Curiosity (17 page)

Alone in the workshop, Mary pulled a blank page from the accounts book and sat a long time thinking. Finally, she took up her quill and wrote a letter to Mr. William Buckland at Oxford University, informing him that Richard Anning had gone to his rest and requesting that, if there was any money owing Richard for goods provided, it be paid now.
Oxford, England
, she put by way of address, because it was all she knew. But surely Mr. Buckland would be known by the citizenry of any town he frequented? She melted a bit of the beeswax left from a candle and used it for a seal. On her way home from posting the letter, she stopped at the Bennetts’ and asked their boy to carry a message to Mrs. Stock, saying that she would come no more.

ELEVEN

enry’s manoeuvre in the woods secures another unanticipated object: it brings his mother to Bristol. She arrives in a velvet hat and coat in a fetching shade of lavender; she wears her
nothing can touch me
face. She stands in the hall while Sullivan helps her with her coat and crinkles her eyes at Henry. The smile is her
I will solve this
smile. He trembles with happiness at the sight of it. She was right, right to have left him here for so long to expiate his sins. Marlow is gone now, and the eager, silly youth he was then. It’s all over, they need not waste time on it.

Alger has promised Mother to Captain Whyte for tea that very day, so there is very little time to talk. Again Henry’s presence is not required. He clatters up to his room and brings down the sketch he made of Letitia, offering to send it along. It’s both a true and a flattering portrait, as he knows, having had the benefit of a close view. The vines on the wall behind her make a playful motif with her curls. And (he thinks, pleased with this insight) it will make his sally in the woods seem
premeditated
and thus less rash.

His mother hands it back. “I rather doubt she’ll appreciate having been spied on,” she says.

His mother spends the entire evening at Captain Whyte’s. He works for an hour on a bird study, based on one of the tiny skeletons. Since the encounter in the woods, birds have been his resolute focus. He did the India ink detail the morning before, and now, carrying a large candelabra to his desk, he does a sepia wash, admiring the professional look the ink imparts to the study. Sepia. It is his favourite medium, pigment offered up by the living cuttlefish. But the instant the wash is applied and dry, his patience evaporates. He stomps back down to the parlour and tries to read. By nine o’clock, he’s choked with fury and humiliation. It’s incomprehensible that he was not included in these discussions. Perhaps he should go and present himself at the door.

At ten o’clock, he climbs the stairs to his room. Shortly after, she knocks lightly on his door. Happiness still glows on her cheeks. She takes off her hat and sets it on his bureau. “What an endless evening! What a long-winded man! We must examine all his sordid mementoes from Singapore and hear the story connected to each, and all this on the meanest little glass of sherry.” She arranges herself in the chair by his desk. “Well, Henry,” she says, tilting her head at him. “She seems a nice enough girl, and very pretty. Why did you not find a way to be properly introduced? There may have been an opportunity to ask her for a kiss.”

He stood up when she came in and he is still standing, wearing his dressing gown. “I can steal, but I cannot beg,” he says. “That’s something I learned on the road between Marlow and London.” What an awful popinjay he’s turned into! – the sort of person she loves to mock. If only he could tell her about his solitary journey on foot by the Thames, about this last long winter. But she doesn’t ask.

“Well, it appears she’s sensitive about the mole on her bosom. She’s never been on the Continent, poor child, or she’d be decorating it with kohl.”

“What was it she was painting?” he asks.

“Herself. It’s a head-and-shoulders self-portrait, made with the use of a looking glass. I saw it drying in the hall. The mole does not figure in it.”

“Did you think it skilful?”

“I thought it rather … Oh, never mind. It’s not the sort of thing that matters, is it? In the flesh, she has an air of mischief that’s quite appealing. As you know – you’ve spoken to her. I think she may be an interesting woman one day, Henry. I refrained from asking why a maiden of her station would creep into the woods with an unknown man. But it does speak of a lack of supervision, and her uncle’s very eager to have this settled.” She’s up now, she has the wardrobe door open, she begins to go through his new clothes. She takes the three waistcoats out and spreads them side by side on the bed. “Oh, this one’s
very
nice. You see so much canary satin on Regent Street this year, and I was afraid they’d still be using ivory in Bristol.” She looks for the coat that goes with it and lays it on the bed, comparing the embroidery on the lapels. “The girl’s mother is not well connected, it’s true.” Her voice drops. “It’s worse than Alger let on,” she says. “The stepfather is an
innkeeper
. The publican of a coaching inn – you will have seen it. The Moonlight Inn or some such thing. It seems to have been a moment of folly on the mother’s part. They have done everything in their power to keep Letitia away from all that, to the point that she seldom sees her mother. Captain Whyte is fully empowered with respect to his niece.”

