“I need to finish my tea first,” Jem said. “Anyway, I don’t see what you’re so fired up about. You said the place hadn’t been used as a brothel in ages?”
“I want to be back before dark,” Will said. He was leaning nearly across Tessa’s lap, and she could smell that faint boy-smell of leather and metal that seemed to cling to his hair and skin. “I have an assignation in Soho this evening with a certain attractive someone.”
“Goodness,” Tessa said to the back of his head. “If you keep seeing Six-Fingered Nigel like this, he’ll expect you to declare your intentions.”
Jem choked on his tea.
Spending the day with Jessamine began as badly as Tessa had feared. The traffic was dreadful. However crowded New York might have been, Tessa had never seen anything like the snarling mess of the Strand at midday. Carriages rolled side by side with costermongers’ carts piled high with fruit and vegetables; women shawled and carrying shallow baskets full of flowers dived madly in and out of traffic as they tried to interest the occupants of various carriages in their wares; and cabs came to a full stop in the midst of traffic so that the cabdrivers could scream at one another out their windows. This noise added to the already awesome din—ice cream peddlers shouting “Hokey-pokey, penny a lump,” newspaper boys hawking the day’s latest headline, and someone somewhere playing a barrel organ. Tessa wondered how everyone living and working in London wasn’t deaf.
As she stared out the window, an old woman carrying a large metal cage full of fluttering colorful birds stepped out alongside their coach. The old woman turned her head, and Tessa saw that her skin was as green as a parrot’s feathers, her eyes wide and all black like a bird’s, her hair a shock of multicolored feathers. Tessa started, and Jessamine, following her gaze, frowned. “Close the curtains,” she said. “It keeps out the dust.” And, reaching past Tessa, Jessamine did just that.
Tessa looked at her. Jessamine’s small mouth was set in a thin line. “Did you see—?” Tessa began.
“No,” Jessamine said, shooting Tessa what she had often seen referred to in novels as a “killing” look. Tessa glanced hastily away.
Things did not improve when they finally reached the fashionable West End. Leaving Thomas patiently waiting with the horses, Jessamine dragged Tessa in and out of various dressmakers’ salons, looking at design after design, standing by while the prettiest shop assistant was chosen to model a sample. (No real lady would let a dress that might have been worn by a stranger touch her skin.) In each establishment she gave a different false name and a different story; in each establishment the owners seemed enchanted by her looks and obvious wealth and couldn’t help her fast enough. Tessa, mostly ignored, lurked on the sidelines, half-dead from boredom.
In one salon, posing as a young widow, Jessamine even examined the design for a black mourning dress of crepe and lace. Tessa had to admit it would have set off her blond pallor well.
“You would look absolutely beautiful in this, and could not possibly fail to make an advantageous remarriage.” The dressmaker winked in a conspiratorial fashion. “In fact, do you know what we call this design? ‘The Trap Rebaited.’”
Jessamine giggled, the dressmaker smiled limpidly, and Tessa considered racing out into the street and ending it all by throwing herself under a hansom cab. As if conscious of her annoyance, Jessamine glanced toward her with a condescending smile. “I’m also looking for a few dresses for my cousin from America,” she said. “The clothes there are simply horrible. She’s as plain as a pin, which doesn’t help, but I’m sure you can do something with her.”
The dressmaker blinked as if this were the first time she’d noticed Tessa, and perhaps it was. “Would you like to choose a design, ma’am?”
The following whirlwind of activity was something of a revelation for Tessa. In New York her clothes had been bought by her aunt—ready-made pieces that had had to be altered to fit, and always cheap material in drab shades of dark gray or navy. She had never before learned, as she did now, that blue was a color that suited her and brought out her gray-blue eyes, or that she should wear rose pink to put color in her cheeks. As her measurements were taken amidst a blur of discussion of princess sheaths, cuirass bodices, and someone named Mr. Charles Worth, Tessa stood and stared at her face in the mirror, half-waiting for the features to begin to slip and change, to reform themselves. But she remained herself, and at the end of it all she had four new dresses on order to be delivered later in the week—one pink, one yellow, one striped blue and white with bone buttons, and a gold and black silk—as well as two smart jackets, one with darling beaded tulle adorning the cuffs.
