With that off her mind, however, she found herself a bit timid about exploring Norbert’s house, as if she were an interloper. No, that wasn’t quite it. The place intimidated her. The lack of human servants made the place echo like an empty cavern, and machines moved just out of her line of vision. It unnerved her. She knew it was silly-soon she’d be the lady of the place-but she’d put off exploring, even after all these months. It wasn’t as if she had to do much. The automatons took care of the daily chores with no need for Alice to oversee them. Every evening, a spider brought her a punch card with menu choices for the next day’s supper on it, and she poked out the ones she wanted. At her own flat, Kemp helped her dress, and he helped with her hair, and he brought her a tea tray. In fact, Kemp refused to allow any other automaton to wait on Alice at all. Even now Kemp fussed with the pillow on her chair while Alice poured for Louisa and herself.
“Is the room of a comfortable temperature, Madam?” he asked. “My thermometer indicates it may be chilly.”
“It’s fine, Kemp. Thank you.” Alice added pointedly, “I’ll ring if we need anything.”
“Yes, Madam.” Kemp withdrew with stiff formality.
Louisa dropped a sugar cube into her tea. “Is he listening outside the door?”
“Kemp, are you listening at the door?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Please stop. Go check on Father.”
“Yes, Madam.”
Louisa sipped, then reached for a cake. “Rumor has it you had some mysterious visitors right around the time you became engaged.”
“Really?” Alice said in a neutral tone.
“An airship hovered over your father’s row house for a considerable period just after an entire house disappeared at an estate outside London. And I seem to remember a certain calling card in your room. I have to wonder if these events are connected. Did you write that Teasdale woman?”
“Honestly, Louisa-how do you remember her name after all this time?”
“I remember everything about everyone, darling. That’s what makes me so much fun at parties. So you did write her. Was she the one in the airship? Where did they take you?”
Alice opened her mouth to explain, to tell Louisa about the Third Ward, but what came out were the words, “I can’t talk about it.” And then her mouth clamped shut. She remembered Lieutenant Phipps and her strange pistol full of flashing lights.
“What? I’m your closest friend. I told you about that incident with the undergardener when I was fourteen. Surely you can tell me about this.”
Alice tried again. “I can’t talk about it.” She grimaced. “Louisa, I’m just. . not allowed, all right? Please don’t press. Help me explore the house instead. I haven’t done it properly, and I don’t want to do it on my own.”
“Oh, very well.” Louisa finished her cake and rose. “I can give you decorating advice.”
The first room they came across was a library. Books of all sizes and thicknesses lined enormous shelves and filled the air with the smell of leather and paper. A pigeonhole section contained scrolls. Alice skimmed the titles. Predictably, most of the books dealt with physics, automatics, chemistry, and other sciences. Alice pulled several volumes on automatics and set them on a table. Each one held a punch card in it like a bookmark.
“What are the cards for?” Louisa asked.
“Spiders can’t read,” Alice said. “The punch card tells them what the book is and where it should be shelved.”
“I’ve never been one for reading,” Louisa said. “Except the Times and bombastic fiction, which are much the same thing.”
“You,” Alice said to a spider that was industriously running a feather duster over a set of atlases. The spider paused and turned to face her. “Leave these here, please. I want to read them later.” The spider squeaked once and set back to work.
“You know,” Louisa said as they exited, “everyone who’s anyone is wondering when you’re going to hold some sort of event in this mausoleum. A large tea for the right ladies, a small dinner for forty, perhaps even a dance. You do have a ballroom, don’t you?”
“I think it’s down that way,” Alice said. “And you’re right, of course-it’s what everyone expects.” She thought of issuing invitations, hiring musicians, arranging food, and coordinating service, and more, more, more. Alice grimaced.
“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “I know what to do in theory, but I didn’t grow up watching my mother organize large events and order servants about.”
“I’ll be right here to help, darling-as long as you do something outrageous.”
