A Love by Design, page 10
“Me follow you?” she asked. “I cannot turn around in this city of hundreds of thousands without seeing your face. If I had any affections for you, they would indeed be the product of a fever.”
When she reached to pull back the brim of her bonnet, she scowled at him. It pushed her lips together into a pinkish-plumlike whorl that made him dizzy.
“I’ve had women lie in wait for me before,” Grantham said. “Usually, it’s at a house party or a ball. They spring out from dark corners to trap me. Much more considerate of you to do it in the daylight.”
“Women throw themselves at you?” Margaret stopped walking, studying him with those all-knowing eyes of hers. Her scrutiny made him shrink an inch or two. Ghastly woman.
Gorgeous woman.
“Yes,” he said. “It gets so I have to walk slowly in case one of them throws herself at my feet when I’m not looking, and I trip and break my nose.”
Margaret leaned in, squinting as she stared. The delicious scent of mother-of-pearl mixed with sawdust wafted beneath his nose and had a strange effect on his knees.
“I call a corker,” she said. Setting her bonnet aright on her head, she walked away as though she hadn’t accused him of lying right here in a public street.
Happiness frothed within him. Grantham followed two steps behind her, a giddy lightness lifting his feet and setting his heart to thumping. That chappy woman. They could be at the Abbey again, teasing one another until they resorted to the ultimate test.
“If you call a corker, you must be prepared to perform the ‘Test of Truth,’ ” he reminded her. She stopped at the corner and pulled out a coin for the street sweeper. A scrawny lad with a crook-back tipped his hat and with a listing gait swept the street crossing, removing the leavings of the horse traffic from the day.
Something twisted in Grantham’s chest at the sight of the tiny body hunched over the broom handle.
A steady stream of families from the countryside moved here every day in hopes of bettering their circumstances, abandoning the land which could no longer sustain them. Everyone needed to work if they wanted to eat, and some children worked harder than adults.
The work itself didn’t cause Grantham’s blue devils. To be certain, he’d put in his share of hours working the fields of his stepfather’s farm. However, Grantham had the luxury of a belly full of nourishing food and the wonder of the Lincolnshire countryside to explore as a boy. This urchin most likely had the dubious pleasure of one room for his entire family, filthy air to coat his throat, and a dirty, dangerous street in which to work.
Children were not meant to live like this; crammed cheek by jowl in structures imprisoning them from the call of the earth and the balm of nature, working night and day, only to return to an overcrowded hovel with barely enough food to survive.
Margaret said something to the boy too low for Grantham to hear, but her expression caught him up short. The wickedness in her glance had fled and they shared a look in the middle of the noise and dirt. Was she remembering how verdant and pure their summers had been on the banks of the stream, surrounded by the bluest of skies and the richest of earth? The leaves had held hidden messages when the wind sailed through them and they spent hours hunting toads and singing back to the wagtails and thrushes. Only during childhood could one learn the secrets of the countryside in a way that turned the world magical.
Here in London, there was no magic.
Grantham could change some of that with this Reform Bill. Boys like the street sweeper could be in school instead of out on the street. The thought buoyed him. Margaret, unable to read his thoughts, turned away and broke the connection. The stench of the city streets smacked Grantham in the face, and he hurried after her, longing to catch her scent.
“Are you turning your back on the ‘Test of Truth’?” he called out to her after tossing the boy a coin of his own.
“I have no time for such nonsense,” she said sharply when he’d reached her side. “I am due across town in an hour.”
He’d lost her, but he tried to keep her with him out of stubbornness. “I’ve run fair short of shame. Let’s stop right here and you can twist my arm as hard as you’d like to see if I did tell a corker.”
Margaret didn’t even bother to glance over her shoulder when she answered, “I cannot. I have to meet a supplier for my project.”
“I have not seen you since you made your announcement,” Grantham said, unwilling to admit defeat. “Come with me to Gunter’s Tea Shop and tell me about your project. I have a free afternoon and no one so pretty as you with whom to spend it.”
Margaret made a gesture of dismissal with her shoulder so Gallic, it almost made Grantham smile.
“You are not my confidant, my lord,” she informed a streetlight, walking two feet ahead of him, boots clipping on the wooden walkway. “I am not a source of information for your broadsheet. I do not give you permission to write a story about me.”
Why was she so short with him?
“Of course, I won’t write about you without your permission,” he assured her.
They came to another corner, and Grantham caught her by the elbow under the guise of helping her negotiate a hole in the wooden walkway.
“Have I done something since the ball to offend you?” he asked. “I thought . . .”
“I forgave you the other night, but it meant nothing except we have closed our circle,” she said, pulling at her arm. “There is no offense. I must work for a living and do not have the luxury to sit about all day like an aristocrat. Good day.”
The strange turns their lives had taken struck him as the afternoon sun wrapped its fingers around the clouds and glowered sullenly on the street, putting her face in a half light. She spoke nothing but the truth.
