Part 6 (1/2)
With his wife's death, though, Southland had become irrational and taken up radical notions. So far Desiree had steered clear of them with my guidance, but I shuddered to think that she might become a Nonconformist or Suffragist. Still, I took care to be polite to Southland. If he cut Desiree from his will, the results would be disastrous.
”Of course he came to see me, Papa,” Desiree said from the other doorway. She had removed her leather ap.r.o.n, revealing a gay dress of pink cotton sprigged with strawberry blossoms. She perched a decorous distance from me and poured her own tea, adding a hearty amount of milk.
”I've come to nag you again, Des,” I teased.
A crease settled between her eyebrows. ”Claude, is this about Lady Allsop's ball again?”
I leaned forward to capture her hand, its color deep against my own pale skin. ”Desiree, to be accepted in society, you must make an effort now and then. If you are a success it will reflect well on me. Appear at the ball as a kindness to me.”
She removed her fingers from mine, the crease between her eyebrows becoming more p.r.o.nounced. ”I have told you: I am not the sort of woman that goes to b.a.l.l.s.”
”But you could be!” I told her. ”Look at you, Desiree. You are as beautiful as any woman in London. A nonpareil. Dressed properly, you would take the city by storm.”
”We have been over this before,” she said. ”I have no desire to expose myself to stares. My race makes me noteworthy, but it is not pleasant being a freak, Claude. Last week a child in the street wanted to rub my skin and see 'if the dirt would come off'. Can you not be happy with me as I am?”
”I am very happy with you as you are,” I said. I could hear a sullen tinge to my voice, but my feelings were understandable. ”But you could be so much more!”
She stood. ”Come,” she said. ”I will show you what I have been working on.”
There would be no arguing with her I could tell by her tone but a touch of sulkiness might wear her down. Lord Southland glared at me as I bowed to him, but neither of us spoke.
In the workshop, a clockwork fairy sprawled on the table. Using a magnifying gla.s.s, Desiree showed me its delicate works, the mica flakes pieced together to form its wings.
”Where did you get the idea?” I asked.
”In Devons.h.i.+re, an old woman spoke of seeing fairies. There was an interview with her in Hardwicke's Science-Gossip.”
I snorted. ”Old women are given to fancies.”
Desiree shrugged, taking up a pick and using it to adjust the paper-thin wing's hinge. ”It made me think about how to create flying creatures. I chose to use b.u.mblebees for my model, rather than the traditional b.u.t.terfly wings. My fairies can resist strong winds and go where I wish them, according to the instructions I have laid into their 'brains', which are based on the papers Babbage has published.”
Desiree is interested in such things, but I don't find them nearly as engaging as spiritual matters. She droned on, but I cut her short. ”Sometimes I think you don't love me.”
She stopped. Her half-parted lips were like flower petals, an orchid's inner workings. ”Why do you say that?”
”You don't understand my position,” I said. ”As a dean, I must have a wife who is acceptable in society's eyes.”
”This is about the ball again,” she said. She reached out to touch my face, but I turned my head away and pretended to examine the articulated form half-a.s.sembled on the table.
”Very well,” she said. Her hand returned to her side. ”If it means that much, I will go.”
That week flew pell-mell. I went to a lecture by John Henry Newman, and to the theater to see How She Loves Him by Boucicault. I stopped by Lord Southland's on three separate evenings, but most nights I dined at my club, on excellent quail prepared in the French style, or fresh haddock.
Desiree had started work on a mechanical cat. She took me into her workshop to look at it. A clockwork nightingale sang in the wicker cage hanging from the rafters, set in motion by our footsteps' vibration.
”It's still in the preliminary stages,” she said. A bra.s.s skeleton lay disa.s.sembled on the table, but it was laid out so I could see the cat-to-be's shape. Mercury beads rolled in a white porcelain dish. A discarded spray of silver whiskers had been tossed in the coal scuttle.
I glanced around. ”The deanery has a bas.e.m.e.nt,” I said. ”It houses our wine cellar and storerooms, but I have sent to have the front room cleaned and whitewashed for you.”
Desiree's teeth flashed as she smiled. I stole a kiss and her breath smelled of licorice. I felt her skin's warmth against my hands. True, the room was not as fine as this, but she would improvise and make do, for she was a clever girl. And once she had started bearing, such fancies would fall away. Her inventions, her clever machines, were simply a way to channel her maternal instinct. Once she had a child, she would find herself devoted to it.
While Desiree went upstairs to speak to her father, I lingered in the workshop. I amused myself by walking between the tables and shelves, examining her work.
I paused beside what looked like a dress form, a bra.s.s cylinder the size of a human torso. My cheeks flushed as I regarded it.
