Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [54]
Such was to be my last sight and memory of that small haven, once so peaceful and undisturbed, for many a day to come. The carriage clattered on towards the dark boundaries of the city, and beyond.
PART TWO
An Evening's Entertainment
8
The Complete Destruction of the Earth
Long periods of travel induce a somnolence that neither refreshes the body nor soothes the mind. Whether one is enduring the nauseating roll of a ship caught between the crests and troughs of the ocean, or having one's spine jerked by the lurching crash of a carriage's wheels in the ruts and holes of England's roads, the effect is the same. One cannot sleep; dismal vistas pass by one's gaze, in day or night; one swallows over and over again the sour, nagging protest of one's digestion, rising constantly into the throat; comfort there is none, nor peace sufficient to order and reconnect the thoughts shaken against each other like the fragments of a crumbled mosaic.
I have little patience with the Oriental maxim It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. (Who has not savoured the delicious pleasure of stepping once more on to motionless ground and feeling one's muscles and bones sweetly unlock themselves?) Rather I believe that, if a dull and cramped Hell were to be one's final punishment, it would be best achieved in a perpetually rolling carriage.
Such was the nature of my reflections, once the initial excitement of my flight from the hands of the street mob had ebbed. We passed the greater portion of the journey in an uncomfortable silence. From time to time I would open my eyes and look about the vehicle's dim interior, lit only by the moon and starlight slanting through the side windows. Across from me, Miss McThane had managed to fall asleep, her mouth open to emit a soft, ladylike snore. Beside her, Scape sat with folded arms and chin heavy on his chest; his blue spectacles made it impossible to determine if he was unconscious or merely sunk in the contemplation of further villainy. When we had first left the precincts of the city, the carriage entering the deep quiet of the Kentward road, he had spent some time bending down to inspect the mahogany cabinet on the floor; he had at last given up the attempt to fathom the mysteries of the device owing to a lack of sufficient light. Abel – the only creature inside the carriage worthy of my trust, Creff being stationed atop with the driver – rested his chin oil my leg, only closing his eyes in an ecstatic swoon whenever my hand strayed to scratch behind his ears.
My own thoughts – or fragments thereof – chased and battered themselves against my brow. I knew not where we were bound, nor what my reception would be when we arrived. Perhaps I had been inveigled thus to my own murder; one attempt towards this end had already been encountered by me; of the circumstances that had delivered me from the cold embrace of the Thames, I still awaited explanation. Certain it was that ruthless forces had arrayed themselves in the London night: the corpses of Fexton and the Brown Leather Man attested to that. (The vision of the latter overturning the ruffians' boat I was even more certain of being a delusion; the sight of the poor man's fatal wounds remained sharp in my memory.) If Scape and his employer Bendray were not in league with these desperate men, there was still little else to recommend them to my confidence. Surely, I asked myself as the back of my head jolted against the carriage's thinly padded leather, surely these people were insane? How else account for the lunatic blasphemy of their attentions upon the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe? (A blasphemy, and lunacy, that I bitterly knew was