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To: Tristan Dellacourt, Viscount Whitlake
My Dear Viscount Whitlake,
Thank you for the information which you have communicated at such length.
I fear no definite conclusions can be drawn from the evidence of the
orangutan. I regret to say, there is little that may be done at this
point, unless you are prepared to produce the crocodile.
Yr. Obedient Servant,
Detective Inspector Bucket
Scotland Yard
A Princess of Wittgenstein
Jennifer Stevenson
“Now, Ileen, the Penderby residence is capacious, so you will sleep in your own room, rather than share with the other maids, as is more common in London. I gather that things were otherwise for you in...Paris?”
“Yes, M’sieur Soames, very different. I am most happy to serve in the house of the great scientist Docteur Horace Penderby.”
“Er, yes. Although it is to Mrs. Penderby that you owe your position here.”
“Quoi?”
“Mrs. Penderby is a founder of the Society for a Broader Definition of Humanity.”
“I assure you, M’sieur Soames, I am human.”
“Er, yes. Of course.”
“As are you.”
“I see you are curious. Very well, on this one occasion I will satisfy your natural question.”
“Thank you, M’sieur Soames, I should like to be satisfied.”
“Although in future it would be impertinent to pursue the matter.”
“Yes, M’sieur Soames.”
“If you would accompany me downstairs. As you have guessed, Ileen, I am one of Dr. Penderby’s automata. He endowed me with the equivalent of an Etonian education, with one additional year of Oxford in his own specialties, so that I may assist in the laboratory. I have a chassis which satisfactorily mimics the human frame, such that visitors are not unduly alarmed by my appearance, and a minute understanding of etiquette, household management, London society’s practices and customs, in short, everything necessary to make the ideal butler for such an establishment as this one.”
“M’sieur Soames is indeed marvellous.”
“I am also capable of handling the wild beasts which reside—through this door—in the laboratory, which was once the ballroom. We have an orangutan, a crocodile, rabbits, agoutis, and smaller mammals and lizards. It will be one of your duties to assist me. I trust you are not afraid of God’s creatures?”
“But no. I, too, am one.”
“Er. Of course.”
“And did Docteur Penderby provide you also with a soul?”
“Automata do not require them. I have a mandate to which I refer, which aids in my self-direction.”
“But Docteur Penderby is the author of They Are All Alive—”
“Those pamphlets were penned by Mrs. Penderby. It is a topic on which master and mistress...differ.”
“Oh.”
“Do not look so stricken, girl. Mrs. Penderby will discuss your soul, if you choose, as exhaustively as you could wish. Dr. Penderby is easily satisfied, provided his staff do not faint, scream, or indulge in hysterics above once or twice a week.”
M’sieur Soames is satirical.”
“I fear not. We suffer rather a high turnover of staff. It is the orangutan, principally. He forgets his trousers.”
“He does not mistake the maids for orangutans, does he, M’sieur?”
“I am gratified to report that he has stopped short of such an outrage. Er, Ileen.”
“Yes. M’sieur Soames?”
“Have you—that is to say, you seem to me—er, where are you from originally?”
“Wittgenstein, M’sieur Soames.”
“Fancy. I see. Hm. Thank you, Ileen, that will be all.”
oOo
“And I told him, my dear Gwendolyn, Piffle. An automaton of one hundred percent synthetic parts is no more nor less a creation of science than one that combines organic and mechanical elements.”
“And why is that, Horace?”
“Don’t look so crafty, my dear. It doesn’t suit you. What difference could it possibly make?”
“So the bishop argued that to use cadaver parts would be to risk contaminating your automaton with some remnant of the divine spark that once animated the corpse?”
“Not that word at table, my love. The servants. What must Soames think, or poor Ileen, only here a day?”
“You need not patronize me, Horace. I was your assistant until I lost the baby. I saw many a corpse on the slab.”
“Quite so, quite so.”
“That was, of course, before you created your own assistant. A more discreet one than I, I am sure.”
“Gwendolyn, you mistake. I treasure your interest in my work—”
“If it is silent interest.”
“Not silent!”
“Uncritical, then.”
“You wrong me, Gwendolyn.”
“That will never do.”
“Your womanly scruples are a very necessary counter-balance to the cold, inquiring mind of a scientist.”
“I don’t object to you inquiring, Horace. But you were not used to be cold. I fear that exposure to certain scientific minds—”
“My fellows in the Royal Society are of the highest character—”
“Do not freeze me, Horace, I beg you. But if it is not their influence that has chilled you, then whose?”
“No one’s!”
“Then why do you avoid me? If I could have another child, would you—”
“You are imagining things, Gwendolyn.”
