The Dark Unwinding (4 page)

O
utside the kitchen was a walled garden, surprisingly well tended with neat rows of cabbage, lettuce, and beans, and one section showing freshly disturbed earth, where Mrs. Jefferies must have pulled the carrots. Once again I followed Lane’s back. I caught a glimpse of a boy’s brown head bolting away from me, into the safety of an iron-and-glass greenhouse, the legs of a hare flopping over his shoulder. I lowered my eyes to the crushed rocks of the path, my conscience pricking, until the path ended and Lane opened a door in the garden wall.

Then the moors were upon us, all tall grass, warm earth, and streaming sun. Wildflowers nodded, brightening the gray green with dots of yellow, and Lane, a red cap now on his head, took long strides down a well-beaten way through the swaying stems. I hurried to catch up with him, my wide petticoats an utter nuisance on the narrow track, setting flight to a family of linnets. Lane climbed a small hill and disappeared on the other side.

I stopped at the crest of the rise, already panting and my face pinked with the exercise. Beyond me a small river cut an arc through the hills, sparkling in the sun, and at maybe a half mile distant I saw a village, stone buildings and rows of cottages clustered together, with little strips of gardens in between. I frowned. Why hadn’t anyone told me there was a town? If I could not have gotten to Milton, surely I could have found an inn here? I sectioned off what appeared to be a fourth of the village, counted the thatch peaks, and multiplied by four. Besides the larger buildings that were obviously public, there were roughly seventy-two dwellings before me.

The red cap was already at the bottom of the hill, rounding a bend in the path. I opened my mouth to call, and then closed it. I had no idea what Lane’s surname was. “Mr. Jefferies?” I tried, remembering his reference to “Aunt Bit.”

The red cap popped back around the bend, and then Lane was up the hill in seconds, springing like a cat. I pointed at the village. “What is the name of that place, Mr. Jefferies? I didn’t realize …”

“The name is Moreau.” My look must have been puzzled because he made a little rumble of impatience. “Not the village. Me. My name is Moreau.”

“But Mrs. Jefferies …”

“Is my mother’s sister. My father’s family was French. Moors, probably, sometime before that.”

I peered at him from beneath my bonnet brim.
Moors
, I thought. Then perhaps it wasn’t just the sun that darkened his skin. I wondered if it was paler in the winter. I shifted my gaze back to the vista. “And what is the name of the village?”

Lane pulled the cap from his head, twisting it in his hands, his face curiously stormy. I waited until the silence grew thick, and at length he said, “It doesn’t have a proper name.”

I looked to the little town and back. “Why ever not?”

“Because it’s not a village, it’s … part of the estate.”

My forehead creased. I was aware of no farm at Stranwyne, and if the little town housed servants, it was an incredible amount for a place so neglected. “And what, exactly, would bring so many people here?”

I watched in fascination as a muscle in his jaw popped in and out, in and out, until he finally forced out the words, “The gasworks.”

I cursed my own stupidity. Where had I thought all that light was coming from? “My uncle has built his own gasworks,” I stated.

The muscle worked in and out. “Yes.”

“And where is it? I don’t see the smoke.”

“Beyond the rise, by the water. We’ve a strong wind here.”

I nodded, my brain putting the pieces together like sums. “My uncle pays men to run the gasworks, and he built the village to house them. Is that correct?”

Lane crossed his arms. He would not meet my eyes.

“How many men are employed in the gasworks, Mr. Moreau?”

“Four or five, I’d say.”

“There are more than seventy cottages down there.”

The gray eyes shot to me, the appraising look I’d gotten the day before. “All right,” he said, “it could be more like twenty.”

“And how many men does my uncle employ altogether?”

He put the cap back on his head and stalked gracefully down the slope, utterly ignoring me.

“How many, Mr. Moreau?”

“Ask him yourself!” came the answer, yelled into a sudden gust of wind that would have taken my hat away completely had it not been tied beneath my chin. I gathered up my skirts and hurried down the path, leaving the bonnet to bounce against my back by its strings.

We walked a long way. Or rather, he walked; I ran. Down the path and through the village, past curious children milling before a schoolhouse and a staring woman milking her cow, past a loading dock at the riverside, and a barge full of coal. Dogs, wagons, donkeys, and men crossed our path, but especially men, talking, shouting, hauling loads, and generally conducting their business in a friendly way until they set eyes on me. My presence, it seemed, bred instantaneous silence.

