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All related thoughts end with the realisation that a good deal of life is watching those we love consider the stupidest of possibilities.
one who has a past of miles and far nations and injury and struggle, of which I know little or nothing. Who despite his best efforts, is now put at risk because someone across an ocean rolled false dice. And some have been shattered by old hurts, but we’ve no idea how they formed. And some keep their distance and their mystery, despite writing names on keys. And betimes the very streets of home, i.e., St. Crispian’s, usually charming and whimsical and fallible in the most lovely way, begin to feel cramped, small, and smudged. And there isn’t any other place one would wish to live, which makes
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May has exacted a good many things. So come, June, come, and tell me every secret.
Edit: lol well not every secret but ya did get a good few lol
And so we went from, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? To Ah, gentle knight, thy vows are often crossed, And oftentimes must be renewed again.
“Miss Lion, I try not to interfere with the moral decisions of your life—” “Moral decisions? Heavens. I try not to interfere with them either.”
“I take it you two are…friends?” Roland said. Chambers—looking for all the world like The Pirate I know him to be—said, “Inmates, rather, in the jail called life.”
“Huzzah!” Roland cheered for himself, having accomplished something which should not have been too very difficult—that
It is a potent threat, the process of caring for someone at increasing intervals.
All of May was a race. Against my aunt. Against time. Against the portions of life which were simply too much, even if many of them are good. I am saturated and ready to bleed out the intensity of the colour. I intend to trap serenity, if I can catch it.”
Hawkes soon appeared, not wearing anything half so formal as the rest of us, and we four went in to dinner.
Note that she too felt uncomfortable in the finery equivalent of everyone else.
“Stonecrop Islington is shockingly at ease in his world. What have you done with London Islington? Is he locked in a closet somewhere?” To which Hawkes murmured, “A corridor.”
Pfft.
“I’ve long developed a habit of not growing accustomed to people, Emma Lion, but I have found the last few days ill-fitting without you.”
And so this morning when I was sitting on the stairs—mostly hidden from view—and Hawkes was half sleeping in his place on the window seat across from July, both of us in the daze of low notes and early morning, the door of October opened. Pierce, already having dressed himself, looked out in question. He saw Hawkes. He said something. Hawkes replied. Pierce, crossing his arms, leaned a shoulder against his doorway. And I kept thinking of the four corners of the earth.
I have been thinking about this quote for days since I read it. It stopped me in my tracks. I just… GAH.
I thought nothing more of it all (I thought a great deal of it but had drawn no conclusions).
lol me
It is one of the most arresting portraits I’ve ever seen. Of movement and abundance, of confidence unshaken. Life had come a-calling and these three had answered. It looked as if they shared amusement. I would wager they shared secrets. Something about the three of them pricked the skin on the back of my neck like a haunting. I knew what I was gazing at, but I could not give it a name. It was only later that I realised exactly why it was so familiar. Alchemy. The three of them. As if they had no need of anyone else in the world.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHER WOMAN
“And the other young woman? She and Islington so complement, one would think them twins.” It was said lightly, almost a laugh. The muscles in Mariana’s neck drew tighter as she took in a breath—a deep cut expertly sealed over. “Tea?”
AHHHHHH HE HAS A TWIN SISTER WHAT HAPPENED DID SHE DIE
Frowning—having left the portrait gallery, and in the process of making my way across the hall—I caught sight of the Devereux coat of arms in the ornament of the grand staircase and remembered. The Devereux family is known for their twins.
Screaming to my roommate about this right now because OMG OMG OMG
Countess of Ellam
COUNTESS???
He played as if he dared not allow the looseness of the June woodland to steal the notes before he claimed them his own.
There was a gravestone, and on the gravestone was a name. Hannah Devereux July 15th, 1853 – October 3rd, 1873
AHHHHH HENRY AND HANNAH. THE TWINS. AHHHHH. ANSWERS. AHHHHHH.
Islington’s birthday is July 15th. Julius Caesar day in St. Crispian’s is July 15th.
Pierce’s shoulders released a burden. Then. “Niall?” Pierce stiffened. “Niall, is it— Is it you?” We all turned to see a woman. Older than me, yet still young.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
“It’s just down the lane here, surely you remember,” Nance said, turning a deeper sentiment into a laugh to assuage the moment. “Is he still there?” Pierce asked, looking past her as he spoke.
OMG DOES HE HAVE DADDY ISSUES
Islington and Hawkes had paused their conversation, waiting. And it was Hawkes who spoke. “Do you need us to wait here, do you need us to head for Stonecrop, or do you need us to come with you?”
Bro I love this man so much
“What do you need from your friends, Pierce?” Hawkes said. “To wait, to go, or to come?”
Not long, then, until we’d walked down one lane and then another, approaching what—surprisingly—appeared to be the parsonage.
OMG IS HE AN ATHEIST BECAUSE HIS DAD WAS A VICAR AND WAS ABUSIVE?
