Harlots and Ungodliness
Mr Bingley was perusing the library at Pemberly. It was not his choice of pursuit, however the day was so exceedingly unpleasant and Mr Darcy in such foul temper that it rendered it necessary.
It was just as he replaced one unlikely volume, that he noticed a small door in the corner of the room . He could not fathom what it was about the door that had caught his eye, indeed it seemed a rather ordinary specimen, but he was fascinated.
Stepping forward with no consciousness of having done so, he grasped the wooden handle and pushed the door open. He was startled by a blast of cold damp air and a blast of hail as he stepped blindly through into what should have been the passage to the morning room, but was in fact a foggy park.
The door swung shut behind him and Mr Bingley looked around, as close to terrified as he had ever come in his life.
Through a new onslaught of hail, he realised that he was in London, having recognised the houses across the road from the park gates as those belonging to some of his acquaintance.
He stepped forward, glad that he was in a place of considerable familiarity to him, although his puzzlement as to how he had reached here was far from gone.
He stopped as he reached the roadside.
He perceived a rumbling coming through the mist, growing closer and closer, growing into a terrifying roar such as Mr Bingley had never heard.
Suddenly, a towering rectangular giant of steel thundered past, emblazoned with the threatening slogan; "Tesco".
Then, it was gone, Mr Bingley knew not how, for although the contraption was on wheels, there was no visible force propelling it, either man or beast and the only ridiculous thought that Bingley could conceive was that it was somehow powered by fire, as it trailed clouds of smoke behind it, and it came into his head that such a thing must surely be the chariot of Satan. But he dismissed such a silly idea almost immediately and was about to proceed across the road, partly to convince himself that the giant had simply been a conglomeration of shapes in the fog, when a rather lanky man with flaming red hair and wearing a peculiar white coat approached him.
Judging by the colour of the man's hair, Mr Bingley could only assume such coats were the fashion in Scotland, safe in the knowledge that his own tails were prevailing in London.
The man greeted him with what Bingley deemed rather vulgar familiarity. "Bingley!" he called. "You're here! By God I did it!".
"Sir? Are we acquainted? I do not believe we've been introduced", he said, rather more coolly than was his custom, as he did not look on blasphemy with a favourable eye.
The man laughed slightly manically. Mr Bingley watched, warily, ready to defend himself if the man had the infamous Scottish temperament.
"Oh bloody amazing", the man continued. This time Mr Bingley felt he must speak.
"Forgive me Sir, but while I might endure such manner of speech in a friend, I cannot allow it in you. Pray, tell me your business at once".
The man seemed to come to his senses. "Sorry, it really is incredible, but I guess I ought to explain. You see I'm the reason you're here".
Mr Bingley was all astonishment. The man had too much the countenance of an adolescent to seem learned, though he appeared to be in earnest.
"Hm, where to begin?" the man pondered. "You see, it's all fairly advanced science, it's hard to put it in laymen's terms".
Mr Bingley did not know whether to be amused or affronted by the mans assumption that he was ignorant of scientific matters. Although it was not of great importance to him, Mr Darcy kept him up to date with all the latest academic papers.
"I shall endeavour to keep up, Sir", he said dryly.
The man looked at him sceptically.
"Alright, well, using the 2nd principle of Quantum metaphysics relative to the theory of relativity, one can combine that with Galapagos' theorem of dimensional transportation to open an interface between the dimensions that can be opened", the man said in a challenging tone.
There was a pause and then Bingley laughed. "I confess you have confounded me. In laymen's terms then".
The young man smiled.
"Well, put simply, I opened a door from your world into mine".
"I hardly think that the rival merits of town and country warrant classification as different worlds, Sir", Mr Bingley said with considerable amusement.
"No, but they say the past is a foreign country".
"I begin to feel like a school boy at his lessons. Whatever can you mean, Sir?"
"Imagine Mr Bingley, if you could summon someone from 1616, how strange they should think you; your speech and dress".
Mr Bingley smiled at the thought.
"I imagine they may find me most extraordinary".
"How strange do you think me?"
"Most extraordinary", Mr Bingley said slowly.
"Welcome to 2010", the Scot said simply.
Mr Bingley was, most understandably, incredulous and was beginning to credit the man with some inflammation of the brain, when he remembered the peculiar object at the roadside. And he had already travelled through space had he not, why not time? He reasoned with himself.
"I am glad to be of service in your experiments, Sir, but what am I to do now?" he asked, softening towards the scientist.
The young man grinned, the light of mischief bright in his eye, and Mr Bingley found himself taking a greater liking for the man than had previously seemed likely.
"It's 197 years into your future", he said. "Care to explore?"
Mr Bingley looked around as the sky cleared and he began to make out people grouped together under the trees, beginning to venture out as the hail eased and the fog lifted.
"Kensington Gardens seems but little changed", he observed as means of acquiescence. The man grinned broader than ever, and led Mr Bingley across the park.
