Corsets & Clockwork

by Trish Telep

  Soon enough, though I get to my alleyway, thankfully ahead of the buyer. I do a quick check of the switch and cables, tugging to make sure the pulley above me is secure, then hook it to my suspenders beneath my coat. It's a precaution I have yet to need, but a comfort nonetheless. A few weeks ago a buyer thought I ought to donate my wares to his cause, and for a tense moment, I nearly had to use my escape route. Fortunately he decided I was worth paying.

  Of course, this only added to the humor when my father and I were greeted by an explosion of noxious green smoke upon leaving our manor the next day. A peril of the trade, I suppose. My inventions keep finding new ways of blowing up in my face.

  I give a black smile to the night. Ironically funny, and it was worth it, if only to see the way my father cowered for a few brief seconds. Perhaps I should ask about buyer intention in the future, though. Had it been a more lethal bomb built by someone else, my brilliant career would have been cut tragically short.

  A dim, warm light arrives at the head of the alley. I scowl. I hate it when they bring lanterns. His lamp flickers as the glowing salamander inside scampers up and down the sides, frantically trying to get out. No matter. I applied liberal smears of charcoal to my face before leaving.

  The man wears a long black coat and a bowler hat that obscures a face hidden by a short beard. Although the coat is old and the hat has seen better days, his shoes are better suited to a Swell. No one meeting me here should have such nice shoes. I wonder who he blagged them from. He's also definitely not Wilcox; from what I've heard Wilcox is an ox of a man, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered. This man is lean and tall.

  "I haven't much time. The wares, please." His voice is curt, forceful.

  "Oy, 'bout that. Me duffer had to ding the lot. 'E says come back next week."

  "What?" He steps forward, looming over me, and I throw my shoulders back in false bravado, as I imagine a street boy would. The cable at my back is reassuring.

  "'S not me fault. Duffer says next week."

  "You've wasted my time on a very important evening." He takes another step forward, menacing, his voice cruel and sharp as the spring night air.

  "Next week. Cain't be helped. You on the randy? I can mebbe find you a nice dollymop, warm friend for a cold night." This is a lie; I know of no prostitutes in the area, but if he threatens me any more I can give him the address of a very large thief who won't take too kindly to being woken up.

  He swears under his breath and backs up a step. "No, boy, I have no interest in any friends you can introduce me to. Tell your duffer that if he fails to deliver next week I will take my business elsewhere."

  We both turn as shouts sound down the street. Figures run by, panicked, and someone screams. There's light out there now--much too much light. "What the--"

  A young man turns down our alley and yells, "Nommus! Nommus, quick! Punishers!" He races past us, and the buyer swears again, tipping his lantern over and kicking at the salamander so it scurries away from us, leaving sparks in its wake.

  I reach behind myself, trying to unlatch the hook. Running is probably my best option. The buyer turns to go, but two hulking men enter the alley, each carrying a club the size of my leg.

  The buyer pulls out a cane with a solid silver handle and twirls it once through the air, setting his legs in a fighting stance. "Run, boy."

  I shake my head, exasperated. I was all set to abandon the nasty bloke, but now he has to go and redeem himself by protecting me. "Grab me shoulders."

  He turns to me, eyes narrowed in confusion. "What?"

  "Now! Grab my shoulders and hold on as tightly as you can!"

  The punishers are nearly to us, but the buyer throws his arms around me, and I trip the hidden switch with my foot. We're both yanked into the air, flying up the side of the building as the counterweights crash down. The suspenders pull so hard with the extra weight that I yelp, and I think surely my pants will rip but they don't. Somehow the buyer manages to hold onto me.

  We hit the top of the loop as the weights smash to the ground. One of the punishers cries out in pain and I would relish the moment more could I actually breathe. "Cable! Above your head! Grab it now!"

  He does, and I swing wildly for a moment with the loss of his weight. He pulls me in, and I grab the cable, too. Now we are in real trouble--the roof is too far a drop, and I only placed one ring on the pole next to us. The buyer is between me and my swift ride to freedom.

