Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (3 page)

The pall of his words settled over me and I looked up. I could not deny the overwhelming sadness in his eyes, a mere glimmer of the grief my new clarity gave me. “No, Professor . . . No. She would not hear me. She sent me away.”

My anger vented, the resentment seeped from me. In the fog of my self-deception, I believed with all my heart she would wait, but the cold, stark truth revealed my folly, and I could not begrudge Herr Rottstieger his own.

I leaned back in my chair and pushed the hair from my face. I heaved a sigh. “What now?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Besides hurl myself from the highest cliff?”

“
Junge
 . . .”

“What is there for me now, professor? Everything—
everything
I have done has been for her, for our future together. What good are my dreams without her to share them?”

“Edward, without you, I would be nothing but another iron monger, an engineer forging the inventions of other men without enough mettle to build my own. But with you—I became bigger than myself. Like all the men you employ, who now earn a fair wage and can send their children to school instead of into the fields, I flourish because of your dreams. If not for yourself,
junge
, soldier on for these people. They dare to dream because you live yours.”

I could not say how deeply his words sunk into my heart then, but they have since become my mantra—more or less. Then, as now, I felt the caveat: I lived the dream I managed to scrape together from the rubble of my castles in the air. But that had to be enough. I had to prove to them all—to my father, the blasted blighter, to Rowland, to Yvette herself—that they had not inflicted the mortal wound to my soul that then bled bitter tears—and bleeds still.

I rose to my feet and moved to collect the scrap of paper, but my hand hesitated over the desk, distracted as I was by an envelope edged in black sitting on the blotter. I glanced at Herr Professor. “Heinrich? Have you lost someone?”

His brow furrowed with concern. “Nein,
junge
. That came for you this morning.”

He must have moved a chair behind me, as I did not hit the floor when my knees buckled. The letter rattled in my hand. The black border hissed, rearing and ready to strike. I forced myself to rip open the envelope and read my brother’s smooth hand.

I snorted. “The old buzzard popped off.” A bitter, ironic laugh surged through me. “He gives me precisely one hour to curse him to the devil, and then denies me the pleasure of hating him for the rest of his days.”

“The man was the picture of health!”

 “Apparently, a rogue mechanoid didn’t like the cut of Old Man Rochester’s jib. He stepped from his carriage and . . . Do you recall, Professor, my outrage over their use as peacekeepers? He derided me for a stupid boy who could not understand such things. What do I know, eh?” I snorted my disgust.

“And Yvette? She is well?”

The name leeched a bit of acid from my soul and my manner softened. “Yvette is in indifferent health. They have taken a house in Athens for a time until . . . until she is safely delivered. Rowland will not leave her, thus requests that I see the solicitors myself.”

Herr Rottstieger peered at me. “And you, Edward? You have just lost your father.”

I flapped the papers at my friend. “And gained full ownership of the plantation and all of my father’s interest in the corporation.”

“There. Do you see? He always intended—”

“No, Herr Professor. I will not temper my feelings.
Rowland
had a momentary flash of guilt, not my father. My brother has relinquished the rights, and now fancies he has purchased absolution for his greed and treachery.”

Silence descended over the office. I again stepped to the window and gazed at the horizon, where the sky melded with the sea. I felt Herr Professor’s eyes upon me . . . the only thing I felt. It seemed as if the loss of Yvette and the loss of my father canceled one another. The tidal wave of grief left nothing in its wake—not even the flotsam and jetsam of the cataclysm. I felt . . . blank.

“So? Now, what will you do?”

I turned and headed for the door. “Today, West End. Tomorrow, the Cubans; then, on to conquer the Yanks. Then, to England to do the dirty work while my precious brother enjoys his spoils.”

 I had no real business at West End, but I would have gone mad rattling about Spanish Town for the remainder of the day. As my sleek sailboat skirted the island, I found a bit of peace.

The sun lowered in the west as I slipped into the inlet where we harbored the plantation watercraft. I paused at the path to the bungalow, on the cliffs by the lighthouse. The palms rustled above my head. The scent of jasmine and gardenia wafted on the breeze. How many evenings had I sat upon the veranda drinking in that very sight, imagining Yvette at my side, holding my hand, basking in the joy of living?

As so often before, I found myself clutching the crystal she had fastened about my neck what seemed a lifetime ago. I wondered at the number of times I had felt a warm glow from it, encasing my heart, protecting it—protecting me. I recalled how its cool touch reached out and rescued me from what, I knew not. I had come to feel incomplete without it, and yet, in a matter of moments, it became a weight I could no longer shoulder.

 I watched the sun sink into the sea, setting the sky ablaze. I yanked off the chain and held the crystal up to the brilliant light. It seemed to sing in the evening air as it splintered the glory of Sol into a million shards of color.

“No, Yvette,” I murmured above the hum. “I will never heal with this piece of you piercing my soul.” I hurled the crystal out over the Caribbean. It whistled as it flew, and a too-familiar voice wailed in my ears, ‘Oh, Edward! No, dearest Edward!’ as it shattered the surface of the sea.

