Hounds of Autumn (5 page)

Chapter 5

C
hloe removed two tiny screws,
pried off the metal cover panel and squinted as she examined the innards of Beatrice’s mechanical robin. It was an older model, at least three or four years old, and judging from the color and consistency of its lubricants, had never been taken in for service.

The bird’s embroidered cloth plumage lay in a brown and red crumple in a corner of the worktable that had appeared in Ambrose’s study while they were at supper. A gas lamp hissed softly in the other corner, its etched glass globe providing too little light. She absently reached a hand to twist one of the scroll arms and the light flared. She squinted into the bird again.

Beatrice had been vague about the bird’s symptoms, but Chloe had examined it and had a good idea of what was wrong with it. She had already removed most of its casing and she flipped it over and set to work on the five screws that held on its head. Once the outer shell was completely removed, she could see the entire mechanical system. She let her eyes travel over it, easing into a relaxed concentration that allowed her to see the whole and the parts simultaneously.

Chloe held her lower lip between her teeth as she went through each potential failure point, from most likely to least. An hour later, the table was covered in tiny gears and springs.

“It’s time for bed,” said Ambrose in the doorway. She hadn’t heard him open the door.

“Won’t take too much time,” she said, not looking up.

She knew if she stopped now, she would lose her train of thought. The repair was not a terribly complex one, but she was eager to finish it. She was still in a pique over Beatrice and Dora’s comment at supper but, even so, she wanted to make this bird work even better than it had when it was new. She may never excel at parlor conversation, embroidery or other womanly pursuits. But she excelled at this.

Ambrose closed the door behind him and looked curiously over her table. “It looks like it will take a great deal of time. I am glad that Alexander saw to it that you could get a few tools and materials.”

She murmured an acknowledgment.

“It will be better once your own things arrive, I’m sure.”

She ignored him and he turned to his own desk by the window. He was never offended by either her silences or terse words when she was working. He looked over his desk, arranged a few things, selected a book from the shelf and bid her good night.

Hours later, the robin was almost finished, and she was just fitting the chest panel back on when she heard a soft, distant snort. She paused, but there was no other sound. She moved to the window, pulled the heavy curtain aside, and looked out into the slowly swirling mist that had gathered around the house.

Below, moving toward the main road was a horse and rider. If she listened closely, she could hear the muffled crunch of the horse’s hooves on the gravel drive. But had she not been paying attention, she would never have noticed the sound. As the rider passed below her window, she let the curtains fall mostly shut, holding them open just enough to peek out. She was glad that her lamp was across the room so the light would not attract the rider’s attention, should he look up.

She could tell neither the rider’s height nor build as he rode away, presumably toward town. He was in no hurry, though she saw the indistinct shape move to a trot once it reached the main road.

She let the curtains fall shut. There was no clock in the room, so she reached into her little bag beside her work table and pulled out her fob watch. Half-past midnight.

She finished the robin and then fetched the doorway mechanical. She spent a short time lubricating its limbs and making a few minor repairs before sending it downstairs on the dumbwaiter . It was past two o’clock when she went to bed.

Chapter 6

T
he next morning, Chloe sat
at her vanity as Miss Haynes pulled her hair into place. She combed the thick, frizzy tangle with a wide-tooth comb, working carefully so as not to cause her mistress undue pain. She need not have worried. Her mistress’s mind was elsewhere.

“I want to ask you something,” said Chloe.

“Mmm?” Miss Haynes had a mouthful of hair pins, but made brief eye contact with Chloe in the mirror.

“I’d like you to keep your ears open around the house. Last night, when I was working in Ambrose’s study I heard a disturbance outside. When I looked out the window, down below there was a man on a horse. He rode slowly out to the main road, presumably to keep quiet, and then took off at a trot in the direction of town.”

Miss Haynes’s eyebrows bunched together. She pulled the pins from her mouth. “Who was it?”

