A Spark Unseen

then, inexplicably, she chuckled, and then she laughed. “Why, what a poisonous little toad that Alice Tulman is! Truly! She didn’t tell us about that after you left, my dear, not by half!”

Though she’d told them plenty else, I’d wager.

“Well, that does explain a good bit,” she said, sighing through her laughter. “You see …” She scooted forward to the edge of her chair, as if about to confide a secret … “I enjoy folly, Miss Tulman, in all its forms, not excluding my own. There is nothing more amusing than observing the foibles of others. It makes the day pass faster. And my, but didn’t your aunt Tulman provide plenty to be amused about! I daresay I might have behaved differently had I known the true situation, though I’m not certain what good it could have done. To be honest, I’ve never considered Alice Tulman far beyond the occasional letter and our little morning teas. …”

Her gaze wandered over my head for a moment, then she smiled at me again. “But I must say that your uncle looked as if he belonged in an asylum to me, my dear. When he threw that hammer I can strictly promise not to have run so fast before or since. Another bit of fun I must thank you and your aunt for! Now …” She tapped me lightly on the knee. “I’m so glad we got that settled to satisfaction, Miss Tulman. What is it that you wished to speak to me about?”

It took me several moments to stop staring at Mrs. Hardcastle, to give up contemplating the result of living a life in which nothing worse had ever happened than a wrongly colored ribbon or a particularly vexing maid, a life so vain and pampered that the pain of others was nearly indecipherable. I clasped my hands together, reformulating my view of my childhood. Mrs. Hardcastle was not an evil woman, I decided, but her mind had the depth of a Parisian puddle, and it occurred to me that sometimes the result could be the same.

“Miss Tulman?” Mrs. Hardcastle prodded.

I took a breath. “It is my aunt I wished to speak to you about, actually. I was hoping to ask you for … a favor.”

Her little eyes lit up behind the spectacles. “Anything!” she replied.

“My aunt Alice was afraid of Mr. Babcock, legally speaking, and she had good reason to be. I think as soon as she hears of his death …” I paused. “I think that she will seek to prove me incompetent and take Stranwyne Keep. On behalf of her son, of course.”

Mrs. Hardcastle nodded her understanding.

“It may be some time before I can return to London and talk with anyone in Mr. Babcock’s offices, and my affairs there could be in some disarray. I wanted to ask if you would keep up a correspondence with my aunt, and if … if you would not mention our meeting here in Paris. If you would be so good as to inform me of any plans or proceedings that are moving forward, I would be most grateful.”

Mrs. Hardcastle grinned hugely, as if I had presented her with some sort of delectable tart. “Why, I would love to, Miss Tulman. Of course! I told you I relish folly, and a regular correspondence with your aunt is a veritable treat! And now that I am aware of some of the truer circumstances, I shall relish it even more!”

I smiled, perhaps the first genuine smile I’d ever given Mrs. Hardcastle. I had expected to beg, crawl, and flatter to win her to my side, and the relief of not doing so was intense. But even as the smile came, the expression froze on my face. My eyes had wandered to the little curio cabinet I had noticed before, just beyond Mrs. Hardcastle’s shoulder. On the top shelf, behind the curved glass door, the light from the open curtain had caught on a collection of silver. Little animals, palm-sized, carved in intricate detail.

I leapt up from my chair, reached over Mrs. Hardcastle, and pulled open the curio’s glass door, rattling the porcelain figures that stood precariously on top. I touched a silver dog in a dreaming sleep, a raven, a lumbering bear, and in the back, a fish. The posture of the fish was stiff, not natural like the others animals, as if its model had been made of metal plates. I grabbed it up. Tiny, minute rivets ran down the edges, levers entering the body from the fins. Not a replica of an animal, but of a machine.

I whirled about, facing the other end of the room. They were all watching me, the girls openmouthed, Henri with his forehead wrinkled, Mrs. Reynolds offended. Mrs. Hardcastle looked back and forth between us through the pince-nez. I held out the fish.

“Where did you get this?” I demanded of Mrs. Reynolds. When she did not answer, I looked at them all, my voice rising. “Where did you get these?”

“Whatever is the matter, Miss Tulman?” said the brown-frizzed Miss Mortimer at the same time her cousin was saying, “The little silver animals, you mean?”

I pounced on her question. “Yes, the animals! Where did you get them?”

Mrs. Reynolds’s gaze on my face was a thing that could cut flesh. “Those works of art were made by Jean- Michel, Miss Tulman.”

“Who?”

“The protege!” cried the blonde Miss Mortimer. “Don’t you remember? We told you all about the …”

The protege. The artist who painted with clever fingers. The man who had not returned home.

I dashed from the room, throwing open the drawing-room doors to run up Mrs. Reynolds’s stairwell, my mind moving much faster than my legs could. I was remembering my search through the house that first night in Paris, the room with the easels and cloth-covered canvases, on the top floor, second door to the right. I burst through the door, panting, the fish still clutched in my hand, slamming it behind me and turning the lock before I ran to the first easel and yanked off the cloth.

It was a painting of Stranwyne, the northeast side of the house, the brown stones blushing rose and orange in a dawn rising up from the moor hills. I pulled off the second cloth, and it was the village church with the graveyard beside it. The third painting was stones and rocky hills, a ruin I recognized at the top of the tallest one, but in the foreground of this picture stood a woman, her back to the painter, skirts and curling auburn hair blown wild by a strong north wind. The woman in the painting was me.

I raised the fish to my mouth, clutching it hard as I closed my eyes. Mrs. Reynolds’s protege had been Lane Moreau.

19

I heard feet on the stairs but I ignored them. Instead I ransacked the drawers, also choosing to ignore the knocks, calls, shouts, and then thudding bangs that accompanied my search. There were shirts here I recognized, and the red cap, and the smell, I knew it. It made my heart quicken, both in recognition and fear. Wherever Lane had gone, he could not have taken much with him. I stripped the bed, where I found nothing but blankets and sheets, and then got on my knees to look underneath. A box with odds and ends, mostly painting supplies, and in the back corner, hiding from the maid’s broom, a scrap of paper. I got two fingers on it before the door splintered around its lock. I caught a glimpse of four female faces peeking in before Henri stepped inside and casually shut the broken door behind him. It would not latch. He observed me in my position on the floor.

“Did you know it is very painful to do that?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder.

“It took you twelve times,” I commented.

“I must practice, I think.”

I remained on my knees, staring at the scrap of paper in my hand. It was torn and dirty, only part of a scrawled word visible, but the handwriting belonged to Lane. It said Tuiler and that was all. The paper was torn, the rest missing.

“So, who is he?” Henri Marchand asked, strolling across the floor to examine the paintings. He stopped before the third canvas, the one of me with my hair down and said, “Ah,” as if I had answered his question.

I stood, eyeing the room. Other than the paintings, there was nothing else to look at, no other things to go through. I held out the scrap of paper to Henri.

“The Tuileries, perhaps?” he said after a glance. “That is the imperial palace. Or one of them.”

He handed the paper back to me as the door creaked, and then Mrs. Reynolds was standing in the room with us, hands clasped in front of her. She opened her thin mouth to speak, but I spoke first.

“When was he last here? What day, exactly?”