by Sean Wallace
I snorted. “Old women are given to fancies.”
Desiree shrugged, taking up a pick and using it to adjust the paper-thin wing’s hinge. “It made me think about how to create flying creatures. I chose to use bumblebees for my model, rather than the traditional butterfly wings. My fairies can resist strong winds and go where I wish them, according to the instructions I have laid into their ‘brains’, which are based on the papers Babbage has published.”
Desiree is interested in such things, but I don’t find them nearly as engaging as spiritual matters. She droned on, but I cut her short. “Sometimes I think you don’t love me.”
She stopped. Her half-parted lips were like flower petals, an orchid’s inner workings. “Why do you say that?”
“You don’t understand my position,” I said. “As a dean, I must have a wife who is acceptable in society’s eyes.”
“This is about the ball again,” she said. She reached out to touch my face, but I turned my head away and pretended to examine the articulated form half-assembled on the table.
“Very well,” she said. Her hand returned to her side. “If it means that much, I will go.”
That week flew pell-mell. I went to a lecture by John Henry Newman, and to the theater to see How She Loves Him by Boucicault. I stopped by Lord Southland’s on three separate evenings, but most nights I dined at my club, on excellent quail prepared in the French style, or fresh haddock.
Desiree had started work on a mechanical cat. She took me into her workshop to look at it. A clockwork nightingale sang in the wicker cage hanging from the rafters, set in motion by our footsteps’ vibration.
“It’s still in the preliminary stages,” she said. A brass skeleton lay disassembled on the table, but it was laid out so I could see the cat-to-be’s shape. Mercury beads rolled in a white porcelain dish. A discarded spray of silver whiskers had been tossed in the coal scuttle.
I glanced around. “The deanery has a basement,” I said. “It houses our wine cellar and storerooms, but I have sent to have the front room cleaned and whitewashed for you.”
Desiree’s teeth flashed as she smiled. I stole a kiss and her breath smelled of licorice. I felt her skin’s warmth against my hands. True, the room was not as fine as this, but she would improvise and make do, for she was a clever girl. And once she had started bearing, such fancies would fall away. Her inventions, her clever machines, were simply a way to channel her maternal instinct. Once she had a child, she would find herself devoted to it.
While Desiree went upstairs to speak to her father, I lingered in the workshop. I amused myself by walking between the tables and shelves, examining her work.
I paused beside what looked like a dress form, a brass cylinder the size of a human torso. My cheeks flushed as I regarded it.
Shockingly, Desiree had given it the semblance of a maiden’s bosom, a suggestion of curves whose immodesty appalled me. Headless, armless, legless, the torso stood affixed to three steel rods that culminated in a circular base as wide as an elephant’s foot.
I reached out and touched its “shoulder”, then trailed my fingertips along the skin towards its chest. The oils from my fingers left a faint trail behind them, smudging the metal’s gleam. It was how corrosion started, I knew. Given time, would the stains grow to verdigris, show how intimately I had touched Desiree’s creation?
I buffed the marks away with a linen rag that lay on a nearby workbench. The stairs creaked beneath me in admonishment as I ascended to join Desiree and her father. They had been arguing again. I heard her father say, “Blasted pedantic popinjay!” and Desiree say, “Oh, Father,” her tone coaxing and indulgent.
“You don’t have to settle for such a man!”
“If I want to be part of society and not an outcast, I need a proper husband! Claude and I will accommodate each other with time.”
That had an ominous sound, but we would discuss it later. They fell silent as I appeared, Southland’s face red with anger, Desiree’s smile as bland as her mechanical cat licking cream.
Everyone notable was present at Lady Allsop’s ball. Silks and satins gleamed like colored waters touched with flecks of light from cut gems. The air smelled of hothouse flowers and French perfume. The orchestra played as the dancers glided through a waltz.
I do not entirely approve of diversions like dancing, but society places demands on us. I was eager for the ton to place their benison on my bride-to-be. I would dance twice with Desiree when she arrived, but for the most part I intended to stay on the sidelines, drinking lemonade. Still, when a few partners pressed me, I gave in.
