Chapter 27 #2
Tamsin lowered her eyes to the page and had read three lines before Roman spoke again. “I believed we might succeed.”
She gave him her attention again, smiling despite the gravity of the conversation. “Of course. Why try, if not for the chance?”
Her husband chuckled dryly. “I knew the odds. I knew what Patchett was doing, how many men would find it easier to agree with him than oppose him. I knew all of it.” He tipped his head back against the chair, his Adam’s apple appearing above his meticulously tied cravat.
“I believed we might succeed anyway. And even if I had known there would be no chance, I think I would have done it. I would have made my arguments. Because people ought to know what they are losing before it is gone forever.”
“You are a man of principle, Roman. It is a thing I admire greatly about you,” she admitted.
“Do you?” He lifted his head and sighed. “Thank you.”
She returned to her brother’s letter and settled back into her chair. Roman opened another piece of correspondence. They sat together while the fire burned.
By six o’clock on Friday evening, Roman had constructed three excellent reasons for remaining at Hartwell House instead of going to Salmond’s, in addition to two adequate ones, and one so transparently poor even Roman could not pretend to believe it.
He’d even asked his wife and mother both if they would prefer he remain at home, and the two had not even exchanged a glance before both saying, “Go.”
He went, with Tamsin ushering him out the door after kissing his cheek. “Who knows,” she said as she pulled the lapels of his coat up to shield him from the cold. “You may find something new to be curious about.”
Salmond’s house in Minster Yard was already well lit when Roman arrived, and the servant who admitted him directed him toward the sound of voices.
There were more men assembled than Roman had expected—some he knew well enough to greet by name, others he recognized only by face or reputation: clergymen, physicians, gentlemen with interests in geology, botany, antiquities, and subjects Roman had never considered long enough to discover whether they interested him.
Salmond found him at once. “Lord Hartwell. You came.”
Roman bowed to his host. “You invited me.”
His host’s eyes sparkled. “I have invited you to any number of things before the Micklegate matter, you know.”
“And I have attended some of them.”
“I doubt you can name any three.”
Roman gave him a flat look. The man’s sense of humor, coupled with his formidable physical presence, had intimidated many—but Roman was rather beginning to like him. He was certain Tamsin would have a great deal to say about Salmond’s character, too.
Salmond grinned. “Never mind. You are right, you are here now. Come and see this before you are bogged down by a crowd.”
“I have only just arrived—”
“Precisely. You have not yet had time to be cornered by anyone tedious.”
Before Roman could object Salmond had him by the arm and was steering him across the room.
It was not, he discovered, a social gathering disguised as something more important, nor one of those meetings at which twenty men assembled to congratulate one another upon their public spirit before determining someone else ought to perform the work.
There was work to be done here: an entirely different sort of work than he was used to.
Roman listened as men discussed the formation of a society devoted to the study and preservation of natural history.
Everywhere he stood that evening, he heard arguments about the collection and preservation of specimens, about geology, antiquities, plants, fossils, the need for a place in which such things might be gathered and studied rather than scattered through private collections where no one but their owners might benefit, lost when inherited by a descendant who simply did not understand or care.
Someone disagreed with Salmond on a matter, and Salmond appeared delighted by the challenge.
Tamsin would have noted that aloud and made some clever observation about it, Roman was certain.
He watched the dispute for several minutes before realizing neither man was angry—they were enjoying themselves. That alone made the evening remarkable.
He wandered to a table upon which several specimens had been arranged after Salmond had disappeared into another conversation, leaving Roman to examine them without instruction. One looked remarkably like a stone. Roman leaned closer. It continued to look like a stone.
“You are looking at it incorrectly.”
Roman straightened. The gentleman beside him was perhaps sixty, spectacles balancing precariously upon the end of his nose. “I was unaware there was a correct manner in which to look at a stone.”
The man blinked. “There is if you wish to see what it is.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I suppose you may continue as you were.”
Roman looked at him. The gentleman looked back. Roman bent over the specimen again. “What am I meant to see?”
