A Natural History of Dragons (6 page)

That was not the end of my search for a husband, of course. There were dances and card parties, sherry breakfasts and afternoon teas: all the whirling life that accompanies a Season in Falchester. There were also gossiping mamas, discreet inquiries into familial finances, and scandalous tales of heritable dementia: all the backstage machination that accompanies the hunt for spouses. Frankly, I prefer the worst of the trials and initiations I’ve been required to endure in pursuit of my research. But despite my naive intentions, I found myself more and more in the pleasing company of Mr. Camherst. This culminated in a certain evening at Renwick’s, when he asked if he could call on us the following afternoon at our hired house in Westbury Square.

Even such a dullard as I could not miss what he meant by the request. I barely had time to stammer out permission before Mama whisked me home and put me to bed with orders that I should not be roused before ten, as it would not do for me to look tired the next day. (This was something of a problem for me, as I woke at eight and was not permitted to rise for two hours. I had unwelcome memories of my convalescence from my torn shoulder.)

As soon as the clocks chimed ten, however, everything went into motion. I was bathed and dressed with more than the usual care, and my hair styled to perfection. We ate a tense late breakfast, during which I almost snapped at Mama to take her nerves elsewhere. I cannot pretend I was entirely composed myself, but certainly her jittery behaviour put me more on edge.

Following the meal, I was sent upstairs to change from morning clothes into more respectable afternoon dress. Mama came with me, and chose and discarded four possible gowns before the doorbell rang. Looking harried, she reverted to her second selection, ordered my maid to dress me as quickly as possible, and rushed downstairs.

The caller was, as expected, Mr. Camherst, and when I was quite as primped and polished as I could be, I made my way to the sitting room.

Mama was there with him, occupied in polite chatter, but she rose with alacrity when I appeared. “I will leave you two to talk,” she said, and closed the doors behind her as she departed.

I was alone in a room with an unmarried man. Had I needed any further proof of what was about to occur, that would have done nicely.

“Miss Hendemore,” Mr. Camherst said, stepping forward to take my hand. “I trust you are well?”

“Yes, quite,” I said, marveling inwardly at the inanity of small talk in a situation such as this.

As if he heard my thoughts, Mr. Camherst hesitated, then smiled at me while we settled into our chairs. There was, I recall, a hint of apprehension in his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know the finer points of how this is done—I had not really considered it in advance—but I don’t imagine either of us would benefit overmuch from my delaying. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I have come here today to ask you to marry me.”

Saying it with so little drama might be the most merciful thing I ever saw him do, but it still took my breath quite away. When I regained the ability to speak, unfortunately, my words were not at all what they should have been.

“Why? I mean—that is—” I blushed a vivid red and struggled to form a coherent sentence. “I apologize, Mr. Camherst—”

“Please, call me Jacob.”

“—I don’t mean to be rude, and I
am,
dreadfully. It’s just that—” I managed, somehow, to meet his hazel eyes. “All of this has been so strange, the process of finding a husband, and now that the moment’s come, I can’t help but wonder
why
. Why do you wish to marry me? Why me, and not some other? Which is not to say that I think you should
look
for some other—” I quelled myself, shook my head, and said lamely, “I will stop there, before I embarrass myself any worse than I already have.”

Belatedly, it occurred to me to pray Mama was not listening at the keyhole with the maids.

Mr. Camherst was, understandably, taken aback by my words. “Miss Hendemore—”

“Please, call me Isabella.”

“I cannot think how to answer that question without being a little blunt. Given how we’ve begun, though, perhaps it’s only appropriate.”

He paused there, and I tried not to squirm.

“You’ve read Sir Richard Edgeworth’s
A Natural History of Dragons,
haven’t you?”

“Heaven preserve me,” I said, quite involuntarily. “Mama will have fits if I answer that question.”

I succeeded in provoking a fleeting laugh, though it hadn’t been my goal. “Miss Hendemore—Isabella—you are not the first young lady to set her cap for me. But I do believe you are the first one to do so, not because of my wealth, but because of my hobby. Unless I’m very much mistaken, you came to Falchester not in search of a husband, but in search of someone with an interest in natural history, and that was the primary quality that recommended me to you.”

