With a muted roar, I rolled onto my stomach and thrust myself onto my knees and then to a standing position. I was covered in mud and would no doubt be sore when the agitation of the experience had worn off. I required a hot bath and clean clothes. My attempt at adventure had come to an ignominious end.
CHAPTER
16
I had no sooner entered the Hall than I encountered Stoker, still dressed in his frock coat, wrenching his collar free from his shirt, neckcloth in hand. He stared in consternation at my dishevelment.
“Veronica! What has befallen you?” He would have embraced me, but I put up a hand to prevent him.
“Do not touch me, I am dripping in moor mud,” I said. “I am unhurt. Merely a mishap.”
“A mishap! You are covered from brow to boot in the stuff,” he added, wiping a thumb over my cheek.
“I was careless,” I said truthfully. “I stepped into a bog. No matter. I extricated myself. Nothing lost but my pride. And my equipment,” I added, brandishing the pieces of my broken net.
“You have others,” he said by way of consolation.
“But this was my favorite. I could only afford the most inferior equipment on my first expedition, but with the sale of a rather spectacular set of luna moths, I was able to afford this,” I explained, looking at the sad ruins. A net is not merely a lepidopterist’s tool in trade. Over rills and rocks, through meadow and marsh, the net is never out of one’s hand. It is the constant companion, the partner in chase, the accomplice in victory. I had carried this particular net for six years. Next to the tiny grey velvet mouse in my pocket, a legacy from the father who would not acknowledge me, it was my most treasured possession. Nay, not possession. Friend. My net knew my failures; it had witnessed the places where my courage had deserted me. But it knew also my triumphs, the moments when I had faced down insurmountable adversaries and set my teeth against the storm, determined to carry the day.
He glanced about, to make certain we were alone, I think, for he pitched his voice low. “Mrs. Desmond said Jonathan Hathaway has gone for a walk upon the moor. Did you see him?”
“I did,” I admitted. I had no wish to expand upon the conversation, but with the windows of the house overlooking the moor, it was entirely possible that we had been spotted.
“And?” Stoker pressed, his expression searching. “Were you able to form any conclusions as to his veracity?”
“I cannot say,” I replied.
He thrust an impatient hand into his hair. “I suppose that is understandable. You last saw him under extraordinary circumstances more than half a decade ago. People change.”
“But still you wish I had a more definitive answer to give you,” I suggested.
He smiled obliquely. “I am content to remain with my thylacine for as long as it takes to secure him for travel, but the minute he is safely packed, I shall want him back in London so I can examine him properly.”
I silently cursed the thylacine even as I fretted over Harry Spenlove’s true motivations in playing at being Jonathan Hathaway. When I was with him, it was entirely possible to believe his intentions were semi-honorable. To come to tranquil rest after years of racketing around the world, to enjoy the benevolent affections of a grandmotherly figure—these were understandable, even laudable intentions. Upon occasion, in the darkest of the small hours of morning, I would lie awake and wonder how I had come to be enthralled by such a devious and unprincipled character. He had charm, to be sure, and a certain vivacity one could not help but admire.
And yet. Alone, personal attractions had not been enough to win my hand. I was too wary, too like a butterfly, content to sample the many delectable offerings in a field of particularly enticing specimens. But Harry had been different, and with a rush of unpleasant self-knowledge, I understood why. Like Stoker, he had a slender ribbon of pain woven into the fabric of his soul. He troubled to conceal his—whilst Stoker, when I met him, was content to display his foul temper to anyone—but the root of the suffering was the same: abandonment. Two such different men, yet their wounds were very nearly identical. I had been drawn to them as wounded things, not to heal them, but because I sensed in them kindred spirits, for my own soul bore lacerations of its own, and with that realization came a sudden and ungovernable anger. I had existed, in almost perfect contentment, for quite a long time without that knowledge, and the implacable storm of it breaking so swiftly over my head left me adrift. For a tuppence, I would have boarded the first train out of Shepton Parva and left them all.
“Will it matter?” I burst out.
“Will what matter? The thylacine? Of course it does; the thing is damned near extinct in the wild. Getting hold of a trophy like this one is the find of a decade for a natural historian,” he said.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “Not the thylacine. Jonathan Hathaway. What if I cannot ever say with certainty it is or is not he?”
Stoker thought a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose if you cannot, then it may not be helped. Perhaps Sir Hugo can find someone else who knew him. A school friend? Another traveling companion?”
“But it might be too late at that point,” I said. “If he is a villain, bent upon some scheme, he may already have accomplished his aims and preyed upon this family.”
“How?” he asked bluntly. “His grandfather’s will was quite specific. With Jonathan Hathaway dead, Charles inherits all. Now that Jonathan is come back—if it is indeed he—he cannot take the house. He cannot get his hands on any of Mary Hathaway’s money, for that comes from her father. The land goes with the house, and I suppose, with expensive legal counsel, he might make a claim for a few head of sheep, but I cannot fancy him with a shepherd’s crook and a dog at his heels,” he added with a smile.
“No, nor can I. But there are valuable things in Sir Geoffrey’s collection,” I began. I was thinking aloud, torn between my desire to protect Harry from his own worst impulses and my duty to expose him for what he was. Neither prospect filled me with pleasure, and I was unaccountably irritated with Stoker that he had not intuited my unsettled feelings. What, I began to wonder, was the point of allowing a gentleman access to one’s bed and heart if he could not interpret a lady’s most irrational moods?
He went on just as if I were not standing in front of him, glowering like a thundercloud.
“Of course, any zoologist would know, the thylacine is the most precious thing in the house, but it will take a proper crate and a few men to move it. And even if he managed to lay hands upon it, what would he do with it? There is no one to whom he could possibly sell it if he wanted to retrieve even half its value without us getting word of it. The world of natural history is a small one,” he reminded me. “And he is not known within its confines. Too many have been swindled by fakery. Collectors with money to burn are cautious now. It is no longer the heady days of Mr. Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid.”