by Peter Bunzl
Lily realized he was probably right. Despite Papa trying to hide it, things had been a little sparse of late. Perhaps it was because Madame Verdigris and Mr Sunder had run off with a lot of Papa’s valuable patent papers last year, and they still hadn’t got them back.
That last thought seemed to jolt Papa from his chair, and he stood, folding the paper under his arm.
“Enough of this,” he said. “I’ve work to do. I have to finish repairing Miss Tock.”
Normally after breakfast Lily and Robert had lessons in the nursery, supervised by Mrs Rust, but halfway through a particularly boring reading comprehension they’d been doing, the mechanical had wound down, and they’d taken the opportunity to sneak off and see what Papa was up to.
The lightning bolt on the workshop door was supposed to symbolize danger, but Lily liked to imagine it represented the inspiring things that filled Papa’s workshop. She turned the door handle and she and Robert stepped inside.
It was an amazing space, bigger than Robert’s da’s old workshop and filled with more clockwork than the insides of Big Ben, but a certain cosy quality was absent. Robert found the rest of Brackenbridge Manor like that as well – a little too grand, a little too imposing. It never quite felt like home, because everyone was spread so far apart.
“Done with your schooling already, are you?” Papa glanced up, and Malkin, who lay underneath his chair, nipped at his shoelaces. He brushed the fox away and stood, beckoning them over. “Come and look at this, a proper clockwork brain!” he said, indicating Miss Tock, the mechanical maid, who sat wound down on the workbench, her stilled legs dangling beneath her, a panel in the front of her skull open. She had banged her head while dusting and doing the housework, knocking a cog loose, and it had been rattling around and making her act strangely ever since.
Papa fished out the troublesome cog and waved it at them. “These cogs connect up, much like the synaptic links in your heads. Their turning allows ideas to pass through her consciousness. One piece out of place and she’d never remember what day it was!”
Papa’s talk of clockwork made Lily’s mind drift to her own clockwork innards and worries. Her sense of not fitting in, of being a square peg in a round hole. It wasn’t just the Cogheart, pumping blood around her body with each mechanical heartbeat, that made her feel that way. Even before she knew she had a perpetual motion machine for a heart, she’d always felt different to other girls. The truth was, discovering she might live for ever had only made her feel more out of sync with the world. She glanced at Robert, but he didn’t seem to be concentrating either.
The trouble was he couldn’t shake the image of his da’s face at the window. Could it really have been a ghost? For a second Robert wondered if he should ask Professor Hartman, but then he decided against it. He didn’t want to worry him unduly. The professor would probably say he’d been imagining things, or was going mad. He tried, instead, to focus on what John was saying, but all this talk of clockwork made him think of his old life as Da’s apprentice and that made him miss Thaddeus even more.
“There.” John replaced the final gears. “That’s the last of these complications. She’ll be ticking royally once again in no time.”
“Oh my goodness! I forgot!” Lily pulled her purse from her pinafore with such force that the letter, her ammonite, watch and money flew from her pocket and scattered across the table. She scooped up her things and handed Papa the letter. “We received this in the post – Mr Brassnose at the airstation said it was from the Queen.”
“You forgot a letter from the Queen?” John looked incredulous.
“I…” Lily looked embarrassed. “I was so intrigued by the jailbreak story that it clean escaped my memory.”
“Never mind.” John put the letter on the workbench beside Miss Tock and carefully finished screwing the panel on her head up tight.
“Well,” cried Lily, “aren’t you going to open it?”
“I can, if you like…” Robert reached for the letter.
“In a moment.” John propped his elbows on the workbench and steepled his hands, as he always did when he was trying to give a lesson. “Patience, you know, is a virtue. First, we have to finish with Miss Tock here.”
“This is hardly the time for lectures, Papa.” Lily stepped towards him, so that she might lunge forward and see the letter.
“Yes,” said Robert. “Please, let’s hear what it says.”
