The Curiosity Keeper (31 page)

“I’m surprised to see you here, Father,” whispered Jonathan.

“Why should you be surprised?” he growled back, his rheumy eyes fixed on the stained-glass window before them. “A man can come to service any time he likes.”

Jonathan masked a smile. “You are quite right. I am glad you came.”

The service passed quickly, but Jonathan heard very little of it. He was too distracted by questions concerning his father’s unexpected behavior. Had the old man finally entered his dotage? Had he suddenly developed a thirst for spiritual things? Or could this visit just be another attempt to hide his precarious financial position by playing the part of local benefactor?

After the service, as the villagers were beginning to leave, his father turned to him. “I want to talk to you, Jonathan.”

Jonathan straightened. “Very well.”

“But not here.”

“My shop and cottage is just across the way. Would you like to go there?”

His father hesitated. “That will do.”

Jonathan gestured toward the entrance. “Did you bring the carriage?”

After his father nodded, Jonathan said, “I will ask them to wait for you here.”

It had been years since his father had come to the apothecary’s cottage. In fact, Jonathan could not recall the last time he had visited. As they crossed the village square to the apothecary shop, Jonathan could feel curious eyes on both of them. He slowed his steps to match his father’s shuffling gait, but the old man was quite out of breath by the time they reached their destination.

Jonathan pushed the door to the cottage open and moved aside. His father hesitated but then stepped over the threshold, casting his eyes up to the dark wooden beams running the length of the ceiling. “I cannot believe you actually choose to live here.”

“Come now, Father. It isn’t so bad.” Jonathan set about lighting a candle lamp and brushed aside a stack of newspapers, wishing he had thought to tidy the cottage before he left for church.

“It is a cottage, Jonathan. A tradesman’s cottage. You are heir to Kettering Hall. You deserve better than this.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow at the word
deserve
. His father had always given the impression that he did not think Jonathan worthy of much at all. The masked praise sent a shot of warmth through him.

“This suits me well,” he said, surveying the cramped room. “I need no more space than this. Besides, I find I do not spend a great deal of time at home anyway. I am far too busy in the shop and the village.”

His father moved to the wooden table and pushed out one of the chairs with his cane. His hobbled form cast a crooked shadow on the far wall as he sat down. “I want to talk to you, boy.”

Jonathan winced. He hated it when his father called him “boy.” But he said nothing about it. Something seemed different with the old man, and Jonathan was curious to learn what it was.

Ian Gilchrist rested his cane atop the table and ran his finger over the carved feathers on its side. “I want to talk to you about the Bevoy.”

Jonathan shrugged. He was growing quite immune to the word
Bevoy
. At first the very mention of the stolen gem had incited a strange tremor of anxiety. That sensation had gradually transitioned into one of annoyance. But now the word was becoming just that—a word.

Ian Gilchrist fixed his eyes firmly on his son. “Do you know why the Bevoy is so important to me?”

Jonathan pulled out the chair next to his father and sat down. He repeated the reasoning he had heard a thousand times over. “It is valuable. You want to sell it.”

“Yes, but it is more than that. All of my treasures are.”

Jonathan had often rolled his eyes when his father referred to his collection as “treasures.” But today he sat still and quiet, giving his father the room to say what needed to be said.

“I started collecting when I was but a boy. It started with things I would find on the grounds of the estate—unusual rocks and such. But then one day, when I was no more than seven or
eight, I found a metal box in the forest, just beyond the stables. It was a rather small box, no longer than my arm, and in all likelihood it had fallen from a rider’s pack. And there was a lock on it.”

His father adjusted his sore leg with a grimace. “It was winter at the time of my discovery, and the gardener was not using the shed out behind the south gardens. So I took my box and hid it there. Every afternoon I would go out to the shed and try to pick the lock. I became quite obsessed with it, for it had been such an unexpected find—something unpredicted in the midst of my very predictable routine.”

Jonathan knew exactly the shed his father was referring to. It was the one at the back of the garden where the gardener stored pruning items. Jonathan himself had played in it as a boy. Now he found himself eager to hear the rest of the story.

