Carola Dunn (10 page)

“We ought not.” Philo frowned worriedly, then seeing the child’s disappointment, she capitulated with an unexpected giggle. “Oh, very well. I confess I should like to see what Mr Mayhew looks like with a clean face.”

He touched his face with his finger and inspected the result, grinning and shaking his head. “Of course, I should have guessed from the state of my spectacles. Just my luck to meet a lady who is both beautiful and intelligent when I’m not fit to be seen.”

Dragging Toby with her, Philomena fled in confusion.

She should not have made that impertinent remark about his face, she scolded herself as they trudged up the lane. It would have served her right to receive a thorough set-down. Impertinence was foreign to her nature, and she could not think what had come over her. She had to put it down to the fact that Mr Robert Mayhew was unlike any gentleman she had ever met.

Toby’s persistent tugging at her sleeve interrupted this intriguing thought.

“When can we go back, Aunt Philo? The day after today?”

“Perhaps.”

“Praps always means no. I’ll go by myself, or ask Mama to take me.”

“No, Toby, you must not tell your mama about Mr Mayhew. I daresay she would not like it.”

“Why not?”

“Because we were not properly introduced. Promise you will not tell.”

“If you promise you’ll take me back.”

“I’ll take you!” she said in exasperation, then resorted to a little blackmail of her own. “And if you tell, then I’ll tell that you said ‘Cor.’ You know your mama dislikes it excessively.”

“Girls!” said Toby disgustedly.

* * * *

Robin Mayhew’s opinion of the female sex had always been similar to Toby’s. Unlike Toby, he had an excessive number of sisters, none of whom had the slightest respect for his life’s work, which they frequently described as a childish interest in bangs and stinks. It was refreshing, he thought as he washed his face, to meet a young lady who showed signs of appreciating the fascination of science.

Especially, he admitted to himself, since she was a most attractive young lady. He sat down at his desk, picturing her delicate cheeks abloom from the cold, a hint of black curls under her hood, and those dark, long-lashed, expressive eyes. He was glad Theo’s bailiff had recommended this place to him.

He caught himself writing “Philomena” in place of “Potassium” in his report of the experiment.

This was ridiculous! Robin knew better than to believe in love at first sight. Besides, there was no room for females in the life of a dedicated natural philosopher. He put his visitors firmly out of his mind and went back to work.

Some time later, a noise in the kitchen informed him that his servant had returned from the village. He realised he was hungry.

“Bodiham?” he called.

The man appeared in the doorway. “Got a nice bit of ‘am for your dinner, sir,” he said cheerfully. “Do it with taties in their jackets and it’s a meal fit for a king.”

Or would be with anyone else cooking it, Robin thought gloomily. None of the village women could be persuaded to cook for a wizard. Still, the fellow was loyal, a good groom, and an adequate valet—it was unfair to expect him to excel in the culinary arts also, and how far wrong could even Bodiham go with a baked potato? “Fine,” he said. “What do you have that I can eat now?”

“Bit o’ bread and cheese? Tell you what, sir, I’ll ‘ave a go at a Welsh rabbit.”

“Bread and cheese will be fine.”

“You needs something ‘ot in your stummick this time o’ year,” Bodiham said firmly, and disappeared into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the odour of burning toast overwhelmed the chemical smells of the laboratory. A more complex aroma Robin ascribed to burning cheese. He sighed. Combustion was a subject worthy of study, but the kitchen was the wrong place for it.

It was incomplete combustion of a residue of carbon from the mixture he used to make the potassium that had blackened his face, he deduced. Most young ladies would have fled screaming at the sight of him, but not Miss Philomena Ware.
She
had rushed to the rescue. Would she return? He must think up some harmless but engrossing experiment for the boy, something that would make young Toby insist on coming back again and again.

He found himself wondering whether Miss Philo could cook.

* * * *

Being early risers, Philo and Toby often breakfasted in the kitchen. Seated at the kitchen table next morning, Philo watched Mrs Barleyman flip a pancake with a neat twist of her dimpled wrist.

“Will you teach me to do that?” she asked.

“Lor’, miss, it’s not fitting for a young lady to be messing about in the kitchen.”

