Chapter Twenty-Eight: Some Ribbon
"I didn't know they were coming," I observed, looking up the stairs to Jessie's father and stepmother, who were mingling through the crowd, even as other people, mainly clockmakers, I guessed, greeted them. Jessie had recovered control of her facial expression, but not her tone of voice.
"Me, neither. Father almost never travels." It sounded like an accusation.
What the devil did one say in such a situation? I flashed back to my own mother's etiquette training.
"Your stepmum looks well."
"Mm."
"It must be nice for them to get out. Aren't your twin brothers a bit over two years old?"
"Twenty-seven months, yes." Jessie still seemed absorbed in what couldn't have been an especially friendly thought.
"So…what do we do now?" I asked her nervously. She stopped, realized I was as gobsmacked as she was, and sighed a gentle smile.
"Presumably, we'll try not to die of awkwardness poisoning."
"Should we go say 'hi'?"
"I suspect they're headed in our direction, so yeah, might as well meet halfway."
And so we did. The trouble was that there were a lot of people between us and them, and nearly all of them were interested in getting a few words in.
"Jamesina Tickes!" the young man with the brown ponytail called, stepping through a convenient gap in the crowd and making a sweeping bow. Something about his accent made me cringe slightly –his French made 'Jamesina' sound a lot like 'zhamesine,' completely dropping the last letter, and after a few weeks of Fleur Delacour, well… that, and Jessie also returned his bow with the first curtsy I'd ever seen from someone over twenty years old that wasn't in a movie or play. It had never occurred to me she could do that, and as I glanced around to see if they were being serious, I noticed many of the gentlemen and ladies beginning to bow and curtsy also. The young man took Jessie's hand in his and said something complicated in French, which I couldn't follow, and she laughed prettily.
I decided at once that I resented him.
"Paul, have you met Charles Weasley?" Jessie turned slightly and brought me into the conversation by means of introduction. "Charlie, this is Paul Deroulede…we took the journeyman's test together."
"We also played together as petits and were once punished, as I recall, for a prank in this very ballroom," Paul added, with a smile that waxed nostalgic. "And we 'adn't even done that one. But no, M'sieur, I do not think we 'ave met. You are the zoologist, yes, with the dragons?"
"Yes, I am." Jessie looked pleased with me.
"Mademoiselle Lyon has been generous with the praise for your latest book. Apparently it 'as been rather a joy to her dear mother, who 'as, sadly, not been well. And 'aving met the lady, I concur with the assessment…difficult to please with a book, she is." He exchanged a look with Jessie, who went scarlet.
"You're not going to tell him that story, Paul!"
"But it was one of your greatest triumphs, 'tite soeur! Standing up to ze old lady, insisting that your comic book wasn't garbage and that you would rather be an 'orrible guttersnipe than give it up…such passion at such an age!" Deroulede pressed his hand to his heart –rather over-dramatically, I thought. "Charles, you should have seen 'er. Ten years old, shaking like the leaf and still staring down –well, the worst old baggage you'll ever meet at a clockmakers' gathering!"
He pronounced my name closer to 'sharles' than it should really sound, but he liked Jessie, so maybe he wasn't too bad…nope, I still resented him.
"She wasn't that bad," Jessie sighed sheepishly. "Though they were my mother's comic books she was objecting to, so what else could I have done?"
"The ones Ian showed me?"
"Yep."
"…I am suddenly less pleased to have her as a fan." And I was. Who'd object to comic books when a little girl's departed mother had drawn them? It was plain tactless.
"Yes. If you wanted to make your next book one of the graphic novels, just from spite, I think zat would be entirely fair to Madame Gudule Lyon!" Deroulede laughed.
"Remember when she got after you for not knowing who the Acadians were?"
"Too well!" As Deroulede stifled laughter at the memory, Jessie filled me in on the tale:
"So she tells him, and it turns out the ancestors of the French-speaking folks in New Orleans, the old lady included, were Frenchmen who were expelled from Canada…I don't remember why, but you'd've thought she was personally responsible, from the great fuss she made. Paul hears that, asks what year was le grande derangement, which'd be the migration in question, and when she tells him, he just smiles that cheerful little smile and says 'Ah! Then you'll 'ave missed some of French history!' And he proceeds to catch the old lady up, talking without a pause for almost half an hour –and since I was there, too, and she'd just finished telling me ladies don't interrupt, she was stuck there for the entire lecture on guillotines and actresses and God only knows what else…"
"To be fair, I 'adn't 'ad French history yet at the time, beyond the most basic details," Paul explained.
"So he was more or less regaling the old biddy with the plots of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'Les Miserables' rather than actual history!" Jessie snorted.
"She 'adn't read them, though, so for 'alf an hour, she listened…"
"What did she finally do to make you stop? I forget."
"Excused herself to powder 'er nose and never came back!"
"That's right! And oh, the jokes we made that day about nose powder!" The two of them laughed and I felt my resentment slipping away as a picture of what ten-year-old Jessie must have been like entered my mind's eye. It was a cute picture.
"Ah, 'tite soeur, what times we 'ad!" Deroulede exclaimed, with a grin in my direction. "Did you know, Charles, that Jamesine was the first girl I ever 'ad the nerve to ask for a dance?"
I shook my head and tried to suppress the urge to detest the Frenchman. I'd only had the chance at a few sunsets in parks and on roofs, perhaps ten dinners alone, three movies, maybe four lunches, two trips out for ice cream and exactly one long afternoon on a train with my Jessie. And that damn dirty frog had gotten to dance with her, despite pronouncing her name all French and having longer hair than Bill and looking like…well, like somebody really French! Some latent but extremely British organ in my chest, possibly the homicide gland, was lighting up like I'd eaten too much curry.
"No, I hadn't," I replied. "She did mention there was dancing on the train, though."
"Yes. I recall my Maman was thrilled…until she realized who Jamesine was."
My resentment bubbled over. What was wrong with Jessie that some French gigolo's cow mother would object to her?
"Yeah…it wasn't nearly so impressive once she remembered."
"Remembered what?" I asked. Deroulede grinned.
"Jamesine and I had attended dancing class together, among other things. We attended Chronologie Mechanique affairs with our pères and grandpères, played under the Guild steps as petites and even got into trouble together. Maman has 'ad designs on weddings and grandchildren for some time, so when I solved her little problem of 'ask a girl to dance on the train or else' by the elegant means of a childhood friend…well, she 'ad objections."
"It also didn't help that we were pretty obviously dancing with each other to avoid certain other people."
"You more than me, Jamesine. I 'ad those dreadful orthodontics and was so short then…"
"You were short? We were the same height then!"
"Yes. And you 'ave grown…per'aps three centimeters since, 'tite soeur?" Deroulede grinned, playfully patting her head. He was easily a foot taller than she was now. "Oh, and I saw Ian's match against Italy. Is his wrist better?"
"Much. He says it was a damn dirty game, but not so bad as the match with Bulgaria."
"Bulgaria vs. England was a bloodbath. My date fainted while we were watching." Deroulede frowned playfully at Jessie.
