The Typewriter Girl (24 page)

The mechanic nodded and jogged off to carry out the orders. Vernon Crabbe was recalcitrant, however, when John made his way up onto the track.

“All this fuss,” he told John. “My way had ’em all back to the
loading deck now. Already done so once today. Change your mind, you would, if you’d been round then to see it.”

John wanted to rage, wanted to throttle Crabbe right here on the track. However, he needed the man calm and cooperative, so he offered him terse congratulations and bit back the news that Crabbe was less than an hour from collecting his last wages from the pier company.

John explained to the passengers that they’d be led along the track back to the panorama tunnel they’d just exited, down the service steps just inside, and be right back on the Esplanade shortly afterward. Several expressed dismay upon learning they wouldn’t all go at once; they’d be sitting in the rain in a matter of minutes. Better that than to lose toes under a runaway carriage, noted one of the fellows who’d been pushing when John arrived.

Within half an hour, all had been safely, if damply, delivered to the Esplanade, their fares refunded. Sir Alton’s coach had been waiting for at least ten minutes. John signaled that he was done, and Sir Alton exited the carriage, a footman with an umbrella at the ready.

“Bit of a setback, Jones? Most unexpected.”

Today the mockery took its cut. John shoved his sopping hair off his forehead—his hat had been knocked over the trestle by a woman who’d been terrified to walk the mechanic’s gallery on the side of the track—and caught sight of Rolly Brues, the American, stepping down from Sir Alton’s carriage. Perfect. It was a stranger claiming the seat of his soul, this feeling that he wanted to say damn to Sir Alton and damn to Brues and damn to every damned thing in Idensea, and sit down in the mud until somebody brought his damn hat back to him.

Sick to the death, as he’d told Betsey last night. Did it matter?
Perhaps not. Life can be rather a shit in that regard.

Her words didn’t rally his humor as they had last night. He told Sir Alton, “That’s all the passengers now, safely out. I’m sending them on to Pimlott’s for an ice cream.”

“An excellent gesture. I do hope you told them it was all at the pier company’s expense.”

“I knew that was exactly what you’d have me do,” John said. Sir Alton’s mouth twisted at this sarcasm, not necessarily in disapproval. John felt rather . . .
gritty
for having said it. He looked away to bid good afternoon to Mr. Brues, who had joined them.

Brues cut his ebullient greeting short when he realized he was treading over whatever Sir Alton was murmuring to John. Sir Alton denied he spoke of anything of consequence; they both insisted the other continue; each did, at once. A pause. They both looked at John, weariness about their eyes.

“Repairs,” John suggested as a topic. Sir Alton’s footman, either drowsy or distracted, let the umbrella list and clip John on the head, sending a stream of water down his back. He edged back. “The carriage isn’t gripping the cable on the second hill. Tonight, tomorrow morning at worst, I’d reckon for when we’ll be running again.”

Brues grunted, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Haven’t the least idea, though, really, have you?”

John couldn’t help grinning. “I’ve been seeing to the passengers,” he admitted, “but I’ll be speaking with the mechanic next.”

His mood lifted a little more as Brues offered to go along and lend his expertise. Brues clapped Sir Alton on the back and invited him to join them.

Sir Alton appeared, fleetingly, as if he’d like to rub his temples, but then recovered his smile enough to decline politely. Brues went ahead to the railway.

“How is my son?” Sir Alton said. “I understand you saw him at the carpet maker’s last evening?”

“I did.” The “carpet maker” was Mr. Gilbey, who’d manufactured and sold many times Sir Alton’s worth in carpets, including the ones in the hotel right now. “Noel turned in a fine performance, a piece he’d composed himself, I believe.” Plus that duet with Lillian, but John, of course, had not stayed for that portion of the program. No, John had watched that girl with the confidence of a queen twist a finger into her pearls and fret over being good enough to sing with Noel Dunning, and that feeling he’d been brushing away, that word
done
, was suddenly crawling all over him.

“Delightful,” said Sir Alton. “I feared your presence there might distract him, you see, remind him of his responsibilities here, but I’m cheered to know he managed to rise above it. He didn’t, I hope, give you any notion he planned to spoil his fun any time in the near future?”

“He didn’t tell me when he planned to come home, if that’s what you ask.”

Sir Alton’s voice lost its cheery rhythm. “You could have persuaded him. He listens to you.”

“It is not my place, between the two of you.”

After a moment, Sir Alton regained his smile. “Very true. It is unmannerly of me to keep forcing you there, isn’t it? Especially when Noel knows precisely what’s expected of him. Quite recently, I reminded him that it will be you, not him, I shall look to if he continues to misunderstand his priorities. And I do believe I meant it.”

It was the most direct Sir Alton had ever been regarding John’s prospects with the company. As the property owner, Sir Alton had been in the position to demand the position of managing director when the company was formed, but he craved control of the aesthetics of the development, not the daily operations of it. John had earned some respectable raises, taking on duties beyond his role as contractor, allowing Sir Alton to distance himself from the grime of business.

Managing director. Overseeing what was built already, administer of another man’s vision—John felt no more tempted than Noel Dunning would have been. He glanced up to the tracks of the pleasure railway, his one original mark on this place, and he knew what he wanted hadn’t changed. His time in Idensea was drawing to a close.

The thing was broken, though, wasn’t it? Abruptly, he turned from Sir Alton and called to Rolly Brues, his desire to
fix it
as ardent as first love.

To-day study the ribbon movement, and learn how to reverse it.

—How to Become Expert in Type-writing

D
arkness had fallen when John and the other men finally left the railway. Weary, discouraged, he cycled to the Kursaal to judge the progress made in his absence, then headed toward the hotel, unable to decide what he wanted most: food, bath, or bed.

