by SJ Davis
“It’s not so bad, at least not outside of the house.” Abigail slapped her forehead. “Oh codswallop! It isn’t bad at all, I mean. I’m just expected to immediately return to help with the gathering. I have much work to do, even if you don’t.”
“Abigail. Remember what I told you about having an inner monologue? You could use one right now.”
“I must go, but all I really know and have heard spoken, is the butler saying you went to that school. That London College School.”
“North London Collegiate School,” Caroline corrected.
“He said the school gave you ideas.”
“Really? The school gave them to me? And what do you think of that? Are we, as girls and young women, not capable of forming our own ideas and elucidating the truth if given proper facts and instruction?”
“Blimey. I don’t know. I only know I need to clear the cutlery.”
“Well you should know, and the answer is we can. I want women to be able to vote in all political elections and have property rights.”
“I overheard downstairs, I think it was Lord West, saying if women voted, political power would be in the hands of giddy, ill-informed, and ill tempered young girls.”
“I believe he said ‘ill-conducted girls’,” said Caroline. “But no matter. He is an idiot.”
“Did his opinion make you run out?”
“I didn’t run out, I couldn’t stomach his inability to argue effectively.” Caroline threw herself on her bed, face up and her arm across her eyes. “You can go, Abigail. I’ll be down in a moment.”
Abigail nodded and left, closing the door with an imperceptible click behind her. Caroline ran to lock the door, turning the brass latch to the right. She pulled the note from her pocket. Unfolding it, the typeset of the words seemed exaggerated and oversized.
St. Botolph’s. Tuesday evening. 7:30
Caroline refolded the note and buried it deep in the back of her bedside table. She pulled down her covers, the downy softness reminded her of her mother, and she closed her eyes.
In her mind, she heard her mother’s voice, “Leave no stone unturned, and you will find what you seek.”
Caroline added as she lay back and rested her head, “And never quit before the fight has begun.”
Chapter Three
~All I Want Is To Be Next To You ~
Gravesend, England, April 1865
Josephine shivered, but not miserably, for she enjoyed the walk from her house to the neighboring manor. She called on the Stratford family three times a week, tutoring their children in French and Latin, but the lessons often merged into current events or recent scientific theories. The manor was modern, large and made of stone, and possessed a central steam heating system that the children enjoyed as the banging of the brass radiator burped and gurgled throughout their lessons.
Josephine hurried to the gate of the house, her books and lessons under her arm. She caught sight of the quiet gardener, a short and portly man with a round and reddened face, like a cherub. He minced quietly in the greenery, walking with delicate steps with the timidity of a cat weaving in and out of the avenue of bushes.
“Good day, Miss Rolls,” he called to her. “Looks like a sunny day, indeed.”
“Yes, Edward. We seem to be most fortunate today, with the fine weather.”
“You all right, Miss Rolls? You hurt yourself?” he asked, looking with concern at the bruise along the side of her face.
“I’m fine, thank you, Edward. Just a bump, a small accident at home. Not to worry!”
“Be careful. Most deadly accidents happen when we are in our very own homes.” He picked up his large gardening shears and hid behind a bush, peering at her through the dense branches.
“Thank you, Edward,” she hurried away, waving him off and entering the side entrance of the house without announcement.
A strange visitor lurked quietly in the foyer of the serving quarters and sat on the bottom stair. She felt a pang of fear as his dark eyes, screwed tightly into a sea of wrinkled skin, looked back in her direction. She left her hat and scarf on, turning her bruise away from the man, foreign in his tightly fitted dress and detached and observing demeanor.
The children ran from the front of the house to greet her. A chorus of “Miss Rolls” tumbled from their mouths.
“Hello, children!” She put her arms around each of them. “Ready for lessons?”
“No,” said three voices, objecting in unison. “Did you bring any new inventions?”
“Maybe after we practice declining nouns we will discuss the inventions. But no groaning, or there will be no inventions,” she warned. “Now, what are the five declensions of Latin nouns?”
