A Spark Unseen (5 page)

“… we commit his body to the ground …” said Parson Lowe.

Mrs. Cooper cried noisily beside me, and I took her hand in my free one, wishing for comfort as much as I wanted to give it.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes …”

I met Mary’s eyes over the hole in the ground. She was crying as well, though for different reasons, I knew, than Mrs. Cooper, and I was suddenly struck by the sight of her. She was the same Mary as always: large-eyed, freckled, with her upturned nose and wide mouth capable of speech in speeds and quantities that one could scarcely credit. And yet, in that sober dark dress with the fitted bodice, and with her hair tamed and twisted into a knot beneath her bonnet, she was not the gawking girl I had met when I first came to Stranwyne. She was, most assuredly, a young woman, one who would expertly assist in my most wild of schemes, and even, evidently, wield a hammer for my sake.

The parson nodded and the coffin hit the bottom of the grave hole with a hateful
thump
. The lowering ropes were pulled free, and Matthew, young Tom, and two other men from the village stepped up, hats or caps popping back onto their heads, shovels in their hands. The dirt hit Uncle Tully’s coffin with dry, grating rasps, like when we’d buried John George the day before, like when Lane had buried Davy. The wind keened.

I looked away from the coffin, past Mary and down the slope to Stranwyne Keep, the jumble of brown stone and chimneys and roof tiles that was my home. And then I saw the carriage, just emerging from the tunnel through the moor hills, making its way at high and silent speed around the circular drive, the trogwynd snatching away the sound of its wheels. I turned my face back to the shovelers.

“Faster, please,” I said crisply, causing both Mrs. Cooper and Parson Lowe to look at me and frown. But the effort to fill my uncle’s grave was quickened. I saw Mary staring down the slope, her lips pressing tight.

Mr. Wickersham had arrived. Three hours and forty-two minutes early.

And he was in the drawing room when I entered it, his scribbling man perched on the settee, an ink pot and spare nibs spread out on the table. I gave them both a small curtsy. I had slept perhaps four of the past forty-eight hours, and my body felt the loss like a missing limb. But I smiled, laid the veiled bonnet carefully on the table, and prepared to do battle from the edge of a damask chair.

“Do sit, Mr. Wickersham. I’m so glad you did not stand on formality, and just let yourself in.”

He did not sit. “Where is your uncle, Miss Tulman?”

“I … we …” My eyes filled, wetting my lashes. Tears were so close to the surface these days that they were extraordinarily easy to summon. “Have you had no letter, Mr. Wickersham? Mr. Babcock assured me that he would —”

“Yes, yes. I got the bloody letter. Caught me in Milton only just this morning.” I thought I heard him grit his teeth. “I was not aware that your uncle suffered from any ‘ailment of the heart.’”

“I’m afraid we were not aware of it either, Mr. Wickersham,” I replied.

Mr. Wickersham thrust his hands in his pockets, blustering about the room while the inevitable pen scratched, cursing circumstance and lack of luck beneath his breath. My eyes narrowed.

“Your compassion and concern during this difficult time are truly admirable, Mr. Wickersham. I am very much comforted.”

He stopped his pacing to look at me, my loss of temper somehow making his own relax. He smiled and sat down abruptly.

“Where is the body, Miss Tulman?”

“My uncle was laid to rest just a short time ago. Beside his mother.”

“Quick work,” he commented.

“It was not … convenient to wait longer. We have no undertaker here.”

There was a small silence. “This will be a disappointment for Her Majesty’s government,” Mr. Wickersham continued. “The loss of Frederick Tulman is rather a blow to our plans. A sad loss for our plans.” He leaned back in his chair, still grinning at me, a posture that was nothing like that of a gentleman. “Of course, you do understand, Miss Tulman, that you will still be required to accompany me to London.”

I looked back at him steadily. “I certainly shall not.”

“Oh, yes. You certainly shall.”

“To what purpose?”

The pen wrote furiously. “To explain all and anything you might know about the workings of your uncle’s inventions, of course, and their —”

“Mr. Wickersham,” I interrupted, “do you truly believe that I can answer some riddle of genius that your scientific men are currently incapable of solving? Are you really so desperate that you would present to these men as a solution to their problems a mere girl, one whose entire qualifications rest on having once seen the invention in question? They will laugh in your face.”

I was laying it on a bit thick, I thought, but it seemed to be working. The scribbling man’s brows had gone up while Mr. Wickersham’s went down. I moderated my tone.

“Mr. Wickersham, I am a person of independent means with no pressing responsibilities.” How I wished that were true. “And there are memories in this house that I find very painful. I plan to leave this afternoon, in less than an hour — thirty-eight minutes, as a matter of fact — and will travel until such a time as I choose to come back again. Most of my trunks have already gone.”

Mr. Wickersham stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “I can easily have you taken to London, Miss Tulman, whether you choose it or no.”

“And I can be extremely troublesome, and with the help of my solicitor, can promise to both legally and physically kick up such a fuss as you’ve never seen. Do you think me incapable of it?” We locked eyes, and after a moment I said, “Mr. Wickersham, I know nothing of my uncle’s inventions. I have no idea how they worked or even what parts went together to make them. My uncle created nothing resembling his fish since the flood that destroyed his workshop two years ago. And as for his more recent workshop upstairs …” The man’s gaze shot toward the ceiling. “… everything there has been removed to the foundry and melted.”

