The Transatlantic Conspiracy

by G. D. Falksen

  The library car was quiet and dark and lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves. There were high-backed armchairs and a couple of tables for reading, although the librarian on duty had a ledger on his desk: passengers could sign out books. Again, there was no Charles, but Rosalind had not given up hope. She took a moment to examine the titles on the nearest shelf . . . mostly novels and books of poetry, but some nonfiction as well.

  Cecily tugged on Rosalind’s hand. “Come along,” she urged impatiently. “The flowers are waiting.”

  And Charles, too, I hope, Rosalind thought. Her heart fluttered. Her palms felt clammy again. The arboreal car was at the very back of First Class, and the last car on the train that was accessible only to First Class passengers. Unless Charles was hidden away in his stateroom, he was there. He had to be.

  “Very well, let’s be quick about it,” Rosalind said.

  Once they’d emerged from the dim silence of the library, however, she wanted to linger. This was the train’s crowning jewel. It was no accident that the arboreal car was at the very rear of First Class. She had seen her father’s sketches for it some years ago, and even some more recent photographs of it. But the sight in person was quite beyond what she had expected . . . especially the massive ceiling of arched glass, through which shone what appeared to be sunlight: the work of powerful hidden lamps.

  Whereas the corridors and dining cars were decked in blue and gold, and the library a typical burgundy and brown, the arboreal car was awash in green. A few small paths wove their way past bushes, trees, and marble planters filled with flowers. Rosalind almost forgot she was onboard a moving train. If it weren’t for the gentle rattling on the tracks, she could have been in a greenhouse or a well-tended park.

  Cecily squealed with laughter, swept up in the wonder of it all. She grabbed hands with Rosalind and Alix and dragged them down one of the paths. At each turn, Rosalind kept her eyes open for Charles, but there was no sign of him. So he had to be in his compartment—but only Cecily could inquire about its location. Unmarried young women didn’t go about asking after men who weren’t relatives.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” Cecily said, twirling in a circle. She stopped in place and raised her hands. “A garden on a train. Who could have imagined?”

  “Rosalind’s father, I should think,” Alix said with a smile as she looked around. “But yes, it is quite beautiful.”

  “I do hope it becomes something of a trend,” Cecily said. “What do you think, Rose?”

  “The air’s certainly fresher,” Rosalind said. Though now that she had some time to reflect, she wondered if Father’s imagination hadn’t actually gotten the better of him. Potted ferns were one thing, but a whole miniature forest was simply too surreal for her comfort. Gardens were gardens and trains were trains, and the two were not meant to be crammed one inside the other. But it was rather pretty.

  “I don’t know if I like it or if I don’t,” she concluded.

  “You do,” Cecily clarified for her. “You simply don’t know it yet.”

  Rosalind turned to her. “Perhaps I do, but we can come back. Right now I think the two of us should find a porter and ask—”

  A high-pitched whistle silenced her in midsentence. It rippled through the air, so loud and sharp that she nearly jumped. She exchanged frightened looks with Cecily and Alix.

  “What was that?” Alix asked.

  The whistle sounded again—this time only a short burst, thankfully. A gravelly and slightly distorted voice boomed from the gilded grillwork near the ceiling, first in German. A welcome announcement, Rosalind realized, and the three of them relaxed. A moment later, the voice repeated itself in accented English.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. It is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Transatlantic Express for this, our maiden voyage.”

  “My goodness,” Alix whispered. “The captain speaking to us? How very exciting!”

  Cecily craned her head from side to side as she looked up at the ceiling. “I wonder how it’s done,” she mused.

  “It could be a voice pipe,” Alix offered. “I have seen them on ships.”

  Rosalind shook her head. “No, the sound would never carry the whole length.” She pursed her lips for a moment and thought about the matter. Then it came to her. “It must be something electrical. Perhaps a telephone, with an amplified receiver.”

  Cecily’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know they could do such a thing!”

