A Spark Unseen

31

That evening I stood with Lane in the attic room, looking down at my uncle, lying still across the bottom of my steamer trunk. The gaslights were lit, and Lane looked more his normal self: clean-shaven, tan skin behind a plain shirt with the sleeves rolled up, arms crossed, and with a scowl on his face.

“I don’t like it, Katharine,” he said.

I didn’t like it either. The soiled lining had been ripped out and the trunk was clean, ready enough for use, but all my trepidation from the first time we’d done this had come back to me triple force. This plan was madness, once again, with everything to go wrong and everything to lose.

“Uncle Tully,” I whispered, “are you truly certain?”

The blue eyes popped open. “Oh, yes, little niece, yes! It is just so. Just so! It is tight, like blankets, and there are holes. Holes to see through, Simon’s baby! Lane! Tell my niece there are holes to see through.”

The gray gaze turned to me in all seriousness. “Miss Tulman, there are holes in the trunk that Mr. Tully can see through.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Moreau.”

“My pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

“Little niece!” said Uncle Tully, petulant. I tore my attention away from Lane. “If there are holes, then I can see out, but when they are little holes, then no one can see in! Is that not splendid? And this place is better than the other place, and the next place is better than this one, isn’t that right, little niece? And you are coming?” This was to Lane. “And you are coming, and the girl is coming?”

“Yes, that’s right, Uncle.”

His shoulders slumped with relief, then they stiffened again. “And the clocks?”

“Yes, Uncle.” I knelt down beside the trunk. “Uncle Tully, do you understand that if you ride in the trunk, you are going to see new places, and new people, and some of them might not be splendid? And if you are frightened, or uncomfortable, or if you want something, or to play, then you will have to wait, and you will have to be silent. That is very important, Uncle.”

Uncle Tully sat up in his trunk, his white hair a little wild. “Lane! Would I have to be silent in the trunk?”

“Yes, Mr. Tully. That’s so.”

“I do not like silence, Simon’s baby.”

“I know it, Uncle.”

Uncle Tully thought hard, muttering to himself. Then he said, “If I count, then the silence is only on the outside. Not inside my head. Not in my head. Only on the outside. I do not mind the outside kind. I can make it go away on the inside.”

Lane squatted down beside me, elbows on his knees, and we looked at each other. My uncle looked to us both.

“He is quite good at closing his eyes and waiting now,” I said. “Remarkably so.”

“Mr. Tully, can you stay quiet, no matter what? Can you do it?

Uncle Tully was solemn. “Sometimes big things can be little,” he said.

Lane sighed.

“All right, Uncle,” I said. “You may ride in the trunk.”

Uncle Tully smiled, as if day had appeared among the gaslights. “Little niece,” he whispered.

“Yes, Uncle?”

“Can I tell you a secret? Should I?”

“I think you should.”

Uncle Tully whispered, very loud, “I would like to shut the lid again! Now!”

We got out of my grandmother’s house in Paris early, hoping to catch the first train and the earliest possible steamer from Calais. We’d had to hire a wagon for my trunk, but not having the extraordinary skill of Mr. Babcock, there had been no time to find transportation for all that was left in the workshop. We left the boxes on the landing, and I went to Mrs. DuPont’s room to give instructions on how to send them on to us, and also to place a ruby ring in her hand. Pink suffused her white skin as she stared down at the ring.

I said, “This house will not be the best place for you, Mrs. DuPont, or for Mr. DuPont.”

“Napoléon est mort!” he said in response to his name.

“Hello, Mr. DuPont,” I replied. Marguerite patted his hand. “Use it to find somewhere that is private and quiet, and for Marguerite, to send her to school. A good school, mind you, not severe. Will it be enough?”

Mrs. DuPont closed her bony fingers around the ring. “Yes, it will be enough,” she said.

“And no more selling?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Keep your agreement with my estate, if you wish. I plan to maintain the house for a time, in case …” I didn’t finish. “Or if you wish to work elsewhere, write and I will send a reference.”

She nodded, and I’d turned to leave when I heard a small voice say, “Merci, Mademoiselle.” I looked down to see Marguerite smiling in the exact way every master painter seemed to think a beautiful child ought to smile, and then Mrs. DuPont curtsied.

“Yes. Thank you, Miss Tulman.”

I was halfway down the corridor before it occurred to me that Mrs. DuPont had used my name.

