Shadow Conspiracy (49 page)

I needed to find a silver shadow dancer before the first performance of
Giselle
. Perhaps before the dress rehearsal.

The carriage wheels took on the cadence of the lively polka I knew must come from the first act of the ballet. (My visions give me more information than I realize at first glance.) The driver hummed a different tune in the same rhythm.

In my mind I saw the silver dancer leaping high, arm in arm with her prince, matching his jump precisely in height. Their feet synchronized in complex patterns.

A tiny bit of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth when he presented her with a posy.

I jerked awake, realizing I’d nodded off dreaming my worst fears.

“How much longer,” I yelled at the driver, sticking my head out the carriage window. The rush of thickening traffic near drowned my words. The drivers of Paris made London look calm and orderly—too much hurry, not enough progress, taking terrible chances speeding past an intersection with equally hurried cross traffic.

“Two minutes, Madame,” the driver replied with perfect pronunciation and accent. The French did not have eccentric swings of language from neighbourhood to neighbourhood as we did in London. How was a person supposed to detect class, education, and residence if not by the way another spoke?

The Théatre came into view as predicted a few moments later, a massive Baroque structure with whitewashed columns, porches, false balconies, and a profusion of steps upward.

The cabbie brought his horse to a halt at the front of the building.

“The doors will be locked at this hour, Madame,” he said and spat a wad of chewing tobacco out.

I winced at the unsanitary crudity. “Take me to the back entrance. My business is with the director.”

“Oui, Madame.” He clucked to his horse and we jerked forward once more. At the end of the block, he turned left then left again pausing at the opening into a narrow alley. The vehicle could go no further.

The drab, windowless stonework on either side had not been whitewashed or cleaned in decades. Smoke and filth grimed the mortar. Trash collected in the gutters. A stark contrast to the inviting front of the theatre; a severe reminder that those who entered by the narrow and heavy door did not pay admission like those at the front.

I paid the cabbie with a few sous. At the Book View Café I accepted all forms of coinage, thus providing me with emergency currency for trips like this one.

A trilling of flute notes drew me inward. I paused to listen for further clues. The musician played exercises designed to limber his fingers. I hoped that meant the orchestra had not yet begun to play for the rehearsal. Today was twenty-seven June. The ballet would premiere tomorrow according to the notice in the newspaper.

If my dream held true, even now I might not be in time.

I tried the back door, a narrow and warped plank badly in need of painting and new hinges. It resisted pressure inward or outward. The knob did not turn. I banged furiously on the wood.

Time passed slowly. The cabbie had moved on the moment I stepped from the safety of his carriage into the nebulous world of the alley. I stood alone in the shadows where predators could lurk. A chill coursed up my spine.

I was ready to flee when the door swung outward on creaking and rusted hinges. “Yeah, wadda ya want?” a tall, unshaven, and unwashed young man with broad shoulders and huge hands knotted into fists asked. He stood a solid barrier between me and the enticing music beginning to leak from the interior. His French sounded slurred and as broken as his teeth, probably not his native language.

“I have urgent messages for the Countess Lovelace,” I informed him in impeccable, perfectly accented French.

“Whyn’t you say so.” He pushed the door open further and half stood aside, still holding the door, probably keeping it from sagging back into position on its own.

I swept past him, handing him my cloak and satchel. “Mind these, please. I shall retrieve them shortly.”

“Oui, Madame,” he replied, suddenly docile. Servants are trained to respond to an imperious tone.

I’d progressed only a few steps when the door creaked open again. “Forgive me for being late,” a young woman said. She ran past me on incredibly light feet. Surely a member of the corps de ballet. I caught only a brief glimpse of wisps of dark hair curling beneath her plain bonnet. Her skirts appeared draped in the latest fashion with surprisingly good lace and embroidery about the border and shawl collar. I’d seen a similar embroidered Spanish shawl in a London shop and passed it by because I considered it too dear.

I moved her up from the corps to a principal dancer. She had more leeway in being late.

She disappeared into the dim back stage area filled with ropes and stage sets, props, and curtains in odd places.

I made my own way to the stage, following the music, still disjointed, individual players practicing scales and troublesome phrases. The place smelled of sawdust, paint, sweat, and something resinous. I kicked aside a tray of yellow clumps and crystals. The scent of pine sap thickened. Ah, the rosin box where dancers dusted their shoes for better traction on slippery wooden floors.

“We need more time,” Lady Ada, Countess Lovelace said in French from behind the stage set of a Black Forest village. She spoke loudly, so her voice would carry over the growing cacophony of orchestra, stage hands, and dancers all making their various noises at once.

Underneath it all, I heard the low rumble of a boiler building steam to power the lights and move about the sets and curtains. If allowed to build steam much longer untended, it would need an escape, through a whistle louder than all the human voices combined.

“There is no more time. We must begin the rehearsal,” a Frenchman replied, agitated. Panic edged his voice.

“I will pay extra for the orchestra and dancers to delay the rehearsal a bit,” Charles Babbage added his own distressed voice to the melee. “Lady Ada, I do not understand what is wrong with the gears at the knee joints. Why does she lock them so?”

I trod softly on the polished wooden floor to approach them unseen.

“Perhaps she seeks only to straighten her leg and foot into a perfect point,” Lady Ada replied. She stood with her arms crossed around her slender frame, wearing a serviceable leather apron over her plain working costume of dark brown dress with few petticoats and no lace. A tall woman of handsome face, she drew attention in any gathering by sheer force of personality. Just like her father. Her mother had spent decades trying to stamp out that quality in her, feeding her the logic of mathematics, trampling all trace of artistic creativity. “I need access to the codex so she has a command to bend the knees too.”

