Mrs. Hathaway surveyed them and gave a nod. “Nanny, the moor is too muddy for a walk today. Air them in the garden.”
“But I want to go to the moor,” the boy child said, thrusting out his upper lip. He pulled out a crumpled ball of wire from his pocket and held it up to his mother.
“What have you there, darling?” she asked, smoothing down his cowlick with a practiced hand.
“A cage,” he told her with ghoulish delight.
“And what do you need with a cage upon the moor?” she inquired.
“I am going to catch a faery,” he said solemnly.
“Why do you mean to catch a faery?”
“So I can make it give me all its wishes,” he said firmly.
“What a clever boy!” his mother said, turning to the rest of us with a fatuous smile.
“And what if the faery won’t give you wishes?” his father asked, winking broadly at Stoker.
“I shall poke it with a stick until it does,” his unlovely offspring said. “I shall poke it in the eye.”
His father gave an uproarious laugh, but the child did not appear to be joking in the slightest, and I fixed him with a stern look.
“I think,” I told him, “you might have confused faeries with djinns.”
“I don’t know a djinn,” he said, thrusting his lip out further still.
“Djinns are nasty, foreign things,” his mother assured him. She flicked me a glance. “If you want a faery, I am sure you will find one. But not today, darling,” she added. His face puckered and she reached into her pocket for a small tin. “Now, have a few humbugs and go along with Nanny. If you are a very good boy, Nanny will take you out on the moor after luncheon when it will be dry, and then you can find your faery. All right, my darling?”
To my surprise, he capitulated, but only after extracting another pocketful of humbugs from his mother and a penknife from his father.
He surveyed the tiny blade with feverish pleasure. “I shall poke it in the eye,” he murmured again as his nanny led him from the room. The girl child followed, sucking her forefinger once more, and the babies, stolid as lumps of lard, were borne away by the nursemaids.
“Children are an unparalleled joy,” Mrs. Hathaway remarked to me. “Of course, being an unmarried woman who works for her living, you are denied such comforts, but you mustn’t let that make you bitter,” she urged.
Stoker smothered a laugh, choking into his eggs until Charles Hathaway clapped him firmly on the back.
“Quite all right there?”
“Yes, perfectly, thank you,” Stoker assured him.
Mrs. Hathaway signaled a maid to remove her breakfast things and turned to us with an expectant air. “We are very glad you’ve come to assess the collection,” she said, pitching her voice to a confiding tone. “There is so much work to be done on the house, and frankly, the greatest part of it is clearing away the old rubbish that is practically stacked to the rafters. We have had four bonfires already, and carted away a dozen loads of dreary old furniture and fittings.”
Stoker’s expression was pained. “Well, the specimens are not rubbish to Lord Rosemorran.”
Charles Hathaway laughed. “Then he’s a better man than I, he is. There are all manner of things in the collection, furry and fangy and completely unhygienic, as Mary says,” he added with an admiring nod to his wife. “She doesn’t want them about because of the children, you see. She thinks they will take fright from some of the more outlandish creatures.”
“But they would be perfect for inclusion in Lord Rosemorran’s collection,” Mary Hathaway put in smoothly. “Perhaps with a nice little plaque to say where they were found.”
“I am certain something could be arranged,” Stoker told her.
I turned to Charles Hathaway. “I have had the pleasure of meeting your sister, Euphemia,” I told him. “Are there any other members of the family?” It was not the subtlest of inquiries, but then Charles Hathaway was not a subtle man. He would not be offended by a little impolite curiosity, I decided. His sort would happily tell his life story to a stranger on the street. Jonathan had been much the same, I remembered with a pang. Ever ready with a smile and an invitation. His friend Harry Spenlove had been the quieter of the two at first, hanging back a little, while Jonathan had been an open book.
Charles Hathaway’s brow furrowed. “Well, there is my grandmother, Lady Hathaway. My grandfather, Sir Geoffrey, was knighted for his discovery of a comet,” he said proudly. “But Granna’s health is poor and she may not make an appearance today. She has a companion, an Indian girl called Anjali. Do ask her if you need anything. She’s a useful soul,” he told us. “Mostly reads aloud to Granna and sews and listens to Granna’s endless stories about life in India before the mutiny,” he added with another braying laugh. I did not join in. I felt my lips thin at his casual way of speaking of his grandmother’s companion. He went on, blithely unaware of my discomfiture.
“And then there is the man we call Jonathan,” he said.
“You call him Jonathan?” Stoker asked easily. “Is that not his name?”
“That is precisely the question,” Mary replied tartly.
Charles spoke up. “You see, Jonathan Hathaway was my elder brother. He took up exploring—a bit of lepidoptery, a little mountaineering here and there. Just gentlemen’s hobbies, you understand. He was lost in the course of his travels in the Sunda Strait. The eruption of Krakatoa, a nasty business,” he said with a visible shudder. “We assumed, naturally, that he was dead.”
“Naturally,” I murmured.
“But there never was a positive identification, no body to bury, no effects recovered. It was as if he had simply vanished,” Charles said unhappily. “It was a dark time for us all. Granfer lost much of his enthusiasm for attending to his responsibilities, including taking a proper interest in this old pile,” he said with a fond look about the room. He went on. “I inherited the house and its contents except for Granna’s personal possessions.”
“And the house was in an absolute state,” Mary put in, flapping her hands. “Practically falling down, as you can see for yourselves. Just making it habitable has been a trial, and we’ve months of work left. Only our suite and the nurseries have been refitted with modern amenities. The entirety of the house requires attention, and the flocks have dwindled to almost nothing, outbuildings crumbling, cottages in need of repair. Charles has made a priority of the flocks, which is why you will no doubt find your rooms a trifle outdated,” she added, color flaring in her cheeks.
“Now, Mary,” he protested, but I had no desire to witness an example of marital discord.