A crowd began gathering in front of the sign that announced free coffee with the purchase of a pastry. Peering through the updated window lights, I recognized a few faces, but only a few. I hoped the others would become familiar and welcome clients.
Behind me, Violet fussed with the steaming coffee maker. She clattered and banged about, unsure of the safety of the loud machine that forced steam through expensive coffee grounds. Coffee she could manage, keeping all the scones together, and the sugar buns on the far side, biscuits in the middle and cream tarts behind the counter, in sight but more expensive and so protected from pilfering. I’d been baking for days.
Finally I could contain my anxiety no more and threw open the latch.
My Ada and her betrothed were first through the door. She wore a lovely sprigged muslin gown that matched her bright smile in spring loveliness. I accepted her hug and Sir William’s pressing of my hands. Then I had to smile and greet a dozen others, directing them to tables and the pastries, and suggesting blends of coffee to match their selections. They found their own way to the racks of international newspapers and popular books.
After that first flurry of business, Sir William stood and clapped his hands for attention. When the room quieted, he cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed the reading material available for your perusal. But what you cannot see is an extensive library of odd, rare, and imaginative books hidden between the walls. I would now like to request a book search of Madame Magdala to show you just what you may find to satisfy every whim of curiosity.” He delved a hand into his pocket and brought forth one shilling and two pence. He walked majestically toward the carousel in the middle of the café where he slapped the coins on the curved counter.
“You don’t have to pay,” I whispered to him as I scooted through the gap in the circular barrier. I closed the solid gate so that it completed the circular counter once more. The newly installed latch clicked into place. No one, except possibly Ada, should follow me into the arcane control center for the machine.
“Madame Magdala, would you find for me any references to King William’s first naval battle?”
I had to swallow the lump in my throat and stare at him a moment. This was not the volume I’d instructed him to request. I had to think carefully about the codes to key into the system for this request.
Then Ada whispered to me, “Navy, battles, spell out the name, then a notch at the top to indicate a first.”
Right. She’d developed the code to make Mr. Babbage’s machine work.
Gears ground, a cutting tool worked upon the large brass key. Noise of metal grinding metal filled the gaps in the pleasant tones of speculative conversation. In moments, I had a shiny, newly minted key as long as my palm. After holding it up for inspection I paraded over to another counter backed by more equipment. The key fit precisely into its designated slot. Then I pulled a lever and twisted the key.
Deep in the bowels of the building, the boiler pushed forth live steam to engage the first of many gears and ratchets and levers; shelves of books rotated up and down, and then it all paused, awaiting more instructions. Another twist of the key while pushing it deeper into its slot. I pulled the lever. It resisted, but I mastered it. More grinding of gears; more shelves slid up and down, across and up again.
My customers gasped.
And then . . . and then a slender volume bound in plain beige, heavy paper with a few lines of print on the cover clunked and thunked and whooshed down a chute into my waiting hands.
Gasps all around, then a round of applause as I held up the volume, the title clearly visible: A Brief History of Naval Skirmishes in the North Sea Against French Revolutionaries.
Miss Ada clapped the loudest, beaming with pride at the success of her invention. And, I hoped, respectful of me for having thought of the device.
But the device was not perfect. A second volume, bound in black leather had slid down the chute along with the requested book. This one showed up every time I used and tested the machine.
It was a secretly published collection of poems idealizing death, longing for death, fascinated by death—in others, not for the poet himself. The name of the author, Harold Childress, was a nom de plume for none other than Lord Byron himself. The book demanded to be read. I presumed the enthralling magic spell woven into the poetry pushed the book into the chute no matter where I shelved it.
I stood in front of the chute so no one else could see that book before I could hide it again.
Maybe I should burn it. But then I’d never have the arcane knowledge Byron hid between the words.
Chapter Four
MY SALON BUSTLED WITH activity. I dragged myself back to reality.
“Mr. Babbage, welcome.” I lifted my hand for him to kiss. He stumped across the room without grace. His waistcoat gaped over his expanding girth and his cravat really needed the attention of a good valet. His mind always ran ahead of his manners and grooming. He held my hand a bit too long while he admired my upthrust bosom.
I pulled away from him a bit too quickly and avoided wiping my now clammy palm on the upholstery. Then I broke eye contact with him and turned my attention to the shadowy presence behind him. “Please introduce yourself, sir. We relax formality here in favor of good discussion.”
A tall man made up of sharp planes on his face and acute angles in his shoulders and elbows, bowed slightly from the dim recesses close to the door. “Adam Blackwell, Lord Ruthven,” he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly, careful that every syllable reached me without a trace of slur. His dark hair looked artfully disarranged, much in the affected style of Lord Byron.
I covered my sharp inhalation by pretending to sip my wine. But this man was too tall, and moved without a limp, to ever be mistaken for the poet king. Of course that did not mean George Gordon Byron’s spirit did not inhabit that body.
But his accent denied that. Typical smooth vowels and precise consonants of his class. But the precision . . . as if he had to think each word in a different language and translate. Could English not be his native tongue?