The next six months become a blur in my recollections. When I think back to the weeks and months that followed as we meandered our way to England, as I returned alone, it all runs together like a watercolor wash of grays and browns; overlaid by the stinging, acrid, cloying stench of coal oil and enterprise.

Then, once returned to the only home that remained to me, more blur, more muddled, muddied color. It felt a dream. I cannot pinpoint when the insanity overtook me—for only thus can I explain it: a sort of grief-crazed delirium which plunged my soul into a purple haze, gripped my heart, and stole my breath. I can scarcely recall conscious choice, until one day—one revelatory day—the derangement receded.

I came to myself standing in a bedchamber at the bungalow, staring at the woman passed out on the bed. Images of the previous night’s activities flashed through my head but otherwise failed to affect me. Instead of fire in my loins, I felt only disgust.

The harsh morning light shone upon her, but I saw no stunning, exotic beauty, no object for sensual obsession. The illusion cleared and revealed a woman who appeared ten years my senior, prematurely aged by debasement and debauchery. Not even the thick mosquito netting surrounding her could soften the scene.

Her face pressed into the bedclothes and drool dribbled from her mouth as she snored. Locks of her hair, tangled and wild, snaked over her face, around her throat and across her pillow. She sprawled across the mattress, the bed-linen knotted about her limbs. The room reeked of unwashed humanity.

Driven by terror of my inescapable future, I fled down the path and flung myself into the sea, hoping it would somehow free me of the stench of my new bride.

I swam until my muscles burned and my eyes smarted; until the pain blurred the image that Bertha Antoinetta Mason—Bertha Mason Rochester—had seared into my brain.

After six weeks of matrimony, I could not explain why I had formed such an alliance. More still, as the weeks progressed, I grew ever more disconcerted with her aggression and unsettling propensities in our marriage bed.

Returning to the house from the lagoon, as I strode around the veranda, the sound of voices coming through the open windows of Bertha’s bedchamber arrested my steps.

“I tell you, Josie, the man has the touch. He sets me ablaze.”

“Dat leedle toad, madame? Oh, no. How cood he?”

Bertha laughed. “Not all men can be breeding studs, Josie.”

“Eben so . . . I would nebbah—”

“You do not understand, my girl. The man is an
engineer
. He makes a science of pleasure. I have never before had such a lover.”

“And Meestah Rochestah?”

“Mr. Rochester is a silly little boy, afraid of his own shadow.”

 “Den, why do ye let dat ape touch ye?”

“Because Rottstieger is not here, wantwit. And Rochester—his physique surpasses Julian’s—
all
of Julian. He is not without promise.”

“Den, ye muds let me hab Julian. You hab no fuddah use ub him.”

“There you are wrong. Should I find
the
perfect man, with
Herr Professor’s
technique, Julian’s good looks, and Rochester’s stamina . . . well.
Then
, you could have my black. But until then, I require all three, especially since Rottstieger has been away for so long.”

“But Rochestah—he will find ye out.”

“Josie, one simply disappears into the cane fields, and Julian has
such
an appetite by noonday.”

“Rochestah—he promise us a house een down—a proper
English
house. Ye must mek heem do eet.”

“Patience, my girl. He cannot keep us here forever. After I have trained him up, then you shall have him for a plaything. And then, he shall be so wracked with his silly English guilt, I shall have him wrapped around my finger. He shall have you every night and do whatever I say all day long.”

The maid tittered. “Oh, madam. I could nebbah like heem. He be far too oogly.”

“Close your eyes, you simple thing. The face is not the business end of a man . . . or an ape for that matter.” A chuckle, deep and sensuous. “. . . and betimes one simply
must
have the beast.”

I sat at the breakfast table across from the very picture of feminine modesty and conjugal devotion. I could not stand to look at her. Ire coursed through my veins, hot and quick, and I dared not speak. I stared at the fish on my plate.

“You are not eating, my love,” my tender bride cooed. “I had thought you swam this morning.”

“Indeed.”

“Then you must be famished, especially after . . . last night.” She eyed me through her long, dark lashes. “You must keep up your strength.”

 “I told you,
Mrs. Rochester
, I do not care for the whole of the fish. In England, we gut it before we cook it.”

“But we are not in England, my darling. Cook knows nothing of such food. We must go there soon, that she may learn—”

“No.”

“Fairfax, darling, you promised to take me to England to meet your family. Do I so shame you that you hide me away? I am good enough for your bed but not your friends? It’s because my father is in trade, isn’t it?” Her voice grew shriller as she spoke, until it spiked through my brain. “You are so much higher than me. You treat me like the dirt beneath your boot.”

I simply eyed her. Her face screwed up into a petulant pout. Tears rushed her eyes. Her hands slapped down on the table. The crystal and china jumped. “I want to go to England!”