It was a bit too good feeling. Sophronia had a brief hysterical thought that perhaps Felix was like figgy pudding. Rich and delicious but best sampled in moderation. A seasonal treat. He smelled amazing.
Sophronia righted herself and shrugged Felix off. “Ready, everyone, let’s try again. Little more gradual this time.”
Soap was tall enough to lean over and pull down on one release cord and then another. Sophronia rolled to one side and Dimity to the other, pulling on those flags. The basket sank some more. Felix and Sidheag began to ratchet in the mooring ropes. No easy task against the pull of the train, but they did their best.
It was working. By careful degrees they sank down, taking care to go toward the train before sinking further; otherwise they might be dragged directly behind and fall to the tracks. The mooring ropes had winches attached to the top. Sidheag and Felix strained against the levers.
Then, with a clunk, the gondola landed on the top of the rear passenger carriage. The basket was still on its side, which made for an awkward crash. The last of the helium escaped the balloons, and the balloons collapsed half on top of the train, half onto the basket and everyone’s heads. Quickly as they could, the five stowaways untangled themselves and climbed out. Sophronia knew they had made too much of a racket on the roof, but no one seemed interested in checking the source.
Everyone was bruised and shaken, but otherwise unharmed. Dimity was white faced but still functioning. After all, there had been no blood. Sidheag was looking, if anything, buoyed by the experience. Soap was stoic and calm. Felix was grinning.
“Jolly good,” he said, sounding a bit too much like a toff out on the town.
Sophronia gave him a quelling look and tried not to think about being pressed against him.
After a brief discussion, they decided to leave the airdinghy where it was. Its usefulness was weighed as superior to the fact that its discovery would alert others to their presence.
“Here’s hoping we don’t go through any tunnels” was Sophronia’s opinion.
They extracted their supplies. Mercifully, the picnic hampers had stayed latched during the landing, although Sophronia couldn’t vouch for the condition of the contents. The hard-boiled eggs had probably coddled in shock. They had to collect the clothing, scattered about, and stuff it back into the sack.
Sophronia’s heart was in her mouth. “Oh, no, where’s Bumbersnoot!”
She began frantically rustling through the collapsed balloons, her world in crisis. Had he fallen out? Was he lying damaged and alone in the middle of the moor?
Soap produced him from within the second picnic basket. “Stashed him there for safety when we first took to the skies.”
Sophronia clutched her mechanimal gratefully. “Oh, thank goodness!” She resisted a near-overwhelming urge to embrace Soap.
Bumbersnoot wagged his tail at her and tooted a bit of smoke out his ears in excitement.
The train rattled along at a snail’s pace, for which Sophronia was grateful. They lashed down the gondola and rolled up the balloons as much as they could. Then they cautiously made their way to the side and peered over the edge. Like most first-class carriages, this one had three doors along its side for boarding at a station, one to each separate compartment. There was no ladder or way to climb down, and simply a footboard at the coach door.
Soap, who’d only ever seen a train from above, was intrigued. “It’s like they stuck three horse coaches together.”
Sophronia smiled at him. “I believe that was the basis of the design, yes.”
“We’ll have to all share one coach, then, won’t we, miss?”
“I know, terribly uncouth, girls and boys traveling together without a chaperone.” Sophronia gently mocked his prudishness, especially since they’d recently been tumbling all over one another in a balloon.
“I suppose we need to be able to communicate,” relented Soap, who nevertheless looked wistfully down at the footboard of the middle door, as if he actually wanted to be separated from the girls and alone with Felix for the rest of the evening.
Felix, who by rights ought to have been more gallant than Soap about everyone’s sensibilities, only gave the sootie a scornful look.
Sophronia selected the very last of the three doors.
She looped Bumbersnoot’s reticule strap over her neck and went first, without discussion. Carefully, holding fast to the roof railings, she eased over the edge and lowered herself down. She was tall enough so that when her arms were fully extended, she only had a short drop. It was tricky, as the footboard wasn’t very wide. She wobbled dangerously on the landing and nearly tumbled off the train entirely. Sidheag and Soap, who were tall, would have an easier time of it, but she’d have to watch Felix and Dimity carefully. She peeked in the small window of the coach door. Inside, it was dark and apparently vacant. She motioned for the others to wait while she fished her picks out of a pocket and jimmied the lock. The tumblers went over without protest. She scooted along the footboard, out of the way, and the door opened easily.
It was eerie inside. Moonlight filtered in from the windows opposite the door, slanting across the two facing blue velvet benches and dust motes in the air. The compartment was definitely empty, and she would lay good money on the other two being vacant as well. This entire first-class carriage seemed deserted. The coach held no luggage and no evidence that occupation was ever intended. It was odd, like a ghost train.
Sophronia, thinking of her exhausted friends, made a quick decision. It was unlikely anyone else could climb down as they had, so they should be safe until they reached a station. Climbing back to the roof and down to the next-over footboard seemed like an excess of precautions when this coach was safe and empty, and she was exhausted. She put Bumbersnoot down on the floor to snuffle about in the dark. If he came across anything unusual, he’d swallow it either to burn in his boiler or to be kept in storage. Which reminded her of the present delivered by Mrs. Barnaclegoose. There came a clattering behind her, and she forgot once more.
Soap swung down and in. With the door open, the narrowness of the footboard was not such a challenge. One could simply dismount by falling forward into the coach. Which was what he did.
“Ah, good, you managed it,” greeted Sophronia.
Soap gave her a dour look.
“I know, stuck with all us girls, must be tragic for you.”
The others began leaning over from the roof and passing or throwing down the supplies, with Sidheag and Dimity, trained in stealth, trying their best to keep Felix muffled. There could, of course, be occupants in the other carriages, but they were either heavy sleepers or the sound of the train covered any noises made by the five new passengers in first class. Six if you counted Bumbersnoot.
They crammed inside the coach. As Soap had feared, it was a mite intimate for society standards. Sophronia closed and bolted the door, drawing the curtains over both it and the windows opposite in just such a way that she could peek out a corner if needed. From the outside the drapes would appear messy enough to have unintentionally rattled loose, to the untrained eye.
The five sat down and looked at one another in profound relief. The three girls took the forward-facing bench. The two boys sat opposite. This seating arrangement ensured a respectable distance between them, one that even Mrs. Temminnick might approve. First-class coaches were luxurious. Although, after falling on top of one another in an airdinghy recently, such concerns seemed silly. And Soap still looked uncomfortable with the arrangement.