This didn't happen.
The smiling round-faced man was suddenly at his side. "Bravo, my friend!" he muttered. "Jolly good show!"
Oxford backed away from him, feeling terrified, fell, got up again, shoved his way out of the milling crowd, and ran.
"Get back to the suit," he mumbled as his legs pumped. "Try something else!"
He raced up the slope and ran into the trees.
What had caused that bolt of lightning? It had come from the same direction as the shout: "Stop, Edward!" Who had that been? He hadn't seen anyone clearly; there was too much happening.
He found his suit, slipped on the helmet, and activated it.
A sense of well-being flooded through him as the distant noise of electric cars, passenger jets, and advertising billboards assailed his ears. He pulled on the suit and set the navigation system for three months into the past. His lunatic ancestor would be working in a public house-the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street; that was a recorded fact.
"I'll go and talk him out of it," he whispered. "It's what I should have done in the first place."
A terrifying feeling of inevitability sank into his bones.
It won't work.
Try anyway!
It won't work.
He pushed through the undergrowth, returning to the edge of the woods.
"Step out into the open, sir!" came a voice.
Oxford froze. What now?
He crept ahead, trying to see whoever it was through the trees.
"I saw what happened-there's nothing to worry about. Come on, let's be having you!"
He remained silent.
There! A policeman!
"Sir! I saw you trying to protect the queen. I just need you to-"
Oxford plunged out into the open.
The policeman gasped, stepped back, and fell onto his bottom. He threw his truncheon.
The club whirled through the air and crashed into the control unit on the front of the time traveller's suit. Sparks exploded and a mild electric shock jerked through his body.
"Damn!" he cried, and bounded away. He slammed his stilts into the ground, leaped high, ordered the time jump, and winked out of June 10, 1840.
The suit malfunctioned.
Instead of sending him back three months, it sent him a good deal further; and rather than shifting him half a mile northward to a secluded alley behind the Hog in the Pound, it threw him twenty-one miles beyond.
He blinked into existence fifteen feet in the air with an electric charge drilling through him and crashed into the ground, unconscious. His limbs twitched spasmodically for thirty minutes, then he became very still.
Four hours later, a horseman narrowly avoided riding over him. The man reined in his mount and looked down at the bizarrely costumed figure.
"By James! What have we here?" he exclaimed, dismounting.
Henry de La Poet Beresford, the 3rd Marquess of Waterford, bent and ran his fingers over the strange material of the time suit. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before. He grasped Edward Oxford by the shoulder and shook him.
"I say, old fellow, are you in the land of the living?"
There was no response.
Beresford placed his hand on the man's chest, beside the lanternlike disk, and felt the heart beating.
"Still with us, anyway," he muttered. "But what the devil are you, old thing? I've never seen the like!"
He pushed an arm under Oxford's shoulders and lifted him; then, with no small amount of difficulty, shoved him onto the horse's saddle, so that the helmeted head hung on one side of the animal and the stilted boots on the other. Beresford took the reins and led his mount back homeward, to Darkening Towers.
Oxford regained his senses five days later.
Henry Beresford had tried and failed to remove the time suit; he could find no buttons. He'd succeeded, however, in pulling off the boots and in sliding the helmet from the comatose man's head. He'd then placed his unexpected visitor onto a bed, with his shoulders and head propped up against pillows, and had covered him with a blanket.
Unprotected by augmented reality, Oxford's first intimation of consciousness arrived through his nose. He was forced from oblivion by the stench of stale sweat, the mustiness of unlaundered clothes, and the overwrought perfume of lavender.
He opened his eyes.
"Good afternoon," said Beresford.
Oxford blinked and looked at the clean-shaven, moon-faced man sitting beside him.
"Who are you?" he croaked, his hoarse voice sounding to him as if it came from someone else.
"My name is Henry de La Poet Beresford. I am Marquess of Waterford. And who-and, indeed, what-are you? Here, take this water."
Oxford took the proffered glass and quenched his thirst.
"Thank you. My name is Edward Oxford. I'm-I'm a traveller."
Beresford raised his brows. "Is that so? To which circus do you belong?"
"What?"
"Circus, my friend. You appear to be a stilt-walker."
Oxford made no reply.
Beresford considered his guest for a moment, then said, "Yet there are no carnivals or suchlike in the area, which rather begs the question: how did you end up in a dead faint inside the walls of my estate?"
"I don't know. Perhaps you could tell me where I am, exactly?"
"You're in Darkening Towers, near Hertford, some twenty miles or so north of central London. I found you in the grounds, unconscious, five days ago."
"Five days!"
Oxford looked down at the control panel on the front of his suit. It was dead. There was a dent on its face and scorch marks around its left edge.
Beresford said, "I apologise for the indelicacy of my next statement, but the fact is, I was unable to get you out of your costume and I fear you may have fouled it whilst in your faint."
Oxford nodded, reddening.
Beresford laid a hand on his arm. "I shall have my man bring you a basin of hot water and some soap, towels, and fresh clothing. You look to be about my size, a little taller, perhaps. I shall also instruct the cook to prepare you something. Will that be satisfactory?"
"Very much so," replied Oxford, suddenly realising that he was famished.
"Good. I shall leave you to your ablutions. Please join me in the dining room when you are ready."
He stood and walked toward the door.
"Incidentally," he said, pausing, "your accent is unfamiliar-where are you from?"
"I was born and raised in Aldershot."
The marquess grunted. "No, that's not a Hampshire accent."
He opened the door to leave.
"What news of the queen?" Oxford blurted.
Beresford turned, with a puzzled expression. "Queen? Do you mean young Victoria? She's not quite the queen yet, my friend, though His Majesty is said to be on his deathbed."
Oxford frowned. "What date is it?"
"The fifteenth of June."
"Still June!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"What year?"
"The year? Why, 1837, of course!" Beresford looked at his guest curiously. "Are you having problems with your memory, Mr. Oxford?"
"I-yes-a little."
"Perhaps you'll remember more once you have some food inside you. I'll see you downstairs."
He left the room and moments later his valet, a thin and stiffly mannered gentleman, sidled in carrying a large porcelain basin, two towels, and a bar of soap. The valet departed then returned with a full set of clothes. For a third time, he went away and came back, this time with a bucket of steaming water, which he poured into the basin.
Finally, he spoke: "Will you require anything else, sir?"
"No, thank you. What's your name?"
"Brock, sir. May I offer you a shave?"
"I'll do it myself, if you don't mind."
"Very good, sir. There is a bellpull beside the bed, here. Summon me when you're ready, and I'll escort you down to the dining room. May I take your, er, costume to be laundered?"
"The costume, no, Brock; I'd rather take care of that myself, if you don't mind. However, I have a suit on underneath and I'd be very grateful if you'd arrange for it to be washed. I'm afraid it's in rather a state."