Out of Time: . (Steamside Chroncles Book 1) Read online

  Chapter Nine

  The cab ride back to St. Giles Square had been a quiet one. Neither Kate nor Jacob were quite sure what to say to each other. Jacob had considered calling a friend who held a high position at Bethlam Royal Hospital, colloquially known as Bedlam, but hesitated. He wanted to find out more about the young woman who now appeared to be in his care.

  Kate, on the other hand, was angry and frightened. One emotion she had recently become used to, the other as alien as her current surroundings. They arrived back at Jacob’s house and went straight to the study. Jacob arranged the chairs in front of the fire and motioned for Kate to sit. She walked over and slumped into the chair, staring into the fire for a short while before turning to see Jacob looking at her with some concern.

  “I’m sorry I was too late to stop you being put in the Maria,” said Jacob, “but at least you weren’t taken to the police station. That might have been a little more difficult to get you out of.”

  “What the hell is going on? Is Dan in this with you? Are you both playing some elaborate practical joke? Well let me tell you, it’s not funny.”

  “I assure you there’s no joke being played…”

  “What’s with all the horse-drawn carriages?” Kate interrupted, “the Victorian costumes, the medieval police van. It’s either some kind of joke or there’s some kind of fair on somewhere?”

  Jacob looked at Kate with a blank expression on his face. Kate became exasperated.

  “Cars. Where are all the cars? And buses too for that matter. Where were the chimneys?”

  “Chimneys?”

  “Yes, chimneys. When I was on Battersea Bridge I couldn’t see the chimneys from the power station. They weren’t there. They couldn’t have been torn down overnight so what’s happened to them? Talking of the bridge, it’s wooden. It hasn’t been wooden for over a hundred years. And then there’s you. You call yourself a doctor but you dress like someone from a Sherlock Holmes novel and you live in a museum. I mean that phone of yours wasn’t made in this century. So what’s your story?”

  Jacob began to wonder if he should have left the woman with the police or if perhaps he should take her straight to Bedlam, “Everyone dresses like this and as far as my telephone is concerned, it is brand new,” Jacob hesitated. “Who is Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Oh come on, you must have heard of him. The most famous fictional detective in the world. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published in 1887.”

  “No, I’m sorry, but neither are familiar to me. But as this is 1882 we are still five years away from publication so I suppose there is still time,” Jacob studied the out of place woman for several moments. Bedlam was now becoming a serious option but he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the forlorn figure, “I have a surgery this afternoon but if there is anywhere I can take you.”

  “Yes,” said Kate. “You can take me home.”

  ***

  It was a short walk onto Brompton Road where Jacob easily hailed a brougham. They sat next to each other in the back of the cab and Kate instructed the driver as to the destination and the route he was to take. Kate watched as Jacob took a pair of goggles from a hook on the door and placed them over his eyes. She looked down at the door on her side and saw an identical pair hanging from an identical hook. She looked away from the goggles, not wanting to join in the charade and through the side window of the cab.

  The cab lurched forward as it went along Brompton Road and then Knightsbridge. Sat on the very uncomfortable seat, Kate was aware of how close Jacob was, but he didn’t seem to be a threat. She pushed her face against the glass of the carriage window and looked out. It was London, but not the London she had come to know in the last two years. The buildings seemed similar, four, five or six storeys tall but that’s where the similarity ended. Bay windows on every floor in the middle of most buildings with posters on either side advertising everything from mustard to soap.

  A watchmaker with tall arched windows full of jewellery, watches and clocks. A cluster of three large clocks in a triangle hung off the wall leaving the shopper in no doubt as to what was for sale. Kate looked closer. It wasn’t three clocks. One was a clock, the second a barometer and the third looked like a compass. Canvas awnings angled down from the majority of shops covering the windows from the sunlight. All of them with the name of the shop they protected. ‘Sands & Co’, a jeweller, ‘ABC Railway Guide’ ‘Tremayne's Wine Merchants’. They passed a shop advertising travel routes to the continent, ‘Via Harwich’ and a dentist offering ‘a complete set of teeth for a guinea.’

