Rebel Mechanics

by Shanna Swendson

She pressed my hand and said earnestly, “If you cry out, I’ll come to you.”

  She pointed out Rollo’s and Flora’s rooms, then led me downstairs to the library, which was something out of my wildest book-loving dreams. “There aren’t many books in here I can read yet,” Olive said. “My books are all in the schoolroom, but Uncle says that someday this will be my favorite room in the whole house.” I got the impression that whatever Uncle said was accepted as gospel by Olive.

  “Yes, I imagine it will be, if I do my job properly,” I said. It was already my favorite room. My fingers itched to run along all those spines and see what wonders I might discover.

  I reluctantly let Olive lead me out of the library to tour the rest of the mansion. We saw the dining room being set for dinner, the drawing room used for formal occasions, and many more rooms whose purpose I couldn’t keep straight in my head. All of them were splendidly furnished and filled with artwork worthy of a museum. I could hardly believe that I would be living in a place like this. And to think I’d started the day terrified of what my future might hold.

  Along the way, we passed a closed door. “That’s Uncle’s study,” Olive informed me. “We’re not allowed in there. The maids can’t even go in there. Not that they want to. They don’t like all those bugs. There’s even a giant hairy spider.” She said it with enough relish that I doubted she shared the maids’ fears. “He has many valuable specimens, and some of them are so fragile that opening the door the wrong way disturbs them.” She recited this as though it had been repeated to her many times. I wondered how many dragonfly wings had crumbled to dust because of Olive bursting in on her uncle.

  When we returned to my room, Mrs. Talbot was there instructing a pair of footmen where to place my trunk. “Run along, Olive,” she said when she saw us. “Give Miss Newton a chance to rest.”

  “Thank you for the tour, Olive,” I said. She waved goodbye as she ran to her room.

  “Would you like one of the maids to help you unpack?” Mrs. Talbot asked.

  “No, thank you. I don’t have much.”

  She dismissed the footmen, then said, “If you don’t mind, I thought I should go over what you can expect tomorrow.”

  “Of course.” I gestured her toward the chair and sat across from her on the edge of the bed.

  “In the morning, you’ll escort Rollo to school, leaving in time to arrive at nine. Olive usually goes along for the walk. You’ll have lessons with Olive until lunchtime, after which the music teacher and drawing master arrive. The drawing master works with one girl while the music teacher works with the other, and then they switch. You’ll be free during those lessons until it’s time for you to meet Rollo at school.”

  “Surely Rollo is old enough to walk to and from school on his own,” I said.

  From her reaction, I might have thought I’d suggested that he run off to sea as a cabin boy on a pirate ship. “Oh no, that would not do at all. The children must be chaperoned at all times in public.”

  “Are they in danger?” I asked breathlessly, thinking I would do little good as a bodyguard.

  “Not that kind of danger.” She sighed. “Young people being what they are, we must take great caution that no unsuitable alliances or flirtations form.”

  “Are you worried about Rollo meeting shopgirls?”

  She frowned. “You must not know the ways of the magisters. To keep the magical blood pure, they must not mix with the nonmagical.”

  My heart racing and a knot forming in my stomach, I asked, “What happens if a magister does…” I trailed off, searching for a euphemism, then settled for the one she’d used: “… mix with a nonmagical person?”

  She looked even more horrified at that thought than she had when I suggested Rollo could walk to school on his own. Pressing her hand against her chest as if to quiet her heart, she said, “That would be unspeakable—an abomination!”

  My stays seemed to constrict drastically around my chest, cutting off my breathing. There was a roaring in my ears, and my vision swam. It had never occurred to me that my very existence might be considered an abomination.

  IN WHICH MY POSITION BECOMES UNEXPECTEDLY PRECARIOUS

  Mrs. Talbot must have continued speaking, but I heard nothing over the roaring in my ears until she grasped my hand. “Miss Newton!” she said firmly enough to snap me out of my fugue. “You’ve gone absolutely ashen. Should I get the smelling salts?”

