An Unseen Attraction

by KJ Charles

  “I was taking tea with Mr. Talleyfer,” Rowley said, calm as you like. “We came in from the music hall at perhaps half past nine. What o’clock is it now?”

  Mr. Hirsch pulled out a fob watch. “Quarter past ten. Did you not hear the front door?”

  Clem wouldn’t have heard an elephant departing while he’d been kissing Rowley. He shook his head, grateful he didn’t blush as visibly as many.

  “I thought I heard the door, but I assumed it was Mr. Power coming in,” Rowley said. “Is he still out?”

  “Of course. We’ve all noticed he doesn’t respect the rules of the house,” Mr. Rillington snapped. “And so the door is left open all night and we’re burgled in our beds—”

  “It’s not half past yet, and I do not leave the door open,” Clem said, stung.

  “And I didn’t hear Mr. Power come in,” Miss Sweeting said over him. “So if you heard the door, I suppose it might have been an intruder leaving. Is your room disturbed, Mr. Green?”

  Rowley blinked, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him, then pushed his door open and lit the gas. Everyone, including Clem, peered in. The room was very neat, and there was no sign of disarray. There was, however, a small dragon clinging to an old branch on the bedside table.

  Mr. Rillington gave a strangled squawk and leapt back, landing on Mr. Hirsch’s foot. He swallowed an oath. Miss Sweeting said, “What in heaven’s name—?”

  “Excuse me.” Rowley closed the door on them all, and emerged again a few moments later. “I don’t keep any valuables in my room, but my watch and chain are where I left them and there’s no sign of an intruder.”

  “And have you actually lost anything, Mr. Lugtrout?” Miss Sweeting asked, somewhat sardonically.

  “Valuables to be lodged in the house’s strongbox, or please provide your own,” Clem put in, by rote.

  Mr. Lugtrout seethed. “The fact is, I’ve been robbed by your negligence, my room turned upside down—”

  “By a burglar in an occupied house, who didn’t bother stealing from anyone else,” Miss Sweeting said. “How odd of them. Did you have very many valuables? Gold plate?”

  “I had—” Mr. Lugtrout paused, then began again. “I know what I had. And if it wasn’t a burglar, someone bribed the slavey to do it. That’s a light-fingered little bitch, you can tell from her face—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Clem said. “Elsie wouldn’t do any such thing, and I don’t even believe you were robbed. Your room’s a disgrace at the best of times.”

  “You.” Mr. Lugtrout jabbed a finger at him. “You’ll do what I say, you damned pagan infidel—”

  “I’m Church of England!”

  “—or I’ll complain of you to your brother and have you out on your ear.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Green,” said Miss Sweeting loudly, with a poisonous look to Mr. Lugtrout, “do you articulate? Because I wondered if you wanted more stock of human various. To exercise your art.”

  Clem had no idea what she was talking about, but Mr. Hirsch gave a bark of laughter. Rowley looked entirely blank. Miss Sweeting sighed. “Ah well. I’m sure, if you did come across a new skeleton at any point, we’d all be very glad for you. Come, Bram, let’s see if the tea is quite stewed.”

  She and Mr. Hirsch headed downstairs. Polly, who disapproved of almost everything, had mentioned several times that an unmarried lady shouldn’t be permitted to entertain gentlemen in her room. Clem had declined to be guided by her this once. He felt very strongly that it was Miss Sweeting’s business.

  Mr. Rillington shook his head and went back into his own room. Rowley glanced at Clem. “Yes, I’ve had enough myself. I think, Mr. Lugtrout, that you should find out if something has been stolen before you accuse anyone of stealing it, and I think you’ll find the rest of us supporting Mr. Talleyfer and Elsie.” He gave Clem a gentle nudge, steering him back down to the parlour, and to his armchair by the now merely glowing fire. Clem sat heavily while Rowley threw on some coal and got it blazing again.

  “Would you like a drink?” Rowley asked after a few moments.

  “I don’t.”

  “Shall I make tea? No, let me, Clem, please. You look upset.”

  “That horrible man,” Clem said. “That horrible, horrible man. I can’t bear him.”

  “He’s a nasty piece of work. The owner’s your brother?”

  “What?”

  “Of the house. Your brother is making you keep Lugtrout here?”