Philo was silenced. She did not think it wise to explain that Cousin Sarah had advised her to learn to cook since she had no hope of making a brilliant match.

“I’m
tired
of pancakes,” said Toby mutinously.

“Mrs Barleyman is practising for the Shrove Tuesday race.” Philo spooned a generous dollop of raspberry jam onto the brown-speckled pancake on his plate and rolled it up. “That’s only two weeks away. Think what fun it will be to watch her win.”

“I s’pose.” He heaved a deep sigh and attacked his breakfast with fork and spoon.

Philomena squeezed lemon juice on her own pancake and added a sprinkle of sugar. Her delicate appearance concealed a healthy appetite.

“Can we go
today?
” Toby asked through a sticky mouthful. “Can we go for a
walk?
”

She smiled at his cautious roundaboutation. “Yes, Toby, we shall go, if you will drink your milk and help me feed and water the canaries first.”

The milk rapidly disappeared, and Toby submitted with no more than a token protest to the dishcloth that removed the white moustache and red smear of jam from his face.

“I’m ready,” he announced, watching with disfavour as Philo gulped her hot tea. “You don’t want another cup, do you? Do we
got
to feed the canaries first?”

“Yes,” she said firmly.

She had forgotten the special service for St Valentine’s Day, the festival of the parish church’s patron saint. But while Cousin Cressida felt it incumbent upon her as widow of a clergyman to be present, she did not feel it necessary for her guests to attend unless they chose to. Aquila would go because she had nothing better to do, but Cressida was happy to leave Toby in Philo’s charge.

As they walked along the lane, Toby told her, “Mama says St Valentine’s Day is the day all the birds choose their mates. That means they decide who they want to marry. Will the canaries choose their mates today?”

The days were still too short for canaries to think of nest building, and the bare hedgerows suggested that wild birds with any common sense would wait a few weeks.

Philo didn’t want to disillusion Toby, though. “The canaries were married in Vienna,” she said.

The breeding charts in her cloak pocket were in a sense their marriage lines. She touched the roll of papers. She would not show them to Mr Mayhew unless he asked again. Everyone else laughed at her; it did not seem possible that he was serious.

Suddenly she wished she had not come. Mr Mayhew’s invitation had seemed sincere, but perhaps he was only being polite. He would think her forward, especially on this day of all days, a day for lovers. If Toby had not been with her she would have turned back, but he was running ahead down the hill, nearly at the bridge with its rickety handrail. She hurried after.

This time they entered the garden between the posts where the front gate had once hung. Walking up the path, Philo glanced at the window. No odd-coloured light, no explosion. She almost hoped he was not at home. Almost.

The door swung open as they reached it. Mr Mayhew himself stood there, a smile of welcome on his thin, clever face. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, about what Philo had guessed, with brown hair, somewhat longer than was fashionable, brushed back from his high forehead.

Philo realised she was staring, flushed, and looked down. The chemist was dressed today in the everyday clothes of a country gentleman: a plain brown coat, buckskins, and top boots. He made her feel shy, as he had not with his stained smock and besmirched visage.

He chuckled, and her gaze flew back to his eyes.

“Well? I believe I succeeded in removing all the carbon from my person.”

Before she was forced to answer, Toby interrupted.

“Good morning, sir. Did you ‘member my ‘speriment?”

“Certainly, Master Toby. Pray step inside, Miss Philomena. You know what to expect, so I shall not apologise for my humble abode. To tell the truth, it was not easy to find a landlord willing to allow my experiments within his desirable residence.”

“Where is it?” Toby demanded eagerly. He darted past the adults into the room, scanned the worktable, and pointed at a row of glass jars. The crystals inside were yellow and blue and green and violet, enough to tempt any child. “Is those it?”

“Ladies first,” said Mr Mayhew firmly. “You will not mind sitting at my desk, ma’am?”

Philo shook her head. Her voice had gone astray. How she wished for Aquila’s well-bred ease in company!

After Aquila’s mother’s death when the girls were nine, Cousin Sarah had impressed upon Philomena that it behooved her to be self-effacing. For years Philo had thought it was because she was the younger, if only by a few months. That was before she learnt the dreadful truth about her own mother.

