by Rod Duncan
Light shone from the front windows of Julia’s house, revealing strands of thin mist which hovered over the road in front of us.
“I knew it should be in the night that I saw you if ever, Mr Barnabus.”
“How so?”
“Your sister doesn’t speak of you beyond saying that you sleep during the day, and I don’t press her. Please don’t take this badly, but there’s nothing of the ordinary about you. I’d half imagined you as Mr Stoker’s vampire, though a gatherer of private intelligence is almost as exotic.”
We had reached the front door and I found myself facing her. “I’ll not ask you in,” she said. “I don’t think you’d accept. But please believe me when I say this brief meeting has been more than pleasant. For me at least.”
“I’m no more than a shadow,” I said, “and can have only such friendships and feelings as a shadow might. A vampire would be more substantial.”
She made to take my hand, but I was already turning away.
Chapter 12
Illusion is story. Weave it with characters and feelings and love and loss and the audience will follow you as surely as the children of Hamlyn followed the Pied Piper.
– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook
At the end of the British Revolutionary War, the generals took a ruler and drew a line across the map. The border ran from the Wash in the East to Wales in the West and was so placed as to cut no city or town. But when news spread that the birthplace of Ned Ludd, father figure of the revolution, lay inside the Kingdom, Republicans took to the streets in protest. It seemed war might break out again. The generals hastily rectified their mistake by signing the Anstey Amendment, redrawing the line to include a small southward loop. But in doing so they split Leicester in two.
The impossibility of securing a border across The Backs made Leicester unique. Only in the divided city could people cross with such ease and the differentiated cultures of Kingdom and Republic bleed through into each other. Perhaps that is what had drawn me to live there.
Notwithstanding this mixing, the clothes I could see on the far side of the border post were noticeably brighter. Skirts in the Kingdom were worn shorter also. Here and there I could glimpse ankles and flashes of colourful stockings. But fashion was merely the outer symbol of something more profound, something elusive as a half-remembered scent. It was a way of thinking, a love of mystery, a pleasure in rudeness, a preference for Anglo Saxon words over Latin, a mixing of races. It was the sum total of a thousand small differences, each of which might be irritating or pleasing to a degree but when put together formed a quality that I yearned for and knew I could never again possess.
Two guards in blue Republic uniforms sat in the glass-fronted booth a few paces away from me, their muskets leaning next to them. Two Kingdom guards in red sat in an identical booth on the other side. The protocol of the border demanded that guard numbers always matched. Today this symmetry extended to the way their guns had been balanced in the corner of the booths and to their indifferent sleepiness.
There being so many cheaper and easier ways to pass between the Kingdom and the Republic, this crossing was left as a place of parades and symbolic exchanges of prisoners. I doubt a more porous border had existed in the history of the Second Enlightenment.
I pictured myself stepping forwards, ducking under the barrier and disappearing into the crowds on the other side before either set of guards had stirred. It would be easy. And yet others would see.
Just as the border had made Leicester boom as a city of smugglers, so too had it boomed as a place of spies. Some worked for the government of the Kingdom, some for the Republic. A few perhaps for the Patent Office, though that could only be a guess. By far the most numerous of the intelligence gatherers of the border were private traders in information. People like myself.
As I stood, gazing into the Kingdom, I became aware of a portly man in a blue coat and top hat who stood just to the other side of the barrier adjusting his fob watch to the clock tower standard. He took a casual glance in my direction.
The hour was indeed growing late.
Humberstone Gate, being the last respectable thoroughfare in North Leicester before The Backs, was home to a vibrant mix of businesses. Many were tailors and outlets for factory-produced woven goods. There also were delicatessens, retailers of fine porcelain, estate agencies, banks, and one steamcar showroom.
Having stopped to ask directions from a newspaper boy, I stepped down a side street and immediately found the shop I was looking for. A wooden sign cut into the shape of a Gladstone hung over the door and bags of every description crowded the small window display.
A bell tinkled as I stepped inside.
The girl behind the counter flashed a smile of welcome. “May I help you?”
“Are you the bag-maker’s assistant?” I asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“I was told to meet the bag-maker’s assistant. This afternoon.”
“What name should I give?”
“Barnabus,” I said, surprised to be asked.
The girl beckoned and I found myself following past racks of bags spaced so closely that I had to sidestep to avoid knocking them from their hangers. The smell of leather and new wool prickled my nostrils. A narrow doorway at the very back of the room brought us to a short flight of stone stairs leading up towards a windowless storeroom. From there, a wooden ladder granted access through a trapdoor to the upper storey.
Lifting her head, the girl called out, “It’s Barnabus.”
With a clunk the trapdoor above our heads opened. The girl curtsied and scurried back to the front of the shop.
The wooden joints of the ladder creaked at my weight. Gripping tightly, I climbed, rung by protesting rung until my head emerged through the opening and I found myself peering into a bare room of floorboards and uneven plaster. Thin daylight streamed in through a large window of frosted glass. And there, looking down at me, stood the Duchess of Bletchley herself, wearing a coarsely woven travelling cloak and an expression that might have been cold determination, though I fancied it was anger.