She takes out his frock coat and examines the lining. “I suppose we have to be realistic. You could argue detriments on each side. It was rather a delicate conversation, as you can imagine. I gather
your uncle Alger was less cautious the other night than he should have been, but he didn’t grasp the situation immediately. Captain Whyte is not what I would call
direct
. And Alger can’t resist dwelling on the sinking fortunes of Halse Hall. It’s a way of gloating, isn’t it, for having got this place, while your father was stuck with the plantation. So there was the old captain bringing up the Wilberforce Bill, whether the cane-cutters will be fully emancipated, all that business! It required a deal of deft footwork on my part, I can tell you. Perhaps there’s a post for me in Whitehall!” She laughs merrily and turns back to the jacket, turning a sleeve inside out, running her fingers over the seams. “I dwelt on your scholastic prowess. I portrayed you as a solitary boy, unaccustomed to female society. Overcome by her closeness and her beauty. In other words, Henry, I was entirely frank!”

Henry picks the candelabra up from the side table and sets it on the desk so he can see her face. She smiles at him fondly. “Short-sighted as well, I said to Captain Whyte. My son is in
desperate
need of spectacles. I said this to explain the business with the spider!”

He steps between her and the wardrobe. He stares until she stops talking and looks at him. “Is marriage always consequent upon one kiss?” he asks. He folds his arms; his hands have begun to shake. Then, in the candlelight, her colour rises. He has done it – he has managed to call them up. Without stooping to speak of them, he has called up Mr. Ridd on the path in Hammersmith. And the ridiculous painting master caught in the upstairs hall. And Captain Outhwaite, always at their house in Dawlish, always there day and night with his stinking hounds, although there was no hunting.

Her throat has bloomed scarlet, but she does not avert her eyes. “When the maiden is innocent,” she says steadily, “as this one appears to be, then it is.” They stand with eyes locked until
finally he moves aside and goes to the window. “On every occasion that your name is spoken in society, Henry, a story of Great Marlow will follow. This would be a second scandal, to abandon this maiden after such a liberty. It would be
fatal
to all your hopes. And all in all, you could do far worse. Four thousand is a wonderful settlement. Given the situation at Halse Hall, it’s a godsend. It’s a pity, I agree, that young people are not allowed some few years of indiscretion. But no one is talking about your marrying for ages, not until you come into your own.”

Now she has his scarlet uniform in her hand. She holds it up to herself and looks in the mirror. “What was this about, Henry?”

He’s considered all winter what he will say. He squares his shoulders, regretting his plaid dressing gown with the ribbon around the waist. “I refuse to be subservient to inferior men,” he says.

She sighs and drops the scarlet jacket on the floor. “Oh,” she says. “You are such a baby.”

“We were
locked in
at night,” he cries. “There was a terrible danger of fire. The other cadets were always hiding live coals on a shovel under their beds to drop on someone’s head in the dark. Once, they stole over and ignited a boy’s bedclothes to frighten the hiccups out of him. And Woodbury! Oh, what a fool! He would squat over a candle in the night to entertain us by igniting his farts.”

To his fury, she laughs. “Well,” she says. “Courage under fire! It
is
a military academy.”

He listens, appalled. This was his trump card, the prospect of a hideous death for her only child. “There is something else,” he says. He’ll tell her, then, about the subaltern leaving them outside Mr. Truepenny’s chamber, and how he gave up his honour. She’ll see his need to be taken in hand, she’ll understand
the dimensions of her neglect. He hadn’t planned to come at the subject like this, but it seems he will have to.

She moves towards him. She reaches up and kisses him. “Yes,” she says. “There is something else, but it’s very late. We’ll talk in the morning.” She opens the door, leaving her hat behind, and lets in a single strike of the hall clock on her way out.

Over breakfast, she tells him that she herself is engaged to be married, to a Mr. William Aveline of Lyme Regis, a man he’s never met. “I regret that you haven’t made his acquaintance before now, Henry,” she says. “I regret it with all my heart. You will be the best of companions. He is a great walker, a great lover of the natural world.” She gives Henry a curiosity that washed up on the shore at Lyme Regis, to show him the sort of pursuits that await him in his new home. It’s a heavy stone, flat and solid like a huge coin, seemingly made of a snake tightly curled up into itself.

“Is it a shell?” he asks. “How was it made?”

“It’s a curiosity,” says Alger in rebuke. “Why would they call it a curiosity if they knew?”

“In any case, my love,” his mother cries gaily, putting out a cheek to be kissed, “engagements are the order of the day! And a lifetime of joy to us both.” Then she ties on her bonnet and goes to town.

She comes back in the afternoon with a pin in a brocade box. It’s a dove, pavé-winged in turquoise, and it bears a tiny ring in its golden beak. Letitia will apparently understand this pin as an offer of marriage. Sullivan will deliver it (When?
Directly
) with a note written by Henry, assuring Letitia that the writer of the note and the dove are united in their sentiments. Tomorrow morning, Henry will present himself at Captain Whyte’s front
door. He will request permission to ask for Miss Whyte’s hand, and Captain Whyte will give it. Then Letitia will receive him in the morning room. (What will I say?
You will begin with a contrite apology
.) There’s also the matter of the ring, which Alger takes from the safe and presents to Henry with great ceremony, the ring with the pebble in it – an unpolished tourmaline, as it turns out. Hopefully, all will be accomplished without delay, for it’s imperative his mother be on the road by noon. Letitia is spending the next few months in Bristol, perhaps the whole year, and so shall Henry. It will be a fine opportunity for them to become better acquainted.