The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne

by Elsa Hart

  “Martha?”

  “The housekeeper,” said Meacan. “Martha is married to John, who mostly does the cooking and gardening. She’s been employed by Sir Barnaby since the day the carpenters came to put in the cabinets, and is as devoted to it all as he is.”

  “And the maid, Thomasin?” asked Cecily. “Is she related to them?”

  Meacan shook her head. “Thomasin hasn’t been here long, and won’t stay long, if you ask me. She doesn’t like dusting skeletons. And that’s the whole household. Oh, and Walter Dinley, of course. Stay close to him on the tour. He’s clever, but he’s as gentle as a doe. Sir Barnaby doesn’t deserve him.”

  “Then you won’t be joining the group?” asked Cecily.

  “Sir Barnaby doesn’t like to crowd the rooms,” said Meacan. “He’s asked me to make a drawing of the sweetbay in the garden while it’s in bloom. I intend to occupy myself with that pleasant task, and then return here until we’re called to supper. But Cecily?”

  “Yes?”

  Meacan drummed her fingers on the desk. She started to speak, stopped, drew in a breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. Finally she lifted her eyes to meet Cecily’s. “It’s good to see you again.”

  As Cecily made her way out of the room and down the stairs, she wondered what it was that Meacan had meant to say, and what had kept her silent.

  CHAPTER 4

  When Cecily reentered the Stone Room, she found Sir Barnaby and Walter Dinley standing with their backs to her, each positioned before a window. In the light, without the shadows of the house to prop him up, Sir Barnaby appeared smaller and more frail than he had earlier. Dinley’s worn brown jacket was flecked with the dusty detritus of innumerable drawers and cabinets. Over their shoulders, the carriages and passersby looked blurred and unstable through the thick glass.

  A rattle and jingle of reins, followed by a knock, announced the arrival of another guest. A man in the early years of middle age, he was dressed expensively. His well-tailored waistcoat was subtly embroidered with silver flowers. The cravat meticulously wrapped and twisted around his neck was trimmed in lace. Its ends were tucked fashionably through a buttonhole of his jacket. He wore a voluminous wig that overwhelmed his features and exuded a halo of jasmine-scented powder. He addressed himself at once to Sir Barnaby.

  “Wondrous,” he said, lifting his hands high in a gesture of all-encompassing praise for the shelves around him. “At last, the day has come.” He dropped his hands, divested himself of his hat and sword, and searched for a surface designated to receive them. Finding none, he propped the sword by the door and set the hat on top of a knobby stalactite, all the while maintaining a steady patter. “As I remarked only yesterday to Norbury, who did me the great honor of inviting me to supper—a great honor, though nothing of course compared to that of the present moment—as I remarked, after he guided me through a room in which he has installed a veritable congregation of mummies, not only of cats and crocodiles but, I am very nearly convinced, of a true dragon, but before we examined his diverse sepulchral lamps of the ancients, unless I am mistaken and it was at Wyville’s house that I saw the sepulchral lamps—” The man paused, adrift in his own speech, and cast about for the idea that had initiated it.

  Sir Barnaby prompted him impatiently. “As you remarked to Norbury—”

  The man’s expression cleared. “Yes, yes, as I remarked to Norbury, I have anticipated this day with such fervor that I have been able to think of nothing else all week. At last I am to see, in full and in daylight, the mightiest collection in London. For not only is yours the most vast, the most comprehensive, the most colossal, but surely it is also the key by which man shall unlock the hidden secrets of the earth. Eh, Sir Barnaby? Non vi…” He faltered as Sir Barnaby, apparently no longer listening, returned his attention to the window.

  Recovering quickly from the slight, the man renewed his smile and greeted Dinley with casual familiarity before addressing Cecily. “Humphrey Warbulton,” he announced with a bow.

  Cecily introduced herself.

  “A moment,” said Warbulton. “I make an effort to acquaint myself with all the names in our little community of collectors and travelers. Your husband—is he a fellow of the Philosophical Society? No? The Society for the Study of Quadrupeds? The Shipwreck Speculators? The Butterfly Enthusiasts? Ah, but of course. Kay, consul at Smyrna.” Warbulton’s expression turned hopeful. “I would be most grateful for an introduction.”

