Chapter Eleven: Not Supposed To Do That
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originalsam_backupChapter Eleven: Not Supposed To Do That
The following morning the weather was too wet for pleasant shooting, which Clare was secretly glad of; she might eat duck happily enough but she didn't see the pleasure in shooting it for sport. It did mean that everyone stayed inside and played cards all morning, but then she had an easy out, because Jack was not a cards-player and didn't care what the weather was; he wanted to be down in his workshop, setting up.
They escaped early, dropping out of the ground-floor window in Jack's room without seeing another soul and strolling through the rain with all the unconcern of Massachusetts natives, who know that the worst you can get from rain is wet.
She had borrowed a thick pair of engineer's boots from Jack and taken her own heavy rain-proof coat in case of leaks in the garden-house roof, but the only damp that came in was through the glass windows, which were soon blocked off by high piles of leaves that the two of them swept up with push-brooms Created for the occasion. They buttressed the leaves up with remnants of broken potting trays, set up two unbroken ones to serve as worktables once they had boards placed over them, and paced out a plan for where the boat Jack intended to build would go.
"It can't be any bigger than necessary. Air's not like water; there's no natural buoyancy, so there's no advantage to size," Jack said. "But everything has to be balanced equally along the length, so if you put the engine in the middle..."
He stopped and frowned.
"Engines are heavy," Clare said. "You're going to have to build the lightest engine anyone ever built."
"Plus water." Jack nodded. "Normally I'd just say have a Creationist make the water since by the time it fades it'll have been used up anyway, but that'd be tiring, every few hours, and Graveworthy said no Creationism."
"Jack, have you ever thought about why he wants this?"
"He told us why he wants it. To carry goods and spies, I guess spies, into dangerous country."
"Where they can't use Creationism," Clare said significantly. "And he's been doing research into Australian expats, he practically told me so."
"You think he wants to fly to Australia?" Jack asked.
"Where else could he want to go?"
She watched as this idea sunk Jack deep into thought; she'd been mulling it over herself for most of the morning, and she couldn't come to any conclusions, flattering for Graveworthy or otherwise. The rain rattled the windowpanes that weren't broken and water seeped, steady but clean, across the floor.
"Well, that changes everything," he said, sounding annoyed. "That's a long damn trip, England to Australia. Got to build for speed because even good lift will only last so long, but if we get her going fast we can use the catapult theory and keep some in reserve for braking -- "
Clare was torn between a laugh and a sigh as Jack strode back out into the rain, heading for the house. He was still muttering to himself as he walked through the back door and into the parlour; she did laugh as half a dozen people looked up to see him dripping on the carpet.
"Nature walk," she said, guiding Jack deftly through the room. "Forgot our umbrellas."
She almost squeaked as Nicholas appeared with warm towels for them, holding the door so that they could pass through into the dining room. Ellis and Annie Masters were standing there, speaking quietly.
"I wondered when you two drowned rats would come in out of the rain," he said, amused. "You shouldn't disappear without saying so; if Nicholas hadn't been watching from the kitchen as you went out I'd have had to turn the house upside-down for you."
"We thought you'd make us come play cards," Jack said innocently.
"So I would have -- "
"I'm sorry, I need to write some things down," Jack added. Clare grinned. "It'll only take about half an hour. I'll come out for lunch when I'm done."
"What are you writing?" Ms. Masters asked, looking intrigued.
"Things," Jack replied, glancing at Graveworthy. "Good morning, ma'am. I'll see you at lunch."
He left Clare standing in the dining room, holding both towels and somewhat wet and bedraggled. She glanced at Jack's receding back, then at the confused faces in front of her.
"He was raised by wolves," she said. "Wolves with pressing engineering drawings."
"You had better watch him, El," said Ms. Masters. "He's the sort to burn out by the time he's twenty-three."
"He isn't," Clare retorted. "He's always been this way."
"Hard-driving engines fail soonest," Ms. Masters said. "Perhaps he's one to beat the odds, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. Make best use of his genius while he's still got it, or slow him down so that he'll have it ten years from now, when he knows how to control it."
Clare, speechless with indignation, turned on her heel and stalked after Jack.
***
In the days that followed, she and Jack saw almost as little of each other as they would have in Boston; Clare was in classes all day, and when he wasn't in his brief lectures Jack was at work every hour the day gave -- building a boat.
To judge from the drawings littering his desk and the occasional test flight of some small model machine he wasn't only building a boat, but the physical evidence of his work did look distinctly boat-shaped. Having gone to London and spent all day (according to Graveworthy) romping unabashedly around a shipyard, he had come back to Cambridge with his head stuffed full of theory and a reciept in his pocket for a shipment of the lightest, strongest lumber he could find.
He drafted Graveworthy into service now that the guests were gone, sweeping away the leaves entirely and hanging boards over the broken windows. Clare helped fit the pipe for the gaslights and hang the fixtures, but the boat-building was uncommonly noisy and she stayed away when she had her own work to do. They ate dinner together in the kitchen, and usually Jack was lucid enough after a day of woodworking to make polite conversation.
"It's all in my head during the day," he said to her, as they picked at the last of a bowl of mashed potatoes while Graveworthy dealt with some traveling tinker who had come to the door asking if there were knives in the house that needed sharpening. "I wake up with a bunch of new ideas and I go out and work on the boat, and while I work I make a list and then go over them all in my head. Sometimes they're good enough to test out. Most of the time, not."
"Well, you're trying to do something nobody else has done before," she said.
"I don't like failure," Jack replied. She smiled and ruffled his hair.