  Above them, the captain’s voice continued to blare: “I hope you have settled in comfortably. We are approaching the coast. If you would care to look out of the nearest window, you will be treated to a sight seen only by a handful of people in all the world.”

  Rosalind caught a shape moving behind the fronds near the door to the Second Class carriages. Curious, she turned to get a better look and saw what she thought to be a shadow lurking behind a tree, the shadow of someone watching them. Was it Charles after all?

  She took a step nearer and saw one of the porters adjusting a flowerpot. No, not him. Then, as Rosalind turned away, she saw someone in a brown suit disappear behind one of the bushes. For a moment, she was reminded of the stranger at the station, gazing at them from the crowd. But was it the same man? After all, many people wore brown suits. Still, it was the same shade and pattern . . . But so what? He was a passenger, enjoying the wonders of this car, as well he should.

  “We’re about to go underwater!” Cecily shouted frantically. “There are no windows in this place! Quickly! Quickly! Someone find a window!”

  Rosalind glanced back toward Second Class. The porter was still busy; the man in the suit was gone. “Let’s go back to the library,” she urged calmly. “There are plenty of windows there.” She peered around for Alix, but the girl had wandered off into the flora.

  “Alix will catch up with us,” Cecily said, tugging Rosalind after her.

  Passengers were already huddled around the circular panes of glass, murmuring to one another about what they were about to see and whether it would really be worth leaving the most comfortable chair in the library just to see it. Rosalind and Cecily hurried to an unoccupied window and waited.

  For about half a minute, the glass remained dark. Rosalind was given to wonder if it had really been such a good idea to rush in for a look. They had surely looked silly, but then so had everyone else . . .

  In that instant, the blackness beyond the window vanished into a thick haze of deep blue-green.

  She and Cecily drew in a breath at the same time. It was as if someone had splashed paint over the glass. Only it was water: the cold, swirling water of the North Sea, and they were inside it.

  Rosalind leaned forward and stared, transfixed, as fish darted past them—almost too fast even to register, but close enough to touch if not for the two glass barriers that separated them. Rosalind felt giddy. We are beneath the sea. Until that moment, she hadn’t appreciated the full measure of what that meant.

  “Gosh, that’s a great deal of water,” Cecily whispered.

  Rosalind smiled. Seeing Cecily at a loss for words, genuinely, was almost as remarkable as the view.

  The door at the rear of the car opened, and Alix hurried in to join them. For a second or two, she almost seemed disinterested, as if being underwater were a common experience for her. But as she stared out the window, she began to tremble. Suddenly her eyes bulged and her jaw dropped.

  “My God,” she said to Rosalind, “that is the ocean?”

  “ ’Tis indeed,” Rosalind replied.

  “But . . . But . . .” Alix stammered. “But the tunnel. It is glass. It will break. We will drown!”

  Rosalind blinked at Alix. The girl’s skin had turned from porcelain to bone white. She took Alix’s hand and tried to calm her. Having grown up with her father, Rosalind preferred to approach this adventure with the same att
itude she had toward flying in a zeppelin: best to be amazed by the view without acknowledging the terror of it. Still, she was troubled at just how extreme Alix’s reaction was: first disinterest, then panic. But who was Rosalind to judge someone she had only just met? No doubt the girl had led a sheltered life thus far.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she soothed. “We’re perfectly safe. Do you think my father would risk his own daughter’s life?” Then she added, jokingly and conspiratorially, “I’ll tell you a secret: I think he’s more concerned that if something dreadful happens to us, it will start another pan-European war. And that would be bad for business.”

  Alix managed a shaky laugh. “Yes, I suppose they wouldn’t risk such a thing if they did not have faith in the machine. Or the tunnel.” She squeezed Rosalind’s hand, perhaps without even realizing it. “But . . . it is glass. The tunnel is glass. What will stop it from breaking?”