  Cecily started to reply, but stopped when she saw that Warbulton’s attention had been suddenly captured by one of the display tables, from which he plucked a thin, conical stone. “Sir Barnaby,” he said eagerly, holding it aloft. “Sir Barnaby, do you remember last month’s meeting? The Fossil Society? Mr. Gare’s presentation?”

  “Gare’s a fool,” grunted Sir Barnaby.

  The reply seemed to delight Warbulton, who turned to Cecily, proffering the stone. “Mr. Gare,” he explained, “attempted to convince us that this should properly be called a tonguestone, as it is in fact the tongue of a serpent turned to stone by Saint Paul the Apostle after he was shipwrecked on the isle of Malta. Sir Barnaby not only offered unassailable evidence to the contrary, but set Mr. Gare down so roundly that—and I have not yet communicated this amusing addendum to you, Sir Barnaby—that Mr. Denby whispered to me that if Gare’s face was any indication, the man’s head was hot enough to—to cook every louse in his wig.” Warbulton let out a hoot of self-conscious laughter.

  Cecily, exhausted by Warbulton but curious about the stone, took it and turned it over in her hands. Its surface was smooth and gray, and it was about the length of her little finger. She squinted at the label. “Petrified remains of an antediluvian squid,” she read.

  Sir Barnaby swiveled his head without turning fully around. He was scowling. “I must insist the objects not be removed from their places,” he said. “And do not clatter so recklessly through the shelves.” The second comment was directed at Warbulton, whose cuffs of fine lawn were alighting like birds on one rock after another.

  As Cecily returned the stone to its place, another carriage drew to a halt outside. It seemed to her that both Sir Barnaby and Dinley tensed in anticipation as they waited for its occupant to come into view, and relaxed when they saw who it was. Cecily judged the new arrival to be about fifty. Dressed in a suit of very pale gray wool, he carried himself with the easy assurance of a gentleman wealthy enough to replace his wigs when they itched and his shoes when they pinched. His healthy complexion and trim figure suggested that he had the means to eat and drink what he wanted, and the discipline not to indulge in an excess of either. In one hand he held a bulky doctor’s case, in the other a book bound in red vellum.

  “As promised,” he announced, handing the book to Sir Barnaby, “I convey to you from the darkness of time the Liber Iuratus Honorii, complete and in fine condition.”

  Cecily saw for the first time Sir Barnaby’s eyes light with excitement. He took the book and began an inspection of it. “Yes,” he murmured, turning its pages. “Yes, this does appear to be complete.”

  The newcomer smiled indulgently. “As I mentioned yesterday, I thought of you the moment I saw it for sale. It is a rare delight to give you a book you do not already possess.” He turned. “How are you, Dinley? You are pale.”

  Dinley attempted a smile. “Only—only a little tired.”

  The man looked concerned. “You must improve the quality of your rest. I suggest an infusion of Saint John’s wort, to be drunk an hour before bed. Many of my patients have found it exceedingly effective.”

  Dinley thanked the man, who then turned to greet Warbulton and Cecily. “I’m Giles Inwood,” he said. “You must be here for today’s tour.”

  Warbulton crossed the room, his coat catching on the corners of tables and flashing its lining of orange silk. “But we’ve met before, Mr. Inwood. You must remember. The demonstration of the diving bell?”

  Inwood’s forehead creased into lines of polite effort. “I�
��m afraid I—” His expression cleared. “Ah, yes. Were you not the gentleman who volunteered to enter the bell and be submerged?”

  Warbulton nodded so forcefully that his wig shifted forward. “I was, yes. And now that we are friends I will tell you that the experience was most unpleasant. A terrible pressure in the head and deprivation of the lungs.”

  In the desultory conversation that followed, Cecily and Inwood were introduced. She learned that he was, in addition to a collector, a physician and close friend of Sir Barnaby’s. He had not come to participate in the tour, having seen his friend’s collection on numerous occasions, but declared that he would make himself comfortable in the house until the time he was expected to call on a nearby patient.

