A Curious Beginning

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  He affected insouciance, but there was a bitter note underlying his tone.

  “It mightn’t be this time,” I said reasonably.

  “Oh, Christ preserve us, all of you butterfly chasers are the same—appalling optimists, always looking for the best, determined to find it.”

  I daubed glue at one of the gaping seams. “Precisely. You see, Mr. Stoker, one seldom finds something if one never actually looks for it. I should have thought an explorer would have a better grasp of that concept.”

  He snorted rudely and the boy stared from one to the other of us with rounded eyes. Mr. Stoker turned to him. “The coin is in the tin, Badger.” The boy went to a shelf where a battered sweet tin sagged against a stack of teetering books. He emptied it of the single coin inside—so small as to be worth almost nothing—and thanked Mr. Stoker.

  Mr. Stoker grunted by way of reply, and the boy tipped his cap to me, offering a winsome smile that shone in his dirty face. I grinned back at him and he bent to scratch Huxley behind the ears.

  “Badger.” The harsh voice brought the boy up sharply.

  “Yes, Mr. Stoker?”

  “The ham you brought yesterday gives me indigestion. Take it away, and tell the bloody butcher he is a criminal for passing that off as good meat.”

  The boy dove for the ham, wrapping it in a bit of sacking as carefully as one might a newborn babe. “I will tell him, Mr. S.,” he promised, and scurried away, clutching his prize to his thin chest.

  Mr. Stoker carried on with his work in silence, but his silence was a heavy thing and I was glad when he paused to brew cups of foul tea. He drank his from a tin that had once held peaches, but mine was in proper porcelain, albeit badly cracked and missing the handle. I held it carefully, watching as he stirred a horrifying amount of sugar into his with the handle of a paintbrush.

  “Sugar if you want.” He indicated with the paintbrush, and I refused politely. He bent to his tea and I studied him, noting the strong hands with broad palms, calloused and marked with scars, the noble brow, the proud nose. At length I shook my head, and Mr. Stoker, who had not been unaware of my scrutiny, I think, gave me a significant look.

  “Do not tell me I disappoint you?” he challenged.

  “Oh, indeed you do,” I said evenly. “But probably not in the ways you expect.”

  “I already know you find me a boor. Rude and ill-mannered.”

  I shrugged. “That we have already established. Your frightful manners do not surprise me. The fact that you are a liar does.”

  He started, his complexion suffusing with a rush of angry color. But he mastered himself quickly, and when he spoke, it was with a deliberate attempt at lightness. “A liar. How clever of you to find me out.”

  “Not really. I saw how greedily you devoured the ham, and I saw that for several hours afterward, you worked quite comfortably. You have not coughed or swallowed overmuch or visited an unmentionable place in the yard—all signs of indigestion. In fact, you have worked with great enthusiasm and energy, a man in complete command of himself and perfect health.”

  The dull color receded and he looked away. “Yes, dammit, I lied to the boy.”

  “How many people is he trying to feed on his meager earnings?”

  “Seven. Six brothers and sisters and an ailing mother,” he said quietly.

  “And the boy is too proud to take charity, I assume.”

  “Quite.” The word was clipped.

  “And you are too clever to offer it. I presume you have an understanding with the butcher not to take your messages sent through the boy too seriously?”

  He hesitated, then burst out, “Yes, damn you, and he has a standing order to give them whatever offal and bones he has left over and put it on my account.”

  “An account I suspect you can ill afford to settle.”

  The proud nose twitched. “I manage to keep myself.”

  “But not well,” I pointed out. “You eat scraps, preferring to spend your coin upon cheap tobacco, sugar, and—unless I am very much mistaken about the aroma emanating from your person—inferior gin. Yet you have ambition, Mr. Stoker, and great skill. I have learned more from watching you these past hours than in years of reading books and journals. You ought to be a university lecturer or a field explorer.”

  Somewhere in the depths of his tangled beard, his lips twisted. “You have seen my prospects, Miss Speedwell. I am rejected.”

  I flapped a hand. “By a second-rate institution run by charlatans and fools. Everyone knows the director was given his post because his aunt is the mistress of the chairman of the board of directors.”

  He choked on his tea, coughing mightily until I rose to strike him hard upon the back. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and regarded me with amazement.

  “Miss Speedwell, I have hiked the length of the Amazon River. I have been accosted by native tribes and shot twice. I have nearly met my death by quicksand, snakebite, poisoned arrows, and one particularly fiendish jaguar. And I have never, until this moment, been quite so surprised by anything as I am by you.”

  “I shall take that as a fine compliment indeed, Mr. Stoker.”

  He tipped his head to study me for a moment.

  “How do you know Max?”

  “The baron? I do not know him. He simply appeared.” I did not know how much the baron had related to him, so I confined my explanation to the barest facts. “I had been burying my late guardian, Miss Nell Harbottle, and the baron came to pay his respects. He kindly offered me transport to London.”

