by Rod Duncan
I watched him as he gestured forward and aft to illustrate his explanation, noticing that his facial hair had been cropped so short as to seem little more than stubble. Though unusual, I found the effect not entirely unpleasing.
The elderly woman angled herself towards him a fraction, yet refrained from turning her neck to look him square in the eye. “Young man,” she said. “Have you been introduced to this lady?” Hardly waiting for him to respond, she continued, “Then please keep your observations to yourself.”
“It happens we have been introduced,” I said.
“Then perhaps you would see fit to inform me of the gentleman’s name?”
“Farthing,” said the man, rescuing me from my lie. “John Farthing.”
“I’m grateful for your presence,” I said to the lady. “It permits Mr Farthing to sit here and talk with me. I’d not known he was to be travelling in the same carriage.”
“It still seems improper,” the woman muttered, though with less steely conviction.
“I’m grateful also,” said John Farthing, flashing me a smile so warm and open that it seemed improper. I told myself that it was the American way and hoped my blush did not show.
All the while, the lady’s maid sat biting her lower lip, her face turned to the window. I found myself suspecting that she had perceived more than her mistress had from the exchange.
The rudder veins twitched and shifted, bringing us lower still as we neared our destination. At last the engine became so slow that I could make out each blade of the propeller. We inched forwards, the mooring ropes dragging below, escorted by pairs of ground-crewmen.
Whereas Anstey is a place of pilgrimage for devout Republicans and a nexus of communication, Sleaford is a sleepy market town. The terminus consisted of two mooring pylons, a small stretch of grass and a wooden ticket office little bigger than a garden shed. Streets of meanly appointed houses crowded on every side.
Being close to the mooring points, I braced myself for a juddering stop. But the engine fell silent, the propellers came to rest and the ground crew guided the ropes the last few feet, bringing our journey to the gentlest possible conclusion. With a set of iron steps manoeuvred into position below us, the carriage doors opened.
Taking a deep breath of the Lincolnshire air, I felt a thrill of excitement. After weeks of helplessness, it seemed that my future might be about to pass back into my own hands.
How is it that the very port of entry into any town or city is invariably its worst introduction? So it was with Sleaford. The streets immediately outside the terminus could not have been more than seven paces from gutter to gutter. Red brick houses of a shoddy disposition crowded to either side; their roofs overhung the uneven pavements. The smoke of many winters had darkened the walls and a greasy pallor coated the small windows.
The taxi driver who hefted my cases also carried a gnarled walking stick. This he raised to scatter the professional beggars and hopeless street drinkers who approached, pale palms upturned.
“Where to, miss?” he asked, turning the valve to let steam into the pistons of his car.
“An inn,” I said. “Or a hotel if you please.”
“There are many in Sleaford,” he said.
“Will any of the cheaper ones pay you a fee for bringing new custom?”
“Well...” he began, somewhat abashed. “There might be one.”
“That will do then. If it’s reputable.”
He pulled the lever to engage the flywheel and the car juddered away. Gazing out of the side window, I let my eyes scan the bills and advertisements pasted haphazardly over walls and lamp posts, searching for any sign of Harry Timpson’s name.
“Thank you, miss,” said the driver, out of nothing.
Having cut through a street so narrow it seemed the taxi might become wedged, we emerged on an up-market thoroughfare with pots of flowers dotted along a wide promenade. There would be no daybills in this part of town. For the time being I gave up my search.
Presently the driver turned the wheel and we pulled up outside the overhanging portico of the Modesty Hotel. As I handed over the fare he said, “It’s nothing special but the beds are clean. Ask for Alf. Tell him Joe brought you. He’ll see you right.”
Alf it was who carried my cases to the room. He nodded at the mention of my driver’s name. Joe was his second cousin, he said, though they were more like brothers on account of having been raised by the same grandmother. He then hobbled off, returning minutes later with a tray of bread, pickled cucumber and ham, together with a glass of brownish coloured wine.
“Any time you need service just call,” he said. “Day or night.”
From which I took it that my tip had been over generous for these parts.
The streets where bills might be posted being unsuitable for a single woman of good reputation, I had need of my brother’s assistance once more. Therefore, having closed the wooden shutters and turned up the gas lamp, I drew a keychain from around my neck and unlocked the smaller of my two cases.
The arrangement within would have been familiar to any travelling performer. A small mirror on the inside of the lid revealed my face. Sewn pockets to either side held the pots of pigment, powder and glue, false sideburns, eyebrow hair and moustache with which I would transform myself.
Two layered trays occupied the body of the case, each divided into compartments containing male clothing, neatly folded or coiled. I made my selection, laying each item on the counterpane.
Stripped to my chemise, I began to wrap myself in a plain cotton binding cloth; one time tightly around the chest, holding in and flattening my mercifully small breasts, then more loosely around my belly just above the hip, filling in the hollow of the waist. The effect was precisely the opposite of my corset. One distortion of shape was being exchanged for another. Having lived with both disguises since puberty neither binding seemed strange to me.