A shout from inside the house, and a woman who looked like an older, more sorrowful version of Nance came flying out of the blackness of the doorway. She did not seem to see Niall. She was running to her boy, gone at ten or eleven and never heard of since.
“Pierce,” I whispered, deliberately choosing his father’s surname. “Pierce. It’s time. It’s time to go. It’s time to leave.”
He was speaking at Hawkes, hands lifted as he made his point. Hawkes was standing with his arms folded, looking down with all the seriousness of a philosopher. Islington seemed to ask him a question. Hawkes had no immediate reply. Islington asked again, waiting. Hawkes looked up and gave answer. It caught Islington, stilled him. He stared Hawkes down a moment then threw up a hand. Be it in frustration or concession or commiseration, I could not say.
WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT????
disappear. There was no cause. “But Pierce, Islington’s sister is coming. You can’t simply…disappear! People shouldn’t disappear!” “I’m coming back, Emma.” He was watching me as if he’d understood some new fact. “A few days, is all. Some space on the train, time to think, tasks that need doing. Then I’m coming back.” “Only, I didn’t know—” “I’m coming back.” “Yes, good!” I rushed. “So you’ve said.” “So I’ve said,” he repeated.
Guys, I don’t think he’s coming back.
Later, as I lay in bed, I thought about the happiness of we four. How tangibles and intangibles held us together. How palpable the reality of life that something might crash through and change everything forever.
Yeah he’s not coming back
I made my way into the portrait gallery, walking to the far end where the portrait hangs. I looked at the three of them and then opened my book to the incriminating page. Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together. I looked at Islington and his companions—how comfortably linked, how assumptive that they would always exist together—and wished to cry.
“Only life does not play lightly with its human pieces.”
It is not that I am ignorant of the toll of friendship. I am not. Only I wish I knew better how to carry the balance. And then there is Hawkes, whose irksome mystery now feels like a grace, locking me out of a third expenditure I might not have capacity to pay.
“Do I need to confiscate Coleridge?” I stopped and looked up at the grand staircase. Hawkes sat midway up the stair, as if it were a perfectly normal thing. He was looking tired in a way he had not since we arrived. Some deep internal recess opened to a glimpse behind his eyes, and Hawkes said softly, “But in one quiet room we three are still together.” Dust motes and stillness and late, late afternoon sunshine. “It’s a rather sad line,” I replied. “Yes,” Hawkes said. “Breaking and beautiful. Have you spent much time with the portrait?”
Ok weird alternate theory… what if Hawkes is, somehow, the Roman. Or just like a guardian angel from heaven or something. Something about him seems so otherworldly… and how does he know everything?
“I keep my distance, not to avoid burden. It is to spare others.”
his blue eyes lit as if by holy fire.
Hawkes waited for me to take it before he said, “Open your window. A scented breeze fit for Oberon’s court.”
AHHH WAIT HOW WOULD HE KNOW UNLESS HE IS OBERON
she isn’t your sister. She isn’t actually your ward—” “She is in the eyes of London.” “—and when you promised you would explain the whole debacle, I didn’t… I didn’t expect—” A snap from Islington at her hesitation. “Didn’t expect what?” Her words came like a spear thrown of necessity by a regretful soldier, “Which one are you trying to replace, Henry?”
WOAH.
The sister. DEFINITELY the sister.
Islington and Emma are not in love.
They can’t be.
I refuse.
Hannah and Becca
A letter for Hawkes has been waiting for his return this morning. The scent of pear lingering.
WHO IS THIS WOMAN
We had a, well, is genial too strong a word? Yes, it is. But it was a conversation nonetheless, about my father, his oeuvre, his ethos. As she was genuinely curious and asked intelligent questions, I did feel interesting for a full twenty minutes.
Real.
There is a freedom in my body. It is so very familiar, yet long abandoned for the mandates of adulthood—womanhood, I should say. While I am under no illusions (nor is anyone else of my acquaintance) that I am the ideal execution of what a woman ought to be, I still feel like I’ve tucked my wings against myself too often.
These long days out of doors feel like coming home to a place to which I’ve always held the key, but was told it should be put away.
“And this,” Aunt Eugenia sniffed, “is my niece, Miss Emma Lion. Presently, the Duke of Islington’s ward.” At these words, Lady Eloise had looked directly at me. Not at the mention of Islington’s name, but rather the mention of my own. Or so it appeared.
Hand tentatively resting on the arm of Lord Stringham, she glanced about only once, pausing when she found me, still standing beside Aunt Eugenia. There was a nearly indecipherable resignation in her eyes, the slightest ghost of a doe being hunted. I wished to rescue her somehow. I can’t say why.
I felt somewhat sad—watching Lady Eloise glancing over her shoulder, as if she half hoped to find someone she knew she wouldn’t.
I’ve taken the folded fortune from the back of my desk drawer and find I’m no longer afraid of what it could mean, or what it mightn’t. I am neither looking for Pierce inside the words, nor am I afraid of finding him there. As for its meaning? I can’t say.
