Death Devil's Bridge (11 page)

Read Death Devil's Bridge Online

Authors: Robin Paige

BOOK: Death Devil's Bridge
6.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Bess Gurton!” Sarah Pratt demanded, hands on hips. “Why in 'eaven's name are ye skulkin' through the dark?” Sarah's voice became suspicious. “Wot're ye doin' that ye shudn't?”
 
 
The day of the balloon's arrival had been a long one, and the night dragged on longer still. By dawn, Lawrence Quibbley was fagged. Understandably so, since Mr. Rolls had put him in charge of inflating the balloon and Sir Charles had made him responsible for the plant that was producing the gas—two not-inconsiderable tasks.
Since yesterday, Lawrence and Thompson, the gardener, had tended the gas plant's three retorts, fueling them in rotation. Every nine hours, they opened the iron door of one of the ten-foot-long brick chambers, stepping back from the flash of flame and the pop! of the remaining hydrogen and methane igniting in the air. The intense heat of the furnace had reduced the coal to a bright orange-red layer of coke, which they scooped with long-handled shovels into the combustion-chamber below. They reloaded the retort with fresh coal and closed the door, retreating to a cooler spot to wipe the sweat from their faces, Thompson complaining mightily that he had hired on to tend roses in the sunshine, not to stoke a gas-plant by moonlight. It had taken a half bottle of whisky to soothe the man's ruffled spirit.
Thompson hadn't been Lawrence's only problem. There had been one or two difficulties with the Daimler, which he'd been required to attend to. Then the balloon—that unfamiliar and rather unwieldy object—had caused him some concern when one of its seams had sprung a leak.
But for all his bone-weariness, Lawrence was exhilarated. Looking up into the misty predawn sky, he could see that the balloon was already tugging at its mooring lines. By ten A.M., the scheduled time of ascent, the fog would have burned away, the balloon would have reached its functional capacity, fully capable of lifting its team of aeronauts into the heavens.
On the other matter under his consideration, Lawrence was not quite so pleased. He had thought of several possible ways of persuading Lord Bradford to abandon his motorcar project, so that he would no longer require Lawrence's services as a mechanic. The difficulty was, however, that each scheme Lawrence had come up with involved some sort of damage to the Daimler. This would not be difficult for him to execute, knowing every nut and bolt of the motorcar as he did. But if any mischance befell it, Lawrence himself would be the first to be blamed. More importantly, he was reluctant to damage the motorcar, for he had come to care for it in almost the same way that his father had cared for the family draft horse.
But after hours of deliberation, a glimmer of an idea—not yet a full-blown scheme—had come to him. It did not solve the basic problem, of course, but it would get him past it, and allow him to fulfill both Amelia's desires and meet his own obligation.
As the dawn broke, Lawrence's plan began to take a clearer and brighter form.
 
Lady Marsden's letter arrived by the Saturday morning post. Kate, opening it, read the following:
Nice, France, September 20, 1896
My dear Lady Kathryn,
I take up my pen as a concerned mother, to appeal to you. It has come to the attention of Lord Christopher and myself that Patsy has become unwisely involved in a dangerous liaison with a young man, a guest of my son's at Marsden Manor, and that this reckless relationship has been supported, indeed, even furthered by you. I believe I need not say that my son has acted injudiciously in the extreme to bring such a person into close acquaintance with his sister, and that it was quite irresponsible of my husband's aunt to allow the young man into my daughter's company. I must ask you to withdraw your support of this foolish intimacy and persuade Patsy (who is, for all her cleverness, an inexperienced and headstrong young girl who can do much damage to herself and her family through unwise associations) to abandon her injurious friendship with this person. I am confident that now that you have been informed of the facts, you will do as I bid, and withdraw your unwise sponsorship of this association.
 