Lane did not slow until we were well beyond the village and before the finest building I’d yet seen. Three stories of gray stone, slate-roofed, with two enormous brick chimneys spouting white smoke at the sky. Their shadows pointed at me like fingers. Lane turned the corner of the building and stopped at a door painted deep green. He pulled a chain, tinkling a small bell, and for the first time since our conversation on the hill, turned to look at me.

“Are you sick?”

I tried to speak, but found I had no sound. I was not used to running, and it was so unbearably hot beneath my dress; I clutched at the soaked fabric around my neck, panting. The door opened.

“Well, what have you done to her?” It was a cheerful question, from a man who was very proper, and very English, but the words were only an echo, spinning like the spots that swirled before my eyes.

When the spinning stopped, I found myself lying on a low bed in a corner of a dim, pink-plastered room. The curtains were closed but the windows were open, allowing a bit of breeze to pull the heat from my skin, while someone’s wetted handkerchief dripped water down my temples. A face appeared over mine.

“Never known the sun to be so savage. Dashed odd. Are you feeling better?”

It was the man I’d heard before. Long blond side whiskers, neatly clipped, a brown coat and trousers of modern cut, with eyes that were blue, round, and peering down at me from a face that seemed younger, somehow, than the voice.

“Yes, I am better, thank you,” I said, choosing not to relate the fact that my stomach was churning. I removed the wet cloth, and made to sit up. The young man straightened, watching with a frank, open stare as I tried to smooth my disarranged hair. My bonnet, I saw, was on the floor. “Where is Mr. Moreau?”

“He’s just popped in on Mr. Tully. You’re in luck, you know, it’s nearly playtime. I’m Ben Aldridge, by the way. And of course we all know who you are, Miss Tulman.”

I was about to ask why this was so when I heard shouting, indistinct at first, coming from a closed door a short distance behind Ben. I got quickly to my feet, arranging my skirt as the incoherent noise came closer. Aunt Alice had told me all about asylums, about the bulging eyes and drooling mouths, the human horrors that well-bred ladies paid their pennies to see. I straightened my back, heart hammering as the shouting became a bellow; it was just behind the door. I put out a hand for the back of a chair.

The door burst open, striking the wall behind it. I flinched, squeezing the chair back, but the doorway remained empty, nothing to be seen but the glow of a gaslight beyond it. I looked to Ben, questioning, and when I glanced back there was one very bright, very blue eye peering around the doorjamb. A short white beard appeared below the eye, slowly, and then a little man in a black dress coat eased into view, plucking at his jacket. He shuffled forward, as if he were being prodded from behind, his eyes on my feet, stopping not three inches from my person. I stood still, rooted to the floor. “Is it the one, Lane?” he whispered. “Is it her?”

Lane’s low voice answered an assent, though I did not know where it came from; I couldn’t take my gaze from the little man. The bright eyes dragged themselves up to me, as if in expectation of a demon or a gargoyle, and when they had lingered on my face for a fraction of a second, his hands darted out, snatching up one of mine. I gasped, but he only raised the hand to his lips, kissed it, then dropped the hand quickly, his eyes on the floor again, a sudden smile beaming like sun from an overcast sky. My own face, I am sure, was a study in astonishment.

“Simon’s baby,” he said, rocking on his heels. “Simon’s baby girl. But you are too many, much too many to be Simon’s baby girl. How many are you?”

“Seventeen,” I whispered. He was still uncomfortably close.

“Lane!” he shouted. I jumped. “Do I have a niece of seventeen?”

“Yes,” came Lane’s voice from the door.

The old man relaxed. “Then that is as it should be. Lane always knows when things are as they should be. Where is your father, little niece?”

Lane spoke before I could. “Simon is gone away, Mr. Tully.”

A cloud passed over my uncle, shadowing his sun. “I am forgetful. Too forgetful.” He shook his head. “And you are very silent. I do not like silence. It leaves room for thoughts that are not nice. Tell me, little niece …” The bright eyes peeked up at me. “… do you like toys?”

Ben Aldridge watched with his hands in his pockets, his expression only curious. I looked to Lane, seeking guidance. “I am a bit old for toys …” I began uncertainly.

Lane’s dark brows came down.

“… but I do like them, of course. I’m sure I like them very well, indeed.”

My uncle’s sunshine burst forth again.

