A Proper Education for Girls (34 page)

Mr. Blake held it unsteadily to his eye. The weight of the thing and the stiff breeze blowing across the rooftop made his hands shake, those and the fact that the telescope was warm to the touch from its recent spell pressed against Alice's body. He gave her a sidelong glance. Would she object, he wondered, if he slipped an
arm about her shoulders? Perhaps a kiss could be stolen, a reward for his uncharacteristic display of manly restraint when she had presented herself, naked, in his rooms … He shifted himself closer, but her apparent indifference to his nearness, combined with the coldness of the stone beneath his already freezing buttocks, dimmed his uncertain ardor.

“There's one. I wonder whose it is?” said Mr. Blake. A carriage could be seen at the far end of the park. It had halted in obvious bafflement at the sealed gates.

“Perhaps they'll think it's all a mistake and drive away again,” said Alice hopefully. But no. The carriage in question was joined, after a moment or two, by another, and after some consultation held between the occupants (as reported by the telescopically aided Mr. Blake) they moved off, one after the other, and were eventually heard entering the stable yard at the rear of the house. Mr. Talbot's welcoming voice boomed up from below, echoing from walls and chimney pots before being carried away on the rising wind. Some minutes later, the shambling form of Sluce could be seen heading toward the gates, a lantern in his hand against the gathering dusk, dispatched to act as a human fingerpost directing visitors in their circumnavigation of the grounds.

Mr. Blake folded the telescope.

“You can't stay up here all night,” he insisted.

“I can. I shall write to Lilian to pass the time. It is a great comfort to me to do so, even though I know she will never read them. In fact”—Alice's face brightened—“I was hoping that you might smuggle something out for me. I would have asked you sooner only I was not sure—”

“You doubted me?”

“Yes.”

“But now?” Mr. Blake reached for her hand.

“So you would be prepared to act as my courier?” Alice sounded eager.

“Oh no,” said Mr. Blake. “It is quite impossible now. It appears
that since your visit to my room … I am at no greater liberty than yourself. Your father has assured me that my pockets will be searched for any correspondence from you should I attempt to leave the house.”

“Would you submit to such an indignity?”

“Would I have a choice? He seems most determined.”

Alice sank back into silence.

“Has Lilian written to you again?” said Mr. Blake gently.

“She sent us a painting.”

“Another coded communication?”

“Yes. She sent four paintings, each depicting different flowers or leaves. They speak their own language.”

“Which is?”

“Sweet scabious, bugloss, coltsfoot, and birds'-foot trefoil.”

“And this means, what, exactly?” said Mr. Blake with some impatience.

Alice looked at him closely. He had no love for her father, that much was clear. And had she not just said that she trusted him? Besides, what did it matter who she told? “Widowhood, false love, justice, and revenge.”

“Widowhood? Revenge? For what? Upon whom?”

“I presume Mr. Fraser is dead,” said Alice. “As for the rest, we shall have to wait and see.”

“Well.” Mr. Blake shivered and pulled his coat closer around his shoulders. “That's all very interesting, but she is in India and you are here, on your father's roof, with Dr. Cattermole, his camera, his surgical instruments, and a room full of onlookers awaiting you downstairs. I would suggest that writing to your sister is not likely to achieve a satisfactory resolution to your present situation.”

Alice had become used to Mr. Blake's quiescent manner. Now that he had been without ether for a few days, however, she had noticed that he seemed far more able to apply his thoughts intelligently. His eyes had regained some of their sparkle, and the sore beside his mouth had practically disappeared.

“Besides,” he added, “you're surely not going to let him get the better of you? An old scoundrel like Cattermole?”

“He has not got the better of me.”

“That, of course, is why you are hiding up here on the roof.” The photographer reached for the bottle of brandy. He poured a splash of it into each of their empty teacups. “For courage!”

A
LICE AND
M
R.
Blake approached the ballroom along an ill-lit and musty corridor used only by servants. Mr. Blake led her through a small, barely distinguishable door in the wall of the ballroom. For once Mr. Talbot had cast aside all thought of economy, and lamps blazed everywhere. The sound of male conversation filled the air in a dismal drone.

“I'd forgotten this door was here,” whispered Alice.

“I saw Sluce disappearing into it. He was supposed to be helping me move this—” The photographer pointed to the vast piece of machinery that loomed before them. “It's—”

“A steam-driven plowing, drilling, and threshing machine made by Hornsby and Son. Yes, I was obliged to write a piece about it for my father when I was a child. Industry and farming are magnificently united in this artifact, you know. It represents the triumphant harnessing of nature for the glory of the nation's larders.”

“I see.”

“Did you place it here deliberately?”

“I did. There are a few display cases of coal fragments from the Collieries of the World in front of it, and a pyramid made up entirely of artificial eyeballs has been erected on top, so it would take a very determined fellow to see you.”

“Aren't you going to stay with me?”

Mr. Blake squeezed her hand. For a moment, Alice thought he was about to press it to his lips, but he seemed to think better of it and, with a grim nod, disappeared back into Sluce's passageway.

