WILLIAM DAVEY
Considering a trip to India was one thing and undertaking it another. It was certainly not something to do lightly, even if I had made the decision quickly: there were many things to arrange and dispose before leaving my domain—more so than when I had merely traveled north of the River Tweed to Scotland for a few weeks. I might have put it off indefinitely: I tell that to myself now, but I don’t truly believe it.
But my hand was forced.
Early in September, Jackson informed me that one of his observers had reported the departure of Richard Daniel on a steamer bound east, for Cape Town, Madras and—likely—Calcutta. Dr. Daniel, now Ann Braid’s devoted husband, was no doubt on his way to look for the statue. He possessed less information than I did and fewer resources, at least of the mundane or even mesmeric sort, but he had allies among the stoicheia. I wondered at the time what further debt he might need to incur to call upon them for assistance.
We are everywhere, the Levantine had told me.
Everywhere. In England, and in India as well. Everywhere.
All roads led back to the statue, and the road to the statue was a passage to India. While I remained in Sydenham, I decided to pay a visit to the Crystal Palace to determine, if I could, what had prevented both Eliza—Fi, as she called her chthonic gaoler—and myself from carrying out our respective missions on that cold January day more than a year and a half earlier.
It was a much more pleasant day—warm, almost muggy, but a satisfying change from the oppressive heat of London. Still, by the time I reached the Railway Colonnade attached to the train platform, I was overheated and sweating. I had only a few minutes to compose myself however, before a train came into the station, bearing expected passengers.
Jackson disembarked haltingly and carefully with Bray beside him. As usual, Bray looked as if he’d not had a decent meal in weeks; he reached out tentatively to help Jackson descend. Whatever assistance was offered was ignored, as always: my lame friend had little interest in showing any sign of weakness. In fact, he looked furious as he made his way toward me, Bray following behind.
“Do you know who is on that train, Will?” he said as he reached me.
“Carlyle.”
“Yes. Carlyle. In the first-class cabin, if you please. He didn’t so much as try to make eye contact with me—beneath his notice, I suppose. But I assume there is some reason for having him come out here.”
“I invited him to join us.”
“He despises you,” Jackson said. He looked over his shoulder at Bray. “Carlyle despises him,” he said.
Bray shrugged, and took my hand. “Davey,” he said.
“Thank you for coming, Charles. And I think that Jackson exaggerates Carlyle’s feeling toward me. He would despise me if he thought me worthy of it.”
I looked past the two men toward the press of disembarking passengers. Thomas Carlyle emerged from the first-class compartment; he looked around, scowling, until our eyes met. Gathering what dignity was possible on the crowded train platform, he strode toward me.
“There had better be a damn good reason,” Jackson said.
“He has some expertise in mathematics,” I said, stepping around Jackson and Bray and extending my hand to the famous author, who took it briefly and then let go as soon as minimal courtesy was satisfied.
“Reverend Davey,” he said. “Mr. Bray. Mr. Jackson.” He did not take their hands. His expression was that of someone who had just swallowed something unpleasant.
“I have obtained entry tickets for us,” I said and began to walk along the Colonnade, a covered walkway that led between two rows of plants to the foot of a broad staircase. Without speaking, the four of us climbed them slowly until we found ourselves in a dining hall—the second-class Refreshment Room—and continued onto a second staircase by which we attained the main floor level. The great nave was before us: a huge fountain and, behind it, an ornamental screen that partially blocked our view of the rest of the hall.
“I am sure there is some clever reason we are here,” Carlyle said as we stood there, letting other guests stream around us.
“Extend your senses, Carlyle,” I said. “See if you can perceive the magnetic auras of anyone around you.”
Carlyle cocked his head at me, but obligingly closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them.
“This is where Esdaile did away with himself,” Carlyle said. “You were to end his life, but he ended it for you.”
“Yes. It wasn’t quite here—we were in the middle of the nave, that way—” I pointed past the screen toward the great hall beyond. “But it was in this building.”
Carlyle craned his neck and looked around him. “This hall is quite different from the original.”
“The guidebook is quite explicit on the differences. What interests me most is that this design interferes with the use of the Art and with the powers of chthonic—and possibly other—spirits. I thought it was high time we found out why.”
“Is there a specific reason I am involved in this grand enterprise?”
“As it happens, Carlyle, yes. If I might have a brief word with you in private.” I stepped away toward the stairs; Jackson and Bray obligingly remained in place, while Carlyle reluctantly accompanied me until we were fifty or sixty feet away.
