The Dark Unwinding (16 page)

“Oh?” I looked up. Lane was leaning back against the table, looking steadily into his lemonade, face flushing beneath the tan. I came to put the cork back in my bottle, though in truth I was only trying to look at him, to see this new color of his skin. Whatever might be causing his embarrassment I could not imagine, but I was enjoying our little pretense too much to risk the asking. So I only said, “Well, if you say it’s fine, I’m sure it is, then.” With everything else, I’d hardly given another thought to the room of the ornaments and that odd dinner anyway. The biggest threat inside Stranwyne, I had discovered, was myself. “But didn’t you want to attend this meeting?”

“No,” he replied. “Someone has to stay with Mr. Tully.” He was still talking quietly, his voice low, and I was suddenly aware that he was right beside me, very still, and that the door to the hallway was shut.

“You could have left him with me.”

“Yes. I suppose I could have.” He was smiling, just a little. Neither one of us moved. “It’s winding day today. You’ll like that.”

“I will?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. I stood with my hands on the basket, Lane not four inches away. “I thought winding day was on Thursday,” I said.

“Thursday is for clocks. This is different.” Then he said, “Are you getting tanned, or are you dirty?”

I looked up to see the gray eyes examining my face, which barely reached his shoulder. “I’ve been helping clean Marianna’s library. For the party.”

“I see.”

“And I can’t find my bonnet,” I whispered. His lashes were so dark, and he was staring so intently at my nose that I thought he might lift a finger and touch it. I breathed deeply. I could smell sweat and smoke and metal and … Lane. If this was his idea of sugar, it was a very unfair one.

He had just begun to smile again when the door to the hallway opened. I turned quickly back to the basket, heart racing, feeling caught at I knew not what. Lane stayed right where he was, arms crossed.

“Hello,” I heard Ben Aldridge say. I turned around.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Aldridge.”

“And good afternoon to you.” He came properly into the room and shut the door, a little tousled from the wind, I saw, and uncharacteristically unshaven. “You’re looking rather well today, Miss Tulman,” he said. “I think Stranwyne suits you.” Then his gaze settled on Lane. “Mr. Cooper has examined the body and believes it was an accident, and the missing bottles have been found. Not stolen, just misplaced. So no need for Mr. Babcock. Burial this evening.” He turned back to me and smiled. “It’s almost playtime, is it not? And I am doubly in luck. Not only has winding day fallen on my day in the workshop, but you will be there to see it as well. May I, Miss Tulman?”

He offered me his arm, and there was nothing to do but take it, and let Lane, his smile gone, follow us into the workshop.

W
inding day, I discovered, came every thirty days, and was my uncle’s time to wind all of his toys one by one, to make sure each was well and in working order. Uncle Tully was bouncing as he walked, beside himself with glee at my presence in the workshop, telling me about each toy in detailed, if rather disjointed, sentences. Ben walked with us, seemingly content though he was ignored by my uncle, while Lane hovered just behind, silent, again the protective shadow. But when I looked back over my shoulder, I saw that the shadows had lightened, the gray gaze fixed on my uncle, a small smile mirroring Uncle Tully’s.

I was careful not to ask the wrong questions during our rounds, or to inadvertently touch, until, to my shock and delight, Uncle Tully asked if I would like to push over the dragon. I performed the task with enthusiasm, though not so much as to make another pile of scale painting for myself or Lane, while my uncle alternately plucked at his coat and clapped his hands. When Lane had spun the wheel that stopped the flow of steam and I was catching my breath, dabbing my neck on the sleeve of Mary’s dress, I noticed that Ben seemed pensive. He rubbed his whiskered chin as the dragon’s whirring hum was reduced to a click.

“You seem displeased, Mr. Aldridge,” I remarked. I was flushed and happy.

“Oh, no indeed, Miss Tulman! The dragon is marvelous, isn’t it? But the thought has just struck me that perhaps a mechanism that can keep an object perpendicular to the earth, can also keep another object parallel to it, like the fish….”