“That also will never do. More hot water, please, Ileen?”
“No more for me, thank you. I have—I have a meeting this evening, and must be from home at the supper hour.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see—oh, what’s the use!”
oOo
“Soames, I shall receive Viscount Whitlake and Mr Danton this evening in the library. And, er, as Mrs. Penderby is attending her own meeting from home, it will not be necessary to, er, trouble her with my guest list. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not that the gentlemen are unwelcome here.”
“Far from it, sir.”
“No. Precisely. Well, I’m off. Have brandy and cigars in the library by nine, and see that the fire is well along. Nine o’clock, mind. No earlier. Mustn’t ruffle Mrs. P.”
“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”
oOo
“Er, Ileen, have you finished with your duties abovestairs?”
“Yes, M’sieur Soames. You see I am bringing the shoes down to the mud room. That is the last?”
“It is. Ileen, I do not like to ask this in front of Cook or the boy, but there are certain matters of routine maintenance which, er, I feel sure that your Continental mind will be resilient enough to—that is, which you may approach in a purely impersonal manner—“
“Of course, M’sieur Soames. Where I come from, the upstairs maid is often required to service the major domo.”
“Oh, please! You mistake, I assure you. One would shrink from—I am not sure an automaton can—er—in short, here is this oil can. Do you suppose you can reach the back of my neck? It will, I fear, be necessary to remove my collar, for which breach of decorum I deeply apologize.”
“It makes nothing. M’sieur Soames.”
“Thank you, Ileen.
“This is the hole for me to put the oil?”
“It must be added slowly, one drop at a time, twenty drops. The oil is very fine, and the mechanism absorbs it slowly.”
“M’sieur Soames is a work of art. I had not noticed the hole. M’sieur Soames is synthetic?”
“Nearly. Certain organs function better than man’s makings.”
“But the limbs? The—the arms?”
“One hundred percent artificial. Ileen, your arm—”
“It was lost when I died, M’sieur Soames. This one is a substitute. So the skin tone differs.”
“It was not you who died, Ileen. Mrs. Penderby likes us to be correct in our speech. The previous occupant of your body died.”
“No doubt, but I have no memory of another body.”
“Were you not then translated into this one?”
“I do not know, M’sieur. I think not.”
“Do not blush, Ileen. Under Mrs. Penderby’s roof you must receive due respect as a full member of the human race. Everyone is a person here. Do you—are you soulless, then?”
“I—don’t know. I overheard them talking while I lay on the stone, so I ran away. You are shocked. Will you expose me, M’sieur Soames?”
“Of course not. Merely, I am surprised you were able to motivate the, er, body before a soul could be installed in it.”
“M’sieur Soames is well informed about a process that is illegal in England.”
“The master and his associates are very interested in the process. Do you not know whose your body was?”
“I remember nothing. And yet I feel...everything.”
“That must be distressing for you.”
“I contrive.”
“The thought of waking prematurely on the slab in a body so recently mutilated—I can only imagine—”
“There. Twenty drops, and no spills. Does M’sieur Soames bathe? Must the hole be covered? Merveilleuse! And the meat organs, have I said that right? They accommodate satisfactorily in every respect?”
“I apologize if I overstepped, Ileen.”
“M’sieur Soames disarms me. In a manner of speaking. You have said nothing about my color, M’sieur Soames.”
“I shouldn’t dream of passing remarks—”
“I am blue.”
“Er, a very attractive pale blue.”
“But not sufficiently attractive? Je regrette.”
“It was never my intention to make light of your situation.”
“Mais non, it is I who make light. If one may not laugh in adversity, life—or death—becomes very long indeed.”
“Your fortitude does you credit.”
“Absurde. And now to bed. M’sieur Soames is positive he wishes no additional service?”
“Ileen, really! You must not speak so saucily!”
“Oh, we are special, we two.”
“In this respect we are different, Ileen! An automaton is well-educated in the laws of decorum, A—a—”
“Promethean? Zombi? Corpse-monster? How do the English call me? The laws of decorum float outside my mind, as it were, in the bubble of my past life. I am aware of them, but I do not regard them. I feel driven to break them all, now, while I may, so that when—if—I am dragged back into my old class and my old decorum, I have at least amused myself with some little disobediences.”
“Disobedience is unwelcome in a servant, Ileen.”
“So I perceive. And yet, one may get away with a certain amount of...sauciness!”
“Good night, Ileen.”
“Bon soir, M’sieur Soames.”
oOo
“Good evening, Soames. Did your mistress go off to her meeting all right, then?”
“Yes, sir. Er, Dr. Penderby—”
“Well, Soames? She didn’t ask about my movements tonight, did she?”
