Chapter 13
· · ·
Tamsin set the caterpillar on Mr. Maillardet’s table and said a prayer.
She’d called on the Swiss inventor and clockmaker after his theater had closed for the day.
The clerk who took tickets tried to turn her away, but when she showed him the caterpillar, he let her in.
Now Mr. Maillardet stepped into the room, looked at Tamsin then at the table, and said, “Might I ask how you acquired my caterpillar?”
Tamsin shrugged. “I found it at a pawnshop.”
“I see. And you want a fee for returning it.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I want a fee for repairing it.”
The inventor’s brows went up. “It was slated for repair before it disappeared over a year ago, and now you say you have repaired it?”
“I have, sir.”
Maillardet took his spectacles out of his pocket and set them on the end of his nose. “Show me.”
Tamsin took another breath. She’d worked endless hours the past few days to repair the automaton.
Once she had the new lever, she’d had to return all the cams and levers and refit the shaft inside the body of the caterpillar.
Though she’d been careful to lay out all the parts in order so she might replace them easily, the task had not been at all easy.
Time and again, the caterpillar had not worked, and she’d had to take it apart or make adjustments.
She’d almost given up half a dozen times, but finally, at about six this morning, she’d turned the crank, and the caterpillar had inched forward.
Tamsin’s shout had woken her mother, who’d been snoring softly on the floor while Tamsin worked through the night.
The Archer ladies’ excited shrieks had roused Big John, who had come down to see what all the commotion was about.
Now Tamsin prayed the caterpillar still worked. Her hands shaking, she lifted the automaton, turned the crank, and set the piece on the table. With a quiet whirring sound, the caterpillar inched forward. The machine’s jeweled body glinted in the lamplight.
“What did you do to it?” Maillardet exclaimed, lifting the still-moving automaton.
Tamsin’s belly clenched. “I cleaned the pieces and refitted them,” she said hastily, her words tumbling over one another. “A lever was cracked, so I had a blacksmith craft a new one and—”
“How did you manage to quiet the movement?” the clockmaker demanded, squinting at the automaton, whose legs and body moved in his hand.
Tamsin opened her mouth then closed it again. This was not the question she’d expected. “I don’t know. Is it supposed to be louder?”
“Not at all. Quiet is better. How did you do it?”
“I don’t know.” Tamsin explained all her steps, and Maillardet listened closely.
“Do you think you can repair other machines? Perhaps make them quieter as well?”
Tamsin swallowed. “I can repair them, yes.” After days of working on the caterpillar, she had faith in her abilities there. “And I can do my best to make them quieter. It might take a bit of trial and error.”
To her surprise, Maillardet smiled. “What is an inventor without mistakes? That is how we learn.” He removed the spectacles and reached in his pocket, producing a sovereign.
“This is for your work on the caterpillar. If you would like employment with me, come back next week. I’ll hire you on as an apprentice. We’ll see how you do.”
Tamsin gaped at him. “You are offering me a position? You will pay me?”
“If you are able to repair my other machines as you did this one, yes, I will pay you. If you show some promise, I will teach you some of what I know. I don’t just work on automatons. I make clocks and watches as well.”
Tamsin couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
It didn’t seem possible that she was being offered a job—a real job.
An apprentice position. She didn’t know of any women who worked as apprentices.
And what Maillardet offered was more than an apprenticeship.
It was a future. Making and repairing watches and clocks was skilled labor.
Tamsin could earn enough money to do more than simply survive.
She might finally be able to afford a place for her mother and herself.
She might one day be able to pay Snoozer for Charlie and Joanna.
“Well, are you interested?” Maillardet asked after what must have been a long silence.
“Yes, sir. I will be here, and I’ll work hard.”
“Good. Now run along. I want to lock the theater and go home.”
“Yes, sir.” Tamsin closed her palm around the sovereign and scampered out of the theater and onto Catherine Street.
It should have been dusk, but as it was the height of summer, the skies were still light.
Tamsin immediately caught sight of the back of a man clad in black.
