by Sadie Swift
With our breaths steaming before us we headed out into the street so as to join other people’s tracks that had compressed the snow. The bottom of my thick dress quickly looked like it had been crusted with sugar icing. We followed the tracks until we had to turn off and head out of the village on an upwards gradient towards the Baron’s house. I hoped that Mr Lloyd had kept the boilers working to keep the house warm.
A thought came to me. “Do you spy any strange tracks, Mr Peach?”
“Such as those not made by a human, Miss Lemon?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I am though rather cognizant of the fact that if someone, or thing, were so inclined they could easily follow us back to the house.”
I glanced behind us and saw our tracks clearly in the snow. I resolved to bring more weapons than just the twin stiletto knives hidden in my wrist sheaths for future visits to the village.
Six
On our walk back to the house I kept a weather eye out for any strange footprints in the pristine snow. But I only saw what Sir Percival informed me were deer, fox, and hare tracks.
Below us was white, above us was clear blue. The air smelt of nothing. Or it meant that my sense of smell was frozen with the cold. Only the sounds of our breathing, and crunching through the snow found its way to my cold ears underneath my deerstalker hat. It was a marvellously strange situation I found myself in. One that I was sure I’d remember for years to come. Hopefully in far warmer environs.
With a backdrop of the spectacular white mountains the roof of the Baron’s house was the only part visible behind the tall brick wall and hardy fir trees that surrounded it. But I saw what I wanted to see – smoke coming from the chimneys, which meant that Mr and Mrs Lloyd were still alive. Which also meant that Sir Percival’s precious apparatus would be safe as well. Which additionally meant that we’d left the welcome warmth of the pub on a wild goose chase. “Could’ve stayed in bed,” I groused to him. I took my frustration out on my dress and beat away as much of the snow that stuck to it as possible, whilst looking askance at Sir Percival.
With a haughty eye he ignored my griping. It was a foregone conclusion that he’d want to be out of the pub and away from Glenys’ romantic attentions as quickly as possible.
The road leading up to the entrance gates was hidden beneath the thick layer of white. But thankfully the snow followed the contours so we could make out where the ditches on either side of it were.
We approached the high metal railing gates and Sir Percival retrieved from a pocket the key to the padlock that secured them. Through the gates I saw lights were on in some of the rooms of the house that was still some distance away. Normally a long curving gravel driveway would lead up to the main entrance between the two wings, but instead a blanket of white covered the interior grounds.
Now we’d arrived I wanted to be inside, out of the numbing cold. Out of my heavy dress and hat and gloves, and melting into a hot bubbly bath. I felt sure that this would vanquish the ice that seemed to be forming in my extremities. And if by some miracle Shemei and Hasina, the maids that took quite exhaustive care of my body, could join me from Egypt? Then most of my dreams would come true.
With a welcome click! the padlock opened and Sir Percival pushed the gate open for us to enter. I left him to relock it and hurried in a straight line directly to the large front door where welcoming warmth awaited me. Once again I kept an eye out for strange tracks, but just as I’d gone a quarter of the distance towards the doorway something caught my eye – green grass was showing in the snow over by a tree-less section of the surrounding high wall. Puzzled, I stopped and took a better look. The area wasn’t immediately observable from the gate which is why I initially missed it. Had the overnight snow-storm somehow missed that part of the grounds? Slowly I walked towards it. My eyes, ever on the lookout, darted around the enclosed grounds. No other area was similarly bare of snow. Then something struck me about it – it had an obvious geometric shape – a rectangle roughly twelve feet by six.
Had the high wall and trees conspired to create some sort of wind vortex preventing snow falling in an almost perfect rectangle?
“Sir Percival?” I said, keeping my eye on the green grass.
“Yes, Miss Le- Lovelady?”
“This is a most inexplicable occurrence.”
I heard his steps in the snow crunch towards me, then stop. He’d seen it.
“Are you aware of any natural event that would create this?” I asked.
His only response was to slowly walk past me towards it.
I turned round on the spot checking more diligently for any similar snow-less areas. Again, I saw none.
Ahead of me Sir Percival had stopped a few yards short of the green grass, which was a welcome relief for the eyes after looking at white snow all this time. Slowly he turned round gauging distances and angles from the grass rectangle to the house and wall and trees.
“Do you have a theory, Sir Percival?”
But he was now deep into his scientific investigation persona and ignored me as he walked out onto the grassy rectangle and crouched down placing his right hand flat on the grass. Having determined something he stood back up and moved to another area of the snow-less rectangle and repeated the crouch and feeling of the grass. I knew better than to interrupt his musings as I had seen so often how important they were for his scientific breakthroughs.
I heard the crunch of snow coming towards me and turned to see the elderly Mr Lloyd heading in our direction. As always he was impeccably dressed in his black frock-coat and trousers, and white shirt. A black bowler hat perched precariously atop his head. As I would not consider the Lloyds to be the regular type of Departmental employee (‘young’ and ‘thrusting’ would not be two words I’d use to describe them) I believe they were kept on in their posts because no-one else wanted to come out here in the isolated middle of nowhere and take over looking after the house.
