by Dan Vyleta
“Renfrew! But how do you know we can trust him?”
“I don’t. But he was Baron Naylor’s student, back in the day. And he is the one who told me that I was sick with Smoke. If we are right—if that cage in the laboratory is meant for me because of what is growing in me—then, Charlie, I need to know what it is for. Otherwise, I am making choices in the dark. And I am sick of doing that.”
Charlie wishes he could tell his friend that he is wrong. That Renfrew won’t know a thing; that he will treat him as the errant schoolboy he is, scold him, lock him in a schoolroom, and make him scrub the floors in penance. But in his mind’s eye he sees him again, the Master of Smoke and Ethics, sitting in the coach back from Oxford, quietly talking to Thomas. Renfrew knows. Something. Many things.
Perhaps he can be persuaded to tell them.
“In that case,” Charlie says, looking calmly at his friend. “We will all go.”
But Thomas won’t have it.
“Too risky. After all, we don’t know whose side he is on. For all we know he is mixed up in this and working with Lady Naylor. If she is, in fact, our enemy. We need to split up. To make sure someone is there, in London. In case Renfrew detains me. Someone who knows, and can act as a witness.”
Again Thomas’s reasoning is sound. And again, Charlie draws a different conclusion.
“Then I will go.” He goes on speaking over Thomas’s murmur of protest. “If you are right—about the cage, about the Smoke in you, all of it—then it’s you who is important. Not me. So I will go.”
Still Thomas tries to argue, rises from the ground, anger in his voice, his whole body shaking with exhaustion.
It’s Livia who shuts him up.
“You can’t go,” she says to him. “Not by yourself. You’d never make it. Someone would have to come and be your nurse. So no matter what you do, you will put one of us at risk.” She speaks very calmly, dispassionately, reciting the facts.
“I don’t know this Master Renfrew, nor would I easily be able to find him. And you require an attendant. So either we all go and risk our hides. Or none of us goes. Or Charlie goes, and bears the consequences of your decision.”
She looks from one boy to the other as though weighing them up. It is, to Charlie, an uncomfortable glance.
“You have to make up your mind, Mr. Argyle.”
She adds it quietly, sadly, as though she knows he already has.
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They say good-bye once they have arranged a meeting place and time. It’s easy. There is only one place in London both boys are sure they will find. Execution square; at the foot of the scaffold. Three meeting times a day, dawn, noon, and dusk: starting lunchtime tomorrow. It’s the earliest they can imagine Charlie can make it to London. He will have to sleep at the school. Or on the road.
It is best if they don’t enter the train depot together. Whoever is looking for them, is looking for three scions of their gentry, two youths and a girl. There may be leaflets out for all they know, eyes at every train station. But they won’t be interested in a dirty tramp in stolen clothes; nor in a pit girl and her companion. Or so they hope. Charlie is to go first. A head start of three hours. Enough time not to connect the one stranger with the other two. And for Thomas to rest.
Before he goes, Charlie steps over to Livia. Thomas looks away, immerses himself in the study of his boots. Giving them privacy. Even so, saying good-bye is not easy. They don’t know how to. They have never touched each other in daylight.
In the end it is Charlie who extends his hand. Livia takes it shyly. They may have been strangers, meeting at a dinner party, only they don’t let go at once but stand there, her hand small between his fingers. Charlie considers kissing her palm. But she pulls it away before he has raised it even halfway to his mouth.
“Too dirty,” she whispers, staring at her black little hand in disgust. “Be careful, Charlie.”
“And you.”
Then it’s Thomas’s turn. Charlie walks over to him, crouches down where he is sitting on the ground.
“Look after her, will you? For me.”
Thomas nods but his look is gaunt. There is a fear there Charlie cannot fathom.
“It’s I who should be going,” Thomas says after a while.
“We decided. It makes sense.”
Thomas shrugs. “Be careful what you say to Renfrew. Don’t give away too much.”
“I will only say what I can. We gave Lady Naylor our word. Not to speak of certain things. She may be a rebel, or a villain. But our word is our word.”
