by Peter Bunzl
Malkin considered this. “No, I don’t think so,” he said huffily. “I promised to deliver it myself. But perhaps you could bring Lily here, from Brackenbridge Manor? You must go straight away. It’s of the utmost importance.”
Robert shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s a long walk and it’s already dark. I don’t want to risk it tonight, in case those men are still about, but I can go tomorrow for you, if you like. After I’ve finished my chores.”
Malkin sniffed. “I suppose that’s acceptable,” he said. “I only hope it’s not too late.” Then he thought of something else. “Oh, but perhaps you can give Lily the other message when you fetch her? You’re to tell her: The secret’s in the safe…” He looked confused. “Wait – is it: The secret’s safe, or the secret’s in the safe?”
“Well, which?” Robert asked.
Malkin’s ears drooped, and a look of worry crossed his face. “Do you know,” he said, “with all that’s happened, I’m not entirely sure.”
At dusk, Lily walked along the dark landing. She’d been summoned again to see Madame and was dawdling nervously, stopping outside each room on her way, and touching each locked door with her hand.
Here was the library, with books piled outside because there was no space on the shelves within. Here, Papa’s study, with the buzzer beside it, and the spyhole so he could see who was coming and going. Then his workroom – the big metal door had the words Do Not Disturb painted on the surface beneath a lightning bolt. Finally, his bedroom: the master suite. Since he’d gone Madame had certainly wasted no time taking it over.
Lily knocked on the door and, without waiting for a reply, entered.
The green velvet curtains were partly drawn across the far window to keep out the cold and on the bedside table a small gas lamp glowed with a flattering light. Madame Verdigris perched primly at Mama’s dressing table, applying lotions to her face. The odour of her perfume, mixed with the dusty scent of dried flowers which filled every vase in the room, made Lily feel vaguely sick.
She went and stood by the window, glancing out into the night. In the garden, under the skeletal trees, the falling snow had almost covered Miss Tock and Mr Wingnut. Just like Papa himself, his machines were gradually disappearing. Soon they’d be invisible, hidden under the frosty white surface, like secrets. If she could only find their keys she might be able to help them. “Why’ve you let those mechanicals wind down?” she asked.
Madame glanced up from the mirror, her face almost hidden beneath a mask of cold cream. “Is that what the rusty rebel in the kitchen’s been telling you, ma chérie?”
“I noticed it for myself.”
“Of course you did.”
Madame plucked a rogue hair from a mole on her chin, and winced. Then she applied some paste from Mama’s shellac case over the spot. Lily felt sick. Papa had kept those things in Mama’s memory, but they’d not been used since she died. Not until now. “You’ve been through their possessions,” she muttered.
Madame dabbed rosewater onto her chin with a bony finger. “Whatever Mrs Rust’s said, Lily, there’s something I want you to bear in mind: all mechanicals are liars. Never take the word of a common mech over a human being.”
Tears pricked Lily’s eyes. She kicked at the carpet. “Mrs Rust is not a common mech. She’s been with us always. She understands. She’s looked after me every day since Mama’s death. And she’ll look after me until my papa returns, just like the others.”
“Your father will not return. I am in charge maintenant.”
“No.” Lily shook her head. The belief had been growing in her heart that somewhere her papa was alive. “He’ll return, I know it. And Mrs Rust has more love in her little metal finger than you have in your entire bony body. So don’t ever tell me to take your word over hers again.”
“Have you quite finished? Asseyez-vous. Sit down with me.” Madame patted the velvet seat beside her.
Lily sniffed and blew her nose on her sleeve. “I’m perfectly fine here, thank you.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“As you prefer.” Madame took up a washcloth and began wiping the ghostly white cream from her face. “But I wish you wouldn’t question my decisions. You know, I was the one who suggested your father send you to Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy. I thought it would do you good, though, frankly, I see scant evidence of that.” With a last flick of the washcloth, she cleaned a hint of kohl from her eyebrows. Lily noticed that they were plucked unevenly, and their opposing angles made her look like she wore two expressions at once. “You could at least try to behave in a way that would make your father proud.” Madame stood and indicated the seat in front of the mirror. “Now, s’il vous plaît, let me tidy you up.”
