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It was on the eve of my thirty-eighth birthday, as I would often remember it afterward.
I was walking home late at night from dinner at my father’s, hugging my coat tightly and stepping at a brisk pace. The streets were near deserted, the houses mere lamp-lit silhouettes in the thick mist.
I immediately recognized the man walking past me, collar turned up and bag in his hand, violin case slung over his shoulder. A strange sense of fear came over me, though I couldn’t quite explain why. I didn’t look back, merely kept walking.
But he had recognized me. His footsteps on the pavement slowed, then turned, and hurried back toward me. I felt a hand on my arm.
“Monty.”
I stopped. Slowly, I turned, and painted the pretense of a surprised smile on my face. “Percy. I hadn’t recognized you in this fog.”
“I’m glad I still ran into you. I’ve been waiting at your place for over an hour.”
“I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“It’s no issue, I sent no message in advance. I wasn’t sure I still wanted to see you before I left.”
“Left?” I asked, as I opened my front door. “Where are you headed?”
“Paris, for six months. My train leaves at twelve-fifteen. I intend to find a studio and focus on a piece I’ve been meaning to finish. But enough about me. I came here to talk about you.”
“I can’t blame you for that, darling, I am a vastly interesting subject.”
Percy huffed, something resembling a laugh. It occurred to me I had not heard him laugh in a long time.
I let us both into the parlor. Percy refused any drinks or cigars I offered him. Instead he dawdled near the couch while I poured myself a glass, and as I put it to my lips, he said, “It’s… not something good, though.”
I waited for him to continue.
“There are…” He hesitated, fiddling with the strap of his worn-down violin case. “Rumors.”
“Rumors,” I repeated, running my finger along the edge of my glass. “I’ve heard quite a lot about myself these past few years, darling, you’ll have to be more specific.”
Percy went quiet for a bit. “I do not mean to think ill of you,” he finally starts. “But the ill talk I hear about you, Monty, is nearly unavoidable these days. Why is it that Amelia Wickham left a party in tears when you were brought up? And Theodosia Fitzroy, and her regrettable fate? Why is your name whispered when they search the one to blame? Why do they say that you cheated Alexander Platt out of a considerable sum of money? A friend of mine claims he spotted you in a most unsavory neighborhood once, but I told him he must have been mistaken. And yet—why do so many gentlemen in London refuse to come to your house or invite you to theirs? Why do they act like they fear you? I heard you and Matteu Robles worked together once—mere months later, he was in prison. The Montague and the Bourbon family had ties going back generations, and now the Duke refuses to merely speak about you, since that awful ordeal about his courtisane came out. And poor Sinjon Westfall, he was your best friend at Eton, had to leave the country disgraced—don’t you even care?”
I watched the rain trickle down the window plane, the glass exuding the cold of the night. I saw Percy’s face reflected, lit by the few remaining embers burning in the fireplace. I weigh my words. Time had passed between Percy and I, and I knew his trust in me wasn’t what it had once been. Nothing like it, hearing this list of accusations. “Of course I care, darling. I just cannot feel sorry for something I am not to blame for.”
Percy pressed his lips together. He didn’t respond immediately. “I spoke to Felicity earlier this week. Even– Even your own sister and brother, they want nothing to do with you. How can that be?”
“You’ll never quite understand how deep envy runs in a family, Percy. Especially among siblings. I made it a good life for myself, they did not. Simple as that.”
“They had no choice —”
I spun around and snapped back, harder than intended, “Did I?”
His gaze hardened. “Yes, you did. I offered you that choice, once.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still thinking of that .” I turned back to the window with a sigh. “Leave my fortune behind and live on nothing but what you make of your paintings? That’s a child’s dream, Percy. Please tell me you’ve grown more mature than that.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he replied, his voice was tense. “I didn’t come here to talk about us . I just wanted to know… Before I left, I had to hear it from you.”
I hadn’t heard him approach, because when he took my shoulders and turned me to face him, I started.
“Monty… if you tell me right now that all of these rumors are fiction, I shall believe you. I swear to it. So please just… tell me so.” He added in a whisper, “It doesn’t even have to be the truth.”
Sentiment . That had always been his weakness. Percy Newton was a man far too kind for this world, far too naive , and it would be his death, one day.
Little did I know that Fate would come calling so much sooner than expected.
I tore my arm from his grip. “If you’ve ever lent even a sliver of belief to this slander, you’re not quite the friend I thought you were.”
I paced away from him, to the decanter, to pour myself another glass. Percy didn’t move immediately. “But I can’t hear you denying it,” he said quietly.
I took a long sip from my glass. I could deny it. I’ve told greater lies with much more ease. But for some reason, I didn’t want to lie to Percy that night. Not out of charity. Not from suddenly seeing the light and wanting to be honest. No, the appearance of my dearest childhood friend gave me no sudden desire to better my life. Quite the opposite.
“Perhaps that’s all the answer you need, then,” I said slowly.
He gasped. Dramatic . Good God, was he still surprised? It was not my fault he refused to see my downfall from virtue to vice all these years. Faith in others is no true quality, it is a character flaw and a lethal one in some cases.
I turned around, some wicked part of me wanting to see the horror on his features—and satisfied it was. Percy looked at me with so much betrayal, shaking his head, as if this were all a bad dream he tried to wake up from. He would not succeed. He walked toward me, sadness in those brown eyes I had once so worshipped, reaching out as if he wanted to take my face in his hands.
“You still look exactly the way you did when we were eighteen,” he said, “but I don’t recognize you anymore.”
“And whose fault is that? ”
He stopped, surprised. “What?”
