How Do I Love Thee?

by Nancy Moser

  “He’s going to be washed, Mr. Barrett,” Crow said.

  “Ah. So. Fresh and new.”

  Henrietta and Arabel went down to greet him as he ascended the stairs.

  “Ah, daughters. I see Flush has returned. So the ransom was paid?”

  I held my breath. Henrietta answered. “Two sovereigns, I believe— but I really know very little about it.”

  “Hmm,” Papa said. “Two sovereigns and I dare say three besides.”

  Henry and I gasped and looked one to the other. “He knows?” I whispered.

  Henry held up a hand, proclaiming his innocence. “I said nothing. He can’t know.”

  But he could. Papa knew everything.

  When I heard his feet upon the final stairs, my entire body tightened. He would chastise me for going against his wishes, for ignoring his proclamation to the thief that we would pay no more than two guineas. I had never, ever knowingly disobeyed him. That I had done such a thing and asked my brother to conspire with me was a horrible offence against everything I held dear between us.

  And yet . . . because of my action, Flush was returned. Surely that counted for something.

  As Papa gained the last few steps, I steeled myself towards that defence. Yes, I was sorry for taking matters into my own hands, but surely he could understand the importance of the risk and celebrate with me the happy result.

  As soon as he entered the opened door, his eyes scanned the room. “Henry.”

  “Father.” Henry stood. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  As Henry passed, Papa put a hand upon his arm. “Do we have you to thank for Flush’s return?”

  He cast a furtive glance over Papa’s shoulder towards me. Then he met our father’s eyes. “Yes.”

  There was a moment between them, a precarious slice of time perched upon a fence post, wavering left, then right . . .

  Finally Papa nodded once, clapped Henry on the arm, and said, “Well done.”

  Henry wisely did not wait for more but escaped down the stairs in double time.

  Papa turned his eyes upon me. Would I receive the same grace? Or would he ask about the source of the extra “three besides,” which could only have come from me?

  He approached the foot of the sofa and I moved my legs to the side to allow him space to sit. He put a hand upon my knee and I held my breath.

  But then . . . he smiled. “You have had a hard few days, my dear puss.”

  He had not called me that in years. It was a childhood endearment that was mine alone.

  I managed a nod, a hand upon his, and a weak smile. “But now all is well.”

  “All turned out well,” he said. “Somehow.” There was an extra emphasis on the last word that told me he knew, he knew. . . .

  But before I could react, could fall into his arms with weeping apologies, he stood to leave. “I must change. It has been a long day. I will be up later for our prayers.” He paused at the door and gave me a pointed look. “We must come before God and confess our transgressions and thank Him for His mercies.”

  Indeed.

  SIX

  I heard a disturbance above, from the roof. Sette? Screaming?

  I remembered seeing my brother and his fencing tutor traversing past my room to the open space of the roof to go practice—

  Fencing.

  Swords.

  The scream gained horrific meaning.

  I tossed my writing aside, jumped from the sofa, ran into the hallway towards the small door leading—

  Sette appeared with the tutor close behind. He had a handkerchief pressed to his eye. It was scarlet with blood.

  “Sette!” I stepped to the side. “In here. Lie down!”

  “He was not wearing a mask, even though I repeatedly reminded him,” explained the tutor. “He slipped and the sword—”

  “I feel faint,” Sette said, stumbling against the frame of the door.

  I took one side of him and the tutor took the other. Together we led him to my bed. I gathered a clean towel, wet it in the basin, and exchanged it for the handkerchief. The gash was not large, but so near the eye as to cause me to wince at the implications.

  There was commotion on the stairs, shouting and many footsteps. Henry came in first, took one look, and said, “I’ll send for a surgeon.”

  Yes, yes, and quickly too.

  The room filled with my brothers and sisters, and I willingly let them take command. I slunk into the background, hoping Sette’s eyesight would be saved. And even beyond that . . . only a minuscule measure higher and the stroke would have been instantaneously mortal.

  I wished Papa were home.

  “You will be fine, I think,” Alfred said, handing the now bloodied towel to Henrietta for changing.

  But would he? We Barretts were known to die with little warning. Would Sette join the others who had gone before? Mother, Sam, Bro, and even our little sister Mary, when I was but a child myself.

  Arabel saw me tucked away in the corner between curtain and wall.The pity on her face marked her move from Sette’s aid to my own. “Ba, you are too pale. Sit or we will have you to nurse too.”

  She was right. This drama was not about me, and I had no right to draw their care. I sat in the chair farthest from the bed and gripped its arms, willing it to give me the strength I sorely needed for this moment.

  And then I prayed. And prayed.

  God heard my prayers and answered them. Sette’s injury had indeed been cause for fear, but the cut would heal, and the black and blue around his eye gave him much fodder for conversation. Although Papa chastised him for not wearing the fencing mask, and though Sette promised he had learned his lesson, I was not so sure. Sette was still one of my favourites, but he was more boy than man, and embraced the attitude of invincibility that so often fooled the young.

