Magnificent Devices [5] A Lady of Resources

by Shelley Adina

  She walked to the waist-high parapet and gazed over the castle roofs at the other tower, where the barrel of the telescope protruded from the brass dome. “We have two tasks, don’t we? To scuttle that cannon so it can’t fire and bring the ship down, and to get away from here so he can’t find us. The question is, how are we going to accomplish them?”

  Maggie leaned over the parapet as far as she could, examining the sheer stone wall. “You’ll have to put on your antigravity corset and fling yourself off, because we certainly aren’t going to be climbing down. I thought medieval towers were supposed to have vines and missing stones and footholds and all those helpful things.”

  “If I had my corset, I would. But if it’s in your valise, it may as well be in Munich, for all the good it will do.”

  “But it isn’t.” Maggie straightened and began to unfasten her suit jacket. “I’ve got it on.”

  Lizzie gaped at her.

  Off came the jacket. “Here, undo the buttons on my waist, will you? I put it on over my own, and until this moment had completely forgotten about it.”

  Lizzie had the sudden urge to laugh, and if that was hysteria, then so be it. She took the green brocade garment that she hadn’t seen since her final examinations, and tossed it to the flagged floor. It bounced about four feet in the air until Maggie grabbed it.

  “Careful. It’ll go over the parapet and then where will we be?”

  Where, indeed? “Why on earth did you wear it? I expected it to be in your valise with your raiding rig.”

  “Have you seen how the porters on the trains here treat the luggage? I couldn’t very well risk my valise being tossed on the platform and having the blessed thing go bouncing off down the line or up onto a roof, now, could I? It was put the corset on or leave it at home.”

  Swiftly, Lizzie re-wrapped it around her cousin and began to hook up the front. “What are you doing?” Maggie protested, pushing at her hands. “I brought it for you.”

  “You may have done, but you’re going to wear it. You’re going to go and get help.”

  Maggie stared at her. “You’re not suggesting—”

  “I am. You’re going to do exactly what you just said—jump off this tower and get word to the Lady. There is just enough time to send a tube and for her to lift and fly here. Perhaps she can even intercept the royal ship.”

  “And what are you going to do while I am taking headers off towers?”

  “I shall scuttle that cannon.”

  “And if you’re discovered?” Maggie’s cheeks were reddened by the wind and by incredulity. And fear. “What then?”

  Lizzie took her hands and squeezed. “Then at least I will know that you are safe, and you’ll see that de Maupassant is brought to justice.”

  “I know what you are doing, you rascal. You shall not send me to safety and stay here to be killed, Elizabeth Rose. We go together or we do not go at all.”

  Lizzie shook her head and invited Maggie to put on her embroidered waist. “I do not know how the repenthium will behave. Sending you to safety—I do not even know if you will survive the drop.” She stopped attempting to dress her. “No, on second thought, you must scuttle the cannon and I will jump. Take this off at once.”

  Maggie pulled away and reached behind herself to button her waist. “I will not. If you are going to risk your life with your father, then I shall take the same risk with the fall, and we will settle up the safety question when we are both far away. Here, do me up, will you? I can never get the ones in the middle.”

  Maggie was right. It was Hobson’s choice anyway—either course was as likely to get them killed. As she fastened the buttons, Lizzie said, “Remember your angles in geometry?”

  “As if I could forget. I nearly went mad. What has that to do with anything?”

  “The repenthium will cause the bounce at an angle opposite to the surface toward which it is forced. If you go straight down, you will come straight up, and that will do us no good at all. If you land on the far slope of the moat, you will bounce straight into the castle walls, and—and, well, I do not want to think about that. So you must endeavor to come down on the inner slope of the moat, bounce outward, and land somewhere in the park, there.” She pointed.

  “Two hundred feet, you said?” Maggie asked, her gaze flickering from one point to another as she calculated angles, weight, and trajectory.

