“I do not expect you to understand. If my mother knew of it, she certainly would not.” She gave him a quick glance from under her hat brim. “On no account are you to tell her.”
“You have my word. Help me to understand, Claire.”
“Ian is all the things you say, and more. And he cared for me. But he wanted to leave the Corps and settle to the life of a landed gentleman. He wanted a chatelaine for Hollys Park and a mother for the future baronet.”
“And you could not be that woman? I should think you uniquely fitted for the role.”
“I could … but when I asked him to wait until I had tasted the world as he had, until I had known for myself the accomplishments that men take for granted, he was not willing. And so … we parted.”
“And it was a final parting?”
“Oh, yes. Do you not read the society pages? He is as focused upon securing the next Lady Hollys as any debutante’s mama could be. He will make quite the sensation when the Season begins.”
“And the thought causes you no pangs of regret?”
His tone was light, but Claire wondered at the direction of these questions. Surely he was not … but no. He could not be. He was her best friend, and after all these years, she could not expect … could she?
You must marry Mr. Malvern, Lady. He loves you.
“No,” she said. “He proposed a number of times, you know. If I had any regrets after the first time, he gave me the chance to change my mind. And yet, I did not.”
“That is one thing I value about you, Claire. When you make up your mind to a thing, it is made. No shilly-shallying and dithering about.”
“Only one thing?” she teased, thankful for a chance to lighten the mood.
Somehow they had stopped walking, and the gorse had closed around them to form a barrier against the breeze. She could even hear the bees buzzing in the yellow flowers, the sweet scent hanging heavy in the air.
“There are many things I value about you, but enumerating them would take all afternoon.” He smiled, then patted her hand upon his arm. “How would you envision an ideal marriage, if you were given carte blanche to arrange it?”
He released her hands to give her a moment to think, and broke off a sprig of gorse to tuck it into his lapel.
“When I suggested to Ian that a laboratory at Hollys Park would be a fine idea, provided the children were taught not to knock over the Bunsen burners, he did not seem to agree,” she said slowly. “When I suggested that while our journeys might be quite extensive—I testing airships for the Zeppelin Airship Works and he flying for the Dunsmuirs—he did not appreciate the thought of coming home to one another in the same way I did. So you see, even if a woman has ideas about the ideal marriage state, a man’s ideas do not necessarily coincide.”
“I have always thought that working among the scientists in other cities would be beneficial,” he mused. “The Imperial Board of Scientific Exploration has invited me repeatedly, you know, to set up a laboratory in Munich, with weekly salons inviting the leading minds of our day to discuss our research.”
Claire stared at him in astonishment. “They have not! Why did you never tell me?”
“It is difficult to catch up with you sometimes, Claire. In fact, these few days here at Gwynn Place are the longest I have seen you in once place in quite some time.”
“I am in Munich for months at a time, Andrew.”
“My point exactly.”
What was he saying? What meaning was she to glean from these revelations, this warm gaze bent now upon her?
“Claire, I wrote you a letter once expressing the feelings of my heart, and you never answered it.”
“You did not bring up the subject again.”
“When a lady who makes up her mind as firmly as you do declines to reply, that sends a message a man can hardly ignore. Especially when she proceeds to entertain proposals from other men.”
“The Kaiser’s nephew does not count.”
“But Ian Hollys does.”
“Not any longer. Andrew—”
“Yes, dear?”
“Maggie wrote something to me in the letter she sent warning us of the invasion. She wrote it because she believed she was about to die, and that the truth must be spoken at all costs.”
“And what was it?”
“She said, You must marry Mr. Malvern, Lady. He loves you.”
“Ah,” Andrew said. “She has a fine sense of intuition, does our Maggie.”
“And is it true?”
“Yes, very much so, on both counts. There has never been anyone else for me but you since the day I frightened you half to death in my helmet and breathing apparatus.”
He took her hands in his—her cold hands. She trembled—she, who had faced down death in several awful incarnations with hardly time for a quiver.
“So here are my terms. While you are employed by the Zeppelin Airship Works, I will come to Bavaria and open that laboratory and salon. In our home, the greatest minds of the age will be welcome. Conversation will flow as freely as our excellent wine, and new ideas will be as welcome as our friends and family. Should there be children, they will grow up among the finest people I know—for among young men like Tigg and Snouts and Lewis, and young women like Maggie and Lizzie, how could any child help but grow up strong and intelligent and brave? And with a mother like you, my darling, those children may very well change the world—as you have already done.”
Claire could not speak. Her throat had closed and her eyes welled up with tears that spilled over and trickled down her cheeks.
