Note: The following is property of Angelie Roth. The characters and dialogued referenced are soley her own and may not be duplicated without express permission and crediting me as the author.Chapt. 2 Isabella Arkdred-Marcade
“I suppose it is a bit of a shock,” she said, sipping her tea delicately. Her eyes took in his house- the wall tapestries, the stag’s head over the mantelpiece. She sniffed. “I had hoped that you would have a better reply than “What”, I must say.”
Gerhard had sprung up from his chair the instant she had mentioned becoming his assistant. She did not speak out of any discernible malice, but with an air of complete calm.
In fact, she was puzzled as to his reaction. She tried again.
“Prof. Gerhardt, I have looked forward to meeting you. I’ve read all your papers on the evolution of steam-engines and the application of merchant particles to the measurement of speed.”
“Well…um, yes…” He didn’t look directly at her. “You see, Miss Marcade…”
“Arkdred-Marcade, please,” she said with a smile.
“Er…right.” He stole a glance at the side-table, where his housekeeper had left a copy of the Peerage.
She bit her lip. She had not intended to mention her mother’s family when this conversation began; now somehow she found herself drawn into it. She tried to recover her composure. “I assure you I am not looking for a job based on my family’s connections.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the part I don’t understand,” he said, looking her directly in the eyes. “There is no reason for someone such as yourself to become my assistant, madame. My work is not likely to bring great accolades or improve your chances of finding a husband, which is the only reason I can assume-“
His words died on his lips as he took in her reaction. She had paled, before flushing a bright red. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap.
“Madame, I apologize…it was unfair to ascribe such motives.”
She had risen. “I wish I could say that I’m inured to such remarks,” she said softly.
“How dare you. I studied at Brno and in the Academy in Troy Novaunt. I have two degrees in Engineering and Chemistry. I came here because my father sent me, as a favor, to help with your projects. If I had my druthers I’d be studying in Vienna now…not that you care, you cold fish!” She winded up with a spot of color in each cheek, her fists clenched.
“Wait.” He got up. “I am sorry for my rudeness, Ms. Arkdred-Marcade. I am not used to visitors, or feeling silly.”
“This must be a red-letter day for you then,” she sniped. “You’ve made yourself quite clear, Professor. You don’t need any help, especially if the helper in question happens to wear skirts. Well, I usually wear trousers in the lab. I’d still rather wash bottles for the lowest researcher at University than work for you.”
The explosion at the back of the house muffled the last part of her words.
“Damn- sorry, madam. The fuel!” He ran past her down the hall. A rumbling noise was increasing. She could feel it through the floor, vibrating in the nails of her fashionable boots. Whatever the explosion had been, it wasn’t over.
The rank smell got worse as she followed him to the back of the house. He stopped in front of the basement door, which, she noticed, had been reinforced with bolts and painted a bright, conspicuous yellow. He threw the door open and ran downstairs.
Isabel stood at the top of the flight. The acrid odor in the air told her everything in an instant. Something had boiled over; from his remarks and papers she surmised that he had been experimenting with fuel additive. Potassium nitrate had been mentioned several times in a monograph of his; this must be what he was doing downstairs. Who would be so absent-minded as to leave something like that unattended long enough to explode? Her eyes rested on the lab apron that he had left hanging on the chair. There was also a pair of leather gauntlets.
From the basement came swearing and another, loud noise- as if several glass retorts had fallen onto a tile floor. She drew a deep breath and grabbed the apron and the gauntlets. After all, she told herself, he may kill himself before he finds anything, and then where would her father be?
He looked up from the wreckage as she came down the stairs. She was painfully aware of how ridiculous it must look- the heavy, stained apron over her new dress, so much longer that she needed to pick it up with one gauntleted hand to avoid tripping.
The lab was a complete disaster. Glass, broken retorts and unbroken tempered tubes, littered the floor. Several puddles of black oil and bright purple additives contributed to the tableau, some of them smoking where they hit the grout instead of the ceramic tiles. In the middle of all this stood the professor, carefully standing between two of the puddles, holding a dropper he’d been using to extract some of the fluid.
“Where’s the experiment log?” she said quickly, hoping to avoid the question of why she was down there.
“Chalkboard on the south wall,” he said.
“Right. Last temperature?”
“I’m not…”
Before he could finish, she took a thermometer from the rack on the wall and stuck it in the middle of the largest puddle. “Hmm. No good readings…the floor must be quite cool. The other information is current?”
“Yes. I type the report every night. This has to be cleaned up first, though.”
“How about…I stay long enough to type the report and help clean up? I can catch the evening train back to Troy Novaunt.”