"Nobody likes failure. Don't let it depress you," she said. "You've blown up a lot of things this week, and you did build a boat. How many other people do you know could build a boat from one day at a shipyard?"
"It's not done yet. And it's not watertight. Then again, it doesn't need to be," he said with a grin. After a second, the grin fixed in place and the blood drained from his face.
"What? What is it?" she asked.
"If you blow on a leaf, it goes up," he said to her.
"Yes..."
"But if you blow on a leaf full of holes, it doesn't. It does have to be watertight. Well, airtight. Unless -- does a leaf with holes fall slower than a leaf without holes? No," he said, answering his own question. "But it does fall more steadily..."
"Are we falling instead of flying now?" Graveworthy asked, rejoining them at the table.
"If you do fall, you want to fall the right way," Jack said.
"That's important, I suppose. By the way, we need to leave after dinner," Graveworthy answered. "We'll be staying in London tonight. There's a plan afoot to stop the project, which of course means stopping you."
He pointed at Jack with his dessert spoon.
"I thought you said we were safe in England," Clare said.
"By now, Ms. Fields, you ought to know better than to trust any such statement as absolute."
"I could use to go to London anyway," Jack said. "I need to have some gears custom-made. They won't make them for me here -- they say students aren't allowed to requisition. Just like home," he added sardonically.
"Ms. Fields, you'll only miss a day of classes; I've no doubt we'll be back by Monday. Just a few rowdies who got further inland than they should have," Graveworthy continued. "And I'd like to take you to the astrolarium. The Creationists there have memorised entire star charts, it's quite a sight. I know you'll say I'm buying your favours cheap, but think of it as offering what small pay is mine to give in return for graciously humouring me."
"You can call me gracious all you like but that doesn't mean I'll act that way," Clare told him.
"Obviously," he murmured. She saw Jack bite down a smile.
When she returned to her rooms she found that a suitcase had already been packed for her by Nicholas, as well as two hatboxes and a satchel. She would normally have informed him that there was no way she'd need four dresses or two hats for a three-day trip, but she was too annoyed by the world to even pick fights. She let Graveworthy load her and Jack into a carriage at the side of the house, behind a hedge, and didn't dig at Graveworthy at all the entire trip from the house to the station or the station in Cambridge to the station in Liverpool Street. Jack distracted himself as he always did, but he looked faintly anxious the entire time; Graveworthy sat calmly and wrote in a notebook the whole trip there.
They were met by Anderson and a waiting carriage, which took them to a long row of houses on a quiet street and deposited them at one of many identical doorfronts. She was left to unpack her bags (graciously carried upstairs for her, not that she asked, by Anderson) and turn down her bed.
When she came downstairs to fetch herself a glass of water and say goodnight and possibly steal a book from the shelves in the parlour, she encountered Graveworthy and Anderson in the middle of a heated debate, while Jack looked on and tinkered with a pair of broken fire-tongs.
"It's a thundering, booming bore," Graveworthy said, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the bookshelves. "I don't parade myself around like a tiger in the zoo."
"It'll be fun," Anderson replied. "Free food and drink, and all you have to do is argue politely with people at table, which is what you do best anyway."
"I'm not so poor I can't buy food for myself, and the food there isn't worth the cost."
"It's a party, Ellis. You can show up late, eat dinner, say three interesting things and leave early. You might even enjoy yourself," Anderson said. "There will be plenty of people you know there. Artists, musicians, the whole lot."
"Savants on parade," Graveworthy muttered.
"Swinburne and Arthur Doyle will be there," Anderson tempted.
"Algernon Charles Swinburne?" Clare heard herself ask, before she could remember that she wasn't talking to them. Anderson turned, surprised.
"The inimitable Algernon," he said. "Do you know his work?"
"We've studied it for class," she said, trying to sound offhand.
"See? Take Ms. Fields along. Hell, take Baker with you, I'm sure he'll find something to dismantle."
"Hm?" Jack said, looking up as he heard his name mentioned.
"Graveworthy's taking you to a party," Anderson said.
"What, now?" Jack asked.
"Tomorrow night," Anderson said. "Have you ever heard of William Morris?"
"Sure, the wallpaper man," Jack replied.
"Well, he ought to be there, and Swinburne, who obviously has ensnared Ms. Fields. Though I expect she's already learned that writers are human and annoying often enough," Anderson added. "There's some young bloke named Wilde who's coming, he's interested in your work, Ellis."
"You're outflanked, Mr. Graveworthy," Clare said, leaning on the back of the chair Jack was sitting in. "We'll find you a nice plant to hide behind."
Graveworthy looked every inch as irritated as she had when she heard they were going to London, but Clare had begun to warm to the idea of the city.
***
The following day was not without excitement; Anderson ended up being the one to take Clare to the astrolarium while Jack inspected a handful of machine shops and returned to the shipyards to confirm that his building was going according to plan. Word came down in the afternoon that the Cambridge house was still standing and had not been broken into, and Graveworthy spent his spare moments between taking Jack to the shipyards and dressing for dinner at work in his study. He had become quite adept on the moveable-type machine in the few weeks he'd had it, though he looked like some kind of strange medieval necromancer with both hands resting deftly on the dome and his brow furrowed in thought. Still, at the end of the day he had the same amount he would have written with a quill, and it was much clearer reading for his editor, or so he said.