  I was not so easily deceived. I knew death lurked around every corner, just waiting for us to lower our guard.

  And so, as Sette spent the evening in the drawing room, regaling his close call with an alarming sense of bravado, I took to my bed, hugging the pillow upon which he had laid his head, thanking God for His mercy, and begging Him to erect a dome of protection around my family. They must be kept safe. I could not live without them. They were everything to me.

  This is what I get for being too happy. . . .

  I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, yet the repetition of crises at various points in my life—just as I was on the verge of crawling out of my dour hole—was undeniable. My prayers of Why, God, why? received no response. I knew the Almighty could and would do what He wished, when He wished to do it. Yet, pragmatic woman that I was, I wished to know His reasons.

  Actually, I longed for more than that. I wished God would listen to my advice and adjust His will to match mine.

  I did not share this desire with Papa, for I knew he would be on God’s side and I would receive a discourse on accepting authority, both temporal and divine. The line between heavenly Father and my earthly parent often became blurred, for I was beholden to both. Subject to both.

  And so as Sette quickly moved past his brush with death, I sat with it placed firmly in my lap, vying for room with Flush. Death was an indefatigable threat, and on its opposite, life was tenuous, dangerous, and unpredictable. I was repeatedly torn between the desire to emerge and engage versus my instinct to withdraw and reject all that was not safe and planned and under my control.

  There was little enough of that.

  And yet . . . as I heard laughter and conversation rise up the stair shaft into my room, I despaired of ever being like the rest of them.

  I kissed Flush on the head and pulled him ever closer. Somehow, somewhere . . . could I find the joy that eluded me? I needed to become resolved to look at the brightest side as long as there was any life left within me.

  “But where is that brightest side?” I asked aloud.

  At that moment Flush bounded out of my arms as though launched to some canine purpose. He was not graceful about it and caused
a sheaf of papers to scatter on the floor.

  “Crow—”

  I stopped my calling, for Crow had taken the evening off. It was up to me to clean up the mess.

  And so with a grumble on my lips and a groan to my limbs, I got to the floor and gathered pages thrown here and there, pages of my newest attempts at poetry. As I put them one upon the other, my eyes glanced across a few of the words: I think we are too ready with complaint in this fair world of God’s. . . .

  My hands stopped all motion, and so too my heart stopped its beating. These words . . . they were mine, an observation, a chastisement.

  A confession?

  I read the words again, reconnecting with each one, reclaiming them as my own. And I read further, until the final word finished the full thought.

  I think we are too ready with complaint

  In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope

  Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope

  Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint

  To muse upon eternity’s constraint

  Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope

  Must widen early, is it well to droop,

  For a few days consumed in loss and taint?

  O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted

  And, like a cheerful traveler, take the road,

  Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread

  Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod

  To meet the flints? At least it may be said

  “Because the way is short, I thank thee, God.”

  Tears found my cheeks. The poem expressed my soul and challenged me to set aside my complaints and be cheerful. Life was difficult, but we had a choice as to how to make the journey. Would complaint be our companion? Or joy?

  “Take your own lesson, Ba,” I said to the room.

  Flush, unused to having me on his level, came to my side with tail wagging. I used him as the audience to my decision. “This work, boy, this work . . . all my earthly futurity as an individual lies in poetry. In other respects the game is up. But poetry lingers. It is like a will to be written.”

  It was a will, but also took an act of will. And so . . . I gathered it up, and returned to my calling.

  My legacy.

  And the complaints that disgraced my character? They had to stop.

  God deserved better.

  My best.

  Such as it was.

  I looked at the engravings of fellow writers, set before me across the mantel.

  “Is this agreeable?” Cousin John adjusted the last two so they would fit.

  “Very,” I said. “They are a gathering of the finest literary minds.”

  He stepped back, joining me in assessing the effect. “Your likeness also appears in the book, yes?”

  “Oh no,” I said, perusing the engravings of Dickens, Smith, Talfourd, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, Jameson, and Martineau that Richard Henry Horne had given me after their use was complete within his book, A New Spirit of the Age. “Richard asked for my portrait, but I could not do such a thing.” My gaze returned to one portrait in particular. I moved to the mantel to study it better. I turned back to John. “Is this a good likeness?”

  “Browning? Yes. I suppose it is.”

  I nodded and returned it to its place among the others. It was in profile, with a nose somewhat large, a sensitive mouth, and long hair. I found myself wishing that his neck were not covered with beard. I longed to see the true jawline. Did it possess the strength that I found within his written word?

  John perused a copy of the book, just released. “I will say it is pleasing that women are allowed in this study of the leading literaries of the day.”

  “Hence, the New in the title,” I explained. “Mr. Horne wished to distinguish this work from that of Hazlitt in 1825 in which only men were noted.”

  “You worked so hard to help Horne compile the writings.” He closed the cover. “Yet I see no acknowledgement?”

  There was an explanation for that. “Whatever I sent to him, he added to, so there is little that is mine alone. I have not read the final version as yet, but am sure he did my suggestions justice. And so I am willing to let him take credit for the editing. He is a dear friend.”

