“You cannot hold me prisoner here.”
“Indeed, I cannot. You are free to do whatsoever you like, go where you wish, but I control your purse strings. You have already made me a cuckold. I will not allow it to continue. I will govern my wife.”
“I have my fortune. I do what I like!”
“No, my sweet one. I have your fortune. All thirty thousand pounds of it.”
“You cannot—”
“Yes, I can. I will—unless, of course, you choose to return to your father’s house. In that case, I will willingly, gladly, dance my way to the solicitor’s and sign over every last pence with the divorce decree.”
“Never! I am a Rochester!”
“Indeed. Then, I suggest you convince me you can act like one.” I walked away but paused at the door. I turned to her. “I received a letter from Heinrich Rottstieger this morning. He wishes us both joy—”
“You told him?”
“He writes to inform me he extends his stay in England. Our partners building the engine manufactory find they need him on site. I rather imagine he will stay there indefinitely. He tells me he feels younger—lighter—than he has in more than a year.”
She rose to her feet. Blood had smeared across her face. I almost felt a twinge of guilt to see the minor cuts the glass had inflicted—almost.
“I do not divorce you now, Bertha, because I made vows before God and I mean to retain what honor yet remains to me. Blame my silly English conscience. You are my responsibility.
“I am fool enough to suppose that with time and care—and a great deal of determination—we two can nurture this marriage into something akin to love, or at least respect. Perhaps we could even achieve a measure of happiness. Decide now which you will have: keeper and kept or husband and wife.”
Her face contorted with bitter derision. “Grunts the ape.”
“As you see.” I again turned to the door.
“Do not come to me tonight, Fairfax. The thought of your touch revolts me.”
“Indeed, madam, you need not fear me scratching at your door.” I produced the crystal and tossed it in the air. It flashed brilliance before it landed in my hand. “Shackled together we may be, but I am free.”
I left the room. The shriek of rage and shattering china that blasted on the door as I shut it evoked a bitter smile.
Advance nearly five years. In the cloying heat of a sweltering tropical summer, I sat at my desk in a puddle of light, the clatter and roll of my calculations machine and the clock on the wall breaking the silence of night. The hollow sound of footsteps on the wooden stairs did not slow my work, but I looked up when the latch turned and the door swung open. I stared at the nebulous shadow, back-lit by dim bulbs high in the hangar, until it moved into the light.
“So, you finally made it, then.”
“Rough passage. I cannot believe you enjoy flying.”
“A storm is brewing, isn’t it?”
“Even so.”
“I cannot believe that as well-traveled as you are, you still have difficulty with it.”
“She always preferred the railroad.”
“Airships would have been kinder.”
“In some ways.”
We fell silent. Stared at one another through the darkness. The sound of my chair scraping across the floor made him jump.
“You look like hell.”
“And you don’t. How is that?”
I shrugged. “Heavy labor. One gets on.” I extended my hand, Rowland grasped it, then pulled me into his embrace. I stiffened, but just for a moment. In all my life, he had never demonstrated such affection. I chose not to analyze it and took comfort where I found it—the comfort we both needed, desperately.
“I promised her we would not quarrel,” he choked into my shoulder.
“And we shall not.” I thumped him on the back and released him.
“Fairfax . . .” he stammered. Words would not come. His eyes flitted about, and if they managed to settle on my face, they rose no higher than my chin. The tension in his jaw and pooling tears further emphasized the storm of sensibilities roiling within him. I watched him expectantly, and he produced from his breast pocket a fat packet of letters bound up in a bit of ribbon.
He laid them upon the desktop. My heart leapt to my throat. The entire year of my correspondence to Yvette appeared worn from much perusal but carefully preserved. “I found them,” Rowland murmured. “After she— . . . She kept them in her writing desk. I thought . . . I thought you might want them back.”
I swallowed hard. “Did you read them?”
Rowland shook his head, almost in a panic. “No. Never. She was so good to me, but I made a wretched husband. She deserved the comfort these letters gave her. I did things . . .”
My head jerked up. “Do not make me your confessor. Let me believe you made her happy. Leave me with my delusions and I shall leave you with yours.”
Rowland nodded his agreement, swallowed hard, and blinked back a tear. I deposited the letters in the safe. “If you will wait just a moment, I need to get these papers ready for the packet for London.” I nodded toward the window looking into the hangar. “Fancy a tot? Or have you had enough on the trip over?”
Rowland snorted and moved to the étagère. “Light?”
“The lamp’s electric—there at the base.”
His nightcap forgotten, Rowland flipped the switch like a toddler. “Fancy that. Electricity? Here?”
“I’ve worked up a magneto—no steam; only a sunlight-dynamo array and wind-power. It will power Spanish Town and Kingston both with the cable run.”
Rowland’s brow twitched as he processed the idea, then redirected his attention to the range of bottles and carafes on the étagère. “I wish Father would have lived to see this.” He held his snifter before the light, and the liquid glowed like molten gold. “The best rum to be had. He would have been proud.” He snorted. “He would have been rich . . . er.”
