A Proper Education for Girls (14 page)

Alice read the message over again.
A plan to help both of us
. Was Lilian referring to herself and Mr. Hunter, or to herself and her sister? She frowned. It really was not very clear. And she already knew from the photograph that Mr. Hunter had turned up. And how was she, Alice, supposed to get herself to Kushpur? Assuming that Lilian was still there. Besides, quite some time had passed since the letter had been written. All manner of things could have happened to Lilian since then … Alice suddenly became aware that Mr. Blake was staring at her expectantly. She folded the letter and slipped it back into her pocket. “Thank you,” she repeated firmly. The wind dropped. A silence grew between them.

Alice cleared her throat. “So, are you enjoying your commission?” she asked.

Mr. Blake shrugged. “Some of it,” he said. “The marble statues came out well. And the electroplated figures. But the farm machinery was rather tiresome, I must confess.”

“We're rather isolated here. You must find it so, especially after
London. You'll be glad to see Dr. Cattermole again, I imagine. And his wife. She is, I hear, a famous beauty.”

“So Dr. Cattermole tells me.”

“You've not met her? But I assumed—”

“I have met her.”

“Well then.”

Mr. Blake stared glumly across the park.

“And I understand that she speaks very warmly of you.”

“She does?” he said without conviction.

“That's what my father said.”

Mr. Blake examined his stained fingernails. “We must order some more ether,” he said. “Our supplies are getting low.”

“What, already?”

“It evaporates quickly once exposed to the air.”

“I know that, but even so, we can't have got through that much of it. Did you have an accident with it?”

He hesitated. “In a manner of speaking,” he murmured.

Alice looked at Mr. Blake closely. His complexion was pale, with dark patches of skin circling his eyes. His hair, which had once gleamed in the candlelight at her father's table, now seemed dull and lifeless, its dark curls pressed flat against his head. His smile remained as wide and brilliant as ever, though a vivid-looking sore had appeared at the corner of his mouth, which, she noticed, seemed to be hindering his more dazzling dental displays. A handsome man. Alice smiled to herself. Before his departure for London, her father had reported that it had come to his attention that Mr. Blake had left that city with a certain reputation among some of the ladies of his acquaintance. Not to mention any names and not that he, Talbot, was at all interested in tittle-tattle, but none other than Sophia Cattermole herself had been implicated. Of course, Mr. Talbot had told his daughter this in the conviction that she would be at no risk from such a man. Not simply because, as his remaining daughter, she knew her place, but also because he firmly believed that she would never desert the Collection. Plus (and this last
thought Mr. Talbot had for once decided not to utter), she was far too plain to attract the attentions of a Lothario like Mr. Blake.

Alice was curious rather than appalled by Mr. Blake's rumored dalliance with Mrs. Cattermole. It was this which had made her mention the lady to him directly and she was surprised by the photographer's despairing reaction. Was this the response of a man in the throes of an adulterous love affair? Perhaps Mr. Blake was not the roué that rumors suggested he was. And yet there was the trunk she had found, abandoned in the ballroom beside the display case of Chinese vases and the working model of a coal mine that her father had acquired at the close of the Great Exhibition. Without doubt it was the trunk Mr. Blake had been trying to locate since his arrival. Naturally, she had opened it and taken a look inside. Should she mention
this
to him too? Mr. Blake was not all that he seemed. She gazed at his profile as he stared across the park toward the distant blur of roofs that was Bispham St. Michael. His expression was so lugubrious that she could not help but laugh. She covered her mouth with her hand, and tried to think of something diverting to say.

Then, “Just what I need!” cried a voice above them.

Alice and Mr. Blake jumped to their feet. From between the shafts of two great chimneys a face peered down. It was a man's face, yellow and hairless, its dry and papery skin stretched tightly across the bones of the skull. The face split into a delighted smile, revealing a mouthful of shattered brown teeth. “Two extra pairs of hands,” it said. “Perfect.”

“Hello, Mr. Bellows,” said Alice. “This is—”

“My fellow scientist, the photographer, yes, I know,” said Mr. Bellows. “Delighted to meet you, sir.” A thin arm appeared between the chimneys. “Jacob Bellows, inventor.”

“Henry Blake,” said the photographer, shaking the ragged claw that was extended toward him.

“I am the designer, the architect, and the engineer of one of man's greatest inventions,” shouted Mr. Bellows without further
preamble. “That is to say, I am the creator of the world's first aeronautical machine. In fact, I'm pleased to say I'm just about ready. I shall be airborne in a matter of minutes, if only I can enlist the help of two young people such as yourselves.” He blinked at them through eyes as watery as oysters. “You look strong and competent. That's all that is required. I'm getting the thing into the air using a huge band of vulcanized rubber—remarkable stuff you know, wonderfully elastic and never brittle. This rubber band is to be belted around these chimney stacks as a sort of catapult mechanism to fire the machine into the air. The wings, the tail, and the lightweight body are all designed to ride the air currents. It glides rather than flies, I suppose, but then I'm certain
that flapping
is not the best mechanism for the flight of man, though clearly it suits our feathered friends. If you would just step this way.”

“Now?” said Alice.

Mr. Bellows rubbed his hands together with a sound like the chafing of sand on wood. “Now,” he said.

A
LICE AND
M
R.
B
LAKE FOLLOWED
M
R.
B
ELLOWS
across the roof.

“I brought my flying machine up in separate pieces,” he said over his shoulder. “Today the wind is perfect for a test flight—strong, persistent, westerly. I have positioned Sluce on Sodgers Hill. He is to await the arrival of the machine. If all goes well my calculations, based on the wind speed, the weight of the machine, the height of the building etcetera, indicate that we should manage to cover at least a mile in the air. That is to say, we should land directly at Sluce's feet.”

