“The entomological collections are down here with the Egyptian things—and the Roman, although my collection of Roman antiquities is paltry at best.”
His protestations were those of false modesty. His assortment of Roman antiquities were, to my poorly trained eye, of the highest quality. Further, they were so perfectly assembled, so beautifully displayed as to bear proud, silent witness to the delicate taste of their collector. His entomological specimens were of the same impeccable quality. We made polite noises about the various beetles and arachnids, but there is only so much one can say about a spider. I was far more interested in the lepidoptery, and though his collection was modest in size, it was exquisite in its contents. In a small alcove between two of the rooms, cases had been hung from floor to ceiling, each holding a pair of butterflies, exemplars of a single species. Most lepidopterists preferred a few dozen of each species in order to convey the breadth of variation in colouration or markings or size. But not Lord Ambrose. He had chosen perfection instead, selecting one male and one female of each in order to present the most complete and ideal version of the imago.
Propped against the wall was a case containing the promised YellowGorgons. They were hooked swallowtails, their sweeping ochre wings spotted with cinnamon. The female was duller than her companion, but her shape was every bit as elegant, suggesting a child’s kite that would ride the wind with delicacy and grace.
“They are lovely,” I told Lord Ambrose truthfully.
He smiled, his eyes a trifle less melancholy than before. “Oh, do you think so? I am glad. Although I hardly know where to put them, the wall is already quite full,” he added, gesturing towards the arrangement of cases. “I suppose I ought to be more selective about larger pieces, but I cannot resist a thing of beauty.” He gestured towards a statue upon a raised plinth, a young woman fashioned of alabaster, the material giving the figure a sort of luminosity, a quality of being lit from within. Her garment flowed behind her as if she had been captured in motion. Her arms arced gracefully overhead, but where the fingertips ought to have been there were only leaves, so delicate one might have imagined them butterfly wings. Her forearms bore the faint striations of bark, and her feet, which ought to have been high-arched and light, instead were heavy, rooted things boring into the churned earth.
Stoker was busy inspecting a case of dermestid beetles as Lord Ambrose and I went to stand in front of the statue. He raised a hand to trace a fingertip along the length of one branching arm. “You recognise her, of course?”
“Daphne, the poor nymph who refused Apollo and was turned into a laurel shrub for her trouble.”
“It is dangerous to spurn the love of the gods,” he said in a low, pensive voice.
“Apollo has always seemed to me the most petulant of the gods,” I told him briskly.
“Apollo—you cannot mean it!” Lord Ambrose cried in mock horror.
“I do,” I assured him. “Every ill-fated creature he encountered—goddess, maiden, nymph—seems poorly done by him. We are given tobelieve he was radiantly handsome, and yet he was forever chasing women who had no interest in him. Why? Because like most overly handsome men, I suspect he was a tremendous bore.”
“And yet it is thanks to his amorous pursuits that we have this glorious creation,” Lord Ambrose replied.
“Apollo was also the patron of sailors,” Stoker put in from across the room. I had thought him occupied by the industry of the beetles—they were nasty little creatures, busily engaged in gnawing the flesh from a chicken bone with gusto—but he turned, folding his arms over his chest as he went on. “And medicine. Apollo protected herds and invented music and mathematics. He wrestled Mars into submission. Perhaps those accomplishments might go some way towards softening your opinion of him.”
“Not in the slightest. There was no mercy in him,” I insisted.
“Apollo persuaded Zeus to free Prometheus,” Stoker reminded me. The Titan who had challenged the gods and brought the gift of fire to the world had paid a heavy price for his daring. He had been chained to a rock, a living sacrifice for an enormous eagle who tore his liver out each day. Being immortal, he never died, but suffered the eternal agony of having his liver grow anew only to be plucked out the following morning.
“I will grant you that was a kindness,” I said. “Prometheus ought never to have been punished in the first place. It was no crime to bring fire to humanity, do you not agree, Lord Ambrose?”
Lord Ambrose’s complexion seemed a trifle paler than it had been, and when he spoke his voice was taut. “I think playing with the powers of the gods is a dangerous business, Miss Speedwell.”
He had not looked away from the immobile face of Daphne, but he shook himself suddenly and summoned a smile. “Come. I have other treasures to show you.”
CHAPTER
9
I played the wide-eyed ingenue for the better part of another hour, making all the appropriate noises of appreciation as Lord Ambrose guided us through room after room of paintings, coins, arms, and pretty bric-a-brac that would have done justice to a municipal museum of a good-sized town. I praised his taste, his intelligence, his vision, and by the time we reached the third floor of the house, I had all but admired his trousers.
Through it all, Stoker’s demeanour swung between silent contemplation and grudging admiration. He did not thaw until he came face-to-face with a curious creature whose skin seemed composed of plate armour. It was small with a thick tail and a pointed, almost quizzical nose. The scales caused it to resemble a tiny dragon, if one believed in such things, but this was no creature out of myth. Stoker recognised it at once. He leant towards the little creature in obvious excitement.
“Phataginus tricuspis.Lord Ambrose, how does it come to be that you are in possession of a tree pangolin? I believe they are exceedingly rare in this country.”
“Few indeed have made it to our shores,” Lord Ambrose told him. “Iadmit, I find him a winsome little fellow, although I am troubled by a bit of damage he sustained in his journey from West Africa.” He pointed out the curious angle of one ear. “You see how inelegantly it sits compared to the other? I would dearly love to have it corrected, but I am afraid I do not know a taxidermist of sufficient skill.”
Stoker remained silent. He would never put himself forward, but I seized the opportunity to sing his praises. I related Stoker’s recent successes with a quagga and a Tasmanian tiger—both as rare as this creature—and Lord Ambrose regarded him with delight.
“But I have seen that quagga!” Lord Ambrose replied happily. “A Mr. Pennybaker invited several patrons of the Royal Society of Mammalian Scholars to view it, and I must say, your work is first-rate, sir. I wonder, would you be at all interested in applying your talents to my little project here?”
Stoker fairly choked in his haste to accept.
“Splendid!” Lord Ambrose said. “I shall have him crated up and sent over to you, shall I? Now, would you care to see the most extraordinary part of my collection or shall we stop for tea?”
He had paused at the door to the next room, his hand on the knob. I was seething with impatience at this point. “Oh, do show us more, I beg you,” I urged.
Lord Ambrose smiled. “Very well. Give me a moment to remove a few dust sheets and turn on the lamps.”