Yrs.,
Henrietta Marsden
 
 
Kate sat with the letter in her hand for some time. Lady Henrietta's imperious voice spoke clearly and offensively, but she could see the mother's predicament. It was true that Patsy was a headstrong, impulsive young woman, unlike her more compliant sister, Eleanor, who had married at her parents' wish. (Never mind that Eleanor was already quite wretched.) And it was true that Patsy's relationship with Charlie Rolls was probably a dangerous one, at least in the sense that it would lead to her eventual unhappiness.
But unhappiness, in Kate's opinion, was relative, and might even be balanced out by moments of great happiness. She also felt very strongly that marriage was a matter of the heart, and that daughters should not be the victims of their mothers' matchmaking. Lady Henrietta obviously feared that Patsy's friendship with Rolls threatened the family's plan to marry Patsy to Squire Thornton and link the Marsden estates to Thornton Grange. After thinking about it for a time, Kate decided that she would say nothing of the mother's letter to the daughter, although she would do what she could to encourage the girl to think carefully about what she was doing. A little later that morning, she had her chance.
“You can preach all you like,” Patsy Marsden remarked loftily, in response to Kate's question, “but I shan't change my mind. I intend to marry Charlie Rolls.”
“You have changed your mind, you know,” Kate replied, and poured her guest another cup of tea. Outside the window of the drawing room, she could hear the noise of the crowd gathering for the fete—the cries of children, the thwacking of the coconut shies, the shouts of a vendor hawking hot pies. “Only a fortnight ago, you said you didn't intend to marry Charlie Rolls, or fall in love with him either, for that matter. You had set your heart on becoming England's premier female photographer. What has happened to that ambition? I thought it a fine one, for which you have a great talent.”
Patsy pouted. “You don't like him.”
“My liking or disliking the young man has nothing to do with it.”
Patsy's pout deepened. “You think I should be a dutiful daughter and marry Roger Thornton.”
Kate picked up her cup, drank, and set it down again. “I think,” she said deliberately, “that you should stop allowing your mother to push you into doing things you know you will regret.”
Patsy's cornflower-blue eyes, the same shade as her elegant silk dress, opened wide. “Then you are saying I
should
marry Charlie! Goodness, Kate—why can't you make up your mind?”
“I am saying, Patsy, that you should neither marry to please your mother, nor marry to spite her.”
“To spite her?”
“Yes. Either will make you dreadfully unhappy, and inflict a world of harm not only on yourself, but on the man, as well.” Kate leaned forward and put her hand on Patsy's arm, speaking with all the earnestness she could summon. “Marry no one unless your heart—not the heart of a daughter nor that of a rebel, but your true woman's heart—leads you to it, Patsy.”
Patsy was silent for a moment, and Kate wondered whether her words had struck so deeply that they offended, or whether they had merely glanced off an impenetrable surface. But at last the girl sighed and spoke. “No one but you will talk honestly about such things, Kate. I fear you understand me too well.”
“I have learned to understand myself,” Kate said with a small smile, “and we are rather alike, you and I.”
“I think we are,” Patsy said, “in spite of your being—” She stopped and bit her lip, coloring.
“Being an American, and Irish? Perhaps, Patsy, that is what makes us alike, you and I. We do not always think or feel or behave as those around us expect. It is hard for us
not
to do as we choose, even though we might not know exactly what that is.”
“And yet you married.” Patsy spoke almost accusingly.
“I married when I knew that my heart had chosen well. And I have not regretted it.” To herself, but not aloud, she added,
in spite of the difficulties.
For there were difficulties. She and Charles were enjoying a temporary reprieve just now from the burdens of his family. But when his brother was dead, and Charles should become the Baron of Somersworth, those burdens would have to be shouldered. There would be a move to Somersworth, so he could manage the family estates; and months in London, when Parliament was sitting; and social obligations in a society that would be forever foreign to her. She had known all of this when she married Charles, of course, but that did not make it any easier to bear.
Patsy clasped her hands. “I should so much
like
to be married to Charlie. He is handsome and charming and free-spirited, and he loves me—or at least he says he does. With him, every minute would be filled with excitement, with
freedom.
He would take me flying in his balloon, motoring across England, climbing in the Alps—and all the while I should be taking photographs. Mama should have to give way, and I should never have to suffer Roger Thornton again.”
Kate heard the longing behind Patsy's words, and understood it. “I am sure Charlie does care for you,” she said gravely. “You are a beautiful young woman with courage and wit, and you have every bit as much free spirit as he does. I can easily imagine your ascending in a balloon with your camera, or touring Europe in your own motorcar.”
“But that's not what
Mama
wants for me,” the girl said. She twisted her gloves in her hands. “And if I do not marry Charlie, I shall have to agree to many Roger Thomton.”
“Not so,” Kate said sternly. “I grant you, it might be easier to defy your mother as someone's wife. But you may confront her with equal success as
yourself.
All it takes is the courage to know what you want and the strength of will to choose.”
Patsy pressed her lips together. “If I refuse Squire Thornton, Mama would be sure you put me up to it. She doesn't like you, you know. Ever since Bradford determined to marry you—”
“Your brother wanted to marry me because he was in one of his dreadful fixes and thought it would be convenient to have a wife with a fortune. Your mother quite properly convinced him that it was not a good idea—and if she had not, I myself should have had to refuse him. Anyway,” Kate added with asperity, “the point is not what your mother likes or dislikes. You are a woman of independent mind, Patsy. You must make your mother understand that you mean to exercise it.”
On that heresy, the French doors opened and Charles looked in. “We shall be ready to launch in half an hour, Kate. Are you coming to see us off?”
“Of course,” Kate said.
“And I shall be there too,” Patsy said. “With my camera.”
“Good,” Charles said. “We shall want a great many photographs.” As he shut the door again, Kate wished that she had had a moment alone with him before he flew off into the blue. Not that she feared for his safety, of course. Bradford had assured her that Rolls, despite his youth, was an experienced balloonist, and Charles himself was an extraordinarily capable man. Still, there were hazards, and many people had been killed in ballooning accidents.
“Well,” Patsy said, returning to their subject, “I am not absolutely determined to marry Mr. Rolls.” She frowned. “I am resolved against Roger Thornton, however.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “Poor Roger is likely to suffer a great deal. He has his heart set on marrying me. I fear that he may do something ... unwise.”
“I doubt that,” Kate replied lightly. “It is only in novels that lovers die from a broken heart.”
A moment later, though, Kate wondered whether she had been mistaken. She heard loud shouts and cries and thought that the balloon must be going up before its scheduled departure. But as she and Patsy, with her camera, hurried to the terrace, she saw Roger Thornton. He was marching at the head of a group of shouting men, and his expression was murderous.
11
The Essex farmers had become all too familiar with balloon descents on their property. Crops were trampled, hedges damaged and stock terrified. Hence the natives became decidedly unfriendly. Passengers who had paid handsomely for the privilege of a place in a balloon car and had sailed into the sky ... with the cheers of the crowds ringing in their ears came down to earth with a vengeance when they found themselves looking down the business end of a blunderbuss.
—L.T.C. Rolt
The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning, 1783-1903
 