  "What now?" he asks, bewildered.

  "Behind you," I say, still gasping for breath. "A metal ring on a peg. We hold on to that and ride the cable to the end of the line. It's several streets away, so hopefully we can avoid any company. But there's only the one ring, so you have to take me with you."

  I hold my breath, hoping that his benevolence hasn't reached its end. He could just as easily knock me to the ground and escape alone. My arms are already trembling, my burned fingers screaming in pain from gripping the cable.

  He reaches back with one hand and unhooks the ring, then gestures to me. I gratefully wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. "Wait!" At the last moment I remember to unhook the cable attaching me to the rope with the counterweights. That would have been a painfully short trip.

  "Go!"

  He lets go of the cable and puts both hands on the ring. We immediately start forward, the cable on an incline as it passes over roofs. When I practiced this alone it was exhilarating, but wrapped around a stranger and unable to see our progress, it's terrifying. I never accounted for extra weight in terms of cable strength and sag, and don't dare look down for fear that any moment we will slam into the side of a building and have our lives snuffed out like a crushed lightning bug.

  My cap flies off into the night just before the ring catches on the end hook. Our momentum and combined weight is too much. The hook snaps. The buyer lets go and we fall to the roof beneath, my breath smashed out of me as he lands on top and then rolls off.

  I cannot breathe. My lungs refuse to pull in any air, and an odd creaking noise is all that escapes my lips. Finally, when I think I will surely faint, my lungs resume working and I gasp, coughing and curling into a ball. Everything hurts.

  "Are you ... are you okay?" The buyer is sitting, stunned, a few feet away from me.

  "No," I moan.

  "Do you need help?"

  "No."

  He's quiet for a few moments, and then what he says takes my mind off of the pain. "You are no street urchin. You're a woman." He says it as fact, but there's a twinge of wonder in his voice. I ready myself to spring up and run, so when he breaks out into barking laughter I'm stunned into stillness. "You're a bloody woman!"

  "Thanks for that, you big glock."

  He continues with his irritating laughter. "And you just saved my life."

  I stand, groaning with pain, and wipe some of the soot off my clothes. The angle of the roof is shallow, so standing isn't difficult. Or it wouldn't be, if my entire body wasn't trembling from pain and fatigue. "Yes, well, try not to make me regret it."

  He stands. "So are you the duffer, too? Who are you? Why are you involved with this?"

  I am glad that the darkness is so complete up here he cannot possibly make out my features any better than I can his. "Yes! Let me tell you all my secrets. Why, let's have a cup of tea while we're at it, and you can meet my family."

  He takes a step closer, holding up his hands to placate me. "You saved me. The least I can do is allow you your secrets. We all have them."

  I sniff. "Thanks for that. But if you blow me to my other customers--and I will know--I'll take a shiv to your Nebuchadnezzer." I'm glad he can't see my blush in the dark. It is an absolute bluff, but I had wanted to threaten a man with that ever since I heard it in a fight between two drunks.

  He laughs, which is somewhat deflating. "Fair enough. One more thing?"

  "Yes?"

  He leans in and kisses me full on the lips.

  * * *

  My fingers hold the tweezers
and betray none of my rampaging emotions as I lower the lightning bug into its tiny compartment. With a quick flick, it's trapped and I breathe a sigh of relief and triumph. Perfectly executed, and my hair survives unscathed.

  I double check the gears and the powder level, then close the watch face and pull off my goggles to admire my work. It's a deviously ingenious design, as Richard himself said. Because the bomb is the pocket watch itself, there's no chance for detection. The amount of damage is limited by the size of the bomb, which is why I use a mixture of powder that emits a noxious gas cloud for further disruption. That was Richard's suggestion. And if the watch isn't wound twice within three days to release the lightning bug, the powder is never ignited, the lightning bug dies, and the pocket watch merely becomes a broken pocket watch.

  Today, thankfully, my work is flawless. Which means that tonight I meet my mysterious buyer. The thought makes me tingle from my toes to my lips.