All of a sudden, my resentment began to fade. This was for two reasons. One, Deroulede had mentioned a date who was obviously not Jessie. And, two, I remembered something Fleur Delacour had said about someone called Gabrielle, her petite soeur…which, of course, is French for 'little sister.' Jessie and Deroulede were friends the way she and my brothers were friends.
I was going to have to get used to that. The sudden realization that Jessie, for career reasons, was as one-of-the-boys as our Ginny when it came to work colleagues, well, it made a lot of sense. There just didn't seem to be many women in clockmaking. Of course, this also presented the very obvious threat of competition –not that I had any doubts of her interest in me, more that I wondered how I could possibly compete with someone who, you know, actually knew what the difference between automatic and self-winding was…well, I'd been 'let down gently' before and it was not something I wanted to happen again. Not with her.
"And considering the tabloid press accused you of going out with Viktor Krum, I'm not certain I blame he and Ian," Deroulede continued, to Jessie's horror.
Viktor Krum? My brain boggled. Jessie had dated Krum? I'd been a good player in my school days, but nothing like that…
For her own part, she was sputtering with disgusted incredulity:
"...One date! Almost a year ago, and we spent the whole time discussing Quidditch!"
"Well, no wonder you never owled him back," Deroulede smirked. "You never 'ad the patience for the beautiful game that your brother did…and a mercy for France it is. We could never place better than fourth if England had both of you."
"Do you play, Jess?" I asked her, a little resentful that she'd never played with me, but more hopeful that sometime soon she would. She shrugged and rubbed at the absence of watches on her wrists as if she missed them when on-the-spot.
"Not really. A pickup game here and there…it's the height, you see. I have the most awful vertigo. Unless I have some nice gears and pendulum ratchets to focus on, I just about pass out from heights."
"She catches like the plague and what an arm with the bat!" Deroulede smiled again. "If the game were somehow played on land, she'd be a fine Seeker or Beater…though 'er reach's none too good for a Keeper and she can't Chase for toffee, no offense."
"None taken. I can't aim worth spit, throwing-wise, and neither can Ian, for that matter. Charlie, though, he can catch and throw." Jessie caught my hand in hers and kissed me on the cheek, even as I blushed at her praise.
"Perhaps we could manage a pickup game back of the Guildhaus, roof-the-limit. I'm sure Nils has a broom or two with him and I'm planning to buy a couple in Bern myself. Dibs on Charles, though…I'd need a good Chaser to oppose Selnikov."
"I mainly played Seeker at Hogwarts, actually."
"Even better! Prosser can't Seek to save his life…though, frankly, I'd just as soon rather have Jamesine on my side than him. Since journeyman he's been even more of a bully to apprentices than ever and his toadying's gotten worse."
"How?" Jessie asked, in a tone that implied there were physical limits to how much of an odious trait one could possess, and that when she'd last seen the fellow, he'd been at capacity.
"I dare not imagine. Oh, and you'll want to misplace your dance card when he talks to you, by the way."
"…No," Jessie looked almost pale.
"I'm afraid so."
She let out a very quiet but decidedly less than ladylike curse. It was one of those phrases which involved an elaborate, ungainly simile, with the unfortunate effect of making both Deroulede and I snort a little with mirth. Jessie glared and crossed her arms.
"Fine. He wants to play that game, I've brought a better deck."
"Actually, Jamesine, I have something I wanted your opinion on," Deroulede announced, pulling the small black box from his pocket. It contained…well, an engagement ring. I'm no authority, but it seemed like a truly remarkably sparkly one. "I made it myself…you remember Juliette?"
"Of course! And I heard you'd been seen with her!" Jessie looked thrilled.
"To my mother's complete disapproval, naturally," the Frenchman sighed, "but she is, as they say, the one…Anyway, if you wanted to really guillotine little Hans' plans, I have all six of the first drafts in my stateroom. You and Charles can help yourselves, and that way, nothing need be said, no conflicts had about the whole thing."
"…Exactly what is going on?" I finally asked.
"…Tell him, Paul," Jessie sighed.
"You didn't?"
"How would I have done?"
"As you British say, bloody 'ell." Deroulede glanced around to be sure we weren't heard. "Jamesine is one of the only girl clocksmiths our age in the Chronologie Mechanique, this I am sure you know?"
"I had heard, yeah."
"She is also among the richest and most successful, yes?" Jessie elbowed him in the ribs and blushed, and I grinned.
"Yes, I know. And I'm proud of her. So these other clockmakers want to ask her out?"
"…Not quite. Perhaps you can understand, how in families which perhaps do not run as much like the watches they make, a father might tell his son just which young lady he is to become engaged to if he wishes to see another promotion or even to remain in the company, without so much as consulting the young lady in question?"
"…You're kidding. That's ridiculous. It's almost nineteen-ninety-six, not seventeen-eighty!"
"You think it's ridiculous?" Jessie asked, a little more sarcastically than one usually heard from her. "You're not the one who had to read Jane Austen for advice starting at the age of nine."
"I'm afraid it's true, Charles. I have been protecting my 'tite soeur from the attentions of such young men as best I could since she stopped wearing the dresses with ruffles on." Deroulede sighed at Jessie, who continued to glare like Norberta the dragon in egg season. "The Guild is a lot of old men who think themselves rather more important than they are, traditions die very hard and not many of them let such notions as love or actual personality enter into their deliberations. Selnikov's shop has suffered since the unrest across his country's border, to say nothing of his somewhat less than perfect skill, so he is under great pressure to marry someone rich, and if possible, skilled, though I doubt his family takes women seriously in that line. Hans Prosser lost his elder brother to disinheritance over a girl old Karl thought unacceptable –Muggleborn and Canadian, so Hans is under a great deal of pressure not only to be the clocksmith and businessman his brother was, but to marry the girl his father has picked out…and, unfortunately, said girl is my friend and…perhaps something more than your friend?"
Jessie said something in French that made Paul Deroulede gasp.
"I didn't know you spoke French, Jess," I remarked, patting her hand. She grinned archly, even as Deroulede appeared to be suffering from some kind of sudden cardiac complaint.
"Jamesine!"
"What? S'true."
"…Well, you can't just say so! You'll never be believed and anyway, your parents are 'ere tonight!"
"Why wouldn't I be believed?" Jessie cried, looking genuinely outraged. Paul sighed and raised an eyebrow.
"You're British and you're a Tickes. At most, it would look like a clever ploy to hold off suitors. I can believe it, of course, but I know you a little better than those old men do. They still think any girl with a profession and spectacles is a librarian."
"Some fancy kind of librarians," I mumbled, trying to suppress a bit of laughter. Even as awful as the predicament sounded, there was something inherently humorous about the whole thing. I knew full well how proper and spinsteresque Jessie appeared to people who didn't know her well, but I also knew the truth. I also knew a very easy way to solve the problem.
"Librarians are actually among the most dirty-minded people in the world," Jessie growled. "And the most dangerous to offend."
"C'est vrai, 'tite soeur." Deroulede turned to me and whispered, out of Jessie's hearing. "May I suggest, therefore, that you, Charles, make a point to be more or less constantly at Jamesine's side this evening?"
"Meant to, anyway."
"Have you spoken with her father already, or are matters not so far?"
"Spoken with…huh?" I still didn't understand how trade families worked sometimes.
