The Vorrh

territory.
    * * *

    The three or four sessions that followed had been very formal and brief. He spent much of his time shut in the studio, working on the new device, which he had not yet named. Somehow, ‘zoopraxiscope’ did not do his little miracle of reflection justice.
    Josephine behaved with her usual decorum, as if the incident had never occurred; their formal and professional friendship seemed unaffected by the nameless incident. However, he had noticed with some disquiet that his version of the peripherscope had been moved from its exact place in his studio. Each time he had gone away she must have taken it, presumably to her room. It had always been returned before he came back, but he noticed the slight differences in its meticulous setting down. Nobody else would have spotted the variation: it takes a trained and scientific eye to observe the unmentioned. At first, he thought of scolding her, but that would mean admittance and knowledge of all, and he had no desire to tread that path again. He could have locked it away, or taken it apart. In the end, he did nothing. It was easier to ignore her animal appetites and pretend that he did not know about the daily pilfering. At times, he even congratulated himself in letting her use it; another of his acts of uncalled-for kindness. Anyway, the instrument was no longer of much value to him. He had surpassed Gull’s little plaything; she could have it.
    Yet he could not so easily ignore the image of her that afternoon; it tugged at his consciousness each time they met, and it always had the same physical effect on him. After a while, he stopped trying to restrain the memory and its attendant arousal, choosing instead to reclassify it as the normal reaction of a particularly healthy and virile fifty-two year-old man.
    He had begun the process of packing away his things. Josephine knew that he was leaving, but that he would visit again upon his return. She had seemed genuinely downhearted at the news of his departure; but perhaps that was just her reaction to the prospect of being separated from the peripherscope.
    He had contacted Gull, telling the doctor of his progress and sending the previous batches of pictures to him; the last batch would be picked up the next day, by one of his men. But he was hesitant – he could not find it in himself to pack his new invention away, to stop testing it; he certainly did not want to leave it behind. He had had another fit while operating it, and was getting butterflies about using it again; he was so close, it was madness to stop now, but he couldn’t continue alone – he needed a guinea pig. Then he heard movement next door and the idea came full circle. Gull would be delighted.
    He cleared all appointments for two days and brought provisions to the rooms so that he would not have to go out. In the corner of the studio he set up the camp bed which the maid had previously used. All he had to do now was convince Josephine to help.
    He arrived very early the first day; she was still sleeping while he made tea and toast in the kitchen. She heard the early kettle boil and came to see what was happening at this time of day. Her hair was tousled, and she wore a heavy hospital dressing gown over her nightdress.
    ‘Good morning, Josephine!’ he said to the blinking ex-slave yawning before him. ‘I have made you some toast and brought us some excellent marmalade.’
    Such hospitality was alien to her, and the gaiety of his breakfast-making was beyond expectation; she regarded him, and his culinary efforts, with a wary delight.
    ‘These are my last few days before I go away. I have only one important piece of work to finish and I wanted to show it to you later, because I think you might like it. Now, come and sit down.’
    He drew a chair out for her to sit, then went to his side of the table and started buttering the toast. ‘You will like this marmalade, it’s come all the way from Oxford. Some people, myself included, believe it to be the only thing of any value that has been produced by that city!’
    The joke was beyond her, and she sipped her tea. He pushed the toast towards her as she looked blankly at him, his scruffy beard full of sharp crumbs that caught her eye.
    ‘I have a gift for you!’ he said suddenly, bounding across to the wide-open studio as she looked from him to the food and back again. She was not fully awake, and the marmalade and gifts were causing her the exact amount of confusion he had been