“If she has overridden a primary command, then the process has begun,” Babbage replied. He sounded satisfied. Lady Ada’s business partner had grown round with prosperity, but no less enthusiastic, or less of a genius in devising automata to serve humanity’s needs.

“Perhaps the complexity of the codex has merely allowed contradictory commands and the dancer falls back to the default,” Lady Ada snorted. “There is no chance the machine can grow a soul. And this experiment of yours will prove it.”

“Machines with souls,” the Frenchman sniffed with disdain. “I care not for this. I care only that tomorrow night I must produce a ballet. A lovely ballet that will touch the hearts of many. Women will cry openly at the ending. Men will turn away to hide their emotions. This is true art. I begin
now
with the understudy.”

“Understudy! I did not authorize an understudy when I funded this production,” Charles Babbage shouted.

“We always have the understudy. And now I put her on stage while you play with your mechanical toy.” He clapped his hands and walked rapidly past my hiding place among the curtains.

“Carlotta, you are now Giselle. Change your costume quickly. Quickly, I say.” He clapped his hands. “Georgette, you will dance Carlotta’s solo. Come, come my children, take your places.”

I tried moving behind the set piece to speak to Lady Ada. A crush of dancers pushed me deeper into the black draperies. I fought the twisting fabric only to find myself tangled further.

“Help!” I squeaked among the muffling folds.

“How’d you get there?” the young lady who had come in with me said as she parted the fabric.

“An accident. Where is your costume, girl. You’ll be late for the rehearsal.”

“Oh that.” She dismissed my concern with a gesture.

“Madame Magdala?” Lady Ada asked. She appeared in front of me. “What are you doing in Paris?”

“I have come with distressing concerns about your current project, my lady.” I dipped a small curtsey, as much as the curtains would allow.

My rescuer faded away.

“I don’t have time to deal with your concerns, Madame. I have a codex to repair.”

“My lady, you can’t allow the automaton to perform. You dare not even allow it to rehearse,” I protested.

“Don’t tell me you fear it will grow a soul. I know it can’t.” Lady Ada strode away.

I followed. We rounded the flat scenery and I confronted the silver dancer of my vision.

It stood medium height with long slender legs. They’d painted her skin a convincing flesh colour and given her an idealized face with more intense pigments. Her eyes stared blankly, without blinking, under dark lashes and brows enhanced by makeup, the same as the real dancers that mingled about preparing for the dance. The automaton wore the stylized stage peasant costume of short Madonna blue skirt and white apron (symbolic of her innocence and chastity) with multiple petticoats and ribbon trim. Her blouse and tightly laced bodice mimicked the simple garb of farm girls from previous centuries. She wore braids of real human hair coiled into flower be-decked knots above her ears.

I stared at her, truly amazed at her life-like qualities. If she lifted her chin and stepped out to join the corps de ballet I’d not have known that she was made up of gears and levers, without a bit of blood and bone.

Those unblinking eyes betrayed her lack of humanity.

“My lady, do you know how dangerous this enterprise is?” I asked.

“Don’t distract me, Magdala. I need to adjust the codex. I was sure I’d gotten all the pieces right. We’ve been working on this for over a year.” She bent to open the mechanism’s back where the golden cards, punched to a lacelike fineness, fitted into their appropriate slots.

“My Lady Ada, do you know the story behind this ballet?”

“I never asked. That isn’t what interests me. This is the most complex machine Mr. Babbage and I have ever built.”

“Then you do not know that the lost souls of this story might hover around waiting to take over this mechanical body?”

“I haven’t time for your mystical nonsense now, Magdala.”

I stiffened. Indignation roiled inside me. I almost, almost turned on my heel and returned to London. But no. I had not risen from nursemaid to social doyenne on wounded dignity.

“My lady, you of all people should remember that your father’s Great Experiment in the summer of 1816 proved without a shadow of a doubt that the soul is measurable, quantifiable, moveable, and capable of manipulation. Sometimes not for the good of all people involved. These are scientific
facts
.” I forced myself to remain straight and dignified rather than retreat into tears and faints as I wanted to on my desperate flight away from Lord Byron twenty-five years ago.

Then I’d had to remain strong for my dear Mary Shelley and her precious baby. Today I remained strong to keep the true Wili from taking over the ballet and all of Paris.

“My father’s conspiracy is not to be mentioned in my hearing!” Lady Ada stamped her foot and planted her fists on her hips.

“Very well, my lady. Then remember my own adventures, adventures you dispatched me to rescue a series of young girls lured into the clutches of one Lord Ruthven for the purpose of stealing their souls as well as their blood for his experiments in the dark arts. What happened to all the souls that fled when his leyden jars were broken? Where did they go?”

Lady Ada paused, almost as still as the automaton. Then she breathed deeply and returned to counting the golden cards of the codex.

“My lady, the story of this ballet is about what happens to young maidens who die of a broken heart after being betrayed by lovers who profess their undying love then marry another. Those maidens become spirits who wreak vengeance upon
all
men who cross their paths in a most horrible way. Imagine if one of those wrathful spirits inhabited this machine and then turned her near indestructible strength upon the other dancers, the orchestra. The audience!”

“Impossible. Souls cannot inhabit machines. If they could, then my father...my father...”

“Can’t they?” I wanted to march her out and introduce her to Belapharon.

“If you wanted free tickets to watch the ballet you only needed to ask.”

“I have no wish to see this ballet performed by an automaton. There are some things machines should never be allowed to do.” I stomped off, convinced I’d have to stop this dangerous project on my own.

But how?

The steam engine beneath the boards hissed. The backdrop of a painted forest with a castle on the hill rising above it slid into place.