The Peculiars (9 page)

Lena could hardly answer one question before he was on to another. She found herself smiling at Jimson’s lively face. The entryway itself confused Lena even more. It was like no foyer she had ever seen. The ceiling was two stories above her and painted to look like the night sky, except where a window in the painted sky let in a patch of real blue with clouds scudding by. The wall in front of her featured brass instruments, some with dials. There was a barometer, a compass, a thermometer, and others she couldn’t identify.

Jimson was still talking. “You have to see the library and meet Mr. Beasley.”

Lena dove into the rushing stream of words. “What did she mean about bicycles and hair tonic?”

“Oh, Mr. Beasley ordered a bicycle from Mr. A. A. Pope and Company. It was supposed to be here last week. Hair tonic . . .” His forehead dissolved in wrinkles as he thought. Lena had forgotten how open Jimson’s face was. It held none of the marshal’s secretive intensity. “I’m not sure about that one. But you have to come see what we have here.”

He’s only been here a couple of days, and he’s already talking as though he owns the place, Lena thought enviously.

“Come with me. Mr. Beasley’s a great inventor, a man ahead of his time. But first tell me everything you’ve been doing.”

Lena was surprised how comforting it was to be with someone familiar, someone who made her feel safe. This time Jimson really did pause to listen, asking her just a few astute questions about her days in Knoster. Lena left out all mention of the marshal except to say she had met with him once and that he had failed to find her purse. She even confessed that she was now staying at Miss Brett’s rather than with her cousin.

As they talked, Jimson led her through a series of hallways toward the library.

“How have you gotten on with your library work?” She hoped he’d managed to satisfy Mr. Beasley.

“Perfect. His library is the most amazing place, nothing like any library you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have all the regular librarian training, because everything here is so different. Being a quick learner is more important than knowing all the answers.” He winked at Lena and then stopped abruptly and changed direction. He led her down a short hall to a door that opened out onto a patio overlooking the cliff. In the middle of the patio there was something that appeared to be a large cauldron with a mirror. It was enclosed in glass.

“What is it?” Lena edged closer to the device, but her real interest was in looking over the rail to the rocks and sea below.

“Mr. Beasley’s converting solar power into steam energy. The sun reflects off the mirrors and makes the water boil.”

“You can do that on a stove,” Lena remarked.

“This is on a much larger scale, and it doesn’t take wood, coal, or oil to power it. Mr. Beasley predicts coal will run out eventually, and then where will we be? Industry requires steam. This”—he gestured toward the cauldron—“can produce enough steam to power an engine. It could power an electricity generator, or perhaps a smaller one could power a motor vehicle.”

He looked as pleased as if he had invented it himself, Lena observed. “What happens when the sun isn’t shining?”

“Even on a cloudy day you get some energy. Ultraviolet makes it through the clouds; it just isn’t as efficient. You’re right, though. It works best in a climate with lots of sunny days. Mr.
Beasley’s always experimenting. He’s even working on a flying machine. He’s a true man of science.”

Jimson led Lena on to the library, chuckling when he heard her sharp intake of breath. The doors, with their massive metal mechanisms of revolving gears and rods, were unlike any Lena had ever seen. “Why, they’re like machines or sculpture!”

“The inner sanctum . . . the holy of holies. Welcome to the library.” Jimson gave a short bow.

As unconventional as the doors was the library itself. It was far more than a collection of books. It was more like a cabinet of curiosities, a museum of the strangest sort. Rich leather-bound volumes lined walls on shelves that reached twenty feet to the ceiling. Prized artifacts filled display cases. Unlike the dim, marble-floored building where her mother worked, this library was filled with filtered light from long windows. On top of a glass case a collection of small volumes glowed red, blue, and green.

“They’re real jewels,” Jimson informed her, “rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Mr. Beasley says they were made by Mr. Sangorski and Mr. Sutcliffe. And this book is the oldest book of medical illustrations ever written.”

A narrow gallery halfway up the wall supported a rolling ladder to reach the higher books. Any unused wall was covered with maps—mostly of continents Lena had explored only in her imagination. Many were marked with little flags that Jimson said showed places Mr. Beasley had visited as a medical doctor and as an explorer. And then there were the display cases. The
room was filled with variously sized oak-and-glass cases, each carefully labeled with a brass plate. Lena stepped close to the nearest one. Inside on a purple velvet background was a spear with a long blade on one end. Attached to the shaft just below the blade was what looked like all the hair from a horse’s tail. Lena read the brass plate:
THE SOUL OF GENGHIS KHAN
. She looked up at Jimson.

“It’s a
sulde
from Mongolia. A warrior ties the hair from the tails of his best horses on his spear and keeps it outside his tent. It’s kind of like his name card, but Mr. Beasley says they believe it’s even more than that. It’s his identity, and when he dies it becomes his soul. This one belonged to Genghis Khan, one of the smartest men who ever lived, Mr. Beasley says.”

Lena was reminded of the missionary ladies at Miss Brett’s, proclaiming that Peculiars had no soul. “But it’s not really a soul.”

“Well, our vicar in Northerdam would agree with you. Besides, science hasn’t proved we even have souls.”

“But it hasn’t proved that we don’t.” Again Lena felt hollow inside and she wondered if it was because she was different from everyone else.

“Mr. Beasley collects all kinds of wonders from his travels. In this case”—Jimson led her by the arm to a very small glass case on the top of a low bookshelf—“we have a pipe made from the femur of a Chinese pirate.” Lena recoiled, but he held her arm more tightly. “It isn’t so bad. Take a look.”

She peered into the case. A long and delicate pipe lay on a bed of satin. It was carved with strange vines and yellowed at the mouthpiece. “How does he know it was from a Chinese pirate?”