I left him to his ruminations and watched the peacock spreading its tail, shimmering with turquoise and purple in the gaslight, and I smiled at the towheaded boy — who was not my father after all — spinning the toy top that never quite left his hand.

The toy that was Simon Tulman sat small and thin with salt-and-pepper hair and a large mustache, leaning sideways in a chair with one leg crossed over the other. I had never really noticed him before; he looked nothing like Uncle Tully or the figure of Uncle George. The crossed leg jiggled every now and again, a nervous habit that reminded me of my own tendency to rock on my heels, and he lifted a well-used pipe to his lips. I gasped and Uncle Tully beamed when the smoke blew from his lips. He had serious eyes, I decided, and perhaps sad ones. I asked Uncle Tully to wind him again, and while he was doing that I said to Lane, softly, so my uncle could not hear, “Where does he get the faces?”

Lane glanced once at Uncle Tully, who was talking to himself while he wound. “The porcelain ones are made at the pottery kilns, where they do the figures for the market.”

“But is this … is it what they really looked like?” I was having trouble looking away from the face of my father.

“Have you never seen a portrait of your father?”

I shook my head.

“There’s one in the house. I’ll show it to you. But there are the portraits to be used, and Mr. Tully makes sure I don’t have the details wrong. He has a very good memory for that sort of thing.”

I thought of the life I had felt in the little silver statues in Lane’s room. “You carve them, for the mold, and then you paint them?”

“Here he goes, little niece!” my uncle shouted. “Look, look!” The pipe rose to my father’s lips. “Simon is thinking of what to do next! He is always careful about what he does next. You should be careful, too, little niece, in case it has not rained again!”

“What is he talking about?” Lane whispered.

“No idea,” I replied, eyes on my father, thoughts on a moldering rain bucket in the gallery of the chapel.

“Lane?” my uncle yelled. “Lane! I hear a tick, a tick where it shouldn’t be! Lane …”

Ready as always, Lane silently held out an oilcan, which my uncle retrieved at a trot, pulling up my father’s trouser leg to fiddle with the gears.

“Monday is my uncle’s time for trying new things,” I said quietly, “and I thought perhaps …” But I had to look away, nose wrinkled. It was ridiculous to feel squeamish, but the way the oil ran, and the way Uncle Tully’s fingers worked inside my father’s leg, it was rather like seeing a surgeon use his knife. I felt Lane’s gaze move to me and knew that he was amused. “I thought perhaps I would take my uncle and Davy to the old castle,” I continued, “up by the water gate at the head of the canal. Mary says it’s just a ruin, but I should like to see it before …”

I stopped myself. “Before I go” was a forbidden subject. “Would you come with us? I’d like to make a day of it, for both of them, but if something were to happen, if my uncle …”

Again, I left my sentence short, but Lane had known exactly what I meant, on both counts. He said, “You think you’re going to get Mr. Tully to hike up to the castle.”

“Of course. You think I can’t?”

“I reckon you can, actually.” Uncle Tully was leaning back now, his beard wide with satisfaction. Whatever had been amiss with my father was obviously corrected. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” Lane said, digging down into his pocket. “Is this yours?”

I stared at the plain strip of white satin in his blackened hand. It was the ribbon that had held my nighttime braid.

“You don’t usually wear ribbons, do you? But I couldn’t think who else it might belong to. It was on the floor of the chapel.”

“No, it’s not mine,” I lied.

“And have you tried the fish yet, Mr. Tully?” Ben said. The question had seemed to burst from him almost unintentionally, and I jumped at the sound. I’d almost forgotten he was in the workshop. “I wondered if the new cap I suggested, if there was less leakage of the air …”

My uncle moved willingly enough toward the water trough with Ben as I watched my father’s movements slowly wind down.

