The Wandering Heart

by Mary Malloy

  • • • • •

  The next morning brought new insults. Lizzie skipped breakfast in order to avoid having to spend another uncomfortable meal with Richard, and found him, to her chagrin, once again in the library looking at the correspondence of Francis Hatton.

  “You seem to have made yourself quite at home here,” he said, looking over her computer and other equipment and even picking up some of her file folders. He asked her several questions about her work that sounded more like demands for information, and he seemed not at all pleased with her answers.

  “Have you been in touch with Mr. Clark at the British Museum about what you are doing here?”

  “Not yet,” she responded coolly. “I’m waiting until I am completely familiar with the collection.”

  “I’d like you to be in touch with him immediately,” Richard said. “Make sure he knows everything you’re doing.” He opened one of the file folders and began to go through the papers.

  Lizzie was livid. From across the table she pulled the folder back and closed it. “Excuse me,” she said coldly, “but I’ll have a report ready for your father within a few days, and I’ll contact Tom Clark when I have assembled information that will be useful to him.”

  George arrived at that moment and seemed embarrassed by his son’s rude behavior. “Now Richard,” he began, “Lizzie has my complete confidence. . . .”

  Richard cut him off. “That’s all well and good, Father. But she must understand that everything she finds here, all information, all documents, all artifacts, belong to us, and that her final results must all be approved.”

  Lizzie was speechless with anger and frustration, and contemplated quitting the whole enterprise at that moment and marching from the room. She wondered how long Richard was going to stay at Hengemont, and how much he planned to meddle in her project. George took him aside and after nodding at Lizzie, led him from the room. She sat down at the table and laid her hands on the smooth surface, once again trying to relax herself through controlled breathing. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t open them again until she heard Mrs. Jeffries set a tray on the other end of the table.

  Silent and efficient as ever, the housekeeper had brought a pot of coffee and some toast and scones for Lizzie’s breakfast. They smiled at each other.

  “Dr. Manning, . . .” Mrs. Jeffries began.

  “Since we are practically related,” Lizzie joked, “may we be less formal?”

  “When we are alone you may call me Helen,” Mrs. Jeffries responded warmly.

  “Thank you, Helen,” Lizzie said with a sigh of relief. “The ‘distinctions between classes,’ as your son Peter described them, are beginning to wear on me a bit.”

  “Well, if you are thinking about Richard Hatton,” Helen Jeffries responded, “he is a snotty twit and always has been.” She smiled at Lizzie conspiratorially. “I see that my bluntness surprises you,” she continued, “but if I’m not mistaken, we are pretty much of a mind on this.”

  “Pretty much,” Lizzie said. She felt better at that moment than she had in the last two days.

  Helen Jeffries continued. “There’s no denying it. Even Sir George knows it. But to make up for it, the good doctor, Edmund, is a real human being, and that’s the truth.”

  “Well Helen,” Lizzie said, toasting her with a cup of coffee, “I’d say we are pretty much of a mind on that too.”

  • • • • •

  As Richard was now nowhere to be seen, and as she and Helen Jeffries were well on the way to becoming chums, Lizzie’s morning passed more pleasantly than she had expected. Edmund arrived before lunch and he and his father stopped into the library where George, as if no uncomfortable exchanges had taken place at this very table two times in the last twelve hours, asked Lizzie to bring them up to date on her work. She was able to report that she had made real progress in her inventory of the loose manuscripts. The incomplete text of the journal was frustrating, but there was plenty of material for an interesting book and the artifacts would make for an important and visually compelling exhibit.

  Richard joined them for lunch, and it quickly became obvious that there had been no thaw in the frozen nature of his reception of her at the family table. Edmund chided him on his silence, but eventually just ignored him, leading Lizzie to believe that Richard might often be in a snit over one thing or another. As Lizzie was now uncomfortable talking about the voyage project in front of Richard, and as George seemed still somewhat embarrassed by his oldest son’s earlier behavior, the bulk of the responsibility for conversing fell on Edmund, who was able to provide the animation and interest that his brother lacked. He began to explain an interesting and somewhat perplexing case that had come into his office the day before. Lizzie was keenly interested in medicine and for an amateur had a very broad knowledge of the subject. Her college roommate once bought her a subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine as a joke gift and Lizzie had never let the subscription lapse. In fact, Edmund’s case reminded her of an article she had read there about two years earlier.

  Edmund was impressed. “You’re the second person to cite that article to me today,” he said. “The other was a London specialist.”

  Lizzie smiled. “I have an extremely unpredictable and arcane body of knowledge,” she said.

  “I should say so,” Edmund said.

  “And I’ve always been interested in medicine.”

  “Did you ever consider becoming a doctor?” George asked her.

  “For about two months, until my first college chemistry grades came back,” she answered with a laugh.

