Of Moths and Butterflies

by V. R. Christensen

Claire looked up from her conversation with Charlie. “I nearly forgot,” she said. “You and Miss Shaw share a birthday, Archer. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

  Bewildered and staring, he answered a breathy, “Yes.” What more did they have in common? Would he ever know?

  “Is there nothing we might give her?” Charlie asked, his face alight with anticipation.

  “No,” Gina said, shaking her head. “No, this is Mr. Hamilton’s day.”

  “Yours too,” Archer insisted.

  “I have far more than I could have asked for. I have a friend now. More than one, I think,” she said looking from Claire to Charlie with an inclusive smile.

  “Miss Shaw,” Archer said, determination thick in his voice. “I should hope you would consider yourself possessed of no less than three very dear friends.”

  She turned to him again, her colour high. “Yes,” she said. “If you insist.”

  “I do. And if you’ll promise to consider it so, I’ll hold it as the greatest of the gifts bestowed on me this night.”

  “And after all the trouble, I’ve gone to!” Claire said, teasing. “If I’d known that’s all you wanted…”

  “It’s no small thing,” Archer said.

  “No. No it isn’t.” Claire’s manner was suddenly tense and warning. He did not understand the abrupt change. Or feared to.

  “That is it, I suppose,” he said, with a nod toward one corner of the room where Claire’s gift to him had been deposited, packaged mysteriously in several large crates.

  “Yes, but you must wait until the table has been cleared, for you will find it necessary, I think, to lay it out that we all might see. I think you will be pleased. You had better be, at all events.”

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  Aren’t you the fine gentleman this evening.

  Chapter eighteen

  T LAST DINNER was over. Sir Edmund and Mrs. Barton, whose conversation had grown increasingly confidential during the meal, retired to another part of the house to continue their tête-à-tête in privacy. In the meantime, the rest of the party withdrew to the drawing room while the table was cleared in preparation for the unveiling of Mr. Hamilton’s rather large and apparently complex gift.

  While they waited, Charlie presented his own gift. It was a humble offering. He took from his pocket a small volume of poetry, and on finding the page, began to read, and then, gaining confidence, to recite from memory. Ozymandias. He recited it well. Imogen felt it a pity Sir Edmund was not present, for it would have attested to the care that man had taken in the boy’s education.

  “Well done,” Imogen said when he had finished, and in glowing praise of his efforts.

  “Have you another, Charlie?” Mr. Hamilton asked him now. “One poem for two birthdays seems hardly fair now, does it?” He arose to examine the book Charlie still held.

  “No, please,” Imogen objected and stood.

  “You dislike poetry, Miss Shaw?”

  “No, of course I don’t dislike poetry, sir, but my place is as a companion to Miss Montegue, not as a spectacle, which is, I fear, exactly what I’m making of myself by being here at all.”

  “Well,” Mr. Hamilton said to Charlie, seemingly defeated. “If Miss Shaw objects to poetry for herself, why not another for me?”

  “Of course, Uncle. What would you prefer?”

  Uncle? Is that what the boy called him?

  “Keats, I think. Have you Ode to Psyche, Charlie?”

  “I think so.” With Mr. Hamilton’s help, Charlie turned to it and began to read.

  “O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

  By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

  And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

  Even into thine own soft-conched ear:”

  And when Mr. Hamilton helped him to read, and then, looking up, to recite along with him the words that followed, Imogen turned away.

  “Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

  The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?”

  It was all too much. Or was she making too much of nothing? She crossed to the farthest wall where a bookcase stood, and examined it, though rather blindly. She tried not to listen as they read. But it was that or think. She’d had quite enough of thinking for one day. She took a book from the shelf; she did not know what. Until she opened it. Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She had turned, by chance, to Boreas’ pursuit of the reluctant maid. Hurriedly she returned it to the shelf, but it dropped and fell with a great echoing thud, to the floor. It seemed an extravagance of sound, for it was not a large book.

  It was Claire who broke the silence. “Have you another, Charlie? Anything will do. Something light, I think.”

  “A sonnet?” he suggested.

  “No. Definitely not a sonnet.” She took his book, and made a selection. “There. That should suit the occasion well enough.”

  As Charlie once more began to read, Claire offered Mr. Hamilton a scolding look. He approached his cousin, and with her voice lowered, though not entirely inaudible, she spoke to him.

  “Your pointed attention is out of place here, Archer. Don’t you see you make her uncomfortable?”

  “I don’t know what to say, Claire, I….”

  But Imogen could hear no more. Their voices had grown quite low. That, or Charlie’s voice had risen. Relieved, she listened to Charlie, who read now of ships and seas and voyages in far off lands. Safe subjects, all. And while he read, she took the opportunity of studying him in comparison to his uncle, or father, or whatever Mr. Hamilton might one day prove to be. Really, the resemblance was unremarkable. Save for the same elegance of manners and uniqueness of speech, they had little to identify them as kin. Perhaps she had been mistaken. How she hoped she had been mistaken. Not that it mattered. It didn’t.

  Charlie, having finished, looked up with a bright face. As Mr. Hamilton and Claire were still consumed in their discussion, it was Imogen alone who applauded him. Which drew attention, once more, to herself.