Lane said, “It’s a long walk out to the water gate, you know. There are lots of hills, with boggy patches in between if they haven’t dried out. And Davy and I, we have ways of making our own fun up on the castle hill. All that to say, we’re likely to get you a mite dirty. But I don’t think you’ll mind that, will you now?”

“Of course not,” I said, lifting my chin. The last time Lane had used that tone I’d gotten more than I bargained for. But the game was different now. And the only thing that truly mattered was making my uncle happy.

I untied my wrist in the chill hour before Monday’s dawn, too full of anticipation to sleep, and by the time the sun was peeking over the hills I had tidied myself and again put on Mary’s old dress, leaving the corset in the bottom of my trunk. I hurried down to the kitchen for the basket of lunch I had packed the night before. It was a bit heavier than I’d anticipated. Resolving that Lane would have to be the one carrying it on our walk to the castle, I turned from the garden door and carried the basket through the house to the chapel instead. I pushed open the hidden door, ignoring the certainty of Uncle George’s glass stare on my back, and stepped inside. The sounds of the clocks came through the walls, striking six of their seven morning chimes as I went down the stairs and began the much shorter, straighter walk through the tunnel to the workshop.

I made slow work of it. The basket was difficult to manage, but in truth, I dawdled, suddenly worried that in my eagerness not to be late that I would instead be far too early and catch both Lane and my uncle asleep. Davy might be there, though. He was an early riser, assuming he had understood the note I left him, and I had the feeling he would understand it quite well. His presence, or lack of it, would certainly confirm his reading skills to me one way or another.

I was thinking this, meandering around the tunnel’s only curve, when I caught a glimpse of a man, a small, thin figure in a trailing coat, coming fast from the workshop end of the tunnel. I immediately stepped back again, out of view, stiff with surprise. I was not certain whether he had seen me or not, but I certainly had not recognized him. I waited until I could hear his footsteps, a soft, quick clip on the wet stone, and tried to think of what he might be doing here, and what I might say when he came around the bend.

The footsteps got closer, the clip becoming more of a slap that indicated a run, and then … he did not come. The tunnel was silent, and when I dared peek around the bend again it was also empty, nothing but the reflections of gas flickering in small puddles on the flagstones. I leaned back against the wall, heart beating hard in my chest. What if there had been no man? If he was just another phantom of my mind? I set the basket on the floor, hating myself for not being able to trust my own eyes, and moved quietly to the place I thought the man had been.

And about halfway there I saw something I’d not noticed before. The shadowy place between two sconces of gaslight was not a stone wall, but another opening, another branch of the tunnel not even a quarter as wide as the one I stood in, and unlit. I slipped inside and moved as fast as I dared in the darkness, trailing one hand along the damp wall, stepping lightly to keep my footfalls silent, though there wasn’t much need. The floor here was dirt, not stone.

After only a moment or so, I heard the creak of hinges come echoing down the passage, and then the click of a latch. I hurried, one hand in front of me, now fully prepared when the passage ended in a door. I felt through the darkness for a handle or a knob, marveling that so far I had felt no fear whatsoever of the man. All I wanted was the sight of a body, to know that my mind had not lied to me again. And I wanted it desperately. I pushed open the door just a little, and put one eye to the crack.

What I saw, to my shock, was the ballroom. The chandeliers were not sparkling, but a dim daylight came down through the glass cupola far above in the gardens, and there, making his way to the opposite end of the room, was a man. I held in my sigh of relief, and at the same time realized that he was not a stranger at all; I knew his twitching gait. It was Mr. Cooper, the surgeon. Then another mirrored piece of the wall opened, and Mrs. Jefferies’s wide body filled the gap, beckoning. Mr. Cooper twitched his way through, and she closed the door quickly behind the two of them.

I waited for a few moments, then stepped into the empty ballroom to examine my door. It was not exactly meant to be secret, I decided — the handle was in plain view below the mirror — it was just … unobtrusive, as was the way to the kitchen. I’d never noticed either. But what business could Mrs. Jefferies have with Mr. Cooper?