In the foyer, Lane and the wagon driver were setting my steamer trunk down on the tiles, Mary assisting by carrying a hatbox and giving an endless stream of instructions on the correct way to get a trunk down the stairs. I was nervous and ready to be gone, half thinking to see imperial soldiers come marching down Rue Trudon, though I knew Joseph and Jean-Baptiste were watching. They had already said their good-byes, Jean-Baptiste causing Mary a few tears, but Joseph was coming with us to Stranwyne, as soon as his sister was settled and his passport approved. I was grateful for this. I wanted another set of eyes on Lane when I couldn’t be there.

Lane went back up the stairs for my bags, his long legs taking them two at a time in his hurry, the driver made for the door, and then Mrs. Hardcastle was saying, “Hello! Hello! Good morning, Miss Tulman!” from the open doorway.

I turned in time to see Mary run pell-mell across the foyer, this time holding her hatbox, and sit herself abruptly on my steamer trunk. Mrs. Hardcastle raised the pince-nez, looked at Mary briefly, shook her head, then came bouncing across the foyer, opening her reticule.

“Well, I am so glad I caught you, my dear. I waited to speak to you yesterday, but you never came downstairs after whatever you had been up to. …” She paused, hoping I might fill that gap. When I did not, she said, “And as fascinating as that little scene was — and I am not being facetious in the slightest when I say that it was fascinating, my dear — I did have a purpose for inviting myself to several cups of tea, overstaying my welcome, and now barging in on you this morning.” She handed me a letter, beaming. “I’ve not forgotten our agreement, you see. I wrote Alice Tulman the very afternoon of our chat, and heard back at the morning post yesterday.”

I glanced once at Mary, but all seemed to be well in the steamer trunk. “I take it this is not good news, Mrs. Hardcastle?”

“Not good news at all, my dear!” Mrs. Hardcastle could not actually stand still for excitement. “Alice has heard all about Mr. Babcock. I’m certain something was in the papers, and … Now wait, child! You have not let me finish. You see, I know a solicitor …” She lowered her voice even further. “… a hopeless solicitor. An imbecile and a drunkard, if you can credit it, with …” she whispered the next words, “a history. A history that I just happen to be acquainted with. So let’s just say that Alice Tulman is about to be very badly advised in her legal affairs! Is that not delicious?”

My mouth had opened in utter astonishment, so I closed it, wondering if perhaps Mrs. Hardcastle had ever had conversations with Mrs. DuPont that did not concern my wardrobe. Mrs. Hardcastle was smiling at me expectantly.

“Why, thank you, indeed, Mrs. Hardcastle. You will keep me informed?”

“I am a spy in the enemy camp!” She giggled like a girl. “But take heart and enjoy your trip, my dear, the weather has just been divine.” She leaned close, whispering dramatically, “And you’ve made the Miss Mortimers so abominably jealous that I shall have fun for days!”

Mrs. Hardcastle bustled happily out the door, and Mary slumped off the steamer trunk in relief.

We made our train, miraculously, without noise or incident, paying for a private compartment just in case, and even more remarkably, we managed to catch our steamer in Calais. I wondered if Uncle Tully had his eyes closed, counting out his waiting, or if he was actually watching, and if so, what he thought of real life from the view of a peephole.

The steamer was extraordinarily empty, only a few French officers, perhaps on business to London for the war, and the lack of loading and unloading quickened our departure. This also meant a first-class cabin was available, so Uncle Tully could come out of his trunk. Mary had pulled strips of pink cloth from the workshop, bringing them to hang and create a set of walls my uncle could sit inside, along with a broken clock to repair. I stayed on deck while Lane and Mary got him settled, the steam engines chugging, watching the waves and the wake the boat created as it slowly pulled away from France. Hopefully the fresh air and wind would keep me from repeating my lamentable state of health during my last Channel crossing.

I was leaning a bit over the rail, letting the salt spray dampen my face, when someone approached and stood by my side. I straightened, a hand to my bonnet now that I was facing the breeze, and looked into the face of a man, uniformed, a bit short, and vaguely familiar.

“My apologies for disturbing your thoughts, Mademoiselle Tulman,” he said.

“Oh, why, I …” My voice trailed away, my heart beginning a hard, slow thump. Henri had pointed this man out to me at the emperor’s ball. A member of the imperial court, and Napoléon III’s half brother. Which meant he was Lane’s uncle. The thought gave me a start.

“My name is Charles de Morny, Mademoiselle. I can see that you know the name.”

I nodded, eyes roving quickly over the deck. We were alone.

Morny smiled, leaning his elbows on the rail. “Your information concerning the empress was appreciated. The emperor has been glad to commandeer this boat to ease your journey back to England.”

I stared, all at once aware of the very deep, cold water that was all around us. I didn’t even know if I should be afraid. I turned my face to the spray, letting the wind carry our words out to sea. “I’d hoped His Majesty would not find me so quickly. The empress will be well, then?”

