Clockwork Chaos (21 page)

“I hope they fall ill,” she said half under her breath with more vengeance than Nathaniel expected. “Every last one embroiled in the sinister mockery of a civil governing body. At least long enough to put off the vote until our men return home. You know the commission the councilmen from our district, two men on the side of the common man, on that wild-goose chase just to get them out of town. The Industry Council has resorted to subterfuge and trickery. You must believe, as I do, why Cracky and my cousins were arrested. It was right after Cracky told us he’d overheard the plot to eliminate all printing. So, as far as I’m concerned, these unethical dignitaries can stew in their own juices, at least long enough for Jonathan Tilby and Raymond Longton to have time to make the meeting, convince those of the Industry Council who survive to change their minds—and to interrogate any sickly survivors. By that point, they should be willing to reveal where their headquarters is located and who is behind this internal invasion.”

Her eyes lit up as if flared by a candle, but the light was from within, Nathaniel realized. A fervor, a dedication just like her father’s and one he had admired in both of them. When she was younger, the spoiled only daughter of one of the most respected book dealers this side of the channel, he thought her shallow and conceited, the way she talked about fashion and pranced about town.
Complimentary colors,
he could hear the way she said the words in his mind, as if they held a mystical secret. But now, he knew it was all a distraction.

In the marketplace she turned the heads of men and inspired gossip among women as she taunted everyone with her flamboyant, Bohemian style. But, once in the underbelly of The Equinox, she was all business, as dedicated as any other revolutionary. She strategized against the Industry Council and their reprehensible methods of churning innocent women and children into fodder for the textile mills and work houses.

“Yes, I do agree, something must be done.” He realized it was going to be a long evening. “But can’t we go speak to a higher authority?”

“Who? The Commissioner? He’s as crooked as the Industry Council, and is probably even more entangled with the Progressive Movement for Utilitarian Mechanization. You must realize they all stand on the side of greed, money lust, and power. They will stoop to nothing to persuade the entire country to their
Industrial Conglomerate
plan. It’s all based on coercion and the eradication of the individual. First the newspapers and then all other means of communication.
Infiltrate, Isolate, Interrogate, Indoctrinate, and Incorporate
. That’s what my father found out when he stumbled on their publications. That’s why they killed him. Yet, they claim simple book and newspaper publishers are
propagandists.
They don’t care if children sicken or die from overwork laying the rails. They don’t care if a woman can barely stand at the end of a twelve-hour shift.” He could see hints of the malachite hue of her eyes, that fervent gleam which meant she could not be swayed from her purpose. The color was brought out by the striped corset. If she knew how to create poisons as well as she knew how to make a dramatic statement, her enemies were in dire trouble indeed.

“I brewed a tea of the blossoms,” she whispered as if to herself, as if reading his mind, her voice distant, her eyes looking into the shadowed hollows of the press as if it held answers. Ink dripped from the roller onto the floor and spread in odd, brown patterns.

“
Digitalis purpurea
more commonly called foxglove is not as fragrant as their noble, upright blossoms would lead you to think.” She still spoke in a vague tone, the anger devolved into a slow simmer, a determined simmer to last longer than a quick boil, a simmer of seductive sultriness, like the day she’d taken him by train along the Thames to the botanical display at Kew Gardens. It was beneath the stunning glass dome of the horticulturalist house where she’d shown him the foxglove—and also the first time, drunk on the heat and aromas of lilac and lavender, freesia and roses, he became entranced: both by the power of steam and the allure of Cecilia. He’d attempted to kiss her, but they were interrupted by a haughty matron with her brood. He reluctantly acted the gallant and backed away right into
dionaea muscipulaa,
an oversized, violently green Venus Flytrap.

“And the resultant boiling liquid,” she continued, “it has no special color, only a limp yellow. But the poison is there all the same.” She turned to look at him to make sure he was paying attention. Then she looked at the roller in her hand as if she had forgotten it was there. “And now it’s in the ink. Your injection idea worked.”

