by Mary Malloy
This information brought her full attention back to what he was saying. Lizzie had seen many “cabinets of curiosities,” which were popular venues for the display of exotic artifacts in the eighteenth century. Most of the collections had long since left their original locations and been moved into museums or dispersed; it was unusual to find one still intact, especially in a private home. Until this moment Lizzie hadn’t thought much about how the Hatton family would have preserved Francis Hatton’s collection, but now it hit her for the first time that she might be able to see it as he had arranged it with his own hands.
The realization drew Lizzie from her chair like a magnet. Without looking away from those closed doors she rose from her chair and started toward them. George quickly put his cup down and followed her across the room. He seemed to sense that if he didn’t open them first she would spring upon the doors and fling them apart, and consequently he stepped in front of her and opened them carefully, sliding the door panels neatly behind the bookcases on either side.
Francis Hatton’s collection was a classic example of the late eighteenth century, displayed in a sort of giant closet with glass-fronted shelves rising from waist level up to the ceiling with rows of drawers set beneath them. Lizzie gasped with astonishment and pleasure as her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she began to discover what was lined up on the shelves.
“This was originally designed by the architect as a passage into the older wing of the house, but Francis Hatton took it over and turned it to a rather good purpose, I think.”
“My goodness,” Lizzie said, putting her cup of coffee on the large table that dominated that end of the room. She walked into the cabinet and tried to take it all in. Above her rose weapons, paddles, model ships, musical instruments, shoes, hats, masks, spoons, pipes, baskets, ceramic bowls, carvings, shells, stones, mounted birds, snake skins, shark’s jaws, tusks and bones from numerous animals, fans, feathers—in fact anything and everything, representing every continent known in Francis Hatton’s time. She opened a few of the drawers to find more of the same. Every space was crammed with artifacts, most having a label of some sort attached with a fine spidery scrawl describing what it was, where it had originated, and how it had been acquired.
Interspersed among the Polynesian clubs and the clove boats from Indonesia were a number of Northwest Coast Indian objects, including a whalebone club from Nootka Sound and a remarkable carved and painted wooden mask. George Hatton pointed out his favorite piece, a helmet with the face and claws of a bear mounted on it. On every shelf was a wonder. Lizzie asked him if the curator from the British Museum had seen the collection and George replied that he had not.
“Though I think my son Richard sent him photographs of some of the objects,” he said. He turned and smiled politely at Lizzie. “We met with Thomas Clark in London a few months ago,” he continued. “That’s when he showed me your book and suggested that you might be able to help us figure out what to do with the collection.”
Lizzie was overwhelmed by both the size and the scope of the collection and struggled to take it all in. Several of the objects were artistic masterpieces, and others were possibly the earliest known examples of their type. She could not believe that she was the first person to see it who could actually appreciate the value of the artifacts, both culturally and monetarily. It had been sitting on these shelves, essentially hidden and unknown, for over two hundred years.
“I had no idea the collection was so extensive,” she said, somewhat hesitantly. “I can help you identify the North American material here, and the Polynesian, but the range of the material goes way beyond my expertise.”
“Well at this point I am most interested in identifying those things that Francis Hatton collected himself on the voyage with Captain Cook,” George said. He opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a wooden Australian boomerang. “Here’s a piece that will interest you. It was collected on Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific and given to Francis Hatton by Sir Joseph Banks, who helped arrange for his commission in the Royal Navy.”
Lizzie was impressed. She took it from George and held it reverently. This was one of the first things from Australia ever seen by Europeans. She read the label pasted onto it: “Given to me by Sir Joseph Banks, July 21st, 1775. Collected by him on Captain Cook’s First Voyage.” Lizzie laid it down carefully and made a mental note to catalogue it with the first group of objects. As she set it on the shelf she noticed a yellow and brown plastic boomerang on the shelf behind it. She pulled it out. Written in black marker on it was a note: “To Mummy and Dad; Another treasure for the collection! John Hatton, Melbourne, Australia, September 1989.”
“A joke from my youngest son,” George explained. “He went out to Australia with the navy. Married an Australian girl and still lives there.”
Lizzie put it back on the shelf. It was with some difficulty that she restrained her enthusiasm, not just at seeing such an important collection, but in knowing that she could be the one to bring it to the attention of the public, and of a museum and academic community that would find it remarkable.
It was incredible luck, she thought, that George Hatton had stumbled on her book at precisely the right moment. Otherwise she could not believe that such an opportunity would have come to her rather than to any number of more senior British curators and scholars. She crossed her arms and turned to look again at George.
“Again, I have to ask you why none of this was ever made public?”
“Never saw any reason to,” he answered simply.
She thought it might be pressing her luck to delve deeper into this subject within her first hour of acquaintance with George, and turned back to study the collection.
