“So what are they up to, Father?”
“Now focus on the spire, the spearhead above the inverted dome, the topmost point.”
“Found it.”
“What do you see?”
“Something spinning. Colours flickering, like a whirligig. Sparks are flying out into the upside-down dome.” It’s weird, like something out of a H.G. Wells story. “What is it?”
“What if I told you those sparks were formed by exotic cosmic energy being converted?” Questions, questions. He was worse than Professor Pickervance in physics. “What’s the first thing that springs to mind about the shape of that apparatus—the inverted dome?”
“That they’re trying to collect something from those sparks, like a meteolor...metereo...”
“Meteorologist?”
“Yes. Like a meteorologist collects rain in a container.”
“Good, Edmond. Very good.”
Is that it?
“So what is it for really?”
“I’m not allowed to say, son. Not yet. But you’re on the right lines. That was excellent. I can see we chose exactly the right school for you.”
To hell with that! Edmond’s awful secret about Admiral Hood Boarding School yanked at his chest like an icy riptide. But why, oh, why couldn’t he tell it to Father? Even now, when the old man was more open than he’d been in a long time, he was still absent somehow, locked away in his Leviacrum laboratory with two-way mirror windows. And on the steel door, Do Not Disturb. Important Work In Progress. Sod Off.
“It’s half past ten, Cecil,” Mother reminded Father. “If we’re going to see the emporium before lunch, we’d best get a move on.”
“Yes.” Edmond pumped his free fist, remembered to keep a firm grip on the spyglass. He handed it back to Father and then performed a long running skid along the slick pavement, stopping narrowly short of a man with two Great Danes at the street corner.
His parents linked arms again and chatted away, both glancing at him now and then as though he was the centre of their conversation. If only they knew. By this time, they’d have no doubt already enrolled him for an apprenticeship in the Leviacrum. Father talked about it often, rarely to him, of course. In the Reardon household, being good at anything meant it was your calling in life—as long as that something was scientific. Heck, he’d once glued a porcelain figure of a naked goddess back together to escape punishment for breaking it and had wound up with a pat on the head from Father for his “mastery of the adhesive” and his “perfectionism”. Admittedly, he’d received a thrashing the next day when the goddess’s head had fallen off and smashed, but the lesson was clear: follow in your father’s footsteps and help mankind progress.
Sod that. I want a pint of shandy and two scoops of pistachio ice cream with a wafer and chocolate sauce. Mankind can go whistle Auld Lang Syne. We’re off to the emporium!
Now with genuine cause for a spring in his step, Edmond felt strangely compelled to walk at his father’s side, at a proper, reserved pace, matching the rhythm of the old man’s stride like he’d done as a young boy. The uneven snow made that difficult, however, and the crunches of their steps were not quite in sync.
Five steamcars were jammed in a line behind an upturned carriage, the latter missing a wheel. A constable blew his whistle as he separated two angry drivers at arm’s length. Up the next, tree-lined street, a group of men rolled a snowball over eight feet high down the pavement. Most pedestrians laughed as they stepped aside, but one woman screamed for them to stop, pointing at the main road.
“Father, what’s the biggest snowball you ever—” Edmond cut himself short when he glimpsed what appeared to be—surely not—a ten pound note trapped in the dirty slush lining the gutter? It flapped in the gust from a passing car.
Breathless, he sneaked behind his parents and planned the whole thing in a flash. Pretend to tie his bootlace, place himself between the note and other passers-by, snatch it up and not let on to anyone, not even Mother and Father, what he’d found. They might not let him keep it, and ten pounds would buy him anything he wanted at the emporium. Anything.
He sensed a city of prying eyes as he crouched, his leading boot half in the slush. A car horn blew its nose not far up the road. The tenner was within his grasp, a snatch away. Screams erupted from across the street and his heart froze—they’d seen him! What if he just got up and walked away, pretended he hadn’t seen the note? A skidding, scraping sound drew closer, like a heavy toboggan being dragged over the ice. A car horn blasted, made him jump. He looked up.
