Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

by Kage Baker

  As they made their way up the lodging house stairs, Lady Beatrice smoothed back her hair at last.

  “Well, I’ve certainly won an admirer,” she said, a trifle wearily. “I trust our absence proved useful?”

  “It did that,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Very interesting desk that man had, and I think the Gentlemen will want the matter pursued. I may have found a new cook, as well,” she added thoughtfully.

  “Splendid!”

  “Well, it’ll want some careful managing; wait and see. But we’ll see what flattery and a higher wage can do.”

  “A little unscrupulous, is it not?”

  “It’s a hard business we’re in, my dear.”

  They opened the door to their rooms to find Mrs. Otley seated at the table admiring something by lamplight, with the other ladies crowded around her.

  “—but it looks so very grisly,” Jane was complaining. “I really wish you had given it a proper burial.”

  “What’s all this?” Mrs. Corvey set her cane in the umbrella stand and approached the table.

  By way of response, Mrs. Otley turned the object that lay before her on the table and revealed it to be a skull.

  “Erato found someone’s head in Kents Cavern,” said Herbertina.

  “It’s a skull,” said Mrs. Otley with some heat. “And I’m not at all sure it belonged to a person. It looks very primitive to me.”

  The others made room at the table and Mrs. Corvey and Lady Beatrice sat down to consider Mrs. Otley’s find. As skulls went (and Lady Beatrice had seen a few), it was certainly odd-looking. The skull was large, the teeth were remarkably long and the zygomatic bones were very broad. Although the cranial vault was high and wide, suggesting a large brain, there was evidence of a faint sagittal crest.

  Mrs. Otley pointed at this last item and said defensively, “I’m quite sure that this is an archaic feature.”

  “Perhaps you found a Druid’s head,” suggested Miss Rendlesham.

  “What a horrid thought!” said Maude.

  “Not to one of a scientific mind,” retorted Mrs. Otley. “I shall make a drawing of it and send it to Mr. Darwin. There was what appeared to be a grave or a midden there—I am quite sure I can unearth further specimens if I return. Perhaps it will turn out to be a find of great importance!”

  “No doubt, my dear,” said Mrs. Corvey, optics whirring as she examined the skull through different lenses. “Perhaps we won’t keep it on the table where we take our tea, all the same, eh? Charlotte, I believe you have a hat box you can lend Erato?”

  With a martyred air Miss Rendlesham fetched forth the box that had contained her ill-fated bonnet, and the skull was placed within. Such was its size, however, that the lid failed to quite close, giving the impression that the ghastly spectre of Death was peeping out through hollow eyes. This effect was slightly diminished by the pink ribbon they were obliged to tie around the box to keep the lid fastened.

  As Mrs. Otley bore her trophy away to a side table, Herbertina said, “Oh! And you’ve another letter from the Gentlemen, Mrs. Corvey.” She produced it from her jacket pocket and handed it across.

  Mrs. Corvey took it with a sigh. “Well, there’s half a night’s work with the encryption book for me, and no mistake.”

  “May I help?” asked Lady Beatrice.

  “I should be grateful,” said Mrs. Corvey.

  Lady Beatrice laid aside the encryption book. “I suppose, then, I shall be obliged to continue my romance with Mr. Pickett.”

  “Best way to find out what’s what, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Corvey, reaching for another sheet of foolscap. “Order No. 1: determine whether any further evidence of underwater craft exists. Answer: if the evidence of my eyes ain’t enough, we can send a couple of the girls up on the cliffs at Daddyhole with a Talbotype camera.

  “Order No. 2: determine probable location of docking for same. Answer: that’ll be a nice trick, won’t it? Though I expect he’s using those sea caves under the cliff.”

  “I suppose I could try and wheedle it out of Mr. Pickett,” said Lady Beatrice. “Assuming, of course, that he is in fact the culprit.”

  “He’s bloody well up to something,” said Mrs. Corvey, “from what I found on his desk. What’s a gentleman want with all them incendiary devices, I should like to know? To say nothing of needing to pay for a cove with a forge? Which brings us to Order No. 3: determine evidence of manufactury. Answer: It looks obvious to me, but I expect a bit more digging through his desk is called for.”

