Who: Dix and Biddie What: Swans, swag, and (sponsor)ships! When: July 26, 1888 [backdated] Where: National Gallery (afternoon) Rating: PG-13 Warning: Don’t read this before flying?
For the second time in a week, Biddie found herself in a museum matching stares with lifeless fowl. Not that the bird in question had any attention to spare for her. No indeed it--he, definitely he--was busy doing...whatever it was the swans did with...Spartan queens.
Biddie swallowed a sigh. The National Gallery's venerable Leda and the Swan may have been a Renaissance classic, but that didn't make it any less of ludicrous scenario. She'd overheard one of Archie's tutors saying once that in case of a Great Work (the man had a nasal pitch for capitalization) the more one looked, the more one sawed.
Nonetheless all Biddie saw was a warning to keep the artist away from the livestock.
Luckily neither swan nor maiden (ha!) was what she was looking for. Biddie was tracking a different sort of mythological creature: London's very own Allan Quatermain. Or, more correctly, a Mr. Dex Kessinger.
Admittedly it’d be a hell lot easier if she knew what the blasted man looked like. The newspapers made him sound like a cross between Hercules and the romantic caricature of an Oxford don. A tall one.
Tall fellow, had said Lord Turnsbridge. Very tall, yes. A good fellow.
The physique of a Hercules with the bearing of a young Alexander was courtesy of Lydia Watchsaw. There was more of the same, but Biddie had retreated into voluntary deafness beforehand.
Like you’d eat well for a month, said Archie because clearly she’d gone terribly wrong somewhere along the way of raising that one. Still, her rubbish protégé had added: Wonderful eyes, brown hair. Long hair. You can’t miss the hair, it’s the first thing anyone respectable sees fit to disapprove of. Generally he's very… Archie's mouth twitched; it was the same twitch that had cost Biddie a lot of consolatory "donations" during the little fool's time in Oxford. ...strong looking.
That epic description along with purchased assurance—really, you could rent the Pope in this city— that Mr. Kessinger was seen heading towards the National Gallery had resulted in Biddie's current state: wandering the halls looking for a modern Samson but finding only horny swans.
The lot of a modern businesswoman was a hard one, Biddie reflected, turning away from Leda and her feathered proclivities.
Only to stop and stare because there, right there, was a very strong looking gentleman with very long brown hair. His back was to her but Biddie suspected his eyes would be, in certain opinions, wonderful.
The game, apparently, was afoot.
Dex was not a man one easily missed. In fact, no matter where he was to go, people stared. He’d been told by many that a respectable man would never wear his hair he way he did, long and hanging about his shoulders. He had asked what would be the definition of a respectable man and in answers he was pointed to look upon men with short hair that was neatly combed and well tailored suits. He always asked why that would make a man respectable and there was never a very good answer. “I would say, by my own definition, that a respectable man is one by his thoughts and actions, not by the way he wears his hair or how well he looks in clothing,” he would try to explain to them. And the, his parting words were always, “...and I’ve never said I was respectable.” For whatever reason, women enjoyed that answer.
Today, however, he was not looking for women though he had noticed a few staring in his direction. Tall, muscular, and a head full of hair. Call him Hercules, if you wished, but he was no demi god. No, today he was just looking at art to pass the time. He turned from what he was looking at to catch eyes of a pretty blonde woman. He smiled and gave a slight nod of his head in way of acknowledging her before his eyes settled on the painting she had just come from.
“I’ve heard a time or two, that this painting is far more something else than what you see,” he said, tilting his head just slightly as he looked upon it. “What did you take from it?” He then looked at the woman once more with his question.
"Not enough bare flesh and too many horses," Biddie said. It was something of a gambit, but if the man was unconventional enough to open conversation with an unaccompanied, unknown female then he was unlikely to be charmed by conservative simpers; she had to raise the stakes.
