The Shadow Conspiracy
Tales from the Age of Steam
Edited by
Phyllis Irene Radford
and
Laura Anne Gilman
Copyrights
“The Accumulating Man” Copyright © 2009 by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
“The Persistence of Souls” Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Zettel
“The Soul Jar” Copyright © 2009 by Steven Piziks
“Zombi” Copyright © 2009 by Pati Nagle
“A Princess of Wittgenstein” Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Stevenson
“The Savage and the Monster” Copyright © 2009 by Nancy Jane Moore
“The Water Weapon” Copyright © 2009 by Brenda W. Clough
“The Sisters of Perpetual Adoration” Copyright © 2009 by Judith Tarr
“Shadow Dancer” Copyright © 2009 by Irene Radford
“The Mind of Ada Lovelace” -- Cover Art Copyright © 2009 by Brenda W. Clough
Cover Design by Pati Nagle
Editors’ Introduction
Steampunk defies a single definition.
The Victorian era is a time when forward thinkers test the boundaries of science and go looking for explanations of why the oceans have currents or volcanoes erupt or possibly how the Earth was made. The edges of the continents have been explored and largely settled. This is the time to delve deeper in search of answers to scientific questions and possibly lost empires and amazing treasures. There is a Romance (in the classical literary sense) of adventure and exploration.
We at the Book View Press and its parent Book View Café started with a love for Victorian fashion and a fascination with fabulous machines that have an abundance of gears and levers, beautiful brass work, and steam power; when machines designed to aid humanity needed to be beautiful as well as practical.
The appeal of Steampunk begins where it deviates from history, allowing improbable-if-possible events to occur, encouraging female characters to tromp beside their male counterparts (they probably did in reality but no one admitted it) and sometimes surpass them, all the while wearing the properly embellished fashions.
But steampunk must, at its core, have that plausible history to ground it. So where do we begin this alternate history? Here at Book View Press we thought, why not with the best known piece of fantasy/horror literature, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?
What really happened in the villa on Lake Geneva that long ago year without a summer, 1816? We went looking and found a conspiracy hiding in the shadows.
The stories which grew in the aftermath were each more terrible than the last, until a rational man might be tempted to reduce them all to nonsense and fantasy. And yet, in each sighting, each event, there is such truth, the grain of veracity that cannot be denied, that we must see them all, if not as true, in the very least as Real...
Phyllis Irene Radford
Laura Anne Gilman
The Accumulating Man
… by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
A Missing Journal of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
“Still, thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. I demand this from you. Hear my tale. It is long and strange...”
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Geneva, Switzerland—1816
My Friend, Immanuel
The Villa Diodata was just as I remembered it—square and upright and sun-washed...at least on those days when the Sun could be encouraged to shine on us. God knew that I needed sunshine and, as we pulled through the front gate in the barouche George had put at our disposal, Sol came out in full glory, bathing the façade of the house in warm light. My heart swelled and my arms tightened reflexively around my child. We will be happy here, I promised him.
We were five travelling from France—myself, Percy (whom I call my husband), my step-sister Jane, my infant son William and his nanny, Elise. I hate to say that we are fleeing, but of course, we are. Fleeing ill-health, certainly, but also conventionality, and approbation. For Percy is still wed to another in the eyes of Church and State, and Jane conceals a pregnancy that only I know of.
We established ourselves quickly in the house, Elise and I setting up the nursery for my little “Willmouse” in the cosy dressing room of my own suite. (Do I reveal here how many times in a single night I rise to be certain he still breathes? Too many.) By the time we had done with that, and the servants had dealt with our baggage, it was time for Tea. Strange, how even when one eschews the conventions of “normal” English life—the devouring of meat, say, or Anglican piety—one must have one’s tea. It is as if the beverage is a spiritual touchstone. Let the world fling itself into seizures of war and poverty and outrage against humanity—as long as there is tea, we shall manage.
I saw my little William off to sleep in the early afternoon and sat a long while at his cradle, watching. Too long for Elise. She came to me with that straightforward Teutonic cheek that I so admire and said, “Mam, the child is fine. See how he breathes good and deep? Go have some tea now. If he needs watching, I can do it as well as you. Indeed, I think my eye clearer, as I’ve had more sleep.”
Elise, at fifteen, is an imposing woman—tall, blonde, statuesque, and with an aura of such steel about her that I find it hard to believe she was ever a child or that she moves and bends like a normal human being.
When Tea had been observed and with my son still napping under Elise’s clearer eye, I determined to walk to Petit-Lancy to a bookshop I knew there. To be sure, there were bookshops in Geneva proper—some quite close by—but this bookshop reminded me of my father’s establishment in Somers Town. It was a lovely hodgepodge of books and games and stationery and smelt of paper and binding glue. It was well worth the walk of a mile or so to the Chemin de Vendee, and the Sun was with me.
In the bookshop, I gravitated toward poetry and philosophy. One does, I suppose, when one loves a poet and has been raised by philosophers. I experienced a strange little thrill when I saw that my mother’s book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women sat upon the philosophy shelf. I could not help but take it down and caress it, opening the pages and touching them gently, as if Mother—wherever she might abide—could feel my touch. I had barely known my mother in the flesh, but I knew her in spirit intimately.