  “Approximately. Oh, Maggie, let me do it. I cannot bear the thought of you—” She could not finish.

  “Then do not think of it. How do I stop the bouncing?”

  Lizzie swallowed and controlled the urge to break down and weep once more. “Reach up under your waist and remove the bones of repenthium one at a time until you can control your landing. The channels in the corset are open at the top—I ripped out the ends of the seams one afternoon after the Lady had to rescue me with a very large butterfly net.”

  “Is that where that came from? I wondered what on earth she was experimenting with. All right, then. There is no time like the present, I suppose.”

  Together, they leaned over, and Maggie examined the slope of the moat. “It looks possible.”

  “Surprisingly so, for something impossible.” She hugged Maggie to her, feeling the hard casing of two corsets around her slender form. “Do not die, Mags. I could not bear it.”

  “The same to you,” Maggie whispered. “Once I send the tube, I will return to help you.”

  “How?”

  “I do not know—but I will use my imagination. You must focus on that cannon.”

  Maggie took as deep a breath as her two corsets would allow, and climbed into one of the embrasures. A final calculation and—

  “Maggie, one last thing.”

  With a loud exhalation, she stepped back from the brink. “Yes?”

  “Make sure you curl up and fall horizontally, knees to chest, so the greatest number of bones repel the earth.”

  “I’m glad you remembered that now instead of a second from now.”

  “In fact, why don’t you slip one out of the front and give it to me. I just had an idea.”

  Maggie reached under her batiste waist, and after a second of fiddling, threaded a thin rod of repenthium up through her embroidered collar and handed it to her. “Here you go. Chin up. See you later tonight—we’ll enjoy the fireworks together.”

  Lizzie handed her the suit jacket, and she slipped it on. Then she stepped to the edge, flexed her knees … and leaped straight out into the empty air.

  20

  If she had sent the one she loved best in the world to her death, then she could not turn her face away like a coward.

  Lizzie leaned over the parapet and watched Maggie’s body plunge toward the inner slope of the moat. For one dreadful second it appeared as though Maggie would hit the wall—and then she rolled to her back, spread her skirts, and the air caught them enough to change her trajectory and take her to the slope of the moat. She pulled her legs in just in time, the repenthium repelled its target a good four feet from the point of impact, and Maggie flew up into the air in a huge, arcing bounce that took her over the moat, over the garden, and into the park.

  Another bounce barely took her to the top of a maple tree.

  And Lizzie could not even see the third bounce. She must be taking the rods out two at a time, controlling her motion at the risk of increasing impact. Where was she? Had she hit a tree? Miscalculated and broken her back on a rocky outcropping? Lizzie’s eyes dried in the wind at the top of the tower as she stared out into the park, desperate for some sign.

  And then, a small brown blob stepped into one of the distant grazing meadows for the draft horses, and waved. Once—twice—and Maggie ducked back under the trees and was lost to sight.

  Lizzie dissolved against the cold stone, weeping in relief and gratitude. She went to church with the Lady but had never been the religious sort. However, if there was ever a moment to give thanks to forces greater than herself, now was that moment. Safe. Oh, thank you, Lord, sh
e is safe!

  When her sobbing quieted enough that she could think again, she wiped her face with the ruffle on her petticoat and got to her feet.

  Now, then—the first order of business was to get off this tower. She crossed it and leaned over the other side to consider her course. Going back into the bedroom was useless, and scaling the walls impossible. Her only option was to do as Maggie had done, and jump down onto the roofs of the castle, which sloped this way and that, with battlements and walkways and odd bits of crenellation on the ridges. It was clear that no one had been up to look after the roof in at least a decade—drifts of leaves had piled in the corners, and that directly below, freezing winters appeared to have caused some of the blocks to separate as ice expanded and contracted in rotting masonry. She would have to choose her landing site carefully, or she would turn an ankle. Or worse.

