opened his bag and lifted out the pieces he'd bought by the river, placing them next to the sink. Pipes groaned in protest as he turned on the tap, but water came eventually, letting him rinse the grime from the eclectic collection of gears, levers and springs.
'Some bits of watches,' he said as he worked. 'Half a child's automata. And this.'
He held up a cluster of interlocking gears and escapement arms, some regular, others unevenly weighted.
'Ugly bugger,' Bovis said, coming over to look. 'What's it for?'
Niggle shrugged.
'Might have been a doll's walking mechanism. Or a timepiece using irregular spans – phases of the zodiac, something like that.'
'And now it's going into your mysterious design?'
Niggle nodded.
'Good lad.' Bovis slapped him on the back, almost sending the mechanism flying. 'Not enough creation goes on round here. We've been so busy on fixings I've assembled nothing new since the egg frier.'
He nodded at a pine box with a pan sticking out the side.
'True,' Piddlesy snapped, 'but we're paid to mend, not talk.'
Bovis sighed and returned to work, while Niggle took his pieces to a work bench by the window. Here sat his own invention, a gleaming copper shell filled with the cannibalised parts of a hundred different cast-off devices. It was almost complete now, he was sure. The limbs worked, he'd tested them separately. They could cut and tie threads, grip gears, grasp and turn in the confines of other machines. The driving force had frustrated him for a while, but he'd finally managed to piece together a small steam engine that could keep going while the device tipped and tilted its way around a crowded factory. The guiding mechanism was the most intricate he had ever assembled, and the chain of connections he had created took his breath away every bit as much as Gloria's beauty. He was just missing the vital parts to connect it all together, and today he had found them.
He set to work, adding a cog here, a gear there. He would fit a few parts, test how they worked, tweak them then add some more. From time to time he'd push a piston or stretch out a leg to see what happened. Years of work were coming to fruition. A device that knew how to remake, reconnect, renew. The pinnacle of the clockworker's art. A machine that transformed machines.
At last, the final pinion slotted into place. Niggle screwed the shell shut and stoked the boiler. As he sat back, he realised that night had fallen outside, and someone else had lit his lamp.
As the engine warmed up, the device rose on spider-like legs, bladed pincers snipping the air.
'Regular crabs'll be right scared of that,' Bovis said, looming suddenly at his shoulder. 'What're you going to do with it, now it's made?'
Niggle hesitated. Should he tell them? Could he?
'You'll have to see,' he said at last.
The machine turned this way and that, pincers outstretched, like a blind man searching for a wall.
'Well done.' Piddlesy's long fingers touched his shoulder. 'I'm sure your parents would be proud.'
'Maybe,' Niggle gritted his teeth, the old anger rising, 'but I'll never know.'
Gloria stood in the parlour doorway, her smile lighting up Niggle's heart. He rose hastily from his seat, fumbling his borrowed top hat in his nervousness at being here and seeing her.
'I'm sorry Mrs Crocker kept you waiting,' Gloria said, leading him past the stern housekeeper and down the hall. 'I thought I'd told her I had a guest coming.'
The door slammed behind them, shutting out the upper city's thrum of airships and clatter of elevators.
'That's a very exciting cravat,' Gloria said as she led him into a parlour.
'Um, thank you.' Niggle had thought it his most impressive piece of clothing, but it seemed tawdry compared with the simple elegance of Gloria's clothes.
She led him to a chair and went to fiddle with the curtains, while Mrs Crocker brought tea and a tiered tray of cakes. The housekeeper glared at Niggle from the moment she entered the room to the moment she left, making him blush and hide his frayed cuffs. As the old lady left, Gloria sat down across from Niggle.
'I'm sorry,' she said, 'but I never feel much like talking while Mrs C's around. She's so cheerless, it's hard to chatter around her disapproval.'
She poured tea.
'Milk? Lemon?'
Niggle nodded. She frowned.
'You're meant to pick one,' she said.
He thought for a moment that he'd made a ghastly social error, showing himself up forever. Then she laughed, and it was like a music box filled with joy.
'Your face!' she said. 'Anyone would have thought I was a wolf, waiting to tear you apart.'
She poured the milk and placed a cup in front of Niggle. It was bone china, so fragile he feared it might melt on his lips.
'I never asked, Thomas – may I call you Thomas? - I never asked what you do.'
