“Do you want to talk about it, Edgar?” asks Lucy. “You have been through a great deal. I find that talking—”
“No…no, I’m fine. We have all been through trials. Let us proceed.”
Shakespeare is staring at him again, so intently that there is an uncomfortable pause as they wait for the strangely dressed little man to convene the meeting. Finally, he rouses himself with a start, barks out the society’s motto, and sings “God Save the Queen,” solo, at full voice. Then he turns to the others.
“So, commence! I shall have Mr. Tightman write everything down.” He regards an empty chair with a withering look. “Tightman, you veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth, pay attention!” Shakespeare turns back to his guests and smiles.
Tiger holds forth on their adventures over the last weeks, speaking dispassionately, sticking to the facts as they know them, finishing with Edgar’s slaying of the monster Dr. Godwin on Spitsbergen Island.
“So, that’s that,” says Jonathan when she is finished. “Time for a vacation from all of this, I say, time to return to real life. I have just a few weeks remaining before I must be at Sandhurst Royal Military College. Tiger, perhaps you and I could—”
“I have already told you, another will come,” says Shakespeare dramatically, his mood instantly changed. He regards the empty chairs. “As you see, my three esteemed colleagues agree.”
“Yes,” says Jonathan, “and let me guess…the next creature will be worse? Perhaps twenty-seven feet tall, emitting flames from its mouth and speaking out its rear end?”
“I am not sure you are quite accurate, Master Lear, though you are making sound points and perhaps painting a picture that is not unlike—”
“This is nonsense! I have had enough, enough of all of this for a lifetime.” Jonathan gets to his feet.
“Ask yourselves,” says Shakespeare, ignoring him, “what could be worse?”
“The devil,” says Edgar before he can stop himself.
“Precisely.” The little man’s face lights up.
“Edgar,” says Lucy, reaching for his hand, “you are tired, over-tired.”
Edgar wonders if he should tell her, tell all of them, about how real the hag has become and of Shakespeare’s invisible colleague walking about in the flesh in the hallway. The scorn he would receive from Jonathan, the pity from Lucy, the doubt from his dearest friend Tiger would be unbearable. Lucy is right: he is exhausted. That must be the answer…or has he really gone mad?
“We are prepared for any attack,” says Tiger. “No matter what occurs, we can respond to it.”
“You will respond to the devil, will you?” asks the little man, his voice slightly trembling now. Then he mumbles something, barely audible. It sounds, to Edgar, like, “He has been to see me.”
“Pardon me?” asks Edgar, leaning closer. Shakespeare does not respond. He sits quietly for a moment, his eyes darting about in his head.
“I have had enough; I’ll leave you all to your pressing duty to chase a man in a red suit with a pointed tail,” says Jonathan as he makes his way up the stairs and out into the street. The door slams behind him.
“Well,” says Lucy, “what if we have a normal conversation? Have you had one of those in the past decade, Mr. Shakespeare? Surely there is more to speak of in our lives than monsters? Dwelling on unhappiness, on fear, just makes things even more frightening than they have to be.”
“We cannot ignore reality,” says her little host, much clearer this time. “Correct, Master Brim?”
Lucy intercedes. “Reality, my dear friend, is sometimes simply what our minds choose it to be.” She smiles at the little man. “Would you mind bringing us some tea?”
Shakespeare shuffles away. Soon, he is banging around in the other room, juggling the kettle and rattling cups. He speaks so loudly to himself that it is difficult for the others to carry on their conversation in the next room. His voice ascends into a high pitch when he is excited.
“Call him Satan, call him Lucifer, or Mephistopheles, or any of so many names, he is not just in the Bible, in the Koran, in the other holy books, he is in Paradise Lost, in The Divine Comedy, in Faust. He is in Byron’s poems, in Mark Twain’s stories, and between every line in Poe. He is everywhere! Ignore him if you will! Do you think all those authors based their stories on mere figments of their imaginations? The devil is real! It came here to see me! It is coming for those young people. It is! And soon!”
He reappears with a smiling face bringing the tea out on a china tray that looks bigger than he is and is hideously decorated in a combination of garish colors. By this time, Lucy has managed to coax the others into a reasonably cheery conversation, ignoring the ravings from the other room. Edgar is telling them about meeting Sir Andrew Lawrence.
“Lawrence, the billionaire?” asks Shakespeare, sounding temporarily lucid.
“The very one. He is a nice man, kind to me and quite taken with Mrs. Thorne. I believe we may see more of him.”
“Romance,” says Lucy, “now that’s a worthy topic.”
* * *
—
The conversation stays on pleasant things for an hour, guided in that direction by Lucy, despite Shakespeare’s attempts to turn it to darker subjects. Then Edgar and his friends take their leave and go out for something to eat. He is happy that Tiger will stay at the Lear home that night, helping keep everyone safe. They will have the late Alfred Thorne’s remarkable rifle and cannon. His adoptive father’s weapons, which he and Tiger stole from the inventor’s laboratory atop Thorne House, have been of deadly assistance against both of their monster foes. Edgar lingers near the fountains in Trafalgar Square on his own afterward, worried about leaving himself vulnerable to attack on the emptying streets, but not wanting to get back to Thorne House before Annabel goes to bed, which is usually before ten. He still cannot bring himself to lie to her about what happened in Scotland or in the Arctic and does not know exactly what to say to her about the female intruder. He cannot bring all of this horror into her life.