Jack was glad that Anderson and Graveworthy weren't any more well-dressed than he was as they alighted the cab at their dinner destination, a large town-house that looked like it would grow up to be a castle someday. He had worn the best clothes he had, none of which had any patches or grease-stains, but he entertained nightmarish thoughts of both of the older men appearing in black suits and white ties, with top-hats and walking sticks. Instead, Anderson looked like a dressed-up clerk and Graveworthy wore an ironed but otherwise unremarkable suit. Clare looked splendid, of course, but then she always did. He offered her his arm and led the way up the walk, since Graveworthy was obviously going to hang back until the last possible minute.
"Ellis thinks he detests society," Anderson said in Jack's ear, leaning over Clare's shoulder. "He'll have fun once he's inside, though. Remember that you're students and his guests and try not to get into any overt mischief, would you?"
"No promises," Clare said, winking at Jack as he pushed the door open.
Inside, the room was full of people -- every room was full of people, and Jack began to see why Graveworthy would be reluctant to attend. The noise was a bit like a train constantly passing, and it was awfully warm in the parlour, where someone was playing the piano. Anderson steered them away, towards a wide, less crowded hallway filled with paintings -- though most of the paintings had knots of people around or near them as well. Apparently there were a lot of art appreciators, but it was possible they were gosipping under pretence of admiring the art. Graveworthy had said something about that at the shipyards earlier in the day.
"Ellis!" someone called, and a woman broke away from one of the groups to kiss Graveworthy on the cheek in greeting.
"Sarah Bernhardt," Anderson said, as she pulled him into a knot of people. "She's after him to write her a play. She'll take him under her wing for a bit. There's Swinburne, by the way," he said to Clare, who followed his nod to where a small, wild-haired man was speaking to a pair of women in the doorway. "I'll introduce you as soon as -- "
"Excuse me, Monsieur?" said a large man with a large moustache, presenting himself just to one side of Jack with the obvious aim of getting at Anderson. "Monsieur Anderson?"
"Monsieur Verne, n'est ce pas?" Anderson answered.
"Oui! You remember me," Verne said, beaming.
"Of course. We met at the French Ambassador's reception. Allow me to present Jack Baker and Clare Fields, students at Cambridge University. They've come down to London for the occasion."
"My pleasure," the man said, in thickly accented English.
"And I believe Monsieur Verne is looking for Graveworthy -- I said I'd introduce them. Ah -- Sarah's got him in her clutches now," Anderson said, glancing at where Graveworthy was apparently holding a small crowd rapt with some story or other. "Jack, Clare, why don't you two run along and entertain yourselves? Take this along with you," he added, handing Jack a piece of paper from his pocket. Jack was fairly positive he'd only that moment Created it. "Pass it to Mr. Parsons when you see him. Monsieur, this way -- we'll collar Ellis as soon as he's free."
He led the Frenchman away hurriedly, and Jack ducked behind a handy pedestal and bust, unfolding the paper. Clare looked over his shoulder.
Verne suspected spy. Hide in kitchens. Stay away until signalled.
"This is starting to be downright annoying," Clare said, reading it over his shoulder.
"Kitchen's where the food is," Jack shrugged. He glanced at Graveworthy, who was speaking what sounded like fluent French to the other man. "Come on, let's find it."
He wove his way between groups of people, Clare's hand held in his, until they came out at the end of the hallway. From one direction came the smell of food, sharp and distinct, down a dark corridor. Jack forged ahead and passed through a swinging door into a room filled with steam and smoke. Men and women in white uniforms were everywhere.
"Let's go out to the scullery," Clare suggested, taking the lead and guiding him swiftly past the swinging knives and splattering fry-pans to the back door. They emerged into a small rear foyer with a mutual sigh of relief.
The foyer was little more than a covered stone walkway where the large pans were obviously washed. There was a smaller-than-expected rear garden with smooth green lawn and two small trees; a handful of children were seated under one happily, sharing slices of cake.
"Hullo," Jack said, sitting down next to them carelessly. "Exiled from the party, huh?"
"Bo-ring," one of them answered, rolling her eyes.
"Probably so," Clare said, looking amused. She didn't sit down, but she did kick at a round, pinkish object sitting nearby. It bounced heavily over to Jack, who picked it up. It was a pig's bladder, washed and blown up with air before being tied off. He and Clare had kicked them around the street as children, begging them off the local butcher after they burst or deflated or began to smell.
"Did cook give it to you?" he asked, standing and bouncing the ball on his shoe.
"No, Sir William gave them to us," a boy piped up. "He says it's Science."
Jack tilted his head, kicking the ball to Clare. "Really? What kind of science?"
"This one's filled with air, see?" the girl said, as Clare kicked the bladder back to her.
"I see," Jack said.
"And the other ones have somethin' else," the boy said proudly.
"What other ones?" Jack asked. The children looked up into the tree.
He followed their gaze and at first saw nothing but a handful of ribbons hanging down from the branches; on closer examination, he saw they were tied to bladders wedged in the tree's limbs. He tugged on a ribbon and one came free. Even as he put out a hand to catch it, however, he found that it wasn't falling at all. In fact, it was rising, tugging on the end of the ribbon, bobbing along in the air.
His eyes widened.
He didn't realise he'd let the ribbon slip through nerveless fingers until the bladder began to rise even higher, floating up towards the darkening sky, drifting easily over the grass and the wall around the garden and the roof next door. One of the children burst into tears.
"He let it escape!" the boy wailed. Jack, hardly hearing, turned to the tree and tugged on another one. This time several of the children hurled themselves at him and stole it from him, pulling the ribbon away from his hands. They snatched the other ribbons and pulled the inflated bladders out of the tree, running away across the grass with them and shrieking.