“Because he got it from a Malaysian pirate who had lost an ear in the battle.”

A sudden whizzing noise flew by her ear. Lena jumped. For the first time she noticed a series of glass tubes suspended overhead crisscrossing the library.

“They’re pneumatic. It’s the way Mr. Beasley sends requests from his study.” Jimson walked to a large desk and opened the end of the tube and removed a copper cylinder from which he extracted a folded sheet of paper. “He wants his copy of Swinburne’s
Poems and Ballads
. He’s a great fan of poetry.”

Lena watched openmouthed as Jimson rolled the ladder to an upper shelf, climbed up, and returned with a book in hand.

“I don’t know Dewey’s decimal system yet, but I’m working at it. I know most modern libraries are using it now. Come on. It’s time I introduced you to Mr. Beasley.”

MR. BEASLEY’S STUDY WAS SEVERAL DOORS DOWN FROM THE
library, on the side of the house that faced the sea. Jimson rapped on the dark paneled door and waited until a deep voice asked him to enter.

One wall of the study was mostly windows, with a view of the sea stretching into eternity. The rest of the room was dark-paneled and dim, and from the depths of that dimness a man arose.

“Here’s your book, Mr. Beasley. I have a friend visiting—the girl from the train, Lena Mattacascar.”

Had he been talking about her? Lena suddenly felt flustered. She looked up into the face of a very tall, mostly hairless man. She tried hard not to stare, but it seemed impossible. Above his gray eyes two brown arching lines had been neatly drawn where eyebrows should be. The rest of his face was smooth—there was no stubble of beard. And the top of his
head was crossed lightly with only a few strands of pale hair.

“I’m delighted to meet you. Tobias Beasley at your service.” He extended both of his large hands and enclosed her right hand. When the fingertips of her pale butterscotch glove extended well beyond his, his eyes lit with interest. But he said nothing other than “Welcome to Zephyr House.”

She remembered the marshal’s words—
He’s up to something in that strange house of his, and you’re going to help me find out what it is
—and shivered. “Thank you. Jimson has already shown me the library. It’s amazing.”

“It is wonderful, isn’t it? But you must be tired after the drive out here, and I suspect Jimson didn’t think to offer you any refreshment. I’ll ring for Mrs. Pollet. We’ll have tea.”

He ushered them over to chairs by the large mullioned windows, and Lena found herself looking out over the endless blue sky and the sea. The way they merged into one gave her a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Jimson told me that your mother is a librarian. Does she use this new Dewey decimal system? I’m having Jimson recatalogue all my books using it.”

“That’s not how the books are arranged now, but the librarians have been talking about it. I remember my mother coming home and complaining about the new system.”

Mrs. Pollet strutted into the room with a tea tray loaded down with sandwiches and cups and a steaming red teapot. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at Lena skeptically, as if she blamed the girl for this disruption
to her household routine. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Beasley?”

“No, Leticia, this is more than enough. But would you ask your husband to check the water levels of the Aeolipile?”

She nodded and hurried off.

“Jimson also showed me how you are converting water to steam using solar power. Is that the Aeolipile?” Lena asked.

“No, the Aeolipile is something else altogether. It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘Hero engine.’ It’s a demonstration of how steam can power a device. It’s a two-thousand-year-old invention and not very practical. But I’m hoping to modify it. The house is full of experiments.” Mr. Beasley leaned forward to pour them each a cup of tea. “Coal won’t be around forever. We’ll use it up eventually, just as we will oil. But steam—that’s the true wave of the future. What we need are more ways to generate steam power that don’t depend on resources that will disappear.”

“But aren’t there coal mines all over Scree?” Lena tried to direct the conversation toward the land to the north.

“Yes, right now Scree is full of coal. But it won’t be forever; it can’t be. So while we’re busy exploiting the land, someone needs to be researching the next step. That’s the problem with engineers. They can be shortsighted.”

“Mr. Beasley has all kinds of inventions. I only showed you one.” Jimson lifted the top off a sandwich to inspect the filling inside. Chicken salad seemed to please him, because he took a hearty bite.

“Steam will change lives, Lena,” Mr. Beasley continued. “For example, look what steam has contributed to the medical profession. We still struggle with believing only those things we can see. That’s why no one paid attention to Joseph Lister when he said that something called bacteria was killing patients and that we needed to use steam to sterilize medical equipment—even the sheets the patient has been lying in. This is a new age of science.”

Jimson’s eyes never left Mr. Beasley’s face. “‘Science dogs his every footstep, meets him at every turn, and twines itself around his life.’ That was in a copy of
The Naturalist
magazine. Mr. Lockyer said it.”

“See how fortunate I was to find Jimson?” Mr. Beasley beamed, and Jimson flushed. “But what brings you to Knoster, Miss Mattacascar?”

Lena twined her own feet around the clawed feet of the reading chair and smoothed the wrinkles from her blue skirt. “I had hoped to go to Scree. I came prepared to hire a guide and buy provisions, but an unfortunate incident on the train—”

“Her bag was snatched.”

“Makes it more difficult now. I would still like to go to Scree after I’ve earned some money.” She looked up and found Mr. Beasley regarding her thoughtfully.

“Why Scree?”

She had thought out her explanation carefully. “I’ve always been interested in it, and my father had some business dealings
there when I was younger. I guess I just want to see the place for myself.”

“Scree is not a journey to be undertaken lightly. You’re right to want a guide and to count the cost of provisions. The land belongs to no one. That’s what our government claims, even though there have been indigenous people there for thousands of years. If we didn’t look at it as unclaimed land, we’d have a difficult time justifying our actions there.” His forehead creased with concentration and his painted eyebrows dove down to his nose.

“Several people mentioned that you are an expert on Scree and might be the perfect guide,” Lena ventured.