Of Noble Family

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “He is dead?”

  “Yes.” Frank stepped farther into the room. “I thought … this is vulgar, but, given the previous circumstances, I thought you might want to see him before I made arrangements.”

  Did he? Vincent could barely think beyond the confines of the room. “I saw … I saw the seizure. I keep thinking that I should feel something.” He rubbed his hair with both hands and sat back in the chair. “My whole life I fought him, even when he was not present. I have fought and fought against the man he had wanted me to be, and now that he is gone, now that the obstacle is finally removed … I do not know what to do.”

  “Given your history, I am not surprised.” Frank crossed the room and sat in the nursing chair. “He and I had a very different relationship, but even for me, very few aspects of my life have not been shaped by his lordship’s wishes.”

  “That is very much it.” Vincent drew a breath. “I feel as if I have been pushing against a wall and it is suddenly gone.”

  “A door, perhaps, that is now open?”

  “For both of us, I hope.”

  Frank sat forward in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees, hands pressed together. His gaze went to Jane and then back to Vincent. “Do you need anything?”

  The brief flash of pity in Frank’s eyes threatened to unravel him. Vincent looked down, clenching his hands into fists. For a moment—and a moment only, thank heavens—he was tempted to ask Frank to bring him some sherry, but this was not a time to slip into darkness. If Jane woke and he was insensible … it would not stand. “Thank you.” He forced his hands open, heedless of the shaking and lifted his gaze. “Would you ask them to bring Charles to me?”

  * * *

  One of the nurses had brought Charles in to visit, and Vincent now sat in the nursing chair, which he had pulled over next to Jane’s bed.

  Each time he saw their son, Vincent was surprised anew by how little he was. In art, even the most detailed miniature was necessarily in want of completeness. Not Charles. His fingers alone were works of the highest order. It did not seem that anything so small could be so exquisite.

  Vincent stretched his legs out in front of him and rested Charles on his lap. The midwife who had brought him in had wrapped him in a blanket, so that only his arms were free. The shift Charles wore was an unassuming cotton, without the rows of tucking and embroidery that Tom’s dresses had borne. The cap, too, was simple and its unadorned nature made the utility of warmth more apparent. In Vienna, he had thought the ruffled caps an affectation of fashion.

  “But you will not be a fashionable young man, I wager.” He let Charles grasp his index finger. His son’s entire hand wrapped around it with an astonishingly strong grip and still the little thumb did not quite meet the equally small fingers. “You will be handsome in manner though, I trust. Your mother will have to instruct you there. Hm?”

  Charles squirmed in reply.

  “That is correct. Of the two of us, you should defer to her judgement more than mine.”

  A little series of grunts was his answer. Charles’s hand found his own face and his eyes widened in astonishment.

  “I will grant that that is not the common arrangement, but you need not look so surprised. Your mother is kind, with a steady character. She is wiser than I am, and a better glamourist. Yes. You will do well to attend to her example. I will tell you that I am a better man for doing so.” For a moment, Vincent found it difficult to breathe. The little squirms and grunts of their son made Jane’s stillness more apparent. His Muse needed to awaken soon. Thank God that Charles was too young to be able to see clearly, or he would be appalled at the state his father was in.

  While holding Charles, Vincent was able to sometimes concentrate on just the single strand of joy that their son represented, but doing so meant letting the other strands slip and his glamoured façade of calm fray. It was always the joy that surprised him and made the unravelling begin. Vincent compressed his lips and cleared the emotion out of his throat. “I look forward to introducing you to your cousin. I am glad that you will be of an age together. Tom is an upright young man.”

  A gentle tap at the door preceded Nkiruka into the room. “How you do, doo-doo?”

  “Well, thank you.” Vincent shifted Charles to his elbow and stood, relying on old training to steady himself with nothings. “And yourself?”

  “Fine. Better yet, if you na lie to me.”

  “Sorry. I am … doing poorly. She is—” And those were words he could not say aloud. “But Charles is well.”