Anticipating no need for a quick-change getaway, I did not clothe myself as I had for my visit to the Darkside Coffee House. Rather than false trousers that merely covered my lower legs, I could wear the real thing. Thus I dressed in all the layers with which a man would be familiar, from socks and boots to starched shirt and jacket. Of my female clothes I retained only the chemise, the innermost layer. I watched the transformation in the small mirror on the inside of my case, the makeup, false hair and top hat creating a new person before my eyes.
With the case packed away and the bed made up to seem as if a woman might be lying asleep, I turned off the gas and stood by the door in darkness, listening. Outside, the town clock struck five.
A set of back stairs took me to a tradesman’s entrance unseen. Then via a cobbled rear yard and a narrow jitty I picked my way back to the busy thoroughfare. Ah, the advantages that men enjoy without even knowing. I strolled towards the front of the Modesty Hotel receiving no judgement or second glances.
The lamplighter had done his rounds already. Light shone also from the windows of shops. Enough to see by, but not enough for my real face to be perceived under the disguise. Thus I could stand as if waiting for some prearranged meeting. Turning slowly, I examined the doorways and windows on the far side of the street, the places I might have chosen had I wanted to keep watch on the hotel. Finding nothing out of place, I glanced into the lobby. And there, tall before the reception desk, looking out at the street, stood John Farthing, the same man who had provided such fine entertainment on the flight. I could not see his Gladstone bag, though he still wore the Homburg.
What slim chance of fate had put us in the same hotel? Perhaps my momentary conflict of emotions had shown, for he looked directly at me. I let my gaze slide past him as if idly taking in the details of the lobby. Then I checked the time on my fob watch and turned to go. Five doors along, I paused as if diverted by the display in a shop window. Under this pretence, I snatched a look back towards the hotel, confirming that John Farthing had not followed. I felt relieved, but not entirely so. No intelligence gatherer is happy wit
h a coincidence.
Cutting away from the main street, I entered a narrow way of cafes and eateries, the tip of my cane tapping on the uneven cobbles.
“Eels and oysters, sir,” called a restaurant barker. “The freshest in Sleaford.”
The next establishment boasted finest Lincolnshire plum bread. After that were a tavern, from which the din of a lively crowd drifted, a goldsmith, a gentlemen’s barber and the offices of a public notary. Smells of food mixed in the chill air, and though I had eaten, I felt hungry again.
At the mouth of this street there might have been space for two carriages to pass, but it narrowed and darkened as I progressed so that after fifty yards any driver might fear scratching his paintwork against the walls. The further I walked from the main thoroughfare, the more bills and advertisements I found pasted. In places they lay on top of each other several sheets deep, smoothing and obscuring the contours of the bricks beneath. I scanned advertisements for “Liver Tonic”, “Fossop Lamp Mantles co.”, “Marmite Spread” and “Manchester Brass Cleaner”. Not finding what I sought, I strolled on, deeper into the warren.
Here lampposts were covered also, and the doors to rear yards and walkthroughs. Were the bills not scraped off periodically, it seemed the town might one day be lost under paste and cheaply printed paper.
It was not until I began to peel back the layers that I had my first sight of the great Harry Timpson. In the fifty years since he gave his name to the Travelling Laboratory of Arcane Wonders his image had become famous throughout the Republic. Though he must now be an old man, it was the same youthful picture, magnificently moustachioed, that peered out at me from a torn daybill.
The Great Harry Timpson,
~ explorer, scientist, emeritus professor ~
is proud to offer a very final viewing of his famous Laboratory of Arcane Wonders. His last ever tour of the Anglo-Scottish Republic presents the culmination of his life’s work, a collection the like of which has never before been assembled. Exotic beasts and men, arcane engines, impossible magic, controlled explosions and a demonstration of the alchemic process whereby base metal is transmuted into gold before your eyes.
In the white space below the text, printed in a cruder typeface and a darker ink, somewhat smudged, I read:
The Goose Field. Off Lincoln Road. Five days only.
I guessed the bill to have been there no longer than three weeks and no less than one. As to the stated duration, if Harry Timpson announced five days, he would surely scarper the tober after four.
“Read your mother’s name in your palm, sir,” called a breathy voice. I turned to see the woman who had addressed me from the other side of the road. She wore a brightly coloured gypsy skirt and her hair was tied back in a scarf. Though confident in my disguise, I knew my hands would not bear scrutiny.
“I see the letter ‘m’ in her name,” she said, stepping closer.
Born and raised in the Circus of Mysteries, I knew the ways of readers and palmists. “The letter ‘m’?” I asked.
“You have a keepsake from her,” the woman said.
“Less than you might believe.”
“There is sadness,” she said. “And still fresh. How many years? Two? Three? It is too short a span.”
I made to walk away but she stepped in front of me and leaned in. “You will not leave the pain behind,” she whispered. “It is a great sack of stones lain across your shoulders. Why do you carry it so far? Oh, but it is tied to you. Lashed in place with terrible ropes and cunning knots. Is it a heavy weight?”
I found myself nodding, though I had intended to remain a blank slate, unreadable by her tricks.
“So heavy” she said. “And you so young.”
“I’m sorry. I need to go.”
