Cogheart

by Peter Bunzl

  Lily crouched down lower against the glass, trying to get a better look at them, but their faces were hidden by tall stovepipe hats.

  After a moment the front door creaked open and a light appeared; Madame must be standing there with a lantern talking to them. Lily wondered whether she might hear what they were saying if she opened the window, but then she realized the noise would alert them to her presence.

  The two men stepped into the vestibule and, when they reappeared, she felt a chill run through her. For they were carrying the stiff unwound bodies of Mrs Rust and Captain Springer.

  Madame followed them carrying a small lamp as they dragged the two still mechanicals over to their vehicle. Lily’s heart leaped to her throat as she watched all three open the doors to the baggage compartment and thrust the mechs inside. She wished dearly that she could run downstairs and stop them, but her legs had frozen, and anyway, her bedroom door was locked.

  She glanced across the garden, searching for the shapes of the other two mechanicals, Miss Tock and Mr Wingnut, hidden under the snow, but they had disappeared. Only a line of footprints and a long white trench remained, and Lily realized they’d been collected too and thrust inside the steam-wagon.

  When she looked back the vehicle was already pulling away, making new tracks down the snowy drive. She searched the wagon’s high sides for the insignia of the cog-and-bone men, but it wasn’t there. So who was taking Papa’s mechanicals away and why? Lily watched Madame brush her hands across the front of her long black dress as she turned and walked slowly back through the ankle-deep powder towards the house.

  Lily woke with a start the next morning. She got up and found her door unlocked and thought she might have dreamed the whole mech-napping affair. But when she went down to the kitchen she found it cold and bare, the fire unlit. She opened the back door and stared out. A cold blast of sadness assailed her. The falling snow had covered the night’s tracks, leaving no traces. And yet the empty kitchen was all the proof she needed: Mrs Rust was truly gone, as were the others. Madame had given them away, sold them on to two strangers, and Lily wasn’t even sure why, or how she could be so cruel. They may have only been machines to Madame but, to Lily, they were real people, true friends.

  She slammed the door and stumbled back to her room to find Madame riffling through her things. Every desk drawer had been pulled out and her entire collection of gothic novels and penny dreadfuls had been thrown from their shelves. The wardrobe doors were open, and the linen had been turned out of the laundry basket and flung across the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Lily shouted.

  Madame looked hot and flustered, but then she regained control. “Rien, chérie, only tidying, I don’t know how you can leave things in such a mess.”

  “Where’s Mrs Rust,” Lily demanded, “and the others?”

  Madame folded some clothes she’d obviously just searched through. “Help me tidy, please. I had the cog-and-bone men come and take them away.”

  Lily folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

  “Because they didn’t work properly. They’ll be rebuilt, and if they’re irreparable they’ll be stripped for salvage.”

  “But Papa made them. They were part of the family.”

  “Mechanicals have no feelings, Lily, they’re just things. They can’t be part of anyone’s family.” Madame pretended to fold some of her blouses. “Besides, I’ve had a bien offer from someone who wanted the parts. Brain-cogs mostly, I think.”

  “You should’ve asked.”

  “Ce n’est pas nécessaire. I’m your guardian. What I say goes.” Madame placed a few books back on the bookshelf. “Now, s’il vous plaît, clear the rest of this up.” She waved her hands at the mess. “And try not to spend the whole day skulking in here. Come take the morning sun in the drawing room with me.”

  “I won’t clear anything up!” Lily shouted. “And if you think I’m going anywhere with you, Madame – the drawing room, hell, or otherwise – then you are sorely mistaken!” She gritted her teeth and launched herself at Madame, fists flailing.

  “Ça suffit!” Madame grabbed her arms and pressed them against her chest. Her long nails dug into Lily’s wrists and her teardrop earrings swung wildly as she dragged Lily away from the door and threw her down on the bed.

