Hastily she tried to add the information that her father and Captain Stanfield were telling her, but suddenly her quill broke, causing her to exclaim in a most unladylike way. Her father was even less pleased.
“The devil take it, Ariel! Now we shall have to wait while you trim it or prepare a new one! Really, my dear girl, I should think you could be more careful than that.”
“I may be able to be of assistance,” a voice said from the far end of the hall.
“Oh, lord! More lost visitors,” Mr. Hawthorne muttered under his breath. “As if we need that just now.” He turned to politely offer to show the woman to the public portion of the museum, but stopped as he recognized the man with her. “Merriweather!” he shouted.
“Hawthorne! It’s wonderful to see you again. Still up to your elbows in dusty relics, ugly sculptures, and ridiculous paintings I see,” the newcomer said.
With surprising agility, Mr. Hawthorne leaped to his feet and moved forward to greet his old friend. Then he turned to Captain Stanfield, completely ignoring both the woman and Ariel as he said, “I must make you known to my old friend Colonel Merriweather. But perhaps you know him already? Perhaps you met in the Peninsula? I presume you were both on Wellington’s staff.” Merriweather smiled at the younger man. “Yes, of course. Good to see you again, Stanfield.”
“And it’s good to see you, sir. You were very highly thought of among the younger officers, you know.” Merriweather peered closer. “Heard about your injuries. Must have been worse than I was told, for I would have thought they healed long ago.”
Ariel noted with interest the way Captain Stanfield colored up. He looked away from the colonel as he said gruffly, “They might have, had I not injured my arm and leg again, riding sooner than I ought to have done after my return. And another tumble a month or so ago has made it worse than ever.”
Someone cleared her throat, rather ostentatiously, and as if surprised to be recalled to her existence, all three men turned to the woman with Colonel Merriweather. He colored up and said hastily, “May I present my wife, Mrs. Merriweather? My dear, this is my old friend Mr. Hawthorne, and a fellow officer, Captain Stanfield.”
She smiled a thin smile but looked beyond them and afforded a truly cordial smile to Ariel. She moved past the men and walked straight up to the younger woman.
“No use expecting them to think to introduce us. I collect you’ve a problem; perhaps I may be of help? I’m a dab hand at trimming quills.”
Ariel smiled, despite herself, at the woman’s odd manners. “Thank you. I am Miss Hawthorne. And I should be grateful for any assistance you can give me. Papa gets most impatient when I cannot take notes for him.”
“He does, does he?” Mrs. Merriweather said, regarding Ariel’s father with a shrewd eye. “Very well; then I shall help you. For while you may have been able to write down everything important that your father and this young man said, now that my husband is here to help, the work will increase greatly, I assure you. With my help, we may take turns and you need not find yourself quite so overwhelmed.”
Ariel could not quite decide whether to be grateful for the offer of assistance or insulted that the woman thought she could not manage on her own. But then, she had not managed on her own, even with just her father and Captain Stanfield, and that was what had led to the problem with her quill.
“You might as well not argue,” the colonel said, coming up to stand behind his wife. He placed a hand on her waist and smiled at Ariel. There was a distinct twinkle in his eyes as he said, “My wife, Mrs. Merriweather, used to be a governess and is therefore accustomed to both being of service and getting her own way.”
In spite of herself, Ariel laughed. “Very well, then, Mrs. Merriweather. I shall be very grateful for your assistance. I will find another chair, more quills and paper, and we may both share this little desk between us.”
“No, no. Tom, go fetch a small table,” Mr. Hawthorne told their worker. “Anything about the height of Ariel’s desk will do.”
Tom, who had been sitting in the shadows, waiting until his strength was needed to move something, now came forward and nodded his understanding. Then he headed off to fetch the requested table.
To the newcomers, Mr. Hawthorne explained, “Tom’s a simple fellow, but I’ll swear he knows more about what’s in this museum than I do. He’ll fetch a table, and faster than I could, I’ll vow. Ah, here he comes now. You see? Now we may all be comfortable. Yes, yes, put it there, Tom. Merriweather, come see what we’ve got.” Ariel looked at Mrs. Merriweather, who had already found herself a chair and drawn it up close. She had also removed her gloves and was reaching for a quill and the knife with which to sharpen it. “Are you quite certain you wish to do this?” Ariel asked with some hesitation. “I cannot think it kind of us to put you to work this way.”
The older woman merely looked at her, brows raised, and said, “My dear, when you are better acquainted with me, you will discover that I despise sitting idle. There is nothing I like better than to be of use, so long as it is of use and not merely something thought up to keep me busy. Here, Miss Hawthorne. I believe you will find this quite satisfactory, and I shall just take a moment to trim another for myself. Then, if you will give me some paper, I may take over for a bit and you may rest. When I become tired, you may take over for me.”
Mrs. Merriweather was as good as her word, and within moments she was writing, attempting to keep up with what the men were saying, and Ariel could sit back and simply watch. Of course, it wasn’t watching that Ariel truly wished to do. What she would have liked was to sit on the floor with her father, sorting through the objects, asking her own questions of Captain Stanfield and Colonel Merriweather.
