The Technologists: A Novel Read online

  “You will not get any pennies from me,” Ellen had warned.

  “I suspected as much,” Bob said to Marcus and Edwin.

  “When I was at Vassar, the girls were as full of slang as any boy I ever heard. Every sentence began with ‘I vow!’ until I could only dream of cotton in my ears and solitude.”

  “Well,” Bob said, reaching into his pocket, “I will put half a dozen more in now as a deposit.”

  As for Hammie, he never thought of entering Ellen’s private laboratory, and the objects of investigation were divvied between hers and that of the Technologists, so even his sharp mind wouldn’t ever glimpse the bigger picture. They stocked their laboratory with assorted extra items they found stored in the Institute, to confuse the picture further. Hammie obviously relished appearing periodically at the metallurgy laboratory to “oversee” the proceedings of the society, but was incapable of feigning interest in what they were careful to present as mundane curricular development. Just as in the classroom, once Hammie understood what was being attempted, his brain devoured and dispensed with it all in one fluid sequence before his attention wandered to other pursuits. Still, he seemed to savor short stretches of being in the room, and the semblance of camaraderie he found there.

  He alternated between being aloof and being curious, sometimes playful in his awkward fashion, though never exactly friendly. Except with Ellen. He followed at her heels like a puppy and watched every darting movement of her nimble hands at work, fascinated by her presence.

  “Mr. Hammond!” she would gasp, with an exasperated glare.

  “Your humble servant,” he’d say, showing his awkward smile. “What a novel idea, to have a female mind in our society. What can I do?”

  “Nothing at all! In fact, you can—” She stayed her tongue, feeling the scrutiny of the others.

  He was their “president,” and all eyes began to turn to Ellen to invent one task or another for him, since he would obey her alone. She proved resourceful at this.

  Even Ellen was at a loss, though, early one evening when Hammie arrived as they were in the middle of a crucial refinement of the second round of their chemical compound tests.

  Bob abruptly pulled Marcus aside. “Take him to the opera,” he whispered as if this were a normal request.

  “Is that a joke, Bob?”

  “No! His favorite opera singer is performing.”

  “Why me?”

  “Who else? I am tied up finishing a report on the working of an anthracite coal mine that shall be my doom if not handed over tomorrow, and Hammie and Edwin cannot be alone together, should the topic of First Scholar come up. I heard the odd fellow say earlier he didn’t wish to go to the theater alone, and if it came to that he’d lounge here instead. If Hammie stays here, Edwin and Professor Swallow cannot finish their analysis, and we must not put it off. We simply need to shake free of him for the evening.”

  It was true that all Hammie would say to Edwin was “Hoyt” and all Edwin would say to Hammie was “Hammie,” as though anything else would involve a pugilistic contest over First Scholar.

  “What if I find someone else to do it?” Marcus suggested. “A fresh?”

  “He won’t like the trick.”

  Then he tried, “I don’t have clothes for an opera.”

  “Say, Hammie!” Bob was already calling out. “Hammie, come over here for a moment—we have splendid news!”

  Marcus’s fate had been sealed. At the Boston Theatre, he sat silently and uncomfortably in the Hammond box during the interminable wait for the performance to begin. How much there was to do, and yet he was here! Hammie, for his part, couldn’t stop grinning, and ran on in one of the extended soliloquies that alternated with his inviolable sulkiness and that Marcus had come to realize signaled happiness.

  “The air in Boston has always made a man instantly hypercritical of fine arts, you see, Mansfield. But it is not good opera etiquette to critique the performers until the very last act has been staged.”