"I didn't mean to," Jack said, not really aware of what he was saying. He was watching the fast-disappearing object that dipped and bobbed over the rooftops. He was vaguely aware of Clare standing nearby.
"Thousands of bladders?" she asked, leaning her chin on his shoulder. "Or one really big giant bladder?"
Jack felt as if his brain were going so fast that he couldn't actually think of anything. "Neither. Too many variables. Are they Created? How long do they stay inflated? What's the lifting power?"
"Jack -- "
"I need to talk to Graveworthy," Jack said, and turned to run back into the house. He got about three inches before a combination of loose bootlaces and mud overbalanced him. Clare grabbed his collar and hoisted him in time to keep him from sprawling, but the shock of adrenaline brought him back to reality sharply.
"We can't go back in right now, unless we want Anderson to get all annoying and Graveworthy to look horrified at us," Clare told him. "Remember, we're hiding. Which is very frustrating."
"Yeah," he said, leaning against the tree before his knees could quite give out. "Who did the kids say gave them the things?"
"Sir something?" Clare said. "Sir William?"
"You think he's here? Maybe he's a Creationist," Jack said, disappointed. "Some kind of new artistic...thing."
"Pig bladders aren't art," Clare said. "They're barely sports. You know the ones we had always fell apart after a day or two."
"Either way, he might still be here."
"Well, don't be an idiot about it," she said. "We'll go through the kitchen."
She kept a firm grip on his sleeve as they walked, as idly as Jack could manage, back into the kitchen. A couple of the cooks gave Jack a knowing look, between his rumpled collar and the pretty girl holding firmly to his sleeve.
"Ex -- excuse me," he said, staying well back from a woman chopping carrots vigorously. "I'm looking for someone."
"Seems like you found her," she replied, scooping them up with the knife blade and flinging them into a pot.
"No, not...do you know if Sir William is still here?" he asked.
"Do I look like an invitations list?"
"Who would know?"
"He probably would," she said, jerking her white-hatted head at a man in a suit who was carrying a huge tray of appetizers out into the parlour. They sidled around a second waiter and pushed the door open a crack.
"He'll be out there for ten minutes at least," Jack said, despairing.
"Who will?" asked a familiar voice, and Jack looked up over his shoulder to see Graveworthy standing, heaven-sent, behind them.
"Do you know Sir William?" he demanded, turning around. Graveworthy pulled him away from the door just in time to avoid being smacked by it as another waiter burst through.
"Well, there are probably a few -- Sir William Grove? He's here somewhere."
"I guess so," Jack said.
"He's the only one I know of who might be here, but I don't know him personally. Why?"
"Is he a Creationist?" Jack asked.
"Him?" Graveworthy chuckled. "Not religiously or occupationally. He's an atheist. By the way, I want you to come back to the par -- "
"Forget the party! What does he do?"
Graveworthy frowned. "He's a scientist of some sort or other, teaches at the London Institution. I thought you'd like to meet Monsieur Verne, he's the...Jack! JACK!"
Jack dashed through the door, now that he'd had permission. He ran up to the waiter the cook had pointed out and found a tray of appetizers pressed into his face.
"Crab pastry?" the man asked politely.
Jack was faced with a professional dilemma. On the one hand, he had to find Sir William Grove as soon as humanly possible. On the other, crab pastry.
He took two.
"One of the cooks said you'd know where I could find Sir William," he blurted. The man smiled gently.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Sir William is in the library, I believe. He's fond of setting things on fire for the edification of the guests."
"Where's that?" Jack demanded.
"Upstairs, sir, the first door on the left."
"Thanks for the pastries!" Jack called over his shoulder as he ran for the stairs. As he clattered up them he heard Graveworthy remarking to someone that you simply couldn't put a lid on the enthusiasm of hungry students, and had Mr. Swinburne met young Ms. Fields?
At the top of the stairs he skewed around to the left and nearly tumbled into the door, twisting the knob and bursting through with more drama than, looking back, he would have liked. Fortunately, nobody was looking at him, as something nearby had just exploded.
Through the choking smoke, Jack heard coughs and enthusiastic if hoarse congratulations. He stumbled across to a window, where the rest of the library's inhabitants were waving handkerchiefs and drawing lungfuls of fresh air.
"That was extraordinary," one of them said, wiping soot from his face. "I swear I've lost an eyebrow."
"It is not supposed to do that," came a call from across the room. To Jack, it was the sound of a kindred soul.
"What on earth is it supposed to do?" a woman asked.
"I call it a power cell. It's the next thing after steam."
"I've certainly never seen steam blow like that," another woman observed. Jack recognised Annie Masters' voice.
"Ms. Masters?" he called.
"Jack Baker, is that you? Still intact?" she called back.
"I missed the explosion. Where are you?"
"Hell if I know!" she said.
"Sir William?" Jack tried.
"Who's calling me?" said the voice in the smoke. A shadow appeared, waving a book in front of its face. "Have you brought the drinks?"
"No, sir!" Jack said, as the shadow took form. "Sorry. My name's Baker, I've come to speak to you about your inflated bladders."
This drew a laugh from everyone around him, but the slightly smoke-stained man standing in front of him just nodded.
"Probably time to clear out for a bit and get some fresh air. Second demonstration in an hour or two," he announced, and other smoky shadows began to move towards the door. "Come out to the garden with me, young man, I've several of them there."
Chapter 10 | Chapter 12
The following morning the weather was too wet for pleasant shooting, which Clare was secretly glad of; she might eat duck happily enough but she didn't see the pleasure in shooting it for sport. It did mean that everyone stayed inside and played cards all morning, but then she had an easy out, because Jack was not a cards-player and didn't care what the weather was; he wanted to be down in his workshop, setting up.