  “It was specially made just for this purpose, so it’s more durable than normal glass,” Rosalind said. “And it’s half a foot thick, so it’s not particularly prone to breaking. But it’s unbreakable, anyway, according to my father. Something to do with chemistry. I don’t really know the details.”

  Of course, Father had told her those details at great length, but she hadn’t paid much attention. Chemistry was so very dull. You couldn’t tinker with chemicals the way you could with an engine or a bicycle.

  Alix took a small step back from the window. “Oh, I do not think I can stand to watch the sea any longer,” she said. “It gives me chills. Come along, let us go to my compartment. Cecily, I have so many new dresses to show you . . .”

  “Wonderful!” Cecily cried. “I shall help you decide what to wear for dinner tonight.”

  “Quite wonderful, yes,” Rosalind said shortly. She let go of Alix and took Cecily by the hand, looking her in the eye. “Cecily, before we do that, you and I must find a member of the train staff and inquire about Charles. We have been from tip to toe of First Class, and he is nowhere.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Cecily stammered, squirming as she no doubt tried to dream up some new excuse.

  “I do not know what has passed between you and Charles, but we need to find him before the night is over,” Rosalind stated. “I need you to ask a conductor, as his sister, for the number of his compartment. And then we can all return to having fun, all right?”

  “She is right, Cecily,” Alix said softly.

  Cecily glared at her.

  Alix shrugged. “Tell us. Where is your brother? What is he doing? It is . . . strange.”

  For a moment Rosalind thought that Cecily was going to argue with them, or try to evade the question again, but instead she put on a serious face and nodded.

  “You are quite right, both of you,” she said. “I have allowed my amusement to get the better of me, when I should have been more sensible. When we go to dress for dinner, I will find a conductor and ask after Charles. He’ll certainly be in his room getting ready at that time. And I will bring him along to dinner, and it will all be wonderful.”

  Rosalind sighed. “Thank you, Cecily. That’s all I ask.”

  “But first,” Cecily added with a smirk, “we simply must go with Alix and help her choose something to wear for dinner. Just think, Rose: new dresses. They’re your favorite things, aren’t they? After books and bicycles and trains, that is.”

  Chapter Five

  Rosalind was well aware of how miraculous this evening was. She was having dinner beneath the English Channel. A fine dinner, at that. She was doing something nobody else in history except those aboard this train, aboard these very dining cars, had done. She should have been savoring the miracle. Or at least savoring the food. But enjoyment was impossible.

  Not only was Charles still absent; so was Cecily.

  Everyone else from First Class had long since crowded into the cars, including Alix. Not wanting to be the last ones milling around, she and Rosalind sat at the one remaining table, set for five. A steward came to take their orders, and still no Cecily. It was only when Rosalind’s roast chicken arrived that Cecily arrived, too. She swept into the room and made a beeline for the table, her smile bright but her expression uncertain.

  “Cecily, where is Charles?” Rosalind demanded.

  “Um . . .” Cecily sat, her smile faltering. “Well, that’s the funny thing.”

  “But where is he?” Alix added.

  “The . . . um . . . The conductor told me that Charles gave the crew a note to be left in my room,” Cecily said. She avoided their eyes but spoke confidently, careful not to stumble any more over her words. “But there was a mix-up and it didn’t arrive until I went to dress.”

  Rosalind suddenly felt the chill of unease along her back.

  “Apparently Charles isn’t coming,” Cecily finished.

  “To dinner?” Alix asked. “Why not?”

  “He’s not on the train,” Cecily clarified, still trying to appear cheerful. Her eyes eventually settled on Alix.

  Rosalind’s heart began to thump. This was her worst fear, confirmed. “What?” she asked in as soft a tone as she could manage.

  Cecily took a drink of water. “Apparently he was called away at the station by telegram. From Father. Something of vital importance. Business. Defense of the Realm. Whitehall. That sort of thing.”

  “ ‘That sort of thing?’ ” Rosalind repeated in disbelief.

  “Cecily, this is terrible,” Alix whispered.