  I came back to my senses enough to wave her away. “No, no, I’m quite all right. I’m afraid the events of the day caught up with me all at once.” I gave her a smile that felt weak, shaky, and entirely unconvincing. “Please forgive me.”

  She patted my hand reassuringly. “You should rest until dinner, and I’ll see to it that Olive leaves you alone.” She slipped out of the room, easing the door shut behind her.

  As soon as she left, I clasped my hands over my mouth to stifle a pained whimper, lest Olive hear my cry. I’d discovered I had magical abilities when I was about Olive’s age and tried to will a rosebud to open into a flower the way the magical princess in my storybook did, imagining a full blossom and channeling the power from the ether—and it worked. I tried other magical tricks I’d read about in fairy tales, like making feathers fly, conjuring balls of light, and sending scattered buttons into a jar, and I could do all of them. I had never seen anyone else in my family do these things, so I had kept it a secret.

  A fanciful child with my head full of stories, I decided I was a princess in exile being kept safely in a secret hiding place until the time came for me to restore my kingdom. That seemed to explain so much about my family. My father was stern and remote with me, the way he wasn’t with my siblings when they visited, because he wasn’t really my father. He was my tutor, doing his duty to prepare me to one day rule my kingdom wisely. My mother must have been my nurse—in the stories, nurses always seemed to develop motherly feelings toward their charges.

  When I was old enough to learn about biology, I discerned the likely truth. Although I had powers no one else in the family had and was very unlike my sister and brothers, I could see traces of my mother in myself. We had the same roundish face, wide-set eyes, and stubborn chin. It seemed as though my mother had been unfaithful to her husband with some magister, and I was the result. That explained my family even better than my princess fantasy—the large age gap between me and my siblings, the chilly distance between my parents, and the way my father was barely able to stand the sight of me when he wasn’t teaching me.

  I’d read many novels about nonmagical governesses falling in love with and eventually marrying their magister employers, and then there were all the fairy stories about nonmagical girls captivating magister princes. None of these had mentioned that such relationships were forbidden, even though that would have made far more interesting reading. Although I knew better than to think that novels were an accurate reflection of reality, I felt betrayed. Someone who read as much as I did shouldn’t have been caught so unawares. But there had been few magisters at Yale because most of them went to England for their education, so I had learned everything I knew about them from novels, which I now realized had left out a critical fact. I had to wonder if these books perhaps reflected a magister fantasy about breaking with convention.

  To think I’d worried that Lord Henry was secretly a bandit who knew I’d witnessed his crime when my real danger was that he might discover I was a magical half-breed. I wondered what would become of me if I were discovered, but there was no innocent way to ask. I told myself that I had nothing to fear as long as I exhibited no sign of having magical powers. I’d spent a lifetime keeping that secret, so it was second nature for me.

  * * *

  Lord Henry proved to be in earnest about dinner being informal. He and the children wore the same clothing they’d worn earlier. Olive greeted me as though she hadn’t seen me for days, and Rollo stood politely until I was seated. Flora wore a distracted look similar to her uncle’s, though I doubted she was thinking ab
out insects. As soon as the soup had been served, Rollo blurted, “Uncle Henry, did you hear about the steam engine on Fifth Avenue today? I saw it out the window.”

  I nearly dropped my spoon in my soup. Could he have seen me alighting from the bus? No, it had let me off several blocks away.

  “Really?” Lord Henry asked.

  “Yes! It was like a big horse with wheels,” Rollo excitedly described it with his hands waving, “but all in metal, and it chugged great puffs of smoke. Do you think steam power might replace magic?”

  “I don’t know,” his uncle said. “I doubt we magisters would use steam for power, but it might replace horses.”

  “This was better than horses,” Rollo enthused. “And it had a loud whistle.”

  “Our carriage has a bell,” Olive said. “That’s better than a whistle. It goes ding, ding, ding.”

  “The whistle’s louder,” her brother argued.

  “Louder isn’t better.”

  “Yes, it is!”

  “It’s definitely not better at the dinner table,” Lord Henry put in with a grin as he flicked his nephew on the ear. If my interview earlier had felt like a child’s game, now I felt like I was sitting at a nursery table while the real adults were elsewhere.