"You British. Well, even if matters are not so serious, better for them to be thought serious now and later allow the specter of potential reputation to let Jamesine choose for herself."
"…Why doesn't she just say 'no' to these clowns?"
"She likely will. Likely has. But the opinion of a woman…well…" Deroulede sighed. "This is a very old sort of Europe we're dealing with. My mother objects to ma belle Juliette because she isn't of a trade family and because she is from Montmartre. Likely Jamesine's grandfather fails to object to you only because his Maman was Jamesine the Auror and a streak of the Femme Moderne runs in that family. To you, Jamesine's opinion is the beginning and the end of the story. To them…it is perhaps a footnote in chapter twelve, next to the page number."
"To hell with it. I have better things to worry about than that bunch of chauvinist shitbiscuits," Jessie growled, thoroughly destroying the Jane Austen atmosphere and sending me into a fit of mirth.
"Damn it, Jamesine, we are in the midst of the comedy of manners, the damsel in distress, the most romantic of entanglements –and you are not even letting poor Charles enjoy rescuing you!"
"I'm enjoying it!" I managed to gasp between giggles. It was all so absurd.
"You both are making of this the farce! I will never understand the British need for everything to be the flying circus and the restaurant full of Spam! Yes, it is perhaps silly to us, but at least we could be enjoying the tension dramatique! You cannot even permit my poor romantic soul a moment to savor the elegance of the forbidden lover holding off the undesirable avec determined fools without calling them the shitbiscuit! That is not even a word, Jamesine!"
We were both dying with laughter at this point, and after a look or two, Paul cracked up right along with us. Say what you will about antiquated social entanglements, they really don't stand up to modern women or their…erm…vocabulary.
Shortly thereafter, I managed to change the subject to that of Deroulede's intended. Juliette Devereaux worked in a Montmartre cabaret, hence most of Mme. Deroulede's objections, but Paul remained effusive and detailed in his praise of his prospective fiancée.
"Such a face, Charles, the gods could make only in flesh, for not even marble in the sun could be so warm! Her smile, it is like her work…bright and full of the cheer one moment, cold and aloof the next! She is an artist, Charles…like your Jamesine with the clock, but of the stage! Every Friday night, I leave my shop and I go to worship at the temple of her brilliance. Everyone loves her, but only I and her chaton Toulouse have her love in return."
"Chaton is…kitten?"
"Mais oui! I rescued him from the shelter and presented him to Juliette the day she changed lodgings and was at last allowed to have a pet of her own. His maman chat was dead, so the shelter intended to put him to death, but I know a little of chatons, and it was not too hard to nurse him with the bottle, dreaming of the day he would belong to my love! She would visit and praise my patience with the tiny chat, never realizing I was saving his life to be hers…and when I bought the apartment building and moved her from the garret to the third-floor suite, she never knew it was me!"
"That's adorable!" I remarked admiringly. "So, she's on the stage?"
"Non, her art is on the stage."
"…I don't understand. Does she sing, or dance…"
Paul gave me a blank look.
"She is the lighting designer and the manager of the stage." He sighed again. "Where every other artist works only in body or voice, Juliette, she works in light and time…she is beauty and brilliance."
"How did you meet?"
"I was backstage, repairing the clock, when she asked if I knew anything about lever arms. Naturelment, I do, so I assisted her with the repair of the fly system, and when we had finished, I was already in love with her. She has the wit and the soul of art, but also the beauty and the generous spirit…so, of course, I came back to look for more that I could help her repair. We worked for months, laughing and passing tools to each other, until all was fixed so well I could not think what I would do. I was just about to bribe a dancer to break something when Juliette invited me back just for the fun of it…and we have been nearly inseparable since."
"Aww!" I no longer resented Paul. He was simply a second, French older brother of Jessie's, as far as anyone could tell. "That's so sweet!"
"And it actually does remind me…do you suppose, Paul, that there's any chance of Juliette's company having perhaps a modest UK tour this year –or next, when things are a bit safer?"
"I suppose I could bring it up to the other share'olders."
"…You didn't."
"Only fifty-eight percent, Jamesine." Paul looked sheepish.
"How did you explain buying a cabaret to your mother?"
"I didn't. It was after I bought my shop…and obtained a modest equity line of credit at Lafitte's."
"You didn't!"
"I paid it off in two months! The cabaret was being run into the ground by its' management, but with my former governess in charge of the house, it became rather more profitable."
"You put Ingrid in charge of the house?"
"Naturelment."
"…I stand corrected forever on investment strategy. Clearly, simple property acquisition is nothing compared to setting a great Brunhilde queen Viking of an ex-governess on presumably innocent bartenders and chorus girls. You do know those Muggle comic books weren't meant to be educational in that way?"
"That is where I got the idea, yes. Running my nursery and then that of my petite cousins, well, considering the behavior of drunks as compared to enfants, I assumed Ingrid would simply take care of it."
"This is what happens when I send over 'Asterix,' I'm never going to trust you with 'Batman.'"
"I love Batman! Juliette showed me the film version."
"An act for which she will assuredly answer someday at The Hague."
Normally I'd feel a bit lost listening to old friends catch up, but Paul's face was so expressive and Jessie's –well, disparaging observations, perhaps we could call them, so detailed, I was able to understand pretty easily what was going on as they bantered back and forth. Juliette was a sweet, Muggle-born girl, self-made and very talented, if not precisely what one would consider 'well-off' financially. She also probably got a little tired sometimes of Paul's constant attempts to rescue her, hence his failure to tell her that he now owned a majority of shares in her place of employment. Jessie insisted that he couldn't make high-handed inroads into someone's life that way, even for the positive, without at least telling them.
"But she would be so upset," Paul sighed. "I only wanted to 'elp, and the theatre was to be closed if it wasn't back in the black by fall."
"And if you'd said to her, 'Juliette, this theatre looks like an amazing investment opportunity and I really need to diversify my portfolio –how about I buy in? I'll put in some more responsive management, so your life'll be easier, and it'll ultimately help me from a business perspective. Wouldn't that just be shiny for both of us?' If you had, she'd likely have discussed it and debated and insisted that your new management not show any favoritism, but she'd have agreed to share a business opportunity that was mutually positive and you'd be in the position to help her without it feeling like you swept in and put training wheels on the little scooter-thing of her career for her!"
"Says the woman who bought the premises of 'er friends' shop rather than see them evicted."
Jessie went white.
"How do you know about that?"
"Common knowledge, I guess. 'Eard it from a goblin at Lafitte's this morning."
"It was an emergency and I intended to –there wasn't time to ask them! And I'll need the property to borrow against with the political situation. It's not charity!"
"So maybe, the saying, something of pots and kettles?"
"Friends are one thing. Lovers are another," Jessie growled. "How can you love someone who towers above you and just swoops in like a fairy tale to make things all better? You'd never know if they really loved you or just wanted a project!"
"And I suppose the fact that Madame Lyon's rave review of Charles' book was, how you say, the coincidence?"
"…Review?" I asked.
