The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(189)

With a euphoric smile, Wells thrust these thoughts aside and tried to enjoy the spectacle taking place around him, though he scarcely knew which way to look, for a frenetic procession of marvels was streaming from every conceivable direction. And then, when it was far too late to cast fear into anyone, the Martian emerged from the cylinder. Its appearance was greeted with guffaws from the audience, for it was nothing more than a grotesque puppet, which immediately began to dance to the cheerful music with comical clumsiness. What really surprised the onlookers was the placard the Martian was clasping between its cloth tentacles, which in florid crimson letters said, Will you marry me, Emma? Amid laughter and applause, the crowd exchanged amused looks, trying to guess who this Emma in the message was, the woman for whom this mysterious suitor had arranged all this merrymaking. But only Wells was watching the girl with the parasol standing awestruck at a distance from the crowd, contemplating this spectacle put on in her honor.

The music rose to a thrilling crescendo of drumbeats as everyone glanced about expectantly, contemplating the cylinder, the cluster of trees in the distance, even looking at one another in bewilderment, searching for what the drums were heralding with mounting frenzy. Suddenly an enormous shadow, such as a storm cloud might cast as it passed in front of the sun, spilled onto the common like a dreadful omen. Everyone raised their eyes, including Wells, only to discover to their astonishment a huge air balloon floating above their heads. It was still too high for them to see who was in the basket, only the bottom of which was visible, but the vast balloon, painted bright green, yellow, and turquoise, had a gilt “G” emblazoned on it, embossed with gleaming precious stones. Seconds later, to loud applause from the crowd, the balloon began to descend. When it was a dozen or so yards from the ground, a bunch of colored ropes fell from the basket, and down them cascaded tumblers dressed in livery, performing dizzying acrobatics in the air until their feet touched the ground and they began preparing for the vast balloon to land.

Gradually, the audience was able to make out the lone figure in the basket, who greeted the crowd with a beaming smile as the balloon alighted with the lumbering slowness of an elephant sitting down. When it had done so, the man in the balloon stepped down, assisted by the liveried tumblers. He was impressively tall, and slimmer than Wells remembered him. Indeed, the author had to admit that, several pounds lighter, and with that neatly clipped beard disguising his features, no one could ever have identified him as the Master of Time, tragically killed in the fourth dimension a couple of years before. As a finishing touch to this unreal vision, Murray was wearing a shiny purple suit, a bright yellow bow tie, and a blue stovepipe hat out of which billowed an orange-colored smoke, undulating in the air like a vaporous caterpillar. After one last dramatic drumroll, there was silence. The stranger appeared to search for someone in the crowd. When he found her, he doffed his hat and gave a deep bow. The crowd understood, and parted, creating a passage leading from the stranger to the beautiful young girl, who was gazing dumbfounded at her suitor. Several tense moments passed, during which the crowd awaited the girl’s reaction, until at last Wells saw a smile appear on her lips, a smile that Emma tried at first to stifle, but that spread swiftly, lighting up her face, and everyone present could hear the most wonderful, limpid laughter their ears had ever perceived. Or at least this was what Wells romantically liked to think, for although he could not hear her laughter above the clamor of the crowd, he remembered it perfectly from the farm at Addlestone. While the band celebrated the girl’s gesture with gusto, breaking into another joyful tune, Emma walked with a beaming smile toward the man waiting for her beside the gigantic multicolored balloon. This outrageous, besotted man had somehow managed to see into her soul and to conjure up, with his ludicrous spectacle, the cosmic delight she had felt so long ago when she first saw the Map of the Sky. As she approached Murray, the excited crowd closed in behind her, surrounding the couple in a sea of cheers and applause, obscuring them from Wells.

But the author had seen enough. He knew the end of this tale better even than the protagonists themselves, for he had seen the girl curl up in Murray’s arms like a sparrow in its nest, ready to die with him. A love like theirs seemed destined to blossom in all of the universes, however infinite in number.

With a touch of his hat, Wells took his leave of the lovers. He turned and walked away from the hubbub toward where the coaches were parked, hoping to find a driver to take him back to Weybridge. He had seen all he wanted to. On his old man’s legs he struggled through the flood of people arriving to see the cylinder, surprised by the festive music emanating from where it had landed. Wells only hoped he could remain in this universe, where his old bones, tired of traveling between worlds, had finally come to rest.

Wells paused for a few seconds to rest his aging legs, dreaming of a pleasant world where there were no mysterious forces intent on sucking him into the whirlpool of events he himself prophesied. Perhaps there were many such worlds, inhabited by his twins, who enjoyed peaceful lives without all these cosmic responsibilities. He felt not a little envious of them, and yet at the same time he also felt sad for all those Wellses who lived in universes similar to the one he came from, and who therefore suffered from the same disease, the same curse as he. How many of them found themselves exiled from their world, like himself, foreigners in other worlds, Flying Dutchmen who would never return to their place of birth, because they had been condemned to drift for eternity in the myriad oceans of time? Many, undoubtedly.