If Mama
was
eavesdropping, she would never let me hear the end of this … but at that precise moment, I could not imagine lying to the man who might become my husband, even if the frank truth might cause him to cry off.

I took a deep breath and unclenched my hands from each other, my fingers cramping at the release. “Mr. Camherst—Jacob—” The name felt strange on my tongue, and intimate. Had it been the same for him? “Natural history has been a passion of mine since I was a small child. It is not a ladylike passion, I fear, and there are few husbands in the world who would tolerate it in their wives. I do not know if you would be one such. But I know, at least, that you would keep a library on the subject, and I hoped that I might be allowed to read from it.”

He regarded me with a bemused expression. “You want me for my
library.
”

Put so baldly, it sounded ridiculous. “Oh dear—I don’t mean to insult you—”

This time his laugh was more full-bodied. “It’s the strangest insult I’ve ever suffered, if indeed I would give it that name. So Edgeworth, then—”

“I was eleven,” I admitted. “The first time. I’ve read it dozens of times since.”

“I see,” he said. “I didn’t hear quite everything you said to Swargin, but I thought I recognized the name. And you
did
identify the swamp-wyrm; of that I was sure.”

“Those dragons,” I said wretchedly. “I was sure I had made a mull of my entire future, gabbling away like that in public.”

He smiled, and the sight caused my heart to flutter a little, most ludicrously. “Not a mull of it—not then, anyway. But there was that other time…”

My heart changed from fluttering to lurching. “Other time?” I racked my memory for other occasions on which I had disgraced myself. There were so many!

“Yes, that time just a moment ago, when I asked you to marry me.” His smile widened. “You still haven’t given me an answer.”

So I hadn’t, and after I got over my moment of horrified self-castigation, I swallowed and returned his smile. Miraculously, my voice worked on the first try. “Yes,” I said. “If you haven’t run off by now, you’re quite possibly the only man in Scirland who would have me. How could I do anything but agree?”

Prey down,
the horns sounded in my head. And this time, I was decidedly the victor.

FOUR

My wedding, and a gift — Married life — The Great Sparkling Inquiry — Miss Natalie Oscott and her grandfather — Plans for an expedition to Vystrana

Papa gave his consent to my wedding, and I saw true joy in his eye when I returned home after the Season’s end. I teared up unexpectedly, and could not muster the words to thank him for pointing me at such a chance for happiness, but I believe he understood.

The wedding took place that autumn, just after my seventeenth birthday. It was a lavish affair; with only the one daughter, my parents could afford to dower me well and send me off in grand style. We had several truly august personages in attendence, too, thanks to the connections of the Camherst family, which were somewhat better than my own.

My clearest recollections of the day ought to be of my husband, and many of them are, but the one I wish to share concerns my father instead. A bride has few if any quiet moments to herself during the course of her wedding day, but that evening, Papa drew me aside and presented me with a small wrapped package. “We have other gifts for you and your husband as a couple,” he said, “but this one, my dear Isabella, is for you.”

I suspected what it was even before I removed the paper; my fingers knew the shape inside so well. I did not begin crying, though, until I actually saw the cover of Sir Richard Edgeworth’s
A Natural History of Dragons.

“I purchased that book for you,” Papa said, “despite knowing it might result in trouble. As it has led you to happiness, I believe you should have it.”

With a fine disregard for the damage my tears were doing to my cosmetics, and also the possibility of leaving stains on him, I threw my arms about my father and hugged him for dear life.

As absurd as it may sound, I think that was the moment at which I realized I was truly leaving. This is something the gentleman readers of this memoir may not understand, but the ladies will know it all too well. If they are married, they have been through it already, and if not, I am sure they have devoted some thought to the matter. To marry means to leave one home for another, and often one
place
for another. My own experience was not so disconcerting as that of royal brides who depart for another country, but from my family’s estate in Tamshire, on which I had spent virtually all of my young life, I now left behind everything I knew and removed to Jacob’s house outside of Falchester.

