His fear made him snap, “How should I know?”
Meg looked at him a moment, then quietly said, “I’ll understand if you want to go home, Will.”
Although tempted, Will shook his head. “If you’re to be cured of your... ailment, we must see this through together.”
She grimaced, placing a hand on her stomach.
“Are you hungry again?” he asked warily.
“A little. But I shall be fine for the time being. Let’s go.”
They sidled around the corner of the hedge and followed a meandering path past flower beds, colourless and bare now in the approach to winter, a bower containing an unoccupied bench, and a vegetable garden, on the far side of which knelt a gardener in shirt sleeves and a flat cap, digging weeds out with a trowel. They sneaked quickly past him, hoping he wouldn’t turn and see them; he didn’t.
Beyond the vegetable garden the path dipped into a wooded area, a lake sparkling in the trees to their left. After five minutes the path climbed again, and they trudged uphill.
“Do you recall the steps the men came down?” Meg said.
Will nodded.
She pointed to their right. “If I’m correct, this slope runs parallel to those steps, which must mean the house is through those trees.”
They turned off the path and wove a route through the trees Meg had indicated. Sure enough, after a few minutes the foliage thinned out, and they found themselves on the edge of a neatly mown lawn. To their left the grass rose in a shallow bank to a stone walkway. The walkway surrounded Roebuck House, a mansion, rendered in pale stone, of so many turrets and roofs and windows, that it looked to Will and Meg as though an entire village had been crammed together into a single, vast dwelling.
Now they were here, Will felt doubts building in his head. “How will we get in?”
“We could always knock on the front door,” Meg suggested.
Will looked at her, uncertain whether she was teasing him. She tilted her head defiantly, as though defying him to question her right to both an apology and an explanation. After a moment, though, she sighed and said, “Perhaps it would be wiser to seek a less... obvious route.” She pointed towards a gravelled path that led down the side of the house. “Let’s try that way.”
They hurried around the edge of the tree line and across a short expanse of lawn, Will expecting at any second to hear angry shouts, perhaps even the frenzied barking of dogs. But they reached the house unchallenged, and crept along the path at the side, sheltered at least partly by a line of bushes on their left.
They kept low, crouching beneath windowsills, until eventually they came to a raised patio, served by a set of French doors, one of which was standing open. Meg cast a quick glance at Will, and then stepped up on to the patio and marched across to the open door. She hesitated for a second, then stepped inside.
Swallowing the instinct to call her back, Will followed. As soon as he entered the house, he felt shadows closing about him. He smelled leather, old books, and wood smoke from a fire that was crackling in the grate on the far side of the room. His heart began to thud with a hefty rhythm, as though the pressure inside the house was different to that outside.
He rubbed at his face, as if the gloom was a swathe of cobwebs into which he had blundered. For several seconds he could see nothing but blurred, dark shapes around him, and he half-expected to hear a gruff voice in his ear, to feel a large, heavy hand come down on his shoulder. The first thing he saw when his vision began to clear was an armchair, a book bound in cracked red leather on its seat, a small table beside it. On the table sat a delicate china cup containing a quarter-inch of tea that looked considerably paler than the brick-red stuff his father drank.
Meg had already crossed to the far side of the room, and was peering around the edge of a partly open door. Now that his eyes were adjusting to the dimness, Will saw they were in a small library, or study, with a desk to the left of the fireplace and hunting prints on the few sections of wall not occupied by bookcases. Beady eyes regarded him impassively, glinting in the firelight, but they belonged to stuffed animals: a snarling fox on a shelf by the desk; a snowy owl with outspread wings dominating the mantelpiece above the fire.
Meg pulled the heavy door open and stepped out on to a tiled floor. Light from her right spilled over her, turning her into a half-ghost. Will saw her squint and look up to her left, and as he crossed to the door and passed through it, he followed her gaze to a wide staircase. They were in a high-ceilinged entrance hall, the imposing front door to their right flanked by long windows, through which daylight streamed and stretched across the floor in long rectangles, broken only by their elongated shadows.