“No, sir. But I discovered a piece of information that might interest—”
“About Mrs. Penderby? What?”
“No, sir. About the new maid, Ileen. The, er—”
“Promethean. Although with Mrs. Penderby out of the room I can say corpse-monster if I choose.”
“Sir, she is no monster.”
“No indeed. Pretty little thing, apart from the arm.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the blue skin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I suppose she must have suffocated.”
“Or drowned, sir. That may be my information. You recall when we removed to the Swiss mountains for three months, for Mrs. Penderby’s health?”
“Vividly. The only decent thing I got out of it was meeting Polidari himself, that stormy weekend.”
“Precisely. It is of the storm I would speak. You may recall that a pleasure boat foundered in the storm, and several lives were lost. Among them, sir, was a young princess from Wittgenstein. Princess Elena.”
“Hm.”
“All they ever found, sir, was one arm, wearing her rings. It was assumed she fell into the lake and became entangled with the paddlewheel, which severed the limb, thus causing her demise.”
“Great heavens, Soames! You think our new maid is the missing princess?”
“Just a feeling, sir. The arm. And she mentioned that she comes from Wittgenstein. She also speaks of having ‘waked upon the stone,’ and, hearing men speaking around her, she fled.”
“Great Scott!”
“Additionally, sir, I fancy that I recognize her. She was much present in our hôtel during our stay.”
“What, not that fashionable minx with the yaller hair? My word. That is interesting. Whitlake and Danton will be fascinated. Did she say whose soul they meant to translate into her?”
“That is another mystery, sir. Perhaps your theory is correct, and the soul departs the body before its worldly knowledge vanishes.”
“Or dissolves. Or fades. I wonder if she can remember anything between death and the slab? Oh, not consciously. But perhaps under mesmerism she might be made to recall—”
“Sir, I should suggest—”
“Danton is a decent mesmerist. I must suggest it to him.”
“There’s the doorbell, sir.”
“Quick, go get them inside before the other servants see them.”
“Immediately, sir. Oh, dear.”
oOo
“—Apparently before they were able to shove another soul into her body! What do you say to that, Penderby?”
“This would be Polidori’s translator?”
“Sir—”
“I must assume so. Who else was at the Work on that lake that week? She must have been very fresh, too. Clewis has narrowed the persistence of the energy body to seventy-two hours, and Polidori himself says the soul moves on much sooner. I’ll have to write to him and find out.”
“Sir—”
“Dammit, let’s have the girl down here and question her. Soames, go get her.”
“Sir, the maids have all gone to bed by now.”
“Oh. Well, for something like this surely we can hoik her out—”
“And Madam will be returning within the hour.”
“Damn.”
“Precisely, sir.”
“She’d chuck a dozen fits.”
“It also occurs to me, sir, that the maid Ileen may be painfully adverse to exploring her past—”
“Don’t forget, she’s a princess, Penderby.”
“Was. Was a princess, Whitlake. Maybe.”
“And if her soul or any portion of her identity survives, we could be—it might behoove us to tread carefully—”
“Good thinking, Danton. Potentially political situation. I’ll tell you what, I’ll write Clewis. He was up at the lake that week. If Polidari was up to anything, he would know.”
“Penderby, you don’t think they got hold of Her Highness’s corpse and deliberately—”
“Well, there she was, dead. And fresh as a daisy.”
“Very lucky chance, really.”
“Sort of thing doesn’t happen more than twice in a scientist’s lifetime.”
“Twice, Whitlake? I should have thought once.”
“Twice, three times, whatever. Some of us make our own luck.”
“So I’ll write Clewis, shall I? Ask casually about the death of the princess, was she acquainted with Polidori, sort of thing.”
“And have him across the Channel in forty seconds by the clock. You are an ass, Penderby.”
“Only if she’s one of his escapees.”
“And have him confiscate her before we’ve had a look!”
“Sir, if Madam should learn of Ileen’s precise origins, she might, er, choose to become the girl’s champion.”
“My God. You’re right. Not a word about this to my wife, Soames.”
“Sir, I find it increasingly uncomfortable to—”
“To what? Dammit, man, out with it!”
“To function on—on conflicted ground between you, sir.”
“You like your place, do you?”
“Shut up, Whitlake.”
“It upsets my mandate, sir.”
“He’s an automaton, remember, Whitlake? Penderby mandated him to obey them both.”
“Danton’s right, Penderby, you’re an ass. Man’s got to be supreme in his home, what?”
“Soames, I don’t mean to upset your mandate, but I don’t want to upset Mrs. Penderby either.”
“Don’t want a tongue-lashing, more like,”
“Couldn’t you simply...abstain from informing her? How bad would it be?”
