This is a response to one of the time travel challenges issued by Cyndi on the yahoo group ARWOW. It is a companion piece to An Evening with the Colonel by jaytalltrees that can be found on SH Chaos. It is very different in tone to that story as I made the mistake of asking my Brandon muse where he would really like to go. Many thanks to my beta, jesse.
Reviews will be replied to on my LJ, which can be found via my profile page.
The story is based on the novel and takes place before the Dashwood family arrived at Barton Cottage.
Warning: Some archaic English spellings and meanings have been used.
Colonel Christopher Brandon eased himself behind the controls of the time travelling device and fastened the seat belt. Master J, having run through the controls of the apparatus once more, had now retreated from the stable stall in which it was stored and Brandon was free to choose his destination.
The young man, a genuine time traveller, whom Brandon counted as among the most extraordinary of his acquaintance, had reappeared several weeks ago, requesting that the Colonel introduce him to the pleasures of the 18th Century. The young colonial had an ease of manner and an openness of address that Brandon had found charming and, although he doubted that he could furnish an experience as interesting as the charms of the salon to which he had been taken some two hundred years into the future, he was made most welcome.
The visit had interrupted a period of melancholy that had afflicted the Colonel. This was caused in part by the anniversary of the day upon which he had lost Eliza, and the fact that several weeks of damp and gloomy autumnal weather had driven all the game into deep covert, forcing even Sir John to join his wife and mother in London.
Subsequently, Brandon had thrown himself into turning his strange guest into a gentleman who could be introduced to the delights of the London season. This process had not been without problems. Master J had proven to have a very good "seat" and had also taken to carriage driving as though born to it. Brandon's tailor had, however, despaired when Master J had rejected the latest London cut in favour of an old fashioned look, with an over-preponderance of buttons. When questioned, the young American had implied that he had become aware that "his chances" were much improved with the fair sex in his own time with the wearing of many buttons, and to be quite honest, "the more the merrier."
Brandon had also, to his own amusement, seen his dancing master reduced to tears as he attempted, futilely, to instil the most basic of dance steps. But he now felt ready to introduce his protégé to London Society and preparations for their departure were under way.
The evening before their departure, Master J had made the most unexpected offer - that Brandon should undertake an excursion in the time travel device to wherever he should choose. Such an offer was not to be turned down and Brandon now sat ready to depart to any destination in time and space that he wished.
Brandon looked at the dials that set the date to which he could travel. Where and when should he decide to go?
A visit into the past perhaps, to see the wonders of the Greek civilisation that influenced the art and architecture of his home and which had formed the principal part of his education?
A look into the future, to see how the lands in his stewardship fared - how would the avenue of chestnuts that he had planted at Delaford look two hundred years from now?
Or maybe to travel far into the future, where a new Classical age might have arisen?
A slight smile played about Brandon's mouth at his own self deception - he knew exactly where he would travel this night, had known as soon as he realised that Master J's offer was genuine. He turned the dials to set the coordinates and without hesitation pressed the button that set the machine in motion.
He experienced the same disorientating swirl of light and sound as before but it ceased after a few seconds. He blinked. It was still night but now the machine was outside; the temperature of the air was much warmer, striking him almost like a blow. There was a scent of honeysuckle in the air. As his eyes became adjusted to the dark, he could see that he was in the garden at Delaford.
The time machine was parked against the steps to the yew arbour that stood on the boundary walls of the Delaford estate. Across the lawns he could see the house faintly illuminated by the slither of a crescent moon and a few stars.
Brandon got out of the machine and went up the steps to stand within the yew arbour. He had to know - the stems of the yew branches did seem to be thinner than he remembered but there was the proof. Carved into the thickest trunk was the gleam of initials freshly cut - a C and an E entwined. In present day Delaford the bark had grown back over this wound, but he was looking at it newly carved.
The machine had worked. He had gone back nineteen years into the past. He had travelled to the night upon which he had planned to elope to Scotland with Eliza. The implications of this were almost overwhelming. Brandon sank down upon the arbour seat. He could see the house ahead of him, its outline picked out by the thin moonlight. He hardly dared to believe it, but within those walls were his younger self, his father …and Eliza.
He rarely came to this spot of his estate. It had the effect of deepening his melancholy. And the reason why was apparent as a flood of memories burst upon him. From this seat, it was possible to watch all the traffic travelling along the Turnpike - carts, stagecoaches and carriages.
Here she had knelt, her eyes alight, attaching a fanciful story to each traveller that she saw. They always tended towards the romantic, especially at the sight of a lone horseman. She always fancied such a one to be hurrying towards a sweetheart; the greater his speed, the greater the urgency. His love might be in peril, may have fallen ill with a fever!
Brandon would laugh, enjoying the outpouring of her impulsive heart. Promising to fulfil her wish to travel along that Turnpike to see the wide world beyond.
Upon this seat he had taken her hand, small and delicate, within his in a gentle and restrained hold. Here he had kissed that hand and then, with the shyness and timidity of two young people, still almost children, they had exchanged a clumsy kiss for the first time.