  Marcus had no desire to critique anything but the outfit Bob lent him, a double-breasted tailcoat with sleeves tighter and less comfortable than any he had ever worn, and white gloves that matched his bow tie but made him feel he should not touch anything. Bob had also given him his opera glass. At least he could relieve his boredom a little by watching the impressive denizens of the Athens of America settle into their boxes—women with necks and wrists sparkling in diamonds and hair adorned with flowers and bows, and, so it appeared to Marcus, bird eggs, escorted by politely bored, pale gentlemen in tight, low-hanging waistcoats. He was chagrined to see Will Blaikie moving easily among the operagoers, in the possession of what appeared to be a maiden aunt or other relative. As he surveyed the theater, he met enough other raised opera glasses to glean with a pang the intention of the long prelude to the performance—an opportunity for the aristocracy of Boston to watch itself.

  “It is not very full tonight,” Marcus commented to Hammie, breaking his silent protest.

  “Not very!” agreed a short, ancient man leaning over the rails in the box next to theirs. “Not very,” he repeated, and this time snorted, “because half of our fine families believe Boston shall be wiped off the face of the earth at any moment, and the other half choose not to ever believe anything has changed from one day to the next, were a century to pass before their eyes.”

  Though he found some of the singing in Italian remarkable, Marcus could not concentrate on the performance, and found the tinsel costumes and heavily painted faces of the singers artificial, while the instruments seemed mostly to grunt out their notes. After one particular performer, who sounded no better to him than the others, was applauded and encored to the sky, Hammie explained that it was because she was a Boston lady. The highlight of the evening came after the opera, as the crowd poured into the vestibule and Marcus, eager to leave the place behind, found himself eye to eye with Lydia Campbell, Bob’s friend, resplendent in an amber dress with wide puffings and a cashmere opera cape. Hammie had ventured into a corner to argue some fine points of opera with the old man from the adjacent box, whom he had evidently known for many years.

  “Well, Mr. Mansfield!” Miss Campbell said, her eyes bright with an almost metallic flash. “I should scold you and your friend Mr. Richards for neglecting to pay me any visits since we met in the Garden. What was your opinion of the opera?” She looked very beautiful and golden, standing tall in her elegant dress and well-chosen jewels—not large, but obviously expensive—all of which served to emphasize her figure, form, and grace. Her hair was coiled high on her head and tucked under a small hat with delicate flowers around the rim.

  “I do not like to critique an opera before the performance is ended,” offered Marcus.

  “But it has ended, my dear puppy.”

  “Not for me,” Marcus said honestly. “The music still rings in my ears.”

  “Lovely notion! I know exactly what you mean.”

  Miss Campbell presented Marcus to several members of her family as “my personal scientist.”

  “Science!” one of her sisters cried. “Why, that is all anyone fears nowadays.”

  “Only for the moment, you goose,” Miss Campbell insisted. “One day soon, every woman will need her own scientist just to understand the strange changes in the world.”

  One of her other relatives asked if Marcus had been born in Boston.

  Miss Campbell smiled apologetically to Marcus for the question, revealing two satiny dimples, then pointed out to her relative, very seriously, while adjusting her bracelets: “Nobody is born in Boston anymore, dear!”

  When Will Blaikie interrupted the conversation to greet the Campbells, he was impeccably polite to Marcus. It was as if Marcus had stepped inside an enchanted realm and, for a moment, he might have been convinced he lived in Beacon Hill and had his own footman and stable. He nearly forgot his eagerness to return to the gloomy laboratory, uplifted by the good cheer and a strange feeling that he had been attending this opera his whole l
ife.

  The spell was broken when he looked to the side and saw he was being watched by Agnes Turner. She and another young girl were following a plump older woman with bright orange hair crammed with jewels and wearing a loud flowing dress.

  * * *

  IN THE MORNING, Marcus and Bob arrived together at the Institute to find some unusual excitement in the basement.

  “We caught him!” Edwin said in a near frenzy to his friends. “You should have seen it!”

  “Edwin, slow down,” Marcus said, trying to calm him.

  “Who are you talking about, Eddy?” Bob asked.

  “It’s a freshman,” Edwin replied, then stopped to take a breath.

  “Miss Swallow …” Marcus began, turning to Ellen for more.