Lily lingered by the window, then did as she was told.
“I have been considering our situation.” Madame picked up Mama’s old silver-backed hairbrush from the nightstand and began brushing Lily’s hair, tugging at the tangles. Lily winced and gritted her teeth as Madame hacked at a particularly trying knot with the hairbrush.
“You are no longer a young lady of means,” Madame said. “Plus, we’ve no money to speak of. If we remain here we’d be obliged to sell Mrs Rust and the other mechanicals.”
“Please,” Lily sobbed. “You can’t.”
“They barely function. They’re all wound down. The other day Mrs Rust poured engine oil in my soup instead of cream. Anyone would think she wanted to poison me.” Madame took some hairpins from a glass pot and pricked at Lily’s head with them. “No, once mechanicals get like that, one is constantly buying upgrades, and, malheureusement, Lily, we can’t afford the parts.”
Lily shook her hand away. “I don’t care,” she said. “Mrs Rust is staying. They all are.”
“Désolée, but we have no choice.” The housekeeper stuck in another hairpin, scraping it against Lily’s scalp. “Unless you know of something of superior value? An invention of your papa’s we might sell? A perpetual motion machine, for example?” Her piercing eyes watched Lily in the mirror, and she gave a vicious tug on a strand of unruly hair.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Lily said. “I don’t know what that is.” The woman had too many questions – it felt as if she was poking around her insides. Lily tried to blink back her tears, but they rolled down her cheeks.
“Don’t get upset, ma chérie,” Madame cooed. “If we want to save Mrs Rust and the house then we need to discuss these things like adults. There. C’est fini.” She inserted a last hairpin and stood back to take a look at her creation. “C’est magnifique, don’t you think?”
Lily regarded her tower of pinned hair in the mirror; it looked not unlike the terrible hair-monstrosities the girls in her class were so fond of. “It’s a mess,” she said. “Like everything else.”
That night Lily dreamed of a clear sky and shimmering stars reflected on the ocean. It was summer and she was running along the beach; trying to catch Papa and Mama, who walked ahead. When she stumbled, Mama stopped and bent down to take her tiny hand and help her up. Then the three of them walked on together.
Papa carried his walking cane, and used it to point out landmarks: rows of iron ships and tall spider platforms out to sea collecting gas and oil for industry that Lily didn’t understand.
They weaved their way along the tideline of the bay, while Lily ran in and out of the shallows, letting the seawater rush cold across her feet, and jumping away from the breakers.
Mama found something. A stone in the sand. She picked it up.
“This is for you,” she said, giving it to Lily.
Lily took the stone and studied it. It was heavy and the underside felt lumpy in her palm.
“What is it?” she asked.
Mama reached out and turned the stone over in her hand, revealing a bright golden fossil at its centre, like the curving shell of a snail. “An ammonite,” she said.
“How did it get there?”
Papa crowded in beside Mama, peering over her shoulder. “Billions of year
s ago, when it died,” he said, “it sank into the mud, and was buried. Then minerals seeped in slowly, replacing the organic matter, until it was petrified. It’s the pyrite that gives it that gold colour – fool’s gold.”
Lily looked at the fossil. “So it’s been hidden inside the stone for ever, until we found it?”
“Yes,” said Mama. “The secret’s at the heart of it.”
She put a hand to Lily’s face.
Suddenly, the three of them were in a carriage, in the dark cobbled streets of London, driving home surrounded by falling snow. The sounds of the city were muffled. But Lily knew at once what day this was: it was the day of the accident.
She sat on the back seat of the steam-hansom, wedged between Mama and Papa. The metal chimney chuffed and sputtered and the wooden wheels creaked and turned as the mechanical cabbie in the exterior driver’s compartment steered them home.
