Waistcoats & Weaponry

The gentry at the ball spiraled into panic. What if it was not just the Temminnicks’ mechanicals malfunctioning? What if their own servants were broken? Who would make the tea in the morning? Several of the ladies began to have hysterics. Even a few gentlemen succumbed to overwrought nerves.

Sophronia, Dimity, and Sidheag participated briefly in the confusion. After all, they also had never seen anything like it. But it only took them a moment to realize they should take advantage of the situation. Such a crisis as this, mass mechanical revolt of an incomprehensibly passive variety, would occupy the adults long enough for them to make good their escape.

Thus, without any fainting necessary, they left the ball and made for the gazebo.

The boys were already there. Soap had found a number of large wicker picnic baskets and stuffed them with food filched from the kitchen. Felix provided a pillow sack containing a collection of menswear. Pillover was standing off to the side with these items, watching as the other two attempted to extract the airdinghy from its intimate relationship with the gazebo.

While Dimity went to point out how it had been incorporated, Sophronia dashed off with Sidheag to find Roger. He might know where Mumsy was keeping the helium.

Roger proved amenable to repurposing the transportation nodules, so long as Sophronia took the blame. He hooked up a donkey to the helium cart so quickly, it was almost as if he had been expecting never to use it for the party display.

Sophronia gave him a sardonic look.

“This much helium, miss, for a lantern show? Bloody great waste.”

“My thoughts exactly, Roger.”

They returned with donkey and helium just as the airdinghy basket tumbled off the roof of the gazebo with a crash. Fortunately, it survived intact. Felix and Soap righted it and jumped inside to throw out the four balloons. While they wrestled the sail and mast up the middle, the girls and Roger unrolled the balloons and began to fill them with helium. There was no way to rush this part, although Sophronia kept glancing back to the house, where the shifting lights were her only clue that all was still chaos in the ballroom.

None too soon, the four balloons were filled. They tugged up the basket so that it rose sedately into the air, shedding decorative bits of gazebo in its wake. Felix and Soap managed to raise the center sail. It was a pity they disliked each other so intensely, for it was clear that they made an efficient team. Sophronia appreciated efficiency.

Dimity and Sidheag climbed inside, awkward in long skirts and with no ladder. Sophronia swung Bumbersnoot over. Pillover passed up the hampers. Roger tossed in the sack of clothes.

“Everyone good to go?” Sophronia asked, wondering what they were forgetting.

Four faces peeked over the edge, nodding. Soap and Felix extended their arms down while Dimity and Sidheag went to the other side of the gondola against the lean.

The balloons caught a breeze and they bobbed up a bit.

Sophronia held up her hands to be lifted inside.

“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” came Petunia’s shocked voice. She appeared as if by magic around the side of Mumsy’s rhododendrons.

“Cut us free, Pillover!” yelled Sophronia, dangling off the side. Felix had both his hands wrapped around one of her wrists and Soap the other.

“Sophronia Angelina Temminnick, what on earth are you doing to the gazebo now?”

Pillover unlashed the airdinghy from where it had been tied to the gazebo columns.

It lifted sedately upward.

“Wait,” cried Petunia, “come back here this instant! You can’t just drift off with a duke’s son. That’s not sporting!”

Felix and Soap hauled Sophronia into the gondola. She blessed the split skirt of her costume; it allowed her to leg over and land on her feet inside. She turned to look back at her sister.

“Sorry, Petunia, but this is an emergency. I’m only borrowing him for a bit.”

Petunia stood, head tilted back, watching them float away. Pillover slouched over to stand next to her. They were outside earshot, so Sophronia had no idea what he said, but to everyone’s surprise, Petunia seemed mollified. She took his arm, and he led her with great dignity back toward the house.

“He’s coming out well, for a pustule,” said Dimity, with evident pride.

“He may have found his calling at last,” said Sophronia. “Hoodwinking my sisters. That’s no mean feat. We have brothers, too; we’re usually immune to their charms.”

Dimity chuckled. “Imagine Pill, with charms! What a hoot.”

Sidheag said, in all seriousness, “He should be at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, he’d make a great intelligencer. No one should ever believe it of him.” She turned to face inside and assess how they were handling the airdinghy.

Soap was concentrating on manning the sail, as if he actually knew what he was about.

“Do you know what you are doing, Soap?” Sophronia asked.

“Not really, miss, but someone’s got to.”

“So, which way is north?” asked Sidheag.

Sophronia leaned over the side of the basket, squinting into the night, looking for the lights of Wootton Bassett. The basket tilted and Dimity hurried to counterbalance.

Sophronia pointed. “That way, more east than north for now. Everyone look out for a big clock face. That’ll be the nearest railway station.”

With no propeller, they had to drift up and down, searching for a breeze headed in the correct direction. Finally, they hooked into one that carried them along at a sedate pace. This was not exactly a high-speed, high-risk endeavor. Fortunately for them, Pillover seemed to have adequately distracted Petunia, and the mechanical malfunction seemed to have adequately distracted everyone else. Sophronia kept looking back, but no carriage or horseman came galloping after them.

Dimity gave a little cry. “There it is!”

Indeed, there it was—a small clock tower, peeking up above the other buildings of the town. Soap grabbed at the tiller and the airdinghy obligingly slid to one side. Thus they approached the station silently, a small bobbing craft within the damp night.

While Soap and Felix bickered mildly over how best to steer, Sidheag turned to Sophronia. “We can catch a train north there?”

Sophronia hated to disappoint. “Wootton Bassett’s not very big and, as a general rule, people are going through it to somewhere else. Not many trains stop, and when they do it’s either east to London or Oxford, or west to Bristol.”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to go back to London.”

“Nor do you want to go to Bristol. Who would?” said Dimity, a decidedly snobbish tone to her voice.

“We need one heading to Oxford?” suggested Sidheag.

Sophronia nodded. “From there we can switch to a northbound line. I’m worried there won’t be one until morning, but it’s worth a try. Wootton rarely gets nighttime passenger trains.”

The other two knew what that meant. If a passenger could get somewhere quickly, and with all the modern conveniences of first class, there was no need for overnight service. Vampires couldn’t leave their territory, and werewolves could move faster on four paws than a train on rails.

Nevertheless, Sophronia had hopes. “There are sometimes freight trains puffing through at night—out of the ports. We might be able to jump one of those, although freight will be going to London. We’d have to scramble to hop a passenger halfway to get to Oxford.”