  “In the storeroom, Mr. Mansfield,” Ellen said.

  Marcus and Bob opened the door to the storeroom, across from the Technologists’ laboratory, and found a student, sitting on the floor, his hands and feet tied with rope.

  “Mr. Mansfield!” said the fellow with a pleading, guilty smile.

  Marcus slammed the door closed again and shook his head with dismay at the situation.

  “You did that to him?” Bob asked Edwin with surprise, pointing at the door.

  “No,” said Edwin.

  “I did, Mr. Richards,” Ellen said.

  “What in the heavens for?” Bob demanded.

  “He was trying to force the door open to the society’s laboratory,” Ellen explained. “I really must finish extending the alarm mechanism. I need a few feet more of cable.”

  “Alarm,” Edwin echoed Ellen’s word back, though the others were too distracted to notice the look of realization animating his face.

  “You know the fellow in there, Mansfield?” Bob asked.

  Marcus nodded. “Another fresh that I coached. A very promising engineer, actually.”

  Bob walked back to the storeroom door and opened it. “You. Fresh. What were you doing at that door?”

  “Well, you see, sir, some of the architecture sophs were chasing me in the stairwell and I believe wished to lock me in the closet again, so I was looking for somewhere to hide that they wouldn’t find—”

  Bob shut the door again and turned to Marcus. “Mansfield, I think we ought to put a fright in him to make certain he doesn’t come back here and arouse the curiosity in his friends.”

  “I doubt that’s needed, Bob. Stand aside a moment.” Marcus opened the door again and cut the freshman’s wrists and ankles free.

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Mansfield! Thank you!”

  “See here, Davis, let us not give anyone else an account about what happened here today,” Marcus said, putting an arm around his shoulder. “I mean, about a woman having overmatched you.”

  The freshman gasped at the idea. “How embarrassing!” he lamented.

  “Worry not,” Marcus continued. “We shall keep the matter quiet, and keep to our own places in the building from now on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If the architecture scrubs trouble you again, tell me and I shall deal with them.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mansfield!”

  Once the liberated student exited the basement, they were beckoned into Ellen’s laboratory by Edwin, who was dragging out the large trunk found in the harbor. They had removed the iron pieces and analyzed each individually, placing them in categories by weight, condition, and magnetism.

  “Marcus, give me your knife,” Edwin said excitedly.

  Marcus handed him the blade he had used to free the captive from his restraints. “What is it, Edwin?”

  “Something Miss Swallow said—about her alarm system and its cables,” Edwin replied, patting the inside of the trunk. “I think I have our answer.”

  “Eddy, we’ve already emptied the trunk of everything inside,” Bob reminded him.

  “No, Bob, I do not believe we did.” Edwin paused as though he had found what he was looking for. He used the knife to cut through the leather lining. Underneath, a series of cables ran along the top and bottom of the trunk. He gave his cohorts a boyish smile as he waited for their reactions.

  “Copper cables!” Marcus marveled, inspecting the remarkable discovery. “But why?”

  “To transform the magnetism of the iron to an electromagnetic charge!” Ellen exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” said Edwin. “That would exponentially increase the range of effect from this amount of iron to derange the navigational tools!”

  “That’s remarkable,” Bob said. “Only, the moment the trunk was no longer connected to some source of electricity, the electromagnetic charge would disappear.”

  Edwin went on. “Exactly why the experimenter must have had a battery aboard a ship, one that retained its charge for at least a number of hours, and sufficient cable to maintain the connection as the trunk was lowered into the water enough to create as large a radius of impact as we have observed.”

  “Is it possible, Professor?” Bob turned to Ellen.

  Ellen considered it. “If the battery such as the one I use for my alarm contained enough cells with, say, platinum connected to zinc, in sufficient amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids, the charge could last even longer.”

  A gong tolled from Ellen’s alarm mechanism. She looked through a glass lens that allowed her a sight of the corridor. “It’s young Mr. Hammond. He is using his key in the society laboratory.”