“It gives me a—a tummyache, sir.”
“Oh, well. We can’t give a bloody butler a tummyache. What the hell’s the point of building your own servants if you give ‘em a conscience, Penderby, you ass?”
“I never did!”
“Well, he’s getting one now.”
“He has a tummyache!”
“It gives my wife a headache.”
“That’s not conscience, it’s hysteria.”
“The soul manifests its existence in many ways, Danton.”
“Pompous ass, Penderby. Under the cat’s foot, too. How the devil you can call yourself a scientist—“
“I believe I hear a carriage, sir. If you will permit me, I will go and open the door for madame.”
“Oh, Lord. You’ll have to sneak out the back, gentlemen.”
“Master in your own home, Penderby, there’s nothing like it.”
“She’s a founder of the SBDH.”
“Back door it is.”
“Out of my way, Danton!”
oOo
“Oh, Mr Soames! So horrible! Come quickly!”
“Calm yourself, Cook. What is the matter?”
“Mr Soames, it’s the hape. ‘E’s gone and accosted Margie!”
“Oh, dear.”
“Hurry!”
“Hurrying, Cook.”
“EEEEEEEEEE!”
“Urgh! Urgh urgh! Eek ahk ahk urgh!”
“Great heavens.”
“They been and done and smashed up my whole kitchen, sir. My dinner will be ruined! I don’t know what I’ll tell Mrs. Penderby! Oo, duck, sir!”
“Ducking. Calm yourself, Cook. Have you any toffee?”
“EEEEEE!”
“Toffee? Why—here’s a bit, sir—but—”
“Ourgh!”
“Thank you. And send for Ileen—ah, there you are. Now I will endeavor to distract him. I will require you, Ileen, to abstract the kitchen maid from the orangutan’s embrace. Are you ready?”
“Duck!”
“Mmmp. Mmm. Mmmmm!”
“Soyez tranquille, Marguerite. Clearly, your maman neglected your education. If you had pinched him—just here—”
“Mmmoomp!”
“Well done, Ileen.”
“Eeeee—oh. You pinched him on the—”
“Ah, Madame Penderby, you need not have come down the stairs. All is well. M’sieur Soames has subdued the beast.”
“Goodness, what a mess!”
“Mrs. Penderby, if you would be so good as to remove Margie. She has the hiccups.”
“Hic! Ulp! He—it—ulp! Hic! I’m giving notice!—”
“And I’d like to give my notice, too, ma’am.”
“Oh, no, not you, too, Cook!”
“Mmmmmmm! Urgh!”
“Cook, have we no more toffee? How about humbugs?”
“Well, there’s my personal store in the bureau—”
“That will do nicely.”
“Oh, but sir, my own humbugs!”
“Merveilleuse! Cook has saved the day! And look, she has even sherry for calming Marguerite! Splendide!”
“Oh, well—Missus Penderby, sherry for you too?”
“Thank you, Cook. Please don’t leave us, Cook. I shall be lost without you.”
“Ileen, if you would help Mrs. Penderby here, I will remove the orangutan while his jaws are occupied.”
“Why, not one cook in all Paris could have rescued Marguerite!”
“Oh, well, them foreign cooks!”
“But the shock to your nerves! You require restoratives! I prescribe sherry! Unless there is brandy?”
“Spirits, Ileen? Before she has prepared dinner?”
“Cook is equal to anything, M’sieur Soames! Voyons, the boy has come back from the stable, and the kitchen will be tidy in one blink of the eye. Now you must lie down for one little hour, Cook.”
“I won’t say no. Come on, Margie, you foolish girl. You can give notice all you like, but first you’ll help me make dinner.”
“Mrs. Penderby, if you can spare me in the drawing room, I think I should assist the boy with excavations.”
“Would you, Soames? Oh, dear, I don’t know what Dr. Penderby will say. Another cook gone, and a kitchen maid, too.”
“I think Cook may decide to stay.”
“Yes, more sherry, thanks. Well, if she does, it’s only because you flattered her to death. That was very clever, Ileen. But he’ll be furious. He’ll say I can’t manage the household. He threw me out of the laboratory. He built Soames, and he’s never home, so why does he need a wife?”
“You are his conscience, Madame.”
“A most unwelcome one. More sherry, please.”
“No, a necessary conscience. Men like to move forward always in one direction of their own choosing. A woman is always pulled in two directions. She is aware of considerations. She must wait for all to be revealed.”
“I dread it.”
“Dread? But what, Madame?”
“I don’t want all revealed. I’m so afraid he has a mistress. Someone who tells him he’s always right. He used to listen to me. Now he hates my work. And I am afraid of his work.”