John sighed and picked up the envelope, breaking the seal and slitting it open with his screwdriver.
Lily and Robert leaned in close. Even Malkin – who was the sort to pretend he received letters from the Queen every day – jumped up onto the workbench, so he might see what was going on.
John put down the screwdriver and, with a grand flourish for his audience, reached into the envelope and pulled out a thick wodge of cream paper.
He unfolded it carefully but, as he began to read, his smile faded. “Good heavens!” he muttered.
“What is it?” Robert asked. “What’s the matter?
“Yes,” Lily said. “Tell us.”
John cleared his throat. “The Queen wants me to travel to London, to the Mechanists’ Guild, and repair the Elephanta.”
“You mean the mechanimal Jack stole the diamond from?” Robert asked.
“That’s right.” John nodded. “She was the first mechanical creature ever created. Prince Albert had her made for the Coronation. The missing Blood Moon Diamond is what powered her. The Queen seems to think I, as a renowned mechanist and maker of mechanimals, might find a way to bring her back to life so she can take part in the Jubilee.”
Robert was aghast. “But that’s only four days away! An impossible task!”
“Not for Papa,” Lily said. “If anyone can fix the Elephanta, he can.”
“I don’t know, Lily…” Papa replied.
“Of course you can. You’re the greatest inventor in the land. And if the Queen’s requested you, she must think so too.” Lily wondered if she was brave enough to make her next suggestion. “But with so little time you’ll need us to come to London and help with the work.”
Papa shook his head. “No, Lily, you and Robert will stay at home. I don’t want you getting into any new trouble. I’ll be in London under my own name and I don’t want to draw attention to us. Besides, you’ve everything you could wish for here, haven’t you?”
“But, Papa…”
“No buts; my mind is made up. And, as for being the greatest inventor in the land… I want people to forget me. Forget us. It’s the only way we can ever hope to remain hidden. There are greedy opportunists about, Lily, and if they discovered how unique you are, then you’d have a price on your head – or, to be more exact, on your heart. I can’t risk losing you like that. I’ve already seen you at death’s door twice, and lost your poor mama. You’re the only thing I have left, all I’m holding on to.”
He turned away and gave a sniff. Then folded the letter, and replaced it in the envelope. “So I think it best you stay at home.”
“Can we at least go to the village school while you’re away?” Robert asked. “We’d come to no harm there, surely?”
“Mrs Rust and the mechanicals can continue to teach you,” Papa countered. “Meantime, I shall go undertake the Queen’s work. Were it not for the money, I would not risk drawing attention to myself, but I shall complete the task and return as quickly and quietly as possible. Then we can catch up with extra lessons.”
Lily listened to his speech with a heavy feeling of doubt. Papa was living in the past, trying to keep them hidden. Those dangers were gone now, she was sure of it. And in any case, couldn’t he see she was almost grown, and perfectly capable of taking care of herself? Why, she even helped him with his work. But Papa didn’t think in those terms. In his world she would stay squirrelled away for ever, like some sort of secret.
“I think we’re done.” Papa wound Miss Tock up with her winding key, and they waited…as slowly, very slowly, she jittered to life
.
“By all that ticks!” she exclaimed. “It feels as if I slept for a thousand years. What did I miss?”
“Nothing much.” Malkin yawned. “Just a letter from the Queen.”
“Is that all!” Miss Tock clucked. “Well, thank clank for that!”
Lily wondered if she had understood Malkin entirely, but Papa seemed sure she was fine.
“You should run as good as new now,” he told Miss Tock. “Lily will show you out, won’t you, Lily?”
“Of course.”
After Lily had assisted Miss Tock to the door, she and Robert helped Papa pack away his tools. Suddenly, Papa stopped and stared at them.
“Robert, I wonder if you might accompany me to my study after this? There’s something I wish to discuss with you…about your, er, situation.”
