I released the breath I’d been holding, grateful that my aunt was such an understanding person. I saw my crewmates also relax.
“Well, don’t just stand there saluting, young man,” Aunt Miranda ordered, waving her hand at Max dismissively, “show me the rest of the ship.”
Chapter Fourteen
We climbed and crawled all over the Bosch after that, our delight at Aunt Miranda’s interest fueling a more thorough tour than we might otherwise have provided. We showed my aunt the hydrogen gas tanks, the bridge, the crew quarters and the ballonets safely secured inside the Bosch’s cigar-shaped, pegamoid silk-covered aluminum frame, each of us taking turns to explain where we were and what she looked at. Max spoke of how he wanted to try and make the Bosch a commercial vessel, hauling cargo or even passengers, pointing out how Americans used such ships to cut travel time from one place to another down from weeks to days. By the time the tour ended, Aunt Miranda’s carefully coifed hair was askew, her hands and dress were covered with grime, and her mood was jovial. The rest of us were equally dirty and happy.
“I thank you, gentlemen, for showing me around and for keeping an eye on my niece,” she said, shaking his greasy hand with her own. “I’ll see you get those fire extinguishers and parachutes right away. Now—can we discuss the possibility of my taking a trip in the Bosch sometime tomorrow?”
“Thank you, Lady Brentwood. I’ll consult with my crew,” he indicated Needle and Griff, who both grinned and nodded excitedly, “and determine when we’ll be ready to launch. But don’t you worry. We’ll continue to watch out for Ariana, particularly after what happened in the library yesterday,” Max said, beaming.
I looked at the ground as Aunt Miranda frowned and dropped his hand. I’d not had a chance to send the letter I’d written, and her appearance had been so unexpected, I’d forgotten to bring the incident up. Clearly Cora’s promise to make sure my airship friends knew of the attack had been fulfilled. Now, whether or not I wanted to tell Aunt Miranda about Laufeson, it seemed I had no choice.
“Library?” Aunt Miranda asked.
Max faltered. “I thought that’s why you’d come,” he said. “I guess Ari hasn’t told you about it?”
“No,” Aunt Miranda said, and I could feel her eyes boring into me. “She didn’t mention it.”
“Ah,” Max said. “Sorry about that, Ari.”
“I’d love to get my hands on the lout,” Griff declared.
“A disgrace, really,” Needle said, “that German fellow grabbing her like that.”
“Grabby Germans?” Aunt Miranda echoed. “Really. Well, I’m sure Ariana will tell me all about it as we head back into town. Won’t you, my dear?”
I looked up and nodded. “You surprised me and—“
“It’s all right. Save it for the carriage ride,” she ordered gently but firmly. “Thank you again,” she said to my friends. “In light of this news, you will understand if I ask that my trip in the Bosch be postponed to a later time. Ariana and I have a lot of catching up to do. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
Max struggled to hide his disappointment and worry that he’d gotten me in trouble. “Yes, ma’am. We look forward to our next meeting.”
Aunt Miranda turned to me. “Let’s go,” she said, striding past me. I sketched a quick wave at Max, who mouthed an apology as I turned and walked with her back to the carriage.
Alymer stood beside the door and smoothly ushered us into the cool interior of his cab. He made no mention of our dirty and disheveled appearance as he shut the carriage door and took his own seat. He turned to open the trap door that allowed him to speak to us from the box.
“Where to next, m’lady?” he asked through the rectangular opening.
“Cambridge Arms Hotel if you please, Aylmer. We’ll need to clean up before dinner.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, then shut the little door. The carriage began to move and Aunt Miranda skewered me with her gaze.
“What, precisely, happened to you yesterday?” she asked in a tone that brooked no refusal.
****
Aunt Miranda listened with intense focus as I described Laufeson’s attempt to kidnap me from the Faraday Library. She frowned intently when I reached the point where the ruffian grabbed me and talked about spells and how I was ‘his’. She relaxed a little when I described how Mr. Avery had leapt to my defense, and seemed grateful that Cora and my other friends were intent to keep me from harm.
