by Amelia Nolan
In every dashing hero he saw himself; and in every scoundrel who disappointed or abused the heroine, he saw himself as well.
In every happy ending he saw the joy he might have had, if he had not ripped out the final pages from their own real-life story.
And he would drink and read, and drink and weep, and then go back and read the stories all over again.
36
Three months into Evan’s self-imposed exile from humanity, Andrew came and found him in the east wing.
“May I?” he asked tentatively, gesturing to a chair near Evan’s.
Evan looked at him with bleary eyes. He gestured as though to say, Do what you will.
He read his own appearance in Andrew’s shocked face. Evan had not bathed for days; he had not touched a razor in weeks. Ever since London, he had gone from a smooth-shaven gentleman to a hairy man of the wilds, his appearance disheveled, his clothes stained, his breath reeking of alcohol.
Andrew sat uncomfortably in silence. Evan ignored him as he reread one of her books for the fifth time.
“I wanted to say… I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Evan asked, never looking up from the page. His voice was raspy from lack of use.
“For my deplorable behavior that night.”
Evan continued to read without any indication he had heard.
“Will you forgive me?” Andrew asked.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“Obviously there is. There is a great deal to forgive, I fear.”
Evan looked up and stared into the distance. “Do you know what she said to me that night, after we had seen you in the street?”
It was Andrew’s turn not to answer. His face was shadowed with fear.
“I told her, ‘My brother meant to hurt me, not you. He was being cruel, and vicious – ’”
Andrew winced, but did not interrupt.
“‘And truthful,’ she said.”
He paused for a moment. When he finally looked at Andrew, there was no malice in Evan’s face.
“How can I be angry with you for telling her the truth?”
Then he bent back to his book.
“I was cruel, and vicious, and I hurt the both of you terribly – ” Andrew tried again.
“You did not hurt her one thousandth as much as I did.”
“Be that as it may, I destroyed the love that you shared – ”
“No, I did that quite ably myself. Actually, if I destroyed anyone’s love, it was hers for me; mine continues unabated, I fear.” He looked at Andrew again. “I should thank you on her behalf, for you revealed to her quite clearly the heartbreak in store for her if she stayed with me. You freed her from much suffering, so… I thank you. On her behalf.”
Andrew shook his head, his expression horrified. The man before him seemed half mad in his detachment. “How can you act like this? How can you not hate me for what I have done?”
“Oh, I did. For quite a while. But gradually I came to hate myself far, far more.”
“For what?”
“For destroying the one thing in my life that had ever made me happy. For throwing away the one person who had loved me unreservedly, and completely, and totally.”
Andrew stared at him. “You really did love her, didn’t you?”
“I still do. I both hope… and fear… I always will.”
Evan returned to his book. Andrew continued to sit there until the silence became too much for him.
“I will take my leave of you,” he finally said.
Evan nodded without looking at him.
Andrew got up from the chair and walked to the end of the hall. Before he left, he turned back around.
“I am so sorry,” Andrew whispered.
“So am I,” Evan said without turning around. “More than she will ever know.”
Andrew stood there for a minute more, then finally walked off through the shadows of the deserted hall.
37
Twelve months after Marian fled from London, she awoke in the luxurious quarters she leased on the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
Beside her in the four-post bed slept a gorgeous young man, an actor in the Comédie-Française. She had met him two months earlier in one of the fashionable salons attended by the preeminent writers, actors, artists, and thinkers of Paris. Her beauty drew him to her like a moth to a flame; her scandalous reputation as ‘L’Anglaise,’ the English writer of erotic novels, cemented the attraction. The young man quickly became her lover – one of several that Marian had. The actor knew of the others, but did not protest. If he had, he knew he would have been quickly shown the door.
Marian left him sleeping and padded softly out of the room.
She entered the study and looked out through the slanted glass window. Her rooms were on the third and uppermost floor of the building, and from here she could see all the glories of Paris – the avenues of trees, the ornate buildings, the gardens and parks in the distance.
After a moment she sat behind her desk, which faced the window. Her maid knew not to disturb her in the bedroom, but had instead laid out a simple breakfast of fruit, fresh bread, and honey. Marian nibbled at a strawberry and looked at her correspondence.
The first was from Laurent Dardanelle, her French publisher, concerning the publication of her next work. More importantly, there was a letter from Pemberly, arrived the previous day:
To the Most Scandalous and Eminently Esteemed Marian Willows:
I must congratulate you, ‘Parisienne’ – for putting more gold in my pocket, as well as your own. Sales of ‘Scenes From A Garden’ have done marvelously, even better than I had hoped. 5000 copies in two months, and that in England alone. All your other novels have gone to the next printing – ‘Confessions’ alone is in its ninth. Please see Mssr. Lambert at Tellson’s; I have deposited another 650 pounds in your account, per our contract. He will have the accounting if you wish to confirm the figures (fie upon thee if you do not trust your beloved publisher! – although it would speak well of your intelligence if you do not).