“I am not worthy of you, Claire. But if you will give me your heart, I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”
She swallowed, her lips trembling. “It is I who am unworthy of you,” she whispered. “You have been the truest friend a woman could ask for. You have stood by me when I have been afraid, comforted me when I was hurt, and loved me when—” She choked. “When I thought I loved another. But all the time … it was not the terms of the proposals, was it?” At last she saw the truth, and from the quiet joy in his gaze, so did he. “It was simply that the wrong man was making them.”
“And now?” Andrew kissed her knuckles.
And now … the right man had spoken so eloquently that she could practically see the future forming before her eyes. A wonderful future. A future that the two of them would create for each other, and for the people they loved.
“And now I think you must kiss me again. For there has been no other man for me since the moment of our first one.”
He gazed at her over their clasped hands. “Does this mean that we are engaged?”
“I think it had better,” Claire said softly. “If we go back to the house and the Mopsies learn we ignored Maggie’s dying wish, we will be in dreadful trouble.”
“Nothing we haven’t faced before.” Smiling, Andrew lowered his head and kissed her.
Soundly.
Very soundly indeed.
Epilogue
Dear Claire,
It has been quite a while since I’ve written, but I have all your and the Mopsies’ letters and think of you often, so I hope that counts for something. Most of the time we’re outside of the pigeons’ range, which is why my correspondence has been spotty in the last year or so.
I’m in a bit of a tight spot and wonder if I could ask for your help. See, I had a couple of jobs running cargo (diamonds, furs, and such) into the Duchy of Venice for the Dunsmuirs and it seems some folks took exception to it. I’ve applied to them for help but they are back at the Firstwater Mine and help could be a long time coming.
Count von Zeppelin is giving me sanctuary for the moment, but I can’t see it lasting long. I figure if we put our heads together we can come up with a plan. I hope so. I don’t much hanker to end my days in one of them underwater torture chambers they got.
Please advise.
Your friend,
Alice Chalmers
P.S. Please give my regards to Mr. Malv
ern. His recent paper on powering locomotives using sun cells was inspired. Peony Churchill says it caused quite a sensation in the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias, being as trains powered by something God created is right up their alley.
P.P.S. Jake is well and sends his regards. He says he’s had a price on his head before, so it don’t much bother him, but this is a new one on me. Please write soonest.
A.C.
THE END
Neptune's Maid: A Cornish steampunk sea shanty
Sailors will you gather round
And hear my own sad tale-o
Of men who hear the siren’s call
O’er steam and sea and sail-o.
O’er steam and sea and sail-o.
There was a young man, braw and hale
And to the Lord so dear-o
With a voice so strong and true
The birds would come to hear-o.
The birds would come to hear-o.
One day she heard him, Neptune’s maid,
As waves she rode to land-o
She changed her shape and came ashore
And met him on the strand-o.
And met him on the strand-o.
He forgot he trothéd was
To church and lady fair-o
He took the mermaid to his wife
With seashells in her hair-o.
With seashells in her hair-o.
O where is her lover dear?
O where now is he-o?
The mermaid’s ta’en him by the hand
And led him out to sea-o.
And led him out to sea-o.
Come the nights of stormy gales
When wives fear for their kin-o
Some say they hear him singing still
Beneath the waves and wind-o.
Beneath the waves and wind-o.
Reprise:
Sailors will you gather round
And hear my own sad tale-o
Of men who hear the siren’s call
O’er steam and sea and sail-o.
O’er steam and sea and sail-o.
Lyrics ©2014 Shelley Adina Bates
Music ©2014 JR Shanty Co. Have a listen, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jfWglM32_E
For Aleta Pardalis, a lady of spirit—and excellent taste
Grateful thanks to Julianne and Richard of JR Shanty Co for bringing “Neptune’s Maid” to life in music
and to
Julie H. Ferguson, Beacon Literary Services, and James S. Ferguson, 3rd Hand Inc., for their knowledge of undersea zeppelins
Excerpt
While you’re waiting for book seven in the Magnificent Devices series, I hope you will enjoy the following excerpt from Immortal Faith, a paranormal YA novel.
Summary
In the small, Old Order Mennonite community of Mitternacht, Iowa, the people pray that God will deliver them from evil. They should have been more specific.
Sophia Brucker is on the threshold of womanhood, standing in the door between her religion’s way of life and the possibilities of the world outside. She is also torn between two young men: David Fischer, whom she has known since childhood, and Gabriel Langford, the new arrival. In a community that only grows when people are born into it, a convert—young, single, and male—is the most exciting thing that has happened in years.
When Sophia’s uncle is found dead in the barn with his throat slashed and bitten, the community grieves—except Sophia, who has been abused by him for years. And when the local mean girl is killed the same way, Sophia hardly dares to voice what she suspects: that only the worst among them are being weeded out. Under the elders’ approving eyes, it seems Gabriel is dedicated to worshipping God. But his methods may not stand up to too close a scrutiny . . . and Sophia is getting very close indeed . . .
