by Maggie Allen
Dr. Phipps leaned over, supporting himself with his cane as he tried to look directly at Eleanor. She turned her head away and hunched further up against herself.
“Not impossible,” Phipps said. An exhaled groan followed by a low crash heralded his arrival on the floor. His hat fell and spun in silly circles at the edge of Eleanor’s vision, but she did her best to ignore it and the doctor. After he caught his breath, he continued, “Not easy, either. But the first step to the impossible is to call it something else.”
Phipps tried again to catch Eleanor’s eye from the floor. He rolled first one way and then the other. Eleanor looked away and fought down the pesky curl at the side of her mouth as it sneaked its way into a smile. Finally, she met his gaze. There was a sparkle in Phipps’ left eye that made her wonder if it were some kind of gemstone. His eyebrows made funny squiggles, raising and lowering as if his thoughts were playing tennis inside his skull.
Phipps’ eyebrows finally settled into a deep V at the base of many furrows on his forehead. “Your legs may never work,” he said at last. “I know it’s hard to hear, but you have to face the possibility. Oh, there may be a cure, but it’s a long shot. So you can wait, and mope, maybe forever. Or you can find another way to walk.”
Eleanor knew that Phipps was being honest with her, but she had a serious illness, and what could she do that medicine couldn’t? She slapped her legs with both hands. Prickles of pins and needles ran through her narrow thighs. She could feel them, but she couldn’t move them. They sat lifeless and useless, not much wider around than her arms. Tears rose. “There’s only one way to walk,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She sniffed and rubbed the corner of her right eye. “Don’t be so daft.”
Phipps rolled away from the chair, then back again, wobbling on his round belly. It brought the curl back to Eleanor’s mouth.
“People stroll, stride, promenade, march and perambulate, don’t they?” he said, lying on his back.
“Those are just other words for walking. They all rely on legs.”
“For centuries people thought the only way to fly was to be a bird. To have wings that functioned like theirs.” Phipps flapped his arms against the floor. “But finally, engineers thought of other words like float or glide and realised that lighter-than-air gasses held in a balloon could bear them aloft. Now people fly regularly, but still they have no wings!”
Phipps rolled back and forth again. “Have you ever tried rolling?”
“That’s not very dignified.”
“Who cares? It’s fun. Not very practical, though.” He rolled across the room and then tried to get up. “Makes you dizzy.” His head wagged and he sunk back to his knees. “Perhaps brachiation is the answer!”
“What’s that?”
“Using your arms to swing about.”
“Like monkeys do?”
“Exactly like monkeys do! If we were to hang ropes with rings on the ends from the ceiling, you could swing around.” He moved his arms in a ridiculous motion. “It could get you in and out of your chair and to and from your bed.”
Eleanor stifled a giggle. Phipps looked very silly. “Really?”
“Yes. You see, you just have to think of new ways of locomotion.”
“Locomotive? Like a train? I’d love to go on a train someday. See the world.” A spike of excitement consumed Eleanor’s thoughts for a brief moment, the warmth of possibility rising in her belly. Then it fell suddenly cold. “But I can’t go out.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not... normal.”
“Pish posh. You’re better than normal. So long as you use your brain, you can do anything.” Phipps scooted over to Eleanor on his knees. He picked up the sketchbook that sat by her side and asked if he could look inside. Normally Eleanor kept her work secret, but this time she agreed.
Phipps paged through drawing after drawing of ballerinas in various poses, amidst their most beautiful dances. He spent time looking at each one. Most people glanced and said nothing.
“You’re an excellent artist,” Phipps said at last, “but it looks like you draw only dancers.”
“I like dancers.”
Phipps cocked his head to one side, then almost to his shoulder. “Why are they all standing?”
Eleanor rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “You have to stand to dance, silly.”
“Are you sure?” Phipps stood up. He grabbed the sheet covering the pram and pulled it off in a flourish of fabric and dust. Eleanor coughed at the heavy bouquet of dirt and old furniture varnish but laughed at almost the same time. “What are you doing?”
“Wheels, my dear. Wheels might be the answer!”
“I’m not a machine!” Eleanor exclaimed. “And I’m too old for a pram.”
“True. But we can put wheels on your chair. Or...” He turned pages in Eleanor’s sketchbook until he reached a blank one. Then he drew hasty rectangles and circles, a few numbers and mathematical symbols, angles and more numbers. “You see, my dear!” He waved the crazy scribblings in the air. “If you can draw it, dream it, visualise it, then you can build it!”
There was no doubt about it. He was mad as a hatter. But Eleanor liked him. It was like watching a puppet show come to life. Phipps snatched up his bag and rooted through it, coming up with a spanner and a screwdriver.
“I thought that was your lunch bag,” Eleanor said.
“All engineers keep tools in their lunch bags, my dear.”
In a trice Phipps had disassembled the pram and converted it into a low-lying cart. Its upholstered surfaces made a central support rising from the frame, and the former hood made a low chair back. Golden fringe ran up and over it, fluttering along the edges.
Phipps knelt down on the altered pram and pushed himself from the wall, using his weight and a sweep of his arms to guide the cart into a half circle. He ended up facing away from Eleanor but twisted his bulbous body around to speak.
