Steampunk Jack

Chapter Nine: Getting to know you,

They took a hansom cab back to James’s apartment, the scientist not wanting to strain Anne by having her float halfway across London. The ghost woman headed back into the house, and James waved Emily off as he followed. The dejected girl reluctantly headed home to help her father with dinner.

His living room, nestled at the top of the stairs just above the workshop, was small but full of plush leather seating. Framed drawings of various bits of technology covered the walls, and a thick charcoal and blue carpet softened the hard wood floors. Anne watched as James walked up to a beautifully painted globe and pushed down on the white Arctic.

The globe whirred and a glass slid out of a compartment in the side, a spout popping out of Russia. A simple bit of upward pressure from the glass’s rim caused the nozzle to fill it with an amber colored whisky. He walked over to a couch and sat down, swirling the alcohol in its glass before taking a sip. “So why don’t you tell me about yourself. I wager we’re going to be sharing lodgings for a bit, so I might as well know all about you. I mean you were a witch, I know that, but a profession doesn’t quite describe a person.”

“I still am a witch apparently; I can still manipulate life energies which is rather amusing…all things considered.” Her tone was sharp, and she winced. “I apologize. That wasn’t how I meant that to come out.

“I concede the truth in your statement about manipulating energies, and as for a sharp tone…” James smiled and shrugged. “I do think you’ve earned a bit of surly muttering.”

Anne nodded her thanks. “Well, I was born in London, my mother’s only child.”

“What about your father?”

“He divorced her to marry his mistress. My stepmother wanted nothing to do with me so I never saw the man after I was seven. My only other relative is my cousin Elbert.”

“Isn't he the bloke who threw rocks at cattle?”

“Yes, Elbert is… well as Emily would so charmingly put it a wanker. Though at his core he has a good heart. My mother was a good woman. She taught me all about magic and medicine, and the legacy of Campbell women since before the burning times. She passed away, about a year and a half ago, of a wasting sickness.”

“She left her shop to me, Whitechapel may be one of the worst places in London to own property, but it was mine. I took over for her, giving out medicines, and sometimes a bit of magic, the rest of the time was spent delivering babies.”

“You were a midwife then? I had wondered, due to your apron.”

“Yes, actually, I was on my way home from delivering a beautiful baby boy when I was killed.” Anne sat there quietly, it was hard to accept that there were so many things she would never get to do now, things she had planned for, dreamt of. She would never be a mother, never hold a son, or teach her daughter magic. She would never know the pleasures of a well-warmed bed, as she had been saving herself for someone who could accept the occult mysteries that was part of her life.

She watched as James took another sip of the whisky, or brandy she wasn’t sure which. She swallowed wishing she could taste the liquor. It would’ve been nice to burn the sick feeling out of her stomach with a dram of something.

“What about you James? I am haunting you.” she waggled her fingers in a semi menacing way, “but I know very little about you other than you are frighteningly intelligent, and have perhaps a bit more cleverness than is healthy.”

James laughed then poured himself another glass of liquid.

“Come now James, surely the inventor has a story or two to tell.”

“Nothing as fascinating as being raised a witch.”

Anne chuckled. “I’m not so convinced of that.”

James smiled as Anne continued to try and wheedle information about his past out of him. “Very well, if you really must know.”

Anne smirked. “Well… normally before I enter into any form of a long-term relationship with a gentleman I do try to get to know them.” She commented wryly. “Seeing as I managed to haunt you first, I feel I’m doing things a bit backwards. I must correct my misstep before you begin to think me a trollop.”

“I assure you, dear lady, that I have not suspected any such thing to be part of your character. At least, not since you corrected my previous error in regard to your virtue.” He chuckled, smiling at the ghost woman. “I have, over these last few days, found you to be above reproach.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Now stop stalling.”

“I am wounded by your, admittedly valid, accusation.” The inventor chuckled. “Where shall I start?”

“Perhaps by telling me about the parents who were forced to suffer you before myself.” Anne teased.

“Of course, Lord and Lady St. Cloud,” He chuckled, draining his glass and just as quickly refilling it. “Mother and Father, never was I allowed to call them Mum or Da.”

“A lord, are you?”

“Blessed lord no! Nor will I ever be.” James’s tone suggested that fact pleased him. “I’m the second son, so I am saved from that fate… though I will allegedly inherit a percentage of stock in the family’s vineyards and other businesses. I think father told me recently that I am a one third share owner in my own ship, actually.” He shrugged, as if that was of no consequence.

Anne, however, was suitably impressed. “You own a ship?”

“Only a third of one.” He replied, scowling. “My Father, who controls my business accounts, and made the purchase coincidentally, and my brother Phillip own the other two thirds. I believe it ships tobacco from the Americas, or something of that nature.”

“You’re bloody rich!” She exclaimed.

“From nothing but a little cargo ship? No…” James scoffed. “Granted, I haven’t the foggiest idea how much tobacco goes for in bulk, but it can’t be that much. The only reason for it is my Father’s insistence that we all keep our portfolios diverse or something like that.” He shrugged, taking another deep draw from his scotch glass.

“You have the audacity to claim you aren’t rich.” This time it was Anne who scoffed.

