Clockwork Phantom

Chapter 4-1

4

Théâtre Bohème Townhouse, 2 December 1870

“Where is she?” Lucille swept into the room. Papers swirled in the eddy caused by her flinging the door open, and Iris dove to pluck her Greek Pottery I—Prehistoric through Archaic Periods notes from the floor so they wouldn’t end up under the Frenchwoman’s boots.

“I take it you mean Marie, Madame?” Iris asked in as polite a tone as she could muster while she straightened the stack in her hands. She reflexively looked around for her gloves, as she typically did when Lucille was near.

“Yes, Marie. She is needed to read through the play this morning.” Lucille’s black gaze swept through the room as if she could make Marie materialize from the books and notebooks that covered every surface.

“I think she was headed to the theatre to review the script.”

Lucille’s brows drew down in a black V. “The Théâtre Bohème is a large building, and she could be anywhere.”

The defeated expression that flickered over Lucille’s face made Iris blurt out before she could stop herself, “I’ll help you look for her.”

“Bien.”

Now Lucille beamed at her, and Iris wondered again just how much of what Lucille did and said was real and how much an act to manipulate others. She was coming to a ratio of about seventy to thirty percent unreal to real. Iris found Lucille to have a dizzying array of expressions like her own mother, but unlike Adelaide, Lucille didn’t always seem to feel the emotion she projected.

Or did she?

“I need a break from this, anyway,” Iris mumbled.

“Pretty girls do not mumble,” Lucille said, and her voice and accent were juxtaposed in Iris’s mind over Adelaide’s.

“I said I need to take a break from this organizational effort,” Iris said and enunciated clearly, perhaps exaggeratedly. Not that her schoolwork looked very organized.

Lucille either didn’t notice or chose not to respond. She swept out of the room, and Iris followed her after making sure no notes flew too far. She glanced up the staircase toward the atelier, as Marie called it, where Edward worked on his aether-based lighting system. He hadn’t come down to dinner again last night, or to breakfast that morning. She’d been so focused on her exams she didn’t remember the last time she saw him, and now guilt sagged between her chest and stomach.

“Lucille, are the servants feeding Professor Bailey?” she asked.

“I believe so, yes,” Lucille said over her shoulder. “He says he is getting close. But he has been approaching close for months now and never reaching it.”

“I know. I’m worried about him.”

“As well you should be. He seems possessed by a certain madness.”

Lucille’s words made Iris’s stomach clench, and she almost stumbled on the stairs. “What kind of madness do you mean?”

“He is one who will always lose himself in his work. It is not a bad thing, Mademoiselle, but men like that require extra care. And patience.”

They reached the front hall, and Lucille turned to Iris so suddenly Iris almost bumped into the older woman.

“Sometimes no matter how hard we try, we are not enough.”

“What do you mean?” Iris asked. She found her gloves on the side table where she’d set her books the day before.

“You cannot hope to change him if you want to truly love him. Many women have ended up in unhappy relationships because they think they can transform a man into what they want him to be. In some cases, you merely have to accept.”

Iris nodded as though she believed the woman’s words, but she didn’t allow the disappointment they engendered to take root. She didn’t want to think that this would be her life with Edward, not seeing him for months at a time, always wondering if he loved her more than, or at least as much as, his science. She loved archeology and him equally—at least she thought she did.

Some impulse made her ask, “Is that what happened with Marie’s father?”

Lucille barked a laugh and opened the front door. “Ha! No, mademoiselle. We had an arrangement. I wanted a daughter. He wanted a no-strings-attached dalliance. It was not a traditional arrangement, but it worked for us.”

“What if you’d had a son?” Iris followed Lucille along the sidewalk. “You can’t determine the gender of a baby.”

“There are things one can do, but you are too young and innocent to know of them.”

Iris fought to keep her shoulders from slumping, as they wanted to do when she ran up against the wall of women’s wisdom she was “too young and innocent” to be worthy of learning. It was one of Marie’s favorite conversation-avoiding tactics.

I guess I know where she learned it from.

The gloom of the theatre enveloped Iris along with the smells of old wood and the paint the scenery-smiths were busy using for the new production pieces.

Lucille paused in front of the ticket window and flared her nostrils. “There is something… You take the main auditorium and backstage areas.”

“Where will you search?” Iris asked. She reached through the connection she had with Marie but couldn’t feel anything.

I should be able to feel her if she’s nearby unless she’s asleep.

“The dressing rooms and passages.”

“Secret passages?” Iris took her hand. “Oh, let me search with you! I knew there must be some in a building like this.”

“No, Mademoiselle, it will be too dangerous.” Lucille’s eyes flashed like faceted jet beads in the flickering gaslight. “You stay where you can run if you need to and tell Marie to get back to the townhouse as soon as you find her, if you find her and we are not too late. I fear he is back!”

“Who?” Iris grabbed for Lucille, but the theatre owner had already dashed into the hall beside the ticket booth.

Who is he? What is going on here? Iris moved toward the auditorium through the nearest door, but a chill settled on her shoulders like the gaze of a malevolent spirit.

Don’t be silly, you’re letting your imagination run away with you.

But evil spirits belong in the myths of the past, not in the scientific present, don’t they? Whatever was happening, she felt a flicker of Marie’s panic and hastened into the auditorium.