They had been out to dinner. Mama had on her taffeta red dress with the beautiful lapels and her long dark hair hung loose about her shoulders, her warm hand clasping Lily’s leg. Papa wore his tall top hat that grazed the roof of the carriage; his suit tails, which made him look like a penguin, were folded under his legs.
Lily still held the stone Mama had given her in her hand, as if she had jumped from one moment to the next. She glanced at the beautiful golden ammonite buried at the heart of the rock. When she flipped the stone between her fingers it looked as if the fossil disappeared and reappeared. “The secret’s at the heart of it,” she whispered.
Her parents were talking together over her head. Soft words, gliding back and forth, accompanied by warm laughter.
Lily glanced down. On the floor of the carriage, between Papa’s feet, was a darkly varnished rosewood box with polished brass corners. Odd – she’d had this dream many times, and yet she had never noticed it before. “What’s inside?” she asked Papa.
“My invention,” Papa said. “We have to keep it safe and hidden. It’s a secret, like your fossil.” He nodded at the stone in her hand.
“Why?” Lily asked. She suddenly knew she’d had this conversation before. The box, the words, everything, it all seemed strangely familiar, like it was part of a memory rather than a dream.
Papa opened his mouth to reply, but no more words came, and Lily saw through the windscreen the other steam-wagon careering towards them. The other driver’s flashing silver eyes in the moonlight. The sweep of his headlamps across their windscreen, the screaming skid as its wheels crunched across the icy cobbled road.
Then Lily felt the impact. A deafening explosion tore the night in two as the steam-wagon smashed into the side of their carriage.
The golden fossil in its stone flew from her hand, fracturing the windscreen into a spider’s web, and Lily and Mama went flying after it. Smashing through glass and gaslights, streaking reflections and snowflakes. And Lily fell into a white drift of blankness; her head filling with a fuzz of bright blinking patterns…
Lily opened her eyes. Her mouth was dry and her body soaked in sweat. Her heart beat erratically, her pulse thudding through her. She took several deep breaths, holding in the air, then let it out slowly. She wouldn’t sleep now, that was for sure.
The hands on her bedside clock said it was nearly three. She stood unsteadily and stared out the window. Behind the curtains, snow was falling in thick flakes; it was almost as if she was still in her nightmare. She shuddered at the thought of Mama’s words, spoken months before the accident:
The secret’s at the heart of it.
Why had she remembered that phrase? Was it to do with the fossil? She wasn’t even sure where it was any more. And had Mama really said it? Or was it remembered from somewhere else? Then there was the new part of the dream; Papa’s invention in the box.
We have to keep it safe and hidden, he’d told her.
The box was a memory – she was sure of that. Another fragment from the accident she’d tried to blank out. But she couldn’t because it was part of the puzzle of all this.
It had to be in his study. She would find it.
Lily sat up, lit the candle by her bedside, then pulled on her slippers.
The door to Papa’s study would not open. Madame must’ve locked it. Lily didn’t bother with a hairpin, she knew where to find the spare key. She found a nearby chair to stand on and ran her fingers along the top of the door frame until she felt the key cold against her hand. Then she took it down and put the bit in the lock.
The study was filled from floor to ceiling with shelves of dusty boxes and books. Blueprints and plans lay strewn across the desk blotter, files and folders were stacked on the occasional table, and balled papers were scattered about the rest of the room.
Papa was always neat and tidy. Someone had obviously been through his things, and Lily had a strong suspicion who.
She caught a distinct whiff of Madame’s perfume. Mrs Rust was right: the housekeeper had been prying here. But if she hadn’t found anything, how was Lily to know where to start?
Angrily, she kicked over the waste-paper basket and a crumpled telegram toppled out. She picked it up and smoothed it flat across the blotter on the desk, so she could read what it said.
The perpetual motion machine – wasn’t that the thing Madame had mentioned to her this very afternoon? Maybe that’s what Papa’s secret invention was? The thing in the box? If so, Lily hoped the housekeeper wouldn’t find it. She had the distinct impression she herself was meant to make the discovery, otherwise why would she have remembered it in her dream?