  “On second thoughts…” The housekeeper’s breathing was ragged. “…you shall stay here. I can’t have you wandering around the house willy-nilly, investigating my actions.” She walked to the door. “Perhaps you might see fit to find this perpetual motion thing amongst this mess. I know you’ve been in your father’s office. The urn was moved, and the dial on the safe is in a different position. If that’s what you’ve taken, Lily, then you must know—”

  “I haven’t taken anything,” Lily shouted, her eyes hot with tears.

  “Très bien – have it your way.” Madame slammed the door and Lily heard the key turn in the lock. This time the woman didn’t even try to do it quietly. Then her heavy heeled shoes clacked away down the length of the landing.

  Lily threw her head down onto her pillow and screamed. A prisoner in her own home – how would she find the key to the box now? She stood and punched the yellow wallpaper, but that only made her fists ache and her fingers feel numb.

  She pulled a few hairpins from her head and tried them in the door. Every one bent or snapped, and she threw them down angrily on the floor.

  Even if she got out of here, where would she go? There was no one left to help her. She crossed to the window, opened it, and stood staring at the empty gates, the tracks of the men’s steam-wagon had vanished under the white landscape. She hoped Mrs Rust and the rest of the mechanicals, or Papa and Malkin, might suddenly return, but there was only a dreadful silence. And when no one came for her, she leaned her head on the windowsill and cried.

  Then, after a long while, a figure did appear. A boy dressed in patched grey trousers and a thick winter jacket, which his gloved hands pulled tight around his skinny frame. Underneath his cap sat a mop of unruly black hair and heavy frowning brows, and his face looked rather anxious. Lily had no idea who he was, or whether he would help her. But she was certainly going to find out. She took a deep breath, put her fingers in her mouth, and whistled.

  Robert had walked the length of the snowy driveway and was stopped a good eight feet from the house, gazing up at it, and wondering whether to try the servants’ entrance or the front door, when he heard a loud whistle from above.

  He blinked and stared up at a tearful-looking red-headed girl gazing out of a high window. The girl took her fingers from her mouth and called down to him, her voice carrying over the soft silent landscape: “Friend or foe?”

  Robert considered this. “Friend, I think.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “For Miss Hartman.”

  The girl smiled wearily. “That’s me.”

  He felt a twinge of relief. “May we speak?” he asked. “I’ve a message for you.”

  “If you wait there,” she said, “I shall endeavour to come down.”

  He watched her push open the casement window and climb out. She edged along a shelf of bricks, clinging carefully to the window frame. As she jumped down onto the corner of the porch roof, her feet slipped on the frozen tiles, but she managed to right herself before she dropped over the roof’s edge and shimmied down a drainpipe. When her feet reached the handrail, she grabbed an upright post covered in dead creepers and jumped down, tumbling into a drift of snow.

  “Blimey, Miss Hartman,” Robert said, “you’re a good mountaineer.”

  “Call me Lily, please.” Lily picked herself up and dusted off the snowflakes, shivering as she did so, for she was wearing only a thin dress. “Climbing’s fine,” she said. “It’s the falling I’m not used to. Normally I’d use the stairs, but I was imprisoned and my hairpins broke when I tried to pick the lock.”

  Robert opened his mouth to attempt a reply, but could think of nothing.

  “Wh
o are you?” Lily asked. “And what’s this about?”

  She folded her goose-pimpled arms. Now that he saw her up close Robert felt unaccountably nervous. She’d a friendly face, with cheeks rosy from the cold, and her upturned nose was lightly dusted with freckles. Beneath her fringe of wavy copper hair, her green eyes looked filled with sadness, and Robert wished with all his heart he could find something to say to make it vanish.

  “I’m Robert Townsend,” he mumbled. “Apprentice clockmaker in the village up the way…” His gloved hands twisted together, and he found himself staring. He’d planned his words carefully as he walked up the drive, but now, somehow, he’d forgotten them all. “Da used to wind the clocks here” – it was the only thing he could think of – “for your father.”

  “Did you want to speak to me about that?” Lily asked.

