by Elsa Hart
Meacan did not unclench her jaw. “I am angry. If they wanted his bag, they could have given him a push and snatched it. They didn’t need to beat the poor man.”
Cecily wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Meacan’s comment, which sounded sincere, but struck her as odd given the well-known dangers of London’s streets. Cecily doubted even the most naïve resident could traverse them without seeing a flash of an imagined knife. And Meacan was not naïve. “He is fortunate he found his way to safety,” she said. “And that Inwood is here to minister to his injuries without delay.” She paused. “When he is recovered, perhaps we will be able to resolve the question of why he left the house so suddenly.”
Meacan’s gaze remained on the stairwell, her expression unchanged. She spoke casually. “It has been suggested to me since I returned from my errands that you’ve asked more than a few questions already today.”
“When did you return?” asked Cecily.
Meacan’s cheek relaxed and a corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. “And from what errands, you will ask next? For all your admirable qualities, my dear old friend, I cannot compliment your subtlety. I returned an hour ago. My errands are my own affair, but to satisfy your curiosity, I will tell you that I was visiting my tenant and making inquiries into future employment.”
Cecily didn’t know whether to be irritated at the hint of mockery in Meacan’s tone or relieved by the warmth in it. “From whom did you hear that I’ve been asking questions?”
Meacan lifted a hand in a vague gesture that could have referred to all the occupants in the house, or to the house itself. “I also heard that Lady Mayne gave you permission to stay,” she said. “I myself have yet to meet her. I was on my way to do so when I heard the commotion and came down to find you holding poor Mr. Helm. You’ll have to change your dress.”
Cecily looked down at herself and noticed for the first time the dark smears of blood on her bodice, skirt, and sleeves. “Easily done,” she said, but the thought of the injuries required to leave such stains sent a shiver up her spine. There was no longer any sound or vibration upon the stairs, only distant voices from the top of the house. They started up together. The candlelight on the walls threw gleaming phantoms across the oil paintings. Mounted corals reached out like crooked fingers grasping for their hair.
Meacan exhaled with a shudder as if she was cold. “The collection is changing,” she announced ominously. “Everything looks sharper and more poisonous than it did before.”
“I expect it is only our perception of it that is altered,” said Cecily reasonably. “We cannot dismiss from our minds what we have seen these past two days.”
“No.” Meacan let the word drop decisively. “No, it is the collection. It’s as if it knows its master is no longer here and is preparing to defend itself.”
“That is fantasy,” said Cecily firmly.
They had reached the first landing. Meacan nodded toward the open door of the Beast Room. The skeleton of a hartebeest stood at its center, its black horns twisting up to points from its white skull. It was watched by the stern head of a lioness mounted to the wall behind it. The claws and scaled belly of a crocodile strung from the ceiling were visible through the top of the doorway. “I thought I saw that crocodile move this morning,” said Meacan. “And I’d swear I heard a snake hiss at me from inside its jar.”
Cecily recalled the distorted shadow of the shark’s jaw on her ceiling. “I am sure you did not,” she said. “And even if we were to entertain this delusion, I would point out that the collection does not need to defend itself. There is not going to be an auction, or, as you put it, a frenzy. The entire Mayne collection is to be transferred in its entirety to the care of Giles Inwood.”
“Is it?” Meacan dropped her dire, prophetic tone. “That is very interesting.”
Cecily drew in a breath. “Meacan,” she said with quiet gravity. “Do you know something about the death of Barnaby Mayne?”
They had started up the next flight of stairs. Meacan stopped and put a hand on Cecily’s arm to halt her. “I know exactly what everyone else knows,” she said in a hushed voice. “Why would you ask such a question?”
“Because last night you didn’t want to tell me you had spoken to Helm, and because there are inconsistencies in the way the murder appeared to take place.”
“What inconsistencies?”
“Confide in me, and I will tell you.”
