Forever, hopefully.
1 When Ruthven suffered the devastating loss of his cat and fellow traveller Aesop, Melusine re-assigned him to the Media Archives before he had even trudged his way up from the quad to report to her office. Efficiency matched with a near-psychic ability to predict outcomes made for a terrifying combination, even if Melusine herself at least had the common courtesy to pretend she did not know everyone’s exact birthday.
Eleven
“Cramberleigh, of all places.”
Being alone was not on the cards for Ruthven. His dark, safe cave with its terminals, chronometers and vintage media screens had been infiltrated.
Ruthven’s office was in the basement floor of the Media Archives building, most of which consisted of storage. It just about summed up the relative importance of his role at Chronos College that storage got windows and views over the artificial landscape of the campus, and he did not.
He hovered on the threshold of his office. Inside, he saw a petite woman wearing a two-horned Viking helmet over her pixie-cut. Fenella’s luminous eyes were illuminated by the flickering lights of Season 8 of Cramberleigh, displayed on the small screen of the retroplayer.
Season 8 was one of Ruthven’s favourites. The Season With The Carnivorous Plants (1972) was the third season in colour, and the first to be affected by the show’s supernatural soft reboot. It must have been a shock to the viewers at the time, used to nothing more surprising happening at Cramberleigh than the occasional wedding, sinking of the Titanic, or visit from a historically appropriate celebrity such as Agatha Christie or Winston Churchill.
Suddenly the widowed and heartbroken Sir Victor was doing mysterious experiments in the greenhouse, Mrs Merryday the cook was hosting seances in the scullery, and a footman got eaten.1
Fenella, scrunched up in Ruthven’s favourite chair with her chin on her knees, was currently watching episode 8B — A Potting Shed With A View, in which Gladioli the maid fell in love with the new gardener only to discover he was a homicidal collection of enchanted grass clippings in overalls and wellies.
God, Ruthven loved this show. It was the bedrock of his childhood, his adulthood, his entire life to date. He recalled his mother telling him about a very old and popular television program from centuries ago which had most of its episodes erased. Some had since been found, but many were lost forever.
He was seven years old at the time, had not even watched a frame of Cramberleigh yet, but a part of his brain instantly committed himself to the project. I can probably find them, he swore to himself.
When Ruthven was recruited to Chronos College, and learned the extraordinary fact (covered up from the general public by the Global Official Secrets Act) that time travel was a scientific reality, one of the first things that passed through his mind was: That’s all the lost episodes of Cramberleigh sorted, then.
He was instantly embarrassed by his own shallowness, only for another recruit (Lakshmi Tunbridge, bless her cotton socks) to put up her hand and ask their orientation supervisor if it was possible to use time travel to reclaim lost media “like Season 3 of Cramberleigh.”
The supervisor, a recent graduate who lounged over the lectern with laughing eyes, a halo of curly black hair and a bright orange silk shirt, looked delighted at her question. “What makes you think we haven’t already found Season 3 of Cramberleigh?” Monterey teased, even as Lovelace swished her tail in disgust.
That was it. Ruthven was sold. Time travel was his future.
Ruthven dropped into the chair next to Fenella. The trick to awkward situations was to lean into it. Accept that it’s going to be a little stilted and uncomfortable. Carry on regardless.
On the screen, Rosamund Radcliffe paused outside the Round Library, having just overheard Lady Cradoc having a conversation with a china doll, voiced by the same creepy child actor who played Rosamund’s half sister Abigail.
Ruthven meant to say something reassuring to Fenella in this time of confusing emotions, but instead he found himself saying: “You know there’s very little historical evidence that Vikings ever wore horned helmets.”
Fenella lifted her chin to give him an absolutely filthy look. “This happens to be a historically accurate reproduction of a helmet designed by Carl Emil Doepler for the 1876 production of Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
“Oh.” Ruthven reassessed the situation. “It’s nice.”
“Thank you. It’s my sister’s security opera helmet. I wear it when I’m under extreme stress.”
A slight memory stirred Ruthven. “Didn’t you wear it to Oxford’s 21st?”
“Parties are stressful,” mumbled Fenella. She paused the retro player. “Did you want something?”
“This is my office,” he protested.
Another filthy look, which he didn’t think he deserved. He also hadn’t deserved the accusation that he might have edited Cressida’s face into lost media footage as some sort of cruel joke.
Fenella was the first person in a very long time to assume Ruthven even had a sense of humour, let alone a warped one. If she was looking for emotional comfort, she had come to the wrong place.
That was what Aesop was for, an unbidden thought rose up inside him. Ruthven stifled it quickly. It was no wonder his lost partner was on his mind today, but he didn’t need to indulge such thoughts.
“How are you doing?” he managed.
Fenella sighed, looking slightly like she planned to cheer herself up by murdering him. “Either we’ve just found the first clue in seven years about my missing sister, or we haven’t. So, that’s a thing.”
Oh, hell. He hadn’t realised she was Cressida’s sister. Did everyone else know that? Ruthven knew he was a bit useless about people, but this was a glaring piece of tragic backstory he had missed.
Fenella didn’t care about his panicked internal thoughts. She was staring at the frozen image of actress Joan Buckingham (Lady Cradoc), pulling her iconic “I just sucked a lemon” expression.2
“It can’t be true,” Fenella muttered. “I mean, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Cress and Boswell were nowhere near the twentieth century when they got separated. How did she get there? On the set of Cramberleigh, of all places.”
“That part’s quite logical,” noted Ruthven. “If I was stranded in the mid-twentieth century: no cat, no opal, no postcards, I’d head directly for Fenthorp and wait for a time traveller to notice me.”
“Fenthorp?” Cressida frowned.
“Fenthorp Manor. The stately home where they filmed most of the location shots of Cramberleigh in 1964 and then later after they started shooting on film in 1969,” said Ruthven. “I thought you were a fan,” he added before remembering that was a terrible thing to say to anyone, and this was why he had trouble making friends.3
There Fenella went with another of those patented filthy looks of hers. “Don’t gatekeep me. I’m having a hard week.”
“Sorry. But uh, yes. The only place better to wait for rescue would be a rubbish tip within twenty miles of the television studios, where a whole bunch of film canisters were accidentally thrown away in the Seventies. Travellers are always bunking off there at the first opportunity, especially the big purge of 1974 — I’m surprised that year hasn’t been walled off as an Event already.”
Fenella screwed up her remarkably small nose in thought. “You think she was trying to be found? My sister was a bigger Cramberleigh nerd than anyone. Maybe even a bigger nerd than you.”