She pulled a few random books from the shelves and flipped through their pages, hoping to find inspiration, but nothing jumped out at her. Then she examined the blueprints on Papa’s desk, but they weren’t of interest either.
Finally, she stepped over to the fireplace, where Mama’s ashes sat in an urn on the mantel. Lily traced the engraved words on its surface with her finger.
Grace Rose Hartman, 1847 – 1889
Wife, mother and heart of our lives.
She so dearly wanted to remember Mama. She closed her eyes and tried to summon her to mind, her smell, her voice, her laughter. But seven years had passed and she’d become a fuzzy face, lost in the recesses of time. The only thing Lily had left of her was the snatched picture in her dreams, that and the youthful portrait above the mantel.
The portrait was painted before Lily was born but Mama’s soft brown eyes and loving smile felt familiar. Lily missed the warmth of that smile, and the safety of those arms. Life had been so cold without them, like a part of her had gone missing. And now perhaps Papa was gone too.
Lily held her breath…
What was it her parents had said to her in her memory, in her dream?
The secret’s at the heart of it. We have to keep it safe and hidden.
The safe! Lily dragged the chair over from behind the desk. She pushed Mama’s ashes carefully along the mantel until they were clear of the picture, then she reached up and, clutching the side of the frame, pulled it towards her. The picture swung out from the wall, hinged on one side. And there, behind it, was the safe.
Something told Lily that Madame had already looked here: the number lock seemed to have been scratched at with a nail file.
But Madame probably knew nothing about safes. Not as much as Lily and The Notorious Jack Door, anyhow, and Lily had the double advantage of knowing more special Hartman family dates than Madame, so she was sure she’d be able to guess the combination.
She started with her own birthday, twisting the lock around and stopping the numbers one by one under the arrow until the tumblers inside clicked.
That didn’t work, but she wasn’t surprised; Madame would’ve tried her birthday, and Papa’s too, perhaps even Mama’s, or Malkin’s, because Lily found none of those worked either.
Then she had a horrible thought. She reached up to the safe lock and dialled in another number – the date of Mama’s death. The date of the accident.
The safe swung open. Inside, on the s
mall metal shelf, was the rosewood box with brass corners. Lily took it out and closed the safe door. She tried the lid but the box was locked, so she replaced the picture and the urn just as she’d found them. Then, with the box under an arm, she crept from the room, shutting the door behind her before locking it again.
Back in her bed, she positioned the box at her feet in the centre of the blanket and sat hugging her knees, staring at it. The keyhole of the box was made from gold, and the plate around it was shaped like a tiny heart with patterns of cogs pressed into the metal.
Lily took a hairpin from the discarded pile on her bedside table and tried one in the lock, but it didn’t work. Silly to think it would. The mechanism was obviously far too complex.
She was wondering where the key could possibly be when she heard Madame’s soft footsteps in the passage. She licked her fingers, doused the candle flame, then threw a blanket over herself and the box, and lay curled up against it, pretending to be asleep. Her heart thumped in her chest, blood hissing in her ears as she waited.
The door rattled and creaked as if someone was opening it and peering in. Then it shut softly, and there was a quiet click as a key turned in the lock.
Lily let out a sigh of relief, before she realized: Madame had locked her in! The housekeeper was up to something.
She got up and hid the box beneath the loose floorboard under her bed. As she replaced the board, she heard the putter of a steam-wagon creeping quietly along the drive, and the sound of Madame’s feet descending the staircase.
The steam-wagon jittered to a stop outside, and there was a scraping noise as Madame dragged something heavy across the downstairs hall.
Then there was a pause, and the same scraping noise again.
Lily stepped to her window and, pressing herself against the glass, looked out along the side wall of the house towards the porch. Beyond it, the steam-wagon was parked.
Lily squinted into the gloom. Two men in long winter coats were walking up the front steps, their top halves rendered momentarily invisible to her by the corner of the house and the porch roof. One was razor-thin, like the man with the mirrored eyes on the zeppelin the other day, the other big and lumpy as a sack of bricks.