  It was nearing half past two when a new voice spoke, not from the front door, but from the inner door that opened into the dark hallway. “Is this where I’m to be?”

  The attention of every person in the room fixed instantly on a woman in whose face youth and beauty met in undeniable accord. Her skin was like translucent stone, delicately tinted by the pink and blue life that flowed through the veins beneath it. Her guileless eyes, bright as forget-me-nots, regarded them all with nervous excitement. “I’ve—I’ve come for the tour.”

  Sir Barnaby frowned. “Whence did you come?”

  The young woman’s brow crinkled in a moment of confusion, then smoothed. “Oh, my apologies,” she said quickly. “I’ve come from the garden. I—I misdirected the carriage, and was left in the alley behind the house instead of being brought to the front. I thought I would be obliged to walk the length of the terrace to enter, but when I knocked on the door in the wall, I was admitted by the kind woman making a sketch of the sweetbay tree. She told me I had come to the correct house.”

  Meacan, thought Cecily, glad that someone had been there to assist the girl, who did not look as if she was accustomed to taking carriages through the city alone.

  Dinley looked, if possible, more pale than he had before. “The—the alley?”

  “Whatever fool of a carriage driver left you there should be hauled to the constable,” said Inwood. “That alley isn’t safe for an armed man, let alone an innocent girl.”

  “You must be Miss Alice Fordyce,” said Sir Barnaby. “You are younger than your letter led me to believe you would be. Have you no escort?”

  Again, she was apologetic. “I was to come with my aunt, whom I am visiting. This morning she was not feeling well, and I—I persuaded her to let me come alone, for I am only in London for a short time, and have such a wish to see your cabinets. I have been told they contain all the wonders of the world.”

  The words, delivered with such sweetness that even Sir Barnaby could not scowl at them, were still hovering in the room as the clock on the mantelpiece chimed two thirty. There was another knock on the door. Sir Barnaby started to attention and opened it himself.

  “You look disappointed,” said the man who stood on the threshold. His features, clothes, and bearing were so conventional as to make him, in Cecily’s eyes, difficult to distinguish from any number of landed gentlemen occupying the middle rungs of financial complacency. As he stepped inside, he fixed appreciative eyes on Alice Fordyce. “Allow me to correct myself,” he said. “Not disappointed, but distracted. And how could you not be? You did not tell me you had acquired a living goddess of beauty for your cabinets. Martin Carlyle, miss.”

  The girl looked down and murmured her name. Reluctantly, Mr. Carlyle shifted his gaze to take in the rest of the company. “Ah, Inwood,” he said. “Is there word on the wreck of the Nuestra Señora?”

  Inwood gave him a cheerful smile. “Well met, Carlyle. I didn’t know you were an investor.”

  “I?” Carlyle chuckled. “Certainly not. I can afford to appear in society with gamblers. I cannot afford to be one of them.”

  Cecily was not surprised to hear Warbulton’s voice chime in. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you at any of the lectures, Mr. Carlyle. Are you a collector?”

  “Merely an appreciative visitor,” said Carlyle.

  “You must visit my collection, then,” said Inwood. “I’m to lead a tour Monday a week from today.”

  Carlyle inclined his head. “I’m obliged to you. Certainly, I will attend.”

  Inwood addressed the group. “You are all most welcome. I have a number of antiquities in which I take some small pride, though I will warn you, my cabinets are not nearly so full of marvels as the ones you will see today.”

  Warbulton, who seemed incapable of repressing speech for more than a few moments at a time, spoke again. “I have a collection,” he said. “It is, I admit, in its infancy, but what better example could I choose to follow than that set by Sir Barnaby, who has assembled here this veritable paradise on earth, this replica of Eden, this world of wonders—”

  Sir Barnaby broke in. “It is past time. Dinley?”

  Dinley took a circuitous path between the tables, squeezing awkwardly past the other guests, and bolted the front door. Sir Barnaby cast a final, irritated glance out the window. “Our company is not complete, but if our purpose is to visit each room before supper, we can delay no longer.”