She handed him a broadside along with her father’s brass-handled magnifying glass. The optical aid was a piece he’d often enjoyed using when examining technical texts. It was devised with a blend of three separate lenses fused together. One magnified by simply making things bigger, but the second tinted the light in a red tone, while the third tinted the light in a blue tone. These variables, had Cecilia explained, were warm and cold tones, to amplify different aspects of an image. While the tints didn’t affect text to a large degree, they did make a difference in seeing various details when examining the art of drawings, such as Audobahn’s drawings.

When Nathaniel read the broadside, he saw how, in a perverse sense of paradox, Cecilia had chosen to use the broadside to advertise the opening of the Tropical Exhibit at Kew Gardens. “You see how there is a shade of lighter brown at the edges of the ink on these sheets? That’s where the foxglove has escaped the turpentine and watered down the soot and walnut oil... just as it slightly oxygenates the blood and races the heart. Whoever touches these broadsides and eats with the same hand will be stricken. They may not all die, but they’ll certainly suffer alarming reactions.”

Nathaniel couldn’t take his eyes off the roller as ink ran in dark trails down the pale skin or her arm. As the candlelight flickered, it reminded him of dried blood, of the way her father’s face looked shortly after they had found him behind the shop at first light. The poor man had obviously been bludgeoned following one of the clandestine meetings of the local merchants turned reactionaries. Nathaniel stepped back, his mind racing.

“But without all of us, without some keeping watch, we cannot make sure the broadsides don’t fall into the wrong hands. We must avoid hurting innocent people,” Nathaniel tried to convince her, the words tumbling out in a breathless rush.

“Balderdash. I have it all arranged. I have hired Fustin and his boys to be distributors. He already agreed to sell from the pouch with the—let us call them—tainted inks. He’ll make sure they’re only sold on the steps of the meeting house to council members. The younger boys will sell the safe sheets on street corners, at the guild halls, and outside the Blue Anchor Pub. Maybe if I can hire them on for a spell, I can keep the younger ones out of the chimneys and off the rail line and steer Fustin away from his penchant for thievery. I shall save myself a few coppers, just in the number of books he steals for their fire. Now, make yourself useful.” Cecilia pointed to a stack of broadsides on the table. “See that batch over there? They should be dry by now. Don’t worry, you can touch them. Those are the safe batches. Please put them in the weight press so they lie flat. Maybe twenty or twenty-five at a time.”

Nathaniel did as he was told. There was no stopping her at this point. Perhaps he could stop the boys once they hit the streets. Besides, he liked working with the machinery. He was good at it, although, his family would cringe to see him working in a print shop.

Before he took the stack of papers, he went to the nipping press. He leaned over and turned the great, spoked iron wheel until the top platen rose to a height of a foot. After he inserted a stack between the two cushioned platens, he turned the wheel counterclockwise to close the press. This one was not a steam-operated machine. Even though it was heavy at 90 lbs for a parlour-sized press, Cecilia could still turn the wheel which moved the platens up and down. But since it was about her weight, she couldn’t move the piece. Sometimes he wondered if that was the only reason she tolerated him. Before the Betterment Through Industry Council attacked the printers’ guild, he had considered asking Cecilia if he could serve as her partner in the bookshop and printing business. After her father died, he saw how hard she worked to manage it by herself. He now relished the smell of ink, as much as of books. Books had been his constant friends growing up. He felt proud when he helped print and bind one and the ink smell seemed permanent somehow. At least until in recent months, when the rail lines changed everything.

The broadsides, were another thing all together, especially in such strained political times. He tried to talk her out of the broadside jobs. After all they ended up in the gutter by day’s end. But in the past she said it was her bread-and-butter money—and she needed it to maintain a shop on the fashionable Kensington Street.

They worked for another two hours. “That’s the last sheet,” Nathaniel said as he handed it to her.

“Wonderful! I’m exhausted.” She inked the roller one more time, slid in the paper, and stepped on the treadle. The clamshell closed slowly and with less
harummph,
as if it were tired as well. Cecilia turned and leaned against the contraption. She wiped the back of her ink-stained across her forehead to erase all the indelicate signs of moisture, but only plastered more walnut dye on her face. She flung her head back and rested for a moment, her hair falling in disarray around her shoulders, the stays in her corset emphasizing her figure.

