Maddie Hatter and the Timely Taffeta

by Jayne Barnard

  Now, shivering on the landing stage, Serephene gazed blearily over the greeny-gray water. “At least she hasn’t figured out you’re not really my aunt, or that my Nonna knows nothing of our arrangement. I’ll have to send a footman with the letters, under the guise of collecting my purple gown. How soon can yours be ready?”

  “Probably sooner than we can think of a way to explain you staggering into your Nonna’s house at dawn.” Maddie wound the Arrlechina’s trailing sleeves into a loose muff and wiggled her freezing fingers inside. She eyed the half-full kite-baskets that swung through the cold sky. Why so few workers? Oh, yes, Sunday morning. Shops and businesses were closed, and only household or hotel staff were coming from the outer islands. “I hope it helps that we’re being escorted by someone from the Consulate, however temporarily he may be stationed there. Will that party go on until dawn?”

  Obie, returning with an enclosed launch, said the Consul expected to serve breakfast to any remaining guests; if inquiries about Serephene’s presence were made, he would say he’d seen her.

  The sleek boat set off through the mostly-deserted canals. After their wild ride the night before, the launch took forever. Its steam engine burbled gently, its wake stayed within the mandated limits, and its warm interior sent both girls into a light doze as they leaned together on the velvet banquette. Obie woke them at Serephene’s water-gate, helped her indoors, and then came back.

  “The porter took a good old gander out at you, Maddie, to make sure their young lady wasn’t traveling alone with me. Will your hotel look askance at you for coming in at dawn?”

  “During Carnevale? I hardly think so. All these masks are designed to permit licentious behaviour that can’t be traced back to one’s real name.”

  “Speaking of names, did Scottie call that rat ‘Haggis’?”

  “No, he said ‘Hi, Gus.’ The rat’s name is Gus.” Maddie let slip a giggle born of exhaustion. “Although you can never be sure what’s all in a haggis.”

  Obie groaned. Then he said, “I asked Scottie if Sarah had given him her name when she visited the airship with that madame.”

  Leaving aside the realization that she and Obie had both left off calling Scottie by his professional title, Maddie shook herself slightly more awake. Was this a lead at last? “And had she?”

  “It was either Lady somebody, or Lydia somebody.”

  “If she’s using the latter, good. I wish I could be sure.” Maddie watched the launch’s varnished wooden bow swing out onto the choppy, green water of the Grand Canal. “Will you have a chance to go around asking about her?”

  “I suppose.” Obie yawned and plucked a sliver of laboratory glass from his sleeve. “Men asking around for fascinating women whose name they don’t know may be commonplace during Carnevale.”

  “She’s fascinating like a snake,” said Maddie. “You don’t dare take your eyes off her in case she strikes at you.”

  “Now, now. She’s never actually hurt anyone.”

  “That we know of. And what about indirect hurts? Taking my name could have caused me irreparable harm. And some people here still think she’s me.”

  “Seems to me she thought then that you’d stolen those visiting cards too.” As the launch drifted to a stop at the Hotel Gritti, he stood up and paid off the pilot. “I’ll walk the rest, after I’ve seen you safely indoors.”

  Maddie wasn’t the only reveller straggling into the hotel with the dawn. But she was the only one the desk concierge came hurrying to meet.

  “There’s a parcel for you, signora.”

  “Have it brought to my chamber, please.”

  The man hesitated. His hands, clasped politely at his waist, clenched a little tighter. “I don’t quite like to, signora. You see . . .”

  “Well, what?”

  “The parcel, it . . . makes the noise.”

  Maddie stifled a grin. Madame Taxus-Hemlock’s protégés quickly became accustomed to packages that made noise. The concierge should be glad this one hadn’t unwrapped itself, like Poppa the parrot had in Cape Town, much to the consternation of five marines, a fruit-seller, and the Governor’s wife’s maid, who had been flirting with the marines at the time. She gestured with her gloved hand. “Take it up.”

  “But signora, this is Venice. If you have made an enemy here, they might send you something dangerous.” Unlikely, but if Sarah was attempting to disrupt Maddie’s hunt for her, it was possible.

