Lady of Devices

chapter 15



No one occupied the Underground train carriage but two middle-aged charwomen more interested in their own gossip than in what a young lady was doing unaccompanied on a train in the middle of the night. Claire sidled off at Victoria Station, ticketless but unaccosted, and took a shortcut through Eaton Square to the back gate of St. Cecelia’s. The administration fondly thought that their property was secure, but the students knew better.

Claire found the foot- and handholds worn into the wall behind the glossy curtain of ivy and clambered up and over in moments. From there it was a quick dash across the lawn and down the basement steps, where skillful application of a hairpin to the lock made the way plain.

The stairs were as dark as criminal activity required them to be, though Claire kept a firm hold on the rail. The last thing she needed was to miss her footing and tumble to the bottom.

Ah. The Chemistry of the Home laboratory.

She found the jar of lucifers Professor Grünwald kept next to his blotter for the purpose of lighting a forbidden cigar during the lunch hour, and by their light set to work. It took a few moments to dredge up the recipe from the recesses of memory—blast the thieves for taking her notebook!—but within a quarter hour she had four vials stoppered and ready to go. Some day, when she was famous and once again rich, she would make an anonymous donation to the school’s pitiful science department and make restitution for what she had removed. But for the moment, necessity was most certainly the mother of invention, and on that principle alone even Professor Gr ü nwald might approve.

After bundling her treasure in a used cardigan and then into a leather book satchel, both abandoned in the Lost and Found, she strapped the satchel to her back and retraced her steps. Half an hour later, she stepped out of the alley mouth opposite the rake-roofed home of the rascals who had stolen her things.

No small boy waited for her. Her lips thinned. Well, if he had not taken her seriously before, he most certainly would now.

Keeping to the shadows, she hurried around the corner of a half-timbered warehouse that might have seen active commerce in King Henry’s time and removed the vials from her satchel. Their noxious contents gurgled in her hands once she’d refastened the satchel on her back. Since it and the cardigan were her only possessions, she was loath to leave them lying on the street—and the satchel had the advantage of providing storage while allowing her hands free movement.

Thank goodness she’d put on this navy merino suit this morning. The fog breathing off the river was damp and chill, and droplets were already condensing in her hair. The dark color also allowed her to blend into the shadows as she crept from corner to corner of the building. A rat’s entry chewed into a board welcomed the first vial. She smashed it into the floorboards. “That’s for my notebook, you miserable wretches.” A board missing altogether was a fine entry point for the second. “And that’s for my pearl necklace.” At the third corner, she could find no way in except for a window, so she tossed it through and heard the satisfying tinkle of glass. “My coat, thank you very much.” She ran for the front entry as the first noxious tendrils of smokelike gas began to curl out from between the boards.

She wrenched open the front door. “And this—” She threw it with all her might. “—is for my landau!”

Someone yelled as the gas did its work, and then pandemonium broke loose. Claire retreated, smiling in satisfaction, as half a dozen figures staggered out in various stages of undress—or not—good heavens—that creature was wearing her coat! Claire flew across the street and tore it off a very short individual who was trailing its lovely panels in the dirt. He—or she, it was difficult to tell—spun in place, both hands mashed to his eyes as he shrieked in pain. Shrugging on her coat, Claire felt as Queen Elizabeth must have at seeing the first of the fire ships succeed so brilliantly against the Spanish armada. It was almost enough to make a person dance a hornpipe.

But she restrained herself, for there in front of her was one of her pretty embroidered waists, being used as a nightdress over a pair of ragged combinations! She dashed over, grasped the hem of it, and pulled it over the filthy girl’s head. Weeping with pain, the child turned to her, instinctively seeking to be comforted, but she hardened her heart and stepped away. Finally, the spindly person with the enormous nose staggered out, his face contorted in misery, carrying the waif who had directed her here. The latter’s unhappiness was acute, from the sound of the roars emanating from under the coat covering the lad’s head.

“Ever’one all right?” Snouts croaked, eyes screwed shut in pain. “Mopsies?”

Two cries answered him. One was the girl Claire had relieved of her waist. An identical copy wrapped itself around the first, and they both burst into fresh tears.

“Jake?”

“I’m gonna die, Snouts. Jus’ kill me now, eh?”

Ah. Jake, the unfortunate burn victim. His difficulties were only increasing the longer he retained Claire’s acquaintance.