  There. The ridge of the slate roof directly below her flattened out in a foot-wide walkway, presumably so that a workman could get over to the eaves to clean them. It was the only flat landing place that she could see, but she would need to be very careful. If she leaned too much one way or the other, she would go tumbling down the steep roof, and who knew where she would land? She had enough memories of the catwalks and roof hideaways of Whitechapel to know that keeping one’s head was just as important as keeping one’s footing.

  How strange that she was able to keep her head, now that she thought about it. She, who could not look out of a second-story window without feeling as though the whole house were bending to toss her out of it, who could not fly in an airship without becoming violently ill, had been bounding about on this tower two hundred feet in the air for half an hour without feeling a thing.

  Had the dream device had an unexpected side effect? Had the deeply buried memories been what had caused her fear of heights—and now that they had risen to the surface, her body had no further reason for nausea?

  She would think about that later, with Maggie and the Lady, over a restorative cup of tea. For now, she must concentrate on her escape.

  Lizzie tucked the rod of repenthium beneath her feet like a skipping-rope, held on to both ends, and leapt from the parapet.

  She landed heavily, awkwardly, one foot on the walkway and the other sliding dangerously off onto the pitch of the slates. In grabbing for something—anything—to stop herself from losing her balance and sliding away down the roof, she dropped the rod. Gasping, her hands wrapped around a stone crenellation, she watched it skate away and finally go sailing off the roof into the kitchen garden far below.

  Ten rods of repenthium could cause a body to be repelled from two hundred feet. One rod could barely do the job from twenty. Something to make a note of during the aforesaid cup of tea.

  Lizzie tested her knees and ankles, thankful that the only damage was to her stockings. Well, and a scrape on the side of one calf, which was sure to stop bleeding in a minute or two. With a closer view of the rooftops, she cast around, getting her bearings.

  The cannon tower was as smooth and featureless as the Queen’s Tower, so scaling it was out of the question. To scuttle the weapon, she would either need the corset to bounce herself up there—not an option now—or descend to ground level and go in through the laboratory.

  What were the odds that both Evan and de Maupassant had left it empty? And if they had, that they had left it unlocked?

  As she gazed at the tower, thinking, a movement on the parapet made her heart leap. Her stockings gave up the ghost entirely as she flung herself flat on the walkway behind a stone chimney. Cautiously, she raised her head and peered around the chimney to see her father leaning on the parapet opposite, smoking.

  Had he seen her?

  No, it did not seem so. He appeared relaxed … a man whose problems had been solved and who had only to wait until the next set floated into view. After a moment, he flung the stub of his cheroot away with a careless flick of the wrist, and disappeared from sight. But before Lizzie could make up her mind to rise, the barrel of the cannon lifted above the parapet, then lowered. Lifted, swung to right and left, and lowered.

  He must be testing the guidance mechanisms, making sure everything was operational. Which meant he had already discovered that the cannon had been armed. Not that it mattered. She had just saved him a moment’s work, that was all.

  But he was occupied. If she was going to move, it must be now.

  She climbed down the slope of the next roof on stone trim formed like stair steps—with a roof on one side and empty space on the other. Jumping on to a level spot, she realized she must be on the roof of the gallery on the third floor, which traversed the distance between the two towers. She took off at a run, hoping that if there was a maid dusting in the gallery, she would think the sound merely the racing of rats in the wainscoting.

  But what was this? She fetched up against the tower, panting, and stepped back a little to look it over. The arrow slits were at eye level here, as if the slates on which she stood had once been the floor of a wing that no longer existed—as the floors in the tower no longer existed so that the dream device might be housed there.

  If this had been a floor, could there also be a door?

  She circled the wall, acutely aware that the sun would be down in an hour. Clouds massed in the west, gilded on their edges as the sun behind them splayed its rays across the sky like a crown. Surely it was a sign that she would succeed and the princes would be safe. Oh, if only she had more than her bare hands to work with!