 
 
V
icar Barfield Talbot could hardly contain his excitement as he contemplated the balloon flight. He arose in the misty dawn on the day of the launch and presented himself at Bishop's Keep shortly after breakfast, his usual rusty black coat brightened by the unusual addition of a silk scarf gaily striped in the balloon's bright colors.
“Ah,” said he to Sir Charles, with all the delight of a schoolboy on holiday, “I see that all is in readiness for your ascent! I expect the sky will clear before it is time to go up.”
But Sir Charles was too busy attending to the last details of the inflation to do more than give him a pleasant nod and a brisk hello, so the vicar, not wanting to be in the way, took himself off in search of Kate. He found her with a dour-looking Mrs. Pratt, discussing the details of the dinner that had been planned for that evening.
“Ah, Lady Kathryn,” he said happily. “Kate. A lovely day, isn't it? So much excitement to look forward to! Such a bustle in the Park!”
“I suppose,” Mrs. Pratt said with a finely honed sarcasm, “that I shudn't expect to‘ave gas in the kitchen when it's time to begin cookin'. I suppose it's all gone into the balloon.”

Other books

Black Dog Short Stories by Rachel Neumeier
Love and the Loathsome Leopard by Barbara Cartland
Rebound by Michael Cain
The Beast Within by Terra Laurent
Smoke and Shadows by Tanya Huff
Late Edition by Fern Michaels