  “I wonder if they’ll come back again,” Rollo said. “I want to ride that bus. It must be exciting.” I bit the inside of my lip to keep myself from smiling at the memory. It had been exciting.

  “The Rebel Mechanics are treasonous,” Lord Henry said mildly, but with an air of wistfulness, as though he was saying what a guardian should, even though he was just as interested as Rollo. “They’re not the sort you should be associating with.”

  “I heard they’re also experimenting with electricity,” Rollo said, undaunted, as the footmen cleared the soup course and brought out the roast.

  “Do you think it will be too cool tomorrow for my pink chiffon?” Flora asked, apparently not having heard a word of the conversation. “Or I could wear the lavender. I should call on the Merriweathers, and Jocelyn Merriweather looks awful in lavender, even though it’s her favorite color. I look so much better in it than she does, so if we’re both wearing lavender, it will be as though I’ve insulted her without saying a word.” She smiled to herself. “Yes, I will definitely wear the lavender.”

  Lord Henry turned to her in dismay. “This is how you talk about your friends? I’d hate to be your enemy.”

  She heaved a deep sigh. “Honestly, Henry, I don’t understand how anyone could be so socially inept. She’s not really my friend. She’s merely someone I call upon.”

  “If you don’t like her, why do you call on her?” Rollo asked.

  “Paying calls is a duty, not a pleasure.” She directed her gaze heavenward, as though trying to conjure a halo of martyrdom around herself.

  Lord Henry and Rollo both snorted with laughter, and Olive quickly joined in, imitating them. “Then I wonder what you’d do if I were to forbid you paying calls. You’d sulk for a week,” Lord Henry said. “You’d run out of gossip entirely, and you couldn’t show off your gowns.”

  Her eyes widened in panic. “You’re not going to forbid me, are you?”

  “Do it, Uncle Henry!” Rollo urged. Olive merely giggled.

  Lord Henry’s eyes twinkled, but he schooled his features into a stern expression—with visible effort—and said, “You may pay no calls.”

  “Henry, you wouldn’t!” Flora yelped, throwing her napkin on the table and rising from her seat as her brother and sister sputtered with laughter.

  Before Flora could complete her dramatic exit, Lord Henry grinned and said, “Tomorrow, that is. I’ll be teaching you magic in the afternoon, after your music and drawing lessons.”

  “He got you there, Flora,” Rollo chortled.

  Flora flounced back to her seat. “That wasn’t at all fair, Henry. You’re supposed to be the adult in this house.” Then she added hesitantly, “I may still pay calls on other days?”

  “If I am not teaching you magic, you may,” Lord Henry said. “But only if you want to.”

  I watched this entire exchange with fascination. I’d never had such conversations at dinner with my family, not only because my father never would have allowed it but also because all my siblings had left home before I left the nursery table to dine with the adults. Was this the way families without shameful secrets were? Behind the bickering, I got a sense of deep affection among the Lyndons, and I felt a pang of envy.

  As if reading my mind, Lord Henry said, “We should all have behaved better for Miss Newton’s first dinner with us. She must think we’ve escaped from the zoo.”

  “You three, perhaps,” Flora said with a sniff. “I’ve been perfectly civilized.”

  “Why don’t you tell us something of yourself, Miss Newton?” Lord Henry asked.

  I took a sip of water to buy myself time to think. “My father is a professor and taught me the way he taught his students, starting when I was very young. I’ve done some tutoring and teaching myself. And now, here I am,” I said, unsure what else I could say.

  “But why did you decide to come here and be a governess?” Flora asked. “Couldn’t you find a husband? Or is that why you’re here?”

  “Flora!” her uncle chided.

  I looked directly at Flora and said, “My mother passed away recently after a yearlong illness, through which I nursed her. I needed a change of environment after that.” Flora’s haughty expression melted into a guilty wince.

  Lord Henry jumped in to salvage the awkward moment, saying, “Miss Newton is quite well-read. Perhaps if you spend time with her, you’ll learn to talk about something other than what color dress you’ll be wearing.”

