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

by Beth Brower

collapsed back onto my bed and, as it was the Sabbath, uttered a prayer for the demon to leave me be.

I cannot say why I like the phenomena, but I do. Heavy footfalls, abrupt stops, all punctuating his mysterious life on the other side of the wall. I digress.

It is the Art of Appearing Disinterested.

It seems he cut the bottom half of the morning robe clean off, so as to provide “the comfort of one’s bedroom in the street.” Or so he told me. 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.

“Matilde told me you engaged in the filthy habit.” Filthy habit? The accusation makes me eager to reread my journal in case I’ve missed something marvellous.

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.

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.

Seeing as how you are very tall. What a triumph you are, Emma M. Lion.

Stockings thrown over rubbish be damned. Hmm. The above language is shocking. Should it be struck from the record? I say no. If it is in the Bible, it can certainly be written in my journal.

Not that I intend to stake any man’s head to the ground…which would be very Old Testament. I digress.

Between the third and fourth floor it struck me that when one’s neighbour has a mysterious and clearly painful limp, one ought to have enquired if managing a heavy door would suit. Unless that would wound his pride. Even at the risk of greater injury to his leg. There seemed no way of bringing the matter forward without calling into question his capabilities. Which might result in him calling me out. I would accept, and ask Agnes to be my second. Mr. Pierce and I would duel in the street. I would die.

By the time we had passed the fourth floor, I decided to allow the man to make his own judgement concerning his fitness for the task. Thus I retained my young life.

I enjoyed the unexpected rush of memory, when life was happy in an uncomplicated way, and managed to smile over it, but beneath the smile, I felt wistful.

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.

Dark, brooding. A touch of the Mr. Rochester. A thought I had no intention of ever speaking aloud. Oh, how frail the human tongue…

“Either way the coin falls, you will be pleased with the colour. Still dark. Still brooding. Still Mr. Rochester.” Yes. I said it aloud. Without thinking. Appalling.

“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.

“And if I were to go with another colour altogether, such as a green?” I thought the answer was fairly obvious. “Why then we’ve left Charlotte Brontë entirely and find ourselves in solid Austen territory.” His laugh was swift. “I’ve never read either, but I think Austen wrote of better men than myself.” “That depends if you are the hero, the villain, or the fool,” I replied.

When one dances with a fiend, one finds toes are stepped on.

Think of your worst qualities and be prepared to discuss what we might do with them. Your Aunt My worst qualities? She is ambitious to think we will get through them during only one afternoon tea. I should think I require three teas, at least.

It’s always best to strike envy in the hearts of one’s servants. It keeps them easy to manipulate.

“Womenkind. The Curse of Adam. The Weaker Sex.” It was in that moment I pulled my mouth to one side and looked pointedly towards The Scar. Needless to say, as I gathered my things, pinned my errant locks, and left the house, he was still yelling his opinions regarding My Degenerate State and Adam’s Rib.

beloved Egyptian queen. “This

It was a slightly dim room, and I noted a burdened Cleopatra to my right, covered in paste jewels, baubles, and beads. She did not look particularly pleased. I gave the wooden figure a look of commiseration.

It wasn’t until I took a few steps towards the counter that the hum of midday male voices shifted to a lower start and stop. They had identified a female in their midst.

And it was with a great smirk that he suggested, “A pint?” Before I could gather my thoughts to ask after the clue, I said, “That would be lovely. I’ll be at that table over there.” I didn’t want a pint, let alone a table. One of the men seated nearby laughed. I could have pointed out there was food in his teeth. I didn’t. However tempted I might have been. My mother raised me to be better than that. More’s the pity.

Gathering all my Irish pride, I turned towards the culprit, and instead of a gracious reply, I simply made the sound of, “Hmm.”

So undaunted I sat. Many stared anyway. It was demoralizing to find the average state of our society tucked inside my lovely, exceptional St. Crispian’s.

But the bartender stood there, crossing his arms as if to call my bluff. What this man did not know was that I battled the great Lady Eugenia Spencer on a weekly basis and had lived with Cousin Matilde for three gruelling years. He did not scare me.

gripped the handle of the large glass and took a drink. When I set it back on the table, I said, “Decent. I’ve had better.” It was then that the bartender threw back his head and started laughing. A thing I did not enjoy, as every pair of eyes looked towards us.

Hawkes did not speak immediately, settling across from me, his hair askew, blue eyes giving nothing away.

“Have you turned to midday drinking?” Heavens no, I thought. Though if Cousin Archibald were to drive one to a vice, that would certainly be it.

There are times in one’s life when one knows they are exactly where they are meant to be, and a chorus of angels in the expanse of eternity cheers. This was one of those moments.

“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?”

“They both died within the same year, and home was taken. Gone. I’ve not been back since. Couldn’t bear it, I think, to see others living in our places. It was such a wrench. To be ripped away. To scramble for earth and air. To find some of that sense in a person only to lose it again. I— I can’t bear it, Mr. Pierce. Can’t bear to think of it. The pain of losing home. And so, knowing the acute sense of loss, how can I take this man’s home? However horrible he may be. However undeserving of mercy.

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

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.

Occasionally when walking in the park, I come across a desperate soul attempting to keep pace with a large, insistent hound. They end up being yanked about, tripping over their own shoes. This is how I feel just now.

When I woke this morning, my eyes still closed, tangled in the bedclothes after too warm a night, I knew something was terribly wrong, yet I could not remember what. It was as if I walked a dreamscape, with no power to change or understand what oppressed me. Then, upon opening my eyes, I remembered. I shut them again and rolled over, burying myself under my blanket. It is the twenty-seventh of July.

The anniversaries of lost loved ones 💔

Belligerence is not far behind sorrow for Emma M. Lion,

“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. “Necessary,” I answered, feeling the need to defend myself.

“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 hand about—“too much of everything else, I suppose, to live under them.”

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

One ought not speak so freely of difficult things. Confide such grievances.

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

“if one could tell a nefarious character simply by looking at him, it would be a very different world.”

“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.”

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

Embarrassing and delightful. My life, in other words.

Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none.