Episode 64
The Terrible Lizard
Not trusting anyone else to look after Major, Arabella saw to him herself. She unsaddled the Arabian and walked him about the ring path around the house to cool him down. When she had returned to the stables to brush and rub the horse down, she found the grooms taking care of the gray with Geoffrey Pike nowhere in sight.
After she had seen Major to his stall and saw that he was properly watered and fed, she went to her room where she stripped off her riding togs to wash and dress for dinner. She took her time bathing and brushing her hair as she knew that father and his visitor would be consumed with whatever urgent dispatch from prehistory Geoffrey had brought with him from London.
She arrived in the dining room to find the pair of them deeply absorbed in conversation. The subedar stood stoic and impassive at the far end of the table carving a roast as Geoffrey and her father spoke in enthusiastic tones at the near end. Her father was effusive over a newspaper clipping and held it up for Arabella to inspect. The clipping was from The Geographical Journal and was dominated by a grainy photograph of what looked like a demonically smiling skull grinning from the earthen face of an open trench. A dour looking man leaning on a cane was included in the picture in order to supply scale to the massive skull.
“It’s hideous,” she declared.
“It’s some breed of tyrannosaur,” her father stated with a broad smile that was very nearly boyish.
“That means ‘terrible lizard’ in the Latin,” Geoffrey added.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Arabella took her accustomed seat as one of the kitchen maids set a soup plate before her.
“It’s in a place called Eagle Flat in the state of Texas,” her father said as he sat in his chair at the table’s head, eyes still locked on the clipping.
“That’s in the United States,” Geoffrey added.
“I wish, Mr. Pike, that you would refrain from trying to improve me either in my understanding of Latin or in the area of geography,” she said as she lifted a spoonful of consommé to allow it to cool. “I am well aware of the location of Texas”
“Some fellow stumbled across it while fleeing the local aborigines,” her father said.
“A journalist was passing on his way westward,” Geoffrey said. “He led a party to the site and took this picture. I imagine he thought it a passing fancy. In actuality, it’s quite a find.”
“Who knows what the ground thereabouts might hold,” Lord Huntoun said, ignoring his soup to imagine a trove of fossilized treasures.
Arabella set her spoon down and eyed them both.
“You are not,” she said. “You are not considering traveling to this–”
“Eagle Flat,” Geoffrey put in.
“No, my dear.” Her father shook his head. “My days of adventure are behind me. You and I have been to the back of beyond. I am content to see to my brother’s holdings and to see you well married.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught Geoffrey smiling at her obsequiously. She sniffed, refusing to look his way.
“Well, it pleases me to hear you say that, father,” she said as she raised her spoon once more. “There are quite enough adventures to be had right here on the estate.”
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