  She looked at Lady Beatrice and raised an eyebrow. “Hope you don’t find him too displeasing, my dear. You may be obliged to allow him a number of liberties.”

  Lady Beatrice made a dismissive gesture. “I make a firm distinction between duty and pleasure, Mrs. Corvey.”

  “That’s the spirit, dear. Do make another discreet assignation, would you? With your dear mamma in attendance, of course. I should like another crack at that cook, as well.” Mrs. Corvey settled down to draft her lengthy report to the Gentlemen. “Now, why don’t you go take a little supper? See if you can’t get some tea and toast sent up to me; I expect

  I won’t get to bed before midnight.”

  Herbertina was assigned the role of amateur photographer, being judged the least likely to be remarked upon while wandering the cliff tops with a knapsack and a tripod. Nothing loathe, she traded her tailored day clothes for a loose coat and a cheerfully striped country neckerchief, donned a broad-brimmed straw against the sun, and marched off manfully to Daddyhole.

  The path up the limestone cliffs was easy and gradual, but the day was very warm; before long, Herbertina’s coat was hanging off the tripod strapped across her knapsack and her neckerchief hung loose. Her loose shirt and custom corsetry ensured that, even coatless, she displayed only the fashionable full chest of a well-dressed young man, and no revealing curves. And she was profoundly grateful, in the warmth of the day, that she could remove a layer of clothing and walk freely.

  The cliff tops, when attained, were mostly unwooded, and she made her way through knee high herbage that sent up a smell like incense under the sun. The sea was a polished blue as calm as a ballroom floor, stretching away to what Herbertina fondly imagined was the seething coast of France (which had replaced its latest King with yet another Republic in February) but thought was probably a more mundane storm cloud far off in the Channel.

  From time to time she stopped to set up the tripod and take the view, though she was saving the actual treated paper for the cottages that Mrs. Corvey had glimpsed from Mr. Pickett’s carriage. The Gentlemen had made improvements to the Talbotype device that allowed the operator to load 14 ready-made blanks into the camera prior to use. However, changing the pack of light-sensitive paper was the part that Herbertina found most difficult to achieve without exposing all of them, so for now she contented herself with practice on the focusing lens and eyepiece adjustment.

  Still, it was very pleasant to stroll along and play the naturalist, all alone in the shining summer morning. While not naturally a solitary person, as Lady Beatrice or Mrs. Otley were, Herbertina found it occasionally a great relief to be alone. It was easier to maintain privacy in one’s own head during work (when, indeed, she was usually immersed in artistic personae) than it was in the girls’ school atmosphere of the Ladies’ private residence. She genuinely enjoyed the masculine quiet of clubs and bars, and so was now quite relishing her meander along the cliffs. The rolling emptiness of the cliff tops stretched all around her, and when she turned back from time to time, the white walls of Torbay looked like a wreath of lilies thrown down on the ruddy sands.

  It was a little shy of midday when the rolling irregularity of the brush resolved itself into three tiny cottages. Herbertina set course for their chimneys, torn between hoping no one was home to ask her what she was doing and wondering if any of them had a working pump or well for an over-heated wanderer. To her pleasure, when she reached her goal she found both lack of inhabitants and an accessible well.
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  The cottages stood in a rough arc around the well, all facing the bay. They showed signs of recent repair, but were empty: no one came to the doors at Herbertina’s hail, nor while she sloughed her hat and burdens and hauled up the well-bucket. When she was refreshed, she went and peered in each tiny front-facing window: neither furniture nor cottagers in the front rooms, though each showed a doorway into a windowless back room. Examining the back walls, it was obvious that there had once been windows: they were now bricked neatly up, hiding whatever was within. The doors, front and rear, were locked, which was a curious affectation in an isolated country cottage.