“One day, I finally got the lock open. I still remember the excitement of opening that box and discovering a set of wood-carver’s tools. It was old, and several pieces were missing, but to me it might as well have been a king’s ransom. The discovery of it set me down a path of trying to recreate that excitement, that sense of wonder.

“I still have that set, which to most people might not seem like much—just rusty tools and some chunks of wood. But I never forgot the thrill of anticipation as I worked to acquire it, the adventurous feeling of opening that box to find out what was within, the satisfaction of reviewing what I had managed to acquire.

“In subsequent years I sought that feeling, that excitement, wherever I could. You of all people know that life at Kettering Hall can be tedious, far too quiet for a young man. I was to be
the master one day, but other than that had no real duties, served no real purpose. So I created my own adventures, searched for my own treasures. It’s possible I did so unwisely. For now I am an old man, with quite a treasure trove amassed, but not much else to show for it.”

Those last words resonated powerfully with Jonathan. He sat silent, weighing their significance. Never before had his father allowed him to see this side of him, one that admitted a shred of doubt or regret.

Jonathan studied his father—really studied him. Surely his showy clothing and ostentatious cane served essentially the same purpose as the armor now lining Kettering’s walls. It hid the man beneath—the real man, with flaws and fears like those of any other.

Jonathan assessed his father’s withered cheek, the bushy eyebrows, and those painfully familiar light eyes. His father feared transparency as much as Jonathan yearned for it. And yet, for some reason, he had chosen today to lower his armor.

“In my quest for novelty, I fear,” the man went on, “I have made decisions that now threaten the life we know. I have gambled and lost. And the reason the Bevoy matters so much to me is that I need to pay for my offenses. You and your sister deserve better than what I can bequeath to you without it.”

He grabbed his cane from the table and planted it on the floor, leaning toward Jonathan with intensity in his eyes. “I do not want to be the broken link in the Gilchrist chain. I do not want to be the person who dissolves the hard work of my fathers before me. That ruby is the one thing I own that is valuable enough to right my many wrongs.”

Jonathan remained silent, fearful of breaking his father’s
concentration and this unusual ribbon of truth. But at length he spoke. “I understand.”

“And this business with the Iverness girl—”

At the mention of Miss Iverness, Jonathan felt his pulse increase, racing through him with unbridled interest.

“I am not so old that I did not see what your sister and Darbin were doing the other evening.” He shook his head, his eyebrows drawn in what appeared to be genuine sorrow. “Is this what our lives have come to—tricking a young woman into sharing her secrets? Well, perhaps I am growing daft or soft in my old age, but I do believe we should be above such things. I think you see it. Perhaps you will be a positive influence on your sister.

“And now I must go.” Ian Gilchrist lurched to his feet as if he were trying to outrun the words that had just come from his mouth. “There is much I must do today.”

Jonathan could only stare as his father limped to the doorway. What could he say in response to such a speech?

A strange sense of loss settled over him like a damp woolen cloak after his father left the cottage. Part of him wanted the old man to stay, to tell him more. He was hungry, much hungrier than he had thought, to connect with his father—to find some evidence of a bond between them. For the first time in his life, he sensed that his father hungered for the same thing.

After all these years, Ian Gilchrist had consented to step, even if grudgingly, into his younger son’s world and to share something of his experience. Jonathan liked this side of his father. And perhaps this gate, now left ajar, could open the way to heal some of the hurt that had accumulated between father and son.

Chapter Thirty-Five

M
ay I please get up?” Little Jane sat up in her bed, her face rosy, her words strung together in a pitiful singsong voice. “I am so tired of lying in this room.”

Camille tucked the covers around the little girl’s legs. “No, not yet. You have been a very ill young lady, and Mr. Gilchrist says you must stay abed for a few more days.”

“But my throat hardly hurts anymore. Hear how good my voice sounds? And it is fine out. Do you not think I could go on just a little walk?”

