The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(55)
He had wanted to make her laugh, he told himself. That was his intention. The instructions in the letter had been clear. That was the reason why he was in that hot-air balloon that kept swaying perilously from side to side, dressed in that ridiculous, clownish outfit. And he was determined to succeed. Even if he had to die trying. He imagined himself falling out of the balloon, crashing onto the grass, but instantly rejected the idea as impractical: he hadn’t taken the trouble of orchestrating the whole thing merely to sacrifice himself. And so he clung with renewed vigor to the sides of the basket, determined to arrive in one piece at Horsell Common, where in a few moments’ time the most spectacular Martian invasion he had been able to stage would commence, allowing him to win the heart of the woman he loved. Or, if the Creator considered that too ambitious, then at least to make her laugh.
Because, unfortunately for Gilmore, the tactics he employed to win over other women didn’t work on Emma Harlow. He had tried everything: he had presented her with thirty-seven hats, fêted her parents, and placed his immense fortune at her feet, assuring her over and over that he could grant any of her wishes, however impossible it seemed. But with his insistence he had only succeeded in making the girl, tired of his clumsy advances, throw down a challenge as cruel as it was unachievable: she would agree to marry him if he succeeded in reproducing the Martian invasion the author H. G. Wells described in his novel The War of the Worlds. Naturally, he needn’t go so far as to destroy the Earth and all its inhabitants; he only had to re-create the beginning of the invasion credibly enough so that every newspaper in England picked up the story. If he succeeded, she would give him her hand. But if he failed, he had to admit that even he was unable to grant her the impossible and give up his ridiculous courtship of her once and for all.
When he heard her utter that whimsical request, Gilmore wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Wells. H. G. Wells. That fellow again. Once more fate was obliging him to joust with the author’s imagination. Would he never be rid of that man? Would their lives be forever joined until one of them died, untangling the infuriating knot?
But despite realizing that the girl had only proposed that challenge to rid herself of her most relentless suitor, the only man she had failed to dissuade with her arrogance and animosity, Gilmore had taken up the gauntlet and traveled to London, ready to make the world believe that Martians were invading the planet, even though this time he was doing it for love. However, he soon discovered that reproducing a Martian invasion realistic enough to deceive the whole of England wasn’t as easy as he had first thought. No matter how hard he tried, after various failed attempts, and with the time limit Emma had given him about to expire, Gilmore had been forced to appeal to the only person who could help him: H. G. Wells himself, author of the novel he was supposed to reproduce. He had been driven to it by despair, certain that, having read his letter, Wells would instantly screw it up and throw it in the wastepaper basket, although somewhere deep down he had a faint hope that Wells might reply, for Gilmore was convinced the author considered himself superior and would take every opportunity to demonstrate it to him. And so it proved. A letter with Wells’s name on the return address had appeared in Gilmore’s mailbox a few days later, as miraculously as a flower in the snow:
Dear Gilliam,
This might strike you as odd, but knowing you are in love has filled me with joy. However, there is little I can do to help you, except to advise you not to waste your time reproducing the Martian invasion. Make her laugh. Yes, make that girl laugh so that her laughter spills into the air like a pocketful of silver coins.
And then she will be yours forever.
Affectionately,
Your friend, George.
Yes! Wells, his biggest enemy, probably the person who most hated him on the planet, had written back to him! And not only that, he had also honored his love, offered him advice, and, most amazing of all, had signed off affectionately, proclaiming himself his friend. Gilmore couldn’t have hoped for more, given everything that had passed between them two years before. Indeed, initially, unable to rid himself completely of his old mistrust, Gilmore had thought he glimpsed a veiled threat between those apparently harmless lines, above all when Wells had addressed him by his real name. Was the author warning him of the power he wielded over him now that he knew his secret? Was he intending to blackmail him later on, or, not possessing the torturer’s patience, would he be content to destroy him by revealing to the world the true identity of the mysterious millionaire Montgomery Gilmore? What was Wells playing at? However, after that bout of suspicion, Gilmore had calmed down. His fears seemed absurd, especially as he himself had written to Wells confessing what he had probably suspected all along—a secret no one but his most loyal henchmen knew about: that Gilliam Murray, owner of Murray’s Time Travel, the famous Master of Time, had not been devoured by a dragon on the pink plains of the fourth dimension, as the press had shouted from the rooftops, but had staged his own death and was in fact still alive, masquerading as the millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, no less. Alive and in love.
However, Wells had not given him away, but nor had he explained in his letter, as Murray had hoped, how to produce a Martian as credible as those in his novel. No, Wells had told him to make her laugh. That was all. As if he were sure that would suffice. And Murray had decided to follow his advice. Not that he had any choice. And that was why he now found himself in that accursed hot-air balloon full of acrobats who couldn’t stay still.