They escaped early, dropping out of the ground-floor window in Jack's room without seeing another soul and strolling through the rain with all the unconcern of Massachusetts natives, who know that the worst you can get from rain is wet.
She had borrowed a thick pair of engineer's boots from Jack and taken her own heavy rain-proof coat in case of leaks in the garden-house roof, but the only damp that came in was through the glass windows, which were soon blocked off by high piles of leaves that the two of them swept up with push-brooms Created for the occasion. They buttressed the leaves up with remnants of broken potting trays, set up two unbroken ones to serve as worktables once they had boards placed over them, and paced out a plan for where the boat Jack intended to build would go.
"It can't be any bigger than necessary. Air's not like water; there's no natural buoyancy, so there's no advantage to size," Jack said. "But everything has to be balanced equally along the length, so if you put the engine in the middle..."
He stopped and frowned.
"Engines are heavy," Clare said. "You're going to have to build the lightest engine anyone ever built."
"Plus water." Jack nodded. "Normally I'd just say have a Creationist make the water since by the time it fades it'll have been used up anyway, but that'd be tiring, every few hours, and Graveworthy said no Creationism."
"Jack, have you ever thought about why he wants this?"
"He told us why he wants it. To carry goods and spies, I guess spies, into dangerous country."
"Where they can't use Creationism," Clare said significantly. "And he's been doing research into Australian expats, he practically told me so."
"You think he wants to fly to Australia?" Jack asked.
"Where else could he want to go?"
She watched as this idea sunk Jack deep into thought; she'd been mulling it over herself for most of the morning, and she couldn't come to any conclusions, flattering for Graveworthy or otherwise. The rain rattled the windowpanes that weren't broken and water seeped, steady but clean, across the floor.
"Well, that changes everything," he said, sounding annoyed. "That's a long damn trip, England to Australia. Got to build for speed because even good lift will only last so long, but if we get her going fast we can use the catapult theory and keep some in reserve for braking -- "
Clare was torn between a laugh and a sigh as Jack strode back out into the rain, heading for the house. He was still muttering to himself as he walked through the back door and into the parlour; she did laugh as half a dozen people looked up to see him dripping on the carpet.
"Nature walk," she said, guiding Jack deftly through the room. "Forgot our umbrellas."
She almost squeaked as Nicholas appeared with warm towels for them, holding the door so that they could pass through into the dining room. Ellis and Annie Masters were standing there, speaking quietly.
"I wondered when you two drowned rats would come in out of the rain," he said, amused. "You shouldn't disappear without saying so; if Nicholas hadn't been watching from the kitchen as you went out I'd have had to turn the house upside-down for you."
"We thought you'd make us come play cards," Jack said innocently.
"So I would have -- "
"I'm sorry, I need to write some things down," Jack added. Clare grinned. "It'll only take about half an hour. I'll come out for lunch when I'm done."
"What are you writing?" Ms. Masters asked, looking intrigued.
"Things," Jack replied, glancing at Graveworthy. "Good morning, ma'am. I'll see you at lunch."
He left Clare standing in the dining room, holding both towels and somewhat wet and bedraggled. She glanced at Jack's receding back, then at the confused faces in front of her.
"He was raised by wolves," she said. "Wolves with pressing engineering drawings."
"You had better watch him, El," said Ms. Masters. "He's the sort to burn out by the time he's twenty-three."
"He isn't," Clare retorted. "He's always been this way."
"Hard-driving engines fail soonest," Ms. Masters said. "Perhaps he's one to beat the odds, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. Make best use of his genius while he's still got it, or slow him down so that he'll have it ten years from now, when he knows how to control it."
Clare, speechless with indignation, turned on her heel and stalked after Jack.
***
In the days that followed, she and Jack saw almost as little of each other as they would have in Boston; Clare was in classes all day, and when he wasn't in his brief lectures Jack was at work every hour the day gave -- building a boat.
To judge from the drawings littering his desk and the occasional test flight of some small model machine he wasn't only building a boat, but the physical evidence of his work did look distinctly boat-shaped. Having gone to London and spent all day (according to Graveworthy) romping unabashedly around a shipyard, he had come back to Cambridge with his head stuffed full of theory and a reciept in his pocket for a shipment of the lightest, strongest lumber he could find.
He drafted Graveworthy into service now that the guests were gone, sweeping away the leaves entirely and hanging boards over the broken windows. Clare helped fit the pipe for the gaslights and hang the fixtures, but the boat-building was uncommonly noisy and she stayed away when she had her own work to do. They ate dinner together in the kitchen, and usually Jack was lucid enough after a day of woodworking to make polite conversation.
"It's all in my head during the day," he said to her, as they picked at the last of a bowl of mashed potatoes while Graveworthy dealt with some traveling tinker who had come to the door asking if there were knives in the house that needed sharpening. "I wake up with a bunch of new ideas and I go out and work on the boat, and while I work I make a list and then go over them all in my head. Sometimes they're good enough to test out. Most of the time, not."
"Well, you're trying to do something nobody else has done before," she said.
"I don't like failure," Jack replied. She smiled and ruffled his hair.
"Nobody likes failure. Don't let it depress you," she said. "You've blown up a lot of things this week, and you did build a boat. How many other people do you know could build a boat from one day at a shipyard?"
"It's not done yet. And it's not watertight. Then again, it doesn't need to be," he said with a grin. After a second, the grin fixed in place and the blood drained from his face.
"What? What is it?" she asked.