"Madame Gudule Lyon, despite being a complete Philistine about comic books, she is the chief reviewer for the second-largest newspaper in America. I assumed you knew," Paul explained casually as Jessie's hands began to shake. "She was sent a copy of your latest book four days ago, devoured it in a night and published a half-page five-star review above the fold, front of the Arts and Leaders section, praising you as the cleverest young author of the year. I understand there was also a photograph."
I turned to look at Jessie, amazed. It had seemed weird that I had gotten a sudden and larger-than-usual royalty check –a rave review would certainly explain an increase in purchases. But Jessie had insisted she hadn't contacted her great-uncle in publishing…
…And she had been awfully specific in saying whom she had not contacted, for that matter. Also a little too swift to insist I had gotten the check on my own merits.
"Jessie?" I asked. She was blinking a little too fast and not really looking me in the eye.
"Charlie…I didn't. If you asked me to, I would in two seconds. But without asking, or getting your permission to interfere…I wouldn't. I didn't. It'd be a betrayal of trust, even if it was well-meant."
I moved a little closer, caught her shaking hand into mine, and looked her right in the eyes. Clear, light brown eyes, behind glasses a little too plain for a dress and a figure like hers. A librarian's face on a…a politician's body…but still with those same callused, capable hands. Who was she, really, this clockmaker?
She blinked for a second and I realized the glances away were more likely to be the avoidance of tears than attempted deceit. I felt her wrist and she closed her eyes tight –yes. She was telling me the truth. And I knew why her hands were shaking.
"I believe you, Jess."
And in less time than I could possibly tell it, she absolutely and completely destroyed any hopes of a Jane Austen-style arranged anything for the pliers-holding hands of Europe. She didn't cry, though I think it was a very close margin. I found myself being snogged and snogging back with a sudden, desperate passion that was probably not the sort of thing anyone expected in a ballroom. But that was okay. Anyone who noticed was at least polite enough not to do anything but smile or gasp and scurry off to gossip a bit –and who honestly cared at a time like that?
"…So that is how to handle it, then?" Paul inquired, pulling a folded document from his coat. "Two documents, Jamesine –the first a letter to you explaining my decision to invest in the cabaret and asking your advice on what to tell Juliette, as I do not have time to ask her before I must act –I'll need some kind of British-postmarked reply, as the carbon will have to be adequate for my beloved to be made to stumble upon." He then took on the brave, get-it-over-quick look of the penitent. "And the second, a registered mail receipt for one book, received by Madame Lyon and sent by what appears to be an anonymous sender, but which a cursory inspection of the handwriting will reveal to be-"
"You!" Jessie gasped.
"Naturelment. You can continue to trust her, Charles. I'm sorry for the deceit, but isn't it splendid to know you really did earn that grand review? Madame Lyon would have never read it had it come any other way but anonymously –it would have been a positive lie of a review from Jamesine, a negative one from me, but the mystery of the anonymous sender, ah! She simply 'ad to read it! It was only after, when she loved it so and demanded more, that she had Mademoiselle Gilly trace my owl and the jig, as you British say, was up."
"You…" Jessie glared even as Paul moved closer and put an arm over each of our shoulders.
"Needed to know what you would do in my position. You do 'appen to be right on a frequent basis, Jamesine, but I never know if what you would advise me to do is what you would do yourself. And now that I know, I can apologize, you and Charles can per'aps forgive me for that terrible scare just now –though, to be fair, you two do handle stress in a fashion one rarely associates with your nationality- and everyone can be friends again!" He clutched our hands and tilted his head with what passed, among the French, for an ingratiating smile.
There was a sudden squashy, splintery noise and Paul's eyes got very wide. Then Jessie unclenched her hand.
"Now we can be friends again."
"…I deserved 'zat," Paul managed, in a peculiar froggy falsetto. I didn't look at his hand, but I knew my girlfriend well enough to know that at least three bones had been rather suddenly and painfully dislocated, if not broken.
"Yeah. And you won't be after messin' about with my love life now?" Jessie asked, that slightest of Irish lilts getting into her voice, as it tended to do when she was tense.
"As the raven says, nevermore!"
"C'est magnifique. Put some ice on that."
"I find myself pitying You-Know-'oo, if the Mayor of London has a grip like 'zat!" Paul shook out his abused fingers. "And the masterpiece tomorrow…"
"Mayor of London?"
"Jamesine, do you follow nothing in your 'omeland?"
"You keep one more secret I don't know and I'll-"
"-Do something 'orrible to me, I know. Rumor 'as it that what with the Scrimgeour administration neither standing up for the common witch nor doing much to prevent terrorisme, that there may be a special election to place a Lord Mayor of London in control of Diagon Alley and surrounding area." Paul shrugged. "Can I 'elp it my spies are better than yours?"
"Bloody hell," Jessie sighed, knocking back a delicate flute-full of champagne as if it were water.
"Considering you're the front-running candidate, I assumed you'd know."
"That could be interesting, Jess. You'd make a good Lord Mayor," I observed.
"Would not."
"You 'ave the 'earts of the people," Deroulede pointed out.
"And you're good at speeches and organizing," I agreed.
"British don't use le guillotine in their politics." We both gave Deroulede a look and he shrugged before Jessie began one of her panicky little rants of rationalization.
"I'm also fifteen years younger than the youngest person ever elected to the office, I'd be literally the third woman and I don't know if either of you have realized this, but I'm twenty years old, have perilously little besides a Hogwarts education and a small shop to recommend me and, even if I were old enough and smart enough and tough enough, there's still the not inconsiderable fact that the last Lord Mayor to stand up to You-Know-Who, not to put too fine a point on it, died less than a month into his first term! Forgive me if this idea holds less allure than being elected Miss Hogsmeade 1996!"
"But you'd look so adorable in the chain," Deroulede sighed.
"And so cute in the box," Jessie growled.
"I think she's right. It's too dangerous," I agreed. "It's not fair they want so much of you, Jess. You've already gotten into a fight with Bellatrix bloody Lestrange and lived, I don't want to test your luck."
"But if there's nobody else, what am I supposed to do? Let London burn while I eat cupcakes and drink champagne?"
"There are cupcakes?" Paul looked around for a train-elf.
"I don't want you to get hurt, Jessie. We've only just…well, you and I haven't had much time. If you were, I d'know, fifty, it'd be one thing, but…"
"And the people who'll never live to be fifty if I don't?"
Bugger. Her damned sense of duty. It was like dating someone out of Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes, and I said so. Deroulede then proceeded to quote a choice passage from 'Ruddigore,' which I recognized, and we were just finally making friends when Jessie glared holes in each of us.
"Well," I sighed, "if you must, get the Redferns to serve in your cabinet and I'll make some of my old school friends help with security."
"And you really should have some dueling lessons," a voice remarked. "I've thought so for years. Siobhan would have insisted if she were here."
It was Sarah Tickes, and at her side was the quiet James. Jessie smiled slightly, nervously, then seemed to warm up as the shorter woman hugged her. I wondered if they had seen the snog and felt a bit tense myself.
"Father?" Jessie half-greeted, half-asked, holding out a hand as if not certain what gesture was appropriate under the circumstances. James tugged her in for a brief hug and gave what passed for a smile, from him.
"You look very well, Jamesina," he observed with a nod. I noticed the smile didn't reach his eyes, but there again, they never had, at least in my experience. "Like your mother," he sighed, and Sarah held his left hand tightly.