  Pondering that, she took her first Talbotypes of the new brickwork, to document the anomaly. Then she returned and set up her tripod and camera in the shade of the wellhouse roof to wait for the anomalies for which she had actually come hunting.

  With Herbertina off on her reconnaissance mission, Mrs. Otley also elected to take advantage of the fine weather and return to Kent’s Cavern. None of the other Ladies were inclined to come with her, but that was not distressing—she quite enjoyed excavating on her own and understood that the joys of such physically active scholarship were not to every one’s liking.

  Indeed, very few women were so inclined. Until last year, Mrs. Otley had enjoyed a very satisfying correspondence with Mary Anning, who had made such remarkable discoveries in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast. Of course, dear Mary had specialized in marine reptiles, and so would probably not have been that taken with the strange skull from Kents Cavern. It would have been pleasant, however, to discuss the dig itself with someone else conversant in the tricks and trials of excavation…alas, Mary Anning had succumbed to a cancer in her breast last year.

  “‘Grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace,’” murmured Mrs. Otley as she marched along, and somewhat self-consciously dedicated her day’s digging in Mary’s name. She had been raised in a High Church tradition, and the doing of good works was always a virtue.

  It was barely two miles to Kent’s Cavern, through an easily traversed wooded area; it was a little steep in places, but Mrs. Otley wore very sensible boots. The cave entrance was easily found amid the trees; indeed, it seemed to Mrs. Otley to be the very standard of a potential prehistoric dwelling. She thought she would have found it a suitable location herself, some thousands of years earlier.

  She lit her little lantern and trudged on in. The constant cool temperature of the cave was a genuine pleasure on such a warm day; indeed, she could think of few day’s work that would have been so pleasant in the sun as was a day’s digging in a well-ventilated cavern.

  The floors within were lightly sanded, and scattered with time-darkened stones fallen from the walls and ceilings. For the most part, the caverns were flowstone in a pleasing palette of salmon, grey and slatey blue—many portions were rich with both stalagmites and stalactites, and she proceeded with care so as to avoid crushing smaller and more fragile growths underfoot.

  As she headed toward the meandering side chamber where she had found the fascinating skull, Mrs. Otley paused to study again an especially moving vista. She wondered whether primitive Britons could have deliberately carved what she now observed: a great face formed in the very substance of the walls. The middle part of the face was obliterated—possibly by the flowstone itself—but the lower portion showed a wide mouth, a quite strong chin and the base of what she fancied was a noble nose. With its broad cheekbones and high brow, she felt it had a definite resemblance to the skull she had found.

  Treading carefully, she made her way to the slightly mounded area where the skull had been resting—it had been peering out at her with its dark empty sockets, as if standing guard in place of the great eyeless face in the distance. The scuff marks of her previous excavation now marked the place as clearly as a flag; she settled down in a nearly prayerful attitude, gave a slow contented sigh, and began to carefully remove small trowelfuls of the silky red dirt before her.

  There was no wind; the sea lay flat under the heat and no boats marred its surface. Herbertina managed a Talbotype of a hovering hawk that perused her in turn from the middle air beyond the cliff edge, but rather felt that—aside from the neat trick of capturing the bird on the wing—the image had no real value. Still, it let her practice with the device. But when she did finally notice the wake on the ocean below, she was quite taken by surprise.

  It showed up on the flat surface like a stroke of ink. There was no evident cause: there was still no wind, and there was no craft in sight, only an arrow-straight wake through the low glassy swell. Herbertina focused, pressed the activation lever, and re-focused as fast as she could. The wake was proceeding at a notable speed, seemingly creating itself from its own bow-wave, and Herbertina was twisting the lens and hauling on the lever with both frenzied hands, face pressed to the eyepieces.

  Suddenly the leading edge of the wake opened up like a fountain. What emerged was not a jet of water, however, but a tall slender mast. Just behind it was something that looked like a leaning organ pipe, tilting past the mast. A massive shadow just below it suggested that some sizable body bore both objects aloft. Herbertina captured two successive images before the thing slid out of her field of vision. She straightened and frantically tried to loosen the horizontal holding screws—before she could, the mast once more submerged into its own wake. She could see it over the camera and tripod, even though she could not focus the device on it, and watched in astonishment as the wake, too, smoothed out and disappeared.

