Chapter Five
Winsome had paledand set down the paper. She claimed she could not read the very thing Verity needed to know about. Winsome had to read it, as she herselfreallycould not read it. How could it be too horrible to read? What was in it that would set off Serenity?
Serenity had whipped round from the shelves. “Why? What does it say? Was something done to the bees?”
“It’s about slow-moving creatures, Serenity,” Winsome said, attempting to ease her sister’s worry. “Bees are fast-moving, one can hardly see them sometimes, they fly so fast.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Serenity said.
They all knew well enough of Serenity’s care of bees and her devastation when she found one dead in a garden, which she seemed to always be looking for. Of course, they’d only recently discovered that she’d kept all the dead bees she’d found in a wood box, and that Lord Thorpe had built a proper crypt for them in their garden at home. Verity and Winsome had privately agreed that Lord Thorpe must be off his head in love with Serenity to have done it.
“But then,” Serenity said, clearly thinking things through, “do you say some slow-moving animal was hurt? I am not certain what constitutes a slow-moving animal. Is it a poor old animal who cannot move as fast as he once could? I should justdie to know it! Our dear Nelson only has three legs and he’s blind in one eye—he can be slow-moving and he’s not even old!”
Serenity was already springing water out of her eyes, as was her nature. It was as if she had a well inside her eyeballs and could pump the water at will.
“Serenity,” Winsome said, “Nothing has happened to Nelson. He is safe and sound at your house, lying around somewhere with Lord Thorpe’s mastiff, like he always is. Why don’t you go to the drawing room and see how Valor and Sir Galahad get on with their card game? Put all this science talk out of your mind and think no more about it.”
Serenity nodded. “That would be best, I think. As she made her way to the door, she said, “Though I cannot help that my imagination is conjuring something very terrible.”
“No, no,” Winsome said soothingly, “it’s not that bad. Really, it is not.”
Serenity nodded and closed the door behind her. Verity stared at Winsome, entirely forgetting about her cold compress.
Winsome said, “It reallyisthat bad.”
“What? What could be bad in a dusty old paper from the Royal Society?”
Winsome picked up the paper. It says here that this John Symmons sent a Maucauco to this Mr. Carlisle for, well, for a…dissection.”
“A monkey? For a dissection?” Verity said, hardly believing her own ears.
“Verity, you cannot wish to be like these people! They cut open a monkey!”
This was ghastly indeed.
“Does Lord Wembly cut up monkeys?”
“He did not say,” Verity said. “I’m sure not. I’m sure he only reads about other people who did.” At least she hoped that was true, as even that was horrifying. No wonder LordWembly looked so shocked when she posited that she was researching the matter. It was not preposterous enough to be conducting scientific experiments, but for a lady to be reading such horrors…
Winsome went on with reading the paper. Then she gasped. “You will not believe it—this Carlisle fellow sent the cut-up monkeywiththe paper to Mr. Symmons.”
“No.”
“Indeed, it says right here.”
“What else?”
Winsome went on to read the entirety of the paper, occasionally gasping. It seemed the Maucauco was not the only victim of Mr. Carlisle’s. There was also mention of an American sloth and a lion.
As if all that were not horrifying enough, the paper concluded with detailed drawings.
Verity fanned herself. Winsome had turned white.
“Serenity can never find out anything about this,” Winsome said.
“Agreed,” Verity said. She rather wished she herself had never found out anything about it.
“We should get rid of this paper and wipe it out of our memories.”
