Читать книгу Prelude to Eternity - Brian Stableford - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

THE LEVIATHAN OF STEEL AND STEAM

It took Michael Laurel a full five minutes to make his way along the platform at King’s Cross Station in order to join the admirers ogling the steam-belching steel Leviathan that was England’s most recent candidate to be the Seventh Wonder of the Modern World. It was reputed to be a prodigy, and a monster: a dragon such as the world had never seen, even in the Age of Myth and Magic.

When he finally arrived within sight of the locomotive, though, he was a trifle disappointed. It was certainly large and loud. It had the promised doorway to its infernal heart, into which the stoker would soon be shoveling coal at a furious rate. It had the promised sweat of steam oozing and belching from various narrow orifices. It had the promised smokestack generously distributing a fine fog of sooty particles. It was freshly painted in the claret-and-gold livery of the Academy. To Michael’s eyes, however, trained to the study and reproduction of fruit and flowers, cloudy skies and expressive human faces, it lacked something.

He could not quite decide, at first, what to call the mysterious something that the locomotive lacked. It was not beauty, although the machine did have a certain irredeemable ugliness about its undeniable grandeur. Nor was it sublimity, although there was certainly a raw brutality about its innate power. Nor was it humanity, although there had been much talk in the coffee-shops where “Bohemian” artists and writers liked to congregate of the essential “soullessness” of the new generation of machines that was “despoiling the bosom of Nature”. Indeed, it seemed to Michael, although it was merely a whimsical intuition, that the machine had far more humanity than most of the people he knew, and that machinery in general was more fully and more fervently ensouled than the quiet rural world of trees, meadows and streams—which, as a city-born and city-bred individual, he had never quite taken to his heart, although he liked to paint it well enough.

No, he finally decided, what the locomotive lacked, was not beauty, nor sublimity, nor humanity. What it lacked was mystery. Like all the products of modern technology, it was defiantly unmagical. It was the product of mathematical planning and precision workmanship. Nothing in its design and construction had been left to chance; there was no margin of hazard within which it might remain tantalizingly undefinable. In spite of its reputation, it was not a dragon at all, in the true sense of the word.

Michael knew that he ought to be grateful for the mathematical exactitude of the locomotive’s planning and the scrupulous organization of its many parts. He was, after all, going to entrust his life to the monster, which was scheduled to reach the previously-unimaginable speed of sixty miles per hour on the fastest stretches of the brand new track laid between London and York. Indeed, he was grateful, in a dutiful sort of way—but his gratitude was tempered by the essential Romanticism of his temperament, which was inflamed at present by virtue of the fact that he was in love.

He sighed automatically as he remembered yet again—although it was impossible for him actually to forget it—that he was in love.

Sir Richard Trevithick sighed too, emitting a long hiss of steam through one of the more discreet of its many orifices.

“There she goes!” said the engineer, in a tone of smug satisfaction, pretending to address the stoker, although he was really playing to the packed grandstand. “Ain’t she a beauty?”

Michael knew that engineers always called their beloved machines “she”, even when the Academy had decided, in its wisdom to name them after males. Dick Trevithick might have been the proud father of the new wave of industrial revolution precipitated by the Cornish Engine, but the finest of his children would always be reckoned daughters, or mistresses, by the men who nurtured and guided them: the supposed masters who were, in reality, their faithful and adoring servants.

Michael knew that only a tiny minority of the excited people gathered on the platform to ogle the Sir Richard Trevithick actually had tickets to travel on the train. The others were ostensibly there to “see off” the lucky ones, although they had actually turned out to gawk at the locomotive, much as they turned up at Ascot or Henley to gawk at the season’s fresh crop of debutantes, squired by the sons of the Admiralty and the Academy. Locomotives were, however, a trifle more democratic than the daughters of the aristocracy. Anyone could ride in the carriages they pulled—although some, admittedly, had to travel second class while others traveled first.

In spite of that democracy, and the unmagicality of which Michael might have been the only person present to be perversely aware, the members of the crowd were enraptured by the prideful Behemoth. Although nine days had passed since the engine had made its first timetabled journey from York to London and back again, without once breaking down—let alone blowing up, as several pessimists had loudly forecast—it was still seen as something fabulous, and as a glorious presentiment of the Age of Achievement to come.

Michael had taken off his hat in order to mop his brow with his handkerchief, so his hands and mind were fully occupied when a flabby hand suddenly slapped him on the back and the cheerful voice of Quentin Hope boomed in his ear. “Glorious sight, eh, Laurel! Makes one proud to be British, doesn’t it?”