A clever imitation could disguise a voice, but the true accent and combination of words always betrayed the actor. Lord Byron spoke in a lazy drawl with hints of Scotland underlying his excellent education. He spoke Latin and French with that Highland lilt. He probably spoke Greek with the same accent.
Fortunately, Lady Ada had never met her father, indeed had never seen a portrait of him until her twentieth birthday. She merely nodded to acknowledge Ruthven while maintaining a conversation with Charles Babbage about the newest prototype machine. “ . . . fires of Vulcan to induce a chemical reaction . . .”
“How do you know Lord Ruthven?” Drew asked Charles. He betrayed nothing from his artful lounge in an armchair. But his fingers curled stiffly around his wineglass and he’d barely looked at the angular man. I wondered if they knew each other already.
Then Madame Pendereé, the current darling of London Opera, arrived in a grand flourish and a bevy of courtiers. I knew most of them. Two men greeted Ruthven and clung to the shadows with him; one of them never took off his black leather gloves and kept both hands behind his back.
I was immediately absorbed into a discussion of the artistic symbolism of the steam-powered horses brought on stage at Madame’s latest performance instead of the placid and elderly mares usually employed.
“But all life is a metaphor,” she declared in her fake French accent that carried the musicality of fairy bells.
One of the shy men clinging to the walls as if for dear life, stirred himself long enough to bring Madame a glass of sherry and a plate of puff pastries oozing a delicate combination of goat cheeses. His right hand, which held the fine porcelain plate, was twisted at an odd angle, as if it had been broken and not set properly.
I’d seen him before and the circumstances did not carry a pleasant undertaste. Warning bells seemed to clan
g in the back of my head as I took in his short, lithe figure and keen hooded eyes. I’d been watching for such a man since my first day with Ada, when I’d broken the kidnapper’s wrist and watched him damage it further as he scrambled over the roofs with the alacrity of an Italian acrobat.
The next morning found me swathed in a heavy white apron from collarbone to hem instead of layers of red silk. Though the salon passed without further incident and the man with the awkward hand soon left with Lord Ruthven, I hadn’t slept well, and arose early to get the baking started.
I hummed a light tune trying to banish the megrims of the previous night as I sprinkled spiced sugar over the tops of hot-from-the-oven buns. Helen, Lady Ada’s undercook, kneaded dough for the second batch. The clock chimed half six. I still had to grind the coffee beans and set the grounds brewing. Arabian, Egyptian, and Mexican blends today. I bought the beans already roasted, not having near enough space for the contraption that performed that function. Nor did my nose tolerate the aromas of the process. Grinding and brewing, however, filled the café with an exotic scent that enticed customers to come and linger over a second and third cup while they read newspapers from around the world.
A tap on the back door signaled the arrival of the Paris editions, only one day old thanks to the new dirigible express routes. New Delhi and Peking still took a week, much better than the previous three month shipping time.
I opened the back door ready to tip the delivery boy, only to find Mickey staring up at me with worried and reddened eyes.
One look and I knew he’d not found Toby or Violet. My heart sank. “Come in, boy. Wash your hands and face, with soap.” Nothing I could do about his stained shirt and coat except cover them with an apron. “I have work for you today.” I grabbed him by the collar and ushered him to the sink.
Helen sniffed in disdain.
I glared at her, a sharp reminder of where she’d come from and might have returned to if her talent with bread dough had not brought her out of a filthy orphanage.
“Yes, Missus,” Mickey said, eyes cast down.
“What? No arguments? No delays? No sudden errands to run?”
“Cor, Missus, the sun’s only been up two hours. ’T nobs is still snoring,” he returned with a more usual defiance.
“Then why the ready compliance? Especially about cleanliness?” I took pains to use proper words with my boys so they’d learn a bit of better language. Sometimes it stuck. Sometimes it didn’t. But if they learned the vocabulary from me, they’d at least better understand the same words spoken by others when they spied for me.
“Th . . . the black dragon is back in the sky,” he whispered.
“Oh.” It frightened Mickey today. Yesterday it had invoked his curiosity. Probably Toby’s disappearance had something to do with Mickey’s reluctance to confront the monster.
I knelt down in front of him so that I could catch his gaze and hold it. “Mickey, it is not a dragon. There are no such things as dragons, except in fairy tales. What you saw was a hot air balloon, all painted black.”
“But it shoots lights in straight lines! Green ones, like magic stuff,” he protested.
That was strange. Yesterday it had spit flames—at least I presumed the flickering firebox had suggested the draconic action to the uneducated.
Curses. I whispered a few in the Romany language. It held the best variants in a most satisfying growl. Without Violet to run things at the café, I had to be here. I couldn’t afford to lose an entire Tuesday’s revenue.
“Mickey, I have a different chore for you today. Do you know where Jimmy Porto houses his hot air balloon?”
“The gray one? Cor, I sure do. Alus wanted to fly w’ him.”
“Then today you get to fly. Run to Jimmy and tell him I told you to get as close to the black balloon . . .” I barely stopped myself from calling it a dragon. “Spy on the black balloon and see if you can discover who flies it and where it lodges.”
“Aye, Missus. But I’ll need a copper or two to pay him, won’t I?” He held out his surprisingly clean hand.
