The following morning I was up bright and early, ransacking the cellar for suitably coloured paint. Mr Whybrow had an assortment of cans lurking in a dark corner, so within half an hour, I’d made my airship’s name official. I was really quite pleased with the results.
It was a glorious morning; chill and crisp, but the snow had melted overnight to return all Southend’s lush colours. I stood there watching the paint dry, wondering what Jasper and his companion would be trying next. One thing I could be sure of was that they wouldn’t try doing anything to the airship for a third time. I was pondering what they might do when a voice behind me almost made me drop the paintbrush.
“Nice name,” said Mr Whybrow. “And very tasteful, too. White and gold – ladlylike; dignified - taking her up for a spin?”
“Practice makes perfect, sir.” I did not, by so much as a flutter of my eyelashes, hint that I wanted to go back to Llyr and try singing again.
“Mmhm. Quite so. By the way, you don’t happen to know anything about a streaker, do you?” He mentioned it so casually that I knew it was the real reason he wanted to speak with me.
“What’s a streaker, sir?” Looking at my newly-painted insignia, I wondered if it was a sort of painter of inferior quality. I squinted more closely. He couldn’t have meant me. I’d got the words quite straight, I thought.
“It’s – ah, someone who runs about with no clothes on. Like that griefer you got rid of, but without any sexual element involved. We had one here in SouthEnd last night.” He gave me a look of undisguised suspicion.
I suppressed a guilty gulp. “What a strange thing to do. Why do they do that, sir?”
“Because they can.” He shrugged. “They find it fun. I presume you heard nothing?”
“Not a thing, sir,” I lied, shamelessly.
Mr Whybrow grunted. Did that smirk mean that he knew the truth? “Then you must have slept like the dead. Apparently our streaker was making quite a racket; running about, shouting and dancing.”
“So who was this – streaker, sir?” Oh, Gawd. He couldn’t have missed seeing my blush!
“Nobody knows,” he told me, a cryptic cast to his eye. “Apparently it was a female, but nobody could recognise her without her clothes on.”
The penny dropped. No, make that a double florin. They were much bigger and heavier. It had been a bad mistake to assume that empty streets meant empty SouthEnd. Every curtain must have had at least one pair of eyes peeping out at me as I ran around the whole district, drunk on my own ecstasy.
It was too late to pretend now. My jaw had, unnoticed, dropped almost to my chest. I wished that Mr Whybrow would vanish, just for a moment, so I could shout something very rude to the skies. But he did not vanish. It was far worse than that.
“Come on then; hop in. I’ll swing your prop for you.”
As he turned his back to me, a quivering of his shoulders told me that he was almost incontinent with the effort of restraining his laughter. The absolute monster!
At least, nestled in my cute little gondola, nobody could see me flare scarlet with embarrassment. My hands barely knew what they were doing as I jerked levers and valves, but the engine must have been sympathetic; it fired with Mr Whybrow’s first swing. The moment that he stood clear, I advanced the throttle and gave the control column a decisive tug. As I began to ascend, I was sure I could hear him calling after me.
“Let the world see you dressed for a change!”
I feigned deafness. I began to wonder how many saw me, and whether any had recognised me and had withheld that detail from Mr Whybrow. I knew how gossip spread, after all. But then, I thought – does it really matter? Half Caledon were barking mad anyway. That was one thing I loved about the place.
Many of them had probably been seen in a state of nature at some point, anyway. I gave the mixture a tweak of adjustment and settled back to wallow in my independence. Not of Mr Whybrow, but of gravity and the need to confine my journey to roads and permanent way. I thought back to those Londoners, traipsing about busy streets and trying not to get squashed by carriages, or submitting their souls to that new tuppenny tube, and laughed like a lunatic. Even her Majesty couldn’t do what I was doing! And that was another thing I loved about Caledon. In England, anyone so unwise as to show initiative by building a new means of conveyance would damn soon find the government controlling, taxing, prohibiting and otherwise regulating it. Why, they’d only recently abolished the need for self-propelled vehicles to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag. [This was true. The requirement for a red flag was only abolished in 1896. VB]
I landed at Llyr again. The fire waved its arms in invitation to dance, but my last visit had revealed something more important in a personal way; something which I’d never believed I would be able to do.
Sing.
Well, it would have been nice to do both today, but Mr Whybrow would expect me back to do some shopgirling, and I’d yearned to be able to sing ever since I was knee-high to said jeweller. The dancing would have to wait. When Llyr had showed me that this was one place I could let my voice rip without causing a major structural collapse about me, it was like the gates of heaven opening, to present me with my deepest desire.
I clambered to the crest where Mr Whybrow and I had sat and laughed, and with a deep draught of heady air, I let go with the Laughing Song from “Die Fledermaus.” If that didn’t bring the place crashing about my ears, then nothing would!