Michael could only stare forlornly at the hand that Hope extended to him in the wake of this enthusiastic greeting, although it occurred to him a few seconds later that it would have been simple enough to pop the handkerchief into the hat and extend his own to meet it. For a man with the skilled and steady hand of a painter, Michael thought, as he blushed in embarrassment, simultaneously trying to replace the hat on his head and the handkerchief in his pocket, I really can be a remarkably clumsy oaf at times.

Hope—a plump, pink-complexioned and ostentatiously jovial man who could easily have sat for a portrait of John Bull—merely laughed at his victim’s confusion. He raised the unshaken hand to pat the artist on the shoulder, almost as if that were what he had intended all along. “Have you seen Jim Escott?” he asked, referring to his invariable traveling-companion, with whom he had been conducting a fervent running argument that was said to have extended over thirty years, every since the fateful day when the two of them had met in the junior common room on their first day at Eton.

Michael shook his head.

“No?” said Hope. “Can’t say I’m surprised. How could the fellow stand here, confronted with this magnificent machine, and continue to contend that progress is an illusion? He’ll be cowering in the carriage, I dare say, terrified of getting flecks of soot on his Savile Row suit. Your paints, canvases and easel safely stashed in the luggage van, are they, Laurel?”

Michael contrived a nod of the head. He had to admit, as he continued to stare at the steam locomotive, that Hope had a point. The Trevithick might not be magical, but it really did seem to be a perfect embodiment of the idea of progress, and a clear demonstration of its reality. However appropriate to its description borrowed terms like monster, Leviathan and Behemoth might be, the simple truth was that its mundane solidity, power and precision put every magical dragon of myth and legend to shame, demonstrating beyond the shadow of a doubt that the sure hand of the mechanic was nowadays mightier by far than the frothy mind of the fabulist.

Michael also had to admit, though, that the thought of entrusting his personal safety to the brutality of the locomotive terrified him. Had he had a choice, he would never have agreed to take his life in his hands by traveling in such a fashion—but he had not had a choice, because Cecilia had written to him to say that he “simply must” take the train. Even if, as seemed probable, she had intended the words simply must merely as an expression of enthusiasm, he was obliged to construe it as a command, because he was in love with her, and this was the first time that he had been invited to Langstrade Hall, her father’s country residence, in order to meet her parents.

Michael had first been introduced to the Langstrades six months before, and had now seen Cecilia on seven precious occasions, but it had required patient planning on her part to persuade her father to issue such an invitation to him—not, alas, as a formally-recognized and officially-sanctioned suitor, but merely as a hopefully-soon-to-be-fashionable painter. He had not even been commissioned to paint a portrait of Cecilia, although he dearly hoped that his remit might be broadened out once he actually reached Langstrade; thus far, his mission was simply to paint the recently-completed edifice in the extensively-remodeled grounds that everyone in London Society liked to call “the Langstrade Folly”.

“What wouldn’t I have given to be on the engine’s first scheduled journey last week, with the First Sea Lord and half the Admiralty, and the entire Privy Council of the Academy in tow?” Quentin Hope said, with an ostentatious sigh matched by a further hiss of steam. “The tenth round trip has a certain cachet of its own, though. It’ll be something to tell our grandchildren, eh, Laurel? There’ll be railways all over England by that time—probably all over the world—and you and I will be able to say that we were present at the beginning, if not on the Glorious Tuesday itself. We’re still pioneers, aren’t we?”

Hope sighed again, more profoundly this time. Yet again, Sir Richard Trevithick hissed fervently in excessive sympathy—reminding Michael, just for a moment, of his mother. The artist had to shake his head to clear it of that perverse thought, and Hope mistook the gesture.

“You don’t agree?” he said. “Come on, Lad! I know you’re an artist, and supposed to believe in all that Romantic fiddle-faddle about the loveliness of Mother Nature, but you’re young, damn it! What are you, twenty-three, twenty-four? I suppose that makes you a child of the eighteenth century, but only just! You’re a son of the Age of Steam, the Era of Progress! You must look to the future, my boy, as a wonderland of opportunity—and I shall make it my business this weekend to see that you do! Escott will fight me all the way, of course, and so will that old fool Carp, but Langstrade’s in my camp, and so is Marlstone. They’re both lunatics, admittedly, but they’re lunatics on the side of the angels. Stick with me, young Laurel, and I’ll show you the way the world’s going, or my name’s not Hope!”

