Free The Difference Engine by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling Page A

she’d meant to mend. There was a lovely bottle of rose-scented Portland water, half-full, a green paste brooch from Mr. Kingsley, a set of hairbrushes with imitation ebony backs, a miniature flower-press with a souvenir view of Kensington Palace, and a patent German curling-iron she’d nicked from a hair-dresser’s. She added a bone-handled tooth-brush and a tin of camphorated dentifrice.
    Now she took a tiny silver propelling-pencil and settled herself on the edge of her bed to write a note to Hetty. The pencil was a gift from Mr. Chadwick, with THE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY CORPORATION engraved along its shaft; the plate was starting to flake away from the brass beneath. For paper, she found she had only the back of a handbill advertising instantaneous chocolate.
    ‘My dear Harriet’, she began, ‘I am Off to Paris’, but then she paused, removed the pencil’s cap, and used the rubber to erase those last three words, substituting ‘run Away with a Gentleman. Do not be alarmed. I am Well. You are welcome to any Cloathes I leave behind, and please do take Care of dear Toby and give him Herring. Yrs. sincerely, Sybil.’
    It made her feel queer, to write it, and when she looked down at Toby she felt sad, and false, to leave him.
    With this thought came thoughts of Radley. She was struck by a sudden and utter conviction of his falsehood.
    “He will come,” she whispered fiercely. She put the lamp and the folded note on the narrow mantel.
    On the mantel lay a flat tin, brightly lithographed with the name of a Strand tobacconist. She knew that it contained Turkish cigarettes. One of Hetty’s younger gentlemen, a medical student, had once urged her to take up the habit. Sybil generally avoided medical students. They prided themselves on studied beastliness. But now, in the grip of a powerful nervous impulse, she opened the tin, drew out one of the crisp paper cylinders, and inhaled its fierce perfume.
    A Mr. Stanley, a barrister, well-known among the flash mob, had smoked cigarettes incessantly. Stanley, during his acquaintanceship with Sybil, had frequently remarked that a cigarette was the thing to steel a gambler’s nerve.
    Fetching the lucifers, Sybil placed the cigarette between her lips, as she’d seen Stanley do, struck a lucifer, and remembered to let the bulk of the sulphur burn away before applying the flame to the cigarette’s tip. She drew hesitantly on the lit cigarette and was rewarded with an acrid portion of vile smoke that set her wracking like a consumptive. Eyes watering, she nearly flung the thing away.
    She stood before the grate and forced herself to continue, drawing periodically on the cigarette and flicking pale delicate ash onto the coals with the gesture Stanley had used. It was barely tolerable, she decided, and where was the desired effect? She felt abruptly ill, her stomach churning with nausea, her hands gone cold as ice. Coughing explosively, she dropped the cigarette into the coals, where it burst into flame and was swiftly consumed.
    She became painfully aware of the ticking of the clock.
    Big Ben began to sound midnight.
    Where was Mick?

    She woke in darkness, filled with a fear she couldn’t name. Then she remembered Mick. The lamp had gone out. The coals were dead. Scrambling to her feet, she fetched the box of lucifers, then felt her way into her room, where the tinny ticking of the clock guided her to the commode.
    When she struck a match, the face of the clock seemed to swim in the sulphur glare.
    It was half past one.
    Had he come when she was sleeping, knocked, had no answer, and gone away without her? No, not Mick. He’d have found a way in, if he wanted her. Had he gulled her, then, for the cakey girl she surely was, to trust his promises?
    A queer sort of calm swept over her, a cruel clarity. She remembered the departure date on the steamship ticket. He wouldn’t sail from Dover till late tomorrow, and it seemed unlikely that he and General Houston would be departing