A Midsummer Night's Steampunk

by Scott E. Tarbet

  ~*~*~*~*~

  Jack heard the clip-clop of the approaching hansom before it emerged from the darkness, and he put on a burst of speed, sprinting forward to meet it, intent on dragging the cabman from his perch before he could protest. Any and every nook and cranny, including hansoms, must be searched for that uppity little cow who had cost him his precious, powerful arm.

  But as he ran down the narrow lane, from behind the coach rose a rolling, flashing ball of light that overtook the cab and came straight at him. Startled, he swerved to the river side of the hansom, slowed, and the pursuing squad of Enforcers, unable to stop, ran him down. Two of their number ricocheted over the stone embankment into the Thames, disappearing without a trace.

  The rest of the squad buried him once again beneath a pile of cursing, kicking, punching steel-and-flesh inmates. By the time they had sorted themselves out and he had regained his feet, the hansom had turned the corner of the hospital onto Lambeth Palace Road and disappeared.

  Inside, Pauline only heard the din of crashing steel bodies, and huddled flat on the floor, her back pressed against the side of the cab.

  “Are you quite well, Miss?” inquired the cabbie, peering around the edge of the window as she picked herself up and dusted herself off. “No idea what that lot was about, but I don’t relish going back to find out, if you take my meaning.”

  “Quite right!” Pauline replied, reaching up and handing the man another welcome shilling. “Quite right. Please leave off the loop of the hospital, for a bit. Go up to Waterloo Station toward the cab stand there, if you please.”

  That should buy some time, she thought. Let’s hide in plain sight.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  “Yes, there’s a latch handle on the inside,” Alex whispered. As smoothly and soundlessly as he could, he maneuvered the latch open until the door came to rest against the wall. After so much time in pitch darkness, the sliver of moonlight that found its way into the alley was a welcome relief.

  He eased himself out and turned to pull Clemmie up. When she was within reach, he placed a warning finger on her lips and pointed over his shoulder. Clemmie slid out onto the coal– and cinder-covered ground and nodded.

  “Enforcer,” she mouthed. There, on the other side of a cinder bin waiting to be hauled off, not ten feet away but barely discernible in the darkness, a brown-cloaked sentinel leaned against the corner of the wall, staring idly out over the river.

  Alex made to rise, to creep up behind the burly Enforcer, but found a small humming form hovering in the air in front of his face. He attempted to wave it away, but it dodged and returned. When he made to sidestep, it blocked him. Clemmie, realizing what was happening, reached up and pulled him down. “Friend,” she whispered. “Stay still. She doesn’t want us to move.” Alex sank down with Clemmie behind the cinder bin.

  “Oy, mate!” came a bluff, pleasant voice from the water beyond the embankment. “Lend a hand? Looking for the Weaver’s Wharf, I am. Ain’t familiar. Supposed to tie up there two hours since. Right late, I am.”

  “Clear off, then! This ain’t it!”

  “Do you know Weaver House, then?”

  “Clear off, I tell ya! Only one Weaver House, and that’s in Pedley Street, up in Whitechapel. Nowheres near the river!” The Enforcer stepped across the lane to send the lost riverman on his way, and abruptly disappeared without a cry or a splash.

  The hummingbird was back, buzzing back and forth in front of Alex and Clemmie, then darting toward the embankment. “We’re meant to follow,” Clemmie concluded, and stood up. Alex put a restraining hand on her arm. “What?”

  “We don’t know who is over there!” Alex protested.

  “Mote does,” Clemmie assured him, and stepped out into the open and across to the bank. When Alex joined her on the brink, she was staring down at a river barge, its running lamps lit, holding against the current with no deckhands in sight.

  “Miss Hozier, Mr. MacIntyre, allow me to introduce meself. I am Captain Bert Becham of Millbank. May I have the pleasure of your company? Please step aboard. Sooner would be better than later. The individual I . . . erm . . . sent swimmin’, will be missed momentarily.”

  Clemmie leaped aboard before Alex could reason with her, so he had no choice but to follow. No sooner had he gotten his balance than the running lights seemed to douse themselves and the barge headed out into the dark stream. Clemmie and Alex stood peering at the receding bank.

