A Spark Unseen (7 page)

“Nothing to eat,” I whispered, “please, Mary.” Though the uppermost thought trickling through my mind was the amazing power of Mr. Babcock to make impossible things happen. The man should have been prime minister. That would have settled Mr. Wickersham. And possibly the emperor of France.

“… and there’s a train here, too, he says, though he don’t want us to be getting on it just yet, ’cause that’s too easy.” Mary began stuffing my wayward hair back into order. “And when you’re on the train, you can rest proper, Miss — though I won’t be resting ’cause having never been on a train, I ain’t planning to miss a thing — and then we’ll be in Paris in a snap, and we’ll hire a carriage to be taking us to the new house. But Mr. Babcock, he says not to be looking worried or in a hurry when we get out there. To just be easy, like ‘ladies on their way.’ That’s what he said to me, Miss, ‘ladies on their way.’ Ain’t that kind of him to say such a thing? My mum, she would have said —”

“Where is Mr. Babcock?” I interrupted.

She pointed to the other end of our little room, even dingier now with the bit of sunlight that came through the porthole. Mr. Babcock lay on top of a crate, curled up like a bulldog, sleeping beneath his coat.

When all the proper bribery had been accomplished, and the captain had taken his incomprehensible leave, our items were unloaded and I stepped, squinting, onto the dock. The sun was hot and bright, welcome after the dim dampness of the boat, and a wagon was waiting. Mr. Babcock climbed into the back to sit with the steamer trunk and other luggage while Mary and I were squashed in beside the driver. He was an elderly man with a deeply tanned face, no English, and some sort of stinking tobacco that was as good for my delicate insides as the rutted roads outside the city.

We bounced and bruised against the hard wooden seat until Mr. Babcock leaned forward, tapping the driver on the back. He spoke gruffly in the man’s native tongue, causing the driver to grumble, shrug, and avoid the potholes with more diligence. I looked over my shoulder at Mr. Babcock, one eyebrow raised.

“You speak French?”

“Passably, my dear, passably,” he replied, settling his round little frame more deeply among the boxes.

“But you didn’t tell the captain that. You let that grinning sailor say whatever he wanted.”

Mr. Babcock smiled his steely smile, the one that was often dismissed, yet caused the wise to shake in their boots. “Sometimes it is best to keep one’s advantages close,” he said. “Those are words to live by, my child. This time it saved us five hundred francs.”

I turned back in my seat to see Mary, large eyes on Mr. Babcock, drinking in these words like nectar. If Mr. Babcock should have been prime minister, then before this trip was over he was going to have Mary Brown fit for minister of war.

Endless fields in the midst of harvest gave way to a town again, a rail station with an enormous four-faced clock tower and great puffing engines that made Mary’s eyes bulge, and then the noise, smoke, and blessed speed of the train. Mr. Babcock rode in the luggage car with the trunk. I was still weak from the Channel crossing, sick to death of movement and nearly comatose with fatigue, but before I’d even properly looked at the passing villages, we were in the bustle of a station — Gare Saint-Lazare, I heard it called, sooty from the trains and a nearby ironworks — then into a rocking carriage and onto the streets of Paris.

The road was narrow and congested. We stopped and started frequently, the inevitable wagon rolling along just behind us with the trunk and our luggage. Mary succumbed to sleep at last, and Mr. Babcock dozed, but I could not close my eyes. Not here. Rickety buildings rose upward on either side of the carriage, built in teetering overhangs that stretched toward one another, as if threatening to touch over our heads, or perhaps collapse on top of us, until we made a turn onto a wide boulevard. The sky opened out and the sun shone, and we rolled on smooth paving, newly planted trees lining the center of the street and both sidewalks. It was brighter here, both with light and color, and I could hear music from a passing café, just as foreign to me as the shouts from the sidewalks. The smells that had been penetrating the walls of the carriage — not quite as putrid as what I remembered of London — eased as well. Hammers banged, and I saw skeletal rows of newly erected timbers, piles of grubby stone and plaster being hauled away by the wagonload. Block after block, this scene was replayed. The old Paris was being replaced with the new, it seemed, entire streets’ worth at a time.

But it was the people that were keeping my attention, standing about in front of stores and shops, crossing the boulevards through a maze of horse and omnibus; I realized I’d been involuntarily counting the number of tall, dark heads our carriage passed. The twenty-second of these had long hair, loose and almost shoulder length, and he was coming down the sidewalk at a slow stride, not three feet from my window, face downward, searching for something in a jacket pocket. A red cap was tugged down low on his forehead. I leaned forward, hand to the window glass, and a pale face, stubbled and with a hooked nose, suddenly jerked up and looked directly into my stare, as if I’d called to him. I sat back, air returning audibly to my lungs. It was not Lane Moreau. But it could have been.

I watched every face that passed by our carriage.

“Katharine, child, if you are not too indisposed, we need to discuss the situation with the house.”

I started, prying my gaze from the window. I had not realized Mr. Babcock was awake. We were stopped, in any case, in a glut of carriages that appeared to be traveling at cross purposes, temporarily making the road impassable.

“Of course,” I replied, scooting back into the space where Mary still slumped, though not so far as to obscure my view of the street. Mr. Babcock sat up against the cushion, adjusting his waistcoat. It was a horrible piece of finery, embroidered with many-colored flowers, but his gesture was one that I recognized. He was sliding into his official role of solicitor. I folded my hands.