“Edmond!” Mother wrapped her arms around him from behind, tried to pull him away from the out-of-control car. It was too late. She slipped to her knee in the slush. He gasped. The driver’s bared teeth and round goggles and the car’s headlights hurtled at him.
“No!” she screamed. Father repeated the cry from miles away. Edmond shut his eyes, clung to his mother’s arms.
A violent yank threw them both backward onto the pavement. A scraggly old man wearing a red tunic spilled on top of them. The open-top car crashed into the nearest building, shattering the front window, its front tyres tearing at the side of the shop counter inside with a shuddery thrump, thrump.
Distant screams echoed in his mind like late-for-lesson bells at school—guilt piling on fear. Was this all his fault? Steam billowed from the car’s copper boiler, filling the shop. People stumbled out of the cloud, hands and handkerchiefs over their mouths while they coughed.
“Lisa! Edmond!” Father dashed through the steam, gloved fingers crooked at his sides, quicker than he’d ever moved. Edmond had never seen him like this. His eyes were bigger and rounder than the driver’s bared teeth or the goggles or the car’s headlights had been at high speed. Father was terrified.
“Are you all right? Oh my God. Are either of you hurt?” He fell between them, flung his arms around their necks. Mother started sobbing. “I can’t believe how suddenly—God help me, I nearly lost you both.”
“Aye, they had a narrow escape there, lad. I was just passing by, saw the snowball roll out and that idiot swerve—swerve on ice, I’m telling you. As luck had it, my footing held. I’ll never be more grateful to science than I am right now.” The strange man’s voice trembled like loose nails on a rattling old engine. He wiped his wrinkled hands on his dirty red tunic, a soldier’s tunic.
“I saw it, sir, and I can never thank you enough. You rescued everything that matters to me in the world.” Father shook hands with the old soldier while trying to hide his sniffles. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’d be honoured to help you up.”
“Pray tend to your wife and son first, lad. Don’t you worry about me. I can manage.”
Edmond’s curiosity gave way to awe when the old soldier rested on one knee—a brass, clockwork knee that clicked at the slightest bending of the joint. The man had a thick grey beard and a scar in the shape of an uncrossed f running through his damaged left eye. His bronzed skin didn’t match the winter weather.
A handful of envelopes lay strewn in the snow by his side. Edmond made out four of the addressees: Miss Verity Champlain at the House of the Harbour Master, the Royal Navy Port at Rapture’s Point, Van Diemen’s Land; Marquess Embrey at Dalton Manor, Winchester; Tangeni, Able Seaman in the British Air Corps, West African Gannet Squadron, Ovambo Contingent, Namibia; and the last, Sir Horace Holly—possibly the famous old adventurer whose exploits everyone knew?—at...he couldn’t quite make out the address. The man snatched the envelopes up when he saw Edmond was noseying.
Edmond sheepishly looked away—the old man’s secrets echoed his own. How would he feel if Mother or Father rummaged through his bedroom hiding places and found his private things. Or even the dreaded letter, the one he’d kept from them as guiltily as anything he’d withheld in his life. His eyes blurred at the thought.
But who is he? Where has he come from? Why is he sending letters all over the world? Is he a friend of Sir Horace Holly’s? How can he look like a down-and-out and afford such a spiffy-looking
leg?
Two policemen helped the car driver out of the wreckage. He held his bleeding shoulder with one hand, nursed his cut forehead with the other. A voice called out from inside the cloud, “Nobody else is hurt, thank Christ. Were a blummin’ close ’un, though. Shouldn’t be any soddin’ vehicles out when there’s soddin’ ice on the soddin’ roads, I reckon.”
“He swerved to avoid a bloody great big snowball—I saw the whole thing,” another man said. “There should be a law against ’em.”
“What? Snowballs? Don’t talk rot.”
Father lifted Mother, then Edmond, then the old soldier to their feet. A flustered urgency in his movements revealed how much this accident had shaken him.
Brushing the snow off her best purple walking suit, especially the full bell lace sleeves she was so proud of, Mother turned to their newfound hero. “My dear sir, I—I’m—we are all very much in your debt. That was extraordinarily brave. You acted not so much in the nick of time as...well, I daresay its most infinitesimal flicker. My word! We could have been...Might I enquire as to your name?”
