Clockwork Angel with a pinch of salt

I welcome you to our second installment of reading Clockwork Orange Angel with a decent bit of salt.

Last time we met our 2 male protagonists - Jem and Will, we found out their main occupation and also established the organization representing the baddies of this book. Now we fast forward to our heroine/wallflower Tessa Grey, coming into Southampton on a ferry in the merry month of May.

Kudos for specifying the time, it is just more fun this way, however not where she is going. We get a description of Tessas` love for her Clockwork angel - a mysterious brass clockwork pendant which her mother wore when she died and Tessa is wearing as we speak. It ticks and seems to be working even though nobody has wound it. Name dropping aside, I like this passage, it enforces the idea later in books that the pendant supports Tessas` existence. Which is ok until we realize that Tessa had existed for a good while just fine without the angel around her neck. But details, details, who needs those.

She arrives to Southampton following death of her aunt and an invitation and a steamship ticket from her brother - Nate. He insisted that she came to Southampton and not Liverpool because Southampton has nicer weather and not because Southampton is closer for him to pick her up as he lives in London, because that is logic, folks. Then there is a fact that Liverpool was far more industrial and therefore not that nice in general, so why is Liverpool mentioned at all? Perhaps the author wanted to let us know that she actually researched this. Which is not bad, I can totally get behind this as long as it has some meaning for the story other than “Ha! I researched that, now admire my resourcefulness!” for the author. Proposing her to go to Southampton based entirely on weather forecast makes Nates` excuse and Everything about him super suspicious.  Perhaps this was a tool author used to render him untrustworthy to readers, but it also rendered him daft. Fair enough, carrying on.

Tessa observes that the weather in Southampton is not nice after all - cold rain and general clamminess. I mean, this is not the best first impression of a town, but weather changes, rain stops, unless the entire city is secretly owned by the Addams family. Still, trademark UK downpour? I will start with my pet peeve - the Location. Many good novels and stories are set in London/England. Yet whenever we come across descriptions of London in this book, it is cold/rainy, dour, polluted and dangerous. Whilst this may be true in some cases, especially keeping the fictional age in mind, it feels like London has a timezone/microclimate of its own with a permanent rain cloud above. I have been to London only once, in February which is by far not the prettiest month to be there, I still experienced a variety of weather conditions ranging from grey drizzle and wind to crisp, dry and cold sunshine.

According to sunlight averages, air pollution aside, annually London does receive an average of 1000 hours of sunshine less than New York. From character perspective of Tessa Grey it makes sense that London always seems grim because of the lack of sunlight she has been used to, associations with loss, insecurity and trauma if she felt those that is.

Returning to text, we get the description of Tessas` state -  technically she is a homeless person. Having lived in relative poverty, exactly how relative, I will soon elaborate. Once her aunt and sole breadwinner in their household died, she sold most of her belongings to pay the funeral and then followed her brother to London. Which seems sound, but not so much once we read more into the book and look into history.

Back in the day children worked. Yes, those factories did not run themselves. Yes it sucked. In her day and age Tessa would have worked in a factory, a cotton mill or a coal mine, less likely - as a chimneysweep. Especially given the circumstances they lived in - her aunt being the sole breadwinner in household would not have worked when she had 2 extra mouths to feed. Women and children were paid half or even less of what a grown man would earn. Only in 1876 did the Working Men`s Party propose banning the employment of children under age of 14 and womens rights for equal wages was only established in 1903  and the book is set in 1878  where Tessa is 15 or 16 and nobody gives a damn about poor children. Heck, not all poor children could even attend school, so the fact that she and her brother could read and write means that their aunt could afford schooling them. Tessa and her brother had, in fact, enjoyed quite a luxurious life reserved only to children in upper classes. Did Tessa or Nate work? If so, then where? How poor exactly were they? Where exactly did her Aunt work? Did they inherit something?

Tessa at tender age of 8?

Here we come to doubt number two. Later in book Nate is described as a kind of guy you would not trust. We do not know this, Tessa, on the other hand has grown up with him. So selling all her belongings and sailing off to be met by her not very trustworthy brother is not smart indeed. I will chalk it up to post-traumatic confusion.