“I have nothing to confide.” Meacan glanced up and down the stairwell. Its center, outlined by the angled spiral of the bannister, presented a hollow plunge to the depths of the house. There was no sound of a step or a breath to be heard except for their own. She looked at Cecily. “And as for your inconsistencies, of course there were secrets in the house that day. This is one of the oldest collections in London. If that silent lioness on the wall could speak, she could share enough secrets to addle even the most orderly mind.”
“Then you think—”
“I think it is unwise to follow a path leading from a murder into the realm of the collectors. It is a shadowy place full of illusions. And it isn’t safe.”
A door creaked open above them. Susanna’s clipped voice called down. “Is that Mrs. Barlow on the stairs? Lady Mayne is waiting for you.”
Meacan gave Cecily a final, inscrutable look. “Trust your old friend. Limit your questions to the names of plants,” she whispered. “If you don’t, I fear you will find yourself in trouble.” And with that she was gone, leaving Cecily uncertain whether she had just received a warning or a threat.
Cecily continued up alone to the garret. John and Inwood had navigated the piles of crates and books on the floor and deposited Helm on Dinley’s bed. Helm had fallen unconscious, and for the second time in two days, Cecily watched Giles Inwood perform a perfunctory examination of a still and bloodied body. “The skull is intact,” he said. “I am confident of it. But the arm is broken and a rib is cracked. Whether the ankle is sprained or fractured I cannot yet tell.”
John left to boil water and prepare salves in the kitchen. When he returned some minutes later, Thomasin was with him. The maid’s affect had changed. There was color in her cheeks and a sparkle of energy in her eyes. Cecily didn’t know whether to attribute it to the fortifying fragrance of the basketful of medicinal herbs she carried, or merely to the brief reprieve she had enjoyed from the house.
Inwood examined the contents of the basket with satisfaction and sent John and Thomasin back down with instructions for their preparation. “You may leave me to my patient, Lady Kay,” he said. “Do not be overly concerned. His wounds are not as grave as they might have been. It is fear and exhaustion that has overcome him.”
Cecily, accepting the dismissal, turned to go, then paused. “I should ask,” she said, “how you think it best to inform him of what has occurred.”
Inwood looked confused. “Inform him—”
Cecily looked at the unconscious man. “About Sir Barnaby,” she whispered. “I do not think he knows.”
Inwood’s expression cleared. “Of course. You are right. He should be spared undue shock or distress.” He lapsed into thoughtful silence. “He will wake, unfortunately, while I set the bone, but after that he will sleep. It will be best to wait until tomorrow, when he is rested, to tell him. Perhaps you would be so kind as to do it?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I would stay myself, but I have—” Inwood hesitated. “I have several urgent matters of business to which I must attend. I will examine him again when I return in two days. Summon the apothecary if his condition worsens.”
“Two days?”
“Has Lady Mayne not told you? Sir Barnaby is to be brought back to the house so that those who mourn him might pay their respects. You may expect to see every member of the collecting community here.”
“I see,” said Cecily slowly. “I presume then that Mr. Warbulton and Mr. Carlyle will be among them? Even perhaps Miss Fordyce?”
“Almost certainly,”
Inwood replied. “It will be a mournful reunion of our small company.”
CHAPTER 12
The sun, burning out at last at the end of a long spring day, flared its final rays through the smoky sky and into the window of the Mayne herbarium. Books and pressed plants radiated outward from where Cecily sat at the long rectangular table in the center of the room, her head bowed low over a plant resting on a sheet of brown paper. Its thin branches formed paths across the page, each one leading to a translucent purple flower.
She glanced up. Through the connecting door to the other house she could just see Helm. Since Inwood’s departure four hours earlier, she had kept watch over him. John and Martha had made frequent visits, John to adjust and replace poultices, Martha to tidy and rearrange the space around the patient. Cecily had not spoken to Helm other than to reassure him, on the several occasions when he woke in fretful confusion, that he was safe. At present he was sleeping soundly, his breathing quiet and even.