  Robert fiddled with the brim of his cap. He felt the tips of his ears burn. How could he be so stupid? Her father was missing. That’s why the mech-fox had wanted him to come in the first place. “No,” he said at last. “It’s… I think I’ve something belongs to you, at least, he claims he does.”

  “Oh. Is it Captain Springer, or one of the others?”

  “He’s called Malkin.”

  “Malkin’s alive!” Lily exclaimed. A glimmer of hope sparked inside her. “Does he have news of Papa?”

  “Not exactly,” Robert murmured. “He said I had to give you a message. He would’ve come himself, only he was shot…”

  “Shot?” Her eyes widened in alarm.

  “Don’t worry, he’s fine. Ticking over. Me and Da fixed his leg – the damaged part, I mean – and he’s going to be right as rain. He’s got a strong constitution, that one. Insides of steel… How d’you own such an amazing mech anyway?”

  “My father made him for me. I wish I could’ve taken him to school, but there were no pets allowed.” Lily jiggled from foot to foot with impatience, or was it the cold? “Please,” she said, “tell me what it is.”

  He nodded. “When Malkin came round he told me to tell you: the secret’s in the safe.”

  Lily clapped her hands together. “The box – I knew it! He wants me to bring the box. Perhaps he has the key?”

  She took Robert by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll go get it.”

  They were walking towards the front door when a black steam-wagon pulled in through the gates at the far end of the drive. Puffs of acrid smoke drifted from its chimney stack as it drove towards them.

  Lily gasped and clasped his hand tighter.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “That vehicle was here last night.” She dragged him behind a snow-covered fir tree. “You mustn’t let them see me.”

  They watched through the branches as the steam-wagon stopped in front of the main entrance. Two men got out of the driver’s compartment. Their mirrored eyes glinted as they climbed the porch steps. One rapped on the front door with the handle of his walking stick, then they waited.

  “Those men were in the village chasing Malkin,” Robert said. “They’re hybrids – part-human, part-mech. All bad news.”

  “I know,” Lily said. She pointed a shaking finger at Roach. “The thin one, Mr Roach, he was on the commuter zep with us and, last night, I think they took Mrs Rust and Papa’s mechanicals away.”

  Robert gave a shudder. “I know him too. He came into the shop. He’s dangerous. And the other one too – Mr Mould. You oughtn’t to go in there.”

  “I’ve got to get the box.” Lily brushed back her fringe and a fierce look came over her face. “I’m sure that’s what they’re after. So we can’t leave without it.”

  They crept round the side of the house, the snow crunching beneath their feet. Through a window, Robert glimpsed a drawing room. Then the door opened and a woman dressed in black showed Roach and Mould in.

  “That’s my guardian, Madame Verdigris,” Lily whispered. “She’s in on whatever they’re up to.” And indeed, even at this distance, Robert could tell from the woman’s posture that she wasn’t at all surprised to see the two men. It was as if they were old friends.

  Robert and Lily ducked away from the window and peered around a corner of an ivy-encrusted trellis. The back door looked clear.

  They dashed towards it and Lily tried the handle. “Locked.” She prised open an adjacent window and climbed through, beckoning him to follow.

  They were in a narrow corridor. Lily grasped a brass doorknob set into a papered wall and opened a disguised door to reveal a narrow servants’ staircase.

  “This way,” she said.

  Robert followed her up to a first floor and past several rooms along a dark landing, before she paused outside a door.

  “Ah-ha!” she said. “That witch left the key in it. Probably why I couldn’t get out this way.” She unlocked the door and stepped into a room filled with a mess of clothes and books. Robert crowded in behind her, peering over her shoulder at the rows of gruesome penny dreadful covers, pinned to yellow wallpaper. A few had been hand-tinted with watercolours: Varney the Vampyre, in particular, featured a lot of hand-painted red.

  “Wait here,” Lily said, and she crawled under her bed and prised up a loose floorboard. Then she reached into the gap beneath it and pulled out a square rosewood box.

  She placed the box on a blanket in the centre of the bed. “There,” she said, folding the corners of the blanket over the box’s lid and knotting them tightly together. “That’ll do.”