I found five pennies in my pocket. “One of these is for you, Mickey. The other four are for Jimmy, so he can buy fuel for his balloon.”
Mickey grabbed the coins and darted out the door faster than I could grab him for more instructions. He slipped under the raised arm of the newspaper delivery boy where he stood frozen in the act of knocking on the half open door.
Curses! Now I didn’t have the coins to tip him. I always tipped well to ensure prompt and polite service.
Helen pounded the dough with indignant fury.
Chapter Five
AS THE HOURS PASSED and the crowd in the café followed its usual patterns, though the numbers were down, I let the tension flow outward from my shoulders, along my arms and out my fingertips. A scholar lecturing at Oxford in ancient languages had visited the reading room last autumn in search of an esoteric tome on Persian necromancy (strangely, I had a copy hidden deep in the dim recesses of the stacks; part of an estate library Lady Ada bought intact without inspecting). His Hindu friend who lectured on esoteric physics had come with him to see what the famous—or infamous—Bookview Café was about. He taught me deep breathing exercises and muscle relaxation. I’d taught him a few things as well.
I needed those exercises today, as I watched the customers come and go from early morning to midafternoon. Most ordered a single cup of coffee, left it untouched as they read their newspaper, then left. Longtime and loyal patrons barely nodded to me today. But strangers paused to chat, asking questions about the upcoming coronation or the country gentry come to town for the season.
I dismissed the extra servers for the afternoon and began diluting the brews. Why waste good beans on people who didn’t drink the stuff? I did keep one pot of fine, dark roast Ethiopian beans at full strength for the table of five gentlemen arguing volubly near the book search carousel.
A young man with the typical out-of-date suit and hopeless cravat of a student who took his studies seriously approached me. He carefully counted out the one shilling and two pence I required for an involved book search. That left about one more shilling in his hand, and I doubted he had more in his pocketbook.
“Excuse me, Madame, but I need a reference regarding Archbishop Howley’s arguments against the Great Reform Act.” He looked me in the eye, not shy or apologetic. Had I met him before?
I couldn’t place his accent or the angles of his face.
Did he want to know if the Church had really decided that people convicted of practicing necromancy would be burned at the stake? That was a last-minute addition to the reform bill. Howley couldn’t vote against that part of the massive reformation. Now the punishment for necromancy was the law, but no one yet had come to trial or been convicted.
“Keep your money.” I closed his fingers back over the coins. “That one is easy.”
He followed me to the front corner beside the window. Who needs to worry about art when you decorate with floor-to-ceiling bookcases on all exposed walls between windows? I studied three tomes of Parliamentary proceedings for the last century and then let my fingers find the gilt lettering on the next slim book spine.
“Archbishop Howley’s own treatise on why the bill should be defeated, written before the insertion of the necromancy laws. Read it here, return it properly, and there is no fee.” I’d helped Howley write the text when he’d been blackmailed into renouncing the reforms. I had access to historical precedents for and against the act.
“Thank you, Madame Magdala,” he sighed in relief and took a seat directly in front of the book’s home.
I turned to find Sir Drew leaning against the coffee bar, a wry grin on his tired face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept, displaying red-rimmed eyes, gaunt shadows on his cheeks, and a hasty shave that left uneven dark patches in odd places.
“The boy has the look of one of
the masses who needed the reform,” he muttered half-amused.
“It didn’t help you,” I replied.
“On the contrary.”
I raised an eyebrow in question.
“That drafty and leaking country manor Mum gave me as a wedding present costs more in upkeep than the land is worth. I wanted to let it fall down. But not only did Mum entail it to my son, with the house came the responsibility of two seats in the House of Commons representing about fifty people in the two villages. I had to appoint members or sit in Commons myself. Now I’m rid of the responsibility—except nominal upkeep, so there’s something for Andy to inherit. The reeking city of Birmingham takes care of the Parliamentary obligations now. They actually have elections, I’m told. What about a cup of coffee?”
“You look as if you need this,” I said while I poured and stirred in cream and dark sugar crystals. The whirlpool within the depths taunted me, demanding I look deeper, find answers within the spirals . . .
I yanked my attention away from the cup and handed it to Drew.
He looked at me strangely. I’d never told him the truth about my “Gypsy gift.” I’d made my reputation as the bastard daughter of a Gypsy king by reading fortunes within the whirlpools of coffee. Few believed I actually saw things there. Mostly, I didn’t. But sometimes . . .
Instead, I directed the conversation back to his rumpled state. “Did you sleep at all after you left last night?” He hadn’t stayed with me, taking his departure before ten, prior to Lady Ada and Charles Babbage leaving.
“A little. I camped in the armchair at my club.” He did not expand though I gave him a cautious listening kind of silence to encourage him. Few people can allow a lapse in conversation and will babble anything to fill the gap.
Not Drew. Not this forenoon.
“Madam?” a pompous voice demanded my attention.
“Yes?” I replied, holding up a pot of coffee. I’d met this man before. An investigator of some sort, loosely connected to the Bow Street Runners at Whitehall.
The Transference Engine Page 4