Satisfied that Helm’s condition had not worsened, Cecily returned her attention to the plant. She set her pencil to the corner of the page and completed the last identification the day’s fading light would permit. Origanum of Sipylus. After she had finished writing and set the pencil down she remained as she was, staring down at the specimen.
She had a clear memory of the day she had collected it. The weather had been hot, the sun reflected white off marble ruins. Andrew had been hosting a gathering of merchants and ambassadors from Constantinople. Ever willing to indulge what he termed Cecily’s botanical habit when it removed her from situations in which the presence of his inquisitive wife was, in his view, an embarrassment at best and a liability at worst, he had arranged for Cecily to visit the nearby Mount Sipylus.
Cecily recalled how the light had played like scattered diamonds over the little streams that cooled the air and carved their shapes into the earth. The guide had led the party to a cave nestled on the mountain’s shoulder. It was said to be the tomb of Tantalus, that son of Zeus sentenced to stand for all eternity by a pond from which he could never drink, beneath a tree the fruit of which he could never eat. Cecily’s attention had been drawn at once to the cascade of purple petals and soft green leaves around the entrance. She had taken a single plant and pressed it that evening, alone by candlelight.
A creak of the floor brought her mind back to the Mayne house and announced the return of John, who urged her to go downstairs and take her supper. Lady Mayne had eaten already. After thanking him, Cecily took her time to make sure the herbarium was tidy, the books and specimens returned to their proper places. She looked once more at Helm. Cleaned and salved and bandaged, he looked much less ghastly than he had. Luck had indeed been with him.
Her path to the kitchen took her past the door to the library. From within, she heard the sound of heavy pages being turned.
Curious, she entered the room and found Meacan sitting on the floor in front of a partially denuded bookcase, her skirts pinned down by books scattered like lily pads around her. The sunset light through the window had turned the gilding on their covers to fiery veins. A porcelain cup half full of coffee was perched on an open volume. The cup, not quite heavy enough to weigh down the page, had slid to the inside margins, and was tilted at a precarious angle. A crumpet glistening with butter rested on the burgundy cover of the book beside it. Cecily, perceiving the grease already seeping into the dark leather, rushed forward, picked up the crumpet, and returned it to the empty plate nearby.
Meacan looked up from the book resting open in her lap. She was not wearing a cap, and her face was surrounded by bramble-like curls. “How is Mr. Helm?”
Cecily lifted the cold coffee cup from the center of the book and set it on the nearest table. “Still asleep,” she answered. “But why have you pulled all these books from their places? Have you anyone’s permission to do it?”
“I have more than permission,” said Meacan. “I am fulfilling the terms of my employment.”
“Your employment? Who has employed you?”
Meacan turned a page. “Lady Mayne. She wants the collection to be inventoried before it passes to Inwood, and she has hired me to do it.”
“You are going to inventory the Mayne collection?”
Meacan raised her head, an eyebrow quirked in challenge. “Do you think I am unqualified? I have existed within the cluttered shelves of the collectors for years. The good librarian and I have that in common.”
Cecily was confused. “The good librarian?”
Meacan nodded at the elephant skull. Looking at it, Cecily had to acknowledge that the gently curving jaw and sad wisdom of the brow suggested the careworn visage of a guardian. She turned back to Meacan. “You spoke so disparagingly of the house and the collection. I thought you wanted to leave.”
Meacan shrugged. “Employment is employment.” She lifted the book she was holding and turned it around so that Cecily could see its pages. “And I never said there was nothing of interest in this house. Here, for example, is fairy ink.” She tilted the book so that it caught the light and Cecily perceived that certain words sparkled and glittered an iridescent silver gray. She lowered herself to the floor and touched one of the letters lightly. It was rough against her fingertip.
“A bit of paste and crushed Muscovy glass,” said Meacan. “You can be certain I’ll be making use of this technique from now on. I’m only sorry that I wasn’t the one to think of it.”
