Cold Stone and Ivy (4 page)

“Welcome,” said Dr. John Williams. “To the Ghost Club.”

Manchester Standard

There has been murder most foul in our fair city. Yesterday morning at approximately 2:40 a.m., Davenport & Crabtree Bank clerk Mr. Alistair Byron Tup was shot dead at his front door by an unknown assailant. Tup was an acquaintance of Mrs. Emmaline McKenna of Trowbridge St., whose murder last month is still listed as unsolved. Tup’s widow has declined to comment to reporters but is rumoured to have recently come into a large sum of money and is reported to be planning a trip to Blackpool to ease her troubled soul.

Police are continuing to investigate.

Of Icy Windows, Toxic Fogs,
and the Beginnings of Strangeness

IT WAS LATE
and Ivy sat in a very dark room, writing by the light of a single candle and moonlight that fell in from the window.

September 14, 1888

My dear Christien,

I will not tell you of the trials that have beset us since leaving London, nor the utter unpreparedness of the staff for our arrival. But not to worry. Despite his appearance, Castlewaite is a resourceful fellow. I must admit I like him very much.

On the other hand, the housekeeper Cookie is quite fearsome. I’m certain she disapproves of our presence here, and I fear Davis will make mischief in order to pester her. He was quite taken with her steamed sponge, however, and has promised to spend his time working on the illustrations for
Penny Dreadful and a Murder in Paris.
You know how talented he is in that regard. It may keep him occupied long enough to see us finished here and back in London within a fortnight.

We have not met your brother, the baron. Neither Cookie nor Castlewaite would speak of him during dinner, nor tell us when we can expect to make his acquaintance. You have told me so little about him, and as you know, I am quite curious.

We head to Lonsdale Abbey in two days’ time. I am already dreading it and my heart is heavy and unsettled.

Have you made any headway with the heart or the arm?

With all fondness,

Your Ivy

She sighed and laid the fountain pen carefully down, desperate not to blob all over the letter. It was bad enough her stories were a mess. When her father had introduced them less than a year ago, she had inadvertently smeared ink on Christien’s hands. She had been mortified, but he had merely smiled one of his rare smiles and said it was nowhere near as bad as the blood.

Odd, she thought, how she remembered that so fondly.

She sighed. Penny Dreadful herself had a fancy fiancé—a young barrister named Julian Terrence Hull. She had written the character into the storyline the week she had met Christien. Davis had managed a decent likeness, although he would frequently draw silly expressions or devil eyes or horns. Davis didn’t much like Christien, but then again, Davis was only fifteen.

She looked down at the ring he had given her. It looked entirely out of place on such a common finger but there were few options for women even in these modern times. No school in all of Britain would take a girl in for law, criminology, or even psychology. Her writing was indulged as though it were something she would outgrow after marriage. She dreaded the thought that life spent throwing elegant parties might do just that.

There was a thump outside the door, and she rose to her feet, opening it on the oldest automaton she’d ever seen. It was on wheels with a copper top hat, silver moustache, and brass sorely in need of a polish. It had with it a tray covered by a shiny lid, which rose on a wire to reveal a small tea service and a lovely china cup.

“Evening tea,” said the automaton, in a voice that sounded like a can of bolts rolling down a stair. “Compliments of Cookie.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “What is your name?”

It paused as its AE batteries engaged, translating her speech into logarithmic patterns. “VINCE.
Very Intelligent Nickel-Coated Entity.”

“I’m very grateful, VINCE. Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

“And how long have you been here, VINCE?”

“Six years. Mr. Castlewaite bought me from Grimwalt in the town of . . .” He bobbed a little on his wheels. “Over Milling.”

“How wonderful. What do you do?”

“I tend the sheep.”

“But surely there are dogs, VINCE?”

“There are many dogs. But only one VINCE.”

Ivy lifted the cup from the tray. “Well, thank you again, VINCE, and good night.”

She moved to close the door, but the automaton lurched forward, bobbing on its wheels and stopping the door from closing. She wondered if it was about to finally fall apart.

“Yes, VINCE?” she asked. “Is there anything else?”

The robot stared at her, its eyepieces whirring and contracting like lenses.

“You are Ivy Savage, novelist?”

“Just writer.”

“Would you sign my copper bottom?”

She blinked. “Your what?”

“Mr. Castlewaite is a fan of Penny Dreadful. He reads them to me at night to help with my language program. I would be most pleased if you would sign my copper bottom.”

A brass plate slid aside to reveal cogs and gears and ticking mechanisms. A set of pincers slid out holding a very old copy of
Penny Dreadful and the Hounds of Haversham
, one of her first. At the bottom of the booklet was a copper plate, obviously meant to make holding the serial easier. The paper was notoriously flimsy—to keep production costs down, Alby Thistle had said. Many people invested in metal plates to keep the books from flopping over.

“Ah, your
copper bottom
. . .” She slipped back into the room to fetch her fountain pen. For once, she was grateful for the blobbing of the ink. She actually managed a reasonable smear across the metal.

“Thank you, miss. Enjoy your tea.”

Both serial and tea tray retracted, VINCE spun on his wheels and bumped off down the hall. With the high ceilings, sprawling carpets, and massive paintings adorning the walls, he looked very small. Not unlike herself, she thought, and with a sigh, she closed the door behind him.

A fire glowed in the hearth but she felt cold. Perhaps it was the fact that she was alone while her mother slept in a room down the hall. It had been a long evening even with the fine roast pork and carrots and sponge. All her evenings were long. For seven years, it had been this way, as the rituals of her mother’s life played out like clockwork. Quiet, sombre, private clockwork.

