, for I have been driven by the devil since he chose me as his own when I was a mere lad. I beg of you to believe that it is his evil influence that brought misery to our family and the true soul of me never wished you anything but happiness and contentment. You remember, my wife, that I said the mark upon your breast was a sign to me of God's forgiveness for my treachery and that in you he was rewarding me for the work I had done in hospital to restore my wits and good judgment? I pray now that he looks mercifully upon my failure and I ask him that the mark, which so resembles a rainbow in its shape, and which lays also upon our little son's breast, should adorn even y of my descendants forevermore as a sign that the great wrong I committed shall call His vengeance upon no Oxford but myself, for I it was who pulled the triggers and no other. With my death, which as I say will soon be upon me, the affair shall end and the evil attached to my name shall be wiped away. You have ever been the finest thing in my life. Be happy and remember only our earliest days.
Your loving husband
Edward Oxford P.S. Remember me to your grandparents who were so kind to me when I was a lad and who, being among the first f I ever had, I recall with immense fondness.
"It's a scan of the letter he sent to his wife after she left him and returned to her parents in England. I have the original at home. It has been passed down from generation to generation," revealed Oxford.
"Fascinating! A letter from the future!" exclaimed Beresford.
"For me, from the distant past," countered the other man. "And now, a letter that will never be written."
"Yet here it is in my hand," muttered Beresford, wonderingly. "It raises some questions, my friend. For a start, who was the wife?"
"I don't know. There's no record of her name. All I know is that she was the daughter of a family he was acquainted with in the days before he committed his crime. You'll note his postscript."
"Yes. So it was a crime of treason, was it? It must have been bad, else you wouldn't have travelled through time to prevent it."
"It was. It has been an embarrassment to my family for generations."
"But you're not going to tell me what it was-or should I say, will be?"
"No, I'd rather not."
"What of this rainbow he mentions?"
"A small birthmark above the heart, bluish and yellow in colour and shaped like an arc. It has appeared sporadically on Oxfords throughout the generations. I don't have it but my mother does."
"A mark of God's forgiveness, or so the poor fellow thought," murmured Beresford. "What ultimately happened to him in your history?"
"He died a pauper in 1900."
"So if you find him at the present time and dissuade him from ever contemplating the crime, you might save him from his miserable fate-but surely this presents a problem: for if he doesn't commit the crime then he won't be sent to Australia, won't meet the girl, and your ancestors won't be born."
Oxford nodded and wearily ran his fingers through his hair.
"I thought of that before I began this venture," he admitted. "But consider this: the Original was acquainted with the girl's grandparents before he was incarcerated. There is, therefore, every chance that if he remains at liberty he will meet and woo her before she emigrates, and that she will marry him."
Beresford looked astonished. "Good gracious, Edward-do you mean to tell me that you embarked on this scheme with only that vague possibility to protect your future existence? Are you out of your mind, man?"
"Shut the hell up!" snarled the time traveller, his eyes suddenly afire. "It's a matter of probability, and probability theory is a science of the future, so you are hardly qualified to comment, are you? You damned primitive ape!"
Beresford shot to his feet and glared at his guest. "How dare you, sir! I'll remind you that this is my home," he snapped, "and I'll not be spoken to in that manner! I'm going to tend to the horses. I suggest you consider your position here very carefully, Mr. Oxford, because I'll be damned if I'll shelter any man who addresses me so!"