"If you blow on a leaf, it goes up," he said to her.
"Yes..."
"But if you blow on a leaf full of holes, it doesn't. It does have to be watertight. Well, airtight. Unless -- does a leaf with holes fall slower than a leaf without holes? No," he said, answering his own question. "But it does fall more steadily..."
"Are we falling instead of flying now?" Graveworthy asked, rejoining them at the table.
"If you do fall, you want to fall the right way," Jack said.
"That's important, I suppose. By the way, we need to leave after dinner," Graveworthy answered. "We'll be staying in London tonight. There's a plan afoot to stop the project, which of course means stopping you."
He pointed at Jack with his dessert spoon.
"I thought you said we were safe in England," Clare said.
"By now, Ms. Fields, you ought to know better than to trust any such statement as absolute."
"I could use to go to London anyway," Jack said. "I need to have some gears custom-made. They won't make them for me here -- they say students aren't allowed to requisition. Just like home," he added sardonically.
"Ms. Fields, you'll only miss a day of classes; I've no doubt we'll be back by Monday. Just a few rowdies who got further inland than they should have," Graveworthy continued. "And I'd like to take you to the astrolarium. The Creationists there have memorised entire star charts, it's quite a sight. I know you'll say I'm buying your favours cheap, but think of it as offering what small pay is mine to give in return for graciously humouring me."
"You can call me gracious all you like but that doesn't mean I'll act that way," Clare told him.
"Obviously," he murmured. She saw Jack bite down a smile.
When she returned to her rooms she found that a suitcase had already been packed for her by Nicholas, as well as two hatboxes and a satchel. She would normally have informed him that there was no way she'd need four dresses or two hats for a three-day trip, but she was too annoyed by the world to even pick fights. She let Graveworthy load her and Jack into a carriage at the side of the house, behind a hedge, and didn't dig at Graveworthy at all the entire trip from the house to the station or the station in Cambridge to the station in Liverpool Street. Jack distracted himself as he always did, but he looked faintly anxious the entire time; Graveworthy sat calmly and wrote in a notebook the whole trip there.
They were met by Anderson and a waiting carriage, which took them to a long row of houses on a quiet street and deposited them at one of many identical doorfronts. She was left to unpack her bags (graciously carried upstairs for her, not that she asked, by Anderson) and turn down her bed.
When she came downstairs to fetch herself a glass of water and say goodnight and possibly steal a book from the shelves in the parlour, she encountered Graveworthy and Anderson in the middle of a heated debate, while Jack looked on and tinkered with a pair of broken fire-tongs.
"It's a thundering, booming bore," Graveworthy said, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the bookshelves. "I don't parade myself around like a tiger in the zoo."
"It'll be fun," Anderson replied. "Free food and drink, and all you have to do is argue politely with people at table, which is what you do best anyway."
"I'm not so poor I can't buy food for myself, and the food there isn't worth the cost."
"It's a party, Ellis. You can show up late, eat dinner, say three interesting things and leave early. You might even enjoy yourself," Anderson said. "There will be plenty of people you know there. Artists, musicians, the whole lot."
"Savants on parade," Graveworthy muttered.
"Swinburne and Arthur Doyle will be there," Anderson tempted.
"Algernon Charles Swinburne?" Clare heard herself ask, before she could remember that she wasn't talking to them. Anderson turned, surprised.
"The inimitable Algernon," he said. "Do you know his work?"
"We've studied it for class," she said, trying to sound offhand.
"See? Take Ms. Fields along. Hell, take Baker with you, I'm sure he'll find something to dismantle."
"Hm?" Jack said, looking up as he heard his name mentioned.
"Graveworthy's taking you to a party," Anderson said.
"What, now?" Jack asked.
"Tomorrow night," Anderson said. "Have you ever heard of William Morris?"
"Sure, the wallpaper man," Jack replied.
"Well, he ought to be there, and Swinburne, who obviously has ensnared Ms. Fields. Though I expect she's already learned that writers are human and annoying often enough," Anderson added. "There's some young bloke named Wilde who's coming, he's interested in your work, Ellis."
"You're outflanked, Mr. Graveworthy," Clare said, leaning on the back of the chair Jack was sitting in. "We'll find you a nice plant to hide behind."
Graveworthy looked every inch as irritated as she had when she heard they were going to London, but Clare had begun to warm to the idea of the city.
***
The following day was not without excitement; Anderson ended up being the one to take Clare to the astrolarium while Jack inspected a handful of machine shops and returned to the shipyards to confirm that his building was going according to plan. Word came down in the afternoon that the Cambridge house was still standing and had not been broken into, and Graveworthy spent his spare moments between taking Jack to the shipyards and dressing for dinner at work in his study. He had become quite adept on the moveable-type machine in the few weeks he'd had it, though he looked like some kind of strange medieval necromancer with both hands resting deftly on the dome and his brow furrowed in thought. Still, at the end of the day he had the same amount he would have written with a quill, and it was much clearer reading for his editor, or so he said.
Jack was glad that Anderson and Graveworthy weren't any more well-dressed than he was as they alighted the cab at their dinner destination, a large town-house that looked like it would grow up to be a castle someday. He had worn the best clothes he had, none of which had any patches or grease-stains, but he entertained nightmarish thoughts of both of the older men appearing in black suits and white ties, with top-hats and walking sticks. Instead, Anderson looked like a dressed-up clerk and Graveworthy wore an ironed but otherwise unremarkable suit. Clare looked splendid, of course, but then she always did. He offered her his arm and led the way up the walk, since Graveworthy was obviously going to hang back until the last possible minute.
