17
It was late when the hired carriage rolled to a stop before the red doors.
“We are arrived, Miss Tulman,” Henri Marchand said. I nodded and sat up straighter, trying to rouse myself enough to climb out of the carriage without his help. I’d made a scene in the morgue, given the crowd their money’s worth, I’d wager, until Henri Marchand found me and took me back to that hateful little office while we waited for the police. Mr. Babcock had been found in the Seine, in the “dead nets” as they called them, strung across the river to keep the city’s rubbish from flowing downstream. There were no signs of violence on his body, so his death was being considered an accident, but I knew better. Mr. Babcock had never done anything “by accident.” Someone had taken his life from him, and the noisy grief I had suffered in the shabby morgue office was as much about the utter wrongness of it as the pain of losing my dearly loved friend.
Obviously Henri had thought to send a note ahead because, before he had finished speaking to the driver, the red doors burst open and I was in Mary’s arms. Mary got me inside, locked the door behind us, and then took me up the stairs, her own eyes red and swollen. She turned to me on the landing, my hand still in hers.
“You’ve got to be going to the attic, Miss,” she said, holding her voice low. “Mr. Tully is —”
“Is he all right?” I was late. Horribly, horribly late. Again. I had been consumed with my own grief when I should have been worrying about my uncle. “Has he hurt —”
“No, Miss. He’s angry, but he ain’t hit his head or the like. It’s strange. It’s still playtime, been playtime ever since you was gone, Miss. He’s all out of sorts and can’t think of nothing else. But he does need you, Miss, and I’m sorry you can’t even be taking a moment, but first …” She drew a deep breath. “You have to be telling me. Do you know? Do you know who …” She couldn’t finish.
I shook my head. I was frightened almost out of my wits, and I still didn’t know exactly whom I should fear, other than everyone. I put a foot on the next stair, but Mary’s hand pulled me gently back.
“One more thing you ought to know, Miss. Mostly I’ve been with Mr. Tully today, you understand, but I’ve been keeping a sharp eye to the window, and that man, the one by the lamppost, well, he was leaving sometime in the afternoon, and then sometimes I was downstairs, Miss, and …”
“Of course, Mary.” I didn’t expect her to stay above stairs every hour of the day. She dropped her voice to a hoarse whisper.
“Well, I was in the kitchen, getting Mr. Tully some things to eat, and that little Marguerite was there, and Mr. DuPont, Lord love him — that little girl is a wonder with the man, Miss — and I told them I was that fond of toast, which is why I was making so much, and …”
“I understand.”
“And I noticed a young man, Miss, at the back door, talking real low with Mrs. DuPont, and …”
My body jerked. “What do you mean? What sort of young man, Mary? English or French?”
“I weren’t certain, Miss, and when I was asking the old bat when she came into the kitchen — she acts like I ain’t allowed in the place, Miss, which sets my teeth on edge, as you can —”
“What explanation did she give?”
“She said it were the boy delivering groceries, only I didn’t see no groceries, Miss, so when I was back upstairs again I just took a peek through that funny little window, you know, Miss, the round one that looks out over the back into that garden what belongs to all the houses, and there she was again, Miss, talking to a man, only this was a different one than the first time. And she gives him a little package and off he goes.”
“A package?”
“That’s right, Miss, and it happened again, only with the same man what didn’t have the groceries before. And again later in the day. I’m not knowing how many times I didn’t see, Miss. But I thought you was needing to know.” Mary’s lip trembled slightly. “Whatever are we going to do, Miss?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her or myself that I just didn’t know.
“Late!” my uncle shouted. “You are late, late, late, and late!”
He was standing in the middle of his workshop, his fists clenched, all glare and shadow from the light of the gas lamps. I was struck suddenly with the impression of a nursery, only with hammers and files and pieces of metallic humans instead of tin horns and toy soldiers. I listened to Mary carefully locking the storeroom door behind me, and tried to pull myself together. It was amazing that Uncle Tully had not gone into a full-blown tantrum when I missed my appointed time that evening. He’d taken apart several of the room’s wooden chairs, but that appeared to be the worst of it. I could not let him see the terrible state I was in lest he decide to reverse his progress and have a tantrum now.
“I’m very sorry, Uncle,” I said, straining to find my normal voice. “Sometimes it is hard not to forget.”
He considered this as I pretended to straighten my skirt. “That is true, Simon’s baby,” he said. “Sometimes I forget. But I waited already. And the girl was unhappy.” I glanced at Mary, wiping her cheeks as she shut the bookshelf door and hurried away toward the little stove. “I waited for twenty, and then I waited more. …”
“I know you did, Uncle. You are so good at that now. I think it is splendid that you were able to wait so long. Marianna would be so pleased.”
He fidgeted while he thought about this, plucking at the jacket. I watched him waver, then all at once tip to the side of contentment. “That is just so, little niece. Just so. But come, come here quickly. Hurry up!”
I followed him over to the box that had made the blue “lightning,” created from the parts that Mr. Babcock had brought him. I turned my face just slightly away, so my uncle would not see the fresh pang of grief the thought had brought me. Uncle Tully was bouncing on his toes.
“It is a new toy! A new toy, Simon’s baby! Now watch,” he demanded. “It is new. Watch!”
I stood obediently while he pushed his little clock-key lever; the blue fire shot between the poles as before, and then, suddenly, a bell began to ring on the other side of the room. I spun, startled, thinking Mary was behind us, but there was no one. Mary was still at the stove, kettle in hand, her mouth slightly open, staring at a little bell that hung from a panel on the workbench. Its clapper was going back and forth, as if a hand were shaking it. Only there was no hand. There was nothing at all. My uncle let go of his lever, and the bell went still. I turned to look at him, my mouth a similar shape to Mary’s. Uncle Tully clapped his hands.
“Is it not just so, little niece? Is it not just right?”
I did not understand. Down the lever went again, and tendrils of blue electricity snaked between the poles, buzzing and crackling, oddly mesmerizing. I reached out a finger.
“No!” my uncle bellowed. “No, no!”
I jerked my finger back, again wracked with guilt. I really was not myself. I knew better than to touch one of Uncle Tully’s things. He was panting, his eyes very bright, but all he said was, “No, Simon’s baby. The lightning will hurt. You do not touch the lightning. Never, never touch the lightning.”
I put my hands behind my back while he made some minute adjustment to the wires and pushed down his lever. The bell rang instantly, and this time I hurried over to examine it while it rang, waving my hand in the air in front of it, looking for some kind of tiny string. But all I could find was a small wire, attached to one of the clear fluid-filled jars, the same sort of jar that was attached by wires to the lightning machine. And there was nothing else; the bell was ringing alone.
“How …” I stopped myself. Uncle Tully did not tolerate questions on “how” any better than he did touching. But somehow he was making that bell ring, making that blue spark fly through the air unseen. I wished Lane was here, seeing this. I wished I could have described it to Mr. Babcock. Once again, Uncle Tully had created something unbelievable, almost magical in its proportions. And this, I thought, was why Mr. Babcock had died. Because of Uncle Tully’s wonderful and astonishing mind. I held an arm across the ache in my stomach, and then I realized that the bell had gone quiet. Uncle Tully spoke from just behind me.
“You are not splendid, Simon’s baby, and neither is the girl. Did I do it wrong?”
I glanced back at Mary, who had been watching the bell with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. I tried to smile, and then on second thought turned my face away. “You did it just right, Uncle Tully. The new toy is so very splendid. Where did you get the bell?”
