Mirror, page 4
“Tommy,” Victor said, pulling the boy’s attention from his book.
Tommy beamed, holding up the book, his fingers pointing at the page. “Horses run and dogs bark.”
Victor knew he was proud of himself for his accomplishment, as he should be. “Indeed they do,” he said as he approached, an approving look on his face.
Tommy’s head dipped back down to his book.
“And carriages drive?” Victor prompted.
Tommy chuckled and put the book away. “Right. Where to, Doc?”
“The Pantechnicon.”
Chapter Four
“I’m sorry I’m late!” Artemis said as she burst into the dining room, hopping toward her chair, trying to put on her boot as she went.
Her father looked up from his morning paper. “Sit down before you break your neck.”
Artemis obliged, hoping she wasn’t too late for breakfast. She was absolutely starving.
“Mrs. Perry!” he called out.
Their housekeeper appeared in the doorway almost instantly, surprising both Artemis and her father at her quick arrival.
She pursed her lips. “I heard her come down,” she said by way of explanation, looking at Artemis. “For such a graceful girl you sound like a herd of elephants coming down the stairs.”
“Sorry. Is it too late for something to eat?”
Mrs. Perry’s mock frown of disapproval vanished. “I kept a plate warm for you.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Perry headed back to the kitchen.
“Extra bacon, if you have it, please!” she cried out after her, winning a snort from her father.
“You seem in better spirits this morning,” he said.
She reached for a slice of toast. “Nothing like a good night’s sleep.”
His expression fell slightly and concern began to knit his brow. “I know I’ve been pushing you, Artemis. It’s only—”
“Because you’re trying to preparing me,” she finished for him, not unkindly. “I know. And I do understand.” She put a generous helping of jam on the corner of her toast. “What with Hell about to break loose and all.”
She took an enormous bite.
He frowned, or tried to, but he didn’t seem have it in him. She was right. If what they feared was going to happen on Samhain did, creatures from the Otherworld would cross over into the real world. Hell on Earth. Oh, this jam is good.
With the notable exception of yesterday, her father had been training her relentlessly. Judging from the new lines around his eyes, it was wearing on him as much as it was her.
“Anything interesting in the paper?”
He took a sip of coffee as he skimmed it. “A new exhibit arriving at the museum. Egyptian artifacts associated with the god Heka. I stopped by and spoke with Arthur about it.”
Arthur Darvill was an old acquaintance of her father’s from the Royal Society. He’d apparently been kicked out for suggesting they consider magic a viable area of study.
She swallowed her bite of toast. “And what did he think?”
Mrs. Perry arrived with her plate of eggs and potatoes. Artemis noticed an extra rasher of bacon was piled on top and gave her a thankful grin.
“Anything else, sir?” she asked.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Perry.”
Artemis picked up a piece of bacon. “So?”
“Arthur? Oh, well, the shipment won’t arrive until November 2nd, so, there seems little to be concerned about as far as Samhain goes.”
“That’s good. One less thing to worry about.”
He put down his paper and considered her solemnly. She forced herself to swallow and met his gaze expectantly.
He seemed to be looking for the right words and then settled for another sigh. “I’m sorry this all weighs upon your shoulders.”
“Comes with the territory,” she said. “I appreciate the day off yesterday.” It was very unlike him, but he’d gone out almost all day and left her to do as she wished. “It was nice to rest a little. What were you up to?” she asked, trying to seem uninterested in his answer.
He looked down at his paper. “Errands.”
She gave up her pretense. “You’re being very coy about it.”
“Am I?” he said with a small smile.
Her eyes flashed with annoyance, and he chuckled. She was about to ask again when there was a knock on the door.
Who could that be? Father doesn’t have any appointments today.
Her curiosity piqued, she got up from the table, her father following close behind, barely suppressing a grin. Mrs. Perry reached the door ahead of them.
Two delivery men with something exceedingly large stood on their doorstep. One of them referred to the paper in his hand. “Doctor Schäfer’s?”
“Yes?”
The man stuffed the paper into his pocket and gestured toward the large object covered with blankets and tied up with rope.
“Where do you want it?”
Mrs. Perry pursed her lips. “Well, that depends entirely upon what it is, doesn’t it?”
The man noticed Artemis's father and wordlessly asked for permission. At his nod, the man untied the ropes and drew the blanket away.
Artemis’s breath caught in her throat and she wasn’t quite able to to suppress an excited squeal. It was a mirror—just like Phoebe’s! Her father appeared delighted at her reaction.
“Upstairs, gentlemen,” he told the two moving men. “Top of the stairs to the left.”
“When did you? How?” she sputtered as she hugged him.
“You prattled on about it so ceaselessly the other day,” he said, “I thought this might be the only way to get you to stop.”
She followed the men upstairs and instructed them where to situate it. Her father signed the receipt and stepped aside to let Mrs. Perry show the men out.
She couldn’t believe he’d done it. What possessed him?
“It’s so expensive,” she said, starting to worry.
