Echoes of Aether

by Gail B Williams

  “Amethyst? Now you must tell me. What’s wrong?”

  She forced the words out in a rush. “Lord Montgomery proposed.”

  Chapter 30

  The house had enough windows alight to assure Jenson that the idle rich were idling into the wee hours again. These were not hours he enjoyed. Not from this side anyway.

  Lights were still on in the servants’ areas. No surprise there. Those poor souls couldn’t sleep until their masters and mistresses did. He had cousins in service and from the tales they told, he didn’t know how anyone managed it.

  The door was unlocked and as he closed it, closed out the cold night air, he heard the scrape of a chair on flagstones, then Arthur appeared around a doorway. He straightened and pulled down his waistcoat. “No need, Arthur, I’m not bothered how you look at this time of night. Why are you even still up?”

  “Waiting for you, sir.”

  Jenson laughed softly. “Next time, don’t. I’m perfectly capable of getting myself to bed.”

  “That you, Jenson?” Blanchard called through. “You’re stopping a game in ’ere.”

  Jenson stepped around Arthur and into the staff dining room. The long plain wooden table was empty but for three seats, Blanchard and two of the footman, and a space where Arthur had been.

  “Hope you’re playing fair.”

  “Their cards, not mine.”

  So the cards weren’t marked, there was still a larger pile of pennies in front of Blanchard than any of the others.

  “Feel free to join us. Keep me honest.” Blanchard smiled, the older, or rather younger, wilder man that had run boxing rings showing through.

  “I’d rather keep my money.”

  Blanchard laughed and nodded. They both knew the last time they’d played cards, Jenson could have had the shirt off Blanchard’s back, the amount he won. Luckily for Blanchard, all he’d wanted was the information he’d gain from giving back the IOU.

  “Cook’s left a pan of soup on the stove if you want it,” Blanchard said. “Enough for you and Miss Forester, if she’s awake yet.”

  Jenson had intended to thank him and refuse, but Blanchard had calculated that last to intrigue him.

  “Since that was designed to lead to an explanation, please do go ahead and explain.”

  Blanchard grinned. “Well, it’s not entirely clear what happened when they all went to town today, but whatever it was, Miss Forester didn’t join them all for dinner. And when Lady Gordon retired, she went to the room assigned for Miss Forester.”

  “Why?”

  Blanchard shrugged. “Why don’t you go up to Lady Gordon’s room and ask Miss Forester?”

  The salacious assumptions Blanchard was making were clear in his look. Jenson wasn’t going to fall for that.

  “Keep those ideas for yourself and Miss Dickens. And thank Cook for her consideration, but I ate out. I’ll speak with Miss Forester in the morning.”

  Using the servants’ stairs, he headed up to his own room. Sleep was calling, but the idea of speaking to Amethyst wasn’t exactly unpleasant and at this time of night, at least there was more chance of talking privately. The chance to speak with her about the things he’d found out would be welcome, and she was the only civilian who understood his real purpose.

  He walked slowly down the corridor and the open balcony around the foyer below. For a moment he lurked in the shadows, listening for sounds of other movement. Nothing. On silent feet he moved to the door of the room assigned to Great-Aunt Flora. Knocking might not be a good idea. He checked the door, the knob twisted and he moved inside. The shutters and curtains were open and he could see Amethyst lying on her side on the bed, fully dressed and fast asleep. Carefully, so as not to wake her, he closed the door. This would not be approved by society, but he’s interest was not in society. There was a candle on the mantel which he lighted from the embers of the fire in the grate. With that small light, he moved to the windows, closed the shutters and the curtains. Instantly, the room seemed warmer. His eyes now adjusted to the weak illumination, and he could see Amethyst, her eyes closed, dark lashes on cheeks. She looked peaceful and even younger than she really was, a frequent trick of sleep. The black cat was an impenetrable mass curled by her side.