“There’s also correspondence in several of the drawers,” George continued. A framed painting leaned against one tier of drawers, the back of the canvas facing them so that the picture wasn’t visible. A manila envelope was taped to the bare brown canvas. George lifted it up by the top of the frame and leaned it against the library table so that he could show Lizzie the documents in the drawers behind it.
“There are letters about the collection in here, I think,” he said, pulling one of the drawers open. It was filled almost to the top with scraps of paper. He looked at her a little sheepishly. “I had forgotten the level of disorganization in these drawers. People have just been chucking odd bits and pieces into them for about two hundred years.”
“I’m pretty fast at getting through material like that,” she reassured him. “It shouldn’t take me too long to at least get it organized into things that are and aren’t of interest for this project.”
She asked him if all of the artifacts had been collected by Francis Hatton. “Except for that second boomerang,” she added with a smile. She wasn’t quite sure yet how much of a sense of humor he had.
He smiled back. “Don’t worry. To my knowledge Johnnie’s joke there is one of only a handful of things not collected by Francis Hatton or someone in his circle of friends and correspondents.” He gestured at the crowded shelves. “Obviously he was a bit obsessive about his little hobby. I think he bothered everyone he ever met to collect things for him, but his notations seem to make clear which things were acquired by other travelers.”
“The hallmark of a great collector,” Lizzie responded
“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “His correspondence is in some of the drawers, and then there is also the journal.” He moved to a chair at the long library table and motioned to Lizzie to make herself comfortable in the adjacent one. As they sat down he asked if she was interested in taking on the project.
“Yes, very interested,” she answered. “Especially if we are concentrating just on his voyage material.” She folded her hands and rested them on the table as she looked again at the cabinet, trying to make a quick count of the number of Pacific pieces. Could she do the preliminary work in the weeks that she had available before classes
started again?
She asked to see the journal, which had been her first glimpse into Francis Hatton’s world, and which she was anxious to read.
“I thought you’d like to see it right away,” George answered. There was a carved Chinese box on the table and he put his hand on it. “This is the case in which it has always been kept,” he said, opening the box and pulling a leather-bound volume from it.
He handed the book to Lizzie, who accepted it excitedly. She couldn’t resist opening the front cover and turning over the marbled end paper to reveal the title page. “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and ’Round the World” it started. It was written in the fine legible hand that she was already coming to recognize as Francis Hatton’s. She felt a thrill of anticipation.
“I look forward to spending time with this,” she said, closing the book and laying her hand with a light possessive touch on the cover. She wanted to be alone when she read it. The watchful eye of his descendent could only interfere in her relationship with Francis Hatton.
She turned her attention to the painting George had leaned against the leg of the table. It was a portrait of a red-haired woman with full, lush lips and a faraway look in her eye, caught in the process of waking from sleep. One arm was stretched out toward a vanishing dream, a knight in armor whose hand was stretched out in return, but it seemed a hopeless gesture.
Lizzie smiled and leaned toward it. “Rossetti,” she said. “I love his work.”
George looked at it somewhat disdainfully. “I purchased it about fifteen years ago and forgot that I stored it in the cabinet.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’ll find another place for it,” he said, stepping toward it.
“May I look at it first?” Lizzie asked, rising to stand beside him.
“If you like,” George answered, “I’ll have Jeffries hang it in your room while you’re here.”
“Thank you,” she said with enthusiasm. “I am a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites.”
“Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid,” her host answered. “You’re welcome to enjoy it as long as you’re here.”
“Why did you buy it?” Lizzie asked with genuine curiosity.
George Hatton snorted a laugh. “The model is my great-great-aunt!” He held the painting up before him. “There was a bit of a scandal attached to it and I bought it because I didn’t want all that dredged up again by a public sale of the thing at auction.”
“She’s beautiful,” Lizzie said.
“Yes, but she was wild,” George said in response. “She lived with Rossetti after his wife died.”
Lizzie smiled. “Ah,” she said softly.
George picked up a pipe and sucked at a match through it. “What attracts you to the Pre-Raphaelites, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“They have a highly romanticized view of history that amuses me,” she said. Though she knew the depictions were fundamentally false, she still found them extremely compelling, and she knew that Jackie would certainly have added that to the list of things that worried her about Lizzie, had she known it.
She rested the painting carefully against the table again and found that the discussion had come to one of those strange lulls that can only be filled by turning to entirely meaningless topics. Lizzie was beginning to wish that George would soon be going and leaving her to the journal, but he made no sign of departing, and for a time they stood in uncomfortable silence.
“Where would you like to start?” he asked finally.
“With the journal,” she said, sitting again and looking more closely at the carved box. She was disappointed when George sat down again too.
“Did Francis bring this box home from the voyage?” she asked, unwilling to start any actual work while he was still in the room.
