Wall, Stone, Craft

by Walter Jon Williams

  “On the contrary, I am willing to ignore the questionable situation in which I found Miss Clairmont and to care for the child completely. But only on my terms.”

  “I don’t trust his promises!” Claire said. “He abandoned me in Munich without a penny!”

  “We agreed to part,” George said.

  “If it hadn’t been for Captain Austen’s kindness, I would have starved.” She leaned on the door jamb for support, and Mary joined her and buoyed her with an arm around her waist.

  “You ran out into the night,” George said. “You wouldn’t take money.”

  “I’ll tell her!” Claire drew away from Mary, dragged at the door, hauled it open. “I’ll tell your new woman!”

  Fear leaped into George’s eyes. “Claire!” He rushed to the door, seized her arm as she tried to pass; Claire wrenched herself free and staggered into the hotel lobby. Alba wailed in her arms. George’s servants were long gone, but hotel guests stared as if in tableaux, hats and walking-sticks half-raised. Fully aware of the spectacle they were making, Mary, clumsy in pregnancy, inserted herself between George and Claire. Claire broke for the stair, while George danced around Mary like an awkward footballer. Mary rejoiced in the fact that her pregnancy seemed only to make her more difficult to get around.

  Bysshe put an end to it. He seized George’s wrist in a firm grip. “You can’t stop us all, my lord,” he said.

  George glared at him, his look all fury and ice. “What d’ye want, then?”

  Claire, panting and flushed, paused halfway up the stair. Alba’s alarmed shrieks echoed up the grand staircase.

  Bysshe’s answer was quick. “A competence for your daughter. Nothing more.”

  “A thousand a year,” George said flatly. “No more than that.”

  Mary’s heart leaped at the figure that doubled the family’s income.

  Bysshe nodded. “That will do, my lord.”

  “I want nothing more to do with the girl than that. Nothing whatever.”

  “Call for pen and paper. And we can bring this to an end.”

  Two copies were made, and George signed and sealed them with his signet before bidding them all a frigid good-night. The first payment was made that night, one of George’s men coming to the door carrying a valise that clanked with gold. Mary gazed at it in amazement— why was George carrying so much?

  “Have we done the right thing?” Bysshe wondered, looking at the valise as Claire stuffed it under her bed. “This violence, this extortion?”

  “We offered love,” Mary said, “and he returned only finance. How else could we deal with him?” She sighed. “And Alba will thank us.”

  Claire straightened and looked down at the bed. “I only wanted him to pay,” said Claire. “Any other considerations can go to the devil.”

  *

  The vaudaire blew on, scarcely fainter than before. The water level was still high. Dead fish still floated in the freshwater tide. “I would venture it,” Bysshe said, frowning as he watched the dancing Ariel, “but not with the children.”

  Children. Mary’s smile was inward as she realized how real her new baby was to Bysshe. “We can afford to stay at the hotel a little longer,” she said.

  “Still— a reef in the mains’l would make it safe enough.”

  Mary paused a moment, perhaps to hear the cold summons of Harriet Shelley from beneath the water. There was no sound, but she shivered anyway. “No harm to wait another day.”

  Bysshe smiled at her hopefully. “Very well. Perhaps we’ll have a chance to speak to George again.”

  “Bysshe, sometimes your optimism is...” She shook her head. “Let us finish our walk.”

  They walked on through windswept morning streets. The bright sun glared off the white snow and deadly black ice that covered the surrounding high peaks. Soon the snow and ice would melt and threaten avalanche once more. “I am growing weary with this town,” Bysshe said.

  “Let’s go back to our room and read Chamouni,” Mary suggested.

  Mr. Coleridge had been a guest of her father’s, and his poem about the Alps a favorite of theirs now they were lodged in Switzerland.

  Bysshe was working on writing another descriptive poem on the Vale of Chamouni— unlike Coleridge, he and Mary had actually seen the place— and as an homage to Coleridge, Bysshe was including some reworked lines from Kubla Khan.

  The everlasting universe of things, she recited to herself, flows through the mind.

  Lovely stuff. Bysshe’s best by far.

  On their return to the hotel they found one of George’s servants waiting for them. “Lord Newstead would like to see you.”