“I haven’t any idea. I couldn’t tell his build from that distance. It was dreadfully foggy anyway. But it was half-past midnight and, barring the need to fetch a doctor, I can’t imagine any other reason to ride to town at that hour.”

“I’ve been up since five o’clock, and no one called for a doctor at night that I heard. And if he were fetching a doctor, he wouldn’t have been trying to be quiet.”

Chloe would have nodded, but moving her head at all during this stage in the process could mean disaster.

“I’ll see what I can learn,” said Miss Haynes. “You know it won’t be so easy.”

“The other lady’s maids?”

“Yes, mum. Not the friendliest trio of women you ever met, if you know what I mean.”

“They match their employers then,” said Chloe, smiling into the mirror. Miss Haynes looked up and then sighed as tendrils of hair broke free of their confines and fell. A furrow appeared between her brows as she started over on that section of hair.

If Dora, Beatrice and Mrs. Malone’s lady’s maids were not on friendly terms with Miss Haynes, she would be without much in the way of social interaction. If Robert had been young enough to still need a governess, she may have had company. But as it stood, Miss Haynes was in a higher category than scullery maids, chambermaids, bootboys and coachmen. Her only peers would be the housekeeper and the other lady’s maids. It would be inappropriate to keep company with the footmen and butler since they were male.

“I suppose we’ll just have to make do,” said Chloe as Miss Haynes patted the last of her hair into place and handed her the hand mirror to check her handiwork.

“We always do, mum.”

Miss Haynes pulled a cameo necklace from her pocket and fastened it around Chloe’s neck.

“The servants were all abuzz about your friend’s death,” said Miss Haynes. “Many of them think that Mrs. Granger had a paramour in town or a foreign lover who she was going to run off with. But the loudest arguments came from two of the maids who think her husband killed her in a jealous rage and a loud-mouthed footman who thinks it was her mechanical.”

“Her mechanical? You mean her hound?” Chloe remembered seeing the early schematics and descriptions of Camille Granger’s mechanical pet. They had worked on their companion animals roughly at the same time, and Chloe had dearly wanted to see the hound and learn of any possible improvements she could make to Giles.

“Yes. It seems like people around here are much more suspicious of mechanicals than back home. They just don’t like them.”

“But how could a mechanical like Giles kill anyone? Even a larger animal couldn’t. It doesn’t make any sense. Why did the footman think it was the hound?”

“I don’t think he had good reason, aside from having an excuse to argue with the pretty maids. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t like mechanicals, though. Most of the locals seemed to think that anything beyond a household mechanical is dangerous.”

“Did they say anything else? Are they afraid of Giles?”

The cat was resting on the bed and, hearing his name, raised his head and blinked.

“I don’t think so, mum.”

Chloe rose, smoothed the skirt of her gray and white Sunday dress and turned so Miss Haynes could inspect her. The cut of the dress was modest and simple for Sunday morning church, though a tad tight through the waist. She had put on a good half a stone over the past few months. Too many rich desserts back home.

Miss Haynes nodded her approval.

“Now, don’t get in any trouble asking questions,” said Chloe.

“I’ll be discreet.”

Chapter 7

A
n hour and a half
later, Ambrose and Chloe walked into St. George’s church for Sunday services. It stood at the edge of Farnbridge, on the older side of the town. This set it within easy walking distance of the miners and working class people who nodded and touched their hats as the Sullivans descended from the carriage. A second and third carriage rolled up smartly behind them, carrying the Aynesworth family.

The church was a long, gray stone building with a row of round-topped windows along each side. Over the two thick wooden doors, a trio of stone rabbits leaped in an endless circle, nose to tail, beneath a stone cross. An unfenced churchyard stood behind, crumbling and newer tombstones crowded together.

Inside, strange faces peered out from stone greenery on either side of a wooden cross and carved stags leapt over the tops of the windows. The stained glass windows were done in a newer style, all of them depicting saints or scenes from the life of Christ. The largest window, which stood over the altar, depicted St. George, lance outthrust, slaying a roaring dragon.