“I must apologize, madame,” he said gently. “I have kept you from your responsibilities. How inconsiderate of me. You are correct. We are no longer children, and I should not play with you as though we were.”
Margaret clenched the handle of her reticule tightly and shook her head once as though to clear her ears of the sound of rushing water or a linnet’s call.
As she walked away, Grantham shielded his eyes from the last of the autumn sun’s rays.
She hadn’t been annoyed with him, not truly. She’d looked lonely and bereft.
And she had been lying about one thing.
The circle was not closed.
7
THE FUTURO CONSORTIUM is pleased to announce the world will be blessed with yet another British wonder. The future is upon us, gentlemen. The future is now.”
The words carried on a breeze to where Margaret stood beneath the shade of a horse chestnut tree, moving her jaw to prevent it from freezing in an unattractive clench.
On the banks of the Thames a mile or so outside of London proper stood a crowd of seemingly identical men. They were varied in their height and width but otherwise were all clad in checked trousers; tight, high-collared cutaway coats; and grey or black toppers. Their well-fed faces were all white except where flushed red with self-satisfaction, like fleshy British flags. Some of the men were passersby, drawn by the promise of spectacle, but most of them either worked for or were associated with members of the Futuro Consortium, the name Geflitt had given to his group.
Margaret hated the name but that wasn’t why she seethed. The reason for her fury—and her fright—stood to the left of Geflitt upon a raised platform next to a half-finished warehouse at the official groundbreaking of the Futuro Consortium’s railway tunnel.
Margaret was not on the platform.
She had been told the announcement that her firm was to design the tunnel would take place later that month.
Discreetly.
“I am so pleased to share our celebration with supporters such as Mr. Victor Armitage. Mr. Armitage, would you care to say a few words?”
As the crowd applauded, Victor Armitage stepped forward and instead of lifting hearts with a stunning oration, he presented his audience with a list of grievances.
“The hardworking men of this country are under attack. Women are leaving their babies behind and taking men’s jobs at lower wages. In an ascendant England, a glorious England, men must be the sole wage earners once again.”
Ugh.
For a man who held such power, he presented an uninspiring figure. Shorter than Geflitt, Armitage had the florid coloring of one who indulged in the finer foods and wine that were beyond the reach of the kinds of men who followed him. His greying hair was longer on one side, and he’d pasted it over his head to hide a balding pate.
As if to make up for the thinning hair atop his head, he’d grown his side whiskers to cover his cheeks almost to the middle of his chin. Beady brown eyes surveyed the crowd as he spoke, one hand over his breast, full lips pursed, and jowls shivering with intensity.
“This tunnel will once again remind the world of the ingenuity of England’s men, who have . . .”
England’s men, indeed. Margaret wished he’d choke on his ignorant words and fall face first off the platform.
That was yet another irritant. The platform itself listed to the left, which made her ears itch. Constructed so it could easily be taken down, it served its purpose whether or not it sloped too much to one side, but Margaret could not bear the indifference of it.
The perfection of a squared corner bestowed its own pleasure along with the constancy of a right angle and the thrill of watching theory become reality. Even if it were a simple box, why accept mediocrity when perfection was achievable in this field as in no other?
This was what her teachers never understood about her decision not to continue with physics. Engineers married the beauty of theory with the gratification of practical execution. They were able to produce perfection beneath their fingertips. In her field, no problem existed that could not be solved with the aid of a slide rule.
In fact, she’d a slide rule in her reticule. If she were a braver woman, she would take it out and shove it up Armitage’s . . .
“This tunnel will be a masterwork of English ingenuity. No foreigners are involved in its design or construction.” Armitage went on to list a litany of folks he despised (foreigners, women, and men who didn’t hate foreigners and women) as the Thames made its lugubrious way past the site. There were no residences in this patch of land outside the city proper, and unlike Richmond on the same side of the bank but the other side of London, no pleasure boats launched from here, no pretty parks or tidy little greens beckoned to the upper classes.
As far as Margaret could tell, there were more than enough railroads already being built in and around London. How would the consortium’s trains compete with those who’d already laid lines of track? Were they hoping the notoriety of a tunnel would draw folks to their line instead? Why did they pick this somewhat isolated site instead of closer to the city?
The crowd grew slightly restless. Although the Guardians might be intimidating to common folk, this group today consisted of the consortium members and their associates. All of them were moneyed and some were even gentry—not the usual crowd for a rally. Most were wise enough to know Armitage didn’t believe what he was saying. The Guardians appealed to men who feared for their livelihood and felt as though no one else would listen to them. Margaret knew a moment’s pity for their plight but even greater was her anger that Armitage would turn those men and their stupid alliterative placards against innocent women.
Almost as if her thoughts had conjured them, the shouted cadence of a chant filled the air.
Rather than the raucous slogans of the Guardians, however, this group of folks presented a stark and welcome contrast to the men in the crowd as they marched over a knoll. Men and women of different ages and sizes, some wearing colorful bonnets topped with stuffed replicas of various birds, were shouting indistinct slogans.