  There was a thick blanket at the foot of the bed, and Amethyst shifted as he pulled it from beneath her feet. As he started to cover her, her eyes blinked open.

  “Dean?” Her voice was blurred with sleep.

  “Hush, sleep.”

  But she was already pushing herself up and rubbing that sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Gone midnight.”

  Sitting up now, she looked at him. “Why are you here?”

  A good question he didn’t really have an answer for. “Blanchard suggested I check on you.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

  “That was good of him.”

  “What happened that you’re in your Great-Aunt’s room?” The way she turned from him and hid her face suggested a problem she wasn’t ready to share yet. “Would you like to hear about my day?”

  She turned to him with a thankful smile. “Shall we build up the fire and sit there. This isn’t the most comfortable position for me.”

  A couple of minutes later, the fire was warming and they were sat on opposite sides, the cat was curled up before the fire, it’s front paws wrapped regally, so it could enjoy the best of the heat from the fire and still keep an imperious eye on Jenson. Sometimes that animal bothered him.

  “Have I told you I have a twin brother?”

  He thought about it. “You mentioned a brother, Jasper, but not that he’s your twin.”

  She smiled. “Jasper’s not my twin. Jade is. I’m not supposed to talk about him because there was a big row. Father disowned him and told the rest of us we aren’t allowed to talk about him. That’s not easy.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it would be.”

  “No.” She pushed back her hair. “Well, it turns out, Jade’s here.”

  “Here?”

  She nodded. “I ran into him in the village after‒”

  “After?”

  She looked away, her bottom lip bitten between her teeth. While Jenson understood the difficulty of having to deny the existence of a brother, especially a twin, he could also see that Jade was not what was upsetting Amethyst now. “Amethyst?”

  “Montgomery proposed.”

  The words came out in such a rush, Jenson wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. He sat and waited, watched those dark eyes look back at him with such uncertainty.

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  Cold gripped his gut and squeezed. “What did you say?”

  “That I need to think about it.”

  “Is that why you didn’t join them for dinner this evening?”

  She nodded. “Couldn’t face him. My father would call me a fool for not accepting immediately.”

  “I’d call you a fool if you had.”

  The downward turn of her mouth took a suddenly positive turn. The smile started and then she looked away, gave a small laugh. “Oh Dean, you are a tonic. Tell me about your day.”

  A tonic? Well, he’d been called worse things and at least she looked happier now.

  “So, there are some interesting names coming up when I talk to the locals. But ultimately, when one particular name is mentioned, they all clam up. Earl Pembrey. Ever heard of him?”

  Amethyst considered the question. “Pembrey seems like a name I should know, but it’s not bringing any particular person to mind. What do you know of him?”

  “Nothing, as I said, everyone goes quiet when that name is mentioned.”

  “Perhaps you can try Debrett’s Peerage. Montgomery might have one in the library.”

  Debrett’s Peerage. An annual edition naming all the peers of the realm. And one bought by all the peers, just to make sure they were still in it probably. He nodded; he’d do that tomorrow.

  “What I can surmise is that he seemed to be in control of Vos
tock and quite possibly Peterson, and another unnamed man, who from the description, could well be our mysterious Mr Quinn.”

  “So whatever Stephen Russell was mixed up in, it’s linked to the aetheric painters and what they were doing?”

  “Definitely the same group of interest, but I’m not sure what the mind control the painters were able to achieve would have to do with the transmission of sound through aether.”

  She frowned as she thought about it. “Flippancy makes me want to say the transmission of mind control through the aether, but the paintings worked because we were not just looking at them. There was an element of sound to it, the music that was played like a heartbeat, but I don’t think that you’d get the same affect through sound alone.”

  “Quinn was looking to control minds, and so control the government.”