It didn’t. I felt that I was flying out over Llyr with every note, while the island only sat there and listened. With Strauss still in mind, I followed it with the Nun’s Chorus. Not so spritely or high in register, but more profoundly moving. I could hardly believe it was my own voice that I was listening to, but it was.
When I’d finished, I stood and lowered my head. It was a bit like one of those ancient Greek fairytales they told us at school. Someone with a gift beyond price, but with restrictions attached. I could sing – but only here. I was slightly saddened as I made my way back to the Silk Sonata. But no, the situation was not hopeless. Mr Whybrow had never heard me sing, but he would be the most acute judge of all, and the most appreciative. I wondered how difficult it would be to persuade him to come to Llyr and hear me.
I checked over the Silk Sonata meticulously this time. But if anybody had followed me, they had left the airship alone. The engine, still hot, fired at my first swing of the propeller. I rose into the air with an almost solemn grace, as if it was part of a ceremony. I’d learned to look this way and that when flying, as Caledon contained many aerial hazards to catch out the unwary. I chanced to look northwards to the Sound, and saw something that definitely hadn’t been there before.
A long, sinuous neck arcing from the water, like a swan but bigger. And greenish in colour. This, I had to investigate. I swung the nose around, and gunned the engine. Yes, my eyes had told me true. A lengthy snakelike neck, blurred and almost colourless in the sea haze, rearing gracefully. A living creature, surely, and a big one. I could not tear my gaze from the – whatever, as it plunged happily into the wavetops.
By now I had sufficient mastery of the Silk Sonata to fly over and drop to what I considered a safe height over the sea. When I crossed over into the Sound, the creature became clearer. I’d never seen anything so big, but what was it? A smoothly tapering body, a tail that looked disproportionately stubby, and flippers like – I had no idea. As for the head –
My hands had been guiding the Silk Sonata automatically. But while they had become expert at handling the airship, they were not smart enough to have appreciated the danger which the creature might pose. That bit was up to my brain, which had been mesmerised by whatever-it-was, wholly engrossed by how fluidly it moved.
I sat hovering while the big reptilian eyes studied me, and inched closer. I felt that this beast was gentle and only curious – had it intended any harm, it could surely have lashed out.
Then some small voice of commonsense told me that it could do lethal damage without meaning to. Gently, so as not to startle it, I powered the engine and climbed up, out of harm’s way.
“Well, well; I wonder what that was?” A silly question, you might think, but I was still numb from surprise. Deciding that I had had enough surprises for one day, I turned for home. A new wonderment rode me as I realised how little I knew about what lay under the sea. What else could be down there?
I swooped down in a veritable paragon of a landing, like a bird coming to rest. It would have been nice to have found Mr Whybrow waiting, but I had to accept that the airship worked, we both had things to do, so it was pointless expecting pomp and ceremony every time I landed.
I went down to the shop to find him in the back office. With a customer, whch was very unusual. I presumed that they were discussing a custom job, which he rarely undertook. Then I recalled having met the lady only recently. She was the one who’d caught me playing Mr Whybrow’s phonograph.
Without drawing attention to myself, I looked again. There was more to this than a custom order; her forward lean was too forward, suggesting a more personal type of interest, while he was decidedly uneasy about her. But he was a big boy, and could handle things by himself while I, as shopgirl, knew that in front of customers I should be seen and not heard. I could not hear, either, as both were keeping their voices below the ability of the partition to transmit. Nevertheless, as I watched discreetly from behind the counter, there was no denying that her gesticulations were definitely aimed at establishing contact with him.
It wasn’t my place to even observe the master’s personal relationships, far less hold any opinions about them, but he and I had built up a certain bond. He’d made it clear that he regarded me as a companion of sorts, so that bond included an immense duty of care. I told myself to ignore the situation and let him handle everything, like he’d done when Jasper had been paying court in his own way. But then, Mr Whybrow had also told me that if things did get beyond my ability to handle, I was free to tell him so. I think we’d taken for granted that the offer worked both ways, but I knew he’d never take me up on it and reciprocate.
All right. It wasn’t his discomfiture that was angering me. It was my own jealousy. I could only stand there fuming as she leaned closer and closer, while he shifted uneasily, uncertain whether to freeze solid or draw back. And all the time, she was oblivious to his embarrassment. Then she put her hand on his knee. I saw his every muscle bunch, and the wretched lady only seemed to draw confidence from his squirming.
So she was playing with him. That was going too far.
It was time for action. Quietly, I removed bucket and coal shovel from the broom cupboard, and went out into the street. Five minutes later, I marched into the back office smiling innocently, and on his desk between them, dumped a bucket brimming with healthy Caledon horse manure.
“Good morning, sir. Mr Gongfermer lost some of his load, so I’ve brought you some for your roses.”
