Scarlet Devices

by Delphine Dryden

  At last a flash of red eased his anxiety. There was no mistaking Eliza’s steam car, coasting around the field behind a pack of other vehicles that included Smith-Grenville’s flashy blue torpedo. Handlers jogged out to meet the racers, directing the cars to their various cordoned-off billets around the central green and the pavilion. Eliza pulled in between Barnabas’s car and Cantlebury’s green monster, three bright splashes of color among the field of mostly white, gray and black steamers. Beyond them, the Watchmaker’s vehicle rattled to a hissing, screeching halt. The Watchmaker pulled levers furiously, a final flurry of movement before the craft settled to the ground with a puff. A chuckle ran through the crowd at the display; it looked for all the world as if the strange steamer was sighing in relief at the chance to rest.

  “And is your family from New York as well, Mr. Pence?” asked one of the ladies. Matthew turned back to them with a guilty conscience. He saw that a few daughters who looked of marriageable age had joined the group while his attention was elsewhere. One was clearly uninterested in the whole affair. The other, though pretty enough, looked a trifle manic. She seemed torn between simpering in Matthew’s direction and glaring toward the latest group of racers to arrive.

  The sun twinkled off a tiny pin in the girl’s collar, and when the glare ended Matthew could see it was a delicate four-petaled flower, crafted in gold. Some of the older women were wearing them too. All the flower-wearers wore unpleasant expressions.

  “Yes, they are. Well, they’re divided between New York and Sussex, for the most part.”

  The flowers were ominous, but Matthew couldn’t quite think why. As he mulled it over, attempting to back away from the effusive guild ladies, a group of mounted policemen cantered onto the green and pulled up a short distance from the cars. One of them dismounted on the fly and strode briskly to Eliza’s car, handing her out and bending close to speak with her.

  “The New York Pences?”

  “Ah, well. Yes, I suppose so. If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I must speak with one of the other drivers. An urgent question regarding a . . . a badly embractured fandangulator. I’m sure you understand.”

  “But don’t go without your box lunch!” One of the matrons scooted forward, pressing a white, twine-secured box into Matthew’s hands.

  “Thank you, you’re too kind. Good afternoon, madam. Ladies.” He tipped his hat and spun on his heel, fast-walking across the field to the lineup of the three brightest cars in the race.

  Before he reached Eliza, however, Matthew’s attention was diverted. Barnabas Smith-Grenville greeted him with the same glum, gray visage he’d worn earlier in the day. His voice matched his face as he rasped out, “Good afternoon, Pence.”

  “You sound ghastly.”

  “Bless you for a saint, Matthew, you always say the kindest things.”

  “No, really, you look ready for the doctor. They’re coming to shove a boxed luncheon at you, shall I warn them all away?”

  “They?” Barnabas looked past Matthew, bleary-eyed, and squinted at a fast-approaching gaggle of women.

  “Ladies’ Auxiliary or similar. With eligible daughters in tow.”

  “Daughters? Really?” Barnabas made a feeble attempt at straightening his sweat-soaked collar.

  “You’re not up to it. You hardly look fit to drive, man.”

  “He’s quite right, Lord Smith-Grenville,” Eliza agreed, appearing from the other side of Barnabas’s car. “We could ask one of the ladies to help find a doctor for you.”

  “I’m perfectly well, thank you, Miss Hardison. Pence, what’s in that box? Anything good?”

  “Haven’t opened it yet.” Nor did he intend to in front of Barnabas, who looked as though the mere sight of food might trigger appalling consequences. “How are you faring, Miss Hardison?”

  She looked lovely, of course, but rather shaken. Perhaps from the sight of Smith-Grenville, who truly did look like looming death. Eliza held herself stiffly, as though she had a pain.

  “You just saw me four hours ago,” she pointed out. “I’m much the same now as I was then. Oh, I think it’s our turn to be celebrities, look.”

  Along with the steadfast lunchbox ladies, the mayor of Harrisburg was bearing down on them. He was clearly recognizable as the mayor, labeled as such by means of a broad red and white satin sash across his substantial chest that read MAYOR.

