The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 3

by Beth Brower

He calls it his Out and About Reminder. It is somewhat alarming to find this likeable oddity in my cousin. Anyone who calls anything their “Out and About Reminder” must have a sliver of poetry in their soul. A sliver. The smallest measure. The rest of Archibald’s soul is dismal soot grey, I am convinced.

He took it back! Mr. Pierce slipped a response through the wall just now, and as I reached for it, he took it back! Not having established Rules of Order for Garret Communication in The Year of 1883, I don’t know the legality of such an action.

Thus, it was left to myself to open the door when the knock came. I did, and there was Mr. Pierce. A summer storm, as he stood on my stoop in his unintended but brooding manner. I could almost smell the rain.

“Allow me to come to your aid,” I said. “I have a door that matches all the others in the house. It’s up in the garret. You’re most welcome to use it, but I will need your help bringing it down as it is quite heavy. Solid wood, only the best, and all that. I figure you should be able to manage it, seeing as how you are very…” I paused then.

It was an angular place to stop. A great deal more awkward than I intended, followed by the terrible fear I was turning into Agnes. Seeing as how I was not going to say what I was really thinking, I finished with the word “…tall.” Very tall. Seeing as how you are very tall. What a triumph you are, Emma M. Lion.

Mr. Pierce had given me his attention as soon as I’d started speaking, and with each additional sentence the side of his mouth seemed to rise, his eyes narrowing in proportion, until it was either disbelief or amusement w...

I suppose when one has a peg leg and an eyepatch, one might scowl. Justifiably so. However, his auburn hair made it difficult to take such an expression with any degree of seriousness. Be a pirate, if you must, but do not try to do so as a ginger.

“Brooding?” He said. “Rochester? What sort of monster do you paint me to be?” Monster? No. Certainly not. Mysterious person with a past? Very much yes. It cannot be denied.

“Cry off. Send a note round saying you’ve a headache.” “I’m not sure I’ve a head possible of aching, Young Hawkes,” I replied. “I think it’s gone.” His expression was all sympathy, even if he did lift a finger and poke my forehead to prove that I did, indeed, still have a head.

He pirouetted around and out of my room. Humming. There was no pantomimed partner.

Dancing with his own self was sufficient. Selfishness runs deep.

“It is not your fault,” I replied. “A strange accident, as you said yourself.” “We cannot always predict the outcomes of our actions, Miss Lion, however well intended.” I stood. “What else is life but a string of outcomes beyond our control?”

“It’s messier than we ever imagined it to be as children,” he said. “What?” “Life.”

“Your helping me felt like…home.” “That elusive shore,” he said quietly. “Aye.” “Goodnight then, Miss Lion.” “Goodnight.” And I hadn’t realised until that moment how much I’ve missed that feeling, of someone inside your four walls watching out for you. The feeling that home isn’t just a place, but also people. I’ve forgotten it could be.

“Young Hawkes? The vicar?” Agnes bunched her freckled nose. “He doesn’t look like a vicar.” No, Agnes, he certainly does not.

“Oh, Jack,” I sighed. “I forgot you plagued this city.” The crocodile grinned. “Hello, wife of my youth.” “How very proverbial of you,” I replied. “Have you been reading your Bible?” “No time for reading, Miss Lion. The pace of the world is changing, and we must change with it.”

“Then why are you here?” “Because, crème de la crème, I want to ask you a question.” “Oh? What do I get for answering?” “A decent tea, unless you prefer I slip out, leaving you to foot the bill, sweets.”

The door swung open—goodness, that man can swing a door almost as well as he can throw open a curtain.

“It’s the twenty-seventh of July.” His voice, the jaded angle of it, made his statement more flesh and blood than he. “It is.” “How are you holding up?” My answer was the lack of one. “Come in.” He stepped back, opening the door wide enough to let me pass. I did.

So, after sitting quiet a quarter of an hour, I spoke of Maxwell. Of the first time I recall him traipsing across my young girl memory. Of the summer days beyond the river. Of the secret notes between children. Of realising it was more. Of choosing one another, somehow, before we understood what it meant. Of his leaving. Of his death.

“Miss Lion?”

Emma M. Lion is no coward, I am pleased to report, for I turned to face him. He did not look comfortable when he said, “We do not know one another very well, and so what I’m about to say may be erroneous.” I meant to laugh but made a strange sound instead, reminiscent of a dying animal. “You say that after today?” I quipped. He smiled sadly. “You have a humour about you, a good deal of natural pluck, for lack of a better word. A general devil-may-care approach to some very serious circumstances.” I couldn’t tell in the moment, and can’t decipher now, if he meant his words to be a compliment or a subtle admonition.

