He gave me a dark look. “You couldn’t see it if I had. Faeries can beinvisiblewhen they want.”
“Then how will you know when you catch one?”
“Because it will scream when I poke it with my stick,” he assured me.
We had come to the top of the stairs and Mary Hathaway looked fondly at her children. “Such a consolation, children,” she said. “And such a responsibility. The rearing of them is extraordinarily taxing,” she confided as she handed them off to their nanny and a small cadre of nursemaids.
“I have no doubt,” I said, twitching my skirts out of Geoffrey’s sticky grasp before he trotted off with his nanny.
“That is why I appreciate you speaking with Effie,” she said. “The sooner those instruments are out of the house, the better.”
“But why? Surely there is no harm in Miss Euphemia having a hobby,” I protested.
Her mouth was set in a firm and unflattering line. If she kept up the habit of disapproving of things, she was going to age very poorly, I reflected.
“It is not, I am afraid, merely a hobby. If it were, no matter how unladylike, I might be able to condone it. But Effie wants to pursue science as an occupation, and that is simply not acceptable.”
“I am doing it,” I told her roundly.
Her expression turned frankly pitying. “And that is certainly admirable in your case. Spinsters must, after all, earn their crust ofbread somehow. But Effie has family and ought to have a husband. She has no call to earn a living. Besides, her unwomanly pursuits have led to other bad habits,” she said, pursing again. “She consorts with servants, particularly that Anjali who attends Lady Hathaway. I have attempted upon numerous occasions to put a stop to it, but unfortunately Effie is entirely ungovernable, and Anjali is engaged by Lady Hathaway and I have not the authority to remove her.”
“You would dismiss her over her friendship with Miss Euphemia?”
“Friendship?” The word was uttered on a genteel shriek. “Miss Speedwell, I beg you, do not use such a word. It is unthinkable. And I will have my way in the end,” she added with the complacency of a cat surveying a plump mouse. “But for now, please do what you can to reconcile Effie to the fact that the observatory will be cleared out—whatever her thoughts on the matter.”
She leaned near enough that I could smell her toilet water. Something heavy with the fragrance of lily, which I have never liked.
“Effie, I do not mind telling you, has been only one of my trials here, Miss Speedwell. Lady Hathaway is occasionally imperious, forgetting that she is no longer mistress here. One wants to betactful...” She trailed off and I made sympathetic noises. I hated giving any sign of encouraging confidences to someone I found frankly odious, but Mary was, after all, a source of information.
“And, of course, with the sudden appearance of Jonathan Hathaway,” I began.
She rolled her eyes heavenwards. “You have no notion the trouble it has caused us! I will not say he has been anything other than helpful with Lady Hathaway. His attentions in that quarter have been entirely welcome. He entertains and soothes her in a way none of the rest of us can. He has saved me a tremendous amount of work, I can tell you. But the scandal if it were to become public!” She put a fingertip to my sleeve. “I know I can trust your discretion, Miss Speedwell. After all,you are part of an earl’s household,” she added in a tone of respect. I understood her better then. She had the merchant class’s view of aristocracy—awed to the point of idiocy. Aristocrats, as I had excellent reason to know, put their trousers on exactly the same as everyone else, and sometimes with far less skill or assistance. That Lord Rosemorran and Stoker’s eldest brother, Viscount Templeton-Vane, were decent fellows was the exception, not the rule, for noble gentlemen.
But I assumed a smile I hoped she would interpret as one of agreement. “You must live in terror of the story being published in the newspapers,” I suggested.
Her own smile was one of accomplished smugness. “Would you believe, Miss Speedwell, one of those dreadful daily tabloids intended to write about it? But my father handled the situation, and we need have no further worry in that quarter,” she added, pressing her lips together. So, her papa’s fortune was a source of embarrassment until she had need of it to purchase theDaily Harbinger’s silence. I had not thought it possible to dislike her more, but this new hypocrisy had managed to do the trick.
Perhaps regretting the mention of her father—or else remembering that it was common to consort with anyone below one’s own social station—she drew herself up and bustled away, entirely forgetting to give me instructions on how to reach the observatory, but I did not call her back. I was perfectly delighted to be rid of her, and I fled in the general direction of the observatory. I followed the long corridors of the Hall until I came to the small black door set under the portrait of Sir Geoffrey. The knob gave way in my hand and I bent double to pass through the doorway. Immediately beyond lay a narrow staircase of lacy black metal that twisted upwards, spiraling around itself into the furthest reaches of the tower. My skirts somewhat hampered my progress, but I climbed steadily onwards until at last I reached asmall door with a notice pinned to it. The words were printed in heavy block capitals.
DO NOT ENTER ON PAIN OF DEATH
I smiled and rapped once on the door. Through it, I heard a hasty scrabbling. There was a long delay before a voice called for me to enter.
CHAPTER
13
A table sat in the middle of the room, stacked high with charts and books and an orrery, a small model of the heliocentric universe with the various heavenly bodies fixed to brass arms. It was an impressive piece, the clockwork mechanism ticking as the small golden planets revolved around the larger sun. I had seen such an instrument only once before, in a private collection in Florence, where I had been shown the various intricacies, the way each hollow planet could be unscrewed and detached from the golden arms so that it might be packed away for traveling purposes. The continents and oceans of the Earth were identified with etched Latin names, so minute as to be visible only with the aid of the magnifying glass attached by its own arm at the equator. The whole thing was fitted with a clockwork mechanism so that the planets might revolve, each in its own time, with a tiny alabaster moon hovering gently about the Earth. It was meant to educate, but so lovely and intricate a device must be admired simply as a thing of beauty as well.
Effie perched upon the table, an open book resting upon the back of the Italian greyhound curled up in her lap. It lifted its head when I entered, gave a great sniff with its pointed noise, and settled again,clearly unimpressed. The walls had been fitted with enormous windows, and Anjali stood beside one, flapping her hand at the open casement, and the room’s atmosphere was thick with a pungent and distinctive odor.
“If you mean to disperse the smell of cigarette smoke, keep a dish of strong vinegar about,” I advised. “It does wonders to clear the air.”
Anjali pressed her lips together, but Effie burst out laughing. “Do you really not mind then? You won’t tell?”
I advanced into the room and closed the door carefully behind me. I extracted my own cigarette case and struck a vesta. “I think not.”
After that, we were entirely convivial. Anjali still demonstrated the caution I have often noticed in upper servants. Not entirely staff and definitely not family, companions—like governesses—were neither fish nor fowl. They enjoyed too many privileges to permit intimacy with the rest of those employed in the household, but too few to allow them equality with their masters and mistresses. Yet she seemed genuinely fond of Effie, and I was glad the poor girl had at least one person in the house who seemed to support her interests in science.
