Out of Touch, Out of Time - Chapter Seven

July 2, 2008

Turning back to the stove, she said, “The eggs are almost done. I hope you don’t mind scrambled.”

“Not at all,” was all he managed to say before she continued, and he wasn’t even sure she heard that.

“And, the coffee is over there. Do you take cream or sugar?”

“Black is fine,” he looked where she pointed and saw the coffee in a glass pitcher setting in a white contraption made of a shiny material he didn’t recognize.

He reached for it, and was surprised to feel heat coming from it. “Interesting,” he said as he held his hand in front of it. No fire, how did it work?

There was a chuckle behind him and he turned to see her dividing eggs between two plates. “That’s a coffeemaker; I’ll show you how it works later.”

Taking four slices of perfectly sliced toasted bread out of a silver holder, she pointed to the table and two places set with cloth mats and napkins. “Sit while I put the bacon on these plates. I’m sorry; you do like bacon don’t you?”

“Yes, very much so."

“As to your earlier comment, I’m not a Victorian gentleman. I’m simply a gardener, no gentleman involved, just a servant.”

She smiled, “In this day and age, you’re a gentleman and although the extremely rich have servants, gardeners are respected business people.”

He smiled and took a bite of his eggs, he would have said something, but she continued, “I’ve done a bit of research on Hucksinger, he was quite a tyrant, wasn’t he?”

Jonas nearly choked on his toast. “Interesting, I always thought history favored people.”

“No, I don’t believe always. Anyway, I guess that means he was.”

“He was a typical gentleman of the time. He was an attorney and a respected member of society. Everything he, his family or his servants did he took as a personal reflection on his moral standing within the community.”

He watched as she picked up a piece of crispy bacon and broke off a bite before putting it in her mouth and chewing. Maybe while her mouth was occupied by something other than talking, although he could think of other ways to occupy her mouth than eating, he’d try to see if she could answer his questions about the woman in the garden.

“Is there any mention in that history of yours of anything strange happening here around July 10, 1890?” He held his breath, wondering.

“No… I don’t think…” She broke off another piece of bacon and chewed it before saying, “Wait, yes, maybe that’s why I paid so much attention to your picture. There was an article in the paper about Hucksinger’s gardener mysteriously disappearing. I don’t remember the date, but obviously it was sometime after that picture was taken.” She smiled and picked up her fork. “Well, I guess that mystery’s solved.”

“Did it say if I ever returned?” What answer did he want to hear? Looking at her, he didn’t know. Here he knew nothing, but from what he’d seen, it seemed a place where he could learn much, and perhaps his skills would make him better than a servant. In his own time, he was nothing but a servant, as were his sisters, and because of his family and upbringing, he would never be anything more.

And here, he could start over, forget the past. He wanted to laugh. The past was really past, a hundred and twenty-eight years past. For the first time he thought that maybe now the open wound could finally heal. Maybe the nightmares could even be put to rest.

She pulled him back to the present when she answered. “I don’t know if it ever said, or if I just didn’t dig deep enough. I’m sorry, but I was doing research on the original owners of the house, not their servants.”

“That sounds terrible. You were people, too, and you contributed as much as Hucksinger and his wife—if not more, actually, since you did all the work—to make this house what it was.”

“Yes, but we were just the servants,” he felt a need to reassure her. “In my time, we were what we were. You can’t tell me that class difference has changed, and everyone is equal. I’m not illiterate. My parents were poor, there were five children, I, the only boy, but I did go to school. I studied the history of this country. There have always been class differences.”

“Yes and there still are. And many people born in extreme poverty still can’t get out, but many others have been able to. I’d like to say there’s an equal chance for all, but I can’t. I can just say, there are, perhaps, more chances than there used to be. At least, I’d like to think so.”

“Tell me about the world today. The airplane I saw, can it go anywhere?” He smiled as a thought came to him. “Since I traveled through time, can anyone do that, like H. G. Wells wrote? Was Jules Vern right? Can Captain Nemo go Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and can you go from the Earth to the Moon?”

She smiled, took a bite of her eggs and with eyes wide with laughter she said, “Planes can go anywhere on earth; no, what you did is very unique; yes; yes and Mars, too.”

Chapter Six

Chapter Eight