       Mr Mayhew had pulled out a battered but sturdy wooden chair from the desk by the front window and he was waiting, an enquiring look on his face. Dismissing her memories, she hastened to seat herself.

“Did you bring your charts?” he asked.

She nodded, filled with gratitude that he had remembered. It did not matter whether he was truly interested or only being kind.

If he was puzzled by her silence, he politely ignored it. “Then excuse me, pray, while I give young Master Toby something to keep him occupied.”

“Do you
got
to call me ‘young Master Toby’?” the child asked in a long-suffering voice. “That’s what Mama calls me when I be naughty.”

“What would you like me to call you?”

“Just Toby.”

“Then you must call me just Robin. Now let’s put this smock on you and then you watch while I show you what to do.”

Philo hoped he realised a four-year-old’s limitations. Surely he would not give Toby anything dangerous?

As if he read her mind, his first words when he returned to her side were reassuring. “Bicarbonate of soda, acetic acid, and an indicator. That’s baking powder, vinegar, and red cabbage water to you, but don’t tell Toby. They fizz nicely and change colour, besides being cheap. May I see your papers?”

She spread them on the desk, where, to her embarrassment, they refused to stay flat after being rolled in her pocket. Robin Mayhew collected some empty beakers to hold down the corners. Though his hands were stained, they were well scrubbed, she noted, and the nails were neatly trimmed. She liked his hands.

“Explain.” He pulled up a stool.

Somehow it was easy to talk about her work. She showed him the family trees she had drawn up in Vienna. “That is where I started to keep records,” she told him. “I had a parrot in Brazil, but Cousin Sarah made me leave it behind when Papa was posted to Lisbon.”

“Your father was a diplomat?”

“Yes. We stopped in the Canary Islands, and to make up for losing my parrot he bought me a wild canary in a cage. It was a little green finch, very different from the tame canaries they had in Portugal. Papa said the Spaniards had deliberately bred one from the other. That seemed to me very clever and exciting. I did not try breeding my own, though, until we went to Vienna in 1813. In ‘14, I raised two broods, eleven nestlings, then last year when the new clutches were hatching, Papa died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There was a dreadful scandal.” Philo realised she was departing from the subject. Besides, Mr Mayhew would hardly be interested in Sir William Ware’s dramatic demise in the arms of his latest mistress. “Anyway, we had to leave Vienna just when the baby canaries were testing their wings. I had to give away all of that generation, but I managed to bring two older pairs with me.”

“Right across Europe? In the middle of the Hundred Days?” He sounded incredulous.

“Waterloo was already over when we reached Brussels. It was not easy, though, and Aquila—my sister—complained a good deal. The birds make her sneeze, so one cannot blame her. But I was determined, and it was worth the trouble because otherwise I’d have had to start all over again. The birds I brought have proved themselves as breeders, and the males are good singers. These are their charts.”

He pored over the papers, leaning disturbingly close to her, his hair flopping over his forehead. “Very clear and neat,” he said with approval. “I fear, though, that you will not find it easy to continue with family trees like these as the generations grow larger. Have you considered just keeping a written record, say a page for each bird? You could list its parents and offspring and still have room for information about its characteristics.”

“It would certainly be quicker,” she agreed, frowning in thought. “Yes, I see how it could be done. I shall try it. By the third generation, it was already difficult to fit all the offspring onto a family tree, even though my writing is small.”

“As is mine. I daresay it is a necessity for us scientific experimenters.” His smile was full of complicity, counting her a part of the group of enquiring minds to which he belonged.

A passionate desire to be worthy of Robin Mayhew’s regard swept over Philomena. Was it possible that with her dedication to science she might somehow make up for the shame of her birth?

The door to the kitchen swung open and a short, wiry man appeared, bearing before him a tin tray with a teapot and three saucerless cups.

“I made a spot o’ tea for the lady, sir,” he announced.

“Thank you, Bodiham.” Mr Mayhew looked a trifle harassed.

“Is there biscuits?” Toby started to struggle his way out of Robin Mayhew’s smock.

“Leave be, young gentleman, afore you does yourself an injury.” The servant set the tray on the corner of the table and helped Toby take off the all-enveloping garment. “Biscuits, eh? No, there ain’t no biscuits, more’s the pity.”