“I must believe he respects your work, Madame. That is why he hides from you, and hides his work. Men are such enfants. He fears your censure, for that has great power over him.”
“You think? You detect shame in him?”
“I detect a passionate heart, Madame.”
“Oh, I hope you are right!”
“Mrs. Penderby, what’s this I hear about Cook giving notice—ah, there you are. I’ve had a letter from—Great Scott, it’s a mess in here.”
“Horace!”
“I regret to report that the ape forgot himself with the kitchen maid, sir. However, Ileen has convinced Cook to rescind her notice.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good, I suppose. Here, Gwendolyn, I’ve heard from Clewis in Lake Geneva. I told him all about Ileen’s arm and everything and he’s coming across to London for the weekend. He’s keen as anything on Promethean experiments, and I shall finally get a chance to show him what I’ve done with synthetic tissues. We’ll open you up, Soames. Show him what the English side of things has been up to.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“C-Clewis? M’sieur Penderby?”
“Ileen, are you well? Allow me to take the sherry decanter—oh—”
<smash!>
“Hell, she’s fainted. Just as I’ve been telling Danton. These Prometheans haven’t the stamina of man-made automata.”
oOo
“Ileen. Ileen, wake up. Ileen.”
“Ah, non! Quoi—M’sieur Soames?”
“You have been screaming in your sleep, Ileen. The other maids summoned me. Here. Sit up. Drink some water.”
“Mon Dieu, I thought—but I was dreaming.”
“What was it you thought, Ileen?”
“It makes nothing, M’sieur Soames.”
“Pardon me, Ileen, but something has frightened you. Is it—is it because of the arrival of this man Clewis?”
“Yes! He looks at me, when we pass in the upper rooms.”
“You are quite sure it was he, then, from Lake Geneva?”
“I have no memory before waking in that cold room, on a bed of stone. Two men talked in English who spoke of using a machine that would put a soul into the clay. The clay! They meant me!”
“I see. Then they must have recovered the body from the lake before—but do go on.”
“I waited until they went out of the room for one moment and then I ran away. For two years have I been running! Ah, but now he finds me, and I am lost!”
“I must apologize. My thoughtless words to Dr. Penderby led him to write to Mr. Clewis. My only thought was that he might recall the death of a young woman who, I am nearly convinced, must be you.”
“But M’sieur Soames, what if he does remember me? It is more than I myself can do. Du vrai, no one wants a blue princess with a false arm. An amnesiac blue princess with a false arm.”
“On the contrary. I am persuaded that your royal nature manifests in everything you are and do.”
“M’sieur Soames is a royalist then! My royal hand feeds a raw chicken to the crocodile every week, and dresses Mrs. Penderby’s hair, and shakes the tea leaves onto the floor for sweeping. No, I cannot be royal now, if ever I was.”
“But, Ileen! Your duty!”
“A fig for duty, M’sieur Soames.”
“I’m afraid I cannot sympathize with such sentiments. I was created to serve. It cannot be but that if one serves faithfully in one’s proper place, one will be happy.”
“Vraiment? And are you happy? Well, M’sieur?”
“No. No, I am not happy, Ileen. My—my mandate troubles me.”
“Quoi?”
“The instructions Dr. Penderby gave me when he built me. I must serve him and Mrs. Penderby equally. He is a great admirer of Miss Wollstonecraft. Mrs. Penderby appreciates it. But—”
“They trap you between them in their quarrel.”
“Yes. He instructs me to keep secrets from her about his guests and his comings and goings. She demands that I spy upon him for her. It causes me acute discomfort.”
“But it must be terrible.”
“Dr. Penderby theorizes, you know, that not all human beings are born with a soul, but that they must labor to achieve a soul by suffering irreconcilable moral dilemma. Often have I heard him speak of it, in the library with his fellow scientists. I had no notion it would hurt so much.”
“For shame! That is too bad of him, to create you in such a way as to cause you pain! How fortunate that I have been encouraging Madame to think better of her husband.”
“Good heavens, Ileen, I beg you, do not interfere in their private affairs! The impropriety!”
“What impropriety? She is a woman, I am a woman. Her suffering must interest me. Besides, if they will only reconcile their differences, it will not matter if I am a dead princess of Wittgenstein or a live housemaid of London. This Clewis, brrr, he terrifies me. I had thought Docteur Penderby might protect me—but you say he will not. Yet if Mrs. Penderby can persuade him, or merely work her female mystique upon him, I can be truly free of fear! I shall instruct her in the arts.”
“No! A servant must never, ever intervene in the affairs of the employers.”
