Chapter Text
“May I have a word, Ma'am?” The Queen slowed her gait, and Emma quickened her footstep, and soon the two women were walking side by side, in and out of the light. “I wonder if I might take a leave of absence to visit my sister. She has had a difficult confinement and I would very much like to help in her recovery.”
“Of course, Emma, you must go if your sister needs you.” Emma smiled. “I hope you won't stay away too long. The Duchess is not the most congenial companion!” Emma laughed politely in return of the Queen’s jovial stabbing of the Duchess of Buccleuch. She could not deny what the Queen said; the Duchess was a dower lady, sombre, not charmingly so.
“I will come back as soon as I am no longer needed, Ma'am,” she said, in truth, though she assured her tone to indicate a lesser time than she knew it would turn out to be. She may well be needed for years, but the Queen needn’t know that.
“Doesn't your sister's estate lie next to Brocket Hall?” Victoria pried, cocking her head, and clasping her hands more tightly in front of her corseted waist. Emma raised her eyebrows and half-chuckled,
“Well remembered, Ma'am.”
The Queen’s cheeks coloured a little pink – like the shades of a blush from the cold – and her eyes roved over the walls flooded in the sunlight from the window that now seemed to her more romantic than ever. Beyond it were lighted all the many summers that would make the days her and Lord Melbourne would share in the future – and the light was bright and warm.
“So, you can see Lord M, whenever you like.”
“That is true, Ma'am,” she replied, a weak smile turning the corners of her mouth as she nodded her head vaguely and widened her eyes in some show of false joy and surprise.
That was, indeed, very true. Though the Queen was still young (far younger than Emma, she admitted) she was wise and observant and quick. Yet not quick enough. For the Queen did not realise that Emma’s reason for going was the burning in her heart. Her heart had been set alight by a man – years ago, when she was only a young woman as Victoria was – and it was now blazing at the thought of losing him: William Lamb. And so her blazing heart gave heat to the wheels of the carriage which carried her over rough ground towards the man and his house, Brocket Hall, which lay on a hill, as quiet as death. The carriage journey felt long, though it could have been no longer than usual. There were no delays, and the weather was fine, but Emma’s nerves were so fraught that her fingers shook and her eyes bore into the landscape through the window as if her staring would make it retreat faster, and bring Brocket into sight more quickly.
But, Brocket came, and Emma lost no time in fixing her shawl about her shoulders, stepping out of the carriage, walking with a controlled step to the door, and rapping on it three times with a considered strength. She clenched her fist at her side, and the door finally opened.
“Lady Portman!” the manservant exclaimed. Emma gave a polite smile.
“Is Lord Melbourne in?” she asked.
“Uh, yes… yes, my lady… but I do not think-“
“Please will you allow me to see him?” she asked, before a single reason for her leaving could be uttered. She would not be dissuaded. The manservant had welcomed Lady Portman many times before when the master was indisposed, in a state of undress, or not fit for any other person’s company. Lady Emma was a sort of exception. A good friend and a woman of a steady disposition and stomach who does not cower away from what would make other ladies tremble or go pale or faint. A man in a dressing gown was no reason for shrieking as far as Lady Emma was concerned. And she would much rather see William vomiting than not at all. She was one of the few unlucky women who are not allowed the façade of William Lamb being the urbane, handsome minister and viscount. That illusion had been tarnished long ago.
Unlucky, we call it, for most women would rather imagine him as an unchangeable beacon of gentleman. But Emma would not have considered it such. A gentleman could be found in any corner of the isle. But William Lamb – the real William Lamb – was beautiful. And she was in love with that man, utterly.
So, the manservant amiably welcomed Lady Emma into the hall, where he took her shawl and bonnet, and asked her to wait. Emma did so. It was very cold. It was never normally so cold in Brocket. It needed a woman’s touch, she thought, or a good, strong fire in the evening. It had something of the gothic to it, she thought, which was disagreeable. But, whilst she thought of this, tracing the line of the banister up the staircase, the manservant emerged again, and Emma was asked to follow him to the library, where she was assured William was staying.
When she was shown in, she could not – at first – see him. There was the library, as she knew it, shadowy and piled high with volume after volume, and littered with papers and glasses and lit sombrely and sparingly with a few candles for the velvet curtains were drawn quite tightly. The silver slither of light that manage to weave its way into the room only did so much as cast light on to the wavering flakes of dust, which danced around one another, and floated slowly up and down. Like fairies, Emma thought. Then, after a moment, she heard a movement, and turned to the armchair to see a figure which was so indistinct that she had not considered it a person at all to begin with. But this was him. He did not seem surprised at her presence, though he had clearly noticed her, and his eyes were now looking her up and down. Wrapped in his dressing gown which was a very similar colour to his armchair, and slouched, and drowsy, a little bleary in the eye and fuzzy in the head, with a bottle at his feet: William Lamb.