Then he hugs his friend, turns, and leaves.
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Charlie need not have worried that he would stand out in the little hamlet that serves as a loading station. There are plenty of strange men milling in the street, dressed in a wide variety of costumes and rarely very clean. Women, too, young and old, and a gaggle of urchins pelting one another with rocks. Workers, traders, unemployed miners. A dandy without boots dragging a donkey by its bridle. A hulking Scot in a greatcoat shouting drunken swear words at the sky, his accent bending every vowel. A consumptive woman, thin as a rail, selling charred, bone-studded meats from a grill she has set up by the side of the road. A beggar dressed in little more than a shift, flashing the stumps of his legs at every passerby.
Where there are people, there is sin. Charlie is shocked when he catches the first whiff of Smoke. It’s been a week since he has smelled it. As he draws closer to the train station, clouds of Smoke become more obvious, drift on the wind, dusting the buildings in Soot. He breathes it in and feels himself grow irritable. It is hard, in this world, not to walk around with clenched fists.
Securing passage to Oxford is surprisingly simple. A man on the platform has made a business of it: selling tickets for a berth on the freight train. He operates out in the open, from behind a little table, just like a normal ticket seller. A group of men are in his employ, one more disreputable-looking than the next. They walk up and down the platform, discouraging customers who think they can just leap on a train without paying. “We’re conductors,” one of them keeps shouting. “No tick’t and you pays yer fare in teeth.” He himself is missing most of the latter item along with the better part of the lower jaw. It looks like it has been sliced off with a knife.
Like Thomas, Charlie lost his portmanteau along with the rest of his luggage when they ran from the ambush. Livia never brought a purse in the first place. Consequently, the only money they have between them are the few pennies Mr. Mosley gave them early that morning, counting them out into Charlie’s dirty hands.
“Won’t get far without,” he told them when they tried to refuse.
They divided the money evenly before splitting up, reasoning that Charlie had two trains to catch to Thomas and Livia’s one. Now that he faces the ticket seller, Charlie worries that it won’t be enough and holds the coins on his open palm.
“How much…?”
The man looks at him, snorts, and swipes the lot. Only then does he ask, “Where to?”
“Oxford.”
“ ‘Ohx-fjord,’ ” the man imitates his accent. “Posh boy, eh? Runaway son of a burgher, is that it? Didn’t take to the cane. Or fell in love, what, with a lass that wasn’t suitable. Suited you though, eh?” He makes a gesture of such obscenity that Charlie finds himself blushing to the roots of his hair. “Ah, you should’ve left with fuller pockets, son. Never mind, you’re in luck. Train due in an hour. Any of the last five wagons. The doors’ll be open. If the stationmaster catches you, in Oxford like, say you’re travelling express. Won’t give you any trouble, he won’t, the man’s well paid.”
“Thank you.”
“Ah, no bother. It tickles me. Being friendly with a toff. Now off with you, I have business to conduct.”
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It takes Charlie until dusk to get to Oxford. The train is steady but very slow, huffing and puffing up every hill. Charlie spends the hours squeezed in between a row of other tramps, one of whom unceremoniously dips his
hand in his pocket to search it for money, all the time smoking like a chimney from both mouth and ears. When they stop, Charlie does not recognise the station at once: they are far from the public platform, their view obstructed by a dirty brick wall. Farther up the train, he sees a number of shadows leap out of railcars and clamber over the wall. He follows their example and is spilled into a warren of backstreets and courtyards, alive with smells and noise and people. Navigating by the setting sun, Charlie heads to the western edge of town, looking for the road that will lead him to the school. A league out of town a cart driver rolls past and offers Charlie a ride in exchange for his coat, dirty though it is.
“Where you headin’?” the driver asks him.
When Charlie, too honest to lie, names the school, the man eyes him narrowly.
“Going there to beg? I shouldn’t bother. It’s half-term. No one around. Besides, they are skinflints they are. Tight as a trout’s arse. You’re better off tryin’ your luck in the village.”
