A Spark Unseen

by Cameron, Sharon

  “Your compassion and concern during this difficult time are truly admirable, Mr. Wickersham. I am very much comforted.”

  He stopped his pacing to look at me, my loss of temper somehow making his own relax. He smiled and sat down abruptly.

  “Where is the body, Miss Tulman?”

  “My uncle was laid to rest just a short time ago. Beside his mother.”

  “Quick work,” he commented.

  “It was not … convenient to wait longer. We have no undertaker here.”

  There was a small silence. “This will be a disappointment for Her Majesty’s government,” Mr. Wickersham continued. “The loss of Frederick Tulman is rather a blow to our plans. A sad loss for our plans.” He leaned back in his chair, still grinning at me, a posture that was nothing like that of a gentleman. “Of course, you do understand, Miss Tulman, that you will still be required to accompany me to London.”

  I looked back at him steadily. “I certainly shall not.”

  “Oh, yes. You certainly shall.”

  “To what purpose?”

  The pen wrote furiously. “To explain all and anything you might know about the workings of your uncle’s inventions, of course, and their —”

  “Mr. Wickersham,” I interrupted, “do you truly believe that I can answer some riddle of genius that your scientific men are currently incapable of solving? Are you really so desperate that you would present to these men as a solution to their problems a mere girl, one whose entire qualifications rest on having once seen the invention in question? They will laugh in your face.”

  I was laying it on a bit thick, I thought, but it seemed to be working. The scribbling man’s brows had gone up while Mr. Wickersham’s went down. I moderated my tone.

  “Mr. Wickersham, I am a person of independent means with no pressing responsibilities.” How I wished that were true. “And there are memories in this house that I find very painful. I plan to leave this afternoon, in less than an hour — thirty-eight minutes, as a matter of fact — and will travel until such a time as I choose to come back again. Most of my trunks have already gone.”

  Mr. Wickersham stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “I can easily have you taken to London, Miss Tulman, whether you choose it or no.”

  “And I can be extremely troublesome, and with the help of my solicitor, can promise to both legally and physically kick up such a fuss as you’ve never seen. Do you think me incapable of it?” We locked eyes, and after a moment I said, “Mr. Wickersham, I know nothing of my uncle’s inventions. I have no idea how they worked or even what parts went together to make them. My uncle created nothing resembling his fish since the flood that destroyed his workshop two years ago. And as for his more recent workshop upstairs …” The man’s gaze shot toward the ceiling. “… everything there has been removed to the foundry and melted.”

  I broke our gaze, dabbing again at my eyes. “I loved my uncle dearly and, as I said, the memories here are very painful.”

  The pen caught up to my last words with the result that I could hear the trogwynd howling very softly in the chimney. I looked up to see Mr. Wickersham giving me another smile.

  “It seems you have thought of everything, Miss Tulman. Please accept my most sincere condolences. When do you sail?”

  I hid my surprise behind the handkerchief. “I do not believe I mentioned sailing, Mr. Wickersham.”

  “Did you not, Miss Tulman? Dashed odd. Are you certain?” He leaned back again, ungentlemanly in his chair. “Then perhaps I just assumed that you were going to your grandmother’s residence in Paris?”

  I stared at him, rooted to my seat, watching his little eyes go dreamy.

  “Rather a nice old place, though the neighborhood, I fancy, is not quite the fashion it was before the current emperor’s reign. But still, I think you will enjoy it. The Reynoldses are in residence next door at the moment, a fine old family, fleeing the cholera in London, I believe, as are many. Do tell them I wish them well. As I do you, Miss Tulman.” He stood and bowed, causing the scribbling man to leap to his feet. “Good-bye. Or maybe I should say au revoir? I think we may be seeing each other again very soon.”

  And once again Mr. Wickersham walked out my door, leaving me with nothing to say.