Before he could say anything and disrupt Sir Percival’s train of thought I hurried towards him and placed a be-gloved finger to my lips. Underneath his bowler his wrinkled bald head with wispy white hair raised itself in confusion at my action.
I whispered, “Mr Lloyd it’s so good to see you again. How is Mrs Lloyd?”
Like some startled toad he slowly blinked his eyes and readjusted his thoughts to respond to my query.
“We are both very well, Miss. Thank you for asking.”
“No problem with the snow-storm last night?”
He raised himself to his bare five-feet and pronounced, “That was but a gentle summer breeze compared to some recalcitrant weather my wife and I have experienced.”
Yes, you probably lived through the last ice-age, I thought to myself.
His eyes flicked past me to Sir Percival’s antics. I saw confusion begin to spread across his face and I thought it best to distract him.
“Was there something you wanted, Mr Lloyd?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes.” He turned his attention back to me. “Myself and Mrs Lloyd were wondering if you were due to enter the house at sometime today as she’s kept some lamb hotpot from last night when you neglected to return.”
There were many responses I could give to such a statement. And I was just selecting the best one when Sir Percival strode by us back towards the house and said, “Hotpot? Capital! Come, Miss… er, Lemon.”
I hurried after Sir Percival, determined to root out his thoughts on the strange snow-less area.
Seven
Under the watchful eye of the plump Mrs Lloyd in her stark black and white uniform Sir Percival and I quickly de-snowed ourselves in the entrance foyer. Unsurprisingly enough the idea of hot food spurred us on. Just as we were hanging our coats up Mr Lloyd arrived back, carefully placed his bowler on a hook and walked past us into the house. For some reason I was surprised that he hardly acknowledged his wife. Maybe they’d reached some plateau in their long relationship where they didn’t need to speak
to each other to know what each was thinking? Was that something to be envied? Would Katherine and I have done the same if she’d not been so cruelly taken from me? Or were we still in the blissful springtime excitement of learning about each other?
The walls and portraits upon them passed by in a blur as I followed behind Sir Percival and mused upon relationships and seasons. I walked through a doorway into a room and found it to be the dining room. The welcome smell of hot food (albeit last night’s hotpot) woke me from my thoughts and I sat down at the large polished wood table, willing Mr Lloyd to move faster when serving us.
I felt it best not to make enquiries with Sir Percival concerning the strange rectangle until we were alone in the makeshift laboratory in the West wing of the house. This was primarily due to being circumspect around the Lloyds, but also that we were both stuffing our faces as soon as our plates arrived and had no time to talk.
Eventually we sat back, our hunger assuaged. Mrs Lloyd slowly cleared our places and Mr Lloyd stood by the door ready to be of slow assistance.
Sir Percival turned to Mr Lloyd and said, “Please bring the coffee to the laboratory.”
It looked like my hot, bubbly ice-melting bath would be delayed.
“The ballroom, yes sir.”
For some reason Mr Lloyd refused to call it a laboratory, and kept insisting it was the ballroom. I had no idea when the last ball was held in the house. As far as we were concerned it was a room large enough for the growing apparatus that Sir Percival was building. It was also in the side of the building that no-one was inhabiting. Which was particularly useful if, heaven forbid, there were any aetheric incidents.
I don’t actually think the Lloyds knew much about aether, and especially not how potentially dangerous it was. Several times now I’d had to dissuade Mrs Lloyd from slowly polishing the copper tubing. If the aether was running and she’d flicked her duster in the wrong place Sir Percival would’ve had to use his medical knowledge to scrape her off what remained of the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Eight
The scent of chilled copper was like an old friend welcoming me back into the large laboratory-cum-ballroom. The tall multi-paned arched windows around the room were uncovered, letting in as much natural light as possible. One of the very first things Sir Percival and I had done was increase the amount of glass surrounding the gas lights to try and minimise the possibility of a catastrophic explosion happening when we were working at night.
Like some overly-proud parent Sir Percival examined the copper and glass apparatus that he’d build from memory. I had to admit that it was quite an achievement. But whether it would work was anyone’s guess.
The next phase of the construction would be to add several long pipes to take the aether outside in order to cool it. Unlike the Men of the Cog we didn’t have the canals of Venice in which to cool our aether, so we could only hope that the cold winds coming down off the mountains would suffice. Whether this meant we needed longer pipes outside was a question we’d answer if it came up.
I also didn’t know how the Lloyds would take to our plan to have exit and entry holes through the large double-doors leading out into the grounds. It seemed that Mr Lloyd was inordinately proud of his ballroom, refusing to call it a laboratory and suchlike. What he’d do when he saw us knocking holes in it was a matter I’d decided to leave in Sir Percival’s capable hands. Several pipes were already aiming themselves at the doors in readiness.
A slow knock came from the large twin doors that opened into the ballroom. Our coffee had arrived.
“Miss, er…?” Sir Percival said. Confusion bloomed across his face as he didn’t know what name to call me in this situation.
“I’ll get it, Mr Peach.”
With visible relief he turned back to carefully tap a piece of bespoke blown glass with his fingernail as I went to the door.
“Tart,” Mr Lloyd said to me as he handed me the silver tray with the shiny metal coffee service upon it.
