Free The Revolutions by Felix Gilman Page A

heard. I’ve heard it said that he was a close acquaintance of the late Duke—and one can plainly see that he’s a man of unusually penetrating and forward-thinking intelligence…”
    Mrs Sedgley appeared uncharacteristically flustered, as if she couldn’t quite recall what she’d heard about Atwood, or where she’d heard it.
    “Anyway, we’re very lucky that he’s taken such an interest in us—very lucky. Mr Sedgley would have been very proud. One in the eye for Mr Mathers’s lot—don’t you think?”
    *   *   *
     
    As Josephine hurried to catch the omnibus, she saw Atwood leaning against a lamp-post. When he took off his hat to her and smiled, she had no choice but to stop and say hello to him. “Well,” he said. “Miss Bradman—may I call you Josephine? What did you think?”
    “Of what?”
    “Bloom. A dull performance, no?”
    “Dull?”
    “Dull! Between you and me, Bloom doesn’t have a sensitive bone in her body. I can tell. She might just as well have stayed in New York.”
    “I thought she was rather interesting.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be visiting the old V.V. again. The whole thing’s been rather a bore, and it’s time to move on.”
    “Mr Atwood— Lord Atwood—I consider Mrs Sedgley a friend.”
    “I’m sorry, Josephine. I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget my manners. Which brings me to the matter of my apology. I don’t make them all that often—but I was rude when we last met. My eagerness got the better of me. And then I was terribly sorry to have to leave in such a hurry. As a matter of fact, I came to Bloom’s little show tonight hoping I might see you again. I meant it when I said that I was impressed by your poems. I should say that the editor of the Theosophist is a, well, an acquaintance of mine, at the least … not to mention old Stead…”
    By Stead, she supposed he meant W. T. Stead, editor of Borderland , the fashionable new occult quarterly; he was dangling an offer. He held out his card to her.
    “Arthur,” she said.
    “Hmm? Oh yes. The young man. A friend of yours?”
    “You sent him off to your—your accomplice in Deptford—”
    Atwood shrugged. “He struck me as short of money. Was I wrong? I thought he could be put to use. Has he not been happy in Deptford?”
    The fact was that she’d hardly seen Arthur in weeks. She was growing accustomed to his absence again—which pained her. Whatever he was doing for Mr Gracewell out in Deptford, it had begun to obsess him. He was released from it only at night and on occasional and unpredictable half-days. He was haggard, exhausted, snappish. Whatever strange telepathy they’d seemed to share was fading now—or perhaps it had never existed at all. Perhaps she’d imagined it; or perhaps she was imagining her current fears. She blamed Gracewell’s work for coming between them. She blamed money. The last time they’d walked out together, they’d quarrelled, fiercely. She’d probed; she’d said his new work worried her. Six pounds a week, he said, that was all he could say. He took offence; God knows what he thought she’d meant to insinuate. She made some little private joke, of the kind that not long ago would have made him laugh, and he took it badly. As if he didn’t have enough in his head, he said, without more little codes and puzzles …
    Atwood was staring at her, waiting for a response.
    “But what on earth is he doing there?”
    “Work. For which he is no doubt well paid. You’d be wasted there, Josephine—I have a better use for your talents.”
    She was getting a headache, and starting to lose her temper.
    He leaned close. “What colour was it?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “What colour was it?”
    She took him to be referring to the apparition in Mrs Sedgley’s drawing-room. “Red.”
    He nodded, as if she’d confirmed something very important. “I would like to extend an invitation to you.”
    He offered her his card again, and this time she took it. Then he put his hat