“Young lady,” said the shopkeeper, peering at me from behind his counter, “I think perhaps you would be more interested in the novels.” He indicated a shelf near the window where resided works he apparently felt more appropriate for one of my gender and age.
I smiled. “Novels bore me, for I’ve nothing in common with the heroines. But this is about me, after all.” I held up the book and quoted: “‘Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.’”
“Alexander Pope,” said a deep, warm voice from just to my left. I looked up and beheld a young man perhaps in his mid-twenties, looking down at me from a considerable height. He leant against the corner of the bookshelf, a small stack of volumes cradled in his arms.
“And what tome is it, Miss, that our good Bardeau does not think appropriate study for you?”
I showed him the volume. Sleek sable brows ascended into his hairline and his eyes—large and coffee-dark—widened in surprise. I awaited the inevitable gasp of scandalized sensibilities.
“Tsk. Shame on you, Miss, for daring to presume that you had any rights to vindicate. You’d best put that volume down before it stains your gloves with infamy.”
I caught the twinkle in his eye and laughed. “Oh, certainly, sir. How well you put it.” I returned the book to its place (for I had my own copy) and moved to find something else to purchase. I located a volume of poetry and essays by Mr. Pope and, having had such recent
occasion to quote him, I smilingly purchased that.
Monsieur Bardeau warmly agreed that this was a far better reference for a young woman than “Mrs. Godwin’s polemic.” I considered letting him know that I was the author’s daughter, but instead merely observed, “Monsieur, if you don’t like the book, why do you have a copy of it on your shelf?”
“Who said I didn’t like it?” he asked with a Gallic shrug. “I merely think it is perhaps too adult an argument for a young English lady to be exposed to.”
“Why, Monsieur!” I remonstrated, feigning indignation. “If a female in this society is to be aware of her rights as an adult, should she not be exposed to them as a young lady—nay, even as a child?” God knew I had been.
Monsieur Bardeau had no response to that, but I heard a deep chuckle from the opposite side of the philosophy shelf. I suspected my anonymous gentleman friend. Smiling, I took my book and crossed the street to the little park where I found a sun-dappled bench to read upon.
I had been there for perhaps twenty minutes with Mr. Pope, and was contemplating the walk back to the Villa Diodata, when a very long shadow fell over me. I looked up into the handsome face of the man from the bookshop.
“Pardon,” he said, bowing slightly. “But I do hope M. Bardeau did not frighten you into purchasing something you didn’t want.”
“Oh, no!” I protested. “I had already read the ‘polemic’ in question. But I left my volume of Pope in England.”
“Ah. Good. I thought your answer to him just now was quite apropos. When, indeed, should a woman become apprised of her rights if not at your age?”
“You grant that I should have rights then, Monsieur?”
“Dessins,” he said bowing. “Immanuel Dessins. And yes, you are a child of God, and therefore your rights are inalienable.”
“That is not a sentiment shared by many of your gender.”
“I apologize for them...and their sentiments.”
I glanced at the paper-wrapped package he held, tied up and suspended from a bit of twine. There must surely have been four volumes in it, at least. “You’re an avid reader, then?”
“Yes, though these aren’t all for me. I, too, purchased a volume of Pope for my fiancée, Lucille, who loves poetry above most things. I don’t say ‘all’ for I flatter myself she loves me best. The rest are medical journals.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“I will be...soon, I hope. Currently, I am a student at the Academy of Geneva. I hope to finish my degree within the year.”
“I’m impressed,” I said, and quite meant it. My new acquaintance was not only a man of great physical beauty, but his manner was cordial, sunny, and gentle. I applauded the inestimable Lucille. “I know what strivings are required for such a calling. I have known a great many doctors.”
As if he saw the shadow that passed through me at that absurdly mundane remark, Immanuel frowned. “Have you been unwell, Mademoiselle...?”
“Mary,” I said, offering my hand. “Mary Godwin...Shelley.” I smiled, hoping he would not note the slight hesitation.
He did not. “Godwin! You are the daughter...?”
“Yes. Quite.”
He glanced back over his shoulder at the bookstore and then laughed. He had a lovely laugh—a laugh that put me in mind of well-lit hearths and snug reading nooks, and cups brimming with hot, creamed and sugared tea. He took my hand and bent over it.
“Bonjour, Mary Godwin Shelley. I am pleased to have met such a paragon of restraint. If I were you, I fear I would have embarrassed M. Bardeau horribly by revealing myself.”
“No, you would not.”
He shook his head ruefully. “You’re right. I am bound to my Hippocratic oath to do no harm and my Christian duty to repay impertinence with civility.”
He bid me good-day then, wished that we might meet again at the little bookshop, and hoped Lucille would enjoy Pope as much as I did. Then he swung away across the park, whistling, his strides long, graceful, and confident.
Immanuel, I thought. Meaning God is with us. I hoped it was a further portent of good fortune.
