Lady of Spirit, A (12 page)

A howling gale kept
Athena
on the ground until late Wednesday. Maggie and Lizzie busied themselves assisting Lady Claire, Mr. Malvern, and Tigg in packing up and transporting their luggage out to the airship under protective tarpaulins, where they spent a happy afternoon together preparing for lift.

The pain of not going felt like a weight in Maggie’s stomach, but she did her best not to let it show.

Instead, she and Lizzie helped Tigg tie the steam landau down in the hold, and then she absented herself so that the two of them could have a little privacy in which to say good-bye.

The Lady found her standing in her cabin, gazing out the porthole at nothing in particular. “You are quite welcome to come with us to Gwynn Place,” Claire said quietly. “It is entirely possible that you may learn what you need to know there instead of here.”

Maggie turned and went wordlessly into Claire’s arms. “If I said that I wanted to find out the truth in order to prove them wrong about me, would you think less of me, Lady?”

“I would not,” Claire said, hugging her. “But I hope you remember that they are old, and their grief has warped them somehow inside, like a piece of metal that has held one shape for too long. Be gentle in your attempts to change their minds. If they are to be bent in a different direction, I would imagine the process might be quite painful.”

Maggie nodded, the well-worn fabric of the Lady’s raiding rig soft under her cheek.

“You and Lizzie will come to us in a week,” the Lady said, though this had been the plan since they had left Wilton Crescent several days ago. “Mr. Malvern and I will wait for you anxiously, and I hope you will write every day.
Athena
will be moored in the home paddock, since Mama does not keep sheep anymore, so I will be checking the pigeons religiously.”

Which reminded her— “We have not checked yet this morning ourselves. I will do that, and then Lizzie and I will man the ropes for you.”

To her surprise, there was indeed a pigeon waiting in the messenger cage, though they expected none. And it contained yet another puzzling missive.

Delta 14 08 94 02 00 100L 1000KG 6

When she showed it to the others, Tigg said, “Whatever they’re measuring, it’s doubled. The last one said fifty and four-fifty.”

“But what is Delta, besides the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet?” Maggie wondered aloud.

“A location?” the Lady guessed. “A river mouth? But there are none in these parts. The cliff faces are too steep to allow for sedimentation.”

“In mathematics, delta means
change
,” Lizzie said. “That’s what this is. A change order, increasing the amounts of liquid and weight, as Tigg says.”

“Which still makes no sense at all.” Maggie folded up the paper and pushed it into her pocket. “I’m convinced it has been misdirected. There is probably a grocer somewhere, wondering where his potatoes and ale have got to.”

“If a grocer ordered things by the ton and possessed a non-fixed address,” observed the Lady. “No one but Lewis, Snouts, and ourselves knows
Athena
’s code, and I prefer to keep it that way.”

Athena
moved restlessly at the sound of her name, and Tigg lifted his head like a pointer sniffing the air. “The wind has changed,” he said. “You should be able to lift soon—and I must get myself over to the Mount while the tide is low, or I’ll miss my ride to Scotland.”

“We cannot have that, though I am mightily tempted to invent some crisis so that I may keep you a little longer,” the Lady said with affection.

“The Mopsies are going to be on their own for a week,” he said as he hugged her. “Don’t tempt Fate.”

While the Lady took the helm and Mr. Malvern began the ignition sequence on
Athena
’s great boiler, Lizzie and Maggie gave Holly and Ivy their final cuddles and lifted the birds up on the piping in the navigation gondola, from which they were accustomed to watch the proceedings. Then the girls ran down the steps, Tigg lifted the folding staircase into its closed position, and the three of them took up their positions on the ropes.

“Up ship!” the Lady called through the open viewing port, and they let go. “Good-bye, my darlings—until Tuesday!”

Athena
rose gracefully into the sky, shouldered into the wind, and began to make way. The engines changed pitch and she moved off steadily north and east.

When she disappeared into a bank of clouds and the sound of her engines faded, Tigg took Lizzie’s hand. “Will you and Maggie walk me to the beach?”

