The Ghost Engine Read online

Alone in her stable – now converted into a workshop – Berd scowled at the Engine as she wiped her greasy fingers on her leather apron. “I’ve cleaned you, oiled you, and filled up your blasted generator. So why won’t you work? And why can’t I find that blasted punch-card reader!” It was as if the machine wanted to turn over, but simply couldn’t manage it.

  The auctioneer was right, though. It was a miniature city of spiralling brass and copper, and she could imagine tiny autocars motoring around on the pitch macadam. For the third time that morning Berd cranked the Engine’s handle for a good ten minutes before flicking on a switch.

  The hum began immediately. It ran along the wooden base of the Engine, shuddering each metal component as it reached upwards. At the same time, the hum spread out, shaking the floor and travelling up against her legs like static. She gritted her teeth as her knees knocked against the insides of her woollen pants. The rumble vibrated up the walls, roaring in her ears. Cogs clicked and turned. Wheels spun. Pins popped in and out. The needles on dials twitched as the Engine came to life.

  Before her eyes, vacuum tubes glowed. The gas lamp on the stable wall grew in brightness. Like the dawning of the sun, Apollo rising to set off on his chariot, the luminescence deepened.

  Heat bathed her face. The oily fumes of paraffin swirled around, clinging to everything they touched. The generator woke with a bang. As usual, her eyes teared from the smoke, but she rubbed the irritation away.

  And then, as it did every single time before anything got started, the Engine began winding down. It coughed tragically. Cams slowed. Black smoke plumed the air.

  Berd slammed her fist against the heated metal. “No!” she choked out through the fumes. “No. Not again.” She searched for something, anything that would prolong the life of the Engine. In desperation, she reached for a lever, pushing it all the way to maximum, beyond the sign that said ‘Danger. Do not go beyond.’ She had never attempted this before. But hang the consequences, she could think of nothing else.

  The Engine sputtered bravely on.

  It had to make it!

  Her heart was in her mouth. Her chest squeezed tight in desperate hope as she whispered, “You can do it. You can do it. Come on.”

  It had been going a whole five minutes longer than it ever had when a force smacked Berd in the face. She reeled backwards. Her throat was burning. Smoke filled the air.

  What on earth was that? Oh heavens! Something’s on fire. Oh please, not the Engine!

  Instead of finding herself surging forward to save the Engine, she found herself falling. The black cloud of smoke overcame her and noxious fumes were all she could taste. On her hands and knees, strength ebbed from her body until she lay flat on the ground, sinking fast into unconsciousness. Even as she stared at the ceiling blinking, she saw a figure… no, two figures, bending over her.

  Angels…

  But there was no heavenly choir. Instead, the first figure gazed at her, his outline shimmering blue. It was the ghostly image of a young man clothed in what appeared to be shadows. He had hair of coal black and soot smudged his cheeks. Then, the other young man, identical to the first, came closer.

  She remembered Nanny telling her that everyone had a guardian angel, someone to tell them right from wrong, and a little demon, to try to push them off the path of righteousness. These must be hers. It was her time to go…

  The force must have killed her, but her spirit didn’t know it yet. So cold... Can’t... move. All she heard was her own laboured breathing. In and out; in and out. The bitterness of paraffin flooded her mouth, and she was about to spit when the first young man leaned closer.

  His figure sharpened slightly; blue eyes. Brilliant blue eyes like his twin beside him.

  They must be the ghosts of the Engine.

  But Robert Fotheringay only had one son...

  A tremor shook her body.

  As the world faded fast, the first man vanished leaving the second man crouched over her. Ice-cold fingers touched her neck.

  He’s feeling for a pulse. I am really dying…

  As the black closed in, those ice-cold fingers slid across her throat.

  And tightened.

  ***

  Banging on the stable door roused Berd; Rose calling for her. “My lady, are you all right?”

  Berd’s ears were ringing, but worse, she smelled smoke. As she struggled to her feet, the room seemed to sway. Strange light flickered ahead of her – orange and yellow and red.

