Julius and the Watchmaker (15 page)

‘What's happened to Mr Flynn?' said Julius. ‘What have you done?'

‘Richer,' said Springheel.

‘Yes, richer,' said Clements.

‘Clements, pay the unconscious gentlemen what we owe them and we'll be on our way. We have much to do and precious little time to do it in, especially if Flynn's agitators are on our trail.'

‘Pay them? For what? You saw what happened,' said Clements. ‘They fell like skittles as soon as the brute breathed on them.'

‘Clements, you rotund reprobate, you are such a tradesman. Just pay the fellows what we agreed. Besides, we don't want them or their ilk on our backs as well, do we.'

‘Tradesman? My grandfather was an earl, I'll have you know, Springheel.'

‘Really, you amaze me,' said Springheel, as he held firmly to Julius's arm and led him away.

Oh, Higgins. What have you gotten yourself into?

Clements fumbled through his pockets with his one good hand. He flung a handful of coins in the direction of the fallen warriors and placed two sovereigns in the hand of the one left standing.

‘I trust you will see to the welfare of your fellows? Good night to you, my man,' he said, then he trotted after Springheel.

‘Tell me, Julius,' said Springheel. ‘What do you know about canaries?

CHAPTER 14

Friday 7th July, 1837
4:34 AM

‘Wake up, wake up, Higgins.'

Someone was shaking Julius's shoulder. He tried to open his aching eyes, but the candlelight stung them shut again. Fatigue and cold were boring like worms into every pore of his skin. He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position.
You left Mr Flynn's hat in the alley, Higgins
.

‘Springheel's expecting us, Higgins,' said Clements. ‘It's time for you to earn your keep, my lad.'

‘Where am I?'

‘Here, have a nip of this, warm you up a bit,' said Clements, offering his hip flask. ‘You'll need your wits about you where you're going.'

Julius grabbed the hip flask. He threw back his head and drank. The brandy made him gag but then it flowed, like honey, all the way down to his stomach, dispelling the cold as it went.

Clements snatched the flask back. ‘Steady on, steady on. Springheel's waiting, come on, hurry.'

‘Leave me alone,' said Julius, flopping back down and closing his eyes.

‘No time for that, Higgins,' said Clements, lifting Julius up by the lapels of his jacket and shaking him gently. ‘There's work to be done, money to be made.'

Julius pulled himself away and climbed off the sofa, his head swimming from the brandy. He squinted, trying to get his bearings.
Do you remember now, they took you to a dark house. You fell asleep, Higgins
. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Candlelight fell on white dust sheets covering the furniture in the large room. They looked like sleeping ghosts.

‘Where am I?'

‘That doesn't matter, Higgins. Pull yourself together.'

‘What did you do to Mr Flynn?'

‘Follow me,' said Clements, picking up a candelabra. ‘This is not a game we're playing, young man.' He pulled back his coat to show a pistol tucked into the inside pocket. ‘Don't think I won't use it if I have to.'

Julius could feel the blood drain from his face.

‘I suggest you do exactly as you are told. Unless you want to end up like that Irish ruffian.'

Julius sat back onto the sofa and looked at the carpet. A moment later he vomited all over it.

‘Too much brandy, my boy. That'll teach you a lesson,' said Clements, patting Julius's heaving back. ‘It's a good job we're not paying rent here.'

Clements held Julius's arm while they walked down the long, dark corridor. The candelabra's light shone on the portraits hanging along the walls. Julius looked at the dead eyes staring back at him. He tried to think but found it impossible. Where his mind had once been he found only a dark, empty chasm. No matter how lonely and miserable things had been in Julius's life, he had always had the desire to survive, to reach that happy land that had to be there, over the next dark hill. But survival did not seem worth the fight now, not if Mr Flynn was dead.

They climbed stairs and walked along more dark corridors until they came to a door. Clements knocked. Julius had to shade his eyes when he was nudged inside. There were candles all around the perimeter of the room, along the mantelpiece and on every other flat surface that there was; they warmed and thinned the still air. Dark velvet curtains hung over the windows and bare boards stretched across the floor.

