“… and as such is a sentiment bravely felt and bravely spoken, my dear lady. I commend you! But it is a burden, I am happy to tell you, that you will not have to bear.”
I looked up, wondering what Mr. Babcock could be talking about. My aunt’s smile did not falter.
“You are probably not aware, sir, that the heir of Stranwyne is merely a child. He will not come of age yet for several years.”
“Ah! You will forgive me for contradicting you, Madam, but the inheritor of Stranwyne has come of age. I’m sure I have the paperwork here somewhere …” He began rooting through the satchel he had brought while my aunt frowned, craning her neck to try and see each paper that was ruffled. Mr. Lockwood sat back and crossed his arms as Mr. Babcock prattled to himself in an infuriating manner.
“Sir!” said my aunt, finally exasperated. “I am quite certain I know the age of my own son, no matter what sort of paper you might have in your bag!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Babcock, looking up from his searching. “Mrs. Tulman! Your son! I am … well, I am most discomfited, dear lady. But what an embarrassing mistake you have made! Surely you were not under the impression that Robert Tulman is the heir of his uncle?”
Something akin to paralysis fell over the drawing room, and the striking of the clocks came faint through the walls. I counted them. One …
“You ridiculous little man!” hissed Aunt Alice. “What do you know about it?”
“Really, Madam!” Mr. Babcock perched a pair of spectacles on his nose, tsk-tsking as he searched through the papers. “I know quite a bit, as a matter of fact! Your son, Robert, is second in line to the estate.”
Two …
“My son, Robert, is the only one in line for the estate, sir!”
Mr. Babcock chuckled. “Oh, I think not,” he said amiably, eyes on the shuffling papers. Mr. Lockwood crossed his legs.
Three …
“Now, let’s see, ah, yes! George Tulman, born fifteenth February of the year 1800, third son of Martin Tulman, eldest child, Robert …”
Four …
“… and then we have Simon Tulman, born October … October, what was the day, what was the day … third day! Yes. October, year 1798, second son of Martin Tulman, eldest daughter, Katharine …”
Five …
“… and then we have Frederick Tulman, born January, year 1794, eldest son, becoming legal inheritor of said Tulman estate ninth November, 1814. Sad day …”
Six …
“… and do hereby declare … yes, yes … as said Frederick is without issue or progeny, henceforth … that brings us to … logically … and therefore …”
Seven …
“Ah! Bringing us to Miss Katharine Tulman, eldest grandchild of Martin Tulman, who according to her grandmother’s will came of age on July eighteen, thereby making her the heiress of her uncle and the Stranwyne estate.”
I blinked once as Mr. Babcock looked over his spectacles. Eight o’clock in the morning. My aunt leapt to her feet.
“The Tulman estate is entailed, you bloody fool! Only males may inherit!”
“Dear me, Madam.” Mr. Babcock mopped his head with a handkerchief. “Please arrange yourself. Your loss of composure is distressing Mr. Lockwood.”
Mr. Lockwood drank his tea as my aunt sat down hard in her chair, her face murderous. More papers appeared from the satchel.
“Forgive me if I should have explained this sooner, Mrs. Tulman, but the entail on the Stranwyne estate was broken by Marianna Tulman three days after the birth of Simon’s eldest child.” He leaned forward apologetically. “And here, I am afraid, is where I must admit myself to be most mortified. Through the negligence of a faulty clerk, long-since sacked, this paperwork was only proved in court this past week, when, as you know, Miss Katharine Tulman came of the legal age, as stipulated in the will signed by Frederick Tulman, year 1835 …” Paperwork was piling into my aunt’s lap at an alarming rate. “… long, of course, before he was declared to be incompetent, clearing the way for a female to inherit, which is, quite clearly, this young lady, here.”
My aunt was staring at her lap in confusion, her face blanched.
“So,” Mr. Babcock said, turning to me, “now that you are of age, my dear, you spare your aunt a mighty burden. The income and debts of this estate are yours, along with the difficult choices concerning your uncle’s future. As well as the allowance from your father, of course …” He went back to digging in the satchel. “… as stipulated in his will, from the year …”
“Wait,” I commanded, finally spurred from my stupor. “What allowance from my father?”