He led them between chimney stacks that rose like hands from the flat expanse of the rooftop. “This strap is to be attached to the chimney pots over there and over there. It is then hooked beneath the flying machine. You must ensure that the strap is secure at both ends, and that each end is fastened in exactly the same way so as to avoid torsion or unequal distribution of weight. You will then use this winding mechanism here to pull the flying machine back, so that it sits in its sling like a missile in a catapult. On a count of three, you will release it. I have created a ramp here between the chimneys to facilitate the machine's elevation. Thus, the machine will become immediately airborne—thereby avoiding tearing the undercarriage off on the railings at the edge of the roof. It will remain aloft far across the park but will gradually descend.”

Alice looked at the aeronautical machine. Its body was as long as a bathtub, each wing more than twice as long again.

“I see you looking at the wing span, my dear,” cried Mr. Bellows above the whistle of the wind. “I can assure you that it will fit between the chimneys. Unless the machine is not positioned directly at the center of the sling. In which case”—he threw up his hands—“one or both wings will be smashed off, and it is even possible that the undercarriage will be torn away and the whole machine tumble from the sky instantly to be dashed to pieces in the stable yard below. In short, months—years—of work will be wasted.”

Alice nodded. “There's a seat in it,” she said. “I see you are planning on taking a trip in this thing.”

“Of course.” Mr. Bellows grinned fiendishly. “I have some vents on the wings that I need to open and close as we go, to see whether they alter the machine's progress. I must be present. How else can the principles of science be tested?”

Alice eyed Mr. Bellows in disbelief. Despite his stoop he was tall—taller than she or Mr. Blake—with long, spindly legs, like a spider. She wondered how he would manage to fit into the flying machine as the space he had allocated himself looked no bigger than a coal scuttle. Still, presumably the man had tested the dimensions. She picked up one end of the rubber strap.

“Over there?”

“If you please.”

While Alice and Mr. Blake did as they had been directed, Mr. Bellows made some final adjustments to the winding mechanism that was to propel the machine into the air and across the park. These tasks completed, he jammed a copper cooking pot onto his head and secured it with a scarf tied beneath his chin. “For protection,” he cried, perceiving Mr. Blake's expression. “One never knows.”

“Perhaps I should capture this historic moment in a photograph,” said Mr. Blake.

Before Alice could stop him or offer her assistance, Mr. Blake
had disappeared through the trapdoor in the roof like a rabbit into a magician's hat.

“He'll never manage all that equipment,” said Alice.

“Never mind that, my dear. Help me in, would you?” Mr. Bellows began dragging a set of stepladders into position. “Everything is as it should be. All you have to do is wind the machinery. The handle for the winding mechanism is underneath. Hold these steps steady, my dear, while I get inside. I'm not as nimble as I once was.”

Mr. Bellows was poised on the top of the ladder, one reedlike leg extended above the hole in the body of the flying machine where he was to sit. What occurred next seemed to Alice to happen in slow motion. She could see events unfolding before her but was unable to halt their progression from mishap to catastrophe, no matter how quickly she moved. As Mr. Bellows swung his leg, a sudden gust of wind seized the stepladders even as Alice's hands closed around them. Wrenched from her fingers, the ladders teetered to one side, knocking Mr. Bellows from his precarious position half in and half out of the flying machine. For what seemed a few brief seconds Mr. Bellows struggled to regain his balance, flailing in the wind like a scarecrow caught in a threshing machine. Then he tumbled sideways with a cry. But his foot appeared to have become entangled in the mysterious collection of wires and levers he had installed inside, so that he dangled, briefly, upside down against the wing before sliding across it and landing in a heap on the roof. He sprawled beside the overturned stepladders like an empty suit of clothes.

“Why did you not wait until I was in position before you mounted?” cried Alice.

“My leg!” groaned Mr. Bellows. “And my arm!”

“Are they broken?”

“I can move my foot—just about. But I fear my arm is dislocated in some way.”

“Mr. Blake has some medical training—”

“Never mind that.” Mr. Bellows gazed in anguish at his flying machine, his eyes beneath the rim of the cooking pot filling with tears. “I'll never get up those ladders now.” He seized Alice's arm
and stared wildly into her face. “There's only one thing to be done,” he cried, dragging himself into a sitting position. “You will have to go in my place.”

“Me?”

“Your father would wish it. You know how he applauds the testing of scientific theory by experience.”

Alice knew her father's views on the value of personal experience but doubted very much whether he would be happy to see his remaining daughter clambering into an untested flying machine.

“I have worked on the design of this machine for many years. The wind conditions today are perfect. My calculations are exact. Someone must make the flight and make it now! I shall give you instructions. You must observe and report back to me everything you experience.”

Propped against the chimney, Mr. Bellows proceeded to explain the laws of physics and the mechanics of flight, details he appeared to consider necessary for Alice to get from the roof of the house through the sky and over to Sodgers Hill. He spoke faster and faster, his voice rising as he talked to carry on the wind like the shriek of a seagull. Soon Alice's head was spinning. As long as the machine became airborne, she thought, she would just sit tight and let the wind do the rest.

When Mr. Blake reemerged from the trapdoor with his camera box and his hastily rolled-up traveling dark tent, a scenario very different from the one he had left behind awaited him. Under Mr. Bellows's instruction Alice had wound the mechanism that would catapult the flying machine out across the park. She was now wedged into the flying machine wearing Mr. Bellows's cooking pot on her head. She waved cheerily to the photographer.

“Look after Mr. Bellows. He's had a fall,” she cried. “He may have broken an arm.” Behind her, she heard the sound of Mr. Bellows slowly turning the handle of the winding mechanism one more time with his good arm. The flying machine inched backward, the rubber strap groaning in protest.