1 (ii)
The coffee house was small but fairly clean, with cracked windows and a smoke-stained ceiling. A thick fog of smoke and coffee fumes filled the room, and everyone seemed to be talking at once, whistling and yelling to acquaintances recognised on the other side of the room. Lord Newman guided me to a relatively quiet table in a back corner and sat down. I picked at a loose thread on my cuff, the coffee fumes burning the inside of my nose.
Lord Newman steepled his white-gloved fingers together and gazed at me over the tops. He lifted one eyebrow. ‘There is no need to look quite so terrified, Doctor Roussel. I am not going to eat you.’
His patronising tone stung, and I looked up sharply. ‘What do you want?’
He reached into his pocket and took out my notebook and a packet of papers. I flinched at the sight of the notebook, but said nothing. Lord Newman slid out a paper, unfolded it and began to read. ‘Victor Guy Roussel. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, on the twenty-ninth of December 1775. Your father is a merchant in the fish trade, but his combined savings and the scholarships you won allowed you an education far above your station. Read the sciences at La Sorbonne, graduated 1792, fled France the same year and came to London. For the past seven years you have lived at 27 Viscount Street in Smithfields, lecturing in anatomy at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Royal Institute, and running your own business. It is that business, Doctor Roussel, that I wish to discuss with you.’
He appeared to be waiting for me to say something. My tongue seemed to have turned to dust. Again he raised one eyebrow, but even my pride couldn’t think of anything to say. He gave a little shrug. ‘Your business, Doctor Roussel. You create life.’
This absurd statement filled me with a wave of relief. That was what this was all about. He’d simply misunderstood everything. Maybe someone had told him wrongly, maybe he’d misheard, but it was just a misunderstanding that could easily be put right.
‘No, no I’m sorry,’ I said, trying not to gabble. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s really not what I do at all. It’s not, I don’t create life. That would be,’ I tried to laugh, ‘ridiculous. What I do, what my business is about, Lord Newman, is making people—but they’re not real people, they’re not actually alive. It’s like a much more complex and capable type of automaton. A clockwork person. Sometimes I use flesh as well—the mayor is a client, and he allows me to use certain body-parts from the mass graves—but it’s mostly clockwork. Chemicals and cogs and wires. I make clockwork servants, bodyguards, personal companions. But I don’t, I don’t create life. That would be, that would, well, it’s... Well, at any rate, I do not create life.’
‘Indeed.’
The coffee arrived, and Lord Newman poured me a steaming cup. The brown liquid swirled and danced in the fug, the rainbow bubbles in the froth clustering and popping up the sides of the cup. I wrapped my hands around the thin china and blew, creating a tiny maelstrom in the scalding drink.
‘Clockwork people,’ Lord Newman said.
I took a tiny sip and blew again. ‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes clockwork-and-flesh.’
‘Yes. That’s all I do, that’s all my business is. It’s...’ I searched for the right word. ‘It’s almost like toy-making, only so much more than toys. Not human of course, not really alive or aware, but... But that’s all.’
Lord Newman swallowed a mouthful of coffee and put down his cup. ‘Doctor Roussel, perhaps I have not been quite clear.’ He dug the tips of his fingers into the skin of my notebook. ‘I know what happened in Paris. This notebook is proof enough, but even so I have a witness who will swear in court to the horror of your actions. Could you deal with that, Doctor Roussel? Could you handle those consequences?’
My hand jerked, spilling coffee over the table. Lord Newman made a sharp noise of irritation and gathered the book and papers together out of harm’s way. I gripped my fingers tightly, rubbing my thumb over my knuckles, trying to calm myself.
Lord Newman watched me for a second, then tapped the papers together into a clean-cut pile and said, ‘The point of all this, Doctor Roussel, is that I require your services.’
‘You want a clockwork creature?’ I asked numbly.
He gave a short brittle laugh. ‘No. It’s not your current business I am interested in. I want—’ For the first time he seemed to hesitate. ‘I want you to save my daughter.’
‘Your daughter?’
‘She is ill. Dying. Consumption of the worst kind. The physicians have given up all hope. They tell us all we can do is make her comfortable in the few days she has left.’ He smoothed a thumb unnecessarily down his lapel. When he looked up again, his face was calm. ‘She will die very soon. When she does, we wish you to resurrect her. It is as simple as that.’
I stared at him. ‘What—that’s—’
‘It is as simple as that,’ he said levelly.
‘No.’ I shoved back my chair. It screeched across the floor and the table jostled, spilling more coffee.
‘Excuse me?’ Lord Newman’s eyebrows drew together into a hard black line.
‘No. I won’t do it. It’s insane. It’s worse than insane, it’s profane, it’s wrong, it’s, it’s wrong, and I won’t do it.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Yes, indeed, yes. I won’t. You don’t know—I won’t do it. I’m sorry about your daughter, I’m really very sorry, but—but death is natural, it’s a part of life and you can’t get rid of it or—or fiddle with nature to get around it—’
‘Like you did in Paris?’