‘Welcome to our new lodgings, Julius,' said Springheel, stooping over an apparatus on a small table in the centre of the room. ‘We had to do a moonlight flit from Warwick Lane due to a small miscalculation with the old Springheel Shaker. It gave Clements quite a shock—he almost forgot to clear the safe.'

Julius was nauseous and dizzy. He looked around for somewhere to sit down but Clements nudged him closer to Springheel. Brass dials, handles and wheels protruded from all over the apparatus and a cylinder extended from one end, like the muzzle of a cannon.

‘Did you sleep well?' said Springheel, tinkering with one of the knobs. ‘I thought it best you got an hour or two's rest before we began. Sorry, I can't give you more time to recuperate—time is of the essence. Foreign forces are intent on stealing my invention.'

The left side of Julius's head throbbed in time with his pulse.

‘Your friend, Mr Flynn, was one of them, I am sorry to say. Foreign agitators in league with saboteurs. They are combing the streets of London this very moment in search of us, I have no doubt of it. We must be bold, if we are to save England from tyranny.'

‘I lost his hat,' whispered Julius to himself as grief punched him in the stomach.

Springheel stopped his tinkering and looked at Clements.

‘The boy's not himself, Springheel,' said Clements, patting Julius's shoulder. ‘He's probably had a hell of a time with those vile agitators.'

‘Yes, you're right, of course, Clements. How thoughtless of me. I say, run along, see what victuals you can muster up from the pantry, there must be something down there. I don't know about you but I'm famished.'

‘Right ho,' said Clements, ‘and here, hold onto this, you might want a nip,' he said, handing Julius the hip flask.

When Clements was gone Julius saw a divan in one corner of the room. He sat on it and slumped into its contours.

‘That's the ticket, Julius. Sit down, rest, have a drink if it helps,' said Springheel. He was kneeling in front of Julius and looking into his dark-ringed eyes. ‘You've had a bit more than you can cope with, haven't you, my boy? I can see it in your eyes. You don't know what to think or what to do next, am I right?'

Julius unscrewed the flask and drank.

‘Flynn tricked you, Julius. He made you trust him, but it was all to his own evil ends. We have the proof. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you these things but…'

Springheel took a sip from the flask and sat down beside Julius.

‘You're feeling pretty alone and confused right at this moment, aren't you, Julius Caesar Higgins? I know, I've been there too. Oh yes, indeed.'

Julius stared at a knot in the floorboards between his feet.

‘I'll tell you what, Julius. Shall I tell you a little history? Maybe it will help you to understand me better—understand what Clements and I are about. What do you say?'

Julius let his head fall to the side.

‘Where shall I begin?' said Springheel, springing to his feet. He tapped his chin while pacing the floor, like a leading man on the stage about to launch into his major soliloquy.

‘I know, I'll begin with the strange visitor who changed the course of my life, what do you say, Julius?'

Julius did not reply.

‘I would have been eight or nine I suppose. An old man came into the forest and knocked on my parents' cottage door. The man's name was Dr John Dee. He had a long grey beard and a velvet cloak of purple and black that had seen many better days. He told my ma and pa that he had need of a “boy-of-all-works” at Mortlake Manor and asked if they would sell him their eldest son, Charles, to take up the position. That was my name then, Charles Vivian.'

Julius looked at Springheel.
Charles Vivian? The professor was right, Higgins.

‘I went to live with the old man at Mortlake Manor. It was a huge cavernous house that desperately wanted to fall down but couldn't summon the energy, so it just slumped and groaned, more when the gales blew.

‘I adored Mortlake, Julius. I simply adored the vast empty rooms, the aroma of the ancient books and the hundred and one contraptions the old man was constantly tinkering with…but more of that later.