  The lunch passed quickly, despite the iceberg that sat unmovable in the midst of their otherwise happy party. They moved from the dining room back to the library, and Lizzie showed Edmund the Northwest Coast artifacts that she thought were most interesting. As she and George had already talked about many of them, he drifted off before the conversation ended and Richard, after silently fuming at his brother’s back for several minutes, also left the room.

  Lizzie had liked Edmund right from their first meeting, but now she also felt a growing respect and a gratitude that he would go to such extraordinary lengths to make her feel welcome. As they sat side by side at the table, she felt her affection for him deepen. As an adult, she had not often met people with whom she felt she could develop the kind of fast friendship that had marked her relationships in high school and college. In fact, the women who formed her lunch circle were almost the only really close friends she had made since then. She had many friendly and collegial relationships that had developed over the years, but the close and intimate bond that defined the true friend and confidante was one that did not often occur, and she valued it when she encountered it. Edmund was warm and open. Whether he felt the same way about her as she felt about him she could not say, but at this moment it felt good just to sit beside him.

  He was interested in the Northwest Coast Indian artifacts, and Lizzie pulled them off the shelf one at a time and set them on the table where they looked at them carefully. She still felt the mask was the most important, and as she held it in her hand she pointed out several of the features that made it a masterpiece.

  “Look at the way the carver has centered the grain of the wood around this cheekbone,” she said, touching it softly.

  “It’s beautiful,” Edmund said.

  “One of the best I’ve ever seen,” Lizzie said. “I actually think I may know of one or two other masks carved by the same artist.” She had already, she explained, e-mailed one of her museum friends back in Boston, requesting pictures from two American collections that she could compare it to.

  They talked about art and the conversation naturally evolved to the other works on exhibit in the house. “I love that big Gainsborough of Frank and his siblings on the landing of the staircase,” Lizzie said.

  “Frank?” Edmund asked with a laugh.

>   Lizzie blushed. “I feel like I know him pretty well,” she said, grinning sheepishly. “I hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve become so familiar.”

  “Have you seen the other portrait of your old pal Frank?” Edmund asked, returning her smile.

  “No,” Lizzie said with surprise. “I didn’t know there was another one, and anyway I’m waiting for our tour tomorrow.”

  Edmund was apologetic. “That case that we were talking about, the one you seem to understand so well despite your sorry grades in chemistry. . . .”

  She held up her hand, “Please,” she said, “no more. Just give me the bad news.”

  “That case requires my attendance again tomorrow.” He seemed genuinely sorry. “Can you wait until the day after?”

  Lizzie was disappointed. She wanted to spend more time with him, but she managed to respond graciously. “Of course,” she said, “I have plenty to do here until your return.”

  When they parted soon after, Edmund kissed Lizzie on the cheek and gave her a quick hug. She thought about it as she walked up the stairs to the landing. She liked him a great deal and he was on her mind when she stopped to look again at Francis Hatton in the Gainsborough painting. Was there a resemblance between Edmund and his ancestor? For the first time it occurred to her that she could detect one.

  Chapter 8

  The fact that Edmund was becoming her friend did not lessen Lizzie’s anxiety about Richard. As long as he remained in the house, she could not entirely relax or feel comfortable. She wanted to talk to Martin, but he was in New York and she had been unable to catch him.

  Both of the Hatton brothers left in the course of the next morning and Lizzie found herself relieved to be rid of Richard but regretting Edmund’s departure. She could finally return to her work with some concentration, however, and that she did as soon as the door closed behind them.

  She went directly to the library and found the mask they had been discussing the day before still lying on the table. She picked it up again. It was always exciting for her to hold such a work of art in her hand, and this was one was particularly powerful. The eyelids were carefully carved, with only the pupils cut out for the wearer to see through. The eyebrows and lips were in the squarish style of Haida or Tlingit art, but the nose was so realistic it led her to believe that it might be a portrait of an actual person. Lizzie carefully returned it to the shelf and turned her attention to the Hawaiian artifacts.

  There was a Polynesian adze made from the shell of a giant clam. Lizzie had seen these tools before, when she worked at the Boston Museum of Natural History, and she checked carefully to make sure that the blade was still securely attached to the handle before she picked it up to move it to the table to be photographed. A piece of vellum was sitting underneath the heavy shell blade to protect the varnish of the shelf. Lizzie measured and photographed the adze, scanned the attached label and returned it to the shelf.

  As she moved the vellum into place beneath it, she saw that the underside had a message of some sort written on it. She went back to her computer and got a sheet of printer paper, which she folded into a square about the same size as the vellum. She replaced the original protective sheet with her improvised one and took the vellum out to see if it had more information about the adze.

  She had seen old manuscripts written on tanned animal skins in the rare documents collections of several libraries, but this was the first time she had ever held one in her hand. It had grown stiff with age, its corners rolling inward. The ink was very black, the letters difficult to distinguish and the language archaic. With some effort Lizzie managed to make a best guess of what it said.

  For love and for honour they did dye

  Purer passion betwixt woman and man was ne’er else upon the earth

  But where is that heart wich he did pledge upon the tower wall?