  Mr. Hamilton turned to her, while Claire, very red of face, knelt to speak to Charlie, to congratulate him, it seemed, and to offer the encouragement he so richly deserved. Of which, Imogen presumed, he was used to receiving very little.

  While Claire spoke with Charlie, Mr. Hamilton approached Imogen. He stopped when she took a step away from him. “You’ll be leaving us soon,” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I believe you will be very happy with Claire.”

  “I see no reason why I should not be.”

  “No,” he said quietly. Was it regretfully?

  She dared to look up at him again, and found, as he gazed down upon her from the great height of his lithe frame, that the look in his eye had taken on a hint of desperation, as though he was aware of some impending loss, and that she alone might relieve him of it. But that was foolishness. On his part to imply it or on hers to imagine it, she could not say. Before she could make up her mind how to reply, the doors opened and Miles Wyndham entered.

  “Well isn’t this a cosy gathering!” he said. And then he stopped as his gaze fell upon Imogen. He smiled broadly. At last he looked to Claire and greeted her.

  Claire stood and turned as Charlie concealed himself behind her. Neither said a word to him in reply.

  “Miss Shaw,” he said, approaching them. “Hamilton.” This last was offered rather coldly.

  “Wyndham,” Mr. Hamilton answered.

  “Good evening, Miss Shaw. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “I was until a moment ago, Mr. Wyndham,” she answered honestly.

  “And what has dampened your gaiety? Not my late arrival, surely. Perhaps Mr. Hamilton has somehow offended you?” He examined the pair of them standing very close together, for Mr. Hamilton had drawn nearer with Wyndham’s approach. “It would not be the first time I had cause to reprimand him for presuming upon—”

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I think I made a mistake in coming.” She moved toward the door.

  “No
t so soon, Miss Shaw,” Wyndham said, stopping her. “The night is still young.”

  “I’m sorry, I think I must. It’s been a long day.” She looked to Claire for permission to retire. Claire, now standing alone (Where had Charlie gone?) nodded her approval.

  Imogen hesitated only a moment more. “I wish you a very happy birthdays, Mr. Hamilton.” With an apologetic smile, she then quit the room.

  She returned to her own and, dressed as she was, she laid down on her bed. The tears came. Tears of shame and humiliation. Tears of regret. Then one or two of hope.

  And then sleep.

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  Chapter nineteen

  MOGEN AROSE THE next morning to a house eerily quiet. Her dress, blue as a butterfly’s wing, was rumpled and wrinkled as she examined it in the morning light. She stopped upon catching a glimpse of herself in the half covered mirror and, drawing the shawl aside, she examined the reflection more carefully, recalling all that had transpired the evening previous. It had all been a misunderstanding. That was the only way to explain it. She had made more of it than it was. And even if she had not, Mr. Hamilton’s attentions, whether sincere or in selfish interest, were nonetheless inappropriate. But Claire was very soon to take her away. Glad as she was, her heart yet constricted at the thought. Was she not the utmost of feminine folly?

  She arose again, determined to change and prepare herself to face the day ahead, but stopped again upon remembering that her clothes had been removed to Claire’s room. Well then, she would do here what she could and would rely on Claire to help her with the rest. She washed her face, loosened and brushed out her hair, and tied it back before tentatively venturing from her room. After closing the door behind her, she turned to find Becky Winthrop at the other end of the hall, her hands on her hips and staring Imogen out of countenance.

  “Good morning, my lady,” she said with a deep and exaggerated curtsy.

  Taking a steadying breath, Imogen walked on. She could not blame Becky for her resentment. Having been so abruptly raised from the lowest of servants to the highest, Imogen had rightfully earned her censure.

  At Claire’s door, she knocked. There was no answer, and so, uncertain what to do or where to go, she continued downstairs, hoping to find her at breakfast.

  Upon entering the breakfast room, she was surprised to find it in a state of disarray. Several crates stood open, their lids unfastened and lying haphazardly on the floor, remnants of the straw which filled them littering the surrounding area. Yet it was the table itself that arrested her attention, for strewn across it were the contents of those crates, Claire’s gift to Mr. Hamilton. Cautiously she approached and, upon observing, marvelled. A vast array of glass boxes lay before her, all neatly framed, and in which were insects carefully preserved. They were butterflies mostly, all with pins stuck through their backs and encased in glass as though there were yet some chance of escape.

  She started upon Mr. Hamilton’s entrance. He too stopped. Then smiled and approached her.

  “Good morning, Miss Shaw.”

  “Mr. Hamilton,” she answered, backing away from the table. “I was just looking for Claire.”

  “She’s gone to the post,” he answered. “She hoped to be back before you arose. I expect she’ll return shortly.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said and turned to leave.

  “Don’t go,” he said, stopping her, desperate to make the most of this rare opportunity. Her time remaining was woefully short. And with Sir Edmund gone this morning from the Abbey… “Stay. Please.”

  Reluctantly, she turned back. Her uncertainty he found encouraging. Eager acquiescence was too much to hope for and so uncertainty would do. He could work with uncertainty. Her gaze shifted once more to the specimens that lay between them.

