“Well?” Lady Hathaway prodded Jonathan. “What do you think?”
Jonathan replaced the stone gently, almost reverently. He closed the box slowly, as if loath to take a final look at the ruby. He handed the box back to Lady Hathaway. “A most extraordinary stone,” he said in a soft voice.
She nodded towards the casket. “All of this will be yours. Consider it amends for the loss of your birthright.”
Jonathan covered her hand with his. “You are too generous. Perhaps we should discuss this later.”
Charles looked up from where he had finally got his pipe to light. “Do not wait on my account. One of the ram lambs has wandered off and I meant to see if he’d returned.” He rose and shambled out, looking more than ever like a forlorn sheepdog.
Jonathan’s gaze followed him. “I think your gift will bring trouble in its wake,” he told Lady Hathaway.
She gave him a sharp glance. “What do I care? I shan’t be here to see it. I shall be dead and moldering,” she added with a smile.
“Well, I certainly won’t fuss,” Effie put in. “The jewels are most likely still cursed and I’ve no intention of bringing that sort of thing down on my head.”
“And you call yourself a woman of science,” her grandmother jeered.
Effie colored slightly. “I am a woman of science, although precious little good it does me in this family.”
Her grandmother wagged a finger, sharp color rushing into her mottled cheeks. “Do not take that tone with me, Euphemia. I will not stand for it, do you hear me?”
She seemed a fair way to working herself up, but Anjali stepped forwards. “It grows late, your ladyship,” she said quietly. “Would you care for hot milk tonight or a tisane?”
“Hot milk,” the old woman said irritably. “Mind you sweeten it properly and none of your foreign spices.”
I felt a rush of sympathy for Anjali, trapped as she was in employment with such a disagreeable old person, but she merely inclined her head serenely. “Of course.”
Lady Hathaway thrust the casket at Effie. “Carry this up to my room so I can lock it away properly. Anjali, give me your arm.” She struggled to her feet, making use of her walking stick as she rose. Anjali dipped her knees a little to better support her ladyship. They bade the rest of us good night and left. As the door closed behind them, Jonathan let out a long sigh.
He seemed lost in thought, his attention fixed upon the fire. The light of the flames played over his face, shadows chasing one another as they flickered. I steeled myself. The time had come. I rose and looked at Stoker, opened my mouth to ask him to accompany me to my room, where I would tell him everything.
“I say, this has all been a bit much. Would you mind playing a game or two of billiards? A little distraction would not go amiss,” Jonathan said to Stoker.
“Certainly,” Stoker said. His innate courtesy would require him to oblige. Besides which, he adored billiards and was always complaining he could never get a satisfactory game since I am, in his words, “entirely lethal with a stick” and “not to be trusted anywhere near a billiards table.” (It is the rankest lie. I have only broken two windows in the course of playing with him and they were not particularly valuable ones at that.)
“I was hoping to speak with you,” I said, turning to Stoker. He paused by my chair and pressed a kiss to my hair.
“I will look in on my way to bed,” he promised. Behind his back, Jonathan gave me a long, level look and shrugged by way of apology. As I suspected, he had known exactly what I intended and had cleverly managed to put off my confession for at least a few more hours.
“Feathers,” I muttered as they left me. I sat for a long while, watching the flames die to embers, the room growing cold around me. At last the falling temperature drove me to my room where the fire had been kindled and a hot brick placed in my sheets. The warmth tempted me, but I was determined to stay awake until I had a chance to speak with Stoker. The weight of my secrets pressed upon me and I was eager to be free of them, no matter the consequences.
CHAPTER
15
In spite of my resolve, I must have drifted into the arms of Morpheus, for when I opened my eyes, a bleak grey daylight shone at the window. I was cramped, excruciatingly so, for having spent the night curled in the window seat, and it took several minutes to untangle myself and bring movement to my stiffened limbs.
As I stretched my neck, I caught sight of a piece of paper that had been thrust under my door. It was half a sheet of foolscap, and I knew the hand well, even in a hasty scrawl. It was from Stoker, a few words to explain that he and Jonathan had stayed at billiards until an unconscionably late hour and though he had tapped, I had made no answer. He explained that he was in need of specialist packing materials for the purposes of protecting the thylacine, and as none was to be had nearer than Exeter, he had taken the earliest train and would return after luncheon.
I tossed the letter aside with a few choice words that would have scandalized the rest of the household had they heard me. Now that I had made up my mind to confess all to Stoker, every hour the action was delayed had become torture. I felt suffocated by the burden of the truth, and even the air in the Hall seemed thick with my deceit. I could bear it no longer. Without Stoker at hand, I realized there was slim purpose to my working in the Long Gallery alone. There was little work to be done with the butterfly collections and I could easily manage it whilst Stoker was occupied with his beloved thylacine. The rest of the Hathaways would doubtless be engaged in their regular activities and I had no wish to join them. I was, in a word, free.
With alacrity, I donned my working costume of tweed trousers and shirtwaist, buttoning over this a fitted waistcoat and a jacket. A narrow skirt, which could be buttoned up and out of the way if necessity demanded, concealed the immodesty of the trousers, while flat boots buttoned to the knee protected my legs. I took up my equipment—net, killing jars, cotton-wool pads soaked in a cyanide solution, and a small wicker hamper like a fisherman’s creel. A packet of minuten, the tiny headless pins of the lepidopterist’s trade, were neatly fitted into my cuffs, and for good measure I slipped my favorite knife into my boot. I wore no hat, content to feel upon my face whatever sunlight might oblige. I stopped in the kitchens long enough to ask Mrs. Desmond’s cook for supplies for my little hamper. She complied with generous wedges of cheese and fruitcake, apples, a bottle of cold tea, and sausage rolls. I waved her a cheerful farewell and burst from the door with the same sense of escape as a prisoner released from his confinement.
In a bound, I was through the summerhouse and onto the moor. It was early in the season yet, but I knew the watery meadows which lined the bogs were home to the pretty jeweled specimens of Dartmoor—fritillaries of every variety, hawkmoths, hover flies, hairstreaks, skippers, and even a few of my beloved swallowtails. They were domestic butterflies, much smaller and less brilliant than those of the tropics, but they were among the varieties I had chased first, with my child’s net. It kindled a keen sense of nostalgia to be in pursuit of them once more, scrambling over rocks and through puddles after the flash of a soft blue or gentle purple wing. I had thought once that I had lost my taste for netting specimens, content to rear them by hand in my vivarium. But as I ran and climbed, intent upon the chase, my blood rose, and I felt a rush of familiar exaltation.