The Transference Engine

by Julia Verne St. John

  I sat with my back to a corner, as I did most afternoons at this time, the multipaned window to my left and a bookshelf filled with newspapers and magazines from Paris, Berlin, and Marseilles on my right. Those papers sadly needed updating; the news was a month old.

  Another figure walked between me and the suspicious fur trader. I’d noted her when she arrived a few moments before and dismissed her the moment she ordered tea and marzipan for herself and a young maid loaded with shopping parcels. The girl’s country seamstress might be skilled, but she hadn’t visited London in over a year, probably three. Her pleated skirt didn’t flare wide enough, and knotwork, in a vaguely Celtic pattern, adorned the area between knee and hem. That trim hadn’t been in fashion for quite some time. The ribbon on her hand-decorated bonnet was clumsily finished and the rooster feathers adorning the crown might be colorful and attractive, but they were not proper ostrich or peacock.

  “Madame Magdala?” the country girl asked shyly. Her hands shook slightly with nervousness so that the teacup rattled in its saucer. She’d recognized me as my alter-ego, in spite of my proper black dress. A sharp girl. The maid took a chair at an empty table three places to my right, toward the back of the café.

  “Yes?” I drawled affecting the east European accent of my alternate personality.

  “I . . . I was wondering what you charge for a reading?”

  She didn’t look as if she could afford my usual fees. I was a novelty for friendly and casual looks into the future for the nobs and their courtesans who attended salons on the fringe of high society. Those fees padded my bank account quite nicely.

  The money I earned as Madame Magdala was a necessity for me if I were to secure a safe future for me and Miss Augusta Ada Byron.

  This country girl, though, looked as if she truly needed advice from me, Miss Elise the governess, and not some Gypsy fakery. Was she the reason the swirls in the coffee nearly compelled me?

  “For you, my dear, nothing. Sit. Join me.” I gestured expansively. The polite murmurings around the busy café stilled as all turned to gape at me. Madame Magdala was flamboyant and always the center of attention. Miss Elise, (I hated the honorary Mrs. Title granted to high-placed servants) governess to Miss Byron, was meek and invisible. Well, maybe not meek. I could defend my charge vigorously when I needed to.

  “Vhat do you need, my child?” I asked the country girl.

  “Aemelie Griffin, Madame.” She held her gloved hand across the table in greeting.

  I brushed her palm with my fingertips, polite but distant, not inviting intimacy.

  “I . . . am in London with my cousin. For the Season. But I . . . I have no interest in the dandies my cousin thinks are appropriate for me and my station.” She kept her eyes lowered and her words quiet.

  “Ah,” I sighed with appropriate romantic depth. “Another has caught your eye. Perhaps someone above your station?” I guessed she came from landed gentry—her muslin gown might be outdated but it was of good quality. If there was a title involved, it was minor or distant in her family tree.

  “Lord William, Baron King,” she said even more quietly.

  My attention riveted upon her, forgetting those around me. Dangerous. But I had other plans for the eighth Baron King than this country mouse. The future I had witnessed had grand plans for Lord William.

  “How did you meet Lord William?” I picked up my spoon without thinking and stirred my coffee into a deep whirlpool. I engaged every bit of my formidable willpower to keep from looking into the swirls just yet.

  “He’s our neighbor back home.” She looked up, hope sparkling in her eyes and a half smile on her lips. “I’ve known him all of my life. But of late he spends more time in London than at the estate. He’s making a name for himself in politics.”

  “I see. At home you are one of a very few pretty girls of the right class to attract his attention at assemblies and private gatherings. Here in London you are an insignificant shadow among many beautiful women bent upon marriage to the most eligible bachelor of the Season.” In early March, the Season had not officially begun, but ladies flocked to the city with their debutantes in tow, scrambling for access to the best modistes, and lining up invitations to the balls, musicales, and garden parties. All to find husbands for the girls. Becoming the wife of a man wealthy enough to support her, was the only respectable occupation for a young lady, unless she waited too long and had to settle for the position of governess or paid lady’s companion.