  Ah, Mary thought. He wants his gold back.

  Let him try to take it.

  George waited in the same drawing room in which he’d made his previous night’s concession. Despite the bright daylight the room was still lit by lamps— the heavy dark curtains were drawn against the vaudaire. George was standing straight as a whip in the center of the room, a dangerous light in his eyes. Mary wondered if this was how he looked in battle.

  “Mr. Shelley,” George said, and bowed, “I would like to hire your boat to take my party to Geneva.”

  Bysshe blinked. “I— ” he began, then, “Ariel is small, only twenty-five feet. Your party is very large and— ”

  “The local commissaire visited me this morning,” George interrupted. “He has forbidden me to depart Montreux. As it is vital for me to leave at once, I must find other means. And I am prepared to pay well for them.”

  Bysshe looked at Mary, then at George. Hesitated again. “I suppose it would be possible... ”

  “Why is it,” Mary demanded, “that you are forbidden to leave?”

  George folded his arms, looked down at her. “I have broken no law. It is a ridiculous political matter.”

  Bysshe offered a smile. “If that’s all, then... ”

  Mary interrupted. “If Mr. Shelley and I end up in jail as a result of this, I wonder how ridiculous it will seem.”

  Bysshe looked at her, shocked. “Mary!”

  Mary kept her eyes on George. “Why should we help you?”

  “Because...” He paused, ran a nervous hand through his hair. Not used, Mary thought, to justifying himself.

  “Because,” he said finally, “I am assisting someone who is fleeing oppression.”

  “Fleeing a husband?”

  “Husband?” George was startled. “No— her husband is abroad and cannot protect her.” He stepped forward, his color high, his nostrils flared like those of a warhorse. “She is fleeing the attentions of a seducer— a powerful man who has callously used her to gain wealth and influence. I intend to aid her in escaping his power.”

  Bysshe’s eyes blazed. “Of course I will aid you!”

  Mary watched this display of chivalry with a sinking heart. The masculine confraternity had excluded her, had lost her within its own rituals and condescension.

  “I will pay you a further hundred— ” George began.

  “Please, my lord. I and my little boat are entirely at your service in this noble cause.”

  George stepped forward, clasped his hand. “Mr. Omnibus, I am in your debt.”

  The vaudaire wailed at the window. Mary wondered if it was Harriet’s call, and her hands clenched into fists. She would resist the cry if she could.

  Bysshe turned to Mary. “We must prepare.” Heavy in her pregnancy, she followed him from the drawing room, up the stair, toward their own rooms. “I will deliver Lord Newstead and his lady to Geneva, and you and Claire can join me there when the roads are cleared. Or if weather is suitable I will return for you.”

  “I will go with you,” Mary said. “Of course.”

  Bysshe seemed surprised that she would accompany him on this piece of masculine knight-errantry. “It may not be entirely safe on the lake,” he said.

  “I’ll make it safer— you’ll take fewer chances with me aboard. And if I’m with you, George is less likely to inspire you
to run off to South America on some noble mission or other.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Mildly. “And I think you are being a little severe.”

  “What has George done for us that we should risk anything for him?”

  “I do not serve him, but his lady.”

  “Of whom he has told you nothing. You don’t even know her name. And in any case, you seem perfectly willing to risk her life on this venture.”

  Alba’s cries sounded through the door of their room. Bysshe paused a moment, resignation plain in his eyes, then opened the door. “It’s for Alba, really,” he said. “The more contact between George and our little family, the better it may be for her. The better chance we will have to melt his heart.”

  He opened the door. Claire was holding her colicky child. Tears filled her black eyes. “Where have you been for so long? I was afraid you were gone forever!”

  “You know better than that.” Mary took the baby from her, the gesture so natural that sadness took a moment to come— the memory that she had held her own lost child this way, held it to her breast and felt the touch of its cold lips.

  “And what is this about George?” Claire demanded.

  “He wants me to take him down the lake,” Bysshe said. “And Mary wishes to join us. You and Alba can remain here until the roads are clear.”

  Claire’s voice rose to a shriek. “No! Never!” She lunged for Alba and snatched the girl from Mary’s astonished arms. ”You’re going to abandon me— just like George! You’re all going to Geneva to laugh at me!“

  “Of course not,” Bysshe said reasonably.

