by Peter Bunzl
Sometimes the parts were more difficult to come by, and he had to search through the bench drawers for them. Once, when they needed a certain click-wheel, Thaddeus told him to go and check in the backs of all the timepieces in the shop itself, and not to return until he’d found one. But at other times Robert sat in the room helping his da.
Working together like this was one of the few opportunities he got to talk to him. Robert always enjoyed it, despite his dread of doing something clumsy, because he knew at moments like these he could ask his da difficult things.
“Isn’t it funny,” he mused, “how a mech cannot harm a human, and yet a human can harm a mech. How can that be?”
Thaddeus looked at him, his brows furrowed and his big eyes blinked behind their magnifying lenses as he considered the question. “It’s the first rule of mechanics, Robert: a mech cannot kill a human or seriously harm them.”
“But how do they know that?”
“It’s part of their design, built into their valves and circuits.”
“And yet, we can kill them. Stop them from being.” Robert carefully replaced a part inside the fox’s leg. “What happens to a mechanical that doesn’t tick any more, anyway?”
“I suppose they die,” Thaddeus said. “If they can do such a thing.”
“Or they disappear,” Robert said. He held an oily cog in his hands, turning it over and over. The sharp teeth around its edge pricked at his fingers. “But what happens to them after that? D’you think they go to heaven? Do you think they have mechanical souls?”
Thaddeus thought about this as he replaced a spring around the fox’s scapula. “I don’t know,” he said. “Common opinion is they don’t.” He paused. “I never told you this before, perhaps I should have mentioned it earlier, but, for a while, seven years ago, when he first moved here, I used to go to Brackenbridge Manor to wind the clocks for Professor Hartman. When he learned that I repaired timepieces as well, he’d occasionally ask for help fixing one of his mechs. Though I never saw this one.”
Robert’s eyes widened. He hadn’t realized his da had worked on proper mechs before. It was yet another thing that had been kept from him.
“All of John’s mechs were so delicately made,” Thaddeus continued, “and when they were working, something about them seemed different, more…alive.”
“How so?”
“They’re not like the regular models. They have quirks, can think for themselves. If that doesn’t make them living things, I don’t know what does.”
“But why aren’t there more of those ones about?” Robert persisted, pressing the teeth of the cog against his palm.
“Perhaps John made them specially,” Thaddeus said. “Certainly the mass-produced mechs never have that amount of personality. It takes skill to make such things. I think he only let me help him with his repairs because he saw a kindred spirit – that and the fact he didn’t like sending his mechs away to be fixed, said it destroyed their personalities.” Thaddeus took a break from repairing the fox’s leg, and packed his pipe with fresh tobacco from a pouch in his pocket. Then he lit it and took a few long puffs.
“What are they like then, his other mechanicals?” Robert asked. He couldn’t imagine having such a life of privilege: to have so many mech-servants around you, even to have a mechanimal pet, like the fox.
Thaddeus blew out a ring of smoke. “One of the mechs up at Brackenbridge, Mrs Rust, the cook, used to sing as she worked. Songs she’d made up. And I suppose one might say if she created such wonderful things then she possessed a soul. But still, when she broke down and John and I repaired her insides, I could never see where her spark of life came from.”
“The thing is,” Robert said, “if you opened up a human, I don’t expect you’d find evidence of a soul either, or what’s unique about them, come to that.”
Thaddeus shrugged. “I don’t know enough about these things to tell you. But one thing I do know is this…feelings and intuition, love and compassion, those are the things make a soul, not blood and bones or machine parts.” He ruffled his son’s hair with a calloused hand. “The soul’s a matter of the heart, Robert, and the heart’s a mystery even the greatest scientists don’t understand.”
Robert nodded, but he wasn’t sure he understood either. He watched Thaddeus put his pipe to one side and return to his screwdrivers, digging away at the cogs inside the mechanical fox. It truly was a remarkable device. Robert remembered it moving down the street, just like it had a fox’s soul. Perhaps his da was right. The truth was there was less difference between humans and mechanicals that anyone would like to admit.