Here too, he had foolishly asked for a lock of her hair, which he had had made into a ring. It had been foolish, because it was the wearing of the ring that had attracted the attention of his father to their deepening relationship.
Brandon took a deep breath. It took almost all of his courage to descend the steps and start across the lawn towards the house. It was late and all of the windows were dark - save one. The curtains had not been drawn across the great windows of one ground floor room that faced the garden. The warmth of a summer evening, and the wishes of the occupant of that room to look upon the dark of the night had made it so. Brandon advanced cautiously to where he could look into the room from the edge of the window without being observed. The scene within was exactly as his memories recalled, as it had been each night since the death of his mother.
Seated at a desk in the library, illuminated by a ring of candelabras, sat Brandon's father. Heavy ledgers lay open on the desk before him; the old man's hand trembled as it traced lines of figures. His head was bowed, his face lined and weary. Brandon was now aware, as he had not been then, that there were two reasons responsible for the melancholy sight before him.
The ledgers recorded the heavy indebtedness of the estate, the inability of his father's income to cope with the debts run up by Brandon's brother, who even this very night was gambling away more of the family's fortune in the newest of the London gambling hells.
The other reason was simple - his father was dying, had at this moment in time just months to live. The nearness of death had focused all of his attention on his duty to his family estate and the honour of the family name. He was a proud man and this fault made him put the requirements of duty and honour far above the possible needs of his ward or that of his sons, especially the youngest.
He had made the decision to marry Eliza to his heir to safeguard the land and fortune of Delaford. Nothing else mattered but that society should see that he had not disgraced the family honour while it had been in his keeping. Brandon had not known that his father had been so near to death - had only been aware that his match with Eliza was disproved but not the full extent as to why.
All these years Brandon had disowned the man who had destroyed all the happiness in his life but now, as he looked upon the parent that he had not seen for nearly twenty years, he was just a son looking upon a father whom he had never thought to see again and who could fault him that he only murmured forgiveness through his tears.
Eventually his father closed the ledgers and laid down his quill. He took a taper and lit the night candle upon his desk and then put out the candelabras with a brass candle snuff, until the sole illumination remained to light his haggard face. Brandon watched his father leave the room and then rested his forehead upon the cool stone windowsill, to recover from the emotion that had overwhelmed him.
He had not realised that it would be so difficult to confront the reality of the past. Now he fully understood how the events of this night had affected him, were still affecting him. Could he face what lay within the house? Could he change her fate?
That tantalising possibility allowed him to move from the spot from where he had been standing and to walk to the kitchen entrance. From his pocket he withdrew the key to that locked door, taken from its peg twenty years into the future. It fitted, of course, and Brandon quietly opened the door. He was greeted with the strange sight of the exact key that he was holding in his hand, also hanging upon the wall. It was a little less worn, slightly shinier, but it was the same key.
He now moved with care down the passageway, as he could not be sure that the under butler would be asleep, despite the gift of a small flask of brandy that his younger self would had given to him earlier that day. It was a detail he had not been to check from memory, but the reassuring sound of snores greeted Brandon as he neared the servants' pantry, where he found the young butler slumped back in a chair. The other servants would have gone to bed so Brandon knew that the house lay open before him.
He swiftly made his way to the hall only requiring moonlight to guide his steps. Then up the grand staircase, past the floor where lay his father's rooms, and up to the old Nursery floor where he and Eliza had had their adjoining rooms since childhood.
Here was another place that he only visited on the rarest of occasions, and even then with a sense of despair. He finally stopped outside his old room. Only the fact that he had just seen his dead father enabled him to believe that within this room was a seventeen-year-old Christopher Brandon. A young man about to embark on the biggest adventure of his life, driven by circumstance and a love deep enough to believe that it could overcome all obstacles.
Brandon could clearly remember what he had been doing as last minute preparation. Within his room stood his mother's old writing bureau; it was one of the only things that he had to remember her by. She had shown him how to reach to the back of the cabinet and unlock the secret compartment. At this moment he would be retrieving several precious objects from this hiding place. A large sum of money, painstakingly gathered from his allowance, a flyer showing the inns from where stagecoaches departed from Exeter towards Bristol and the North. A turnpike map to plan their journey and a small cloth pouch. This contained two precious objects. His mother's wedding ring - two hands clasped in an eternal promise of fealty and the ring made of Eliza's hair.
Brandon now moved from this door towards another, just a few paces further down the corridor, the door to a room that held his lost sweetheart. But as he approached, there was the sound of movement. He quickly retreated into a curtained alcove across the corridor and stood silently.
The door opened and a young woman slipped out into the corridor after taking a careful look around. A very familiar giggle came from the room behind her and the maid, for it was Eliza's maid, turned quickly, a warning finger to her smiling lips. The maid closed the door with great care and then straightened.