I know well that women find me alluring – no credit to anyone other than He who shaped me. But my calf shows to advantage in breeches, to the point where at least one too-bold miss has called it shapely.
And I knew very well that it was my looks that initially attracted Desiree. Like all women, she is drawn to this world’s baubles, not realizing their transient, mayfly nature. But with time she had sounded my mind’s depths, and I flattered myself that what she found there had strengthened her attraction to me.
A woman I danced with mentioned that the Southlands had arrived. “Your fiancée, is she not?” she purred. “I saw her arrive with her papa, a half hour or so ago.”
I made my excuses and went outside the great hall to pass through the refreshment line, looking for Desiree. I caught sight of her ahead of me, in the side hall’s shadows, dark hair held up by an intricate mechanism atop her head. She paused beside a dusky silk curtain, speaking to a blonde, blue-eyed woman.
From the back I could see Desiree’s silk skirt: figured with gears, the teeth embroidered in red. I came up behind her and slid my hand through the crook of her elbow, drawing her close to show my pleasure at her presence there, despite her dress’s outré nature.
I realized my mistake from the way the woman pulled herself away. She turned and I saw her clearly, no longer Desiree. Her hair held brownish-red highlights, and her eyes were an icy, outraged green. The patterned cogs were Michaelmas daises, the teeth ragged petals, scarlet on cream.
I stammered apologies, backed away as quickly as I could, bowing.
I searched through the crowds for Desiree and failed to find her. I looked around the punchbowl, through a salon filled with young misses waiting to be asked to dance, their mothers hovering nearby. Desiree had never been among their ranks. Her father had been indulgent, allowed her to skip so many social niceties. I sought her amid the dancers and along the wall benches, where groups of men gossiped and women nattered amongst themselves.
I finally slipped outside into the starlit gardens. There I found her, scandalously alone with a man.
Pea gravel crunched under my boot heels as I approached, just in time to see him lean forward and take her hand. The night was cool on my outraged cheeks as I ran forward, pushing him away from her.
He staggered back, looking surprised. I had not seen him before: a dark Irishman with a narrow face and a nose like a knife blade. His black eyes were altogether too dark and romantic, like some hero in a novel.
Sometimes you dislike a man at first sight. As now. An expression that flashed over his face made me think he reciprocated the sentiment. He was, annoyingly enough, dressed impeccably, better than my own efforts, despite the Honiton lace at my throat.
Something wild in the cast of his features, the white flash of his throat, the enormous emerald on his hand, the way the moonlight glinted on his fingernails, made me think him something other than human, some besotted seraphim or an exotic nightmare borne of hallucinogen or fever. A shiver worked its way down my back and spread its fingers to measure my ribs.
“Claude!” Desiree exclaimed, looking far from pleased at her rescue.
I ignored her, addressing the man. “You will not touch my fiancée again, sir. I am surprised at you, taking advantage of her in this fashion.” I did not say it, but my reproach was aimed at Desiree as well, even though I knew she could not have known better in her f
oolish, naive youth.
“Lord Tyndall brought me out here to discuss my designs,” Desiree retorted. “He had read the paper I published on the difficulties of shaping tungsten.”
I scoffed. “Indeed, he did his homework well so that he might lure you out here to compromise you.”
Unnervingly, the man smiled at me. “I had no idea the author of such an erudite work would turn out to be so charming, sir, but the pleasure was unexpected. Having finished with that conversation, I was merely offering to demonstrate the art of palm reading to your lady. I picked up some small expertise in it in my homeland.”
People were stirring in the nearest doorway, looking out to see what the loud conversation was about.
Tyndall spoke to Desiree. “I did not get the chance to tell you, lady: your palm shows that you will take a long journey, soon.”
His accent was thick. It was ridiculous for an educated man to speak with such a heavy brogue, or to pretend to superstitious beliefs such as palmistry in order to lure women. But I stood down, not wishing to scandalize the gathering crowd.