“I make a go of it, when I can. It’s not my disposition to…what I mean to say is, I learned a long time ago that my happiness has to be separate from the things beyond my control.” “Admirable,” he said, as if he didn’t believe me...

“Most of us understand that in theory, but we don’t do it half so well as you seem to.” “It isn’t my nature to choose sadness if I can help it,” I said, shrugging to excuse my failure today. “Gloomy days stand in their place, but there is too much,”—I waved a ha...

“And yet you carry about your ghost,” he said. “You look for him over your shoulder.” I took my breath in quickly. His words hurt in the way that truth does when you wish it was a lie but know you cannot claim it to be. “It’s not a criticism,” Mr. Pierce continued. “Then what is it?” I replie...

“I carry more ghosts than you could imagine, Miss Lion. I know the weight. It is no life.”

HAVE YOU SEEN TYBALT ABOUT? HE’S NOT COME FOR HIS DINNER. He’s languishing in the west garret, while the mice run a gentleman’s club not three feet away. LAZY BAST SCOUNDREL. Indeed. To both your intended and your amended sentiment.

Life never fails you in this one thing: There is always an unexpected sleight of hand.

The day Emma M. Lion believes a widower with three children to be harmless is the day she’ll cast herself into the Thames.

“I must march forward before my desire has flown and I become one of those contented souls chained to their small routine, all the while believing themselves to be free. Don’t think I mind a routine, that’s just what I’m craving. But the right routine. My routine. Two walks a day, several hours of reading, perhaps one visit with someone I enjoy. One dinner or entertainment per week if you must, possibly two, but please let there be reading.”

Lion.” “Is it so unreasonable to expect a small amount of perfection from life?”

“I own the Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s Comedies, In Full, and Jane Eyre, which I’ve read at least seven times.” And as I am committed to the truth, I must record what he uttered next, however blasphemous. “Too much Shakespeare.” That is what he said. Those three words formed in such an ugly way. What could the man possibly have been thinking? “Is there such a thing!” I defended. Mr. Pierce looked up then. “When it composes a full fifty percent of one’s personal library? Certainly. Does Lapis Lazuli House not have any books?”

“Does he read?” “Oh, I expect not. How else would one remain so incredibly stupid? Forgive me. I mean— Well, actually, that is exactly what I mean. Me calling him stupid was less a reflection of his ability and more of the state in which he exists.”

It never occurred to me that Mr. Pierce would have books. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t. I’d just never paired the two. He comes and goes at all hours, is dedicated to his studio in between. The thought of him stopping long enough to read something other than a newspaper made me feel…something pleasant.

Embarrassing and delightful. My life, in other words.

Then he breathed out rather strongly and said, “Whenever I am in America, I feel so decidedly English. And whenever I am in England, I feel maddeningly American.”

“Emerson was a friend. I have three copies of this essay. I’ve read it and agreed with it and disagreed with it half a dozen times, if not more. So take this copy, Emma, and see what you can do with it. Don’t be so bloody English.

Scribble in the margins, underline, cross out, whatever you care or dare. But take the damn book.” My wide-eyed expression turned to a slow smile. “How very American of you, Mr. Pierce.” He groaned. And I accepted the book.

Oh dear. “Self-Reliance.” I had not read the first page in its entirety before disagreeing twice and possibly agreeing once. This will be interesting, if not pleasant or comfortable. Which sounds like a description of most Americans. Perhaps that was unfair. Perhaps not.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none. Ah, Mr. Emerson. Perhaps you are a man after my heart after all…

He tapped his fingers on the side of the bureau and considered me. “I am not dressed for dinner.”

Speaking of plants, he has two or three trees potted and placed artfully around the room, mostly near the windows. I was and am completely charmed by them.

“I’ve taken Mr. Flat his dinner, Miss Lion.” “Thank you, Agnes. Did he try and bite you today?” “Yes, but I was faster.”

“I do not often change for dinner in my own home, do I, Agnes?” “No, Miss. Only my mother says that a true lady always changes, even in death.” “Even in death? As in, when one has died? How remarkable. I’ve thought the ladies of society to be less capable than that.”

“What a pillar of society you are.” “My role is to be a novelty of society, Miss Lion. Never a pillar.” I grinned. “Even better.”

If I were the heroine of a novel, I would have felt my heart clutch, the misery of what happened all those miles away causing me to freeze, perhaps closed my eyes tightly, hands shaking, feeling all the difficult corners of loss. But I am not the heroine of a novel. I am flesh, blood—interesting enough on occasion, with dull edges here and there, living a life of the expected and the unexpected, the wanted and the worst of the unwanted.

“Good,” he answered sharply. “Be angry. Be terribly, bloody angry. Better fury than sorrow.”

“Twice now you have used my given name. I thought you’d decided against such rash action?”