Resurrectionists (11 page)

Mama arrived today, and while I was glad to see her, it means there is only a week before we must return to France. Mama seems so serious compared to Aunt Hattie, I can scarcely believe they are sisters. Mrs. Ariel came by and we all sat in the drawing room to read or to talk. Mama asked me to play piano a little, which I did, and unfortunately it sparked an argument. I play but three or four pieces very well, for I haven’t the patience to learn new ones. I was in the middle of my second piece – a Mozart sonata – when I overheard Mrs. Ariel address Aunt Hattie thus:

“Hattie, we really must ask Georgette to play for Mr. Marley next time he is by. I think he already has quite an eye for her.”

And then Mama’s voice, crisp and firm, “Who is Mr. Marley?”

I willed my fingers to keep playing without the assistance of my mind as I was concentrating all on listening to them.

“Mr. Virgil Marley, Annie,” Aunt Hattie said quickly. “He’s the son of a dear friend and has been calling for the last few weeks. He and Georgette have struck up a friendship.”

“He had best not have designs beyond friendship,”

Mama said sternly, and returned to her reading. I felt myself grow hot in the face and neck, but played on. I remain certain that Mama would like Virgil if she met him – he is so very gentle and charming. But it is too sad! She has reminded me that soon I must return home, and that Papa has long favoured the son of one of his cousins as a possible husband for me. I will be eighteen in five months, and marriage is a Fate which I cannot reasonably avoid much longer.

I wish that Mama had not come, though I know I am terrible for thinking such a thing. Aunt Hattie is a Dear, and has always been quite happy for me to see Virgil. In fact, I do believe that she and Mrs. Ariel were enjoying watching the two of us become close, though it must not have escaped their notice that there is a great difference in Fortune between us. Still, what do I care for money? The only thing that I can imagine cheering me at the moment is a visit from Virgil, but I dread him not liking Mama, or Mama not liking him. I am in such a state over this that I can barely think.

***

Thursday, 12 September 1793

The very worst and the very best have happened on the self-same day. I feel afraid that I am so excited by it all I may not be able to constrain myself to write a narrative of the day’s events! Though now I have just heard the church clock-tower ring out three times, and it appears that it is not Thursday at all but Friday morning. For company I have only this candle and the scratching of my pen against the paper. So much has happened since I last wrote, I almost feel like a different girl.

First, Virgil came by quite early to ask if I could go walking in St. James’s Park. He was shown in as always, and bowed deeply to Hattie and Mama (though he did not, as yet, know who She was). He then turned his attention directly to me, and in that intimate way he has adopted, addressed me as “Gette, my pretty French poppet.”

Fatal Mistake. Mama’s eyes practically turned silver. They are usually very dark grey, you see, but when she is angry the pupils almost disappear, and her eyes seem to glitter.

“Sir,” she said sternly, “I would prefer you to address my daughter as Mademoiselle Chantelouve.”

He turned immediately to her, his eyes grew wide with – I know not whether it was fear or surprise. And instantly he bowed before her again and said,

“Madame Chantelouve, forgive me. I did not know that we had the pleasure of your company this morning.”

But the damage was done. The sad-eyed smile and the gentle flirtations which weaken the silly knees of Aunt Hattie and Mrs. Ariel were more than useless on my mother, who took them as affectations, and saw in them evidence that Virgil was little more than a vain dandy. By the time he plucked up the courage to ask for the pleasure of my company on a walk, Mama had set her mind firmly against him. She declined on my behalf, as I stood speechless and blushing beside the fireplace. Virgil looked to Aunt Hattie, who turned to Mama and said, “Come, Annie, let the young people enjoy some fresh air.”

“No,” Mama replied. “Georgette will stay here by me today.”

And with that, Virgil was dismissed.

I heard the downstairs door close behind him, and surreptitiously moved to the window, which had a good view of the Street. To my surprise and embarrassment, Edward and Charlotte waited below for Virgil. I saw him emerge, explain quickly to his companions what had happened, and then Charlotte looked up at the front of the building. I know she probably did not see me, but I felt she had. And I felt she wore the most condescending expression on her face, as though I were a mere Baby and she knew something much more than I could ever know. It made my skin burn with anger, and I turned on my mother.

