The Magic Elixir Ch. 01

Armed with the knowledge from our new researches we finally felt we were again ready to go into the outside world, and we fixed a date a few days in the future when we would go out supplied with the accelerator and the brake.

Before the day arrived, however I received a most unsettling call. The maid brought in a calling card from an unexpected visitor, on which was printed the name of Miss Hester Pringle of Knightsbridge. To say I was discomfited would be putting it mildly. I informed the maid that I would receive Miss Pringle in the parlour and repaired there in some degree of apprehension.

Hester Pringle was even more beautiful than I remembered and I am afraid I was severely ill at ease in her presence.

"I'm sorry Miss Pringle, but I am ill prepared for visitors, and I cannot remember meeting you before."

"Oh, we haven't met Mr. W. but I took the liberty of introducing myself to you because your literary work leads me to believe you may be able to solve my problem. You see, I have come here to take the waters because of a nervous condition. More specifically I suffer from a depletion of vitality which saps me of the energy I need to do all that I must do. The potion you described in your story in the Strand, the so-called New Accelerator, seems to be just what I need. I would like you to introduce me to your friend Professor Gibberne so that I may obtain some of this marvelous elixir as soon as possible. I am a member of the Women's Suffrage Society, and since you are a well known member of the Fabian Society I hoped I could intrude on your good graces to join in common cause by introducing me to the Professor, who is, I understand, a good friend of yours."

"Miss Pringle, I am pleased that you thought well of my little stories, but I am afraid that the Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator is not yet ready for release. Much more experimentation must be done before it can be sold to the public."

In truth I was discomfited by her presence, and her appeal to my well-known Fabian connections was unsettling. The Fabian Society fully supports the idea of Women's Suffrage in the abstract, but surely there is something unseemly about a lady who gets involved in the pursuit of politics. It was no wonder that such an involvement would cause her to arrive without introduction to speak to a gentleman in his parlour, and I wanted no part of it.

"But Mr. W., the need exists now, and I would be very grateful for any help that you can give me. Perhaps if I could speak to the Professor I could help to further the experiments in some way and thus speed the process."

She was most fetching, and if I did not foresee disaster in such an enterprise I would gladly have done any thing to earn her gratitude. But for many reasons I did not want anyone, and her in particular, to learn too much about the Accelerator or my role in its development.

As is the way of these things just at that moment at the worst possible time Gibberne came into the room. The maid, assuming that I was taking visitors, had let him in without announcement

"Pardon me. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance." he said to my guest with a perfectly calm expression. Naturally I could not get out of the situation and perforce had to introduce them. Seizing this opportunity Miss Pringle boldly stated her case.

"Professor, I am so glad to meet you, for you are the main reason I am visiting here. I read Mr. W.'s account of your new accelerator and I just had to see if it would be possible to get some of this marvelous potion for myself to help me with a chronic nervous condition. I understand that it is still in the experimental stage, and I would be perfectly willing to aid your researches in order to speed up the introduction of this marvelous elixir."

"Miss Pringle, I am most gratified by your interest, but I am afraid that final refinements to the accelerator are just now reaching completion, and your help, while much appreciated, would only serve to distract rather than hasten the process."

Hester Pringle was not deterred by this, and repeated the arguments which she had used with me, and by appealing to the Professor's scientific vanity as well as his chivalry she slowly won him over to her side. I stood back from the fray, hoping that my fears would not be borne out, but eventually the Professor could no longer hold back the tide of argument.

"Miss Pringle, I am not convinced that your help is needed for my experiments, but you are remarkably forthright and ingenious in your arguments. I would be glad of another subject on whom to test my potion, and this coming Friday is set for the next excursion. If you could meet us in my laboratory at 10 o'clock on Friday morning I would be happy to include you in this test. W. and I will make a journey around the town, and your observations from the female point of view could prove most valuable. Let me warn you though that this drug is still experimental and I cannot vouch for its efficacy or safety to a young woman."

"Gladly, Professor Gibberne. I look forward to it, and I will meet you at your laboratory at the appointed time." So saying, and with a most excited expression, she took her leave.

