Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 02

"What's your name, Ma'am? I live up the road a ways and maybe I know who you're running from. I don't think you ought to go back there, and you probably should talk to the cops about it no matter what. Are you hurt now? I mean other than where he might have hit you?"

"My name is Edwina Gibbons, but you might have heard of my family. I was born a Rosemount. There are many of my relations hereabouts. The town is named after my great uncle because he founded it."

In all the years that he'd lived in the area, Tommy had never met even one person named Rosemount, though he had a recollection of the name. He wondered just how many gears she might be slipping here. But then, if she'd received a head injury, ...

"I'm, ... well, my name is Thomas Anderson, Ms.Gibbons, but I've never liked it, so I was always Tommy all of my life. I know Rosemount as a town. I pass through there every day on my way to work and back, but I don't know of anyone by that name.

I usually carry my phone with me, but I'm afraid that I've left it in my truck up the road a little way.

I'll tell you what though, if you think that you can, we can walk to my truck and once I put this gas here in the tank, I have to go back to return the container since I've only borrowed it. On the way, I can call the police for you, maybe even get you an ambulance ride to the hospital and they can see how badly you're hurt.

I do know that there's a women's shelter in Briarvale; so I'd suggest going there as well. They can put you up in a safe place for the night at least and I know they'd be happy to get the police involved as well.

"Or, ..." he said, trying to look at this the way that she might see it, "You can just stay here, and I'll come back for you. I'd be happy to make the call in any event. It's your choice."

She looked at him as though one of them had just fallen from the moon, "I'm sorry, Mr. Anderson, but I don't really understand most of what you've just said. What are cops, and how can you call anyone from out here any better than I can call out myself? No one would hear either of us. And just what did you mean when you said your 'truck'?"

He was trying to figure out the depth of her delusions.

"What uh, ... what time period is that dress from that you're wearing, Edwina? Were you going to a party or something when this happened?"

She shook her head, "I ran out of my home in fear of my life, sir.

What do you mean, period? This dress is what is worn today. It is not from any period, as you say, other than the present one."

Hoo boy, Tommy thought. How to deal with this?

"Alright," he smiled carefully, "What year is it, Edwina?"

She looked a little annoyed then, "That is a strange thing to ask someone. Why it's 1856 sir, as you must know and –"

He was shaking his head, wondering what was supposed to happen when he burst her little bubble, "No it's not. Not even close."

Edwina was about to get angry, but the hand in her pocket had been holding a few coins as they'd spoken.

She stepped over the rail of the fence and walked up to him, forgetting for the moment that she'd been nervous about him earlier. "Here," she said, holding out her hand, "This ought to put an end to your foolishness over the date. Look at these coins."

Tommy stared. Most of them were the larger in diameter than quarters. They were copper – all of them and most said 'Half-Penny' on them. The dates were mostly in the 1840s, too.

He reached into his own pocket. After a moment to look, he held out a coin to her, "Here. This was minted last year. It's 2013 now. I don't know where you got those. I've never seen anything like them before. They say half-penny.

Well they're phasing out the penny this year. I don't know how long it's been since there were half-pennies. I've never seen one in my life before now. You couldn't buy a thing with one of those these days. The metal it's made of is worth far more than a half-penny."

The two of them stared at each other's hands and they looked up at each other then.

"Look here, Edwina," he said, "see what it says on your coins? I mean the place?"

She nodded, "Of course. It says 'Province of Upper Canada' on every one of mine, for that is where we are; are we not? They call it 'Canada West' now, however."

Tommy shook his head at her slowly, "Read what it says on mine – every one – as you say."

She read 'Canada' on every coin. Not 'Province of' and not 'Upper', they just said 'Canada'.

"Where did you get these?" he asked, "they might be worth something to collectors of old coins."

"These are the currency of the land," she insisted and he shook his head again.

"No they're not. We're not in the province of Upper Canada, Edwina. There's been no such thing for a hundred and , ... seventy-two years. You're right, though. From what I remember from back in school, Upper Canada became Canada West in 1841. It remained that way until Confederation in 1867. There is no Province of Upper Canada."