As they drew near to that majestic monument, The Albert Memorial, Bingley was awed.
"Sir, what on earth is that?"
The youth smiled. "I forgot that it would be new to you, it's very old to us. It's Victorian, she's crowned about 25 years into your future".
"It is truly admirable", Mr Bingley proclaimed, and seemed to be drawn into a reverie, only to be roused by a raucous drawl uncomfortably close to him, and a garish light flashing in his face.
He looked down at the uncommonly large man who was repeatedly pressing a small silver box, setting off blinding flashes at a feverish pace.
"Gawd! Ain't it realistic!", an excitable woman, presumably the man's wife, said, again in those strange tones that were so abhorrent to Bingley's ears.
In order to prevent himself committing a far from chivalrous act, he moved away, followed by the youth who muttered "Damn Okies".
"What-", Mr Bingley began before being hastily interrupted by the man.
"It's called a camera. It's like, instant portraits".
Bingley was intrigued but hurried after the young man to the road, where an oddly shaped steel cart was sat waiting.
It was obvious to Mr Bingley that the cart sat so low on it's wheels that no horse would be able to move it without tipping it up.
The man opened a door. "This is a car, It's sort of fire powered", he explained. Mr Bingley stepped in, wondering at the comfort of the seats, and thinking that the inside of a cart was a very strange place indeed to place a wheel, when there was a roar not unlike the one Bingley had been startled by earlier, and he was too surprised to ask.
It was the most enthralling two miles that Mr Bingley had ever travelled, they passed thousands more of the strange carts, and the streets of London were more crowded than Bingley had ever seen them, and there seemed to be a great deal of foreigners all apparelled in strange, ill-fitting garments that the Scientist mysteriously termed emergency ponchos, though what use such things could be in a crisis, Mr Bingley couldn't think.
Eventually they stopped at a large transparent building that towered into the sky, as though the tower of Babel. Bingley did not know whether to be impressed or horrified by this monstrosity of a building, but he became immersed in watching the scores of people inside it.
Many of them were pushing around wheeled cages and taking garments that Bingley thought hardly suitable for underwear off railings and shelves. (There seemed to be no servants or staffs in the place to do that sort of thing).
Mr Bingley got out of the car and headed towards the building, not noticing the scientist's blushes or the strange looks that many exceedingly ill-mannered people were throwing at him for his manner of dress.
"What is this place?"
"Marks and Spencers, it's a supermarket, like a giant indoor market I guess"
Bingley jumped back suddenly, as when reaching out a hand to open the doors, they had sprung apart,
"What manner of thing is this?", he exclaimed in alarm.
The scientist shushed him and dragged Mr Bingley through before he could try again. "Automatic doors, they have magic sensor thingamajigs", he hissed.
But Bingley was no longer listening. He was admiring the long corridors stretching out towards forever it seemed, and did not notice the obvious pain in the scientists voice when he said the word "magic".
He saw in the far side of the shop, a set of continuous stairs. That is, they seemed to be steadily moving forwards, the top one disappearing into the floor, but as soon as one melted away, they were replenished with a new stair at the bottom, however, after watching for a moment, he had a light-headed sensation and looked away, turning his attention to the clothing around him.
The scientists hand him a pair of ripped trousers that were made of a strange, stiff material, not at all like his own buckskin breeches.
Mr Bingley was indignant. "And is come to this? Selling faded," here the horror in his voice increased, "even ripped garments for," he checked the label and then seemed to be on the verge of an apoplectic fit, "35 pounds! I could hire a pair and chaise for less".
The scientist laughed. "Believe me this is decent. One pound is nothing Mr Bingley, besides, rips are rather fashionable". He hurried Mr Bingley into a small cubicular apartment and thrust a black shirt with a remarkable collar into his hands, closing the door.
Surely Sir, I am not expected to change here. It is unseemly".
"It's normal, try them on".
Mr Bingley worked his way into them with difficulty without the usual aides of servants.
He looked into a conveniently placed mirror. "Great Scott!" he cried out in horror.
It was later that night and the scientist had driven Bingley to a large building lit up with multi coloured lights and strange reflective orbs that made Mr Bingley feel not quite in command of himself. He also felt that the garments he had been forced to wear were most unbecoming, but observing others at this public ball he began to compare himself favourably with them. It was certainly unlike any rooms Mr Bingley had been to in his life, naturally he was only on the registers of the more excusive rooms in London and Bath, preferring the atmosphere of the frequent private balls that he and his sisters received numerous invitations to all season. However judging by the scientists rather vague explanation, the season lasted all year round, which at first Bingley thought capital until he saw the establishment that he was at present standing in.
He could not help but disbelieve the scientists words that this was the most fashionable place this side of London, it more closely resembled his one time experience of one of the more disreputable sorts of places that a gentleman with fortune could go to while away the evenings in the city, neither he nor his friend had enjoyed the experience, and had henceforth attended only the more respectable gatherings, where they found the conversation and decorum more to their taste.