* * *
—
He unlocks and enters the front door as quietly as possible but is not even to the foot of the stairs when Annabel swirls into view at the top looking very pleased to see him.
“Edgar!” she cries and makes for him, the back hem of her mauve nightgown softly trailing behind her, rustling on the steps as she descends.
“Mother, I, I, I was sent to Scotland on hospital business that really shouldn’t be discussed with anyone except medical people! And…and word about the fire was late arriving and…I was offered a lovely trip in the countryside by the hospital authorities there and took them up on it and came back to Edinburgh to find that the news of Godwin’s and Uncle Vincent’s demise had been awaiting me for some time. And…and I believe the intruder was simply a street person of some sort, a waif, of no great concern.”
“Oh, never mind about all of that, do tell me more about Sir Andrew Lawrence! I have heard tell, through the ladies’ grapevine, you know, that he is a bachelor. Was he kind to you? Is he a man of morality? How does he treat people in the hospital? Does he truly care for women and their rights? Is he caring when it comes to animals? Is he anti-vivisection? Are his politics Liberal or Conservative, a Salisbury or Rosebery man? Has he ever married? Does he really have all that money? And…and what did he think of me?”
“Mother, I know as much about him as you do, though he seemed like a very nice gentleman.”
“I felt some electricity.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I felt some electricity between the two of us. He is a fine figure of a man, lovely to look at.”
Edgar blushes.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud! One must respond to one’s sensations.”
Edgar, though, is concerned about more than just his adoptive mother’s sensations. He wonders how in th
e world, despite her liberal ways, she can actually consider affection for another man so soon after the death of Alfred Thorne. It has not even been a full month. This does not seem like her. Her face is lit up even more than usual, as if some sort of medication has seized her mind. Perhaps lingering grief is distorting her thoughts. Perhaps she has been taking more laudanum.
“I am turning in for the night,” he says quietly.
“When shall you see him again?”
“I doubt I shall see much of him at all. He is, after all, far above my station.”
“Come now, Edgar, there was no doubt that he was impressed by you.”
“Nonsense. He only just met me.”
“Indeed,” says Annabel. “Nevertheless.”
“Good night, Mother.” He takes a step up the stairs.
“Edgar?”
He stops. “Yes, Mother?”
“Are you all right? You still look too much your…old self.”
“I am fine…just fine.”
“Hmmm,” says Annabel, remaining on the stairs as Edgar ascends toward his bedroom. When he looks back, she is still standing there in her lovely frilly nightgown, deep in thought.
* * *
—
The hag does not come that night, and Edgar appears at the breakfast table feeling a little better, ready for a day’s work at the hospital, though he wishes there was some way to escape his time there, and his dreary future studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh and long life as a doctor. The problem is that Annabel, so loving toward him and the rock of his life, widowed and with an inheritance from Alfred that will be gone inside a decade, needs him to be all of that. He has no choice. He needs to protect her too, from whatever might be after him and his friends. He shudders to think of it.
Annabel enters the room still in her dressing gown. Her blonde hair is a bit of a mess, as if it is attempting to strangle itself in several places, and her blue eyes look tired. She has obviously not slept well. She starts eating the food Beasley has served her—sausages and hard-boiled eggs and tea—as though Edgar were not even there, attacking it absentmindedly, with her thoughts obviously far away.
“Thinking too much?” asks Edgar with a smile.
“Touché,” she grumbles.
Beasley appears in the door, bearing another card on the silver plate.
“A gentleman is at the entrance,” he says. There seems to be a slight glint in his eye.
“A gentleman? For whom? For me?” asks Annabel. She straightens up and fixes her hair a little.
“No, ma’am, for Master Brim. A Sir Andrew Lawrence, who says he simply wants a word, a quick word.”
Annabel glances at Edgar. “OH!” she cries and rises so swiftly that she knocks the chair back and it smacks against the hard floor. In an instant, she is gone, out the door and up the stairs.
Edgar and Beasley regard her flight with open mouths.
“Well,” says Brim. “Show him in.”
* * *
—
Sir Andrew is dressed to the nines, a pale yellow—one might say even blonde—carnation in his lapel. His monocle is shining. He also seems slightly nervous, not a characteristic Edgar would have associated with such a successful and powerful man.
“Ah, Brim,” Sir Andrew says, “thought I might pop by and offer you a ride to the hospital. I was thinking of your future with us and wondered if your career goals might be better served in administration. We need smart young lads to learn how to run our institution, and I asked around and heard nothing but good things about you. Perhaps you can work with me for a short period. A right-hand man? Perhaps help with other aspects of my businesses too. What do you say?” He is glancing around the vestibule and up the staircase.
All Edgar can think of is that Annabel was right about Sir Andrew’s interest in him. This offer, however, seems to be more than even she might expect. He and the chairman hardly know each other.