  In reality, it was more than an hour before I said good-bye to Mrs. Cooper, and the clocks, and my grandmother’s room, everything I had once been certain I would never leave. Marianna’s portrait I carried out the front door with me, wrapped tight in a cloth. Mary climbed into the carriage, and I looked toward the tunnel and the moor hills surrounding us. I saw no sign of Mr. Wickersham’s man, the one that young Tom had seen watching from the grasses, but that did not mean he wasn’t there or that he was alone. I turned to the driver of the wagon that waited behind us, the last of the boxes, bags, and my steamer trunk lashed to its bed.

  “You are certain all is secure?” I asked him. He nodded his assent. “Then we will drive as quickly as we are able. But keep out of the ruts as much as you can. I want nothing broken.” He responded with a scant tip of his hat before handing me up the step.

  Inside the carriage, Mary was not crying as I’d thought she might. She sat grim-faced in the green velvet interior, bonnet tied tight, her carpetbag of things perched primly on her knees. The pocket watch she wore pinned by a chain to her dress lay open on her palm.

  “Will we be making the boat, Miss?” she asked as I settled the portrait into the seat beside me. I heard a chirrup to the horses and felt my body jerk backward. The carriage was rolling.

  “It will be close, but I think we shall. Mr. Babcock should be there before us; he sent the other luggage on this morning, and I am in hopes that he can convince the captain to hold if we are delayed.” What we would do if we missed that boat was more than I could fathom. “Mary …” Her round eyes darted to my face. She knew me well enough to know that her name in that tone meant nothing to our advantage. “Mr. Wickersham knew we were sailing. He knew what house we’re going to, down to the names of the neighbors. We could have … visitors, I’m afraid. Much sooner than I’d planned.”

  Mary whistled beneath her breath, her face screwing up in thought for only a second or two before her eyes went round. “Miss! There’s men up there, Miss!” The carriage was coming around the circular drive, giving us a view of the cemetery. “At Mr. Tully’s grave! What can —”

  “They’re from the village, Mary. I sent them.”

  She squinted at me. “But why, Miss?”

  “Because Mr. Wickersham will want proof. At some point he will want it, and he will come and try to get it.”

  Mary squinted even harder, her nose wrinkling before her eyes snapped open wide. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare, Miss. He wouldn’t dare be digging up Mr. Tully!”

  When I did not respond, Mary began a lengthy opinion on the morals, personal appearance, and maternal origins of Mr. Wickersham. I watched the neatly trimmed grasses of the lawn go by, and then the more wild, swaying stems, yellowing with the season, blowing on the hills that ringed the entrance to Stranwyne. We had need of speed, but it was all going too fast. Everything was passing me by, and it was too fast. I looked back, and could just see Aunt Bit, still standing at the front door.

  The road dipped, the slopes and grasses disappearing into brief blackness before that, too, melted away into the soft glow of gaslight. We were in the tunnel. The air of the trogwynd shoved and harried us, shrieking, pushing me back toward the house. I counted the gas lamps as the carriage rocked, but I counted them backward, three hundred and twenty-six, three hundred and twenty-five … to four, three, two, and one. And then it was black again. The carriage tilted, and the wind sighed. I had left Stranwyne Keep.

  We watered the horses and ourselves at Milton, I checked the security of our luggage in the wagon, and we did not stop again until the beasts were drooping and we were in Devonport. For a long time I had leaned against the threadbare velvet wall, suspended in a hazy mixture of waking and sleep, but I went bolt upright
at the sudden stillness of the carriage. A set of iron gates blocked the road before us, rising up from wisps of trailing mist, illuminated by a lantern in the hand of a uniformed guard. Our driver appeared from the dark and I opened the carriage window, silently handing him a sealed paper that had arrived by express from Mr. Babcock the night before. I had no notion what promises Mr. Babcock might have made or what favors he might have called forth to gain the privileges this letter contained, but whatever they were, the paper seemed to work. The guard waved us through the gate. Mary rubbed her eyes and flipped open the pocket watch with a soft click, waiting for the light of a passing streetlamp to hold it up.

  “’Tis past time, Miss,” she whispered.