“I suspect you may actually look pretty in that last outfit,” Jessamine said as they climbed back up into the carriage. “It’s amazing what fashion can do.”
Tessa counted silently to ten before she replied. “I’m awfully obliged to you for everything, Jessamine. Shall we return to the Institute now?”
At that, the brightness went out of Jessamine’s face. She truly hates it there, Tessa thought, puzzled more than anything else. What was so dreadful about the Institute? Of course its whole reason for existing was peculiar enough, certainly, but Jessamine had to be used to that by now. She was a Shadow-hunter like the rest.
“It’s such a lovely day,” Jessamine said, “and you’ve hardly seen anything of London. I think a walk in Hyde Park is in order. And after that, we could go to Gunter’s and have Thomas get ices for us!”
Tessa glanced out the window. The sky was hazy and gray, shot through with lines of blue where the clouds briefly drifted apart from one another. In no way would this be considered a lovely day in New York, but London seemed to have different standards for weather. Besides, she owed Jessamine something now, and the last thing in the world the other girl wanted to do, clearly, was go home.
“I adore parks,” said Tessa.
Jessamine almost smiled.
“You didn’t tell Miss Gray about the cogs,” Henry said.
Charlotte looked up from her notes and sighed. It had always been a sore point for her that, however often she had requested a second, the Clave only allowed the Institute one carriage. It was a fine one—a town coach—and Thomas was an excellent driver. But it did mean that when the Institute’s Shadowhunters went their separate ways, as they were doing today, Charlotte was forced to borrow a carriage from Benedict Lightwood, who was far from her favorite person. And the only carriage he was willing to lend her was small and uncomfortable. Poor Henry, who was so very tall, was bumping his head against the low roof.
“No,” she said. “The poor girl, she seemed so dazed already. I couldn’t tell her that the mechanical devices we found in the cellar had been manufactured by the company that employed her brother. She’s so worried about him. It seemed more than she’d be able to bear.”
“It might not mean anything, darling,” Henry reminded her. “Mortmain and Company manufactures most of the machine tools used in England. Mortmain is really something of a genius. His patented system for producing ball bearings—”
“Yes, yes.” Charlotte tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. “And perhaps we should have told her. But I thought it best that we speak to Mr. Mortmain first and gather what impressions we can. You’re correct. He may know nothing at all, and there may be little connection. But it would be quite a coincidence, Henry. And I am very wary of coincidence.”
She glanced back down at the notes she’d made about Axel Mortmain. He was the only (and likely, though the notes did not specify, illegitimate) son of Dr. Hollingworth Mortmain, who in a matter of years had risen from the humble position of ship’s surgeon on a trading vessel bound for China to wealthy private trader, buying and selling spices and sugar, silk and tea, and—it wasn’t stated, but Charlotte was in agreement with Jem on the matter—probably opium. When Dr. Mortmain had died, his son, Axel, at barely twenty years of age, had inherited his fortune, which he’d promptly invested in building a fleet of ships faster and slee
ker than any others plying the seas. Within a decade the younger Mortmain had doubled, then quadrupled, his father’s riches.
In more recent years he had retired from Shanghai to London, had sold his trading ships, and had used the money to buy a large company that produced the mechanical devices needed to make timepieces, everything from pocket watches to grandfather clocks. He was a very wealthy man.
The carriage drew up in front of one of a row of white terraced houses, each with tall windows looking out over the square. Henry leaned out of the carriage and read the number off a brass plaque affixed to a front gatepost. “This must be it.” He reached for the carriage door.