“ ‘Anything doing is worth doing right.’ . . . How is Herr Professor?”
“Well . . . Heartbroken. She was light, Fairfax. She was heaven on earth—an angel—a pure angel. Everyone loved her . . . She wanted a child so badly.”
I pretended not to hear Rowland’s morose self-indulgence. I tried not to blame my brother; I knew firsthand Yvette’s determined nature, but three miscarriages in four years exceeded all decency. The fourth time . . .
He should have left her be. He should have loved her enough to deny her. He should have . . . something—not allowed her to die . . . not had a hand in her death.
“Those are sinister-looking things. What the devil are they?”
I looked up. Rowland waved his snifter at the window. Below, a dozen eight-foot behemoths lurked in the dark, ranked along one side of the hangar floor. “My new automatons—an improvement on steam-driven mechanoids. Mine are made of the same material as our airships. I made them to harvest the cane.”
“Still working on them, eh?”
“No. I just can’t use them. With the unrest in Haiti, it is not wise.”
“Why the devil not? It looks like one of those would replace five human workers.”
“Ten, actually. But, I refuse to force that many men out of work. Haitians are starving for lack of employment. The oppression there is terrible. The French use their mechanoids to literally crush any uprising. The colonists will be murdered in their beds one day. I will not have it spread here. Until I have other jobs for the men, I will not use the automatons.”
“Then what do you mean to do with them?”
“The war is finally over in the States. There is no one left to fight.”
“So bad as that?”
“They have had terrible—obscene—loss of life. The Gatling guns, the rail cannon. The airship bombings devastated the cities—tens of thousands of civilians buried in the rubble, burned alive with the incendiaries. Washington was leveled. Richmond, Philadelphia—even New York. What matters now is survival, not who retains co
ntrol.”
“And so?”
“The provisional government is desperate to stave off invasion by the British. They need to recover quickly. We donated this lot to help rebuild the infrastructure. We have others for farms and factories and such. We will not be displacing workers, but providing a desperately needed workforce.”
“Not as soldiers?”
“After Father?”
Rowland ducked his head, abashed. I moderated my tone. “The Americans have gone off wholesale mechanized murder for the moment . . . We will rebuild the right way, on sunlight dynamos and wind-power, perhaps harness the energy of flowing water, or even tap into the earth’s internal furnace. If we could do in the New Alliance what we have done here . . . the possibilities are endless.”
“And what of England?”
I snorted. “The Empire upon which the sun never sets? The Great Industrial Power? Do you truly think they will listen to anything I have to say? The madness is self-perpetuating. Industry and coal, coal and industry. They are in lock step and nothing will dislodge the men who profit by it.”
“Except, perhaps, a devastating war.”
“Heaven forbid.”
We again fell silent, but I could feel Rowland mulling over more than his kill-devil.
“What is it?” Rowland looked up, startled. “What is it you need to say to me that you will not?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
“And yet, you have come all this way to say it. In six years, you have not once made the passage, but now, here you are.”
“You never returned home. You never came to see us.”
“I am shackled to this island.”
“No one is that indispensable. You have men enough to deal with the sugar business. Rottstieger runs himself ragged trying to manage things because you insist on living here. You could accomplish so much more from London.”
“The business does not shackle me. The matter is more personal. I would rather not discuss it.”
“You mean Bertha.”
I carefully set down my pen and blotted the ledger, then stuffed everything into the courier pouch. I locked the safe, switched off both lights, and opened the door for my brother.
“You cannot just ignore me, Fairfax.”
“What would you have me reply, Rowland? You have said nothing.”
“I would have you assure me all is well between you and Bertha. I am concerned for her—for you both.”
“Bertha, is it?”
“What else would you have me call my sister-in-law?”
“Whom you have never once laid eyes on.” I peered at him in the darkness. His face, despite the distant light, revealed more than I cared to understand. “I cannot see how that is any of your concern.” I moved down the stairs, then stopped and turned to him. “In point of fact, I have stayed away from London specifically to keep it private, and yet, here you are, intruding.”
“It is my concern when I see you destroying yourself, Fairfax. I scarcely know you any longer.”
I snorted at the irony. “You have never known me, Rochester. You, dearest brother, have never gotten past taunting me with that lesser name at school. I have been Fairfax to you since I was eight years old, I have always hated it, and you have never, ever, attempted to leave off. You make me a stranger, so you have no right to advise me.”
I tromped down the stairs, but Rowland remained where he stood. “Just tell me why Bertha is so terrified of you.”
“And how could you possibly know that?”
“She told me.”
“She told you. You have been corresponding with my wife?”
“She wrote to me pleading for help. You have turned everyone against her—even her own family. She has no one else to turn to. I am her only friend in the world.”
“Indeed. And how long, pray, has this tender exchange been taking place?”
Rowland flinched. I huffed my derision and turned away. Rowland came trailing after me as I circled the hangar, securing doors, testing anchor lines. “What are you doing?”