  “He said we’re to have a wonderful time and that he’ll join us in New York as soon as possible,” Cecily added, as if that made everything better.

  Rosalind shook her head, breathing deeply in an effort to keep calm. She was used to fighting moments of panic, especially onboard trains. But this was different. This panic had nothing to do with the train itself.

  “Cecily, listen to me,” she said, “whatever Charles told you in that letter can’t be true. Your father did not summon him away. Not without telling you. Charles was supposed to travel with us to America. He’s supposed to be chaperoning us. It’s the only reason your parents allowed you to come with me! And I am certain they would have notified my father as well, if my chaperone hadn’t boarded.”

  Cecily frowned. “Is that what’s troubling you?”

  “Yes, it is,” Rosalind said between clenched teeth, leaning forward to emphasize her point. “You are sixteen years old.”

  “And you’re seventeen,” Cecily countered, though she gave no indication as to why this was important.

  “Yes, and we are both unmarried,” Rosalind said. Her eyes flashed to Alix, who looked equally bewildered as to why Cecily was being so thick about the matter. Cecily was usually the first person to comment on social propriety. “Your brother was supposed to supervise you—well, us.” She quickly caught herself before the peculiarities of the situation misled her. “Cecily, think about your reputation.”

  Cecily scoffed. “Since when have you cared for reputation?”

  “Not mine,” Rosalind snapped. “Yours.”

  “Cecily, that is not very nice,” Alix said tersely. “I am certain that Rosalind cares very much about her reputation.”

  While it was kind of Alix to rush to her defense, Rosalind felt that it was only right to reward the girl’s kindness with honesty. “I appreciate it, but I don’t, actually,” she said. “Well, I mean, within reason. I drive motorcars and I’m a suffragist, so my reputation is already a bit uncertain.” She forced an awkward smile.

  Rosalind hadn’t intended on mentioning her private suffragist convictions—not to a near stranger, and not on this voyage at all—but then she hadn’t imagined she’d be traveling unchaperoned, either. Now the cat was out of the bag, and it stood to reason that Alix might think ill of her for it. Driving a motorcar for fun was one thing; insisting upon the right to vote was quite another.

  Alix blinked a few
times. “Suffragist?” she asked. She sounded momentarily confused. “Ah. You mean . . . votes for women, yes?”

  “Yes, votes for women,” Rosalind said, nodding. “And in general.”

  “Dear Rose is dreadfully anti-imperial,” Cecily explained. She spoke as if this were just another peculiar eccentricity, like driving motorcars.

  “Anti-imperial?” Alix asked, sounding even more confused.

  Rosalind knew that Cecily was bringing up the point to distract her, but it was a topic that Rosalind took seriously enough to oblige. Besides, she was furious with her friend, furious with her friend’s brother, too. Cecily de Vere could use a good dose of anti-imperialism right now.

  “I just think that the Indians ought to decide who rules India, for example. The Irish, Ireland. The Congolese, the Congo. Et cetera.” She paused for a moment, trying very hard not to launch into a tirade. Don’t do it, she told herself. Not in front of someone you’ve only just met . . . But dash it all, she was mad, and there was a principle at stake. “Think about this,” she said to Cecily. “How would you feel if the French invaded England and turned it into a colony? Not very happy, I suspect.”

  Cecily grinned, clearly pleased Rosalind had taken the bait. She turned to Alix. “Meet my dear friend Rosalind, the crusader. Isn’t she just wonderful?”

  Alix was staring at Rosalind, a smile playing on her lips. It was not quite the horrified look Rosalind had anticipated. Was she amused? Rosalind felt her face turning red with embarrassment. It was easy enough to stand fast against hostility; amusement was altogether a harder thing to combat. She fixed her gaze on Cecily.

  “And don’t think that you have distracted me from the original point,” she snapped, which only made Cecily giggle. “No, I am serious about this. Where is Charles? He was supposed to accompany us.”