  The cab turned into Park Lane for a short distance before turning again towards Grosvenor Square. A growing sense of unease had seeped into Kate’s consciousness as the cab approached her flat.

  “Stop here,” she said. Jacob rapped his cane on the roof of the cab and it lurched to a halt. Kate got out and looked to the top of one of the five-storey terraced houses. It was definitely the building where she lived, but it was all wrong. There should have been a brass plate on the side of the door with intercom buttons for each flat. It wasn’t there. The window frames were all wooden and single glazed. She strode up the three stone steps leading to the front door and pulled a long chain with a key on the end from her trouser pocket and was about to put the key in the lock when she realised the lock was different. It was a mortice lock, not a Yale.

  Kate banged her fist on the door. Only a few seconds had passed when the door was opened and standing in the hallway was a young woman dressed in a maids outfit. Kate looked past the maid into the hallway. It was completely different to the communal hallway where she lived. There were rugs on the floor and a wallpaper with a large flowery pattern covered the walls. A ceramic pot containing a tall leafy plant stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Can I help you miss?”

  The question snapped Kate out of her reverie and she focussed on the maid, “What address is this?”

  “This is 22 Wynmore Crescent miss. Is everything all right?”

  Kate stumbled back down the three steps and onto the pavement. She dropped the key and it was left swinging by her leg on the end of the chain.

  “Is everything all right?” said Jacob, echoing the maid.

  “This is where I live,” said Kate, “but it’s gone.”

  “I think I’d better get you back to the house.”

  Kate suddenly remembered a dissertation she had done in the last year of her architectural history degree, “No,” she said, “take me to Tower Bridge. If this is 1882 the bridge won’t be there. It wasn’t built until 1894.”

  “So you want me to take you to a bridge that hasn’t been built yet.”

  “Just take me to the Tower of London, and we’ll put a stop to this once and for all.”

  Jacob looked at her with growing concern. She seemed lucid enough but her fantasies were being exposed one by one. Jacob was becoming concerned what effect this might have on her mental state. “I really don’t think…”

  “Either drive me to the Tower or I’ll walk.”

  Jacob gave a slight shrug and opened the cab door for Kate to climb in. He walked around to the other side, giving instructions to the driver before they set off. They went back down Park Avenue, across Piccadilly and then onto Constitution Hill, past Buckingham Palace before heading onto Birdcage Walk. As they approached Westminster Bridge the familiar sight of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament greeted them. Kate felt comforted by the sight of them and felt sure the whole charade was about to come to an end despite what had happened at her flat and the lack of normality, such as not seeing a single car, bike or bus on the way.

  Kate thought the traffic, the carriages both horse-drawn and steam-driven, would ease as they rode toward Westminster Bridge. It didn’t. If anything the traffic became worse and the hansom slowly ground to a halt. Jacob banged the roof with his cane.

  “Why have we stopped?” he asked.

  “Levellers sir,” the driver called down, “it looks like a demonstrati
on.”

  Kate saw the look of concern on Jacob’s face and followed him out of the hansom.

  “What are Levellers?” she asked as she joined him looking down towards Westminster Bridge.

  “Levellers are people. Poor, disenfranchised, working class or unemployed people. They want a fairer society, a redistribution of wealth and jobs. They also want a stop to the increasing use of automata that inevitably puts people out of work.”

  “Luddites?” Kate asked.

  “No. not really. They’re not against change or progress per se but the social inequality that change brings.”

  “The rich get richer.”

  “Exactly. A lot of people say they are just thugs. They used to be lone voices or small groups but recently, since Solomon Polperro got himself involved, they seem to have become extremely organised. Unfortunately for their cause every time there’s a demonstration there seems to be a rise in crime.”