"Personally I'm something of a classist," she continued in the same pleasant, unapologetic tone. "An exhibition is incomplete without the proper portion of decorous and classical nudity. Actaeon peeping through ferns at dimply Diana or, say, Orpheus unhappily strumming whilst wearing nothing but sandals and a curiously adhesive towel." She smiled blandly, turning more fully towards the man. "Otherwise, really, why leave the house?"
He did have fine eyes, she supposed. Lydia Watchsaw's poetic malaise started making some sense. So did Archie's.
"Still," Biddie said, "at least there are no cows. One may put up with a great deal of quadrupeds standing sideways on billiard-table pastures, but I draw the line at cows. There must be limits, wouldn't you say, Mr. Kessinger?"
Dex rose an eyebrow as the woman spoke, the beginning of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. She apparently had opinions about art and what she liked and he had to admit that he liked that. That her likings tended to be more towards nudity surprised him somewhat; women just weren’t that open these days.
He gave an amused chuckle about drawing the line at cows. “While I’ll admit that I agree that an exhibit is not exactly complete without nudity, I think I draw my line at there being any type of nudity with animals,” he gestured toward the painting of a swan and nude woman. “It portrays something that I am sure makes most people uncomfortable,” he chuckled again. “Unless they see past their noses and think that it’s not exactly as it seems.
“I think you have me at a disadvantage, Miss…..” he looked upon her with curiosity in his eyes. She knew his name, but he was sure he didn’t know her.
“Mrs,” Biddie corrected lightly. She didn’t seem particularly burdened with the title. “Mrs. Linden. You’re more familiar with a relation of mine - Captain Curtis? Indeed, I suspect my cousin Archie has been something of a plague upon your house."
She flashed a sunny, disarming smile. "Out of the most flattering intentions, of course. He and all those dear gentlemen at Modern Prometheus are dearly eager to borrow your collection, Mr. Kessinger. I'm almost afraid to ask what they offered you at this point."
In fact, Biddie knew to the letter and the cent--and pounds and pence--what MPC had offered. It was a generous pitch, if only the man had chosen to be sensible about it.
Then again, sensible men seldom acquired collections, or reputations, worth renting.
“You’re driving them wonderfully mad, you know,” she added conspiratorially.
Dex gave a small head not to acknowledge the title and stored it away. She was married, or widowed, whatever the case it was always good to have the correct title. When she explained who she was, he gave an internal wince and inward sigh as he was sure what this not-so-random meeting was about. He wondered if they’d actually sent a woman to do their job.
“Yes, I do know your cousin,” he smiled politely. Archie had been after a certain collection of his, and each time he’d offered, the bid rising with each time, Dex had given a firm and resounding ‘no’. “What has been offered has been generous enough, but my collections are not about money, though I do like making it,” he gave a brief smile.
“My collection that he is after, any of my collection, is not something that one borrows out lightly,” he continued on. “It’s not a coat, or a parasol, or piece of jewelry that you can lend out and not worry about too much if it doesn’t come back in the shape that it was handed out. The artifacts are priceless, some of them are one of a kind. Unique….” he trailed off. “I have a difficult time lending anything out that is on ground level,” he stated. “To hand something over to be put on a ship in the air? Well, I’m not sure there is anything that can have me giving it up for that.” What goes up, must come down. Being a dragon and understanding those dynamics of gravity, and that having his collection on an airship that could plummet to the ground… No, he just couldn’t bring himself to do just that.
"And you think because my cousin asks often—and in the manner that he does, bless—he asks carelessly?" Biddie seemed to consider the "accusation" for a beat before shaking her head mournfully. "It's his hair, isn't it? Our family is unduly cursed with blondness, it's amazing dear ol' great-great-grandfather ever achieved a patent to start with."
To be fair, Biddie was almost certain she'd been a brunette when working on the Moth engine that earned that first patent. She'd rather enjoyed the somber shade. Or at least she'd enjoyed more than the messy business of having to scalp herself and assimilate a new head of hair when becoming "Bedelia."
