Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  UNSEEMLY SCIENCE

  Rod Duncan

  BEING VOLUME TWO OF

  THE FALL OF THE GAS-LIT EMPIRE

  Chapter 1

  Revolution was never sparked by political philosophy. It has ever been the price of bread that shakes the pillars of the world. Yet they lock up thinkers and leave the bakers free.

  From Revolution

  There was never a public hanging without a mob. And of those concerned citizens who crushed together at the foot of the gallows, no less than half belonged to the gentle sex. Lewd heckles were as likely to be called out in women’s voices as in men’s, and a sea of hat feathers quivered above the heads of every such expectant crowd. Thus, it was not to hide my sex that I stepped out that day disguised as a man. Rather it was to hide my identity.

  But disguise is merely an outer layer. There was something in the bewhiskered face staring back at me from the hand glass that always triggered a deeper transformation. By the time I crept from the houseboat and closed the hatch behind me, my movements had changed to that of a man. Striding off along the canal, I found myself planting my heels rather than my toes and letting my shoulders roll as I walked. It was a gait that might seem unnatural. But from years of practice it was my second nature.

  Had anyone been awake and watching, they would have assumed they saw my brother, the private intelligence gatherer, off on another of his nocturnal adventures. Thus I climbed the embankment without fear of discovery and set off along the track towards the road.

  There is a time between the revelries of night and the necessity of morning when the comfortable classes do not venture from the warmth of their beds. This was such a time. No lights shone in the scatter of houses between the canal and the road. The smell of dew hung in the air and the crackle of gravel under my boots seemed loud. I turned but saw no one following, though for a moment I had felt a tingle on the back of my neck.

  Having waited on the roadside only a few minutes, I heard iron-shod hooves of the five o’clock omnibus approaching, then saw its lamps shining through the thin mist.

  Everyone stared as I climbed aboard. The driver and conductor were uniformed in company blue. Everyone else wore the clothes of the working masses – coarsely woven wool in drab greys and washed out browns, flat caps and simple bonnets. My top hat and taupe jacket did not blend in.

  I edged along the aisle towards the back with every face turning to track my progress. All the benches were taken. But as I reached up to grip the leather strap, a weather beaten woman struggled to her feet. She must have been twenty years my senior.

  “Here you go, sir,” she said.

  I hesitated. But to refuse would have been to attract yet further attention. Swallowing a pang of guilt, I nodded my appreciation and sat. The driver called, “Walk on.” He flicked his whip and the horses set us rattling along the road.

  With a waft of body odour and tobacco smoke, the man next to me leaned closer. “You’ll be going to the hanging then,” he said.

  “Not at all.”

  “It’s alright. There’s most on this bus would go if they’d money for the crossing. The works foreman’s going. Taking the wife and kids. Better than a holiday, he says. And cheaper.”

  Those close enough to be listening nodded sagely. That turned out to be most of the omnibus. I stared directly ahead, trying not to meet anyone else’s gaze.

  If all the passengers would have liked to attend, I wondered how many there would be in the crowd at the hanging. The newspapers had been following the story for many months. The public’s hunger for salacious detail had been fed with a mixture of fact, speculation and bizarre statements from unnamed sources. Even respectable titles had joined the discussion.

  I alighted at St Margaret’s coach station, grateful to put the stuffy confinement of the carriage behind me. The gas lights had been extinguished already, so I had to pick my way over the uneven cobbles with care. The sky was showing the first grey of dawn but that only seemed to deepen the shadows.

  I was not the only one making my way up Churchgate in the direction of the border. Two gentlemen and a lady walked on ahead of me and I spotted another man behind. By the time I reached the clock tower, that thin scatter had turned into a trickle. The official border crossing was naturally closed. Not that anyone would have thought of using it. Two Republic guards in blue uniforms sat slouched in the kiosk nearest me, perfectly mirroring two Kingdom guards in red uniforms in the kiosk on the other side. It was the eternal symmetry of the divided city.

  Approaching Cheapside, the trickle had grown to a stream so that by the time I reached the Odeon Crossing I had to queue, taking my turn to pass payment to the owner. Then I was feeling my way through a dank passageway below overhanging eaves, emerging a few moments later on a street the far side of the border.

  In the Kingdom I was wanted by the law. Even in disguise, I would not normally have risked the crossing. But today the crowd would protect me. I would be one face among thousands. Tens of thousands if that many could fit around the gallows.

  The Eastern sky had turned from grey to red. Streams of people threaded between empty market stalls, converging as they progressed. Tens became hundreds. I found myself jostled as we funnelled into the narrow confines of Angel Gateway.

  Though I could see no individual who was talking, a low shuffling hum issued from the crowd. The sound put my skin on edge. There was a grim energy to it. Like a swarm of insects, stirred up and ready for some terrible event.

  Then, suddenly, we were through the passageway and stepping out onto the wide plaza of Gallowtree Gate, already crowded. And there I saw it – a sturdy platform of squared-off timbers standing clear of the heads of the crowd. Above it ran the single beam from which dangled three short chains, each ending in a hook. A casket and a barrel rested on the right hand side.