Immortal Faith: A novel of vampires and unholy love
by Shelley Adina
Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
The baby chick, hatched just yesterday and half the size of my palm, peeped as I stroked its downy yellow back with one finger. The two halves of its tiny beak crossed at the tips, which was why it had been peeping. It couldn’t pick up the feed and it was hungry.
Mamm would be out any moment, but I couldn’t help myself—I had to do something for it, even if all I had to offer was the warmth of my hands. I knew it had to be culled; if it managed to grow up and have chicks of its own, it would pass on the defect. On an Old Order Mennonite farm, even a tiny scrap of life such as this still had to do its best and pull its weight, and my mother had no tolerance for things that didn’t pull their weight.
Unless we were speaking of my youngest brother, Jonah.
Sometimes you didn’t know until a creature was half grown that it would need to be culled. When one of the young roosters decided it was going to challenge Dat for the rule of the farmyard, and attacked his leg in a fury of male aggression, Dat simply pulled it off his boot and ended that discussion with a quick twist. “I’ll not have that bird passing on his bad seed,” was all he’d said, and we had chicken and dumplings for dinner that night.
Jonah and Caleb laughed and called me softheaded as well as softhearted because I couldn’t bring myself to do some of the things that were necessary on a working farm. And while I knew God had a purpose for every animal and human here—even Jonah—and we all had to fill our places . . . I gazed down at the defenseless fluffball in my hand. We were taught to strive after perfection, but couldn’t there be a little room for mercy, too?
But questioning was a sure path to a bad spirit, which led to discontent and pride. Father, forgive me for my resentful thoughts.
“Sophia, are you out here?”
“Ja, Mamm.”
The sunlight streaming in the barn door darkened briefly, throwing my mother’s body into silhouette and shining through her kapp to show the smooth braided bun beneath it. “You’re not mooning over those chicks, are you? You know we can’t keep the ones that aren’t up to standard.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have to learn to do this some day.” Her tone softened as she joined me at the pen where the broody hens lived until the chicks were big enough to go out into the barn. “When you’re married and have a fine farm of your own, you’ll be overrun with rickety, good-for-nothing birds if you don’t cull the bad ones.”
No one I knew kept chickens as pets, but in the rare moments that I sat down on the back steps and one would jump into my lap, I would swear that, like my baby sister, they wanted to be cuddled. I wished I could keep this one as a pet.
“She’s not bad,” I said softly. The chick had settled in my palm, and I covered it with my other hand. “It isn’t her fault she’s not perfect.”
“And would you have a yard full of cross-beaks that can’t eat their food? That grow up spindly and thin and won’t fill the stomachs of your family?”
“No.” I sighed. We had this same conversation every spring, and every spring I hated it just as much. The part about getting married and having my own farm hadn’t come up before, though. I wondered what had brought that on.
“Sophia.” Mamm held out her hand. Gently, I put the chick into it and turned away. With no sound but a sudden rustle of the dark blue cotton of her sleeves, it was over. “Are there any more?”
“The one with the yellow spot on its head can’t walk. There, by the Wyandotte mama.” Another rustle of movement. “I’ll bury them, Mamm.”
“Don’t be long bringing in the eggs. I want to speak to you.”
After I’d done my sad duty, I comforted myself watching the rest of the chicks tumble over each other, nip food away from their companions, and collapse in happy abandon for a nap under their mamas’ wings, which kept them warm on this sullen day in the hind part of April. The chicks could not know what had happened to the others, and their innocence was a joy in itself. But how fair was it that they’d only escaped because they met a standard they didn’t even know existed?
What did Mamm want to speak to me about? We talked all day long. As the second eldest girl in the family, and since graduating from eighth grade three summers ago, I was her biggest help. That had been my older sister Hannah’s place, but no longer. During her season of Rumspringa, of running around, last year, Hannah had said in her letters that she’d fallen in love with life in Council Bluffs and would wait a little longer to come back to Mitternacht. Why wouldn’t she? She could stay out all night if she wanted. Talk to a boy without a dozen relatives leaping to conclusions and then into wedding plans. Learn how to drive a car like the Englisch, and even go to high school.
That was all well and good—for her. But she shouldn’t wait too long to decide whether she was coming back. My father had taken to falling into silence whenever her name was mentioned, and that was not so good. The thought of having to treat my own sister as Englisch made my skin go cold and coiled a sick knot of apprehension in my stomach. What crazy girl would sacrifice her family and her church just to stay out late and drive a car?
Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit Page 23