“R-Red Mulqueen, ma’am. Retired First Lieutenant in the...of the...” He dropped his gaze, held a trembling hand to his brow, as if the fall had affected his memory.
Mother embraced him gently and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, shut his old eyes tight, as though she’d just told him to make a wish. Then he opened them and looked at Edmond instead—a soft, searching look, filled with sadness and seawater.
She eased away, took Father’s hand. “Mister Mulqueen, I have the pleasure of introducing my husband, Professor Cecil Reardon, and our son, Edmond. We would be honoured if you would agree to join us for dinner this evening—a special Christmas Eve thank you for your brave heroics.” She snuggled up to Father and rested her head on his shoulder, the wide brim of her touring hat tilted up, covering both their heads like a skewed parasol. “It would mean a lot to us.”
He hesitated a beat and recoiled, as though no one had shown him this much kindness in years. Then he straightened his frayed collar. “In that case—” With a click from his knee, he shuffled both legs together to stand tall, his bottom lip quivering, “—I would be delighted.”
“Excellent. Shall we say six-thirty?” Father asked.
“Fine.”
“Our address is seventy-nine Ransdell Avenue, the second street this side of Vincey Park. Shall I send a taxi for you?”
“No, no. Thank you, I can manage.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite.”
“Where do you live, Mister Mulqueen?” Mother asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“Um, my current address is the Steam Emporium, ma’am. My colleagues and I are employed there through the holiday season.”
A homeless soldier? A handicapped veteran? It didn’t seem right for anyone so old and proud to be eking out a living like that.
“I see.” Mother wore her warmest, prettiest smile—no one could resist that. “Well, a very happy Christmas to you, Mister Mulqueen. We shall expect you at six-thirty.”
He gave a courteous bow. “Mrs. Reardon. Professor Reardon.” He shook Father’s hand again, then flicked Edmond a wink. “Young Master Reardon.”
If there was a correct way to address a retired, homeless soldier with a mechanical leg, who’d just saved his life, no one had ever taught it to Edmond. But one thing he did know—felt it so strongly his heart glowed—made the whole crazy incident seem somehow worthwhile as Father and Mother led him home.
He liked the old soldier.
There was an exciting air of mystery about him.
Chapter Three
The visits to their various relatives were mercifully brief this year, the whole lot squeezed into a single afternoon. In between stops, Father and Mother speculated on Mr. Mulqueen’s story—his background, where he’d fought, the likeliest reasons for him obtaining such a prodigious clockwork limb—and really seemed to enjoy themselves. They might have still been a little shaken up by the crash, and needed this game to distract them, but Edmond hadn’t seen them as fascinated by anyone in a long time. It sounded more like a tipsy round of charades. He, too, found himself playing along, but not aloud.
“I didn’t notice any foreign inflection in his speech,” Mother said. “My guess is he served most of his career in a British colony, around British people, if he left these shores at all.”
“You sure you’re not on the Yard’s payroll?” It seemed to tickle Father, how much better than him she was at this.
“Three words for you, dear—the book club.” She grinned. “You don’t really think we spend all that time dissecting Madame Bovary, do you?”
Nice one, Mother. Let him chew on that for a while.
“Hmm, more like Wilkie Collins, from the sounds of it.” Father tipped his hat to one of his colleagues across the street, Mr. Lewisham from the Leviacrum. The moustached man waved back, and the exchange appeared to silence Father. He didn’t speak for the next few minutes, instead just listened to Mother’s clever deductions.
“Did you notice the frayed stitching where his epaulettes had been removed—I’d say ripped off rather than plucked professionally. Is that what happens when you’re discharged? Maybe he was disgraced. And his general reaction to what happened; I can understand a civilian man being shaken like that, but a seasoned military officer? Far be it from me to find fault, though. Good Lord, no. We were less than a second away from... In any event, he did the army proud.”
