“But, Lady Hathaway, I, too, earn my living,” I replied with a tinge of malice.
She curled her lip. “A trifling formality, Miss Speedwell. My grandfather was a marquess, you know. I can spot good breeding at fifty paces, and you have the bones of someone who was very gently bred.”
Exactly how gently was something I had no intention of sharing, so I merely murmured a thank-you. She flapped a hand. “No call to thank me, child. I simply speak my mind. I have always been thus. I cannot abide deceit. One must speak the truth and shame the devil, as my dear mama always used to say.”
It was astonishing, I mused, how often people claimed to be honest when they were simply making a virtue of excessive rudeness. I thought, too, of the possible impostor beneath her roof and wondered exactly what she would say if it were revealed that he were, in fact, not Jonathan Hathaway.
As if intuiting my thoughts, she leaned closer still, clearly in the mood for confidences. “I will be glad for you to meet my other grandson, Jonathan,” she said. “He is a very different type to Charles. One loves Charles, of course. He is, after all, family,” she said with a sigh. “But he is entirely in the thrall of his wife. Jonathan is his own man,” she added proudly.
“It must be a great consolation to you to have him back,” I remarked.
Instantly, the withered-apple face suffused with pleasure. “He is the delight of my days,” she said. To my astonishment, her eyes filled with tears. “I had missed him so,” she whispered.
Impulsively, I covered her hand with my own. She let it lie there a moment, not offended at the familiarity, and then gently withdrew it. She took a large handkerchief from her pocket and applied it to her nose, blowing it with gusto. The corner of the handkerchief flapped, and I could see the cipher that had been worked on it with tiny stitches. A series of pretty French knots and her initials in dark blue.
When all traces of moistness had been removed from her face, she tucked the handkerchief away and straightened her shoulders just as Charles Hathaway gave a little crow of triumph.
“Here now! I have found something,” he cried, tearing one of the dust sheets free. The specimen beneath proved a dusty camelid, some South American creature with too many teeth and a pelt that had clearly proven irresistible to moth. One fluttered free, darting wildly as it searched for a way out.
“How damnable,” Charles Hathaway muttered as he clapped his hands, crushing the moth between his palms. He opened his grip and peered at the silvering remains. “Got him!”
I peered into his hand. “Tineola bisselliella,” I informed him. “Your homicidal effort was quite in vain.”
“Eh?” he asked, his brow furrowing in puzzlement.
“The common clothes moth, Mr. Hathaway. You have killed a creature which does not feed in its adult stage. Only in the larval form does it take nourishment and wreak havoc with one’s woolens. Or in this case, one’s camelids.” I turned to Stoker. “What is it meant to be?”
Stoker surveyed the long, crooked neck, the glass eyes that seemed to be staring in opposite directions, and the ear that drooped sadly as it dangled by one small shred of hide. “It seems to be an alpaca of some sort, but I shouldn’t like to wager on it. Whoever mounted it has done a criminal’s work here.”
He poked it with a tentative finger and another moth erupted. This one flapped lazily about, circling Charles Hathaway’s head before settling back onto the ersatz alpaca’s nose.
“Not a very promising start, I’ll grant you,” Hathaway said as he dusted his hands. “I will leave you to get on with the specimens at your leisure. And when you have had your fill of the things in this room, there are a few other items that may prove interesting to Lord Rosemorran,” he said, giving Stoker a cryptic glance.
“I hope that you are not speaking of my jewels, Charles,” his grandmother put in tartly.
Charles gave a start as if he had forgot she was with us. He summoned a smile that was not entirely convincing. “Oh, certainly not, Granna. I was thinking of the equipment in Granfer’s observatory.”
There was a crash in the doorway as Effie dropped an unlit lamp, splashing oil onto the threadbare carpet.
“Have a care, child,” said Lady Hathaway. “That carpet is an Aubusson.”
If it was an Aubusson, it was a particularly nasty one, I thought, and slightly improved by the enormous dark stain from the oil.
“Never mind,” Charles muttered.
“You mean to sell Granfer’s astronomical instruments,” Effie said, the second lamp trembling in her hands. Stoker moved forwards with his usual catlike grace, taking it from her before she could drop this one as well.
Charles Hathaway gave his sister an impatient look. “Effie, it is impolite to discuss such matters in front of our guests.”
“They know why they are here,” she returned, her freckles livid against her fair skin.
“Very well,” said Charles, pushing a hand through his gingery hair. “Yes. There is no point in keeping items that are not in use.”
“Not in use! I use them,” she protested.
“As a hobby, my dear,” he began.
“It would not be a hobby if I could go to school,” Effie retorted.
Charles shot us an apologetic look. “Effie, this is not the time.”
“For what? For our guests to find out that I am your penniless drudge? That I labor here, unwaged and unappreciated, because all I am is—”
“What you are is a helpmeet to your brother’s wife,” Lady Hathaway cut in. “As an unmarried girl, you ought to be grateful to Charles and Mary for continuing to provide a home for you. Instead, storms and tears, that is how you repay them.”
Effie looked from her brother to her grandmother and back again before bursting into choked, angry sobs and running from the room.
Lady Hathaway sighed. “She is entirely ungovernable. I wonder if I ought to have dosed her more as a child. Castor oil has an improving effect upon the demeanor when applied in large amounts.”
With that pronouncement, Lady Hathaway wandered out, leaving us to stare awkwardly at our host.
“Families, eh?” he asked with a sickly smile.
“Yours is much less trouble than either of ours,” Stoker told him truthfully.
“That is good to know,” Charles said. “I despair of Effie. Granna calls her unmanageable. Any time that she has spare, she spends in Granfer’s observatory, working with his telescopes and other such things. As Mary says, it is unwomanly,” he said with a little twist of the lips. “I should be perfectly happy to see the things cleared out. Mary wants the observatory for a sewing room, you see. And it would remove the temptation for Effie. I think she would cease to pine then and settle properly to her domestic obligations.”