All those wants subsided when his ears caught music, spirited and inviting, as he stored his bicycle in the shelter on the hotel grounds. It came from the pavilion, where a coach maker’s employees were dancing away the last hours of their excursion day. Where Betsey Dobson likely managed the entire affair with complete efficiency. Still, given last Saturday’s events, he thought it prudent to go by—just to stroll by, that was all—to ensure all was well.

At the pavilion, he leaned against a tree where the electric lights didn’t quite reach, pleased to observe that Betsey had seen to posting more staffers about, even though he’d failed to remind her to do so. With less pleasure, he noted Sir Alton’s secretary on the fringes of the crowd, no doubt taking detailed mental notes to pass on to Sir Alton in the morning. He wondered if
Betsey had noticed. She was amongst the dancers and in great demand, apparently, because there were more men than women tonight. Or because of the way she looked in that uniform. Or just because.

He’d missed tea, he’d missed supper, and every muscle in his body demanded rest, but he remained shrugged up against the tree trunk, watching Betsey Dobson pass from partner to partner.

It shocked him, really. Not the dancing partners, but the others, the men she’d listed to him last night. A great many, it had seemed. Still did. And no intention to marry any of them?

No, one: Thomas Dellaforde she’d thought to marry. Who was he, besides the eldest son? Why him, and none of the others?

And why all those others, and not him, John Jones?

He sank down on his heels beside the tree. She’d answered that question. He told himself he understood, and in a way no one else in her life did. He understood how you sifted, how you let some things run between your fingers while for others you made a cradle of your palms.

Absently, he ripped up tendrils of grass, threw them away. Betsey thought last night a puzzle easily solved, a choice of this-not-that,
kiss me because she hurt you
, but here was his secret: The reason he’d noticed that ring at all was because the pawnbroker had slipped it on a ribbon and hung it inside an empty birdcage. The birdcage, made of scrolling brass that would never need to be repaired with newspaper and string, had arrested his attention in the dingy London window. The ring, he could admit now, had been a guilty, impulsive afterthought.

He would not, however, admit to seeking Betsey out for . . . for
that
. He hadn’t even expected to see her. But as he disembarked the train from London, his spirit had felt as hungry and bruised as did his body tonight, and wind and speed and exertion seemed the remedy. Sarah’s house was incidental, not a destination.

It didn’t matter, though. Betsey believed he had done so. And he would have taken her. Right there in the passenger car, Betsey saying
please
instead of
no,
he would have taken her.

No pretty thing to know about himself, that. No pretty thing to look at a woman and think,
No consequences
.

Yet it was in him still, and in a mighty sulk over the missed opportunity. Just watching Betsey move about the pavilion, the feel of her still fresh on his fingertips and mouth, that ugly, sulking thing he’d thought he’d mastered long ago was roused and hungry, and it brought him to his feet.

The pavilion was open-air, set up on a base of a half dozen low steps. Betsey, watchful of everything even as she danced, saw him the moment he ascended the first step. She broke from her partner, a frown of confusion gathering on her face as she neared him. Abruptly, John remembered how he must look, coming from his work on the railway. He knew his hands and clothes were streaked with oil and dirt. His collar and necktie were crammed into his pockets. He passed a hasty hand over his hair in an attempt to smooth it down.

“You needn’t have come,” she informed him as she drew near. “Your spy is a most attentive fellow.”

Of course she had noticed. “Sir Alton’s spy, not mine, Betsey.”

“Who is he, then?”

“Walbrook. Sir Alton’s secretary.”

She cursed softly. “What will he say? It’s all gone well tonight, not a peep of trouble.”

“Then that is what he will say, I would guess. I don’t know him for the malicious sort.”

“No? Then you ought to warn him about me, I suppose.”

“Girl,” he chided at this self-slander, but she continued to glare in Walbrook’s direction, her arms crossed, her fingers twiddling the topmost button of her waistcoat. It should have been the second button, but the one above it was missing. No, not missing. Still on the mantelshelf in his bedchamber it was, by accident kept and on purpose not returned.

Caught fidgeting, she dropped her hand from the button. “I didn’t want a new gown.”

John, having no idea what she meant, thought it wise to say nothing.

“Scold me if you must, but I haven’t the money for it, and in any case, I didn’t like how you said it. I don’t need a gown to snare a husband.”

Ah.
That.

“So, if it is all one to you, I shall just wear my uniform. Unless you meant it as an order.”

Uncertainty marked her last words. Seeing some stocky, red-bearded fellow heading in their direction, John touched her arm to persuade her off the pavilion, just a step or two down, enough to put her out of consideration.

“You do as you like with your clothing. Wear your uniform every day if you like,” he told her. “Rule the world and any man in it, you could, wearing that frock.”

For this, a concession to what she wanted, and what he believed a rather dashing compliment besides, he got her no-such-thing-as-magic-beans stare, followed by an abrupt, “Good night, then.”

“I’ll come back,” he hurried to say before she could turn away to the pavilion. “Wash up, and come back to see you home.”

“Charlie’s coming. You arranged it. Good night.”

“You heard of the breakdown?”

“Yes.” She was about to say good night again, he believed, but then he sensed a sort of general softening about her, which turned up in her voice. “It is too bad. I know you’re disappointed. But it can be repaired?”

He nodded. “In a day or two. With luck, there will be some still willing to risk a ride upon it.”

“Of course there will be. We’d all go again this minute.” She gestured toward her excursionists. She did not try to say good night. She watched the dancers, and he watched her, and he saw before she made a sound that she was going to laugh.

Her laughter was for an idea: “You ought to have Sir Alton and Lady Dunning ride it when the repairs are done, to show their confidence in it. And when the Duke comes for the Kursaal opening, put him in it, too, and have his photograph taken. That would make it famous.”