  Her vision went vague as she looked into the ether. “You do good with the web.”

  “Thank you for giving me something to do.”

  “It keeps infection out. I don’t know how or why, only that it do.”

  “I admit that I am used to thinking of glamour as having little practical application.”

  “That true enough.” She laughed and shook her head. “Dat’s why bakkra don’t care much if we do glamour. T’ink it’s only pretty pictures.”

  “Although one could make the argument that the glamural hiding this village is a deeply practical application.” He rocked on his toes a little, dandling Charles. “How are you hiding the weaves?”

  “De words an’ dem don’ have no English.”

  “Jane said as much when you were working on the book. I am sorry it was lost in the fire.” For a moment his fury at Pridmore and his father rushed up. They had caused this. It was their fault that his Muse was—his throat tightened. It did not matter. They were dead, and she would recover. He swallowed and was able to forge ahead. “It is a very great loss.”

  “Oh, I brought de book with us. T’ink I’m going to let all that work be wasted? Eh eh!”

  Vincent had to turn away. God’s wounds, was the smallest thing going to make him weep? He stood by the chair and faced the window, though no pretence would hide his difficulty in governing himself. It became harder to keep the snarled mess of his sensibilities in check with each moment that his Muse slept. “I am glad to hear the book was saved.” At least his voice was tolerably steady. “I should like to read it.”

  “Sure. I bring it.” Nkiruka came to stand in front of him. “But let me hold dis picknee dat cause so much trouble first. Ah he mi come for.”

  “Of course.” Vincent was equal parts reluctant to part with Charles and also grateful that he did not have to risk dropping his son. He wanted a moment to restitch the illusion of control. If it were a glamour, he would tear the misshapen patchwork out and start anew, but for Charles, for Jane, he had to keep the façade in place. Once he started to unravel, he was not sure there would be anything left of him.

  Thirty-five

  Considerations

  Jane must have been working a great deal of glamour to be so out of breath. Vincent was talking about folds with someone. She knew the voice that answered him, but she could not place it for the longest time. Dragging her lids open, Jane looked to see who it was. Still, the apparatus of her mind turned so slowly that she stared at the elderly black woman for some time without a name attaching itself. Jane knew that she liked her.

  Nkiruka. Yes. That was it.

  She stood talking with Vincent, whose back was to Jane.

  Jane wanted him to turn, but she was so tired. She would call him in a moment.

  * * *

  A baby was crying.

  Jane frowned. Why had Melody brought Tom into her bedchamber in the middle of the night? It seemed rude and unlike her.

  Vincent’s voice rumbled, “Shall I hold him again?”

  “Naaa. I t’ink he wet.”

  Oh. Jane’s eyes were closed. She opened them, blinking against the light. Nkiruka held—oh. Oh, she held Charles. Vincent bent over their son, patting his belly as the infant shrieked his displeasure.

  Jane’s mouth was dry and she had to swallow several times before she could make a sound. “May I see him?”

  Vincent jerked around. His eyes widened. By his expression, he had not
expected her to live. Neither had she.

  Jane tried to smile at him, and Vincent’s composure shattered. He took a step towards her and his legs buckled. Her husband dropped to his knees like a marionette with all its strings cut.

  Nkiruka backed away, turning to the window. She wove a sphere of silence around her so that Charles’s cries vanished, leaving only the sound of Vincent sobbing.

  He knelt by the bed. Vincent found her hand and clutched it with both of his, pressing his face down against it. The sobs were nothing romantic, but ragged and raw. Each breath sounded as though it tore open his throat and choked him. Jane wanted to bring her other hand over to stroke his hair and soothe him, but she had not the strength to do even that.

  She settled for moving her thumb along the ridges of his fingers and smoothing his hot tears away.

  The storm, when it passed, was not long, nor did Jane think that it had swept away all the clouds from Vincent’s mind. He leaned against her, face nestled against the damp fabric of the bed. She stroked his hand and raised a finger to his forehead, which was fevered, as though he had overworked with glamour.

