Fiendish Schemes (16 page)

I remained silent, oddly touched as I was by Evangeline’s confession. I had not led so bleak a life as would render a young woman’s kiss, however slight and momentary, completely unknown to me.

Yet arriving as that intimacy had now, upon the eve of my advancing years and their concomitant personal decline, the impact was substantial. Another resolution formed inside me, which I also left unspoken to her. I might be a confirmed and aging bachelor, for whom the love of a beautiful young woman such as her could never be realized, but nevertheless: I did not know how I would accomplish it at the moment, I was unsure of how I would accomplish much of anything—but whatever was required to save her
fiancé,
Captain Crowcroft, from the sharp-edged gears of the trap into which the young man had fallen, that I would do.

“Take some comfort from my words.” Her evident distress enabled my speech; she had turned from me, attempting to conceal the tear that had coursed from her eye. “However well-founded your apprehensions of the Future, we at least know that nothing more dangerous threatens us, than these clattering, hissing instances of my father’s handiwork.”

Evangeline turned again toward me, her eyes now wide with astonishment. “How is it possible that you could believe such a thing?”

“Mere logic is the proof,” I said calmly. “Of all matters mechanical, my father stood at the pinnacle of human ingenuity. As appalling as his creations are—and I have seen more of them than any other person has—they nevertheless represent the limits of what can be accomplished along these lines. It’s obvious that any subsequent technician could do better—or worse, as the case might be.”

“Oh! Mr. Dower!” She looked upon me with pity. “There is clearly so much of which you are not yet aware. Has no-one spoken to you of the
Iron Lady
?”

“Such a terms seems familiar,” I allowed, “but rather more as an historical reference, than in a context of technological advance.” Evangeline sprang from the seat beside me, her hand shielding her mouth as though to stifle a cry of dismay. I awaited any explanation as to the cause of such high emotion; instead, she turned and fled from the room, abandoning me to my now multiplied perplexity.

Greater Pressure Is Placed Upon Mr. Dower

A
YOUNG
lady’s fretting should not concern you.” Stonebrake gazed out the carriage’s window as he spoke. “We have matters of more consequence with which to concern ourselves.”

“You heard of which she spoke?” To a large degree, I was not surprised. Back at the townhouse from which we had just departed, he had manifested himself immediately upon Evangeline’s departure from me, indicating a strong possibility that he had been eavesdropping upon our conversation.

“All of it. And not for the first time.” Outside the carriage, the dark city shapes rolled by, swathed in the vapours emitted by the swarming steam pipes. To one with his eyes closed, it might have seemed that we were traveling through some tropical rainforest, so warm and moist was the moonlit air. “Lord Fusible’s daughter, despite her many charms, is one of those tiresome individuals who view the Future as some dark pit to which Humanity is madly rushing, in order to throw ourselves upon whatever razor-sharp crags lie below. Attitudes such as that are basically gloomy and unhealthy; you would think that one as young and full of vitality as herself would know better. I ascribe it as the result of reading too many popular and sensational novels, which is a pastime that afflicts many of the coming generation.”

As the attitudes derisively attributed to the young woman were in their essence shared by me, I made no comment on them. Instead, I hazarded a more factual enquiry: “She spoke of some things, of which I confess I am still ignorant—”

“Imagine that.”

I let that comment slide by as well. “Specifically,” I continued, “there was mention of some entity she named as the
Iron Lady
. It seemed to arouse considerable trepidation in her. Are you familiar whereof she referred?”

“Of course,” allowed Stonebrake. He folded his arms across his chest, letting his chin sink toward them. “As would be the raggedest urchin scurrying barefoot through London’s gutters.”

The surliness of his response caught me unprepared. In our so far brief acquaintance, I had become used to a certain level of enthusiastic spirits on his part, bordering on the maniacal. Before this moment, his mood had seemed as perennially elevated as though he had already laid hands upon those fortunes whose imminent arrival he anticipated. Now he seemed immersed in sullen reflection, the shadows of which clustered about him as though they were personally appointed storm clouds.

“Is there a chance that you might elucidate upon them to me?”

