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The window of time provided by the chronograph for travel is a minimum of thirty minutes, a maximum of four hours.
It is not known whether uncontrolled visits to periods within a gene carrier’s own lifetime have ever occurred. In his writings, Count Saint-Germain assumes that it is impossible because of the continuum (see Volume 3: Laws of the Continuum).
Moreover, the chronograph cannot be set to take gene carriers back to periods within their own lifetimes.
FROM THE CHRONICLES OF THE GUARDIANS,
VOLUME 2: GENERAL LAWS OF TIME TRAVEL
NINE
MY MUM HUGGED ME as if I’d been away for years. I had to assure her over and over again that I was perfectly all right before she finally stopped asking.
“Are you okay too, Mum?”
“Yes, darling, I’m fine.”
“So everyone’s fine,” said Mr. de Villiers ironically. “I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.” He came so close to Mum and me that I could smell his cologne. (Kind of spicy and fruity with a touch of cinnamon. I felt hungrier than ever.)
“Now, what are we going to do about you, Grace?” Those wolflike eyes were firmly fixed on Mum.
“I told you the truth.”
“Yes, at least so far as identifying Gwyneth’s gene is concerned,” said Mr. de Villiers. “But we have yet to find out why the midwife who so obligingly falsified her birth certificate sixteen years ago suddenly chose to go away in a hurry today, of all days.”
Mum shrugged. “I wouldn’t assume that every little coincidence is so important, Falk.”
“I also think it’s strange that if your baby looked like arriving two months early, you chose to have her at home. Any sensible woman would go to a hospital the moment the labor pains started.”
“It simply happened too fast,” said Mum, without batting an eyelash. “I was just glad the midwife could come right away.”
“Hm. Even so, surely you should have gone to hospital directly after the birth to have the baby examined.”
“We did.”
Robert. But at least he didn’t look like a drowned body. Some ghosts thought it was fun to go around looking the way they did when they’d just died. Luckily I’d never yet met one with a hatchet in his head. Or without a head at all.
Mrs. Jenkins knocked at a door. “We’ll just look in and say hello to Madame Rossini. She’ll want to measure you.”
“Measure me? What for?” But the room Mrs. Jenkins let me into gave me the answer. It was a sewing room, and in among the fabrics, clothes, sewing machines, tailor’s dummies, scissors, and rolls of thread, a plump lady with a lot of sandy hair stood smiling at me.
“’Allo,” she said. She had a slight French accent. “You must be Gwyneth. I am Madame Rossini, and I look after your wardrobe.” She held up a tape measure. “We can’t have you traveling in time in zat dreadful school uniform, n’est-ce pas?”
I nodded. My school uniform really was dreadful, today or any other time.
“There’d probably be a riot if you went out in the street like zat,” she added, wringing her hands, tape measure and all, at the sight of it.
“I’m afraid we have to hurry. They’re waiting for us upstairs,” said Mrs. Jenkins.
“I’ll be quick. Can you take that jacket off, pliss?” Madame Rossini put the tape measure around my waist. “Wonderful. Now the ’ips. Ah, like a young colt! I think we can use most of what I made for the other one, with maybe some leetle alterations ’ere and there.”
By “the other one” she must mean Charlotte. I looked at a pale yellow dress with white lace trim hanging on a coat stand and looking like one of the costumes for Pride and Prejudice. Charlotte would have looked lovely in that.
“Charlotte’s taller than me,” I said. “And slimmer.”
“Yes, a little bit,” said Madame Rossini. “Like a coat ’anger.” I couldn’t help giggling. “But that is no problem.” She measured my neck and my head as well. “For the ’ats and the wigs,” she said, smiling at me. “Ah, how nice to make dresses for a brunette for once. You must choose colors so carefully for red’eads. I’ve had this lovely taffeta for years, a color like sunset. You could be the first that color suits—”
“Madame Rossini, please!” Mrs. Jenkins pointed to her watch.