Rage was now burning inside me. He didn’t get to come in here and judge me, when he played an essential role in my downfall. I almost laugh. “You truly have no idea, do you?”
“Monty, what are you talking about?”
I grinned and refilled my glass, without breaking eye contact. “How would you like to see my soul, darling?”
His mouth fell open. “Don’t say things like that. That’s blasphemy.”
“Why not? Since you know all the rumors to be true, you know my association lies closer to the devil.”
“This is madness .”
“I’ll show you madness. Madness of your own creation.”
Watching Percy gape at the monstrosity my portrait had become did not quite satisfy me the way I thought it would. I had thought that finally confronting him with the corruption of his favorite thing, with the true part he had played in my life, would give me some sense of vindication—blame where blame is due, of course—but it did not.
He lifted a hand, but could not quite bring himself to touch the canvas. “This is a trick. Monty, why would you do this to me?”
“ Stop calling me that. And I didn’t do anything to you. Quite the other way around.”
“This can’t be my– oh …”
His hand hovered over his signature, in the bottom right corner.
“Behold,” I say lightly, taking another swig of my glass but finding it near-empty. “Me.”
He’s stunned beyond words.
“Your work is more truthful than life itself, darling. You should be proud.”
“Your wish,” he whispers. “That day at the studio.”
“How observant. The painting has aged in my stead. What I first thought was a blessing turned out to be a curse cast upon me by some cruel deity.”
“No,” he said, his tone suddenly bitter. “You brought this upon yourself.”
I frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
He turned to me. “I didn’t want to exhibit this work. Do you remember?”
“Yes.” I raised an eyebrow. “I remember you were rather cryptic about that.”
Percy lets out an incredulous laugh. “Are you really that thick? I could never show this picture because it put my most prized secret on obvious display. Your wish has made it into an image of your soul, but originally, it was an image of mine.”
That quieted me. I leaned back against a cabinet, pricking my palm against something—the blade of a knife I had brought her a few days prior, to cut a cord. I shoved it aside on reflex but—something about that knife made me still.
“Good God. Monty.” Percy let himself sink down in the chair at the desk, burying his face in his hands. “There must be a way to undo this.”
I scoffed. “Why?”
“Are you happy like this? Is this the life you wanted? The better future you dreamed of when we were sixteen, lying on the grass in your garden?”
It hit a nerve. Under the hard exterior I had spent years building without even realizing it, his words needled a way to a soft spot I didn’t know I had anymore.
Pathetic , I could hear my father’s voice.
“I frankly can’t remember it,” I said airily, my fingers curling around the handle of the knife, with an intention I didn’t yet understand; like a puppet, whose strings were pulled by the painted maniac, looming over us.
“I think you do,” Percy continued, undeterred. “I think once you wanted the same thing I did. I know I share the blame for not acting in my cowardice, but I don’t think it’s too late to set things right. Please, Monty, if not for me—for yourself.”
“Do you know what’s good for me, all of a sudden?”
Percy winced. “I’m just trying to help—”
“ Why? ” I laughed, my voice void of humor. “Why? When have I ever given you a reason to believe I am anything more than this monster —” I gestured toward the painting with my free hand, “—anything more than the bogeyman in the dark they all whisper about? You have no idea what I’ve done, darling, and if you knew, you’d be fleeing the room.”
He stood up. “No. I wouldn’t. And I won’t.”
“ Why? ”
“Because—” His voice trembled. “Because we were more than friends to each other one day. Because you’ve always meant so much to me, even if you couldn’t see that value yourself. Call me a fool because I probably am but– I’m not giving up on you. So if you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to go ahead and kill me.”
I hadn’t even noticed I’d raised the knife. I was clenching it in my right hand over my head, my other hand wrapped around my wrist and pushing it back. I panted, I trembled with the effort of whatever I was doing. I felt both more present in my skin than I’d ever been and a mere ghost, watching the display from a distance.
Percy didn’t waver. He watched me, sorrow in those beautiful brown eyes, his arms a little outstretched, as if he welcomed his death. Why would he do that? He had so much to live for. He had a career and friends and talent—he was good in a way I’d never been. The temperance of life had smashed me to pieces leaving nothing but razor-sharp edges, but it had weathered Percy like a precious stone in the sea—edges dulled and soft and beautiful.
I watched fragments of my life flash by. The day I met Percy, just as defining as learning to walk or speak. Us playing pirates in the woods. Him bashing out Richard Peele’s tooth at billiards to avenge me—an image that still made me smile. Leaving for Eton and being properly apart from him for the first time in my life. Us lying on the grass, several years later, heads next to one another but bodies in opposite directions, listening to harpsichord scales played on the breeze. The secrets he kept from me. The life he left behind, his life that included me, for a better one—he invited me to come along but I refused. The way I used to love to watch him paint, watch him play that ancient violin of his, but no longer when we parted, because it signified the freedom he had chosen instead of me. The freedom I was too afraid to choose.
My vision blurred with tears. I slowly lowered the blade, still gripping my own wrist to the point of cutting off my bloodstream. I hung my head. Percy reached out a hand but I pulled back viciously. “ Go! ” I snapped, voice ragged. “Get out of here. Or I swear I’ll kill you.”
Percy watched me for a moment longer, torn. Then he slowly stepped back, not losing sight of me, like a prey does escaping his predator, unsure of whether and when he will strike. He was afraid. He lingered in the doorway, then disappeared.
I listened to his footsteps running down the stairs, to the doors being slammed, to his steps on the pavement fleeting through the open window. I remained unmoving like a statue. Finally, when I couldn’t hear him anymore, I sunk to the ground, sobbing like a child, the nightmareish picture watching me in disdain.
But there was no blood on the twisted hands.