  Consider your resources, girls, and then use your imaginations.

  She must not give in to fear and despair. She must behave as the Lady would, and use her eyes and hands to help herself.

  The cannon tower, unlike the other, had become overgrown with ivy and honeysuckle over the years. Not all the way to the top, sadly, but at least to this level, which was sheltered a little by the bulk of the house. She circled as far as she could around the front closest to the face of the curtain wall, pulling away the ivy, to no avail. Then, on the back side, directly under the barrel of the cannon twenty feet above her, she found it.

  A door. It must lead to what had been the third floor of the tower—the last before the trap door. Stiff fingers located the handle, and she pushed with all her might.

  Locked.

  Blast and bebother it!

  Oh, if only she had the Lady’s lightning rifle! She could put a hole in this door that even the Cudgel, one of their old enemies, who was built like a pig, could climb through. She could face her father down without fear just before she blasted that cannon to bits, and everything in the laboratory under it—and this whole wretched castle that pretended to be a home and was not by any stretch of the imagina—

  Wait.

  Hadn’t Evan said that the dream device was powered by a cell similar to the one in the Malvern-Terwilliger Kinetick Carbonator? That he had, in fact, cribbed the design for his own purposes?

  The breath went out of Lizzie’s lungs and she sagged against the ancient door. The ivy nodded around her shoulders and brushed her cheeks, with its musty green scent that smelled like secrets kept and hiding places offered to small children.

  She did not have to get all the way up to the parapet to scuttle the cannon. She did not have to face her father, who had already proven he was capable of cold-blooded murder. All she had to do was lock the trap door and then blow up the cell in its great glass globe below it. The floor of the parapet would not stand the blast, and everything on top of the tower—dome, cannon, and murderer—would come tumbling down inside it.

  She had to get off the roof and into the laboratory. If Evan was there, she would remove him by whatever means necessary, even if it meant rendering him unconscious. And then she would lock her father on the roof with his weapon, and see how he liked being the one in prison, with death staring him in the eye.

  *

  A tube landed in the slot at 23 Wilton Crescent with a pneumatic hiss and an accompanying stampede of feet to see who would be the first
to get it.

  Claire smiled and immediately yawned, and was ashamed of herself. Fancy getting up at one in the afternoon, and still lounging in a loose teagown on the comfortable sofa in the library at teatime! But she deserved a day to lie about after the triumph of last night.

  She had dreamed of her entry into the Royal Society of Engineers for so long, and the reality had been even more wonderful than the dream. To advance down the central aisle, seeing the smiling faces of her guests and her colleagues alike … to mount the stage and receive the formal brass chain of membership over her black graduation robes from the Prince Consort himself, he being the Society’s royal patron … to see her name on the program and know that it would be engraved upon its own plate in the Society’s great library in London …

  Claire sighed in quiet, glowing satisfaction. It had been a triumph, and it was not over yet. Andrew was coming at eight to take her to dinner, and then tomorrow they were asked to the home of one of the board members for a reception for the new inductees.

  It would have been lovely, of course, if Mama and Nicholas could have come up to town for the occasion, but Mama, much to her own astonishment and Sir Richard Jermyn’s jubilation, was in a delicate condition and was on no account permitted to travel. Claire could hardly credit the news. On the positive side, Mama would now be plunged back into motherhood, and it was devoutly to be hoped that her attention would be fixed there for the next eighteen years at least. Claire would be free to live her life secure in the knowledge that her mother would be too tired to meddle in it any further.

  Lewis appeared at the door. “Two come for you, Lady.”

  She held out a hand for the letters, one of which was curled in the shape of the tube, signifying a longer journey than merely across town. “Thank you, Lewis. Will you and the others join me for tea? I heard a rumor of orange chiffon cake. Is it true?”

  “Mrs. Morven says so, Lady. She knows it’s your favorite. I’ll round up the others and let her know you’re ready.”