“Nominative, Accusative, Ablative…did you bring the airship design?” asked Leander, the oldest boy, his eyes shined with excitement.
“Later, Leander,” she admonished. “And the other two?”
“Genitive and Dative,” answered Euphemia, the middle child. “I want to see the aethero-transmitter. Did you bring it, Miss Rolls?”
“Upstairs, everyone, to the library,” said Josephine. “Lessons first.” In the corner of her eye she caught the peculiar visitor peering at her, his monocle sinking in a nest of wrinkles. “Who is your visitor, children?” she whispered down to them as they went up the side stairs.
“What visitor?” whispered Matilda, the shy youngest child. “No one is here.”
“Yes, see? Behind us in the entrance to the foyer,” answered Josephine. She turned around. No one was there.
She rushed the children up the stairs, pushing open the door, and then another door, into a crowded anteroom. Two walls were lined with bookcases and shelves, a third was lined with desks and rocking horses, and a small marking board and maps covered the fourth. Josephine sat at the longest library table, on a cherry swivel chair mounted on wheels. She moved aside a newspaper rack and multiple time zone clocks and pulled out a large dial from her embroidered bag. The dial had copper hued needles attached to a large wooden base. These thin dulled needles clicked out letters to the alphabet, striking the paper and forming words and paragraphs while Josephine spoke into a curved copper horn-shaped attachment. A feed of paper clacked out the words she spoke, neatly typed.
“Did Bodhi design this?” asked Leander, as he sprung from the other side of his desk. A quickly growing boy of long legs and long arms, he stood a head above Josephine. His pockets were stuffed with pin mounts, jeweler’s tools, and rubber tipped forceps. A small vial of oil leaked through his jacket pocket. As he jolted over the table, a small container of Vinegar Cleanser that he used for removing oils and dust from clogged cogs and gears, spilled on his desk.
“One cannot even fathom its fullest capacity!” Josephine glanced behind him; the vinegar smell permeated the room. “Oh dear, grab some linens to sop up that spill, Leander.”
Out of her side pocket, she extricated a rounded earpiece and attached a small yellow-covered wire into its base. “This is the aethero-transmitter. For audio reception and vocal signals,” said Josephine, holding it up to each child. “This aural device perceives sound by detecting vibrations of speech, transposes the sound waves into an analog pattern, then transmits the spoken words directly to other aethero-receivers via sound waves. Each receiver is assigned a sequence of numbers or code, and each transmission can specify this code, addressing a recipient directly. Terribly clever!”
“So what you say here in this room might be received and read somewhere else? Miles away even? On another aethero-receiver?” asked Euphemia.
“Precisely.”
“When can we see Bodhi’s airship again?” asked Matilda. “Is it finished? Is the brass shiny inside? He said it would be shiny!”
“Not yet, Matilda. He is still busily working to assemble it into a semblance of working order. It’s hard to imagine it finished, much less shiny. It’s all in bits. Quite an awful mess, really,” said Josephine. “Now let’s get back to our Latin, shall we?” Josephine shoved the aethero-receiver bac
k into her bag, enjoying Bodhi’s inventions as much as the children.
Leander led the groans as they opened Augustine’s Confessions. Matilda opened her text but kept her eyes on the bay window to her left. Bodhi had sent over an elegant clock mounted on an ivory stand, which struck on the quarters and the hours in most mellifluous church organ tones. The phases of the moon and the date were also displayed in a fascinating example of his craftsmanship.
Euphemia took a pencil and began to sketch an underwater sphere with breathing apparatus attached to a primitive stick figure inside the machine. Thick tubes to a grandfather clock, on a ship above the water, connected her invention. Its long clock hands extended from its round perimeter but looked otherwise much like the timepiece in the window.
“Euphemia and Matilda, pay attention or I’ll need to remove the timepiece from the room,” said Josephine.
