Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit

by Shelley Adina

  Sometimes Maggie suspected that the Lady felt such a kinship with her vessel that they were of one mind on the subject of a lady’s capabilities.

  The engines’ pitch settled into a businesslike thrumming under Tigg’s capable management, and Maggie bent her knees a little as the airship gained headway.

  “The pigeons say the weather will be clear until noon, but there is a storm expected off the Channel late in the day,” Tigg said, escorting Lizzie into the gondola. “We’ll be there before it hits, I presume?”

  “Yes indeed.” Claude joined them at the table in front of the large viewing port. “It’s a four-hour flight, so we’ll be comfortably drinking tea before a raindrop hits the ground. I say, how do you read this lot, anyhow?”

  Tigg looked rather amused. “It’s a map, Claude. You just compare the lines—this river for instance. See it down there?”

  Claude looked from one to the other and back again. “How do you know it’s the same river?”

  “Because there aren’t any other rivers that big hereabouts,” Lizzie told him. “It’s the Thames, silly.”

  Claude passed an arm about her waist with easy affection. “You see why I needed a tutor in geography—and why I prevail upon my friends to fly with me,” he said without a drop of compunction. “I’m no better on the ground. In Paris, if the Eiffel Tower wasn’t there I’d be hopelessly lost all the time.”

  The giant iron structure was the largest mooring mast in France. Maggie fancied that most of the population used it to navigate, both on the ground and in the air.

  “You’re not going back right away, are you?” Lizzie gave him a squeeze in return. “I’ve barely got to know you. Please say you aren’t.”

  “Not for a bit, old girl.” He released her to stand at the viewing port, then started as he realized Holly was balanced upon the pipe over his head. “Deuced disconcerting, poultry popping up all about the place. No, classes don’t begin at the Sorbonne until the second week in September, don’t you know. Before I decamp for more fashionable climes and join Dolly and Cynthia and the others in Venice for one last romp, I count upon a good long visit.” He glanced back at them. “As will you?”

  Maggie nodded, wishing he would hug her with the same easy familiarity. But what was she to him? Only a step-cousin. And one he didn’t know nearly as well as he knew Lizzie, who had spent more time in his company.

  Maggie had grown up calling Lizzie sister. And now this young man, all arms and legs and slang and humor, was the only one who had the right to do so. It just didn’t sit well—and Maggie was ashamed of herself for feeling that way.

  “So that will be our plan, then,” Claude said heartily. “Camp with the grands for a week or two and go clamming on the beach. Do a little velosurfing. Take a run up to Newquay to see how the undersea train is getting on—truly, Maggie, you’ll love that.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Certainly we’ll go,” Lizzie told him. “Now that my memories have returned and I know why I had such a fear of both air and water, I believe I could face an undersea train with equanimity.”

  “But do you remember our grandparents, Lizzie?” Maggie asked curiously. For despite what they both knew of that dreadful afternoon eleven years ago when Lizzie’s mother had died at her husband’s hands, Maggie still had no memories of her own of that day, or of anything before that. It was an enormous blank that imagination had to fill in from the dream plates their cousin Evan Douglas had shown them at Colliford Castle, and from Lizzie’s recounting of the tale.

  Lizzie shook her head. “I’m sure we will when we see them, won’t we? There will be something familiar, even though we were only five the last time we were all together.”

  It would be lovely to have something pleasant from her past come back to her. Maggie picked up Ivy and gave her a cuddle. Then maybe she could look forward, into the future.

  4

  The harbor serving the Cornish town of Penzance was third only to Southampton and Falmouth for importance in the steam shipping trade—and, as Claude said, “there are those who would dispute that second to the point of fisticuffs.”

  Athena and Victory floated over St. Michael’s Mount, where an ancient castle hosted a contingent of aeronauts on permanent guard duty of the south coast. They had sent pigeons announcing their intent to land, and as they passed, the flag dipped in acknowledgement. The Mount could only be accessed on foot twice a day during the ebb tide. On a wide stone causeway, people far below walked to and from the village nestled around the castle. Maggie hoped that they would leave plenty of time to return—being caught in the middle of the channel when the tide came in was not a very appealing prospect.