“We are not close,” I said quietly. “But I do respect your capabilities and your talents.”
“You showed none of that when we met in Edinburgh.”
“You demonstrated a remarkable ability to resist my inclinations. That impressed me quite a bit.”
“You were making an unnecessary demonstration.”
“I am not here to argue about that, Carlyle.”
“Nor to offer an apology, I’d wager.”
“Not that either. I am not seeking your friendship, nor looking to make any sort of demonstration. More than ever, I am determined to find the elusive statue—though I am no longer convinced that I should possess it. But I am convinced that Ann should not.”
Carlyle did not answer aloud; he nodded, either in agreement with the sentiment, or merely that he understood my intention.
“I have therefore determined that I must go to India to find it. Richard Daniel appears to have already begun that journey. Accordingly, I have decided to appoint a deputy during my absence.”
“I am therefore being asked to cooperate with Mr. Jackson, I suppose.”
“Yes, but not in the way you expect. I have determined that I should appoint you.”
Carlyle was clearly taken aback. “Me?”
“Yes. You’re skilled, as I say, and you’re well known on both sides of the border. The Scots respect you; the English will defer to you. You move in better circles than I do, and you are not perceived as my friend.”
His expression confirmed my statement; but he thought for a moment and said, “And if things go awry, you can blame them on me.”
“Just so.”
“Clever. Didn’t Quillinan do the same thing?”
“Yes, but for him it was a permanent transfer of power. When I return from India, I intend to reassume my former position, and will not expect to have to challenge you in order to do so.”
“What makes you think I would give it up willingly?”
I looked over at Jackson and Bray, and then thought for a moment. But this was no more than stagecraft; I already had an answer.
“Because I am certain that, after a few months, you will realize how little you actually desire it.”
“And you invited me here to Sydenham to communicate this offer.”
“In part. But your mathematical expertise—and skill in the Art—may help give us insight into the reason the Crystal Palace interferes with our practices and with those of stoicheia, as well. If you’ve seen Magnus’s plaques and the Major-General’s key and made any sense of them, they may provide additional insight.”
“When do you need my answer to your offer?”
“Now.”
“That’s rather abrupt, don’t you think? I would like to think it over.”
“You already have all of the information you require in order to make a decision; but I suppose if you need some time—a fortnight, then. If you accept, send me a telegram with the words ‘Crystal Palace.’ If you decline, send ‘Benjamin Brodie.’” Sir Benjamin Brodie was the former President of the Royal College of Surgeons; he had taken on Harriet Martineau, and generally held a very low opinion of mesmerism.
“And in the meanwhile—”
“We will explore the mysteries of the Crystal Palace,” I said, lazily twirling my walking stick.
When the Crystal Palace had closed in October 1851, there was considerable discussion as to what might be done with it. For a time, there was a negotiation with an American entrepreneur; but John Bull proved a bit too proud to let this jewel of Queen Victoria’s reign be packed off across the Atlantic. A group of gentlemen formed a joint-stock company; it was immediately oversubscribed, giving it the capital to purchase the land on which the new structure now stood, including the surrounding gardens and other facilities.
Not surprisingly, some of the partners were railway men. It was no idle choice: a separate line was laid down to serve the Palace itself, with passenger service terminating at the platform where I had met Carlyle and the others. Tracks also ran underneath the building itself into a twenty-four-foot-wide passageway that (according to the Phillips guidebook) was affectionately titled “Sir Joseph Paxton’s Tunnel,” after the overall designer of the building. This tunnel led to the furnaces and boilers that ran the machinery and kept the Palace heated in winter and allowed such items as tropical plants to flourish in England’s climate.
It also came as no surprise that the revised structure had been planned and executed on a scale significantly more grand than the original. Sydenham’s edition was almost twice as long, and its roof soared more than forty feet higher than its predecessor; including the lower level—available due to the sloping ground upon which it was constructed—the new Palace was altogether half again as spacious.
To his credit, Carlyle took to the problem at once, applying his intelligence and background to the Palace’s revised structure.
“They have changed the basic layout of the great transept,” he said as we stood at the junction of the nave and center transept, where I had met Esdaile many months ago. He gestured to the columns. “These pillars have been moved forward, so as to break up the sight-lines, I suppose, but they will certainly affect the background magnetic aura.”
“The spirits would collide with them,” Bray ventured.
“Yes.” Carlyle scowled at him. “Quite.”
“That cannot be accidental,” I suggested. “When Paxton redesigned the Palace, he must have chosen the pattern for a reason.”