‘I—that was different.’
‘Was it?’
I opened my mouth to protest that of course it was different, that Paris had been completely different and I’d been just a student then anyway and of course it was different and...
Lord Newman folded his hands together. ‘Sit down, Doctor Roussel.’
‘No, I told you. I won’t do it.’
‘You won’t? You won’t. I see. Very well.’ He laid his hand casually on the notebook. ‘Then I’m afraid I will have no alternative but to send this to the President of the Royal Institute. The Earl of Winchilsea is a personal friend of mine; I’m sure he would be most interested to peruse your notes. Alarmed and shocked as well, of course...’
I felt ill, physically ill. This was unreal. This morning everything had been normal, and now—I couldn’t do it, not again, I couldn’t. Paris had been a terrible nightmare that I thought I had left behind me. Now I felt it sink its claws into my back and trickle desperation through my spine. I couldn’t repeat Paris and do the same mistake over again. It wasn’t possible. It was wrong, utterly, hopelessly wrong. It was evil. I couldn’t.
Lord Newman flicked open my notebook and glanced at a random page. He raised his eyebrows. ‘“Frog Number Twelve responded very favourably to digitalis and electrical stimuli, although the internal circuits were already beginning to break down. Must find a way of storing the electrical current inside the body or else revert back to the original idea of clockwork and a key. Beware when creating the keyhole; remember the mess created by Frog Number Three.”’
‘Stop it.’
He closed the book and looked at me calmly. ‘Yes?’
A long pause. I was choking in this nightmare, but when it finally came, my voice sounded almost steady. ‘What is your daughter’s name?’
Lord Newman exhaled ever so slightly. His coffee cup rattled as he put it down on the table, and again he adjusted his coat. ‘Thank you,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘Thank you.’ He took a few papers from the packet at his elbow and held them out to me. ‘I have the details of her condition here. The physicians’ notes, her age and height and history... Her name is Lenore, Doctor Roussel. She is twelve years old.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You will, of course, come and examine her yourself. You will find the address among all the other information. I will expect you at the house tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. Please be punctual.’
Mechanically, I took the papers and the card and pushed them into my pockets, then felt inside my jacket. ‘I suppose I should give you my card. In case you need to contact me.’
The card was rather crumpled from being inside my pocket, one corner folded down and a few specks of grey fluff on the back. Lord Newman ran his finger across the creases as though ironing it out. It was cut from textured ivory pasteboard and on it was printed in large letters Clockwork Creatures (Made to Order) with my name and address underneath. The normally bold black type looked thin and spidery underneath Lord Newman’s white gloves.
My brain seemed to be working without me, and I realised that I would need bodies. Maybe—hopefully—only parts, but I still needed flesh, which meant I needed help. ‘I work with the gravedigger. I’ll need to tell him about this.’
He looked up sharply. ‘What? Of course not.’
‘I’ll need flesh. Body parts.’
He sucked in his breath. ‘You are not going to involve anyone else in this matter.’
‘I’ll need flesh,’ I said doggedly. ‘You said tuberculosis. That means new lungs, probably new skin—’
‘Be quiet!’ His face had gone bone-white, but whether from anger or some other emotion, I could not tell. He glanced around the rest of the coffee house’s oblivious patrons, leaned in closer and hissed, ‘You will not discuss this in public, you will not discuss this with anyone, and you will certainly not involve a common gravedigger.’
‘Then I can’t do it,’ I said flatly. ‘I’ll need Kettlesing to supply me with the flesh. I’ll have to tell him what I need it for so he can get me what I need.’ Then, as Lord Newman still glared at me, I added, ‘Kettlesing’s a friend. He’ll be discreet.’
‘A friend?’ He barked a laugh. ‘You’re friends with the gravedigger? That’s preposterous. I would have thought that you of all people would not want to associate with the lower breeds of society. Look at what they did to Paris.’
‘My home is Geneva,’ I said. ‘And the aristocrats have mauled it just as much as the revolutionaries.’
Lord Newman shrugged impatiently. ‘No matter. Attach yourself to whoever you will, just ensure their silence.’ He rose, tucking the papers and notebook inside his coat, and signalled to landlord. He paid the bill, adjusted his cuffs and tipped his hat to me. ‘My wife and I shall expect you tomorrow, Doctor Roussel. Good day.’
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
Hi again!
It should be 'top' as he's just steepled them together and that makes like a single item, rather than them still being two. Like... using top would flow better and back up what you're saying.Specifics
1. It seems strange to me that people are yelling across a coffee house. I don't know if that happens a lot where you are but generally when I go into somewhere like a coffee house, I sit at a table with my friends and if I see someone else I know, I maybe give them a brief nod or wave them over or they signal I should join them. But there's generally a lack of shouting across the coffee house because that would be weird and then all the nice people drinking coffee and reading the newspaper or having a quiet chat would turn and stare at me.