  “Who is Solomon Polperro?”

  “He is a very rich man. A landowner with interests in cotton, steel and coal and that’s just in this country. They say he owns gold and diamond mines in South Africa and there’s a new rumour about him just about every week.

  “So why is he involved with a group like the Levellers?”

  “I have no idea. He never really struck me as a man who would put too much of his own money into a cause, good or bad,” Jacob paused. “Having said that he is a benefactor at one of the hospitals I work at.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “He’s an acquaintance. We have dinner together occasionally, usually to discuss the hospital.”

  A roar from the crowd made them both look towards the bridge. A steam vehicle had been overturned and rolled into a Costermonger’s wagon. Hot coal from the furnace spilled onto the bridge and two of the wagon’s wooden wheels buckled under the weight of the steam engine. The wagon’s load of apples and vegetables joined the coal spilled from the steam vehicle on the bridge and were soon picked up by pedestrians and demonstrators alike

  Another roar caught Kate’s attention, this time from Whitehall on her left. A dozen mounted police followed by about fifty more on foot charged toward Westminster Bridge. However, the demonstrators were well organised. They avoided the static horses easily and charged headlong into the undisciplined police who were badly outnumbered. Fighting erupted and Kate could see it would only be a matter of time before the protestors broke through the police lines.

  Just as the thought was going through her head she heard a noise like a freight train slowly pulling into a station. She looked down Whitehall to see a contraption rolling towards the bridge on large metal wheels. It was approximately ten metres long and about a metre high. It appeared to be constructed of brass and steel, with the length being divided into six segments. It reminded Kate of a cross between a caterpillar and an armadillo. On each side, towards the front part of each of the segments, on either side, there was a ball with a pipe sticking out. The contraption rolled around the corner and stopped at the entrance to the bridge, a slim chimney to the rear of each segment steadily blowing black smoke into the morning air.

  Kate’s mouth fell open in surprise as she raised her hand and pointed to the contraption. “What’s that?” she asked, not quite believing what she was seeing.

  “It’s a steamworm,” replied Jacob, “It’s a recent invention that the police have been given for use in riot control.”

  Kate heard a loud grating sound of metal on metal as the steamworm began moving. Kate suddenly realised the five segments were separating and they began to move slowly toward Westminster Bridge in a diamond formation.

  “There’s a man in the last segment controlling the front five segments. You see the wires?” Kate leaned forward and could see coiled copper wires extending from the back segment and reaching into the rear of each of the front five. “Rumour has it they are specially trained government agents,” said Jacob, “I’ve never seen one at work before, but I understand they’re very effective.”

  Each segment had a large ironclad wheel on both sides and a smaller one in the front. The formation rolled onto the bridge and a loud, piercing whistle came from the rear segment. It was the signal for the police in front of them to move to either side of the bridge. The Officers scattered leaving an uncertain mob in the middle of the bridge. The segments moved toward the protestors who held their ground

  The segments of the steamworm stopped about twenty yards in front of the protestors. A few of the ringleaders whipped up the fervour of the crowd and without warning they charged toward the partitioned steamworm. Kate saw the ball and pipes swivel and take aim before jets of highly pressurised steam were fired toward the onrushing protestors.

  Kate watched as the steam was directed at the floor in front of the protestors. Several men skidded and fell to the floor. Kate feared the worst but just as the men seemed to be at the steamworm’s mercy it stopped firing. The segments started to roll forward, scattering everyone in their way and the protestors turned and ran, straight into the waiting mounted police. In their desperation to get away from the steamworm the protestors were not so organised. Mounted officers knocked many to the floor who were then taken to waiting Black Marias.

  Kate looked back toward the bridge and saw several injured men being moved onto wooden carts and taken away. The segments of the steamworm were re-attaching themselves to each other and it was soon trundling back down Whitehall followed by dozens of bedraggled police officers. It had only been a matter of minutes since the segments were rolling toward the protestors, but already the bridge had been cleared of the demonstration and the clean-up had begun.