This time she grabbed hold of my elbow, halting my move to step away. “Not is all as it seems,” she said. Then, examining my face more closely, added, “Oh, but there are secrets as well as pain. You carry them also.”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“There will be a journey,” she said. “Before you can be released of yours. A long and dangerous road to make you free.”
With my gloved hand, I reached into a pocket and drew out a silver fivep’ny, which she took with quick fingers and the trace of a smile.
“Where will my journey take me?” I asked.
“North, south, east or west.” She watched me as she intoned the compass directions. “Your companion will be the south wind.”
With her use of this phrase, I knew for sure she was trying to read me cold. I had heard it used many times by fortune-tellers in the Circus of Mysteries. First they would search for a reaction on mention of the compass directions. If they detected nothing they would offer an ambiguous answer. To be a companion of the south wind – what did that really mean? That I would travel towards its source or travel with it on my back? By my reaction to the suggestion she would plan her next speech.
“I will travel north then? Or south?” I asked.
She did not answer but her eyes remained on mine.
Fortune tellers were common enough in the Kingdom. But until this encounter I had not thought they would be found among the rationalists of the Republic. Perhaps she had found a home in a travelling show. I wondered if she had seen me examining Harry Timpson’s picture. Other people had walked past without her accosting them.
“What about Laboratory of Arcane Wonders?” I asked. “Which wind does it travel with?”
She took a half-step backwards. “What is your business?”
“No business that could harm Harry Timpson,” I said. “Which way should I travel to meet him? North, south, east or west?”
“He moves with the whirlwind,” she said, though I had clearly seen her slight nod on the word “west”. She stepped back again, out of the meagre light and into the shadow of a walkway that ran between the houses on the other side of the road.
When I followed she had already gone.
Chapter 8
To read the future in palms and tea leaves is not to read the future at all. Rather it is to see the present with dizzying clarity.
– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook
The Circus of Mysteries nurtured me from infancy, taught me the ways of the road and the stage. And when I could stay with it no more, the women and men of that troop launched me into the world, though at great risk to themselves.
Among the many lessons of my childhood was to peer into the depths of the jossers’ mistrust. Those folk in whose towns and villages we pitched, who paid good money to attend our shows, could just as easily come with lighted torches to burn us in our caravans as we slept.
Thus it was our habit to send one or more of the company ahead by a day’s ride to gather intelligence and gauge the mood of each town. By a code of marks in chalk on gate posts on the approach, these outriders would warn us of their findings. Such men might pose as fruit pickers or navvies, depending on the season.
Or fortune-tellers, if they had that gift.
There could be no doubt that the gypsy woman was attached to Harry Timpson’s show. Her reaction to my question also told me that he was near. He would surely not return to the town so soon after leaving. Thus she could not be in the van of his company, but rather in the train.
Why he would leave people to watch a town after he had left it, I could not fathom. My question to the gypsy was valuable information however. Harry Timpson would soon be informed that a young gentleman was trying to find him. I did not believe the fortune-teller had pierced my disguise.
In nodding when I had said the word “west” she had indicated the direction she wanted me to travel – though whether this was to lead me to his camp or to send me away from it, there was no way to tell.
Standing stock-still in the deep shadow of the yard behind the hotel, I waited and watched. Twice, servants had come and gone – a porter who’d hefted a crate of empty bottles and a chef who’d stepped outside to stretch in the cold air, the sweat steaming f
rom his bare arms. Though I stood now alone, yet shadows shifted on the dimpled glass as people moved within. It seemed I would not have the chance to slip in through the back door, unobserved as I had left.
Stepping up the front steps of the Modesty Hotel, I felt glad of the dimness of the gas lamps in the lobby. The desk clerk made a small bow.
“May I help, sir?” he enquired.
“I’m here to meet Miss Elizabeth Barnabus, my sister.”
He ran his finger along the line of door keys, finding the gap where mine should have been hanging. “I’ll send a boy to call her,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping. Please don’t knock loud.”
The boy said he would not, then scampered away up the stairs.
It was only now that I caught sight of John Farthing, sitting at the back of the lobby, a newspaper open on his lap. He nodded and raised his hat.
“May I use the conveniences?” I asked the clerk.
Once out of sight around the corner of the corridor, I quickened my pace, taking the back stairs two at a time. Waiting out of sight on the second floor, I heard the boy knocking on my room door, a gentle tap as promised. After a moment he gave up and headed back towards the lobby. In five strides I was out of my hiding place, had slipped through the door and turned the key behind me.
In other circumstances I might have welcomed the attentions of the attractive John Farthing. But not this day. Unlocking the smaller of my cases, and pulling the false hair from my lip and cheeks, I began the transformation in reverse, watching my female face emerge in the small mirror as I wiped away traces of adhesive and dark pigment. Moving swiftly but surely, I folded my male clothes and unwrapped the chest binding, placing each item into the small case.
Outside the door a floorboard creaked. I pulled on a dressing robe and began brushing my hair out loose and long. A gentle tapping on the door sent my heart beating double time. I locked the case and hung the key around my neck so that it lay concealed where no gentleman would search.