The lady recoiled as though electrocuted. As did Mr Whybrow, although I could see relief break out on his face in the form of cold sweat.
I turned and smiled at the lady. “Good morning, Madam.” If I’d had fangs, they’d have been staring her full in the eyes.
All Mr Whybrow’s gears appeared to have leapt from their bearings. The moment seemed to stretch forever before he could shake out an uncertain, “Uh – thank you, Miss. Put it in the yard for now, can you?”
“Certainly, sir. Oops – I’m so sorry, Madam!” In picking up the bucket, I’d accidentally let it tilt to spill a pound of contents right into her lap. "How very careless of me!” [Damn! Hahahaha!] “Don’t move, Miss; I’ll get the shovel.”
The lady appeared to be fighting an apoplectic paralysis as she burrowed backwards into her chair, shrinking away from her own lap.
My mishap gave Mr Whybrow his confidence back. The look he gave me said, “Dearie me, Miss, you are careless,” but I could see that he was trying not to laugh. Then, with butlerian decorum, he said, “Perhaps you would care to wheel the lady outside before you shovel up, Miss?”
“It’ll be a pleasure, sir.”
Holding her feet well above the floor, the lady offered no resistance as I pushed her chair out like a brickie running a barrowload of mortar up a plank, and left her in the middle of the street to separate her lap from its contents in whichever way she thought best.
I returned to the office, to rid it of the bucket. On the way, I passed Mr Whybrow. He muttered “Thanks” before running out after his customer. Oooh, I could have kicked him. Some just don’t know when they’re well off, but he had to be a gentleman about it, didn’t he?
I lingered and heard Madam take her leave. She rid herself of her encumbrance by simply standing up and shaking her skirt, with a little half-step backwards. How I’d hoped that she would catch her heel in the railway ballast and fall flat into her own – ah, deposit. Whatever her business with Mr Whybrow, she obviously considered her loss of composure more important, as she could not get away quickly enough.
“Thank you, Mr Whybrow. I have other calls to make; I’ll see you later.”
I called after her, “It’ll brush off when it’s dry.”
She looked at me as though I’d come for her soul, and stumbled away.
When Mr Whybrow came back in, a cadential resolution had fallen over the shop. We savoured it for a long long moment before Mr Whybrow told me, with a slight shake in his voice, “Thank you. I’m not sure that was entirely wise of you, but I’m grateful nonetheless.”
“Did I hear that she’ll be seeing you later, sir?” I allowed a soupcon of sternness to tinge my question.
“Uh, yes.” Mr Whybrow ran a hand through his hair, reliving some private horror. “That was Miss Crumbleigh-Quandybarre; she’s one of our leading lights.” His mumble suggested that she was famous for being famous. “She’s asked me along to her soiree later, and was getting rather insistent.”
“So I could see, sir.” It wasn’t really fair of me to glower at him; he was hardly likely to have initiated the situation. But I needed to make sure he knew exactly how I felt about Miss Crumbly-wotsername.
“Actually, she asked if you could go along with me.”
That, I had not expected. “She did?”
“She did indeed; that’s what she was saying just as you – ah, entered. It’s unusual to invite someone’s shopgirl, I know, but to be honest, I’m glad she did. I know I can trust you to keep any vultures at barge pole’s length.”
Ordinarily, I’d have considered Mr Whybrow safe from an army of Amazons, if I was with him. The problem was that this hostess might have ascribed my intervention to mere shopgirl clumsiness; either way, she could not have known how protective I was towards him.
“I presume that there’s a reason why you can’t get out of attending, bearing in mind how much you hate dancing, sir?” More to the point, I was even less capable on a dance floor than he was, and that was saying something.
“There won’t be any dancing involved; it’s a soiree. People are there for the music. That won’t stop the vultures trying, though. But to answer your question – no, I can’t very well duck the event. It’s how businessfolk – well, interact and conjure up more business.”
I felt very foolish. Not for the first time, good old Shopgirl had waded in to slay dragons, only to find that they had never even been there. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. I saw her just now, and thought she was – well, I hope I haven’t messed things up for you.”
He read the sudden catastrophe in my head, throwing my thoughts into a whirling mess of regret. “I know what you thought she was trying to do. You did exactly the right thing. And don’t worry about tonight. Let’s just say that you’ve clarified things a lot, so you’ve spared me at least one misunderstanding tonight.”
He must have thought I didn’t believe him. He chucked me gently under the chin. “Chin up, Valerie. I’ll be proud to be seen with you anywhere.”
His compliment landed with a splat. “Very good, sir,” I told him, somewhat numbly. After all we’d been through, having cultivated our companinship in such cautious, painstaking increments, it would have been nice if he’d asked me along for my company, rather than as a human landmine.
