The old lady sat down in a whoomph of petticoats. “Not like that!” she snapped at the porter. “This is all Herbert’s fault. Getting married! And just when I was coming to Oxford. Don’t scratch the leather!”

It was obvious neither of these ladies was my contact, but at least I no longer seemed to be having Difficulty Distinguishing Sounds. And I could understand what they were saying, which isn’t always the case in the past. My first jumble sale I hadn’t understood one word in ten: skittles and shies and sales of work.

Also, I seemed to have overcome my Tendency to Sentimentality. The younger lady had a pretty heart-shaped face, and even prettier ankle-shaped ankles, which I’d caught a white-stockinged glimpse of when she alighted from the train, but I hadn’t felt any inclination to dissolve into rapturous comparisons with sylphs or cherubim. Better still, I had been able to come up with both words without any trouble. I felt completely cured.

“He’s forgotten us completely,” Auntie said. “We’ll have to hire a fly.”

Well, perhaps not completely cured.

“There’s no need for us to hire a carriage,” the young woman said. “Uncle won’t have forgotten.”

“Then why isn’t he here, Maud?” she said, arranging her skirts so they took up the entire bench. “And why isn’t Herbert here? Marriage! Servants have no business marrying. And how did Herbert meet anyone suitable to marry? I absolutely forbade her to have followers, so I suppose that means it’s someone unsuitable. Some person from a music hall.” She lowered her voice. “Or worse.”

“It’s my understanding that they met at church,” Maud said patiently.

“At church! Disgraceful! What is the world coming to? In my day, church was a duty, not a social occasion. Mark my words, a hundred years from now, one will not be able to distinguish between a cathedral and a music hall.”

Or a shopping center, I thought.

“It’s all these sermons on Christian love,” Auntie said. “Whatever happened to sermons on duty and knowing one’s place? And punctuality. Your uncle could benefit from a sermon on— where are you going?”

Maud was heading for the station door. “To look at the clock,” she said. “I thought perhaps the reason Uncle isn’t here yet is that the train might have been early getting in.”

I helpfully pulled out my pocket watch and opened it, hoping I could remember how to read it.

“And leave me here alone,” Auntie said, “with who knows what sort of persons?” She crooked a lace-mitted finger at Maud. “There are men,” she said in a stage whisper, “who hang about public places waiting for their chance to engage unaccompanied women in conversation.”

I snapped the pocket watch shut, put it back in my waistcoat pocket, and tried my best to look harmless.

“Their object,” she whispered loudly, “is to steal unprotected women’s luggage. Or worse.”

“I doubt if anyone could lift our luggage, Auntie, let alone steal it,” Maud whispered back, and my opinion of her shot up.

“Nevertheless, you are in my care, since my brother has not seen fit to meet us, and it is my duty to protect you from harmful influences,” Auntie said, looking darkly at me. “We are not staying here one moment longer. Put those in the cloakroom,” she said to the porter, who had succeeded finally in wrestling the trunks and three large bandboxes onto a luggage barrow. “And bring us the claim check for them.”

“The train is about to leave, madam,” he protested.

“I am not taking the train,” she said. “And engage us a fly. With a respectable driver.”

The porter looked desperately at the train, which was emitting great gouts of steam. “Madam, it is my duty to be on the train when it departs. I shall lose my job if I’m not on board.”

I thought of offering to get them a carriage, but I didn’t want Auntie to take me for Jack the Ripper. Or was that an anachronism? Had he started his career by 1888?

“Pish-tosh! You shall lose your job if I report your insolence to your employers,” Auntie was saying. “What sort of railway is this?”

“The Great Western, madam.”

“Well, it can scarcely call itself great when its employees leave the passengers’ luggage on the platform to be stolen by common criminals,” another dark look at me. “It can scarcely call itself great when its employees refuse to aid a helpless old lady.”

The porter, who looked as though he disagreed with the word “helpless,” glanced at the train, whose wheels were starting to turn, and then at the station door, as if gauging the distance, and then tipped his hat and pushed the barrow into the station.

“Come, Maud,” Auntie said, rising out of her nest of crinolines.

“But what if Uncle comes?” Maud said. “He’ll just miss us.”

“It will teach him a useful lesson on punctuality,” Auntie said. She swept out.

Maud followed in her impressive wake, giving me a smile of apology as she went.

The train started up, its great wheels turning slowly, then faster as it gathered steam, and started out of the station. I looked anxiously at the station door, but there was no sign of the poor porter. The passenger cars moved slowly past, and then the green-painted luggage van. He wasn’t going to make it. The guard’s van pulled past, its lantern swinging, and the porter burst through the door, ran down the platform after it, and made a flying leap. I stood up.

He caught the railing with one hand, swung himself up onto the bottom step, and clung there, panting. As the train cleared the station he shook his fist at the station door.

And no doubt in future years he became a socialist, I thought, and worked to get the Labour Party voted in.

And what about Auntie? No doubt she had outlived all her relatives and left her servants nothing in her will. I hoped she’d lasted well into the Twenties and had to put up with cigarettes and the Charleston. As for Maud, I hoped she’d been able to meet someone suitable to marry, though I was afraid she hadn’t, with Auntie’s eagle eye constantly on her.

I sat on for several minutes, contemplating their futures and my own, which was decidedly less clear. The next train from anywhere wasn’t until 12:36, from Birmingham. Was I supposed to meet my contact here? Or was I supposed to go into Oxford and meet him there? I seemed to remember Mr. Dunworthy saying something about a cabby. Was I supposed to take a hansom cab into town? “Contact,” Mr. Dunworthy had said.

The station door burst open, and a young man shot through it at the same speed as the porter had previously. He was dressed like I was, in white flannels and slightly crooked mustache, and was carrying his boater in his hand. He ran onto the platform and strode rapidly to the far end of it, obviously looking for someone.

My contact, I thought hopefully. And he was late, which was why he hadn’t been here to meet me. As if in confirmation, he stopped, pulled out his pocket watch, and flipped it open with impressive dexterity. “I’m late,” he said, and snapped it shut.

And if he was my contact, would he announce himself as such, or was I supposed to whisper, “Psst, Dunworthy sent me”? Or was there some sort of password I was supposed to know the answer to — “The marmoset sails at midnight,” to which I was supposed to respond, “The sparrow is in the spruce tree”?

I was debating “The moon sets on Tuesday” versus the more straightforward “I beg your pardon. Are you from the future?” when he turned back my way, gave me the barest of glances, strode past me to the other end of the platform, and peered down the tracks. “I say,” he said, coming back, “has the 10:55 from London arrived yet?”

“Yes,” I said. “It pulled out five minutes ago.” Pulled out? Was that an anachronism? Should I have said “departed” instead?

Apparently not, because he muttered, “I knew it,” and clapped his boater on his head and disappeared into the station.