  I bit my lip and looked out the window, craning my neck to see the wagon rattling over the road stones behind us. We were moving past buildings on both sides of the carriage now, almost military in their sameness and precision, and then the last remnants of haze lifted from my mind, burned away by the significance of the gate, the guard’s uniform, and the port we were entering. We were driving through a Royal Navy base. I sat back against the seat cushion, the burning knot in my stomach twisting tight. Mr. Babcock had failed to mention this particular complication, but then again, what difference would it have made if he had? Devonport was the closest harbor, and everything depended on our speed.

  I kept my eyes on the dark rows of naval barracks, waiting irrationally for armed marines to come pouring out after us in the fog, but then the barracks were gone and the street became more like a small city, lined with churches and taverns and other public buildings, most sleeping and dark. We were stopped by another set of gates, again produced Mr. Babcock’s paper, and at last the carriage was rattling onto the docks. I sat forward, competing with Mary for the view.

  Air blew soft from the still-open window, and with it came the smell of fish and the odor of something else, different from what I remembered of the Thames, not pleasant or unpleasant, but powerful. A bell tolled, and I could hear chains clink and the creak of stretching rope, while farther out, bobbing against the dark horizon, were huge, hulking silhouettes, spiderwebs of rope and mast lit by a quarter moon. Waves were out there in the spray of light, glinting beneath the thin, hovering mist, but beyond them was nothing but a vast expanse of water, melting black into the night.

  “Lord,” said Mary under her breath, sitting back to click open the pocket watch, but I had eyes only for the sea. Lane had always wanted to see the ocean. I wondered what he had thought of it. I half stood, sticking my head out the window.

  “Wait …” I began.

  “That ain’t such a good idea, Miss, if you don’t mind me saying,” said Mary, frowning at the pocket watch.

  “No, I mean, there’s someone coming.”

  A shape was running toward us down the dock, short, squat legs pumping an uneven beat, arms flapping against the restraint of a long-tailed coat. It was Mr. Babcock.

  “This way, this way!” he called, panting and, after a concurring nod from me, the driver slapped the reins and I pulled my head back through the window. We followed Mr. Babcock’s frenzied gait down the dock, the wagon creeping behind us, Mary tapping a finger on the watch case. Mr. Babcock slowed, waving us repeatedly toward a boat slip.

  A small vessel rose and fell gently behind him, its sails furled, a British flag ruffling in a slight gust of breeze, smoke billowing from a single stack. I could hear the steam engine thrumming, water slapping the sides of the boat. I leapt out of the carriage, heart hammering as I looked over my shoulder for the wagon. We truly were behind time. Mary scrambled out after me with her carpetbag, Mr. Babcock pecked my cheek and grabbed my arm, his other hand directing a pair of barefooted sailors toward our luggage as we hurried to the gangplank.

  It took three trips to get our things unloaded, two straining men alone to carry the steamer trunk belowdecks. They set it with our other boxes in a dim, clammy room that stank of fish and the smoking oil lamp that swung from the ceiling, making their way out again while I fidgeted with impatience. There were no chairs here, only crates and our boxes, and I wondered if it was possible that any of this boat’s cargo was legal, and if not, by which officer’s underhanded arrangement it had come to be here in the first place.

  Mary had the watch out, her freckles scrunched as she attempted to see its hands in the wavering light. As soon as the door was shut, I took several purposeful steps toward my trunk, but Mr. Babcock held up a hand.

  “We are expecting a visit from our captain, my dears, such as he is. Tact was indeed part of our arrangement, but I am not at all certain how far his discretion might go.”

  “But we are behind time!” I said, voice rising. An uncharacteristic panic was taking hold of me. This entire idea had been madness, a crime against my own common sense. What had made any of us think it should be attempted? I felt Mary’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Mr. Babcock’s right, Miss. What’s done is done. Only a little time more. Sit on this now, Miss, but mind you don’t dirty your dress, ’cause there’s no knowing when the next cleaning might be, or how often them French people are even doing such things, if you know what I mean, and we wouldn’t want you knocking on the door of your new house looking less than a lady, would we now? How would I be holding my head up in France if you was seen walking down the street with dirt on your dress, Miss?”