Nathaniel thought she looked irresistible in her disheveled state. He had never dared imagine her like this. For a second she looked as enticing and as available as the women from the parlour houses, but once she spoke, the vision dissipated.

“Can we leave the steam engine alone as it cools down?” she asked, still all business.

He shook the vision out of mind and stood with an abrupt upright jerk as if caught. “Yes.” He hurried toward the contraption, “let me release any residual steam out of the additional pipes. The remaining vapors will rise up and out into the back alley, but this late at night with a fog rolling in from the Thames, no one should notice.”

“That is excellent. You head on home, Nathaniel, and thank you so much. I’ll just weight press the last batch of broadsides, and we shall be ready to go tomorrow night.”

“I will not go home and leave you alone at this time of night,” he snapped back in a commanding voice which surprised even him. “You may at times forget your station as a merchant and lady, but I shall not forget mine as a gentleman. I’ll press the last batch while you get dressed and I’ll walk you home.”

“Fine, then, if you must,” she answered, as if she was too tired to argue. “And we shall meet back here tomorrow night after I close the shop at seven when the boys should arrive.”

At 7:00 pm, Nathaniel, always punctual, pulled out his pocket watch, a complicated affair he’d built himself. Not only did it tell the time, but it also calculated the procession of the stars for Greenwich Mean Time. It was a mini astrolabe, partly based on Mayan technology, but also on nautical instruments. He hadn’t revealed it to many, but for all his technical intellect, he held a secret passion for astrology.

Ten minutes later, Cecilia arrived in a rustle of voluminous skirts and heavy breathing. He heard her before he saw the white flounces of her rushed and bunched skirt swirling in the misting night air. She appeared as if dressed for some ball, not a night of high crime and political subterfuge. The collar of her white and navy jacket stood high behind her neck and head, a nod to Queen Elizabeth, but with a truly modern flounce of ruffles. It was another astonishingly bold ensemble, something she found in Paris, no doubt, what with its nautical military coloring emphasized with Parisian flair.

She fumbled for her keys. “Sorry I’m late, none other than Mr. Wheelwright appeared at my door intent on conversation. Idiotic man. He assumes I have nothing to do.”

“Is he a suitor? “ Nathaniel asked without thinking, not recalling the name.

“No, he was an old colleague of my father’s. He wanted to talk scholarly books, of all things, on a night like this. It took all of my wiles and charms to dispatch him!”

As soon as they entered, she lit two candles. “Here. She said handing him one, “be a dear and head downstairs for the newsboy pouches. I brought all the broadsides up, but completely forgot the pouches I sewed out of army surplus material. Please hurry, I want them ready for the boys.”

Nathaniel did as she asked, once again revolted at the thought of his actions, but unable to stop himself from meeting her demands.

No sooner had he reached the bottom of the stairs, than he felt the rush of air and heard the door slam. The lock ratcheted into place. Nathaniel ran up the stairs and tried the door. But it wouldn’t give.

“Sorry, Nathaniel, this is for your own good,” Cecilia yelled to him through the heavy oak door. “I don’t want you implicated. I’ll come back as soon as it is over and release you. I left my neighbor a note to come and let you out in the morning if I don’t return home tonight. I’ve left a picnic basket with food and drink, even a little whiskey for your pains, and there’s a chamber pot beneath the wash basin. So sorry, my dear, but I must rush off. I promise I shall make it all up to you.”

For a second, Nathaniel he balled his fists, intent on banging on the door, but it was no use; few people were about this time of night and Cecilia would never forgive him if the basement was discovered. He slumped against the door, sinking to the top stair in helpless despair, the only answer to his pleas the staccato of her footsteps running out the front door into the tense and noisy London night as it closed with a wooden groan.

What to do? What to do? Halfway through considering his options, Nathaniel realized he may have created an escape route. He raced down the stairs, almost falling in his haste. “Yes, yes—This would do,” he said aloud to himself as he yanked on the large outlet pipe. It didn’t come away easily, but finally the copper broke free of the clay joint. The clay pipe broke into pieces and loose mortar fell at his feet. He could see the alley. The mist had thickened so he worked freely, digging and scrapping in the hole he’d cut open to install the steam pipe, removing the remaining mortar with his bare hands.