Arabella of Mars (2 page)

“She is quite well, Mother,” Michael said. “She only fell and hit her head.”

“She is not ‘well.'” Mother sat on the edge of the cot and held Arabella's head in her hands. “She is covered in blood, and what on
earth
is this horrific garment you are wearing? It exposes your limbs quite shamefully.”

Arabella had been dreading this discovery. “It is called a
thukhong
, Mother, and it keeps me far warmer than any English-made dress.”

“An ugly Martian word for an ugly Martian garment, one entirely unsuitable for a proper English lady.” She glowered at Arabella's father. “I thought we agreed when she turned twelve that there would be no more of …
this
.” She waved a disgusted hand, taking in the
thukhong
, the blood, the desert outside, and the planet Mars in general. Dr. Fellowes seemed to be trying to disappear into the wainscoting.

Father dropped his eyes from Mother's withering gaze. “She is still only sixteen, dear, and she is a very …
active
girl. Surely she may be allowed a few more years of freedom before being compelled to settle down? She has kept up with her studies.…”

But even as he spoke, Mother's lips went quite white from being pressed together, and finally she burst out, “I will have no more of your rationalizations!” She stood and paced briskly back and forth in front of Father's broad
khoresh
-wood desk, her fury building still further as she warmed to her subject. “For years now I have struggled to bring Arabella up properly, despite the primitive conditions on this horrible planet, and now I find that she is risking her life traipsing around the trackless desert by night, wearing
leather trousers
no less!” She rounded on Arabella. “How long have you been engaging in this disgraceful behavior?”

Arabella glanced to Michael, her father, and Khema for support, but in the face of her mother's wrath they were as defenseless as she. “Only a few weeks,” she muttered, eyes downcast, referring only to the game of
shorosh khe kushura
. She and Michael had actually been exploring the desert under Khema's tutelage—learning of Mars's flora, fauna, and cultures and engaging in games of strategy and combat—since they were both quite small.

“Only a few weeks,” Mother repeated, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring. “Then perhaps it is not too late.” She stared hard at Arabella a moment longer, then gave a firm nod and turned to Father. “I am taking the children back home. And this time I will brook no argument.”

Arabella felt as though the floor had dropped from under her. “No!” she cried.

Without facing Arabella, Mother raised a finger to silence her. “You see what she has become!” she continued to Father. “Willful, disobedient, disrespectful. And Fanny and Chloë are already beginning to follow in her filthy footsteps.” Now her tone changed, and despite Arabella's anguish at the prospect of being torn from her home she could not deny the genuine sadness and fear in her mother's eyes. “Please, dear.
Please.
You
must
agree. You must consider our posterity! If Arabella is allowed to continue on this path, and her sisters, too … what decent man would have them? They will be left as spinsters, doomed to a lonely old age on a barbarous planet.”

Arabella bit her lip and hugged herself tightly, feeling lost and helpless as she watched her father's face. Taking Arabella, Michael, and the two little girls to England—a place to which Mother always referred as “back home,” though all of the children had been born on Mars and had never known any other home—was something she had often spoken of, though never so definitively or immediately. But with this incident something had changed, something deep and fundamental, and plainly Father was seriously considering the question.

He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. He stroked his chin and looked to Mother, to Michael, to Arabella—his eyes beneath the gray brows looking very stern—and then out the window, at the sun just beginning to peep above the rows of
khoresh
-trees.

Finally he sighed deeply and turned back to Mother. “You may have the girls,” he said in a resigned tone. “But Michael will remain here, to help me with the business of the plantation.”

“But Father…,” Arabella began, until a minute shake of his head stopped her words. The look in his eyes showed clearly that he did not desire this outcome, but it was plain to all that this time Mother would not be appeased.

Arabella looked to Michael for support, but though his eyes brimmed with tears his shoulders slumped and his hands, still stained with Arabella's blood, hung ineffectually at his sides. “I am sorry,” he whispered.

