Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization (4 page)

“I see you’ve met my daughter, Edith.”

Edith enjoyed Sir Thomas’s flicker of surprise and smiled at the speechless man as her father escorted him toward the meeting room. The younger man carried his wooden box as if it were a precious object, and Edith determined to find out why he was there. Everything about him was immensely interesting. She rose from the desk, leaving her manuscript where it lay.

By then the two men had entered the meeting room. She peered through the open door and saw that some of the most prominent businessmen in Buffalo had taken places at the polished desks positioned in a circular arrangement. It was a high-profile gathering; she spotted Mr. William Ferguson, her father’s lawyer. All eyes were on young Sir Thomas Sharpe, who stood in the center. No wonder he’d been nervous. It was like facing a dozen Ogilvies.

“The Sharpe clay mines have been Royal Purveyors of the purest scarlet clay since 1796.” His voice was firm and authoritative, all traces of the jitters utterly vanished. He held up another wooden container, this one much smaller than the box. Inside lay a deep scarlet brick with some sort of seal on it. He passed it around to the august bewhiskered men, and each examined the intensely hued clay.

Intrigued, Edith walked into the room and shut the door after herself. Her father’s colleagues were used to her observing from the perimeter and paid her no mind. But Sir Thomas’s gaze flickered, and she was both abashed and pleased that she had proved a distraction.

“Excessive mining in the last twenty years caused most of our old deposits to collapse, which crippled our operations and endangered our ancestral home,” Sir Thomas continued.

He has an ancestral home. Just like Cavendish in my novel
, Edith thought.

“You leeched the life out of the land, is that what you’re saying?” her father asked sharply. “Bled it dry—”

“No,” Sir Thomas protested, still quite calm. “New clay shales exist but have proved elusive to reach.”

Well said
, Edith thought approvingly. Her father was even more intimidating than Ogilvie. She decided to observe Sir Thomas in action and learn what she could of the fine art of salesmanship. Authors often watched the world so that they could properly render it on the page.

However, during her musings on the subject of being more observant, she had missed a portion of Sir Thomas’s demonstration. He had opened the larger wooden box and pulled out a scale model of what Edith recognized from her many days in her father’s office as a mining drill. He had connected the drill to a little brass boiler and with a theatrical hiss of steam, the burnished brass levels and gears started moving. The drill spun. The miniature was charming, and clearly also quite impressive, for the men leaned forward as they studied it. Little buckets crept upward and she could just picture them scooping out ruby-red clay and depositing it on a wagon.

“This is a clay harvester of my own design,” Sir Thomas said. “It matches the output of a ten-man crew. Transports the clay upwards as it digs deep. This machine can revolutionize mining as we know it.”

The men began to applaud, and Edith was pleased for the earnest young aristocrat. What a clever inventor he was. Clever and handsome, then. Eunice was a lucky girl… though Edith doubted her impeding engagement to this man had anything to do with luck and everything to do with her mother’s ambitions. If she knew Mrs. McMichael, the lady had lain in wait for Sir Thomas at the British Museum and “happened” to engage him in some way that, while perhaps somewhat forward, would not have been considered indiscreet or ill-mannered. And the hours Eunice had likely spent primping just in case the meeting was successful would have been time well spent. She
was
a very beautiful young woman.

Then Edith noted that among all those present, her father was the only one
not
applauding. In fact, he was scowling.

“Turn it off,” he barked, then softened his command, “please. Who built that?”

Sir Thomas inclined his head. “I built and designed the model myself.”

I’ll bet he could build a more sensible typewriter
, Edith thought.
Honestly, the arrangement of the letters makes no sense at all.

In the ensuing silence, the other businessmen regarded her father, whose cold smile bespoke his skepticism.

“Have you tested it? Full scale?”

“I’m very close, sir, but with the funding—”

“So all you have is a toy and some fancy words,” her father interrupted.

Sir Thomas’s face fell, and Edith felt a rush of protective indignation on his behalf. Carter Cushing had every right to question him, of course, but his tone was quite biting. Dismissive.
Just
like Ogilvie.

Her father picked up a document that had been lying at his elbow and scrutinized it before he spoke again. “You have already tried—and failed—to raise capital in London, Edinburgh, Milan.”

The Englishman raised his brows just a bit, obviously surprised. “Yes, sir. That’s correct.”

Her father stood. “And now you’re here.” His voice held a sharper edge, and Edith unconsciously pushed away from the wall. However, she was in no position to argue whatever point her father was about to make. This was Sir Thomas’s battle, and if she spoke up, it would only embarrass him.

“Correct again,” Sir Thomas replied.

“The men at this table, all of us, came up through honest, hard work.
Almost
all of us. Mr. Ferguson is a lawyer, but even he can’t help that.”

It was a tired joke, but the titans of Buffalo industry laughed anyway. They gave each other looks that indicated that Cushing had a point. They
had
“come up” through honest, hard work. By implication, Sir Thomas had not. The men in this room held the same inverted snobbery Edith had held herself until very recently—perhaps an hour ago at most.

The titled, very English Sir Thomas stood alone in a room filled with hardscrabble Americans who put stock in results and not in charming presentations. Edith sensed that the tide was turning in favor of her father and his disdain, though of what—Sir Thomas’s invention or the man himself—she wasn’t certain.

“I started out a steel worker, raising buildings so that I could own them,” her father went on. He approached Sir Thomas with raised hands. “Rough. They reflect who I am. Now, you,
sir
…”

He gripped Sir Thomas’s hands; the younger man’s back stiffened slightly, and Edith recalled reading that English people were more standoffish than their American counterparts. Perhaps he didn’t like to be touched. She wondered what it would be like, however, to touch his fingertips. Perhaps even his unsmiling lips.

