“And?”
“And the sixth is the size of the womb. The seventh is the posture of the mother while pregnant. The eighth is through injury, as when the mother falls, or is struck. The ninth is through illness. The tenth is through corrupt seed. The eleventh…”
“There is no eleventh,” said Komako quickly, interjecting. “But Paré lists the influence of wicked beggars, and also of devils.”
Miss Davenshaw nodded sternly. “Of course, Paré was writing in the sixteenth century,” she said to Charlie and Marlowe, for whom all this was new. “He had not yet relinquished superstition, nor the influence of God. And yet already he had observed that the fetus develops in a material fashion. The flesh is physical, and grows over time.”
“I don’t understand,” said Marlowe.
“The question, my dear,” said Miss Davenshaw, gentling her voice, “is where do our talents come from? And the answer is, we are grown in the womb of our mothers, and all that we are, is given to us then. Anything different from the normal appears monstrous. But it is not. It is not.”
Charlie couldn’t be sure how much of all this made sense to Marlowe. He suspected almost none of it. The boy gripped his hand hard and did not let go. No wonder the kid was having nightmares.
“Tell me, Mr. Czekowisz, about this new concept of Mr. Darwin’s, the production of species.”
Oskar glanced across at Charlie, glanced away. He seemed embarrassed to be singled out. “Mr. Darwin has suggested that evolution is the result of—of constant changes over time to all animals.”
“We are descended from the monkeys, then?”
“No, ma’am. Not exactly.”
“Go on.”
“There is a common ancestor. But our species split from the apes so long ago that we became humans. And they became … apes.”
“Tell us, Miss Ribbon, how creatures change over time.”
Ribs cleared her throat, stalling. “Um, wouldn’t you rather ask Oskar that?”
“Eleanor.”
“Their environment,” Oskar whispered.
“Because of their environment,” said Ribs loudly.
“Thank you, Mr. Czekowisz. Miss Ribbon will be forever grateful. Miss Onoe, if you will?”
“Mr. Darwin believes that miniscule mutations are happening in species all the time, for no reason at all. But that whenever a mutation gives an animal an advantage in its environment—when it helps it catch food better, or find a mate—then that mutation is passed on to the next generation. And the old versions die out.”
“And what, then, are monsters?”
A frown flickered across Komako’s features. “Monsters are mutations that don’t lead anywhere. They’re too extreme to be replicated.”
Miss Davenshaw moved now down the length of the shelves, running her fingers softly along the glass jars. “Yes,” she said, “very good. And what are we, then, we talents? Are we monsters? Our differences are not passed on from mother to child. But they are variations that have existed as long as we have a history, variations that have continued in repeated and predictable ways. There have always been talents. And there will always be.”
“Scientists don’t know everything,” said Komako quietly.
Miss Davenshaw lifted her blindfolded face, as if looking past them. “No one does,” she said.
Charlie turned. There in the doorway stood a powerful man with a white beard, watching all of them in silence. It was Dr. Berghast. He bowed, and retreated back into the darkness.
23
THE EXILED AND THE DEAD
Margaret Harrogate arrived in London in the thick of a pea-souper, the fog dense and brown and choking. Miss Quicke was with her. Their hansom crawled through the streets, blind, its lantern illuminating only a corona of mist around itself. And the first thing she noticed, when she unlocked the iron gates and crossed the covered carriage yard and entered through the grand doors of 23 Nickel Street West, ushering her companion inside, was that someone had just been there.
She set down her traveling case softly, and stood listening. Then she crossed the foyer. In her study, the institute ledger was still hidden behind the coal scuttle. At her desk, her papers were undisturbed. In the kitchen the scarred counters stood empty and shrouded. True, the window on a third-floor bedroom had been left open, the drapes billowing slightly, but when she peered out at the fog she could see nothing, no movement. They were three stories up and the fall would be fatal. She knew Miss Quicke, in the doorway, was watching her with grave eyes. Margaret walked through the other rooms, touching nothing, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, and then she found her small pistol in the drawer where she kept it and went up to the attic and checked on the bonebirds in their loft. All was just as she’d left it on that morning when they’d hurried for the train, on that last morning of Frank Coulton’s life.
And yet: someone had been there, only moments before.
Miss Quicke immediately put a hand into the deep pocket of her oilskin coat, no doubt checking for her revolver. Then she went downstairs and out into the fog. She was gone a long while.
She came back shaking her head. “If there was anyone, they’re gone now.”
“There was,” Margaret replied. “Did you not feel it?”
“Feel it?”
“In your—” She gestured to the younger woman’s injured side.
“No,” said Miss Quicke.
Margaret looked around, uneasy. The furniture, dark and still. The ghostly curtains. Outside the fog gathered, thickening.
* * *
They didn’t stay.
Margaret thought of Walter and of her own nameless dread and she tried to be smart about it. Certainly Jacob knew the address. Miss Quicke stood at the window, waiting, while Margaret collected what she needed, and then the two of them left. They took a room just across the intersection, in a respectable lodging house for ladies, with a view of 23 Nickel Street West through the fog. The landlady’s curfew might have been a problem: the lodging house locked up at nine o’clock; but the dormer window of their room let out onto a narrow ledge, and this ledge led to a low stone wall, and because of this Margaret knew they could come and go at any hour that suited.
The fact of it was, it had been fourteen months now since Alice Quicke was hired, and yet Margaret Harrogate hadn’t ever been close to her before, hadn’t ever observed her firsthand, hadn’t ever had the opportunity. The little she’d learned she’d gleaned from telegrams, reports, Coulton’s wry and sometimes sarcastic stories. Quicke had rough-looking hands and a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. Muscular shoulders. Greasy yellow hair, badly cut, smelling of whatever meal she ate last. But if her ribs ached, she didn’t complain. If Coulton’s death grieved her, she didn’t weep. All the long rail journey out of Scotland and south through England she’d said very little, asked nothing, just glared out the coal-smeared window at the passing world, a fierce taciturn creature in a wide-brimmed hat and long stained coat more of a piece with the American West than the civilized violence of Britain.
But, too, she started to see what it was Coulton had come to trust, why he’d argued in her defense so many times, why he’d insisted on hiring her though she was an outsider and a stranger to their world. There was about her a great still strength, like a post driven into the ground. If she said she’d do something, she’d do it. Margaret liked that.