“Had you seen this fellow before?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Never in my life, and I hope never to see him again.”
“Understandable,” she agreed, “but are you sure there was nothing familiar to you at all about the man?”
I thought carefully, going over every detail of the encounter in my mind. “He smelled of rosemary and cloves,” I said, “which made me feel… I don’t know… uneasy? Wary?”
“I see.” She looked out the window of the carriage for a long moment and then regarded me with a grim smile. “You’ve not told your parents, I assume,” she said.
“No ma’am. Cora suggested I tell you in case they found out. I wrote a letter telling you all about it, but you beat me to the post… as it were.”
“Yes,” she murmured, seemingly lost in thought, “yes… so it would seem.” She shook herself out of her reverie and the ancient and crafty look I’d seen in her eyes appeared again, and then drifted away. “It is best that we keep this bit of news to ourselves. In that I am in agreement with your friend Miss Allerton. Your mother would insist you come home, and that isn’t the place for you right now. In future, please make sure you are not left alone as you were in the Faraday.”
“I will,” I responded.
Aunt Miranda tilted her head in thought, looking me up and down. "Have there been any other… how shall we say… unusual happenings? Other than unpleasant gentlemen attempting to abduct you?"
"What qualifies as unusual?" I asked.
She leaned forward. "Have you done unexpected things? Had strange dreams or..." she waved a hand as she sat back, "a sense of foreboding for no good reason?"
"I started telling stories."
“Oh?”
“The last time we went to a pub and I threw darts, I followed up the games with stories.”
Aunt Miranda became still for a moment, as if what I had said confirmed something unfortunate. "You've not had much exposure to literature," she replied with care. "In fact, as I recall your mother forbid you to read myths and stories after the unfortunate incident in the garden with her best silver."
I felt my cheeks redden. "The story never really explained how the sword got into the stone in the first place. How was I to know silver wasn't as strong as steel?"
My aunt laughed. "You've always been an experimenter and seeker of knowledge, my dear; though it did give your mother fits to see the knives bent in half."
I clasped my hands in my lap and tried to seem unmoved by her laughter. "They bent them back good as new, you know."
That made her laugh harder. I looked at the ceiling of the cab.
When she'd managed to stop laughing, she grew serious again. "Telling stories, you say. Are these stories of your own unique exploits, or were they something else? And, when did it start?"
I described what Max and the others had told me about our trip to Penzance. Her face grew grave as I did so. The storytelling in the pub and my not remembering actually telling the tales had unnerved me, but Aunt Miranda seemed even more troubled than I had been. That gave me pause. I was used to Aunt Miranda knowing more than me on a regular basis, but this seemed different.
"So you brought home a great deal of money that night, I take it?" she asked. "That must have been a good result, surely."
"It was... but I don't remember telling the stories. I'd never heard the one about Thor and his hammer. How could I tell stories I don't know?"
"Anything else?" my aunt asked, ducking the question.
I rubbed my forehead as
I thought, trying to remember that afternoon's dream. "I dreamt about a huge tree. There was a blonde woman, blood, and a very large pig named Hildy," I told her.
My aunt's eyebrows went up in surprise and her eyes sparkled with amusement. "Hildy? Hildy the pig?"
I threw up my hands in frustration. "There was more to it than that, but I'll be dashed if I can recall the pertinent details. Telling you about it makes it sound completely absurd, but at the time..." I trailed off, at a loss and feeling foolish. "Something about it felt like a warning... or a memory... or both. I don't know, but the woman in the dream said we were related."
"Yes," my aunt muttered, "I bet she did."
"What was that?" I asked.
Aunt Miranda patted my knee to comfort me. "It could be nothing more than your mind's attempt to work through what's happened to you the past few days."
I gaped. "A huge boar, a mysterious woman, an ash tree larger than anything I've ever seen in my life, and you think it's a reaction to the attempted abduction?"