“Oh, Louisa, I don’t know if that’s me. I’m not Ad Hoc, you know, and I have no plans to become so.”
“I didn’t say scandalous. I said outrageous. We need to get everyone talking about you.”
“You mean they aren’t already?”
Louisa made a noncommital noise. “We’ll start small with the tea I mentioned. They’re appropriate for a fiancee, since Norbie has no other female in his life to handle such things for him. After the wedding, we’ll work through the dinners up to a major ball next season. I think your dinners will have to be exciting in some way, to make sure everyone wants to come.”
Alice gave Louisa’s arm an impulsive squeeze. “What would I do without you, Louisa?”
“Wither and die like the rest of London. What else do we have down here?”
They found a second drawing room, a parlor, a sunporch, a formal dining hall, the aforementioned ballroom, and several exits to the courtyard out back. They also found the kitchen, which was quiet at the moment. A large black stove dominated the back wall. Pots, pans, spoons, skewers, and other implements hung from ceiling hooks. A set of sinks took up most of one corner. Everything was perfectly clean, partly due to the efforts of a large spider, which was currently scrubbing the floor. Several human-shaped automatons in uniforms stood silently by, their blank eyes staring at nothing. One wore a tall chef’s hat.
“You could cook and serve an entire feast with them,” Louisa said. “I have to wonder why your dear fiance employs no human servants. They’d come at less than a tenth the cost.”
“I have no idea,” Alice admitted. “While we were courting, I didn’t bring it up because it felt like prying, and now that we’re… that is, he’s home, I haven’t had a chance to bring it up.”
Kemp appeared at the kitchen door. He carried a salver with a calling card on it. “Madam, a Mr. Richard Caraway to see you. Actually, he asked for Mr. Williamson. And your father is fine. I brought him another book and a cup of milk with brandy.”
“Thank you,” Alice said. “Tell Mr. Caraway that Mr. Williamson is not at home.”
“He claims to have an appointment with Mr. Williamson, and he says it is quite urgent.”
Alice blinked. “Then tell him-never mind. I’ll go.”
“Richard Caraway, Richard Caraway,” Louisa muttered. “Oh yes. Young rake. Father owns tin mines in Wales and recently put Richard in charge of half of them to see how he does.”
“Do you have the entire social register memorized?”
“I told you I like bombastic fiction. Shall I wait here?”
“If you don’t mind. I won’t be long. Kemp, you needn’t come.” Alice started to scurry off, then forced herself to slow to a ladylike pace.
Richard Caraway, a thin, ash-blond man in a dark business suit, all but bolted to his feet as Alice entered the front room. His hat perched on a rack in the corner. He looked both nervous and familiar, but Alice couldn’t place him, and she wished for Louisa’s gift with names and faces.
“I’m sorry you came all this way, Mr. Caraway,” Alice said after introductions and handshakes, “but my fiance isn’t at home, and my father isn’t seeing visitors.”
He blinked pale eyes. “I had an appointment. Wednesday, four o’clock.”
“Oh! There’s the confusion, then. Today is Tuesday, Mr. Caraway.”
He blinked again. “I see. Of course. Sorry to
have bothered you.”
“What was the nature of your business with him?” Alice asked, genuinely curious. “I would think most people would go down to the factory or to his office.”
“It was…” He swallowed, staring at her, and Alice felt a little uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Miss Michaels, but I don’t know how much your fiance involves you in his daily business, and I don’t feel quite right about-”
“Quite, quite,” Alice said, mystified. Did it have something to do with munitions? Or some other secret project? But if that were the case, why would this man come here rather than go to Norbert’s factory? She wanted to ask further, but manners didn’t allow. “I could offer you some tea. We have some lovely-”
“I should go.” The hat rack handed him his hat as he approached the door. “Please tell your fiance I was here. So sorry.”
The moment he turned his back to walk out, Alice remembered him. He was one of the men who had left this very house on the day Norbert had proposed to her. It piqued her curiosity.