“This is so unfair!” I cried. “Why could I not go walking? I’m in no danger. Mr. Marley is the son of Mrs. Ariel’s friend the Barrister, and a decent and respectable man.”

Instead of responding to my lament, Mama fixed Aunt Hattie with a stern eye. “I blame you for letting this young man become too intimate an acquaintance. You should have known better.”

Hattie looked chastened.

“Mama,” I said, moving to the sofa to put an arm around Aunt Hattie, “how can you be so cruel?”

She turned those silvery eyes on me and said, “I know more about Mr. Marley than you do. As does your aunt. It was ‘unfair’ and ‘cruel’ for her not to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“His father is not a Barrister. He is a clerk in a law firm, and that an ill-regarded law firm on Fenchurchstreet. Mrs. Ariel’s interest in Mr. Marley Senior is spoken about in giggles and hushes all over town, and poor Mr. Ariel is constantly made a fool of. I expect Marley’s son to be just as bad, for all he’s dressed in the pretty things that Mrs. Ariel is too witless to refuse him.”

“Annie!” cried Aunt Hattie.

“Don’t dare to say otherwise, Hattie, for you know it’s true. As long as I am staying here, I request that you do not invite Virgil Marley again. Once Georgette and I have returned to Lyon, you may do as you please.”

Hattie, always a soft woman, mutely blinked back tears. I felt as though my whole world were collapsing from within. Not to see Virgil again? It was unthinkable. He had so quickly become the place from which the Daylight shone for me, that to remove him was to leave me in perpetual Night.

“Is it true, Aunt Hattie?” I asked quietly. Hattie nodded, pulling out her handkerchief.

“Most of it. Virgil’s family is indeed not a good family. But the rumours about Mrs. Ariel and his father are unfounded.”

Mama straightened her back. “Where smoke

blows, fire glows, Hattie.”

“I feel unwell,” I said, standing. “Would you excuse me? I think I shall lie down until dinner.”

Mama dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Go. Sleep, and rid yourself of thoughts of that young man. You will do much better than him, Georgette. Soon you will forget him.”

I wanted to cry out “Never!”, but instead I kept the word inside, and it beat in my head along with my footsteps up the staircase.
Ne-ver; ne-ver; ne-ver
. I was utterly hopeless and desolate, and threw myself upon my bed to rage, to cry, to dream in dozy fits. If I were a more deceitful girl, perhaps I could have contrived a method to contact Virgil and tell him of our misfortune.

As it turned out, he contrived a method to contact me.

I had supped half-heartedly with Mama and Hattie at around nine, and we had all retired to bed shortly after. Because of my excited state and because of the nap I had taken earlier in the day, I could not sleep. I spent an age brushing out my hair, watching myself in the little glass atop my dressing table, and wondering how on earth I was to endure the long night with Virgil so far away from me, and bound to be that way Forever. In fact, he wasn’t far away from me at all. My window is directly above the drawing room, and as such looks over the street. On my first visits to Hattie, many years ago when only a girl of four or five, the sound of voices and hooves and carriages had purposed to keep me awake most nights, but I had gradually come to be soothed by them. There is a certain comfort in knowing one is surrounded by Man, by his laws and his machines and his civilised intentions, and I never feel this comfort back home in our chateau, where to wake in the middle of the night is to be surrounded by the blank darkness and amorality of Nature. Some say that Man is evil or wicked, but I hold that at least Man, or men, may be reasoned with, where wolves or blizzards or falling trees are invariably unheeding of entreaties. Virgil knew where my bedroom was, on account of Aunt Hattie having mentioned more than once that she found the street noise in the drawing room most bothersome, and remarked thereafter on the strange solace I found in the same sounds. It took merely a handful of pebbles to bring me to my window. He waited below, Edward and Charlotte with him once again. I lifted the sash and leaned out, my heart beating wildly, in love with his boldness, but terrified about where it may lead.

“Gette!” he called. “Come down.”

I looked over my shoulder and then back to the street. “Shh!” I said.

