A clockwork river, p.46
A Clockwork River, page 46
“And you are in league against your own employers!” Briony’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “It is not a quality becoming in a servant,” she finished, stressing the last word.
“Will you listen a moment?” implored Florian with urgency. “Rupert is not a servant, anyway. You have got to know about Lord Archer that—”
“Stop!” cried Briony in a strangled voice. “Stop this instant. How dare you conspire with Rupert behind my back? How dare you malign my friends? Your conduct is unseemly. You—” she drew herself up, stiff with fury. “You have forgotten your place.”
Florian went quite white. His face wore a look of shocked disbelief, like that of a child who has just been hit for the very first time.
Briony regretted her words instantly, but they lay there between them like a broken plate, and for once, she could think of nothing more to say. The silence that followed was thick and unpleasant, but luckily short, for in the next minute, one of the newly refurbished servants’ bells rang with a clear, silver sound.
Her anger suddenly evaporated, Briony peeked a few minutes later into the foyer where Florian was matching violently colored gloves for the various members of the Lock, Key and Fob Club. There was a definite atmosphere of gloom, and even the members of the Club were somber as they collected their apricot scarves and lavender muffs and filed into the freezing night. As the heavy door slammed behind them, Florian turned on his heel and left Briony alone with her worries and her conscience and an unsaid apology. Picking up a damp pineapple-print muffler from where it had slipped behind the umbrella stand, she complained to Dominic, who was floating above the grandfather clock and watching her strangely, “And of course no one bothers to tell me what all that was about.”
To her great surprise, Dominic drifted to her side and began fussing over her shawl with icy fingers.
“I was oiling Sam’s locks,” Briony intoned with great dignity. “I know it is shabby.”
Apparently consumed by some great internal struggle, Dominic’s pointed ears glowed red as cherries and jets of steam began to pour from them.
“The domestics are impossible today,” fumed Briony.
“As a member of the illustrious lineage that has occupied this house since its erection nearly one thousand years ago,” Dominic sallied forth at last, puffing out his chest, “it behooves you to take some interest in the foundation of your own family line as well as the foundation of the building, which are both affairs of great interest and intimately connected. In epochs of historic importance, and I have seen some, Lockes have assumed roles of leadership and dignity, charting a course for the household and for the empire by exhibiting cool heads in times of crisis and, most importantly, perspicacity. I have known Lockes to pay attention to important events taking place in their own houses, though farther away than their own noses, one might even say under their feet.”
“If you have got something to say I had rather you said it,” said Briony crossly. “I have been offered enough mystery by the household help today.”
“Perspicacity,” stressed Dominic. “Attention. Observation. Eyes peeled. Take note.”
And only then did he disappear.
XLIV
In which there is family feeling.
The sensation of a hand lifting the cameo locket from between her breasts roused Jacky to a blurry apparition veined in black and red. As the chain drew tight around her throat, Jacky lapsed with a little squeak of terror back into her coma.
On the bed beside her, draped in a quantity of heirloom linen frayed to exceptional softness, Sam was stretched out to his full length and peaceably snoring. His toes, some of them grayish and nipped with frost, moved unconsciously in the warm, open air of a bright room where a fire crackled merrily in the hearth and a big, brick chimney pulsed with warmth.
Kat straightened from the bed, her palm cupping the pure ivory profile of a young girl with thick hair, dreamy eyes and a noble nose. “Osborne,” she said, “there is something I must tell you.”
“Sorry, darling?” replied the botanist distractedly from the standing desk where he was reading up on the poisonous flora of the Western Crescent. “That little shriek is nothing to worry about. Deathberries, indeed,” and blowing some wisps of beard out of the way, he turned the page. He had got so caught up in the richly illustrated reference book that he had gone on from the entry on deathberries to read up on:
DEATHSPIKE: carnivorous tree, feeds upon insects and small mammals it impales upon its toxic thorns.
DEATHSWOOL: annual shrub; wind-dispersed seeds accumulate in respiratory passages, and the asphyxiated animals are excellent fertilizer for new sprouts.