“Excuse me,” Alice called, hurrying after him, “Mr. Caraway, I remember seeing you here before, with another gentleman. Don’t you run a mining concern in Wales?”
He stopped and turned. His face was pale. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s rather unusual for someone of your stature to stop by a private home during business hours, and I was truly wondering-”
“I do have to go,” he said shortly. “Good day, Miss Michaels.” And he fled the house.
“What was that all about?” Louisa was sitting at a kitchen table with another cup of tea at her elbow. Kemp stood nearby holding a plate of biscuits. The spider paused in its work to eye the biscuit plate for falling crumbs, then went back to scrubbing.
“I honestly don’t know,” Alice replied.
“Biscuit, Madam?”
“No thank you, Kemp. So odd.” She related the details of the conversation. “It’s a complete mystery.”
“So many of them in your life,” Louisa said.
A bubble of emotion Alice hadn’t been aware she was carrying suddenly burst, and Alice slapped her hand on a worktable. “And I’m tired of it!” she cried. “It’s been nearly a year, and I don’t know what happened to my aunt, and I don’t know what happened to that grinning clockworker, and I don’t know what happened to Gavin, and I don’t know what’s happening in this house, and I’m bloody tired of it!”
“Gavin?” Louisa said. “Who’s Gavin?”
Alice paused in her tirade. “Did I say Gavin?”
“You did,” said Louisa, zooming in for the kill. “Who is he?”
“A young man I … assisted.”
“How exciting! And romantic! Do you like him? Is he handsome?”
The hell with it. “Very handsome,” Alice snapped with an angry toss of her head. “Stunningly handsome. Gorgeous. Blond and blue-eyed and quick and strong, with a voice like an angel and hands that create music to make heaven weep.”
“Did you kiss him?”
This was rather fun. Alice leaned forward with pointed wickedness. “I didn’t, but I wanted to, and more, even though I had just given my hand to Norbert only hours before. I still think about him all the time. When I fall asleep, I see his face in the dark, and when I wake up, his memory is in my dreams. How do you like that?”
“I think it’s marvelous!” Louisa’s eyes were sparkling. “Is he rich?”
“Dirt poor. He’s a street musician.”
“Lowest of the low. Shocking! How old?”
“Eighteen when I met him. He must be nineteen by now.”
“Cradle robbing already. Darling! I’m so proud!”
The remark, however, yanked Alice back to reality. The daring anger drained away and she deflated. “It is, isn’t it? Good heavens. Even if I weren’t engaged to Norbert, I couldn’t pursue Gavin. Not in a hundred years.”
Louisa blinked. “Why on earth not?”
“You just said why not. He’s nineteen years old, and I turn twenty-three next month. I’m a cradle robber.”
“Oh, please!” Louisa took up a biscuit and angrily bit off a chunk. “These are modern times. How old is Norbert?”
“Thirty. Why?”
“But you’re twenty-three? No one bats an eye when a man marries a woman seven years younger, but if a woman looks at a man four years her junior, everyone gets in a tizzy.” She crumbled the rest of the biscuit onto the platter. “If your ages were reversed, would you see a problem?”
Alice thought about that. Louisa had a point. No one would think twice about a relationship if Alice were nineteen and Gavin were twenty-three-or even older. Why should it be any different when it was the other way round? It wasn’t as if Gavin acted anything other than like a man. He was smart and resourceful and witty and-
“All this is hypothetical,” Alice said stiffly. “I’m marrying Norbert. Gavin is-was-a passing fancy.”
“I don’t think so,” Louisa replied. “Gavin stirs up strong feelings, even after a year. I can see it in your face. Why not walk out on Norbert and pursue him?”
“I can’t. I even had a chance to work with”-the Third Ward’s machine froze her tongue again-“with him. At a salary. And I turned it down.”