“What do you think?”
“Mummy would never approve.”
“She doesn’t want you to walk?”
“It’s not walking.”
“It’s like walking. It means you can move around. Even move to music.”
“You mean dance?”
Phipps bent down and pushed himself from the floor, then swayed again to make the cart perform another half circle. “I do.”
Eleanor clapped and clapped as if in the Theatre Royal itself. “I want to try!” she said.
Phipps picked her up and placed her in the low cart, carefully tucking her legs underneath. The raised central portion supported her, taking weight off of her legs, and the low chair back provided stability. Phipps made a few adjustments to ensure the cart fit its intended driver.
Eleanor was too excited to pay much attention. She pushed herself along and tried the swaying motion Phipps had demonstrated. It didn’t work as well for her. She didn’t have the weight to put behind it. “It’s not easy. Will you push me?”
“Dance with you? But of course!” Phipps pushed and pulled the cart around the room, spinning and humming a jolly tune all the while.
“We might be able to put gears in,” he mused.
“I’m not sure I like being so low to the ground. Could we make something higher, like a dress with wheels?”
“Now you’re thinking!”
“ELEANOR!”
Eleanor’s mother stood in the doorway, her face a tightened ball of rage. “What are you doing? And you!” she pointed at Dr. Phipps, her long hand shaking. “You’re supposed to be a doctor. A dignified man!”
“Allow me to explain, dear lady –”
“Get out!”
Phipps picked up his hat and bag, doffed the hat to the lady and disappeared down the stairs.
1848
The next few months were particularly difficult for Eleanor. She tried to convince her parents to allow Dr. Phipps to come back, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it, nor would she allow her t
o keep the pram-cart.
Eventually Eleanor managed to make her father understand the reason for hanging rings from the ceiling, and he installed a few ropes across the nursery, plus padding on the floor in case she fell. She practiced the brachiation technique over and over. It was tough. Getting momentum when she couldn’t control her legs made swinging nearly impossible. But impossible became an increasingly improbable word in her vocabulary.
At first she could hardly pull herself up from the bed, but she kept trying until she built strength in her arms and shoulders. Then she practiced swinging. She fell time and again and often felt like giving up. Still she pushed on. Her mother said that everything about it was unladylike, but with practice, Eleanor’s movements grew almost graceful. Long hours over long months led to smooth motions and pirouettes that might make a dancer proud. She even began choreographing moves to music in her head. For the first time, she was able to imagine herself dancing, rather than someone else. Just as Phipps had said, if she could visualise it, she could do it.
Nonetheless, even a short routine tired her. People just weren’t meant to dance with their arms for very long. But now that she had gotten a taste of what could be accomplished, her dreams soared. Not only could she imagine dancing, she could even see herself exploring the countryside or crossing the sea. Instead of telling herself it couldn’t be done, now she asked how it might be done.
Her belief in the impossible increased as she read about remarkable feats of engineering. Elaborate train networks were springing up across Britain and Europe, some with speeds up to 20 miles an hour! She had never before thought about how these feats were accomplished. Now she saw that it was thought, practice and individual steps that led to great things.
She begged her father to bring home books about engineering. When he asked why she wanted to read such things, she let slip a glimpse of her dreams. Then she looked away, ashamed. Her father sat silently for a moment, for an eternity.
Finally he said “That’s –”
“I know,” Eleanor interrupted, “unladylike. And not possible. I shouldn’t –”
“No. It’s... wonderful. Amazing. I dream of those things, too!”
“Really?”
“Yes, I think of speeding in a steam train or soaring in a balloon. Exploring the depths of the ocean, or even the stars themselves.”
“Really, really?”
They laughed together for the first time in Eleanor’s memory.
She convinced her father to work with her on the pram-cart, to improve it and to allow her to move through the house onboard. Her mother said it was an improper vehicle for a young lady, but even she smiled when Eleanor spun into a turn like a twirling penny and ended in a dancer’s flourish.
With each success, Eleanor’s dreams soared greater still. She built a new dancing cart with four wheels, each driven by a clockwork engine. And she began to design an even better framework and propulsion system – the wheeled metal dress she had suggested to Phipps. Her sketches showed it would work, but how to build it without good tools and additional hands? Her parents told her they would try to get what she needed, but something was wrong. They wouldn’t talk about it, and even her father was quiet when she asked about his dreams. “They’ll probably take those, too,” was all he said.
The next day, the bill collectors came. Because there was no money for them, they took the only thing left. They took the house.
Bethnal Green, 1849
When she’d been withering away in the nursery Eleanor had never thought things could get worse. But they had. Not only did the creditors take her house, they took her father, too. He was sentenced to Newgate Gaol until such time as his debts were paid. It seemed stupid to Eleanor. How could he pay debts if he was locked away?
Once again she blamed herself. Her energetic desire to build, dance and explore had meant an ever greater drain on the family finances. Her mother insisted on continuing the stream of doctors, but she could no longer pay for them. Now she visited relatives for help, but money was tight everywhere. She never explained, but Eleanor overheard conversations and began to put the puzzle together. When Eleanor’s grandparents had died, the inheritance had been divided among a large family and had quickly disappeared.