  “And you came away with him? Just like that?” He seemed to have forgot his tea. It grew cold and scummy in the cup as he listened to my curious tale.

  “It was a sensible decision,” I temporized. “There was a housebreaker in the vicinity. The baron had persuaded himself I was in danger.”

  “Yes, so he said. Life and death,” Mr. Stoker said, his expression mocking. I might have told him the rest of the story, but I did not care for his tone. For the present, the villainous intruder would be a secret I shared only with the baron.

  I shrugged. “An elderly gentleman’s fancy. No doubt many ladies would be missish about staying alone in a rather remote country cottage with a possible criminal at large, but the prospect did not afright me. I might have remained at Wren Cottage, but it was my intention to leave anyway. By coming away with the baron, I saved myself the expense of the journey to London. I must be mindful of my money,” I said. I looked deeply into my cup of tea.

  He bristled. “You will have no call to spend it under my roof. Max has placed you in my protection. That means it is my responsibility to feed and shelter you until he returns,” he told me, his tone aggressive.

  “Really, Mr. Stoker, that is not necessary. I can pay my way,” I began.

  “I have the merest embers of pride left, Miss Speedwell. I beg you let me warm myself upon them,” he said. He had spoken casually, but I knew instinctively that he was a man who had come down greatly in the world, and I had no wish to injure him further.

  “Then I must thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Stoker. And you must grant me my pride as well. I should like to be of some use whilst I am here. Perhaps some tidying up would be in order,” I suggested hopefully, regarding the chaos of his surroundings.

  “Touch so much as a hair of a sloth’s head, and I will have you shot,” he said darkly. “But you may continue to help me mount the elephant. It is a bastard of a job for one man.”

  I ignored his profanity. I had grown accustomed to it in the previous hours, and if I was perfectly honest, it provided a bit of spice to conversation when one had spent so much time listening to the chatter of women.

  “I wonder that you took it on without a proper assistant,” I mused aloud.

  “I have not the means to engage an assistant,” he reminded me.

  “Nor the common
sense to decline the commission,” I added. He started again, and I held up a hand against the tirade I could see building within him. “It was not a criticism, Mr. Stoker. There is no shame in a man’s being ambitious. In fact, I find it rather necessary in this day and age. A gentleman cannot always depend upon his birthright to support him. Sometimes circumstances demand that he make his own way in the world, and I applaud such spirit.”

  His gaze narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘gentleman’?”

  “I mean that you are quite clearly a person who has suffered some reverses in the world. Whether they are unique to you or whether your entire family have suffered, I cannot say. But I know that you are not a man who was born to drink his tea from a peach tin or wear patched boots.” I looked pointedly at his feet. “I happened to notice that your boots are from John Lobb. They are old and well-worn and patched with care, but they are of excellent make and extremely expensive. This speaks to a man who is not what he seems.”

  He stared at me in slack-jawed mystification. “How the bloody hell can you possibly know that?”

  “I knew a charming young Belgian who insisted upon ordering his boots from that establishment. He instructed me on the finer points of gentlemen’s footwear. But it was you who betrayed your birth, I am afraid—by way of your vowels, Mr. Stoker. You are careful with them, as only a gentleman bred from the cradle can be. While your vocabulary may be colorful in the extreme, your diction is impeccable.”

  He said something thoroughly profane then, and I merely smiled into my cup. He subsided into nursing his tea, and we fell to an oddly restful silence before I spoke again.

  “Why do you not fund your own expedition, Mr. Stoker?”

  He gave me a nasty smile. “I believe we have discussed my financial affairs already, Miss Speedwell. You are conversant enough upon the matter to know the answer to that question.”

  I shook my head. “I suppose it was to be expected that you would lose your nerve.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You must believe me sympathetic. I quite understand, Mr. Stoker. Such experiences as you have suffered whilst on expedition would temper the sharpest enthusiasm. But we are scientists, are we not? We understand the difference between base and precious metals. Some things are purified and strengthened by trial, others destroyed.”

  He ground his teeth together against my compassion. “I assure you, your sympathies are quite misplaced. I have not lost my nerve, you insufferable woman. I am doing what I can with what I have.”

  I shook my head. “I think not. You have placed your trust in the Royal Museum of Natural History, an institution we both know to be corrupted both by ignorance and greed. And yet you appear to have collected their rejections with the same verve you collect your tragically flawed specimens. Tell me, how many times have they turned you down?”

  “Two dozen,” he ground out.

  “Good heavens, Mr. Stoker. I am sorry to add pigheadedness to your list of faults, but I suppose I must. Why do you persist in applying to them to aid you when it ought to be the other way round?”

  He had opened his mouth upon the insult, but my last sentence must have proved too intriguing to ignore. “Explain,” he ordered.