Lady Allsop peered from near the back, the frown on her face threatening future invitations. I bowed and took Desiree’s arm, drawing it through my own. She resisted, then let me pull her into the house.
But she would not speak to me the rest of the evening, despite the attendance I danced on her. In the carriage home, she relented, but only to upbraid me.
“I did as you asked,” she hissed at me, “and it was as painful as I had imagined. But you were not even satisfied with that, and had to take away the one interesting conversation I was able to find.”
“Everyone loved you. How can you say such things?” I protested.
“Perhaps you were at a different ball than I,” she said. “Did you not see Lady Worth turn away lest she contaminate herself by speaking to a Negro? Or perhaps you did not overhear the sporting gentleman laying bets on what I would be like between the sheets?”
“Desiree!” I gasped, almost breathless at the shock of hearing such words from her innocent lips.
She turned away and did not speak to me again that night.
The next day I came to call, bringing chocolates and flowers and a pretty opal ring. Opals were her favorite gem. But she sent Mary to tell me she was feeling unwell.
I started to leave in high dudgeon, but Lord Southland called to me. He was in his library, or so he called it, a small room that smelled of pipe tobacco and old leather, so close that one could barely breathe. On the wall hung a portrait of Desiree’s mother by Robert Tait.
I studied it as he gathered his thoughts. I knew she had perished in childbirth along with Desiree’s younger brother, only a few years after Lord Southland had returned with her from a trip to America. No one knew exactly where she had come from, but gossip maintained that she had been a slave escaped from the southern portion of that barbarous place, that she had lived with the Cherokee for several years before the young Southland, on tour, encountered her in New Orleans. She was beautiful, although in an exotic, unsettling way. Her dark hair hung to her waist, and the artist had chosen to paint it untamed, almost hiding her face behind it. Her dress’s satin was the color of a yellow rose just opening.
Lady Southland had never been accepted by society, and had therefore been an exile, trapped in this house. That was part of the contract between Desiree and I: through me she would escape such a fate.
“Do you love my daughter, Claude?” Lord Southland asked. Rumor held that before his wife, he’d had other exotic pets: a tiger cub, a great hyacinth macaw that sang sea shanties, a galago from Senegal. He was impious and had rejected the church, refusing to have Desiree baptized.
The question pained me, and I took care to show that in my tone. “Ever since I first met her, my lord.”
“Ever since you met her, or ever since you learned she was an heiress?” He waved off my protestations. “I know, I know, such thoughts are unworthy of you. Still, I cannot help but wonder, Claude, if you did not think her an easy catch, given her circumstances. You are hardly the first suitor to make that mistake.”
Desiree had other suitors? I was shocked but intrigued. I had never heard word of such.
“Still, the chit claims to love you.” His look was contemptuous, and I stiffened my back under it. “It must be your looks alone, for you seem slow of mind to me.”
I squared my chin. “You may disagree with your daughter’s opinion, but you raised her to speak her mind and choose for herself.”
“I did.” He tugged at a pearl-set waistcoat button. “And will you allow her the same luxury, once she is married?”
“Of course I will!” I said. “Within reason.”
“As I feared. Very well. I will warn you, Claude: I will continue to attempt to dissuade her from this choice.”
“What choice?” Desiree demanded as she entered. She started out with a glare, but I smiled at her and she softened, as I knew she would. “Papa, are you beating this dead horse again?”
“Let me send you traveling,” Lord Southland urged. “I will fund a trip to Italy, so you might see Leonardo’s designs for yourself. Or America, where you can speak with other inventors.”
“America?” she said. “Do you not read the papers? Do you truly not know what disdain they would hold me in there?”
“Desiree,” he said. “For your mother’s sake, and your own, all I want is your happiness.”
“I will be an English dean’s wife and live at Oxford,” she said. “Claude has promised me a workshop the equal of mine here.”
Now was not, perhaps, the best time to correct that misapprehension, so I kept my mouth closed. Not that it mattered. Father and daughter had squared off like pugilists in the ring, and Desiree’s fists were clenched as though to keep herself from aiming a blow at him.
