Ada withered him with a glance.
‘On the contrary,’ she countered enigmatically, ‘I’d say the scene was “calculated” with exquisite precision.’
But she left it at that and thought on, rapt and in a world all her own.
‘Very well,’ came her eventual decision. ‘I divorce him, I divorce him, I divorce him. And that’s that and his Lordship out of the way, Mohammedan style. Next thing is getting my spark back: I can’t live other than as a genius. We’ll go see the only other one I know and see what he suggests.’
* * *
Mr Babbage wasn’t at home. Or if he was he’d have to stay there, because a Metropolitan Police ribbon sealed the front door.
Ada Lovelace hammered away even so. Julius could hear the knocker echo through an obviously empty house.
They’d driven the coach to Westminster in the face of Frankenstein’s vehement protests. Lady Lovelace still hadn’t got it into her head that she was Lady Lovelace no longer, not in the eyes of the Law, nor probably those of her husband who, moreover, she’d just self-service divorced. That meant the liveried coach was bogus as well as unwise. Yet Ada’s confidence had trampled all over Frankenstein’s bleatings. They arrived at Dorset Street in style.
To no welcome. Lady Lovelace was puzzled. She associated empty houses with the owners decamping to their country estates, or maybe departure on a grand tour. Yet she knew Babbage was too obsessed for either. The police barrier was worrisome too.
Though surely coincidence, the militia galloon choosing just then to slowly traverse the sky above their heads, did nothing for their peace of mind. It probably was looking for riots and revolutionaries, not them—not yet. Still, the low lament of its frantically pedalling Lazaran crew slung below the canopy was hardly confidence building. Julius cast about for help or shelter.
It is a cross-cultural truth that guttersnipes are better informed than governments. One arrived unbidden at precisely the right moment bearing newspapers and intelligence.
‘‘Oi, toffs!’ the boy called from beyond the railings. ‘Are you friends of the bloke wot lived there?’
Julius acted as spokesman: his companions didn’t care to acknowledge such converse.
‘We might be. What of it?’
The boy blew Frankenstein a great big kiss and ran off laughing.
‘Mmmm,’ mused Ada.
* * *
Foxglove sought out fuller particulars in nearby shops and hostelries whilst Ada and Julius waited in the coach. They sat in silence, not even of the companionable sort.
Eventually, her manservant returned and told all with a most becoming blush. Among other upshots, apparently the members of Babbage’s Gentlemen’s club had left a loaded pistol in his pigeon-hole, for use in the unlikely event he ever darkened their doors again. Plus a note spelling out their flattering confidence that he would ‘do the decent thing.’
‘Spark or no spark,’ said Lady Lovelace, ‘I begin to perceive patterns...’
‘Pretty patterns?’ enquired Julius.
‘Hardly: but consistent ones, suggesting intelligent design. Death and disgrace are the predominant themes. You must take my word for it, herr doctor, but my friend and collaborator, Mr Babbage, was a man of science; not a Uranian or deviant of any kind. Just as I am no jezebel lazarophile consorting with undead lovers. Someone is weaving a story to our detriment and I must calculate who and why. It is therefore all the more imperative I retrieve my spark of inspiration.’
Julius Frankenstein nodded surrender to her imperatives. Short of drawing pictures, he had explained the limitations of his reviving powers as clearly as could be.
‘If you say so, madam. And how do you propose to do it, may I ask?’
Lady Lovelace looked at him like he was an idiot.
‘Yes, you may.’
Seconds of silence ensued —unless Julius’ teeth grinding was audible to the others. His will broke first.
‘How-do-you-propose-to-do-it,’ he said, through powdered enamel.
Ada’s answer was bright and breezy, considering.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘the way I always got everything, of course. By buying it. Foxglove! To the Bank!’
* * *
In a curious parallel to Ada’s revived life-force, everything was as before for her at Baring’s Bank—save for the heart of the matter. Recognition was there, and courtesy; even obsequious service likewise—but not her money.