  A section of the Engine was on fire.

  Berd grabbed a rag from the pile and sprang towards the Engine. Thank goodness the door was shut and Rose under strict orders not to enter. “I am perfectly fine,” she shouted, desperate to keep the edge of panic out of her voice as she smacked at the fire. Blast! Blast! Blast! No doubt Rose could hear her mad dance and wonder what was going on.

  The hammering on the door stopped. “My lady, we heard an explosion!”

  “Everything’s fine. Now please, I need peace and quiet.” With one final whack, the fire was extinguished. Thankfully each glass vacuum tube was off, and the only radiance inside the stables came from the gas lamp on the wall. Berd collapsed against a chest. And as she pressed a palm against her throat, she shivered at the memory of the ghostly hands that had gripped her. All she felt now was a layer of ash. As if on cue, she sneezed. Rose would have heard that.

  “Yes, my lady, I mean, no, my lady, I mean, oh!” Rose had been muttering all the while through the door.

  There were times when Berd could happily have strangled her maid. “Rose, I need to work,” she said.

  “Yes, my lady, but I mean, I mean … it’s the Earl of Lovelace.”

  Even as Berd frowned, she heard those oh-so-familiar footsteps of her brother approach.

  James.

  The last person she needed to see. He was here, at Aunt Agatha’s house, when he was supposed to be at the estate. What wretched, wretched timing. But already the thick, wooden door was swinging open. Berd jumped to her feet, bent over the Engine and began furiously wiping.

  She heard James’s shoes click like knives on the wooden floors as he entered. “What in God’s name happened here?”

  Berd continued to clean, studiously ignoring her sibling. She was sure James was scowling, irritated by the fact she had not greeted him. As if in confirmation, one foot tapped. He was five years her senior, her guardian, and an earl. Had he ever stopped to think the price of his rank was their father?

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Berd?”

  Berd straightened, an annoyed expression on her face. “Oh. What are you doing here, James? How nice to see you.”

  “Don’t give me that. What the devil happened to Aunt Agatha’s fine stable?” He looked her up and down, frowning at her hair that cascaded around her shoulders. “And to you.” He sniffed. His frown deepened at the sight of her apron.

  “You mean my new workshop,” she said, waving the rag around, hoping to distract him. She was proud of the place, truth be told. She and Rose had spent many hours transforming the stables into a workshop.

  “Work—” James choked and had to thump his chest with one fist. “Aunt Agatha allowed you to do what to this stable? And what foible have you got there?”

  “Why, it’s my new autocar!”

  James grimaced at the Engine behind her. “And I’m the Prince of Egypt. What sort of idiot do you take me for? The bleeding thing hasn’t even got wheels! How could Aunt Agatha allow you to destroy a perfectly decent stable? I turn my back on you for a moment and look what happens.”

  The foible in question consumed a bob’s worth of paraffin each time she turned it on and burnt out vacuum tubes at the rate of one per hour. Better not let James know she paid the workmen extra for their troubles when they delivered it. Or what it had cost in the first place. Or that the Engine was supposedly haunted.

  Imagining the copper platter that she was cleaning was her brother’s face, she rubbed it so hard it squeaked. “This little thing?�
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  James narrowed his gaze, as if he knew what she had been thinking. “Out with it, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth? Now she was in trouble. “First, all I spent was my allowance. I cannot spend my inheritance even if I wanted to; everything is locked up until I am twenty-one.”

  “For your own protection.” He pointed in the direction of the Engine with his latest silver-tipped walking cane as though it were evidence.

  Berd snorted. “Would you prefer I spend three times as much on a new wardrobe for the season?”

  “I want to know what that contraption is doing in the stables, while your autocar, one of six in the entire country, is sitting out in the street. With pigeons all over it! And you could use a new wardrobe. In fact, what are you wear-” His eyes widened with sudden recognition. “Oh heavens! Those are my brand-new riding pants, aren’t they! You- you chopped the hems off? Bloody hell, Berd!”