DELSOLIA: invasive ivy, contact rash.
DOPEWORT: flowering alpine herb, pharmaceutically promising as a variably addictive metabolic retardant.
DROPWORT: flowering herb, full sun, cardiac arrest.
DUMBWEED: coarse hyperallergenic grass, prefers partial shade.
And was now deep in the entry on:
DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES: white-flowering plant with broad trifoliate leaves, propagated by ants, useful against dermatological and social diseases.
The book could not possibly teach Osborne anything new, since he had written it himself. Anyway, it was not exactly esoteric knowledge that deathberries, the bright-yellow, unpalatable pulpy fruit of an alpine shrub, caused stomach pains, heart palpitations, perspiration and nervous symptoms including numbness of the extremities, hallucinations and unconsciousness. He had been very surprised on his early morning ramble to discover a pair of unconscious persons who had just gobbled up a whole bushful. Indigenous shamans sometimes used deathberries to simulate a journey to the underworld where they communicated with animal spirits, but they took care to do it in ceremonial circumstances, someplace out of the weather. These people were not dressed for a long bout of unconsciousness during a snowstorm on the Fairheight Divide.
Luckily, this was only a mile from Lyreville, so it was no matter for Osborne to cover them up with his own buffalo cape and scramble back to town, where he hired a sledge to fetch the strangers back to his inn. Kat providentially arrived after the botanist had put them on his bed, but before he had taken off their boots; inspecting their toes for frostbite, she determined that there was none and prevailed upon Osborne to put up his scalpels, whereupon he went to brush up on his botany until his guests regained consciousness. He hoped they would have a good story at least. Perhaps they were suicidal lovers who had eaten deathberries instead of the genuinely lethal rotmoss growing on the bole of a nearby Notholithocarpus densiflorus – a splendid specimen shaped exactly like a sea-otter. The whole affair was a lesson, reflected Osborne, paging on to DUTTERPOX HOLLY, on the importance of education. No pair of star-crossed lovers should attempt to end their lives in one another’s arms without possessing at least a basic botanical knowledge.
“Osborne,” said Kat sternly, “I am trying to tell you something important.”
“Sorry, darling?” said Osborne, looking up. “Is there anything the matter?”
“I think this girl is my daughter,” said Kat.
Osborne took a long pause to meditate on the mystery of Kat’s former life. “She has none of your woods sense,” he doubted out loud, flipping on to the E’s. “Deathberries indeed.”
Kat placed the cameo on the open leaves of the book, alongside a drawing of an eastroot rhizome. “I left this with my daughter when she was born, before I came to the Felds. The girl was wearing it. That’s me.”
Osborne looked for a moment at the young girl sculpted in ivory and the strand of faded brown hair looped around it, then at Kat, then at the girl with cropped chestnut hair lying motionless on his bed. His brows furrowed, as if he were trying to meld them all into a single image through the power of concentration. Apparently successful, he cried out, “How splendid!” and caught Kat by the waist to draw her in for a squeeze. “I’ll be a father, of sorts! We must have a cake to celebrate.”
“I left her because I did not want her raised in the Felds,” said Kat seriously. “I am not so sure I want her to have a convict for a mother now.”
“Nonsense,” declared Osborne. “We’ll have sparkling wine and a big party. Even if she did eat deathberries, she cannot be such a fool as to fail to appreciate your splendid maternal qualities. To judge by the way she was huddled up with that handsome young man, you may gain a son as well as a daughter. If so, we shall have a wedding – and that means two cakes, and dancing to boot!” In his enthusiasm Osborne folded his arms over his stomach and began a sort of hornpipe, until he lost his breath and embraced Kat again, saying in puffs from his hairy, red cheeks, “Splendid… family feeling… a reunion… find out all about it… when she wakes up.”
“You and Professor Deligris have become very good friends,” said Kat.
“Absolutely,” agreed Osborne. “We will invite him, no question. He’ll find a berth for your, er, what’s her name?”
“Jacqueline,” said Kat. “At any rate that is what I named her.”
