Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

day you stay wiv us an’ teach us summink, we give you back one of your gewgaws.”
    “And my landau?” For the first time, Snouts lost his bravado. He sucked his upper lip into his teeth. “Mr. McTavish, do you have my landau or do you not?”
    “Not,” he mumbled.
    “You don’t? Then where is it?”
    “Billy Crumwell an’ ’is gang stole ’er off us.” He met her eyes, pleading. “We ’ad ’er stashed safe as houses, honest, but they followed us. When we went back wiv a buyer—er, I mean, a friend of ours, yer landau were gone.”
    Claire fought down a rising explosion of rage at having yet another foe to face. “If I stay and teach you, will you help me get it back?”
    “Oh, aye, lady. I wouldn’t want it nosed about that Snouts McTavish can’t ’ang onto ’is plunder.” She glared at him. “Ah, I mean, that someone can take wot don’t belong to ’em and get away wiv it. It ent honest.”
    “The hen remains mine.”
    “Aye,” he said reluctantly.
    “None of my property shall go missing again.”
    He gave his companions a look. “Aye.”
    If she left now to go to her grand-aunts Beaton, she would never see her notebook, full of years of painstaking experimentation, or her great-grandmother’s ring again. And the simple fact was, her aunts did not want her there. They were set like summer mud in their own ways, and barely tolerated anyone under fifty, never mind someone just out of school. Her friends could not help, and her mother was hundreds of miles away. She glanced down at Willie, who was still performing the duties of a ball and chain around her knees. He smiled up at her, and her heart turned over.
    At least someone in the wide world cared whether she came or went—whether she had a bed for the night or not. It might be Hobson’s choice, but at least it was a choice. “Willie and Rosie shall share the upper room with me. I am afraid propriety dictates you must move your things and sleep with your companions, Mr. McTavish.”
    “And you get all the eggs?”
    “Certainly not. We shall save the eggs and have an enormous fry-up, to be shared by all. That is, provided we find some corn and perhaps some greens for Rosie to eat in the meantime. She is not an automaton. She must be cared for.”
    “We’ll find food for ’er, lady.” The Mopsie that Claire had not paddled spoke up. The other one rubbed its behind and remained mutinously silent.
    “We are agreed, then. I will teach you how to construct my gaseous capsaicin devices, and you will return my things and assist me in the recovery of my landau.”
    Snouts nodded, and slowly the others followed his lead.
    “Wot’s yer name?” the boy who had worn her coat asked. “We can’t call yer ‘lady ’oo makes the devices’ all the time.”
    Claire hesitated a moment. “Lady will do for now. It has the advantage of being both true and anonymous.”
    “Wot’s nominus?”
    “What I choose to be until I make something of myself, that’s what. Now, then. I have observed that the gas I released inside, while it made you uncomfortable, had the side benefit of killing all the vermin in the place. Shall we all adjourn and see what comfort we can find in our lodgings?”

Chapter 17

    It cannot be said that Claire spent a comfortable night on her rag-pile. While Willie breathed gently next to her, she started and woke at every sound, suspecting thievery or vermin—she wasn’t sure which would be worse. When a watery dawn finally broke over London, she was already awake and regretting the absence of tooth-powder and warm water to wash in.
    Clearly, better accommodations must join recovery of her property and employment on her list of immediate needs.
    She combed her hair with her uninjured tortoiseshell comb, rewound it and pinned it into its customary chignon. Then she changed into a fresh waist and descended the stair with Rosie in her cage in one hand. The sound of conversation led her into the depths of the house, where she found her companions, including Willie, gathered in the kitchen around a three-legged table. A stack of bricks replaced the fourth leg.
    Kitchen was a generous term. The room contained only a cold iron stove and the table, and the shelving tacked onto the walls above the stove were empty but for dirt and spiders. In the center of the table, a hard loaf had been hacked at with a pocket-knife, and the children were busy wolfing it down.
    “Good morning,” she greeted them. “Where did this come