  Robert flinched. He’d heard the tap-tap-tap of a cane, and the creak of heavy boots. He peered round the door jamb. Three shadowy figures were ascending what must’ve been the main staircase, to the landing. “They’re coming,” he whispered.

  Lily stepped towards the open window. “We have to climb down.”

  “I can’t.” The words felt dry in his throat.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Oh.” She opened the wardrobe and stuffed her bundle inside. “Then we’ll have to hide.”

  “I shouldn’t get in there either. I have an allergy to dust.”

  “Never mind that now.” Lily pushed back a row of dresses on hangers, and an old tattered parasol, and crammed him into the wardrobe. Then she took a last look around the room.

  “Professor Silverfish’s card!” she exclaimed, and she snatched a square of paper from her bedside table, then jumped in beside him, pulling the wardrobe door shut just as Madame, Roach and Mould arrived.

  “Where is she?” Mr Roach glanced about, the room swooshing past in his reflective lenses.

  Robert peered over Lily’s shoulder through the crack in the door. The dust in the wardrobe was making his eyes run and his nose itch; he dearly wanted to sneeze.

  He covered his mouth with a hand and watched as Lily’s guardian stepped over to the open door.

  “But, I can’t understand it.” Madame’s reply was strained. “I locked her in.”

  Mr Roach leaned on his cane and crouched to examine the broken hairpins on the floor. “She must’ve used these to pick the lock,” he said. “She hasn’t got far. I’d say she’s still in the house.” He gathered the broken pins in his hand. “You knew we were coming, Madame Hortense. I warned you not to let Lily out of your sight.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Not busy enough, by the looks of things. Pack a case for her. We’ll search the rest of the house. Mr Mould, come with me.” The two men marched off down the passage.

  Lily and Robert kept as still as they could, hiding behind the row of clothes. But when Madame opened the wardrobe, dust seemed to whoosh up Robert’s nose with the sudden light and—

  AAATCHOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!

  “Mon Dieu!” Madame screamed, grabbing at them. “She’s here.”

  His eyes streaming, Robert pulled the old parasol from the back of the cupboard and hit the woman with it, tipping her into the wardrobe. Lily wrested herself free, dragging the bundle along with her.

  “Come on
!” she cried, and they scrambled through the door and shut it behind them. Robert turned the key in the lock, trapping Madame inside. They ran along the landing towards the main stairs, but Roach and Mould were rushing upwards to meet them, their mirrored eyes gleaming. Lily hugged her bundle to her chest and darted the other way. Robert scrambled to follow.

  When they reached the far end of the mezzanine they clattered through another disguised door and back down the narrow servants’ staircase to the ground floor.

  The hall was empty.

  As they slipped out the same window they’d come in by, they heard the men running around upstairs, searching for the hidden door.

  They ran across the garden, Lily throwing glances behind her.

  Skirting the edge of the lawn, they ducked behind a snow-covered pile of compost and stopped. Lily caught her breath, and adjusted the bundle under her arm.

  “We’ll be safe here for a minute,” she said, brushing her fringe from her face. “I’m going to have to trust you. I hope you’re telling me the truth?”

  Robert nodded. The smell of rotting food was making him queasy, or was it the running? “You can trust me,” he said.

  “Good.” She gave a sniff. “This isn’t the way I wanted to leave, with so much undone. But I can’t go back now, not when everyone wants to cause me harm.”

  They set off again, heading down the incline of the garden. They were halfway down some stone steps when they caught sight of a third man, waiting in the bare rose garden at the bottom.

  Lily turned and took Robert back along the balustrade, down an icy slope, through a flower bed filled with thorny stems, between a pair of trees, and along the drive towards the manor’s entrance.

  “Damn it!”

  The steam-wagon had been moved across the driveway, blocking the gates.

  She grasped Robert’s hand and they sprinted along the base of the boundary wall. Lily found a broken planter, which had fallen from atop a pillar, and clambered onto it; she rested the bundle on top of the snowy wall and climbed up beside it.