Mr. Babcock peered over his spectacles, for once, I think, caught by surprise. It was an event I’d wager did not happen often. “Your allowance from your father, my child. The interest on his income earned by trade, the bulk of which you have inherited as well, of course, having no siblings, and now that you are of age.”
I gaped at him, and then we both looked to my aunt. Unbecoming blotches of red dotted each cheek.
“Oh, dear me, Mrs. Tulman,” said Mr. Babcock. “Your memory is as faulty as my clerk’s, I fear.” Mr. Lockwood smiled.
“Excuse me,” I said. I stood, and walked out the front door.
I sat right down on the front step, feeling the sun burn my face and watching the breeze blow the grasses. Mr. Babcock’s horses, carriage, and driver were biding their time a little ways down the drive. Someone should show them the way to the old stables, I thought. Perhaps there might even be hay. I would tell Lane or Mrs. Jefferies. Then my eyes moved from the carriage and I observed a family of hares on the hillside, grazing above the black hole that was the tunnel. If Davy had been here, we could have caught him one of the babies to raise.
And then it occurred to me that the tunnel I was looking at was mine. The stables were mine, the rabbits and the grass mine; the step I sat on was mine. My uncle would never have to go anywhere else. I never needed to go anywhere else. I took a breath, and discovered I needed another, and another. I covered my face. I could not seem to breathe properly at all.
The door opened behind me, and Mr. Babcock came out. I could hear the squeakiness of his shoes. Or perhaps it was his knees. With difficulty he placed himself on the crumbling step beside me.
“Well, well, Miss Tulman, great fun! And nearly two decades in the making! The best kind, of course. Nothing like it!” He waited for a moment, then continued when I did not respond. “I have left your aunt perusing paperwork that she appears to find distressing. Truly, the language of the legal profession can be difficult to comprehend.”
I could not make a sound. He dug in a pocket and handed me his handkerchief.
“Did you really not know about your father’s money, my dear? Did you think you had nothing?”
I nodded, dabbing at my eyes.
“And therefore thought I was asking you to choose a wretched life beneath your loving aunt’s thumb! My apologies, Miss Tulman. I was in a hurry. I assumed. It is a lesson to me.”
I turned to look at his balding head and worked up the breath to speak. “You don’t have a negligent clerk,” I told him. “You would have suppressed every bit of that paperwork, and my grandmother’s wishes, had I not been …” How had he put it before? “… sympathetic.”
Mr. Babcock smiled slightly and shrugged. “Perhaps I would have. But it is your grandmother’s wishes that have always been my guide, and your grandmother’s wishes have always been to the good of your uncle. No disrespect to you, of course.”
“But what made you … How did you know where my … sympathies lay? I think I gave you no encouragement last time.”
“Never forget that the law has eyes, Miss Tulman, eyes everywhere! I tend to know which way the wind blows at Stranwyne.”
Which meant Lane and Mrs. Jefferies wrote him letters. I looked back at the waving grasses. “I think you must have loved her very much.”
The voice beside me softened. “She was ten years my senior and this long time gone
, and yet never have I forgotten her. I hope you understand, my young heiress, that always, no matter what, I do my utmost for the house of Tulman.”
The sound of glass breaking made both of us glance back at the house.
“Mr. Babcock,” I said. “I think I shall need your advice very soon, on several matters, some of which are … quite beyond me. You will stay the night? Would tomorrow morning be convenient?”
“Yes, indeed! I shall stay for several nights, I think. We have quite a mess to mop up, my dear, quite a mess!”
Something else breakable shattered. I handed Mr. Babcock his handkerchief and got to my feet. “Would you like to come inside with me, Mr. Babcock? I am going to tell my aunt to leave my house.”
“I think it would be wise, my dear. She seems to be breaking your ornaments.”