  I should be more careful. After all, I still know nothing about him, and he holds very dear secrets of mine. However, the memory of his lips on mine, rough and soft at the same time, runs through my head with the fury of a steam engine. I could feel the smile at the corners of his lips as he laughed before disappearing into the night.

  I realize I've closed my eyes and am clutching my hand to my chest--my hand that still holds the watch. Now there is a terrible thing waiting to happen, Kitty. One kiss and I've become an absolute ninny. I wrap the watch carefully in several layers of handkerchiefs and place it in my silken handbag. All set then.

  I clean my materials as quickly as possible and check for flaws or tell tale signs in the mirror, but I am once again Catherine, foolish doll-child of Lord Ashbury. Which is my role for the day, and I switch into character as I pin my hat on over my curls. Usually this would leave me in ill spirits, but not even a lunch with that simpering nancy Franklin can ruin my mood or take away the fluttering of my nerves.

  Tonight, tonight, tonight.

  I walk through Market Street in a daze, barely noticing the vendors that call out to me in wheedling tones, the children who beg in unnatural whines. My gloved fingers hold a handkerchief to my nose to filter the ripe scent of too many bodies and too little spring rain. I reflexively pass along coins where coins are needed, and it's not until Locksby calls out that I focus.

  He stands behind his makeshift stall in the corner between two stoops, somehow finding shadows even during the brilliance of day. "My Lady Ashbury," he says, his voice an improbable combination of oily and grating; when he speaks I half expect the stench of burning gears to rise from his mouth.

  "Good sir." I paste on a vacant smile and walk over to his booth as though I've no idea he sells stolen goods, as though I cannot understand the vile things he says about me in slang when one of his assistant thieves is near.

  "I've some very nice things for you today, very nice indeed."

  "How do you always come up with such fine wares!" An eyelash bat for good measure, I think.

  "I knows the good places to look, my dear." He sees someone behind me and suddenly shouts, "Oy! I need some fresh tea leafs! Get the word out!"

  I turn to see a seedy, scrawny-looking boy on the verge of a growth spurt that may or may not happen given the company he keeps. He nods hungrily and runs off. "Tea leaf," rhyming slang for "thief." It would appear Locksby is in the market for new help.

  "Do you drink a lot of tea, sir?" Ah, how he loves it when I remind him what a fool I am and how easy it is to pull the wool over the eyes of the upper classes.

  "Love the stuff, me duck."

  I bristle, my spine straightening and my eyebrows raising. I will allow him to think he's fooling me in secret, but someone of my rank would never allow him to be so familiar. Besides which, he's a slimy wretch, and I can find stolen watches elsewhere. "Perhaps I am not in need of any gifts for friends today. Thank you, sir."

  As I walk away, he lets off a string of curses and I smile my own true smile. I am no one's "duck."

  * * *

  My fan drifts a lazy breeze over my face as I flick it to-and-fro, to-and-fro, as steady as the ticking of a pocket watch. Fortunately today's tea is outside, which makes it much easier to tune out the prattling of my father's worshippers. By some miracle of seating, I am on the far end of the table away from Franklin, which allows me to relax at least a little.

  Until, however, Collins' voice breaks through with something about the Rookeries. I sit a bit straighter and look out into the gardens, angling my body away but my ear closer.

  "... cannot allow this. Soon the masses will think they should have some say in business practices. How can a dumb, illiterate factory worker who could no more scrawl his own name than understand the economics of this country presume to tell the Lords of industry how things should happen? The workers should be grateful for roofs over their heads and food in their bellies, and be content with drinking and siring their filthy children."

  "At least their children can fill future spots in the factories." I do not bother looking at Franklin when he says this, although I want most passionately to fling my tea in his face.

  "What of Wilcox and the union men?" Franklin asks.

  My heart twists painfully in my chest. If I thought there were anything I could do to help Wilcox, I'd do it in a heartbeat. That these men could sit, idly eating lunch, while a true visionary sat awaiting his fate in jail ... I jump, startled, as the delicate handle to my china cup snaps under my tense fingers.