“Tigg?”

“’Ere, to my misfortune,” wailed the boy who had been wearing Claire’s coat.

“’Oo’s got Weepin’ Willie?” came another voice, belonging to a boy of about twelve who cowered in the gutter, his ragged jacket over his head.

“I gots ’im,” Snouts reported. “Can’t you ’ear the racket?”

“What happened? Who’s set upon us?”

Claire stepped out of the shadows, even though none of them could see yet. “I have.”

Silence fell, broken only by the sobbing of Weepin’ Willie and the Mopsies.

“’Oo’s that, then?” Snouts tried to crack his eyes open, which only resulted in more agony as the condensed gas on his face dribbled into them. “Wot we done to you?”

“You have attacked me, stolen my possessions, and taken my landau,” Claire snapped, her voice ringing into the night. “You will return every piece of my property at once or I’ll give you a second dose.” There were not enough chemicals in the satchel to make good on it, but she would bet not one tortured individual lying in the street was about to take the risk.

“’Oo are you?” Snouts set the wriggling Willie on his feet and sat abruptly in the gutter, still blinded.

“Never mind who I am. But what I am not is some puling victim willing to be cowed and beaten by the likes of you. I demand the return of my property immediately.”

The waif—Willie—ran across the road, bawling, and flung himself against her knees. Nonplussed, she stared down at him for a moment, then sighed. “All right. All right then, little man, let me wipe the capsaicin out of your eyes.” She knelt, found her handkerchief still in her sleeve, and wiped his face. He wrapped his arms around her neck and sobbed. “Poor darling, why did you not wait for me? I didn’t mean for you to be gassed as well.”

“’Ow does she know our Willie?” Tigg’s voice was muffled from trying to grind his eye sockets into his knees. “She ent gonna hurt ’im any more, is she?”

Claire raised her chin. “Unlike some in present company, I have no intention of hurting anyone. I simply want my things when you are sufficiently recovered to gather them up.”

“’Ow long will that be?” Snouts attempted to open his eyes again, and whimpered behind clenched teeth.

“About thirty minutes, I should say.” Then she had an idea. “Willie, would you be so kind as to direct me within? I’m quite capable of repacking my trunk myself.”

“You leave our Willie alone.” The two Mopsies faced her, using their ragged garments to wipe the tears streaming from their eyes. One of them hauled back and kicked Claire in the shin.

“You wretched little monster!”

Claire dropped Willie on the cobbles and caught the girl by the back of her combies as she spun to escape. It was the work of a moment to turn her over her knee and remind her of Newton’s law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

“Snouts!” the miscreant screamed, wriggling out of Claire’s grip and running for her life. “She whacked me!”

“There’s a surprise,” he mumbled.

“Shoot her!”

“Wiv what? You fink I’ve got a pistol in me undershorts?”

“But she whacked me!”

“You won’t be kicking her again, then, will ya?”

Fuming, the child stamped her foot and shot Claire an evil look, compounded by swollen eyes and a dirty, tear-streaked face. “You’ll be sorry, lady.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be the sorry one if you try to assault me again,” Claire informed her. “Honestly, I’ve never seen such a badly brought-up child, and that’s saying something, considering the past several days.”

“I ent been brought up, and you’re just mean.” The moppet stamped again.

“Don’t stamp. It isn’t ladylike.”

Stamp. Stamp .

Claire dodged behind Snouts’s balled-up form and snatched the disgusting creature by the back of her combies a second time. Again the laws of physics were soundly applied, to the accompaniment of such screeching Claire fully expected either bobbies or criminals to descend on them all like the wrath of God.

She set the child on its feet and silently dared it to stamp again. Its leg twitched once before discretion became the better part. “A wise decision,” she told it. “I’m encouraged to see that you have some capacity for education.”

The moppet blinked and ran away to its sister, who put her arms around it and administered what comfort she could to wounded pride and hinder parts.

Claire straightened her spine and surveyed the field of battle. Satisfied that no one had the spirit or the physical capacity to challenge her victory, she held out her hand to Willie. “Would you be so kind as to escort me inside, Master Willie?”

The boy shot an uncertain glance at Snouts.

The latter had at last managed to open one eye just a crack. He waved a defeated hand. “Don’t look at me. I ent gonna argue wiv ’er.”