Jacob. I have made a deliberate choice, in the writing of this, to refer to him as Mr. Camherst until now, for that was how I thought of him at the time, and for some while after. Weeks, perhaps months, passed before it felt natural to call him by his given name. We spent a fair amount of time together during our courtship and engagement, but even so, moving into his household as his wife felt distressingly intimate, and no amount of telling myself that such intimacy was now quite expected made it less strange. Only time could do that—time in which he would cease to be a half stranger to me, and become, not only my husband, but a kind of friend, as I had once hoped.

For his own part, I think Jacob had to adjust to me as well. He did not live a rowdy bachelor’s life, but he
had
been a bachelor, and was unused to having a woman ordering certain parts of his existence. Nor, I think, did he quite know what to do with me. He offered for me that afternoon in Westbury Square because he liked the notion of a wife with whom he could converse about more than the guest list for a dinner party—but what to do with her once she was installed in his house?

In the end, he left me much to my own devices. I had free run of his library and could request certain purchases of him, if there was a title I desired that he had no interest in. Edgeworth and a few other volumes I kept for my own, in my private sitting room. With so much material to read, I must confess that I occasionally neglected my social duties as his wife, failing to arrange the sorts of dinner parties and other events that are expected of our class. Jacob spoke to me about it, and I promised to mend my ways; unfortunately, tragedy soon intervened.

Almost a year after our wedding, I found myself with child, but miscarried after a short time. This left me in a depression for several months, during which I ceased correspondence with nearly all family and friends; I could not even bring myself to write to Manda Lewis, with her healthy son and another on the way. Despite reassurances, I could not shake off a guilty conviction that I had failed in one of my primary obligations as a wife. Jacob did what he could to comfort me, but eventually buried himself in business interests for a time—I was not exactly pleasant company, prone to crying fits as I was. To console myself one rainy afternoon when even books could not hold my attention, I took out one of the few childhood possessions I had brought with me from home: my carefully preserved Greenie.

Jacob found me thus, with the vinegar-soaked sparkling cradled in my hands.

“May I see that?” he asked gently. I started; I had not heard him enter my private sitting room. The motion tipped Greenie over my fingers, and I cried out, but Jacob caught him as he fell, and with such a delicate touch that he was not damaged.

Jacob inspected the sparkling with a close eye. “Vinegar. Who taught you that?”

“The cook,” I said. “I used to collect things, when I was young. All kinds of things, really—rocks and feathers and so on—but sparklings especially. He was the only one I kept, though, when—”

I stopped myself, but Jacob prompted me onward. “When?”

Then I told him about the wolf-drake; he had, of course, seen the scars on my shoulder, but I had been vague about their origins, citing only a “youthful misadventure.” My husband might be tolerant of my interests, but I had not wanted to expose my childhood foolishness so thoroughly. He settled himself onto the sofa with me as I talked, and laid Greenie on my knee. I picked the sparkling up and described the aftermath of that incident, the grey years, and how I had disposed of my collections, keeping only this one relic.

When I finished, Jacob reached forward and wiped away the few tears that had fallen during my recitation. “Sparklings, eh?” he said. “I must concur with your father on the subject of wolf-drakes—I should not like to see you injured—but sparklings seem harmless enough. If you wish to collect them again, I will not stop you.”

Only in silly novels does the sun actually come out at the speaking of such words, but to me, it felt like it did.

The weather continued foul for several days, but that gave time for a crate of vinegar to arrive. The cook eyed me strangely when I came to collect it from the kitchens, but I did not care; having this purpose in my life, however small, helped fend off the malaise that had burdened me for so long.

Jacob affectionately referred to what followed as the Great Sparkling Inquiry. The woodlands around Pasterway, the town outside Falchester in which we lived, were a breeding ground for sparklings, and in the summer and fall one could not take an evening walk without encountering them. I began by collecting the recently deceased, preserving them in vinegar, but soon moved on to butterfly nets and cricket cages, so that I might observe and sketch living specimens. The gardener’s shed was given over to my use, as we did not keep much of a garden and therefore did not need many tools, and I soon filled it to the roof beams.