William Gibson: The Difference Engine

"Do you have "The Raven of San Jacinto'?" Sybil asked.

"I can get that, I can get it," the seller said. "And what's that then?"

"About the great battle in Texas, the great General?"

The ballad-seller arched his brows. His eyes were blue and crazily bright, with hunger, perhaps, or religion, or gin. "One of your Crimea generals then, a Frenchy, this Mr. Jacinto?"

"No, no," Sybil said, and gave him a pitying smile, "General Houston, Sam Houston of Texas. I do want that song, most particular."

"I buy my publications fresh this afternoon, and I'll look for your song for you sure, miss."

"I shall want at least five copies for my friends," Sybil said.

"Ten pence will get you six."

"Six, then, and this afternoon, at this very spot."

"Just as you say, miss." "The seller touched the brim of his hat.

Sybil walked away, into the crowd. She had done it. It was not so bad. She felt she could get used to it. Perhaps it was a good tune, too, one that people would enjoy when the balladman was forced to sell the copies.

Mick sidled up suddenly, at her elbow.

"Not bad," Mick allowed, reaching into the pocket of his greatcoat, like magic, to produce an apple turnover, still hot, flaking sugar and wrapped in greasy paper.

"Thank you," she said, startled but glad, for she'd been thinking of stopping, hiding, fetching out the stolen shawl, but Mick's eyes had been on her every moment. She hadn't seen him, but he'd been watching; that was the way he was. She wouldn't forget again.

They walked, together and apart, all down Somerset, and then through the vast market of Petticoat Lane, lit as evening drew on with a host of lights, a glow of gas-mantles, the white glare of carbide, filthy grease-lamps, tallow dips twinkling among the foodstuffs proffered from the stalls. The hubbub was deafening here, but she delighted Mick by gulling three more ballad-sellers.

In a great bright Whitechapel gin-palace, with glittering gold-papered walls flaring with fishtail gas-jets, Sybil excused herself and found a ladies' convenience. There, safe within a reeking stall, she fetched the shawl out. So soft it was, and such a lovely violet color too, one of the strange new dyes clever people made from coal. She folded the shawl neatly, and stuffed it through the top of her corset, so it rested safe. Then out to join her keeper again, finding him seated at a table. He'd bought her a noggin of honey gin. She sat beside him.

"You did well, girl," he said, and slid the little glass toward her. The place was full of Crimean soldiers on furlough, Irishmen, with street-drabs hanging on them, growing red-nosed and screechy on gin. No barmaids here, but big bruiser bully-rock bartenders, in white aprons, with mill-knocker clubs behind the bar.

"Gin's a whore's drink, Mick."

"Everybody likes gin," he said. "And you're no whore, Sybil."

"Dollymop, bobtail." She looked at him sharply. "What else d'ye call me, then?"

"You're with Dandy Mick now," he said. He leaned his chair back, jabbing his gloved thumbs through the arm-holes of his waistcoat. "You're an adventuress."

"Adventuress?"

"Bloody right." He straightened. "And here's to you." He sipped his gin-twist, rolled it over his tongue with an unhappy look, and swallowed. "Never mind, dear—they've cut this with turpentine or I'm a Jew." He stood up.

They left. She hung on his arm, trying to slow his pace. " 'Adventurer,' that's what you are, then, eh, Mr. Mick Radley?"

"So I am, Sybil," he said softly, "and you're to be my 'prentice. So you do as you're told in the proper humble spirit. Learn the tricks of craft. And someday you join the union, eh? The guild."

"Like my father, eh? You want to make a play of that, Mick? Who he was, who I am?"

"No," Mick said flatly. "He was old-fashioned, he's nobody now."

Sybil smirked. "They let us wicked girls into this fancy guild of yours, do they, Mick?"

"It's a knowledge guild," he said soberly. "The bosses, the big'uns, they can take all manner of things away from us. With their bloody laws and factories and courts and banks… They can make the world to their pleasure, they can take away your home and kin and even the work you do… " Mick shrugged angrily, his lean shoulders denting the heavy fabric of the greatcoat. "And even rob a hero's daughter of her virtue, if I'm not too bold in speaking of it." He pressed her hand against his sleeve, a hard, trapping grip. "But they can't ever take what you know, now can they, Sybil? They can't ever take that."

Sybil heard Hetty's footsteps in the hall outside her room, and the rattle of Hetty's key at the door. She let the serinette die down, with a high-pitched drone.

Hetty tugged the snow-flaked woollen bonnet from her head, shrugging free from her Navy cloak. She was another of Mrs. Winterhalter's girls, a big-boned, raucous brunette from Devon, who drank too much, but was sweet in her way, and always kind to Toby.

Sybil folded away the china-handled crank and lowered the cheap instrument's scratched lid. "I was practicing. Mrs. Winterhalter wants me to sing next Thursday."

"Bother the old drab," Hetty said. "Thought this was your night out with Mr. C. Or is it Mr. K.?" Hetty stamped warmth into her feet before the narrow little hearth, then noticed, in the lamplight, the scattering of shoes and hat-boxes from Aaron & Son. "My word," she said, and smiled, her broad mouth pinched a bit with envy. "New beau, is it? You're so lucky, Sybil Jones!"

"Perhaps." Sybil sipped hot lemon-cordial, tilling her head back to relax her throat.

Hetty winked. "Winterhalter doesn't know about this one, eh?"

Sybil shook her head and smiled. Hetty would not tell. "D'ye know anything about Texas, Hetty?"

"A country in America," Hetty said readily. "French own it, don't they?"

"That's Mexico. Would you like to go to a kinotrope show, Hetty? The former President of Texas is lecturing. I've tickets, free for the taking."

"When?"

"Saturday."

"I'm dancing then," Hetty said. "Perhaps Mandy would go." She blew warmth into her fingers. "Friend of mine comes by late tonight, wouldn't trouble you, would it?"

"No," Sybil said. Mrs. Winterhalter had a strict rule against any girl keeping company with men in her room. It was a rule Hetty often ignored, as if daring the landlord to peach on her. Since Mrs. Winterhalter chose to pay the rent directly to the landlord, Mr. Cairns, Sybil seldom had call to speak to him, and less with his sullen wife, a thick-ankled woman with a taste for dreadful hats. Cairns and his wife had never informed against Hetty, though Sybil was not sure why, for Hetty's room was next to theirs, and Hetty made a shameless racket when she brought men home—foreign diplomats, mostly, men with odd accents and, to judge by the noise, beastly habits.

"You can carry on singing if you like," Hetty said, and knelt before the ash-covered fire. "You've a fine voice. Mustn't let your gifts go to waste." She began to feed individual coals to the hearth, shivering. A dire chill seemed to enter the room then, through the cracked casement of one of the nailed-up windows, and for a strange passing moment Sybil felt a distinct presence in the air. A definite sense of observation, of eyes fixed upon her from another realm. She thought of her dead father. Learn the voice, Sybil. Learn to speak. It's all we have that can fight them, he had told her. This in the last few days before his arrest, when it was clear that the Rads had won again—clear to everyone, perhaps, save Walter Gerard. She had seen then, with heart-crushing clarity, the utter magnitude of her father's defeat. His ideals would be lost—not just misplaced but utterly expunged from history, to be crushed again and again and again, like the carcass of a mongrel dog under the racketing wheels of an express train. Learn to speak, Sybil. It's all we have…