2.
3. I wish I knew more of what the doctor is thinking. I'm finding him difficult to connect with still because I don't know what he's afraid of or have hints of what he's trying to hide. I don't know little details, like does he try to wipe the sweat off his hands and on to his trousers, does he study the other man's tie like he might learn secrets from it, secrets he could use to turn this blackmail around. Who is he? And why should I care that this other guy is throwing his power around? For that matter, I'm not finding Newman interesting enough either. Which is odd as usually I feel very strongly about your characters either way. Newman to me doesn't appear to be a villain. Or he certainly doesn't make me afraid. But he's not quite polished or sly enough to be enigmatic about it either.
Sorry if I ramble, I'm just trying to explain myself better. Basically, I feel that at least some of the reader's focus should be on deciding for themselves if Newman is a villain or a friend who doesn't use the best of means to get the doctor's attention - perhaps because he needs him too badly to risk him turning away or not going along with whatever plan he has in store. But to do that, the reader needs more hints. The reader needs to also see the doctor thinking about this, the doctor deciding to dislike this man and be afriad of him.
4. The details Newman reads out are pretty bland and things that anyone might easily find out. I think I'd have liked at least one that stood out as different and gave us more of an insight into who the doctor actually is.
5. This line I very much like and I'm starting to get more of a grip on Newman. He's quiet, understated. But with a little flair. It seems almost childish, the way he pushes what he knows around and tries to get the doctor to take notice. I wonder if there couldn't be more of that?
6. Condense this. It's too much, uh, too simple. I want it to be obvious that he's relieved and less obvious why and less definitive. This makes it seem too much like 'Oh it's a mistake, well so much for that.' Too uh... dismissive. Maybe try something like:
The statement was absurd but not completely unfounded. I felt relieved to realise that he had misunderstood, misheard, miscalculated. The man was no more infallible than the rest of us.
Maybe I'm putting wrong words into your characters mouth (for which I apologise) but there needs to be more intrigue.
7. The doctor is too quick to tell all of his secrets! These are his bargaining tools. I can understand he's relieved but he must have worried about something else, be worried about something else to have been so nervous before. That means he still wants his notebook back and he should be thinking about bargaining, not spilling his guts. It's also too much from the reader's point of view. We're only just getting invited to this mystery and already you take much of the fun out of it, explaining too much and not leaving enough to the imagination. I'd rather you leave it at 'clockwork people' and 'body parts' and let us wonder what he does with them. The talk of servants and bodyguards makes the whole process sound a bit mundane and spoils my fun
8.
9. The 'Paris' event is working well for you. I'm finding this section of the chapter much more interesting: your characters seem more alive somehow. There's also good suspence building and a nice back and forth of dialogue.
10. These notes seem too cohesive to me. Generally a person makes notes that only fully make sense to themselves, because every person's brain works differently. Also, the smaller the notebook, the briefer the notes. I have a pocket sized one and in that I use arrows and abbreviations to save me space. What you've written might be simplified to:
'Frog 12: good response → digitalis + electircal stim. Int. circuits breaking down. Find way to store current inside body/ revert to clockwork - key? Remember frog 3!'
Perhaps your doctor is a little more methodical than me, I'll admit that some of my old notes make little sense to even my eyes. But it's what we do. We know something so strongly when we make the note and don't realise we might forget what we're referring to later. And we make these little keys, abbreviations and the like, but those are often easy to work out once again as our brain recognises the way we think.
11. Loving all the end part. There's a lot more life in this once you get to the actual story matter, the part that interests you. But we need to see that life in the early stages. It needs to be exciting even before there's anything to be excited about. I think maybe the problem with the first chapter and the early section of this one is that we can feel that there's nothing happening here, but rather a sort of waiting to happen.
You need to change that, to have something in the previous chapter to keep us on our feet and paying attention, whether it's more clues about Paris or a side plot. Perhaps you need to start out with him having other worries. Maybe right at the beginning, even when he's giving his lecture, he's thinking of bodies and how he might aquire his next. I think there's be a lovely mixture of darkness and normality if you could blend that in. Not tell us what the bodies are for or explain these strange thoughts, but just slip them in as if they were completely normal and not sinister at all.
Then we meet Neman and he disrupts those thoughts and we're left to wonder what could be more chilling or are we dealing with a murderer and is this Newman an investigator? It would make your reader wonder if they were watching from the eyes of a good man or bad.
Overall
This starts off dry and dull but by the end it's ready to connect with those other parts I remember reading quite a while ago.
I haven't much else to say here but if you've got questions, do ask them. You probably know better than I which parts you're concerned with or what bothers you most,
Heather xxx
Quite interesting although I dont like this genre.