Whilst Julius was about his own business elsewhere, Lady Lovelace went through a succession of clerks as her voice ascended the octaves, but still no funds were forthcoming. At last she saw someone so senior he could speak the plain truth.
The melancholy fact was, the manager explained, that Lady Lovelace was dead—or legally so. Her whey face and the Times both confirmed it. He did not know how it came about that she was here demanding access to the family account, nor would he dream of daring to enquire. However, one thing was certain: people came into the world with nothing and left it likewise. Both scripture and Baring’s Bank said so. Accordingly, and with the profoundest, the politest, of regrets, he could not oblige her.
Ada swore for the second time that day.
* * *
In a stolen mansion beside the North Downs, a human spider considered the twitchings of his web.
A coach sighting here, a visit to a sealed house there, an altercation in England’s oldest banking house—and all in one day. What a busy revenant she was! How well he’d chosen.
Everything was going splendidly and it almost reconciled him to the earlier shedding of blood. That had been difficult and not his style at all. So sad. Only a great cause and the sense of history hovering anxiously at his shoulder had persuaded the human spider to inject venom with his bite.
Now things were going smoothly he could be gentle again.
‘Just a nudge,’ he informed an underling, who would inform his underling who would inform his underlings—and so on. ‘No unpleasantness, but the merest propelling prod...’
The human spider had a horror of haste, and of enthusiasm even more so. Both led to all sorts of errors. For that reason he strictly instructed his staff that they should pleasure their wives or, at a pinch, themselves, before reporting to work each day. It was imperative there be no unresolved impulses fizzing around in office hours to cloud judgements or make them heavy handed.
Fortunately, most were French and so could be relied upon to comply without him checking. However, the English ones proved harder work and wife substitutes had to be procured for some. Eventually though, such sensitive matters were resolved and the human spider could relax and be confident: confident that whatever hints he cared to drop would be converted into action in the world beyond his web. But always seemly and conservative action; kindly too, if at all possible.
Which left the human spider free for wine, women and song—though being in his ninth decade his doctor had advised he ease up on the singing.
Chapter 5: WITHDRAWALS
Lady Lovelace put down her sandwich.
‘Do I actually need this? she asked. ‘I feel no hunger. Not the slightest pang since I rose like Lazarus.’
The inn beside London Westgate had laid on an excellent luncheon in Ada’s room. Frankenstein had insisted, overruling her lack of interest.
‘It is essential,’ he answered firmly, raising the bread and beef to her mouth again. ‘Though the serum sustains you, your raised body must also be placated. You will not wish me to supply the gross details, madam, but suffice to say that if your digestive system is not kept occupied it will rot. Shortly afterwards you will rot with it. Vivid-green gangrene, proof against the lustiest surgeon’s knife. Therefore, though food has no savour to you and never will again, you must—if you will forgive the phrase—go through the motions…’
She plainly did not forgive the phrase but Julius slid another slice of pie onto her plate, and then jiggled it back and forth in a way intended to be tempting.
‘Eat, madam,’ h
e said, ‘I implore you. If you eat well—or leastways regularly—you will last as long as your body does!’
Ada eyed pie and Julius with twin distaste.
‘Which is how long exactly?’
Though her tone was peevish this was not idle curiosity on her part, but a vital missing element in ongoing calculations.
Frankenstein shrugged.
‘It depends on you. And Fate, of course. Revivalist Science is yet young and few figures exist on which to theorise. The vast majority of the Revived spend—and I use the term advisedly—their lives either on the battlefield or farmers’ fields. Neither are conducive to longevity. However, it may cheer you to learn that I knew of one Lazaran who outlived his owner: a man who departed this Life in the fullness of years…’
Alas, honesty then compelled him to add: ‘Although his heirs had it—I beg your pardon, him—put down soon after. That the servant should just… continue struck them as indecent, you see…’
‘I see,’ said Lady Lovelace, when she obviously did not.