A fellow member of Athena’s Retreat, Flavia Smythe-Harrows, had created the hats and sold them anonymously at Fenley’s Fantastic Fripperies, the largest emporium in London. The bonnets, and occasional matching top hats, were decorated with the feathers of common species of birds Flavia had either collected in her wanderings or other scientists had found and brought to her.
Flavia’s bonnets were sold together with cards that told the owner something about that particular species.
For example, Violet had a truly horrific bonnet with a stuffed parrot atop it, the corpse of someone’s lifelong pet. From Flavia’s card, Margaret had learned parrots are long-lived, and that bird was fifty-four years old before it perished.
They had become immensely popular with ladies who were protesting the killing of songbirds for decorative bonnets. Margaret could not see the appeal of wearing a dead bird on one’s head no matter how it had expired, but she thought highly of Flavia, who channeled her share of the profits to a fund which provided child carers for some of the club members who needed the help.
Margaret could read the signs now—some were festooned with ribbons; most were decorated with feathers and bore different messages.
TERMINATE THE TUNNEL
REJECT THE RAILWAY
MORE NESTS LESS MESS
FUTURO CONSORTIUM YOUR GOOSE IS COOKED
Stepping out from behind the tree to get a better look, she had to stifle a magnificent curse. An enormous blond man tagged behind the group.
Grantham.
Who was following whom?
At his side were two shorter men armed with small notebooks. They must be reporters from his blasted broadsheet. Whatever did this mean?
Armitage had been equating the Consortium with the crusaders—not a comparison Margaret found in any way compelling—but left off his speaking to goggle at the bird people. Geflitt leaned over and whispered something in Armitage’s ear that turned him redder than usual.
Grantham spied her easily since she stood a head taller than anyone else and his face turned grim. He lifted a hand with a half-hearted wave.
Could she blame him for the lackluster greeting? Yesterday, Margaret had been on her way to meeting another of the consortium’s preferred merchants, which had left her blue deviled and had sharpened her tongue when he’d made an appearance.
He hadn’t deserved it.
What was she to do? Share with him what weighed down her heart? They could not pick up where they left off. Too much had changed. Although she’d assured him she bore him no ill will, the hurt she’d nursed for thirteen years could not disappear overnight.
Too much was at stake for Margaret to turn her attention to anything other than her Plan.
As ever, she had resigned herself to being alone on her journey.
“Your tunnel is simply another scar on an already wounded landscape!” The colorful crowd had quieted so a protestor holding his hands cupped around his mouth could be heard. “Adding to the noise and rubbish you leave in your wake, this tunnel will disrupt the only known nesting site in all of Britain for the greylag goose.”
What was this?
Before Armitage could ascertain if the greylag goose was male or female and thus decide if it was worthy of existence, Geflitt patted him on the shoulder and gestured for him to step aside. Taking his place at the center of the platform, Geflitt bowed to the crowd as though the mass of protesting bird folks were guests who’d been unavoidably detained.
“No one loves the wildlife of the British Isles more than I, my friends. Why, my estate is a refuge for a population of black grouse I have prohibited folks from hunting.”
The bird people murmured among themselves, a few of them lowering their signs. Armitage huffed but remained silent for the nonce as Geflitt’s words made an impact.
Geflitt continued, “Yes, the fowl of Britain have a friend in the Futuro Consortium.”
The bird man would not be dissuaded. “Why would you choose this site above all others? The greylag goose—”
Geflitt held up a hand. “The greylag goose”—he spoke over the other man—“has its breeding grounds in Iceland. Now, your organization has sent communications explaining a small group of them—”
“Gaggle!” someone shouted helpfully from the crowd.
“—have become confused and now nest here.” A frown marred Geflitt’s blandly handsome face. “This is against the natural order. We will simply move them to where they belong.”
“That isn’t how birds do things,” shouted one woman. “You can’t explain to them they’re in the wrong country.”
Impatient with the shift in attention, Armitage had had enough. Shoving Geflitt to the side, he strode to the edge of the platform with clenched fists.
“If you think a handful of placards and some silly slogans will change the path of progress, you are bound to be disappointed,” he hollered. “You won’t get anywhere by shouting at us.”
The irony of Armitage’s words was lost when he took another step and toppled off the edge of the slanted platform. Geflitt leaped forward but was too late to stop Armitage from flattening two or three men closest to him.
“It would be morally wrong to hope he retains permanent injury from his fall,” Grantham said by way of greeting.
Margaret had been so caught up in the drama, his approach startled her.
“Better to wish for the rapid recovery of the poor men he’s used to soften his landing,” she answered.
The bird folk continued to chant their slogans and hold their signs, but their fervor was much diminished now their antagonists were distracted.
“Grantham, can you please explain to me what is happening?” Margaret asked, a terrible buzzing running down her spine.
What had he done?
The two men who had accompanied him stood amid the bird crowd, nodding their heads and scribbling in their notebooks. Armitage had been helped to his feet and limped alongside Geflitt and a handful of their audience toward waiting carriages bunched in front of the warehouse.
