Chapter 38
Chapter
Two mornings after the reception, I lay sprawled with Lucy, Catherine, and Elizabeth on a hilltop, under a large tree, somewhere in the Oxfordshire countryside.
It was like I’d forgotten the wind. This one didn’t carry the smell of the sea, but its scent of green, wet earth was enough to make me take deep, gobbling breaths, until Lucy told me to stop being obnoxious.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “It smells so clean.”
The country air was good for Ajax, too. I had never seen the silly creature this happy. He clambered over branches, shaking leaves down into our hair, then leapt lightly and soared to earth, the sun shining through his papery wings.
He stopped to snatch a biscuit from Elizabeth’s lap—I couldn’t even scold him, he looked so pleased with himself—and then raced to scamper up the trunk again.
This area was known as Kirtlington Quarry.
It was a solid site for fossils, if not as rich in deposits as Lyme Regis.
But there were plenty of shark teeth and crocodilian remains to be found in the clay and the limestone cave system.
The land was now owned by the Society, and given the proximity to Oxford, Buckland had often used this area as a training ground for his geomagical students.
Henry told me, on the carriage ride out, that of the reliqs sold by the Society for the slicks, a full thirty percent were sourced from the region. As a result, there was a permanent excavation at the site, managed by a local staff.
Kirtlington itself was a small village with a small inn, so the locals were busy now helping our geomagicians erect the field tents that were to be our home for the next two or three weeks.
And there were a lot of tents. William Buckland had received word that the laborers had recently opened up a new chamber in the cave system and discovered possible mammoth remains.
He’d invited any interested geomagicians to join him in the initial exploration.
Conybeare, Mantell, Goldsmild, and a few others had taken him up on the offer, and the whole thing now had the air of a picnic.
It was a chance not only to map the new cave area and collect mammoth fossils, we hoped, but also to escape the powder keg of the city.
The chance to study Ajax in more wild environs—flying, hunting, thriving—was even further temptation.
I don’t know whether Buckland really did receive word about mammoth bones or if that was exaggeration. But the invitation to join an actual Society fossil-hunting expedition had been too much for his eldest daughter to resist.
That night at Palmanaeus House, I had ultimately decided that, really, none of this politicking was my business whatsoever, and there was no good to be done meddling. My only obligation here, I determined, was to remove the people I cared about from imminent danger.
Still, I didn’t tell Buckland the truth that night at the reception. The truth would have terrified him, and endangered Lucy, too.
Instead I spun a story—one that I knew would elicit the reaction that I ultimately hoped to achieve: getting Elizabeth out of London.
“She’s seeing a young man,” I said, when I pulled Buckland aside. “I saw her, tonight, meeting with him down near the study carrels.”
Buckland’s face darkened. He asked if I knew anything else. Who was he? How had they met? Had I caught sight of his face? Where did he go, after?
I told Buckland, regretfully, that I knew nothing more.
“But perhaps it would be wise to leave London for a while,” I offered, as if the thought had only just occurred to me. “Take the girls back up to Oxford. These sorts of infatuations do tend to fizzle just as quickly as they begin, given some time and space.”
“Yes. Very good idea, Mary. Excellent idea. And thank you for telling me.” He set a paternal hand on my shoulder, and if I felt a little queasy with guilt, I told myself that he wouldn’t really want to know the truth anyway.
But from there, the expedition to Kirtlington was all Buckland.
I’d assumed that Buckland would simply send the family to their Oxford home for a time, which would at least remove Elizabeth from danger.
But apparently he knew his daughter well enough to suspect that she needed another motivation to leave London. Thus, the expedition to Kirtlington.
As for myself, I practically leapt at the chance to get out of London for a while, especially when Buckland agreed we could bring Ajax along.
I was also looking forward to a little distance from Henry Stanton. Time and space would let me cool my head and heart both.
But when I shared our plans to go up to Kirtlington, Henry tapped his chin and said, “You know, that’s quite close to the Glasswater Mill. I’ll finally have the chance to show you the Loom.”
I blinked. “You’re planning to come?”