  “Give it to Mr. O’Reilly, then. He can bring it up for me, and deal with anything unpleasant that lies within.” Bringing Obie along would serve a dual purpose: if, as she suspected, the parcel contained Madame’s spy-spiders, he could take them back to Scottie’s laboratory today, even though she was forbidden the premises until after an apology. He knew their workings as well as she did, having been on the same Navy airship when they were first discovered.

  When they were alone in her chamber—which was more than scandalous enough for Maddie at this hour—he set the parcel on the room’s only table for a closer look. TD flew down from the top of the armoire and settled on Maddie’s forearm, his head tilted to one side. TC watched from Obie’s shoulder.

  “Comes from Berlin,” said Obie. “From the Consortium’s warehouse there.” The package shifted on the table. They both watched it warily. After a moment Obie went on, “If it’s for you, it might be waiting for a command.”

  “I’ve never commanded one before. Poppa hopped out on his own when he heard my voice.” Maddie waited, but the parcel didn’t move. “I suppose it might take similar commands to the birds. ‘Parcel, open.’” Again, nothing happened. TD hopped down to the table. “Parcel, open,” he repeated loudly in Maddie’s voice, although with his usual, faintly metallic after-tone.

  The parcel shivered. Something solid scraped down the side, on the inside. A long, bronze claw ripped a single line in the brown paper across the top. Maddie stepped back, just in case. TD fluttered up to her shoulder and peered down.

  What popped out was an extremely lifelike rat’s head, sleekly formed of matte metal. It stared motionless at Maddie with one metal claw clutching the paper.

  Obie swore. “It’s that blasted automaton that followed the Commander around for six months. Did you ask Madame for this?”

  “I asked for some spy-spiders, that’s all. Well, if she sent it she must have a reason. It opened the parcel when TD told it to, so it must have been coded to his voice. Maybe he can tell it to speak, too.” She gave TD the command, then set the clockwork sparrow near the rat’s enamelled nose. TD repeated the command. The rat’s mouth opened. After a moment it spoke, in a tinny imitation of Madame’s cultured tones.

  “Maddie, dearest, I hope you will find this fellow useful. He’ll blend in to the surroundings nicely. Venice’s native rats are no match for him in a fight, and he can go places it wouldn’t be safe to send Tweetle-D. The spiders you want are in his stomach. Tell him ‘Open safe’ and he’ll let them out.

  “Now a caution: Henry Wellesley, who first tried to use this rat against us, is in Venice. I don’t know what he’s after but it’s got to be something he can sell to some government or other. Be alert. He is still as ruthless as he ever was, and I am not certain the rat’s new control system would stand up to his tampering. Send word if you need anything else. Or if you spot Henry.”

  “Cog-swoggler,” said Obie with loathing. “That dandified lordling is the last person I want to tangle with. Whatever kind of cloth McHoughty’s building, we’d better hope it has no military applications that Wellesley could turn on a profit on.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about him right now.” Maddie pulled off her hat and mask. “Can you take the spiders to the airship tomorrow? I’ll keep the rat here until we figure out what use he’ll be. Rat, open safe.”

  Now that the formalities had been completed to its satisfaction, the rat was willing to take orders directly from her. Climbing out of the parcel, it sat upright on the table, twisted its neck and, with an audible clic
k, split its belly along a well-hidden seam. Three small, brown lumps lay inside a cavity not much bigger than Maddie’s thumb. One by one, they unfolded wire legs much longer than their bodies and crawled out onto the tabletop. They stopped by the rat’s back claws, refolded their legs, and became once more small, brown lumps that rather resembled rodent-droppings.

  “Yuck,” said Maddie. “I guess I’d better give them their orders so you can take off. Sorry you let the launch go now?”

  Obie yawned hugely. “I’ll get a gondola across to the English Consulate and have a kip. The lab won’t be burgled again in daylight, surely.”

  “I’d like to leave the rat there too. It gives me the creeps.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t come along. Everyone else will be in church.”

  “We hope,” said Maddie. “Madame Frangetti is perfectly capable of spending all day counting every gem on every costume.”

  “I’ll go in first, openly, to visit the lab, and then let you in the staff door.” He let himself out, and Maddie, after shutting the rat into the wardrobe, crawled into bed.