“Are you drunk, William?” she asked, half-knowing the answer before she uttered the question. William smirked,
“What is this little life without the odd enjoyment?” he remarked, tugging absently at the thin cloth of his dressing gown as if his soul and flesh were no more solid and unwavering as the weary material that shrouded his bones.
“What would the Queen think if she were to see you now?” Emma pried, setting herself gently on a chair close to William, with that air of gentle reprimand that so becomes a mother, even to those tedious boys who are not their sons at all, nor of the age to be a son of theirs in the least. But William, prompted by the jaded severity of her tone, reacted as a chastised son would, and wilted in embarrassment. A moment passed of this red-faced boyishness before he laughed himself out of sorts with the power of his own thought, and cried,
“She would not believe it. She thinks me a saint! Oh, goodly delusion!”
“Perhaps she thought you a saint because, for so long, that is what you have proved yourself to be!”
“Oh, Emma, you cannot be that naïve!” spat William, throwing himself own clumsily back into the folds of the chair. Another moment passed, and then his embarrassment returned, at having forgot himself, “Sorry, Emma, I have lost my manners. It is good to see you, though you should not have come.”
“It is my pleasure to come,” Emma insisted. Her voice was so gentle, William thought to himself, and so calming that he could fall asleep to it in an instant, but her spirit kept him awake. “And it is a good thing I have come. I thought I would sooner have to drag you away from your greenhouse than away from your bottle, William,” Emma said, not attempting to hide the disappointment which riddled her tone. William shook his head.
“Who will care for them when I am gone?” Emma was about to protest: to insist that he was not gone yet and, with any luck, it would be some years before he had to resign himself to the bitter prospect of the ground and the dust, but William’s sunken cheek and downturned eyes guiltily silenced her. How could she argue against him, when he looked fit to weep? “The orchids will wither and die. They require constant care and, soon, I will no longer be able to give it them.”
“But Frederick, I am sure, if you were to ask him-“
“Frederick has a young wife!” William cried, a little smilingly, but filled with a bitterness that not even familial warmth could blunt. William’s gaze flitted indefinitely for a moment, and Emma was sure he would cry, but he did not, and soon his eyes landed in his lap and he strained to say, “He is too busy being in love to consider the whims of an old, tedious man now in the grave.”
“I will take care of them,” she muttered, unconvincingly.
“Oh, Emma,” William’s tone was affectionate, “I do not expect you to make promises.” Then he rose in his armchair, adjusting the folds of his dressing gown, and said, “No, no... the orchids have lived long enough. They are behind me. But I still do get some enjoyment from the house.” He nodded vaguely at the room, which was a little too messy in Emma’s opinion to be anything remarkably beautiful. “And Frederick will get use of it, I’m sure. He grew up here, after all. Alexandrina will like it, bless her. She’s very fond of the estate, did you know?” Emma raised her eyebrows. “I’ve heard she likes horse-riding.” William suppressed a chuckle. “Must give my brother a run for his money, I’ll tell you. At his age.” Then, William took on a graver tone, yet again. “But, I suppose, if you can… why not? He has missed out on love all this time and I pitied him for it but... but, in the end, though I jumped in far earlier than he…. I was not ready, and so I have suffered in love whereas he is blissful. I wish I had waited, Emma. I wish I had waited.”
Emma could hardly bear to listen to him in so melancholic a mood; his words so agonised; his expressions so sad.
“It is not over, William!” she laughed, taking comfortably to a familiar tone of friendly mocking, to avoid the sadness that brought hot tears to her eyes. “There are still good things to be had aside from the bottom of a glass and the hope that some others may have joy when you are gone!” William did not budge, nor did any inflection of joy or recognition pass like a shadow over a wall across those features. “Perhaps, if I were to invite Frederick, or Emily, to see you, they would give you some relief.”
“No!” he barked, fiercely enough to strike cold into Emma’s heart and senses, “No, I could not bear to see them. I do not want them to see me, not now.”
“Of course. If you do not wish it.”