Somehow, without meaning to do so, at some point the wish became reality and Ariel found herself kneeling next to Captain Stanfield. “Why does this look so much like a cooking pot?” she asked.
“Because it was,” he answered promptly.
“Nonsense! Why would anyone have brought back a cooking pot?” her father demanded impatiently.
Captain Stanfield smiled, and it was, in Ariel’s opinion, a singularly sweet and wistful smile. “Because Wellington wanted everything to be remembered. Not just the spoils of war, but the day-to-day privations as well. He wishes those who come to the museum to see what it was like for us, in the Peninsula. Not some elegant dinner party meals, but food cooked in one pot with whatever we could find to put in it, heated with whatever we could find to bum for fuel.”
Colonel Merriweather nodded. “Aye, it was very different from what I’ve discovered the people back home imagined. It is just like the Duke of Wellington to want the public to see it all.”
Mr. Hawthorne shook his head. “Very well, but it makes much more work this way. And I cannot guarantee that we will ever have sufficient room to display it all. The paintings and sculpture, yes, of course room will be made for them. But the rest . . .”
Others might have thought her father was complaining, but Ariel recognized his expression as one of pleasure. Papa liked nothing better than to have lots of things to sort through and make notes about and plan exhibits around. No, he was not complaining but rather settling in for what he expected to be a most satisfying job.
“This you might find to be of greater interest than a cooking pot, Miss Hawthorne,” Stanfield said quietly.
She turned to see him holding a necklace. “It’s beautiful!” Ariel said, reaching out to take the piece. “But some poor woman has lost something she must have treasured.”
Her father made a dismissive sound. “No doubt she had a great many more like it. Women always do! No, no, concentrate, Ariel! Concentrate on the things that matter, like the pistols and swords. I should like to place them so that we may show the contrast between French and British and Spanish swords and pistols.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Ariel did as her father had asked, helping the men pull what was wanted out of the pile with the weapons. But her eyes strayed more
than once to the necklace Captain Stanfield had shown her. And her thoughts went more than once to the kindness in his nature that had prompted him to do so. It must have been kindness, for why else would he have done so? It was the first evidence she had seen that he did not entirely view her with contempt, and Ariel clung to it.
It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Hawthorne agreed to allow them all to take a short break. It was Mrs. Merriweather who pointed out to him that she and Ariel, at least, were in need of sustenance.
“To be sure; to be sure,” Mr. Hawthorne hastily agreed. “Here, Tom, here are some funds. Go round to the usual place and bring back enough food for five people.”
“Enough food for six people. Papa,” Ariel corrected him gently.
Hawthorne blinked, then realized she was counting Tom. “Oh, er, yes, of course. You must eat as well, Tom. Fetch enough for six,” he said.
Tom nodded, took the coins, and with a huge grin sped out of the hall. Hawthorne turned to Colonel Merriweather. “While we are waiting for Tom to return, I have something in my office I should like to show you,” he said.
“Yes, of course,” Merriweather said.
It was one of the things Hawthorne liked most about his old friend—he did not ask questions; he simply came. When they got there, Hawthorne shut the door and turned to the colonel. He removed his spectacles and took a moment or two to polish them. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I didn’t ask you to come to the museum simply because I need help with sorting out these objects, although I do. I also asked you to come because there is a problem here at the museum and I couldn’t think whom else to ask for help. Not without risking a scandal the museum can ill afford.”
“What’s going on?” Merriweather asked. “Theft?”
Hawthorne started. “How did you—”
He stopped himself and waited. After a moment, Merriweather sighed. “I cannot help you, Richard, unless you are honest with me about what is going on. I made a guess that it might be theft because it seemed the most obvious possibility.”
Hawthorne began to pace about the small room. “Yes, yes, I know you are right,” he admitted. “And yet, I am reluctant to speak about it to anyone. But if I don’t, matters will get even worse. And you are discreet. I know you are. I haven’t forgotten that little matter when we were at school together and Winslow ran into trouble. And I know that I sent for you, but now that you are here, I find myself unable to decide how best to broach the subject.”
“Begin at the beginning,” Merriweather advised. When Hawthorne still did not explain, the colonel tried another approach. “Let me make some guesses, and you can tell me if I’ve hit the mark or not. You’ve already let slip that theft may be involved. I must presume that you have not called in the Bow Street Runners, or you would not need me. Do you perhaps suspect someone who works at the museum?”
Hawthorne seemed to go even paler than before. “It would be a catastrophe, were that to be the case,” he said, avoiding Merriweather’s eyes.
“And you don’t wish to suspect anyone you work with anyway, do you? Or to make accusations without absolute proof,” Merriweather hazarded shrewdly. “But if not someone who works here, then who else could it be? One of the visitors to the museum? If so, it would have to be someone who knows the place well and has found a means to enter after hours, for I presume the guard at the gate would notice someone attempting to take things out during the day. Is there anyone who has shown an unusual interest in the museum?”
“There are so many visitors that I cannot say whether anyone has been here often or not, or shown an unusual interest,” Hawthorne said irritably, still avoiding Merri- weather’s gaze.