  Kate and Jacob watched as the overturned steam vehicle and cart were unceremoniously dragged to the side of the road, the carts two horses rounded up and calmed. The hot coals were swept into the river, sizzling as they hit the water, and the traffic started to flow again.

  Kate got back into the cab and noticed a large group of people standing watching the events. Some of the small boys had made the most of the situation and had pockets and hats full of apples, potatoes and assorted vegetables. Then something else struck Kate.

  Hats! Everyone was wearing a hat. The men wore top hats, stovepipe or straw hats. She realised most of the demonstrators were wearing flat caps or bowlers. Young boys aged no more than ten years old wore flat caps and jackets with trousers barely covering their knees. Some of the boys wore boots and long socks to cover the gap in-between. Kate saw a man wearing a bowler hat standing behind an open wooden barrow selling fish, a young boy with bare feet stood at one end watching him. The girls had bonnets and dresses but in drab or faded colours.

  The sound of the other cab door closing caused Kate to look around. Jacob was sitting next to her again with a look of concern on his face.

  “Is everything alright? You look quite pale.”

  “Yeah, I’m OK,” Kate said in a quiet voice. She looked past Jacob and onto the Thames

  “Look at the boats. I haven’t seen that many since the celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee.”

  Jacob looked at the shipping on the Thames and then switched his attention to Kate.

  “What jubilee celebrations?”

  “Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. You must have heard about it even in America.”

  “Queen Victoria,” Jacob said her name deliberately, “hasn’t even had her Golden Jubilee yet, never mind her Diamond Jubilee. There were no celebrations for her Silver Jubilee because of Prince Albert’s condition.”

  Kate said nothing, focusing on the glut of steam and paddle ships that were manoeuvring around each other on the river.

  As the cab continued its journey Kate concentrated on the scenes outside. Gone were the bridges and tunnels under buildings. Gone were the towering buildings made of glass and steel. In their place stood grand stone edifices several stories high fronted by Grecian columns. Banks and merchants displaying their wealth albeit blackened by constant smoke. There were no children her
e. No women selling coffee or cress. A sign on a lamp post in the middle of the street stated “KEEP LEFT”. The street was orderly and calm. This was an area for the affluent kept safe, quite literally, by a constable on each street corner.

  Suddenly a familiar sight, All-Hallows by the Tower Church. Another memory, this time bittersweet. Kate recollected being in an open carriage pulled by two horses on this same road the day Dan had proposed. She forced the memory out of her head. Tower Bridge would be in view in a matter of seconds and this ridiculous charade would be put to an end.

  The carriage moved slowly past the church and Kate, in anticipation, leaned forward, almost pressing her nose against the glass. The sight that greeted her was a kick to the stomach. She looked ahead and could see the Tower of London, but to the right…nothing. Where Tower Bridge should have been there was an empty space over the river.

  Kate slumped speechless in her seat. Suddenly she ordered the driver to stop. Jumping out of the carriage she ran to the riverside and took out her phone, taking a number of photographs of the Tower and the space beside it. When she had finished Kate stared at where the bridge should have been. She had no idea how long she had been standing there when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  “I think we should go back now,” Jacob said in a quiet voice.

  Without saying a word Kate turned around and they walked back to the waiting cab.

  Chapter Ten

  Jacob placed his hat on the hallway table and hung his coat from an ornate metal and ceramic hook on the wall. He led Kate into the study and she sat in one of the two leather chairs adjacent to the roaring fire. Jacob poured brandy into two glasses and handed one to Kate.

  “They say it’s medicinal but I’m not so sure,” he said as he sat on the corner of his desk. He watched her as she stared into the fire, lost and confused.

  “What did you mean when you said there had been women constables since 1915?”

  Kate leaned back in her chair and regarded Jacob, not sure if he was her gaoler or rescuer.