He motioned with his arms.
Come down.
I was frozen for a few moments, listening for footsteps in the hallway or curious voices. There were none. Although it went against everything in my upbringing (or perhaps
because
it went against everything in my upbringing), I nodded and closed the window. It took me only a few minutes to dress and to pin my hair unevenly. I crept into the hallway. No light came from beneath my mother’s bedroom door so I knew she was asleep. I tiptoed down two flights of stairs and paused near the entrance-way, listening. I could hear the servants mumbling to each other in the kitchen as they finished their chores for the night. Nobody was in sight. Trembling, I reached for the door and within seconds stood out in the street. Virgil was nowhere to be seen. At first I thought a cruel joke had been played on me, but then I saw Charlotte lean around the corner and beckon to me. I ran to the corner to find the three of them, laughing hysterically. I couldn’t help but laugh too, I was in such a state of tumult and fear. Even though it was not proper, I threw my arms around Virgil’s neck, almost weak with excitement.

“Oh, Gette, your mother doesn’t like me, does she?” he said, very close to my ear.

I shook my head. “Hattie has been told not to invite you as long as I’m here.”

“And how much longer are you here?”

“Barely a week.”

He fell silent. Edward’s and Charlotte’s laughter were dying away now. Edward jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. “Well. Tell her why we’ve come.”

“Yes,” said Virgil, brightening. “We’ve come to take you for that walk in the park after all.”

I smiled up at him. “I should be delighted,” I said. He very properly offered me his arm and I took it. Edward and Charlotte adopted the same pose and we walked off in the direction of the park. It seemed so thrilling to be out walking at night, under the glowing lamplight. I love that London does not sleep, that at nearly any time of the day or night there are people about some business or other. Why, even as I write this, I can hear the occasional carriage roll by in the distance. I was almost disappointed when we came to the dark wilderness of the park, away from the lights and from humanity.

“Let us sit under a tree, far from the light,” Charlotte suggested. “I do love to sit and talk in the dark.”

She and Edward led the way further amongst the bushes, until we found an ash tree whose branches all but obscured the stars above us. We sat down. I was growing cold despite my wool coat, and Virgil urged me to nestle close to him. I cannot describe what it felt like to have his body pressed so near to mine. I swear I could almost feel his blood moving around hot in his veins, he seemed so very warm and so very
alive
to me.

“So, Mademoiselle Chantelouve,” Edward said as he settled nearby, Charlotte pressed up against him,

“what do you make of the situation in France? I should like to know as you are a native and your father so wealthy a landowner.”

“Edward, let’s not talk politics,” Charlotte said, pouting. “I do abhor politics.”

“I agree, Edward,” Virgil said. “Georgette need not answer your questions.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Although I have little interest in such things myself, you should know that my Papa was always very sympathetic towards the Revolution. Against his own interests he supported the National Assembly. But daily we hear reports of new violence, and I think Papa is terribly disappointed by that.”

Edward shook his head. “Sometimes violence is the only way.”

“You’ll have to forgive Edward,” Virgil said, “he’s a raving Jacobin.”

“And you?” Edward asked, almost a challenge.

“I, my friend, am a poet. I occupy a realm above the politic.”

“I am a poet, too,” Edward declared. “And I can remember a time when you spoke with as much passion about the Revolution as any Jacobin.”

“Oh, stop arguing you two,” Charlotte said.

“They’re the best of friends, really, Georgette. They pretend to disagree all the time just to keep themselves entertained.”

Virgil slipped his arm around my waist. “It’s true,”

he said. “We’ve been the best of friends since we were but lads.”

Charlotte turned her face to Edward’s. “Edward, will you come a little way into the bushes with me for a moment. I have something I’d like to say in private.”

Edward smiled broadly. “Why, of course, Miss Andrews,” he said. “I think I might have something to say to you also.”

“Excuse us,” Charlotte said, rising. “We won’t be but a few minutes.”

The two of them wandered off into the dark, leaving Virgil and me alone. I was both thrilled and apprehensive. It seemed we had adopted such an intimate posture together, and every moment I expected my mother to find us, though she was fast, fast asleep in her bed.

“What can they have to talk about that they can’t say in front of us?” I asked him, feeling that Edward and Charlotte were rude for running off together.

“I think they may talk about love,” Virgil said, knowingly.