He reached back and pulled out his wallet, showing her every piece of photo ID that he had as well as the ownerships to his vehicles. Every one said "Province of Ontario'.

"Canada ceased to be a British colony in 1867. We're our own country now, well, ... as much as we want to be, I guess. Our money still has the British monarch on it."

She stared at him and then down at the coins in his hand again, turning one of them over, "Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth the Second," Tommy said, "She's been Queen for over sixty years now. Look, Edwina, this isn't getting us anywhere and it's certainly not getting you what you need. Let's at least walk to my truck. I can get you all the assistance you'd ever want right from there – and it's air conditioned."

They began to walk together up the road, a strange pair to say the least.

"What is air conditioned?" She asked him and he sighed, wondering just how whacked out she was to pretend like this. "That means that I can make it cool inside. It'll feel a lot better than this."

----------------------------

She sat in the passenger seat of his truck, still wondering just what this was. She was even sitting here with the door open, leaning a little to watch him pour the contents of the red thing into it somewhere.

"What does that do, Tommy? You said that it would be cool here, but it is hotter here than outside."

"This is fuel, and I'm almost done," he said, "Then I'll start it and it'll get cooler inside, trust me."

He closed the fuel filler door and then he closed the container, setting it in the bed of the truck. He walked around then and she watched as he put his shirt back on. It was a little entertaining for Edwina to watch, because it was damp and he was sweaty, so that made it a bit of a struggle.

Still, she enjoyed it. He was very good to look at, she decided. Why if Bruster looked like this and if he wasn't such an ogre to her – and if he could keep his snout out of the bottle every evening ...

She sighed to herself. Bruster was a fat swine compared to this man; he was a lout, often drunk and loud, and he seldom bathed. And there had been that other thing in it to her mind.

He'd been trying to kill her.

Edwina began to cry.

Tommy sat in the driver's seat with the door open, trying to let a little of the heat of the afternoon out. He thought that she might have gotten upset over the way that he was doing exactly the wrong thing by politely sweeping aside her fantasies, but after he'd asked and she began to tell him of her life and the way that it had all happened...

She told him again of what she remembered, the way that she'd run out into the rain and –

He very gently told her that while the weather in the area could become rather localized; he assured her that it hadn't rained in a week. He could see getting knocked cold for a night, but not a week.

She turned when he'd offered and he looked at her scalp for a moment, "I can see a long scar, Ma'am. It's about an inch and a half long and it was obviously never seen to properly in that it doesn't look to have been stitched up. But it's not bad and your hair hides it very well.

Something else," he said a little uncomfortably, "From what I see of that scar, a head wound like that must have been would have bled very freely. Head wounds do that, but I see no dried blood on your pretty dress there.

He asked the name of the township where her family's farm was located.

She answered and he knew the name, but it had become amalgamated with the one to the south of it in 1993. She'd have known this, but she plainly didn't when he'd told her that the names were hyphenated together now.

"You never told me," he said, "What's your husband's name?"

"He always wanted me to call him Bruster, everyone does who knows him," she sniffled a little," but his name is Armbruster Gibbons, and I won't ever go back to him. He'd kill me."

She looked over, noting his silence. Tommy was staring at her.

"Armbruster Gibbons," he said, "A man from Waverly, Ohio?"

"Yes," she nodded, "that's where he said that he was born. Why? Do you know him?"

Tommy still looked over at her, though he was not staring now. He was wondering a lot of things.

"I don't know him," he said, "I guess that I can say that I know a little of him. I've been living in my home for seven years. At first, it was myself and my wife, Amanda. But we split up a few years ago now. I just live there alone, well, my dog and I.

But I've always loved history, Edwina. Loved it all of my life. So when we bought our home, I looked into as much of its past as I could find anything of, since it had to have had a lot of living in it and it cost the moon to renovate to my wife's satisfaction.

The house where I live is an old one, and it was built in the 1830s by Keith Rosemount."

