“I say, are you lost?”
Maggie dashed the moisture from her eyes and turned to see a young man coming across the catwalk as though he were strolling down Pall Mall.
“I am not,” she said. “Though my party seems to be.”
He took her in from head to foot, and seemed to find the picture more satisfying than had her grandfather. “You would be with Mr. Seacombe’s party, then? You are … Miss Margaret, if I am not mistaken.”
Surprise rendered her bereft of speech. She had not seen him before, because if she had, she would have remembered those roguish eyes, that triangular smile, his even teeth white in his tanned face. Then— “I do apologize, sir, but have we met?”
He laughed as if this were a fine joke. “Not ruddy likely, since I’m but a clerk in the receiving office and you’re the granddaughter of Howel Seacombe.”
“But—how do you know that?”
He made an expansive gesture that encompassed the entire busy operation below. “Everyone knows. We’re all on our best behavior while the family visits. I saw you from across the other side, you know—you and your cousin and the young master. Is your cousin as pretty as you close up?”
“Much prettier,” Maggie said automatically, and then blushed that she had dignified such a familiar remark with a reply. “I mean—I have become separated from them somehow. Would you be so kind as to help me rejoin them?”
“Oh, now I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean to. Because you are, you know—awfully pretty.”
Oh dear, this was dreadful. “I won’t trouble you. I’m sure you have work to do. I’ll find them myself.” Blushing, hot, she stumbled down the staircase, only to hear a whoosh—and turned just in time to see him sliding down the rickety banister past her.
“Please forgive me,” he said, landing with aplomb and sweeping his tweed cap from his head. “I’m dreadfully prone to personal remarks. People are interesting to me. Come—I saw where they went, and I’ll take you up there now.”
“I think after that performance you must tell me your name. Not—” she said hastily, as his eyes widened with apprehension, “—to report you for your unsolicited opinions, but so that I may know to whom I am indebted.”
He gazed at her. “That was quite a speech. Do you normally use that many syllables?”
She tilted her chin. “Only when they are warranted. I could throw rocks at you instead of words, if you prefer.”
“Words can do as much damage, if a person aims them well enough.” He offered her his arm and after a second’s hesitation, she took it. “Michael Polgarth, at your service.”
“Polgarth!” she exclaimed as he opened a door she had not seen at the rear of the viewing platform, and ushered her through it. “I know a Polgarth. He is a poultryman, and I credit him for my interest in the study of genetics.”
“Do you, now?”
The corridor was lined with office doors bearing important-looking brass name plates, but he took her past them all to an external door, where she found herself on the street that ran down the side of the building, straight to the sea. In the distance, there were Grandfather, Lizzie and Claude, and the Lady and Mr. Malvern, all engaged in spirited conversation and apparently completely unaware that there was one missing from the party.
Her steps faltered to a halt, and beside her, Michael stopped, too. “Is something the matter, Miss Seacombe?”
“Yes. I mean—no, of course not.”
“And yet, you seem unwilling to join your family on Demelza. She’s a trim little ship, you know, for a steam vessel. You’d probably like her.”
“Have you been aboard?” Maybe if she stalled long enough, her party would walk back this way and see her in conversation with this nice young man, as unconcerned for their company as they seemed to be for hers.
“Once or twice, in the course of my duties. She returned from the East Indies one year, and I could swear I smelled cinnamon in her hold when I went down there to deliver the manifests. But it was probably just engine grease. So you know Polgarth the poultryman at Gwynn Place?”
She turned, her eyes wide. “I never said from where I knew him, merely that I did.”
He grinned. “There is only one Polgarth in these parts who makes a study of genetics in chickens, and that’s my grandfather.”
“He never is!” she exclaimed, most inelegantly. “Polgarth—your grandfather!”
Michael dipped her a bow. “Does that make us friends?”
“I should like it to. Have you seen him recently? Lady Claire and Mr. Malvern are to go up to Gwynn Place on Wednesday, but I’m afraid we’re stuck here until—I mean—that is to say—”
And he laughed again, the irritating creature. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Yes, I go up to see him and my aunt Tressa at least once a month—she keeps house for him, you know, since my grandmother died. He’s looking forward to seeing Lady Claire very much. How does she come to be with you?”
“She is our guardian, mine and Lizzie’s.”
“Well, this bears exploring. Wait here just a moment, will you?” He popped back inside and in less than a minute reappeared. “There, that’s settled. I am to be your escort—I’ve just let my superiors know so that no one thinks you’ve been kidnapped. When Mr. Seacombe’s party comes back, they will be informed.”
Somehow she found herself walking at his side, her hand in the crook of his elbow, proceeding up the hill instead of down to the harbor.
He returned to the previous subject with interest. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your connection to Gwynn Place. Lady Claire your guardian? I wouldn’t think that the granddaughter of Mr. Seacombe would be in need of any such person.”
“Well, considering that a month ago, I didn’t know Mr. Seacombe existed, much less that I was his granddaughter, you would be incorrect,” Maggie said with some asperity. “We have been Lady Claire’s wards since we were ten, and we are sixteen and a half now.”