“What? Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Because Father owes more than I could hope to pay off on my own. Because Norbert has moved Father in here and is providing for his care. Because the banns have been published, and if I back out of the marriage now, Norbert would have the legal right to sue me for the title I had promised his firstborn child. Logic dictated I turn the offer down.”
“You’re a woman, Alice, not an automaton.”
“I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”
“There’s more to this than mere logic,” Louisa said shrewdly. “I can tell.”
There was, but Alice refused to think about it. “I said I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”
“You have a lot of things you don’t want to discuss,” Louisa replied. “Well, what do you propose we do?”
“I want to clear up some of the mysteries in my life,” Alice said. “I want to know at least one thing that’s going on round here. I want to take apart one of these blasted automatons and find out why Norbert is so fascinated by these things.”
“You’re fascinated by them.”
“Not in the same way. Kemp, bring me my tools. And if you see Click, tell him to-oh. Here he is. How did you know I wanted your help?”
Click, who had jumped up to the kitchen worktable, didn’t respond. In a few minutes, Kemp returned, wheeling a walnut cabinet the size of two steamer trunks. Brass fittings gleamed, and every surface was carved to show gears, pistons, rotors, and other bits of machinery. One of the rubber wheels left a small mark on the floor, and the spider rushed over to work on it with frantic movements of the scrub brush. Alice twisted the cabinet’s handles, and the doors sprang open, revealing rotating shelves of tools and dozens of tiny drawers for spare parts.
“Well!” Louisa said. “This is a step up from your garret.”
“An engagement present from Norbert,” Alice said. “It’s a definite improvement.”
“If you like ostentation, Madam,” Kemp put in with disapproval.
“Madam didn’t ask your opinion.” Alice crooked a finger at one of the motionless footmen standing against the kitchen wall. “You! Are you awake?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The automaton’s voice was flat.
“Come.”
The automaton obeyed. It had a female shape, and it swayed when it walked. Its black-and-white uniform clung to a curvy brass body, and its skirt swished with every step. Somehow it seemed more naked than Kemp, whose clothes were only painted on.
“What is your function in this house?” Alice asked.
“I serve whatever function is required of me,” the servant said.
“Helpful,” Louisa observed. “You don’t suppose. .”
“What?”
“I’ve heard
about automatons that serve a certain purpose. You know the one I mean.”
“Oh, Louisa.” But the protest was halfhearted. “Such. . congress between men and machines is strictly illegal. Besides, Norbert wouldn’t.”
“Really? I know this is a little harsh, but how well do you know him? Until you came along, he lived alone in this huge house. He had no social life to speak of. What do you think he was doing in here?”
Alice was going to protest again, then decided against it. What was the point when she was thinking the same thing? A sick feeling roiled in her stomach, and she wanted to flee the room. But no-she had asked for answers, and she was going to have them. “Let’s get this over with. Help me get her-its-dress off, Louisa.”
They did. The automaton stood for it without protesting, and Click batted at one of the sleeves. The last layer of undergarments was shed, revealing brass skin broken only by regular patterns of rivets. It looked less human this way, like a mannequin or dressmaker’s dummy. Alice quickly examined it and found only unsuspicious, smooth metal.
“Well,” she said, straightening. “This is a bit embarrassing.”
Louisa was holding Click. “Perhaps other methods were employed?”
“Hm. Just how suspicious am I allowed to be?”
The spider, which was the size of a hatbox, finished removing the scuff mark and was turning to scuttle away when Click abruptly leapt from Louisa’s arms and pounced on it. The spider squeaked, and its scrub brush skittered across the floor. The two of them rolled about, Click’s eyes reflecting phosphorescent glee.
“Click!” Alice scolded. “Stop it! Leave it alone!”
Click abruptly snapped free and strolled away, tail in the air. The discombobulated spider lay on its nose, its backside in the air.
“That cat,” Alice said, leaning down to right the spider. “I don’t know what I’ll-”
The Doomsday Vault ce-1 Page 18
