Chapter 3
Nathaniel had no difficulty resisting Kit’s efforts to pull him across the room.
He could feel the younger man’s fingers trembling where they grasped his arm, and he felt a pang of guilt.
He had meant to tell Kit what they would find inside the museum, but he had been distracted by their encounter with Iain.
“It’s all right, Kit. Marigold is tame.” He extended a hand to demonstrate, and the big cat obligingly rubbed her face against it.
Kit peered around Nat’s shoulder, his expression baldly skeptical. “You named the lion Marigold?”
“Someone did.” Nat scratched Marigold in her favorite spot beneath her chin, and she emitted a rumbling purr. “She’s a mountain lion. Or puma, or cougar, as they’re sometimes called.”
Kit did not seem reassured, for his voice shook. “Why do you have a mountain lion in your museum?”
Nathaniel considered his answer. “Mostly in an effort to one-up the University of St. Andrews. The university had her brought over from Brazil as a kitten. I know she looks intimidating, but she’s as tame as any housecat. See?”
Kit let go of Nat’s arm, but his expression remained wary. Purring loudly, Marigold began rubbing up against Nathaniel’s legs in a gesture familiar to anyone who had ever owned a cat.
“She truly won’t attack?” Kit asked breathlessly. “Oh!” He gave a gasping laugh as Marigold rubbed her head against his leg. Hesitantly, Kit reached out to scratch the cat behind her giant, furry ears.
“I think she likes you,” Nat observed.
“She certainly seems to. I just…” Kit trailed off as Marigold pressed herself into his hands, purring loudly.
“Oh, but you are marvelous! I can’t believe I’m petting a puma!
” He caressed the big cat’s face, then stroked a hand down the length of her back.
“Yes, you’re a pretty girl. You’re a very pretty girl. Yes, you are!”
Nathaniel smiled. His initial impression of Kit was that he was a taciturn sort of fellow. But now, he began babbling excitedly.
“How I wish my sister, Pippa, were here so she could see her! She adores cats. They’re her favorite thing in the world.
” He spun around, laughing, as Marigold circled him, rubbing herself against his legs.
“Those kittens you saw in my sketchbook… those are Pippa’s.
She’s forever asking me to make more drawings of them.
Not that I mind, of course. I’m always sketching something or the other.
Speaking of which…” He squatted down to address Marigold, stroking a thumb across her cheek.
“I must draw you. I simply must. Would you let me? Would you, my pretty darling?”
Nathaniel brought over a wooden chair and gestured for Kit to sit.
He began petting Marigold himself so she would give Kit a little space.
Kit flipped open his sketchbook and pulled out a pencil.
He fell silent as he began to work. The only sounds in the long chamber were the purring of the cat and the scratch of Kit’s pencil against the paper.
Nathaniel produced a ball from his pocket that he had brought along for this purpose. He tossed it, and Marigold scurried down the gallery after it. Kit made a sound of delight but never stopped sketching.
Marigold chased the ball for a few minutes, but she soon tired of the game. Yawning, she sauntered over to a sunny spot beneath one of the skylights and stretched out for a nap.
Kit was still sketching eagerly. Nathaniel strolled around so he could peer over his shoulder.
What he saw astonished him. Kit had made not one drawing, but a half dozen—and that was just on this page.
He’d seen him frantically turn over a new sheet at least twice.
They were sketches, to be sure, not finished paintings.
But Nathaniel recognized quality when he saw it, and the anatomical accuracy to the drawings bespoke real talent.
He watched the pencil fly over the paper. Clearly, Kit was Iain’s opposite. He could sketch not only accurately, but quickly, which was crucial for the type of work Nat needed him to perform.
Marigold rolled over onto her back, curved paws pointing up.
Kit stood, lifted his chair, and moved it six feet to the right to get the angle he wanted, then flipped to a fresh sheet of paper and began sketching furiously.
Now that the cat was lying still, he was making larger, more detailed sketches.
He was also scrawling abbreviations that Nat could not decipher in the margins.
It was Nathaniel’s impression that Kit had forgotten he was there, nor did the young man seem to notice the trickle of patrons wandering about the room. He was unaware of anything but Marigold.
Nathaniel watched with growing excitement as Kit sketched for another ten minutes, then turned his page only to be met with the thick sheet of brown card paper that marked the end of his pad. He drew back as if affronted, then blinked and glanced around.
His eyes met Nathaniel’s, and he staggered to his feet, sending the chair skidding back a few inches. “I’m so sorry!” He glanced around the room. “How much time has passed?”
“Only a half hour or so,” Nathaniel reassured him.
He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m afraid I have a tendency to get carried away.” He lifted his pad. “Would you like to see the sketches?”
Nat resisted the urge to smile. “I’ve seen them already. Did you not notice me peering over your shoulder?”
“I did not.” The effusive young man who had been excited at the prospect of sketching a live puma was gone, leaving the awkward fellow Nathaniel had met in his office in his wake.
Kit cleared his throat. “These are only sketches. I’m sure you’ll want to see a more finished product before deciding if I’m right for the position. If you’ll give me a week, I can turn these into proper watercolor illustrations.”
It was on the tip of Nathaniel’s tongue to say, the position is yours. But it probably behooved him to err on the side of caution. He’d already wasted months after being forced to hire the wrong illustrator. It wasn’t a mistake he cared to repeat.