His shoulders were hunched forward, and he had strings of dark hair trailing down his back.
More importantly, he wore the tall hat of a chimney sweep.
Snoozer?
For a moment, Tamsin couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
There were any number of tall, thin men who might wear black like a sweep.
But she knew. She just knew this was Snoozer by the way he moved.
Those hunched shoulders gave him a lumbering gait that had always seemed to her to be too strained for a man of his slender frame.
She forced her feet into action, following him at a distance and making certain there were always other people between them.
Not that such measures were necessary. He didn’t look over his shoulder.
He walked with purpose. Clearly, he had somewhere to be. Tamsin prayed he was on his way home.
He moved east, and soon she was following him along Fleet Street, past the barristers coming from court and the ministers emerging from Whitehall.
Those sorts of men were replaced by a rougher sort as they neared Blackfriars.
This was the territory of the notorious criminal known as the Baron of Blackfriars.
Tamsin did not want to encounter a man like him.
She kept her head down and some distance between herself and Snoozer, but she hoped he reached his destination soon.
She did not want to be in this area after dark.
Finally, Snoozer turned toward a dilapidated old house. Producing a key, he opened the door and disappeared inside. No lights appeared in the window, but Tamsin stood across the street and watched until the skies had darkened much more than she liked.
Then, just as she was about to go home, she spotted a boy of nine or ten, a broom over his shoulder and a sack in one dark hand. He raced up the walk to the house and pounded on the door. The door opened and Snoozer looked down at the boy. Cuffing him about the ears, he allowed the boy inside.
This was it. She had found where the chimney sweep lived. She hadn’t needed Garret Kildare. She’d done it all on her own. She’d rescue Charlie and Joanna on her own too. Not long now until her family would be together again.
Almost as though he could hear her thoughts, Snoozer stood in the doorway and looked out at the street. Tamsin was standing against a building, and she pushed back against it, trying to blend in. Finally, Snoozer turned and went inside the house.
Tamsin ran all the way back to Big John’s.
· · ·
The next day, Tamsin wore the livery Kildare had given her.
She clubbed her hair and pulled the hat down over her eyes so Snoozer wouldn’t recognize her if he spotted her.
She took up a position across from Snoozer’s house before dawn.
She’d planned to stand in the doorway of another house across the street, but two men were sleeping there, so she settled herself just around the corner.
She didn’t have a perfect view of the house, but she could see it well enough.
Not long after she arrived, the door opened and several broomers emerged.
Tamsin knew Charlie immediately. He’d always been a bit pigeon-toed, and he stood that way now.
She hadn’t seen him in six months, and he’d changed.
He was black with soot, his dark hair cut close to his head.
He was painfully thin and looked even smaller than she remembered him.
He wore the same clothes he’d been dressed in the day he was sold, and they were little more than rags.
His feet were bare. Tamsin had to press her short nails into the palm of her hand to keep from going to him.
He was looking toward the door, as were the other broomers he stood with, and after a moment, Snoozer and a few more broomers emerged.
One of the broomers went straight to Charlie, and Tamsin realized it must be Joanna.
She wouldn’t have recognized the child on the street.
Gone were her honey-blond tresses and the baby fat of her cheeks.
Her hair was black and shorn. She was thin and small and dressed like one of the boys.
Charlie moved closer to her, seemingly to protect her.
Tamsin’s heart clenched. Despite everything that had happened, the two of them had stayed together as much as they could.
Snoozer said something and the broomers started off.
Tamsin shrank back as the group of about eight passed the corner where she stood and moved away from the river and up the street.
When they were far enough ahead not to notice her, Tamsin followed.
After about a quarter of an hour, Snoozer approached a gray building and knocked on the door.
When it opened, a woman in a clean dress and white apron opened it and all the broomers filed in, Snoozer entering last. Tamsin waited to make sure the door wouldn’t open again, and then she moved nearer to the building, trying to make out the words over the door.
She had been taught to read, but she was out of practice.
She sounded out the words until she had enough of them to understand this was some sort of hospital.