"You said you slept poorly the night before, and you went to church surrounded by friends armed with parasols while one talked about some pagan Norse god wandering around the planet... who knows what your unconscious mind would make of that, as that Freud fellow says." She shrugged. "I can see the value of some of his theories, but some... I don't know. The man seems very set in his opinions, and that's never good when trying to understand the mind."
"Something is happening to me, Aunt Miranda," I said. "I don't know what, or why... but it feels like I’m at the center of something I simply don't understand."
"I think you need to stay with me at the hotel. I've a story or two to tell you over dinner. I'll notify Mrs. Guildersleeve so she knows you're with me, and we'll dine in my room tonight. All right?"
"But my class in the morning—"
"I'll contact Dr. Maitland to inform him I intend to impose 'Great Aunt privileges' for the next twenty-four hours."
"But—"
"I'll ask him to send over something so you don't feel like you're falling behind in your studies. Mark my words, my girl, you need to spend this time with me, and I'll not take no for an answer."
Chapter Fifteen
We arrived at the Cambridge Arms Hotel, an imposing Georgian edifice of butter-colored stone that filled most of a city block. Aylmer helped both of us out of the cab and promised he'd be waiting for us the following day when we needed him. We thanked him and made our way through the baroque cavernous lobby to the hotel's front desk, a malachite and mahogany monstrosity that would have looked more at home in a cathedral. Despite its large and somewhat gaudy presence, it served well as the administrative center of the place.
Aunt Miranda breezed up to the counter, disheveled, grimy and completely oblivious to the stares her déshabillé engendered. She caught the eye of an older gentleman behind the counter. Impeccably dressed in a grey suit and meticulously groomed, he glided over and bowed slightly in greeting, his bearing genial but business-like.
"Lady Brentwood," he intoned, "you are looking well as always. How nice of you to join us. It has been some time since your last visit."
Aunt Miranda rolled her eyes. "Come now, Sanderson," she said, "I look as I always look when I come here—grimy, completely disarranged and in need of a wash. You're just too polite to mention it."
"Yes ma'am," he said.
She turned to provide me with an explanation. “I’ve been staying here on and off for nigh on…”
“Thirty years,” Sanderson helpfully supplied.
“…and this fellow has been at the front desk as the concierge since that time. We are both old and wise in our respective ways, are we not, Sanderson?”
He bowed again slightly. “Indeed, madam.”
Aunt Miranda winked at me and turned back to the concierge. "So, what news?”
“I took the liberty of having the package from London delivered to your room, and the staff are ready to draw your bath immediately, if you wish. I took the liberty," Sanderson cleared his throat, “of assuming you would require one.”
"Messages?"
Sanderson picked up a short stack of envelopes. "The usual number, madam. Shall I send a boy up later to retrieve your responses?"
My aunt took the proffered stack from Sanderson and glanced through them briefly. "I will need you to telephone Towson House and inform the house mother that my niece Miss Trevelyan," she indicated me, "will be spending the next night and following day with me." She flipped through the envelopes with her thumb thoughtfully. "These responses can wait to go out until the morning, if you please. I wish to take dinner in my room with my niece tonight. I trust that can be arranged?"
Sanderson inclined his head to me in greeting. "Welcome to the Cambridge Arms, Miss Trevelyan. I can see the family resemblance to your aunt.” He turned his attention back to my aunt. “I will see to dinner, madam. Will your niece require a room? I have one available that adjoins your suite."
Aunt Miranda turned to me. "Would you like your own room, my dear?"
I indicated my own disheveled appearance. "I should wash up though I don't have a change of clothes."
Aunt Miranda smiled. "Oh, I think you'll find that's not a problem." She nodded at Sanderson. "Put her next to me, send Elissa and June up to start our baths, and whatever the chef prefers to send up for dinner in an hour will be fine, I have no doubt."
Sanderson turned, pulled two keys from adjoining cubbie holes and handed them to my aunt. "I shall make your wishes known, madam. Do you have any other needs?"
Aunt Miranda took the keys, handed me one and considered his question. "Do you have any rum?"