  Within a minute, as Captain Bertie had predicted, they heard Jack’s frustrated scream from the bank. The open coal chute door and the missing Enforcer had been discovered.

  Behind them, they heard a hatch open, and dim light from below spilled across the deck. An old man stepped out into the light. “Sir, Miss, I am Big Bert. We are here to help you. I believe you would be more comfortable below.” Without hesitation, Clemmie strode to where Big Bert held the hatch open for them, then pulled it closed once she and Alex were through.

  Below, Winston Churchill sat at the table in the tiny galley, legs crossed, enjoying a brandy and a cigar.

  “Good Lord, Winston!” Clemmie exclaimed. “Put that filthy thing out! You’ll choke us all in here!”

  Winston chuckled and tapped his ash. “Filthy? Literally the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t you say? How did the pair of you get so dirty? You look like you’ve crawled up a chimney.”

  “Worse,” said Alex, throwing himself down on a bench. There was not a hand’s width anywhere on him that didn’t have a tear, a scrape, or a cut. The whites of his eyes stood out in stark contrast to the coal dust that coated the rest of his face. Drying trickles of blood cut channels at the corners of his mouth and under his nose, his hat had gone missing altogether, his shirtfront blackened and torn, his cravat awry. “I shall require my gentleman’s gentleman, two footmen, a basin of hot water, and a change of clothing straightaway.”

  “Of course, Your Highness,” Clemmie muttered, appraising herself critically in Big Bert’s tiny shaving mirror which hung on the bulkhead. “Dirty, but serviceable,” she decided. “Nothing showing that ought not. Ready for more adventures.”

  She turned to Alex. “Your Highness, we’ll send to the palace for your gentleman and footmen before we do another thing.”

  “Just so,” said Alex.

  “Bonk on the head,” she informed Winston. “Would you believe he insists that he’s not Alex MacIntyre?”

  “Oh?” Winston chuckled. “Who, then?”

  “Prince Waldemar von Hohenzollern, sir,” Alex announced. “And you are?”

  “See?” said Clemmie. “Plain daft. Has to be the knock on the head, but the nurses at the hospital couldn’t find anything.”

  “What did the doctor say?” asked Winston.

  “Never saw a proper doctor. Malieux showed up,” Clemmie said. “As soon as his back was turned, we made a break for it. Got out past the Enforcers through the basement coal chute.”

  “This marvelous soul, this paragon, this courageous, resourceful girl saved my life not once, but twice,” Alex said, “and refuses to believe that I love her with all my heart.”

  Winston stared at Alex with his jaw slack. He nearly spilled his cigar ash down his blouse front. “You’re in love with Miss Hozier? Earlier today, you insisted you and Miss Spiegel were going to be wed.”

  “Now, see here!” said Alex. “I said no such thing! And I wish you and Miss Hozier would stop this silly, pointless game. I don’t know why you persist, but I tell you Miss Hozier has my entire heart, and I will make her mine!”

  Winston’s rollicking laughter started somewhere down near his toes and overtook him entirely. He slapped his knee and wiped away a tear. “Oh! This is quite too delicious! I can hardly wait to see Pauline’s face when she hears this one!”

  “Winston! Forebear!” Clemmie chided him. “The man needs medical care. You offend me yet again, sir, with your callous disregard for the feelings of others.”

  “Clementine,” Winston replied, in a more subdued
tone, “I am not an unfeeling man. I am a man of action, a man of duty.”

  “Duty,” scoffed Clemmie. “Like your duty to marry Pauline. Duty, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels.”

  Winston was silent a moment. She could tell that her hit had cost him dear, but not in the way she first thought.

  “Clementine, I must inform you that Pauline has this evening told me in no uncertain terms that, because she is no longer bound by her father’s wishes, there can be no question of a marriage between the two of us. I find that I am released from what I can only now consider an onerous obligation. I am free once more to love you, as I know you love me.”