  Too late did Berd remember she was not wearing a skirt! And how else was she to learn about engines unless she had one to tinker with? At least she had had a month of driving around in it. Berd looked James in the eye as she spoke each word, “Well, I wasn’t about to be seen getting fitted for trousers, as I knew you’d explode. And I’m sure you’ll agree it’s better than to be seen in your nightwear! Precautions must be taken as you always say. This contraption is an engine.”

  James swore under his breath. “It looks like no engine I’ve ever seen.”

  Berd flicked a glance heavenward. “You say that like you’ve seen many engines! That, dear brother, is the future. It is what our late dear Grandmother Bird would call,” she paused. Surely James would not have forgotten the stories their father told about grandmother’s dream. “A computer.”

  James crossed his arms and glared at her. “And what, pray tell, is a compute-er?”

  Berd felt a pang of grief. He had forgotten. Still she answered in all seriousness: “It is a machine that can think.”

  A flicker of doubt glinted in his hazel eyes, and hope surged inside her. Then he frowned. “Why would anyone want a machine that can think? We have enough problems with the peasants believing they can think! We don’t need some worthless device adding its opinions to the mix.”

  She forced a smile. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “How much did you pay for that— that— thing?”

  Berd tensed. He would find out anyway. “Four hundred and one,” she said, trying not to sound defeated.

  “Four hundred and one— what? Pence?”

  “Uh... pounds,” she said. Even as she spoke, a section of the Engine collapsed into ash. Blast!

  “Four hundred and what! Good lord, Berd. Can’t I leave you alone without you wasting your funds on another frivolous hobby?”

  “Hobbies are all I have, brother. You’ve seen to that. Besides,” she said, changing the subject as she wrapped her rag around the first tube and started twisting to remove it. “It hasn’t kept me from my duties. Speaking of which, what brings you here today?”

  “I was going to come down tomorrow, but I thought, being the devoted brother that I am, I’d come a day early.”

  “To add unexpected visiting to your expected visiting! How thoughtful of you, brother.”

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze, instead he cleared his throat. “Heavens, that looks dangerous. Tinkering with bits of junk. You’re supposed to be visiting. Have you returned all your calls?”

  With a yank, the first vacuum tube came off, and with that came accomplishment, relief. But it was short-lived. “Cousin Cuthbert complained, didn’t he? That’s the real reason you’re here. Oh, hand me that other rag.”

  “I beg your, pardon? That slimy thing?”

  If Berd wasn’t so furious, she’d have laughed at the sight of James wincing. She gave her brother a withering look as she strode over and picked up said slimy thing.

  James glowered back. “And what’s wrong with Cuthbert? Have you anything against a viscount? You are seventeen. You’re supposed to be meeting people. Enjoying your season.”

  And getting married. Just not to Cuthbert. She wrapped the rag around the second vacuum tube. “I am out. Ask Aunt Agatha. Remember the big ball months ago, where I was paraded like a prize sow in front of everyone in that atrocious pink silk?”

  “You have done nothing since.”

  “Nothing? What do you call this? Don’t you understand, there’s no way I’m ending up like Aunt Agatha.”

  “What are you on about? She eloped,” he answered, as if he were dealing with a slow-witted child. “Had she not, she’d have had a marriage contract to protect her when her husband died. Oh, dear God! Where’d we go so wrong?”

  “Contract? The only reason women need one...” With another hard twist the second vacuum tube popped out. “Is because the law favours people like you.”

  “People like me?” Then his brows shot up in shock as understanding hit. “You mean men?”

  “Finally, he gets it,” said Berd.

  “I did not come here to be insulted. And I’ll have you know that Rohan gives her an allowance. Not all brothers-in-law are that considerate!”

  “I can’t believe you said that, James. I really can’t. A hundredth of what’s hers, while he legally stole the rest! But that’s not the point,” she said as she eyed him, grim-faced.

  “It’s not?” James frowned. He lifted his top hat and ran one hand through his blond hair a few times. When he was done, he set his black top hat back down upon his head.