  I had chosen my place primarily to protect those endangered by Lord Byron’s depravity. Over the years I decided to avoid marriage. I’d not let any man gain control over me—by law or by love.

  Miss Griffin’s blushes drew my attention away from the spinning coffee and my own musings. Lord William was already much in demand.

  “Yes.” She heaved a tremendous sigh that lifted her bosom dramatically. “My father is the rector of the parish. His grandfather is the Earl of Bloomington.” Ah, a younger son with little allowance but good connections.

  The fur trader took notice of her quivering bosom.

  Hmm. Perhaps he was no enemy, merely a man on home leave in search of a city wife. Did he have a country wife—perhaps a Red Indian country wife—he’d left in the wilderness until his return? Many traders did.

  This girl deserved better. But I also needed her to open her eyes and seek a husband closer to her station in life. Sir William was not fated to love her. I knew that. A vision in my coffee had told me.

  The time had come to look away from the tiny window lights that badly needed replacing with newer, thinner, clearer, and larger panes, and into the still whirling coffee. I might find truth there. I might find only coffee. I never knew. My clients always presumed I found, and spoke, a true vision. I made certain of that.

  Keen observation told me more than my vague and symbolic visions.

  My eyes tracked the circular motion of the golden liquid. My perception closed inward; darkness dominated the periphery. The patterns danced within the circles. Dancers waltzing the patterns of life.

  The girl, Aemelie Griffin, danced around the edges with a tall and lean man full of intensity. A man strong enough to protect and love her in an uncertain world. Their steps took on a different cadence from the waltz, more a stomping country-dance, exuberant and joyful.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the truth of that image. For at the center of the dance, still following a graceful and romantic waltz, glided my girl, Miss Ada, with her own strong man with hints of gold in his hair—like a coronet. An earl’s coronet.

  But the coronet turned to flames encircling them, burning all in its path to cinders. The flames reached dangerously close to Miss Ada’s glowing skirts.

  “I have it on good authority that Lord William will attend Lady Hasselwhythe’s salon tonight.” I pitched my words so the fur trader could hear them clearly. Lady Hasselwhythe and I had an understanding. I vowed never to reveal her string of young lovers to her husband, and she issued me an open invitation to her salon. Any evening, with whatever company I chose. “My card. Present it to the footman at the door. He will give you entrance.”

  “Oh, thank you, Madame. Bless you,” the girl gushed. She clutched my hand tightly as she rose. I pressed the card on her as an invitation for her to leave. She practically danced out the door. Her maid followed tiredly.

  I scooped up the ignored marzipan and ate it, letting the delicacy of sugar and almond paste restore some of my depleted humours. A vision always left me limp and listless for a time.

  Then I held out a second card toward the fur trader.

  “And will Lord William truly attend the salon?” he asked in a deep gravelly voice, as if he’d swallowed too many dusty winds.

  “At some time in the evening, perhaps later than expected. But the young baron’s first destination is a private musicale evening. You have Miss Aemelie Griffin to your
self for several hours. Convince her quickly that she is in love with you.”

  And then Miss Byron proceeded into the café and ordered hot chocolat before she even looked for me. She knew I’d be here. I usually was. I would never disappoint her. Her maid stepped behind our lady, also burdened with parcels. She flopped into a chair at the same table Miss Griffin’s servant had just departed.

  The fur trader gathered his hat and cloak, and left, dragging his right leg slightly. In that moment I doubted he’d return to his wilderness. If he did, he’d take a wife with him to a staid job in one of the fur factories rather than exploring the wilderness in search of beaver and otter. Either way, I suspected Miss Aemelie Griffin would be satisfied.

  I almost envied her his long hard body and his keen focus.

  “Tell me of your day, Miss Ada,” I said in my normal accent, once again the modest governess.

