A Passion for Pleasure(19)
Out of curiosity, she followed him and Granville back to his workshop, where Granville proceeded to drone on about clockwork mechanisms, bellows, pin joints, and cylinders. He took Sebastian to the former dining room of the town house, where he drafted his diagrams, and unfurled scrolls etched with detailed plans for toys and automata.
Sebastian nodded as Granville waved his hand over the drawings and explained how he intended to bring them to fruition.
“Your niece mentioned you also make clocks?” Sebastian asked.
“On occasion, yes. Usually when commissioned. Not quite as interesting as automata, I’ve found, though often the mechanisms are similar.”
“And do you construct anything else?” Sebastian asked.
Granville shrugged. “I could make anything, I suppose, with the right plans. Why? Have you got something in mind?”
“I’ve a sister-in-law who is a mathematician,” Sebastian said. “She and my brother live abroad now, but she once told me there are machines that can calculate sums. Have you heard of such a thing?”
“Certainly,” Granville said. “Quite interesting. My mentor, Monsieur Dupree, has done a bit of work with arithmometers, but there’s some difficulty with the multiplying element. Did you wish to commission such a machine?”
“Possibly, though I’m also inquiring for my younger brother Darius. He lives in St. Petersburg as well and is far more mechanically minded than I am.”
Ah. That explained it a bit, then, Clara thought.
“Darius heard there are also machines that can transmit messages in cipher,” Sebastian continued. “Do you know about those?”
“Not in any detail, no,” Granville said. “Though if you’d like, I can give you the address of a gentleman who lives in Southwark. He knows more than I do about machines such as those. Perhaps your brother might like to correspond directly with him.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
As Sebastian turned away from the table, Clara swore she saw frustration flash in his dark eyes.
“If you’ll both go into the drawing room, I’ll bring tea in,” she suggested. “You can discuss this further.”
Thoughts tumbled through her mind as she went to find Mrs. Marshall. Again she was seized by the sense that Sebastian Hall could prove useful. She didn’t know how, but surely the son of an earl would have access to resources she lacked. And she was not too proud to plead for anything, not where Andrew was concerned.
She brought the tray into the drawing room and began to pour the tea. Sebastian twisted the key on a mechanical birdcage that Uncle Granville had been working on. The birds whistled a reedy melody that seemed at odds with the delicacy of the feathered larks.
“You ought to use Haydn,” Sebastian remarked.
“Haydn?” Granville repeated.
“‘The Lark’ Quartet, opus sixty-four, number five,” Sebastian said. “The first violin imitates the call of larks, which would be more suitable than…what is that supposed to be? A cello?”
Granville straightened and scratched his head. “I don’t know. Found it at a music shop and tried to translate it into the engineering mechanism. Doesn’t quite work, does it?”
“Not quite, no.”
Sebastian glanced at Clara, his brown eyes crinkling with warm amusement. The sight arced pleasure through Clara, evoking memories of the dashing, vital pianist who had made her heart sing.
The glimpses of that young man made her wonder if her former self, the girl who’d once plucked wildflowers from the grassy hills of Dorset and felt the sea foam around her bare feet, hadn’t been entirely extinguished.
No. She pushed the thought aside as she returned to the studio. There was no sense in such useless imaginings. Whether or not that girl still existed made no difference in her current life, which was wholly focused on reclaiming Andrew.
And in order to achieve that goal, she needed to formulate a new plan. One that might somehow include Sebastian Hall.
A half hour passed after Clara left the drawing room. Her uncle’s exhaustive knowledge of machinery and automata appeared endless, and while Sebastian recognized the innovation in what the man was doing, he couldn’t muster the slightest interest in auxiliary levers and polar coordinates.
Whatever those were.
“It’s the bellows mechanism that produces sound,” Granville continued, “and a certain degree of pressure articulates the vowels and consonants, then if one controls the valve with a cam attached to a crank…”