At three a.m. Thaddeus finally laid down his tools and announced they were done; taking a needle and thread, he stitched the fox’s loose sack-fur back together until the machinery in the leg was entirely hidden. Robert piled felt blankets onto the workbench and they laid the mechanimal down on its side among them.
After all this, Thaddeus took the unique winder from where it hung about the fox’s neck, placed it in the keyhole and made ten sharp turns. Then they stepped back, and waited to see if it would wake…
The fox juddered and Robert held his breath. He could hear the springs and cogs turning, ticking inside it, but the mechanimal didn’t move, or open its eyes.
“Perhaps,” Thaddeus said, “the new parts need time to bed in.”
“And perhaps we can try winding it again tomorrow?” Robert added.
Thaddeus put a hand on his shoulder. “After your chores, please. It will still be here then. If it works it works; and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. We’ve done as much as we can for tonight, and sometimes that’s all one can do.”
They took up the lamp and left the room, both so tired that they forgot about the letter, left under the pile of tools on the workbench.
The morning after she’d arrived home, Lily woke to find the snow was falling thick and fast. She put on her winter coat to take a walk in the grounds. Two strange steam-wagons were parked in the driveway: one a Rolls-Royce Phantom with a mechanical chauffeur and numberplate S1LVERF1S, the other a small squat vehicle with a black chimney stack barely bigger than a top hat. Neither looked to have anything to do with Papa.
Among the distant trees, she caught sight of two standing figures. She recognized them at once as Papa’s other mechanicals: Mr Wingnut and Miss Tock. Frozen like statues, rakes in their hands and a wheelbarrow at their side, they were gradually being covered in snow. Why on earth were they out in this weather? And run down too – surely they’d corrode? She hurried to the back door and tumbled into the kitchen, searching for Mrs Rust.
An iron range warmed the room with the scent of freshly baking biscuits, and the mechanical cook hummed softly to herself, clattering about whipping eggs in a bowl with her whisk arm-attachment. Her selection of replaceable hands gleamed on their hooks along the dresser – spatulas, sieves, saucepans, spoons and fish slices – each one well-used, and sparkling.
“Why are Mr Wingnut and Miss Tock unwound in the garden?”
“You’re up early,” Mrs Rust said, ignoring the question.
“I didn’t sleep very well, so I decided to take a walk.” Lily clapped her gloved hands together to banish the cold. “Tell me.”
Mrs Rust looked sad. “Madame sent them to clear up leaves yesterday and when they froze halfway through the job, she refused to wind them. Said it wasn’t her business to follow round useless mechs making sure they worked. She only wound me to cook, and Captain Springer to take her and collect her from the station. Before that she had him locked in the cellar.”
Lily’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Can’t we help them?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, dear.” The old mechanical shook her head. “Madame took all our winding keys as soon as your papa was gone.”
“It’s only been a day, he could still come back, make things better. Couldn’t he?” Her head ached from thinking about it.
“Perhaps that’s our job.” Mrs Rust took a wheezing breath. “I kn
ow sometimes life can be painful, my tiger. But, remember, if you can’t change what’s happened today, you must bide your time, until you’re strong enough to fight tomorrow.” She set her bowl aside and held out a rack of biscuits. “Here, have an almond thin. I made them special, to put warmth in your belly.”
“Thank you.” Lily took one in her gloved hand and bit into it. The biscuit tasted delicious, but…oh, it was hot! She sucked air in through her teeth, waving a hand in front of her face.
“Steam and steel!” Mrs Rust clucked. “I didn’t realize they was still piping – comes of having heatproof fingers! But, give it time, dear, and the hurt’ll fade. I’d say the same to you about your papa if you’d let me.” She set the rack of biscuits aside. “We’d best save the rest of these for after breakfast.”
“Yes,” Lily said, “we’d best.” She slumped in a chair by the fire and put her feet on the fender, warming her boots. She tried not to dwell on the fates of the other mechs, or Malkin, or Papa – it was hard not to do, but something about this room made her feel safe from the bad in the world. Perhaps it was Mrs Rust herself? She was so warm-hearted and understood everything Lily was going through. Not like Madame. If you had to guess which of the two had feelings, Lily knew who she’d choose.
