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Toppletree bent and tickled Fidget under the chin. “Bye bye, old son. Suppose now I’ll have to find another way to a
He departed, taking his pint with him.
Robinson moved away to serve another customer.
Burton pulled the basset hound around so his stool blocked its route to Swinburne’s ankles. He winced as his damaged elbow gave a pang.
“The dog again, Richard? Why?”
“You know how useful Fidget was to El Yezdi. The hound saved your life.”
“A different history, a different beast, and a different Swinburne.”
“Quite so, and during my visions—or whatever they were—I saw this very animal in a different Burton’s home. Perhaps we belong together.”
“You patently do. In an asylum.”
“Maybe so. The intricacies of time are enough to send any man loopy. Don’t you find it significant, though, that we just experienced an event that will be repeated, in another version of history, one year from now? Remember, El Yezdi purchased Fidget in 1861.”
“Significant how?”
“Because it has demonstrated that, as my counterpart insisted, time has echoes and patterns. A great many events are common to a great many of the histories, though they don’t always transpire in exactly the same ma
Swinburne shrugged. “What of it?”
“It occurs to me that what I have witnessed—to wit, Babbage’s experiment in multiplicity—might be a rather unusual circumstance, for, in every case, it happened at precisely nine o’clock on Wednesday the fifteenth of February; a moment which, I remind you, the scientist himself emphasised.”
Swinburne swigged back his brandy and followed it with a mouthful of beer. “An unusual circumstance,” he echoed. “Heaven forbid we should encounter one of those.”
They ordered a second pint each, and Burton went through his experiences again, this time describing as many details as he could remember.
Later, after they’d indulged in a third drink, he said, “By God, I’m wearied to the bone and hurt all over. I require the healing arms of Morpheus.”
“But I’ve hardly touched a drop!”
Burton gave Fidget’s lead a little more slack, and the dog edged closer to the poet’s feet.
“Very well! Very well!” his friend cried out. “I concede!”
They bid Joseph Robinson farewell, nodded to Ted Toppletree, stepped out of the public house, and both immediately voiced cries of astonishment.
Initially, it appeared that a fresh layer of red snow had fallen, but they quickly recognised that, in fact, the vivid colour belonged to a dense mass of tiny shoots that had emerged from the icy layer. The little plants had taken root in every available space.
“This is beyond the bounds!” Burton exclaimed.
“You’re not wrong. They are growing impossibly fast,” Swinburne observed. “We were only in the pub for a couple of hours!”
They slowly followed the road back toward the river, observing the scene with awe. As they came abreast Battersea Fields, Swinburne said, “Is it my imagination or can I actually see them growing?”
He crouched and gently touched a tiny, tightly bunched, and as yet unfurled bloom. “I can. Look at this. It’s visibly in motion!”
Burton squatted—with a slight groan as his bruised body objected—and gazed intently at the tiny blossom.
“Unca
“Tempus flores.”
Burton raised a questioning eyebrow. “Time flowers?”
“They appear to be transcending its limitations, and given the moment of their arrival, and the events you’ve experienced within the past twenty-four hours, I think the designation is suitable.” Swinburne closed his eyes and declaimed:
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.
“The significance?” Burton asked.
Swinburne shrugged. “I don’t know. The words came to me out of the blue.”
“In co
“Yes.”
Again, the diminutive poet closed his eyes and, after a long pause, continued:
What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.
Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt:
We ca
Burton stood and tightened his coat around himself. “It sounds like an objection to religion.”
Swinburne also straightened. “To monotheism, perhaps. A yearning for the advent of a new paganism. How I rue the One who casts his veil of grey over us, Richard; who bids us contemplate death when all around us are the bright colours and vibrancies of glorious life. We have allowed ourselves to be crushed by a despotic deity who demands of us a lifetime of toil and service and promises in return a harsh judgement for most, and ambiguous rewards only for those who enforce His rule. I place all my hopes in Darwin. His wonderful insight can teach a far greater satisfaction and reassurance than blind faith can offer—a simple pleasure gained from the sheer exuberance and tenacity of existence. The human species should revel in a permanent state of delighted astonishment at this world, but instead we allow ourselves to be yoked to a tiresome and unyielding fear of it.”
Fidget lunged forward and sank his teeth into Swinburne’s ankle. The poet squawked and hopped away, arms flapping wildly. His long scarf became entangled around his ankles. He tripped and fell into the snow, rolling and squealing. Burton watched him but without amusement. Though he’d become familiar with his friend’s propensity to go off at a tangent, Swinburne’s words had been peculiarly out of context, and while he’d been speaking, Burton had noticed a glazed quality to the other’s eyes, as if the poet had slipped into a trance.
The king’s agent bent, plucked the flower out of the ground, and cautiously held it to his nose. It was discharging a pleasant but rather cloying perfume.
“Algy,” he said. “How do you feel?”
Swinburne leaped to his feet and shook a fist. “Furious! I shall purchase a muzzle for that little devil.”
They trudged on. When they reached Chelsea Bridge, the poet opted to cross it on foot and walk the short distance back to his digs. Promising to deliver Burton’s pe
Burton hailed a hansom and was soon rattling northward with Fidget sitting between his feet. He felt as if he’d been awake more hours than his pocket watch could attest to, and his thought processes were becoming increasingly sluggish. His friend’s odd outburst, the bizarre flowers, Spring Heeled Jack, the vanishing time suit, the other histories—they all blurred into a jumble of mismatched events. He could make no sense of them, and the more he tried, the more confused he felt.
He tried to quieten his restless thoughts by looking out of the window. It didn’t help. He found himself anxiously scrutinising the city in case it had suddenly transformed into a near but not quite accurate copy of itself.
When he arrived home, he found Mrs. Angell dusting the ba
“I fell off my velocipede. This is Fidget, a new addition to our household. You don’t mind, Mother?”
The old dame clapped her hands together and beamed down at the basset hound. “Ooh no! I ain’t had a dog since I were a little girl. He’s a beauty! Just look at them big brown eyes o’ his. An’ you know how I hate wastin’ scraps, sir. I’m sure he’ll be more ‘n’ happy to swallow ’em up.”