Page 27

One month later

T he voices pierced through Simon’s peace.

“There you are!” Archie, making quite the racket with the heavy oaken door from the vestry, exclaimed.

“Goodness!” Effie, sounding affronted in the way only Effie could, followed Archie up the aisle toward Simon. “What on earth are you doing in here ?”

“Here” was church. The chapel at Galecroft, in particular. Simon had always liked it. Set apart from the main house and situated in a copse of silver birches, it had been a refuge for him as a boy. When he’d had to spend summers at Galecroft he’d tended to pass his days here, cool stone walls and a canopy of trees providing a double layer of shelter. Here, he could imagine a world in which the good and the right prevailed.

He didn’t know why the boys were so surprised to find him in the chapel. People—even Archie and Effie—tended to forget that he had been bound for the Church before his elder twin brothers died and he inherited.

He closed the book he had been reading.

“It is cold, but it’s a beautiful sunny day,” Archie said, sliding into the pew beside Simon.

“The ladies want to row across the lake, where I am sure it will be colder than it is on land, but the novelty of being on the water should distract us from the chill,” Effie said, sitting in the row ahead and twisting to face them. “They want you to accompany us.” He grinned. “And by ‘they,’ I mean Clementine, Olive, and my wife .”

“Far be it from me to disappoint your wife .” Simon smiled, for Effie’s excitement was infectious.

Effie and Julianna had wasted no time having the banns of marriage called once they’d gotten over themselves and accepted what the rest of the world could see plain as day—they were meant for each other. The banns had taken three weeks, of course, so they were still very newly wed. Hence all the my wife –ing. Simon had offered them the use of Galecroft for a post-wedding trip, it being close to London and therefore ideal for a quick escape between the wedding and the upcoming opening of Parliament, but somehow that had evolved into everyone coming along. “Earls-Plus-Girls Trip,” Olive Morgan had dubbed it. “Consider it an intermezzo,” she’d said. “An off-season compliment to your autumnal ‘sacred masculine tradition.’”

Simon wished he could disappoint the ladies. As much as he liked them, he had come to the chapel to brood. He was quite worked up about the upcoming session of Parliament.

“I am for London tomorrow,” he said, sliding his book under a Bible resting on the pew next to him.

“So soon?” Archie asked.

“Yes,” Simon said emphatically, though he’d only that moment decided to decamp. “I have some books in the London house I need to consult.”

“Ah,” Effie said.

He knew they thought him overserious. Simon believed that if a man was fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to be born into wealth and privilege, he ought to approach his duty with an earnestness of purpose. He ought to work to make sure that the good and the right prevailed, not just sit in a church wishing for it. He would make no apologies for taking his responsibilities seriously.

He didn’t have to make any apologies, though, not to these two. They might think him overserious, but they would never judge him for it. They understood him. Their friendship had always been, and remained, a balm.

“You two stay as long as you like, though,” he said.

“We will indeed, thank you,” Effie said. “And pray tell, what is that book you’re attempting to hide under that Bible?”

“I am hiding nothing,” said Simon, who had been doing exactly that.

“Let’s have it, then.” Archie reached over Simon and extracted the tome. “ Persuasion ! You have become quite the devotee of Miss Austen of late.”

“Yes, well, she writes very astutely about social mores.”

“Did Miss Brown give you that one, too?” Archie asked. “She and Clementine are positively mad for Miss Austen’s novels.”

“I can’t remember where I got this,” Simon lied. “As I said, please stay on after my departure, but you’ll both be back in Town by the fourth, yes?” February 4 was when Parliament opened. He was asking partly to distract the boys from the topic of where he’d gotten his book, but also to impress upon them the importance of returning to Town in time.

“Yes,” Effie said with affectionate exasperation. “We will be back, and we will do exactly what you tell us to do as it relates to voting and such. But you know I plan to be absent as much as I can this session. I’m quite busy!”

Effie was busy, and Simon was happy for him. His father had died in Italy, and his mother and sister had returned only last week, whereupon Effie dropped the bomb on them regarding his plans to marry Julianna, move to rooms in Grub Street, and become a printer and poet. The family had been thrust into chaos. Well, Effie’s mother had been thrust into chaos. His sister, Sarah, after recovering from her initial shock, was reportedly, “Coming around. Possibly. As long as my ‘antics’ do not hamper her own matrimonial prospects. And as long as the eye-wateringly large sum Kenver proposed to allow her every month remains eye-wateringly large.”

The events of the past month really had been something to witness. Olive Morgan reported that news of the scandal was beginning to make its way through society, and Simon himself had fielded several questions disguised as “concern,” at a party he’d attended last week. Effie seemed not to mind whatsoever, and Simon and Archie were following his lead.

The newlyweds were in fact living in two rooms on Grub Street—“one for us and one for the press.” Amusingly, Effie had dubbed the new contraption Cordelia. “I took your point, Simon, that naming a press after a man haunted by the ghost of his dead father and driven to his death by said haunting might have been, in retrospect, a poor idea. Cordelia, by contrast, opposed her father even when everyone was against her so doing, even when it had terrible consequences. She held her head high. Of course, she died tragically in the end, too, that being one of the aforementioned terrible consequences, so perhaps I should have gone with the jolly Falstaff. Though he dies, too, doesn’t he?”

