To Dream Again (17 page)

"You're pushing those beads around like a Chinese silk merchant in the marketplace," he commented as she entered another total in her ledger. He leaned forward and studied her for a moment. "Maybe you should start wearing your hair in a braid down your back."

"I can't believe how easy this abacus is to use. It will help me a great deal. Thank you."

He leaned a bit closer. "Now that I've proven myself useful, aren't you glad I'm your partner? Don't think about it. Just say yes."

"Yes."

"What a nice thing to say."

She smiled suddenly, a wide, genuine, spontaneous smile. He watched the change come over her, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

"You have a lovely smile," he said quietly. "I wish I saw it more often."

Her expression changed, her smile disappeared, and it was as if a wall had suddenly come up between them. "It's late," she mumbled and rose to her feet. "I should be on my way."

He walked her home. When they reached her flat, she thanked him again for the abacus, and she bid him good night, but she didn't smile. The sun had gone back behind a cloud, and he wondered when it would come out again. He hoped it would be soon.

***

Nathaniel spent all the following day up in his office. He had a new idea and whenever he had a new idea, he became obsessed, spending hours, days, even weeks, trying to make it work. This idea was no exception.

He stared down at the diagrams he'd drawn. There had to be a way. Steam trains were commonplace, but if he could figure out how to keep the steam train from leaving water on the floor, he'd be a step ahead of every competitor. He thought he'd had the answer, but now he wasn't so sure.

Footsteps pounded on the stairs, sounding like a marauding herd of cattle, and Nathaniel turned his head as Boggs entered the room, a bag slung over one shoulder, a ladder under his arm, and a can of paint in his other hand. He was followed by four young children, each of whom also carried a can of paint, except the youngest, whose arms were full of paint-spattered sheets.

"Afternoon, guv'nor. I've come to put on the second coat." He set down his burdens and jerked one thumb toward the youngsters, who lined up in a row beside him. "I 'ad to bring 'em along. Me missus told me so. I 'ope ye don't mind. They'll be quiet as lambs, I promise ye."

Nathaniel doubted that. His gaze traveled down the row of angelic faces and back again. "Are all of them yours?"

Boggs gave a heavy sigh and pulled at his cap. "Them and four more."

Nathaniel grinned. "Eight? How do you keep track of them all?"

"It ain't easy, guv'nor, that it ain't. Ain't easy feeding 'em either."

"It must be hard on your wife, too."

Boggs shook his head and reached for the ladder. "Oh, no, sir. Not me wife. The missus an' me weren't never married proper."

"What?" Nathaniel stared at the workman and began to laugh. "Eight children and you're not even married?"

"Never got 'round to it," Boggs confessed blithely. "But got eight little ones just the same." He gestured toward the children. "You met me Alfred the other day. 'e's me oldest." He pointed to each child in turn. "Davy, ten. Millie, nine. Jane, eight. And Cyrus, 'e's six."

Nathaniel nodded to the children, who set down their burdens and stood in line like towheaded toy soldiers until Boggs herded them toward one end of the room. "Now you sit over 'ere an' stay put," he ordered.

As if it was a signal, they all began to talk at once.

"Father, what's that?"

"Can we play with the toys?"

"That's an Indian, ain't it?"

Boggs roared, "I want it quiet!" and they immediately fell silent. "That's better. An' no fightin' or spittin'," he added as he walked away.

"Yes, sir," they chorused. They obeyed—for about thirty seconds.

Nathaniel heard the first punch and the wail that followed. He turned around in time to see sweet-looking little Millie grab her brother Davy by the hair. The other two jumped in, and the four of them began rolling around like cats in a sack.

Boggs dropped the sheet he was spreading over Nathaniel's train set and strode over to the children to break up the melee.

"I said no fightin'," he shouted, pulling Davy and Millie apart. "Didn't I say that?"

"But Father, Davy pulled my hair!" Millie wailed.

"You pulled mine first!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"I've 'ad enough!" Boggs said. He shoved each child into a different comer of the room and then glanced at Nathaniel. "Sorry, guv'nor. Take my advice, sir. Never 'ave children."

Nathaniel smothered a laugh. "I shall keep that in mind, Mr. Boggs."

He returned his attention to the diagram before him, but it wasn't long before the Boggs children started shouting at one another from their corners, and everything seemed to deteriorate from there. Nathaniel gave up on the intricacies of improving the toy steam train and watched in sympathetic amusement as Boggs again stopped working to establish peace.

"I'm sorry, sir, that I am," Boggs told him, disentangling Cyrus's arms and legs from Jane's. "Would've left 'em at 'ome, but me missus 'ad a cleanin' job, and she couldn't take 'em along."

"It's all right," Nathaniel assured him. "They're just bored. Perhaps they need something fun to do." They weren't the only ones, he decided, looking down at his diagrams, at the idea that just wasn't working. He crossed the room, pulled down a crate from the top of one stack, and took it to the children. "They might find some things in here to play with."

"Oh, no, sir," Boggs said. "Not yer toys. They might break 'em."

Be careful with that toy, Nathaniel
. His father's irritated voice came back to him.
You might break it
.

"Toys are meant to be played with, Mr. Boggs," he answered and opened the box.

When Mara went upstairs later that morning, she found Nathaniel on the floor, surrounded by children and toys. Mr. Boggs was perched on a ladder several feet from her, putting a second coat of white paint on the walls and oblivious to the noise and rambunctious play across the room.

She returned her attention to the group on the floor. Nathaniel had set up a makeshift platform about two feet off the floor and was demonstrating some of his wind-ups for the children, deliberately sending the toys over the edge to crash on the floor below and making the children laugh.