  The pressure of new arrivals was pushing the crowd forwards. We were being crushed together – children and the old, highborn and commoners.

  I had never been to an execution before, though I had read reports. They spoke of a party atmosphere, of jeering and gossip and the throwing of rotten fruit. But this crowd whispered. This crowd seemed more like an army on the dawn of battle.

  Raising myself onto my toes I could just see a line of red uniforms – men at arms standing in front of the gallows platform. Their shouldered muskets looked like a thin stockade. Too flimsy, I thought.

  I felt the approach of the condemned woman before I heard the cart. A shiver of tension passed through the crowd. The low drone dropped away to almost nothing. And then she was there – a slight figure in the distance, just visible above a sea of heads, as if she was wading. And like a sea, the crowd surged. Bodies pressed and I found myself shuffling forwards. How they made room for the cart, I do not know. Yet soon she was behind the scaffold.

  First to climb the wooden stairs was the rotund figure of the executioner, Clarence Hobb, masked yet a celebrity known to all. Over his shoulder rested a length of rope, one end tied in a noose. Next up was a red coated marshal carrying a roll of parchment. Then the condemned woman began to climb. A sound like a breeze moving through dry grass whispered around me as all drew in breath.

  When I first met her she had been wearing fine clothes. Now they had dressed her in a coarse shift, bone-white and shapeless. Her blonde hair had been tied back in a tight ponytail. Her arms were held awkwardly behind her. I could not see her feet but somehow knew they would have taken her shoes.

  She did it for love, the newspapers had proclaimed. All she had wanted was reunion. But she had fallen hopelessly, madly in love with a man separated by a gulf of class that could never be crossed. The aristocrats tutted their disapproval. And now they would have their revenge.

  But I had seen the st
ory first hand. If there had been a crime, then I was its chief victim. She had promised me much and I believed her good for it, fooled by a sateen blouse.

  Draped in calico, she stood before the huge expanse of the crowd. If any had come to see some noble moment, a gesture of defiance against the aristocrats, they would be disappointed. She was a girl, scared and alone. There would be no final speech.

  Clarence Hobb had been testing the middle of the three chains, gripping the hook and lifting his feet so that his considerable weight hung from the beam. Now he made fast the rope. I watched as he placed a sack over her head and pulled a drawstring to gather in the hem of the shift around her ankles.

  The last men to climb onto the platform were two red-coated guards, muskets shouldered. They positioned themselves on either side of the executioner and stood to attention.

  I would have given anything to be somewhere else. But I could not leave. Though she had done me a terrible wrong, the woman on the scaffold felt like a sister to me. Both of us had been raised in the world of the travelling show. Both had suffered at the hands of the aristocrats. It was merely chance that she now stood with Clarence Hobb arranging the noose around her neck whilst I watched, hidden in the crowd.

  She had sent me a gift as she awaited trial – an old copy of the Bullet Catcher’s Handbook. She had hinted at a mystery within its pages. But if it held anything of value, I had not found it. I resolved to burn the book when I returned home and forget that any of this had happened.

  The marshal unrolled his parchment and began to speak. “Through the power invested in me by his Majesty the King, I hereby announce and proclaim before you all standing witness that Florence May has been convicted of the following crimes: the theft of seventy-five golden guineas from an aristocrat of the Kingdom, the theft of clothing and writing paper from the same household, interception of the avian post, fraud by false signature and…” Here he paused to survey the faces of the crowd, as if to make sure all were listening. “...impersonating one beyond her station.”

  The marshal waited for a moment as if expecting cries or jeers. There were none.

  “The aforementioned Florence May, having been found guilty of these crimes, has been sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead on this day, 4th March 2009.”

  He re-rolled the parchment and nodded to the executioner. For a moment everything was still and symmetrical. She seemed very small between the men at arms. I thought I saw her body shiver. Then Clarence Hobb pulled the lever. The trap opened with the sound of a slamming door. She dropped. I heard the rope twang as it went tight.

  Her body jerked. Her legs and shoulders twitched. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Then the spasms were over. Her body dangled, swaying slightly. A man standing next to me looked away but I could not.

  The men at arms and Clarence Hobb hauled her back up onto the platform and laid her in the casket. She seemed of little weight in death. I watched as Hobb began covering her with broken ice from the barrel. Each shovel-full shone for a moment, brilliant white in the morning sun.

  The hum of the crowd had grown louder. Its pitch was higher. Somehow unwholesome. The King’s marshal seemed unsure of himself.

  “You can all go home now,” he announced.

  But nobody did.

  It was dusk by the time I returned to my houseboat. I stripped off the disguise and scrubbed away the makeup until my face felt raw. Then, kneeling before the stove in only my chemise, I kindled a fire of sticks and placed the Bullet Catcher’s Handbook in the middle of the flames. I watched as the wrinkled leather binding darkened. The corner smoked then caught. In a few moments my last connection to Florence May would be gone and I would be able to forget.

  I burned my hand taking it out again.