“Her wine has been changed and her room purged. Her doctor is of the opinion that the doses were slight, meant to be given over time, and that there will be no lasting effects. The empress will not be informed. She has been told that she was ill, and is now recovering.”

I nodded once again and waited.

“The tunnel beneath the Tuileries has been sealed,” he said. “But not before it was explored.” He looked me square in the eye. “I need you to tell me, Mademoiselle Tulman, what killed Charles Arceneaux and what he was doing beneath the Tuileries.”

I pressed my lips together and looked out to sea. The boat dipped slightly, and then rode up a wave.

“Mademoiselle, I am going to be frank and hope for frankness in return. There have been two attempts on the life of the emperor this month alone. And with the discovery of the plot against his wife, and from so close … Louis is in constant fear. He has become superstitious, a fanatic with this warning of Pisces. The man will not even eat his caviar.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. It had not occurred to me until that moment that Pisces was the sign of the fish.

“Until Louis produces an heir with his name, the throne is insecure.”

“Monsieur de Morny, Ben … I mean to say, Charles, was obsessed with being of the Bonaparte bloodline, to the point of madness. Whatever he was doing, he did not try to assassinate the emperor.” I shook my head at the irony of defending Ben’s innocence.

“And in the tunnel, in the big room, what was Charles doing there?”

I held on to my bonnet, willing my voice to sound calm. If the emperor was ignorant of the happenings in the cavern, then surely he was ignorant of Uncle Tully. “I don’t know what Charles was doing, exactly. Experimenting, I believe.”

“And how he died?”

I had an unbidden vision of purple-tinged fire, and the smoke coming from Ben Aldridge’s skin. “Electricity,” I said. “That is what killed him. But …” I bit my lip. “The contents of the barrels, sir, that is dangerous if exposed to flame, and would be best left where it is.” I lifted my chin and looked away. “I don’t know anything else.”

Morny shook his head. “But I think you do, Mademoiselle.” He waited, making me look at him before he went on. “Charles was not the only Bonaparte running about beneath the Tuileries, was he?”

“Please,” I said, “he knows nothing of this. He knows only the father who raised him. This news, it would be … most unwelcome.”

The boat smacked hard into a choppy wave. “Moreau is a name known to us,” Morny said. “There was a soldier captured in the war, very loyal, taken to a prison in the south of England — that is where your estate is, is it not? He escaped, but he did not return to France. After Louis’s time in London, this man Moreau, was honored, I think, to raise a son of the house of Bonaparte, a boy with the blood of the Emperor Napoléon the First running through his veins. He could not have known that the father of this child would also become the second emperor of France, Napoléon the Third. A double honor. And yet while he accepted the first, a baby still in its blankets, he did not accept the second that was brought to him, an older child, also a boy, whose mother was going mad.”

I took a deep breath. Part of me was longing to know more of this, and part of me was longing for him to stop giving me so many things to conceal.

“Will Thérèse Arceneaux … will she be taken care of?”

“The emperor pays for her care. This is a thing we also do not tell the empress.” He sighed. “I have watched the young man, on the boat and on the dock. He has a strong look of his father.” Morny straightened from the rail. “It is a strange thing,” he said, “being an illegitimate son. On the streets, you are of the lowest form, while in the court, you become a duke. Our Louis is many things, but his heart, it is soft for his children. We agree with you, Miss Tulman, that it is best for the young man to return to England. The throne of France must be secure. We …”

At that moment, Lane came around the deck, jacket collar turned up against the wind. He checked his walk when he saw me with the uniformed Frenchman, and approached warily, like a cat. “Have you been in the wind all this time, Katharine?” he said. His use of my name had been just the slightest bit possessive.

“Mr. Moreau, this is —”

“Monsieur de Morny,” the Frenchman interjected. “Je suis heureux de faire votre connaissance.”

“Moi de même,” Lane replied, wrinkling his forehead at the switch to French. “J’espère que vous allez apprécier votre voyage.”

Morny positively beamed at this reply. It was possible, I supposed, that Lane spoke better French than the emperor. Morny stopped looking Lane up and down like a prize horse and turned back to me.

“It was most pleasant to speak with you, Mademoiselle. I am glad we are of like mind.”

“Thank you,” I replied with perhaps too much relief, because I got a sharp gray look from my side.

Morny bowed and went belowdecks, and then it was Lane’s turn to lean on the rail.

“Mr. Tully’s got his cloth hung, and he’s playing about with that box. Mary’s with him.”