“I…I am not sure what to say, sir. I don’t know who could have had so many good things to say about me for I have only been at the hospital a short while.”
“Never mind all of that. Come with me today and we shall chat. You can make up your mind at some future date. If you’d rather be a doctor and cut up bodies and deal with the dying, that is up to you.”
“Yes, sir.” Edgar’s heart rate is increasing. He imagines, for an instant, a very different sort of future.
“I have brought my horseless carriage with me. Please open the door, butler.”
Beasley opens the front door and Edgar looks out into the street. He sees a horse and carriage clop past, and a few pedestrians, some elegantly dressed as is usual on the streets of Mayfair, others in the clothes of domestics or workmen, pausing to look at the marvel parked in front of Thorne House.
“Vauxhall manufacture, Thomas Parker design, engine makes barely a sound, folks call it a ‘hummingbird,’ you know, electric, batteries in front and back. It is the way of the future! I thought you might like a ride.”
Edgar’s eyes widen. “Yes, sir, of course, sir. Let me get my hat.”
“Is…is your mother about?” Lawrence glances toward the staircase that leads to the second floor.
“I believe she is indisposed this morning.”
“A shame.”
“I will tell her you asked about her. I shan’t be a moment.” Edgar takes the stairs to his room two at a time.
When he returns, not more than two minutes later, Annabel is in the entrance hall, dressed to the nines herself, in another tight black dress crisscrossed with blonde stitching and with gold jewelry sparkling in her hat. It all works quite well with her hair. How she was able to dress so quickly, to transform herself so magically, is a wonder to Edgar.
She is standing close to Lawrence, laughing at something he has said. They are a striking couple, Edgar thinks—he so dark and intriguing and she like a beacon of light.
“Ah, my boy!” she says, turning to Edgar. “How marvelous that Sir Andrew would fetch you to work, and in a horseless carriage as well. A motorcar!”
“A voyage in it could be arranged for yourself as well, Mrs. Thorne.”
“Really? How exciting!”
Annabel soon bids them farewell, taking Edgar into a warm embrace, an even more dramatic hug than she often delivers. Then she offers her hand to Lawrence, who kisses it and backs down the front steps as he says good-bye, almost stumbling on the bottom one.
“Oh, Edgar,” says Annabel, “might I have a word?”
He slips up close to her.
“I am mortified,” she says. “Me, a new woman, an independent thinker, a proponent of suffragettes and the vote, rushing off like a schoolgirl to appear attractive to this gentleman. And Alfred so recently passed.”
That is more like it, thinks Edgar. He pauses. “Not to worry, Mother.”
“He is rather charming though, wouldn’t you say?”
“I do not have a thought on the subject.”
* * *
—
The ride through London in Sir Andrew’s horseless carriage is like something from a fantasy story; Edgar feels as if he were in an exhilarating scene from one of H.G. Wells’s futuristic novels. They seem to fly through Mayfair, quietly humming along. Surprisingly, Sir Andrew has no driver with him. He is handling the steering mechanism himself, wearing goggles, monocle still in place underneath, his jet black and silver hair shimmering in the wind. Edgar grips the rail in front of him and is sure they are about to crash at any moment.
“At least thirteen miles an hour, my boy!”
My boy, thinks Edgar. Annabel addresses him in the same way.
Sir Andrew sits on the front leather bench, steering the machine wildly at times, a grin fixed on his face. They have to slow a little in busy Piccadilly, but pick up the pace again through the Circus, down Haymarket, whi
zzing through Trafalgar Square, then swerving in and out of the paths of horses and carriages (the animals’ eyes bulging at the sight of this contraption even under their blinders) and pedestrians crossing the street in every direction. It is mob rule as usual when it comes to traffic on the London arteries. They have to slow again on Fleet Street, and as they near St. Paul’s Cathedral and then swing north through Aldgate toward the East End, Edgar can see the two towers of the Tower Bridge looming over the gray Thames—just two years since its opening, it shimmers like a modern, double-headed monster in the already hot July morning.
They move onto Whitechapel Road, the crowds still thick, peopled with a tougher-looking sort. But Sir Andrew is so fascinated by the startling conveyance he is operating that he doesn’t seem to see any of it, nor does he appear to be aware of all the vehicles and animals and human beings into which and whom he nearly collides. A man of muscle and quickness, he somehow evades all disasters with a dexterity that is thoroughly admirable.
Edgar is impressed beyond words, but his interest in their journey is suddenly overshadowed by something he sees when they are only minutes west of the hospital.
It is a man, a small one, rushing along the street amidst the hordes of mostly working-class East End folks. They have reached the center of criminal London, near the alleyways where the infamous murderer Jack the Ripper struck less than a decade ago, and might, some are sure, still be about. The diminutive man looks intent on his errand, wearing a plain gray suit and a black cap pulled down over his brow. He does not even glance up when the motorcar passes, his business apparently much more important than such a marvel.
It is William Shakespeare.
Sir Andrew pulls his machine up close to the side of the hospital on narrow Turner Street, where the carriages are sometimes left, and leads Edgar through the back door, straight up to the top floor and into his spacious office. He tosses his goggles onto his desk and turns to Edgar, motioning for him to sit.
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