Her entire expression changed; her lips pursed to a thin line, the eyes became hard and cold. She stepped off down the corridor. Brandon knew that she was heading for his father's room, carrying out his instructions to let him know what the young heiress was up to and to claim the reward that she had been promised.
Brandon knew only too well what was going to happen next, and the remembered pain of it burnt his heart. His father would be roused and would catch the young lovers as they went to the stables to get their horses. Eliza would be locked back in her room. Brandon would be forced into a coach and driven to the home of his Uncle, to be held there until Eliza had been pressed into giving her consent to marry his brother. It would be more than five years before he saw her again, and then only to discover her dying in a sponging house, her beauty and spirit ravaged.
As the maid stepped past the alcove, Brandon acted. A strong hand clamped across the maid's mouth, her arm was pinioned behind her. Brandon was not gentle. As a young man he had seethed with what he would ever do if he got hold of the instrument of his love's destruction - a young woman who had betrayed a virtual child for money! Now an understanding of the long-term consequences of such hatred stilled his hand, but he still bundled the maid quickly up the corridor and into a room that had always been used as a linen store.
He made sure that she did not see his face; his fierce whisper of "Be Quiet!" stilled her cries. He tied her hands and feet with curtain cord and made a gag from a strip of cloth found among the linens. Placing the bound woman upon a quilt on the floor, he left the room, locking it from the outside. She would be found in the hue and cry that would come with the morning. He returned to the alcove, his heart beating rapidly, painfully loud to his ears. He knew the events that had happened. What would happen now?
Minutes passed in an agony of expectation for Christopher Brandon. Every moment he expected his father to appear, a cry to be raised in the house. When the door of his old bedroom opened, he could not prevent a start at the sound. Then he was looking at his younger, oh so much younger, self. The seventeen-year-old boy before him was recognisable to Brandon only by his physical features. The way that he stood and moved, the look in his eyes, which were currently sparkling with anticipation and nervousness - this was all foreign to the older man.
Here was passion and animation, boundless hope and expectation - feelings that remained scarcely as memories to the future Brandon.
The boy clutched a packed saddlebag under his arm and carried a night candle. He moved up the corridor to tap gently in a familiar coded pattern upon the door. It opened, and into the corridor stepped Eliza.
Brandon's heart gave a painful lurch. He could scarcely refrain from gasping aloud and felt tears spring to his eyes as his lost love stood just a few paces from him. She was so lovely. Wisps of her soft brown hair curled from beneath her bonnet; the curve of cheek and lips were just as he remembered. Her eyes sparkled in the light of the candle with even more excitement than the young Christopher displayed. Her delicate hands clutched a trousseau with a tight grip.
Brandon watched his younger self run his hand gently over the young woman's cheek in a reassuring fashion, and then urge her down the corridor with an arm around her shoulders. Brandon followed them through the house as they made their way downstairs, careful to conceal himself within the shadows. It was a strange procession. Eliza held her hand over her mouth as though to silence the noise of her own breath. Christopher had covered the light and was using his familiarity of the house to guide them. The older Brandon followed at a distance, anxiety making it hard for him to breathe, realising that if the two were discovered he would be unable to prevent himself from coming to Eliza's defence.
But they were not disturbed and soon, though it seemed to be with an agonising slowness, they slipped past the sleeping servant and out of the house. They used the shadows to reach the stables. Brandon did not follow but stood in the shadow of a wall.
Once more, time passed with unbearable slowness before the stable doors creaked slowly open and the young couple appeared, leading two horses into the yard. The horses' hooves had been muffled with strips of cloth and made scarcely any sound as they were led over to the mounting block. Christopher helped Eliza mount her horse and then quickly swung himself into the saddle, patting the neck of his steed to keep it calm and silent. He reached across and took Eliza's hand in a tight squeeze. The pair walked their mounts out of the stable yard and Brandon followed to the edge of the shadows, watching in mounting disbelief as they reached the edge of the meadows bordering the drive and broke into a gentle canter.
Brandon watched them until they went out of sight, their silhouettes merging with the night. He was watching the greatest desire of his heart come true! The events of the past were happening just as he had imagined they would have, had he and Eliza not been betrayed.
Eliza and Christopher would reach the Turnpike, and then fly as fast as the road conditions would allow towards the town of Exeter, a couple of hours' hard riding away. And then, by stagecoach, on to Scotland and the little chapel at Gretna that would ensure that they would always be together.
Perhaps it was a dream? This whole night of painful memories and seeing what could have been was possibly just the wish fulfilment of a fevered mind. Brandon did feel unwell. He was finding it hard to think, to breathe.
A feeling of dizziness swept over him; he put up his hand to steady himself against the wall and the thin moonlight showed an astonishing sight. His arm had become transparent; he could see through it to the cobbles below!
I am fading, he thought, can it be? The future is unwinding like a watch spring going backwards? Reforming into a new pattern - does this mean…? His heart was too full for thought; an emotion long suppressed choked him.
A future with Eliza? Even as his body faded to nothingness, Brandon wept with joy.
Fin