The man was clearly, blatantly a depression victim. I'd never seen one so bad outside of St. Mungo's –but at the same time, he did have a straight back, a clear eye and the look of someone determined to get through something terrible no matter how much it hurt. Jessie had that look the night her broken jaw had been spelled shut, and it was interesting to really get a good idea of in what ways she favored her dad for looks.
"Thank you," Jessie replied gently. Something had changed –maybe the talk with her stepmother that morning? She still looked edgy, as if unsure who this father-resembling creature was. "You remember Charlie Weasley, and Paul Deroulede?"
"Of course. You two played together as children…and isn't Mr. Weasley the fellow who was at the shop that night after the…erm, scuffle?"
"The very same."
"Rumor has it that they're dating, dear," Sarah observed. "Now might be a humorous time to get a bit bristly and ask the redhead about his intentions. Maybe the two of you might even argue a bit and undo your ties."
We both looked at her, as did Jessie, though Deroulede decided at that moment to develop a passionate interest in the smell of handkerchief starch. By the sound of it, starch made him a bit snorty.
"Dating Jamesina?" James Tickes inquired.
"Yes, sir," I replied, answering with as little tremor as I dared. Who knew what a madman might do? "By your leave, sir, and hers," I added, since it seemed an appropriately Austen-ish clockmakers' guild sentiment.
"Oh, she'll date whoever she pleases. I like you better than the Quidditch lad. Eyebrows like garden shrubs. You can write, and knowing our Jims' taste for books, maybe you can keep her busy. That, and your research should be absorbing enough to keep you from minding her work hours." He seemed almost normal for a moment. "Siobhan tolerated me pretty well in that way, but Sarah has opinions…"
"The twins help," Sarah smiled. "No loosened ties, though? Darn." Jessie gave her a look normally reserved for a smutty Redfern comment and the little woman grinned. "Opinions, he called them."
And with that, the two women shared a bit of a laugh, like old friends or full relatives.
It looked like how Mum and Ginny would meet sometimes, and I wondered what had transpired to change their relationship –or if anything actually had. The Tickes clan was so bizarre sometimes compared to the families I knew, I was never really sure what to make of them.
What happened next, though, was quite startling.
"How's the shop been this week?" James asked.
"Fine." Jessie was still staring at her father as if he'd grown another head. Sarah leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her eyes widen and then narrow suspiciously. "No."
"Yes, actually…it's been a more or less ongoing experiment," James confirmed. "Sudden breakthrough when Sarah doubled up the…well, she was very insistent about results, and…it's very strange, I expect."
"How? Why?" Jessie had a horrible look, like someone betrayed.
I had a vague idea of what she must be feeling. Twenty years of a distant, never-quite-normal father, then suddenly a hug and a how's-the-shop…it must have been bizarre. I half suspected her Uncle Gard had swiped a bit of his brother's hair and Polyjuiced up for the occasion.
"Well…" James lowered his voice, noticing that a few people were glancing in their direction. "It's Muggle stuff. Sarah developed a combination of a few things that works fairly well, for short periods. The side effects…are frankly dreadful. But I wanted to…Jamesina, you're all grown up. Sitting the masterpiece." There was pain in James Tickes' voice, and especially in his eyes.
I realized his beard was newly trimmed and his hair much better cut than the night at Jessie's shop. What had Sarah Tickes done to him?
"Yes. And preparing to buy you out of the business." Jessie's tone was icy and her jaw set. "Unless you have a better reason than You-Know-Who to turn coward and run to America."
James stiffened and returned the look.
"Such as a branch franchise in New York allowing us a tariff-free crack at American mineral auctions?" Jessie's eyes widened. "A third shop would also be a nice place for Rob or Dave to take over when they're grown, considering Diagon's yours and Gard is unlikely to give up Hogsmeade anytime soon. More importantly, a business with American holdings is subject to international Floo regulations, not British."
"Thus creating a nice little Ministry-immune causeway, should anyone need a quick route out of London," Sarah remarked blithely. "Charles, dear! How are you liking the Trans-European!" she interrupted, drawing me into the conversation by both hands.
"Fine, ma'am. It's very nice." Mr. Tickes turned to me.
"Wouldn't you agree, Weasley, that a fast, legally unencumbered route from the Diagon Alley shop to New York City might prove, oh, a bit of an asset to a Potterist politician's base?"
"It would depend on how unencumbered, but assuming the Ministry doesn't know it's there, yes, that could be quite useful," I agreed. Jessie shot me a venomous look and I shrugged. "Underground railroad, what?"
"I may not be much of a father, Jamesina, but I'm still your colleague," James continued. "And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the firm really couldn't survive your loss, not without at least an eighteen-year decline. So I'm pulling rank and setting up a small safety net for a worst-case scenario." He drew himself up to his full height and I knew the Tickes Business Rules applied. "I know, I know, you don't need to be bailed out like some coward, et cetera. And I know you'll probably run refugees, weapons or both with it, you're just that sort of a stubborn bint, but at least I'll be able to sleep a bit better at night knowing you could escape."
"…How much of a cost reduction are we looking at, with the tariffs gone?"
"Ten percent."
"Is that really enough to set up a decent shop? I would assume you'd need at least forty percent of the Hogsmeade capital just for the building."
"Harrowby Jones is retiring and he hasn't an apprentice –and I quote, 'whom he would piss on, were they on fire.' It took what was left of my retirement fund, but I've bought his place in Manhattan."
"Without the Firm's approval?" Jessie tutted disapprovingly, but her smile was coming back. "What sort of a mortgage rate?"
"Terrible. Point-six."
"I'm assuming it's about the same as the Hogsmeade shop's full value?"
"Actually, about twenty thousand less." Jessie's eyebrows went up and James grinned. "Old Jonesy had a rather remarkable gambling marker, and Sarah here called it in."
"Well, we shall just have to censure her at the quarterly meeting, won't we?" Jessie appeared to be doing some rapid calculations in her head. "Can you afford point-four to me if I pay out half the value on the note?"
"Absolutely. For shares or percent?"
"Shares. Point-four should, at the very least, let Rob and Dave buy me out by the time they want to start families. And something tells me I'll want the steady paybacks, if postwar recession is the sort of beast I expect it to be. Best to diversify, try to hedge one's bets."
"You take after your Granddad," James observed with a wry grin, and I assumed he meant in the area of business sense.
"I ought to. Apprenticed at six and full-time at sixteen, what do you expect?"
"Well, you might have stayed in Hogsmeade a bit longer, but considering what went on with the old man's health, I'm glad you were where you were. That, and it's time Diagon had some decent bachelors in politics. If there isn't someone to shut the old biddies up when they whinge for someone to 'think of the children,' we'll never get anything done."
"Says the father of four," Sarah snarked, catching a champagne glass off an elf's tray and sipping at it. I noticed she didn't take one for James, though Jessie had given me one awhile ago. "But he is right, Jims, you do need a bachelor's opinion to smooth out the roadblocks of middle-class morality."
"I love how you Tickes make no distinction between the male and the female bachelor," Deroulede remarked. "It is so different from my family."
"Is there one?" Jessie and Sarah asked in almost perfect unison.