Niggle wracked his brain for words that weren't a lie, but that wouldn't give away his lowly status. This impending moment had filled his mind with such dread and anticipation that there'd been no space left to plan what he might say.
'I work with machines,' he managed, the words heavy on his tongue.
'Of course, that makes perfect sense.' Gloria smiled and offered the cakes. 'How else would you know how to fix my watch? You know, Daddy works with machines too. He has a whole factory full of them downstairs.' She pointed down through the table, through the floor, through store rooms and servants' quarters, warehouses and packing halls, machine rooms and dyeing vats, into the mountain of industry upon which her home was perched. 'Is it those sort of machines?'
'Smaller ones, mostly.' Niggle pulled a lozenge of white metal from his jacket pocket. 'I brought one to show you.'
She reached out, their fingers brushing for one pulse-racing moment.
'How does it...' She peered at the metal, turning it around in her hand.
'There's a button on the end. Turn it.'
She wound the spring, then set the device down beside her teacup. Wings sprang from its back, delicate sheets of foil held taut on steel wires either side of a gleaming body.
Gloria gasped. 'A butterfly! How beautiful.'
The device flapped into life, slowly at first then faster and faster until it rose from the table and hovered in front of her, the breeze from its wings stirring a loose curl of hair. Her lips formed a perfect pink circle as she blew it gently across the table, scattering cake crumbs in the wake of its wings.
'It's wonderful,' she said. 'Could you bring it again for me to see?'
Niggle shook his head. 'I made it for you. To keep.'
'For me? That's so sweet.'
Niggle swelled with pride.
Click-click-click. The butterfly ran out of power. Its wings shot in and it dropped from the air. Niggle caught it, setting it down carefully in front of Gloria.
'It's quite sturdy once it retracts, but you should fly it over something soft.'
As he pulled back, Gloria caught his hand and turned it over, peering at his wrist. Niggle looked in consternation at his fray sleeve, disfigured with the crude stitching of a dozen repairs.
'What happened to your wrist?' Her voice was soft as she ran a finger over the jutting contours of badly healed bone. She was so careful, so tender, but to have anyone touch that spot of twisted flesh and dark memories made Niggle feel sick. He wanted to pull away, but didn't want her to stop touching him.
'An accident,' he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. 'When I was young. A... machine.'
'Does it hurt?'
'No, but...' He curled and uncurled his fingers, showing the stiff movements of the bottom two.
'I'm so sorry.' Her eyes, locked on his, were filled with sympathy. 'Sometimes terrible things happen in the factory. It's so sad.'
He sat, hand in hers, staring into those eyes, feeling the exquisite tension between them. But another tension rose within him, a swirling of joy and of darker emotions. Desire and duty tore him apart.
'I...' He swallowed, took a deep breath. Deter
mination. 'Your watch. I came to fix your watch.'
'Oh yes.' She looked at their hands, lips pressed tight to hide a smile, then let go and went to the mantelpiece. 'I have it here. Would you like to work by the window? It looks like you brought a lot of tools.'
She pointed at the large bag he had brought. Of course, he thought, what else would she think it contained?
'No, this... It's a delivery. A machine for an industrialist.' It was true enough that his tone sounded convincing. 'Do you have a workshop?'
'Do you know any ladies who have workshops?' She laughed. 'No. But Daddy has several, down in the factory. I've been there once or twice. I'm sure I can find them again.'
Clutching the watch to her chest she turned and walked from the room. A moment later she reappeared, head poking around the door-frame.
'Well, Thomas? Aren't you coming?'
The workshop was large and well kept, two walls hung with tools, a third painted black, machine designs sketched across it in chalk. In the centre of the room was a workbench, larger and less battered than those at the Institute, with fixed clamps and overhead gaslamps.
'Your father designs machines here?' Niggle asked, setting down his bag.
'No, he has engineers who do that. Normally, there are one or two of them around, but Dr Malov retired, and Mr Sanderson has come down with nervous exhaustion.' She leaned towards him conspiratorially. 'Daddy doesn't believe in nervous exhaustion. The doctors do, and I do, and Mr Sanderson certainly does, but that wasn't enough to keep him on the books. Daddy's not a bad man, but sometimes he needs guiding.'
She looked sad for a moment, and Niggle wanted to reach out to her, but didn't
Mud and Brass Page 2