He said something in Cornish that might possibly have been the equivalent of “Blimey!” Then he said, “Of course you may depend upon my circumspection. These are facts that are not generally known.”
“But surely the folk hereabouts would know of the deaths of our mothers—Elaine and Catherine.”
“It is not something that is talked of openly, you understand. Out of respect for the Seacombes.”
“But do you know something of it? For you see, I know absolutely nothing of my mother.” Except that she liked the scent of lilac, and might have had a May Day beau whose name began with a K.
They had reached the top of the hill without Maggie being aware of climbing it.
But all he said was, “I am afraid I cannot say.”
Which was most unsatisfying.
“What are we doing up here?” she finally asked. “If you can say that much.”
“It is a fine prospect over our fair town,” he said. “I thought you might like it, if you did not want to venture down to the harbor.”
It was indeed a fine prospect of Penzance in all its busy beauty, its comfortable stone houses and shops tumbling down the hill, stopping just at the harbor’s edge. The sun was at its highest peak in the sky, and the sea heaved gently below, the deep blue of the cornflowers that grew in the fields. In the other direction, Maggie could see the airfield, barely half a mile off, and make out the khaki-colored fuselage of Athena and the pale silver of Victory at rest at their mooring masts.
How long had it been since anyone had gone out to attend to Holly and Ivy? The Lady went every day, but had she been today?
“Thank you for bringing me up here, Mr. Polgarth,” she said briskly, extending her gloved hand. “I am going to walk to the airfield. That khaki-colored craft you see there is Lady Claire’s airship. I have business aboard that I must attend to.”
“Lady Claire has her own airship—as well as that extraordinary vehicle drawn up in front of the office?”
“Yes. The ship is Athena, the very first to use the automaton
intelligence system for which she and Miss Alice Chalmers are known.”
He pushed up his cap to scratch his forehead. “You won’t find many in these parts who know what that is, including me,” he said, “but it sounds most impressive. You realize, of course, that I cannot permit you to walk out there unescorted.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Permit?” The poor chap, he could not be expected to know that she had killed a pair of pirates with a bola gun, flung gaseous capsaicin on the heads of men shooting at her with cannons, and become quite skilled in the Eastern arts of self defense—all before the age of twelve. But neither did one brag about these things to young men one had just met. As the Lady had gone to great pains to teach them, there were certain things a woman simply did not discuss outside her most intimate circle.
Michael looked a little taken aback. “Er—I meant to say, would you permit me to escort you there, Miss Seacombe?”
“Have you no work to do this morning?”
“None as important as being with you. My superiors would think me most remiss if I went back to work and left you wandering about on the moor by yourself—to say nothing of your grandfather’s feelings on the subject.”
Maggie bit back the first words that sprang to her tongue, and said instead, “It is broad daylight, and in any case, I do not think there is much danger on this moor.” It was not, after all, the Texican Territory. Or the diamond fields of the Canadas.
He gave her a sidelong look. “I should not be so hasty as to say that.” And then he offered her his arm.
She made up her mind, and took it.
13
Holly and Ivy came running to the door of the aviary when Maggie stepped aboard Athena and released them. She knelt just in time for Holly to spring into her lap and dive under her arm, and for Ivy to leap on to her shoulder and cuddle as close to her neck as she could. Maggie crooned and petted the hens, reassuring them that no one had forgotten them in the last day, and neither she nor Lizzie had been eaten by predators in the meanwhile. Finally, she introduced them to Michael Polgarth, which elicited the same reaction of doubtful watchfulness on both sides.
When the hens at last hopped down, satisfied that all was well with the world once more, Maggie led them outside to hunt in the grass under the gondola. The Lady had built a mechanical device in the aviary in the boarding area that dispensed the mix of cracked corn and grains which Lewis compiled especially for the Wilton Crescent birds. Maggie checked that it was operating as it should, then added water to the bottle that hung inside it and kept a drinking well filled.
When she was satisfied that Holly and Ivy wanted for nothing, she looked up to see Michael Polgarth looking rather befuddled.
“I have never been introduced to a chicken before,” he said at last. “I do not know whether to be amused or offended.”
“You ought to be neither,” Maggie told him, leading the way to the stern. “A bird must recognize that you are not a threat to her, and my including you helps with that aim. It would have been better if you had fed them from your hand. If a creature feeds you, then clearly it does not plan to eat you.”
“That is not true,” he said. “Many housewives keep hens for just that purpose.”
“Not around Lady Claire, they don’t.”
He appeared to take the warning in the spirit in which it was meant, and changed the subject. “Where are we going?”
“Astern. If a pigeon has come, I’ll bring the post back to Seacombe House with me.”
“You employ carrier pigeons? I did not think they were in use any longer.”
This stopped her at the door to the hold. “Are you serious? Have you never seen a postal pigeon? They are used for non-fixed addresses.”
“I don’t know any non-fixed addresses. Normal people don’t live on airships.”
“We do—or rather, we could—and I must inform you that we are perfectly normal, despite the fact that we have been to the Americas and back on airships, to say nothing of numerous voyages to Bavaria, where we go to school.”