There could be a medical condition, I supposed, or maybe something to do with the Upper Village. Or perhaps they were having a torrid affair. I shook my head. Whatever their reason, it could be no business of mine. I doubted Lane or my uncle would have been happy to know that Mr. Cooper was sneaking through the tunnels, but I could think of no reason they need know it from me. I shut the door softly and went to retrieve my basket.

“Come along, Uncle! Let’s count steps!”

Once again the sun was climbing upward, yellow and hot, though the breeze held a slight promise of something cooler. I’d never known such a stretch of time with no rain, but today I was glad of it. Davy was beside me, his hand warm in mine, the sky was a bowl of blue, and Lane came behind us, carrying the basket and looking none too pleased about it. My uncle huffed and wheezed on my other side as we climbed the first hill, and it was taking all my powers of distraction to convince him that he was having a good time. Though I rather enjoyed that process, too.

“No! No, no!” my uncle was shouting, or as much as he could with his short breath. “It’s a day for new things, Simon’s baby! New things! Going to the castle is not new. Not new!”

“But you have never been to the castle with me, Uncle,” I said serenely. “That is the new part.” Uncle Tully appeared to be thinking about this, so before he could think any harder I began counting our steps at the top of my voice. “Seven, eight, nine, ten …”

“No, no!” he panted. “Not steps, little niece! It’s too late for steps! You haven’t counted the first one hundred and eight of them. Count hills! Nineteen hills by the short path, twenty-eight by the long, and when you take the short, it’s twelve small and seven big ones, that makes nineteen, and …”

“One!” I shouted as we started our descent. “And how many rests do we take, Uncle?”

Uncle Tully trotted down the hill, the inevitable coattails flapping. “Three rests by the short way,” he huffed, “five by the long, though Marianna liked six. Marianna liked six by the long….”

“Two!” I shouted, swinging Davy’s hand as we crested the next rise, happy to be doing something my grandmother had done, though I did look back at Lane over my shoulder, questioning.

“We’re on the short way,” he assured me, and sighed.

When we reached the bottom of number nineteen, my uncle sat himself carefully on the blanket I gave him while Lane threw himself down on the grass and lay there. Davy ran ahead, Bertram bouncing patiently on his shoulder. I took off my boots and tried to wipe away the mud — some of the little valleys had indeed been fenny — gave up, tossed them aside, and looked about us, shielding my eyes.

The “castle” appeared to be nothing more than one partial wall and a pile of varied stones on the top of a particularly large hill, the river water dancing below it in the sun. When I looked back the way we’d come, I could see where the river met the canal, a bit of stone-work at the junction that I assumed must be part of the water gate, the mechanism that could close off the flow of the river. Beyond that, the hills rolled, fading away to mix with the sky. Stranwyne and the villages were hidden from me.

I turned at the sound of soft muttering and found my uncle sitting cross-legged, exactly as he did in the workshop, bits of fashioned metal he must have had secreted in a pocket already in his hands, being fit and refit together in some mysterious way. Lane lay still in the grass, arms behind his head, eyes closed, the red cap flung aside. I watched a small smile form at the sound of my uncle’s chatter, but after a moment the brows came together and the smile fell away, an outward picture of some darker frame of mind.

And for exactly thirty seconds, I allowed myself to wonder what might happen in this moment if I were not Katharine Tulman or even one of those creatures of organdy in the park. If I was just a girl, like the ones Mary told me about — the ones who giggled about Frenchmen and had no responsibilities beyond their own hearth fire — would I go right now and sit down on the grass beside Lane? Or would I stretch out beside him, the sun full on my face, and cushion my head in that nook at his shoulder? If today were only one tick in a room full of clocks, unchanging and unhurried, would he let me make him laugh, put my hands in his hair, take away that lingering melancholy that I could see tingeing the edge of his thoughts?