  “The government, or governments?” Amethyst leaned forward to ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it wasn’t just our Prime Minister that was affected by the aetheric painters’ mind control, it was the Russians too.” For a moment her mind went back to that fateful night when she and Jenson had had to stop a fight between the British Cabinet and the visiting Tzar’s delegation. Both sides had been unduly influenced by the mind control of Mr Quinn and the aetheric paintings, but lucky Amethyst had found a way to counter that control. She thanked God and Professor Richards for that, otherwise an international incident could have resulted in war or revolution, possibly both. Either way the country would have been thrown into instability and no one needed that.

  Jenson nodded. “If Quinn was looking to control multiple governments, given that each government is at something of a distance to the next, then being able to get situational updates and issue instructions internationally within moments would a huge bonus.”

  Amethyst nodded. “A big improvement over the whole despatch rider concept.”

  “Quinn’s looking wider than I’d imagined.”

  “That may be why he’s doing all of this in England. After all, we do have the largest empire on the planet today.” Amethyst looked pale. “Conquer the British Empire, you conquer the world.”

  He leaned forward and took her hand in his. “Don’t fear, Amethyst. We will prevail.”

  She met his eye and offered him a smile. “I trust you will, Dean Jenson, I trust you will.”

  Chapter 31

  Jenson stepped into the workroom. The dust covers were gone and the staff were cleaning the room again. The fire had been dying, but he had added another log and now it was warming a room that seemed to get no direct sunlight.

  On the desk, the remnants of Stephen Russell’s original machine sat in stark contrast to the DMAC that Amethyst had built. One twisted hunk of torn and shredded metal compared to the polished order of intricate cogs of computation. And as for that screen – that was pure genius.

  Though he had no right to be proud of Amethyst-, he was. He wondered where she was. Not that he had a right to think such things, not when she was about to get engaged. Another point on which he shouldn’t dwell, especially as she’d sworn him to secrecy until she’d given Montgomery an answer. There was no discernible reason for the unease he felt in knowing she was considering Lord Montgomery’s offer of marriage. He didn’t consider the man worthy of her, yet in a prudent light, it was a very good match. A merchant’s daughter and a baron? Wasn’t that every little girl’s dream?

  Focus.

  He ran though the sequence of events he had put together and tried to walk it through. Did what people were saying really work? He moved back to the door and looked up and down the corridor, mentally calculating the distance and wondering if it were possible. Back in the room, he moved over to the window and pulled the sash window up. It stuck about five inches up, but a bit of a wiggle and it ran the rest of the way with no problem. The air outside was clean and crisp and fresh. Not at all like London air. Who would ever have thought he’d miss the smoke and fog, the constant noise?

  Bending under the window, he leaned out. Beside the wall was a narrow border, where only a few heathers grew. Hardly surprising with the lack of light around here. He scrutinised the bed around the plants. Of course, there were no clear footprints to show that someone had stepped out of the window, but there wouldn’t be after so long. After the two-feet wide border was a chip and pebble path about four feet wide and then the lawn of the quadrant, which was overseen from every angle.

  “Nice view.”

  Grabbing at the windowsill, Jenson only just managed not to fall out head first. He even managed to miss the frame as he turned back, unable to stop smiling at the appreciation he heard in Amethyst’s voice and he was pretty sure he knew what she –

  “Oww!”

  As Jenson focused on Amethyst, he was just in time to see her smile change to unhappy surprise as she stumbled stepping forward, to reveal the little black bundle of censure that was Great-Aunt Flora.

  “Stop it,” the old lady admonished.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Most of his job was dealing with the darker side of life, but there were lighter moments when humanity made him want to laugh at its grace, beauty, stupidity and sometimes, like now, its general absurdity. Those years of experience allowed him to control most of his smile and let the pair face one another.

  “You were looking at his…” Great-Aunt Flora looked him over. She shrugged. “Who can blame‒”

  They all stopped and looked up as Maker appeared at the door. The moment hung suspended as they all looked at one another, no one sure what to say.

  “Scream?”

  “Is that a request?”

  Jenson bit his lip to stop the laugh that threatened at Amethyst’s response.