“Try to stop us,” Lizzie said, holding his gaze as though memorizing it.

When Tigg boarded the Corps airship that would take him via Bristol to Scotland, where he would rejoin the crew of the
Lady Lucy
, Maggie felt nearly as teary as Lizzie as they walked down through St. Michael’s village. By the time they reached the flagged causeway, the great ship was passing overhead, and they waved their handkerchiefs madly until it floated from sight.

Two good-byes, two ships sailing away without them, and now it was just the two of them left. Well, and Claude, but he was being kept practically under lock and key by Grandfather, who was determined he should learn a thing or two about the business before he went back to Paris.

“Are you going to beard the grands in their dens after dinner?” Lizzie wanted to know as they walked along the beach toward Penzance in the distance.

“No,” Maggie said. “I have had enough emotional ups and downs for one day. Tomorrow is soon enough. But I am curious about one thing.”

“Only one?”

“Only one that I can bear to think about. Do you remember the red lantern flashes we saw the other night?”

“The signal to no one? The ones that seemed to come from the direction of that little valley where I followed you yesterday?”

“We saw the lights … and then a pigeon came to
Athena
. Do you suppose the two might be connected?”

“I don’t see how,” Lizzie said flatly. “What connection does someone with a lantern have with us?”

“None at all. But two odd things have happened at the same time. Perhaps we should take naps this afternoon.”

Lizzie stopped in her own tracks on the shingle. “What has come over you? We never take naps. Only old people take naps. And what has that to do with pigeons?”

“Old people aren’t going to be out on the cliffs at two in the morning to see one hundred liters of something and a thousand kilos of something else landed on the beach.”

Lizzie laughed. “Is that what you think will happen? What an imagination you have!”

Maggie hadn’t really expected her to go along with it, but nobody liked to be laughed at, either. “You don’t have to come, but I’m still going to ramble out in that direction, just in case I’m right and something happens.”

“What good will it do you?”

“None … except the satisfaction of my curiosity.”

“I think you’re going to meet Michael Polgarth—against the grands’ wishes.”

Maggie wished that were the truth. “If I did, I should be turned out of the house, and have to walk all the way to Gwynn Place. No, I’m just going to have an adventure. You may stay behind if you like. But even if that message does turn out to be a grocer’s list, I’m going to find out what those lights are.”

And there would be one mystery she could solve—even if it was the only one.

*

If Maggie could have invented an illness and taken a tray in her room that evening, she would have. But the possibility of Grandmother inspecting her throat and chest was a consequence too terrifying to contemplate, so she put on her dinner dress, arranged her hair, and presented herself downstairs with Lizzie and Claude as the gong sounded.

The dining table seemed even glossier and much larger without the rest of the London party, unrelieved as it was by so much as a bowl of flowers. But one thing had changed.

“Lady Claire and Mr. Malvern lifted safely?” Grandfather inquired of Maggie, who was so surprised at being thus directly addressed that she nearly inhaled a mouthful of asparagus soup.

“Yes, thank you,” she managed as soon as she could speak. “We were a little worried about the force of the wind, but then it changed and they were able to lift without trouble.”

“I do not hold with young people gadding about the skies in these airships,” Grandmother said. “When I think of the danger they put themselves in so needlessly, I wonder at their parents allowing it.”

“Lady Claire has been independent for some years now,” Lizzie said. “And she is to work on airships in Germany, you know, so her familiarity with them will be to her advantage.”

“Papa made sure I knew how to fly so that I could travel independently in
Victory
,” Claude offered. “And it’s not so hard, you know, once you get the hang of wind and steering. When we came down earlier in the summer, even the girls had a go at the tiller.”

Grandfather’s face flushed. “Claude, you know my feelings about any mention of your father in my house.”

“I know, Grandfather, and I apologize. But it is difficult. Up until two months ago, I believed him to be a good man. He was certainly good to me.”

But Grandfather was not willing to allow Charles de Maupassant Seacombe any shred of humanity or family feeling, for which Maggie for once was inclined to side with him.