"Gibberne, are you mad? We cannot allow her to see some of the places our wanderings take us."

"We will have to curtail some of our adventures, but this is a perfect test of our findings, having an outside party, and a woman at that, confirm or dispute our findings. Besides, very soon the Accelerator will be offered to the public at large, and our little secret will no longer be ours alone."

No argument by me could dissuade him, no matter that I spent many hours presenting my case, and so he took his leave some hours later with the venture still firmly fixed in his mind.

The following Friday I awoke feeling a mixture of elation that I should see Miss Pringle again and dread as to the possible outcomes of our adventure. I walked to his house at about 9:30, and at 10 o'clock exactly our new partner arrived at the front door. She had shown common sense instead of bowing to fashion and wore a hiking outfit with comfortable shoes and a durable dress rather than the morning dress that I had expected. Gibberne and I were likewise attired in sensible hiking clothes. After giving the servants the day off to ensure our privacy Gibberne led us into the laboratory and explained the preparations we were to make. We all got a vial filled with the 200 strength Accelerator and another with the Brake with which we could slow back to normal time when it became necessary. The front door was opened, and without further preamble we all swallowed our draughts of the Accelerator, eager to set out on our adventure.

The potion quickly took effect, and it was noted that there seemed to be no difference in its effect on men or women, as Miss Pringle emerged into a heightened time rate at the same time as Gibberne and I. Strolling out the door we proceeded up the lane and into the centre of town, observing the statues which were visitors and our neighbours as we walked. We ambled for some time, taking note of the reactions of various objects to our passage, until we eventually found ourselves down by the fish market a short way from the sandy beach along a road called The Stade.

Gibberne and I had agreed that we would not go along the beach with Miss Pringle along, but it was such a pleasant walk and I felt so comfortable in her company that I made no protest as we came to The Stade and walked along it looking down at the bathing machines parked near the water

"Look how funny they all look frozen in the water in mid-stroke while swimming! Let us go and test the reaction of the water to our accelerated state." said Miss Pringle, leading us toward the beach. With some degree of discomfort Gibberne and I followed her down to the scene of our previous adventures. When she neared the shore she put her hand in the water and remarked how much resistance there was to movement in the water. This was something we had not noticed in our previous excursion, as we had slowly waded into the water, and it bore out Gibberne's contention that a different perspective would prove invaluable in our researches.

"I have never been past this part of the beach. We should go and see what is beyond." Her joyful expression indicated that Miss Pringle was not to be denied, and Gibberne and I happily followed her eastward, glad to be away from the strand. The beach above the waterline changed in character from the sandy expanse of the bathing beach to a shingle beach covered with grasses and flowers. We were about to go back, having seen no people for some time when all of a sudden we rounded a headland and saw a group of bathers near the water.

I immediately made to turn around since the bathers were all men and all were naked. I realize that this is a common practice of ordinary folk who cannot afford the rental of a bathing machine or even a bathing costume at the regular beach, but I did not want Miss Pringle to be confronted by this immodest sight.

But she had spotted them too, and rather than being repelled by the sight she headed toward the water where the bathers were.

"Miss Pringle, come this way. We surely must leave here now as this is not a fitting sight for your eyes!"

Looking back at me with a half-smile she responded "Surely those men cannot hurt me, and I think I can stand the sight with composure. After all, once the Accelerator is introduced to the public I imagine that such incidents will not be at all uncommon." So saying she kept walking toward the shore, and we followed her with some discomfort, joining her in sitting down on a grassy spot just a few yards away from the group. She seemed quite taken with the sight of the nude men and did not hesitate to observe them closely.

After some time sitting thus she turned and spoke to us. "With the beach so close to your houses have you never gone down under the influence of the Accelerator and closely observed the female bathers?" Neither of us answered, but our reddened expressions betrayed our guilt as surely as if we had shouted out "Yes!"

"Well, I see I am not wrong in my assumption. I have had my fill of looking here, so let us return to the sandy beach and see what we can see that might be of more interest to the two of you."