“Do you have a night watchman?” the colonel asked, suppressing his own irritation.
“T-tom serves as our night watchman,” Hawthorne said reluctantly. “But no one really expects him to do anything. It’s really only a reason to let him sleep here. Theft, at night, has never been a problem before, you see.”
Merriweather tried another approach. “Suppose the theft or thefts occurred after hours; then it would have to be someone with a key or keys to the museum. Which would argue that it is indeed someone who works here. How many have the necessary key or keys?”
Hawthorne stiffened. “I am the only one with the authority to carry all the keys that would be needed to get into the museum at night.”
It was not quite an answer, but Merriweather let it pass. “Perhaps someone has picked the locks?” he suggested.
“Perhaps. But I’ve seen no signs of tampering nor broken windows to explain any other way the thief or thieves could have gotten in.”
The colonel began to lose his temper. “Look, if you do not mean to tell me more than this, then why did you ask me to come and help?” he demanded.
Hawthorne shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he admitted reluctantly. “I trust your intelligence and your common sense and your discretion, and that’s more than I can say for anyone else. And it was particularly convenient because I had such a good excuse to call you in.”
“Only now you find that you cannot make up your mind how much to tell me,” Merriweather suggested, a tinge of bitterness in his voice.
Hawthorne nodded unhappily. “I did not expect it to be so difficult, but it is! Bear with me a day or two, while I make up my mind, will you?” he asked.
The colonel wanted to refuse, but he didn’t. In the end, he clapped Hawthorne on the shoulder and said, “Very well. We have been friends too long for me to refuse.”
Hawthorne let out a sigh of relief.
Neither of them noticed the young man who slipped away before they could discover him listening at the door. Neither of them noticed that Captain Stanfield returned to the room where they were working just moments before they did so. After all, it would never have occurred to Colonel Merriweather or Mr. Hawthorne that he could have been nearby without either of them hearing the distinctive sound of his cane on the hardwood floors.
3
“What, my dear, was that all about with Mr. Hawthorne?” Mrs. Merriweather asked the colonel when they finally left the museum for the day.
“Er, what do you mean?” he countered, as he handed her into their carriage.
She sighed as she settled herself. “You really ought to know by now, my dear, that I am not stupid. Mr. Hawthorne took you into his office to talk for a reason. I am simply asking what that reason might have been.”
The colonel frowned. “If Mr. Hawthorne had wished you to know, he would have told you himself. And after your last adventure, I do not want you involved in anything dangerous ever again.”
She turned to him with eyes wide open. “So there is a mystery here!” Marian exclaimed.
“I did not say so!” he all but growled.
“You do not have to say so,” Mrs. Merriweather said with some satisfaction. “It is evident from what you will not say. Now, I wonder what it could be. . . . Theft, I should think. That would be the most likely sort of crime to occur in a museum. It cannot be murder, for if that were the case he would have called in a Bow Street Runner. But a mere theft, yes, he might trust you to help him with that. Though I must say that I do not understand why he would be reluctant to call in a Bow Street Runner for that as well.”
The colonel bristled. “Really, Marian, this habit of yours of knowing far too much is not at all the way one expects a lady to behave.”
“I am who I am, and you married me just the same,” Mrs. Merriweather said placidly.
“So I did, but that does not mean I cannot wish for a little more decorum from time to time,” he countered.
“You may wish for whatever you like,” she conceded generously, “so long as you do not expect to get it.”
What more the colonel might have said went unspoken, for they had reached Lady Merriweather’s town house and they were late. She had arranged a dinner party in their honor, and they would scarcely have time to clean off the dirt of the day
and change into evening clothes before the first guests would arrive. That Lady Merriweather felt the full force of this solecism was evident from the expression on her majordomo’s face as he let them in, and in the fact that as they climbed the stairs up toward the room that had been put at their disposal, Lady Merriweather stepped into the hallway and accosted them.
“This is what you consider an appropriate time to come home to dress for dinner?” Lady Merriweather demanded. “And covered with dirt, at that. Are those ink stains on your wife’s fingers? Do you have no consideration for my feelings or the effort to which I have gone on your behalf?”
The colonel drew himself up to his full height. “My dear Aunt Cordelia, you must have had this dinner party organized long before we appeared on your doorstep, for there would have been no time to do so since we arrived. It is kind of you to pretend it is for us, but you know very well your guests are coming for the pleasure of your company and they will scarcely know we are here.”
“Oh, they will notice you are here,” she countered, a trifle bitterly. “And remember only too well that your wife was once a governess. I had hoped to give them no further cause for gossip. That is obviously hopeless.”
“Quite hopeless,” Marian agreed. “I wonder, then, given the lateness of the hour, that you delay us even further.”
Lady Merriweather glared at her nephew’s wife, but she stepped aside so that they could continue on their way upstairs. Behind them, she called out one parting shot. “Your daughter dumped a bucket of water all over her nurse this afternoon. I don’t think she is very happy here!”
Miss Tibbles Interferes Page 2