“How did your day go at the office, Claude?” she asked him, since a change of subject was most definitely in order.

Claude heaved a sigh, caught his grandfather’s eye, and straightened. “I am finding it a very complicated beast. No wonder so many minds are required to make the company run properly. A single brain cannot hold it all—mine in particular.”

“You are not required to know everything, only the important points,” Grandfather told him. “Having the right men working for you is one necessary part. A knowledge of politics and economics is another. And a working knowledge of accounts is helpful, too, so that you may understand what others tell you.” Grandfather’s eye fell on Maggie, and like the clouds massing in the west, she saw a storm coming. “While we are on that subject, Margaret, I feel you ought to know that Mr. Polgarth has been released from his employment with us.”

He might as well have turned the pitcher of water at his elbow over her head. “On what grounds?” she blurted. The poor man! How was he to make his living now?

The bushy eyebrows pinched together in a frown. “That is hardly your concern.”

“If a man is sacked simply for speaking to me, then it certainly is my concern.”

Grandmother laid down her knife with a
clink
. “Margaret, do not be rude to your grandfather or I shall ask you to leave the room.”

Maggie could think of nothing she’d like better, but at the same time, antagonizing them would not make them amenable to conversation of a personal nature later on.

“Forgive me, Grandmother—Grandfather,” she murmured, ignoring Lizzie’s incredulous gaze at her backing down from a fight.

After a few moments, Claude said, “I had the opportunity to spend some time in the accounting department today.”

Poor Claude. Truly, the prospect of being cut out of the will was becoming more and more appealing the longer she stayed here.

“And what did you think?” Grandfather accepted a helping of breaded plaice from the footman, and Maggie stifled a sigh. Once they got home, she was never eating fish again.

“Well, I do not think the books they showed me were complete.”

“What do you mean, Claude?” Grandmother accepted her own fish, and next to her, Lizzie visibly braced herself.

“From what I could see, it does not look as though the company’s receipts are enough to sustain operations throughout the year. Is there more than one set of books?”

Grandfather’s eyes narrowed before his gaze fell to his dinner once more. “I am surprised you could make such a pronouncement when you admit yourself that your faculties are as yet not up to the task of understanding the business.”

Goodness. That was the closest Grandfather had ever come to a criticism of Claude in all the time they’d been here.

Claude nodded and gave a Gallic half-shrug. “You are quite right. Most of the time I am lucky if I can figure out how to tie my cravat in the morning. The books will take several years to understand, I am sure.”

And he subsided into silence while Maggie struggled with the urge to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him he was not as stupid as his grandparents were encouraging him to be. Claude was capable of sensible observation—she’d seen it herself. If he thought the books were unbalanced, then goodness, in all likelihood they probably were.

But bringing that up right now would definitely get her sent to her room. Maggie gazed at the limp plaice as the footman slid it onto her plate. Then again, perhaps she ought to.

“Claude, now that the storm is blowing itself out, do you think tomorrow would be a good day for a picnic?” she asked instead.

“Jolly good idea. I—”

“Claude is to go with me to the warehouse of one of our suppliers in Exeter tomorrow,” Grandfather said heavily. “We shall leave on the seven o’clock train.”

“In the morning?” Claude said faintly.

“Of course in the morning. Do you think we do business at night?”

“Some men do. Papa used to say more business was accomplished over brandy and cigars than ever got accomplished in offices.”

“Claude, I will not remind you again.”

“Grandfather, regardless of his crimes, you must admit that Papa was an excellent businessman. In that area of his life, at least, he behaved honorably and with great success.”

“I think that, along with your observations of the books, your estimations of your father’s honor and success are sadly inaccurate,” Grandfather snapped.

Carefully, Maggie put down her fork and instinctively readied herself for … whatever might happen.

“You cannot know that.” Maggie had never heard such a tone from her cousin. “I was with him daily on my vacations, accompanying him to meetings and such, and never heard anything from his associates to indicate such a thing.”

“That’s because they were probably in on it with him.”