I broke our gaze, dabbing again at my eyes. “I loved my uncle dearly and, as I said, the memories here are very painful.”

The pen caught up to my last words with the result that I could hear the trogwynd howling very softly in the chimney. I looked up to see Mr. Wickersham giving me another smile.

“It seems you have thought of everything, Miss Tulman. Please accept my most sincere condolences. When do you sail?”

I hid my surprise behind the handkerchief. “I do not believe I mentioned sailing, Mr. Wickersham.”

“Did you not, Miss Tulman? Dashed odd. Are you certain?” He leaned back again, ungentlemanly in his chair. “Then perhaps I just assumed that you were going to your grandmother’s residence in Paris?”

I stared at him, rooted to my seat, watching his little eyes go dreamy.

“Rather a nice old place, though the neighborhood, I fancy, is not quite the fashion it was before the current emperor’s reign. But still, I think you will enjoy it. The Reynoldses are in residence next door at the moment, a fine old family, fleeing the cholera in London, I believe, as are many. Do tell them I wish them well. As I do you, Miss Tulman.” He stood and bowed, causing the scribbling man to leap to his feet. “Good-bye. Or maybe I should say
au revoir
? I think we may be seeing each other again very soon.”

And once again Mr. Wickersham walked out my door, leaving me with nothing to say.

In reality, it was more than an hour before I said good-bye to Mrs. Cooper, and the clocks, and my grandmother’s room, everything I had once been certain I would never leave. Marianna’s portrait I carried out the front door with me, wrapped tight in a cloth. Mary climbed into the carriage, and I looked toward the tunnel and the moor hills surrounding us. I saw no sign of Mr. Wickersham’s man, the one that young Tom had seen watching from the grasses, but that did not mean he wasn’t there or that he was alone. I turned to the driver of the wagon that waited behind us, the last of the boxes, bags, and my steamer trunk lashed to its bed.

“You are certain all is secure?” I asked him. He nodded his assent. “Then we will drive as quickly as we are able. But keep out of the ruts as much as you can. I want nothing broken.” He responded with a scant tip of his hat before handing me up the step.

Inside the carriage, Mary was not crying as I’d thought she might. She sat grim-faced in the green velvet interior, bonnet tied tight, her carpetbag of things perched primly on her knees. The pocket watch she wore pinned by a chain to her dress lay open on her palm.

“Will we be making the boat, Miss?” she asked as I settled the portrait into the seat beside me. I heard a chirrup to the horses and felt my body jerk backward. The carriage was rolling.

“It will be close, but I think we shall. Mr. Babcock should be there before us; he sent the other luggage on this morning, and I am in hopes that he can convince the captain to hold if we are delayed.” What we would do if we missed that boat was more than I could fathom. “Mary …” Her round eyes darted to my face. She knew me well enough to know that her name in that tone meant nothing to our advantage. “Mr. Wickersham knew we were sailing. He knew what house we’re going to, down to the names of the neighbors. We could have … visitors, I’m afraid. Much sooner than I’d planned.”

Mary whistled beneath her breath, her face screwing up in thought for only a second or two before her eyes went round. “Miss! There’s men up there, Miss!” The carriage was coming around the circular drive, giving us a view of the cemetery. “At Mr. Tully’s grave! What can —”

“They’re from the village, Mary. I sent them.”

She squinted at me. “But why, Miss?”

“Because Mr. Wickersham will want proof. At some point he will want it, and he will come and try to get it.”

Mary squinted even harder, her nose wrinkling before her eyes snapped open wide. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare, Miss. He wouldn’t dare be digging up Mr. Tully!”

When I did not respond, Mary began a lengthy opinion on the morals, personal appearance, and maternal origins of Mr. Wickersham. I watched the neatly trimmed grasses of the lawn go by, and then the more wild, swaying stems, yellowing with the season, blowing on the hills that ringed the entrance to Stranwyne. We had need of speed, but it was all going too fast. Everything was passing me by, and it was too fast. I looked back, and could just see Aunt Bit, still standing at the front door.

The road dipped, the slopes and grasses disappearing into brief blackness before that, too, melted away into the soft glow of gaslight. We were in the tunnel. The air of the trogwynd shoved and harried us, shrieking, pushing me back toward the house. I counted the gas lamps as the carriage rocked, but I counted them backward,
three hundred and twenty-six
,
three hundred and twenty-five
… to
four
,
three
,
two
, and
one
. And then it was black again. The carriage tilted, and the wind sighed. I had left Stranwyne Keep.

W
e watered the horses and ourselves at Milton, I checked the security of our luggage in the wagon, and we did not stop again until the beasts were drooping and we were in Devonport. For a long time I had leaned against the threadbare velvet wall, suspended in a hazy mixture of waking and sleep, but I went bolt upright at the sudden stillness of the carriage. A set of iron gates blocked the road before us, rising up from wisps of trailing mist, illuminated by a lantern in the hand of a uniformed guard. Our driver appeared from the dark and I opened the carriage window, silently handing him a sealed paper that had arrived by express from Mr. Babcock the night before. I had no notion what promises Mr. Babcock might have made or what favors he might have called forth to gain the privileges this letter contained, but whatever they were, the paper seemed to work. The guard waved us through the gate. Mary rubbed her eyes and flipped open the pocket watch with a soft click, waiting for the light of a passing streetlamp to hold it up.