“It was,” her father began, his voice hesitant, “reduced in price. By half.”
“Then I can only love it half as much.”
He snorted. “Cheeky.”
She grew serious. “But really. I don’t need it.”
“I know that,” he replied, “but you should have it anyway.”
She looked at herself in the mirror and, just like in the one at Phoebe’s, the girl who looked back was more attractive than the girl she’d seen in her glass that morning.
It was odd, but perhaps there was some new way of making them. Her worry didn’t subside though as her father stepped beside her to admire her reflection.
Suddenly, all she could think about was Phoebe and her father.
“You do know that you don’t have to buy my love,” she said, a niggling apprehension gnawing at her.
“As if I could afford it,” he said jokingly before realizing she serious. “What’s brought this on? I thought you’d like it.”
“I do. I just ….” She couldn’t say more without betraying Phoebe’s secrets. They were not hers to tell.
He looked at her rather than her reflection. His expression was one of concern. “Artemis?”
She knew from the look in his eyes and the way he said her name, that her father wasn’t suddenly becoming Sir Henry and he never would.
“I do love it,” she said, “Thank you.”
He gently grazed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. “Good.”
He turned her toward the mirror again and took his place by her side. “We are a handsome family, are we not?”
And more importantly, a happy one.
“And Lord Dunsmere thought it was calf’s liver, if you can imagine such a thing?”
He chortled at the sheer absurdity of it.
Artemis fought to keep her eyes from rolling out of her head. Dinner at the Cliftons' was always good and usually quite entertaining, if a little stiff. This one was positively starched thanks almost entirely to one guest, Lord John Quill, Member of Parliament and Titanic Bore.
He snorted derisively, glancing around the table fully expecting to find unanimous agreement at his outrage. Artemis felt a little better that no one else seemed to particularly understand why something being calf’s liver was such an affront—other than well, calf’s liver—but most of the party, including Lord Quill’s wife, Helen, added their enthusiastic, if confused, support.
There were a few notable exceptions, not counting herself.
David, who she’d barely managed to say two words to since he’d come back, kept his expression studiously neutral. Then there was her father, who deferred a response by taking a well-timed and rather long drink of wine, and Liam Parker, who appeared to be as bewildered as Artemis was.
“You’ll forgive me, sir,” Liam said, “but I don’t understand.”
Lord Quill appraised at Liam and then smirked. “I don’t expect you to, boy.”
The man really was insufferable. So far, the entire dinner had been little more than his holding court. She’d never met a more self-inflated man.
Liam seemed ready to respond when Lady Clifton stepped in and spoke to Lord Quill’s wife. “I understand you’ll be joining us in Kent tomorrow.”
Artemis hated it when Phoebe went away. At least this was only for a few days and, besides, she would be occupied herself with Samhain. Maybe it was just as well that Phoebe wouldn’t be around for that.
“Yes,” Lord Quill said, answering for his wife. “I haven’t been to Tilkington in years. Splendid hunts. Be good to taste the first of the season.”
Sir Henry blustered in agreement.
“Right darling?” Lord Quill asked his wife.
It was clear from Lady Quill’s face, though, that she was not a fan of the hunt, but dared not contradict her husband.
He really is a bully.
Sensing a possible conflict, Lady Clifton again deftly changed the subject.
“So, tell us, how are things in Parliament these days, Lord Quill?”
“Oh,” he said, leaning back in his seat as if to ponder the depths of what he dared reveal to the masses before him. “There are rumblings from the Commons of course, that they’re working on something they call the ‘People’s Budget’, requiring a heavy tax on landowners.”
He laughed, a deep, sonorous, condescending sound.
“As if we don’t do enough already. Not to mention that the people hardly know what’s best for them.”
“Aren’t we people?” Artemis asked, despite a little voice telling her not engage the lord.
Lord Quill looked at her in surprise; whether it was her words or that she was the one who had spoken them that shocked him the most, she wasn’t sure.
His gaze tightened and then his mouth twitched in repressed amusement at her outburst.
“In the broadest sense,” he allowed. “But I refer to the … working people.”
He said it as though the characterization were a magnanimous one his part.
“My father works,” she said, knowing it was a mistake but unable, or perhaps unwilling, to stop herself.
His mild amusement at her previous words faded.
She could feel her father’s eyes boring into the side of her head but refused to look at him. Keeping her eyes firmly on Lord Quill, she waited for his response.
Sensing the tension, Sir Henry opened his mouth to speak, but a raised hand from Lord Quill quieted him.
“No, no, it’s quite all right. The girl,” he said, as if the word were a pejorative, and to him perhaps it was, “has an opinion.”
He leaned forward and fixed his dark eyes on her. “Do go on.”
All eyes at the table fell on her now. Lord Quill wasn’t particularly tall or handsome, but he had a powerful personality, as most bullies do. She noticed the way he’d treated his wife during dinner. It was not at all the same relationship that Lady Clifton and Sir Henry enjoyed, strained though it might be at present. While she often deferred to her husband, it was out of choice, not fear. Lady Quill was beautiful but meek and kept her place well inside the darkness of her husband’s shadow.