Khema, too, stood silently in the corner, hands folded and eye-stalks downcast. Bold, swift, and powerful she might be in the desert, but within the manor house she was only a servant and must submit to Mother's wishes.

“Very well,” said Mother, after a long considering pause. “Michael may remain. But the Ashby women … are going home.” And she smiled.

That smile, to Arabella, was like a judge's gavel pronouncing sentence of death.

 

1

ENGLAND,
1813

 

1

AN UNEXPECTED LETTER

Arabella eased her bedroom door open and crept into the dark hallway. All about her the house lay silent, servants and masters alike tucked safe in their beds. Only the gentle tick of the tall clock in the parlor disturbed the night.

Shielding the candle with one hand, Arabella slipped down the hallway, her bare feet making no sound on the cool boards. She kept close to the walls, where the floor was best supported and the boards did not creak, but now and again she took a long, slow step to avoid a spot she had learned was likely to squeak.

Down the stairs and across the width of the house she crept, until she reached the drawing-room. In the corner farthest from the fireplace stood the harpsichord, and the silent figure that sat at its keyboard.

Brenchley's Automaton Harpsichord Player.

Nearly life-sized and dressed in the height of fashion from eight years ago, when it had originally been manufactured, the automaton sat with jointed ivory fingers poised over the instrument's keys. Its face was finely crafted of smooth, polished birch for a lifelike appearance, the eyes with their painted lashes demurely downcast. A little dust had accumulated in its décolletage, but in the shifting light of Arabella's little candle it almost seemed to be breathing.

Arabella had always been the only person in the family who shared her father's passion for automata. The many hours they had spent together in the drawing-room of the manor house at Woodthrush Woods, winding and oiling and polishing his collection, were among her most treasured memories. He had even shared with her his knowledge of the machines' workings, though Mother had heartily disapproved of such an unladylike pursuit.

The harpsichord player had arrived at Marlowe Hall, their residence in England, not long after they had emigrated—or, as Arabella considered it, been exiled—from Mars. It had been accompanied by a note from Father, reminding them that it was one of his most beloved possessions and saying that he hoped it would provide pleasant entertainment. But Arabella, knowing that Father understood as well as she did how little interest the rest of the family had in automata, had taken it as a sort of peace offering, or apology, from him specifically to her—a moving, nearly living representative and reminder that, although unimaginably distant, he still loved her.

But, alas, all his great expense and careful packing had gone for naught, for when it had been uncrated it refused to play a note. Mother, never well-disposed toward her husband's expensive pastime, had been none too secretly relieved.

That had been nearly eight months ago. Eight months of frilly dresses and stultifying conversation, and unceasing oppressive damp, and more than any thing else the constant inescapable
heaviness
. Upon first arriving on Earth, to her shame Arabella had found herself so unaccustomed to the planet's gravity that she had no alternative but to be carried from the ship in a sedan-chair. She had barely been able to stand for weeks, and even now she felt heavy, awkward, and clumsy, distrustful of her body and of her instincts. Plates and pitchers seemed always to crash to the floor in her vicinity, and even the simple act of throwing and catching a ball was beyond her.

Not that she was allowed to perform any sort of bodily activity whatsoever, other than walking and occasionally dancing. Every one on Earth, it seemed, shared Mother's attitudes concerning the proper behavior of an English lady, and the slightest display of audacity, curiosity, adventure, or initiative was met with severe disapproval. So she had been reduced, even as she had on Mars, to skulking about by night—but here she lacked the companionship of Michael and Khema.

On Mars, Michael, her only brother, had been her constant companion, studying with her by day and racing her across the dunes by night. And Khema, their Martian nanny or
itkhalya
, had been to the two of them nurse, protector, and tutor in all things Martian. How she missed them both.