“But this is precisely what Docteur Penderby wishes you to do! And he himself put this foolish mandate in your head. It is his own fault that you suffer pain. He does not deserve your obedience!”
“Ileen! You shock me!”
“I am a good republican, me! If I have died, I have at least been reborn a free woman. If I serve here it is to make a living. Not to prove the mad theories of some égotiste!”
“But, Ileen, you have died. The rules change.”
“Yes, the rules always change for the convenience of the victor, non? Do you think the victor will acknowledge your soul? No, for it is not convenient to him! You are just his soulless lackey!”
“Ileen—!”
“And how can you promise to protect me if you cannot interfere with your master’s private affairs? Oh, you are the perfect servant! You do not even have the soul of a servant! He created you without a soul!”
<bang>
“Alas, I fear I have a soul where soul I had none. And it has just slammed the door in my face.”
oOo
“M’sieur Soames! Wait. I have been impertinent.”
“Unkind, but not impertinent, Ileen. You are right. I think—we two dwell in a different England, different even from our fellow servants. You and I are pioneers of a new class.”
“I did not mean to be unkind, M’sieur.”
“Ileen—bother, I wish that I had another name. You may call me Soames in private. It is not right that here, between ourselves, we may not observe our own class in—in parity.”
“Is it so difficult to say ‘equality’? Perhaps that goes too far. The mechanical butler and the zombi maid?”
“You are still a princess, Ileen.”
“Hush, Soames. You see, I can still be impertinent, if I try.”
“We should not be talking on the stairs. Someone will hear.”
“No, they are arguing. Do you not hear? Master and Madame.”
“Oh, dear. Don’t go down any further! We should not—”
“There is a reason why servants listen at doors, Soames. Our security is too much in their hands.”
“But—”
“Hush!”
“—Why do you want to help me? The laboratory is dirty. And full of corpses.”
“You know very well what you are doing with them. And it’s wrong, Horace.”
“Then why do you wish to join me in the work? You madden me, Gwendolyn!”
“Because—because we have parted, Horace. Wherever you have gone, it is into the laboratory first. I had thought you must have taken a mistress, but I—I am now persuaded you are innocent of that.”
“But guilty of crimes against humanity. Sorry, sub-humanity.”
“Wait, please. Listen. I can’t bear this silence between us. If I can moderate how I speak of your work, may I not see it, learn about it—join you? I—I want that more than anything, Horace.”
“I think you cannot do that, Gwendolyn. You’re a passionate woman. I honour you for it. But I fear you will not feel moderately if you know what I—”
“What you are doing? Or, no. What you have done. That’s it, isn’t it? Horace, what have you done?”
“I knew you would take that tone.”
“If I—if I could conceive—would you love me again?”
“Gwendolyn, if I could conceive, would you forgive me?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
“What do they do, Soames? Your ears are sharper than mine.”
“Nothing. They are not moving. Let us go, before the door opens.”
oOo
“There’s the bell, and mighty soon. Master must not be talking too much tonight. Is the tea tray ready?
“It’s not he doing the talking. It’s that Clewis. Is the tea ready, Cook?”
“That it is, Mr Soames. Ileen, do you take the tray into the drawing room. Why, whatever is the matter, girl? You’re trembling!”
“It makes nothing, Cook.”
“I promise you, Ileen, I will be watchful. He shall not harm you.”
oOo
“Soames, more brandy here. And see if you can run Ileen to earth. I’ve been ringing these past five minutes. Clewis wants a closer look at her arm.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then while we’re waiting, can you direct me to—?”
“The necessary is under the stairs, sir.”
“Flushed by our very own water tank, Clewis.”
“On the roof?”
“Precisely.”
“Admirable. I shan’t be a minute.”
oOo
“Mr. Clewis, sir, permit me. The necessary is this way. That door leads to the back stairs.”
“Oh, does it?”
“Sir! Mr. Clewis!”
“There’s the bell again, Soames. Better go see what your master wants.”
“Er—sir—”
oOo
“Don’t scream, Princess Elena. You’ll be very easy to kill.”
“Let go of me! Non! Docteur Penderby will not permit—”
“Dr. Penderby will lick my boots when I explain he’s been harboring an escaped, half-baked Promethean.”
“Madame Penderby will not permit! She knows! She is my protectress!”
“Then we’ll just take a little walk down the back stairs to the mews, and Penderby can lick her boots instead. Come along! Don’t squeak so, dammit! Hell, what is that?”
“D-docteur Penderby’s orangutan.”
“What’s it doing on the servants’ stairs? Christ, look at those teeth. Where does this door go? Ballroom? All right, through here, and quick.”
“Unhand her, you villain!”
“M’sieur Soames! Thank God you have come!”