“Henry,” said Charlotte, placing a hand on his arm. “Henry, do keep in mind what we talked about this morning, won’t you?”
He smiled ruefully. “I will do my best not to embarrass you or trip up the investigation. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why you bring me along on these things. You know I’m a bumbler when it comes to people.”
“You’re not a bumbler, Henry,” Charlotte said gently. She longed to reach out and stroke his face, push his hair back and reassure him. But she held herself back. She knew—she had been advised enough times—not to force on Henry affection he probably did not want.
Leaving the carriage with the Lightwoods’ driver, they mounted the stairs and rang the bell; the door was opened by a footman wearing dark blue livery and a dour expression. “Good morning,” he said brusquely. “Might I inquire as to your business here?”
Charlotte glanced sideways at Henry, who was staring past the footman with a dreamy sort of expression. Lord knew what his mind was on—cogs, gears, and gadgets, no doubt—but it certainly wasn’t on their present situation. With an inward sigh she said, “I am Mrs. Gray, and this is my husband, Mr. Henry Gray. We’re seeking a cousin of ours—a young man named Nathaniel Gray. We haven’t heard from him in nearly six weeks. He is, or was, one of Mr. Mortmain’s employees—”
For a moment—it might have been her imagination—she thought she saw something, a flicker of uneasiness, in the footman’s eyes. “Mr. Mortmain owns quite a large company. You can’t expect him to know the whereabouts of everyone who works for him. That would be impossible. Perhaps you should inquire with the police.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. Before they had left the Institute, she had traced the insides of her arms with persuasion runes. It was the rare mundane who was totally unsusceptible to their influence. “We have, but they don’t seem to have progressed at all with the case. It’s so dreadful, and we’re so concerned about Nate, you see. If we could see Mr. Mortmain for a moment . . .”
She relaxed as the footman nodded slowly. “I’ll inform Mr. Mortmain of your visit,” he said, stepping back to allow them inside. “Please wait in the vestibule.” He looked startled, as if surprised at his own acquiescence.
He swung the door wide, and Charlotte followed him in, Henry behind her. Though the footman failed to offer Charlotte a seat—a failure of politesse she attributed to the confusion brought on by the persuasion runes—he did take Henry’s coat and hat, and Charlotte’s wrap, before leaving the two of them to stare curiously around the entryway.
The room was high ceilinged but not ornate. It was also absent the expected pastoral landscapes and family portraits. Instead, hanging from the ceiling were long silk banners painted with the Chinese characters for good luck; an Indian platter of hammered silver propped in one corner; and pen-and-ink sketches of famous landmarks lining the walls. Charlotte recognized Mount Kilimanjaro, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and a section of China’s Great Wall. Mortmain clearly was a man who traveled a great deal and was proud of the fact.
Charlotte turned to look at Henry to see if he was observing what she was, but he was staring vaguely off toward the stairs, lost in his own mind again; before she could say anything, the footman rematerialized, a pleasant smile on his face. “Please come this way.”
Henry and Charlotte followed the footman to the end of the corridor, where he opened a polished oak door and ushered them before him.
They found themselves in a grand study, with wide windows looking out onto the square. Dark green curtains were pulled back to let in the light, and through the windowpanes Charlotte could see their borrowed carriage waiting for them at the curb, the horse with its head dipped into a nose-bag, the driver reading a newspaper on his high seat. The green branches of trees moved on the other side of the street, an emerald canopy, but it was noiseless. The windows blocked all sound, and there was nothing audible in this room at all save the faint ticking of a wall clock with MORTMAIN AND COMPANY engraved on the face in gold.