  Chapter 2

  Dress your barker in the finest clothes. For to sell an illusion your audience has not yet seen is the greatest trick of all.

  The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  Sunday morning by the canal, one mile north of the city – there was no better place to watch the middle classes at rest. They strolled, taking the air, pushing perambulators and gawping into the boats. For the small community moored on the North Leicester Wharf, and after five years I counted myself as one of them, it was a time to pull curtains across portholes and endure.

  My own craft, Bessie, attracted more attention than most. Among the working boats it was a rarity to see one kitted out solely as a home. Her side-paddles, though rusted into immobility, presented an elegant aspect.

  It had been almost two weeks since the hanging. My hand had mostly healed and I had started sleeping again. Pushing open a canal-side porthole, I breathed the fresh air, as if trying to inhale the countryside itself. Morning sunshine had already lifted the scent of spring flowers and the day promised warm. I smoothed my skirt under me and sat, watching a watery reflection dancing on the ceiling.

  I had been sitting that way for some time, when I was jarred from my thoughts by a loud chatter of voices on the towpath and a tilting of my boat. I sighed. They would blush at the thought of stepping onto a neighbour’s lawn without permission but as a boat dweller, I had placed myself beyond the restriction of social norms.

  “One hand on the steering thing, Maria. Just so! And one on the roof.” It was a man’s voice, young and enthusiastic. “Now hold still. I’m going to remove the lens cap. One flintlock. Two flintlock. Three flintlock. And you can breathe.”

  I felt the urge to confront him. How satisfying it would be to embarrass the man into getting off the boat. Nothing mortifies a good Republican more than embarrassment. But a gorilla in the zoo asking visitors to move along would have had more chance of success.

  “Your turn now, mother. Stand just where Maria did. I’ll change the plate.”

  I shouldn’t even have been listening. It was a beautiful day. Two ducks were swimming past under the porthole. But all my senses were focussed on the intruders.

  “I’m going to remove the lens cap. Stop smiling now. Perfect. One flintlock. Two flintlock...”

  A pause followed. The boat shifted again. Then the young man was speaking, his voice higher in pitch: “Perhaps you didn’t realise, but I was making a photograph. You’ve quite ruined the plate.”

  Hearing the sounds of a tussle, I sat straighter.

  “Let me through!” It was the voice of my student, Julia Swain.

  “You should really take more care,” said the man. “You only had to wait a second more.”

  I sprang across to let her in. There was a flurry of navy skirts and ivory trim as she flounced down the steps into the galley. I caught a glimpse of ‘mother’ on the deck, rigid with agitation, fanning herself at speed, as if social awkwardness is a thing that might be wafted away. Then I had the hatch closed.

  “Julia, I do believe you’ve ruined the gentleman’s photograph.”

  I found myself smiling for the first time in days.

  At eighteen, she was only two years my junior. But our different lives and roles made it seem more.

  “How do you manage?” Julia exclaimed. “They’re so rude!” Her cheeks were flushed. She pulled off a straw hat, letting her blonde hair fall.

  “If life were easy, we’d never grow beyond childhood,” I said.

  She gave me a look. “Are you such a saint, Elizabeth?”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “Then please fetch a pistol and shoot that horrible man! Flintlock indeed!”

  “There’s scope for us all between saint and murderer,” I said, easing the hat from her hands before she worked its rim to shreds. “Sit. Watch the ducks. I’ll make a pot of tea.”

  She did not sit, but paced up the narrow galley and down again. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as she picked up a saucer and ran her thumbnail over a chip in the rim. She could sniff out flawed logic faster than anyone I knew, but didn’t always realise the transparency of her emotions.

  Using a cloth to protect my hand, I lifted the kettle from the stov
e. Steam rose from the pot as I poured.

  “How’s your mother today?” I asked.

  Julia’s expression hovered between surprise and annoyance. “Did she tell you?”

  “She never tells me anything. But you’re wound tight as a spring. That usually means you’ve been... discussing something.”

  I occupied myself with setting out the tea things on the small table. Julia dropped herself onto the bench. “Why is mother so difficult? She knows I want to read the law. I’ve been sure of it ever since our trip to London.”

  “She loves you. That’s all. No parent wants to see a child leave. The Kingdom may be close, but from here it’s a world away.”

  “If she’s set on keeping me, why introduce so many eligible men?”

  “But if you go to university...”

  “I will go!”

  “When – if. Either way they’ll miss you.”

  “And married? How often do they think my husband would let me return?”

  It was not the first time we had navigated this topic. But the intensity of Julia’s feelings seemed to be increasing. That couldn’t make for harmony in the Swain household.

  “What of your father?” I asked.

  “He scurries away to his workshop whenever I raise the subject. As if engines and gears were more important than my future.”

  And what of myself, I thought. What would I do if Julia left for a university in the Kingdom? She was the only one who knew that I earned my living gathering intelligence for private clients. All my other neighbours had swallowed the illusion and believed I was kept by a brother. But to carry a great secret is to be alone. And if Julia were to cross the border, that is exactly what I would be.