  Clem couldn’t discuss that. He shook his head, and Rowley didn’t press the matter, simply lifting Cat off the seat to take it himself. He leaned forward rather than sitting back, though, putting a hand very lightly to Clem’s knee. “What can I do to help?”

  Clem didn’t want to be helped. He wanted to be able to deal with this himself and it was enraging and humiliating that he couldn’t seem to. The frustration thickened his voice. “Nothing.”

  Rowley didn’t say anything more. He didn’t take his hand away, though, just kept it there, and after a moment Clem met it with his own.

  “What was Miss Sweeting talking about?”

  “Our Mutual Friend. The Dickens book. Have you read it? No? Well, one of the characters is a preserver and articulator like me, and there’s a scene where he threatens the main villain in, uh, professional terms. He says, ‘I am on my own ground, I am surrounded by the trophies of my art, and my tools is very handy. My stock of human warious’—meaning bones—‘is large and I don’t just now want any more trophies of my art. But I like my art, and I know how to exercise my art.’ ” Rowley gave his flickering smile. “I have had that repeated to me on a number of occasions.”

  “I don’t quite…”

  “It’s a threat.” Rowley paused. “That he’s going to cut up the other man, you see.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s a bit tiresome, honestly. Everyone thinks they’re the first person to make the joke.”

  “Is it a joke? It doesn’t sound funny.”

  “Well, I don’t think Miss Sweeting really meant me to murder and dismember Mr. Lugtrout, although you never know. It’s not terribly funny on its own, I agree, but it’s very amusing in a rather sinister way in the novel. It’s a sinister book, though. I like it but I prefer Bleak House.”

  “I liked the earlier books better. Pickwick and Nickleby. Oh God, I should lock the front door. I haven’t done anything tonight, and it’s late and I still don’t know if Mr. Power is even in.” He jerked himself to a standing position, feeling the absence of Rowley’s warm touch.

  Rowley rose as well. “I should go up, for discretion’s sake. Clem, may I have your attention one minute? The door will wait.” He paused till Clem nodded. “I enjoyed tonight. I could have cheerfully throttled that sot Lugtrout for interrupting us. Could we, uh, pick up where we left off?”

  “Do you want to?” Clem asked. “Really? Because I feel as though I made a bit of a fool of myself, and—”

  “You didn’t. I’m sorry I was impatient. Um, I’m expecting a piece to come in early this week and I’ll have to work on that, but would you dine with me one evening, if that’s convenient? Wednesday, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” Clem said, feeling his ruffled nerves smooth down a little. “Yes, Wednesday would be delightful.”

  —

  It was Friday, in fact, before they had a chance to meet again in a private sort of way. For one thing, Mr. Lugtrout had carried out his threat and complained to Clem’s brother. He received a terse, angry note from Edmund on Tuesday reminding him that his tenure at the boardinghouse was quite dependent on his compliance with Edmund’s instructions, and the next morning a visit from Edmund’s man of business, Mr. Ainderby Conyers, making the point in person.

  Clem did not like Mr. Conyers, and it was mutual. He was in his forties, straight-backed and luxuriantly moustached, looking like the soldier he had once been. He’d served the Empire during the terrible time of the Indian Mutiny, fending off the fighters for Indian independence with bullet
and blade, and nobody could fail to miss the contemptuous curl of his lip when he spoke to Clem.

  Clem had moved to this part of London because it was so mixed. There were Jews, Italians, Indians, Germans, Arabs and Africans and Chinese and more, all going about their own business like everybody else. Nothing like the Berkshire village and the boarding school of his youth, where everyone else was white and English and the staring never stopped. Nobody in Clerkenwell looked twice at him; nobody called him an Indian or a foreigner, let alone the other words he’d grown up hearing. On Wilderness Row he was not “an” anything. He was simply Mr. Talleyfer of Talleyfer’s lodging house, and that was how he liked it.

  Mr. Conyers always gave the impression that those other words were trembling on his tongue, waiting to be spoken. It was, Clem thought, rather unnecessary that his brother should send this man to him, but Mr. Conyers did Edmund’s business, and Clem just had to put up with it.

