“I am not surprised,” she said, her small hands curling into fists. “They have managed to make a life for themselves doing what they love. As you have.”
I smiled at her. “It was rather easier for me. Lepidopterists require only a butterfly net and a good deal of perseverance—along with considerable luck.”
“Sometimes,” she said, her eyes quite blank behind the smudged spectacles, “you have to make your own luck.”
CHAPTER
14
I made my way to the Long Gallery to speak with Stoker. The time had come, I told myself firmly, and I must seize the moment, grasp the nettle, take the bull by the horns. I had exhausted my catalog of metaphors, so I paused on the threshold, steeling myself. There were few moments in my life that had ever required such courage, I reflected. I had been shipwrecked, menaced by villains, abducted—more than once, in fact. In short, I had been in peril so many times I could scarce count them.
And yet. Nothing frightened me so badly as the notion of revealing to Stoker what I had taken such pains to conceal.
“This will not do,” I said aloud, summoning all my resolve. I put my hand to the knob and turned it, striding into the room as I began to speak. “Stoker, I must—”
“Veronica!” he called in a tone I had seldom heard him employ outside of intimate congress. He was, in a word, enraptured. His eyes shone, his color was high, even his hair seemed to wave more exuberantly. He was standing on the far side of the room, his attention fixed upon something I could not see. “Come and see!” he urged. “It is magnificent.”
I went to him and saw that he had found it at last. “The thylacine!” I exclaimed.
He must have only just uncovered it, for the dust sheet had been thrown back, motes still dancing in the light of the lamps.
“Thylacinus cynocephalus,” he breathed. “At last.”
It was rather smaller than one might have expected for the ferocity of its reputation, scarcely larger than a medium-sized dog, but its expression belied any domestication. The snout was pointed, and the lips curled back to reveal a set of teeth clearly meant for ripping. The ears were small and neat and slightly rounded, the jaw heavy. Stripes, subtle near the head, became more pronounced as they proceeded to the back, ending in a long, whippet-thin tail.
“I quite understand what you mean about the jaw,” said a familiar voice. I realized then that we were not alone. I had been sufficiently distracted by Stoker’s discovery to have overlooked his companion. Harry, in his guise as Jonathan Hathaway, was standing in the shadows behind Stoker, peering around him to look at the creature.
“Is it not a glorious sight, Hathaway?” Stoker asked, his voice as contented as a cat’s.
Hathaway. He did not correct Stoker, but then I had not anticipated that he would. He was smiling at me, but I caught the pleading expression in his eyes and turned away.
“A most impressive creature,” I told Stoker. “Is it male or female?”
“Male,” Stoker pronounced. “But unlike other Antipodean marsupials, the male has a pouch into which it can withdraw the scrotal sac for defensive purposes during an attack. It is an extraordinary specimen. It ought to have been mounted to display the full range of its bite.”
“Eighty degrees,” Jonathan put in. “Is that not what you said?”
“More or less,” Stoker agreed. “You can see here—” He was off again, pointing out the intricacies of the animal’s anatomy, from its remarkable jaw to the jaunty angle of its tail.
“I will leave you to it,” I said quietly. They both made the appropriate noises, but they scarcely seemed to notice when I withdrew to the far side of the room in order to examine the cases of lepidoptery specimens. Those I had already found were old, from Sir Geoffrey’s time, and, due to the deleterious effects of shipping and improper handling, had noticeably deteriorated in quality. But as I moved on, I received a shock, for the next case was much newer, and I recognized the hand that had inscribed the labels.
Ornithoptera euphorion, I read, tracing the neat penmanship. I remembered Jonathan Hathaway laboring over this particular case, mounting the pretty set of Cairns Birdwings he had netted in Australia. It had been raining in Sumatra and butterfly hunters do not give chase in the rain. We had settled in for a long afternoon of writing up our journals and labeling our collections, exchanging stories and admiring each other’s handiwork. I had been assembling a particularly lucrative collection of Saturniidae for a gentleman in Scotland with a passion for moths and had just secured the largest exemplar of Attacus atlas I had ever seen. Nine and a half inches across, it was enormous and almost wildly beautiful with its rusty colorations and geometric patterns. Jonathan had insisted upon toasting my success while Harry had speculated on the amount of the bonus I could expect for capturing such a beauty. Jonathan had finished his case of birdwings that day and shipped it home to Hathaway Hall, but I had carefully stowed my Atlas with the rest of the moths. Within six weeks, they would be destroyed in the eruption, and I never did see the payment for the days I had spent roaming the jungles of Sumatra. But what I remembered most of that day was the genuine pleasure Jonathan Hathaway evinced at my success.
I glanced up to find Harry standing behind me. “I recall that day,” he said softly. “It was the day I decided to ask you to marry me.”
“Don’t,” I ordered. “Or I will tell him this instant.”
“You were never more beautiful than when you were on the hunt,” he went on.
I rose, but his hand came around my wrist. “Can you bear to destroy his happiness?” he asked, flicking a glance to where Stoker stood, working on the thylacine. He was taking notes, calipers and magnifying glass at hand, singing “The Maid of Amsterdam” with a few particularly explicit additions he had doubtless learnt in the navy. He looked utterly content, and I wrenched my wrist free from Harry’s grip.
“Do not test me,” I hissed. But even as I left the room, I realized how easily Harry had discovered my Achilles’ heel and how true had been his aim.
* * *
• • •
After dinner that evening—more delicious food and bland conversation—we gathered again for coffee around the hearth. This time Effie joined us for dinner and Anjali had even been permitted to appear when coffee was served. After the first cups had been drunk, Lady Hathaway snapped her fingers at Anjali. “Go with Effie. She knows what I want.”
Anjali bowed her head and followed Effie from the room.
“What are you on about, Granna?” Charles asked affectionately.
Lady Hathaway gave him a slow smile as she folded her hands over the top of her walking stick. “Just you wait, boy. I do love a surprise.”