Robert’s stomach gave a sudden lurch. He knew exactly what the professor meant – a mercurial mixture of ghosts, burned shops, and visions of his missing ma sloshed about inside him, threatening to overflow. Ever since Da’s death six months ago, the professor had been trying to help Robert trace his ma; so she could be alerted to his predicament and they could sort out this mess with Townsend’s Horologist’s. Could he have made a discovery? If he would only reveal it in private, Robert was pretty sure it must be bad news.
“Come in, come in, my boy.” Professor Hartman ushered Robert to a comfortable chair, moving a sheaf of papers to make room for him to sit down. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more specific before, but there’s something rather delicate I wanted to discuss with you.”
He held the papers aloft for a moment as if he wasn’t quite sure where to put them. Finally, he settled on a side table beside an old battered gong suspended between a pair of tusks. Then he returned to his desk, banging his knee on its underside as he sat down.
While the professor was fidgeting, Robert glanced around the study. It was his favourite room in the house. The oak-panelled window and the glass-fronted cupboards somehow reminded him of his old shop home, and its myriad display cabinets. At the far end of the room, on the mantel of a big stone fireplace, stood a small brass urn. Above it a large gilt-framed portrait of a woman smiled down at them both from on high. She was Lily’s mama, Grace Rose Hartman, who had died when Lily was only six years old, and she had a kindly and understanding face that Robert rather liked.
Robert’s da had never told him the reason for his own ma’s departure. She’d left when Robert was only three years old, and when he was big enough, Robert had felt such resentment towards her that he never asked. At least he’d had Thaddeus – he’d cared for Robert; he’d stayed. But now his da was gone, Robert felt entirely alone.
The professor had finished his fussing. He leaned forward and looked at Robert with his piercing bright eyes. “I’m afraid,” he said, “we’ve received no answer to the classified ad I placed in The Daily Cog searching for your mother. And the police have apparently had scant luck tracing her. I’ve asked about the village too – they’re all terrible gossips, of course, but none of them have any information. Except the rector. He remembered your parents’ wedding in the church, and I thought it might be useful to get your mother’s maiden name from their records. But when we searched the marriage register, it was the oddest thing… The page where they should’ve been recorded was nowhere to be found. It had been ripped out.”
Robert leaned forward in his chair. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone removed it illegally,” John said, “perhaps because they didn’t want your mother’s maiden name to be found.”
Robert took a deep breath and slumped in his seat. He felt rather deflated by this new revelation. “How curious,” he said finally.
“Isn’t it?” John said. “Is there anything else you remember about her? Anything that might help us?”
Robert thought again. Hard. There was one other thing. “I think Da said when they met, Ma spoke to spirits, and that she was an actress in the theatre.” Was that right? Surely not – it sounded far too strange… And yet he remembered it distinctly.
“The truth is,” he told John, “Da barely talked of her after she was gone. And why should he? It was she who left us. What I don’t understand is why he gave her the shop.”
“I couldn’t tell you.” John sighed. “But at least we have something more to go on. Though I don’t hold out much hope of sorting this mess, if I’m honest. It seems Selena, or someone associated with her, has been attempting to keep her whereabouts secret for a long time.” He gave a cough. “Ironic, really, since I’ve been trying to keep this family hidden too. Maybe she also had troubles in her past that she’s still trying to escape.”
Selena’s story just got stranger and stranger. Was John right, had she disappeared deliberately to escape some unknown trouble? Robert couldn’t even begin to guess at the truth.
John capped a fountain pen which lay across the blotter on his desk. “Anyway, Robert, without any new information about your ma, there seems little more we can do to find her, despite my best efforts.”
Robert shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “What does that mean for me?”
John sighed. “That you’re left an orphan, I suppose. But I have another suggestion to solve that problem…”
“And what might that be, Sir?”