  “But Mr. Lugtrout drinks,” he said now. “He shouts, and he accused Elsie of theft and breaks the rules—”

  “It is your task to run this house, and no part of my duties to hear your complaints,” Mr. Conyers said. “Let me remind you, Mr. Talleyfer”—always a pointed stress on the name—“that you are here entirely thanks to your brother’s generosity and forbearance. He has made two conditions only, that you will exercise discretion and accommodate Mr. Lugtrout, yet you are incapable of even so much. I wonder at his tolerance, sir.”

  “Yes, I understand what he wants, but the other residents—”

  “If they don’t like the conditions of this house I suggest you evict them, since you are so keen to have the ruling of your lodgers.”

  Clem wanted to argue, but it would do no good, and he couldn’t find the words in the face of Mr. Conyers’s dislike, and in any case, the man was right. Edmund had stipulated that Mr. Lugtrout should be a permanent resident as long as he wished, and he owned the house. Clem mumbled an apology under Mr. Conyers’s severe, unsympathetic eye.

  “This must not be repeated, Mr. Talleyfer,” Mr. Conyers said. “Your brother is concerned for Mr. Lugtrout’s well-being, and he will not tolerate the least harm or distress caused to him. I suggest you think about where your loyalty should lie.”

  He went away, leaving Clem feeling thoroughly sick with failure and guilt, so much so that he went round to ROWLEY GREEN—PRESERVER in an effort to calm himself. The shop was locked, though, with no sign of life inside, and Clem walked away feeling oddly as though something that should have been there was missing.

  Rowley didn’t come in that evening at all, but there was a quick note, with a slightly disturbing brownish stain at the side, advising Clem that he would sleep in the shop and hoped to be back for breakfast.

  All was explained when he staggered in the next morning, looking cold, exhausted, and rather like he’d put his tow-head under the pump. He flopped into his chair, oblivious to the stares of the other lodgers, and helped himself to bacon.

  “It was a wolf,” he explained. “One died unexpectedly at Jamrach’s Menagerie, but Rowland Ward—they’re the first men in London for large animals—are very busy, it seems, so it came to me. But it was quite a large job, and they’d lost time in finding a preserver who wanted it, and speed is of the essence in preparation.” He gave a sudden yawn. “So I worked all night.”

  “But you must be chilled through,” Clem said. “I hope you had the stove lit.”

  “Cold is good.” Rowley’s eyes were shutting behind his spectacles, his hair damp and tousled, and Clem wanted to bring him blankets and cocoa. “Better than hot weather, believe me. Anyway, the skin’s off—” Mr. Rillington made a noise of protest. “I beg your pardon. I’ll go to bed. If you could ask Elsie not to disturb me, please?” His eyes flickered over Clem’s, meeting them for a second. “I hope to have the preparatory work complete by this evening, but I’ll send a note if I’ll be late again.”

  He did come back that night, but so obviously tired out that Clem didn’t even ask him in for a cup of tea. On Friday, though, he was up betimes, and after breakfast he knocked on the door of Clem’s study.

  “Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Talleyfer, but I thought I’d mention, if you were interested, do please come by the workshop.”

  Clem was interested, and he did come, at about eleven. Rowley hurried through from the back to greet him. He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing a heavy, stained apron.

  “Hello, Clem. I feel as though I haven’t seen you all week.”

  “I missed you. For tea, I mean, in the evenings.”

  “Yes, I missed that too.” Rowley smiled up at him. “Would you care to see my wolf?”

  He led Clem to the back room of the shop, through the heavy door. It was a large space, with two sturdy benches in the centre and storage cabinets around the walls, very crowded, and mildly horrifying. There were tools enough for a medieval torture chamber: racks of blades and prongs and awls, long pliers and probes. Great spools of wire hung on the wall, bunches of dried grass and reeds were suspended from the whitewashed ceiling, and sacks of powdery substances and what looked like moss stood around the walls. On one bench a huge hide was laid flat.

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s the wolf, yes. I’ve done the fleshing out—removing all the tissue that will rot—and I’m scraping the hide down now to make it thinner and more flexible. And then it’ll have to be treated with arsenical soap, to keep the insects off.”

  “And stuffed?”

  “Stuffed and mounted, in due course. I bought it as a speculation; I don’t have a particular use for it now. I could sell it as a cabinet skin to someone else for mounting, Rowland Ward even, or I may do it myself for upstairs.”