That was a mistake.
Ten minutes later, Roman knew considerably more about the stone than he had intended to learn, and twenty minutes after that he was arguing with Salmond about whether the proposed society truly intended to accept specimens indiscriminately, or whether someone would eventually be required to determine which merited preservation.
“Of course someone will determine it,” Salmond said.
Roman frowned. “Then you require standards.”
“We shall establish standards.”
“When?”
His host shrugged. “When it becomes necessary.”
“It is already necessary if you are discussing collections.”
Salmond threw out his hands. “We do not yet possess a collection.”
Roman huffed and crossed his arms. “Then this would seem the ideal time to determine what one is.”
Salmond stared at him. Roman stared back. Slowly, the man smiled. “No.”
Roman frowned. “No? What can you mean by that?”
“I mean, you are not doing this to me tonight.”
“Speak clearly, Salmond. What is it you think I am doing?”
The older man tutted and leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Turning my society into Parliament.”
What sort of an accusation was that! “I am attempting to prevent your society from becoming a room full of unlabeled rocks—”
“They are not merely rocks.”
“So I have recently been informed,” Roman retorted dryly.
Salmond laughed, a great, booming sound. After a moment, Roman did too. The sound startled him. His host turned to answer a question from another man, but Roman felt the relief of it at once. He could not remember the last time he had laughed so freely, a sobering realization.
The man with the spectacles appeared at his elbow with another specimen. “This one,” he announced, “even you cannot mistake for a stone.”
Roman looked down at it. “You may have too much confidence in my abilities.”
The man snorted.
Roman stayed. He had intended to remain an hour, and instead he stayed through the discussion of rules and membership while men proposed officers and argued over what, precisely, the society ought to encompass, while Salmond spoke with the fervor Roman had learned to associate with subjects the man loved too much to discuss sensibly.
Somewhere in the course of the evening, Roman understood why he had nearly remained at home.
He did not want another cause; another room full of men discussing what ought to be done for York, being persuaded that this institution or that improvement or some other worthy endeavor required his name, his influence, his time.
Micklegate’s barbican still sat inside his heart like a bruise.
He’d believed they could save the structure—that was the humiliating simplicity of it.
He had known better than to be certain, had understood the opposition and the interests involved, had known how easily money and convenience could outweigh preservation. He had believed anyway.
Now he could not pass beneath Micklegate’s bar without seeing everything he had failed to prevent.
But slowly the differences presented themselves.
No one at Salmond’s had asked him to prevent anything.
No one needed him to save a wall. A fossil had been buried in Yorkshire for longer than Roman could properly comprehend and his opinion of it was irrelevant.
His influence was useless. The thing existed whether he understood it or not, which was strangely comforting.
He wished, many times over the course of the evening, he had asked Tamsin to accompany him.
By the time Roman stepped outside, Minster Yard was freezing. He stood for a moment beneath the light spilling from Salmond’s windows and drew a breath that pleasantly hurt his lungs.
He felt better.
Roman frowned. ‘Better’ was too simple a word. He did not feel better about Micklegate; nothing that had happened inside Salmond’s house had altered the decision or restored what would be lost. But the sorrow and defeat had shifted enough to make room for a feeling besides anger.
Curiosity, perhaps.
And he wanted to tell his wife everything about it.
The streets were quiet and empty. He started on his way home, pulling the lapels of his great coat up to cover his neck. Snow felt imminent, yet he thought little of the weather, and a great deal about the evening.
Salmond had shown him a fossil found near the coast, and Roman had spent an absurd amount of time trying to understand how anyone could determine the nature of a creature from such an incomplete remnant.
One of the physicians had explained it; another had contradicted him; Salmond had contradicted both. Tamsin would have enjoyed the debate.
The thought came without effort, and Roman walked another dozen yards before chuckling.
Tamsin would have asked why they each held to their argument; she was forever asking questions that appeared simple until one attempted to answer them.
He wondered what she would make of the fossil.
He ought to have asked Salmond if he might bring Tamsin to visit, so she could see for herself.