He inclined his head. “I would appreciate that. As you may recall from the advertisement, the position is funded by a scholarship available only to university students. Have you enrolled?”
“Not yet,” Kit confessed.
“Well, see to it that you get your name added to the books. Lectures start on Monday.”
Kit ducked his head. “It’s probably too late to find a tutor willing to take me on.”
“You’ve found him.” Nathaniel brought his palm to his chest. “Me. I assume you wish to study the natural sciences?”
Kit nodded. “I mean… I do.”
“Then I’m your tutor. But don’t worry. I have room for you. I currently have three first-year students. You’ll make four.”
Kit flinched, startled. “Out of the entire incoming class, there are only three undergraduates studying the natural sciences?”
“There are a couple of entomology students as well. They study under Iain’s tutor, Andrew Thompson.” Nat gestured to the door, and they headed out. “The university is best known for its medical school. More than half of the students enrolled are studying to be physicians.”
This preponderance of physicians was something the University of Edinburgh had in common with Nathaniel’s family.
His father was a doctor, as were his three brothers.
It was also the reason Nathaniel’s parents had sent him to Scotland nine years ago—so he could attend the university’s famous medical school.
Medicine was a popular career path for Black men of some means from Jamaica, where Nathaniel was born.
Most of the guilds that oversaw the skilled trades did not allow Black men to be members, barring them from a number of well-paid jobs.
The army and the navy had once been a potential path, but after the long war with France, there was currently an oversupply of officers fighting over a scant few active-duty posts.
That left law and medicine, and a half-dozen or so sons of well-to-do Black Jamaicans came to Scotland each year to secure their membership in these lucrative professions. Nathaniel had dutifully completed his medical coursework during his first year at university.
But that year, during the spring term, he had made The Mistake.
The Mistake was auditing a series of lectures taught by Professor William Kerr, the Chair of Natural History. It wasn’t that Professor Kerr’s lectures were fascinating. They were not. Although he was learned in his subject, he was widely regarded as one of the dullest lecturers at the university.
But even so, it did not escape Nathaniel’s notice that he found natural history a thousand times more intriguing than medical science. The natural world was awe-inspiring in a way that medicine simply was not.
He had confessed his uncertainty about his course of study to his brother, Thomas, who had been in his third year of medical studies at the time.
Thomas had done his best to talk him out of it.
“Medicine isn’t that different from natural science,” Thomas had argued.
“Think of it as a sub-specialty of natural science focusing on the human species.”
Nat rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. Focusing on their hemorrhoids, their ringworm, their pinkeye, and their—”
Thomas held up a hand. “All right, maybe it isn’t always pleasant. Do you know what else is unpleasant? Living in a drafty attic garret and having to take your meals down at the pub because you can’t afford a single servant at the age of forty-five.”
“There are jobs in the natural sciences,” Nat grumbled.
“There are,” Thomas agreed. “Three of them, by my count. Which one do you think they’ll give you?”
His brother wasn’t wrong. Salaried positions in natural history were vanishingly rare.
But his career was on an excellent track, thank you very much.
There was no shame in being a university fellow at the age of seven and twenty.
And he’d been made a tutor, an honor which only a small fraction of fellows achieved!
Besides, Nathaniel had hope. Professor Kerr was in his sixties.
He was bound to step down from the Natural History Chair sooner or later.
And when he did, Nathaniel intended to make sure that he was so exceedingly well-qualified that appointing anyone else to the post would seem like an outrage.
Nat had long known that it would not do merely to be better than his peers.
He was a Black man, and that meant that if he wanted to get anywhere in this world, he had to be three times as good as everyone else.
It was therefore imperative that he build up a body of first-rate scientific research.
This upcoming trip to the Isle of Lewis would be the first step.
He had received information about a remote loch where nesting pairs of golden eagles made their homes.
He would start with a comprehensive study of their nesting behavior.
He peered at his companion out of the corner of his eye. Kit also had an important role to play. Nathaniel’s research would be top-notch. He would make sure of it.
But there was a reason he had scrimped and saved these past three years to make sure he had sufficient funds to bring along an illustrator.
A scientific paper wasn’t what you would call flashy.
Illustrations like the ones Kit was capable of producing, on the other hand?
Those were what could take a dry scientific treatise and turn it into a popular phenomenon.
Instead of his paper being buried in a journal that twelve people would read, Nat hoped that the school would allow him to present it as a special exhibition at this very museum.
Kit’s illustrations would draw in the crowds, would make people who would never venture more than ten miles from the place they’d been born feel like they, too, had been on a fantastic voyage to the Isle of Lewis.
Kit’s success would be Nathaniel’s success, too. They would help each other.
At least, that was what he hoped.
Nat stopped and nodded toward a particular building. “You can add your name to the books in there. Lectures start on Monday. Come by my office on Friday morning at ten. My first-year students will all be gathering, so I can go over your schedule.”
Kit nodded, clutching his sketchpad to his chest. “Friday at ten. Hopefully, by then, the first of the watercolors will be ready for your review.”
“Excellent.” Nathaniel inclined his head. “Until then.”
“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sterling, sir. Goodbye.”
He watched Kit as he walked away. There was a spring in his step, lingering excitement from his encounter with Marigold, no doubt.
But he looked so very slight and meek. A part of Nathaniel couldn’t believe he was pinning his hopes and dreams on a boy who hadn’t even started to shave.
Shaking himself, Nathaniel turned toward his office. He had work to do.