Cecily tried to clear her thoughts. “An inventory of the entire collection is a momentous undertaking. Weeks of work at a minimum. Months, to do it thoroughly.” She paused. “Lady Mayne told me she intended to have the collection out of the house as quickly as possible.”
Meacan closed the book of glittering pages and set it aside with a look of unconcern. “Evidently she changed her mind. But how difficult an endeavor can it be? Sir Barnaby kept his registers as diligently as a clock keeps time.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Cecily. “But how do you mean to match each entry in the register to an item in the collection?”
Like a ship’s captain debating which island to sail toward, Meacan looked out over the books stacked around her. “I am in the midst of devising a method.”
“I see,” said Cecily doubtfully. “What books are these?”
“A few are registers,” said Meacan, gesturing vaguely. “And the others are the ones that seemed of interest to me when I looked at them.”
In matters of organization and method, Cecily knew her value. She decided in that moment that, while the truth of Sir Barnaby’s death could forever elude her, she had before her now an opportunity to assist in the preservation of his collection. A part of her wondered whether Sir Barnaby himself might appreciate the latter assistance more than the former. “Perhaps I can help you devise an approach,” she said.
Meacan looked pleased. “Would you?”
“I will have to familiarize myself with the system before we begin,” said Cecily. “Where is the first register?”
A short search led to the oldest of the blue-bound volumes in which Sir Barnaby had recorded his acquisitions. Cecily opened it to the first page. Thin penciled lines divided it into five columns. They contained, respectively, the name or description of each object, the acquisition number assigned to it, the date it was acquired, the price paid, and the location of the object within the house.
The first entry was dated the first of September, 1659. Sir Barnaby must have been in his twenties then. The handwriting was youthful and confident. Cecily exhaled in admiration. Even when the number of items in his cabinets could be counted on one hand and arranged on one table, he had known that his collection would require a system by which to order it. Forty years had yellowed the paper, but the entries on it retained the energy and enthusiasm with which they had been written.
She turned the pages and picked up subsequent volumes, rustling through the years. New hands showed the coming and going of various secretaries, but Sir Barnaby’s own writing maintain
ed its dominion over the expanses of paper. Interests swelled like waves, only to recede and be replaced, among them quadrupeds, medicines, antiquities, fossils, amulets, costumes, vases, birds, insects, shells, shoes, eggs, and boxes. As the collection had grown, so, too, had the difficulty of organizing and maintaining it. Cecily could almost feel the heat of mental exertion as the pages became more and more crowded with symbols and revisions and annotations.
Sir Barnaby had recorded the value of objects only when he had paid for them, which in many cases he hadn’t. It was clear that as his collection and reputation grew, the number of fellow enthusiasts eager for their specimens to be included in it had increased. Twenty-three butterflies encased in glass sent by Lord Edgeware. Six birds from Father Kamel in China. A horn of the fish that is called unicorn. Cecily was so absorbed that she hardly noticed Meacan lighting candles, and was startled by Meacan’s voice. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
“I was admiring Sir Barnaby’s ability to maintain such orderly registers.”
“I see,” said Meacan. “I suppose, coming from you, that does sound like an honest answer.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Candlelight and shadow moved across Meacan’s features, making her expression unreadable. “I thought you might still be trying to reconcile those little inconsistencies you mentioned earlier. You can trust me, you know, if you wish to discuss them.”
Cecily dropped her eyes to the open register. “I decided to take your advice,” she said, the dishonesty tasting strange in her mouth. “I was meddling without good cause into matters beyond my understanding. What happened in the study is as clear now as it will ever be.”
When there was no reply, Cecily glanced up and caught Meacan giving her a hard look. After a moment, Meacan sat down again and set a candle on the low table beside the coffee cup. “In that case, tell me how to accomplish this inventory you predict will be so difficult.”
