Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion by Jonathan L. Howard, Deborah Walker, Cheryl Morgan, Andy Bigwood, Christine Morgan, Myfanwy Rodman

Anna was at my side. “Can I assist you, Sir Alex?”
     
    “Yes. No. Sorry. The heat overcame me for a moment.” This woman, could she return my daughters affections? Was such a thing possible? Was such a thing commonplace? Of course, I’d heard men in their coarse way sometimes speak about sex between women, but … that was not love.
     
    My poor daughter. And I’d never suspected anything. I wondered: did Martha suspect? In all these long years she’d never made any accusations against me, she’d never spoken of my own fault. What did she feel when I never shared her bed, even on my infrequent visits home?
     
    With a great effort of will, I composed myself. I requested that Anna accompany us home. She was pleased to oblige. We deposited the loquacious Belle at her home, as Percy would be missing her.
     
    Fortunately Martha was not at home. I don’t think I could have faced her quite yet.
     
    It was decided to decant the lesser man into the conservatory. Anna explained how to train the lesser man with repetitive actions, while Ruth smiled and nodded.
     
    Did she know? I wondered. Did Ruth torment herself, as I had done? Did she fear that she may be mentally ill? How did she view her upcoming marriage? Was it with the same overwhelming melancholy that I had felt?
     
    “I read in the paper,” my daughter was saying, “that the lesser men communicate not with words, but with some vegetative principle, with their cranial filaments or by some other means. Do you think that might be true, Miss Didcot?”
     
    “There are many things we don’t understand about the lesser men,” said Anna.
     
    “How terrible it would be if that were the case. Then they could be intelligent beings, slaves to men,” said Ruth, blushing when she spoke. “It doesn’t matter what they want, they are obliged to follow their master’s wishes.”
     
    And her words were so painful that I had to leave the room.
     

     
    Later when Anna had left, I went to speak with my daughter. I found her still in the conservatory, gazing at the lesser man. I lit my pipe and said, “I’ve been thinking, Ruth, that you might like to accompany to me to Hy-Brasil.”
     
    She looked at me in amazement.
     
    “Before your marriage, I meant. An extended holiday, perhaps. Maybe you could do some work on the ferns. You seemed so interested this afternoon. Perhaps we could get the botanist to come with us. She seemed very knowledgeable.”
     
    “Leave Mother? I don’t think I would like to do that.”
     
    “Then what do you want, Ruth? What are you passionate about?” How inadequate my words were. “You can tell me anything.”
     
    “Can I?” Ruth reached out and touched the lesser man gently on the arm. “Look at him, Father. How monstrous it would be if he was a thinking creature. Are we slavers, Father, for the lesser men? They work in the mines, in the factories, in the coalfields, under the most dreadful conditions.”
     
    “Better them than men,” I said. “The work must be done if progress is to be made.”
     
    “And what about the hardship the working men endure, when these creatures take the bread out of their mouths?”
     
    I’d never considered the effect of the lesser men upon the working man, before today. But this was not the issue I wanted to discuss. “And is this all my fault? They are less than animals, less than men. They have no language, Ruth.”
     
    “Even if they could talk, we couldn’t understand them.” She laughed, a bitter, dreadful sound. “They’re very much like us in that regard, don’t you think, Father?”
     
    I sighed. My daughter and I were so alike, and yet so very far apart.
     
    Ruth said goodnight.
     
    I sat in the conservatory smoking my pipe. It would be a hard won battle to reclaim my daughter’s trust. I had failed her, abandoned her. But I would not let her enter a loveless marriage. Never that.
     
    She was my daughter. I would find the language to speak to her.
     
    I stared