It was late afternoon when they reached home. Their housekeeper, Mrs. Simpkins, had decorated the front door with a holly wreath and a pair of miniature bells, while inside, around the windows, she’d hung an elaborate, beautifully coloured tinsel-and-papier-mâché border. A medley of Christmas carols on the gramophone accompanied her sewing in the living room. She looked especially pretty today in her shiny green dress and with her red hair tied into buns. Her smooth, pale skin and pink cheeks made her look about half her real age, which was forty-five. Edmond hadn’t realized she was coming around today. He blushed when she cleared her throat and glared down at his feet.
“Sorry, Mrs. Simpkins. I—we were—you’ll never guess what happened.”
“Let’s start that again, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He walked back to the vestibule to take his boots off. For her, anything. Sometimes he found it hard to breathe when she entered a room, and he was fairly sure she’d never seen his face at its regular colour. At least she seemed oblivious to his shame. There was nothing he could do to hide it. Beetroot—the only colour he swore he could feel. His crush had started in Spring, earlier that year, when she’d accompanied Mother and Father to his cricket final in Winchester. He’d taken a corky ball to the forehead, and was a little dazed. Before the second innings had begun, she’d kissed the bruise better and told him he was the best fielder in the match, and she’d batted her eyelashes like that duchess he’d seen in a Kinetoscope when he’d been little.
Yes, it was fair to say, he’d been in love with Mrs. Simpkins since that day.
“Anything the matter, ma’am?” she asked Mother.
“We had a very narrow escape. A car skidded into the fish and chip shop on Bishopsgate, missed Edmond and I by a hair’s breadth. We’re having a guest for dinner, Mrs. Simpkins—the man who bravely plucked us out of harm’s way. Set an extra place this evening, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m relieved you weren’t hurt. I’ll say a special prayer tonight, thanking the Lord for His intervention.”
“Thank you kindly.”
Edmond peered around the door, still with his boots on in the vestibule. “Mother, can I play out for a bit? Sean Barlow and Golly MacDonald have got their toboggans,” he lied.
“Hmm, I don’t know whether that’s a good idea. These roads—”
“We’ll stay away from any roads. The path down by the cemetery, that’s where the sledders go.”
She glanced at Father, who had his back to Edmond
, then took off her hat to reveal frizzy, mousy brown curls. “Very well. Be back in plenty of time to change for dinner. And wrap up. Last time, you didn’t even wear a hat.”
“Yes, Mother,” he groaned, then, quick as a pickpocket, sneaked his father’s miniature dynamo lamp out of his spare topcoat on the hanger and placed it inside his own jacket. He’d need that to find his way back later. Then he picked up his catapult Mother had banned him from using—the steel one with vulcanized rubber strips and a leather pocket—and stuffed it under his belt.
One of Father’s droll jokes made the women laugh. Good. Edmond bolted out, chuffed that they’d all forgotten about him not having had any lunch. They were distracted. But he, too, had more important things than food or tobogganing on his mind. He’d promised himself he would get to see the emporium today no matter what happened. By the time he got there, it would be closed early for Christmas Eve. He loosened his scarf, grinned.
Closed to people with no imagination, that is.
Out of the five friends he had in mind for the break-in, two were not at home and a third, Brandy Maguire, said she was grounded until after the New Year for helping herself to her grandfather's absinthe. That left his best friend, John Roebuck, and the cock of the street, Saul Lewisham, whose father Edmond had seen earlier from across the road. Both lads admitted they were at a loose end, their families all “chinning it”—a phrase doing the rounds at schools, meaning to work hard for no good reason—all martyrs inevitably took one on the chin.
“All right, Rear-End, you show us how to get in, I’ll take it from there.” In the four years since they’d met, Saul had never once used Edmond’s correct surname.
“My pleasure, Fat Man.” In all fairness, Saul wasn’t quite as chubby as he used to be, but Edmond never let an insult slide, however playful. And neither of them had ever taken offence. “Just so you know, it won’t be empty this time. There’s a man staying there—some old geezer.” No matter how hard he tried, Edmond’s choice of words usually bent to those that would impress Saul and John.
Yuletide Miracle (The Steam Clock Legacy Book 3) Page 2
