Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [166]
“I will do my best for Richmond,” I said, “if that is your concern.”
“My concern is not only for him, but for Christine.”
“I have no authority over the spirit world. Were I to promise a satisfactory conclusion in that regard, you would be within your rights to question my veracity.”
She maintained her reserve. “I doubt myself, Samuel. I wonder if I can make you a suitable wife. Although Christine taught me how to play the lady, that veneer is thin, as you witnessed the other morning. I understand why you would wish to return to Wales with me. Here in London I would be no asset to your career.”
I objected to this, but she took my hand and said, “Please, Samuel! We must be forthright with each other.”
“It is true,” I said. “I was initially fearful that my career would be damaged by our union, but as my thoughts on the subject evolved, I feared mainly for you. I did not want you to suffer the scorn that would be heaped upon you by the doyennes of polite society should your past be revealed. Now that we have reached this pass, however, I realize your strength is sufficient to withstand such treatment. You have endured far worse. And I must not allow the course of my career to be dependent on the views of people who belong to a world that is fast disappearing. If you wish to remain in London, remain we shall.”
“Perhaps that can be a subject for later discussion?”
“Of course.”
She glanced up into the elm leaves, as though attracted by some movement there. “Do you think you know me, Samuel? I have been honest with you concerning my past, but I have a great capacity for self-deception. I may have painted myself too much the victim so as to draw you in.”
“No one is immune to self-deception,” I said. “I doubt the human race would survive without it. As for knowing you, I cannot imagine that any two people at this stage of their lives know each other completely. They can only anticipate learning about the woman or the man they love.”
“I have one last question,” she said. “I know that your politics predisposes you to have an affection for the underprivileged. Am I to be, then, a kind of political proof, living evidence of that predisposition? A token of your political views, as it were?”
“Were I a creature of the type who populates the rolls of the Inventors’ Club, I would never have looked at you as other than an object of lust,” I said. “To that extent, politics has played a part in this—it has assisted me in perceiving you for the woman you are. But I swear, that is the only part it played.”
She drew a breath and released it slowly. “Then I will gladly be your wife, in London or in Wales. That is, if you still want me after all these quibbles and qualifications.”
We embraced, albeit not for long—prying eyes peered at us through the rear windows of the tearoom—and then left that place, that bench, and its overshadowing elm. I told Henry Bladge to drive us round Hyde Park. It was a rare lovely day, a high, blue day accented by puffs of cloud, and warm for the first week in March, with flights of swallows banking above Kensington Gardens and people taking their ease on the green lawns; but Jane and I hid ourselves behind the curtains of the coach, kissing and conjuring a future together that, for all its optimism and halcyon vision, had not the slightest chance of coming true.
RICHMOND BEGAN TO install his new machine several days later and, as the two machines that cleansed the air had been shut down (the one that summoned Christine was not, its operation signaled by a throbbing hum, not the louder, steady rumbling of the others), I took the opportunity to climb up to the roof through a trapdoor accessible by means of a ladder and located in the ceiling close to the elevator. From my vantage on the western side of the roof, standing in a thick carpet of black dust, it seemed I was at the center of a choppy