Now she’d really flummoxed him. Imagine being satisfied to live in such a backward place! Shaking her head, she pushed open the door and crossed the hold to the messenger cage.
Sure enough, three pigeons had come—clearly, the Lady had only visited long enough to care for Holly and Ivy, and had not taken the time to check. Maggie emptied the first two, finding letters from Lewis for her and Lizzie, a missive from the Lady’s solicitor, and, in a heavy envelope bearing the Landgraf’s wax seal, a letter from Count von Zeppelin.
Delighted, she showed Michael the packet. “We met Count von Zeppelin in the Canadas five years ago, and he became our sponsor during our stay in Germany. He is the inventor of the modern airship, you know.”
“I did know, which I am sure surprises you to no end.”
“I do not mean to offend you, sir, but goodness—I cannot imagine living in a place, no matter how lovely, that does not use modern technology.”
“We get on very well. We do not bother it, and it does not bother us.”
“But what if you had to—oh, I don’t know—travel to London with urgency? What would you do then?”
“Take the train, of course. The Flying Dutchman is the fastest train in England. We are quite proud that she runs down here, and not to Edinburgh or some other modern city.”
Maggie saw that there was no convincing him, so she turned her attention to the last pigeon. Popping open the door in its abdomen, she withdrew a thin envelope with no direction or addressee.
She slit it open with a fingernail and pulled out the single sheet of flimsy post-office paper it contained.
14 08 94 02 00 50L 450KG 6
“What on earth?”
Michael leaned over her shoulder. “What does it mean?”
“It must be a mistake—someone clearly got the magnetic numbers mixed up on the pigeon when they sent it. Though … I might hazard a guess that the first three are a date.” August 14, 1894. “But what of the next?”
“A time? Oh-two-hundred hours would be written like that. In which case, it would mean two in the morning, the day after tomorrow.”
Misdirected or not, Maggie loved a good puzzle. “All right, then, let us crack this cipher. What do the rest mean? Fifty liters? Four hundred fifty kilos?”
“If you come from Europe, where they use such a system, I suppose they might.” Michael took the paper and held it up to the porthole, as if he thought a different message might be encoded there in invisible ink. “And the last? Six?”
Maggie shook her head. “The entire message makes no sense at all—which is only to be expected, since Athena is not its intended recipient. I wonder if I should attempt to send it back?”
But the pigeon revealed no clue as to its provenance. Unlike most, which were clearly marked with the names of their base airships, and in the case of the Dunsmuir devices, engraved with the family coat of arms, this one was bare of identifying marks. Rather like those of Athena, which went to Wilton Crescent in a manner best not spoken of when there were persons in authority present. Lewis had tinkered with their navigation systems in order for the Lady’s correspondence to remain private, and the fact that it was illegal to circumvent the Royal Mail in this manner was simply not mentioned.
Maggie put the slip of paper with the other letters, and stood.
“Are you taking it with you?” Michael rose and held the door open for her.
“Yes. It may be some private correspondence of Lady Claire’s, and I would not want to risk displeasing her if that is the case.”
“Maybe she’ll tell you what ‘six’ stands for.”
“Maybe she will. Come, let us put Holly and Ivy in. I’m very much afraid I shall be late for tea.” An idea struck her. “Would you like to come back with me? If you are connected with Gwynn Place, Lady Claire would be delighted to see you.”
“I think not. I have not actually met her—or if I did, I was too young to remember it.”
“You
make her sound ancient. She is only three-and-twenty, you know.”
When they reached the offices once more, they found that Mr. Polgarth’s message had been given, and the carriage had returned to Seacombe House.
“Surely they have not left her to find her own way home?” Michael said in some surprise to Grandfather’s private secretary, a man whose high forehead and myopic eyes led Maggie to believe that it would never occur to him to do as Mr. Polgarth had and take a walk upon the moor.
“Certainly not,” the man said. “The party that came in the steam conveyance are enjoying the sights of our fair town until the young lady is ready to leave with them.”
So the Lady and Mr. Malvern had remained behind … but … surely Lizzie would not have gone back to Seacombe House without her, especially knowing she was in the company of a young man they did not know. “And Miss Seacombe?” she asked. “Did she return to Seacombe House also?”
“Not to my knowledge. She and young Mr. Seacombe, I believe, are with Lady Claire.”
Maggie exhaled in relief. She did not think she could bear it if Lizzie had so forgotten her existence that she would leave without her.
It did not take them long to locate the party. It was past noon and Maggie was certain that if there were a tearoom in the town, she would find Lizzie and the others in it. And so it proved to be.
“Michael Polgarth!” the Lady said with delight, shaking his hand. “You are Myghal’s son, then?”
“Yes, your ladyship. My father’s brother passed away when I was very small, and my Aunt Tressa is not married. It is up, to me, I suppose, to carry on the family name.”
“I am sure you will do it great credit.” She smiled at him with warmth, and Maggie was quite certain that if Mr. Malvern had not been sitting upon the Lady’s right hand, Michael would have fallen in love with her then and there.
When they had finished lunch, Lady Claire said, “Perhaps you four would not mind a walk home? I must go out to Athena and check on Holly and Ivy.”
Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit Page 9