Setting her candle down, Arabella seated herself on the floor behind the automaton and lifted its skirts, in a fashion that would have been most improper if it were human. Beneath the suffocating layers of muslin and linen the automaton's ingenious mechanisms gleamed in the candlelight, brass and ivory and mahogany each adding their own colors to a silent symphony of light and shadow. Here was the mainspring, there the escapement, there the drum. The drum was the key to the whole mechanism; its pins and flanges told the device where to place its fingers, when to nod, when to appear to breathe. From the drum, dozens of brass fingers transmitted instructions to the rest of the device through a series of levers, rods, springs, and wires.

Arabella breathed in the familiar scents of metal, whale-oil, and beeswax before proceeding. She had begun attempting to repair the device about two months ago, carefully concealing her work from her mother, the servants, and even her sisters. She had investigated its mysteries, puzzled out its workings, and finally found the displaced cog that had stilled the mechanism. But having solved that puzzle, Arabella had continued working with the machine, and in the last few weeks she had even begun making a few cautious modifications. The pins in the drum could be unscrewed, she had learned, and placed in new locations to change the automaton's behavior.

At the moment her project was to teach it to play “God Save the King,” as the poor mad fellow could certainly use the Lord's help. She had the first few measures working nearly to her satisfaction and was just about to start on “Send him victorious.” Laying the folded hearth-rug atop the harpsichord's strings to muffle the sound, she wound the automaton's mainspring and began to work, using a nail-file, cuticle-knife, and tweezers to reposition the delicate pins.

She was not concerned that her modifications might be discovered between her working sessions. It was only out of deference to Mr. Ashby, the absent paterfamilias, that her mother even allowed it to remain in the drawing-room. The servants found the device disquieting and refused to do more than dust it occasionally. And as for Fanny and Chloë, Arabella's sisters were both too young to be allowed to touch the delicate mechanism.

For many pleasant hours Arabella worked, repeatedly making small changes, rolling the drum back with her hand, then letting it play. She would not be satisfied with a mere music-box rendition of the tune; she wanted a
performance
, with all the life and spirit of a human player. And so she adjusted the movements of the automaton's body, the tilt of its head, and the subtle motions of its pretended breath as well as the precise timing and rhythm of its notes.

She would pay for her indulgence on the morrow, when her French tutor would stamp his cane each time she yawned—though even when well-slept, she gave him less heed than he felt he deserved. Why bother studying French? England had been at war with Bonaparte since Arabella was a little girl, and showed no sign of ever ceasing to be so.

But for now none of that was of any consequence.

When she worked on the automaton, she felt close to her father.

*   *   *

The sky was already lightening in the east, and a few birds were beginning to greet the sun with their chirruping song, as Arabella heaved the hearth-rug out of the harpsichord and spread it back in its accustomed place. Perhaps some day she would have an opportunity to hear the automaton perform without its heavy, muting encumbrance.

She looked around, inspecting the drawing-room with a critical eye. Had she left any thing out of place? No, she had not. With a satisfied nod she turned and began to make her way back to her bedroom.

But before she even reached the stairs, her ear was caught by a drumming sound from without.

Hoofbeats. The sound of a single horse, running hard. Approaching rapidly.

Who could possibly be out riding at this hour?

Quickly extinguishing the candle, Arabella scurried up the stairs in the dawn light and hid herself in the shadows at the top of the steps. Shortly thereafter, a fist hammered on the front door. Arabella peered down through the banister at the front door, consumed with curiosity.

Only a few moments passed before Cole, the butler, came to open the door. He, too, must have heard the rider's hoofbeats.

The man at the door was a post-rider, red-eyed and filthy with dust. From his leather satchel he drew out a thin letter, a single sheet, much travel-worn and bearing numerous post-marks.

It was heavily bordered in black. Arabella suppressed a gasp.

A black-bordered letter meant death, and was sadly familiar. Even in the comparatively short space of time since her arrival on Earth, no fewer than five such letters had arrived in this small community, each bearing news of the loss of a brother or father or uncle to Bonaparte's monstrous greed. But Arabella had no relatives in the army or navy, and had no expectation of her family receiving such a letter.