  “Miss Elise, I have had the most wonderful inspiration. I discovered five errors in Mr. Babbage’s calculations and corrected them. I believe he can now proceed with the building of his Difference Engine without hindrance.” She produced a thick notebook, loosely bound, and opened it to a page filled with arcane symbols and numbers. They could have been Romany scribblings for all I knew. Except I could read and speak a little Romany. Mathematical equations were more exotic and less understandable.

  “That is good. Mr. Charles Babbage needs to succeed in building his calculation machine to satisfy his investors,” I added.

  “Yes, I know.” Ada dismissed my concerns. “Can you imagine the huge advances in mathematics we can achieve when we have accurate logarithmic tables?”

  “Did you attend your fitting for your evening gown for the musicale tonight?” I had more pressing needs for the girl.

  “Um . . .”

  “You forgot.” I sighed in disappointment.

  “No. I had the fitting, but I found the fabric very ornate and stiff. I’d prefer something lighter in silk chiffon and a more sober color . . .”

  Daisy, the maid, nodded to confirm they had indeed visited the modiste.

  “You sound like your mother.”

  Miss Ada closed her mouth with a snap.

  “You helped me with the design of the fabric, Miss,” I admonished her. “The protection it will grant you is necessary.”

  “I don’t believe there are any followers of my father still alive.” She pouted.

  I maintained a firm silence rather than comment. We’d foiled too many plots against her after Lord Byron “died” in Greece ten years ago. I had experienced firsthand his depravity, his twisted philosophy, and his obsession with immortality. I knew the length his followers would go to in order to bring him back to life.

  “Can you redesign the soul transference machine?” I asked her.

  “Not without your help. You destroyed the original back in ’16.” The year without a summer. Lake Geneva. A house party at Villa Diodati. She didn’t have to remind me. “You know how the machine all went together.”

  “And I will never, ever, willingly help build another.” I clamped my teeth on that statement and deliberately looked away from my coffee cup that had begun to hum in the back of my mind. Instead, I signaled the coffee master that I needed a fresh cup. This one had gone cold.

  “If we must attend the musicale, I suppose we should return home to change.” Ada didn’t look happy about that. “I presume you found the components for the miniature Leyden jar during your errands?”

  “Yes,” I replied with satisfaction and dismissed the coffee master with a gesture. “But I think I would like to consult your solicitor on the way. I have an interest in buying this property. I could do much with the ambiance, the space above and below stairs, and I’d serve better pastry.” Lots and lots of lovely space above for living and entertaining. Even more space in the cellars for my special project. I’d checked.

  “You are a wonderful cook, Miss Elise. But surely you will remain with me. You don’t need a business. I will take care of you.” Ada took my arm, holding me close to her side.

  “But soon you will marry.” I’d seen it in the dancing coffee. Dancing while the world burned to cinders . . . “You will not need your old governess when you have a husband and children. You barely need me now.”

  “You are more than my governess. You are my greatest friend. And . . . and I’d like you to stay with me forever, as my companion. Not that I believe I shall ever marry. I’ve never met a man more interesting than the mathematical challenges Mr. Babbage presents me. And I doubt that Mother will ever approve of any suitor. My father frightened her so badly she doesn’t like men much at all.”

  We both knew the truth of that.

  “Glass beads, Elise? Surely my wardrobe budget extends beyond glass beads!” Ada stamped her foot and glared at me as I put the finishing touches on her ensemble. She lifted the chain of crescent moon beads with disdain. Each bit of copper-colored glass bore the impression of an eight-pointed star—a Romany symbol of safe haven. “My father was a baron. My mother is the Baroness Wentworth in her own right. We have a position to maintain.”

  “Yes, you do. And you can’t do that if you are dead or held captive by the enemy.” I drew a copper wire from the pendant bead—a disk cunningly designed so that the brilliant red-gold starburst in the center drew the eye and the clear background disappeared—and touched it to the top of the miniature Leyden jar secreted in Miss Ada’s scant cleavage. Fortunately, this year fashions called for frilled tuckers draped over the shoulder and nesting at the top of the bodice. Plenty of places to discreetly hide the components of my invention. Or weapons.