“I’m sorry?” I replied, blinking my confusion at him.
“I’ve forgotten the Bakewell tart Mrs Lloyd has made for you.”
“Splendid!” Sir Percival said from behind me in the room. “She’s an absolute angel. You’re a lucky man to have her.”
That Sir Percival said something like this was a surprise to me. As his attention was engrossed with his apparatus I believed it was some sort of verbal reflex he’d developed so as to attempt to socially fit in somehow.
“Indeed, Sir. Tart,” he repeated, as I turned away from him. “I shall bring it forthwith.”
I couldn’t help getting the feeling that he took a certain amount of gratification in using that word in my direction. No matter. I’d been called far worse in my younger days. And also taken out retribution upon the perpetrators. I hoped I’d been mistaken about Mr Lloyd.
The coffee smelt delicious and I took it to a small side table that was accidentally clear of tools and copper tubing. I quickly poured myself a cup and then another that I took over to the absorbed Sir Percival, making sure to avoid inadvertently walking into the maze of pipes and glass.
“Mr Peach,” I said, reaching him. He ignored me. I knew why. “Sir Percival,” I whispered, knowing that using his more recognisable real name would break him out of his intense concentration.
“Ah! Thank you, Miss… um.”
I suppose I’d better get used to being called ‘Um’.
We sipped our drinks while looking round the apparatus. I was still dying to know what he thought about the green rectangle outside, but needed to wait for the slow arrival of Mr Lloyd and the ‘tart’.
After several delightful sips of the coffee the sound of deliberate footsteps arrived and, even though the door was open, a series of slow, sharp knocks came from it.
I glanced up at Sir Percival in case he was going to answer it. But all I got was a thoughtful “Hmm?” as he examined the curve in a piece of copper tubing.
Carefully I retraced my steps, placed my cup and saucer on the table, and reached the door.
“Ta–”
“Tart, yes indeed.” I quickly interrupted Mr Lloyd and took the dish, plates and cutlery from him. “It looks wonderful. Please pass our thanks on to your good wife.”
“Anythi–?”
“That will be all thank you, Mr Lloyd.”
I shut the door in his face, and locked it, savouring the memory of his affronted look. Petty, I know, but I was never going to let anyone bring me down to their level ever again.
Nine
A sneaky idea sprung to mind and I cut a slice of the admittedly delicious-looking Bakewell tart and placed it on a plate. Then I went in search of Sir Percival. Triangulating his position by using the sound of musical metallic pings as he tapped the various tubes I found him deep in among the apparatus. I then gently wafted the raspberry jam and almond smell in his direction.
“Your thoughts on the grassy area outside, Sir Percival?”
The pings stopped as the scent found its mark.
“Hmm?”
“The unusual grassy area outside. What do you make of it?”
“That? I thought it was pretty obvious, Miss,… Um.”
I sighed and carefully manoeuvred myself out from the depth of the metal beast’s intestines back to the coffee table.
“Obvious? How?”
Sir Percival emerged after me like some dessert-hungry animal, just as I’d planned. Perhaps my longed-for bath wasn’t a lost cause?
“The ground in that area is far warmer than elsewhere. So any snow that fell on it would melt.”
“That was quite a storm last night. Judging from the surrounding snow-covered areas it must be remarkably warm?”
“Indeed.”
He’d now reached the table and was slicing into the tart.
But his reply raised another question - what would make the ground that warm? But then I remembered the way he examined the angles to the house and surrounding wall. “Would it be something connected wit
h the house?”
His reply was postponed by stuffing large piece of Bakewell tart into his mouth. I must say that since he was now clean-shaven I didn’t have the unfortunate sight of him feeding his beard, or doing disgusting things with the crumbs that inevitably found their way into it.
Patience, Alice. Patience, I silently chided myself.
With a swallow he finished the piece of Bakewell tart, then absently reached for his non-existent beard in order to suck the crumbs from it. With my poker face I watched as a look of disappointment crossed his face when he realised he no longer had one.
“Grass?” I prompted.
He looked at me, momentarily nonplussed. “Oh, I believe it’s something to do with the house.”
But it was remarkably close to the wall? “That far out? A secret tunnel or some such?”
“Without asking questions of the… um,” he cast around trying to remember Mr and Mrs Lloyd’s names, and gave up, “staff, which they may not be amenable to. Or searching for access to any basement area, I am unable to offer further supposition.”
“But what could be so extraordinarily warm? Doesn’t it strike you as very strange?”
“My whole purpose is aimed to the creation of this.” He absently waved his empty plate at the cold aether apparatus. “It is most important that I not permit myself to be distracted from it.”
I saw his point. This was perhaps the foremost important scientific achievement of the age. That the Men of the Cog were so close to solving it for their own nefarious ends meant that Sir Percival had to make his version work.
But did the mysterious deaths, of which Dewi’s was apparently the most recent, have any bearing upon the safety of the apparatus? Was there a link between the inexplicably warm ground and the deadly monster the locals blamed Sir Percival and I for?
It appeared that it was my responsibility to answer these questions. And I knew just who to begin making enquiries with.