“Miss Rolls, it’s Euphemia. She’s drawing a time machine again,” said Matilda. “It’s much funnier than the last one. This one has fish around it.” Matilda giggled. “It’s under the sea.”
“Shut up, Matilda,” said Euphemia. “Tattle tale.”
“Euphemia, you are excused to tend to your embroidery. We will continue without you for the time being. Matilda, mind your own course of business and pay attention.”
“Yes, Miss Rolls,” answered Matilda.
“Yes, Miss Rolls,” Euphemia sighed and gathered her things. As she exited, she turned in the doorway and stuck her tongue out at Matilda who returned the gesture. “When may I return?”
“When you can avoid distractions,” said Josephine, ignoring the tongues in the air.
“Now, Matilda, what did you learn about free will?”
“From St. Augustine?”
“Yes, dear, of course, who else?”
“Um, yes. Well, St. Augustine believed that humans are morally responsible for their actions, but struggled with how this fit with the idea that one’s life is predestined.”
“Excellent, Matilda. Leander, did St. Augustine believe humans were moral creatures?”
“As I read the text, I believe that Augustine was optimistic about the ability of humans to behave morally in the beginning, but in the end, he became pessimistic, believing that original sin makes human moral behavior nearly impossible. If it were not for the rare appearance of the undeserved Grace from God, humans could not be moral.”
“And what is your opinion?”
“I believe in free will and moral choices. Thus, I can’t believe in predestination.”
“Very modern view, Leander. Matilda, what about St. Augustine’s view of time?”
“Augustine has a subjective view of time,” answered Euphemia from behind them, as she walked back in the room. “Embroidery is mindless. May I please come back in?”
“Yes, but pay attention to the lessons. No more doodles.”
“Yes, Miss Rolls. Augustine says time only exists in our minds and has no basis outside of human existence.”
“So time only exists as a construct of the human mind?” asked Josephine. “Does that make sense?”
“No, it doesn’t” said Matilda. “How else can we order our lives and chronology of events? We have day and night, so we divide them into parts we call time, right?”
“Maybe it doesn’t make sense in your small human mind,” said Euphemia. “But perhaps it applies to future discovery. It wasn’t so long ago that the world was flat.” She gazed back at Bodhi’s clock. “We have a definition of time. But time could be something totally different than our expectations as we discover more about our universe.”
“Euphemia wants be the first time traveler!” teased Leander. “Where would you go, sister? What wrongs would you right?” He put his head on the table so hide his derisive laughter.
“All right,” said Josephine, scowling at Leander. “That’s quite enough for today. Finish up with Book Ten of Augustine’s Confessions and study the irregular French verbs.”
“What about Bodhi’s inventions?” Euphemia pleadingly asked.
“I will leave you with his sketches for the interior of the airship to enjoy, but tomorrow, I want you to be able to explain how steam power elevates and powers the ship. We will discuss theories of the dynamics of flight. Think freely, children. Do not fear your ideas.”
“Yes, Miss Rolls,” they answered in unison.
Josephine gathered her belongings and walked down the cobbled path to the main road. Her footsteps echoed on the wet stones, her toes cold with dampness. Her bag swung behind her as she felt a tug at the shoulder strap. She turned. It was the visitor. The strange man. She inhaled sharply and quickly pulled away.
“Was it removed?” he asked quietly, looking at the side of her face. “Or was it just put in? Such a mystery when we weave through time, trying to understand what has happened already.” His features were of the Far East and his accent flat and unaffected.
“Who are you? What do you mean?” She spoke quickly and walked even quicker.
“Did they send you back without it?” He stared at the side of her face, squinting his eyes. “Or was it just put in?” He put his hands on his chest and leaned into her.
She covered her mouth; the smell of stale tobacco nauseated her.
“Do you even know what I mean? Such a very, very strange girl.”
“I beg your pardon? Do I know you?” She pulled her cloak around her face and stepped back from him.