  When Vincent’s breathing had steadied, he pulled himself up. His face was red, blotched, wet with tears, and, with the addition of his bruises, altogether inelegant. Jane had never seen anything so handsome.

  “Forgive me for that.” Vincent pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped ineffectually at his face. He kept his other hand on hers.

  “Nothing to forgive.” Speech was laborious but necessary. “Flattered.”

  His chuckle contained the remnant of a sob. “This is a strange sort of flirtation.”

  “Inscrutable.”

  That had been, perhaps, a mistake, as he began weeping again. His breath caught like a child’s, and he shook his head. With a sort of mocking smile, Vincent gestured at his face. “Apparently, this is what joy looks like on me.” He did not bother with his handkerchief but wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “I always was a backwards youth.”

  She mustered a smile for him. “You say that as if it were no longer true.”

  “No, only to prove that I have long practise at being contrary.”

  “I did not need proof.”

  Vincent laughed, and cried, and laughed some more. “Do you want to see Charles?”

  “Very much.”

  He rose and walked away from her with clear reluctance. Jane rolled her head to the side to watch him, weariness keeping her pinned to the bed. Her whole core ached, and when sleep came again, she would embrace it gladly. It crept around the edges of her vision, and she had to widen her eyes to keep them from shutting of their own accord.

  They must have closed a little, though, because Vincent was at the bed with a wriggling bundle, and Nkiruka was slipping out the door. Jane pushed against the mattress, trying to sit up, but succeeded only in thinking about moving. Vincent knelt next to her, turning so that she could see their son’s face.

  Charles had finished his fit of pique and stared at her. His eyes were wide and serious with the slightly troubled expression unique to newborns, as if he had come into the world knowing how to right all the troubles but could no longer quite remember how.

  He grunted and waved his arm, fingers spreading as if he were going to work glamour. Without thinking about it, Jane shifted her vision to the ether. There was nothing for him to catch, and his motions truly were the random waving of an infant. Still, it felt remarkably good to let her vision relax into her second sight.

  Jane pulled it back to the corporeal world with an effort. She was so tired, and she wanted to see as much of her son as possible before falling asleep. He yawned at her, as if in complete agreement.

  “Have you been good for your papa?”

  “Exemplary conduct.” Vincent’s eyes were still quite red but had dried somewhat. “And becoming of a gentleman.”

  “Good.” A yawn escaped her to match Charles. “Pardon.”

  “Shall I let you sleep?”

  “I am afraid so.” She suspected she had little choice, but there was one matter left unattended. “But … kiss me first?”

  Still holding their son, he bent down and gave her a tentative kiss. Vincent tasted of salt and strong tea and still smelled of smoke. The brush of the stubble on his chin gave her a rough gauge of how long she had been unconscious.

  Jane kissed him again, just managing a touch of the lips. “Poor thing.”

  As he pulled back, his eyes had again grown wet, but they crinkled at the corners. “You always do worry more about me than you should.”

  “Because you are a delicate china cup.”

  * * *

  Two days after Jane awoke, Vincent finally felt comfortable leaving the room. She was not well by any means and could not yet sit up, but Dr. Jones was willing to go so far as to assert that the danger was past. He was gone for several hours, and when he returned, he had dirt on the cuffs of his shirt.

  His face was a little pinched.

  “What is the matter?”

  “Hm?” He paused in the action of sitting, then lowered himself slowly the rest of the way. “We buried Lord Verbury. Frank and I.”

  “Oh, Vincent…”

  “There was no one else we could ask to do it. He is supposed to be more than a year dead.” He displayed his hands, which had blisters on the palms. “Oddly, I think it helped. You will find this foolish, but I think I needed to be certain that he was actually dead this time.”

  She understood and did not have the benefit of having seen the body. “I am not surprised.”

  He shifted in the chair and reached into his pocket. “I also needed to look for this.”

