Hounds of Autumn by Heather Blackwood Read Free Book Online Page A

knee down hobbled into the church on two shabby crutches. The man’s trouser leg was pinned over the stump, and many people glanced at it as he slid into his seat.
    The man’s rough-cheeked wife was behind him, nodding to the well-wishers and ushering their four silent children into the pew. She took a seat, and a younger woman placed her hand on the wife’s shoulder and whispered something, motioning outside. The wife smiled, placed her hand over the other woman’s, and Chloe could see her lips form a thank you.
    Chloe gazed curiously around the church. Judging by the parishioners’ clothing, the Aynesworths were one of three wealthy families. The rest of the church was filled with middle and working-class people. Unlike her upper class church in London, St. George’s served the entire town of Farnbridge.
    Once the service concluded, the Sullivans bid their family good-bye and two carriages carried the Aynesworths back to their house. Their own carriage waited.
    “Do you mind if we spend a few minutes? Rose’s grave is here,” said Ambrose. She took his arm and he took her to the gravestone, now slightly colored from fifteen years of rain and wind. He did not speak, but simply looked at the stone for a minute and then turned back.
    They did not head home, but instead headed toward the railway station. They passed parishioners on their way home, and she spotted the injured man, hobbling home with his wife and children. It bothered her.
    “You have that look,” said Ambrose.
    “What look?”
    “The one you get when you are concocting an idea.”
    “It’s that man, the one with the leg. I was thinking about Camille’s hound, and how she probably could have found a way to make more intelligent mechanicals, ones that could go down into the mines for the most dangerous work. Now it will never happen.”
    “Why couldn’t you create them?”
    “I can’t even make a mechanical that isn’t moderately dangerous.” She reached under her seat and pulled her satchel, complete with small lump of mechanical cat nestled inside, onto the seat beside her.
    “Giles is still new. You will figure him out and make improvements. Though I still don’t know why in the name of heaven you gave him claws.”
    “Maybe I could work on it. Maybe in a couple of years. Or if I could get Camille’s notes, I could replicate some of her work, maybe expand upon it. I’m not sure. But if I could, if mechanicals could have decision engines, if they could think, then it could change everything. No more miners caught in rockfalls and explosions. Women in the workhouses could have improved sewing machines. It could eliminate the need for people to run the most dangerous machines in factories.”
    “The workers may not thank you for eliminating their livelihoods.”
    “They could learn different things—less dangerous things.” Her mind flashed back to the faces of the four children in church.
    “And with what money would they do that, if they have no employment?”
    “A moment ago, you were encouraging me.”
    He sighed and settled himself in his seat. “Your intentions are noble, but I fear it is survival of the most fit. Those who can use their talents to rise will do so, and there will always be those scrambling at the bottom, whether by reason of birth or circumstance.”
    Chloe looked out the window. She was not angry at her husband. He saw it as his Christian duty to help those very people who were scrambling at the bottom. His generous endowments for educating boys in the slums and providing food and necessities to widows were unknown to Ambrose’s peers. But she knew about it, and she knew his heart. He held no contempt for those lower on the social ladder. If he had, he would never have married her.
    “Just because it’s that way now, doesn’t mean it always has to be,” she said. “Things could change slowly, not all at once. Railways gradually replaced horse carriages for long distances. Airships then supplemented