“As I have explained before,” he began, “the house has been empty and shut up for some time. But you should know that a family by the name of DuPont has been engaged for several years now to do the housekeeping. A rather easy income for them, merely coming in once a month or so to do a minimum of cleaning, and a letter to my offices should repairs be needed, et cetera. They have now been informed of your impending arrival by post, express post, and telegraph, but these communications may not have been received, or may not have been received in time to engage proper help. So I warn you that the house may not be in readiness.”

“I daresay a bit of dust will not frighten me, Mr. Babcock,” I said, smiling. Stranwyne Keep had been one great pile of dust and damp when I first came there; parts of it were little more still. Mr. Babcock acknowledged this with a chuckle before he continued.

“It is the … ‘special’ rooms that I need to discuss with you, my dear. How your grandmother came to know of them I could not tell you, though there were distant cousins living in Paris around the time of the Terror, I believe. Perhaps they knew of some unfortunate who had used the place to evade the guillotine. In any case, when it became evident that your uncle would not outgrow his oddities and that a removal from England might be someday necessary, Marianna acquired the house and had these secret rooms made ready.”

“In what ways did she ready them, Mr. Babcock?”

“I know not. Only that there is a door behind a shelf in a room on the top floor for which I have the key. We can only hope the place is adequate, or is still adequate, after all this time.”

My gaze went back to the window. We were moving again.

“All of this was long before Mr. and Mrs. DuPont were employed, of course, and with no permanent residents in the house, it is my hope the rooms are still hidden …”

I bit my lip. I had not even thought of this. What if the rooms had been discovered? What would we do with Uncle Tully then?

“… and why it is absolutely essential that they remain so. This could require some ingenuity on your part, my dear.”

I nodded again.

“You will need a housekeeper immediately. I would suggest one that is English speaking, who can procure a cook and as many staff as she deems necessary on your behalf. But none of these should sleep in the house. This is important, Katharine. Your help needs to be of the daytime variety. But this will be unusual, and cause for remark.”

I pulled my eyes back to the little man, feeling a tiny frown wrinkle my forehead. “But, Mr. Babcock, who would possibly remark upon it?”

Mr. Babcock tugged on the hideous waistcoat. “Perhaps you are not aware, my dear, how much of our English society reside off and on in Paris? And there are even more at the moment, fleeing the cholera in London. You are a young heiress, coming unaccompanied to the city with no one but one maid and your solicitor. It will be talked of, and you should expect to be visited. You can reasonably plead mourning for a time, but you will be required to take a place in society.”

I stared at him. My plans had centered solely on smuggling my uncle out of Stranwyne, keeping him happy and hidden from both the British and the French, and finding one young man in a city of thousands upon thousands. Teacups and pursed lips in a parlor I had not reckoned with. And why should I reckon with them? I opened my mouth, but Mr. Babcock cut short my protest.

“You must appear normal, Katharine. An unconventional or hermit-like existence can only increase the mystique, while also raising the suspicions of the already suspicious, like our friend Mr. Wickersham. For your uncle’s sake, you must not draw untoward attention, which, ironically, is exactly what staying strictly at home would bring you. You must be a quiet English girl in mourning, beginning anew in a foreign land, wishing to live a dull, unremarkable life of purity and simplicity. That is the impression you must give.”

I looked hard at Mr. Babcock. There was something in his tone, an extra layer of discomfort in this conversation that had fully awakened my faculties. I sat taller in the swaying carriage. “Explain what you mean by ‘purity,’ Mr. Babcock.”

He returned my gaze solemnly, the shrewd eyes hooded, and then a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Really, my dear. You shouldn’t do that. You were so like your grandmother just then, I was transported thirty years backward and nearly forgot where I was.”

I waited, watching the smile on his mismatched features fade to resignation, then determination.

“Child, I have not spoken of this issue to you, as it really had no bearing on your life at Stranwyne Keep, and you were so little disposed to venture out. …” He glanced once at Mary, breathing heavily in her sleep against the upholstered wall. “I am speaking, of course, of Lane Moreau.”

I looked back out the window.

“Do not be offended, my dear. There are few in England who could understand the circumstance of Stranwyne as I do, or the worth of the young man in question. His importance to the well-being of your uncle can never be undervalued. But the fact remains that Mr. Moreau was a servant in your house, that Alice Tulman owed you a particular grudge for the crime of inheriting the estate, and that she was well aware of the relationship before she went back to London. I believe it has made for … interesting conversation in certain circles.”

Memory flashed brilliant through my mind, the dim light of Stranwyne’s kitchen corridor, my fingers in Lane’s hair and his mouth on mine, and the small, tight smile on the face of my aunt. I had never imagined that Aunt Alice would actually reject an opportunity for revenge against me, especially one so temptingly within her grasp. But facing the malicious gossip of proper ladies was a very different prospect in this Parisian carriage than when viewed from the faraway peace of my bedchamber in Stranwyne. “Then you are saying, Mr. Babcock, that my reputation is ruined, and that my sullied state, so to speak, will follow me to Paris.”

Mr. Babcock looked unhappy. “Perhaps not right away. You were relatively unknown in London society, but it will soon come out, and to be perfectly honest with you, my dear, I would call your reputation at this point less ‘sullied’ than ‘infamous.’ Hence the need for starting from a place of ladylike quiet and normality. But I am not proposing some scheme to rehabilitate your standing in society, Katharine. I am thinking of your uncle. We must avoid drawing any more attention to the house than can possibly be helped. For his sake.”