  Not sham stone that stood for it in colour only

  But that wich beat within his chest

  Or, barred by death

  Unbeating, within gold casket she could hold against her breast

  —E.dH. Anno 1382

  It would have been entirely meaningless had she not seen similar references to a heartless man two days earlier. Instead of returning it to its original location, Lizzie opened the carved box and put it under the journal with the other documents that seemed to be on the same theme.

  She continued to document Francis Hatton’s cabinet, taking each object from its shelf, photographing and measuring it, and typing a description into her computer. It really was a wonderful collection. From the Northwest Coast and the Polynesian Islands alone, there were more than fifty items. She turned to a Hawaiian feathered helmet, a real treasure in both artistic and monetary terms. It had lost a number of feathers over the last two centuries—the cost of keeping it in the English climate. Lizzie was pleased to see that most of the lost feathers had been collected and folded into a piece of paper that sat on the shelf. As she unfolded the paper she caught her breath. Beneath the tiny red and yellow feathers she could see writing. It was another poem. She carefully poured the feathers onto a clean sheet of paper and read.

  It was for love that she died

  And he for honour

  Could one know a greater love?

  But where is his heart?

  Where is his heart?

  Can she rest without it?

  Knowing, can I?

  It was so similar to the other poems that Lizzie could not resist pulling them out again. She laid the piece of vellum and the now unfolded piece of paper side by side. The subject was clearly the same, but there was no way that they could have been written by the same person or even at the same time. In fact, they were probably written several hundred years apart, if Lizzie could trust her judgment about the paper and the penmanship. It was very puzzling. And what about that scrap of paper with the question on it? She put that next to them as well. “Where is his heart?” it asked. It was the same question asked in each of the poems but again in a different hand and from a different era.

  Maybe it was the poetic references to heartlessness, but as she worked through the day Lizzie couldn’t get the phrase from Francis Hatton’s letter to his sister out of her head: “Look for my heart in this box, as our ancestress looked for the heart of her Crusader.” She read the letter again and then looked hard at the box which had contained the logbook, as it sat on the table in front of her. It was covered with Chinese carvings, made of some aromatic wood—probably camphor or sandalwood. The top showed two lovers in an ornate and flowery garden, though maybe it was meant to show siblings, Francis Hatton and his sister Eliza. She sat down at the table and pulled the box toward her so that she could examine it more closely.

  “Look for my heart in this box,” she murmured.

  The front edge of the box was carved with leaves and flowers surrounding the Hatton family crest—the heart pierced by the sword, and bounded by the motto “Numquam Dediscum.” There was something strange here, she thought. She and Jackie had talked about the motto on the Hatton family crest and this wasn’t it. She opened her briefcase and pulled out her original letter from George; there was the crest embossed on his stationery, identical except for the motto, “Semper Memoriam.”

  Lizzie had spent the requisite years studying Latin at her Catholic school, and if she remembered correctly, “Numquam Dediscum” would be something like “Never Forget,” while “Semper Memoriam” was, as Jackie had pointed out several times, “Always Remember.” They meant almost the same thing really, so why would Francis Hatton have changed it? She looked again to the top of the museum cabinet where the crest was carved again. There was the motto, “Semper Memoriam,” but “Numquam Dediscum” was also worked into the carving on the front of the cabinet, in a frieze border of vines and flowers that ran along the boundary between the upper glass cases and the lower bank of drawers.

  Lizzie examined th
e box again, running her thumb along the crest. There was something peculiar about the carving, almost a movement there. Certainly Eliza Hatton would have recognized something strange as well. Suddenly the front of the box sprang open and Lizzie jumped back, startled, into her seat. She looked around sheepishly, hoping that no one had heard her unintentional oath, and preparing to explain how reading shipboard journals always made her swear like a sailor. She was also preparing to describe how she had broken the box when she realized that it was not broken. The front was hinged and she had pressed on a spring latch that was set behind the heart of the crest. “Look for my heart in this box,” she thought. “Very clever.”

  In a compartment hidden beneath the floor of the box and behind the hinged front was a sheaf of papers. Lizzie pulled out the missing pages of the logbook, a few loose letters, and a small disk wrapped in silk. She set them all on the table and stared at them for several minutes before reaching forward to push at the silk, now brittle with age, but still a bright sky blue. It would have fallen away had Lizzie pushed at it hard enough with the eraser of her outstretched pencil, but she finally recovered her composure enough to realize that it would require more care to unwrap the contents if she wanted to preserve the silk that covered it. Inside was the small oval portrait of a young woman, probably just a teenager. Lizzie thought she might be Francis Hatton’s sister, whose portrait was on the landing of the big staircase.

  She turned to the papers, a quick glance telling her that the log entries picked up exactly after the last one in the bound book. There were also two letters and a poem. The poem being the shortest text, she read it quickly first.

  A maiden and a knight upon a tower

  A pledge of love between them spoken

  His heart with her would lie by passion’s power