"Ellis thinks he detests society," Anderson said in Jack's ear, leaning over Clare's shoulder. "He'll have fun once he's inside, though. Remember that you're students and his guests and try not to get into any overt mischief, would you?"
"No promises," Clare said, winking at Jack as he pushed the door open.
Inside, the room was full of people -- every room was full of people, and Jack began to see why Graveworthy would be reluctant to attend. The noise was a bit like a train constantly passing, and it was awfully warm in the parlour, where someone was playing the piano. Anderson steered them away, towards a wide, less crowded hallway filled with paintings -- though most of the paintings had knots of people around or near them as well. Apparently there were a lot of art appreciators, but it was possible they were gosipping under pretence of admiring the art. Graveworthy had said something about that at the shipyards earlier in the day.
"Ellis!" someone called, and a woman broke away from one of the groups to kiss Graveworthy on the cheek in greeting.
"Sarah Bernhardt," Anderson said, as she pulled him into a knot of people. "She's after him to write her a play. She'll take him under her wing for a bit. There's Swinburne, by the way," he said to Clare, who followed his nod to where a small, wild-haired man was speaking to a pair of women in the doorway. "I'll introduce you as soon as -- "
"Excuse me, Monsieur?" said a large man with a large moustache, presenting himself just to one side of Jack with the obvious aim of getting at Anderson. "Monsieur Anderson?"
"Monsieur Verne, n'est ce pas?" Anderson answered.
"Oui! You remember me," Verne said, beaming.
"Of course. We met at the French Ambassador's reception. Allow me to present Jack Baker and Clare Fields, students at Cambridge University. They've come down to London for the occasion."
"My pleasure," the man said, in thickly accented English.
"And I believe Monsieur Verne is looking for Graveworthy -- I said I'd introduce them. Ah -- Sarah's got him in her clutches now," Anderson said, glancing at where Graveworthy was apparently holding a small crowd rapt with some story or other. "Jack, Clare, why don't you two run along and entertain yourselves? Take this along with you," he added, handing Jack a piece of paper from his pocket. Jack was fairly positive he'd only that moment Created it. "Pass it to Mr. Parsons when you see him. Monsieur, this way -- we'll collar Ellis as soon as he's free."
He led the Frenchman away hurriedly, and Jack ducked behind a handy pedestal and bust, unfolding the paper. Clare looked over his shoulder.
Verne suspected spy. Hide in kitchens. Stay away until signalled.
"This is starting to be downright annoying," Clare said, reading it over his shoulder.
"Kitchen's where the food is," Jack shrugged. He glanced at Graveworthy, who was speaking what sounded like fluent French to the other man. "Come on, let's find it."
He wove his way between groups of people, Clare's hand held in his, until they came out at the end of the hallway. From one direction came the smell of food, sharp and distinct, down a dark corridor. Jack forged ahead and passed through a swinging door into a room filled with steam and smoke. Men and women in white uniforms were everywhere.
"Let's go out to the scullery," Clare suggested, taking the lead and guiding him swiftly past the swinging knives and splattering fry-pans to the back door. They emerged into a small rear foyer with a mutual sigh of relief.
The foyer was little more than a covered stone walkway where the large pans were obviously washed. There was a smaller-than-expected rear garden with smooth green lawn and two small trees; a handful of children were seated under one happily, sharing slices of cake.
"Hullo," Jack said, sitting down next to them carelessly. "Exiled from the party, huh?"
"Bo-ring," one of them answered, rolling her eyes.
"Probably so," Clare said, looking amused. She didn't sit down, but she did kick at a round, pinkish object sitting nearby. It bounced heavily over to Jack, who picked it up. It was a pig's bladder, washed and blown up with air before being tied off. He and Clare had kicked them around the street as children, begging them off the local butcher after they burst or deflated or began to smell.
"Did cook give it to you?" he asked, standing and bouncing the ball on his shoe.
"No, Sir William gave them to us," a boy piped up. "He says it's Science."
Jack tilted his head, kicking the ball to Clare. "Really? What kind of science?"
"This one's filled with air, see?" the girl said, as Clare kicked the bladder back to her.
"I see," Jack said.
"And the other ones have somethin' else," the boy said proudly.
"What other ones?" Jack asked. The children looked up into the tree.
He followed their gaze and at first saw nothing but a handful of ribbons hanging down from the branches; on closer examination, he saw they were tied to bladders wedged in the tree's limbs. He tugged on a ribbon and one came free. Even as he put out a hand to catch it, however, he found that it wasn't falling at all. In fact, it was rising, tugging on the end of the ribbon, bobbing along in the air.
His eyes widened.
He didn't realise he'd let the ribbon slip through nerveless fingers until the bladder began to rise even higher, floating up towards the darkening sky, drifting easily over the grass and the wall around the garden and the roof next door. One of the children burst into tears.
"He let it escape!" the boy wailed. Jack, hardly hearing, turned to the tree and tugged on another one. This time several of the children hurled themselves at him and stole it from him, pulling the ribbon away from his hands. They snatched the other ribbons and pulled the inflated bladders out of the tree, running away across the grass with them and shrieking.
"I didn't mean to," Jack said, not really aware of what he was saying. He was watching the fast-disappearing object that dipped and bobbed over the rooftops. He was vaguely aware of Clare standing nearby.
"Thousands of bladders?" she asked, leaning her chin on his shoulder. "Or one really big giant bladder?"
Jack felt as if his brain were going so fast that he couldn't actually think of anything. "Neither. Too many variables. Are they Created? How long do they stay inflated? What's the lifting power?"