Camille sat down next to Jane and put her finger to her lips. “Shh. You must keep your voice low. You do not want to wake Abigail or Laura or Miss Smith. Besides, you do not want to get up and move around too soon. The fever might come back, or you might give it to someone else. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

The little girl sighed. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” Camille reached down and pulled out a picture book from a basket beside the bed. “Would you like to read this? I brought it up from the library earlier today. I thought you might enjoy it.”

With a sigh, the little girl took the book and opened the cover.

Even though Jane was not pleased with staying in bed, it was
good to see her alert and her eyes bright. Camille reached over to the tray of Mr. Gilchrist’s special tea and poured Jane a cup. “Drink this, my dear. You need your strength.”

Jane took the cup from her hands, and Camille felt a small thrill of satisfaction. She had not expected to spend her days at Fellsworth School as a nurse. But as the days passed, she was beginning to see how Mr. Gilchrist found such satisfaction in helping others and why he was so determined to continue his work despite his father’s disapproval.

She turned to the open window. A curl of a breeze swirled through it, its crispness reminding her faintly of autumn. She could not help but think of the maid’s comment to her that first morning at Kettering Hall—about how the trees turned yellow and the woods seemed to be on fire.

So much had changed for her in such a short span of time. What would her life be like when autumn arrived?

The afternoon had grown late, and the children were enjoying some free time on the opposite side of the yard. She watched them running and playing and could not help but wonder what it would have been like to grow up with such freedom.

She was just about to turn back to her tray when she caught sight of a man, tall and straight, striding into the yard. He was dressed in a green coat and tan breeches and carried a large box.

Mr. Gilchrist.

He had come by the school every day since the children had fallen ill, but his visit today seemed much later than usual—a fact which left Camille conflicted.

How she wanted to enjoy his company, but ever since she had discovered the Bevoy three days prior, she had been unable to relax in his presence. In fact, her concern that she might say
or do something to betray herself was so strong that she had avoided him whenever she could.

She returned to her seat next to Jane. With the child now awake and alert, the hours passed a little more quickly, and Camille was finding that being around children was not quite as difficult as she had thought. In fact, she was starting to enjoy it.

She and Jane looked through the drawings of elephants and giraffes together. Then she walked down the row of beds and changed the cool cloth on Laura’s forehead and adjusted Miss Redburn’s blankets.

A tap of knuckles on the door drew Camille’s attention, and she turned. Little Jane broke into a wide smile. “Mr. Gilchrist!”

Mr. Gilchrist’s eyes met Camille’s briefly before he set down his box and turned his attention to the child. “Well, Miss Jane. And how are you today?”

She ignored his question. “You are so late today, Mr. Gilchrist. The day is almost over.”

“It could not be helped.” He sat on the chair next to her bed. “But you hardly need me anymore. Look at you. You are almost as good as new!”

“That is what I told Miss Iverness, but she said I must stay in bed.”

“And you should listen to Miss Iverness, for she is absolutely right. You would not want to get up and about too early and risk getting sick again, would you? Not after you have spent so much time getting well.”

“No, sir.” Jane shook her head from side to side.

“That is what I thought. Now, what is this?” He picked up the book that was resting atop her covers. “This looks quite interesting.”

“Miss Iverness brought that for me.”

“That was very kind of her. And I have a surprise for you as well. Would you like to see it?”

Jane’s golden eyes widened, and she nodded enthusiastically.

He gave her a grin, which incited a giggle. Then he opened his coat and produced a wriggling white kitten.

Jane squealed. “How lovely!” She reached for the kitten and nuzzled it close.

“Did I not tell you the first day we met that I would bring a kitten for a visit? But see, it took me all this time to catch one. I told you, I am not very good at catching kittens.”

She giggled again. “Thank you, Mr. Gilchrist.”

He continued. “I do not think Mr. Langsby would be very pleased with me if he knew I brought a kitten into the school, so I will have to take her back home with me. But I was hoping you and Laura could care for her while I am here. Can you assist me with this?”