There was no one about. Will wondered if they should make themselves known, so as not to be accused of breaking in with criminal intent. Before he could suggest this, though, Meg was scurrying across the tiled hallway and up the stairs, leaving him no option but to follow.
She moved with purpose, as if she knew where she was going. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, Will saw her raise her head and sniff the air like a dog on a scent. He would have called after her, but was scared of attracting attention. As he trailed in Meg’s wake, his eyes darted everywhere, fearful that someone might suddenly appear from one of the many closed doors on the first floor landing.
The fact that no one did was not much of a relief, because as soon as she reached the first floor, Meg began to ascend towards the next. When they reached the second floor, the landing of which contained as many closed doors as the first, she turned immediately left along a long corridor, breaking into what was almost a run. Although he knew that if they were caught now there would be no escape, Will stuck doggedly to her heels.
At last Meg came to a halt—though only because she was standing outside a door at the end of the corridor. She placed a finger upon it, as if testing for vibrations.
“It’s in here.”
“What is?” Will asked, panting for breath.
She fixed him with a curious look—half-knowing, half-confused. “I... don’t know.”
They looked at each other for several seconds. Finally Will said, “But you know something is?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I can... feel it.” Consciously or unconsciously she placed her hands on her stomach.
“In your belly?”
“It’s... the appetite. It has a voice. Like calls to like.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Her reply was irritated, almost angry. “Let’s find out.”
Before Will could advise caution, she twisted the doorknob. As the door opened, his first impression was of warmth flowing over him in a wave. With the warmth came a scent—or perhaps a blend of scents: camphor, sickness, hot metal, something sweet and almost overpowering, like the scent of lilies. Alarmed, he reached towards Meg, but she was already pulling away from him, moving into the room.
He had no option but to follow her. Stepping through the door, he found himself in the most luxurious room he had ever seen. It was furnished in rich reds and shimmering golds, and was dominated by a four-poster bed, around which elaborate machines of wood and brass clicked and whirred. The machines were disconcertingly mammalian, perched on multi-jointed, spider-like legs, developed from technology salvaged from the Martians. Although the machines were not living creatures, Will couldn’t help thinking they were both standing guard over the room’s occupant and aware of his and Meg’s presence. Tearing his eyes away from them, he focused on the pale figure in the bed.
It was a woman in a plain white nightgown. She was lying on her back, like a saint on a tomb. She might once have been beautiful, but now she was cadaverously thin, her skin as sickly as curdled milk. If it wasn’t for the faintest rise and fall of her chest, Will would have believed her dead.
Various tubes and attachments, some containing colourless fluid, linked the woman to the machines. Most of the tubes were thin, connected to her via the inside
s of her wrists and elbows, but a larger tube was attached to the side of her ribcage, and made a sucking sound each time a set of bellows on top of one of the machines rose and fell.
Will hung back, feeling a sense of trespass, of violation even, but Meg moved closer to the bed, her eyes fixed on the woman’s face. She was reaching out to touch the woman’s hollow cheek when a voice behind them barked, “What the devil are you doing here?”
Will spun, and Meg’s head snapped round. The man behind them wore a dinner suit over a silver waistcoat. Above his bow tie and the wing tips of his starched collar, his face was florid, his thick grey moustache bristling in anger.
“We’re... terribly sorry, sir,” Will stammered, his voice fading as the man glared at him.
Meg, though, remained composed. Stepping forward she said, “Mr Roebuck?”
The man turned his fury on her. “Who I am is of no concern—”
Astonishingly Meg raised her voice over his. “You are Mr Bartleby Roebuck?”
The man gasped, clearly taken aback. “What if I am?”
“Mr Roebuck, we are here to see you on a matter of the utmost urgency. We’re sorry to enter your house in this manner, but we needed to see you and only you. We were afraid that if we requested an audience via conventional means, we would be turned away.”