"Jack -- "
"I need to talk to Graveworthy," Jack said, and turned to run back into the house. He got about three inches before a combination of loose bootlaces and mud overbalanced him. Clare grabbed his collar and hoisted him in time to keep him from sprawling, but the shock of adrenaline brought him back to reality sharply.
"We can't go back in right now, unless we want Anderson to get all annoying and Graveworthy to look horrified at us," Clare told him. "Remember, we're hiding. Which is very frustrating."
"Yeah," he said, leaning against the tree before his knees could quite give out. "Who did the kids say gave them the things?"
"Sir something?" Clare said. "Sir William?"
"You think he's here? Maybe he's a Creationist," Jack said, disappointed. "Some kind of new artistic...thing."
"Pig bladders aren't art," Clare said. "They're barely sports. You know the ones we had always fell apart after a day or two."
"Either way, he might still be here."
"Well, don't be an idiot about it," she said. "We'll go through the kitchen."
She kept a firm grip on his sleeve as they walked, as idly as Jack could manage, back into the kitchen. A couple of the cooks gave Jack a knowing look, between his rumpled collar and the pretty girl holding firmly to his sleeve.
"Ex -- excuse me," he said, staying well back from a woman chopping carrots vigorously. "I'm looking for someone."
"Seems like you found her," she replied, scooping them up with the knife blade and flinging them into a pot.
"No, not...do you know if Sir William is still here?" he asked.
"Do I look like an invitations list?"
"Who would know?"
"He probably would," she said, jerking her white-hatted head at a man in a suit who was carrying a huge tray of appetizers out into the parlour. They sidled around a second waiter and pushed the door open a crack.
"He'll be out there for ten minutes at least," Jack said, despairing.
"Who will?" asked a familiar voice, and Jack looked up over his shoulder to see Graveworthy standing, heaven-sent, behind them.
"Do you know Sir William?" he demanded, turning around. Graveworthy pulled him away from the door just in time to avoid being smacked by it as another waiter burst through.
"Well, there are probably a few -- Sir William Grove? He's here somewhere."
"I guess so," Jack said.
"He's the only one I know of who might be here, but I don't know him personally. Why?"
"Is he a Creationist?" Jack asked.
"Him?" Graveworthy chuckled. "Not religiously or occupationally. He's an atheist. By the way, I want you to come back to the par -- "
"Forget the party! What does he do?"
Graveworthy frowned. "He's a scientist of some sort or other, teaches at the London Institution. I thought you'd like to meet Monsieur Verne, he's the...Jack! JACK!"
Jack dashed through the door, now that he'd had permission. He ran up to the waiter the cook had pointed out and found a tray of appetizers pressed into his face.
"Crab pastry?" the man asked politely.
Jack was faced with a professional dilemma. On the one hand, he had to find Sir William Grove as soon as humanly possible. On the other, crab pastry.
He took two.
"One of the cooks said you'd know where I could find Sir William," he blurted. The man smiled gently.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Sir William is in the library, I believe. He's fond of setting things on fire for the edification of the guests."
"Where's that?" Jack demanded.
"Upstairs, sir, the first door on the left."
"Thanks for the pastries!" Jack called over his shoulder as he ran for the stairs. As he clattered up them he heard Graveworthy remarking to someone that you simply couldn't put a lid on the enthusiasm of hungry students, and had Mr. Swinburne met young Ms. Fields?
At the top of the stairs he skewed around to the left and nearly tumbled into the door, twisting the knob and bursting through with more drama than, looking back, he would have liked. Fortunately, nobody was looking at him, as something nearby had just exploded.
Through the choking smoke, Jack heard coughs and enthusiastic if hoarse congratulations. He stumbled across to a window, where the rest of the library's inhabitants were waving handkerchiefs and drawing lungfuls of fresh air.
"That was extraordinary," one of them said, wiping soot from his face. "I swear I've lost an eyebrow."
"It is not supposed to do that," came a call from across the room. To Jack, it was the sound of a kindred soul.
"What on earth is it supposed to do?" a woman asked.
"I call it a power cell. It's the next thing after steam."
"I've certainly never seen steam blow like that," another woman observed. Jack recognised Annie Masters' voice.
"Ms. Masters?" he called.
"Jack Baker, is that you? Still intact?" she called back.
"I missed the explosion. Where are you?"
"Hell if I know!" she said.
"Sir William?" Jack tried.
"Who's calling me?" said the voice in the smoke. A shadow appeared, waving a book in front of its face. "Have you brought the drinks?"
"No, sir!" Jack said, as the shadow took form. "Sorry. My name's Baker, I've come to speak to you about your inflated bladders."
This drew a laugh from everyone around him, but the slightly smoke-stained man standing in front of him just nodded.
"Probably time to clear out for a bit and get some fresh air. Second demonstration in an hour or two," he announced, and other smoky shadows began to move towards the door. "Come out to the garden with me, young man, I've several of them there."
Chapter 10 | Chapter 12
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Date: 2009-08-19 08:20 pm (UTC)If it's Clare's pov, then it really should be "as irritated as she had felt". Also, it should be the pluperfect: "when she had heard".
I am very glad that Jack had encountered the concept of hot air balloons. I would hate to have seen struggle much with traditional planes. And airships are traditional steampunk and AU transport. As well as being actually historically transport.
It was great fun to see all the people at the party. Yay, William Morris! And Anderson giving Jack the paper to give to "Mr Parsons"! Oh, I love spy stories.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:06 pm (UTC)Actually, this ought to hold true for the English, as well, considering the English climate. :)