He took an envelope from his jacket pocket, ivory paper with an intricate seal. “I have had a letter inviting us to go shooting next week. An Irish estate. The writer says he met you at Lady Allsop’s.” He spared me a glance. “Claude is invited as well. If he comes too, will you accompany me? Rumor holds the pheasant is excellent in that region.”
Desiree gave me a questioning look and I nodded.
Better to see Lord Southland assuaged, lest he put his foot down even more firmly. His difficulties were his own fault, I thought, for allowing his daughter too free a rein. Although it advantaged me more than a little, for I suspected Lord Southland’s resistance only increased Desiree’s interest in me.
I touched her elbow and saw her shoulders loosen. Southland kept glowering, but now at me instead of Desiree. I smiled at him and laced my fingers through hers before drawing them up to press my lips to her knuckles, my eyes fixed on his. His jaw tightened.
When I returned home, a similar envelope awaited me. Lord Tyndall regretted the unfortunate occurrences at Lady Allsop’s and hoped to extend an olive branch to myself and my “lovely fiancée”.
Now that the moment had passed, I regretted the assent I had given. But Southland would have written with his answer already, always punctilious and prompt when he thought it might inconvenience me.
I decided to make the most of it. As Southland had noted, the shooting in Tyndall’s district was rumored to be extraordinary. While the Lord – was he one of the men that Southland reckoned a suitor? – would have the advantage in his home, the day I could not show up a country Irishman, no matter his title, would be the day I’d give up my position at Oxford. As for his inhuman aspect, it had surely been nothing more than a trick of the moonlight, coupled with my anger. It surprised me how much my rage stirred at the memory, even now, days later.
I turned the envelope over and examined the ostentatious seal. A pair of cats boxing with each other, paws upraised, circling a crown tipped with what looked like pointed spindles. A sweet smell came from the green wax.
I directed my valet to pack for the countryside. I would see this interloper driven away before Desiree even realized he was inte
rested in her. Her naivety gave me the edge – not that I needed it.
As we approached Lord Tyndall’s castle, the countryside was verdant, the autumn leaves just beginning to turn. The castle – for it was indeed a castle, albeit a small and shabby one – sat on a cliff’s edge overlooking the Irish Sea, a romantic, wild vista that I feared might enthrall my impressionable fiancée.
I took care to point out flaws in the countryside as we traveled up the road, including dull-looking peasants and ill-tended cottages. I mentioned how difficult it must be to obtain supplies from London, given the distance and the road’s rigors.
Desiree seemed to listen. Her father slouched in the opposite seat of the carriage and regarded me with heavy-lidded, inscrutable eyes.
There were a dozen or so other guests: a few Irish peers, relatives of his Lordship, and Lady Allsop and her husband. Everyone exclaimed over Desiree’s exotic beauty and made enough fuss over her to render her speechless with discomfort. I hung back and did not rescue her. She would have to learn to cope with such attentions.
We settled into a daily routine, and Lord Southland and I both found the shooting excellent. In fact, I had never had such success before. It was as though the birds flew into my gun’s path to sacrifice themselves. I had never experienced such a feeling of prowess. The other men congratulated me, sometimes sullenly, sometimes with genuine comradeship. The women were invariably flattering – even Desiree, although it was evident that my skill surprised her.
It was heady, and though Tyndall came shooting with us less and less, I found myself able to overlook it. We dined well on the yield from our expeditions each day. Tyndall had an excellent cook, one who rivaled the best establishments. Her blancmange was airy as a cloud; her teacakes scented with cardamom and honey. A good cook, like a good woman, is a pearl beyond price. I resolved to woo her away before going.
Shooting did not interest Desiree, which made me uneasy, but I was unable to resist the pull of the field. Like Desiree, Tyndall fancied himself a scientist, and like her, he had mechanical talent. She had brought the case containing her clockwork fairies, and the two were working on refinements to the wings. Desiree suggested that the fairies could be used in place of courier pigeons. Despite the notion’s impracticality, Tyndall supported it.