Netherworld
Page 31
Nonetheless, she bought his passage home and gave him a very large amount of money, which he tried to refuse. She did convince him to accept it by telling him to give it to his sister.
His boat left London on November 8. Diana brought Mina along, and when Yi-kin broke into tears as he stepped aboard the ship, Diana secretly wondered if it was for her or the cat.
She didn’t really care. She hugged him long and hard, and told him they still had many gateways to close together.
He told her again he’d be back, and then he sailed away.
As she walked away from the busy port, Diana didn’t immediately return Mina to her case; instead, she found herself clinging to the cat as if to her last friend.
Thusly preoccupied, she managed to collide head-on with a burly, bearded man who was similarly distracted with his own burden, a sheaf of pages. As they met, pages and squealing feline all flew into the air.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry—!” they each exclaimed, as they bent to gather up animal and paper.
Mina was squirming madly as Diana stowed her safely in the satchel, and the man couldn’t help but smile as he stood, assembling the disarray of his papers.
“What a charming little puss,” he said.
Diana smiled down at Mina and rubbed her head. “Mina, you’ve captured another admirer,” she said, then offered the man an amused look.
“A delightful name, as well,” he noted.
Suddenly a shout sounded from the dock behind them. “Mr. Stoker, sir, you’ll miss the Edinburgh boat!”
The man nodded frantically, still grappling with his pages. “Oh, dear.” He turned back a last time to Diana and extended a hand to Mina, who rubbed against it happily. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Mina. I’m sorry we haven’t time to further our acquaintance.”
As he was racing off, Diana wondered briefly about the papers; there’d been several hundred of them, and she suspected they comprised some novel or other. Well, Mina, she thought, scratching the cat’s chin, perhaps we’ve given him a new story to tell.
Later that day, Diana returned to Derby.
Although Howe was overjoyed to see her (and she him), her homecoming was not altogether joyous. Diana felt strange, roaming the estate knowing that William was now truly gone. Even though he’d been officially dead for four years and she’d inherited the Furnaval legacy some time ago, she realized that she hadn’t really believed William to be dead before. Now the great manor house and grounds seemed somehow emptier than they were before. She was thankful for the companionship of Mina.
She also thought a great deal about the factory she’d seen, and Hob’s ominous statements regarding the end results of progress. At first she tried to dismiss the glum future as nothing but a petty Netherworld torment, but the more she thought about London’s factory smokestacks and hollow-eyed child workers, the more she realized the unrealistic idea of progress was hers.
What was the answer, then? Throw away her beliefs in man’s ability to improve? Give up her basic optimism?
What would she be left with, then?
Her options, as she saw it, were: Dismiss her belief in humanity’s forward motion, and become a jaded cynic; live in denial of what she’d seen in the Netherworld; or work to keep that future from happening.
She chose the latter.
On November 10th she arranged to meet with her solicitor, and so the following day she found herself in her sitting room at Derby, telling the astonished man that she intended to set aside a large portion of the Furnaval fortune for both charities aimed at improving the lot of impoverished workers and grants to scientists who created better, cleaner, safer methods of industry. Her solicitor asked her a great deal of questions, but she simply affirmed over and over that this was her decision, and she was quite set upon it.
Evening had come on while they’d debated over the arrangements, and Diana had been about to ask the solicitor (who was a pleasant if somewhat dull middle-aged man) if he wished to join her for dinner, when Howe entered, excusing himself.
A gentleman had arrived, asking to see her, Howe explained. He offered Diana a visiting card from a silver tray. Diana took the card and read the name engraved thereon:
Stephen Chappell.
All thoughts of inviting the solicitor to dine with her immediately vanished. Instead she told him that something most urgent had come up, and she’d have to bid him farewell. As Howe whisked the slightly-perplexed solicitor out, Diana poured herself a brandy and tried to decide what she’d say first to Stephen…whether she were furious, grateful, horrified, joyful, grief-stricken, or simply lonely.
Then the door opened behind her, and she finished the brandy, set the glass down, turned, and saw him.
It was a shock to see him in the flesh again, after having engaged in the most intimate psychic coupling imaginable. He looked as handsome and elegant as ever, and was smiling…although she also detected a wariness in that smile. Perhaps he was as unsure of her reaction to him as she was herself.
“Hello, Diana,” he began, simply.
“Stephen,” she nodded, but didn’t approach him. “I trust your—what, employers? Elders?—are happy with the outcome of recent events…?”
“We are. You did very well, Diana.”
“I had some very good help,” she said, and hoped he knew that she meant Yi-kin and Mina, not the unknown forces surrounding him. “I expected to see you sooner.”
“Did you? How kind.”
“Not really. I wanted to tell you that I’m still extremely angry over not being trusted with the knowledge you kept concealed from me.”
“Oh,” Stephen answered, looking away. “I see.”
“Do you? Just how human are you really? Can you understand why I’d be hurt by that?”
He took three short steps towards her, then stopped. “I’m more human than you might think, Diana. And you’re right, we—they—were absolutely wrong to have underestimated you. I won’t let it happen again.”
That surprised her. Her anger (she had, in fact, more than once imagined hurling breakable objects at him) melted away almost instantly, and was replaced by a great swell of affection.
“So, any word from the Netherworld?” she asked.
“With Asmodeus defeated,” Stephen replied, “the armies fell into disarray. They’ll undoubtedly find a new leader eventually…but by then, you may very well have sealed every gateway.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, then after a beat she asked, “I don’t understand, Stephen: Why do these gateways even exist? And why is it up to me to seal them?”
Two more steps towards her, and now they stood only a yard apart. “As to why they exist, I can’t tell you. I suppose they exist for the same reason that galaxies or mountains exist—they’re simply some part of the vast scheme we call nature. And as for why you are the one to close them…well, my dear, perhaps you don’t have to be alone in this anymore. If you’d like that, I mean.”
Diana searched beneath his words, trying to find his real meaning. “Stephen, what are you suggesting? Can you just once come out and tell me, without hiding behind some metaphysical excuse?”
His jaw dropped open an inch, then snapped closed, “All right. I’d like to help you. And I’d…like to stay with you.”
“Well, I applaud your newfound honesty, I suppose,” she said, mocking him only slightly.
Suddenly she’d made a decision, and she took his hand and led him from the sitting room. “Diana, what—?” he laughed, delighted.
“Just come with me.”
She led him out to the main flight of stairs that climbed to the second floor. “Where are we going?” he asked, as she pulled him up the steps.
“To my bedroom,” she answered. “If that’s acceptable to you, that is, dear Stephen.”
And he found it was very acceptable indeed.
THE END
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Endorsements
C
hapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX