'I went to Aldershot, to the place where my home is, but it wasn't there yet. I landed in 1877.'
'Forty years from now,' said Beresford, picking up the stilt-boots. 'Come inside. My guess is you no longer object to alcohol?'
'It's still too early for me, Henry. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit alone for a bit. I have to work out what happened.'
'Very well. I have business in London today anyway, and will probably stay overnight, so I'll leave you to your contemplations and will see you tomorrow morning. Treat the mansion as your own.'
'Thank you, Henry; you continue to be very generous. I don't know how I'd manage without you. You have been a great friend.'
'Not at all; think nothing of it! As a friend, may I make an observation?'
'Of course.'
'You're beginning to look a little wild about the eyes, Edward. Since your arrival here you have worked on that control unit without cease. Perhaps you should rest up for a few days. Do something different. You could come to London with me. I'm going to the Athenaeum Club. Brunel will be there, the famous engineer-have you heard of him?'
'Of course! He's still famous in my time!' said Oxford. 'But I can't, Henry. I can't leave Darkening Towers. This seclusion is bearable but if I step beyond these walls I'll be confronted with a world very different from my own. Too different! It's liable to cause a severe form of culture shock from which I may never recover.'
'Culture shock? What is that?'
'Think of all the things that make you the man you are today, Henry. What if they were all replaced with entirely different things? Would you still be the same man?'
'I would adapt.'
'Yes, up to a point adaptation is possible, but beyond that point, destruction beckons.'
'Very well, if London is too much for you, then rest here. Sleep, drink, but leave off working and thinking for a few hours at least.'
'I'll try.'
Just after midday, the Marquess of Waterford rode out of Darkening Towers, leaving Oxford to his own devices.
Brock served a light lunch that the time traveller ate without tasting. Despite his host's advice, his mind was entirely occupied with his unsuccessful jump home. Later, he prodded and probed his helmet's hardware but without the proper tools repairs were impossible. He had to get back to 2202!
He brooded through the afternoon and into the evening, slumped in an armchair, oblivious to Brock, who occasionally appeared to tend the fire, to bring tea, and to offer food.
Eventually, after the valet had cleared his throat four times without gaining Oxford's attention, Brock said, 'Excuse me, sir, do you require anything? Only it's one o'clock in the morning and I should like to retire for the night.'
Oxford looked at him with faraway eyes. 'What? Oh, no, go to bed, Brock. Thank you.'
The valet left and Oxford remained in the chair.
The fire died.
The night passed.
The sun rose.
Brock reappeared.
He found Oxford pacing up and down.
'Shall I instruct the cook to prepare you some breakfast, sir?'
'No!' snapped Oxford. 'Where's your master?'
'In London, sir. I expect he'll be back later this morning.'
'Call him! I need to speak with him at once!'
'Call him, sir?'
'At once, dammit!'
'I'm afraid you've misunderstood me, sir. He is in London.'
'I understood perfectly well! Get him on the-Ah! No! Of course. I'm sorry, Brock. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'll wait. Would you tell your master I need to see him the moment he arrives?'
'I will, sir.'
'Thank you.'
He had to wait until three o'clock.
Beresford had barely entered the mansion before he was brought up short by a wild shout: 'Where the hell have you been? I've been waiting all day!'
Passing his gloves and hat to Brock, the marquess looked at the haggard figure who'd shouted from the door of the morning room.
'By James!' he exclaimed. 'What's wrong with you, Oxford?'
'Get in here, I have to tell you something! Quick!'
Beresford shrugged and walked into the chamber, unbuttoning his riding jacket and slipping out of it.
'What's on your mind?' he said, tossing the garment over the back of a chair.
Edward Oxford, his eyes blazing, his mouth twisted into a painful grin, ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair and laughed. It was a wild, horribly pitched sound.
'I can't go back!' he yelled. 'I can't go back!'
Beresford dropped into an armchair. 'Back where? Home, you mean? To 2202?'
'Yes, of course that's what I mean, you bloody fool!'
'Steady, man. Calm down. Remember that you're my guest here.'
Oxford wrapped his arms around himself and gazed at the marquess.
'I killed a man,' he whispered.
'You did what? When?'
'Three years from now. I killed a man by accident. He was my ancestor.'
'Good Lord! Sit. Tell me more.'
Oxford shuffled to a chair and fell into it. He stared at the floor.
'Henry, imagine that time is a cord stretching forward from now all the way to the year 2202. Now picture a point on that cord a short distance ahead of us-the year 1840. There is a man at that point whose name, like mine, is Edward Oxford. We'll call him the Original Oxford. As you move along that line, you see this man fathering a child, and that child grows and becomes parent to another, and that one does the same, and so on and so forth until you reach 2162, when a descendant of the Original Oxford gives birth to me.'
'I get the picture,' said Beresford. 'So what?'
'Now move forward to 2202, my fortieth birthday. I jump back from that far end of the line to 1840 and I kill the Original Oxford before then jumping to the start of the line, where we are now.'
'The present moment,' offered the marquess.
'Yes. Now, at 1840, the line has been cut. The stretch of it containing all the Original Oxford descendants is no longer joined to the part of the line that we are on. It still exists, perhaps, but not for us. For us, everything after the death of the Original Oxford must be written anew. There's nothing there for me to jump forward into!'
'But you went to 1877. That's beyond the cut!'
'Yes, it is, and I've been puzzling over that all night. I think I know what happened. I think I jumped to the end of my natural life span.'
'I don't understand you.'
'Henry, if I remain in this time, by 1877 I will be eighty years old. Friday March 9, 1877, I am certain, will be, barring accidents, the end of my days.'
'Do you mean to suggest that you can travel within your own allotted time, as it were, but to go beyond that you need a future which, for you, has already been established?'
'Yes, exactly.'
'To all intents and purposes, then, you seem to have wiped yourself out of existence. But why, Edward? Why did you kill this man?'
'I'd rather not go into that. Like I said, it was an accident.'