  AFTER FAR TOO little sleep and a quick cup of milky coffee, Maddie was on her way back to the atelier. Obie kept pace, carrying a basket containing the automaton rat. The whole way across Venice—on foot, for every gondolier and launch-pilot seemed to be either sleeping late or saying confession in one of the city’s many churches—she yawned and blinked, trying to clear the grit from her eyes and the gravel from her throat. At the atelier, Obie handed over the basket. She took it to the staff entrance, out of sight of the front door. Would Obie convince the very hung-over porters to let him in? How long would it take him to get upstairs and back down to the rear door? She stood in the alley, listening to the preternatural quiet and counting the wavelets that sluggishly shushed against the pavements.

  Eventually the locks clicked behind her. Obie stuck his head out. “No sign of Madame F or anyone else. All right here?”

  “Let’s get this over with so I can go home for a lovely Sunday-afternoon riposo.”

  They trudged up to the roof.

  Obie hauled the basket up to the floating lab and rattled the door handle.

  Scottie came, grumpy and shirtless. “What’s away now?” he asked, rubbing his face with one hand.

  Obie explained about adding discreet cameras to the lab so that anyone else who came in would have their image captured. While he took Scottie off on a walk-around to decide where to best place them, Maddie lifted the cloth off the basket and told the rat to let the spiders out. It obliged and then, as she turned away, it slipped out to sit on the table, looking around. She left it there and carried the spiders, with their wire legs tickling her palm, along the aisle to Obie.

  “Up over the hidden door, for one,” she said, and set the tiny creature on the transparent pneumatic tube. It crawled along until it found a bracket, then crossed to the bulkhead and squeezed itself into a knothole. After a moment, the faintest of red glows appeared briefly. “All set. Now, where for the next? Looking at the spider-bat cage, or at the main door?” They all looked in different directions, considering the options.

  Out of the blue Scottie bellowed, “You there! Leave ma rat be!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  MADDIE WHIRLED. GUS, half the size of the automaton rat, was creeping forward, snarling at what he clearly saw as an invader. The automaton had one claw raised, hardened bronze claws poised to strike. If those claws hit Gus, they’d destroy him far worse than the spider-bats had. What was the right command? She’d never told TD to stop something.

  As the claws glinted, starting their slash, she yelled desperately, “Rat, freeze.”

  The claws stopped.

  Gus scampered forward and flung himself at the automaton, biting and scratching for all he was worth. Maddie’s rat just sat there on its haunches, one front paw upraised. It didn’t even look at its assailant. And it certainly wasn’t being damaged. Scottie stomped over and, yanking his shirt from the bunk, used it to pluck his infuriated lab-rat off the automaton.

  “What the de’il did ye bring into my lab, woman?”

  Maddie and Obie looked at each other. After a bit Maddie huffed out a sigh, which turned into a yawn. “I’ll have to keep it in my room after all.”

  THE REMAINDER OF Sunday was restful. Maddie, in her chaperone persona, composed a slightly grovelling letter to Madame Frangetti and sent it by hotel footman over to Serephene. She sent the Arlecchina costume downstairs to be cleaned by the hotel’s laundry. After a long nap and some lunch on a tray, she wrote up a Knott installment about the previous night’s excitement. It ran to several pages. CJ was sure to make her cut it down before publication, but this was the simplest way to keep him apprised of the developing story. After that, she finished up her column on the British Consulate party costumes and examined the list of public balls and entertainments. Fresh material for future columns would not be difficult to find.

  She was about to dress for dinner when a tap-tap came at her window. TD at once flew to the sill, chirping happily. Maddie opened the window and TC hopped in, tweeting cheerily back at his twin. A message was communicated. TD twisted his little brass head to look up at Maddie.

  “Tweetle D, speak to me,” she said.

  Obie’s voice came out. “Mads, I hate to leave you in this pickle but my uncle’s gone and died back in Ireland. I’m off home tonight for the funeral. I’ll be back as soon as I’m able. Try to stay out of dark alleys and trouble.”