The removal of Alice Tulman from Stranwyne was a messy business, ending with a forcible escort to the carriage by Mr. Lockwood, poor frightened Hannah cowering at her side. I pointed out to my aunt that making herself an unwelcome addition to my household was not in her own best interest, as I was now the arbiter of her monthly allowance, but jealousy and spite are not always wise. I instructed Mr. Babcock to keep my aunt’s allowance the same, adjusting only for the yearly rise in expenses, and to inform her that if she wanted more she need only ask me. And as I was confident she never would, I was also quite confident I might never see her again.
Mr. Babcock and I stood on the rise above the flooded Lower Village, and he muttered and tsked and blew his nose, and then we walked back to Stranwyne and together laid out a scheme for rebuilding. We turned our attention first to restoring housing, doubling the output of the pottery kilns until the foundry, engines, and gasworks could be rebuilt. The canal was closed off and enormous ditches dug to siphon off the water, but it was weeks before the ground truly drained, and months before every family had a cottage. It was decided to move the site of the Lower Village closer to the Upper, above the repaired canal wall, to prevent a repeat of recent disasters, and merge the two into one. I pored over every aspect and detail of these plans, pleased to be rebuilding what I had once thought I would destroy.
I also made Mr. Babcock aware of the other events at Stranwyne, a talk that lasted far into the night, and in true Mr. Babcock fashion, this conversation resulted in a visit from the British government. Mr. Wickersham arrived on a December afternoon and sat with me before a fire in the little morning room, a room I had set aside for my own use, and one of the first to receive the benefits of my father’s money. The walls were not crimson or pink, but pale green, the curtains a shade darker. Mrs. Jefferies had piled the chimneypiece with evergreen and berries for Yule.
Mary brought in a gyroscope my uncle had recently built, gave both it and a small curtsy to Mr. Wickersham, and left the room with her nose wrinkled, eyes riveted to the small pocket watch she carried. I’d not seen her expression so intent since the day I had found her in Marianna’s bedchamber, feeding the fire with pieces of my worsted. Mr. Wickersham spun the gyroscope, a tiny wheel in the center of a small, shaped flower, watching the petals open and close as the little machine balanced on his palm. He listened as I explained everything I knew about the workings of my uncle’s fish and about the cotton fluff that had exploded so powerfully as to blow up the boat and crack our canal wall.
When I had finished, he said, “And you say the original fish, Miss Tulman, was not found in the ruins of your uncle’s workshop, but is likely buried somewhere in the mud, or washed into the canal?”
I inclined my head. The same was true for Ben Aldridge, though neither one of us said it. I glanced once to my right. Mr. Wickersham’s companion was a thin, nameless little man with ink-stained fingers, scribbling into a tiny book at a furious rate. He dipped his pen and, alongside words, I caught a glimpse of a drawing of my face, quite recognizable. The man tilted the book ever so slightly away from me without interrupting his pen.
Mr. Wickersham let the gyroscope wind down, set it on the table, and slapped his knees. “Well, I do thank you for your time, Miss Tulman, and for the service you’ve done Her Majesty’s —”
“Mr. Wickersham,” I said. He had begun to stand, but sat down heavily again at my interruption. “Surely you are going to tell me whether any of my suppositions are correct?”
“Correct, Miss Tulman?”
“Was Mr. Aldridge planning to blow up ships, sir?”
Mr. Wickersham sighed, and put his elbows on his knees. “Aldridge was not even his name, Miss Tulman. The man was born Charles Benjamin Arceneaux, son of a Frenchwoman who went by the name ‘Aldridge’ while in England — to avoid local prejudices, one might suppose — and a Royal Naval officer of the name Daniels. Under none of these names, however, was this man a graduate of Cambridge, or any other institution, or employed in any sort of teaching position in London.”
I looked back at Mr. Wickersham’s copious mustache, thinking of so many lies, heaped one upon the other, like coins of brass. “And the ships, Mr. Wickersham?”
“Yes, yes, Miss Tulman, of course he was planning to blow up ships. Or at least, to sell the ability to do so. That threat is now neutralized, for which every sailor in Her Majesty’s fleet thanks you.”