As the silence stretched out, Artemis's noticed that her father’s face was still, but she could tell by the set of his jaw that he was unhappy.
“I just meant, sir,” she went on, hoping to salvage the disaster she was currently making of dinner, “that the working people have a right to their voice and their representation.”
Lord Quill smiled tightly, trying to affect a charitable look. “And they do. The House of Commons does a fine job of that, but surely you can see that the real decisions must be left to those bred to such things.”
Codswallop.
Artemis nearly replied to that, but just managed not to.
“Yes, well,” Lord Henry said, clearing his throat, “perhaps that’s enough politics for our ladies. I know Lady Quill enjoys the opera. Have you two been to Don Giovanni at the Royal yet?”
“Oh, yes,” Lady Quill said, blooming for the first time that evening. “It was wonderful.”
“Tolerable,” her husband corrected.
With Artemis's foot out of her mouth and the spotlight firmly planted elsewhere the evening continued without issue. As the dinner ended, the men retiring for brandy and cigars and the women to their parlor, the younger people were blessedly allowed to retreat to the second salon.
Artemis was just about to join Phoebe, David, and Liam there when her father pulled her aside. She braced herself for the coming lecture.
Waiting until they were alone she began, “I’m sorry. But he was just so ….”
She huffed out a breath, unable to come up with an acceptable word.
“He is … that,” her father agreed in a quiet voice. “But you should not have said what you did.”
Someone had to say something.
“But—”
He quelled her protest with a look. “I say this to you not because you don’t have a right to your opinion, or, as you know, because you are a girl,” he added with a slight smile, unable to keep himself from mimicking Lord Quill’s patronizing inflection.
“It is not because he’s your better, because birth does not dictate such things, but because we are guests in the Cliftons' home. As such it is our duty to behave with grace, even toward those who will not recognize it as such.”
Her righteous indignation deflated like a pricked balloon. It was galling, but he was right. The Cliftons had been nothing but good to her and her father. She hadn’t meant to be disrespectful toward them.
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Good. We shouldn’t stay late. I’ll come fetch you in about an hour, all right?”
She nodded, still feeling a bit sheepish at her blunder.
He began to walk away but paused. “And, Artemis, you were right,” he said with a smile tugging on his lips. “The people do deserve a voice, and they’re lucky to have yours.”
Artemis, buoyed as she always was by his confidence in her, joined the others in the salon. Phoebe was already serving tea and was taking a cup to Liam, who had taken up residence on the sofa. Mrs. Babbington, Miss Gorst’s elder sister, who took on the role of temporary chaperone while Miss Gorst continued to recover her from injuries, sat ensconced in a chair by the fire, busily knitting away. The injuries that Miss Gorst had suffered trying to protect both Artemis and Phoebe from two shades were a potent reminder to Artemis of the dangers lurking in London.
David took his cup of tea and walked toward the sofa to talk with Liam.
“How about a game of chess?” Phoebe asked her brother before he took his seat.
He looked at her oddly. “Chess? You hate playing chess.”
“I hate playing chess with you,” she corrected. “Because you are so positively terrible at it.”
David spluttered at the absurdity of that and looked to Liam for support but frowned when there was none coming.
“Traitor,” David grumbled under his breath. “All right.” He followed his sister, who had already drifted to the far side of the room where the chessboard was set up. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Duly noted,” Phoebe said with a quick wink toward Artemis and meaningful glance at the empty space on the sofa next to Liam.
Bless you, Phoebe, Artemis thought as she approached the sofa. Liam reflexively rose from his seat as she neared and waited until she was seated before settling down next to her.
They sat in awkward silence for a moment.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked, ready to spring up to get it for her.
“No, thank you. I think if I have another, I’ll float away.”
Liam chuckled at that and relaxed back onto the sofa. The awkwardness settled between them.
Say something, you ninny.
“So, you went to Paris?” she said, feeling instantly a fool. They’d already had that conversation.
“Yes.”
More silence followed until Liam, thankfully, picked up the baton from the ground.
“I told you that I was trying to work something out with Blériot, the aviator?”
Artemis had never heard of him, but nodded encouragingly.
“Well, I got a telegram yesterday that he’s on board if I can manage the financing.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Liam gave a short laugh. “I wish I had your confidence. I do have a lead on an investor but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about it or, honestly, how I feel about him.”
“Is he rich?” she asked.
“Quite.”
“What more do you need?” she asked.
“I suppose we’ll see. I’ve got an appointment with him later this week to pitch the idea. I have to admit, I’m a little nervous about it,” he confessed.
“You could practice on me,” she offered.
His face brightened up at the prospect, but he quickly tamped it down. “I doubt you’d find it all that interesting.”
She leaned back in her seat. “Man learning to conquer the skies? Positively dull,” she added, hoping he could sense her playfulness.