  I smiled. “I thought you would never ask.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I launched into an explanation—although less charitable types might have been inclined to call it a lecture. “The Royal Museum of Natural History is dependent upon explorers to collect its specimens, to chart new and undiscovered lands, and to bring back new species. You are such a man, and yet they do not want you—doubtless because they are familiar with your uncertain temper and execrable personal habits. Nevertheless, you are a scientist of considerable gifts. One has only to give this place the most cursory glance to realize you have assembled a collection that is both thoughtful and instructive, no matter how wretched its condition. There is real brilliance here, Mr. Stoker. If you were to mount your own expedition, on your own terms, the museum would have no choice but to come to you, begging for the specimens you acquire. You have simply put the cart before the horse,” I told him.

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “I smoked opium once. It felt like listening to you, only rather more mundane.”

  I tipped my head thoughtfully. “I smoked it once as well. I must say I did not much care for the aroma. It smelled of flowers and gunpowder, which was not unpleasant, but there was something else, something more animalic. Sweaty horse, I think.”

  He drew me back to the subject at hand. “How, I beg you, Miss Speedwell, is a man of no fortune and fewer prospects supposed to fund such an expedition?”

  I puffed out my lips with impatience. “Really, Mr. Stoker, your lack of imagination is sorely trying. You might apply to subscribers. Wealthy people are always looking to spend their money in ways they can boast of to their friends. For that matter, your patrons need not be wealthy. You could advertise and take very small subscriptions from prosperous merchants and other up-and-comers. Promise them their name on plaques or to call a species after them. People love to have things they don’t understand named for them. And your expedition needn’t be costly. Your skill at preparing and mounting your specimens is evident. Can you hunt them as well?”

  He nodded his head towards a particularly vicious-looking mount of a hyena. “Through the heart at two hundred yards.”

  “There you are, then! You need only a few local guides to show you the way and some bearers to bring back your trophies and specimen cases.”

  For the first time, he gave me a faint but very real smile. “Miss Speedwell, expeditions are a bit more complex than that.”

  I flapped a hand. “They do not have to be. Expeditions are enormously expensive because they have to cart around everyone’s self-importance. Most of the leaders of these undertakings are dilettantes, gentlemen scientists who insist upon touring in luxury, packing so much silver and linen they might imagine themselves in a London hotel. You are a resourceful man. Are you not familiar with the intrepid lady travelers? Women like Isabella Bird and Marianne North? They managed to go right round the world with little more than what they could fit into a saddlebag. I am persuaded you could travel quite easily with a single bag. I mean to.”

  I pointed to my carpetbag. “Except for my net, everything I have need of in the world is contained in that bag—including a second hat and a rather sizable jar of cold cream of roses. Do not tell me you couldn’t travel with as little. I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot seem to formulate a clear thought in the face of such original thinking, Miss Speedwell. You have a high opinion of your sex.”

  I pursed my lips. “Not all of it. We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock.”

  “You have large opinions for so small a person.”

  “I daresay they would be large opinions even for someone your size,” I countered.

  “And where did you form these opinions? Either your school was inordinately progressive or your governess was a Radical.”

  “I never went to school, nor did I have a governess. Books were my tutors, Mr. Stoker. Anything I wished to learn I taught myself.”

  “There are limits to an autodidactic education,” he pointed out.

  “Few that I have found. I was spared the prejudices of formal educators.”

  “And neither were you inspired by them. A good teacher can change the course of a life,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps. But I had complete intellectual freedom. I studied those subjects which interested me—to the point of obsession at times—and spent precious little time on things which did not.”
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  “Such as?”

  “Music and needlework. I am astonishingly lacking in traditional feminine accomplishments.”

  He cocked his head. “I am not entirely astonished.” But his tone was mild, and I accepted the statement as nothing like an insult. In fact, it felt akin to a compliment.

  “And I must confess that between Jane Austen and Fordyce’s Sermons, I have developed a general antipathy for clergymen. And their wives,” I added, thinking of Mrs. Clutterthorpe.

  “Well, in that we may be agreed. Tell me, do you find many people to share your views?”

  “Shockingly few,” I admitted. “I presented my interpretations to a vicar in Hampshire once and he was fairly apoplectic upon the subject. I lost my position on the flower-arranging committee.”

  “A tragedy indeed,” he said with his now familiar mockery.

  “You’ve no idea. In a country village, one’s standing is determined by committee appointments and good works. I was relegated to a convalescent hospital, and I must say, I was glad of the change. The men there were not half so tiresome as the ladies who arrange the flowers, I can assure you. I was quite disappointed to lose my position there within a month.”

  His lips twitched. “For what reason?”

  I shifted a little. “Because I amputated a toe without permission.”

  “You are joking.”

  “I never joke about gangrene, Mr. Stoker. I was reading to one of the patients when he complained of a certain discomfort in the appendage in question. I examined him, and it was painfully obvious that the poor fellow was suffering from a gangrenous toe. It had to come off, and immediately, or septicemia would set in and the fellow would die.”

  “I don’t suppose the convalescent hospital had someone more suited to the job of amputation—say, an actual physician?”