Is Charlie going there to beg? Well, in a manner of speaking he is. But Charlie merely mumbles something about knowing one of the porters, speaking indistinctly, hiding his accent. The thought of Cruikshank, sour and stupid, puts a stitch in his heart.
The man lets him off near the village, an hour’s walk from school. It must be nearing ten at night. The sky is clear now and it is growing colder. None of the snow that marked December remains on the ground, but there is a smell to the wind that promises more.
Charlie hurries along until he sees the dark shadow of the school ahead. He has seen it before from this angle, in similar light: the night they returned from London. A single window is lit, high up, where Trout has his chambers. He asked Charlie to spy on the Naylors and would be keen to hear his report. But it is not to Trout that Charlie is heading.
Instead he takes a path that leads past the rugby field across the little creek, to a cottage that stands alone there, surrounded by a picket fence. Most of the teachers live in, inside the main school building itself, and leave for the holidays, to see their wives and children at home or go up to their alma maters, to stay in chambers there. But a handful of the masters—the poorer it is sometimes said, not without derision; those without good family ties or their own estates—have houses at the edge of the grounds that are rented to them year-round. This one is Renfrew’s. A lamp is lit above the narrow door, and another light shines dimly through drawn curtains. Charlie stops by the creek before he enters, dips his hands in the black and icy water, washes his face. There is not much he can do without a bar of soap, but at least he can face his teacher wide awake. The door knocker has the shape of a silver owl. Minerva, goddess of wisdom.
It may be childish, but Charlie crosses himself, before engaging its taloned feet to knock on the door.
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The knock is answered with an alacrity Charlie does not expect. It is almost as though someone had been waiting for him by the door. Indeed there is a stool in the plain little hallway that opens up to him. But no person. Charlie has to adjust his gaze, downward, to understand who worked the doorknob. Dressed in a plain grey shift, the fair hair braided into pigtails, the girl can’t be any older than eight or nine. Her face is narrow, the eyes large and scared. Her shoulders and upper body are encased in a strange metal harness. Two spokes run upwards, at both sides of the neck before they stop just under the point where the chinbone bends and charges up to the ears. At the harness’s front, at the centre of the sternum, rides a little brass wheel. She stands in the hallway, quivering, like a rabbit caught out in the open by a fox.
“Hullo,” Charlie greets the girl, and then once more, softer now, crouching down on the threshold as he does so. “Hullo there. Don’t be scared.”
The girl does not move, shivers, looks across at him, then reaches to her chest and turns the wheel on her contraption with a quick jerky movement. Next Charlie knows, her eyes have filled with tears. But she does not start crying.
“My name is Charlie,” he says, still crouching in the open door. “I am looking for Master Renfrew. I am one of his students, see. Is he at home?”
The girl shakes her head: stiffly, the chin pushed very high, avoiding the spokes of her harness.
“Then you are waiting for him.” Charlie points to the stool. “Are you his daughter? I did not know Master Renfrew was married.”
But the strange, half-mechanical girl only shakes her head again, with that same stiff gesture.
“Well, perhaps you help him keep house.” Charlie rises, pats the top of the stool. “Here, please, sit down. Perhaps I can keep you company while you wait? Yes? That’s kind of you. It’s cold outside. Do you think we should close the door? We are letting all the heat out, and you’ll catch your death, standing there in the draft.”
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Renfrew returns within the hour. They have not moved, Charlie and the little girl, are standing in the hallway, two paces apart, the stool she is too scared to use standing between them. At several points Charlie considers leaving and waiting outside. But it disturbs him, the thought of this young child alone in the house. Even though he has no success in drawing her into conversation—even though he cannot rouse from her even a single smile—he is aware that his presence soothes her; that he is not the cause of her fear but something else, some weight on her childish heart so heavy that she hardly dares breathe.