A
LICE PEEPED AROUND
the plowing, drilling, and threshing machine. She had never seen the ballroom so filled with people. The artifacts that Mr. Blake had so carefully positioned about the room projected from a seething throng of black-clad backs and waving arms, as though the house were overrun by a swarm of enormous insects. Alice recognized the veined nose and booming laugh of the inventor of the tempest prognosticator and the tall, stooping figure and trembling hands of the cuneiform translator. She stepped back hastily into the shadows behind the threshing machine. An artificial eye of a particularly startling blue gazed accusingly at her from the top of the eyeball pyramid. Alice reached over and plucked it from its pinnacle. The fewer eyes that knew about her hiding place, the better.

At length her father appeared behind the lectern that had been placed on the raised platform. He droned out a welcome … how delighted he was to be able to greet so many august members of the Society in his humble home. How he hoped they would find most stimulating those artifacts that he had gathered together for display within the ballroom and the surrounding corridors … On and on he rambled: the magnificence of human achievements in art and science, the need to educate through display and instruction, the importance of the Society and its members in this educative role … Alice slumped against the wall. She had heard it so many times before.

“There is, however, a medical theme to this afternoon's meeting,” thundered Mr. Talbot.

Alice sprang to her feet.

“Throughout the room you will see, along with many unusual and interesting objects and machines that epitomize progress of a more general sort, certain instruments and devices pertaining to the improvement of the human body. Tools—knives, blades, and scalpels designed to facilitate abdominal surgery or the rapid removal of unnatural growths; devices—inhalers and suchlike—for the administration of opiates and other medicines; new and ingenious prosthetic limbs, not least a false nose, imitation eyeballs in all
manner of sizes and colors, and an artificial hand. I might also draw your attention to an artificial leech, which can painlessly suck blood from an infected patient; a most ingenious fulcrum and chair for the extraction of teeth; and a stomach pump which has several useful adaptations.”

There was a murmuring and a nodding of heads.

“Dr. Thomas Cattermole, with whose zeal in the quest for knowledge and its propagation you are already familiar, will lead this meeting with a discussion about new developments in surgery as a means of controlling certain social ills. At the back of the room you will have noticed a number of jars containing Dr. Cattermole's own personal anatomical museum. I hope you will avail yourselves of this opportunity to see various extremes and marvels of human disease and malformation.”

Alice caught sight of Dr. Cattermole's face. He was sitting beside her father. He looked irritated, his face red in the candlelight, his mouth a thin angry line. She had also noticed that Dr. Cattermole's anatomical museum was, in fact, attracting little attention, as though those members of the society who were present were loath to be reminded of the possible failings and malfunctions of their own, all-too-frail bodies.

“Dr. Cattermole has brought his magic lantern and will illustrate his talk with photographs and statistics of his own manufacture.”

There was a round of applause as Dr. Cattermole rose to his feet. On his signal, the lamps and candles were extinguished. He opened a box and removed a glass plate, which he proceeded to slide behind the magnifying eye of his magic lantern. A photograph of a startled-looking middle-aged woman appeared upon the wall behind him. It was an expression Alice recognized, as the sitter struggled to remain still with eyes open for the duration of the exposure.

“Mania,” Dr. Cattermole began, “is set to make its way through the delicate balance of the female mind up and down this country.”

Alice smelled Sluce before she saw him. A dank, earthy smell, a mixture of mud and stale food, of sweat and rotten teeth. She turned. He was standing right behind her, a look of triumph mingled
with disbelief on his face. He parted withered lips to shout out that he had found her at last, right under their very noses too! Alice hesitated only for a second while her fingers curled around the shining blue and white orb of an artificial eye. And then she drove her fist into the center of Sluce's grinning face.

L
ILIAN RODE OUT OF THE CANTONMENT AND TOWARD
the native town dressed in
pyjama
trousers and
dhoti
, with a turban wrapped about her head. On her feet she wore a pair of soft leather boots she had bought in the bazaar, and over the whole costume a goatskin jerkin secured by a belt. Months of riding about the
mofussil
with her paints and easel had tanned her face and hands so that she was now quite dark skinned. With her pale hair tucked out of sight it was only Lilian's blue eyes that seemed out of place. Strapped behind the saddle of her pony she carried food in a canvas bag, a cooking pot and her paints, several rolls of paper and a folding easel, plus a carefully chosen selection of the camping equipment Selwyn had ordered from the Calcutta Army and Navy Stores in preparation for his trip to the Punjab. Over her shoulder hung Aunt Lambert's rifle, newly oiled and loaded and ready for use. She had also discovered a pistol and a box of ammunition hidden in a
kedgeree
pot in the bottom of her wardrobe—a relic, she presumed, from the mysteriously departed Mr. Gilmour. This firearm she had cleaned and loaded, and wore thrust into her belt, alongside a short, curved knife she had bought in the bazaar.

Lilian had left her three suitors sitting in her drawing room. She had no idea what they had come for but was not interested in finding out. She had told Harshad to escort them to the parlor and then she had left, as she had intended to do anyway, after giving Harshad
orders to say nothing about her whereabouts and a full two months' pay in advance for his cooperation.

Harshad exhibited signs of distress at her departure. “Please,
memsahib
Lilian,” he said tearfully, expressing himself in English, as though this might prove more persuasive. “Do not leave this place. Trouble coming, most certainly. Bastard
chapatti
s mean most bloody and damnable trouble. Please, stay here and remain safe in bungalow. Cover windows. Lock door, damn it!” His eyes lit up at a sudden encouraging thought. “Hide in blasted cookhouse!” he cried. “Yes!”