“Mr. Wickersham,” I said. He paused in a half crouch, sighed, and sat down again. “I would like to know why Ben Aldridge did not … dispose of me.”
Mr. Wickersham looked at me keenly while the pen scratched. “You are asking me why you weren’t murdered in your bed? You would have found that a more logical solution, young lady?”
“Of course.”
The man stared at me a moment longer and then chuckled. “We could also ask why he didn’t merely steal the fish, Miss Tulman, sail away before the thing was missed, and have the contraption studied by an expert at his leisure.”
I nodded. I had thought of this, too.
“As you are obviously not a fool, I shall be frank with you, Miss Tulman, and depend upon your discretion. There were letters going out in the post, I understand. Three of them, at different times, and written completely in French.”
I frowned. Mary had mentioned this to me long ago, though it had never crossed my mind since.
“And though Mr. Moreau is the only professed French-speaking literate on the estate, it appears that he was not the author of these letters. They were left anonymously, and right at sailing time, and, most unfortunately, Mr. Moreau was never able to read one.”
Davy, I thought, a twinge of sadness temporarily diverting me from Mr. Wickersham’s words. “So you are saying that you believe Mr. Aldridge wrote these letters, and that therefore someone else was involved in his plans. Someone who was perhaps French.”
“Someone, or perhaps many someones, planning to pay your uncle’s workshop a visit. If one extraordinary and valuable idea was present inside it, then why not two, or three, or even four? It would have been imperative, therefore, to have the workshop and your uncle in place and intact, as hidden and private from the world as they’d always been. And, I must say, that your dead body would have been rather likely to attract more attention from the outside than less of it, Miss Tulman. But if you were to be proven insane … well, in that case, you would merely be the unfortunate victim of illness, unremarkable, and any tales you chose to tell about Stranwyne likely to be discounted.”
I had almost stopped listening, thinking of men like Ben descending on the estate. I leaned forward in my chair. “Mr. Wickersham, is my uncle safe at Stranwyne?”
“There is no longer a workshop, Miss Tulman, so I think these men will likely believe that the honey has left the hive. And let us remember that Mr. Aldridge himself was attempting to leave in the end, whether from a change in the game or a magistrate that was more penetrating than he could wish, I do not know. But in return for your question, my dear, I will ask you two. Are you aware, perhaps, that the current leader of France, Louis-Napoléon, is none other than the nephew of the tyrant Napoléon Bonaparte?”
I felt my
brows come down. “Yes, I’m aware of it.”
“And are you quite certain, Miss Tulman, that last June Mr. Aldridge made the statement to you that the emperor of France expects his ironclad ships to sail very well?”
“Yes, that is almost verbatim.”
“Then please consider, Miss Tulman, that in June of this year the nation of France had an elected president. Not five days have passed since Louis-Napoléon dissolved his parliament and declared himself to be Napoléon the Third, emperor of France. Vigilance, my dear, would not be out of order for any of us.” He stood and bowed quickly, giving me no time to speak. “A very good day to you, and again, many thanks from Her Majesty’s navy.”
Mr. Wickersham strode from the room while the man without a name finished his last bit of jotting, gave me a bob of the head, and hurried out after him. I watched the hearth flames, thinking.
“Are they gone, Simon’s baby?”
I turned to see my uncle’s bright blue eye peeking around the doorjamb. “Yes, Uncle. And you did splendidly. You let him hold it for …”
Mary’s head popped into the doorway, and she held up the pocket watch. “Four, Miss!”
“Four minutes,” I continued. “Last time you only waited for three.”
“Five comes next,” my uncle sighed, coming cautiously into the room to take his mechanical flower. “Big things can be little.”
Or sometimes little things can be big, I thought, my mind on Mr. Wickersham.
“Twenty-eight!” Uncle Tully shouted suddenly. “Twenty-eight to playtime! If you come to the workshop in twenty-seven, you shall be early, little niece, and in twenty-nine you shall be late!”
I smiled. “I will be there in twenty-eight, Uncle.”
And that was the first day that Lane did not come to the workshop.
The Dark Unwinding Page 25