  “Dress it up as a Greek god?”

  “Standing on its hind legs, holding a tray for drinks, perhaps with a waiter’s apron.” They both grimaced at the image he’d conjured. “Look at this.”

  This was the wolf’s skull, all eye sockets and teeth and yellowish bone. “Good heavens,” Clem said. “Can I touch it?”

  “If you like, but use this.” Rowley handed him a cloth. “I haven’t finished the cleaning yet, so it might be a bit slippery.”

  Clem picked it up, hands shaking slightly with his desperation not to fumble or drop it; he could imagine the bone shattering, and probably the long curved teeth pinning his foot to the floor. It was a little lighter than he’d thought it might be. He turned it carefully, looking into the empty eye sockets. The beast must have been magnificent, and now it was dead, reduced literally to skin and bone. “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away,” he said aloud.

  “Yes, exactly. Such a wonderful brute. Some swine threw poisoned meat into its cage, you know.”

  “What? Really? Why?”

  Rowley shook his head. “This is not a trade that makes one think better of one’s fellow men.”

  Clem put the skull down. “What will you do with it?”

  “Sell the bones to an articulator, I think. I could do it myself but I’m out of practice, so it’s probably better to give it to a specialist bone man.”

  “You don’t put the bones back in when you mount the animals?”

  “No. Generally we take all the bones out except for birds, where you need the skull for the beak, and the wing bones, and the lower legs. I actually need to prepare a pigeon now, if you’d like to see how it’s done? It was a prizewinning racing bird, and its owner would like it to have a place of honour.”

  Clem looked at the sad little bundle of grey feathers. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to see Rowley cutting a dead bird’s skin off, but he was fascinated by the light in his eyes, and by the way he fitted here on his own ground. “Um, yes please. I’ll try not to faint into a bowl of anything.”

  “Don’t knock over the arsenical soap either. Pull up a stool.”

  The next few minutes were extraordinary. Clem loved to watch Rowley’s sure, swift fingers at the breakfast table or st
roking Cat, but seeing him at work was in another league. Rowley worked with intense, painstaking care, but remarkable speed, and with a surety that left Clem envious and breathless. Everything was already in the right place, every movement ordered. It was also extraordinarily tidy for what Clem had assumed would be a gruesome procedure. Rowley sliced into the bird’s belly with a scalpel, cut through the leg bones with a hard little movement and a sinewy crunch, then worked his knife inside it, pushing up under the skin. That took only a few minutes, then he got hold of the base of the skin and pulled it over the pigeon’s head like a shirt.

  “Lord above.” Clem craned forward. The body sat, red and purple and yellow, with the inside-out skin attached to it by the head, beak still inside.

  “I want to cut the skin as little as possible, you see.” Rowley severed the neck and dropped the body in a bowl. “It’ll be too tough to cook, a racing pigeon, but I don’t know if Cat might like that?”

  “Prizewinning dinner.”

  “So now I have to break the skull a little, at the back”—crunch—“to get out the brain and eyes and tongue.” That involved a hook, but seemed an extraordinarily neat procedure, like the rest, barely tainting Rowley’s fingers. “And all the fat has to go. That’s the worst thing for mounts. It does all sorts of damage if you leave any fat. It goes rancid, discolours the feathers, and eventually damages the skin itself.” He reached for a different knife without looking and started to whip the blade over the skin.

  “You’re so quick,” Clem marvelled.

  “Practice. And believe me, you need to be quick in summer. When the mercury’s high and you get a fox shot three days ago, well, you don’t want to hang about.”

  Within no more than half an hour, the pigeon was the right way out once more, looking disturbingly empty and a little dishevelled. “I’m going to wash this now. It’s time-consuming and a lot of stuffers don’t bother, but the feathers are so much brighter if you get the grease off, and it helps keep the insects away. That and the arsenical soap.”

  The washing did seem the slowest part of the process. Rowley moved with great care, ensuring the fragile wing bones weren’t damaged and tending to the lay of feathers. He removed the soggy bundle from the sink at last and set it to dry, next to a row of other skins. “There. Now it’s a matter of having it dry, slowly, and checking the set of the feathers a couple of times a day, then applying the preservative.”