“It breaks the building up into logical parts,” Carlyle said. “It might be some faux-artistic effort on Sir Joseph’s part. He is not known to be a practitioner of the Art.”
“But as Bray suggests,” I said, as we walked slowly toward the court that displayed Greek and Roman sculpture, “it does interfere with the free passage of non-physical beings. And the arrangement is regular.”
“Architecture. And structural dynamics,” Carlyle answered. “When they first built it, half of the architects in England thought the damn thing would fall down. It was assumed that the columns could not properly support the girders—but Sir Joseph was smarter than the lot.”
We reached Jackson and Bray just as he finished speaking.
“What about the harmonics?” Bray said.
“By which, you mean …?” Carlyle asked, giving me a glance as if to say, Is this why I would not want this job?
“Could not the vibrational effects of the structure interfere both with mesmeric auras and the abilities of stoicheia? They are quite sensitive to sound patterns.”
Carlyle considered this for a time, as if he were attempting to determine whether Bray was more or less of an idiot than he had originally thought.
“There may be some merit to that observation, Mr. Bray,” he said at last.
Less, I thought. I had told Jackson to bring him along due to his latent interest in spiritualism. Harriet Martineau would have been better, but she rarely traveled; Spencer Hall would have just been difficult and annoying. Bray’s insights might make him worthwhile—even if they merely bothered Carlyle, a prospect I found amusing.
“But surely,” I said, as we contemplated a series of Roman busts, “this design is intentional.”
“As I noted earlier, Paxton is no mesmerist, but he and Dickens were business partners for a short time,” Carlyle said. “Paxton has no truck with the Committee, but I do not know his capabilities.”
“I can’t imagine he’d find the time,” Jackson said. “‘Busiest man in England,’ isn’t he?”
“You are fond of jumping to conclusions, aren’t you, Jackson?” Carlyle said.
“I don’t quite know what you mean by that, Carlyle,” Jackson said, glancing from me to Carlyle and back again.
“He means that we should take nothing for granted,” I said. “I have assumed that neither Paxton nor James Fergusson—who passed the statue to Esdaile, you may recall—has any skill with the Art: but there is no actual evidence to support or contradict such a belief. There is only this.” I extended my arms and turned around, looking at the sun coming through the great glass tiles of the roof, a hundred and sixty feet away. “And James Esdaile knew about its properties—before he moved down here.”
“You are sure of that?” Carlyle asked.
“Quite sure,” I said. “The tableau I experienced in January 1859 was based on knowledge Esdaile obtained years earlier, Carlyle. He planned to be here when he died, so that Eliza’s chthonic inhabitant would not consume him.”
“And to thwart you,” Carlyle observed.
“Truly, I think that idea came later. Something changed his mind—something that happened around 1858—that led to his final letter to me.”
“Perhaps someone”—Carlyle glanced pointedly at Jackson—“should research the newspapers. See if any two-headed cows were born, if the moon was blood-red, or any other such omens presented themselves.”
“Your wit is tiresome,” Jackson snapped at him.
“And your impertinence is wearing, Mr. Jackson. Reverend Davey, I do not require any further tutelage in the arts and sciences, and do not care to spend any more of my valuable time discussing theoretical matters with you. I shall contemplate your offer”—again, he looked pointedly at Jackson, then back at me—“and will respond to you presently. Good day, sir.” He tipped his hat to me, turned his back and walked briskly away toward the south entrance and the train platform.
After a few uncomfortable moments, Bray excused himself and followed. I’d learned what I might from him; he might be going off to curry favor with Carlyle, but I didn’t truly care.
“What an ass Carlyle is,” Jackson said to no one in particular, once Carlyle was out of earshot.
“Tread lightly, Johnny,” I said. “You may be working for that ass soon.”
“Eh?”
“I have determined that I am finally going to go to India. I have to find the statue before others find it. And in my absence, I’ve asked Carlyle to assume control of the Committee.”
“You’ve what?”
“As I said.”
He looked me up and down, as if trying to evaluate what he’d just heard. “I am impressed with you,” he said at last. “You have managed to encompass two insane ideas at the same time.”
“I think you exaggerate.”
“Yes, Will. It’s called ‘hyperbole.’ All the rage.”
“Look, I don’t see—”
“No. You don’t. You’ve decided to travel to India. This is wrong-headed for two reasons: first, Ann Daniel is a ticking bomb, and despite her current injuries she will certainly stir up trouble.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Well, I’m quite happy to hear it. But second—” He stared off into the middle distance, then glanced back at me. “Second, this is not a good time to go to India. They’re still hanging the mutineers and burning down their villages. I can’t imagine that there is any brown-skinned man with a turban on his head who would have any interest in talking with you.”
