Hope paused momentarily for reflection, and then said: “Thank you for that, Laurel; it’s good of you to reassure me. I feel more in need of reassurance now than I usually do, perhaps because I woke up in the Keep in such dire confusion that I don’t even remember going in, and have no idea why I had a shotgun by my side. Do you happen to know whether I fired it?”
“Twice,” Michel confirmed.
“Harmlessly, I hope?”
“Quite harmlessly, as luck would have it.”
“Good,” Hope said, dully—as if he would have liked to ask for further details, but did not dare. He sighed theatrically. “Sometimes, Laurel,” he said, sadly, “I wonder if I might actually be the giddy fool that people often take me for. Do you know Voltaire’s Candide?”
“No,” Michel admitted.
“It features a character named Dr. Pangloss—a Leibnizian who has taken a slightly excessive moral from the great philosopher’s Theodicy, and keeps insisting, in the face of all the disasters heaped upon his world and his friends by the author—war, famine, pestilence, rape, and so on—that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Most readers take him for a perfect imbecile, as Voltaire doubtless intended him to seem, but I always had a certain sympathy for the man, and felt that the author was stacking the deck against him unfairly. After all, even if we don’t live in quite the best of all possible worlds, it’s by no means as black as gloom-mongers like Escott insist on painting it, is it? If people think me a Dr. Pangloss, I’m not prepared to be ashamed of it, even if it does make me out to be foolish. After all, if we can’t believe that there are good things in life, and that they might become even better, then there isn’t much prospect of them becoming better, is there?”
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Hope,” Michael assured him, serenely. “For me, I must admit, at present, this is the best of all possible worlds—and I can’t see the slightest reason to doubt it, to regret it, or to be ashamed of my joyful conviction.”
“You’re a good man, Laurel,” Hope said, as they reached the entrance to the Maze. He was evidently feeling much better. “I wish you the best of luck with your painting…and everything else.”
“Thank you,” Michael said, and left him at the entrance.
When he arrived in the center, the first thing he did was to recover the two separated parts of Lord Langstrade’s forgotten swordstick from the grass and the stone floor of the Keep, and reunite them. He propped the stick against the frame of the easel, and then took up his palette again. He was, however, interrupted before he could complete his preparation to begin painting—not, as he had expected, by Lord Langstrade, but by James Escott.
“Sorry to disturb you, Laurel,” the thin man said, in all seeming sincerity, “but I feel that I owe you an apology.”
“Not at all,” Michael said. “I have no complaint against you for asking Lord Langstrade for Cecilia’s hand. Nor has Mr. Hope, although he might feel obliged to sulk for while. By the time we all catch the train on Tuesday morning, everything will be back to normal, and you’ll be arguing to your hearts’ content.”
“That’s very fair of you,” Escott judged. “I couldn’t help feeing guilty, though. I had a dream in which you saved me from a fate worse than death—and then I tried to beat you to the punch with Langstrade, having at least suspected that you were head over heels. I was punished for it, mind—sent back to the hellish prison before the morning was half way through. I’m not quite sure how the second nightmare ended, but I had a vague feeling that you might have pulled me out of that one too. Funny how guilt works. Anyhow, I thought it best to apologize, just in case there was a hint of rancor in your heart.”
“None whatsoever,” Michael assured him.
“If I weren’t such a curmudgeon,” Escott remarked, with a sigh, “I dare say I’d have pleasant dreams, as others seem capable of doing, but I just can’t see the world in the same kindly light as Hope. I can always see the things that might go wrong. I was perfectly ready to believe the somniloquist’s dire prediction that a catastrophe was inevitable if Marlstone’s time machine worked, even though I was perfectly certain that it couldn’t and wouldn’t work, and in spite of the fact that I don’t have an atom of faith in the oracular prowess of Mesmerists’ marionettes. The problem is, of course, that things can always go wrong, even with the best-laid plans. No matter how cleverly things are arranged and adapted, they’re always at the mercy of chance, malevolence and the unintended consequences of our actions. There’s no way things can ever be finally settled and perfected, no matter how hard we try. Leibniz was right, you see—even an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God couldn’t contrive a universe in which evil is impossible, because the raw materials of creation simply don’t permit it. Every time we avoid one catastrophe, or contrive an improvement in the world’s circumstances, there’s another catastrophe waiting around the corner, threatening not only to wipe out our new achievements but all the advantages we inherited. That’s just the way things are.”
“I can’t deny it,” Michael admitted, in a cheerful tone that was quite unfitted to the admission.
“No,” Escott, observed, “but at least you can defy it, for now. You’re in love, and Cecilia loves you in return. You’re happy—on top of the world. Make the most of every minute, Laurel—don’t waste a second.”
“The present moment is all there is, Mr. Escott,” Michael told him, absent-mindedly. “The past is gone, no more than a vast collection of phantoms, and the future is still a dream…from which, as you say, the threat of nightmare can never be conclusively banished, any more than the prospect of every success. But all there actually is, is. Time never really was, and is never really past. Only brazen heads and the inventors of time machines think otherwise.”
Escott said nothing to that, but contented himself with watching as Michael, having scrupulously loaded his palette, set about applying paint to his canvas, with minute care. After a few more minutes, the cadaverous figure turned to go away, but Michael barely caught a glimpse of the other’s retreating back from the corner of his eye.
“At any rate,” the painter murmured to himself, having already forgotten what he had just said, “there’s no point in talking to me about such weighty matters. Like Signor Monticarlo, I’m just an artist. If there’s anything that needs to be said, my work will speak for me.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Stableford was born in Yorkshire in 1948. He taught at the University of Reading for several years, but is now a full-time writer. He has written many science-fiction and fantasy novels, including The Empire of Fear, The Werewolves of London, Year Zero, The Curse of the Coral Bride, The Stones of Camelot, and Prelude to Eternity. Collections of his short stories include a long series of Tales of the Biotech Revolution, and such idiosyncratic items as Sheena and Other Gothic Tales and The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels. He has written numerous nonfiction books, including Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950; Glorious Perversity: The Decline and Fall of Literary Decadence; Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia; and The Devil’s Party: A Brief History of Satanic Abuse. He has contributed hundreds of biographical and critical articles to reference books, and has also translated numerous novels from the French language, including books by Paul Féval, Albert Robida, Maurice Renard, and J. H. Rosny the Elder.
Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine Page 29