noise like insect wings, or meat sizzling on a hot pan, or maybe the crinkling of dressmaker’s paper. Or perhaps all of them at once. I stared at the sparking blue fire that almost hurt my eyes. It really was lightning, I realized, electricity in a box. Where had Mr. Babcock procured the parts to make such a thing? “Did you build this yourself, Uncle?”
He shook his head. “The pieces were in the box, and the pictures were in the book. This is from someone else’s head. But I made it different. When you make it different, the lightning is …”
His words trailed away, and I saw that he was gone from me, lost in the smoothly ticking mechanisms that were inside his head. I stood up slowly, so as not to disturb, and went to set the scones on the table. Mary was still standing where she had pressed herself at the sight of the first spark, flat against the wall.
“That ain’t natural, Miss,” she said, her eyes on the little wooden box.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mary. Perhaps it’s as normal as rain, only we’ve just been raised in a desert.”
Mary peeled herself from the wall cautiously, nose wrinkling. “What can you be talking of, Miss? When have you ever been going to the desert? That’s nonsense, that’s what my mum would say.”
“Never mind,” I said, before I got an earful of the wisdom of Mrs. Brown. “Run down to the dining room before I have to go, and get yourself some breakfast. There’s a king’s feast set up in there. And if Mrs. DuPont says a word about you eating at the table, tell her she’ll have Mr. Babcock to deal with. I’ll stay with Uncle Tully. He looks like he’ll be busy for a good while.”
Mary nodded. “That’s the truth and no mistake. You’ll be gone for the day, then?”
“Yes. As soon as Mr. Babcock wakes up.”
“You’re looking right nice today, Miss,” she said suddenly. “I hope you … I’m hoping it all goes the way you’d be wanting it to.”
“Thank you, Mary,” I said, but my smile went away as I watched her inching her way past Uncle Tully’s machine. The words had been kind, but they had also been laced with tiny threads of pity.
Forty-seven minutes later, Mary returned and Mr. Babcock had still not emerged. So I went downstairs, found Marguerite, gave her some coins, and with my smattering of French and a strange game of charades, succeeded in sending her out to buy me a map of the city. As eager as I was, I hated to wake Mr. Babcock. He was not young, and had been working tirelessly on my uncle’s behalf since this entire business started. I wondered what he had left behind in London, and when he would have to leave me to my own messy affairs and return to his own.
Marguerite gave me some change and a curtsy. I smiled and put the change back in her hands — she couldn’t help having her mother, after all, any more than I could help having Aunt Alice — and spread out my new map and the official invitations on the tea table, trying to ascertain where I actually was and where I wanted to go. Someone knocked at the front door, and my heart sank. I’d thought to be long gone before Mr. Marchand came, or hoped that he might forget his fancy and never come at all.
I stood, smoothing two or three errant curls, and went to peer out the window. The red doors were not in sight, the angle was too sharp, but what I did see was the slouching man, hands in pockets, propped against the stones of the house that was directly across the street. I stepped back from the window. No matter how Mr. Babcock tried to soften my fear, the man had my pulse throbbing against the tight material of my dress. And then Mr. Marchand was in the salon.
I closed the shutter with an angry
“You are planning your day, Miss Tulman? And where is your escort, this Mr. Babcock?”
“He will be ready shortly, Mr. Marchand. I’m sorry to have caused you an unnecessary trip, but I did say there would be no need. Please stay and have a cup of tea if you like, but I’m afraid I must say good day to you. I have several things to attend to.”
And before he could respond, I had given him a curtsy, hurried out the door, and away up the stairs. Exhaustion or no, Mr. Babcock needed to wake. The morning was wearing on, and he would want to know that the man was once again outside, watching the house.
I knocked softly on his door. “Mr. Babcock?” When there was no response, I turned the knob, peeped inside, and then threw the door wide. The room was empty, the bed neatly spread up, Mr. Babcock’s coat, hat, and cane all missing. I had been waiting all this time and Mr. Babcock had been gone, perhaps since before I got up, and without even the courtesy of a note.
I bit my lip, disappointment flowing bitter and out of all proper proportion. The morning was mostly gone, and perhaps the one institution I would not now get to visit was the one that actually held what I sought. And despite my saucy declarations during yesterday’s miserable tea, how many of these places were actually going to allow a woman inside unescorted? Not many. Perhaps none.
I marched back downstairs and into the salon, the bonnet I’d left on the foyer table now snatched up and in my hand. Mr. Marchand dropped my map and jumped to his feet.
“I accept your offer, Mr. Marchand. Would you mind if we left by the courtyard?”
16
The next on your list is Charenton, Miss Tulman. Would you prefer a carriage, or …”
“Walking is fine, Mr. Marchand, as long as we do it quickly.”
He grinned. “I think that wheels will get you there faster than your feet, Miss Tulman, though you do walk with such a hurry.”
I relented, ignoring his amusement — everything I did seemed to amuse him — and we boarded an omnibus, climbing up to the open second story. I paid little attention to our direction or Mr. Marchand’s occasional comments as the horses pulled us through the rain-washed maze of the city streets. But I did look at the faces around us, noting each in my memory. So far I had seen nothing that would make me suspicious, no one in the same place twice, no one that seemed particularly interested in my person. I looked carefully all the same.
We had visited two hospitals that morning, one for those who could not pay, little better than a street gutter, and one for those who could, a fine building with swept floors and nurses that wore white aprons and served red wine. Though when it came to the end of a life, I was no longer convinced that the misery for those in clean beds was very less than for those in the filthy. It was all death, disease, and pain, and it had sickened me. But there had been no sign of Lane. The idea of finding him immediately, on my first day of searching, was ridiculous, of course. The practical side of me knew this. But the illogical half, growing larger by the minute, could not help but be disappointed.
“Come, Miss Tulman,” said Mr. Marchand. I saw that the omnibus had stopped. He steered me out of my seat, down the narrow set of stairs, and onto the sidewalk. I looked behind as we walked, but if we were being followed, I could not see it.
Mr. Marchand led us up a narrow road that climbed a small cliff, dropping off to a creek and then a river below, stone buildings rising up on our other side. We reached a wrought-iron gate, and Mr. Marchand rang the bell. A burly man unlocked the gate, large and oxlike with his white sleeves rolled up — he gave me a twinge of homesickness for my gentle Matthew — and I silently handed him one of Mr. Babcock’s papers. A quick glance and he ushered us through a pleasant courtyard of orderly trees and summer flowers at the end of their season, then into a grim building of stone.