Mara frowned, disturbed by the sight of children in the factory. She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.

"'ullo, ma'am," Boggs said.

She glanced up at the workman on the ladder. "What have we here?"

He turned slightly and waved his paintbrush in the direction of the group on the floor, "'e says it's research."

"Research?" Her frown deepened. "Research for what?"

"I don't know, ma'am. But that's what 'e said."

She walked down the length of the room, watching as Nathaniel rose up on his knees to place another toy on the platform. The draft through the open windows ruffled his hair, and he shook his head impatiently to keep the wayward strands out of his eyes, then he released the toy. It raced across the piece of wood, went over the edge, and hit the floor.

The children clapped their hands, screaming with laughter, and a roar began in Mara's ears. Fear shimmered through her, and she came to an abrupt halt. She couldn't seem to breathe. The room was suddenly hot.

Nathaniel reached down to retrieve the toy and noticed her standing several feet away. A frown of puzzlement knit his brow. "Mara?"

She swallowed hard. "What are these children doing in here?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but suddenly the oldest boy hurled himself at Nathaniel with a war whoop. The other children followed suit, tackling him with joyous enthusiasm.

"Wait! Wait!" he cried before he went down, laughing, buried beneath the children. "Enough!" he shouted.

Struggling to a sitting position amid the tangle of arms and legs, he looked up at her again. "These children belong to Mr. Boggs. He brought them along with him today."

"They have to leave. Children aren't allowed in the factory."

"Why not?"

"We have equipment and machines." Her voice shook. "It's too dangerous."

"There isn't any machinery up here, Mara," he pointed out. "They're perfectly safe."

She looked down at her trembling hands. Children weren't safe anywhere. "I want them out of here. Now!"

There was an urgent edge to her voice, and she knew he heard it. He pushed the children gently aside and stood up. "Mara, what's wrong?"

"Now!" she repeated.

"All right." He turned away.

She fixed her gaze on a seam in the wood floor, listening as Nathaniel and Mr. Boggs led the children out of the room and down the stairs. She let out her breath in a rush of relief at the sudden silence, but it didn't last.

The screams of a child ripped through her memory. Not screams of laughter, but of pain. The fire roared in her ears and she clamped her trembling hands over her ears to stop the sounds. She closed her eyes, fighting until the screams died away.

When Nathaniel returned upstairs, he didn't know what he expected to find. He'd seen the flash of panic in her eyes at the sight of the children, and it bothered him. There was so much fear in her.

He found her standing by one of the windows, lost in thought. He walked over to her, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the empty room.

"They're gone," he said quietly. "Boggs took them home."

She gave a brief nod and turned away from the window. "I hope it's clear I don't want children in here again. It's not safe."

"Boggs and I wouldn't have allowed them to remain if we thought there was any danger. They're just as safe here as they would be at home or at school or anywhere else."

"At home or at school, they are not my concern," she answered. "But here, in this building, they are. I don't want them here."

"It’ll be hard to keep them away. This is a toy factory."

"Not yet."

Her determined tone made him want to smile. "Don't you ever give up?"

She didn't answer that, and he went on, "I think it's a good idea to let children play with the toys we plan to make. It's a good way to test how well they'll hold up. And it's a good way to see if our toys will be popular."

"We have all sorts of hazardous equipment. They might get hurt."

"Yes, they might. The odds are lousy, since the equipment is downstairs and we're up here, but they might. I might fall down those stairs and break my neck. You might step in front of a runaway carriage. The building might even be struck by lightning, split in half, and fall on Mrs. O'Brien."

"Don't make fun of me!"

He looked down into her pain-twisted face and wished he could make the pain go away. "I'm not," he said gently. "It's just my way of dealing with you when I don't know what else to say. Exactly what is it you think might happen to them?"

She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. It was a clipping from
The Times
. "I thought you might want to see this. I've had it for a few days, but I keep forgetting to give it to you."

With that, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

He glanced down at the torn sheet from a two-week-old newspaper. It was a small item, only a few lines, but Nathaniel found it very interesting. It reported that an explosion had occurred at Chase Toy Company, killing one man and injuring several others. Fire had broken out, but the flames had been extinguished before any further damage had been done. A faulty boiler was presumed to be the cause of the accident.

Nathaniel read the item a second time. Adrian had always been too cheap to buy new equipment. They were probably still using the same boilers Father had purchased when he'd converted everything to steam, and that had been at least thirty years ago.

How many times had he and his brother argued about those damned boilers? Two? Three? A dozen? It hadn't made any difference. Buying new equipment might mean the footmen could no longer wear gold trim on their livery. Cheap tin and bright paint for his trains, but real silk for his cravat. Old equipment that should have been scrapped years ago, but a luxurious new mansion in Mayfair. With Adrian, it was all show, no substance.

He shoved the scrap of paper into his pocket and dismissed the other man from his mind. He stared at the toys on the floor and thought about Mara instead.

She was afraid to have children around. The sight of a small, scar-covered hand holding out a buttonhook came before his eyes. Her daughter had died in a fire, and explosions caused fires. He wanted to ask Mara about it, but he had the feeling she would never tell him any more than she already had.

***

During the next two weeks, Mara spent every free hour she had gathering information. She spoke with subcontractors and negotiated bids. She became an expert with the abacus, totaling costs with lightning speed and entering the sums in a ledger. She pored over the engineering specifications, until she knew as much about the trains as Michael did. She'd given her word she would be fair, and she intended to honor it. Besides, there was no reason to cheat. The numbers would speak for themselves, proving her case once and for all.