Edwina shook her head, "Keith Rosemount was my grandfather, but he only built one house. It was on his farm. I was born there, Tommy. It cannot be the home where you live."

Tommy went on in a quiet voice, "The deed was passed to Stephen Rosemount shortly after Keith's death."

Edwina began to stare back, "This is not humorous in the least to me now, Tommy. I do not know how you came to know of it, but Stephen Rosemount was my father."

Tommy turned to sit in the driver's seat, since he was hearing the approach of a vehicle coming up the road from behind them. He closed the door and the car sped past. Edwina's eyes looked about ready to leave her head as she watched it motor on, "What – what is that?"

"It's called a car," Tommy said looking out through the windshield at nothing for a moment. "That's how we get around these days, most of us. As soon as I start the engine," he pointed, "we'll be driving along just like that one."

While she was trying to fathom it, he completed his thoughts aloud in the same quiet voice, "Edwina, I know a couple of facts further. Some of them, I gleaned from the land registry office for the county, some from the records of two county museums and also from the files of the newspaper in Briarvale. I just don't know if you'd want to hear what I know of it all."

She looked at him, "Well, then say it, Tommy," she said, "I am already well upset again now, aren't I?"

It reminded him of something, so he lifted the armrest on top of the center console to remove a small box of tissues, "Here," he said, "Use these to dry your eyes and maybe blow your nose, if you need to."

"What are they?" she asked as she looked at them.

"Just tissues, like very thin and soft paper. They're made of the same thing, but they're for this, among other things." He pulled out a couple of the tissues and handed them over.

"Anyway, I know that when Stephen died, the property was bequeathed to Reginald and Edwina Rosemount. I thought that I recognized your name. But Reginald - "

"Reggie took ill and died," Edwina said, amazed that he knew of it, "That left me alone there, but I sold off half the land to Bruster before he began to court me. But how is it that you know of these things?"

"What I've been telling you is history to me – though for some reason that I can't understand, they are much more recent things to you.

"Armbruster Gibbons was found dead in the laneway to the house. It was guessed that he'd been dead for about a week, and there had been animals feeding on his body, ... "

Edwina shook her head, "No. That is where you are wrong, Tommy. I ran from Bruster only last evening."

"No you didn't," he said, "If you are Mrs. Edwina Gibbons, then you were missing when they searched the house and the lands around it. No sign of you was ever found and it was assumed that you killed Mr. Gibbons somehow and then left the area. No cause of death was ever determined in Bruster's case, due to the predations of the animals on his remains.

They never mentioned that you were wanted in connection with the death, though you were listed as a person of interest who was never found."

He looked over, "So if I was as sure now as I almost was at the outset of this, Edwina, I'd reach for my phone and dial three numbers. A little while later, the cops – ok, the constables would come, probably with an ambulance to take you away so that they could find out why the woman here with me keeps speaking things, telling me that I'm wrong and that she ran from her husband who was trying to murder her one night in 1856, and she acts as though she really believes that it is that year.

But I'm not going to do that.

I had my doubts earlier, but the way that you plainly don't know what it is that you're sitting in is not possible if you were only pretending to be Edwina Gibbons. There's just no way that you could have been born here and gotten to the age that you appear to be and yet never seen a vehicle like this one. I saw it in your face when that car drove past, Edwina.

You've never seen anything like these vehicles, you don't know what a cellphone is, and you've never seen or touched a paper tissue before in your life – from the way that I saw you looking at the ones I gave you when you weren't even aware that I was watching you. You didn't even wipe your eyes at first, and you still haven't blown your nose – probably because you were raised to think that it's something that a lady doesn't do in front of a man.

And for your own good, Edwina, a lot of the way that people were raised then is all just a big pile of horseshit."

Her eyes opened even wider at that and Tommy grinned a little.

"Sorry if I've offended your fine Victorian sensibilities. Horse dung then.

She nodded slowly, "What then,Tommy? What are we to do?"