“Jacqueline,” approved Osborne. “Excellent. They can stay here in Lyreville, if they like, or in the camp, if they prefer. The camp has advantages, but I think Lyreville might be best for a wedding – higher altitude, panoramic views, above the construction dust. There is no hurry; we all have to get to know each other.” He lodged the cameo in a fork of his beard and turned it with interest. “Quite the trinket, Kat. C. V.?”
“Catherine,” said Kat. “And my maiden name.”
“Are you married then?” exclaimed Osborne, before he shook his head vehemently and recovered his sense of tact. “I mean, shall we expect more family?”
“My husband has proven he prefers my absence,” said Kat with a proud toss of her head, “and I had given proof I did not prefer him.”
“Ah,” said Osborne after a moment, nodding with an energy meant to convey his liberality along with his expert understanding of reproductive biology. “Hence…” He shot a glance at Jacky, still lying serenely on the bed.
“Yes,” said Kat. “I gave birth to her in prison and left her to be cared for by a family in Lower Rhumbsford. Otherwise, there is nothing to tell you that is not advertised on my face.”
“Everybody knows what this means,” said Osborne, tracing the stem of the red-inked rose with his finger, “but the story of your goodness and suffering is written more deeply. I am glad to be entrusted with it. Also,” he said, noticing that Kat had begun to soften, “I am fond of cake and have no children of my own. Shall we decorate before she wakes up? Balloons?”
Kat argued Osborne down to something more domestic and suitable for convalescents – beef broth, soft rolls, turnip greens, lamb chops, mashed potatoes, and no balloons. When he went to place the order, Kat found that she was glad to have him out of the way. She sat by the bed and toyed with the locket. Whatever her thoughts were, she became so lost in them that she did not notice Sam’s long, low groan of contentment as he discovered himself in a warm, comfortable bed with Jacky still beside him, as if they had woken from a deathberry hallucination into life as a married couple rising late on a weekend morning on their conjugal bed. He folded Jacky into his arms and stroked her sleep-warm hair while the girl nestled against him and murmured, “How strange, how strange...” and rubbed her eyes until her vision cleared, and she saw the tattooed convict turning the cameo in her hands.
“Give me my locket!” she cried with shrill ferocity, sitting bolt upright.
“Of course,” said Kat soothingly, starting up from her reverie and holding out the locket on her rough palm. “You are welcome to it.”
“I had it from my mother,” pronounced Jacky, snatching it from the harlot’s hand and threading her head through the chain.
“Are you called Jacqueline?” asked Kat.
“Jacky,” corrected the girl suspiciously.
“And were you raised by Brent and Brigitte Winslop?” pursued Kat. “Once jailers at the Palace, where I gave birth to a daughter named Jacqueline sixteen years ago?”
“My mother was a noblewoman,” protested Jacky. “Her father was in Parliament. She lived in the finest house in the Drowned City and was courted by the first men of the city. I had it from her spirit.”
“Gemini,” breathed Kat. “He still haunts the house? That cupola!”
Sleepy as she was, Jacky began to see what was afoot and lapsed into a stunned silence.
“Whatever are you doing eating poisonous berries in the dead of winter, wearing next to nothing and in the company of an older man?” admonished Kat.
Sam’s recent adventures had been very stimulating but had not involved bathing or shaving or wearing uneccentric clothes or getting out in fresh air and sunlight, and he became suddenly concerned about the impression he was making on the woman who was shaping up to be his mother-in-law. “Hello, ma’am,” he sang, flashing a winning grin.
“Look,” said Jacky frostily, “I’ve got quite used to having no mother, if that is who you are. I know you are a convict, possibly a thief.”
Kat stood up and paced to the fire, holding her hands to the flames as if to find there the warmth that was lacking in her daughter’s heart. Of course Kat was not the mother Jacky had set out to find; perhaps no mother would have been adequate to the occasion. Kat understood, perhaps better than Jacky herself did, that it was easier to escape a family than to become a part of one.