  Mary stared at her sister, tried to speak, but Claire’s cries trampled over her intentions.

  “You’re abandoning me! I’m useless to you— worthless! You’ll soon have your own baby!”

  Mary tried to comfort Claire, but it was hopeless. Claire screamed and shuddered and wept, convinced that she would be left forever in Montreux. In the end there was no choice but to take her along. Mary received mean satisfaction in watching Bysshe as he absorbed this reality, as his chivalrous, noble-minded expedition alongside the hero of Waterloo turned into a low family comedy, George and his old lover, his new lover, and his wailing bastard.

  And ghosts. Harriet, lurking under the water. And their dead baby calling.

  *

  Ariel bucked like a horse on the white-topped waves as the vaudaire keened in the rigging. Frigid spray flew in Mary’s face and her feet slid on slippery planking. Her heart thrashed into her throat. The boat seemed half-full of water. She gave a despairing look over her shoulder at the retreating rowboat they’d hired to bring them from the jetty to their craft.

  “Bysshe!” she said. “This is hopeless.”

  “Better once we’re under way. See that the cuddy will be comfortable for Claire and Alba.”

  “This is madness.”

  Bysshe licked joyfully at the freshwater spray that ran down his lips. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

  He was a much better sailor than she: she had to trust him. She opened the sliding hatch to the cuddy, the little cabin forward, and saw several inches of water sloshing in the bottom. The cushions on the little seats were soaked. Wearily, she looked up at Bysshe.

  “We’ll have to bail.”

  “Very well.”

  It took a quarter hour to bail out the boat, during which time Claire paced back and forth on the little jetty, Alba in her arms. She looked like a specter with her pale face peering out from her dark shawl.

  Bysshe cast off the gaskets that reefed the mainsail to the boom, then jumped forward to the halyards and raised the sail on its gaff. The wind tore at the canvas with a sound like a cannonade, open-hand slaps against Mary’s ears. The shrouds were taut as bowstrings. Bysshe reefed the sail down, hauled the halyards and topping lift again till the canvas was taut, lowered the leeboards, then asked Mary to take the tiller while he cast Ariel off from its buoy.

  Bysshe braced himself against the gunwale as he hauled on the mooring line, drawing Ariel up against the wind. When Bysshe cast off from the buoy the boat paid instantly off the wind and the sail filled with a rolling boom. Water surged under the boat’s counter and suddenly, before Mary knew it, Ariel was flying fast. Fear closed a fist around her windpipe as the little boat heeled and the tiller almost yanked her arms from their sockets. She could hear Harriet’s wails in the windsong. Mary dug her heels into the planks and hauled the tiller up to her chest, keeping Ariel up into the wind. Frigid water boiled up over the lee counter, pouring into the boat like a waterfall.

  Bysshe leapt gracefully aft and released the mainsheet. The sail boomed out with a crash that rattled Mary’s bones and the boat righted itself. Bysshe took the tiller from Mary, sheeted in, leaned out into the wind as the boat picked up speed. There was a grin on his face.

  “Sorry!” he said. “I should have let the sheet go before we set out.”

  Bysshe tacked and brought Ariel into the wind near the jetty. The sail boomed like thunder as it spilled wind. Waves slammed the boat into the jetty. The mast swayed wildly. The stone jetty was at least four feet taller than the boat’s deck. Mary helped Claire with the luggage— gold clanked heavily in one bag— then took Alba while Bysshe assisted Claire into the boat.

  “It’s wet,” Claire said when she saw the cuddy.

  “Take your heavy cloak out of your bags and sit on it,” Mary said.

  “This is terrible,” Claire said, and lowered herself carefully into the cuddy.

  “Go forrard,” Bysshe said to Mary, “and push off from the jetty as hard as you can.”

  Forrard. Bysshe so enjoyed being nautical. Clumsy in skirts and pregnancy, Mary climbed atop the cuddy and did as she was asked.

  The booming sail filled, Mary snatched at the shrouds for balance, and Ariel leaped from the jetty like a stone from a child’s catapult.