  As the wires touched chemicals in the jar, electricity arced through the beads and down the copper wires woven into the white gauze overlay on the dress. The younger son of a lord who dabbled in these things promised me that as long as the circuit was complete the carbon fiber within the necklace would react with the glass and the copper.

  I didn’t understand it all. But I trusted Andrew Fitzandrew to know what he was doing. Sir Drew always knew what he was doing. Delicious man.

  Ada gasped as the glass beads glowed and the gown shimmered with scintillating sparks. “It . . . it is gorgeous, Elise.” Amazing how she took interest in her appearance once we started the dressing process. I trusted that she would also become interested in men once presented with one who had an adequate understanding of mathematics.

  “I have it on good authority that Princess Victoria will attend the musicale tonight.”

  “Merde!” Ada exploded. Her left hand went to the beads and threatened to rip them from her throat. “That means her mother will be there, and therefore my mother and her Furies will also be present.”

  “Your lady mother has high hopes to become a lady-in-waiting . . .” She sought royal protection for her daughter.

  “And all London knows that will never happen. My father’s scandals will prevent either of us ever being fully accepted in proper society.”

  “Ah, but one can always be a fashion setter and slide into society by a back door,” I soothed her. I’d already started the process for myself.

  “I know that half smile and lowered eyes, Elise. What are you planning?”

  “I am only a simple governess. I have not the means nor the cunning to plan anything more elaborate than a lovely gown for my charge.” I could not meet her eyes.

  “And will Miss Elise fade into the wallpaper tonight while Madame Magdala stands at the center of the room demanding more attention than the soprano hired to entertain?” She smirked.

  “I did not know that you knew . . .”

  “Of course I know. Now what are you planning and how does it involve the Café du Paris?”

  “The way light changes when passing through the windows of the café made me think about how the room will change if we replace those thick and wavy panes with larger, thinner, and clea
rer ones.”

  I didn’t need to say anything more. Miss Ada’s fertile imagination started thinking about light and the mathematics of light and how to apply them to some new invention.

  I disconnected the wires on the gown’s electricity and shooed her out into the evening fog. A real pea souper tonight with cold sea mist mixing with the coal smoke that permeated the air. We covered our faces with finely woven veils to keep as much of the poisonous air out of our lungs as possible. All the new inventions required power, power generated by steam, fueled by coal . . . “We’ll take a proper hansom cab with a real horse pulling it,” I announced.

  “But the carriages pulled by steam-powered horses are so much more efficient, and warmer,” Ada protested, coming out of her obsession for a moment.

  “A real horse can smell the presence of other vehicles and avoid crashing. A steam machine cannot,” I huffed.

  “Machines will always prove more efficient,” she returned.

  The horse got us to the private residence of the Countess of Kirkenwood in good time. We passed three steam carriages that had collided with each other, gas lamps, and pedestrians along the way.

  “If I’d known you intended the necklace for another, I would not have given it quite so much tender, loving care,” Sir Andrew Fitzandrew whispered from behind me. I felt more than saw the heat of his gaze on my lace-draped cleavage. Society might dictate that a mere governess needed to wear sober black. That didn’t mean I had to remain meek in an ugly gown.

  I’d noted Sir Drew’s arrival and his position in Lady Kirkenwood’s crowded ballroom the moment he arrived, just as we took seats for the performance. That he was the only person present taller than me helped in my observation. The countess had converted the space into an auditorium with straight lines of straighter chairs made barely comfortable with red velvet cushions. As chaperone to Miss Ada, I had to sit next to the girl in a prominent place in the third row, no matter how tight and uncomfortable. I couldn’t see behind me to discover if Sir Drew had bothered to try and fit on one of the chairs, or stood against the wall instead.