Roebuck stared at her. His face was still red, but Will could see his initial fury was dissipating. Anger was clearly not a natural state for him.
“How did you get in?” he demanded.
“We climbed over the wall, and entered the house via an open patio door,” Meg said truthfully.
“And who are you, may I ask?”
Meg indicated Will, as if introducing a party guest. “This is my friend, William Crouch. His father is one of your employees. My name is Megan Bracknell. From Bracknell’s farm.”
The effect on Roebuck was startling. His face drained of colour and he took a step back, guilt and horror chasing themselves across his features.
“Reginald Bracknell’s daughter?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my dear,” Roebuck said. “I’m so sorry.” He looked at his wife in the bed, and then at Meg, and seemed to recover a little of his composure. “But what are you doing here? In my wife’s room, I mean?”
“She... she called to me,” Meg said.
“Called to you?”
“Something in her...” Meg glanced at the sleeping woman “...called to something in me. I cannot explain it any clearer than that.”
“What’s wrong with your wife, Mr Roebuck?” Will asked before the factory owner could respond. Then, remembering where he was, he mumbled, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Roebuck sighed. “She is ill,” he said. “Very ill. She has consumption.”
“Will she die?” asked Meg gently.
Roebuck took a deep breath and tried to sound defiant. “We are trying to prevent it.”
“With these machines?”
He looked at them with something like doubt, or perhaps distaste. “It is one of several methods we are currently exploring.”
“We?”
“I have employed a learned man. A scientist.”
“The one at the farm?” said Will.
Roebuck’s face was troubled. “Just so.”
“What was this scientist doing at my father’s farm, Mr Roebuck?” Meg asked.
Roebuck looked evasive. “I’m not sure that I...”
“Please, Mr Roebuck,” Meg said. “I have a right to know.” She rolled up her sleeve and showed him the scratches on her arm. “Whatever he was doing caused the deaths of my parents. And also, as you see, it has affected me directly. One of the chickens on which your scientist was experimenting scratched me.” She placed a hand on her stomach. “And now I have a terrible hunger.”
The colour had drained entirely from Roebuck’s face now. He slumped in to a nearby chair. “Oh, what have I done?” he said. “What folly have I wrought?” He gestured at his wife’s prone body. “Patricia would never have agreed to this. I would never have agreed to it, had I known the outcome.”
“Please, Mr Roebuck,” Will said, “can Meg be cured of her... affliction?”
Roebuck looked at Meg, who was still standing with her hand on her stomach, a grimace on her face. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We must speak to Dr Fendlesham.”
“The scientist?” said Will.
Roebuck nodded. “He leads the... quest to restore Patricia to health.” He stood up wearily and crossed to the door. “Come. Let’s leave my poor wife in peace.”
UP CLOSE, DR Fendlesham was a small man with thin lips and a weak chin.
“Everything?” he said to Roebuck, his eyes narrowed behind his spectacles.
“Everything,” Roebuck confirmed, indicating Meg. “This is Megan Bracknell. Thanks to us, she is now an orphan. She deserves to know why.”
The four of them were gathered around the fire in the library on the ground floor, the patio doors, which Will and Meg had used to enter the house, now closed against the encroaching darkness. Fendlesham peered at Meg without expression. If he felt any guilt or shame for what had happened at the farm he didn’t show it. Indeed he said, “Ah, yes. The outcome of that endeavour was... regrettable. But you must understand, Miss Bracknell, that your father was more than open to our proposal; I have his agreement in writing. Moreover, he was fully cognizant of the potential risks, and as such was handsomely—”
“Yes, yes,” snapped Roebuck. “Miss Bracknell is not here for recompense. She simply requires an explanation. I felt that you, Dr Fenbdlesham, were best placed to provide her with one.”
Fendlesham looked at him implacably. “Of course.”
“And in terms that we can all understand,” Roebuck added.