  Hrmph. While Maddie was sorry about his uncle, an airship engineer he rarely saw and hardly knew, it really was a bother being without Obie’s help just now. They still hadn’t found Sarah, had no name to hunt her with, and didn’t know if she was the only person after Scottie’s secret silk. Come to that, Maddie still didn’t know what was so secret about the silk. After sending back a message to wish Obie a speedy and safe trip, she climbed into her dinner gown feeling just as grumpy and rumpled as Scottie had looked that morning.

  SEREPHENE WAS REINSTATED at Madame Frangetti’s by Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning, at the usual pre-dawn hour, Maddie was huddled in Fanto’s gondola, holding the rope while Serephene climbed down. She’d lost count of the number of mornings they’d spent at the atelier, but it couldn’t last beyond this week, surely. Serephene was sure to get caught if she kept slipping out. Or she’d fall asleep at one of the many entertainments her grandmother kept dragging her to. Or she’d be spotted in apprentice garb by some young bachelor with designs on the AcquaTiempe fortune, and her whole scheme would come unravelled. But for today, they were heading again to the atelier, each canal more silent than the last except for the plish-plash of Fanto’s oar and the whisper of ripples against the ancient walls.

  Madame Frangetti was watching the staff as they entered. She sniffed when she saw Serephene, and said to Maddie in angry, accented English, “You! No more snooping around. You sit, you wait, you take her straight home. Understand? No more the flirting at my house. C’est scandaleux!” She reinforced the order by frequently hurrying up and down the stairs to the lab. Serephene didn’t dare try to see Scottie and didn’t suggest Maddie could take a message up. The apprenticeship was on very thin ice. One more violation might end it altogether.

  Zaneta, hurrying in on her break, cried out, “Maddalena! I thought you would be banished forever. La Frangetti, she is so incensed at this affare di cuore she has posted the guards upon the rooftop. Or maybe it’s the break-in, I don’t know. But your young lady will have no more the kisses from lui cosi bello up there.”

  Maddie didn’t even try to protest that Serephene hadn’t had anything kissed but her hand, or that she spent her time with the so-handsome Scotsman hard at work on his fabulous fabric. Zaneta, being a passionate Italian, would simply not believe the pair would put the work first. To Maddie it was a sign of their compatibility. She could think of far worse matches for Serephene than a man who was comfortable with her drive, ambition, and myriad skills.

  T
he next day was more of the same: Maddie scribbling her columns in the stuffy break room and Serephene cutting, draping, pinning, or stitching under the watchful eye of Madame Frangetti or her assistant. In the afternoon, they went around the hotels asking for Sarah under the name of “Lydia,” a woman met during last evening’s festivities, who had loaned them a lovely shawl (one of Serephene’s) that they were anxious to return. Again, the inquiries were fruitless.

  Everywhere, they ducked the tiny, silvery airships that carried Venetians’ messages to each other along every calle and all the campi, even traversing the Grand Canal in their frail, wind-blown fleets. Every so often one would drop from the sky, its clockwork completely unwound. Any passerby might pick it up, rewind it, and set it on its way again, keeping the city’s messages airborne in the absence of any postman, telegraph, or aethernet. Those postat-ships that landed in a canal would bob there, unable to either sink or fly, until a passing boatman fished them out, shook the water out of them, and wound them up again. They never seemed to suffer for the dunking, but arrived at their destinations able to play back their metal-tape punched messages in their tinny sing-song with close to the quality they’d had on setting out. Every household and hotel had a basket into which the thin metal tapes were discarded for recycling into fresh tapes. Maddie had never quite trusted the system, even though it was already being adapted for use in London and other large cities. She sent her messages and filed her columns by aethernet (where available) and by TD (where appropriate) and by old-fashioned human messenger when necessary.

  When they’d checked every hotel they could think of, they floated home in Fanto’s gondola. Everywhere, the daytime artisans were packing up their demonstrations and sales booths, here a glass-blower over from Murano, there a pair of lace-makers from Burano, and all along one campo a series of silk-sellers displaying rolls of heavy velvets and brocades, light-as-air failles and georgettes, and stiffer, rustling taffetas. The lustrous, jewel-toned silks were so beautiful that Serephene asked Fanto to let them out for a closer look. After a luxurious browse, they embarked again with their arms filled with tied-up parcels.