Louisa didn’t wait for the black-and-white automaton’s permission. She bustled into the enormous drawing room and flung her arms around Alice. “I shall never forgive you,” she cried. “Never in my life!”
“It’s nice to see you, too,” Alice said, hugging her back. “What did I do now?”
“It’s what you haven’t done.” The older woman held Alice at arm’s length and looked her up and down. “Wonderful dress. Blue silk suits you, darling, and I’ve never liked crinolines, either. Maybe between the two of us we can start a revolution. Hairstyle from Paris, of course—good choice. Smashing necklace. I’ll be borrowing that later. Shame about the shoes, but we’ll work on those.”
“What’s wrong with my shoes? And what are you never going to forgive me for?” Alice was trying not to laugh. “Really, Louisa, I haven’t seen you for two months, and you’re acting as if it’s only been a day.”
“Best way to handle absences,” Louisa declared stoutly. “And I’m never forgiving you because you still haven’t called on me. Not once, even after you get back from having your wedding dress made in Paris! You got back two weeks ago, darling.”
“I have no excuse. I’m a terrible person, and I throw myself on your mercy.”
“Noted,” Louisa sniffed. “I won’t even mention that you didn’t even send me a postcard and that I learned about your arrival by reading the Times.”
“I’ve been planning!” Alice protested.
“Is that what you call it? Show the dress. Now.”
“I can’t. It’s being shipped, and I do promise to let you know the moment it arrives so you can see it.”
“So you say.” Louisa plumped herself into a chair. “Tell me everything. How was Paris?”
“Wonderful! I’d love to go back for our wedding trip, but Norbert wants to visit Spain and Italy.” Alice took a seat of her own. “I’ll have to leave Kemp behind again—the Papists shun automatons that act human. He almost popped his gears when I told him.”
“My position is to ensure Madam’s physical comfort, regardless of human spiritual concerns,” Kemp sniffed. “It is difficult to do so from across the Channel. Shall I bring the tea?”
“Yes, Kemp,” Alice said, and he stalked out. “Anyway, the dressmaker sews everything by machine, so she could make the dress almost overnight. It’s incredible the times we live in, Louisa.”
“Yes, yes, very interesting.” Louisa leaned forward. “Norbert went along, didn’t he?”
Alice colored. “Well, yes. But in a different train and he stayed in a different hotel, and I hired a maid who was with me every moment we—”
“So is he a good man, then?”
“Oh. Well, yes. So far. He doesn’t shout or order me around or—”
“I meant,” Louisa interrupted, “is he any good where it counts, darling? In the bedroom.”
“Louisa!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “Honestly!”
“Don’t come over all shocked with me, darling. I practically fed him to you at that ghastly Greenfellow ball, and then you offer yourself up to him like a tabby to a tom and don’t even drop me a card. After all that, you can certainly tell me if Norbie measures up after two months in Paris.”
“Louisa!” Alice flushed and tried to regain control of herself. “We haven’t... All he’s done is kiss me. On the cheek.”
“How English of him. Do you want some advice? There are a number of ways to stoke a man’s furnace, if you—”
“No, no. I’m... I’ve read quite a lot, thank you. And planning has kept me busy, in any case. I think Father’s on pins and needles.”
Louisa paused, and her tone became more tender. “How is your father?”
“As well as can be expected,” Alice said, feeling on safer ground.
“Don’t do that,” Louisa admonished. “Everyone needs someone to talk to. It’s why the Papists invented confession. How is he really?”
The safer ground had shifted. “Not well.” A bubble of anxiety rose up even as Alice said the words. “I was hoping that moving him here, with good food and warm rooms, would improve his health, but he’s only gotten worse. It’s as if he’s decided to let himself go, now that I’m engaged. Oh, Louisa, I don’t know what I’ll do when he... when he . . .”
Louisa looked misty herself, and Alice wondered why—she had met Father only the one time. She reached over and patted Alice’s hand. “It happens to us all,” Louisa said. “When the end comes, you have Norbert and me to help you through it.”
Kemp entered with the tea cart, the sound of the wheels muffled by the thick Persian rugs. He had already drawn back the drapes from the two-story windows to let in early-spring sunshine, which spilled across perfectly matched red velvet furniture, meticulously placed end tables, a perfect settee, and a fainting couch pulled just close enough to a square marble fireplace. And it was just one of dozens of what Norbert called “cozy little rooms.” Just one could have swallowed up the cold-water flat she had shared with her father, a fact that followed her every evening when Kemp accompanied her home to the new flat.
At first, Alice had spent these little walks glancing nervously over her shoulder for the grinning clockworker, but he hadn’t appeared; after a few weeks, she had finally stopped looking. Alice had spent a large part of one day fruitlessly checking back issues of the Times for any mention of him. Now she was wondering if he had gone completely mad and died, as every clockworker inevitably did.
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 fiancée, 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 fiancé 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 fiancé 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 fiancé 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 fiancé 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 Gav
in?”
“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—
The Doomsday Vault Page 18