He smiled, "Edwina, I haven't got a clue – yet. But I know that I have to return that gas can and put more in the tank. After that, I'd like to introduce you to the way that coffee is drunk here today. I believe that both of us need to think."

She looked at him, "I have never had coffee. It is a very costly thing."

He shrugged, "Not here, it isn't. Turn yourself around to face the forward, Edwina, and we can get going."

As she swivelled her legs inside and closed the door, he had to tell her to close it a little harder. He also realized a danger there, so he warned her to always be careful not to close the door on her fingers. He put the ignition key into the lock and started the engine. While Edwina looked to be ready to jump right out again, Tommy saw that he faced another issue which would only happen to someone who had never known about these vehicles.

The dreaded seatbelt.

He got the AC on and cranked while he explained. It took a while and it ended with him helping her to get the belt out of the retractor and buckled. He did his best and showed her how it worked on his side, and that the purpose was not to restrain her under normal circumstances, but to protect her by restraining her in a collision or mishap. At one point, he had to lean across her a little to help and he apologized after he felt her turned cheek against his own for a moment. Edwina smiled in a rather embarrassed way and nodded that it was alright.

For a sweat-covered man, she thought, he did smell rather nice to her, not the way that Bruster had and not like her brother Reginald. It was a slightly strange smell to her which came to her as being a little foreign, like the way that she noticed it once as a girl when she'd brought her grandfather and her father some lunch when they were out with the horses ploughing. The sun on the backs of the horses brought out their scents to her nose markedly.

This was a little like that. He smelled good to her; it only came to her as a small shock.

It came to her as an even bigger shock when they began to move by a means which she could not see. She sat with wide eyes for a few moments as he drove to the entrance to a field and used the space to turn around in.

While she'd been having these thoughts; he decided not to tell her about the even more dreaded airbags.

After that, Edwina stared out through the windshield, knowing that she was now traveling faster than she'd ever gone in her life. She'd been on a train once, and this beat that madcap clip easily.

"Try to relax," he advised her, "This is normal. Absolutely normal, everyday usual now. I'm going slower than I'm allowed to on this road for you. Do you feel a little cooler now?"

Edwina noticed that it was a good deal cooler in the truck now. "Yes, "she nodded in a little amazement, "This is remarkable!"

"Well," he smiled, not looking over, "be sure to remark on it if you begin to feel cold."

In minutes, it seemed, they were at a strange structure, where Tommy advised her to remain seated while he filled the tank and returned the container.

"I noticed the sign as we came," she said, "It said 'Rosemount' on it, as plain as day, but this is nothing like I have ever seen before."

She pointed to a large house-like structure with old fashioned writing on the side of it, "That was the Rosemount Hotel. What is it now?"

"That has been a restaurant for at least the last two decades and likely longer than that."

She didn't understand at all. The building that she'd seen had likely been her husband's favorite place on earth for as long as she'd known him. Nothing made sense to her.

Then they were off once more, Edwina quite liking the comfort of this way of traveling now. They drove into Briarvale and she couldn't believe the sights.

"Take a look at the people and what they're wearing for clothing," he said, "Look at the women, specifically, Edwina, and you might understand my original comment to you when we met."

She saw what he was talking about after only moments, "Does no one dress like me here?" she asked.

"Oh there are some few which do," he nodded, "but not here these days. A good deal farther west, there are communities of people who dress that way, the men wearing outdated styles of clothing as well, but to them; it's done for slightly religious reasons. It has to do with their faith. So they shun the trappings of modern life. What you're seeing here, this is the way that most people who live in what might be called 'western culture' dress themselves today."

"I do not see any horses," she said and he nodded, "Pretty much no one uses them anymore, other than the relative few who keep them because they love horses. But even the vast majority of those people use cars and trucks to get around in their lives."

She sat staring at everything and he turned into a large lot, "Over there," he pointed to their left, "That's what's called a grocery store. It's the modern version of the town store that you might go to if you want to buy food that you don't grow yourself. But unlike what you might be used to, you can't purchase clothing and other things that you might find in one of those shops."

"Well, where does one go to purchase something like that?" she asked.