We get the sad part where no one waved her goodbye when she left New York. I like this bit of sentiment - though it would have worked better in another setting - in a setting where she actually mourned her aunt`s death, considered the odds of surviving in London, better yet - surviving her trip to London - did she take her own food or did she have meals on the ferry? Was that included in the price of the ticket? And other such vital concerns. Here, however she just notes to herself that it was not merry memory indeed, despite the sky being blue and brass band playing since no one waved to her. We do get this little snipplet

-it had been nearly two weeks since she had spoken to a soul, having kept almost entirely to herslef

In 1820 ships were covering similar distance in 11 days. Other than doubting travel duration of a steam ship from New York to Southampton in late 1870s we find out that Tessa is either incredibly shy, a hermit or is mourning for something unbeknownst to us. If you see the same faces on the boat for around 2 weeks, you or they eventually will start a conversation, unless you purposefully avoid it. In fact - it would be even advisable - people going in the same direction as you might know more about where you are going. They may offer advice or even help if they like you enough. Having friends in a new, unknown, possibly hostile place always helps. The author does not mention if Tessa did anything else on the boat - perhaps reading? She seems to enjoy that quite a lot. However all she seems to have done is meditate on her clockwork pendant and reminisce about how much she loved it, for almost two weeks.

So Tessa disembarks and Nate is not there to meet her. Instead there is this creepy man who knows her name and tells her that Nate sent him. Whilst cringing she decides to follow him through the crowd until she abruptly stops in front of a black, gleaming cab that has golden letters across its side But

-the rain and mist were too thick for Tessa to see them clearly.-

This leads me to believe that either Tessa has some problems with eyesight or the mist is supernaturally thick. She is supposedly standing in front of the cab, capable of distinguishing that the letters are gold, but does not see well enough to read the name. That pesky London mist, hiding the name of the secret organization responsible for 97% of Londons` supernatural crime!

We get our first gander at the main antagonists of this book, this is not even a spoiler. No, seriously - two women of unidentifiable age - one tall and bony, the other - plump and short with hands so large they resemble paws, dressed like pimps. They introduce themselves as sisters - Mrs Black and Mrs Dark. Later in book they go by the name “The Dark sisters”, but, humm, seriously? Their address implies that at least one of them has married. But the “Dark” implies that it is their family name. If only one of them did get married, did she look for a man whos` surname was “Black”, just to match her family name and occupation? If they were pseudonyms, perhaps they could have chosen something slightly less plot-obvious - like generic English surnames of that time? There is nothing wrong with descriptive surnames per se, some classic writers used them like whoa. But it is a bit tricky to keep the suspense if the name of the villain is Mr. Baddy McBaddins. 

Mrs. Dark is ready to prowl the streets unnoticed

By the way we never get their first names. And we never get to know if Mrs Dark kept her family name after marriage/married someone who had the same family name/her male relative/just decided to start calling herself Mrs, since she was already past the age where calling one Miss would be appropriate?

We will never know as they are minions and only exist to remind us how awful they are.

The Dark sisters explain Tessa that Nate is busy and sent them to meet her. Naturally Tessa,  not having worked a single day in her life, is a bit surprised and disappointed that in the middle of the day her bro may be busy - again, we are not talking about nowadays one-day-notice absences, we are talking about 10-12 hour working day in Victorian London, depending on occupation.

All is suddenly ok, as the Dark sisters hand Tessa a note where Nate approves of them. Let me reiterate, her not wholly trustworthy brother sent two women that look like pimps and go by names “Black” and “Dark” to pick her up and gave them his highest recommendation on a note of paper that The Dark sisters themselves produced. Run Tessa, RUN!

Now, the book does mention that it was explicitly Nates` handwriting, for all we know he might have sold her off to a brothel to settle his gambling debts. Again, we are not supposed to know it yet, Tessa has known him all her life. Oh, sancta innocentia!

And so they clambered into the carriage but not before the mist clears conveniently revealing the aforementioned Ouroboros and a name - Pandemonium Club. OMG Another Clue and all that in just the first chapter!

This closes chapter one, dear readers, all the main players are introduced, you may as well stop reading here. But do not fret, I might be back with the following chapter!