“Oh no, I’m quite wealthy.” James seemed almost embarrassed as he made that concession. “The family runs import and export concerns as well as vineyards and distilleries for nearly two centuries if my memory can be trusted. In fact, this scotch is from a family-owned maker. I’m merely claiming I am not the one to make myself thus.”

Anne lifted an eyebrow at what her yeoman’s upbringing told her was him splitting hairs. She watched him refill his emptied glass once more and asked. “So you’re brother’s a business man and lord-in-training?”

“Oh how mother would dance, were that true.” James crowed. “No… Phillip is an army physician, coming close to the end of a tour in India as I recall. He’s the adventurous brother, you see. My father was proud, since the St. Clouds have a long military tradition.”

“You are not part of that, however.” Anne observed.

“No.” James nodded with a grin. “I’m a coward!”

“Oh I doubt that.” Anne assured him, convinced it was a lie from his almost proud tone. “I suspect it has more to do with the fact that you are a bit duck footed.”

“Feet flat as a plank, that’s me.” He nodded. “Relegated me to being Mother’s favorite, or so Phillip always claimed.”

Anne nodded. “So if you’re as wealthy as I now suspect…”

“Frankly dear woman, I’m probably wealthier than I expect.” he said, saluting with his glass before draining it once more.

“That being the case… why teach at a relatively small University?” James, now finished with his third glass of scotch, filled his tumbler a fourth time. Anne, noting both his slightly wobbly stance and the size of the glass, shook her head at his inebriation. She blinked as she realized she, too, was feeling strangely dizzy.

“Now that’s exactly what father asked.” He assured her. “’Why teach? Come help me with the family businesses or at the very least invest in one or two of your own!’”

James shook his head, sneering. “Okay, so granted I recently bought a small… infinitesimal really since I insisted that be the case… stake in Porter and Son but that was to help friends fill a big order for horseless hansoms, and the expansion that required! So what? I am a teacher, and as such my product is well schooled engineers, my custom the society they will help improve!”

Anne could only watch as his gaze went into the distance, almost with the same expression as a statue of a praying saint. “You speak as though teaching is like taking holy orders!”

“I’m not sure it’s as different as you might think, Dear Anne.” He admitted. Then he looked at his once again empty glass. A glass he refilled once more.

Anne, shaking her head… partially to clear it and partially at the intensity of his feelings for teaching, drifted over to a pedestal and the cloth covered object upon it. “What, by the way, is this? It’s sitting here like a prized statue, but you’ve tossed a greasy rag over it.”

“That… is perhaps my greatest invention!” James declared, walking to it and whipping the cloth off. “Or, perhaps, my most despicable, I’ve never really been sure.”

The device was shaped, rudely, like a pistol. It was bulky on the top, where a normal pistol was sleek, and it completely lacked the rotating cylinder of a revolver. Instead it had a thick body, and what looked like a winding key.

“What the devil is it? A gun?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” The professor nodded. “It’s a clockwork mechanism that fires heavy steel quarrels of one inch in length at speeds comparable to a light revolver… a twenty two caliber or the like.”

“I’m not exactly an expert on firearms, but I do know that’s not very impressive.”

“No?” Drunkenly he picked up the weapon and pointed it at a small cabinet in a far corner. “Watch this!”

“Wait…”

She was already too late; he’d twisted the key twice with quick, decisive jerks and pulled the trigger. With a soft but distinct clacking it spat out one of the darts he had described. Then another. Followed by another. Within a heartbeat ten darts had ripped into the oaken chest, buried half way through the heavy wood. “It contains about thirty of the devilish things, and can fire them all in half a minute.” He commented. “The actual production model design… which I burned by the way… would have been a rifle with a hundred of the god awful things.”

“Why’d you invent something like that?” Anne demanded.

He shrugged. “I saw one of those Winchester rapid-fire pistols… the multiple barrel nightmares the Americans are so fond of now. I thought them both horribly inefficient and, to be honest, smelly. This was my much cleaner idea to pitch to the British army. It wasn’t till I was finished that I had realized what I had wrought.” He sighed. “I realized I didn’t want all those dead on my conscience and so I destroyed all the plans. I keep meaning to melt this down, but it…” He shrugged.

“It’s a bit of a masterpiece.” Anne finished for him. “I can understand your hesitance… both to sell it and to destroy it.”

James nodded, before he drained his last glass. “I think I may be drunk.” He promptly declared.

“You did swallow what… four or five double measure scotches? I would not be shocked if you are quite drunk considering how slim you are.” Anne acknowledged, feeling tipsy herself without being sure why.

“Then to bed!” James declared, stumbling into his bedchamber and collapsing face first into the quilt.

Anne pursued him, and sat down next to him. Moments later she found herself lying down beside him. “You said this is my bed.” She muttered to him.

Apparently not yet passed out, James replied “Share it. I’m comfortable.”

“Fine. Be chilly, sleeping next to a ghost.” Anne muttered, drifting off herself. “A proper gent would at least roll onto the floor, instead of invading a decent woman’s bed without leave…” She quickly fell asleep, following the inventor who had already preceded her to Nod.