  My father waves dismissively. "The police raid on the Rookeries put an end to that. Without Wilcox they will crumble, as always."

  "Wilcox is dead, then?"

  My father sets down his silver fork, done eating and obviously bored of the conversation. "No, his trial is this week, after which he will get the next boat to Australia."

  So he is as good as dead. I was half in love with merely the idea of Wilcox; now not only will I never meet him, but Manchester will lose its greatest hope for change. I grind my teeth, looking away from this table of privilege and trying to keep my face blank. What a marvel of justice, when the men in charge have decided a man's fate prior to any semblance of a trial. My father is nothing if not efficient.

  "And what of the machine parts?" Collins asks, realizing a moment too late that it was the wrong sort of question to ask. I am unable to resist watching my father cut him down with a single knifing glare.

  "The factories run as they have and as they will; I suggest you keep your thoughts to things that concern you. Such as ensuring that we have no more talk of unions or men charismatic enough to inspire the sheep."

  Father stands and the men stand with him. As he turns to go into the house, Franklin speaks. "May I have a word in private, my Lord?"

  A curt nod is his only answer, and Franklin follows my father into the house like a lovesick puppy.

  I get up without excusing myself and wander into the garden hedge maze to find my favorite bench. Today's tea was better than unbearable, at least. No conversation with Franklin and a bit of information on what happened at the Rookeries last week.

  Nothing to be done for Wilcox if he got the boat. For all my tinkering, I cannot openly affect anything, and what I do must be done in secret. My very small part is all I can play in what is and always will be a man's game.

  The images of faces, tiny hollow faces with cotton in their hair, flash in my mind and I close my eyes against them, against the pain, against the hopelessness and despair that has never been my own and so weighs that much heavier on my soul. A bit of luck, a different mother, and I was raised in silk and lace, privilege and plenty, with a home and a future.

  Sometimes I loathe myself with more passion than I loathe my father.

  I push my handkerchief fiercely against my eyes. I have no right to cry. I will gouge out my own eyes before I allow myself a moment of self-pity. I think of the pocket watch ticking upstairs in my chambers and try to match my heartbeat to it. It had better be put to good use or I will have to come up wit
h a new way to be helpful.

  "Miss Catherine?"

  I startle, blinking my eyes against any remaining tears. How did Franklin find me here?

  "Oh, dear. Something has upset you. Is it too warm? Females have such delicate constitutions. Shall I call for your nurse?" He sits next to me, his voice devoid of any emotion.

  I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

  "Please don't trouble yourself," I say, gritting my teeth and twisting my handkerchief between gloved fingers. Would that it were his neck.

  He sits, silently, his sole purpose in life to aggravate me.

  "Did you want something, Mr. Greenwood?"

  "Ah, yes. I was wondering about that gentleman you were speaking to the other night at the party. Whether you and he have any ... connection."

  I frown. "Richard Cartwright? What do you mean?"

  "In your familiar manner of speech, I felt you two may have a mutual affection, or perhaps--"

  I let out a harsh laugh, far from my usual fake titter. "With Richard? Mr. Greenwood, he is old enough to be my father. He's merely a permanent guest of the house, and as such we have become excellent friends." Also, he instructs me on how to navigate the underbelly of Manchester and the finer points of lightning-bug assisted explosions. But idiot Franklin hardly need know about that.

  He nods, apparently satisfied. "I would be gratified to be introduced to him, in that case. Perhaps on my next visit." He pauses. "I spoke with your father today."

  "You've a talent for stating the obvious."

  He looks at me then, surprise bringing his usually dull and distracted eyes to life. I give him a blank smile, trying to counteract the sharp edge of my previous statement. He's not worth the energy, Kitty. Play the dumb heiress, the smiling glassy doll. He shakes his head and moves on, apparently dismissing my brief show of spirit.

  "You've grown into a fine woman."