  “Welcome to Harrisburg. Welcome! Douglas Micklefield, mayor.” He reached Matthew first, hand extended, and commenced a round of brisk hand-shaking while the trio of drivers introduced themselves. “We’re proud to be your first stop. Anything we can do for you, anything at all, you have but to ask.”

  Eliza beat Matthew to it. “Sir, I believe our friend may require a doctor. He seems to have taken ill.”

  Indeed, even as she spoke, Barnabas swayed at an alarming pitch, reaching behind himself to his car for support. He’d gone paler still, except for his cheeks and forehead, which bore an ominous mottled flush.

  “I don’t need a doctor,” he tried to insist. The force of his words was diminished by the fact that he said them while sliding down the car door.

  “Barnabas!”

  “Lord Smith-Grenville!”

  “Doctor Adams!” one of the ladies called into the crowd. “Has anyone seen Doctor Adams?”

  When Matthew stepped to Barnabas’s side to keep him standing, he felt the heat radiating from his friend’s body. He eased him to the ground instead, letting gravity finish its work, and limited himself to bracing Barnabas so he didn’t topple over completely. The crowd, obviously sensing an event, began to murmur and gather in around the line of cars.

  “You have a fever, idiot. You knew you were ill this morning, didn’t you? You looked terrible then, but I thought it was just nerves. Why didn’t you tell somebody?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine. I have to find Phineas.”

  “Not with a fever, you don’t.”

  “’Snot a fever,” Barnabas insisted, but his words were beginning to slur and his eyes were glassy, unseeing. “Phineas . . .”

  “I’ll find him for you,” Matthew reassured him.

  “And I’ll help,” Eliza said.

  He hadn’t even noticed her joining them on the ground, she’d been so uncharacteristically quiet and reserved. She knelt opposite Matthew, and his concern was mirrored in her dark gray eyes.

  Barnabas looked up at them, beseeching. “You have to find him. My baby brother . . . he took my hobbyhorse, you know, and I want it back. He never did take care of his things. Those flowers are beautiful, absolutely lovely. And they look so innocent. They use a special knife to cut the pods, did you know? Looks like cat claws, like . . .” He hooked two fingers, making a weak clawing gesture, then letting his arm drop into his lap.

  “Coming through!” A voice rang clear over the babbling crowd. “Doctor coming through. Here you, step aside, make way.”

  The mayor greeted the doctor with a solemn handshake, then pointed out Barnabas slumped on the ground against his steam car. The doctor, a slim, bearded, elderly gentleman, wasted no time in joining his patient and beginning his examination.

  “Fever, elevated pulse,” he muttered as he worked. “Lymph nodes swollen. How long has he been like this?” He directed his question at Matthew but never stopped moving, deploying his stethoscope and exhorting a barely responsive Barnabas to breathe in.

  “He didn’t look well this morning. Seemed fine last night, though. At least, he didn’t complain of not feeling well. We were all off our feed, I think, from nerves.”

  “I wasn’t,” Eliza volunteered. “I ate like no lady should. But Mr. Pence is right about Lord Smith-Grenville, he barely touched his food at the pre-rally dinner.”

  The doctor spared her a glance, then did a double take, looking first at Eliza, then at her car and back again. “Lord, I hope you manage to avoid my
wife, young lady. Now . . . his lungs sound clear. The fever is high, we need to bring that down immediately, but he seems fit enough to recover quickly if he receives the proper treatment. Where’s Micklefield?”

  The mayor harrumphed and took a small step closer, clearly wanting to stay clear of possible contagion.

  “Micklefield, send a boy to fetch Horace and the ambulance. We’ll need to move this young man to the hospital. Has he any family who ought to be notified? Or the rally authorities, perhaps?”

  Arrangements were made, runners were sent, a whirl of activity that left Eliza and Matthew standing in the calm center next to Barnabas’s car.

  “You’ll want something to eat,” Matthew pointed out, spotting Eliza’s lack of a boxed lunch. All the other drivers seemed to have received theirs. “They must have forgotten, in the excitement. Let me just—”

  “I can ask for my own luncheon, thank you. Stay with Barnabas.”

