‘Yes, and the end result is truly splendid,’ Charles agreed. Then he joked: ‘What a pity it doesn’t work.’
After a brief pause, Wells hastened to chortle politely, emitting a sound like a walnut being cracked.
‘What do you intend doing with it?’ Wells asked abruptly, as though he wanted to smother the sickly laugh that had shown the world he possessed a sense of humour.
‘Nothing, really’ the other man replied. ‘I’d like you to keep it’
‘Me?’
‘Of course. Where better than at your house? Consider it a thank-you present for your invaluable help.’
You needn’t thank me for anything,’ protested Wells. ‘I found the whole thing hugely enjoyable.’
Charles smiled to himself: how fortunate that the author had agreed to help him. Also that Gilliam Murray had been willing to join in the charade – which he had even helped to plan – after he had seen how devastated Charles was when he informed him the company did not provide journeys into the past. The wealthy entrepreneur’s agreement to play a role had made everything that much easier. Taking Andrew straight to the author’s house without calling in at Murray’s offices first, in the hope that he would believe Charles’s suspicion that Wells had a time machine, would not have been nearly as convincing.
‘I’d like to thank you again from the bottom of my heart,’ said Charles, genuinely moved. ‘You, too, Jane, for persuading the cab driver to hide down a side street and to tether the horse to the gate while we pretended to intimidate your husband.’
‘You’ve nothing to thank me for either, Mr Winslow It was a pleasure. Although I’ll never forgive you for having instructed the actor to stab your cousin . . .’ she chided, with the amused smile of someone gently scolding a naughty child.
‘But everything was under control!’ protested Charles, pretending to be shocked. ‘The actor is an expert with a knife. Besides, I can assure you that without the added encouragement, Andrew would never have shot him. Not to mention that the scar on my cousin’s shoulder will be a constant reminder that he saved his beloved Marie’s life. Incidentally, I liked the idea of employing someone to play a guardian of time.’
‘Wasn’t that your doing?’ declared Wells, taken aback.
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘I thought you’d arranged it . . .’
‘It wasn’t me,’ replied Wells, perplexed.
‘In that case, I think my cousin scared off a burglar. Or perhaps he was a real time traveller,’ joked Charles.
‘Perhaps.’ Wells laughed uneasily.
‘Well, the main thing is it all turned out well,’ concluded Charles. He congratulated them once again on their successful performances and gave a little bow as he said goodbye. ‘And now I really must go or my cousin will start to suspect something. It has been a pleasure meeting you. And remember, Mr Wells, I shall always be one of your most devoted readers.’
Wells thanked him with a modest smile that lingered on his face as Charles’s footsteps faded down the stairs. Then he heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. Hands on hips, he gazed at the time machine, with the fierce affection of a father contemplating his first-born child, and stroked the control panel. Jane watched him, aware that at that very moment her husband was being assailed by an emotion as intense as it was disturbing: he was embracing a dream, a product of his own imagination that had stepped miraculously out of the pages of his book and become a reality.
‘We might find some use for the seat, don’t you think?’ Wells commented, turning towards her.
His wife shook her head – she might have been asking herself what the devil she was doing with such an insensitive fellow – and walked over to the window. The author went and stood beside her, consternation on his face. He placed his arm round her shoulders, and she laid her head against him. Her husband did not lavish her with so much affection that she would pass up this spontaneous gesture, which had taken her as much by surprise as if he had hurled himself from the window, arms akimbo, to confirm once and for all that he was unable to fly. Thus entwined, they watched Charles climb into the cab, which pulled away. They watched it disappear down the street beneath the orange-tinted dawn.
‘Do you realise what you did tonight, Bertie?’ Jane asked him.
‘I nearly set fire to the attic’
She laughed. ‘No, tonight you did something that will always make me feel proud of you,’ she said, looking up at him with infinite tenderness. ‘You saved a man’s life using your imagination.’
PART TWO
Chapter XVIII
Claire Haggerty would gladly have been born into another era if that meant she did not have to take piano lessons or wear insufferably tight dresses, or choose a husband from among an assortment of willing suitors, or carry round one of those silly little parasols she always ended up leaving in the most unexpected places. She had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday, and yet, if anyone had taken the trouble to ask her what she wanted from life they would have heard her reply: ‘Nothing, simply to die.’
Naturally, this was not what you would expect to hear from the lips of a charming young lady who had scarcely embarked upon life, but I can assure you it is what Claire would have told you because, as I have previously explained, I possess the ability to see everything, including what no one else can see, and I have witnessed the endless self-questioning she puts herself through in her room before going to bed. While everyone imagines she is brushing her hair in front of the mirror like any normal girl, Claire is lost in contemplation of the dark night outside her window, wondering why she would sooner die than see another dawn. She had no suicidal tendencies. Neither was she irresistibly drawn to the other side by the call of a siren. Nor was the mere fact of being alive so unbearably distressing that she felt she must end it all forthwith. No.
What it boiled down to was something far simpler: the world into which she had been born was not exciting enough for her, and it never would be – or, at least, that was the conclusion she reached during her nightly reflections. Hard as she tried, she was unable to discover anything about her life that was pleasurable, interesting or stimulating. Even more tiresome, she was compelled to pretend she was content with what she had. The time