  At the airfield, a large multi-passenger conveyance was waiting, bearing the emblem of the Seacombe Steamship Company. The driver tipped his cap and he and a boy proceeded to load their luggage onto the roof of the vehicle. When Andrew and Tigg offered to help, he demurred.

  “Mrs. Seacombe ’ud have my head, sirs, if I were to treat her guests in such a manner. You have a seat and we’ll be on our way shortly.”

  Maggie secured the hens in their cage and took it into her lap for the journey. The driver pointed out the offices of the company down on the harbor, and as they circled to the opposite side, he pointed out the sights—the mayor’s home, the high street, the market. Higher they climbed, and at last, where large homes and terraced town houses overlooked the sea without the inconvenience of commerce cluttering the view, they crested the hill. After passing through a park that set apart this property even from its peers, the conveyance hissed and huffed to a stop on the circular drive outside a stone mansion whose mullioned windows commanded a prospect of nearly the entire harbor and the Mount as well.

  Clearly the Seacombes were persons of influence in Penzance. Maggie smoothed her skirts and wished she had done as Claude suggested, and taken a moment to re-pin her hair and change her jacket to the one that matched the skirt.

  But it was too late now.

  She took Lizzie’s hand as they were ushered into the large, bright room that possessed the mullioned windows. And standing in front of the fireplace, in which a fire had been lit though the day was not cold, stood two people.

  “Grandpere, Grandmere, it is so good to see you.” Claude bounded across the thick Aubusson rug to shake hands, and then gave his grandmother a hug. “It is my great joy to present your granddaughters at last—my half-sister Elizabeth and my cousin Margaret.”

  Still holding hands, as they might have done when they were small, Maggie and Lizzie approached the older couple. He looked as though he might have been a sailor once, with ruddy skin and a fringe of beard that encircled his face like a paper frill around a ham. He was expensively dressed in a rich waistcoat and wool trousers, and a ruby pin adorned his cravat.

  Maggie curtsied, tugging surreptitiously on Lizzie’s hand so that she did, too.

  “Nonsense, my dears. We are family.” Mrs. Seacombe—Grandmother—came forward and hugged first Lizzie, then Maggie. She was barely taller than both of them, and so slender that she did not need a corset—though Maggie felt its stiffness in her rigid posture. Her gray hair was arranged in a way that had been fashionable several years before, with a Psyche knot high on the head and curls framing the face. Her gown was fine lavender watered silk, with a cascade of Brussels lace down the breast held in place by a brooch winking with tawny diamonds.

  Lady Davina Dunsmuir possessed a parure and tiara made of very similar diamonds, dug from the ground in the far north of the Canadas. Could these have come from the Firstwater Mine as well?

  Their grandmother stepped back, still holding Lizzie’s hands. “You have Elaine’s eyes. Her father’s eyes.”

  Maggie ventured a glance at her grandfather to see that he did indeed have green eyes, though they were faded now, perhaps from many years of looking out to sea.

  “Welcome, my dear,” Grandmother went on. “I cannot tell you what it meant to us to know that you had survive
d the crash—or how devastated we have been at what we believed to be your loss. When I think of the years we could have had together …”

  “Now, now, Demelza,” Grandfather said gruffly. “That’s water under the keel. Welcome, my dear. I hope you will make Seacombe House your home.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather. Your welcome means so much to us. But what of Maggie?” Lizzie asked eagerly. “Does she resemble her mother—my aunt Catherine? We know so little of her.”

  At last Grandmother’s gaze made its reluctant way to Maggie. “Perhaps, about the mouth and chin. But her eyes, I am afraid, resemble those of no one in the family. Since we do not know—”

  Who her father was, nor the color of his eyes.

  Her lips closed with the finality dictated by propriety and she looked over Lizzie’s shoulder, releasing her hands at last. “Will you introduce us to your friends?”