I glanced back at the door Charles de Morny had gone through. “Is he locked in?”

Lane looked at me sidelong. “Yes, but the boat’s almost empty. You don’t have to mother him too much, Katharine.”

As Lane’s tone showed this to be a point of pride rather than admonishment, I let it go. The sea spat foam in a fine spray. Lane loved the sea. I could see it in his face. I looked at his hand on the rail, the color like creamed tea, such a contrast to mine. That trait had not come from his father. Could Lane be Spanish? I wondered suddenly.

“What?” he said, grinning. I snapped awake.

“I was just wondering if you liked the smell,” I said.

“You mean the sea? I do. I do like it. Now that we’re out of the harbor.”

He took my hand that had been on the rail, and held it between both of his. It was so much warmer there.

“So, are you ready to discuss money?” I watched his brows come down.

“I hadn’t forgotten.”

I proceeded with caution. This whole thing was silly, in my opinion. But if these were the terms he could live with, then so be it. I also knew Lane well enough to guess that the sums in his head were very likely ridiculous. “Did you know that Uncle Tully can make a bell ring with his box?”

He was playing with my fingers now, stretching them out one by one, examining. I tried to concentrate.

“And by ringing a bell with his box, I mean a bell that is in no way connected to his box.”

I had his attention now. “How can that be?”

“No idea, of course. But while we were in Paris, Uncle Tully could push his little lever on the box in the attic and make the bells ring downstairs. Without a string, or even a wire.”

I’d given a good deal of thought to this, last night in my bed, with the silver swan gleaming in the light of the candle I’d left burning, letting Marianna watch over me from where she sat by the wall, waiting to be packed. I’d imagined bells to summon a policeman, to wake a house in the case of fire, even to call a maid. Putting my uncle’s invention to such uses would not only be practical — a welcome change from destructive — but it would also be, I hoped, rather lucrative. Especially with someone who could carve the moldings to make beautiful designs for them. But I would let Lane come to most of these conclusions on his own; probably he could come to better ones. I thought Marianna might be rather pleased with me. The wind blew another cold salt spray, and I shivered.

“Come here, then,” Lane said, pulling me into his open jacket. I reached up and untied my bonnet, letting my head tuck beneath his chin, preferring the warmth of him to my hat. He watched the sea from over my head.

“Lane.” I hesitated. “You seemed so at home in Paris. Will you be sorry, do you think?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, Katharine Tulman. And my answer was yes, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. It had been.

“And what about you? Can you live with what you’ve chosen?”

“Oh, yes. I just won’t take tea in London. Or Paris either. I’ll just have to go to America for it.” I’d made him smile, I could feel it from the way his chin moved on my head. “I’ll be the young woman who always takes her steamer trunk to tea. But I’ll need a bigger trunk, I think. Uncle Tully only just fits now.”

“That’s so. If you’d get room for a workbench in there, you might make a world traveler of him yet.”

“We could go to Rome, to see the ruins.”

“Or the pyramids,” Lane suggested.

“India.”

“Boating down the Amazon.”

“With my trunk in one end of the canoe.”

He laughed, a low rumble in his chest; I felt it vibrating through my own. I wanted to tell him that it was a mess at home, that there had been so much to rebuild and repair, that we were overextended, and that without Mr. Babcock I was afraid I would mishandle all of it. That I would not go to Mr. Babcock’s funeral, to avoid causing a spectacle. That I didn’t know exactly how we were going to hide Uncle Tully, that we might need to hide him for the rest of his years, and that we couldn’t continue to deceive Mrs. Cooper. She was going to be so angry, deservedly so, and would Mr. Cooper really keep our secret? I wanted to tell him that I could not stop thinking of that child in the asylum with his silent play, and that I was afraid Aunt Alice’s legal advice might accidentally be too good. I wanted to tell him that he was descended from the bloodline of two different emperors.

But then Lane said, “Katharine, tell me more about Mr. Tully’s electricity.”

I loved the way he said my name. I said, “It really is the most amazing thing. He makes the electricity fly right through the air. You can’t see it, but you know it must be there, because … well, because the bell rings.”

Like everything we’d done, I thought, throwing unseen sparks into the future, sometimes with spectacular results. I wondered what spark was flying now.

“Katharine,” Lane said, “I think I’ll just go belowdecks and talk to Mr. Tully about his box.”

He kissed the top of my head, and I immediately missed his warmth as he moved away, disappearing through the door to the cabins below. The wind whipped the ribbons of my hat, overwhelming the noise of the engines. I was alone on the deck, but I wasn’t alone at all. I turned my face to the sea and looked toward home.