This assembly was certainly not to Bingley's taste, the apparent music sounding more like an incessant thundering to Bingley's ears, however, in an effort to please the scientist, Bingley approached the most decently dressed lady there and asked for the honour of a dance.
The scientist had explained to him that quadrilles were no longer danced and even waltzes were considered old fashioned, (a revelation which shocked Mr Bingley most profoundly), and that, instead, one simply invented the steps oneself. Mr Bingley was rather ungraciously turned down, and was just hiding his offence with a fit of gallantry by procuring an older lady that Bingley was surprised to see prepared to dance, a seat, when an unattractive woman, with a peculiar sparkling substance smeared all over her face, lurched at him, greeting him with "Fancy a dance sweetheart?"
Mr Bingley hurried away to the scientist, looking disapprovingly at the way he was gyrating with a lady in a rather audacious fashion, shocked at the scientists involvement in such compromising rituals, and as they left, he could have sworn he saw a gentleman in female attire, but he tried not to dwell on the thought.
They drove home in silence, Bingley too shocked and the scientist too annoyed to speak, and when they climbed out of the car the scientist went up to bed, muttering a string of profanities, which he then did atone for by washing his mouth out with an odd kind of soap, and Bingley thought what peculiar people the modern British were.
As the scientist slept in his room, Bingley began to look around the flat, intrigued. Moving through a door there was a large room full of strange machinery that Bingley identified as a kitchen only by the large mound of dirtied crockery sitting in the sink, and he wondered why the scientist did not employ a more diligent maid. (He did not think the establishment was large enough to merit a housekeeper).
He moved towards an iron cube of about waist height that had within it a large black cavity. Bingley turned a strangely shaped protruding object on the surface. Not much happened except that an intolerable odour began to pervade the room, and Bingley turned it back again, wondering what conceivable use an unpleasant smell was in the kitchen, except that of masking the smell of burning from guests, however the idea seemed unlikely.
Bingley withdrew from the kitchen, and into a bigger room that was furnished recognisably with the sofas and chairs of a drawing room, though they were not to Bingley's taste.
Along the mantelpiece were several pictures that although appeared to be assorted portraits, had a life that all the paintings Mr Bingley had ever seen, lacked.
Bingley looked with censure at a most unseemly portrayal of the scientist embracing a young girl, there had been many such couples at the club and even in the park, but Bingley found such impropriety unforgivable. He frowned slightly, he was a liberal man, but he had to draw the line somewhere.
He stepped forwards towards a flattish black rectangle attached to the wall that seemed to have no end when viewed from the front, as though one was looking into an abyss.
Mr Bingley pressed the thing, finding a strange circle in the corner.
After a short pause, a vision of vibrant colours and apparently living people burst onto the screen.
Bingley stepped back in alarm as the familiar cockney accent blared into the room, apparently form the box in which it seemed people had been placed.
"Get out of my pub", a rather loose looking woman screeched, and Bingley backed away from the box, feeling threatened by the way it had hooked him so quickly that he had forgotten to wonder at the impossibility of such a thing.
He returned to the kitchen and picked up a pamphlet plastered with the portrait look-a-likes he had seen in the drawing room. A headline read "Jordan; One Boob Job Too Far?"
Mr Bingley was appalled by the disgusting lack of dignity of the articles, and even more so by the indecent disrespect for privacy that the pamphlet showed, when compared to the book he had discarded in Pemberly, he felt that even "Fordyce's Sermons" compared favourably to this disgrace to the name of Literature.
He read with revulsion the hero-worshipping of the people featured, the idolatry of it, the sheer blasphemy of placing people on quite so high a pinnacle.
Suddenly Bingley felt very out of his depth. He felt like a civilised man surrounded by ravaging savages and as the people on the street outside swore continuously, this belief was confirmed.
He turned to the scientist who stood in the doorway looking around groggily, obviously having only recently awoken.
"This is not my world. This is a world of harlots and ungodliness and I would not choose that any of my descendants should live here. I wish to return".
The scientist opened his mouth as though to protest, but seeing Bingley in earnest, closed it, and merely nodded.
It was another silent journey back to the park, and as they drew near to the place Bingley had first entered by, Bingley turned to the scientist expectantly.
The man walked towards a clear grassy are and paced two bizarre looking contraptions about 15 feet apart. There was an explosion and a flash and then a fog descended and hail began to thunder down once more.
Bingley stepped purposefully towards the door that had appeared, apparently mid air, and stepped through without a backward glance.
With considerable relief he found himself once more in the library at Pemberly.
With a relish that he would previously have believed impossible, he settled down by the fire and began to turn the pages of "Fordyce's Sermons" with alacrity.
He may not be able to change 2010, but he could change his own future, and he finally decided upon requesting an audience with Miss Bennet the following day.
After all, back in the library, Mr Bingley began to wonder if it hadn't all been some hideous nightmare.