  “Oh, Winston! For shame! To make sport of my tender feelings in such a way? Do you think to entice me into your arms so that you can laugh in my face again? You and this madman here, who thinks he is a prince of Prussia and insists that he loves me and no other? For shame, the two of you!”

  “My love,” interjected Alex, “I can only tell you the feelings of my heart! I love you beyond measure!”

  “Be quiet, both of you!” snapped Clemmie. “I have had quite enough of your sport!”

  Winston opened his mouth to speak, but Clemmie looked daggers at him. He closed his mouth.

  “Quite right, my brave, capable heroine!” Alex enthused. “He cannot really love you. He has been making sport of you all along!”

  “And what do you know of it, fool?” barked Winston. “You who insists he loves Miss Hozier, when twelve hours ago you were willing to risk Pauline’s father’s wrath to marry her? What sort of game are you playing at? Don’t listen to a word this idiot says, Clementine!”

  “That is quite enough!” Clemmie’s voice rose higher than either of them had ever heard it. “Shame on you both! You play your merry game, teasing me while poor Pauline is alone in the streets with Malieux’s henchmen after her? Since you say you take no more thought for her affections, have you at least thought of her safety? Where is she? Is she safe? What are you doing to find her?”

  “I have not forgotten Pauline’s safety any more than I’ve forgotten yours,” Winston insisted. “She is quite safe for the moment. The Friends have been tracking her closely all evening, and will soon lead her back here. We should be back to the warehouse well before she arrives.”

  “Captain Bertie’s actions were heroic. I would like to thank him,” Clemmie said. “Will he come back in?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t him.” By the time Winston had explained who and what Bertie and Big Bert were and had made introductions, Captain Bertie was drawing up to the wharf.

  The Musketeers were anxious to inform Winston of Bottom’s disappearance, and he to tell them of the news he had received from the Friends of Bottom’s abduction.

  “Poor, poor Nick!” moaned Peter Quince. “The Enforcers took him somewhere horrible, sure!”

  “If they have, the Friends will know of it soon enough,” Winston assured him grimly. “He’s a brave lad. He’ll bear this captivity with a stiff upper lip.”

  ToC

  Anon we return, being gathered again,

  Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain

  Across the grey ridges all crisped and curled

  To join the long dance round the curve of the world.

  —Cruisers, by Rudyard Kipling

  Chapter Eighteen

  Round the Curve of the World

  Moments after Winston, Alex, and Clemmie’s return, the Musketeers were startled to hear the rattle of a coach in the alley. Quickly they dimmed the lights and listened closely. The coach continued past the workshop, but everyone held their collective breath as the sounds receded into the distance, muffled by the twists and turns of the narrow alleyway.

  There was an almost imperceptible scratching at the door. Quince, hammer raised, opened it the tiniest crack and peered out. With a sigh of relief, he swung it only a bit wider to admit Pauline, Snug, and Cobweb.

  Pauline joyfully threw her arms around Quince, who blushed and stammered his greetings.

  “So g-glad you’re w-well, Miss! Was that a hansom cab I heard?”

  “Indeed! I had the cabman continue at his normal pace to fool any watching eyes, and we waited until the cab was in deep shadows, then slipped out. I think he was glad to see the last of us.”

  As the lights were raised around the cavernous workshop, she cast about until her eyes fell on the filthy, bloody, exhausted figure of Alex, collapsed on a bench just inside the waterside door. She ran across to him. “Alex! My dearest love! What has happened to you?”

  He stood stiffly as she approached, and fended off her embrace.

  “Oh, Alex! I don’t care how dirty you are! Hold me! I have been in mortal fear for your safety since we got back to the dirigible and found you missing! What has happened to you?”

  “Miss, you presume far too much familiarity.”

  Pauline stopped short and stared at him. “What?”

  “You may address me as Your Highness or Your Grace.”

  “What?”

  “I have suffered affront after affront, tonight. I have been dragged hither and yon through the streets of this foreign city. I have been bullied, manhandled, dragged through dank and filthy cellars. I have been insulted, degraded, called mad, denied by my own heart’s love. I have been threatened and have been buried in total darkness by tons of filthy, stinking coal. I have had quite enough. I will not suffer further familiarity.”