The building was barely large enough to hold the local congregation, and the Sullivans pressed snugly against the Aynesworths in the narrow family pew. At a rising murmur of voices from the back of the church, heads around them turned and a few people raised their hands in greeting. A man with a leg missing from the knee down hobbled into the church on two shabby crutches. The man’s trouser leg was pinned over the stump, and many people glanced at it as he slid into his seat.

The man’s rough-cheeked wife was behind him, nodding to the well-wishers and ushering their four silent children into the pew. She took a seat, and a younger woman placed her hand on the wife’s shoulder and whispered something, motioning outside. The wife smiled, placed her hand over the other woman’s, and Chloe could see her lips form a thank you.

Chloe gazed curiously around the church. Judging by the parishioners’ clothing, the Aynesworths were one of three wealthy families. The rest of the church was filled with middle and working-class people. Unlike her upper class church in London, St. George’s served the entire town of Farnbridge.

Once the service concluded, the Sullivans bid their family good-bye and two carriages carried the Aynesworths back to their house. Their own carriage waited.

“Do you mind if we spend a few minutes? Rose’s grave is here,” said Ambrose. She took his arm and he took her to the gravestone, now slightly colored from fifteen years of rain and wind. He did not speak, but simply looked at the stone for a minute and then turned back.

They did not head home, but instead headed toward the railway station. They passed parishioners on their way home, and she spotted the injured man, hobbling home with his wife and children. It bothered her.

“You have that look,” said Ambrose.

“What look?”

“The one you get when you are concocting an idea.”

“It’s that man, the one with the leg. I was thinking about Camille’s hound, and how she probably could have found a way to make more intelligent mechanicals, ones that could go down into the mines for the most dangerous work. Now it will never happen.”

“Why couldn’t you create them?”

“I can’t even make a mechanical that isn’t moderately dangerous.” She reached under her seat and pulled her satchel, complete with small lump of mechanical cat nestled inside, onto the seat beside her.

“Giles is still new. You will figure him out and make improvements. Though I still don’t know why in the name of heaven you gave him claws.”

“Maybe I could work on it. Maybe in a couple of years. Or if I could get Camille’s notes, I could replicate some of her work, maybe expand upon it. I’m not sure. But if I could, if mechanicals could have decision engines, if they could think, then it could change everything. No more miners caught in rockfalls and explosions. Women in the workhouses could have improved sewing machines. It could eliminate the need for people to run the most dangerous machines in factories.”

“The workers may not thank you for eliminating their livelihoods.”

“They could learn different things—less dangerous things.” Her mind flashed back to the faces of the four children in church.

“And with what money would they do that, if they have no employment?”

“A moment ago, you were encouraging me.”

He sighed and settled himself in his seat. “Your intentions are noble, but I fear it is survival of the most fit. Those who can use their talents to rise will do so, and there will always be those scrambling at the bottom, whether by reason of birth or circumstance.”

Chloe looked out the window. She was not angry at her husband. He saw it as his Christian duty to help those very people who were scrambling at the bottom. His generous endowments for educating boys in the slums and providing food and necessities to widows were unknown to Ambrose’s peers. But she knew about it, and she knew his heart. He held no contempt for those lower on the social ladder. If he had, he would never have married her.

“Just because it’s that way now, doesn’t mean it always has to be,” she said. “Things could change slowly, not all at once. Railways gradually replaced horse carriages for long distances. Airships then supplemented those. There’s hope.”

“That there is.”

“I want to see Charles Granger. I want to see if I can get Camille’s research notes. They’re useless to anyone else, and if they’re lost, her work will be in vain. Her work on the cadmium and nickel battery—I think it’s the key to the thinking machines. I’m sure of it. A power source that small and powerful could do so much.” She settled back into her seat and watched the scenery, aware that she indeed bore the look of a woman concocting an idea. They reached the street near the railway station, and asked the driver to meet them an hour later.