John smiled, his brown eyes twinkling behind the half-moon lenses of his glasses. “No ‘Sirs’ any more, please, Robert, my boy. You can call me John, or…” He cleared his throat. “You can even call me Papa, if you like – we’re practically family. And that’s what I wanted to speak to you about…the practical part, I mean… That is to say… I’ve been thinking a lot about your place with us at Brackenbridge since your da…since poor old Thaddeus died… And I’ve decided the best thing for you – for us, Lily and myself too, you understand? – would be if we…if I…adopted you. How would you feel about that?”
Adopted! The word was an electric jolt he’d not been expecting, not in the least. The truth was he’d barely come to terms with the changes that had taken place since he’d moved here. Then to think they’d be permanent…
John had been so very kind, and Lily too, everybody in fact. And it was a beautiful house… But, if the past was anything to go by, life might fall apart at any moment… Surely it was safer to keep things as they were?
He opened his mouth to speak, but John raised a hand. “Uh, now, you haven’t to decide immediately. While I’m away I shall speak to a lawyer, then if you resolve to join our family we can make the formal arrangements.”
John blew out a deep breath. It seemed he’d planned all of this, this speech, far in advance and had finally got through what he wanted to say.
Robert tried to formulate a reply. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but they wouldn’t quite come. A gulf of silence was opening up between them and he didn’t know how to fill it. He liked the professor very much – felt nearly as fond of him as he did Lily. It was almost as if they were family. But there was still that almost there. A bump in the road. Or a brick wall, stopping him in his tracks.
“The thing is, Sir,” he said, and as he did so, he realized he was supposed to call John “John” – not Sir, or Professor Hartman. “It’s not… I would like to, a lot, but, to me, it doesn’t quite feel like my da is gone. I don’t mean to be ungrateful. But it’s just…”
He didn’t know what else to say; he hated to seem rude. A part of him would love for John to be his father and Lily his sister. But another fragment felt it would be a betrayal of his da. And a small insidious voice whispered in his ear: And what if my ma comes looking for me, what then?
To be part of another family would feel wrong, he realized. He wanted his old life back, to be where he belonged. Though he was angry at Selena for abandoning him those many years ago, for leaving without saying goodbye, and for the fact he’d not heard a peep from her since, to be her son was somehow to still be Da’s son as well. And he didn’t want to let Da go, not yet.
He knew it was
likely, from the way things stood, that his mother had made her choice long ago and never wanted to see him again. They were strangers, and she’d probably reject him if he ever did find her. But he had to keep trying. He had to know why she’d left. Had to tell her everything that had happened since. Give her one final opportunity to change her mind. Or, if not, then at least hear her side of the story. Learn how she came to meet his da so he could fill in the gaps Thaddeus’s death had left unanswered. Because, at the moment, his life was a cogless machine – an empty home – and how could he be expected to function with so many pieces missing?
No, before he accepted John’s offer, he would have to find his ma – get to the bottom of where she’d disappeared to. And he should start by investigating the shop. His da had said Ma talked to spirits, perhaps he could too? If the figure really was a spirit – maybe it was more of a vision, a sign there was something he needed at Townsend’s? Either way, he’d visit tonight and find out. John would’ve set off on his trip by then, the mechanicals would be wound down, and Lily asleep – no one would realize he was gone.
“I don’t think I’m ready to give up the search for Selena just yet,” he said. “I need to close one door before I open another.” He stood abruptly, and as he turned to walk away, he glanced back at John. The professor smiled at him, but, behind the lenses of his half-moon glasses, his eyes looked sad.
That afternoon, Lily found Papa in his room, packing.
“You’re leaving already?” she asked, as she watched him take down his shirts from the wardrobe and fold them away in his suitcase.
“I have to,” he replied. “The Jubilee’s in four days, that’s barely time to complete the work.”
It was disappointing to see him going off alone. Lily held out a hand for Malkin, who butted his wiry head against her palm. “Take us with you,” she said. “The work will be easier with our help.”