“Mine is most comfortable and as clean as if the queen herself were coming to stay,” I assured her.
She seemed mollified by this. “Mrs. Desmond is a treasure. I do not think she is entirely happy about all the changes, but then it isn’t for her to object, is it? And it will make far less work for the staff once all of the rooms are completely modernized. Of course, Lady Hathaway does not wish hers to be modernized at all,” she added with a confiding look. “And Euphemia would not notice if she bedded down in the piggery. She cares only for her astronomical instruments, and I am at my wits’ end with her. It is such an unladylike undertaking to tax one’s mind with science,” she said.
I arched a brow and she went on. “Of course, it is different for you. You are some years her senior. But we might still make a bride of Euphemia if only we could curb her wilder habits. She is very young and terribly headstrong, you know. Like a moorland pony. But we have broken those to the saddle and I daresay we can break Euphemia as well,” she added with a fond smile at her husband.
If anything of family loyalty or fondness for his sister gave Charles pause at the idea of bringing his sister to heel, it was obviously overruled by uxoriousness. He merely returned her smile and then beamed at us.
“Mary is quite the manageress,” he said with apparent pride. “But then we need a bit of managing, don’t we, my love?” He gave her a fond look and I pushed my plate away.
Something volcanic rumbled within me, and Stoker must have sensed it. He hurried to speak before I could vent my outrage at Mary Hathaway and her dismissive attitudes.
“You were telling us about Jonathan Hathaway’s death,” Stoker put in. “You have our condolences.”
“Jonathan Hathaway is not dead,” pronounced a sharp voice from the doorway. Situated as it was under the gallery, the door was in shadow, and we had not noticed the figure approach. She came forwards, her footsteps shuffling a little as she walked with the aid of a cane. It was a mahogany piece, highly polished and featuring the carved silver head of a ram. She was dressed entirely in black, the bombazine muting any gleam from the morning light streaming through the clerestory windows. The only touch of color was the white of her hair and the brooch at her throat. A chatelaine, like the housekeeper’s but of rather more elegant design, hung from her belt. She was old, her face resembling a windfall apple, withered and wrinkled, the mouth set in an aggressive line, the chin lifted, and she regarded us with all the imperiousness of an empress.
Stoker leapt to his feet, as did Charles. I rose as well in deference to her age, but Mary Hathaway remained seated.
“Mr. Charles Hathaway was just explaining that,” I told her.
She paused next to me and lifted the cane, prodding my hip. “Who are you?”
“Veronica Speedwell. And this is my associate, Mr. Templeton-Vane.”
“They are natural historians,” Charles said in a soothing tone. “They are here to look over Granfer’s trophies to see if there is anything worth adding to the collection of Lord Rosemorran. I told you about it,” he added with the merest touch of reproach.
She flicked him a glance. “I remember, Charles. I am not losing my faculties. But I am sorry to part with Sir Geoffrey’s things. He had a connoisseur’s eye.”
“If you mean he bought anything that wasn’t nailed down and shipped it home, then yes,” Effie said, coming to stand beside her grandmother. Charles completed the introductions and suggested we begin our exploration of the collection at once. Mary Hathaway excused herself to write letters, leaving the rest of us to survey the trophies.
“I have instructed Mrs. Desmond to open up the Long Gallery and light a fire. We have kept it closed off to discourage the children from exploring,” Charles said, his voice rueful. As he led the way to the older part of the house, I fell into step with Lady Hathaway on her slow progress to the Long Gallery.
“You were saying that your grandson Jonathan is not dead,” I prompted.
She gave a sharp nod. “I never believed he was. A clever boy, our Jonathan. We never knew him until he was older, of course. He lived in India with his parents, but in due course, we insisted he be sent home to school.”
“Are there no schools in India?” I asked innocently.
“None fitting the eldest son of such a distinguished family as ours,” Lady Hathaway said. Just behind her, Effie rolled her eyes. Her grandmother went on. “In every generation, the eldest son has attended Harrow, and Jonathan was not going to be the first to break with that tradition. Naturally, his parents agreed and sent him to us. He spent every holiday here at the Hall, learning about his inheritance and the family traditions. He would have been a fine heir,” she said, her lips trembling slightly. I glanced ahead to where Charles Hathaway walked, wondering if he had overheard. But he gave no sign of it, and I realized he had doubtless heard it all before. “After his schooling,” Lady Hathaway went on, “Jonathan wanted to see the world. We were only too happy to oblige.”
“Travel broadens the mind,” I remarked.
“Yes, well, in Jonathan’s case, it made it rather too broad,” she retorted. “He developed a taste for life outside of England. No matter what we did, he found excuses to hare off again—always to the most outrageous of places.” She lowered her voice. “Places not even colored pink on the map.”
I suppressed a smile. Lady Hathaway might have spent decades in India, but she demonstrated the true provincial’s wariness of any part of the globe that did not fly the British flag.
“He met with misfortune during his trip to Sumatra, and when that dreadful volcano erupted, we feared the worst. It has been six years, Miss Speedwell. Six long years, but never did I cease to pray and to hope that one day he would be restored to us. And at last! It has happened.”
“Really?” I said in a faint voice.
“It has,” she told me with a firm thump of the cane. “A few weeks past, a storm blew up, one of the late winter tempests that would try the hardiest constitution of man or beast. It was black outside and blowing a gale when Charles went out to see to his lambs. One had wandered away, and it was a large, handsome fellow. Charles couldn’t bear to lose him, so he took a lantern and set off himself. Just at the edge of the garden, where the estate meets the moor, stands the summerhouse. And that is where Charles found him.”
“The lamb?” I asked.
“Jonathan,” she said in exasperation. “In a state of collapse, fainting with cold and fever just inside the door of the summerhouse. Charles did not recognize him, of course. It had been a dozen years or more since the brothers had met, but he did his Christian duty and had him carried inside. Mary immediately set to nursing him, having him put to bed and fed hot broth and calf’s-foot jelly. They did not know who he was, you understand. It was not until Mary read the papers he carried that they learnt the truth. But I knew, the moment I saw him. He opened those great dark eyes and looked straight at me. And called me by name.”