“Our meeting this way comes as a surprise to us both,” Kat said finally, turning from the fire, “though on my side, at least, a welcome one. I have often dreamed of it and hope that you will allow us the opportunity to get to know one another. I gave you up to spare you the collaring and the convict life that I have undergone, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. If I misjudged, still I acted out of love for you.”
“That is very fairly spoken,” said Osborne from the door, where he was pushing a trolley of hot food under silver warming bells. “First, you must have a bite to eat, and we must get to know each other. I am Osborne.”
“Kat,” said Kat, applying an awkward pressure to Jacky’s shoulder that could have been a hug if only the girl had been willing, and then pressing Sam’s hand cordially across the bed.
“Samuel,” said Sam, smiling as presentably as he could.
“Sam,” murmured Kat, holding his hand. “Sam and Jacky…”
“The names go well together,” beamed Osborne, plumping up pillows so the invalids could sit upright and erecting folding trays over their torsos. “It is only deathberries; you’ll be up in a jiffy. Are you fond of cake?”
“Are you my father then?” Jacky asked Osborne abruptly.
“Goodness, no,” replied Osborne, almost dropping a bowl of beef broth into Jacky’s lap. “Though you may think of me that way, or come to, as you like. I am fond of children, anyway”—and then, noticing Jacky’s brow darken—“not that you are a child, though I suppose you must have been once; old enough now, anyway, to… What I mean to say is that I met your mother in the Western Crescent, and we are not married, in the technical sense, due to legal considerations, I believe.”
“I can see that by looking at you,” Jacky told Kat pointedly.
Kat turned white, and the broken rose that traversed her face stood out more starkly yet.
“I am not a lawyer myself,” bustled Osborne. “Goodness, no – I go in for botany, mostly.”
“Jacky has treasured that locket,” said Sam in his most conciliatory manner, “and wanted very much to meet you. Until now, she knew only your initials and some details she could glean from a house spirit. I understand you were once a great actress?”
“Really?” asked Osborne with interest.
“Not at all,” cried Kat with a pained little laugh. “I liked to act, certainly, but only domestic theatricals. And that was all so long ago.”
“Jacky took a great deal of inspiration from that,” said Sam, digging his companion in the ribs. “She is interested in theater as well – not the acting side so much as puppets and mechanical design. A wonderful puppeteer! You will have plenty to talk about.”
Jacky sipped her broth in silence.
“Can I help with anything?” Sam offered Osborne as he began spooning out sides.
“Nonsense; you are frostbitten and exhausted,” said Osborne, slinging turnip greens. “The cook here does only three things well, and one of them is toast, but you must be so hungry as not to mind. The broth I cannot recommend, but it is nutritious and will settle the deathberries. Not actually fatal – that was a miscalculation, I trust. The lamb chops should be good; the mashed potatoes, dry but a necessary side. Butter?”
“Please,” said Sam, and let Osborne dollop a pat onto the mounded spuds. Jacky declined and ate her potatoes with disdainful, dry-mouthed discontent.
“Perhaps,” Osborne insinuated, “there will be cake afterwards. Eh?”
“Everything is cozy and delicious,” commended Sam, failing to understand the hint. “Why, I would never have imagined the Felds would be so domestic.”
“This is a private inn,” confessed Osborne. “If you were in my house, I would cook you a meal that would make these lamb chops taste like mouse droppings.”
“Osborne,” chided Kat.
“It is the truth,” defended Osborne, sucking on a strand of his beard as if to recover the memory of a distant meal. “I make excellent lamb chops – marinated in mushroom catsup and slow broiled. I pick the mushrooms myself, very poisonous ones, and prepare them specially to draw out the toxins while preserving the flavor. I will take out a patent on the process someday and sell the catsup under a proprietary label… also, my tobacco blend, when I have the time.”
“So there is no tattoo under there?” marveled Sam.
“I do not blame you for thinking so,” said Osborne, proudly tossing his beard. “There could be anything in here, anything at all. Eat up, now.”
“With a will,” said Sam cheerfully. “I could eat anything, it has been so long, and so could Jacky.” He nudged her again and getting back a painful jab that upset a forkful of turnip greens into the bedclothes.