My resentment fizzled out as the day wore on. It could be that Miss Double-Barrelled had merely been enthusing about her event; maybe even trying to encourage him to take me along when he’d rather not have done so. One didn’t normally take one’s shopgirl, after all. But there was no getting away from what I’d actually seen. Then I put myself in his position and realised that it had not been she of whom he was nervous; it was the others he would be meeting. But this time would be different. I’d be with him.
By the time I came to prepare for the event, I was looking forward to it. Although I was more to him than just a shopgirl, it would be naïve of me to expect to be presented as anything other than that. But I could still act with appropriate decorum while savouring the occasion in my own way, in the privacy of my own mind. Nobody could stop me doing that. I began to fantasise about being asked to sing, and delivering a golden rhapsody while holding him with my eyes – he was accompanying, of course – and as was only proper for a good fantasy, it never occurred to me how difficult it would be for him to concentrate with my gaze nailing him down like a moth to a collector’s card.
He had left my choice of gown and accessories entirely to me. That, I took as a compliment. He trusted me to know. So, I dressed and accessorised so as to represent him in the best light, without upstaging the hostess. Just a few discreet little diamonds, with some sapphires for colour.
I went to the shop to wait. He was already there, in the back office; I could hear vague strains of song filtering through the partition. I peeped around the corner; he was checking over his cravat in a mirror. The words to his song became clearer.
Surely you heard my lady go down the garden singing,
Silencing all the songbirds and setting the alleys ringing.
O saw you not my lady out in the garden there,
Riv’lling the glitt’ring sunshine with a glory of golden hair!
I knew the song well; there was no mistaking Handel’s “Silent Worship.” Neither was there any mistaking the feeling behind his voice; he was singing it for someone. He couldn’t have possibly had Miss Crumbleigh-Quandybarre in mind; that just left –
He opened all the valves for the final climax; I stood there entranced. He didn’t have a professional voice, but he knew what he was doing. The notes were accurate, the words well-rounded and flowing. It made my own secret burn eagerly inside me. I had to get him to Llyr and show him what I could do!
Mr Whybrow emerged from the office. I curtseyed smartly. “Will I do, sir?”
He ran his eyes up and down me, with a scrutiny normally seen at a military inspection, but with more warmth.
“Enchantingly, Miss. As ever,” he added, turning to lead the way out.
Yes, I really felt like a queen making a state progress, floating on a cloud of glory as the Golden Grisset wafted me out of SouthEnd with Mr Whybrow at the wheel. I didn’t pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. That’s a cliché. But the sheer unreal reality of my situation did bring a lump to my throat. You see, in the workhouse, being put on display was something kids tried to avoid. It usually involved being stood on a stool in the corner of the classroom, although that was a mercy on its own, as those benches were murder on sore spanked bottoms. But now – that button upholstery coddled me, shaping itself to me and reassuring me with its leathery tang. And there before me, my jeweller was driving me, apparently impassively, to be displayed as his companion before the great and glittering.
“Are you all right back there, Miss Bluebird?”
I must have pulled a face, or something, which he’d caught in the rear view mirror. “Yes, thank you, sir.”
“Good, you looked nervous. Don’t be. It’s not like having your teeth pulled out.”
That’s for me to decide, I thought. To change the subject, I asked him, “Sir – have you ever heard of any unusual creatures living in the sea at Caledon Sound?”
“How unusual?”
It was a fair question. Most of Caledon was unusual in some respect. I described what I had seen, and in the rear view mirror, I saw him grin. “Never heard of the Loch Ness Monster, Miss?”
Actually, I had, and returned a clueless gape.
“Well, she’s real and she lives here. She’s nothing to be afraid of; she’s actually quite shy, but if you’re nice to her, she’ll let you ride on her.”
Of course. So the Loch Ness Monster was real, and let you ride on her. Right. I forced my gape into a look that was supposed to mean, “Indeed, sir,” but probably appeared as incipient carsickness.
Miss Crumbleigh-Quandybarre’s residence was meant to impress. Meant to impress shopgirls, at least. It was clearly a focus for luminaries, since Mr Whybrow had to park fifty yards from the house as a lot of other carriages were already there.
“Ten minutes late. Never a good idea to be the first at a function, Miss Bluebird,” he told me, with a scrunch of handbrake ratchet.
I fought my way through layers of skirt to reach the door handle, but with the dexterity of the Queen’s own coachman, he descended and held the door open for me. It felt wrong, getting out with him as the servant, but I took heart in the gesture. He was showing the world that I was definitely more than a shopgirl. I was His Lady.
That was all the reassurance that I needed. As he took my arm and led me to the house, I took a deep breath for courage. This is your debut as his companion. A celebration, not an ordeal.
Not an easy thing to keep in mind when our hostess was waiting to greet us, with The Bucket foremost in her memory. I sensed other eyes following us. I could almost hear the claws being filed to needle points. Our bubbly hostess took on an altogether different and rather awful aspect.
To be continued……………..
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