  “Claire has surpassed herself this year,” he said, hoping to encourage her interest, to encourage her, if he could, to return to her former place.

  A long silence followed, wherein he observed her. At last she approached once more, her image reflecting off of half a dozen panes of glass. Her gown, so blue, made her eyes seem almost startling in their intensity when at last she looked up at him. Great day, she was breath-taking !

  “You collect them?”

  Her question awoke him. He blinked. “Yes. Aren’t they wonderful?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know.”

  He laughed a little. It was not the answer he had expected. “You don’t know?”

  “It seems cruel to me.”

  Surprised a moment ago, he was confused now. “Cruel to look at them?”

  “To box them. To pin them. Can you not watch them out of doors?”

  He quashed the instinct to become defensive. He would educate her instead. And choosing one, he pointed. It was a truly remarkable specimen with its wings coloured in white and brown, the palest shade of blue mixed in amidst the delicate pattern. Sand, earth and sky.

  “From India,” he said. “I can’t very well go out into the garden to see this, can I?”

  “India?”

  He had expected this to impress her and watched with pleasure as she drew nearer that she might see it more clearly.

  “No, I suppose not,” she said, and proceeded to study it quite carefully.

  As she examined it, he examined her. Her fine head, tilted downward, hid much of her face but he had the advantage still of her profile, or did until she turned her attention from the one to another.

  “Hypolimnas Monteirous. From New Guinea,” he offered, and continued his examination as she continued hers. Desirous to hear her conclusion, and equally intent on making her aware of his, he posed his next question carefully. “To appreciate and acknowledge beauty, Miss Shaw, is a rare privilege. Do you not think so?”

  Her uncertain gaze met his more determined one. “I suppose so...” The answer was barely above a whisper. She looked away.

  His disappointment lasted only a moment.

  “This one?” she asked pointing to another, pale white with long pink-tinged tails at the base of the wings.”

  Encouraged by her interest, all the more now his attempts to put her at ease were at last succeeding, he smiled. “Actias Selene,” he said. “A Luna moth, from China.”

  She contemplated it for a moment and stood straight, her brow furrowed as she looked at him.

  “You buy them as they are, then? Boxed and framed and ready to hang on the wall?’

  “Yes.”

  “You did not kill them yourself?”

  “No,” he answered, anxious to relieve her of any anxiety she had in regard to that idea.

  “Someone else does it for you, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems a bit like cheating, doesn’t it?”

  Defensive now, caught off guard by her enduring unpredictability—and intrigued by it—he answered. “You would rather I had them shipped alive so that I might do it myself?”

  “No, of course not.” she said, and moved away from him to inspect the others.

  He watched her in silence as she observed them. Claire had made her selections well. They had been chosen from among the most exotic locales. Not all were Lepidoptera. There were others; large winged insects that looked more like immense flies. Cicadas, they were. And stick insects. A praying mantis. A few beetles. But the most exquisite by far were those like the ones that lay before her now.

  “The moths are quite as beautiful as the butterflies,” she said at last and looking up at him from the far end of the table.

  “That surprises you?”

  “One associates moths with destruction and decay. I had not expected to see them so delicate, even when they are quite large. That Luna, for instance. It’s as fragile and lovely as any butterfly.”

  “Yes.” If she thought so highly of this, what would she think of something far more extraordinary yet? “Come. I want to show you something.”

  She hesitated, but seemed to be considering.

  He held out his hand. “Plea
se?”

  To his relief, she followed. He reached out to take her arm, to lead her as he would have done any lady of his acquaintance. And dressed as she was, as she had been the night before, it was no easy feat to remember she was not. Nor did he give it much effort, truly. But upon touching her elbow, she shied and avoided him. Perhaps it was asking too much to expect her to trust him so far. Perhaps she was right not to do it. What would he do with that kind of confidence? He dared not think. And so, with several feet of distance between them, he led her to the small library that was kept for his own use.

  * * *

  Imogen, upon entering the book room, stopped and looked around. There was no need to ask what it was he had meant for her to see. Lining the walls in every direction was specimen after specimen of glass encased insect. Moths, butterflies, others in various stages of development. A wasp’s nest and a beehive were displayed on a shelf. She looked to him. He had remained just within the door frame, and comforted by his respectful manner, she relaxed a little. He pointed. Just above the mantle, as though it were the crowning specimen of his collection, hung the largest moth she had ever seen. Beautiful rusts and browns rippled over a cream-white background, like a desert after a snow storm. And it was immense, quite easily a foot in breadth.

  “What do you call it?” she asked him, amazed and taking no pains to hide it.

  “It’s an Atlas moth.” It was then that he entered the room. “This one, I think, is from India.”

  “I’ve never seen one before.”

  He laughed his gentle, well-bred laugh. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

  “I might have, though,” she said. “I was born in India. I lived there until I was nine.”

  “Miss Shaw,” he said, turning from the great moth to her in wonder. “Will you ever cease to amaze me?”

  She looked away.

  “Tell me more.”

  “There isn’t much to tell.” But she did want to tell him. Everything. She wanted him to accept her for what she was, who she was. But no. No, that was quite impossible.