To her own surprise, he agreed immediately. For the next two hours, they copied down the known results of the accident on the board, saving as much of the spill as they could to test later. After that, it was down to the task of getting up the glass shivers that had scattered to the four corners. There was no answer for it but slowly and carefully checking every inch of tile.
During the clean-up, they talked.
“Of course, there is very little to do these days until after you get your second degree,” she said, pouring a bucket of water over the floor while he used a broom to direct the stream towards the drains, “especially if your family doesn’t move in University circles. If you can get a couple of your papers published, someone will fund you- but you have to pay them back.”
“Doesn’t the Ruyesbroeck Trust award scholarships?”
She nodded. “They only award two every year. Even to be considered, you have to sign a contract with them for at least five years.”
“So you didn’t apply for it?”
“Of course I didn’t! Would you?”
“It’s quite a gamble, just for a scholarship,” he admitted. “Of course, those scholarships weren’t around when I studied at Royal Academy, twenty years ago. I probably would have been tempted.”
They finished clearing the glass, using a mirror and a lamp to check for any shards. Finally, the lab was clean again. Prof. Gerhardt pronounced it spotless, and rubbed the back of his head. “Miss Arkdred-Marcade, I must thank you. That was the worst explosion this lab has seen, and the quickest recovery.”
“Lab training has its points,” she said, “but definitely the worst one I’ve ever seen in a professional scientist’s private lab.” The jibe did not go unnoticed. She regretted it immediately, however. This man was clearly overworked…and quite nice, compared to some of the great egos that she had clashed with at Brno.
“No doubt most professional scientists don’t have to worry quite as much as I do about finding assistants,” he said, sounding more apologetic than anything else. “I make all of my instruments and do all of my blacksmithing since the last assistant quit. And then there’s the roses...”
“Right,” she said, letting some sympathy enter her voice. Isabel, you have let the cutthroat world of academia endanger your feminine qualities. Prof. Gerhardt clearly belonged to a much different age when research was conducted in a spirit of friendly dialogue, not the brutal competition that had driven her and her fellow class-mates. And, she reflected, another, less scrupulous assistant would take advantage of him…if he didn’t kill himself first.
“I assume you took a hansom to get here?”
“One of the delivery carts offered me a lift, actually.”
“I’d hate for you to try going back so late, after helping me. Also,” he sniffed. “My housekeeper has let herself in and appears to be making a joint with spinach. Won’t you stay for dinner?”
“I suppose I could- thank you."
They walked upstairs. Isabella felt an odd sense of easy companionship from that first explosion. Some small truce had been reached; Gerhardt appeared to be deep in thought. As they walked into the kitchen he cleared his throat. “Mrs. Muire?”
“Ohh, Mr. Gerhardt, I thought you might be down there. I smelled it when I come in the door and thought, that sure neh plum pudding cooking, nor German cabbage either.” She was standing up at the kitchen table, a cup of tea next to her ruffled cap. “I was just about to set meself for some tea while supper is on the boil.”
“Ah. Good. There will be an extra guest for dinner tonight.”
“Another guest?” She peered around him, and Isabel could almost feel the hard stare.
Gerhard continued, “Miss Arkdred-Marcade, late of Troy Novaunt. She has been assisting me downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” she said. Her tone cued Isabella to the terrors that Gerhardt’s lab held for her. Like the porters at Brno, she had an atavistic horror of scientific progress…something that the students encouraged to ensure the privacy of the lab.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss…”
“Miss Arkdred-Marcade, please.” She smiled and inclined her head in the housekeeper’s direction.
“If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am, there’s a lot would not expect someone of your family to be involved in such goings-on.”
“Happens to the best of families,” she said gravely. “The future of Europe belongs to those willing to change it.”
Gerhardt coughed.
“Indeed, well- Ah, didn’t your father have some interest in the reunification of Italy?”
Isabella recognized Gerhardt’s desire to direct attention away from scientific upheaval, and with it, the recent upheaval in the laboratory. She said smoothly, “We did spend some time there, yes; but my father interested himself more in the libraries around Florence.”
“Really? I’ve some manuscripts from the 17th century that came with the furnishings. Perhaps your father could visit and help me catalogue them?”
Mrs. Muire turned back to the cooking, showing a lamentable lack of interest in 17th century Italian. And something chimed on her wrist-
“Oh. Excuse-“
“Is that your gig-strap?”
She flipped it over. The tiny device had one main face was filled with a special liquid, next to a three smaller circular faces. As she held it, a series of small rods and circles that arranged themselves in the main face…
“I knew I should have studied Morse code more closely,” she murmured. “Seems that my father just informed Aunt Marcade of my whereabouts.”
“Your Aunt Marcade?”
