Cold Stone and Ivy (19 page)

She wondered if Frankow actually did design it. The world was an unpredictable, terrible, fantastical, place.

“This,” she said as she studied the chrome further. “This looks like Dr. Williams . . .”

“Hm,” said Sebastien. He pulled thick spectacles from a waistcoat pocket, slipped them over his nose, and peered up at the chrome. “Dr. John Williams, yes. I believe it was his first year in London. Got snatched up straightaway by the Club.”

“But I know Dr. Williams. He’s a friend of my father’s from Swansea. He and his wife have dined at our home and we at theirs. He’s not a member of some paranormal club, sir. I can assure you of that.”

“I shan’t argue.” Sebastien shrugged. “I don’t know the man. Although, according to the books, he was on the registry as an active member. I would shoot the lot of them if I had my druthers but that would be hard to justify, even if they did conspire to drive my father mad.”

“Did you just say you’d shoot them?”

“Yes. And I have the perfect pistol with which to do it.”

She stared at him, but he did not seem to notice.

“It would be poetic justice really, but in all honesty, madness runs in the family. The Club just capitalized on my father’s expertise and gave him enough rope to hang himself. So to speak. He used a bullet. I’m so glad Christien has escaped their attention all his years in London. They would want to corrupt his innocence, and I would hate to see him burdened with even more loathsome cadavers.”

She was certain her mouth was hanging open.

“Cadavers?”

“Yes, they are simply too much for me. Can’t stand the sight of them. And Christien brings trunkloads of cadavers whenever he visits. It’s difficult for us to be in the same room. Hollbrook House is hell for both of us.”

“Trunkloads?” She blinked. “Of, of cadavers?”

“Well, not literally ‘trunkloads.’ Although for me, it is the same. They want me to shoot him, but he’s my brother so I refuse. They are quite a persistent lot.”

She stared at him now, as “animated” slid a ways past “awkward,” deep, deep into the territory of “bizarre.”

“Gads, I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” And he shoved his hands into his pockets to stare at the floor. “Do forgive me, Miss Savage. I often forget myself when in the company of the living.”

“But why, why would you want to shoot Christien?”

“No, no, you misunderstand. I love my brother. Rest assured I will never lift a finger to harm him, no matter what the women say.” He shook his head, his eyes appearing distorted and currently very blue behind the lenses. “Never.”

And then he smiled like the sun.

What had Frankow done to him?

Her heart was racing as quickly as her mind. Could any of this possibly be fact or was it all simply a glimpse into the addled mind of the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke? She tore her eyes away but they came to rest once again on the chrome of the Ghost Club.

There was a man with thinning brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and spectacles.

“Wait,” she murmured. “This fellow . . . He’s familiar as well . . . Who is he?”

Sebastien peered closer, then straightened.

“Ah,” he said. “That is a photo of a very young Dr. Arvin Frankow. You’ve met him, I believe.”

A cold fist gripped Ivy’s heart, and she turned back to the image. Sure enough, along with Dr. John Williams, Renaud Jacobe St. John Lord de Lacey, and Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, stood a much younger Dr. Arvin Frankow. A Charter Member of the Ghost Club.

And he had both his legs.

Of Mad Women, Machine-Men,
and a Locket Filled with Angels

SEBASTIEN STARED OUT
the dark window as the hilly county of Lancashire rolled past. Across from him, Ivy Savage sat staring out the window on the other side. She had insisted on returning to Lonsdale immediately after seeing the photochrome of Arvin Frankow and the Ghost Club. Had he been alone, he would have ridden, but he was certain the woman was soft from life in London. Instead, he summoned Castlewaite, and the coach had set out in the rain for the Abbey.

They said nothing to each other on the ride.

Fergis sat on the bench beside him, Tag next to Ivy. The other dogs lay on the floor of the cab, and he had to give the woman credit. The coach smelled of wet dog and she had yet to complain. Quite a resilient creature, all things considered, if more than just a little highly strung.

He watched her, wondered what she thought. Coming to Lasingstoke was a plucky thing for a girl to do, even on the urging of a father and a fiancé. Lonsdale was a fearsome place and Frankow a formidable man. It was obvious that she loved her mother, and it was commendable. Christien was lucky to have her.

Finally, the grey bay of Wharcombe and the Gothic roofs of the Abbey came into view, and he felt the cold descend on him like a blanket. Through the gate now and the codes spun through his mind like leaves. He knew them all by heart. Along the drive that still filled him with dread and finally the lurch as Castlewaite stopped the carriage at the doors.

They were met by uniformed men, Vickers and Toewes. He knew them well. They nodded as he stepped out of the carriage along with the dogs and he held out a hand for Miss Savage. Two nurses as well, one familiar, one not, but Ivy bundled past them all into the foyer of the Abbey.

He turned to the dogs and held up a finger. “Stay. Do you understand? Dickey? Tag? I mean you too.”

Neither Tag nor Dickey had tails, so they wagged their back ends vigorously.

Sebastien turned and bounded up the steps, but as he passed the nurses, the cold rose up all around him. He paused, turned back to study them. Agnes Tidy was the first. He’d known her for years, but the other scowled at him, and he stepped closer.

Gagging, choking, silent as night

He narrowed his eyes at her. She stiffened, raised her brows in defiance.

Barely a whimper, Godfrey’s Cordial, dressmaker’s tape

In a smooth, swift motion, he reached behind his back to pull a clockwork pistol, levelling it between her eyes. He cocked the hammer.

“Leave,” he growled under his breath. “Leave before I put a bullet in your brain.”

Tidy gasped and shrank back, but the woman whose pin read “Amelia Dyer” did not. She scowled one last time before spinning and quitting the foyer. He waited until the sound of her shoes had died away, then pocketed the pistol and threw a look at Tidy, smiling like the sun.