"Well, apart from the much lower risk of Gard or I turning up pregnant, not really," James Tickes laughed, accepting a small glass of what was probably ginger ale in a champagne glass from an elf. (There were red napkins on the trays of champagne and green on the tray from which his drink had come, which, I remembered, indicated non-alcoholic drinks at the most formal wizard parties.) I choked on my champagne just as Jessie had what sounded like a sneeze done backwards. Sarah Tickes barely restrained a snort and James tilted his head mildly. "Picturing Gard in maternity attire, eh? Horrible mental picture, think about cats instead."
Whatever he was taking for the depression, it clearly had some effect on his perception –that, or James Tickes the tenth was one of those fathers who will sooner decorate the elephant in the room with a tasteful antimacassar than acknowledge the existence of any potential innuendo as re: their daughters. My own father has some of that tendency.
"Speaking of cats, how's Quintus?" Jessie asked.
"Still a ball of affectionate, lazy fluff," James replied. "Dave pulled his tail the other day and got hissed at, and quite rightly, so we slipped the old boy a bit of tuna to make up for it."
"Some cats would scratch at twin two-year-olds, but not Quintus," Sarah agreed. "He still has that tendency to steal the afghan off the couch and make a nest in it, but lately the boys have begun building the blanketty nest for him and saying 'kitty naptime!' when they've finished, at which point Quint struts in like a king and inspects their work. They even use cushions in their kitty-nest construction."
"Sometimes he kneads at it a bit before lying down, but their work is usually satisfactory," James confirmed. "Now, if we can just convince him to potty-train them next..."
"Bad idea. I came home from my Women's Institute do and found the boys, diapers off, trying to do leavings in Quintus' box."
"Who was watching them?" Jessie cried.
"Your grandfather. Said the box was fresh clean and maybe they'd learn something. I sometimes worry his mind's going, but it's actually just the plain devilment he's always been up to. He gave you a cigar once when you were four," James recalled, a bit surprisingly, given what I'd been told about his mental health at that point. "To this day, he boasts of doing it, too."
"Well, to be fair, I never could bring myself to take up smoking after that, so maybe it was all for the best."
"You aren't missing much," I agreed. "I tried to smoke a pipe once and was sick all over my tentmate's bed."
"Was that in Romania, then?" James asked.
"Yes. I was sharing a tent with a pipe-smoker, and I thought it might help make the smell a bit more endurable."
"I never could manage a pipe, either, but I don't mind a cigar now and again," Deroulede shrugged. "Gives you something to do in the drawing room after meals."
"And it does make a fine excuse to wear a smoking jacket," James agreed. "I inherited one that Sarah thinks I look clever in, but if I actually use it as intended, she complains of the smell."
"You could just sip your brandy in the jacket. That doesn't make you reek of burnt leaves and man-gossip," Sarah retorted gently.
"I find that nobody takes me seriously in drawing rooms if I don't have that upsettingly large old pipe of Granddad's in my teeth or hand," Jessie smirked. "Of course, nobody ever sees me light it."
"Well, if the old boys' club wouldn't insist on doing business there, they wouldn't have to feel bested when us girls best them at bad habits. I've acquired rather a taste for their cognacs and such." Sarah took a sip of her champagne and then squinted at it as if accusing it of being entirely too mincing and delicate. "At least there's a point to them."
"Better than those fruity cocktails they serve at the less formal affairs," James pulled a face. "Don't know why, but I got a worse head from one little drink out of a coconut on a Guild do in St. Tropez than a five-pint bender at the Hog's Head when I was seventeen."
"Is that why you informed me, at ten years old, that nobody sensible ever accepted a drink in a coconut?" Jessie asked.
"In the haze of nausea from a stomach flu, yes. Even when I'd been sick thrice in a morning, I still recalled the coconut with trepidation and dread. I think it was in 1976 I had the damned thing, but the memory's still very sobering."
"What was your worst drink?" Sarah asked me.
"I once had a glass of wine at an allegedly vampire-owned tourist trap of a castle near Tirgoviste," I explained. "It tasted like copper shavings and I was sick in a box of wooden stakes."
"Was it blood wine or something awfully awful?" Jessie asked excitedly.
"No, just improperly corked and chilled Australian shiraz. They must have let the kangaroos crush the grapes." That seemed to amuse the group.
"I've actually 'ad some very good Australian wines –but there have also been some that made me want to rabbit-proof my tongue afterward." Paul sighed. "I think my worst drink was the time I tried cheap absinthe on summer 'oliday."
"Does it really make you hallucinate?"
"This didn't. I've since had better, but all the mystique and style in the world does not change the fact that a cup of black jelly beans in vodka is roughly the same flavor experience. Clearly, there are some things for which the bon marché option is worse than going without."
"Has anyone ever tried a drink called an Irish Car Bomb?" Sarah asked. When we shook our heads, she added, simply, "Don't."
"Siobhan loved the most awful pints of black stout," James reminisced, a tightness in his jaw even as he smiled at the memory. "You could cast a Lumos with your wand and hold it under the glass, but to look down, the light wouldn't be visible. It was like watching someone drink ink with brown fluffy foam on top."
"And if a tourist ordered American beer, she'd snort so hard, I swore she had stout up the nose one time."
"American beer is pretty awful," Deroulede agreed.
"I know I prefer Irish stout," Jessie agreed. "But what's in the car bomb drink?" Sarah and James described it briefly, including the late Siobhan's seemingly endless amusement with anyone who, say, passed out after half of one. It seemed that Sarah certainly had, at a hen party long ago and in open spite of the fact that Siobhan had been gone for years, the memory was enough not to let the earthy little soul live it down.
"She'd be very proud of you, Jims," Jessie's father managed to stammer out. He was still very clearly not right, but he was making a valiant try. Jessie gave his hand a squeeze, not in the bone-cracking way, but enough that I could see an Understanding forming between the two.
"And not just for taking after her in a taste for stout," Sarah added. "It's past time you got to know more about what your mum was like, occasional boozy anecdotes, Quidditch scores and all. I have a few of her things that it's time you had, stories you really deserve to hear…and since we'll have the week-end after the masterpiece…"
"I'd like that very much, yes."
"There's also something else," James took a battered little leather-bound address book from his coat pocket. "I have the address of your grandfather, if you wanted to write or visit him after the masterpiece."
"But I know where Granddad lives. With you."
"…Your other grandfather, Jims. Samuel McArran. He runs a jewelry shop in Belfast."
And it was at that moment, with Jessie looking all pale and her champagne glass failing to shatter in her hand only by virtue of Deroulede's whispered spell that I finally appreciated how lucky I was in terms of my family.
I also made a decision in the next few moments, as Jessie peppered her parents with questions and we all sat down to eat at the same table. That nervous blink to avoid tears and the shake of her hands told me how hard she was taking this sudden surprise, no matter how happy things ended, but she was still handling it gracefully and with that watchspring strength that let her take on all comers until she literally ran down and collapsed into bed or worse.
I decided that anyone that strong under pressure certainly could do with someone to let the tension go slack with, someone who'd wind her back up when things became too much. Someone, I thought, to keep her from snapping apart and losing gears everywhere.