Mrs Rust swapped her whisk hand for a spatula from the dresser, clicking it into place. “Stopwatches and spinning tops!” she cried. “I plum clean forgot – Madame Verdigris wants to see you in the drawing room straight after breakfast.”
Lily gulped. It was as if she’d been summoned just for thinking ill of Madame. “I wonder what she wants?” she asked.
Mrs Rust gave a jittery shrug. “By all that ticks, I’ve no idea. She’s got some lawyer and another fella with her – I think it’s disgusting. Your father’s barely been missing a day. The way she carries on you’d suppose they already knew he was dead rather than…” She tailed off. “Steam engines and stovepipes, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
“That’s okay, Rusty.” Lily picked at a fingernail and took a breath, holding in another sharp wave of sorrow. “Why don’t you tell me what else has been going on?”
The old mechanical took the kettle from the stove and poured a spurt of water into the pot to warm it. “I’m all zeroes and ones today,” she lamented, spooning in the tea, before filling the pot to the brim with water.
“Since Madame’s been in charge she’s been snuffling in everyone’s business. Thinks your father had valuables hidden in the house.” Mrs Rust laid some teacakes on the stove top, pressing them down with her spatula hand. “Even interviewed Captain Springer, Miss Tock, and Mr Wingnut yesterday morning. I could’ve told her they don’t know anything. That’s why she’s let them wind down.”
“But you do know something?” Lily said.
“Cam-springs and cold cream! I couldn’t rightly say.” Mrs Rust gave her a darting nervous look as she scraped up the teacakes and buttered the browned underside of each. “There were so many things your father was working on, but I doubt any of them was valuable enough for him to be disappeared for.” She placed the plate of teacakes in front of Lily. “Eat up, my tiger. You don’t want to face her upstairs on an empty stomach.”
Lily took the top off the marmalade jar and spooned some onto the warm bread. She felt lucky to be so doted on, considering the way everyone else here had been treated. If Papa was around he’d put a stop to it, but he wasn’t, and it seemed his secrets were the reason everything had gone wrong in the first place.
When she arrived in the drawing room half an hour later, Lily found Madame already present, along with Mr Sunder, a grey lawyer from the firm Rent and Sunder. Also present was a barrel of a man, who perched on the edge of his chair with his hat on his knees. His handsome square-jawed face looked thinner and more lined than when she had last seen it, but it lit up immediately at the sight of her. “Lily,” he cried, “there you are.”
“Professor Silverfish!” Lily broke into a broad smile.
“Yes, it’s me.” Her godfather stood and gave her an enormous bear hug. “You’ve grown so tall. Have you still got those tin-toys I bought you?”
She shook her head. “They broke, I’m afraid.”
“How?”
“I took them apart to see how they worked.”
Professor Silverfish laughed. “A girl after my own heart.” He drew back and winced, and Lily heard a ticking coming from his chest. “Speaking of hearts,” the professor said, “I’m afraid I’ve been most unwell, Lily.”
Carefully, he undid the buttons of his jacket, revealing a lumpy metal device buckled on over his shirt. Tubes from the device ran in and out of his chest.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her, when he saw her look of horror. “It’s perfectly harmless. A clockwork prototype, a hybrid heart, nothing more. It keeps me from going completely kaput.” Professor Silverfish ran a hand through his spray of white hair. “Of course it takes a lot of winding, like one of the mechanicals, what! And it means, in many ways, I am invalided. I cannot function as I used to. But still, I try my best. And I’ve come to see you, Lily, in your hour of need.”
“Papa never told me you were so ill,” Lily said. “I just thought you’d gone away.”
Professor Silverfish’s face fell. “Yes, I missed your father in recent years, missed everyone. But I had to visit warmer climes, for my health. For this—” He tapped the contraption on his chest. “I only wish I could’ve been here for you, with everything that’s happened…your mother’s death…and now John’s disappearance… I hear you’ve been taken out of school.” He trailed off.