“Hello, Tidy. How’s the children?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before turning to follow Ivy into the sanitarium.

DR. JOHN WILLIAMS
looked up from his desk, his grim mouth splitting into a smile at the sight in the doorway.

“Remy, my boy! Come in, come in!”

The young physician did so, slipping into the office and closing the door behind him.

“I thought Bondie had given you boys a bit of a break? Take a seat, man! Take a seat!”

Christien pulled up a chair, dropping into it as if he were carrying a great weight. Williams laced his hands across his desk.

“What’s up, boy? And don’t give me any cock ’n bull story about interns’ hours. Tell me the truth. Are you missing your little Ivy, or is this Whitechapel business wearing down your nerve?”

“Yes on both counts, but that is not why I’m here.” Christien reached a hand into his pocket, tossed the locket onto the blotter on Williams’s desk. “What the devil
is
this, sir?”

Williams’s grey eyes grew sharp as he glanced first at the locket, then at Christien.

“You honestly don’t know?”

“No, sir. I don’t. I mean, I know it belonged to my father and to his father and perhaps even his father’s father. I know that it was engineered by a French metallurgist who worked for our family back in Normandy, but for what purpose, I can only suppose. I know that it is kept in a lead-lined box and that we must change the box every year, for it turns the lead into gold, which we keep under the beds and in the cellar. I know it was given to me after my father’s death and Sebastien was left the key, although what he has done with it, I have no knowledge. And I know that when I wear it, I experience headaches and now a loss of time. It is most disconcerting, sir.”

“Interesting.” Williams cocked his head. “A loss of time, you say?”

“I lost an entire day, sir. More than twenty-four hours. So pray tell me, what is this thing and why does the Ghost Club want it so?”

The doctor reached a hand toward the locket, hesitated a moment.

“May I?”

Christien grunted so Williams picked it up, holding it in his fingers as if it were made of eggshells. The pendant caught the light, flashed colours across the walls, across the desk, across their faces.

“It is not alchemy, nor pure metallurgy, although it may be a combination of both. It is perhaps the most perfect example of metaphysics you will ever see—a clockwork device that needs no winding nor in fact any key, so what, precisely, your brother holds is beyond me. These gears are not silver or gold, copper or brass, but elements we are only beginning to discover now. You have read Crookes’s works, no doubt?”

“I have not, sir.”

“Well, see that you do. He is a founding member, Remy. His work in both the applied physics and metaphysics fields is quite astronomical, if you pardon the pun.”

Christien blinked slowly.

“Ahem. Crookes believes that it is fashioned out of elements such as uranium, selenium, antimonium, and zinc. Fascinating materials, quite fascinating. That is why he wants to study it in his laboratory in Kensington. You see, Remy, it powers itself.”

“But that’s impossible, sir. A machine cannot power itself.” He reached for the locket.

Williams passed it back. “There is still much in the scientific world that we do not understand, Remy. If this little trinket does indeed contain antimony, it may well be powered by angels.”

Antimonium. The Philosopher’s Stone.
The stuff of childhood myth and legend.

“Angels . . .” Christien tucked the locket back into his pocket. He raised his blue eyes, his face becoming porcelain once again. “I can see why the Club wanted my brother.”

“We may have him yet, Remy. But right now, we have you.” And he leaned across the desk, patted Christien’s hand. “We have you.”

“But why would it give me headaches?”

“I can’t say, boy. We should get it into Crookes’s laboratory. See what we can find.”

“Thank you, sir.” Christien rose to his feet, turned toward the door. “This has been most illuminating.”

“I wouldn’t wear it if I were you,” Williams called after him. “I would hate to lose you to the angels.”

“Good day, sir,” said Christien, and he closed the door behind him.

ONCE THROUGH THE
arch, Lonsdale Abbey changed before her very eyes. The corridor was marvellous with brightly coloured panelling and a low ceiling that looked like it had been dabbed with a hundred different paints. There were stripes and flowers, zigzags and swirls. It was as if the dim light were caught, reflected, magnified, and distorted to create a surreal palette. It was a distinctly different atmosphere from the foyer.

Sebastien had caught up with her and she wondered what he was thinking. According to both Christien and Rupert, he had spent much of his youth here. She wondered if a place like this could ever truly feel like home.

They rounded a corner and her breath caught in her throat. A dining hall as large as any she’d ever seen, with raftered ceilings easily four stories high. Again, the colours—almost a different colour in every panel, with lilies and roses, butterflies and bumblebees, suns, moons, and stars. Paintings of princes and clowns, ponies and dragons. Everywhere she looked, it was madness. Beautiful, terrifying, childlike madness.

She looked at him and he smiled.

“Tea?”

“My mother.”

“Right. This way.”

And he led her out of the dining room and down another hall towards a large wooden door. The brass nameplate read “
Dr. A. Frankow,
MMBS, FRCS, MRCP”
but underneath the plate, the long handle of an axe protruded from the wood. On a stool next to the door, a young woman sat reading. She had dark hair piled on top of her head, a tiny mouth, and rather round cheeks. She looked up as they approached.

“Hallo,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Laury,” Sebastien answered slowly. He seemed to be studying her. “This is my companion, Ivy Savage.”

“Hallo, Laury. My name’s Lizzie!”

Ivy stepped forward, rapped on the door.

“I’m going to the Americas.” Lizzie clapped her hands. “Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m terribly excited.”

Sebastien seemed spellbound. He was staring at the woman, cocking his head like one of his many dogs.

“Dr. Frankow?” Ivy called and rapped again.

“You’re jealous of me,” said Lizzie. “Because I’m going to Fall River.”