“Yes, actually. And we have mutual associates.”
“Associates? I am a tutor. I have no associates. I work with children.” She turned as she walked away. “You must be looking for someone else.”
“Indeed. So linear in your thinking. You must still be in the dark.”
“Do we have any business together?” she answered with annoyance creeping in her voice.
“No, not here. I am simply gathering information. No harm done.”
“What are these riddles you keep posing? And how do you know the Stratford family?”
“Who’s the Stratford family?”
“I was just tutoring their children in their home,” she pointed to the house behind him. “And you were in the foyer!”
“I do not know them. Nor do I care about them. I am here to find you.”
Chapter Four
~ Demolition Man ~
Gravesend, September 1855
“Josephine, come downstairs quickly, your father is waiting,” Mrs. Rolls ascended the stairs to rouse her daughter. “Breakfast is ready, darling. Come and join us.”
The rain had kept the family awake most of the night, stopping only moments before, but the gray clouds threatened to pour again at any moment. The cold, the wind, the rain and the mud were all part of the quick transition from London’s fair summer to its impending long and dreary winter. The fog coursed through the city, which was of no particular surprise, but something bitter hung in the air as London’s commoners and ruling class elbowed and nudged their way through the muddied streets.
“Coming, Mums,” said Josephine, her lilting voice of a ten year old sang through the foyer.
Frederick Rolls sat at the table with his morning paper, readying himself for another day at his textile factory. The Rolls family had produced hand woven fabrics for three generations, and their station had improved markedly when Queen Victoria had selected him to open and expedite trade channels with India. But in spite of this honor, Rolls Textiles lagged behind the lower cost and higher production of the new mechanical plants.
Josephine bounded down the stairs in light steps shouting, “Good morning, Father!”
Mr. Rolls eyed his daughter affectionately, enjoying her natural capacity for joy and her innocence. He swept his mop of dark hair to the side as he pulled her in a rough embrace. The room was cool and dimly lit, and smelled of damp papers and baked bread.
“Good morning, love,” answered Mr. Rolls. “Tell me what you have been doing this morning.”
“Fiddling with the analog, playing games,
” replied Josephine softly. “But it’s running out of power.”
Mr. Rolls’s face stiffened as his eyebrows lowered, “I have instructed you to limit playing on the analog to one hour in the afternoon. The analog is not an appropriate pursuit for you, Josephine. It will have deleterious effects on your mental development.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Fresh air, languages, and the piano are far more desirable pursuits for a young lady. The analog will make you lazy as it tabulates for you.”
Josephine squeezed her father’s arm—she loved the challenging puzzles on the analog. She leaned into him and gazed squarely into his stern eyes. “Father, I don’t understand your condemnation of the analog. It’s quite enjoyable, and I believe it has logical and educational properties.”
Mrs. Rolls interrupted before the argument escalated, “Josephine, do not speak to your father in that fashion. Your tone is inappropriate.”
Mr. Rolls said gently, “It’s not about disliking the analog. It’s far more complex. It’s about a machine that does the thinking of a man. It’s about a society that values its machines over its citizens. It’s about unemployment, caused by replacing living men with mechanized instruments and analogs. What are these men to do?”
“Perhaps these men should adapt. Perhaps they should learn to incorporate the machines into a new livelihood.”
“Don’t be silly!” Rolls’s voice boomed into the foyer. “It is one or the other. The human way, or the cold hard way of wires, data, and speed.”
“Frederick,” said his wife, “these are advanced concepts for a young girl’s mind.”
“It’s never too soon to make her aware of her surroundings. There will be a war! I am certain of it. A war between man and machines! Why must we nurture this enemy, who will soon enslave us?” Rolls polished his fastidiously shiny shoes while an overwhelming silence filled the room. He looked at his wife and tapped his index finger on the table, “It’s never too soon. To leave her in ignorance is a disservice to her future.”
“Father, you cannot stop progress.”