Kenver was trying to persuade Effie to allow the purchase of nicer accommodations, but Effie was so far resisting, adhering to his vow to make it on his own. “I am not, however,” he had proclaimed to Archie and Simon, “at all above accepting accommodations and comfort from you lot.” Hence the jaunt to Galecroft. Hence Effie’s gleeful anticipation of this autumn’s Earls Trip. “It’s going to be ever so much more luxurious,” he’d said, “now that I’m coming from lowered circumstances.” He had paused. “Lowered materially. Raised in every other sense.”

“I think Clementine and Olive and I will join you in departing tomorrow,” Archie said. “Or perhaps the ladies can travel to Town with you? I need to get out to the hunting box before I have to be back for Lords.”

“The hunting box?” Effie queried. “I’d’ve thought if you were going anywhere, it would be to Highworth to see your mother. I know it is increasingly difficult for you to be away from her.”

“Normally, I would, but I’m building a plunge pool at the hunting box, and I am apparently needed by the foreman to rule on a few matters before the excavation can begin.”

“You are building a what pool?” Effie asked.

“A plunge pool. You’re familiar with Royal Tunbridge Wells?”

“Yes. I took the waters there once. It was quite diverting.”

“It’s the same water, under my property,” Archie said. “Same benefits but without the crowds. I thought it might help Mother. It was Clementine’s idea, actually, and Miss Brown’s. They were talking recently about how bathing seems to calm Mother, and Clementine mused about the possibility of taking her to Royal Tunbridge Wells. Miss Brown thought the crowds would produce agitation sufficient to override any benefit the waters might have. I started thinking about how I’d heard the Duke of Greenworth had dug his own pool on his estate in Glastonbury—I gather there are spring waters thereabouts, too. And then I started thinking about how close the hunting box is to Royal Tunbridge Wells and dispatched Mr. Hughes to travel there and oversee the digging of a test hole. Water was struck, and low, now I’m digging a pool.”

“How extraordinary,” Effie marveled.

“Let’s go there,” Simon said, an idea overtaking him with some urgency.

“ You’re the one so intent on making it back to Town,” Effie said.

“Not now,” Simon said. “In autumn. Earls Trip 1823. Will your pool be done by then, Archie?”

“I should think so. It’s literally just a hole in the ground.”

“Well, then it’s settled,” Simon said. “We’ll all go. You and your wives, and your mother, too, Archie.” And Miss Brown. She would be needed by Archie’s mother.

“What about the sacred masculine tradition?” Archie asked. “The ladies are always mocking it, but ’tis a real thing! It’s called Earls Trip for a reason. And it’s not really a trip, is it, if we merely spend it at one of our houses?”

“Things change,” Simon said. “You two are married. Your mother is ailing, Archie. Earls Trip in the form we know it is a relic of our younger years, when we were bachelors, when we bore fewer responsibilities. Times change, and we must evolve along with them, mustn’t we?”

“I for one,” Effie said, “find the prospect of lounging about in a pool without having to engage with society at large immensely appealing.”

“Perhaps,” Archie said, “we can work out a compromise whereby we spend a week ourselves, and then the ladies join us. Or perhaps, given that I’ve laborers there already, I could have a simple outbuilding built, where we could stay apart from the main lodgings.”

“Of course,” Effie said with a smirk, “the aforementioned lounging about shall have to remain a distinctly masculine pursuit. We lot seem to have shocking low standards of decorum in recent years, but we can hardly take the waters with the ladies.”

Simon picked up his copy of Persuasion and fanned himself.

“All right.” Archie stood. “Let us consider the destination settled and we shall discuss details of when—and who—later.”

Effie stood, too. “Off we go to take the water—in a different way—with the ladies. It’s been ages since I’ve been in a boat.”

They filed to the back of the chapel. There was a stained glass window along the back of the structure, and through it Simon could see the ladies approaching.

He decided to beg off. He didn’t begrudge them an afternoon of gaiety on the lake, but he wasn’t keen to share it. “At the risk of disappointing the ladies”—he turned to Effie with a smile—“ your wife among them, I shan’t join you. I’ll see you later, when we dine.”

“Are you sure?” Archie asked.

“Yes. I’ve some preparations to do for next week.”

The boys rolled their eyes affectionately as they exited. Simon watched them meet up with the ladies. Archie offered one arm to his wife and the other to his sister-in-law, and they set out across the lawn between the chapel and the house.

Effie and Julianna followed. They appeared to be discussing something with great fervor. Each was gesturing animatedly until Effie threw up his hands and stopped. He drew Julianna to him, and she came laughingly. They kissed.

It was only then that Simon realized with a start that he was looking at them through a green pane in the stained glass. Effie and Julianna were kissing under a chartreuse sky, and if that wasn’t an example of the good and the right prevailing, he didn’t know what was.