He began to wind the machine and then indicated that Cecily should take over. Thea wondered how he was planning to get the electricity from it to the queen. There was no chain on his simple, transportable piece of machinery. Then he handed a strip of copper to the queen.
‘Your Majesty, I wonder if I could trouble you to hold this on the surface of the rotating sphere. She did so, and it chinked along the surface. ‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘you are quite the natural philosopher, Your Majesty.’ The queen beamed, enjoying herself.
‘Your Majesty, can I beg your leave to ask if you feel anything yet?’ said Doctor Travers, pacing around the display of people and machinery he had created. ‘Anything at all?’
‘Nothing at all, I am afraid, Doctor,’ said the queen.
‘I see,’ said Doctor Travers, looking thoughtful. ‘Perhaps if you could join hands with Mrs Fairclough?’
The queen did so.
‘Anything for you, Mrs Fairclough?’ asked Doctor Travers.
‘Nothing, Doctor,’ said Emma, starting to look a little smug, Thea thought. But she could see that the hair of the queen and Emma was starting to frizz a little with the static.
Doctor Travers stood in front of them and stroked his chin.
‘Well, this is highly irregular,’ he said. Thea was in awe of his showmanship. Everyone in the crowd was muttering as if hisexperiment – the experiment that he had brought to the queen’s birthday nonetheless – was going wrong. ‘Mrs Knatchbull, if you could perhaps wind a little faster?’
Cecily did so, but still the ladies reported nothing.
‘Perhaps if you all join hands?’ he said to the remaining ladies. Harriet took Emma’s hand on the right, and the other ladies on her left. Then they were a string of people, still being charged with electricity.
‘Surely you must all feel something now?’ he asked, ‘or I will be taking this blasted machine back for a refund.’ The crowd tittered and shifted.
‘I am afraid you do deserve your money back,’ said Emma haughtily. ‘I feel nothing at all.’
‘By my word, I think you are right Mrs Fairclough,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we will have to conclude the experiment for this evening.’
‘Worry not,’ piped up the king. ‘My experiments go wrong all the time, it has been quite diverting, Travers.’
‘You are very generous, Your Majesty,’ said Doctor Travers. And then he turned to Thea. ‘Your Grace, I wonder if you would mind awfully helping the ladies down off the stool?’
Thea understood and knew that he meant the lady furthest from the machine. She bobbed her assent and reached up to take the lady’s hand. A lady who looked decidedly unimpressed with the whole endeavour. Thea was going to enjoy this.
She took the lady’s hand. Immediately she felt a jolt and heard the shrieks of the ladies on the stools. All of their arms had risen as the electricity passed through them and earthed itself through Thea. The looks of utter shock on their faces were golden.
‘What did I tell you ladies?’ announced Doctor Travers, striding around the spectacle with his arms in the air and a smile on his face. ‘Eminently shocking, I think you will agree.’
The queen started to laugh, and then Harriet joined in. Before long the whole room was applauding the Doctor, who soaked up the praise with a huge beam on his face. Then he cleared up his things, let the volunteers go, and bowed deeply to the king and queen. The room watched him go with awe. As he passed Thea, he gave a broad smile, a relieved puff of air and a satisfied raise of a brow. Delighted for him, Thea watched as the crowd flowed around him at the back, trying to speak to him as he wheeled his table. Against his critics he had chosen what he knew the crowd would love, and he was right.
What a difference, what a transformation for them both.
The next part of the evening was the gift giving. Truth was, she was excited for this achievement and to present the Proteas in public, but as time had gone on, she had begun to feel a little anxious. What if someone else had done it too? Or what if the queen had moved on in her interests and was unimpressed? But nevertheless, she was determined to present these plants, even if only for the look on Neville’s face.
As the crowd mingled once more, she felt a hand on her arm. When she turned, it was Emma Fairclough. She sighed internally. Her nerves were already on edge. She didn’t need another discussion about how awful Doctor Travers had been, or how science wasn’t a useful diversion for a lady, or to hear about all the meetings she hadn’t been invited to where the ladies drank tea and discussed art. It bored her, but also it rankled that she was left out.
‘Emma,’ she began, wondering how to head off the inevitable. ‘Wasn’t Doctor Travers–’
‘Fascinating.’ Interrupted Emma.
Thea stuttered. ‘He was?’
‘He was,’ said Emma. ‘Everyone is saying it. The ladies, the queen. She said that the king is having an observatory built to track the transit of Venus and the queen is quite into botanyfor study and physics for sport. But also, it was extremely interesting, Doctor Travers was a good choice.’ She gave Thea a look that seemed genuinely contrite – so much so that Thea lost any of the snarky comments she had thought she might make.
‘That is extremely generous of you,’ she said.
‘Not at all,’ said Emma. ‘A lady should be generous, even when presented with challenging circumstances.’