  The visitors assembled as best they could. Sir Barnaby’s eyes moved over the room, looking not at the faces of his guests, but at the shelves he had so meticulously assembled over the course of his long life. “The project of a true collector is a noble one. And yet there are those who denigrate our efforts. Who would call our houses knicknackatories, our labors frivolous, our devotions impious. But time will make fools of our detractors, for the shelves you will see today contain no less than the future course of all knowledge toward the secrets God left for man to discover. Let us begin.”

  CHAPTER 5

  From the Stone Room, the group followed the same path Cecily had taken that morning down the candlelit hall to the shelves of specimen jars. The enclosed space still smelled faintly of alcohol. They paused while Sir Barnaby drew their attention to a number of rare snakes and fish, among them the small but reputedly mighty shiphalter, named for tales told of its power to change the course of ships by attaching itself to their hulls.

  Three doors led out of the hall. The first, which Sir Barnaby indicated but did not open, was the entrance to his private study. The second, set in the rear wall of the house, led to the garden. The third, through which the tour continued, connected the house they were in to the house adjoining it. Sir Barnaby explained as he ushered them into the next room that he had been obliged to purchase the second property to accommodate his expanding collection. Because the two buildings shared a wall, adding new doors had proved a practical means of facilitating movement between them.

  Recognizing the place where Otto Helm had taken his unfortunate step onto the vipermouth, Cecily was not surprised to see the Swede hunched over a desk in a corner of the room, his nose almost touching the side of a specimen jar. The heavy, unmoving coils of a snake were visible through the breath-clouded glass. Helm had a notebook open before him and was whispering under his breath as his pencil rushed across the page. Absorbed in his work, he made no effort to introduce himself to the group. His whispered count of scales and the scratch of his pencil continued as Sir Barnaby pointed out notable specimens among the skeletal serpents winding up walls and watching from jars.

  The tour left the Serpent Room and continued up a dim stairwell. Over the next hour and a quarter, they shuffled through the Artifact Room, the Bird Room, and the Beast Room. Even Cecily, who prided herself on her ability to maintain her bearings, became disoriented amid vast displays of vases, boxes, swords, coins, feathers, eggs, nests, insects, bones, pelts, horns, and claws. It was nearing five o’clock when they reached the library. At the center of the room, an enormous skull was displayed on a solid, low table.

  “Is it a giant?” Alice Fordyce peered into a cavernous socket large enough to encompass her golden head. The skull was almost as tall as she was. Its brow was a smooth plane of yellowed bone, its massive jaw curved like
an arm bent to cradle an infant.

  “Many scholars have believed so,” said Sir Barnaby. “There was a Jesuit who claimed he had identified several of these skulls by name—Goliath, Asterion, Orestes, even Polyphemus himself.”

  “A cyclops,” breathed Alice.

  Sir Barnaby’s tone was dismissive. “That is all simply Catholic credulity. I have made a careful study of the bones. It is my opinion—and I am supported in this by the fellows of the Royal Society—that though the noble brow and jaw do resemble those of a man, the skull belongs to—”

  “An elephant!” The word burst from Humphrey Warbulton, who had already removed three books from a shelf, fanned their pages, and set them on a table. “It is an elephant, isn’t it?”

  Sir Barnaby motioned for Dinley to replace the books. “How reassuring,” he said, “to know that Mr. Warbulton can guide you all through my collection, should I fail.”

  Warbulton, seemingly oblivious to the acid in Sir Barnaby’s voice, approached the skull. He wedged himself between Cecily and Alice, knocking Alice off-balance as he placed a hand on the elephant’s jaw. Alice reached for a table to stop her fall. One of the elephant’s teeth clattered to the ground.

  “Take care!” cried Dinley.

  Warbulton picked up the tooth and attempted to reinsert it into its place. He fumbled, and another tooth fell to the floor. “It doesn’t look fragile,” he said, with an apologetic wince.

  “Miss—Miss Fordyce,” said Dinley. “Your hand.”

  Alice had righted herself and was looking at her palm. Blood was welling in little beads along a thin wound. She glanced around her in apparent surprise. “I don’t know what happened.”

  It was Carlyle who picked up a pale pink shell from the table on which she had caught herself. The edge of the shell glistened red. Alice stared at it, then at her palm. “It’s only a scratch,” she said. “There is no need to be concerned.”