  Either the thing had dissolved, or it had gone too deep to leave a wake. Herbertina cursed and stepped back from the tripod in surrender. She cursed still more when she discovered she had wound her neckerchief into the holding set screws, and was suddenly wearing the camera like a huge pendant. It cost her several minutes and the last two inches of her neckerchief to get free, kneeling on the ground bent over her mechanical albatross.

  Mrs. Otley was almost unaware of the passage of hours as she worked. The unchanging temperature and light in a cave were no indication of time; the constant small noises—a drip of distant water, the slide and whisper of a falling stone—did not occur in any living rhythm. However, the small watch she wore pinned to her bosom chimed the hour faithfully, and at last she had to regretfully admit she had excavated the better half of the day away.

  And her lamp only held so much fuel. There were rumors of amazing devices available to field agents, lamps that ran on strange and sophisticated substances or gave one the night sight that Mrs. Corvey enjoyed. Mrs. Otley, however, was still a captive of whale oil.

  As she sifted through a last spadeful of dirt, her reward suddenly tumbled into her hand like winning dice. Very like dice—they were, unless she much missed her guess, vertebra—seven or eight of them, and very human-looking. Her excitement was great, but there was no time left to examine them closely. She drew a rough rectangle in the excavated dirt to mark where she had found them, then wrapped her trove carefully in a handkerchief and stowed it in her basket.

  She fairly danced out of the cave, then, and blew a kiss to the great blind face as she passed it.

  Mrs. Corvey studied the fourteen Talbotypes on the table before her, anchored with perfume bottles, tea cups and two of the vases of flowers that had been arriving daily from Mr. Pickett (via the villainous Felan). She passed them one by one as she finished to Lady Beatrice and Mrs. Otley (just returned, rosy-cheeked and excited from her digging, and pressed immediately into service as an analyst). Those two ladies were the best suited to see details and patterns in the images, and possessed besides between them a good working knowledge of both marine life forms and ordnance.

  “To dismiss the obvious at once,” Mrs. Otley said, “this is not a whale. I think it is nothing alive at all.”

  “So much for the fishermen seeing Leviathans hereabouts,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Something big’s supposed to have come under one man’s boat, though, and fetched it a good enough whack to pitch him overboard, and that l
ooks big enough.”

  Her lenses made a soft whirring sound as she adjusted their light sensitivity, bringing one picture closer to her face. “That’s something, for certain, just under the water—the light falls on it differently. What I can make out through the foam and glare looks like…a barge. A sunken barge. A barge underwater, at any rate. What on earth moves it?”

  “There have been some very nearly successful attempts at submarine propulsion using steam engines. And treadmills, too. But they are very slow, I am told,” offered Mrs. Otley.

  “That thing isn’t slow.” Herbertina’s voice was rather muffled. She lay on the sofa with her face on her folded arms, while Dora massaged neck muscles strained by the sudden weight of the Talbotype camera. “It went like bloody blazes! I barely had time to refocus and never did manage to change the paper pack—I’d have gotten more if I had. Sorry, Mrs. C.”

  “Not your fault, dear. You weren’t anticipating a speed trial of the thing. Speaking of which, Erato, I don’t think that a “very nearly successful” method can be what’s driving this. A treadmill is a ponderous slow machine, I can tell you from my workhouse days.”

  “I don’t see how a steam engine would work at all,” said Miss Rendlesham from the window seat.

  “It didn’t,” said Mrs. Otley in some embarrassment. “It blew up. I believe there was a problem with venting.”

  Lady Beatrice looked up from the image she was going over with a magnifying glass.

  “Mrs. Corvey? Would you examine this, please? If you would, pay attention to that object that resembles an organ pipe.”

  Mrs. Otley took the image; her lenses whirred and extended slightly. After a moment, she asked incredulously, “Is that thing smoking? It is!”