by DJ Black
The Curious Case of Amelia Craven
Nobody knew exactly what Dr Ebenezer Marley was a doctor of. He certainly wasn't a medic and although he had something of an educated slant to his words, nothing about his demeanour suggested he had had very much to do with the great institutions of learning either side of the Atlantic.
Marley was neither tall, nor particularly short. He was a well-built man who hid himself under a full-length leather wing-button coat which was his custom to wear in summer or winter. On account of this, the coat might have been adjudged by some to have seen better days. It certainly contrasted with his dark brown coachman hat, which was so often renewed that one might suppose that the good doctor had taken the old adage 'to get a head, get a hat' thoroughly to heart. However, if this had been true, one might expect that he would pay better attention to his hair, both facial and otherwise. For on such occasions that he doffed his hat, he revealed so brief a rash of grey-red covering atop of his head that it appeared as if he had been dusted with rust.
But the most striking thing about Marley was the contraption he wore upon his face. At first it was possible to suspect that they were spectacles or industrial goggles of some kind, but even a cursory inspection offered the suggestion of two clock faces over his eyes. Capping both these circles were two opaque black eyepieces that could be raised or lowered by means of a hinge to reveal a pair of adjustable bifocals. Goggles and sun visors of some sort were not entirely unknown in this industrial age, but few were more constant or elaborate in their appearance than Ebenezer Marley's. But the truth was Dr Marley was not only a man of his age, but a veritable pioneer.
For as an engineer and an inventor, Marley's ingenuity knew few bounds and so outlandish and un-British was he in his manner, that many supposed him to be a foreigner; possibly even an American... America being one of the places to which he was known to have been a regular visitor.
Not that there was anything unusual about travel to America in these days. It seemed that some of the very best people would hop onto one of the new-fangled airships without a thought. Indeed before the War Between the States had broken out, many had proposed a regular service between the Great Cities of London and New York. It had even been suggested that persons as low down the social order as bank clerks and actors might cross the Atlantic in this way, although most sensible people had dismissed the idea.
Dr Ebenezer Marley was not one of these. In fact his business was very much dependent upon these very innovations. Inventions such as the patent steam-car, which for some reason had yet to quite catch-on, were very much a case in point. In fact, to date there was only one in the world, and that was his.
Marley eyed it suspiciously as if it was in a plot against him; and then he kicked it. The steam turbine design was revolutionary, but it was prone to running out of either water or heating agent - just one of the pitfalls of incorporating it into such a small vehicle. The steam-car, or to give it its full name, the auto-propelling steam locomotive street-car, resembled a small carriage liveried in black and gold. The black was largely lacquered wood and the gold appearance was actually provided by the exposed brass workings. The wheels were a hybrid affair of steel and wood with vulcanised rims as standard carriage wheels had proved too flimsy and all steel train-like wheels too heavy and loud on street cobbles. All in all he was quite proud of it and if he could find a way to increase its range beyond 50 or 60 miles then he might even compete with the railways, let alone the horse.
He was still considering the problem of its failure to start when he remembered where he was going and why. One of his workshops in Rotherhithe had recently taken on a new apprentice who had proved so adept at the business that he was coming up with ideas of his own. Not that most of them were all that practicable, not from what Marley had heard, but it was said that the boy could understand and repair existing machines on the briefest of introductions and far faster than any in the shop.
Marley looked around and up and down the street. The steam car had chosen to come to a halt in the Strand, necessitating him to push the vehicle up a side street to the corner of King Frederick Street.
"Should be safe enough there," he mused aloud.
But all the same he glanced up and down the anonymous shopping parade for the least hint of an unsavoury character before being satisfied.
The car was now parked outside the Harp public house and there was a constable station just across the way. He didn't think the opera-going clientele of the pub would trouble it overmuch and in any case he would send word to Albert and have it taken back to Highgate in due course.
The only problem left was how he was to get to Rotherhithe.
The fog had got up since his departure from King Frederick Street and on the river it was worse. The prevalence of steam ships had not helped the matter and all the way there in the back of the hired jolly boat Marley had pondered myriad ideas for an improved vessel using turbines.
"Mayflower Wharf all right for you governor?" the boatman asked.
Marley looked up and saw the old Mayflower Inn looming out of the fog. He knew it well and it knew him, being the closest establishment to his Rotherhithe workshop. Not that he now had much choice anyway as the boatman was already fiddling with the small steam engine that drove the boat, having already committed to the moorings.