  Eliza didn’t need to go far. Several yards away, the lunch ladies still clumped near Mayor Micklefield, tutting and fretting in Barnabas’s direction. As Eliza approached, most of them went silent, and their faces turned sour and disapproving. Matthew couldn’t make out the conversation over the crowd, nor see Eliza’s reactions, but none of it looked good.

  The apparent leader of the Ladies’ Auxiliary held a stack of three boxed lunches in her plump arms, but made no move to offer one. A few of the other ladies turned slowly and deliberately away from Eliza, their noses lifted. Eliza’s shoulders squared, stiffened as if for battle. Matthew wanted to rush to her assistance, but was stuck holding Barnabas’s head off the ground. All he could do was watch, heart in his throat.

  After a brief exchange with the ladies, the mayor turned toward the one with the stacked boxes, his sharp tone carrying above the hubbub even if his words did not.

  Matthew spotted the lapel pin glinting in the sun as the woman grudgingly handed Eliza a box, extending it as far from her body as possible, as though Eliza might bite or contaminate her. It was as dismissive as she could be without joining her companions in the cut direct.

  Eliza took the box and inclined her head toward the woman, a polite nod the so-called lady hardly deserved, then turned to accept the mayor’s outstretched hand. He sketched a quick bow, and she dropped a brief but elegant curtsy. Matthew could see her profile, the fierce spot of color on her cheek that gave the lie to the pretty smile she bestowed upon the town’s leader. But she didn’t rush, didn’t lose her poise for even a moment. She bobbed her head toward the women again in farewell, then turned and made her regal way back toward the cars, her face as serene as if she were walking in an empty garden.

  Matthew was strongly tempted to applaud. God only knew what had gotten into the women of Harrisburg, but Eliza had handled herself with an aplomb he never would have credited her with possessing. Not merely coping with things, she’d been something like magnificent.

  • • •

  ELIZA COMPLIMENTED HERSELF. Fulsomely, fervently, earnestly. Never had she cheered herself on so well, because never had she deserved it so well as when she took the words and actions of the Harrisburg Ladies’ Auxiliary with a gracious smile and a thank-you for the box luncheon they had only provided her under duress.

  Duress and shaming. She had rather enjoyed the shaming, which the mayor had delivered in her defense. He did so only after she had an earful of “scarlet woman,” “no smoke without fire,” and “ought to be run out of the town on a rail like the harlot you are.” Mayor Micklefield had put them in their place by countering with “glass houses” and “let he who is without sin” and something else that might have been from Marcus Aurelius. Then he had demanded the woman in charge hand over a lunch, and Eliza had managed not to burst into tears or cast up her breakfast on the lot of them.

  Shock had helped. She still couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing or seeing, despite the forceful lesson of the placard. That these apparently well-bred ladies would utter such words, would administer the cut to a gently born young woman who was quite possibly their social superior . . . Eliza knew what was written in the newspapers, had even heard some unpleasant shouts from the crowds, but facing it head-on was a different thing entirely. A wretched, terrifying thing. She could still feel the shame on her cheeks, and it infuriated her to have blushed at all because she had no reason to be ashamed. Her conduct, while unconventional, was irreproachable. What’s more, she was paving the way for their own daughters to have more freedom, greater opportunities. And her car wasn’t remotely scarlet. Amaranth.

  They ought to be thanking her. Not refusing her a box of cold chicken and soggy bread.

  When she returned to Matthew, Barnabas was still lying with his head on Matthew’s lap, but he seemed to have regained some lucidity. He clutched Matthew’s wrist and spoke to him in the gravest tones his hoarse voice would allow.

  “I know you can’t find him. Gone west, they never come back. But promise me, Matthew.”

  “I promise.”

  “Promise me you’ll look.”

  “Everywhere I go, Barnabas,” he reassured his friend, clasping his arm. “If he’s there to be found, I’ll find him. At least news of him.”