  I sat, Mary’s nonsense lashing me to reality just as firmly as the crate I was sitting on was tied to the floor. Mr. Babcock plopped down onto a similar perch, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “That was a near thing, my dears, a near thing! The captain has a deadline that will brook no delay, a deadline that seems to involve tides and when the most recently bribed agent is scheduled for the customs shed. They are saying the wind will be against us in the Channel, and that we shan’t make good time, and so the boat would have to sail by …”

  As if to emphasize Mr. Babcock’s words, I felt a jerk, and another, and then a pull, a smooth sense of movement more akin to rolling on skates than the trains and carriages to which I was accustomed. The floor dipped and rose back up again, the humming in the air increased to a vibration beneath my feet. I crossed my arms against the clench in my stomach.

  “Lord!” exclaimed Mary. “Would you look at that?” Her nose was pressed against a small round window, the glass smeared by the smack of an occasional wave. “Who’d ever be thinking that much water could go and be getting so filthy, Miss!”

  “In any case,” Mr. Babcock continued, taking no notice of Mary, “our captain said he was leaving within the half hour, with or without you, which caused considerable unpleasantness all around.” He sighed heavily. “And our packages? I assume they had a safe trip?”

  I nodded, hanging on to the crate as the floor tilted, anxiety eating hot at my insides. “Mr. Wickersham came early,” I told him, “just at the end of the funeral. I dealt with it, but it put us behind schedule.”

  Mr. Babcock’s eyes went shrewd. “And how much did he guess?”

  Before I could answer, knuckles rapped sharply on the door, and two men entered our fetid little room with a pomp more fitting to a grand hotel. The first had a dirty face, fraying cuffs, and a hat that managed to look both official and disreputable all at once; the second had the oily sort of smile that made me think instantly of a snake.

  “Coo!” Mary said, whispering in my ear. “There’s a pair of ne’er-do-wells if I ever saw them. Better be staying close to me, Miss.” I would have comforted Mary, had her tone not been positively dripping with glee.

  The official hat made a sweeping arc through the air, showing a balding pate as the captain bowed and began to speak rapidly in French. The reptilian man translated right on top of the words, his accent thick.

  “If it pleases the guests,” he said, “we leave Devonport and Plymouth, sail the coast, and with God’s help will cross the Channel and stand in Le Havre before the noon. The captain asks …”

  A dull, muffled thump ca
me from somewhere off to my right, where my trunk was stowed. I blinked, laced my fingers together, and kept my eyes on the rambling captain.

  “… that you would stay below, please, for the avoiding of questions, and when Le Havre is reached if your baggage would stay below for the same reason, we would all be most happy.”

  Mr. Babcock inclined his head, and again a soft thump, with three more in quick succession, came from my right. I felt Mary tense. The captain was still speaking, gesticulating wildly with his hat, and the translator leaned outside the door and brought two metal bowls back in with him. With a brevity that seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the captain’s unceasing speech, he said, “The captain says to give you these. For the …”

  He paused, struggling for the correct word as the captain talked on and on. The soft thumping was continuous now, regular and rhythmic, though between the captain’s babbling and the thoughtful scratching of the second man’s head, neither seemed to notice. The translator finally gave up the linguistic fight, shrugged one shoulder, and said simply, “First the boat will be up, and then it will be down. Up and then down. Good night.”

  He gave us a grin that was long and narrow, the bowls went to the floor with a clatter, and the captain bowed himself out, words still flowing as the slippery translator shut the door after them.

  The interior of the little room was suddenly quiet. The three of us remained still, the lamp above our heads making the shadows sway. The thumping had stopped. I listened to the scurry of feet and the shouting of men on the deck above, to the silence outside our door, counting eight terrified heartbeats before in unspoken agreement we all three leapt forward and ran to my trunk, the key already in my hand. I turned the lock and threw back the lid, tossing the top layer of dresses out onto the dirty floor.

  My uncle lay curled in a nest of cushions, still and with his face pale, wrapped tightly in the blanket from his bed. Only his wild, white hair and unkempt beard disturbed what would have otherwise been the look of a dreaming child. Nothing moved. The hammering in my chest seemed to pause, then beat with a speed that stole my breath.