She moved to the window, sipping her tea. There was a beautiful moon out tonight. By day, this land was ordinary and mundane but at night the moon came out to play. A mist hovered over the grass—the breath of ghosts, she imagined. The sighing of spirits. Branches looked like bony hands, reaching for the skies.

Her tad had been right. She was not like other girls.

In the distant field, she spied a horse walking.

This
was
the north country, after all. Horses were still used in parts of the Empire where steamcars were as uncommon as automatons or airships. Every place had stables and hitching posts but out there, wandering alone in the field, it looked strange.

Through glimpses of moonlight, she could see its saddle, the swinging leathers that were its reins.

She pushed the window open for a better view and shivered as cold fell into the room. Yes, she was sure of it. Saddle and bridle but no rider. This horse was simply walking in a field at night.

There was a strange sound and she looked down to find her tea had frozen solid inside its cup.
Odd,
she thought as now her breath began to frost in front of her face. It was only September. In London, there was rarely frost in September.

She was about to close the pane when she noticed ice, crawling like a living thing up the glass. The trees outside were moving, waving their skeleton branches in a rush of wind, lifting leaves into the air, when out of the mist, the figure of a man ambled into the moonlight.
The elusive rider
, she thought. He was wearing a greatcoat and no hat, and he seemed to be following the horse the way a duckling follows its mother. He wasn’t limping, so it was unlikely he had been thrown. He was simply walking.

A crackle from the desk and she looked back to see the fountain pen splintered from within, shards of shiny black on the papers. She reached down to dab them with a finger, plucked one gingerly in her hand.
Ice
, she realized. Somehow, the ink in her pen had frozen solid. She looked back to the window, its glass entirely white now with the frost.

Finally, the walking horse, then the walking man, disappeared into the trees.

She crossed over to where her Penny Dreadful story sat drying. Slowly, she picked it up and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it into the fire as a new idea began to take shape in her mind.

Penny Dreadful and the Ghost of Lancashire . . .

And she stood there for a long time, waiting for the heat to return to the room.

PENNY LOOKED OUT
over the fields of Lancashire. It was a beautiful night and quiet, and she had been mulling over the leads in the case. An accomplished thief, no doubt, and she wondered if he were still in the city, or had made his getaway by now.

She could see, very far away in the distance, a lone man following a horse.

“Could this be a ghost, a thief, or a madman?” she said to herself. “Or is he something altogether new? Why would a man be following a horse alone in the night? It is a strange business indeed.”

Finally, both figures disappeared into the ghostly wood, and she could not see them come out. It piqued her curiosity, and she set her mind to follow their tracks in the morning. And when Penny Dreadful set her mind to anything, one could be sure it was bound to happen.

THE PEA SOUP
fog was very thick, hovering over the ground like an eerie green blanket. Christien was grateful he had remembered a mask, and now it sat tight across his face, filtering his breath with charcoal and mesh and the faint scent of absinthe.

It was quiet on the path through Green Park. The only sounds were the crunch of his shoes on gravel and the echo of his breath through the mask. Trees looked like charred bones, and through them, he could see the lights of Buckingham Palace. By day, the park was filled with parliamentarians, but at this late hour, he was very much alone. Club members had offered him rides in coach and carriage, some even in their six-wheeled steamcars, but he had respectfully declined. Hollbrook House was a short distance from Pall Mall and the walk would do him good. He needed to think, and after the meeting tonight, there was much to think about.

They wanted his father back.

The Ghost Club, the first and foremost organization for scientific study into the realms of the paranormal, wanted his dead father back and they believed the locket was the key.

He sighed, feet moving steadily as he ran through the night’s events in his mind. He had shown them the locket but it had hung, as it was hanging now, quiet and coy around his neck. No show of lights, no flashing colours. They had questioned him on his beliefs next, his training, finally his family. Most of all, his family. His father’s work, his life, his death. His brother next and it was apparent that even such esteemed members of London society were enthralled by the notion of the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke. How mad was he? Had he indeed died as a child? Did he indeed talk to the dead? Questions that ran from idle curiosity to wild fancy. He had certainly not expected that.

He touched the brass ring that Williams had given him. During the night, it had grown tight on his finger, and he was sure he would need clove oil or butter to remove it. Williams was an odd duck. Brilliant, hard, yet socially minded, it boggled Christien to think of such a man devoting so much time to the pursuit of the spiritual. Dr. Bond was not like that. Bond was a realist, devoting his life to the application of scientific principles and the study of the mind. Of his two mentors, Christien felt most at home with Dr. Bond, a man who lived to study the dead.

He heard a sound behind him and he glanced over his shoulder. The path was dark, the trees darker. It wouldn’t be hard for a villain to hide but he could see nothing other than the trees. There was no sound other than his breathing in the mask. He turned and resumed walking.

His life was such an odd thing, he thought, full of contrast and conflict. Gentleman surgeon with scandal for a family, skeletons in every closet, and gold in lead boxes piled high in the cellar. French and English in equal measure, despised by both for that simple fact. He had played with princes at Sandringham as a boy, danced with duchesses in Vienna, and now was betrothed to a mystery writer from Stepney. Not two months after he had given her his mother’s ring, she received a heart in the post. Blood and death, madness and ruin came with the name de Lacey.

Poor Ivy. What was he asking of her? Did he even know?