“No, he shipped it from Canton on an East Indiaman to avoid having to hand it over, and it arrived back here in this box with a piece of silk and a rather cryptic letter to his sister.” He leaned back, fingering his pipe. “It’s rather puzzling that he didn’t want it published, really. I’ve read it all and there is nothing very damning in it. He’s a bit arrogant maybe, but God knows that was hardly a crime in the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century.”
“Can I read the letter?”
“Of course,” he said. “I think it’s still tucked into the journal.”
Lizzie carefully opened the book again and leafed through it until she saw the loose paper that was the letter.
“My Dearest Eliza,” it began, “for reasons of my own, I’m sending my journal on to you from Canton. The Captain of the East India Company’s ship Cathay has agreed to bring you this silk and the box. Look for my heart in this box, as our ancestress looked for the heart of her Crusader when he was far from home.”
There followed some tender words of consolation about the recent death of their brother, and also gratitude for what she must be doing to comfort their father at such a hard time. He promised that his return was not far off and signed the letter, “Your affectionate brother, Francis.”
Lizzie leafed through the journal, reading the entries at the top of each page: “Ship Resolution Rounding Good Hope,” said several, “On the Coast of New Zealand,” said others. She saw titles for Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands, and finally “Ship Resolution on the Northwest Coast.” The last entry was dated April 14, 1778, and the ship was at Nootka Sound.
“Why did he stop keeping the journal?” she wondered aloud, flipping through at least sixty more sheets of clean white paper left in the book before any more were used.
George Hatton shrugged that he had no better idea than she.
She took a magnifying lens from her purse and looked along the binding edge of the paper at the last sheet that contained an entry. A number of pages had been cleanly cut out, as if with a razor.
“George?” she said, gesturing to it and leaning the book toward him.
He bent nearer to look.
Lizzie pointed to the book. “Who cut the pages out?” she asked.
He was puzzled. “Cut out?” he said, pulling a pair of glasses from his pocket and staring intently at where she was pointing. “I never noticed that,” he murmured, standing to get closer to the journal. “My grandfather first showed me this journal when I was a child and he lamented the fact that the voyage was interrupted. He never noticed any pages missing and he had been looking at it since he was a boy in the nineteenth century.” He sat down again, clearly perplexed.
Lizzie went back to the letter. “What does this mean?” she asked, reading aloud from the letter, “Look for my heart in this box, as our ancestress looked for the heart of her Crusader.”
He dismissed it as family folklore, though Lizzie felt that there was something more to it which he was unwilling to share with her. She didn’t press the subject however; it didn’t seem like anything she needed to know to begin the job at hand anyway.
“Well, I might as well get started with the work,” she said.
George gave her permission to set up a temporary office on the big table in the library, and to use the phone for Internet access. Lizzie went back to her room to get the carry-on case that held her computer equipment and then returned to the library and set up a working space with her laptop computer, printer, and portable scanner. She also had a digital camera that would allow her to photograph the objects in the collection and put them, along with whatever documentation existed about them, directly into her computer. This process would save her a lot of time in transcribing documents and describing artifacts.
The actual work seemed to interest George less than talking about it, and he finally began to make motions that he would leave Lizzie alone in the library. “Supper is at seven,” he said as he left. “Mrs. Jeffries will give you a fifteen-minute warning in case you lose track of the time.”
When she felt that she had gotten herself organized enough to make a good
start the following morning, Lizzie took a break and called Martin to tell him that she had arrived safely.
“I was hoping you’d call,” he said. “What’s it like there?”
“The house is fabulous,” she said. “Just like in the book only grander, if you can believe it. Thanks for that book, by the way. It really gave me a good introduction to the place.”
“And what’s he like?”
“He’s not exactly a regular guy, but I like him,” she said. “And he’s smart—he loves my book.”
On the other end of the line she heard Martin’s laugh.
“I miss you,” she said.
“I know, sweetheart. I miss you too.”
She hadn’t noticed that it was dark outside until she hung up. There were several lamps in the library, as well as two large chandeliers filled with scores of tiny bulbs, and the fire, which was still crackling away. She walked to the dark windows and looked out across the stone terrace at the winter remnants of the garden. There had been no real sunset, no blaze of red or orange, just a silver streak of light left on the horizon.
“Dinner is in fifteen minutes, Dr. Manning.”
Lizzie jumped when Mrs. Jeffries spoke to her from the open door.
“Thank you,” she said. “Where do I go?”
“Straight across the hall,” Mrs. Jeffries answered, pointing past the double staircase that dominated the foyer of the Adam wing of the house.
The housekeeper seemed to be looking at her as if she was a great puzzle and Lizzie wondered if there was something odd about her appearance, or if the other woman was waiting for her to move in response to her announcement. She began to be uncomfortable under Mrs. Jeffries’ scrutiny, like a specimen in a Petri dish, until the other woman seemed to realize with a start that she was being rude and turned to leave the room.
“Thanks again,” Lizzie called after her. She wondered how long the other woman had been standing at the door watching her before speaking.