And I wanted the job, badly. The question was, did she want me nearly as much as I needed her?
So it was then that I knew for good and all, sooner or later, what and how I would have to ask.
"Attention!" a train-elf announced from just near the bandstand. "Meine Damen und Herren, mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, attention s'il vous plait!" I turned in my chair to see Izzy making the announcement. "It is my unpleasant duty to report that we are experiencing some unusual bad weather, and as such, there may be some lateral turbulence as the train enters the mountains." There were some gasps of confusion and disappointment at that. "We must request that the dancing be postponed until additional charms have been activated by the brakemen; however, to encourage this, our chefs have taken the liberty of preparing a more than usually elaborate dessert course." Little menus appeared suddenly next to everyone's larger one with a 'pop!' and Izzy got a round of applause for it. "We apologize for the inconvenience, and as soon as the problem is fixed, the bandleader will be told to make an announcement. Thank you for your patience, and bon appétit."
And with that, our food appeared. I didn't remember ordering, but it was just what I had been planning on selecting from the menu.
"Lateral turbulence on a train?" I asked.
"It can happen," Jessie explained. "Especially one that's larger on the inside –you know how when you're looking through a telescope at something that's been made bigger by lenses, the tiniest vibration of your hand looks like you're shaking it hard?"
"Oh, yes. Is it the same way with trains?"
"Sort of. Well, enough for the simile to explain the effect without getting all technical at dinner, anyway."
"The Hogwarts Express never did that, that I recall. Is this train different?" I had to ask. Yep, we were going to get all technical at dinner.
"The Hogwarts Express runs on the wide-gauge Brunel track that's nearly exclusive to wizarding use in Scotland. It could roll through just about anything with minimal vibration. This one uses the same gauge as Muggle rail, and as such, is just a little bit wobbly when the weather is really obscenely bad." Jessie pointed at the tines of her fork in pairs to show the difference in track gauges, which I found very illustrative. "It's not quite two-to-one, like this fork is…in fact, the conversion from Brunel to regular involves a right-hand third rail at about 2/3 the distance from the left-hand side.
"Brunel's track is much better, really," Deroulede explained. "You can ride it at just about any speed without spilling your coffee. Some people say that was why Brunel preferred it and did his best to make it the standard. There are lots of us wish he'd succeeded," –he said, sipping his wine very carefully, so as not to spill, "though I suspect the dry-cleaning industry lobbied heavily against."
"You know, I'd never noticed the gauge difference," Mr. Tickes observed. "You say most Scottish wizarding rail is the bigger kind?"
"Almost all of it, except for a few conversion lines and some light rail in mining use. It provoked a lot of controversy back in the Stump administration, with most English wizards in favor of standard gauge, to be compatible with the Muggles, and most Scots preferring Brunel for the obvious benefits. The Hogwarts Express isn't the only train with conversion axles running in the UK these days. It's a good job Stretching Charms work so quickly and well for it."
"So the little funnel-shaped pieces of track with the little boxes, those are the conversion joints?" James asked.
"Exactly."
"I'd rather wondered. And the box is where the charm is cast?"
"Not quite. The box contains a sort of magical resonance battery –usually the same sort of potion-in-metal-case job we use in a Muggle watch conversion. The engineer casts the Stretching Charm at the box as the engine approaches and the resonating rebound of the spell stretches or contracts all the axles as the train passes over the box and through the funnel." Jessie managed to illustrate this very neatly with two napkins, a pair of forks and a salt cellar, and James seemed very pleased with her knowledge.
Apparently Myron Tickes had gone in heavily for model railroading of late and it was nice that somebody knew what the old fellow was doddering on about. Jessie agreed that her grandfather could be a positive fount of useful, if bizarre information, and asked whether he'd mentioned the profession of the original, female inventor of the conversion points in the hearing of her little brothers. James said that regrettably, the old man had, and they had had to have a stern word about child-appropriate topics. Jessie laughed.
"Nobody stopped him from telling me such things!"
"And you grew up to take over Knockturn Alley."
"I did no such thing! I encouraged Knockturn shopkeepers to vote for a union with Diagon and a single parliamentary body for the control of both and then participated in a very modest civil demonstration to encourage the idea's implementation."
"You led a parade."
"Did not. 'Parade' distinctly implies organization and…and festivity aforethought! This was just a bunch of people walking about casting Lumos charms."
"And singing the England National fight song," I contributed, not very helpfully.
Sarah gave me a knowing look, as if to say 'They're mad as dormice, but we love them,' and I found myself returning it easily with a nod.
"Are they still hauling out that old dirge for every third thing in Diagon?" James asked. "Seems to me there's got to be some other song in the world that as many people know."
"With clean lyrics? I wouldn't take that bet," Sarah smirked.
"I feel bad 'cause Ian's already so sick of it and Diagon's no escape." Jessie passed me the salt before I could ask. "Though I will say it's nice to have him about with the season off. Another pair of hands in the showroom saves hours of time and you won't believe how many people come in for an autograph and leave with their holiday shopping done."
"That's good to hear. I suppose it'll be just like Gard and James when they were your ages, though I'd imagine with a little more bickering." Jessie's stepmother raised an eyebrow.
"Sarah, be fair. Gardner and I argue more now than Ian and Jims ever did." James took a bite of peas and swallowed neatly. "There's far more likely to be plotting from the two of them. You saw how quickly Jamesina was ready to buy me out."
"Brothers for arguments, sisters for plans," I agreed.
"That's right, you do have some of each, don't you, Charles?" Deroulede asked. I wondered just how good 'his spies' were...though Weasleys are known for having big families.
"I'm second of six boys and our Ginevra's the youngest; the only girl."
"Seven! We should elect your mother. Doesn't matter to what office, after seven children, she could handle You-Know-Who, the Euro discussion and still have time to open the Hogsmeade fair," Sarah reflected. "I've just got the little twins home and it's a full-time job."
"We should ask her to write a book on how she did it," Jessie agreed. "If nothing else, it'd make the girls from my class who are acting like one is a great big deal realize how lucky they are."
"Well, to be fair, children are always a great big deal, whether they're yours by birth, adoption or marrying-in. I won't say you or Ian are nearly the workload Robby and Davy are at this point, but it doesn't mean we worry about you less."
"Perhaps I'm being unfair to them," Jessie thought, before smiling ruefully. "Though if I get one more pregnant woman asking if the vibrations in a watch can hurt a baby, I think I just might go mad."
"Have one of your own, just to prove it's safe," Deroulede suggested. "All the watches you wear and work around..."
And, with that, the conversation came to a grinding halt. James looked at me, I looked at Jessie, Jessie looked at Sarah and then everyone looked at Deroulede, then back at the two of us.
"I'll start a family when there's peace in Great Britain, thanks," Jessie remarked, in a voice that was nevertheless just a bit smaller than usual.
"I'll drink to that," I agreed, meaning to be supportive, but somehow it sounded...well, not entirely without subtext. Still, it managed to pass social muster, everyone drank to the notion and the dinner went back to merely being just a hair on the side of awkward, as opposed to the whole shedding tabby-cat.