  Mary made her way across the tilting deck to the cockpit. Bysshe was leaning out to weather, his big hands controlling the tiller easily, his long fair hair streaming in the wind.

  “I won’t ask you to do that again,” he said. “George should help from this point.”

  George and his lady would join the boat at another jetty— there was less chance that the authorities would intervene if they weren’t seen where another Englishman was readying his boat.

  Ariel raced across the waterfront, foam boiling under its counter.

  The second jetty— a wooden one— approached swiftly, with cloaked figures upon it. Bysshe rounded into the wind, canvas thundering, and brought Ariel neatly to the dock. George’s men seized shrouds and a mooring line and held the boat in its place.

  George’s round hat was jammed down over his brows and the collar of his cloak was turned up, but any attempt at anonymity was wrecked by his famous laced boots. He seized a shroud and leaped easily into the boat, then turned to help his lady.

  She had stepped back, frightened by the gunshot cracks of the luffing sail, the wild swings of the boom. Dressed in a blue silk dress, broad-brimmed bonnet, and heavy cloak, she frowned with her haughty lower lip, looking disdainfully at the little boat and its odd collection of passengers.

  George reassured his companion. He and one of his men, the swordmaster Pásmány, helped her into the boat, held her arm as she ducked under the boom.

  George grabbed the brim of his hat to keep the wind from carrying it away and performed hasty introductions. “Mr. and Mrs. Shelley. The Comtesse Laufenburg.”

  Mary strained her memory, trying to remember if she’d ever heard the name before. The comtesse smiled a superior smile and tried to be pleasant. “Enchanted to make cognizance of you,” she said in French.

  A baby wailed over the sound of flogging canvas. George straightened, his eyes a little wild.

  “Claire is here?” he asked.

  “She did not desire to be abandoned in Montreux,” Mary said, trying to stress the word abandoned.

  “My God!” George said. “I wish you had gr
eater consideration of the... realities.”

  “Claire is free and may do as she wishes,” Mary said.

  George clenched his teeth. He took the comtesse by her arm and drew her toward the cuddy.

  “The boat will be better balanced,” Bysshe called after, “if the comtesse will sit on the weather side.” And perhaps, Mary thought, we won’t capsize.

  George gave Bysshe a blank look. “The larboard side,” Bysshe said helpfully. Another blank look.

  “Hang it! The left.”

  “Very well.”

  George and the comtesse ducked down the hatchway. Mary would have liked to have eavesdropped on the comtesse’s introduction to Claire, but the furious rattling sail obscured the phrases, if any.

  George came up, looking grim, and Pásmány began tossing luggage toward him. Other than a pair of valises, most of it was military: a familiar-looking pistol case, a pair of sabers, a brace of carbines.

  George stowed it all in the cuddy. Then Pásmány himself leaped into the boat, and George signaled all was ready. Bysshe placed George by the weather rail, and Pásmány squatted on the weather foredeck.

  “If you gentlemen would push us off?” Bysshe said.

  The sail filled and Ariel began to move fast, rising at each wave and thudding into the troughs. Spray rose at each impact. Bysshe trimmed the sail, the luff trembling just a little, the rest full and taut, then cleated the mainsheet down.

  “A long reach down the length of the lake,” Bysshe said with a smile. “Easy enough sailing, if a little hard on the ladies.”

  George peered out over the cuddy, his eyes searching the bank. The old castle of Chillon bulked ominously on the shore, just south of Montreux.

  “When do we cross the border into Geneva?” George asked.

  “Why does it matter?” Bysshe said. “Geneva joined the Swiss Confederation last year.”

  “But the administrations are not yet united. And the more jurisdictions that lie between the comtesse and her pursuers, the happier I will be.”

  George cast an uncomfortable look astern. With spray dotting his cloak, his hat clamped down on his head, his body disposed awkwardly on the weather side of the boat, George seemed thoroughly miserable— and in an overwhelming flood of sudden understanding, Mary suddenly knew why. It was over for him. His noble birth, his fame, his entire life to this point— all was as naught. Passion had claimed him for its own. His career had ended: there was no place for him in the army, in diplomatic circles, even in polite society. He’d thrown it all away in this mad impulse.