  “What is it?”

  He put a small, dark rectangle in her hand. It had a cracked, rough surface. Frowning, Jane held it in front of her face. For a moment, she fumbled with it, still clumsy with fatigue, and then it opened into three equal pieces. It was the trifold case she had given him for his birthday.

  The two portraits inside had been a little darkened with smoke but had somehow survived the fire.

  “When you are well…” He paused for a moment, and when he went on, his voice was rough. “When you are well, I shall require the third portrait.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she nodded. “Of course.”

  Vincent reached out. For a moment, she thought he was going to retrieve the case from her, but he slipped his hand into hers instead. They sat in amiable silence as Vincent ran his thumb over the edge of her fingers. He sighed once, before looking up with reddened eyes. Wiping his face with the back of one hand, Vincent shook his head and gave a blushing smile. “I have been thinking … or, rather—I spent a great deal of time when you were … I talked to you. Or, at you, I suppose would be more accurate.”

  Jane almost held her breath in imitation of her husband. During the course of their marriage, Vincent had become better about discussing his internal state when she inquired, but it was still a rarity for him to offer anything without prompting. She allowed a squeeze of his hand to encourage him but otherwise tried to wait as he gathered his thoughts.

  “As we were burying his lordship, I realised … there are things I would regret if I never said to you.” He stopped, his gaze lowered and brows drawn together. “I never told you why I fell in love with you. Because it reflects badly on me. Not—not falling in love, but the … the circumstances. Or … or what it said about me. I mean to say, it was difficult to explain without also explaining my family, and I—” He snarled his free hand in his hair, shaking his head.

  Now he needed some assurance, which Jane could provide. She squeezed his hand again. “I trust you know by now that I am not so easily frightened away?” Even so, she was fairly burning with curiosity about something that she had not thought of since the early days of their marriage.

  He nodded. “You are a wonder.” Clearing his throat, Vincent sat forward in his chair and freed his hand. With both hands clasped in front of him, he appeared to be in a deep
study of the floor. “Your skill caught my attention, but—as I am certain you recall—it vexed me. Later, I realised it was jealousy.”

  “Jealousy!” Jane could not prevent her laugh. She had never met a more accomplished glamourist than her husband, and she privately suspected that time would judge him to be Herr Scholes’s superior. “My recollection was that you said my work was stiff and lifeless.”

  His head came up and he gave a crooked smile. “At the time, your completed glamurals were exquisitely rendered to the point of being somewhat studied, yes. But your tableaux vivants … Jane. I wish I could make you understand how truly extraordinary you are.”

  “I will accept your approbation because I am too tired to protest.”

  Jane regretted teasing Vincent as his brows went up with concern. “Shall I let you sleep?”

  “No, no. I want to hear how I dazzled you with my talent.”

  “Well … I wanted to talk with you, and propriety, as well as my own … curmudgeonly nature, made that difficult. But there was a day when … you were out riding with Mr. Dunkirk and his sister. I was drawing an apple tree when your party came upon me. I had been hearing your laughter for some time before you saw me, I think.”

  “I recall the day.”

  “We talked about art and the nature of perfection, and you said that you thought that imperfections helped one appreciate something beautiful more fully. It was … it was a transformative thought for me. My entire life, I had been taught that imperfections meant failure, and yet, I could not deny your statement, for I had chosen that tree to draw because its storm damage made it more interesting, and in many ways, more beautiful than its perfect neighbours. And I thought—” His voice cracked and he compressed his lips, shoulders hunching forward. “And I thought that perhaps it meant that I was not flawed past redemption.”

  Jane would have given much to be able to get out of bed. Her chest ached for her husband. Understanding him now rewove that long-ago afternoon in her mind. She could now see his silence and forbidding nature for what they were, preservative camouflage to survive his relationship with his father. Vincent was correct. If he had told her earlier, she would not have understood, because she would have found it impossible to believe that any father could be so terrible to his child.