‘But in theory, there is no firm upper limit. Consider, madam: perhaps you now possess Life—of a kind—everlasting!’
‘Hmmm…,’ she said. Supplemented by ‘Hmmph!’ Then: ‘away with your honeyed words, mein herr: Life without my spark is no life!’
Even that was not enough: chagrin made her want to twist the knife.
‘Are you really a doctor?’
She’d sulked throughout the meal so far, barely speaking to him. Therefore Julius realised that the question was born of more than spite.
‘Of a sort, madam,’ he answered. ‘Of the military sort.’
Ada gave him a cool look—and saw. No medical man he, but thwarted scientist through and through. A compromise career choice therefore, possibly a dictated one, comprising a life-defining mistake. Hence the hidden turbulence beneath the still surface of those deep waters.
‘Meaning a mere amputator,’ she said. ‘Plus a Revivalist, of course.’
For all its present utility, in social esteem the job title ranked alongside ‘abortionist.’ As Ada well knew.
‘Of course,’ Frankenstein agreed, in arctic tones. ‘The family curse.’
So she’d guessed right. Probably the father was to blame: pressing his son into the military where he could only do moderate harm.
Ada favoured him with her full attention—and a beaming smile!
‘A curse to you perhaps but not to all, mein herr. It may interest you to know that my headaches are quite gone. Presumably, I can attribute that to your ministrations.’
‘Headaches, madam?’
‘I was a martyr to them: sickening pain lodged behind the eyes for days on end, enlivened by lightning storms in the brain. Sometimes I could barely speak, is that not so, Foxglove? I suffered and, what is far more important, my great work suffered. Company was intolerable to me and life scarcely less so. Your treatment seems to have banished them.’
Amongst other Revivalists he might have ventured an explanation along the ‘no sense no feeling’ line, but for such a prickly patient Julius sugared the pill.
‘The post mortem brain has ways all its own, my lady, and none of them well understood. I cannot claim credit for this happy accident. Indeed, one would have predicted only increased sufferings due to your cranial injuries.’
Lady Lovelace involuntarily reached to the back of her head where a circle of tinplate now protected her fracture. A local blacksmith, chosen for drink-dulled lack of curiosity, had provided that. Then a lady stylist procured by the inn had skilfully hidden it under hair so that no one could see.
How Ada had fumed and glared as the smithy had tapped its tacks in. Now, back on mission, she required reminding of its existence.
‘Hmmm…,’ she said. ‘Well, be that as it may, I greet the liberation with joy. My spark might be—temporarily—mislaid, but I now find my mundane thought processes wonderfully... uninterrupted.’
If so, they were in marked contrast to their meal. The door slammed open and interruptions galore flowed in.
In the form of officers of the law. A bustle of four or five of them crowding into the room. The foremost held up some legal document.
‘Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace,’ he read, without bothering about introductions, ‘inasmuch as you have been plucked from the grave without sanction of God and man, in impudent contravention of the statutes of both the English Realm and the Almighty, it is the order of His Majesty’s High Court that your arrest...’
Julius had heard enough and fired.
Simultaneously—to slow human eyes—a blackened circle appeared both in the paper and the reader’s chest. The man looked amazed from one to the other and then sank slowly to his knees.
Frankenstein was expecting congratulations for his foresight in having a pistol to hand, but instead all eyes in the room conveyed horror. The constables were frozen in shock, and Lady Lovelace and Foxglove likewise. They studied their luncheon companion of a minute ago entirely anew.
You just can’t please some people. Julius thought he’d done well, making such prompt use of his earlier purchase. Therefore, he’d hoped for gratitude, but the English were a funny lot, and Ada Lovelace more so than most. It was all rather a puzzle, but not one Frankenstein had leisure to solve. Instead, he took control of the situation with his second pistol.
‘Foxglove,’ he suggested, ‘why don’t you disarm them?’
One constable had recovered enough to look at Frankenstein with loathing.