“For God’s sake, man.” He turned his wrath-filled scowl upon me. “Do you believe it is my responsibility to instruct you in every slight detail of the world? You ask about things which are common knowledge; so common as to be near the province of infants in their cradles.” He shook his head, indicating the dismay produced by his contemplation of me. “If you are ignorant of these matters—as well be unaware of the ground beneath your feet!—it is the damnable fault of no-one other than yourself. While you were sequestered in your mouldering little village, you might have raised your head from your slumbers now and again, and surveyed the aspect beyond your window.” He sank back into the carriage’s seat. “You exhaust me, Dower.”

“Very well,” I said stiffly. “It had been my belief that we were embarked upon an endeavour that was to be of mutual benefit. Such remarks as you have just made indicate that you have thought better of that effort, and that you regard my continued association with you as being more burdensome than beneficial. So be it. I can easily say farewell to London, and make my own return to those rural haunts I previously frequented.”

“Do so, and you are a dead man.” Stonebrake’s sullen torpor was quickly dispelled, with sufficient force as to allow him to seize the front of my shirt and pull me toward his fierce expression. His eyes narrowed as he spoke through gritted teeth. “We are not engaged upon an enterprise designed for your amusement. Our futures have become tangled with the interests of serious men, who expect a return upon their investment. People such as Fusible and his associates did not become as wealthy as they already are by letting the odd farthing slip through their fingers. It’s not a game with them.”

“It had not been my assumption that it was.” I drew back as far as possible from him. “What makes you believe that I’m not as committed to the enterprise as yourself?”

“Indeed; exactly so.” He loosed his choking grasp upon my garments and dropped himself heavily into his portion of the carriage’s seat, his anger seeming to have evaporated as quickly as it had come upon him. “You’ll have to forgive me, Dower; while you were engaged in conversation with that ridiculous Viscount Carnomere, with his tatty furs and silly notions, I was having a less pleasant conversation upstairs, with Fusible and his friends.”

“I gather that it somehow did not go well for you.”

“To put it mildly,” said Stonebrake. “While his lordship might have displayed an affable
façade
in public, I can assure you that he is considerably less so when encountered in private. It would seem that he and his associates were not as amused by their reception of the various accounts of your dalliances back at Featherwhite House as they had previously portrayed themselves as being.”

“My
dalliances
? I’m not quite certain that I know to what you’re referring.”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? I was trying to be discreet in this regard, in order to spare your feelings. But if everything needs to be rendered explicitly for you, so be it: The subject of their remarks was your recent unfortunate involvement with your father’s creation, the steam-powered Orang-Utan.”

Again, that miserable beast—or contraption, to be more precise. My mood darkened as I envisioned the device once more.

“Excuse me,” I said. “But the damnable thing pressed its attentions upon me, rather than the other way around. I hardly see how I can be held to blame for those events, however sordid they might appear to others.”

“Nevertheless,” continued Stonebrake, “I was given to understand by Fusible and the others—rather strenuously, I might add—that the accounts, at least in the versions that reached their ears, indicated a paucity of serious intent as far as you are concerned. They have invested a great deal of money into investigating your father’s creations, in particular those that have come to be lodged at Featherwhite House; your larking about and making a fool of yourself with one of the machines reflects poorly upon a man of your tenuous position.”

“I will endeavour to maintain as much ever present in my mind.” My bitterly formed thoughts turned to that which so many poets and sages have remarked upon, as to the fleeting, bubble-like nature of one’s reputation in this wicked world. “You keep that hissing ape away from me, and I assure you I will not go seeking it out.”

“As you wish.” Stonebrake’s shrug indicated no great concern over this point. “I would have thought that this was a personal matter between you and the ape, but I’m more than happy to do whatever I can to assist.”

“You mock me, sir.” I made no effort to conceal my irritation. “Such attempts at levity are distasteful in the extreme.”

“You should be glad that I maintain such a level disposition, Dower. All the more so, as our situation is—as I have tried to impart the sense to you—imbued with much greater urgency than before. Not only do our future comforts and pleasures depend upon the successful completion of the enterprise upon which we have launched, but our very lives as well.”

“Dear Christ.” This latest statement appalled me.

“You might very well say so, but it would be doubtful if we will receive much aid from that ethereal quarter; we are on our own, I am afraid, and we will live or die only by our own efforts.”

“How did our situation reach such an extreme condition?”

“As I have already sought to impress upon you,” said Stonebrake, “our backers require a return upon their investment
—
which they impressed upon me, at the
soirée
from which we have just departed, they regard as having already amounted to a considerable sum.”