And
she
should not be thinking of such things.

“You have the softest hands I’ve ever felt,” her father announced. “In America, we bank on effort, not privilege. That is how we built this country.”

But he is being unfair
, Edith thought.
Sir Thomas told him that he designed and built the model himself. It must have taken some doing to visualize and construct such a revolutionary device.
It occurred to her that he was a creative person like herself—and he too was about to be rejected.

Her father moved away from Sir Thomas. The baronet’s deep blue eyes flared with passion, and he raised his chin.

“I am here with all that I possess, sir.” He spoke most respectfully and with humility, a counterpoint to her father’s patronizing, judgmental tone. “A name, a patch of land, and the will to make it yield. The least you can grant me is the courtesy of your time and the chance to prove to you, and these fine gentleman, that my will, dear sir, is, at the very least, as strong as yours.”

Well done, so very well said
, Edith thought, and as Sir Thomas glanced toward her, she sensed that it was time for her to withdraw. Sir Thomas was intent on standing his ground, and perhaps he might feel his speech constrained by a lady’s presence. He was in total command of himself and fully prepared to stand up to her father. Many other men had withered in the attempt.

He is not going to wither. I can feel it.
A shock jittered up her spine.
I have strength of will, too. I am like him.

What she felt was more than that. It was something she had only read about, and before now, never believed in. She blushed and turned away. As she left the room, she began to tremble, and it took all her own strength not to turn back for one last gaze at Eunice McMichael’s suitor.

E
DITH LOOKED OUT
on a great and dirty city. Dickens would have termed it thus, a city saturated with gloom and soot. Slanting torrents of rain turned the streets of Buffalo into fields of mud as thick as clay.

Huddled in their greatcoats, under umbrellas, pedestrians hurried past Cushing Manor, anxious to avoid the deluge, while inside the Cushings’ servants turned on the gas lamps. A warm glow emanated from the prosperous redbrick building, dissolving into the gloaming.

Edith wore a mustard-yellow dressing gown as she fondly regarded her father, while he scrutinized his reflection in the mirror. He looked dapper in his tails, and his waistcoat was her favorite gold one. His birthday was in a couple of weeks, and she had a wonderful surprise planned for him—a bound presentation book of watercolor sketches of his most important building projects. It was being completed now.

“I need a corset,” he said with a sigh as he appraised the slight girth of his middle.

His vanity touched her because of the vulnerability it revealed. She went to him and tied his bow tie.

“No, you don’t.”

“I wish you’d change your mind and come along tonight. Mrs. McMichael’s gone to a lot of trouble.” He grunted. “Little Lord Fauntleroy will be there.”

She almost chuckled at his choice of names, but didn’t. He had been too stern with Sir Thomas, and she didn’t want him to think she shared his contempt. Far from it.

“You mean Thomas Sharpe?” she said pointedly.

“
Sir Thomas Sharpe
,
baronet
. Apparently he has taken an interest in young Eunice.”

And she wondered if Eunice appreciated him beyond the allure of his title and charm. He was an intelligent, innovative man who would thrive when matched with a partner who enjoyed the life of the mind. Eunice preferred shopping and dances. But perhaps that was all
he
expected from a wife. Her father had raised her differently. As an heiress, she could afford to be quite particular about what she wanted in a husband. In all honesty, she had very seriously entertained the notion that she might never marry. Were Sir Thomas free, she might consider it. But he was not.

Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from rising to his defense. “Was his proposal so outrageous as to merit such a harsh answer from you?”

“It wasn’t his proposal, my love, it was
him
. There’s something about him that I don’t like. What, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “And I don’t like not knowing.”

“You were cruel,” Edith insisted.

“Really? Maybe that’s how I conduct business, child.”

“What I saw was a dreamer facing defeat. Did you not notice his suit? Beautifully tailored—but at least a decade old. And his shoes were handmade but worn.”
And I’m not sure I’m helping his case. My father is a successful businessman who deals with other successful people.

“I can see you observed far more than I did.” He quirked an eyebrow and she fought down her flush. “At any rate, he’ll have his chance. The boardroom wants to hear more about it. In spite of my reservations.”

That pleased her. She was about to say so as she helped him on with his jacket when the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be young Dr. McMichael,” her father declared with real warmth. “He’s brought his new motorcar to collect me. Come and see it. Say hello to him. He’s just opened his new practice.” He headed toward the hallway. “He’s always been awfully fond of you.”

They descended the staircase together. “I know that, Father.” Alan had been her childhood playmate and had grown up to be her friend. She knew that there was no romantic spark between them. After all, she was about to welcome a visitor wearing nothing but her dressing gown. If he were a serious suitor, her father would not have permitted such a breach of etiquette.

Nonsense. He never even notices such things.

The door opened to pouring rain and Alan, who cut quite a figure in his formal wear. His blond hair was swept back and neater than usual, and his eyes shone when he caught sight of her. She grinned back at him, not at all embarrassed to be seen looking less than her best.

“Good evening, Mr. Cushing. Edith.”

“My, don’t we look smart, Alan,” she said easily.

“Oh, you like it? It’s just something I threw together,” he bantered.

“It’s Edith who should be the belle of the ball, don’t you agree, Alan?” said her father. A servant brought his hat and coat and Edith hoped his good mood lasted long enough for him to be a bit kinder to Sir Thomas.

“I was rather hoping it would be so.” Alan cocked his head. “But Edith takes a dim view of social frivolity.”