seriously. Not one of them has done anything original in years.
Thereâs another reason, as well, why she holds her tongue on this night. Lately, since Christopher has started courting Miss Juliet Colden, heâs become critical of Sarah Anneâs manners. She does not dress as elegantly as Juliet, or comport herself with such decorum. Sheâs forward when she ought to be retiring, he has said, and disputatious when she should be agreeable. Heâs spoken to her several times already: âYou should wear your learning modestly,â he lectures.
She does wear it modestly, or so she believes. Sheâs careful not to betray in public those subjects she knows more thoroughly than Christopher. Always she reminds herself that her learning is only book-learning; that it hasnât been tempered, as Christopherâs has, by long discussions after dinner and passionate arguments in coffeehouses with wiser minds.
And so here she is: learned, but not really; and not pretty, and no longer young: last month she turned twenty-nine. Old, old, old. Like her company. She knows that Christopher has begun to worry that sheâll be on his hands for life. And she thinks that perhaps heâs mentioned this worry to his friends.
Theyâre fond of him, and of Burdem Place. They appreciate the library, the herbarium, the rare trees and shrubs outside, the collections in the specimen cabinets. They appreciate Sarah Anne as well, she knows. Earlier, they complimented the food, her gown, the flowers on the table and her eyes in the candlelight. But whatâs the use of that sort of admiration? Collinson, who has known her the longest, was the only one to make a stab at treating her the way they all had when she was a girl: he led her into quoting Pliny and then complimented her on her learning. But she saw the way the other men shifted uneasily as she spoke.
Despite herself, she continues to listen to the menâs conversation.Despite her restlessness, her longing to be outside in the cool damp air, or in some other place entirely, she listens because the subject theyâre discussing fascinates her.
âI had a letter last year from Solander,â Ellis says. âRegarding the November meeting of the Royal Society. There, a Reverend Forster said heâd observed large flocks of swallows flying quite high in the autumn, then coming down to sit on reeds and willows before plunging into the water of one of his ponds.â
âMore hearsay,â Collinson says.
But Pennant says it might be so; either that or they slept for the winter in their summer nesting holes. âLocke says that there are no chasms or gaps in the great chain of being,â he reminds them. âRather there is a continuous series in which each step differs very little from the next. There are fishes that have wings, and birds that inhabit the water, whose blood is as cold as that of fishes. Why should not the swallow be one of those animals so near of kin to both birds and fish that it occupies a place between both? As there are mermaids or seamen, perhaps.â
No one objects to the introduction of aquatic anthropoids into the conversation. Reports of them surface every few yearsâCingalese fishermen swear theyâve caught them in their nets, a shipâs captain spots two off the coast of Massachusetts. In Paris, only four years ago, a living female of the species was exhibited.
Collinson says, âOur friend Mr. Achard writes me that he has seen them hibernating in the cliffs along the Rhine. But I have my doubts about the whole story.â
âYes?â Pennant says. âSo what do you believe?â
âI think swallows migrate,â Collinson says.
While the servants change plates, replace glasses, and open fresh bottles of wine, Collinson relates a story from Mr. Adansonâs recent History of Senegal. Off the coast of that land in autumn, he says, Adanson reported seeing swallows settling on
Kat Richardson
Celine Conway
K. J. Parker
Leigh Redhead
Mia Sheridan
D Jordan Redhawk
Kelley Armstrong
Jim Eldridge
Robin Owens
Keith Ablow