The poet, whose trouser leg was now being pulled at by the hound, emitted an agonised groan. He’d also recognised the developing scene. Glaring at Burton, he hissed, “Don’t you dare!”
Burton ignored him, cleared his throat, and stuttered, “May—may I offer you a drink, Mr.—Mr.—Mr. Toppletree?”
“Very good of you, sir. Very good indeed. Most generous. Deerstalker. Best ale south of the river.”
Robinson, responding to a nod from Burton, poured the third pint.
Swinburne jerked his ankle away from Fidget only to have the dog lunge forward and bite his shoe.
“Ouch! I say!” he objected. “Confound it! Why won’t he leave me alone?”
“Here, Fidget! Sit still!” Toppletree pulled the hound away. The animal settled, gazing longingly at the little poet’s ankles. “You sure you wouldn’t like to snap ’im up, sir?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything,” Swinburne responded. He took a long gulp of ale. “I do believe you may be right about this beer, though. Very tasty! Perhaps little Fidget will calm down if we offer him a bowl?”
“How—how much?” Burton croaked.
“A pint should be enough to send him into a profound sleep,” Swinburne said.
“I was addressing Mr. Toppletree. How much for the dog?”
“You surely can’t mean to purchase the beast again,” the poet groaned.
“Again?” Toppletree asked. “Wotcha mean again?”
“He doesn’t mean anything,” Burton said. “Two pounds?”
“Daylight robbery!” Swinburne objected.
“Two pounds,” Toppletree quickly agreed, obviously surprised at the phenomenally high offer.
Swinburne moaned and said to Joseph Robinson, “I think I require a stiff brandy.”
The landlord obliged and was paid by Burton, who then slid a couple of pound notes across the bar to Toppletree.
“Much obliged, sir,” the man said. “You won’t regret it. He’s a fine animal.”
“Then why have you sold him?” Swinburne asked.
“He’s rather too fond of nipping me wife, sir. Doesn’t like her, an’ she can’t stand the sight of ’im, the poor little fella.”
“She’s very discerning.”
Toppletree bent and tickled Fidget under the chin. “Bye bye, old son. Suppose now I’ll have to find another way to annoy the bloomin’ missus!” He passed the animal’s lead to Burton. “I’m off to join me mates in a game of dominoes, sirs. Been a pleasure meetin’ yer both. All the best to yer.”
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 manner or at exactly the same moment.”
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.
“Uncanny,” he muttered.
“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 connection with these flowers?”
“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 cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?
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.”