  Claude introduced Lady Claire, Mr. Malvern, and Tigg.

  “Trevelyan,” Grandfather said, dragging his gaze from Tigg, who, after shaking hands, was standing at ease with his hands clasped behind his back. Since he had acted as engineer this morning, he was still in his flight uniform and polished boots—and a fine sight it was, Maggie thought with pride. “You are St. Ives’s daughter, from Gwynn Place?”

  “I am,” the Lady said. “The present viscount is my brother, and my lady mother is now married to Sir Richard Jermyn, whose lands march with ours. I have been acting as guardian to Maggie and Lizzie for the past five years.”

  “So we understand,” he said. “You have our gratitude—and sometime during your visit we hope to hear all that has passed in those five years, and before that.”

  “We will tell you as much as we can,” the Lady said, smiling. “Though Mr. Malvern and I will not be trespassing upon your hospitality for more than a few days—I am most anxious to see my mother and little brothers, so we will be sure to conclude our tale before we lift on Wednesday.”

  “Come, won’t you have some tea?” Grandmother waved toward the table set between the two sofas in front of the fire. “Howel, do put another log on the fire. I grow chilled when the flames are low.” The tea service was silver, the cups of porcelain so thin and delicate that Maggie could practically see the firelight through it.

  “What a pretty pattern,” she said as Grandmother poured and she took it upon herself to hand the cups around. “What flower is this?”

  “It is called a dogwood,” Grandmother said a little stiffly. “A tree that grows in the Fifteen Colonies, I understand.”

  “Ah, that explains why it is unfamiliar.” Maggie picked up the plate of sandwiches and offered the Lady one. “We have been in the Texican Territories and in the Canadas, but flowering trees were not a noticeable part of the landscape in either place.”

  “Elizabeth, what are your plans once your visit here is concluded?” Grandmother asked her.

  Maggie handed the plate to Tigg to hide her chagrin at the snub. What was wrong with talking about flowering plants? She would have thought that their travels would have been of keen interest to her grandparents, after what Grandfather had just said. Or that horticulture might be, at the very least, considering the glory of the gardens around the house. But what did she know of the conversational habits of older people in society? Other than the Dunsmuirs and Count von Zeppelin, and her teachers at the lycee, she had not been exposed to it much at all.

  Tigg took a sandwich and twinkled at her, as if to say, Cheer up. None of us belongs in a room sipping tea, do we?

  No, they certainly did not. In fact, she’d rather be exploring about this house, or down on the strand crossing the causeway to the Mount. Or better yet, going to Gwynn Place with the Lady to visit Polgarth and the chickens.

  She had been corresponding with Lewis over the last year or two on the subject of genetics in connection with their hen Rosie, of dearly beloved memory. It was Lewis’s opinion that temperament and intelligence could be emphasized in a breeding program just as much as feathering and laying capacity, and if Holly and Ivy were any indication, Rosie’s chicks seemed to bear this out. She wanted to discuss it with Polgarth, whose scientific breeding of the Buff Orpingtons at Gwynn Place was said to be legendary in this part of the country.

  Perhaps that was what she ought to do—leave Lizzie here with Claude and Tigg and the grands, and go with the Lady.

  A woman in a housekeeper’s navy dress appeared in the doorway. “Excuse me, ma’am, but the footman wishes to know what is to be done with the poultry in the hall. It seems to have come in with the young ladies instead of going round to the kitchen.” A squawk of alarm sounded from the front of the house. “I was not aware that you had changed the menus since this morning, ma’am. Did you order chicken for dinner?”

  “No!” Maggie shot off the sofa, upending her teacup onto the carpet and staining the front of her skirt. “Holly and Ivy are not to be dinner! They are our companions.”

  Lizzie put down her cup and vanished out the door past the housekeeper, and presently her voice joined the indignant tones of Holly and Ivy, dressing down the unfortunate footman.

  Slowly, Grandmother raised the quizzing glass on its chain about her neck to survey the chaos.

  “Margaret, pick up your cup. Mrs. Penny, would you send in the maid to clean up this mess?”