“A storm is coming.” I reached the power box and levered-up the handle. The hangar flooded with brilliant light. Rowland winced at the assault, then fairly jumped back at the sight of my automatons looming over him. They looked even more sinister illuminated, I suppose, despite my best efforts to humanize them—or perhaps because of it.
I wheeled on him, my army of mechanical men menacing behind me. “How long, Rowland? How long ago did you begin writing? Before you lost Yvette?”
Rowland swallowed hard. “A year . . . a year before she . . .”
Blazes. He looked even worse with the lights on. I doubted he had slept in the six months since Yvette had gone. The anger dribbled through my fingers. Poor, stupid Rowland. Had he been the picture of health, I would have roundly resented his presumption. As it was . . . poor, thickheaded, warm-hearted Rowland.
I opened the chest panel of the first auto-enhanced mechanoid. A flip of the appropriate switches and its eyes lit. Another series of twists, pushes, and toggles, and the thing sprang to life and marched toward the door. I ignored it and went to work on the others.
“What are you . . . what are they doing?”
“They secure the compound, put up the storm shutters, clear the decks, batten the hatches. Menial things easily programmed into the crystal board. The men locked down your airship as soon as you disembarked.” I shrugged and gestured at the barometer. “A storm comes.”
Rowland absorbed himself in the weather station as I continued activating the line of my man-droids. “So, tell me. Of what does my dearest wife accuse me, eh? How have I offended my tender hothouse orchid? That paragon of virtue?”
Rowland turned to me, his shoulders squared. “She says you are no longer the man she married—”
“Indeed. I should hope not.”
“—that you have spies watch her every move. She says you keep her imprisoned. You allow her to see no one. You deny her any friends. She has to smuggle out her letters. You have become a tyrant—power-crazed—since . . .”
“Since?”
“Since you . . . animated your metal men with evil spirits.” He sounded progressively more sheepish and shamed as the words tumbled from his mouth. I said nothing but waited for him to continue. “She fears for her life, Fairfax. Everything she writes has the ring of truth to it.”
“And you have come to rescue her from her terrible fate, of course.”
“I came to stop you from doing something rash. You conceal strange doings here. America will fall to this hell-spawned army you amass, and after that—what? England? Europe?”
“And you see my ‘fleet’ of airships—all six of them—my improvements on other men’s mediocrity, my empire housed in three hangars and an office, all the makings of world domination.”
“And the manufactories in Kingston and Montego Bay? They say you built a city of them.”
“Ah. The dreaded sugar mills. The distilleries.”
“If that is what they are.”
“Do you hear yourself, Rowland?” His silent sincerity spoke for him and I mended my tone. “People fear what they cannot understand. Because my manufactories resemble nothing they have ever seen, then they must not be what I claim. Because I choose this unlikely place, they think I have something to conceal.”
“Like your drinking and your temper? I never imagined you would beat your wife.”
I sighed. He imagined a great deal. “What will it take to convince you of my innocence?”
“Show me what you keep under lock and key—what you allow no one else to see.”
“Not tonight, nor tomorrow neither. A storm is coming.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
I snorted and wagged my head.
“Let me see her,” he amended. “Let me speak with her. Let me see for myself that you treat her as a husband ought.”
“That I can do. Has she seen you?”
“Pardon?”
“Does she know what you look like? Would she recognize you?” Blood rushed to Rowland’s cheeks and his eyes slid away from mine. “Ah. My brother and my wife have exchanged Daguerreotypes. How touching.”
“You never brought her to us.”
“So, goodness itself, she introduced herself. One must have family bonding. Let me see it.”
He seemed startled that I would expect him to have it on his person but produced it from his breast pocket just the same. I reached for it, but he snatched it back and clutched it to his breast. I glared at him, held out my hand, silently demanding compliance. His hand visibly shook as he forced himself to relinquish it.
I had to free him of its hold on him . . . if I could. I struck a match and set it alight.
“Here now! What are you doing?!” He attempted to wrest it from me, his agitation growing the more the flames licked at the image, but I held it out of his reach. Frantic, he screeched invectives. He reminded me of a little boy attempting to get his toy from a bully. When it burned beyond redemption, I dropped it into a dustbin.
He stared at it while it turned to ash. He visibly shook and clutched his arms about himself. Tears streamed down his face. “Why did you do that, Fairfax? How could you do that? You have no idea what that meant to me.”
I put my arm around his shoulder. “Indeed, Rowland. I fear I do.”
As the last cinder faded away, he seemed to come round to himself. The color crept back into his cheeks. I yet held him. He eyed me, surprised, then scrubbed the tears from his face. “What—”
“You’ll feel better by and by. Perhaps you already do.”
He sniffled and swallowed hard, dragged his sleeve across his nose. He laughed anemically and stepped away. He could not raise his gaze to mine.
Distraction seemed in order. I escorted him into the different workshops, explained a project or two, showed him the designs of my new winged airship. With time, his equilibrium seemed restored and I took him into the tack room. I found a likely pair of worn coveralls. Rowland eyed them skeptically as I shoved them at him.
“What for?”
Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology Page 3