I had to steel my face to hide my surprise. Rum?
"Of course, madam," Sanderson said, non-plussed. "Do you require the usual variety, or would you prefer a different kind?”
“The usual will do, thank you.”
“Shall I have it sent up after dinner?"
Aunt Miranda smiled. "Yes, that would be best. Thank you, Sanderson." She turned to head to the lift on the far left side of the lobby and caught my eye, indicating with a motion of her head to follow me.
I took a few quick steps to walk beside her. "Rum?" I hissed.
"I find it to be a far superior beverage to brandy, don't you?"
I couldn’t really disagree with that. "But—"
"Some conversations are best with tea. Others with coffee, others with rum... and the most unpleasant conversations usually require brandy or grappa." She pointed a long finger at me. "This one will require rum, unless you would prefer brandy?
I shook my head quickly. “No thank you,” I said with a grimace.
“Mind you,” she continued, “how much rum we’ll need will depend on two factors."
"Such as?" I asked.
"The number of glasses and the quality of the rum," she said, brow furrowed. "Have you learned nothing practical at this university? There is more to life than sums, child."
The elevator dinged and a bellboy pushed aside the door and grate to the small lift and indicated we could step inside. We did so. “Third floor please, young man,” my aunt intoned.
The bellboy, a lanky, angular boy who couldn’t have been much more than fifteen years old, knuckled the brim of his cap in response, pulled the grate and door shut, and started the lift. We stood quietly as the small room ascended to the third floor, then departed it after the bellboy opened the conveyance and let us out. The hallway was long and wide with maroon paisley wallpaper and dark green carpet. The doors of the rooms were a dark brown, their room numbers in bronze in the middle of the doors. Phosphorite globes dotted the walls on either side.
Aunt Miranda indicated we should head to the right. “There have been many improvements to this hotel over the past thirty years,” she said as we walked toward our rooms, which were 333 and 335 respectively. She indicated the walls of the hallway. “I can’t say this wallpaper is one of the better improvements but thank goodness they don’t use the ghastly
stuff in the rooms.”
“It does seem…” I searched for the proper term, “...exuberant.”
“That sounds like something your mother would say,” my aunt remarked with a smirk. “Diplomacy is all well and good, child, but in matters of wallpaper and horses, one must speak plainly and to the point. Ugly wallpaper speaks directly to the character of the person who chose it, and the ownership of an inferior horse shows others you are either foolish or stupid or both. None of these are attractive qualities.”
“No, Aunt Miranda,” I intoned obediently.
We reached the door of room 333, and noises could be heard coming from within. Aunt Miranda nodded. “That would be the bath preparations,” she murmured and turned the key in the lock.
We entered a spacious room done in gentle greens and golds with no unpleasant wallpaper in sight. The furnishings were elegant in dark wood. Two bedside tables flanked the bed, one of which sported a black candlestick telephone. Light globes sat in sconces above the head of the bed. There were two armchairs, a dresser and a dressing table with mirror, along with an armoire. Aunt Miranda’s trunk sat open and empty in the middle of the room, and a large brown paper package sat beside it. The door to the bathroom was open, and light, steam, and voices poured out the door. A maid’s head peeked out from the bathroom. Seeing us she stepped into the room, dropped a quick curtsey, and indicated the bathroom.
“The bath is started, Lady Brentwood,” she said. She looked into the bathroom and motioned for whoever was in there to come out. A second maid, taller and older than the first, came out to stand beside the first and also dropped a quick curtsey. They were both pretty women though the stark black of their dresses gave them an air of austere efficiency. Their aprons and caps were brilliantly starched white accents to their black garb. I thought of penguins for a moment, remembering a picture Gertrude had shown me.
“These ladies would be Elissa,” my aunt indicated the taller woman, “and June.” She indicated me. “This is my niece, Miss Trevelyan. June, would you take her to her room, help her undress, have a bath and then put on one of the new outfits that just arrived?
The Odin Inheritance (The Pessarine Chronicles Book 1) Page 11