  “I escaped him as quickly as I could after the opera last night,” Marcus said. “He likely wants to talk more about it. Edwin, what a discovery! Keep studying the matter until the first class begins.”

  Despite the disruptions he caused, Hammie occasionally proved helpful as an extra hand. Given their restricted space, they had to frequently take tools and equipment out of the laboratory and store them elsewhere in the building, and often resorted to walking in a roundabout path outside the building to attract less attention, since the area around the Institute was always so quiet. Back Bay, with its long stretches of nothing, now assumed the aspect of a faraway desert.

  During the half hour remaining before class, Marcus took Hammie along to help him move some supplies.

  “Shall we discuss the state of our little society as we walk, Mansfield?” Hammie asked.

  “I don’t know what there is to discuss, really, Hammie,” Marcus replied, trying to hide his excitement over Edwin’s latest hypothesis.

  Hammie seemed hurt by his indifferent response. “As president, I feel that it is my obligation to look after it—don’t you believe so? As president, I must organize all the activities and address problems.”

  “If there are no problems, you need not expend your valuable energy,” Marcus offered hopefully.

  “Well, I suppose if the members are satisfied with my leadership.”

  “I am confident in that very thing,” Marcus was quick to add.

  “Do you believe the same of Miss Swallow?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Mansfield, do you believe Miss Swallow is sufficiently pleased with my skills as leader? Is she sufficiently … fond of … my presence?”

  Marcus paused and looked into Hammie’s face, which flushed. “Hammie, what are you asking?”

  “No, it isn’t right,” Hammie said firmly, and shook his head decisively. “Do not answer. One must not speak behind the back of a member in good standing. I shall inquire with them each individually on their degree of satisfaction.”

  As they approached the back entrance, hurrying at the signs of another rainstorm, a man hailed them from across the way. Marcus cursed the possibility that it was another one of the unionists who periodically installed themselves there to harass students and faculty.

  The man started to come forward, but stopped at a slight distance, holding out his hand as a warning to keep their distance. He wore a wrist-length wool cape and wool hood, which immediately struck Marcus as odd—it had started raining only seconds before. When he took one more deliberate step forward, his face was parti
ally revealed. A series of bright, circular scars ran across his cheeks and brow, which might have looked painted on had they not been so horrific. His skin was shriveled and appeared almost reptilian, as though it would soon be cast off. The bizarre effect was only worsened by a stringy mustache that presented itself in a glowing tint of orange.

  “Marcus Mansfield,” the stranger said.

  Marcus was startled. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The stranger ignored the question. “I understand you have been in some rather interesting quarters of the city—very volatile parts—lately, with some friends: Robert Hallowell Richards, blond and strutting like a peacock; Edwin Hoyt, thin as a rail, plumage sprinkled with premature gray; Ellen Swallow, a sharp-featured woman with manly pursuits.”

  Marcus felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He wished Hammie were not there. He would have to be circumspect in his presence.

  “Who are you?” Marcus repeated as mildly as he could.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “I’ve asked twice for you to identify yourself, sir.”

  “I am the avenging angel and my tongue is my flaming sword.”

  Marcus gestured for Hammie to continue without him, but Hammie stood stalwartly by his side. “Sir,” said Marcus, “I am not in the way of conversing in riddles. It sounds to me like you make veiled threats, and I wish to know why.”

  “Nothing veiled about it, boy. Will you tell me what you know? What did you find on that sailboat you took out in the islands?”

  “What sailboat?” Hammie asked.

  They had been followed. For how long? “I know nothing of what you speak about,” replied Marcus cautiously, gesturing with a tilt of his head to the building. “I am only a college student, as you see.”

  “You are a factory urchin disguised in the respectable garments of a collegey!”

  “What is this blockhead all about, Mansfield?” Hammie asked. “Do you want me to fetch Professor Runkle?”