The last remark was a quip that Quentin Hope produced so often that even Michael, who hardly knew the man, had overheard it half a dozen times before. Michael hastened to assure the optimist that his gesture had not been intended as a denial, and that he was indeed looking forward to telling his wonderstruck grandchildren that he had traveled from London to York on a train pulled by the Sir Richard Trevithick on the afternoon of Thursday the fifteenth of August 1822, a mere nine days after her first scheduled round trip.

Instead of rejoicing in this news, however, Hope sighed again. This time, the locomotive was not sympathetic.

Michael guessed that the third sigh had been occasioned by the fact that the older man might be beginning to wonder whether he would ever have the opportunity to dandle awestruck grandchildren on his own knees, in order that he could replicate the proud boast in question before an appropriate audience. Although it was by no means uncommon for gentlemen who had turned forty to marry, it was rare for those who delayed marriage so long to live to a sufficiently ripe old age to see their own grandchildren learn to walk. Michael hoped to be married long before he turned thirty, although he was quite convinced that, if fate were sufficiently cruel to prevent him from marrying Cecilia Langstrade, he would die a bachelor—quite probably of a broken heart.

He was distracted from this tender thought by the sight of a man elbowing his way urgently through the crowd, red-faced and perspiring in spite of his near-spectral thinness, which contrasted strongly with Hope’s healthy rotundity. James Escott, it seemed, was not lurking in the first-class carriage reserved for the inner circle of Lord Langstrade’s weekend guests, avoiding soot and his rival’s lyrical speeches on the modern wonders of steel, steam and telegraphy.

“There you are, Hope!” the thin man said, extending his hand as he arrived. “Good to see you, Laurel!” he added, swiftly.

This time, Michael had had time to prepare himself. His hat was safely ensconced on his head and his handkerchief had been discreetly retired to his trouser pocket. As soon as Escott released Hope’s hand, Michael took his, and gripped it with what he hoped might pass for manly firmness.

“We’ll have to hurry,” Escott said, swiftly, obviously intent on interrupting Hope’s anticipated eulogy. “The guard will be calling ‘All Aboard’ at any moment, and we’re in the carriage next to the guard’s van, right at the back. It was hardly worth the trouble of coming all the way up here, but I knew you’d be rooted to the spot, staring at the engine like some mesmerized somniloquist, and I knew that you’d be sure to miss the train if I didn’t shepherd you aboard.” He glanced at Michael as he added: “These starry-eyed optimists are all the same, Laurel. Heads in the clouds. No practicality. You’ll join us, of course?”

“I only bought a second-class ticket,” Michael admitted, blushing deeply. “I’ll find a seat closer to the engine.”

“Nonsense!” said Escott. “We have a spare seat in our reserved carriage—Sir Geoffrey Chatham has been detained in London, and won’t be able to make the party at all. Signor Monticarlo and his daughter are there, and Lady Phythian arrived half an hour in advance, as usual, but there’s one seat to spare now. We can’t offer it to Carp, even if we wanted to, because he’ll be traveling with his somniloquist.”

“To be frank,” Hope put in, “you’d be doing us a favor—raising the intellectual average, so to speak. I say nothing against Monticarlo, mind; he’s a clever fellow, in his way, and his English is good when he plucks up the courage to use it, but he’s not a great conversationalist. Lady Phythian, on the other hand, is an utter wet blanket—always treats Escott and myself as if we were a pair of naughty boys squabbling over our toys. It’s a long way to York, and even a steam locomotive can’t do the trip in the blink of an eye. Besides, I’ve promised to indoctrinate you in the philosophy of progress, and there’s no better place to start than a railway carriage.”

“And I can provide you with the necessary intellectual balance,” Escott said, “to make sure that you’re not blinded by the glare of Hope’s rose-tinted spectacles. But we have to hurry, Hope, or we’ll never get back to the carriage in time.”

Michael was still hesitant, unsure as to what the rules of etiquette required or permitted him to say in response to the unexpected invitation.

“I can make sure you sit next to the lovely Carmela, if you like,” Hope said. “She’s said to be very artistic, and she makes up for the fact that she’s reluctant to risk her English by smiling a lot.”

Michael blushed yet again, this time in pure confusion. He had no idea whether Hope was simply trying to be kind, or whether he really did want the option of having someone else other than Escott to listen to him while he rode his favorite hobby-horse, but the one thing he did know was that he definitely did not want to arrive at Langstrade Hall in close company with a smiling Carmela Monticarlo, amid a drizzle of suggestive remarks about how well they had got on during the four-and-a-half-hour train journey and the subsequent ride in a hired diligence.

“Hope’s right, for once in his life,” Escott put in, his voice full of urgency. “If we’re to have any decent conversation on the journey, we really do need a decent substitute for Chatham. Oblige us, please.”