“Dr. Penderby has sold this Promethean to me, Soames. We discussed it when you were out of the room.”
“You lie, sir. I must respectfully demand you release her.”
“Always a good servant, eh? I don’t think you can stop me, Soames. Get back! I say, put down the sword!”
“Sir, I must insist.”
“Aaaagh! The bitch bit me!”
“Save me, Soames!”
“Get behind me, Ileen.”
“Did Penderby teach you to fence, mechanical man?”
“En garde, sir.”
“Oh, mon Dieu, shall I fetch the mistress?”
“Perhaps it would be—ugh!—well—ah!—go, Ileen! I can hold him!”
“Not bad fencing for a box of gears and stale meat, Soames. Ow! Dammit! Now listen—ah—you haven’t a legal leg to stand on, you know—ugh!—I created and I own the girl just as your master created and owns—ow!—owns you! *pant* Will you just slow down and listen?”
“Not quite, sir. Dr. Penderby built me from scratch, sir. A box of gears and, as you put it, stale meat. You began with a human being—ah!—who was also—”
“Soames! Ileen told me you were—what is going on here?”
“It’s run mad, Mrs. Penderby. Ow! Damn! Where’s the off switch? I can’t hold it off much longer!”
“There isn’t one, Mr Clewis. We don’t put an off switch on persons in this house. But Soames, what are you about? Someone will get hurt!”
“Just like that fool Penderby to animate something and leave off the dead man’s switch. Ah! Take that!”
“A good hit, sir. Fortunately—ugh—not in a vital spot. In fact, Mr. Clewis, you found a body floating in Lake Geneva that stormy night and you—ugh—made use of it, didn’t you? Where did you find an arm to replace the one she lost to the steamboat paddle?”
“What does it matter? She was dead! She is dead! And she’s mine!”
“I beg your pardon? Mr. Clewis, Ileen is far from dead, and she is no one’s property.”
“It’s just a housemaid.”
“Ah!—she is a princess of Wittgenstein, sir, as I suspect you knew—ugh—if not the night you pulled her from the lake, then surely—ah—the following morning. Every village round the lake was in mourning for her, and searching for her body!”
“Ileen! Is this true?”
“Madame, I do not know. M’sieur Soames is convinced.”
“Soames—”
“Oh there you are, Soames, where the devil is that housemaid—Clewis! What’s to do here? Gwendolyn?”
“Horace, stop them! Soames says Ileen was a princess before she died, and Clewis put her in his laboratory.”
“Sir, I found him trying to smuggle Ileen out of the house.”
“But is it true, Horace?”
“So Soames tried to tell me. Put down the sword, Clewis. You can’t hurt Soames, and you—I say, old fellow, have a care—augh!”
“Horace!”
“But Soames is bleeding! Docteur Penderby, he most certainly can be harmed!”
“I thought—but, Horace? Soames is an automaton, isn’t he?”
“Er, not entirely.”
“You see, Mrs. Penderby—ah!—your sanctimonious husband—argh—has been working with stale meat for a long time! Ah—that hurt, didn’t it, mechanical man? Ah-hah!”
“Only—only a trifle—ugh!”
“Horace, you didn’t! Oh, Horace, is that why Soames looks so lifelike? You’ve been animating corpses?”
“Only bits, Gwendolyn. The autonomic systems. I’m so sorry. I meant to tell you when I finally succeeded! But by then—your hostility to reanimation—I felt sure you would hate it. You surprised me with your championship of our Ileen.”
“You successfully integrated organic systems with automated ones at last? How splendid! Horace, you should have told me!”
“I wanted you to see how well Soames worked. But by the time you accepted him, the habit....”
“It works bloody well, Penderby, and I’m so pleased—augh!—for your improved relations with your wife—argh!—but can you call it off now?”
“I don’t know, Clewis. I’m beginning to think the best way to settle this is to alert the royal family of Wittgenstein to the whereabouts of their missing princess.”
“She’s dead, you fool! Just clay now!”
“I doubt they would see it that way. You’ve desecrated a royal corpse—attempted unholy practices on it. They’re awfully primitive thinkers in the smaller duchies, eh? We can deal with this the civilized way.”
“Damn you! I’ll take my stale meat home and pull the plug and—argh!—if you come to your senses, we can correspond more about your methods—”
“Damn you, sir, you blackguard! You shall not speak of her so!”
“Horace, stop them! Where are you going?”
“Hah! He’s getting out of the way, dear lady, as you should—ugh—do too! A-hah!”
“Ileen! Flee! I can’t hold—”
“Ah! Hah! Damn you, why don’t you die?”
“Soames! Ah, my Soames, he has killed you!”