"It will serve," Marley said officiously, although he knew no better place to land.
By the time the boatman had hauled the boat to the side Marley had already stepped onto the dark rickety planking of the lower wharf and was striding out for the steps up to the pub's back door. Even before the man could protest, Marley sent a half crown coin spinning into the air over his shoulder to be expertly snatched up.
"Thanks governor," the boatman called, but his passenger was already inside.
The pub was a close medieval affair of the kind that still abounded in London. The oak panelling was black-brown and put Marley in mind of his steam car so ignobly abandoned near the Strand. Even the brass of the new-fangled beer pumps was similar.
"Dr Marley, glad to see you Sir," the proprietor called over as the inventor-engineer picked his way through the late-afternoon mob of boatmen and workers from the underground railway that connected Rotherhithe with the City.
At a pinch he could find his way home that way, but he hated being so closed in and much preferred the river or better still the open sky.
"What can I get you?" the proprietor asked.
"Another time," Marley said with a wink.
The proprietor, a portly man in shirtsleeves and a large yellow check waistcoat, winked back at the unspoken promise of future custom as the inventor pressed on through. The tight mob of customers made for slow going and he had to side-step discarded stools as he cut through spaces behind tables on his way out.
The front door of the Mayflower opened on an alley that led to the narrow cobbled street that ran parallel to the river. From the front of the pub Marley could see the workshop which was once owned by the Brunel and the subway ventilation chimney company. Marley took a small pride in that heritage and paused to peer at the unimposing building over the top of his goggle-glasses. But only for a moment, as the fog, a real pea-souper, began to close in on him obscuring even the workshop just yards from where he stood.
Marley stepped into the shop unnoticed and took stock of the work underway. At one end of the establishment an apprentice worked some bellows while another hammered at an anvil. It was the kind of work he had secured the premises to contend with, not wanting it in Highgate where his neighbours were wont to complain. But even here most of the work was of a more delicate sort and he noted a row of silent apprentices focused on small brass instruments and working with files as they refined tiny brass cogs.
One of his recent contracts was for a difference engine for the HM Computing Department at the Treasury. It was little more than a simple adding machine in Marley's eyes, albeit one based up on Babbage's better analytical machine. His more advanced and intricate machines were designed in Highgate and assembled at a workshop in Sheffield.
As he watched, Miles Dexter saw him and grinned. His old friend had begun life in publishing, having fled his native America for freedom in London. It was a profession that had been open to him on account of his rare education, a story in itself, and his exotic heritage. These had appealed to several publishers in Clerkenwell, who had soon found him to be more than literate and capable at the trade.
However, Dexter's real passion had been for engineering and wondrous new labour saving machines, but even in more progressive London few would employ what they saw as a blackamoor in such a role. It had not been until he had met Ebenezer Marley some 12 years before that Dexter had at last had his chance. Ever since then the two men had been business partners.
Miles was a huge man who like Marley was rarely seen without either his hat or his goggle-like spectacles. The hat, a brown Derby, was usually worn with a sand-brown cattleman's coat of rather a better condition than his partner, but given the heat of the workshop, today it had been set aside.
"Ebenezer," Miles called over. "Come and see this."
Marley crossed the room half-acknowledging a chorus of greetings from apprentices sitting a benches who otherwise stayed attentive to their work.
"That old steam press we have may have some life left in it after all," Miles smiled. "I hated having to buy a new one."
The man's baritone voice had only a touch of the Americas now, but it carried with it a serious enthusiasm that was both at once friendly and ripe with gravitas. He folded his arms and directed Marley's attention to the small machine in the corner where an apprentice fussed over it on his hands and knees.
Marley had already been told it was little better than scrap and its continued operation was of no small value. So he wondered what had effected this change.
"Young John Smith has certainly been a godsend I can tell you," Dexter chuckled. "I expect you're going to want him up at Highgate afore long."
Smith was the apprentice he had heard so much about and he studied the boy with a renewed interest.
The young man was small. Not just short, but diminutive like a child. He even wore a boy's brown suit of the type that might have adorned a youth from a better household. Strangely though the apprentice was wearing a man's bowler hat and heavy work goggles that made his head appear far too large for such a wisp of a body.
"How old are you?" Marley said with a frown.
"Me Sir? Why Sir? I'm... eh... near 19 Sir," the youth spluttered.
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.