"Have you ever had this chocolatey pie stuff, Charles?" James asked, gesturing to a plate of tiramisu which had just appeared. "I can never remember the name, but they make it rather well here." A plate popped into existence at my setting a half-second later. "Oh, you've got it, too."
"They take some pride in guessing what people will like best on the Trans-European," Jessie explained, slipping a spoon into what looked like a small serving of the same pinkish ice-cream she tended to pick up at Fortescue's. "Never been wrong yet, at least not with my entirely predictable tastes."
"Cinnamon-flavoured," James smiled. "There's something to heredity after all."
"I only hope that extends to tomorrow's trials as well," Jessie replied, looking just a bit nervous and trying, badly, to conceal how pleased she was to be compared to her mother. "I'm still not a hundred percent certain my escapements are up to snuff."
"I 'ave visions of my mainspring deciding to slip," Deroulede confessed. "And you, at least, 'ave waterproof cases down. I'm still not perfect in my threaded flat bezels."
"Did you see the hands I cut for Charlie's watch?" Jessie mourned. "I got them right, thank goodness, but only about one in three ever comes out that precise without edge knapping. I wish I had another week to work on my powder dies."
"When I sat the masterpiece, I worried myself ill about my center pins being off," James remarked. A second later, Deroulede and Jessie looked up in near-anguish, having thought of something else to be worried about. "But that won't happen to either of you. I've seen your work and it's thoroughly accurate."
"I think my watch that Jessie made is the best one I've ever seen, let alone owned," I announced loyally. "And I may not be an expert like...everybody else here, but I think you'll both do well."
"If it were just doing well, 'zat would be enough," Deroulede sighed.
"It's like a...well, like a doctoral thesis," Jessie explained. "Every masterpiece has to include some new innovation that has never before been seen, or some combination of technologies and techniques that makes the masterpiece unusual and unique."
"And heaven 'elp you if they think it's derivative."
"I mean, you can have the same general style as the house under which you trained, but the design itself has to be new as the first bloom of spring or you've had it."
"One judge thinks of a design that yours looks a bit too much like and that's all she wrote," James agreed. "Happened to a bloke in my year. Poor fellow left the field."
"Awfully subjective, isn't it?" I asked. "Is it just the design that you're marked on, then?"
"No. Our watches have to be accurate to within a certain point for one grade, another for a better one and to just about laboratory-grade precision for high honors. Then they must resist the Five Conditions for twenty-five actual hours, five hours each." Deroulede explained.
"What are the Five-?"
"Heat, cold, humidity, dust and impact," the clockmakers, including Sarah, explained in unison.
"So they heat it up, chill it, soak it, get it dusty and thump on it?" I was going to say 'that's all?' to reassure them, but then Jessie explained further:
"They do all of those five times for an hour each time. It's not just the Conditions that are bad, it's the changes between them that can kill a watch. And you only get five hours to make the thing in the first place."
"...That...does sound challenging, to be sure. But really, Jess, I think your escapements are fine, especially that chronophage you made last week with the double seat."
"Any chance of Charles here sitting the Novice Test?" James asked. "It is tradition."
"What's tradition -I mean, what's the Novice Test?" I asked.
"It's the test to become a novice clockmaker," Jessie explained, "and you could pass it easy as can be."
"I'm not sure. I don't know nearly as much as-"
"Remember the other day when there was only one brownie left and I made you, Fred and George name parts of the clock to decide who got it? Your answers then would be enough to pass."
"I don't remember chocolate brownies ever being a part of the studying," James objected. "In my day we made do with sensible butterbeer and ginger biscuits when we turned our dates into capable novices."
"Is that the tradition?" I must've looked fairly funny, because Sarah grinned. "I suppose I have to do well on this Novice Test if I want to keep seeing Jessie, then?"
"That's nonsense. It was never a tradition per se, just an odd quirk of the family's old habit of marrying colleagues," Jessie seemed to be daring her father to say otherwise.
"Indeed. Siobhan passed it years before I so much as met her, as did Sarah. My grandmother, however, she did take and pass it with the intention of impressing my grandfather," James explained. "And it is so much more interesting when you know someone taking the Novice Test, because otherwise it's terribly simple and does tend to drag on a bit."
"Very well. I shall take the test, pass it and...and..." I was trying to be the gallant and rise to what was, admittedly, a somewhat weak-sounding challenge and it just wasn't sounding right. "And then whatever comes after, I'll do that next."
For a full twenty seconds, I was the dashing, brave admirer rescuing my Jessie from other clockmaker suitors and earning the respect of a storied old profession.
But then, as I realized everyone around me had gone just a bit too cheerful except Jessie, who was beginning to blush...
"Well, as for the afters, I do have to warn you that clockmaking does have it's frivolous side," James explained, "if it can be called that."
"It's 'ardly smutty," said the Frenchman.
"A novice who passes can claim a kiss, and there's a chivalrous old tradition of the pale blue novice's ribbon being tied onto the candidate for master who trained them up. Looks good to the judges, who know the candidate will keep up the profession when they are gone, helps encourage them to do their best, given that -well, it is oftener a lady-love than a gentleman, but that someone who admires them is supportive, and it is not uncommon for new-made masters to open the dance with their affiliated novices at the Ball." Sarah apparently thought the old ways as romantic as could be.
"It is also not uncommon for new-made masters to wind up marrying whoever they dance with at the Ball. I myself asked Siobhan when she had her green ribbon and I my blue." James became suddenly rather interested in his shoes and Sarah continued:
"The new-made master with the highest honors opens the dancing and then the rank follows the marks," Deroulede explained. "And since one master can ask another, things can be somewhat awkward if, say, Master A is interested in Master B and Master B winds up getting a better score. The ribbons, 'owever, are one way to save the dance."
"So I had better get one, then, eh, Jess?"
"If you want to," she smiled, looking a bit less shy. "It's also tradition for a journeyman to leave his green ribbon with someone when he or she goes up to the trials, with the understanding that they'll collect it after their dance together." I understood what she meant.
"What a charming custom! It's like school ties or flower corsages."
"Eh...that's not quite all of it. The near-smutty part is how they're put on each other," Deroulede tried to look nonchalant. "One kneels before the object of one's ribbon and ties it about their wrist. For a student, the higher-ranking party may choose to ruffle the 'air or otherwise indicate that there is no romantic relationship, but if there is...well, kisses are not un'eard of."
"It's all so Continental," Sarah sighed happily.
"It's stuff and nonsense with a bit of rank sentimentality," Jessie sighed.
"Come now, Jamesine, if we had not green-ribboned each other, things could have been very exciting these past few years," Deroulede grinned mischievously.
"So why isn't your Juliette going to be there?" Jessie asked.
"...I am too afraid I will fail," the French watchmaker admitted, in a voice small as the kitten he'd raised by hand. "It would disappoint her so."
"I'm just as scared, Paul," Jessie said, patting his hand. "Better they see us at our worst and know there's room for improvement than miss us at our best and never know what we can really do."
There was a long silence.
"If you will excuse me, Madame Tickes, Messieurs, Jamesine," Paul stood up and bowed in his courtly way, "I 'ave an owl to send."
And as strange as it was to be heading off to a test for myself as well, I didn't think we had anything to fear ahead at the Chronologie Mechanique.
I was deeply wrong.