Laurent tells me your French editions are outselling the English by even better margins, and that you have been approached by an Italian publisher. Beware the Italians, my dear; they are magnificent lovers (as I am sure you have already discovered), but poor accountants.
When may I expect the pleasure of your presence in London? Your letters are charming as ever, and your newest novels are always lovingly received (lovingly as a cask of gold, as they are one and the same), but neither can convey your beauty or melodiousness of voice.
If I may be serious for just one moment, I fear for your safety in Paris. I know that you brush aside such sentiments, but your adopted country is in turmoil. Bad enough that the royal family became captives in Paris, but now they are arrested like common criminals when they try to flee the country! I wish that you would come stay with me for awhile, at least until the current political climate improves. As always, I extend the invitation; please, I beg you, do not turn it down again for the thousandth time.
I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. I know that mine are always improved by the appearance of your next work… so let me not fall into despair.
Your rapacious and libidinous publisher, and eternal friend,
P.
PS – Our mutual friend is not quite so well, I fear. As you request, I will look after him… although a letter from you would work wonders that I never could.
She trembled to read that last line.
In all her correspondence with Pemberly, she rarely asked about Evan. Despite the time that had passed, the wound had never healed. Often in her writing, she drew from her memories of him; often as she wrote a scene, she would find herself carried away, transported by memories of his eyes, his voice, his touch… then return to find tears streaming down her cheeks, soaking the pages she barely remembered writing.
She had taken a half-dozen lovers since arriving in Paris. They were pleasant distractions, and most were physica
lly satisfying… though the encounters often left her feeling hollow afterwards, as though some essential part was missing.
None lasted too long. Some she had parted with amicably; others she had banished from her bed, only to have them make fools of themselves publicly over her (which had the unintended consequence of increasing her infamy and making her works sell all the better).
Not one caused her to thrill at his caress.
Not one transported her to the raptures she had experienced so long ago.
And not one of them had touched her heart.
She had finally broken down and asked about Evan in her last letter. She forced herself to do it, in the hopes that knowing he had moved on might allow her to do the same.
She knew it was abominably selfish, but she did not want him to have found someone else. She did not want him to have settled down.
She did not want him to forget her.
She wanted to wish him the best… she wanted him to be happy…
…but she found that she could not quite do it.
Not if it meant he loved another.
She did not wish it out of spite, or anger, or bitterness, but because her heart broke a little bit more every time she thought of another woman kissing the man she had wanted forevermore to be her own.
The fact that he was ‘not doing well’…
She did not know exactly why she trembled, but she did.
Her emotions were a jumble:
Joyful memories of his touch.
Sorrow that they were memories, and nothing more, and would never be anything more than that again.
Hope that perhaps he still loved her.
Pleasure that he had not replaced her in his affections.
Disgust with herself that she would put her own happiness before his. That she would begrudge him joy. That she was so childish that she could not bear he might love another.
Despite all the men she had taken into her own bed, they were nothing more than pale substitutes for the one who still held her heart. Distractions from the pain. Possibilities that she might fall in love again… but so far, possibilities that had not become reality.
She put Pemberly’s letter aside. She could not answer it now.
Instead she thought back to a bed in a deserted room of an English mansion… recalled how he had held her in his arms, and pressed her tight to his warm, muscular body… how he had entered her, filling her with ecstasy, and passion, and love… how his eyes had been the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, then or since…
Still staring out over the morning glories of Paris, but not seeing them at all, she took a blank piece of paper from the corner of her desk and began to write.
38
A year and several months after Marian left, Pemberly came to Blakewood unannounced.
Andrew showed him into the east wing hallway where Evan did his reading. It was four in the afternoon, but he was already drunk.
Pemberly strode over to his friend and looked down at him.
Evan saw him, pulled back, and squinted as though unsure whether the man before him was flesh and blood or a phantom.
“Pemberly! Well, this is unexpected!” Evan slurred.
“Good God, you look a sight.” Pemberly scrunched up his nose in distaste. “Phaugh! And smell one, too.”
Evan’s smile faded. “I don’t recall inviting you. If you dislike my appearance or my odor, you are free to depart.” He then returned to his book – one of Marian’s, naturally.
“Shall I leave you?” Andrew asked.
“Check back in an hour to see if the stench has killed me,” Pemberly commanded, then sat down on the sofa.
Andrew withdrew from the room.
“Well. I’m glad to see you’ve spent your time so industriously, giving the pigs a run for their money,” Pemberly said.
Evan took a swig from his bottle. Pemberly took it out of his hand.
“Give me that. Your brother didn’t offer me so much as a drop.” He looked around for a glass. Seeing none, he shrugged and drank from the bottle itself, then passed it back. “Well, even if you are living like a swine, your liquor is fit for a duke.”