Fendlesham’s expression remained blank, but beyond the blankness Will sensed disdain, not only for the man who had employed him, but for all those whose intellects fell short of his own.
Without preamble he said, “Ten years ago, once the Martian threat had ended, I was invited by a representative of Her Majesty’s government to become part of a scientific initiative whose purpose was to assess and, if possible, adapt and develop the wealth of technology left behind by our invaders. Over the course of several years, my colleagues and I made great inroads in our endeavours, to the extent that many of our discoveries are now providing benefits for the citizens of our Empire on a daily basis. When Mr Roebuck contacted me, some months ago, I had branched out into private medical research, concentrating on two areas—the mechanical and the biological.”
“The worm!” Will blurted.
“I beg your pardon?” Fendlesham said, fixing him with a piercing look.
“We... we saw it,” Will admitted. “We weren’t spying. We just happened to be there when it... took the pig.”
Fendlesham stared at him a few seconds longer, and then said, “The worm, as you term it, is an alien parasite. We discovered colonies of them living within the digestive systems of dead and decaying Martians. Research proved them to be remarkable creatures, imbued with many startling, and potentially beneficial, properties.”
“But the thing we saw was huge,” Meg said. “Surely—”
“Naturally, the creatures we harvested for our research were small,” Fendlesham interrupted, “the largest no bigger than your little finger. The specimen you saw has been augmented via chemical manipulation.”
“But why create such a monster?” asked Will.
“Would you ask that question, young man, if the creature were a cow, able to provide vast quantities of milk and meat to a starving populace?”
As Will pondered on that, Meg asked, “But what does the worm provide, Dr Fendlesham?”
Fendlesham’s eyes glittered behind his spectacles. “An eradication of our susceptibility to illness.”
She blinked. “All illness?”
“In theory, yes. This creature has the ability to regenerate diseased cells, to literally e
xpel illness from its body and renew itself. I believe that if we can isolate and harness this, we can transfer it to other species—including ourselves.”
“That is what Dr Fendlesham and his team were trying to achieve with your father’s chickens,” Roebuck explained.
“But you failed,” said Meg bluntly.
Although she was slight in stature, the accusatory look she gave Fendlesham would have caused many men to squirm with shame, but the scientist regarded her with insouciance. “Up until now we have been unable to instill another species with the parasite’s regenerative powers without also imbuing them with the creature’s voracious instincts and appetites. The problem is a perplexing one—but I feel sure we will overcome it eventually.”
“And how many more people will die in the meantime?” Meg said angrily.
Fendlesham waved a hand, as if the problem was a minor irritant. “All scientific progress requires sacrifice. It is unfortunate, but there you are.”
Will saw Meg’s eyes blaze, and in order to deflect an argument said quickly, “You mentioned two strands to your work, Dr Fendlesham—the biological and the mechanical. Could you tell us a little about the other? We saw some machines in Mrs Roebuck’s room...”
“Insignificant devices,” Fendlesham said dismissively.
Now it was Roebuck’s turn to bridle. “Hardly insignificant, Doctor. Those devices are keeping my wife alive.”
“But they are not curing her, Mr Roebuck.”
“So why not invent a machine that can?” said Meg.
Fendlesham flashed her a withering look. “Do you not think that is precisely what we’ve been trying to do? Progress is ongoing, Miss Bracknell. Indeed, in these very grounds is a machine whose purpose is to scan the body, identify the illness that is attacking it, and extract that illness as one would extract bindweed from around the stem of a healthy plant.”
“Thus far it has failed to work,” Roebuck said dejectedly.
“It has not been entirely unsuccessful,” argued Fendlesham. “It simply needs some refinement. Think of human cells and foreign cells as two distinct colours that, when brought together, gradually blend into one another. If my machine can differentiate between the two ‘colours’ before that blending process starts, it can separate them. But if, for example, blue and red become purple it merely identifies them as a single entity.”
Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds Page 16