‘My innumerable tasks kept me busy from dawn to dusk but my
in-between
times were spent sitting at Dr Dee's feet, asking questions about everything I could think of. How does a huge oak tree fold into a tiny acorn? Why are butterflies and flowers beautiful but beetles and babies ugly? Where does the dark go when you light a candle? He would laugh and do his best to answer me, but most of the time he did not know the answers either.

‘One day, Julius, when he grew tired of my questions he said: “Enough, enough, guttersnipe, I see I must teach you to read for yourself so that you can ask your questions of the books and leave me in peace.”

‘And so he did. The old man taught me to read. It was the greatest gift, Julius, the greatest wonder. I devoured the books at Mortlake and neglected the cleaning of boots and the sweeping of the yard. I began to talk to Dr Dee about his contraptions. He had no one else to discuss these things with so he discussed them with me. I was the luckiest lad in all England.

‘One of his contraptions was a perpetual-motion machine. He'd been refining its workings for sixty years, he told me, and he showed me how to contrive numbers to come up with a way to make the machine's wheels spin for ever and ever. We would make calculations and change the dials and set it in motion with great excitement, and then check it in the morning only to find it motionless once more. Never daunted though, we set to re-contriving the numbers and resetting the dials and the cogs and wheels, and setting it in motion again.

‘Once it remained in motion for a month. That was a very exciting time. I sat for hours watching the wheels turning and turning and turning. But alas, the numbers still needed refining—it slowed and came to a stop. Dr Dee grew tired of it and spent more time with his books and other contraptions. But I continued the work. I was taken over by the project, Julius, I could not rest or eat or do any of the things a boy my age ought to be doing. Night and day I worked on the contraption. Until, one night, something very, very peculiar occurred.

‘The wheels began to spin faster. I could not believe my eyes. I looked at the calculations, trying to find the reason for this. What had I done to make this happen? Faster they went. Faster and faster, until they were a blur before my eyes.

‘Then the machine lifted off the table, only a inch or so but it was definitely levitating. I gazed in wonderment.
I
had done this, somehow. The wheels spun faster, the lubricating oils began to hiss and smoke, the contraption shook and then…'

Julius waited. He felt his ears almost quivering with anticipation.

‘Shall I tell you what happened next, Julius?'

Julius nodded.

‘The next part of the story I know you will find too fantastical to believe. There was a flash from the contraption, like a bolt of lightning. Maybe the light temporarily blinded me, I am not sure, but everything went black and it was as if the floor vanished beneath me, for I felt myself to be tumbling through the air like an fledgling from its nest. I don't know how long or how far I fell; it seemed as if it were many hours, but I may have imagined it in my great fright. Thankfully the fall came to an end. I hit the hard ground and rolled over. My body was bruised from the impact and I was as wet as a drowned trout. I found myself in the middle of a road in the pouring rain. I managed to scramble to shelter, and I huddled there, shivering until dawn.

‘How can I describe my first few hours to you, Julius? I have not the words to tell of the dread and the wonder I felt. I ran and ran, looking for Mortlake. But I could not find it; there were only endless streets with buildings leaning over as if they were trying to fall onto the road. A stench led me to a river. I could see great buildings along its banks stretching up to the sky and vast ships whose masts were like a forest of swaying trees.

‘“Where am I?” I cried out desperately to the first person I saw. He walked by without saying a word. “Where am I?” I cried again. The stranger turned around and said, “Don't play me for a fool, boy, lest you wants a cuff on the 'ead.”

‘They were the first words I heard to welcome me to London. For that is where I was, Julius,
London
. If that were not a shock enough I had a greater shock a couple of days later. I'd been living like a rat, hiding in the dark and stealing morsels of food while trying to discover how I had fallen through the air from Mortlake to London and how I could possibly get back there again—especially as I did not know where Mortlake was. No, the greater shock was when I found out that the year was, in fact, 1817. Why would that be a surprise, you may ask? It shocked me to my bones, my dear Julius, because, to the best of my knowledge, it ought to have been the year 1606.'