  Flora’s glare chilled me. I could tell she had no desire to chat with me about anything and she resented the implication that I was in any way superior to her. “Well, obviously she won’t be able to chat with me about dresses,” she said with a toss of her hair. I had to admit she was right. I’d worn my most professional-looking gray dress, but even my fanciest party frock would look mousy next to Flora’s day dress.

  Lord Henry didn’t seem to realize that she’d insulted me, and I supposed that in his world there was nothing wrong with not being able to discuss dresses. “There are many more worthy topics of conversation,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll soon realize that.”

  Not likely, said Flora’s sidelong glance at me, and I hoped my performance wouldn’t be evaluated based on my success with her.

  As we left the dining room after the meal, Lord Henry stopped me. “I’m sure you’ve had a very long day. You’re free for the rest of the evening. Breakfast is served in the breakfast room beginning at seven—I’m an early riser—and Rollo must be at school by nine. Mrs. Talbot will give you directions so you don’t have to rely on him.” He added with a crooked smile, “He’d probably lead you to the airfield or the docks and claim it was his school.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I found the breakfast room with only a few wrong turns. Lord Henry was already there, sitting alone at the table. He glanced up from his newspaper as I entered and greeted me with a smile. “Good morning, Miss Newton. I trust you slept well. Your room is comfortable?”

  “Yes, very, thank you.”

  “Breakfast is on the sideboard. Would you care for coffee or tea?”

  “Tea, please.”

  He gestured to a footman, who left and then reappeared a moment later with a pot of tea and a cup on a tray, along with a small rack of toast. Rollo soon entered the room, yawning loudly. He wore a school uniform with a wide white collar, and his hair was slicked tight against his head. He filled his plate with food, then sat beside his uncle, appropriating a section of the newspaper that Lord Henry had already read and put aside. Rollo hadn’t read much before he shouted, “Ye gods!”

  “Rollo, language,” his uncle corrected without raising his eyes from the newspaper.

  “But, Uncle Henry, the Masked Bandits struck again yesterda
y!”

  I couldn’t resist looking at Lord Henry to see his reaction. He didn’t show the slightest sign that this story affected him. His eyes didn’t widen, narrow, or blink, and his face didn’t redden or pale. No muscles twitched or tightened. He merely kept reading as he took a sip of tea and said, “Really?” in a tone of polite disinterest.

  “Yes! They robbed a train!” Rollo frowned as he read some more, then his eyebrows rose. “Hey, it was the train from New Haven. Miss Newton, didn’t you come from New Haven? Was that your train?”

  “I suppose it could have been,” I said, trying to imitate Lord Henry’s disinterested tone while surreptitiously watching him from beneath my eyelashes. “But it was a very big train, with many cars.”

  “Oh.” Rollo sounded so disappointed that I was tempted to tell him about my adventure.

  “There’s an article about a new model of airship,” Lord Henry said. “It’s on page three.” He knew exactly how to distract his nephew. Rollo eagerly turned to that page and became lost in the newspaper. Once Olive came skipping into the room, she took over the conversational burden, chattering amiably about any number of seemingly unrelated topics, to which her elders responded with nods and vague noises.

  Lord Henry checked his watch, then said, “Rollo, you’d best leave for school. I’ll save the newspaper for you.” He nodded at the footman, who tugged on the bellpull on the wall.

  Mrs. Talbot appeared and handed me a neatly drawn map. “This is the way to Rollo’s school. It isn’t far.”

  “I can show her,” Olive said. “I know the way.”

  Rollo whirled to face his uncle. “I have to have the governess walk me to school?”

  “You know very well that you don’t go out without a chaperone,” Lord Henry said.

  “But you’ve been coming with me.” I now understood Rollo’s dismay. Walking to school with his uncle must have felt like a manly outing, but walking with the governess would make him feel like a child again.

  Lord Henry’s face softened slightly, so he must have understood as well. “I may still, when my schedule permits, but it is Miss Newton’s job, and you will go with her.” His voice grew slightly sharper with the last phrase, making it an order.