Shockingly, Desiree had given it the semblance of a maiden's bosom, a suggestion of curves whose immodesty appalled me. Headless, armless, legless, the torso stood affixed to three steel rods that culminated in a circular base as wide as an elephant's foot.
I reached out and touched its ”shoulder”, then trailed my fingertips along the skin towards its chest. The oils from my fingers left a faint trail behind them, smudging the metal's gleam. It was how corrosion started, I knew. Given time, would the stains grow to verdigris, show how intimately I had touched Desiree's creation?
I buffed the marks away with a linen rag that lay on a nearby workbench. The stairs creaked beneath me in admonishment as I ascended to join Desiree and her father. They had been arguing again. I heard her father say, ”Blasted pedantic popinjay!” and Desiree say, ”Oh, Father,” her tone coaxing and indulgent.
”You don't have to settle for such a man!”
”If I want to be part of society and not an outcast, I need a proper husband! Claude and I will accommodate each other with time.”
That had an ominous sound, but we would discuss it later. They fell silent as I appeared, Southland's face red with anger, Desiree's smile as bland as her mechanical cat licking cream.
Everyone notable was present at Lady Allsop's ball. Silks and satins gleamed like colored waters touched with flecks of light from cut gems. The air smelled of hothouse flowers and French perfume. The orchestra played as the dancers glided through a waltz.
I do not entirely approve of diversions like dancing, but society places demands on us. I was eager for the ton to place their benison on my bride-to-be. I would dance twice with Desiree when she arrived, but for the most part I intended to stay on the sidelines, drinking lemonade. Still, when a few partners pressed me, I gave in.
I know well that women find me alluring no credit to anyone other than He who shaped me. But my calf shows to advantage in breeches, to the point where at least one too-bold miss has called it shapely.
And I knew very well that it was my looks that initially attracted Desiree. Like all women, she is drawn to this world's baubles, not realizing their transient, mayfly nature. But with time she had sounded my mind's depths, and I flattered myself that what she found there had strengthened her attraction to me.
A woman I danced with mentioned that the Southlands had arrived. ”Your fiancee, is she not?” she purred. ”I saw her arrive with her papa, a half hour or so ago.”
I made my excuses and went outside the great hall to pa.s.s through the refreshment line, looking for Desiree. I caught sight of her ahead of me, in the side hall's shadows, dark hair held up by an intricate mechanism atop her head. She paused beside a dusky silk curtain, speaking to a blonde, blue-eyed woman.
From the back I could see Desiree's silk skirt: figured with gears, the teeth embroidered in red. I came up behind her and slid my hand through the crook of her elbow, drawing her close to show my pleasure at her presence there, despite her dress's outre nature.
I realized my mistake from the way the woman pulled herself away. She turned and I saw her clearly, no longer Desiree. Her hair held brownish-red highlights, and her eyes were an icy, outraged green. The patterned cogs were Michaelmas daises, the teeth ragged petals, scarlet on cream.
I stammered apologies, backed away as quickly as I could, bowing.
I searched through the crowds for Desiree and failed to find her. I looked around the punchbowl, through a salon filled with young misses waiting to be asked to dance, their mothers hovering nearby. Desiree had never been among their ranks. Her father had been indulgent, allowed her to skip so many social niceties. I sought her amid the dancers and along the wall benches, where groups of men gossiped and women nattered amongst themselves.
I finally slipped outside into the starlit gardens. There I found her, scandalously alone with a man.
Pea gravel crunched under my boot heels as I approached, just in time to see him lean forward and take her hand. The night was cool on my outraged cheeks as I ran forward, pus.h.i.+ng him away from her.
He staggered back, looking surprised. I had not seen him before: a dark Irishman with a narrow face and a nose like a knife blade. His black eyes were altogether too dark and romantic, like some hero in a novel.
Sometimes you dislike a man at first sight. As now. An expression that flashed over his face made me think he reciprocated the sentiment. He was, annoyingly enough, dressed impeccably, better than my own efforts, despite the Honiton lace at my throat.
Something wild in the cast of his features, the white flash of his throat, the enormous emerald on his hand, the way the moonlight glinted on his fingernails, made me think him something other than human, some besotted seraphim or an exotic nightmare borne of hallucinogen or fever. A s.h.i.+ver worked its way down my back and spread its fingers to measure my ribs.
”Claude!” Desiree exclaimed, looking far from pleased at her rescue.
I ignored her, addressing the man. ”You will not touch my fiancee again, sir. I am surprised at you, taking advantage of her in this fas.h.i.+on.” I did not say it, but my reproach was aimed at Desiree as well, even though I knew she could not have known better in her foolish, naive youth.