  “What? When did I ever deny you, my love? I have placed myself in considerable peril to find you and bring you back to us!”

  Alex turned and pointed at Clementine. “She, my only and truest love, has served and guided and guarded and rescued me tonight. We have shared mortal peril. My heart is hers and hers alone.”

  Pauline sat down on the bench with a thump. “I . . . I don’t . . . Alex, if this is some sick joke . . .”

  “For the last time, you may address me as Your Highness, or not at all.”

  He turned his back on her and walked to Clemmie, who was bent inspecting the machinery that the Musketeers had been assembling. Coming up beside her, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. She jerked it back as if she thought he intended to bite it.

  “Knock it off, Alex!”

  He looked a bit crestfallen, but followed her as she peered beneath the invention to see what Quince and Snout were bolting together.

  Winston could contain himself no longer, and burst out with a roar of laughter. Pauline rounded on him. “And just what, may I ask, is so powerfully funny?”

  “The look on your face when ‘His Highness’ snubbed you so. How does it feel for the shoe to be on the other foot?”

  “Winston, you’re an insensitive boor. Alex has obviously had a severe blow to the head. He’s not himself.”

  “He suffered no blow to the head. Clemmie took him to St. Thomas’ Hospital and had him checked. But he certainly seems to think he’s in love with her. I suppose all they’ve been through together in the last few hours has changed his heart.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about changing hearts! First me, then Clemmie, then me again—”

  “You flatter yourself. You never had my heart. You only had my obedience to my family’s wishes. You had my duty. And now you have completely absolved me of that. I am a free man—free to continue my courtship of Clemmie and make her my wife.”

  “Oh, laws! Your fickleness knows no bounds!”

  “On the contrary, I am a fierce friend and an implacable foe. And now I am free to follow my heart.”

  “Clemmie,” Pauline called, “what do you think of this changeable jackanapes? Please enlighten me.”

  “I think,” said Clemmie, wiping her hands on a rag, “that for some reason, he and Alex have decided to have a lot of fun at my expense. Of course they both continue in love with you, the same as ever. Why they think this is funny, I can’t begin to guess. Until they grow up and behave themselves, I want nothing to do with either of them.”

  Pauline regarde
d her thoughtfully. “So you’re playing hard-to-get? I would have thought better of you! You, so full of vigor, vitality, and cheek!”

  Clemmie rounded on her. “You know me—at least I thought you did. You know I prefer to be modest, soft-spoken, and compassionate. If I am full of vigor, vitality, and cheek, it is by necessity, not by choice. Believe me, those qualities repel me. Today I am the kind of woman I would normally run from.”

  “So you admit it! You are acting the way you are to steal Alex’s love from me! You juggler of hearts! You canker-blossom! You thief of love!”

  Clemmie’s eyes narrowed and her lips set into a grim line. “You presume too much on our former friendship, Pauline Spiegel. Have you no modesty, no manners? Are you trying to provoke me into telling you what I really think of you? You fake! You puppet!”

  “Oh, ho! There we go!” exclaimed Pauline. “Now with the short jokes? Now you’re trying to tear me down just because I’m petite and you’re such a horse? Such a painted maypole? Well, I’ll tell you this, missy! You’re not so tall I can’t still reach up there and scratch your eyes out!” She lunged forward, but Winston stepped quickly between them.

  “Pauline! Calm down! We’re all tired and hungry and frightened. Calm yourself! You don’t mean what you’re saying! I can’t believe you would think of raising your hand to your friend!”

  “Now, see here,” interjected Alex, stepping up. “I’m quite capable of defending my lady love.”

  All three rounded on him. “Shut up!”

  Clemmie had begun to cry. “I’ve had all of this I’m going to take!” she said, tears streaking her face. “All three of you are in this together. You’re all making fun of the poor, old, freakishly tall spinster girl. Well, you can all go pound sand!” She turned to go.

  Alex laid his hand on her arm. “Please, my love. Let me accompany you wherever you may go.”

  Winston slapped his hand away. “Touch her again, you mad fool, and you will have me to reckon with.”