“I brought your gold.” It was all I could think to say.
She waited until I had climbed into the room before making her reply. “Most kind. Minus your expenses?”
“I’ve located Harry Timpson.”
“You’ve succeeded in narrowing the search to Lincolnshire. One of the largest counties south of Carlisle. Would you call that a triumph of detection?”
I held out the bag of coins for her to take, but she made no move beyond a momentary flick of the eyes. “Living easy on my money for two weeks then announcing that you have grown tired of the assignment – this sounds like sharp practice. Not only have I entrusted you with payment in advance, I’ve exposed myself to danger in crossing the border. Twice! I will not accept your resignation.”
“You will not?”
“I will not, indeed!”
I stepped away from the open trap door and began circling. The Duchess turned, keeping her stern face towards me. Her rebuke had thrown me off balance. But the authority of the aristocrats did not extend to this place. And the further she pushed, the thinner her pretence of righteousness seemed to me.
“When the thugs chased us,” I said, “when they ended our first meeting, I had thought they came for my brother. But it wasn’t so. They came for yours! You knew this but didn’t warn me.”
“We each escaped,” she said.
“You brought me into their gaze. Even before our meeting, you knew this would happen. Your letters, so secretive. Your payment – the bag carrying a hidden label. You prepared all this but didn’t warn me of the danger. You’re not the injured party! I’ve been followed. My home searched. I was imprisoned by agents of the Patent Office. Kept for days in a room without windows or light!”
The Duchess of Bletchley raised a hand to her chest and held it there. At last she took the small woollen bag from me, opened it and ran a slender finger over the coins inside.
“I could have run with your gold,” I said.
When the Duchess looked up to me again, her sham anger had disappeared. I felt her eyes evaluating me. “We had no time on our first meeting to haggle over a price,” she said. “Is there too much danger for you, or insufficient money?
“Life is more precious than gold.”
“Life and gold are synonyms,” she said. “You of all people should know that. Had your father the money to repay his debts, you wouldn’t have become the property of the Duke of Northampton.”
“We never borrowed from that man!”
“And yet you owed.”
“The Duke of Northampton...” I spat onto the wooden floorboards between us, trying to rid myself of the taste of his name. “...that man... through bribes and forgeries he ruined us.”
“I’ve read your history,” she said. “Your family’s wagons, tents and effects seized by the court. I know of your flight from the Kingdom. Yet, had you the money, this ruin wouldn’t have come.”
My eyes were stinging. I screwed my face into a snarl, trying to stop the first tears from spilling, then turned away from her and leaned my hands against the cold plaster. “You’ve got your gold,” I said, my voice sounding shrill. “Now go.”
But instead of leaving, she stepped closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. “How much would it cost to pay the debt owed the Duke of Northampton? How much to pay the expenses of the court and win back the effects of the Circus of Mysteries?”
“It’s gone.”
“It could be restored.”
“No.”
“Nine thousand guineas would pay Northampton and clear the expenses of the court. Your life returned.”
“No!”
“We’re both victims, Elizabeth. But your misfortune may be reversed. Mine also with your help.”
“My father died. That can’t ever be undone!”
“I’m begging you,” she said, her voice cracking. “Please help.”
Slowly, I turned. She stood a pace from me, her face creased with pain. I hadn’t noticed insincerity in any of her expressions. Yet seeing her now, I understood that everything before had been affectation by comparison.
“Nine thousand guineas would pay for a hundred gatherers of intelligence,” I said.
“Only a fool would take gold and risk their life. Yet a fool couldn’t find my brother.”
And there it was: the real reason this woman had selected me. Not because of my fine reputation as a gatherer of intelligence, though that had been a pleasant fiction. Not even for my childhood background in a travelling show.
How long had she expected the investigation to last before the Patent Office intervened? One week? Two perhaps? And when that happened, she knew I would drop her commission and run, as would any of the legion of intelligence men she could have approached.
Desperation was the quality that made me uniquely fit for her needs. She had gambled on the proposition that I, or my brother, would risk a death sentence in the Patent Office Court in exchange for the chance of return to our home in the Kingdom.
“Money and life are not the same,” I said.
“They are for me, Elizabeth. For you also. We’re of one kind. Tragedy has made fools of us both.”
I watched as she stepped to the trapdoor and swung it closed, cutting us off from the world below.
“What did you see in the Darkside Coffee House?” I asked
“I saw you half revealed.”
“You researched the records of my birth? My history?”
“I needed to know who I was commissioning.”
“And you didn’t think to blackmail me?”
“Would you have succumbed?”
I did not answer. For a moment we each seemed to be waiting for the other to blink. Then she said: “It seems I chose wisely.”
“You would pay nine thousand guineas?”
“For his safe return, yes.”