"Of course, if you're willing to overlook the cherubic coloring, there's the math to consider," Biddie said. "Mathematically your collection has safer odds on my airship than it does almost anywhere else—except maybe back in the pharaoh's tomb." She tilted her head. "Though considering the fact that it did get taken from there, maybe the airship has better odds than a pyramid. There's something about being a few hundred feet in the air that magically discourages break-ins..."
She nodded in thought. "Of course, you did just compare an airship to a closet or—what was is it?— umbrella stand, which I have to admit is somewhat humbling. It rather kills my plan to woo you with the dazzle of technology."
“No, I do not think your cousin asks with carelessness,” Dex said. No, he’d been told just how safe his collection would be, he just didn’t believe it. Having his collections going up in the air, all he could think was them being destroyed in a fiery crash to the ground. He just didn’t trust the airships that much.
He wasn’t sure what the color of hair had to do with anything, so he chose to ignore the remark and not comment on it. Instead, he focused on what she said next, which actually had him giving a small, quiet laugh.
“The math?” He asked, clearly amused. “I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers from, but I’m pretty positive my collection is safer with the security I have in place for it than on a ship with no, to little, security. “There has yet to be an accident of any kind with any of my collections, but there has been accidents aboard your ships haven’t there? At least one crash?” He smirked just slightly and rose an eyebrow. “So I’m pretty sure the odds are in my favor on this. The collection may not be taken in the air, but in transit from its secure location to your ship…” he trailed off. “I don’t mind putting my collections out to view, I do it all the time and it’s typically at my home or the museum,” he then said. “But putting them in the air…” he frowned, not liking that idea at all.
“I need more reassurance, more than just some math figures, that it will be safe,” he said, looking at her.
Biddie was long past the time when she would open flinch at mention of the crash. Similarly, she was past that delicate stage of the mourning process when she’d tear off a man’s bollocks for smiling while speaking of it. (Literally ripping apart the men who’d funded the sabotage had done a great deal to hasten her emotional recovery.)
Instead Biddie crossed her arms, a graceless gesture due the discomfort of doing so while dressed in the current mode; it clashed with the blond curls and tiny yellow flowers in her hat. The look in her eyes was frank; her tone, same.
"Two days after the Centurion fell--that would be the crash you allude to--my grandmother went to see the next flight launch. They'd docked all the ships in observance of the casualties, but she wouldn't let them do so any longer. She wanted them in the air. Nobody approved, but nobody had the heart to oppose her. Or the authority; with my uncle and his family gone, and my own father long since buried, there was nobody to outrank her. Frankly, she could've ordered every ship burned to cinder."
And hadn’t there been a part of Biddie, a howling and frozen part, that had wanted to do just that...But one didn’t survive multiple centuries as dedicated cannibal without learning discipline. Grief had appetites, which some could ill afford.
"It was as you may imagine an uninspiring occasion,” Biddie said. “Many of the ships were barely a third full, a sad waste of fuel. Nobody wanted to fly." She nodded in conspicuously polite recognition of his earlier words. "Nobody trusted the math figures. And still up, up, up they went.”
“You're a man who makes his living going most won’t,” Biddie said. “You crawl into the dark where you may be bitten, crushed, cursed. You bring hard-won treasure and share them with strangers, people who may deem those lands you explore as savage. Barbaric, even. Yet you continue to do this. Why then, sir? Why seek the dead if not to discover what made them human--and what better name for that evidence than love?"
“My grandmother’s ships went up because she loved the people who’d put them there,” Biddie said. “One day maybe she’ll be proven a madwoman indeed and every single ship will crash into sea. One day maybe a boulder will roll over your head. But for now...you still go into the dark, we still rise into the sky. It must be love, if anything, that pulls us that far off the common path, don’t you think?”
Biddie smiled and held out one gloved hand. “So there then. Do it for love, Mr. Kessinger, if you would do it at all.”