The furniture was dark, a heavy black-grained wood, and the walls were lined with animal heads—a tiger, an antelope, and a leopard—and more foreign landscapes. There was a great mahogany desk in the center of the room, neatly arranged with stacks of paper, each pile weighted down with a heavy copper gear. A brass-bound globe bearing the legend WYLD’S GLOBE OF THE EARTH, WITH THE LATEST DISCOVERIES! anchored one corner of the desk, the lands under the rule of the British empire picked out in pinkish red. Charlotte always found the experience of examining mundane globes a strange one. Their world was not the same shape as the one she knew.
Behind the desk sat a man, who rose to his feet as they entered. He was a small energetic-looking figure, a middle-aged man with hair graying suitably at the sideburns. His skin looked windburned, as if he had often been outside in rough weather. His eyes were a very, very light gray, his expression pleasant; despite his elegant, expensive-looking clothes, it was easy to imagine him on the deck of a ship, peering keenly into the distance. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Walker gave me to understand that you are looking for Mr. Nathaniel Gray?”
“Yes,” Henry said, to Charlotte’s surprise. Henry rarely, if ever, took the lead in conversations with strangers. She wondered if it had anything to do with the intricate-looking blueprint on the desk. Henry was looking at it as yearningly as if it were food. “We’re his cousins, you know.”
“We do appreciate you taking this time to talk to us, Mr. Mortmain,” Charlotte added hastily. “We know he was only an employee of yours, one of dozens—”
“Hundreds,” said Mr. Mortmain. He had a pleasant baritone voice, which at the moment sounded very amused. “It is true I can’t keep track of them all. But I do remember Mr. Gray. Though I must say, if he ever mentioned that he had cousins who were Shadowhunters, I can’t say I recall it.”
6
STRANGE EARTH
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
—Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
“You know,” said Jem, “this isn’t at all what I thought a brothel would look like.”
The two boys stood at the entrance to what Tessa called the Dark House, off Whitechapel High Street. It looked dingier and darker than Will remembered, as if someone had swabbed it with a coating of extra dirt. “What were you imagining exactly, James? Ladies of the night waving from the balconies? Nude statues adorning the entranceway?”
“I suppose,” Jem said mildly, “I was expecting something that looked a bit less drab.”
Will had thought rather the same thing the first time he had been there. The overwhelming sensation one had inside the Dark House was that it was a place no one had ever really thought of as a home. The latched windows looked greasy, the drawn curtains dingy and unwashed.
Will rolled up his sleeves. “We’ll probably have to knock down the door—”
“Or,” said Jem, reaching out and giving the knob a twist, “not.”
The door swung open onto a rectangle of darkness.
“Now, that’s simply laziness,” said Will. Taking a hunting dagger from his belt, he stepped cautiously inside, and Jem followed, keeping tight hold of his jade-headed walking stick. They tended to take turns going first
into dangerous situations, though Jem preferred to be rear guard much of the time—Will always forgot to look behind him.
The door swung shut behind them, prisoning them in the half-lit gloom. The entryway looked almost the same as it had the first time Will had been there—the same wooden staircase leading up, the same cracked but still elegant marble flooring, the same air thick with dust.
Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. “Nice place to live, isn’t it? Let’s hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two . . .”
“Indeed. Perhaps, if we’re fortunate, we can still catch syphilis.”
“Or demon pox,” Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. “There’s always demon pox.”
“Demon pox does not exist.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs.
Together they searched the cellar and the ground-floor rooms meticulously, finding little but rubbish and dust. Everything had been stripped from the room where Tessa and Will had fought off the Dark Sisters; after a long search Will discovered something on the wall that looked like a smear of blood, but there seemed no source for it, and Jem pointed out it could just as well be paint.
Abandoning the cellar, they moved upstairs, and found a long corridor lined with doors that was familiar to Will. He had raced down it with Tessa behind him. He ducked into the first room on the right, which had been the room he’d found her in. No sign lingered of the wild-eyed girl who’d hit him with a flowered pitcher. The room was empty, the furniture having been taken away to be searched inside the Silent City. Four dark indentations on the floor indicated where a bed had once stood.
The Infernal Devices Series Page 11