  Maker’s expression didn’t change. It rarely did, and while such equanimity was often enviable, Jenson was coming to the realisation that it was equally a curse. The man was incapable of expressing an emotion.

  “Heard.” He switched his attention to Great-Aunt Flora, her cane. “Understood.” The shift was slight, but the lord was about to leave.

  “Maker, stay.” Jenson hoped that didn’t sound to the others as much like calling a dog to heel as it felt to him. “If you wouldn’t mind. I could use your help here. You too, ladies.”

  There was a brief exchange of curious looks, then all three turned their attention to him. He took a second to turn and close the window. Again it stuck, but he pushed it down, then turned back to his audience.

  “Right, Maker, can you go to the library and stand by the big desk. Amethyst, can you go to the sitting room and sit in the middle of the big red sofa. Flora, would you go to the foyer and when you’re ready, hit the gong hard enough for us all to hear it. Maker, Amethyst, when you hear that gong, I want you to rush back here.”

  “Would you mind explaining why?” Great-Aunt Flora asked.

  “Because Lord Montgomery was in the library by his desk, and Mrs Russell was sitting on the big red sofa in the sitting room when the explosion that marks the last known whereabouts of Mr Russell was heard.”

  “And what will you be doing while these fools rush back in here?”

  There was something so refreshing about dealing with Great-Aunt Flora, she didn’t muck around and always got straight to the point.

  “I’m going to try getting out of here unseen. Do you mind helping with the experiment?”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to run.”

  The thump-shuffle that was probably unnecessary started her on the way out before she’d even finished speaking, which Jenson hoped was Great-Aunt Flora for agreement. Maker looked to Amethyst and she looked back.

  “Well, we did agree we would help in any way we could.” With a shrug, she headed out.

  Maker held the door for her and then with a small nod to Jenson, he left, closing the door.

  In the odd silence, Jenson moved to the desk next to where the remains of the machine had been found. The metal clang jolted him, he rushed to the wind
ow. Again it stuck, but he forced it up. He ducked under, sat on the sill and swung his legs out. It was easy to step out, but he’d have to apologise to the gardeners. One twist and he grabbed the window. He was starting to bring it down just as Maker appeared at the door, Amethyst only a step behind him. Just as Montgomery and Edwina had separately stated.

  He stopped the window and pushed it up, hauling himself back onto the windowsill and into the workroom again. As he stood and smoothed down his jacket, he worried that the mud on his shoes would damage the floor, but there was no carpet here and he’d take them off before he left the room. Suddenly both Maker and Amethyst stepped forward, propelled.

  “Well?” Great-Aunt Flora demanded. “Did you get the information you needed?”

  “Possibly. It demonstrates that it would have been very difficult for Stephen Russell to have got out of this room unseen.”

  Amethyst was frowning. “Yes, makes sense, but why were you closing the window?”

  “Because everyone agrees that the window was all but closed when they rushed in and found the room empty.”

  “Hmm.”

  Her lips were compressed. Her brow knit together. She stepped forward, closer to the desk and more central to the window.

  “Amethyst?”

  She looked up at him. “Oh, sorry. When we were in here before, you closed that window, so opening it must have taken you time before you got as far out as you did.”

  “Yes.” There was clearly a logic to this in her mind, he simply wasn’t seeing it.

  “It’s just that when doing experiments with Aether, it’s usual to have the windows open; that’s why the lab at home is actually a conservatory with so many windows, so when testing, the windows can be opened to ventilate the room as much as possible. It’s quite likely that that window was open the whole time.”

  “But we don’t have to ventilate when we use aether-powered gadgets,” Jenson argued.

  “Well no, the same as we don’t have to wash our hands to avoid skin necrosis with manufactured aetheric machinery. Because by that point the aether is safely contained and being used only as a power source. Which is why I’m wondering about the window. It is possible that by that point Stephen would know the aether was controlled, so he might or might not have had the window open.”