Then they hear the sounds of steps crunching on the gravel path. Charlie opens the door long before his teacher can reach the house, wishing to reveal himself to him and apologise for intruding. Dr. Renfrew wears dark leather riding gear, mud-splattered and steaming with the heat of his exertion. The horse is nowhere in sight, and must have been left with the school’s groundsman. When he catches sight of Charlie, the teacher stops in his tracks, his features registering surprise, even alarm. Then he collects himself, strides on, and shifts his riding crop from right hand to left. It frees the former for a handshake.
“Mr. Cooper. This is most unexpected! Most unexpected indeed. Do come in.”
Renfrew passes his hat and gloves over to the stiff little girl, sits down on the stool, and peels himself out of his boots.
“If you will excuse me. I have just returned from Parliament. I was asked to speak on issues pertinent to the future of the realm.”
He winces as his feet leave the long shafts of his boots and accepts the slippers the girl hastily brings out for him, each movement made oddly formal by the bulk of her contraption.
“A wretched session. Rows and rows of perfect blockheads, jabbering away about ‘tradition’ and drowning out the few beacons of science and reason in the room. It is enough to drive a man out of his mind.” Renfrew frowns. “But listen to me prattle on, when it is you who should be talking. You have a tale to tell, Mr. Cooper! Half of England is looking for you—including your father who has rushed back from Ireland and is calling for a closure of the borders! Last anyone heard you were abducted by Gypsies. Though there are other rumours even more outlandish than that! It is good to see you are safe. But out with it: what on earth happened to you?”
Charlie looks at the square, grave face of his teacher and does not know how to answer. So he does what he always does. Charlie smiles.
“I am hungry, Master Renfrew.”
Renfrew laughs. “So am I. Well, I suppose it can wait until after dinner. To table then. I see you have met my niece. Eleanor, please set another place, there’s a good girl. And here, let me wash up. You, too, might benefit from the application of soap, Mr. Cooper. Please tell me, my good boy, that you are not covered in Soot.”
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Dinner is a rather frugal affair of bread, cheese, and pickles. The bread is a few days old and there is no butter, nor any dessert. Renfrew has sat Charlie across from him and his niece by his arm. The Master of Smoke and Ethics says a short prayer before he cuts the bread, and eats in almost ritual silence. Charlie finds himself working hard not to make any noises with knife and fork. The little girl, too, eats with extrava
gant care and never raises her eyes from her plate. At one point she stops eating abruptly, puts down the slice of bread in her hand, and reaches to her chest to once again engage the little wheel that rises out of the harness like a growth. The action is followed by a strange, jerky shudder. Again, the girl’s eyes fill with tears. Her uncle watches all this nonplussed; he turns to her and asks her quite gently, “Did you smoke, my dear?”
The girl whispers her answer rather than speaking it, her eyes on the table.
“I thought I felt the seed of it.”
“You did well. You may go now and retire. It is well past your bedtime.”
Obediently, the girl pushes her chair back very carefully, rises, collects her plate and cutlery, and leaves the room: each action performed with an exaggerated slowness as though fighting the temptation for haste. When she has left, Renfrew, too, puts down his knife and fork and turns to Charlie.
“A lovely child. My brother’s daughter. Her parents died when she was but an infant. I have come to be very fond of her. How old would you say she was?”
Charlie thinks about it. “Nine?”
Renfrew smiles. It’s a proud smile and sits strangely on his self-denying face. For a moment the smile puzzles Charlie. Then he understands.
“She does not smoke.”
“Quite.” There is, to Renfrew, something of the glow that he had after London. “They say it is impossible to achieve self-mastery before the age of fourteen or fifteen, and even then imperfectly. But the girl is eight and has not visibly smoked in more than six months. You see, I have a pedagogic system.”
“The harness?”
“Is a small if important part of it, yes. An invention of mine as a matter of fact, modelled on something I saw during my travels. In Italy. Initially, I used it to correct her posture. But it proved more useful in correcting the soul. The wheel contracts the harness, you see, albeit very slightly. It causes a modicum of pain. Over time, she has learned to use it herself, warning her body against temptation. It will revolutionise child-rearing before too long. Assuming the government changes and permits the introduction of such innovations.”