  “Why can’t we women support ourselves? Yes, you heard me. Why can’t we be equals?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  To stop herself from throwing the tube at her idiotic brother’s head, Berd started unscrewing a cog. Having melted in the heat it wouldn’t come off easily. “Hand me that wrench.” If only everything wasn’t going wrong all at once!

  “What?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Wrench. That thing.”

  James groaned, but went over and picked up the tool. With two fingers, he passed it to her. Then he pulled out his handkerchief and made a show of wiping his fingers. “So, all this time you’ve been hiding in the stable. Working on this Engine.”

  “And what if I have?” The cog was proving harder to remove than she thought, just like some people she knew. She put her leg on the machine’s platform, to get leverage for the manoeuvre.

  “Wait a moment. A thinking machine- Now I remember! That was what Grandmother Bird-” James shot her a peeved expression before continuing to wipe his hand. “Was working on.” His eyes lit. “That’s it. Programming. To teach the computer to carry out a set of instructions. That was what she was trying to accomplish, wasn’t it?” He smiled, pleased with himself.

  Berd halted mid-turn as she gave her brother a curious look. If he was at last beginning to hear her then maybe he’d understand why she wanted to work with engines. She spoke eagerly, “This is an improved version. The one Grandmother was working on…”

  But James was staring at her, with her one leg balanced in a precarious position. To her dismay, he waved away the rest of her explanation, and any hope he might see her side of things.

  “Foolishness. Thank goodness Grandmother passed away, or she’d have scandalised the whole family. Traipsing around at all hours of the day and night with that Cabbage fellow. He lost his entire inheritance, and serves him right, though I wouldn’t wish it on Grandmother, of course. Then they’d had that madcap idea of going to the races to try to win money – of all things.”

  Thank goodness Grandmother had passed away? “Babbage,” Berd said in a tight voice. With a final effort the cog came off. It made a loud clatter on the floor.

  “Pardon?” James blinked.

  “His name was Babbage, Charles Babbage, and he was the inventor of the Difference and the Analytical Engines,” she spat the words out between clenched teeth, as she walked over and picked up the cog.

  James groaned, as if this was all too much for him. “So, this is an im
provement on that? How delightful. What does one use a thinking machine for?”

  Would he ever listen! “Originally, Babbage wanted a device to calculate logarithms, but then he devised a more general-purpose engine. He called it The Analytical Engine. Think, James. Remember when you purchased your autocar? Remember the fifteen reasons the salesman said why an autocar is better than a horse-drawn vehicle? No stable. No daily grooming. No manure heap to poison the air? Well, a computer will be able to work twenty-four hours a day and it’ll never get tired. Or sick. No pay increases.”

  Berd flourished one hand over the Engine, but what with bits of it already disintegrated and the blackened vacuum tubes, the Engine was a sorry sight. It took every ounce of strength to stand tall before her brother.

  James looked dour as he held up one grey gloved hand. “If you please. I’m having a dinner at our townhouse in a month’s time. Do me the honour of planning it — that’s what girls are supposed to do. Ones that behave, anyway. I imagine Aunt Agatha would be delighted. Why, between the two of you, you could decide the guest list.”

  More like a ploy to meet Cuthbert or any other number of dandies. “Or what? You’ll disinherit me?” But James wasn’t even listening as he twirled his cane and bowed right through her words.

  “Dear, sweet, obedient Berd – make sure that monstrosity is removed the next time I visit. Indulge me.”

  Berd had had enough. “Maybe it won’t be so bad if I’m disinherited. I could always be the first Lovelace to set up my own workshop. Repairing engines, hooray!” She waved the rag gaily, as if it were a flag.

  James’s face darkened.

  “Wouldn’t the ton love that?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he warned as he threw open the door.

  “I think I am the one being tempted.” Her rag hit the door just as it closed. Beast. He hadn’t even tried to understand. And the things he’d said! Their grandmother had died before her time, and not even the promise of money-to-be-made could make him care about her dreams.

  Berd strode over to the door, picked up the rag, and then flung it at the door once more. “Even a possession can have feelings!”