“But I only have a second-class ticket!” Michael protested, feebly, as Hope and Escott each took one of his arms and began to hustle him along the platform toward the rear of the train. “Won’t I get into trouble if the guard catches me in a first-class compartment?”

“Not at all,” Hope assured him, accelerating his pace. “The entire compartment’s reserved; the seat’s booked and paid for. Lord Langstrade would never forgive us if we allowed one of his guests to travel second-class while we had a seat to spare.”

“Even a painter,” Escott added, a trifle mischievously, as he lengthened his stride in order to keep pace with the scurrying optimist, “who’s only been invited to immortalize his Folly. I’ll wager that you’d rather be painting Miss Cecilia’s portrait!”

Michael couldn’t help noticing that this off-hand remark provoked a sharp glance of disapproval from Quentin Hope. He suffered a momentary stab of panic as he wondered whether the renowned optimist might be entertaining hopes in regard to Lord Langstrade’s daughter.

It was not impossible, Michael supposed, that Hope might take advantage of the weekend to ask Langstrade for Cecilia’s hand—and what Langstrade’s response might be was anybody’s guess, given that he had obviously inherited his father’s legendary eccentricity. Who else but a Langstrade, after all, would have invited a little-known portrait-painter all the way to the wilds of Yorkshire to paint a mock-Medieval Keep in the heart of a Maze, designed according to a plan that had supposedly been drawn up by Dedalus himself?

“Isn’t Gregory Marlstone traveling on the train?” Michael asked, although he cursed himself silently as soon as the words had spilled from his mouth. For one thing, the remark was bound to sound somewhat ungrateful, in view of the two men’s generosity in offering to pluck him out of second-class chaos into first-class comfort, and the urgency with which they were exercising their invitation. For another, if there was the slightest possibility that Hope might be a rival for Cecilia’s hand—if not her affection—then he certainly ought to seize the opportunity to confirm or falsify the hypothesis.

“Marlstone set off five days ago with six assistants and half a dozen carts,” Escott told him. He had to pause thereafter when the cry of “All aboard!” was raised and echoed all along the platform, accompanied by a blast on the station-manager’s whistle, but as soon as the thin man could make himself heard again, he continued: “Anyone else would have sent the equipment on ahead and followed at his leisure, but Marlstone won’t let the components of his precious time machine out of his sight, all the more so since the fiascos at Horton Lacey and Chatsworth. If all has gone well with the convoy, he’ll be there ahead of us, but my guess is that he’ll have got bogged down somewhere in the Midlands, and probably won’t arrive until Sunday. By the time he’s got his blessed machine set up, the rest of us will be on our way home.”

In spite of the difficulties of shoving their way through the crowd, Hope and Escott had succeeded in reaching the carriage containing their reserved compartment without ever letting go of Michael’s captive arms. They literally lifted him off the ground in order to deposit him in the carriage, somewhat to the surprise and alarm of Lady Phythian, who had taken advantage of her early arrival to claim a window seat. The famous violinist Signor Monticarlo and his daughter Carmela had taken the two opposed seats on the far side of the carriage, next to the door to the corridor. Michael had been introduced to all of them at one time or another, but knew them even more slightly that he knew Hope and Escott.

The virtuoso and the two ladies did not seem unduly surprised to see Michael, obviously having no inkling of the ignominy of the second-class ticket, but they did not seem unduly delighted either. They greeted him politely, but rather coolly; when Hope propelled him toward the vacant seat between the two ladies, both of them seemed to Michael’s anxious eyes to be a trifle disappointed that Hope had not taken the seat himself. In fact, the optimist took the spare window seat, while his meager companion took the seat opposite Michael.

Now that the carriage was fully-loaded it seemed rather cramped, largely because the luggage racks were full to overflowing and several items of luggage had had to be accommodated on the floor or on the passengers’ laps. Signor Monticarlo, a short and delicate man with an abundance of sleek black hair and a moustache, was clutching one of his violin-cases. In spite of the capacious bandage she was sporting on her wrist, Carmela, who was a little taller and wirier than her father, was cradling another. Lady Phythian, who seemed rather large by comparison with the two Italians, had a proportionately enormous handbag on her lap. Michael had to maneuver his way to his seat with some skill, and felt that he was easing himself into a narrow gap as he sat down. Compared to conditions in a second-class compartment, however, the plushness and softness of the seats were sheer luxury.

Michael resolved to accept the inevitable with a good grace, sit back, and do his level best to enjoy the hectic journey to come.