Eleanor and her mother ended up in a block of run-down flats off Bethnal Green with many other families in trouble. Most were women with children whose fathers had been sent to Newgate, just like Eleanor’s. The women typically eked out livings as seamstresses, barmaids, or peddlers, and most of their earnings went to pay interest on old debts. The children, too, worked wherever they could. Many turned to begging or stealing, all because of a system that made poverty a crime.
Eleanor’s mother couldn’t keep her shuttered away anymore, but she told her not to talk to the people of Bethnal Green. Though Eleanor respected her mother, she didn’t understand. How were they different? So, while her mother was out appealing to ever more distant relatives for money, Eleanor began talking. For the first time she was able to connect with others, with children her own age. Some of them made fun of her, but most of them were friendly and curious. They found her wheeled carts fascinating.
Her mother would have been mortified, but the strain of living in poverty proved so difficult that she simply stopped functioning. After her final contact, a third cousin twice removed, was unable to provide more than two shillings, she gave in. Once so strong and proper, she fell into a heap of utter despair, incapable of doing anything but sobbing.
Eleanor had known such sadness. She tried her best to lead her mother out of the spiral of despair, but it didn’t help. The only thing that put a semblance of a smile on her face was when Eleanor danced. She practiced every night, using her upper body to sway and shift the energy of the small, tightly wound engines. Her mother watched through hazy eyes just as Eleanor had once watched her toy ballerina.
Phipps would know what to do. But where was he? Eleanor wrote letters addressed to Aloysius Berringer Phipps, Dr. (the best kind) hoping that the Royal Mail could find him. She also sent word through a network of street urchins she had come to know. Her withered legs were particularly suitable to the profession of begging, and though she found it unseemly, she turned to it to support her mother and attempt to rescue her father.
She explored the backstreets of London with the urchins, taking on their attire of goggles and kerchiefs to protect eyes and nose from the sooty air. Cobblestones would have ruined her clockwork dancing cart, so she took only her hand cart.
It wasn’t the kind of exploration she’d dreamed of, but being out and about, even on the grease-smoke streets of London, was invigorating. Fog, smoke, and steam rolled equally down the evening streets, subsuming buildings in a haze that made them into giant ships on a murky lake. Big Ben tolled in the distance, and the clip-clop of horseshoes rang down the lanes alongside the clank of mechanical wheels. At times, the acrid tang of horse sweat and charcoal would suddenly be covered by a waft of fresh bread, or a heady breath of mince pie that made her mouth water.
Dancing still filled her dreams, and she practiced every night. Her four-engine cart was far from perfect, though, and she continued to draw plans for a better frame – a steel bustle that would form a rigid support for a skirt. Small steps to a greater goal.
One night, Eleanor spun merrily on her wheels only to find the self-professed leader of the urchins, a wiry boy of about thirteen, watching her. His street goggles were pushed up on his forehead, and he must have stood there for some time. Surprised, Eleanor tried to run.
“Wait!”
Eleanor stumbled, having forgotten the shift in weight needed to push her wheels in the proper direction. She ended up on her side, four wheels spinning out their tensed power in the air.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the boy murmured.
“Leave me alone, Sanjeev.”
“But your dance, it was so –“
“Silly?” Eleanor sniffed. “A crippled girl can’t dance?”
&n
bsp; “You dance better than anyone I’ve ever seen.” He bent to help her up. “It was... beautiful.” The way he stumbled on the final word showed he’d rarely used it, or at least had never meant it until now. Eleanor decided it was sweet, something she’d never noticed in Sanjeev.
“Thank you,” she said and allowed herself to be righted on her wheels. She could have managed on her own, but it was nice to accept help from time to time.
“Why don’t you dance outside where we can join you?”
“I didn’t think anyone would understand.”
“Of course we would! Plus, me and some of the boys fancy ourselves musicians. Maybe we could help?”
“I’d like that.”
A shy grin pushed Sanjeev’s cheeks almost past his ears. Then he shook from his daydream. “Oh, I almost forgot. That Phipps bloke you’ve been looking for?”
“You found him?”
“More like you did.” Sanjeev waved a stained envelope in the air. “Barlowe and me went round the post. He sat on my shoulders and we put an old greatcoat over us, pretended to be a respectable gent. Asked for any letters for you, and they gave us this. All the way from Paris. Lucky Barlowe can read a little. Made out the word Phipps and figured it was worth the extra penny in back postage.”
“You’re a genius!”
Sanjeev’s dusky complexion reddened.
Eleanor took the envelope in hand. It looked as though it had been dragged across the English Channel and then trodden upon by a train of donkeys. It smelled of swamp gas, or what Eleanor imagined swamp gas would smell like.
She opened the letter and read:
Dearest Eleanor,
So sorry to hear of your troubles. I wish I could help, but the answer lies within you. Use your brain and you will rise above all difficulties.
To tell the truth, I have troubles too. I have had to flee to France, but I am using my brain! I believe I have a discovery that can be displayed at the Crystal Palace next year. I hope to see you there.
