Chapter 8 #2
Subsequently, determined to keep her mind on matters domestic, she went down to the kitchen to check with Cook regarding the bounty currently issuing from the kitchen garden and was taken by that worthy on an inspection of the beds burgeoning with summer vegetables.
They returned to the house with just half an hour to spare before luncheon.
Felicia spent the minutes with Flora in the drawing room, idly sharing views on the information Flora’s wide-ranging correspondents had recently reported, while inwardly, Felicia wondered how matters were progressing below stairs.
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Rand and William John responded to the first striking of the luncheon gong. They ambled in, smiles on their faces—and Felicia found herself smiling back.
William John dropped into his chair and beamed at her. “Putting in those extra cogs has done the trick!” He included Rand with his gaze. “We’re nearly there!”
“Don’t get too excited yet,” Rand advised, but he continued to smile. As he took his seat, he said to Felicia, “As you suggested, William John has concentrated on making the gears work properly first, before he endeavors to adjust the controls.”
“Mind you,” William John said, helping himself to the platter of pickled vegetables Felicia had handed him, “I’m increasingly certain we’ll have yet more to do to get the controls to precisely how we want them—we’ll see once I put the modifications we discussed in place.
However”—his beaming smile returned—“I still say we’re almost there.
” He met Felicia’s eyes, then looked at Rand. “We will get everything done in time.”
Her expression mild, Flora glanced from one to the other. “How many days remain before this exhibition you and the invention have to be at?”
Rand replied, “We have ten days until the day of the exhibition. However, we’ll lose two of those traveling to Birmingham.
” He paused, then, his gaze meeting Felicia’s, said, “We have until the morning of next Thursday to have the Throgmorton Steam-Powered Horseless Carriage assembled and running perfectly. That reminds me.” He looked at William John. “What about the carriage itself?”
William John swallowed and waved toward the stable. “It’s deep in the stable and properly covered. We can wheel it out when we’re ready.”
Rand paused.
Imagining what he was thinking, Felicia inquired, “How long is it since you’ve cleaned the carriage?”
William John frowned. “A few months…” After a moment, he grimaced. “Six months at least.”
“Hmm. I believe we should have the covers off, and I can send the Reilly girls”—to Rand, she explained—“our maids, to clean and polish it.” She refocused on William John. “Are there any moving parts they need to be wary of?”
He shook his head. “No, just the wheels, and the brake will be on. They can wipe and polish to their hearts’ content. Once they have the covers off, I’ll come and take a look, just to be certain there’s nothing amiss.” He glanced at Rand. “You’ll want to see it, too.”
Rand nodded. “If there’s anything that needs fixing or adjusting to get the carriage ready for the exhibition, we should get that done.”
William John grinned. “All the better to have everything ready to go the instant we have the engine fully adjusted and working perfectly.” He smiled at them all. “I can feel it in my bones—we’re nearly done!”
To her surprise, Felicia felt herself react to her brother’s rousing words—felt her heart surge with anticipation and pride.
Inventing was proving even more addictive than she’d thought it would be.
With the others, she pushed back from the table and rose. At last, Papa, I understand.
The following days passed in a blur of activity.
Felicia moved her meetings with Mrs. Reilly to later in the morning to accommodate William John and Rand’s continuing requests for her assistance in the workshop—their urgings for her to bring her mind downstairs and apply it to the latest glitch in the engine’s systems.
To her abiding amazement, she continued to find interacting with her brother, following his lines of thought and catching where he went wrong, challenging in an intriguing and satisfying way.
Even though it might take her a few hours, invariably, her mind supplied a way around whatever obstacle William John had encountered.
Rand sat and watched and quietly encouraged—if the pair of them faltered, he would pose a question, starting them off again. To her, he was a necessary catalyst—one who lent the spark that fired her resolve, and that, in turn, drove her to find the way over or around the next hurdle.
During those hours in the workshop, the three of them merged into a highly effective team.
And when William John made an adjustment she’d suggested and it worked…the thrill of pleasure that coursed through her was worth every iota of effort; the effect only grew stronger and more intense as the days rolled on.
She’d told Rand truly; if her father had encouraged her to become involved, even if only tangentially, in his inventions, she would have understood his and William John’s obsession and would have viewed their behavior in more tolerant and supportive vein.