“I heard they have a pastry and chocolate shop near the railway station,” said Ambrose, offering his arm. The mid-section of her dresses may have become a tad tight in the past month, but passing up chocolates and pastries was beyond her power.

They passed the time amicably over two steaming cups of hot chocolate and a small plate of Chelsea buns. They were fresh and warm, with plenty of sugar glaze dripping down. She set Giles on the floor, and watched as he moved around their table, looked out the window, and examined their feet and legs before settling by Chloe’s chair. The little cat could make decisions, albeit simple ones. And if Camille’s hound was even more complex—the possibilities were dizzying.

Ambrose glanced at his pocket watch and said, “It’s time,” and they walked to the railway station. Chloe scooped up Giles at the doorstep so he would not delay them. Ordinarily, they would have had a servant or two retrieve their crates from the station. But both of them were of the same mind when it came to these crates. They would check the contents of the boxes immediately upon their arrival. The crates, especially the largest, were too important to be left to a servant.

At the station, Ambrose arranged for a worker to open each of their crates for inspection. The boxes were waiting at the side of the station building, and Chloe observed with a frown that one on which she had painted “up” with a helpful arrow was upside-down. The worker lifted the lids of each straw-filled crate and Ambrose and Chloe took turns approving the contents.

Inside Ambrose’s crates were books, bound stacks of papers, a microscope, slides, notebooks and a projector with small, brass-encased playback spools. Chloe’s boxes were filled with mechanical parts of all descriptions, lengths of India rubber tubing, cans of lubricant and an assortment of gears, cogs, screws, fastenings and copper wire.

The largest box was last.

“The others boxes can be loaded onto our carriage,” said Ambrose to the man. “But we’ll need to unpack this one completely.”

Inside was the steamcycle, the only one of its kind. Once the straw was brushed off, and it was rolled to a clear spot, Chloe did a quick examination. Its exterior looked undamaged. The two leather saddle seats, positioned one behind the other, were unmarred. The glass headlamp was unbroken and its empty oil reservoir intact. A covered wicker lunch basket was fastened over the rear fender and held, among other things, a few tools and a lantern. She knelt to pop open the barrel-like enclosure that covered the engine. After a few moments of probing, she nodded in approval. She filled the oil reservoir, fired up the kerosene burner, gave the mechanism a spin to start it up, and closed the barrel. It gave a low, sweet rumble.

She wiped her hand on a handkerchief and stood back, admiring. From the grips on its handlebars to its brushed metal fenders, it was a vision in brass, leather and steel.

“Looks fine,” she said. “Give it a go and see how it is.”

As Ambrose mounted the steamcycle, the railway worker who opened the crates motioned over some of his loitering comrades. They jumped in shock as Ambrose gave it more steam and it roared.

“Is that one of those automobile things?” yelled one of the men. His friends laughed at him and he blushed.

“It is similar,” shouted Chloe, feeling sorry for him. She moved closer so he could hear her. “It’s like a bicycle, but with an engine so you can travel faster. My husband is a naturalist, and goes out into the countryside where he spends hours looking at plants and insect nests and such. This lets him travel long distances that would tire a horse, and he can spend as long as he likes.”

She did not mention that she sometimes rode it when they visited the country, far from their friends in the city. Of course, even in such circumstances Chloe had to be conscious of public opinion and always wore a split riding skirt instead of men’s trousers.

Ambrose motioned her over and they agreed to meet in front of the chocolate shop in three quarters of an hour after he performed a test run. As he drove away, Chloe closed her eyes to better hear the exact sound of the closed-cycle hot air engine as it sped away. There was a slight hitch, almost inaudible.

She would have to look at it later. Even with the steamcycle’s need of constant maintenance, she was proud of it. Perhaps Ambrose’s faith in her was not misplaced. With Camille’s notes and schematics, maybe she could change the world.