to the more esoteric mysteries of Time.
Michael had never met Marlstone, and only knew of him by virtue of newspaper reportage of the failed experiments at Horton Lacey and Chatsworth. Apparently, the would-be inventor had not inherited his father’s money until 1819, and it was only then that he had been able to interest himself in John Dee’s speculative attempts to develop a theory of time. Marlstone was said to have demonstrated some of his own theories experimentally, but only on a very small scale and in private. His attempts to replicate his laboratory results on a much grander scale had gone sadly awry, occasioning much mockery from the hard-headed physicists who refused to believe in the possibility of perpetual motion machines and similarly paradoxical endeavors.
Annoyed by this derision, Marlstone had apparently hunted high and low for a location more conducive to the functioning of his apparatus, whose failure he attributed to “quasi-acoustic feedback in the temporal field” resulting from the architectural design of the structures in which he had conducted his full-scale demonstrations. Apparently, the dimensions of the Langstrade Keep, although a trifle cramped, would be much more conducive to the establishment and maintenance of a stable “temporal field”—unless of course, Marlstone really was the kind of moonstruck fantasist that most people now took him for. At any rate, Marlstone’s enthusiasm for the potential location had found a resonant echo in Lord Langstrade’s enthusiasm for the tantalizing possibility that Marlstone’s endeavors held out: the possibility of seeing through time. Although Marlstone only claimed successes in his private laboratory extending over a matter of minutes, and was reluctant to promise that his large-scale apparatus might be capable of providing views extending over years, let alone decades, Lord Langstrade was enthusiastic to see the principle demonstrated, so that further progress in chronovisual technology might one day enable him to look back across a thousand years and more, in order to witness Harold Longstride’s combat with Emund Snurlson for himself.
In spite of his recent vicissitudes, however, Michael suspected that Marlstone might look down on him in much the same way that Hope and Escott obviously did, considering him a shallow recorder of the world’s contents rather than an educated analyst of their nature and meaning. What chance did a mere painter have, he could not help wondering, of comparing with such men as Marlstone and Hope in the eyes of his host?—as he would presumably need to do if he were ever to obtain approval for the marriage he hoped to make.
Lady Phythian was drawn back into Hope and Escott’s discussion again when it turned to matters of psychognosis, by which time the Sir Richard Trevithick was streaking through Lincolnshire. Escott, as might be expected, was scathing about the potential of the supposed new science, while Hope was far more hopeful that it might eventually generate a theory of the mind of Newtonian elegance and subtlety. Both men, however, were agreed on rejecting present-day Mesmerism as mostly poppycock, and its supposed practitioners—including, by implication, Augustus Carp—as self-deluding fools or mere charlatans. Lady Phythian objected to this characterization, insisting that Dr. Carp was an exceedingly wise man, who had used his undoubted psychic gifts to provided solace to many a widow—herself included—and would doubtless continue to do so if only he could find a more adequate replacement for his late and much-lamented somniloquist.
“I don’t doubt that somniloquists really do hear voices, Lady Phythian” Hope opined, “but we shall not be able to make any true progress in psychognosis until we abandon the fantasy that those voices emanate from the spirits of the dead. I don’t doubt that Dr. Carp’s last somniloquist was able to supply you with a measure of solace following your husband’s death, probably spiced with a healthy dose of commonsensical advice, but the voice that bid her do so came from within, not from the realm of the afterlife.”
“Hope is, as usual, half right,” Escott judged. “The voices somniloquists appear to transmit cannot emanate from the afterlife, but their origin in the mysterious depths of the human mind gives them no better access to wisdom, even of a commonsensical kind. In fact, the murky depths of the human mind are essentially chaotic, and their produce is essentially subversive and capricious. There is no possibility for progress there, but only one more proof that the idea of progress is a myth. What underlies the superficial order of the world is a deadly confusion, whose volcanic eruptions will always destroy the petty achievements of our constructive consciousness, and betray our fondest illusions of future happiness.”
Once again, as he completed this florid speech, Escott caught Michael’s eye and raised his eyebrows in a quasi-conspiratorial manner, but the gesture left Michael at a loss. He did not know whether the thin man was soliciting his agreement, taking it for granted, or signaling that he did not really mean a single word of what he said.
“What do you think, Laurel?” Hope suddenly demanded, although he could not have seen the raised eyebrows.
“I don’t know,” Michael admitted, trying not to stammer. “Perhaps I’ll be able to form a better judgment when I’ve seen Dr. Carp in action. He’s due to entrance his somniloquist tomorrow night, I believe, immediately after Signor Monticarlo’s recital?”
Signor Monticarlo obligingly nodded in confirmation of Michael’s presumption, but seemed pained at the thought that his pioneering revelation of a new variation of a Pietro Locatelli capriccio was to be followed by a display of Mesmeric somniloquism. Lady Phythian nodded too, with far greater conviction. Carmela Monticarlo smiled.
“Very wise, Laurel,” said Escott. “Keep your powder dry. Don’t fire until you have the bird in your sights.”
“For a man who’s never yet hit a bird in flight,” Hope put in, “Mr. Escott is very free with his sporting metaphors—but he’s right about your being wise to reserve judgment, Laurel. You might learn a great deal this weekend, if you’re lucky. When the Sir Richard Trevithick carries us home again on Tuesday, we might all be a little wiser. I certainly hope so.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DISPIRITED MESMERIST
By the time the Sir Richard Trevithick pulled into York station, dead on time, having failed to come off the rails yet again, Hope and Escott had tired somewhat of their perpetual performance, and had lapsed into a sort of weary torpor. No one had attempted to take on the burden of keeping the conversation going, so the last few miles had been covered in near-funereal silence.
Rather than continue their journey immediately in the hired diligence that was waiting for them in the station forecourt, the company decided—with not a single dissenting voice—to take an early dinner. They voted to take temporary refuge in a Coaching Inn that was situated less than a hundred yards from the railway station, set back slightly from the road. It seemed rather as if the august institution were staring at its new neighbor, obliquely and resentfully, from what would henceforth be the wrong side of the dusty highway.
While his companions from the carriage made ready to execute this plan, Michael went to collect his bags and equipment from the luggage van. Those of his traveling companions who had left trunks there were content to rely on the labels they bore to ensure that they were transferred to the diligence. The only person who joined him was Augustus Carp, to whom he had just been introduced for the first time.
Carp was considerably older than Hope, Escott or Monticarlo, or even Lady Phythian; Michael judged that he must be at least seventy, even if the snowy whiteness of his hair was slightly deceptive. Michael had expected the celebrated Mesmerist to have strikingly penetrative eyes, but Carp’s gaze actually seemed quite meek, and his dull pupils did not give the least hint of any capacity for flashing fire.
“Have you been to Langstrade Hall before, Mr. Laurel?” Carp asked him, by way of making polite conversation, while the porters were busy unloading the luggage van.
“This is my first time,” Michael admitted, “but I hope it