  “I have not met him. What is he like?” John asked, taking a seat. “In person.”

  I felt myself blush. “Oh, I have not met him either—although he has tried with great persistence.” I thought of the time I had agreed to meet him, only to have him send word that he could not come, an act which had caused me to clap my hands for joy when I felt the danger of his society to be passed.

  “But you speak of him as if . . . I know you have worked with him for many years.”

  “Ah, the power of the letter,” I said. “In words he proves himself to be a cultured and gracious gentleman.”

  “Perhaps in words . . .”

  Innuendo was evident. “You said you did not know him, cousin.”

  “But I have heard—” he glanced at me, then away, then back—“I heard he proposed to two women in two days—each possessing a fortune, which no doubt increased his interest.”

  I was shocked. This was not the man who had revealed himself to me in our correspondence. “Perhaps it is just gossip?”

  John cocked his head. “Can the truth still be labeled gossip?”

  The truth was . . . the truth and could not be veiled. “If what you say is true,” I said, “then I declare his baldheartedness ten times over worse than his baldheadedness.”

  John laughed. “An apt take on the situation, dear Ba.”

  I returned to my sofa, patted my lap, and Flush took his place. I was through discussing Mr. Horne. To change the subject I pointed at the portraits. “I was thinking of having a few of these framed for my wall. They are such nice likenesses.”

  “I can guess which one,” John said.

  Oh dear. I had not wished for my interest in one of the writers to be so obvious. “A few of these,” I repeated. “In right hero worship,” I added. “Perhaps Tennyson because he is a poet on the rise. He makes me thrill sometimes to the end of my fingers, as only a truly great poet can.” I perused the others, giving commentary. “Wordsworth, for certain, Carlyle . . . and Harriet Martineau because she is the profoundest woman thinker in England.”

  I felt, rather than saw, John smiling.

  “And . . . ?”

  I might as well just say it. “Probably Browning because of his height and depth of thought. In his Paracelsus I saw sudden repressed gushings of tenderness. He is a poet in the holy sense. ”

  “Um-hmm.” He looked far too smug. “For him to have written Paracelsus on the one hand and the child’s Pied Piper of Hamelin . . . ’tis quite a contrast, and hardly holy. I have heard Miss Mitford state that it was too bad Browning had missed his true calling of being an engineer or a merchant’s clerk.”

  The words were Mary’s, and they stung. “She and I disagree, and she peeves me greatly when she says such things.”

  “I am certain Robert would be honoured to have such an avid defender. Perhaps I should bring him by. Or one of the others?”

  In spite of myself, my heart leapt. “Who?”

  “You choose,” he said with a grin.

  I hid my blush by burying my cheek against the top of Flush’s head.

  He anticipated the attention and turned his face to greet me with a lick. “I could perhaps meet Mrs. Jameson.” I felt John’s eyes upon me, and willed myself to appear unaffected. “Do you know her?” I asked.

  “Of course,” John said.

  With those two words, I felt the heat of my face dissipate. “I do admire her work. Eleven books to her name, from analyses of Shakespeare’s women to art and travel books. I especially enjoyed her Pictures of the Social Life of Germany.”

  “You know why she has traveled so much, do you not?” John asked.

  I had heard many rumours but wished to hear his version. “Not really.”

  “Her
father painted court miniatures and made sure Anna learned Persian, French, Italian, and Spanish.”

  “Persian?”

  “By the age of seven.”

  “Truly a precocious child.”

  “As was someone else I know.”

  I accepted his compliment. “The languages would certainly have come to good use in her travels. Did she go with her father?”

  John shook his head. “She became a governess at age sixteen and traveled with the family. She is a great observer.”

  I used this moment to bring up the rumours regarding her marriage.

  “I heard at first that she rejected her husband, and that after they became betrothed, he, in revenge, rejected her at the altar.”

  “Not true,” he said.

  I found myself disappointed, for the story read like a scene in a novel.

  “But she is Mrs. Jameson.”

  “She is. Though her husband is not here. He has a position in Canada.”

  “Why is she not with him?”

  “Their marriage is not . . . amiable.”

  “Oh,” I said. And suddenly, my inappropriate pleasure in the gossip turned to sympathy. “I am sorry for her.”

  “It is what it is.” His face brightened. “But I know she would enjoy meeting you. She is aware of your work.”

  That such a woman would know of me. Suddenly, the idea of receiving her opinions . . . “Perhaps she could write to me?”

  “She would much rather meet you. Do you remember that I wanted you to meet her two years ago, but you sent your sisters instead?”

  “But through them I gained knowledge of her-in her whole anatomy. You know how talented I am at living vicariously.”

  “Perhaps you should try living directly?”

  It was an old argument and I shook my head adamantly. “A letter, cousin. Could you request a letter?”

  He sighed with his usual frustration. “I will suggest it.”

  I was satisfied. To acquire another correspondent gave me great joy. I may not have had face-to-face friends, but my friends of the pen . . .

  I would hold such relationships against any others.