1894

10. The Last Memo

The resident physician stared at me, then at the prince, who seemed to be half-dozing, then back at me. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“The name is Wells, doctor, H. G. Wells, of London.” I was trying to think up a plausible story that might explain why I was here, when the prince woke up, saw the newcomer, and quickly grasped my predicament.

“James,” said the prince quietly, “Would you mind waiting outside for a moment? I’ll ring for you.”

“But milord, you’re to have no visitors…Who…? Why…?”

“If you please, James.”

One of the prerequisites of royalty is, they don’t have to explain anything.

The doctor gave me one last hard look then bowed and left the room.

“Wells,” said the prince, “it’s hard for me to stay awake. We’ll have to make it short. The Trent…?

“Yes, sire. Know then, that twenty-seven days hence, on November 27, the Royal Mail Packet Trent, under Captain Moir, will dock at London. Captain Moir will make his report direct to Lord Russell, and he will say that a warship of the Federal American navy stopped the Trent and forcibly removed two civilian passengers, a Mr. Mason and a Mr. Slidell. Russell declares for war. The prime minister wavers, but finally agrees. They draft an ultimatum to be delivered to the American ambassador in London. They run it by the queen. She wants very much to have your advice, but you are in a near coma.” I paused. “Do you follow me, sire?”

“I’m ahead of you, Wells. It’s cotton, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sire.”

“And so we come in on the side of the Confederacy?”

“Yes, sire. The navy broke the blockade and assured their independence.”

He was silent for a while. “And slavery? In your 1894 does slavery yet persist in the American South?”

I hesitated. “Yes, sire.” This must be especially bad news for the onetime president of the Anti-slavery Society.

“And I did—do—nothing?”

I, too, was having trouble with the tenses. My future was equally my past. “You were totally out of it, sire. You died December first, the day Russell declared war. We call it the War of Intervention—as every schoolboy knows.”

“Sad, sad,” he muttered. He lay there silently for a time, then looked up at me. “You’ll have to leave in a few minutes, Wells, else Dr. Clark will make a scene. But you can come back, can’t you?”

“Yes, sire. I’ll be looking in on you from time to time.” I walked in to the study and closed the door quietly. I was determined to give him more cold baths in the coming days, episodes that would take only a few minutes of Machine time, but would spread out over several weeks on the prince’s calendar. Even if the typhoid vaccine didn’t work, bringing his fever down ought to give him a few extra days of life.

The next several calendar days were oddities. For me they went by in spurts of a few minutes each. While dodging visits of the queen and Dr. Clark, I did indeed manage to give the prince intermittent sponge baths. Whether this amateurish treatment helped him, or whether it was Dr. Wright’s vaccine, or both (or neither!) probably no one will ever know for sure. At least I don’t believe they hurt. Something was definitely prolonging his life.

On the morning of November 27 the prince was definitely worse than our first encounter. On the other hand he was far from lying in a coma. Already, history as I knew it was changing. And both of us were waiting for news of the Trent.

During the afternoon of November 28 the explosive news reached Windsor Train Station by telegraph, and so on to the castle by fast rider. The queen herself brought the despatch to the prince’s bedside.

I put my ear to a crack at the study door.

The queen was distraught. “Oh Bertie, those awful people. What shall we do?”

“What does Russell say?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

I could hardly hear him.

The queen said, “He’s preparing an ultimatum to give the American ambassador.”

That would be Charles Francis Adams, in London, I thought.

“Palmerston?” whispered the prince.

“I think the PM would prefer to delay,” she said.

“Vicki… we cannot permit this madness. Insist… that Palmerston bring Russell’s note to you.”

“Yes, dear, of course.”

He murmured something else. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it might have been, “Schnell… schnell—” Quickly, quickly. He was determined to outlive and remold his own predestined history.

And now the literal anomalies begin.

One history says he died December 1, 1861, another on December 14, 1861. Both are right, of course, depending on in which world one lives. I, who write this, am a citizen of both worlds. Except that I renounced my citizenship in that gloomy world where Albert, Prince Consort, died December 1.

For in the history I now relate, he did not die on December 1. As we can look at any of his stone-carved memorials, we see from the dates there engraved that his great spirit left my newly adopted world on December 14. And in that additional two weeks he changed history drastically and dramatically and forever.

What gave him that extra two weeks? Did Dr. Wright’s typhoid vaccine help? Maybe a little. Did the cold baths help? Perhaps. In my own humble opinion I believe his own iron will gave him the added time. He was determined to stop the war before it started.

At six-thirty on the cold dark morning of November 30, 1861, Victoria in her dressing gown and carrying a lantern, brought Lord Russell’s proposed notes to Albert’s bedside. The ministers had evidently worked on them all night in the conference room downstairs. I watched from a crack in the study door.

“Let me think about it, Schaetze,” he said.

So she left him. I hurried out and helped him struggle to his study desk. He sat there, read the papers by gaslight, and groaned. “This means war! Oh what fools!” He began fumbling for pen and paper. I put them in front of him.

He picked up the pen, dipped it into the inkwell with trembling fingers, then waited until his hand steadied. “Lincoln,” he murmured. “Abraham Lincoln surely never authorized stopping the Trent.”

“Can you give him a way out, sire?”

“I think so. He’s smart, and he’ll meet us halfway.” He dipped the pen in the inkwell again. This time his hand did not tremble. He whispered the words as he wrote, slowly, carefully, “The Queen returns these important Drafts,” (German-style, he capitalized all nouns) “which on the Whole she approves… but she cannot help feeling that the second Draft… is somewhat meagre. We would like to have seen the Expression of a Hope that the American Captain did not act under Instructions, or if he did, that he misapprehended them… The U.S. Government must be fully aware that the British Government could not permit its flag to be insulted.” He sat back in his chair, exhausted. I heard him mutter, “Ich bin so swach ich habe kaum die Feder halten koennen.” I am so weak I can scarcely hold the pen. It was true. He dropped it to floor. I picked it up and returned it to his desk.

It was 7 A.M.

“Wells,” he muttered, “this is the end. I am soon gone. In a year I will be totally forgotten.”

“Sire,” I said, “You completely misapprehend your position in history.

“The English people finally awakened to your benefits to the country. You will be known as Albert the Good. Monuments will be erected to you all over London. Indeed, all over the country. Historians will proclaim you England’s greatest king since Alfred. And all this without knowing that you probably prevented a war today.”

He just looked at me, puzzled. “I fear you’re greatly misinformed, Wells. I think it likely that at most I’ll be remembered as a horseman. I once jumped a five-bar fence… that’s all these people care about. They’ve already forgotten the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the things I did for science and education.”

“Sire,” I said, “aside from how the English regard you, I strongly believe that your rescript will let Mr. Lincoln win his war and free five million slaves.”

“Do you really think so, Wells?”

“Of course, sire. Shall I help you back to bed?”

“Please. Then you’ll have to leave. The messenger is due back any minute.”

As we all now know, the prince’s rescript to Lord Russell was his last memo and last official act. A week later he was moved into the Blue Room, where he died on December 14.

I said goodbye, got in the Time Machine, and pressed the lever forward, to 1894 and Major Banning. And Jane. Especially Jane.