Lily took a deep breath. She was glad he’d stopped talking; the things he was saying and the horrible device only made her feel worse.
Professor Silverfish seemed to sense her discomfort. “I’m sorry,” he said. He buttoned his jacket, muffling the loud tick of the device, and took a deep breath, before sitting back down with a wince.
Madame Verdigris, who had been conversing quietly with Mr Sunder, gave a discreet cough. “Bien,” she said, “if we might get the proceedings under way.”
“Of course.” Professor Silverfish nodded. “Lily, why don’t you take a seat?”
Lily sunk into Papa’s old leather armchair in the centre of the room, and watched Mr Sunder sit down opposite her on the sofa. He produced a sheaf of documents from a folder in his lap and, shuffling them together, placed them on the table in front of him.
“Miss Hartman, since your father went missing yesterday, certain protocols have been taken into consideration… He did leave a letter with us…concerning your welfare…if anything was to happen to him… I am going to read it to you now.”
Mr Sunder took out a pair of pince-nez and polished them with a spotted handkerchief. Lily waited for the worst, but only the soft tick of Professor Silverfish’s heart machine and Madame’s shallow steady breathing filled the silence. Finally, Mr Sunder perched his spectacles on his beaky nose and began to read.
“I, John Hartman…being of sound mind and body, do hereby set down my wishes regarding the future care of my daughter, Lily Grace Hartman…”
His cold words, echoing round the room, sounded most unlike Papa. Lily glanced tearfully at the professor, and then at Madame Verdigris, lingering in the bay window; her hawklike profile, black as a cameo, was framed by the lines of the sash. Madame turned and spoke impatiently to the lawyer. “We know this, skip to the important bit.”
“Perhaps the young lady would like to…”
“I said skip to the details.”
“Right.” Mr Sunder gave an embarrassed cough. “The terms… All patents, devices and properties are to be held in trust for Lily, who will come into ownership on her eighteenth birthday… Mr Hartman has stipulated that until then Madame Verdigris is to be appointed guardian…and, er, trustee of the patents…to be informally advised by myself…and the girl’s godfather.” He nodded to Professor Silverfish.
“What about Mrs Rust?” Lily asked. “I thought
Papa would’ve appointed her my guardian?”
“Lily is right,” Professor Silverfish said. “And what of the other mechanicals who work for John – Captain Springer, Miss Tock and Mr Wingnut – he must have made some provision for them also?”
Mr Sunder shuffled through the few short pages, his lips moving as he read the words. Finally he turned them over as if he expected to find something on their blank side. “I’m afraid not, Sir, Miss…” Beneath his spectacles, his eyes darted nervously to Madame. “It would seem there are no clauses relating to mechanimals in this, er… document.”
Professor Silverfish leaned forward in his chair. “Do you not think that odd, Sir?”
“Not in my experience,” Mr Sunder replied.
“Well,” said Professor Silverfish, “I do.”
“I do too,” Lily said. “Papa loved his mechanicals as much as he loved me and Mama. They’re practically a part of our family. Mrs Rust especially. After Mama, she was the one who took care of me. I would’ve expected him at least to have thought about her.”
“When death is preying on their mind, people do not always behave as they did in life, Miss Hartman,” the lawyer said.
Lily’s heart kicked in her chest. “Then you do think my papa is dead?”
“Not at all.” Mr Sunder gulped. “I’m merely hypothesizing… I mean, until he’s found…or until he is pronounced, er… That’s to say…” He shuffled his papers in his hands nervously. “Anyway, Miss Hartman, if you knew anything about legal matters—”
“And being une enfant,” Madame cut in, “we wouldn’t expect you to.”
“Yes, quite,” Mr Sunder continued, “then you’d know mechanicals don’t have the same rights as we humans do…” He looked to Madame once more for help. “For example, mechanicals are not allowed to own things, or to be in charge of a steam vehicle, or an airship, or indeed a child. Things a responsible adult might undertake are forbidden to them on the grounds they lack intelligence, selfhood, et cetera, et cetera…”
“Which is why your father picked me as your guardian,” Madame Verdigris added.