Emma’s fingers were picking at the fabric of her skirt, fervid enough to tear a hole in the material. She felt an awful seizing feeling, telling herself that she was trying too hard, but she could not stop her endeavours into his happiness or – at least – his peace of mind.
“We could go to London?”
“No,” he breathed, his heart weighing heavier at even the thought of London and all the unstrung promises it how held. Emma continued without a beat of hesitation,
“Or Bath, then? We need have no one go with us.”
“No… Emma, I must stay at Brocket.” He was insistent and, though his tone was soft and kind, it was final.
“I do not think it is healthy for one to stay in one place,” Emma said, slowly, with a sort of absent inflection that made it appear she was talking wistfully to herself rather than beseeching him to move.
“Perhaps it is not,” William replied, “But this is where I will stay. It is very good of you to come, Emma, but you do not have to stay.”
“Nonsense!” Emma retorted, with more vigour and energy than he had seen from her yet since her arrival, with more power than was perhaps necessary to use in the company of an ill and elderly man, but William felt almost revived by hearing that spark in Emma’s voice again. It made him feel young. “I will stay here as long as you need me, until you are much more yourself, and then I will stay as long as you are in need of company. I would hate to think of you going without friend or conversation. It is not a becoming position for any man, least of all a man of such diverting company as yourself, William Lamb.”
“Flattery, Emma, is the best medicine.”
“So the physicians tell me.”
William laughed, and then coughed, and Emma quickly asked,
“Tell me, where do you keep your tincture?” William, still reeling from his coughs, gestured to a cabinet which Emma deftly knelt to open, and she pulled out the liquid which she mixed and prepared for her friend. It was thick and yellow and looked as bitter as it smelt. She was sure the taste was quite revolting, but the smell of it also gave sense to its strong medicinal quality. If it would do good for his health, then it would be worth and retching and grimacing that the taste might produce. He could have steaks and port afterwards, anyway. “Here,” she crooned, as she passed him the glass and watched, affectionately, as he took it. He bravely refrained from any show of physical discomfort when the bitter-tasting liquid passed like mucus over the buds of his tongue and stuck to the back of his throat, making him swallow repeatedly. He closed his eyes and downed it, and Emma rubbed gently at his hand, without thinking about the gesture. It came so naturally. And William did not think of it either. He allowed her to do it and, when she took her hand away, he felt the loss of it keenly.
Emma returned to her seat. The skin over the palm of her hand tingled. William’s cough had soothed. His eyes flitted back and forth over the room, and his brows furrowed slightly.
“What have you told her?” he asked, after a moment, as if the idea had suddenly dawned on him, and it troubled him, “I wouldn’t have thought the Queen could bear to spare you.” Emma would have been flattered by this, were it a compliment alone, without the grim clouds tethered to the end of it that careered on the horizon of his speech. She turned her head down, and replied, simply,
“I have told her I am visiting my sister.”
William did not question this: what could be possibly say? She had done it. And she was a wise woman. Wiser than he could claim to be, for sure. And she had made a decision, weighed it beforehand, considered the consequences and the alternatives and evaluated them on the scales too. There was nothing that Emma would miss, it seemed, and so her decision – no matter how unwise it could seem to him – could not be questioned. But something still troubled William, though it seemed his lips dare not ask the question that weighed like rainwater on his shoulders. The silence that passed between them whilst William consoled himself in thought seemed eternal and agonising and it wasn’t until Emma began to show her restlessness in a flitting of her head and a rummaging of her skirts that William decided to ask his question, with too much force to make it eloquent, and too much nervous energy to make it unaffected,
“And your husband?”
Emma’s hands opened, and her skirts fell from her palms. There was a heartbeat at her bosom which trembled and for a moment she thought she would be quite overcome. But sense returned to her as it does to all ladies of a temperament such as Emma’s was (though such a temperament cannot be said to be common) and she told the truth,
“The same.”
William raised his eyebrows, and gave half a laugh as he commented, thoughtlessly,
“Funny you should keep it from him.”
“I wouldn’t want him to worry,” said Emma, without a bit of truth in it.
“Come,” William said, suddenly, rousing himself, “I hate to think of you sitting here in the dark on account of a cripple! We will move to the sitting room.”