Nevertheless, contributing or not, she would have remained the practical one—the one who ensured the household ran smoothly around the laboratory-workshop.
But her view of the workshop would have—and, indeed, had—changed; she now saw that space and what went on in it as an integral part of life at the Hall and not as an offshoot to be endured and otherwise deplored.
She was well aware that for her change of heart, for her rekindled interest in inventions, and for her greater understanding of her father and her brother, she had Randolph Cavanaugh to thank.
She’d spent the past two afternoons with the Reilly girls—Petunia, Primrose, Poppy, and Pansy; as she’d explained to Rand, the girls’ father was the gardener and loved his flowers. As a group, they’d set about cleaning and polishing the carriage the engine would eventually power along the roads.
William John and Rand had examined it carefully, going over every panel and checking the wheels and struts, and pronounced it whole and in perfect repair. Once they’d left, armed with cloths and all manner of polishes, Felicia and the maids had fallen on the carriage and set to with a vengeance.
In midafternoon, Felicia returned to the house to join Mrs. Reilly in the sitting room to check over the weekly orders for the grocer and the butcher.
On entering the sitting room, Felicia smiled at the housekeeper, who was waiting by the empty fireplace.
“By tomorrow, your girls will have the carriage spotless—spick, span, and gleaming.”
A fond mama, Mrs. Reilly beamed. “They’re good girls, and they’ve been excited to do their bit for one of the master’s inventions. And it started with your father and all—like a bit of a memorial for him, isn’t it?”
“It is, indeed.” Felicia sank into her favorite armchair and waved Mrs. Reilly to the one facing it.
“I have to admit that I’ve never before felt so excited myself.
Lord Cavanaugh, William John, and I went over the engine in fine detail this morning—we believe that after the last adjustments William John is making, the engine will be ready for its final tests.
And then we’ll be able to lift it into its place in the carriage, hook everything up—and the carriage will go.
” She couldn’t help sharing a smile with the older woman, who had seen the household through the ups and downs of so many inventions over the years.
“We’re trying to contain ourselves, but we all believe the engine will perform splendidly! ”
“That’s good to hear, miss. A happy outcome all around.”
“Indeed.” Salvation beckoned on so many fronts—for her and William John, for their household, and for Rand and his investors as well. Felicia drew in a breath, then focused on the lists Mrs. Reilly held on her lap. “So—is there anything particular we need to get in?”
After she and Mrs. Reilly had made their decisions on the purchases for the next week and the housekeeper retired to write out her orders, Felicia crossed to the escritoire that stood against the wall between the windows. She owed her aunt-by-marriage a letter, and her cousins, too.
She was sitting at the escritoire, filling a page with the usual local news, when a firm tap fell on the door.
Puzzled, she called, “Come.”
She grew even more puzzled as, her expression unusually grim, Petunia—who, when she wasn’t busily cleaning the horseless carriage, acted as lady’s maid for Felicia and Flora both—propelled her youngest sister, Pansy, into the room.
“No help for it, Panse.” A force not to be denied, Petunia pushed a clearly reluctant Pansy to the middle of the room, then stood back, folded her arms, and fixed a stern look on the young housemaid.
“Now, my girl, you tell Miss Felicia what Diccon asked.”
Pansy looked from Petunia to Felicia. Straightening, she scrunched her now-dusty white apron between her hands and bent a wary gaze on Felicia.
Although nearly ten years older than Pansy, Felicia had known the girl from birth. She had no idea what this was about—why Petunia had brought Pansy to her and not to the girls’ redoubtable mother—but endeavored to smile encouragingly. “What did Diccon ask, Pansy?”
Pansy screwed up her face, but after a second during which she seemed to order her thoughts, she replied readily enough, “Diccon—he’s the lad as helps at the butcher’s, miss—we got to talking yesterday, when I was in the village with Poppy and Primrose, while I was waiting for them to come out of the general store.
They got stuck in the queue behind Miss Limebeck, so I sat outside to wait, and Diccon came up, and he and me got talking.
” Pansy paused, her blue eyes wide and her expression serious.
“Then out of the blue, Diccon asked if I could get ahold of the plans that Mr. William John works from.”