Surprised by her boldness the two of us followed as she stood and walked back toward the regular beach. Not a word was spoken until we arrived and had ensconced ourselves on the dry sand above the high tide line and sat down.

"I am most sorry to discomfit the two of you, but as soon as I read Mr. W.'s account of the New Accelerator I realized that all of our social mores and notions of decency and propriety would be turned upside down. No longer would any of us feel secure from prying eyes in the privacy of our own chambers. Notions of decorum and modesty must of necessity undergo a violent change, since no longer can such ideas have any currency in a world in which every man and woman is subject to viewing by any other. Politics too will have to change, as well as any area which now retains its power over us by being hidden from view. Think what this will mean in all areas of our lives. The secrets of domestic betrayal will no longer be secrets, nor will political maneuverings, not even the secrets of the body, which have so long kept women from achieving their rightful place in the world. Come gentlemen, surely you have considered this yourself and pondered the social and political implications."

I considered, a jumble of new ideas suddenly filling my head. "Of course we considered the implications. But we did not go as far as you did, as we expected no difference in the structure of our society. Naturally we thought about how this would effect the course of criminality and science and work, but the moral nature of society is surely a given, we thought. I see now that we did not go far enough in our thoughts, and perhaps this is a good enough reason to withhold the secret of the Accelerator for as long as we can.

Gibberne looked at me as if I had just taken away his baby. "Nothing can be allowed to hold back the progress of science. If there is blame or credit for this invention then I expect to take my full share, and I will not be denied by qualms about any potential effects. No! The Accelerator is mine, and I will not be privy to hiding it until it is discovered by someone else."

"Let us have no more disputation. It is a beautiful day and we are here at the water watching perfectly normal life going on while we are mere observers. This may be one of the last days in which this scene plays out as it now is, and we should surely enjoy it as a last remnant of a passing era. Come, we shall have few such days before the Accelerator changes all our lives, and we must drink it all in in remembrance of what will soon be gone." With that she stood and walked toward the bathing machines, and we followed as if helpless to disobey her command.

Bold as brass, far bolder than we had been on our previous trip, she walked up to each machine in turn and opened the door at the back and then quickly closed it. At the third one she found what she was looking for, for she signaled us to follow her, and as we approached she led the way inside. Sitting on a stool off to the side was a woman undressed and in the process of putting on her bathing costume. Her legs were akimbo, and she seemed to be struggling mightily with the unwieldy costume. She was of middle age and not particularly pretty, but Gibberne and I were transfixed by the sight of her body.

Turning to us Miss Pringle bade us admire the sight. "This woman is not the ideal in either face or body, but I suspect that we will all become more used to bodily imperfections as time goes on, for the use of the Accelerator will not allow device or artifice to conceal such imperfection from the world, and we must all become accustomed to seeing each other through new standards of intellect and personality rather than the body alone.

Looking closely at us, she was suddenly overcome with a new thought. "You have done this before, haven't you? No, no, don't deny it, I can see it in your faces. How delicious it is to see you two act like schoolboys caught with forbidden sweets."

Our faces continued to go through all the many shades of red as she gaily strode about the room, with no fear of being caught or causing a commotion. We finally left, with Miss Pringle leading the way out and proceeded back to Gibberne's cottage. It had been a full day, with much to think about, even though the sun had not yet reached noon.

"While we are about pondering the new era to come, I would like you to call me Hester or Hetty, as my friends do rather than Miss Pringle. One of the customs I am sure will change in the future is the formalism which now governs our social interactions. And may I call you Herbert and David? I am sure that after this adventure we have earned the right to an informality of address even under the current code of conduct."

"Yes, that's quite all right with me, though my friends call me George."

"I still prefer to be addressed as 'Professor', if you don't mind. My given name has never appealed to me."

Such honorifics were bread and meat to the scholarly world, and I could see that not even the world turned upside down would allow the Professor, or most of his colleagues for that matter, to abandon their hard-won titles.

"Very well then, it shall be George and Professor and Hetty from now on, and may our friendship thrive in the bold new world to come."

And so we proceeded to the Professor's cottage, aware that much had changed already, with many more changes to follow.