Dex didn’t need the history lesson of what came after the fall of the Centurion. He knew that all ships had been docked and he knew that two days after, when people were still grieving their loved ones past, the ships had been sent back up. He knew that no one wanted to fly. No one trusted the ships or their makers, and who would two days after a crash? There had not been time to heal for her family, or for others. He did know, however that bringing up the crash did bring up wounds that would most likely never properly hill. He knew, of his own loss, that the wound he had of his father’s death as a young boy was still a sore with a loose scab on it. Thankfully, it had been many, many years ago that he could control his emotions. “I do apologize,” he said with a small grimace. “For speaking of it so lightly and for the loss you have suffered. I can be, sometimes, rather crass and unthinking.”
He took her hand and gave just the smallest hint of a smile as he shook it . Curiosity plagued him when the moment they touched and he thought he caught the smallest scent of magic. He rose an eyebrow, but did not mention it at the time being. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Linden, that had you asked about me to anyone you’d know that love is not something that moves me,” he told her. “Love offers no reassurance, no security. Love is wild and crazy, or so I’ve been told, and I don’t see why that would be a reason to hand over my artifacts to the sky,” he then said. Love was not something Dex knew of on a personal basis.
“I’m not against the airships as it may seem. Flying is something that I am fond of,” he explained. He was a dragon, he had his own wings if he wanted to fly. “I need something more….” he lifted his hand about waist high and moved it in the air as if searching for the right words. “What you are asking of me is to trust. To trust you, your family, your airships. Trust isn’t something that comes freely, much like love I would suppose. If you want my items on your air ship, then certain measures will need to be met to have me trust that my items will be safe. I want to be able to give you want you want, but….” he paused for a moment as an idea came to mind. “Take me aboard one of your ships. Prove to me your security measures, and safety, and I will reconsider loaning out the pieces to you.”
“Accepted on both accounts,” Biddie said crisply. "Would Monday be a comfortable time for you? We can bully our way aboard the Alaris to inspect the new dining room in the bargain. I'm still rather too American to endure a proper high tea, but perhaps two stomachs can succeed where one collapsed. Or three stomachs, even. Your son is, of course, invited."
Archie's report had been somewhat thin regarding the son; the gossip wasn't as prevalent as it could've been on that account.
But then, Biddie reflected, there were apparently quite a few things lacking in Archie's report. Whatever it was that was making Biddie's twine-and-silver charm clench around her wrist, for example. A pulse of warning surged up through her arm and neck. It was nothing like the cold, black rush of picking up Adrien’s nature, nor was it the herbaceous warmth of a witch's touch.
It was a little like the saline flicker of a Mer, but headier. Rougher. More pepper than salt. The scent poked and prodded at her memories, searching for--there. The slide of scales, the indent of teeth, the great and sweeping shadow of wings.
Well.
Well, indeed.
No wonder Mr. Kessinger was so staunchly unimpressed by flying ships. And no wonder he hoarded his treasures as he did.
She was still holding his hand, Biddie realized. Her own had gone automatically limp; it was a self-taught reaction to the touch of magic, preventing reflexive spasms and (accidentally) crushing whatever--or whomever--she held. Once upon a time Biddie had snapped more than one witch's wrist because of an unfortunate twitch.
She didn't think any part of Mr. Kessinger broke easily. The crispness of her voice has Dex wondering if she really did accept his apology, but he didn’t venture to question her on it. That would have been rude and he’d already stepped on her toes once. “Monday will be fine, though my son will keep his two feet on the ground with his governess,” he said. “If I make another trip I will be sure to invite him on the second time,” he then said. His son was something else that was priceless to him and he wouldn’t risk anything until he felt more comfortable about the situation himself.
He watched as whatever magic Biddie had going caught her attention. And if he had to guess, this magic was something that would alert her to what he was. He cleared his throat and then let go of her limp hand, taking his own to clasp the other behind his back. There was a look that passed through his eyes, a look that said he was not happy about the fact that she would know what he was. His life was as private as he could keep it and that was one thing that he kept very private for himself and for his son.
“Right then,” he said, his voice slightly gruff before he cleared his throat again. “I will meet you Monday at the appropriate time,” he said. “You can try to change my mind, and who knows you might be able to do so.”
“Who knows,” Biddie agreed, smiling. What was that line of Latin again, oh yes, now she remembered.