  “I am sorry for the misunderstanding,” the Lady said to Grandmother as, scarlet with shame, Maggie obeyed. “I ought to have told someone that the birds were with us—I simply assumed they would go up to our rooms with the luggage. If it is more convenient, I can return them to Athena, where they will be quite comfortable.”

  “We’re not in the habit of considering the comfort of farm animals,” Grandfather said. His eyebrows were having trouble settling down with all the excitement. A maid scuttled in with cloths and a bucket, and began to sop up the spilled tea in the priceless carpet.

  Who could have guessed that such a small cup could have held such a deluge? Maggie wished she could sink into the floor and disappear.

  “Oh, but we are,” Mr. Malvern told him, smiling. “Holly and Ivy are the progeny of a most extraordinary bird who shared our adventures across the ocean. You haven’t lived, sir, until you have seen a hen sailing through the air in a hatbox attached to a dirigible, having narrowly escaped being eaten by sky pirates.”

  “A hen concealing twenty thousand pounds worth of diamonds beneath her feathers, to boot,” added the Lady. “All thanks to the quick thinking of Lizzie and Maggie, who did not allow themselves to be captured, either.”

  His powers of speech deserted Grandfather entirely, and the eyebrows appeared frozen in the high position.

  Grandmother, however, was made of sterner stuff. “Diamonds notwithstanding, chickens are meant to be eaten, not carried about as though they were Persian cats.” The quizzing glass rose again as Lizzie came in bearing the cage, with both Holly and Ivy standing in some agitation not within it, but upon her shoulders. “Remove those birds at once, Elizabeth. I will not have them soiling the floors.”

  The maid looked alarmed, and slipped out, presumably before she was called upon to clean that up, too.

  “Of course, Grandmother. They needed a moment’s soothing, that’s all.” Lizzie slipped a gentle hand under each bird’s feet in turn, returned them to the cage, and set it upon the window seat, so that Holly and Ivy might look out upon the scenery.

  “I meant remove them from the room.”

  Lizzie looked up in surprise. “They will not harm anything. The clasp is quite secure.”

  “Elizabeth, I do not argue, with you or anyone else. Obey me at once.”

  “But—”

  “Come along, old thing, and I’ll show you, Maggie, and the chickens to your rooms.” Claude picked up the cage.

  “Those birds are not to remain in this house.”

  Maggie dug in her heels. “But they’re our companions. They go where we go.”

  “They may have done heretofore,” Grandfather said with a
glance at his wife. “I do not know what the custom is up at Gwynn Place, but here at Seacombe House, poultry belongs in the kitchen, cats belong in the warehouse, and dogs belong to other people. Please respect your grandmother’s wishes.”

  Maggie was beginning to get the faintest glimmer of understanding as to why Lizzie’s mother had been so eager to marry the first man who asked her. Had her own mother had the same experience? Had she run away? But what had happened to her that had resulted in Maggie’s birth nine months later?

  Or, as the Lady believed, had she fallen in love and it had ended unhappily?

  “Don’t worry about Holly and Ivy,” the Lady said gently. “We do not wish to cause the household more work than six guests already do. Mr. Malvern and I will take them back to Athena this afternoon, where I will make sure they have the best cracked corn the larder has to offer—and possibly a bit of cheese as well.”

  Maggie’s gaze met Lizzie’s and they communicated in that silent way they had practically since birth. We cannot fight this battle and win, but we may yet win the war. Patience and humor, as the Lady says. And courage.

  “Thank you, Lady Claire,” Lizzie said at last. “That would be for the best.”

  Grandmother resumed her seat and poured another cup of tea, then sipped it and made a moue of distaste. “The pot has gone cold. Howel, would you ring for another? Lady Claire, gentlemen, girls … we have invited several guests for dinner this evening to meet you. Once you have rested and changed, we dine at seven. We keep town hours here. When you hear the gong, please be prompt.”

  Town hours in London and Munich meant eight, or even nine. But perhaps in Penzance the sun set earlier.