“Hey! What—Penderby, is that a boat hook? You ass, your butler could fence better than you can.”
“It’s a crocodile hook.”
“Crocodi—AAAAAAHHHHHH!”
“Soames! My Soames, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!”
“Horace!”
“Sorry, love, but he was right. I couldn’t have beat him with a saber.”
AUGHHHHH! HELP! ARGH—ARGH—AIIEIEEEEE!”
“He’s—it’s eating him.”
“‘Myes. Bit of a mess.”
“But—but won’t you want him for parts?”
“And risk having his soul hang about in the tissues? No thanks.”
“I don’t know that it would.”
“My dear, I’ve been working on this for months. I think I know more than you do about the process.”
“But Horace, look at Ileen. She remembers nothing about being a princess.”
“And yet she behaves regally.”
“Is this how a princess mourns her—her chevalier blanc, Docteur Penderby? With rage, not tears? You let him die!”
“Not yet, I fancy. Gwendolyn, help me get him up on the slab.”
oOo
“Ileen! He didn’t steal you!”
“Oh, my Soames, you survive!”
“My autonomic nervous system is flesh, but my heart is mechanical. If he killed me, how—?”
“Docteur Penderby set the crocodile on him.”
“Soames, I have reconsidered my position on the ensoulment of automata. Mrs. Penderby suggests that your recent heroism could not have been performed by the butler I mandated you to be.”
“I have devoted some thought to the matter myself, sir.”
“And you conclude, Soames?”
“That the higher vital processes, by which I refer to those acts of volition which ordinary persons—even servants—perform on a daily basis, bring one inescapably into a condition of conflict between two things one ought to do. One’s duty must, inevitably, war with itself. Out of the strife, a soul arises.”
“So to suffer is to be ensouled, eh? Do you fancy this applies to reanimated, er, flesh as well as to a more synthetic construction?
“You refer to me, Docteur Penderby.”
“More like a princess every moment, Horace.”
“Well, Ileen? What is your opinion?”
“Docteur, I think the flesh remembers more than we know. To breathe, to eat, it is to be someone. But it is not until one loves that one knows for sure.”
“How does that fit with your theory, Soames?”
“Sir, I assure you that until I loved, I did not suffer.”
“Oh, Horace! They love!”
“I see.”
“Since Dr. Penderby does not seem to object, will—will you return to Wittgenstein, Your Highness?”
“I blush! Do not speak to me so, my Soames.”
“It is your rightful place.”
“No longer. No doubt some cousin sits on my throne now. And it would be difficult for me to prove my identity. I still remember nothing. What good is a princess who knows nothing? My country needs someone with a memory.”
“Ileen, I hope you know you are always welcome to refuge here in our home. My husband and I will always offer you shelter. I know Soames will be glad to have you here.”
“Begging your pardon, Madam, but no. I fear I cannot remain in service.”
“But Soames, we adore having you here. No one else has been able to keep order half so well.”
“If death has ruined Ileen for her royal position, love has spoiled me for this work. If she will have me, I will take her away to the Americas and seek our fortune there.”
“I say, Soames, surely we can reach an accommodation. I have hired an expedition going to darkest Louisiana next June, on a search for the famed Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It appears that Mrs. Penderby will be in labor about that time, and as my place is by her side, perhaps you would go for me? Not as a servant, but as a junior partner. Clearly you are wasted in a domestic capacity. But as a fellow adventurer, may I say a born gentleman, and may I hope a friend, you could be invaluable to me, personally. I ask not as your employer but as one man to another.”
“I am overcome, sir.”
“My Soames! You won’t leave me!”
“Your Highness, I cannot aspire to your hand, but I can adore you forever. Grant me the privilege of doing so where the dear sight of you may not tear my heart to pieces.”
“Rise, Soames. I have been an impertinent maid, and an unlucky princess, and I do not know how to find my way here, even among friends. But if you would take me with you, I could try to make more success as a free woman.”
“She is a free woman, Soames. You have the Society for a Broader Definition of Humanity’s blessing.”
“Don’t look at me, old boy. Whom you choose to bring with you on our expeditions is none of my concern.”
“Ah, I remember something! You must now kiss me, Soames.”
“May I?”
“It is entirely convenable.”
“Mrs. Penderby—Gwendolyn—I think we should look the other way.”
“Let us follow their example, Horace. I am sure it is convenable.”
oOo
Jennifer Stevenson loves anything that clanks. She lives in Chicago with a mad infrastructure geek and can be spotted in theme restaurants tapping on the junk nailed to the walls.
oOo
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Copyright © 2009 Jennifer Stevenson
First published in The Shadow Conspiracy
Book View Press, 15 December 2009
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