“Oh, it is not so bad-“
“No, the sitting room is lighter, airier! It is far nicer. Here, take my arm.” And he held his elbow out to her and, rather charmed by this quaint gestured in what seemed to her a very old world, she weaved her arm through and linked. “It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to lead someone. I have to keep some of my vain pleasures, don’t I?” Emma laughed as they walked together to the sitting room which was, indeed, lighter and airier than the library which had the stale tang of old books to compete with, which inevitably darkens the air with a particular dust. But, in the sitting room, the white muslin curtains were flung wide and the windows were tall and crystal and (though they could not be opened for account of their ailing inhabitant) they allowed a bright sunlight into the room which made everything seem white. And, there, she was seated opposite William Lamb beside one of the wide windows. She was glad to see him in the light, which she had faith in the restorative properties of, but she also despaired to see how his skin had a clammy pallor to it, only now evident beside the window. The alcohol and the illness. She did not want to nurse him, for she knew he could grow irritable, but she felt awful to see him this way and to know he is going unloved.
William breathed in. Even the air left lighter, softer, cleaner. His lungs seemed to swell beyond his ribcage. He thought he would burst with the light.
“Do you remember the day we first met?”
Emma turned with a laugh as a blush painted her cheek and her forehead and sent her gaze down, bashfully, shaking the ringlets around her head,
“Oh, let us not talk of that,” she scoffed, waving her hands, brushing the topic away.
“I find myself dwelling on the past. I suppose that should worry me.”
“No,” Emma replied, “I also find myself… recollecting. It is natural, I think. For anyone who has lived a good many years.”
“A good many years, yes,” William smiled, “They have been good, haven’t they? Not necessarily gentle or entirely happy… but it’s certainly been a life, hasn’t it?”
“Oh, William, you must stop!” Emma cried, smiling to keep herself from crying, “You talk of it as if it were already over!” William muttered a vague apology. Emma continued, “No, you are right. Let us talk of the past. The day we met, yes? Yes. I remember it.”
“You do?” William asked, so softly his voice began to resemble that of a young child, all naivety and disbelief. His eyes were wide, to take the world in.
“Of course! I remember it very well. There was a thin sort of daylight that becomes an autumn day.”
“You were Emma Lascelles, then.”
“I was. My parents were intent on my making a good impression.”
“On Peniston, I assume?”
“Yes,” Emma laughed, “And I was coached for days by my mother on how to talk to you all, and how to introduce myself, what to talk of and how to talk of it. What subjects to avoid. What young men want. All that tat.”
“You can’t have listened to a word.”
“I did! Why do you say I did not?”
“I remember we sat outside in the cold and talked of the abolition! That could not have been further from the picture of an ideal young lady!” he laughed, feeling that same biting coldness on his cheeks again, and almost hearing that rustle of the golden leaves as they scattered around them.
“Yes, well, I was not trying to impress you, William. I was trying to impress your brother!” Emma paused for a moment, and added, “Though that evidently did not work so well.”
“He was a fool.”
“You’re very kind,” Emma said quickly. “But I never liked Peniston half so much as I liked you. We were fast friends, weren’t we?”
“We were,” William replied. His heart felt warm. He could remember something else there. There was something more, even then. Something. Always something. They were plagued by somethings. “I remember you were wearing white muslin in the autumn. I thought that strange. My mother said it was foolish, but I thought it was fascinating.”
“I used to wear white muslin all the time.”
“You did. I remember.”
“You do?” Emma asked. It was her turn to act the child: naïve, eyes wide, the gentle cadence of her voice falling into the air and leaving it undisturbed.
“Of course.”
Emma swallowed.
“You hadn’t so much grey in your hair then, William,” she said, talking with speed to keep the redness from creeping into her complexion and giving away the thundering of her heart. “In fact, there was a lot of red in your hair.”
“Was there?” William asked, weaving his fingers together and placing his intertwined hands over the velveted and buttoned expanse of his chest, which was rising and falling with the breath encased within. He dared not breathe out. He dared not breathe in. The quickness, the heaviness, would give him away.
“When the light fell on it, yes. And there was so much light that day, coming through the trees. And the leaves were blazing red. And I sat there, and listened to you talk, and I remember thinking of how your hair was almost the same colour.”
“You were listening intently, then?” he jibed.
“I’ve always been listening.”
“You remember?”
“I will never forget.”
William’s smile evaporated. His lips twitched. His eyes moved. His heart leapt. Blue eyes in his mind. The Queen. Victoria.
“If you are staying, Emma,” he said, rising, suddenly seized by an idea that he was compelled to run with, as if time were running out and he had to act on this impulse now or the time to do it would be lost to him, “I had best get a room prepared. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll have some tea made. I’ll have your things put upstairs.”
He continued talking, idly, as he went from the room to have the matters tended to and, all the while, Emma listened.