“I won’t scruple to ask their permission.”
“They are often armed with wicked knives, Will.”
I ignored the last remark. “I am going to India, Johnny. It’s decided and that’s final. It’s where the statue is; I need to find it before Ann Daniel—or one of her associates—finds it.”
“Assuming the best outcome, you’ll be gone eight months. Your solution to the possible mischief is the second thing that strikes me as insane: your choice of successor.”
“I’m not resigning.”
“You’re going into terrible danger, and there are a good double handful of our friends and colleagues who would be thrilled with the idea that you might never come back.”
“I prefer to consider Carlyle my agent, acting on my behalf here in Britain while I am abroad. When I return, I shall take the reins again. If he does well, I will be pleased and he may go from being a rival to being a friend. If he does poorly, he will be a better scapegoat than any of my actual friends.”
“You do not have that many friends.”
“He will be a better scapegoat than you, Johnny.”
“I doubt it. I have great skill in that area. But I am also adept at avoiding the usual fate of such creatures. I don’t know why you don’t just appoint me and be done with it.”
“You are not paying attention. I have chosen whom I have chosen not because he is a friend, but because he is not a friend. Quillinan told me—”
“Not recently, I daresay.”
You might be surprised, I thought to myself, recalling my dream of Holyrood Abbey. “Quillinan told me why he’d picked me, despite his low opinion of me. I am under no illusions that my deputed agent will conduct himself as I have done. But that’s why I have you.”
“He’ll bring in his own man.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “He doesn’t have that many friends, either.”
The gathering in Vernon’s rooms was unusually small. We were assembled at a dining table; I sat at the head, Carlyle at my right and Jackson at my left. Hall and Higginson, Bray and Elliotson and a few others were there, including Lord Adare, a well-born dilettante, and the American “levitator,” D.D. Home, who was visiting London—but fortunately no Forbes. Dickens was absent, of course, as was Engledue: he had been making himself even more scarce than was customary for someone thought to be dead. They were all curious about Carlyle’s presence.
Let them wait, I thought.
I presented, in brief, what I had learned in Scotland and Manchester and through my additional interview with Eliza Esdaile. The attendees, quieter and more pensive then they had been a year ago, followed my reasoning and deductions.
When I informed them that I intended to follow Richard Daniel and depart for India, they were less sanguine.
“I believe you should send someone in your place, Davey,” Elliotson told me. There were murmurs of approval: with the most difficult troublemakers absent, Elliotson’s opinions carried weight. “It is far too dangerous, and your duties are primarily here.”
“Who would you propose that I send?”
“Send Engledue,” Alfred Higginson said. “No one there thinks he’s dead.”
“I do not think he would carry out either my or the Committee’s mandate.”
“You find him untrustworthy?” Elliotson asked.
“Unreliable, Dr. Elliotson,” I answered. To be honest, it did seem to me that Engledue had gone a bit round the bend in the past several months. “Which amounts to the same thing.”
“I suppose that it does.”
“It is my feeling that the Committee is best served if I take this matter directly in hand. I am the most skilled practitioner we have—” I waited to see if Adare, or Elliotson, or any of the others cared to suggest otherwise; none did. “And I expect that there are things in train there that we have not anticipated. In the meanwhile, I have chosen someone to act on my behalf. He has my full faith and confidence, and has enough skill and discipline to accomplish what is required.”
“You have discussed this with the membership, Reverend Davey?” Lord Adare asked me. His voice had taken on a paternal, somewhat lecturing tone.
“This is not a parliamentary debate, my Lord. It is my decision to make.”
“Surely, on a matter of such import—”
“Excuse me, my Lord,” I interrupted him. The nobleman stopped speaking. He was clearly unaccustomed to being contradicted. “It is my decision. If you feel otherwise, the Committee has a long-established procedure for contravening or ratifying such decisions.”
The men at the table were quiet; they all looked down at Adare, whom I fixed with a steady gaze.
“I am not making a formal challenge, Reverend. I assume that you will do as you think best.”
And if you fail we’ll come and cut your throat, he might have added. That was assuming, of course, that some brown-skinned man with a turban and a wicked knife hadn’t done it already.
“Yes. And what I think best at this time is to appoint an interim Chairman of the Committee. Gentlemen, I give you my choice: Mr. Thomas Carlyle.”