The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(118)
Doyle and Murray gazed at him intently while Wells wondered where to begin that rambling tale.
“Arthur, Gilliam,” he said at last, “I know you will have difficulty believing this, but that dying old man over there . . . well, he is me.”
There was an astonished silence.
“Baskerville is you?” Murray exclaimed, at a loss.
“Yes, although not exactly.”
“Not exactly . . . What the devil does that mean?”
“He is a Wells from another world.”
Murray shook his head doubtfully, while Doyle remained silent, casting a skeptical eye over first Wells and then the coachman.
“That Wells comes from a world that exists parallel to ours,” Wells explained, and before Murray was able to express his unease anew, he traced two parallel lines on the ground with the toe of his shoe. “A world that is almost an exact replica of ours, identical in many ways, but different in others. And each of the inhabitants of that world has his or her twin in ours, or, if you prefer, each of us has an exact copy in that world: a twin who lives the same life we live, sometimes with tiny variations, sometimes not, and who is as oblivious to our existence as we are to his or hers.” He paused for a moment, and then, looking at each of his friends in turn, he went on: “In that other world there is a Gilliam Murray, and certainly an Arthur Conan Doyle . . . unless of course,” he reflected, addressing Doyle, who was listening quietly to Wells’s explanation, “your mother in the other world had a miscarriage and your twin was never born. Or if he was, he died from malaria during that trip to Africa you made when you were young. But, like you, he could also have escaped death and become a writer, although his famous detective might be called Sherringford Holmes. Or perhaps in that other world Arthur Conan Doyle is simply an honest medic, a dreamer who is addicted to books of chivalry and hopeless at cricket. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.”
“I doubt any twin of mine could lack my talent for cricket,” Doyle solemnly interjected.
“Who knows, Arthur, who knows?” Wells grinned. “But one thing is for sure: my twin and I have lived almost identical lives, at least up until the moment when the path he was on came to an abrupt end.” To emphasize what he was saying, Wells made another line with his foot through one of those he had traced in the dirt. “Just like me, he wrote The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds . . . and he married Jane, or should I say, Jane’s adorable twin. And yet there are a few minor differences between our two lives: as a child he was bitten by a dog, but I wasn’t; he traveled to the Antarctic and lost two of his fingers, but I didn’t; he is gifted, or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with the ability to jump between worlds, and I . . . well, clearly I don’t possess that talent.”
“But you do have an undeniable gift for making us believe far-fetched stories,” said Murray.
“And how do you know these aren’t simply the ravings of a dying man?” Doyle asked with almost professional interest, ignoring Murray’s remark.
“Because he told me things only I could know: thoughts, dreams, youthful longings I never shared with anyone, not even with Jane, and that only someone who had . . . lived the same life as I could know about.” Wells sighed, motioning with his chin toward where the old man lay. “That man is me. He is my self from another world. You have to believe me.”
Doyle contemplated the crestfallen Wells and, after reflecting for a few moments, said, “All right, George, supposing he is. You said he came here because of a gift he has for, er . . . jumping between worlds?”
Wells nodded, slightly encouraged by the attitude Doyle had chosen to adopt.
“Yes. But he doesn’t seem to have any control over it,” he added. “It is more like a sort of latent ability he possessed without knowing it, until it was triggered by some calamity that occurred in his world. And that is how he crossed over to our world. Except that when he arrived here it was 1829, and he was almost as old as I am now, which explains why he is an old Wells, and why I didn’t recognize him the first time we met.”
“You two had met before?” Doyle exclaimed.
“Yes, when I was fifteen, on the pier at Southsea. It was he who came to me . . . In fact, since I was born he had been secretly watching over me from a distance. Bear in mind that when he arrived in this world, none of the people he loved had been born yet . . . and it would be thirty-seven years before my birth! As a result, this man spent most of his life as an exile, alone and lost. Can you imagine what he must have gone through? In the beginning, he tried to forge a new life for himself here that was as serene as possible, afraid that another intense emotion might provoke a fresh jump. It seems that is what triggers them. And, naturally, not wishing to encroach in any way on my legitimate future, he changed his name and his profession. After all, in this world I was the genuine Wells. And when finally I was born, he promised himself he would resist any temptation to interfere in my life, because the consequences that would have were inestimable. But when I reached the age of fifteen, he couldn’t help breaking his promise. Back then, my mother had sent me to work as an apprentice at a confounded draper’s shop in Southsea, and I felt so wretched with my lot in life that each afternoon I would go down to the pier with the intention of jumping into the sea and ending it all.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Doyle, who was too indomitable ever to have considered giving up on life.