I shook my head. “I won’t face certain death for any money.”
“Nothing is certain. Please hear my story.”
We sat in the corner of the room, the Duchess rigidly upright, her back against the wall, feet stretched out in front of her. I kept my legs crossed under my skirts.
“He is beautiful,” she said, speaking of her brother.
“Not handsome then?”
“He has a delicate masculinity. A sculpted face. You’ll understand when you find him.”
“If I find him. Are there no pictures?”
“There was one. A small portrait. Very fine. The frame alone would be worth a fortune. The Patent Officers took it – for their investigation, they said.”
The injustice of her story rang true. The very people who had chased him from his home also stole the last reminder of his face. Yet I had been taken in by the Duchess’s stories before and did not trust the way her story resonated with my own.
“I think you miss the picture more than you miss him,” I said.
The flush of anger rose quickly in her cheeks. “Withdraw that!”
“Why? You spoke of the fine frame with more passion than you did your brother’s face. Perhaps you loved him once.”
“You push too far!”
“Why did you leave him then?”
“I didn’t leave him!”
“You married the Duke of Bletchley. You joined his household and left your brother.”
“Those with wealth or title have no choice in marriage,” she said.
“Then you don’t love your husband?”
For a moment neither of us spoke. I had learned one thing in the exchange. Her outrage had been real, so too must her love be.
“Why do you treat me so?” she asked.
“To find the truth.”
Tiredness seemed to overtake her. Her shoulders slumped.
“Tell me how he disappeared?” I said.
“There are workshops in the grounds – a ramshackle collection of buildings. The Duke wished to convert them into stables, as I believe they may have been in the past. Yet they were stacked with obscure artefacts. Believing there might be something of value hidden among the dust and cobwebs, the Duke employed my brother to sort and catalogue the hoard.”
“Whose was the workshop?” I asked. “Originally, I mean.”
“An uncle of the Duke, dead some twenty years. The man had a fascination for exotic science.”
“He was an inventor?”
She shook her head. “A collector. They were bought from private sales, though none had a patent mark. My brother has a way with devices. Retorts and chemicals that would be a mystery to others, he could perceive the uses of.
“I used to sit with him as he puzzled over clockwork machines and steam devices and obscure arrangements of lenses. The Duke’s uncle had a hoarder’s instinct. But he was no librarian. He left no catalogue and little by way of written explanation. Three months my brother worked and not a tenth of the task completed.”
As the Duchess spoke, I thought of the nine thousand guineas she had offered. Everything in me wanted to go blindly forward and take it. I wanted to retract my impertinence. I wanted to grovel and receive my old life back in return. But if her story proved untrue, all she promised would be illusion. I became aware that I had been holding my breath.
“It’s almost dark,” I said. “We should go soon. They’ll be shutting up shop below.”
She put her hand on my arm, stopping me getting to my feet. “First let me tell you of Harry Timpson. All my troubles began when he came to Buckinghamshire.”
“Timpson is a Republican,” I said. “He’d never take his show across the border.”
“Yet so he did. His Laboratory of Arcane Science pitched its tents not half an hour distant from the Hall. The Duke paid for everyone to see the show – guests, servants and all down to the least parlour maid. My brother seemed galvanised by the prospect.
“Indeed, the show proved exceptional, though my brother couldn’t settle through it. He sat there
fidgeting – to the embarrassment of all. At the intermission the men went off to smoke and drink. I took refreshment with the rest of the womenfolk.
“But my brother didn’t return for the second half. Nor when the show was done and the carriages lined up to carry us home. When he was still missing the following morning, the Duke sent out men to search. They found Harry Timpson’s big top had disappeared in the night. A week later we received word that the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders had crossed back into the Republic at a border post just east of Leicester. My brother had passed beyond my reach.”
“You didn’t see him again?”
“No.”
The Duchess lifted herself from the floor and stood, straightening her skirts for a moment. I got to my feet and faced her square. Being the same height, my eyes were level with hers. Despite the difference in status, we seemed to have reached a moment of equality. Dusk had entered the room and I could see only the half of her face illuminated by the thin light that filtered through the frosted window.
“When did the agents of the Patent Office arrive?” I asked.
“The very day that Timpson crossed back into the Kingdom. There were two of them only. One was old and somewhat gaunt. The other was much younger and spoke with an American accent. They presented their papers to the Duke. I recognised the younger man. He’d been in conversation with my brother the night before he disappeared. At the time I hadn’t known what he represented.”
“The agents removed something from the workshops?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I watched all day as they searched.”
“A small object perhaps? Something they could have concealed in a pocket?”
“To judge by their expressions, I’d say they didn’t find whatever they were searching for. They placed the seal of the Patent Office on the workshops and that’s been an end to it. None of us have crossed the threshold since.”
She held the purse of coins out towards me on her upturned palm.
There was a scuffing noise below the trapdoor. “We’ll be closing in five minutes.” called the shopkeeper.