‘Maybe because we’re not armed?’ the man ventured, with bitter sarcasm.
Julius shrugged. ‘More fool you then. Right, Foxglove, just check he speaks true and then grab our bags. I’ll keep these invaders occupied in the interval.’
He waggled the levelled weapon threateningly. ‘Come, come, gentlemen: I must insist! Hands up or I’ll fire!’
They had good evidence he might mean it. Arms shot aloft.
A flurry of patting proved the enforcers of the Law had indeed ventured out unarmed: innocent of even a truncheon! Julius boggled: how on earth had these people acquired an Empire?
Frankenstein felt the need for haste: any minute now there might be footsteps on the stairs—the first brave explorers investigating the sound of gunfire.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
Foxglove didn’t have words but he had their luggage. His ham-like arms lifted the bags as evidence.
Julius urged Ada out of statue-mode.
‘Come along, my lady.’
To her credit, Ada didn’t hesitate. She didn’t say anything but she didn’t protest either. Her lustrous eyes were finding it hard to leave Julius’ gesticulating gun.
As he passed, Frankenstein pillaged the dead man of any items of use, and likewise scooped up the holed legal document.
‘Some reading for the journey,’ he explained to its former owners. They shrank against the wall, making way according to the stage directions of his weapon.
‘Help yourself to the food,’ Julius suggested as he locked the door after him, imprisoning them—for a while.
‘Murderer!’ came the accusation straightaway, loud and clear through the oak panel. ‘Foul murderer!’
Frankenstein shrugged. It was an alternative term for soldier: not one he preferred, but it did sometimes fit.
Still under the elf-spell of sudden death, Foxglove and Lady Lovelace were waiting for him in the lobby. By the time he rejoined them his pistols was nowhere to be seen and he could bestow greetings upon the innkeeper like any normal guest.
‘But...,’ said Ada at last. ‘But...’
‘It was necessary,’ Julius replied. ‘They would have minced you...’
He let her chew on that technical term, prey to new doubts, whilst he secured transport.
Most conveniently, the black constabulary cab was waiting outside, left in sole charge of an ostler. His tip turned out to be verbal (‘go! Away!’) rather than coinage, backed up a sword-tip. It proved compelling and soon Foxglove wa
s in the driver’s seat. Which was just as well, for the first ‘major outrage’ cries were coming from the inn, some of them out of an open window facing the street. Julius ushered Lady Lovelace into the cab.
‘Let’s try things my way for a while, shall we?’ he suggested, lending his words weight with a stolen catchphrase. ‘Do you think that might be worth a go? Hmmm?’
* * *
‘That was a tactical withdrawal,’ Frankenstein informed Lady Lovelace before they entered. ‘Now for a strategic one...’
She was chastened—or maybe in deep calculation—and said nothing. All the same, she went along with him.
After the previous kerfuffle at Baring’s Bank, Ada got the senior clerk straightaway, who had his speech rehearsed. Only this time Julius did the talking—always so more effective than shrieking.
He showed ‘his’ badge of office taken from the shot constable. Once that was accepted he handed over the pistol-punctured document.
‘A candle accident,’ he explained, when the brown rimmed hole was noted. The clerk’s eyebrow slowly descended.
‘As you’ll read, Milady has been taken into custody,’ Julius flowed on in fluid confidence. ‘Illegal revival, as I believe you wisely suspected before. Good man: you shall be commended. His Lordship would not have been pleased if funds had been released. Whereas now it is his strict instruction that a deposit be made.’
The senior clerk had not reached those giddy career heights without owning more than his fair share of caution. Banking depended on it. Therefore, he’d already sent one of his Lazaran accounting staff to check that a police vehicle was indeed parked outside. Which duly confirmed, further talk of deposits, rather than the always suspicion-arising contrary, lowered his shield still more.
The man spread his pale hands as if to receive the funds, or at least further explanation.
Frankenstein's Legions Page 5