Evan gestured about. “For a pig, the pen is quite luxurious.”
“Quite. By the by, thank you for all your scintillating responses to my letters. Oh, I forgot, you didn’t write back. To any of them.”
“I was busy,” Evan said, turning again to Marian’s novel.
“What, stewing in your own juices?”
Evan just continued reading.
“Blake, look at me,” Pemberly commanded.
Evan ignored him and kept his attention on the book.
“Blake, I published the damn thing. It’s not that interesting.”
When Evan did not make an answer, Pemberly sat there silently on his sofa for a moment… and then violently grabbed the book out of Evan’s hand and threw it across the hall.
Evan was on his feet in a second. Pemberly jumped up, too, though he had to crane his neck in order to scowl into Evan’s face.
“What the hell?” Evan yelled.
“Oh, finally, it speaks,” Pemberly snapped. “I didn’t ride eight hours from London to be ignored.”
“No, apparently you rode eight hours to be a damned nuisance,” Evan growled as he walked over to retrieve the book.
Pemberly raced past him and kicked it down the hallway.
Evan watched it slide across the floor, then turned to Pemberly. He regarded him coldly for a moment.
“I have half a mind to throw you out that window.”
“I would find that preferable to watching you play the village idiot.”
Evan moved to grab Pemberly’s cloak –
The little man batted him away with a panicked air.
“That was a figure of speech!” Then he winced and fanned the air in front of him. “By God, though, a few more whiffs like that, and I shall beg to be put through the window just so I can get some fresh air.”
“It can still be arranged,” Evan said as he walked to the far end of the hall and picked up the book.
“What is this, Blake? Have you decided to play the grieving martyr? Is that why you’ve walled yourself up in this tomb?”
“Go to hell,” Evan said as he walked past and flopped back down in his chair.
“It certainly smells as though I’m there already. Eighth circle, by the odor,” Pemberly muttered, then sat down.
Both men were silent for a moment.
“She asked about you,” Pemberly finally said.
Evan stopped reading. He let the book drop the smallest amount, and looked slightly to the side, though he did not meet Pemberly’s gaze. “She’s back in London?”
“No. She has not returned since… since she left.”
“So she wrote you, then?”
“Yes.”
“Does she often inquire after me?”
“No. Almost never.”
Evan was silent for a moment.
“And what did you reply?” he finally asked.
“I said you were not doing so well. I see now that I was considerably understating the case.”
Evan’s eyes grew distant and sad. Then his face hardened.
“Tell her… tell her I will be married next December.”
Pemberly sniffed the air. “What, to a sow?”
Evan glared at him. “Or you can go to the devil. Either one.”
“Come with me back to London, Blake.”
“Whatever for?”
“You have been in the country too long, you begin to mimic its four-legged inhabitants. For God’s sake, man – for the wine, for the women, for the society.”
“I have all the wine I need here,” Evan said as he lifted his bottle, “and I prefer my own company. As for women…”
He gestured with the book.
“…I am content with my memories.”
“Do you think she is holed up in a sty in Paris, hm? Do you think she lives like an animal, p
ining away for your love?”
“Stop it,” Evan whispered.
“I can assure you she does not. I can most assuredly tell you that she has moved on, and that you are a fool if you do not do likewise.”
Evan clenched his jaw and did not say anything more.
“I am sorry it ended the way it did,” Pemberly said forcefully. “I regret my part in it. But you are a fool if you think it could have happened any other way, and you are an even greater fool if you throw your life away because of it.”
The little man stood up from the sofa.
“I will be staying the evening, and then I will be returning to London in the morning. I want you to come with me. Stay a month or two. Get away from this… whatever this is. This cesspool of misery you wallow in.”
Pemberly shouted the rest over his shoulder as he walked away.
“Be a man! Pull yourself out of this grave you’ve dug. And if you won’t do that, for God’s sake, just go ahead and end it already. Make official what you’ve already chosen to do, which is throw your life away!”
Then he barged through the doors and was gone.
39
Evan walked upstairs through one of the servant’s corridors so that he would not be seen. Once he came to his room, he shut the door and locked it.
He walked over to his desk and opened a beautifully inlaid walnut box. Inside were a brace of dueling pistols.
He took out one of them and toyed with it, playing his thumb across the hammer and his index finger across the trigger. He felt the weight of it as he pressed the end of the barrel against his head.
It was not loaded, but still… the cold steel against his temple was like a bucket of ice water thrown into his face.
He looked at himself in the mirror, at the haunted eyes and gaunt face, the ragged beard, the disgraceful clothes.
Do you think she lives like an animal, pining away for your love?
He put the pistol back in the box and closed the lid.
When he came down to dinner two hours later, he was fully bathed, shaved, and dressed in a new change of clothes.
“I truly believe the vicar now,” Pemberly gasped mockingly. “The dead do indeed rise.”
“What’s more, they go to London on the morrow.”