He cocked his head. “Of course. The professor’s invitation was open to all geomagicians, wasn’t it?”
“But I assumed—the specimens—”
“Will be just fine. I only hire the best.” He waved, and then grinned slyly. “When do we leave?”
Lucy poked at my ribs, a little harder than necessary. “Are you listening?”
I started. “Yes. What? Well, no.”
Catherine laughed. “It’s all right, dear. I was only saying how nice it is to be on an expedition again. It’s been too long.”
Catherine Buckland was lying back, propped on her elbows. They’d left the two younger girls at the Oxford house with a nanny, and Catherine was clearly relishing her brief freedom; she’d taken off her hat and was letting the sun warm her cheeks.
“I used to go with William all the time on his fossil hunts,” she continued. “Dashing around the coast after my mad husband. Even spent our honeymoon visiting geomagical sites. That’s how we met; do you remember, Mary?”
I smiled. “Of course I do.”
“You were such a small slip of a thing, and so pale,” Catherine said, closing her eyes. I remembered I’d thought Catherine looked like an angel, in her lace dress and hat.
She had more wrinkles around her mouth now, but she still looked something like an angel.
“I remember after we met you, when we were back in the tavern, warming up at the fire,” she continued, “William told me that trilobite you sold him was the best specimen he’d seen in years.
‘We will have to keep an eye on her,’ I remember him saying.
‘Someone must help her to reach her potential.’ He said he hoped we’d have girls. Clever, like you.” She smiled warmly.
There was a lump in my throat around which I couldn’t speak, but I saw the twitch in Elizabeth’s lips.
“Why did you stop, then, Mama?” Elizabeth asked. “If you enjoyed fossil hunting so much?”
Catherine tilted her head. “Well, I enjoyed it, but fossil hunting and geomagic were never my true passion. Not the way it is for your father. Or for our Mary, here.” She smiled.
“So, when life got more complicated—babies, and animals, and homes to keep—I truly didn’t mind letting that phase come to an end.
You three were my true passion, after all. ”
She reached for her eldest daughter’s hand and clasped it tight.
There was a hint of triumph in Elizabeth’s eye, and I looked away, the brief bloom of jealousy sour on my tongue.
“I think I’ll go down and see how things are progressing.” I rose, wiping grass from my dress.
I left Ajax to his own devices in the treetop, trusting that he wouldn’t stray far from Catherine—his second-favorite person, after me. He’d spent the coach ride happily bouncing between our two laps and ripping our skirts in the process with his claws.
Lucy stayed on the hill with the Bucklands as I clambered down to the campsite. She was pouting, I knew. But sullen was much better than dead.
When Buckland announced the expedition, I’d known Lucy would want to stay behind in London, given the Prometheans’ plans.
But I needed to lure Lucy away from the city—and unfortunately, she was not interested in a fossil hunt. I had to lean shamelessly on guilt instead.
“Please,” I’d begged, the night before we were due to leave. “Please. You said when we came here that you would be my companion. The Society election is in a few weeks. This is my last, best chance. I need you, Lucy.”
“Yes, but the Prometheans—”
“Are you in London for the Prometheans, then? Or for me? Because I thought you came here for me, but I’ve seen little enough evidence of that so far.”
I suppose it had such power because there was a kernel of real feeling in what I said. My voice caught. “I nearly died, Luce.”
She flinched. “Yes, and I—”
“And then you ran off immediately for Promethean work. You are gone every evening, and rushing out the door each morning. You spend your free hours with Elizabeth, and I have not resented that joy. But you’re hardly a suitable companion to me, let alone a friend.”
My words slipped, and I blinked quickly, looking at my hands.
It was all true, really. But I would never have said it aloud if I didn’t have to; I certainly didn’t want to begrudge her the work, or her romance. That was the worst part of me, not the best.
And Lucy’s loyalty was the best part of her, and I tugged on it unfairly. Cruelly.
“Fine,” she whispered at last, with glittering eyes. “I’ll come with you. You win, Mary.”
Her body was stiff when I hugged her, and though it broke my heart, it didn’t matter. Lucy could be as angry with me as she wanted. At least she would be safe.