“Remember what I said about the lady not feeling well, Mr. Tully,” said Lane. He leaned on the door frame, the gray eyes on me as he spoke. “Another day, perhaps.”

I met his gaze, and defied it. “On the contrary, Uncle, I’m feeling quite well. I should like to see your toys very —”

“It is time!” my uncle shouted, again making me jump. He had gone stiff as a ramrod. He grabbed my arm, yanking me hard toward the door Lane blocked with his body.

“May I come, too, Mr. Tully?” This question came from Ben. My uncle stopped in his tracks.

“It isn’t Saturday,” he said, voice peevish. Then he let go of me and hurtled toward the door, as if Ben might give chase, or make a grab for his coattails. Lane moved aside for my uncle, and Ben gave me a halfhearted smile.

“I always hope he won’t know if it’s Saturday. Never hurts to try.”

I moved to follow my uncle, but Lane shot out an arm, holding me back. He smelled of soap and, oddly, of metal.

“Touch nothing, and do not ask how they work.” The warning in his whisper was clear.

“How what works, Mr. —”

“Do not touch, do you understand?”

My uncle’s shout ricocheted from the doorway. “Hurry, Lane! It is time! You must make her hurry!”

Lane straightened, slowly removing the barrier of his arm. I walked past him, both irritated and puzzled, and entered a small corridor. My uncle’s head popped out from the doorway on the left, blue eyes wide and looking for me. I followed him through it, and stopped.

The room was huge, even by the standards of Stranwyne. The lower walls were plastered, dotted round with bright-glowing gas globes, the upper spaces open brick and crisscrossed by pipes and ladders of iron, crawling upward to a ceiling too far in shadow to see. I became aware of a thrum in the air, a chug and throb I perceived not only with my ears but through the soles of my feet.

I took all this in quickly, the paint-spattered workbenches and the odd piece of metal or wood, two dingy pillows left on the debris-strewn floor. Then my eyes found the other end of the room, where they remained fixed, uncomprehending, as the gas globes lavished light onto a silent crowd. People, animals, and things I could not identify stood singly or in groups, caught in various occupations of sitting, standing, or raising a hand, the gas flame flickering over faces of porcelain and wax, all frozen in an unearthly tableau. I looked for my uncle and found him in an open space of floor, his hands clasped behind him. He was bouncing on his toes.

“Well, little niece, is it not splendid? Is it not right?”

The display was so bizarre it took the sense from my thoughts. I took a few steps forward, my eyes on a peacock, its feathers afire with turquoise, and my uncle came charging toward me.

“I think I shall show you this one!” My sleeve was yanked, and I found myself tripping awkwardly past the peacock, merging with the noiseless throng. I saw faces as I passed, painted smiles that reminded me of the little parson, and then my uncle halted abruptly before a child. She was seated at a pianoforte, eyes closed, life-sized though her instrument was miniature. Her wax hands lay gracefully on the keys, red-brown hair curling and waving from a blue satin bow. I bent down to look at her. She seemed to daydream.

My uncle knelt beside me, reaching his hand up and under the pianoforte. I heard a click, a faint whirr, and then sucked in a breath as the child’s eyelids slowly opened. She blinked, the head cocked and turned, her body leaned forward, and the little hands began to play, each finger pushing down its key in perfect time. A minuet tinkled from the pianoforte. I sat down right on the floor, in a billow of worsted, my eyes locked on the little girl as she nodded and swayed, enraptured by the flow of her melody. My uncle sat beside me.

“Is it … is she like a clock?” I breathed. Lane made a deep noise from somewhere behind us, a reminder about the restriction on questions, but I could not help it.

“Clock?” my uncle said. “Oh, yes, yes. Like a clock. Clocks are fun, they should always be wound. But toys are much better.”

I had heard of figures that moved by clockwork, but I had never imagined that such a thing could be so alive.

My uncle was plucking at his coat. “I’m thinking I shall tell you a secret. Should I? Shall I? I think I shall!” He leaned close to my ear. “Her name,” he said loudly, “is Marianna.”

My eyes darted back to the curling hair, glints of red beneath a bow that was such an odd color blue … a Caribbean blue. Then this child was my uncle’s mother, my grandmother, whom I’d never seen. My hand lifted to touch the little girl’s hair, to feel that it was real — I knew that it was real, I had seen it in the wardrobe the night before — but a rumble of warning sounded again from behind me. I put my hand in my lap. My uncle chatted on.