  Eliza knew Lord Smith-Grenville was unlikely to die. He was young and strong, and would be given all the care he needed. His fever made him overwrought, though, and the delirium surely didn’t help calm him. He seemed to think he was done for. Then she realized that, as least as far as the race and his current search for his brother were concerned, he was done for. She sent a grateful glance to Matthew, for his kind words to the sick man. Whether or not he found Phineas Smith-Grenville, he was at least attempting to ease his friend’s concerns.

  Pence looked up and met her gaze, catching Eliza off guard. His odd green gray eyes looked eldritch and wonderful in the sunlight, like uncut gemstones in some fairy palace. His brow was furrowed but he spared her a quick smile, and Eliza felt the flush deepen on her cheeks. Not shame this time.

  A clanging bell and raised voices broke the spell. “Make way! Clear a path! Pardon, miss!”

  She rushed to one side to avoid the men running in advance of the ambulance, an old-fashioned horse-drawn conveyance whose team of two were sweating already. Clearly they had wasted no time in getting to the fairground.

  It seemed a matter of seconds for the attendants to scoop Barnabas onto a stretcher and load him into the vehicle. Then, with more clanging and rattling and shouts, the ambulance disappeared from the once-festive field and took any lingering air of celebration with it.

  “Oh, dear!” One of the lunchbox ladies uttered into the ensuing horrible silence. “But now who will advise Mr. Pence about his poor fandangulator?”

  No one had an answer for her.

  Fifteen competitors had entered the field of the Harrisburg Academy. Fourteen would proceed out of it. That first day was supposed to be an easy drive, but Eliza couldn’t help noticing that nearly a quarter of the racers were already out of the running before they’d even reached their first official checkpoint at Pittsburgh.

  “Four gone already, out of eighteen. At this rate,” she whispered to Matthew as Barnabas was driven away, “there won’t be anyone left for the airship legs.”

  “I’m trying not to count those first three drivers.” He slid the brushed metal flower from his pocket, gave it a deft flick and turned it into a knife to cut the string from his lunchbox. Eliza decided she wanted one of the gadgets for herself. “They never started, after all. Think of it as just one of fifteen gone. It doesn’t seem nearly as bad then, even if it is poor Smith-Grenville.”

  “But why wouldn’t you count them? It was sabotage aimed at the racers, surely the intent was to eliminate some of the competitors.”

  He examined the contents of the box, poking at a piece of fruit and lifting the paper from a cut of cold meat. At least the bread was also wrapped and didn’t appear a
s soggy as Eliza had feared. “I don’t count them because it doesn’t seem nearly as bad then. I wonder if these boxes are all the same. Did you get an apricot as well?”

  The racers were called to their cars, ending the conversation. As Eliza took to the long, curving drive that led on and off the field, she saw a tractor chugging over to Barnabas’s car, a hitch being attached so they could haul it away.

  “One gone, fourteen left,” she whispered, finding Matthew was right. It didn’t seem as bad when she thought of it that way. She told herself it was merely less competition to worry about.

  And to her delight, she discovered her box lunch did not contain an apricot at all, but strawberries.

  SEVEN

  THE DRIVE TO Pittsburgh was more of the same bucolic loveliness, the odd distant fortress across fields interspersed with charming roadside villages and towns. The city itself welcomed them with more bunting, more speeches, in the floodlit central square. Armed guards were set to watch the vehicles while the competitors dined and slept in the best hotel, after being fêted by the cream of Pittsburgh society.

  Nobody else took ill. No glaring women in odd lapel pins ruined the festive mood. The drivers rested, the cars were protected and all of them set off safely the next morning bound for the Northern Dominion and Meridian City. But Matthew was still edgy, unsettled. The whole enterprise felt wrong with Smith-Grenville gone, and even Eliza appeared oddly subdued.

  As usual, though, driving relaxed him. Matthew relished the speed and freedom, and the stretch of unfamiliar road was a tonic. His steam car performed as flawlessly as it had in trials, efficient and enduring. It eased his mind further to see which vehicles and drivers were able to match his pace.

  Van der Grouten’s silver shark of a car, of course. He and Matthew swapped places for miles—the German always stony-faced when he swept ahead, Matthew grinning and waving cheekily when it was his turn.