The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(15)

There they cursed as one the uselessness of the police and the power of that monster from hell who continued to mock them, most recently by sending George Lusk, socialist firebrand and self-proclaimed president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, a cardboard box containing a human kidney. Frustrated at his own lack of courage, Andrew watched her return drunk each night to the little room. Then, before she could collapse on the floor or curl up like a dog beside the warm hearth, he would take her in his arms and put her to bed, grateful that no knife had stopped her in her tracks. But he knew she could not keep exposing herself to danger in this way, even if the murderer had not struck for several weeks and more than eighty policemen were patrolling the neighborhood, and he knew he was the only one able to stop her. For that reason, sitting in the gloom while his beloved spun her drunken nightmares filled with corpses with their guts ripped out, Andrew would resolve to confront his father the very next day. Only the next day all he could do was prowl around his father’s study not daring to go in. And when it grew dark, his head bowed in shame, occasionally clutching a bottle, he returned to Marie Kelly’s little room, where she received him with her eyes” silent reproach. Then Andrew remembered all the things he had said to her, the impassioned declarations he had hoped would seal their union. How he had been waiting for her, for how long he did not know—eighteen, a hundred, five hundred years—how he was certain that if he had undergone any reincarnations he had looked for her in every one of them, for they were twin spirits destined to find each other in the labyrinth of time, and other such pronouncements, which, under the present circumstances, he was sure Marie Kelly could only see as a pathetic attempt to cloak his animal urges in a sophisticated romanticism or, worse still, to conceal the thrill he derived from those voyeuristic forays into the wretched side of existence. “Where is your love now, Andrew?” her eyes seemed to be asking him like a frightened gazelle’s, before she trudged off to the Britannia, only to return a few hours later rolling drunk.

Until on that cold night of November 7 Andrew watched her leave again for the tavern, and something inside him shifted.

Whether it was the alcohol, which when consumed in the right quantity can, on occasion, clear some people’s heads, or simply that enough time had passed for this clarity to occur naturally, it finally dawned on Andrew that without Marie Kelly his life would no longer have any meaning, and therefore he had nothing to lose by fighting for a future with her. Filled with sudden resolve, his lungs suddenly cleared of the dead leaves that had been choking him, he left the room, slamming the door resolutely behind him, and strode off towards the place where Harold spent his nights waiting while his master took his pleasure, huddled like an owl on the coachman’s seat, warming himself with a bottle of brandy.

That night his father was to discover that his youngest son was in love with a whore.





5


Yes, I know that when I began this tale I promised there would be a fabulous time machine, and there will be, there will even be intrepid explorers and fierce native tribes—a must in any adventure story. But all in good time; isn’t it necessary at the start of any game to place all the pieces on their respective squares first? Of course it is, in which case let me continue setting up the board, slowly but surely, by returning to young Andrew, who might have taken the opportunity of the long journey back to the Harrington mansion to sober up as much as possible, but who chose instead to cloud his thoughts still further by finishing off the bottle he had in his pocket. Ultimately, there was no point in confronting his father with a sound argument and reasoned thinking, as he was sure any civilized discussion of the matter would be impossible.

What he needed was to dull his senses as much as he could, staying just sober enough not to be completely tongue-tied. There was no point even slipping back into the elegant clothes he always left judiciously in a bundle on the seat. That night there was no longer any need to for secrecy. When they arrived at the mansion, Andrew stepped out of the carriage, asked Harold to stay where he was, and hurried into the house. The coachman nodded his head in dismay as he watched him run up the steps in those rags, and wondered if he would hear Mr. Harrington’s shouts from there.

Andrew had forgotten his father had a meeting with businessmen that night until he staggered into the library, and a dozen men stood gaping at him in astonishment. This was not the situation he had anticipated, but he had too much alcohol in his blood to be put off. He searched for his father amid the array of dinner jackets, and finally found him standing by the fireplace, next to his brother Anthony. Glass in one hand and cigar in the other, both men looked him up and down in utter astonishment. But his clothing was the least of it, as they would soon discover, thought Andrew, who in the end felt pleased to have an audience. Since he was about to stick his head in the noose, better to do so in front of witnesses than alone with his father in his study. He cleared his throat loudly under the fixed gaze of the gathering, and said: “Father, I’ve come here to tell you I’m in love.” His words were followed by a heavy silence, broken only by an embarrassed cough here and there.

“Andrew, this is hardly a suitable moment to …” his father began, visibly irritated, before Andrew silenced him with a sudden gesture of his hand.

“I assure you, father, this is as unsuitable a moment as any,” he said, trying to keep his balance so he would not have to finish his bravura performance flat on his face.