Byron
In the following days, I walked to the bookshop in Petit-Lancy whenever weather permitted—which was not as often as I’d hoped. It was a churlish spring, stingy with sunshine and sparing with warmth. Yet there were fine days and, while my little Willmouse slept under Elise’s watchful eye, I took advantage of them.
I met Immanuel in the bookshop nearly every day I walked into town and we would browse and buy and sit on the park bench talking of philosophy and politics and medicine and art. Immanuel’s heart returned ever to his beloved Lucille. His face lit from within when he spoke of her, this paragon of womanhood. And I admit, I was impressed with her, even second-hand. She had loved the Pope and wanted more poetry, so I contrived to send her a copy of one of Percy’s most recent works, which our friend Tom had suggested he entitle “Alastor.” Lucille was even, Immanuel divulged, interested in reading my mother’s work and wanted to know if she had written any novels.
I started to say that my mother’s novels were possibly not appropriate reading for a young woman like Lucille, but caught myself at a wry glance from Immanuel. We laughed at my silliness; I recommended that she read Vindication instead, as it was easier to find. Why even M. Bardeau had a copy!
“Are you a writer too?” my new friend asked me, and I hesitated before saying, “I pen this and that. A story here and there. Nothing worth publishing. Who would wish to read my thoughts?”
“I would,” Immanuel protested loyally. “You have good thoughts, Mary.”
As did he. He spoke much of his passion for medicine and his desire to study malaria and other parasitic diseases. He spoke with conviction and yet, an extreme gentleness of spirit. And as he spoke, he gestured with his elegant, long-fingered hands. His gestures said that, if he could, he would cradle the entire world in them.
And so, when I returned from Petit-Lancy one evening in the gathering twilight, to find that George Gordon, Lord Byron had arrived at last, I was struck by the contrast between Percy’s old friend and my new one.
George’s carriage arrived as I stepped in through the garden gate. A soft misty rain had begun to fall and we entered the house together with him complaining that, “The Damned rain followed me like a stray cat, all the way from Lyon.”
His first words to my poor pregnant step-sister when she hurried into the hall to meet her lover were, “You look like hell, Jane.”
Her first words to him were, “I am to be called Clara.”
”Very well,” he replied. “You look like hell, Clara.”
She went up to her room to pine and George rang for the butler and bid him hasten supper.
It was only when I entered the drawing room that I realized that George had brought someone home with him. It was a young man of surpassing beauty, by which I mean that he surpassed George’s own vaunted good looks. You will understand, therefore, my surprise that George should tolerate him. Only over dinner—for which Jane-Clara had been coaxed from her room by her love’s flashing eyes and dashing smile, and Percy had come out of his study, his fingers stained with ink—did I discover why he did so.
Dr. John William Polidori, George informed us, was a brilliant physician whom he had retained as his personal medic. The doctor had “ideas,” George said, that would revolutionize the practice of medicine and that would save George himself from the predations of his own many complaints.
Do I sound cynical? I was not then—or not entirely. I didn’t dislike George, but I did find his self-obsession tiresome. I bore with him for Jane’s (or rather Clara’s) sake and for Percy’s, for he and Byron were like flint and steel—they sparked each other’s muses. Alas, I sometimes believed they fed each other’s demons as well.
I cannot be so ungrateful. Were it not for our friend’s graciousness and largesse, what we told ourselves was a lover’s holiday would have been revealed as an exile. Truthfully, I was glad of Dr. Polidori�
��s presence on several counts. First of all, with his willing medical ear available, George would be less inclined to sigh into ours. Second, my baby boy now had a live-in physician; my fearful heart could rest somewhat easier.
Directly after supper, I went up to the nursery to hold my Willmouse and fill Elise’s head with praises of the good doctor. She was impressed enough to peek at him over the banister as he and George left the house to take an evening stroll.
“He’s very pretty,” she told me after. She opened her mouth to say more, then shook her head and put a finger to her lips.
“What?” I asked.
“He looks at the lord strangely,” she said, blunt as always.
“As if he loves him?” I suggested.
“As if he studies him,” she replied.
Polidori
George set Dr. Polidori up in the coach house with a laboratory in which he might experiment with his “brilliant ideas”—ideas George assured us would set him completely to rights. No amount of cajoling on my part or Clara’s or Percy’s could get him to divulge what those ideas were. I soon came to the conviction that he didn’t know what they were because the doctor was every bit as secretive with George as he was with the rest of us. The half of the coach house in which Polidori worked was shuttered and locked. Our host even had the door to the adjoining stables bolted.
Of his experiments, the dear doctor would only say (with a sweet, boyish smile) that he was building a machine.
A machine. I tried very hard to imagine what sort of machine would heal Lord Byron’s deformed foot and straighten out the labyrinthine passages of his mind, but I was at a loss.
One afternoon on my way into Petit-Lancy, I passed rather close to the coach house and heard the strangest sounds coming from it. There was a humming like the chorus of a million angry bees, then a pop, as if someone had opened a bottle of champagne. Then came a rhythmic swishing sound and a second, softer hum. After a moment, this died away and I distinctly heard a man’s voice raised in anger. There was no reply, so I assumed the anger was directed at something other than another human being.
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