by Diana Davis
Whatever esteem he might have had for her as “an authoress” was surely gone. She was no poet, and she no longer pretended to be one, not even returning to the little vignettes she used to write to entertain the family, now that Verity had them all playacting in hers. Constance didn’t find her sister’s texts very enjoyable, but Verity’s acting was always enthralling — especially as a villainess. David certainly made a convincing hero, which usually made the plays supportable.
Unlike her poetry. How useless. How frivolous. She rose from the desk and threw the papers into the cold fireplace. They’d only be suitable as kindling now, and she had no business writing ever again. She was no Thomas Paine, who might excite the mind and the senses and stir them both to righteous action.
Constance sighed and sank into the chair. She couldn’t even stir her own father to action. “An authoress” indeed.
Constance turned back to the stack of books and picked up the topmost volume, The History of John Bull. Dr. Arbuthnot had personified the whole of Great Britain with the character of John Bull. Lord Strutt represented Spain, while Nicholas Frog was the Netherlands and Louis Baboon a thinly veiled version of the King of France. Though the characters were men, she’d laughed at the idea of a bull and a frog and a baboon representing entire peoples. Once she’d started reading, however, it took only moments for her to be absorbed — and convinced of the character of each nation and their conflicts.
If only someone could do that for their present conflict, then perhaps Papa would see —
Constance sat up straighter. Could she do what Dr. Arbuthnot had done? It would be unlike anything she’d ever set her quill to before — different enough that she might be willing to try. At least for her own amusement.
And perhaps Papa’s eyes.
Constance fetched her pencil and her journal and began jotting down ideas.
Perhaps she might yet be an authoress after all.
Fischer hurried home for the second day in a row. Beaufort and the younger Brand were still in Congress, and Fischer didn’t know where to find Carter, so he left word at Beaufort’s house. He didn’t mean to pester one of his most important patrons, but he felt it was merely luck Phineas Brand hadn’t been at his sister’s side the entire previous day.
He arrived home and stopped short in the entryway. Phineas Brand sat in his drawing room. And Lydia sat practically in his lap.
“Fischer!” Lydia sprang to her feet.
“Good evening,” Brand greeted as if nothing at all were the matter.
Fischer glared at him, but addressed Lydia. “Shall I help you prepare supper?”
“I —” She glanced at Brand.
“Let’s.” Fischer did not like to compel his sister, but he didn’t know what else to do.
“Tu peux arrêter ça,” Lydia informed him. You may stop that. She waited until they were both in the kitchen, away from Phineas, to add, “Papa.”
“Lydie.” He didn’t often use his mother’s French name for Lydia, but he needed the extra help. He was not treating her like their father had. It wasn’t like that at all, and he told her so.
When she turned to him, Fischer expected her eyes to be full of anger. Instead, he saw anguish. “Tu n’as aucune idée de ce dont tu parles.”
He had no idea what he spoke of? Fischer was spared his objection — he didn’t know what their father was like? — by Brand entering the kitchen behind her. “All this talk of me will make me blush.”
“We weren’t speaking of you,” Fischer informed him, “but you ought to be blushing after that display. She isn’t one of your Tortuga trollops.”
Lydia hissed a rebuke, but Brand simply laughed. “Tortuga? What do you take me for, some sort of seventeenth-century pirate?” He smirked. “Are you going to invite me to supper, or would that ruin your quarrel?”
“Of course.” Lydia jumped in over Fischer’s obvious objections. “We would be honored if you could stay.”
“The honor is mine.”
His back to Brand, Fischer looked heavenward, as if heaven might spare him such uxoriousness.
No, not uxoriousness. That only applied to wives.
Lydia cast Fischer a silent plea to at least try to be civil. That was asking quite a bit, given the circumstances, but he’d tried Lydia enough. One supper, and Brand would have to leave. “I saw your brother yesterday,” Fischer said.
Brand raised an eyebrow. “And how is he?”
“He seemed fine. Asked how you were, since he hadn’t seen you.”
Lydia looked up from the cutting board at that little piece of information, but Fischer pretended not to notice.
“And did you see his wife as well?” Brand asked.
“I did.” Fischer wasn’t sure how Brand knew Fischer had — briefly — courted Patience Hayes while she was also courting with Gilbert Brand. Phineas had been in jail at the time, but perhaps his little brother had seen fit to gloat. As if giving way to one’s feelings were worth boasting about. “She didn’t ask after you, if that’s your meaning.”
Brand chuckled. He made it difficult to like him, even were he not pursuing Lydia. “Lydia,” Brand said. Fischer glowered at him and Brand straightened. “Mrs. Ainsley.”
Oh, now he had an effect? He’d have to redouble his efforts.
Lydia patted Fischer’s arm and put a ladle in his hand. “Soup is on the fire. Sois gentil.”
Fischer froze. She was leaving — and wanted him to be nice?
Lydia left the room.
Whatever the two of them were conspiring to do, Fischer didn’t like it one bit. He concentrated on the soup pot over the fire, stirring it with the ladle.
“Mr. Marks,” Brand began. Now they were all formal? “I know you cannot be ignorant of my feelings toward your sister.”
He wasn’t ignorant; he was expending considerable effort to ignore them. He made no answer.
“I would ask for her hand.”
Fischer slowly turned on him. “Did she consent to this?”
“I thought I might start with the more difficult obstacle first. I know you’ve no love for me, but surely you want to see your sister happy.”
“More than you could ever hope to understand.”
“I have a sibling, too, if you recall. And I’ve made plenty of sacrifices for his happiness.”
Touching as that was, unfortunately, it wasn’t relevant. Fischer looked away. “I wouldn’t stand in your way if it were merely for my sake.”
“Marks, I love her. Please let us be happy.”
Why was he the one in this position? Did Lydia mean for him to tell Brand the truth about her marriage? That felt like too much of a violation; they never spoke of those circumstances.
“I cannot give my consent, were it even my place to give,” Fischer said. “Lydia understands why.”
“And you will not share that knowledge with me?”
“She may, if she wishes.” Fischer tapped the ladle on the side of the soup pot. “But to tell it true, if she hasn’t already told you, she probably wouldn’t wish for you to know. It might be best for both of you if you left while you might still salvage some of her virtue.”
Brand sat in silence for a long moment. “I see.”
Brand stood and left the room. Fischer wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, exactly, but he did follow as far as the drawing room, while Brand seemed to meet Lydia in the entry. Brand spoke first. “I need to go see my brother, make sure he’s kept himself out of trouble.”
“I’m certain his wife has seen to that.”
“I would hope so.” Brand was quiet a long moment. “Is there any reason why your brother wouldn’t want me here?”
With each second that Lydia didn’t answer, Fischer inched closer to the doorway. She couldn’t lie to him, could she?
“I — I can’t,” she finally said.
“I don’t understand.”
In the silence that followed, Fischer braced himself to step
in, to physically remove Phineas Brand from his house.
“I’m sorry,” Lydia whispered at last.
“I see.” Brand drew a breath. “Good day, then.”
The front door closed behind him, and Lydia’s measured footsteps ascended the stairs.
Fischer had won, perhaps, but this certainly didn’t feel like a victory. He returned to the kitchen and filled a bowl with soup, then brought it up to Lydia’s room.
“Lydie?”
“Go away, Victor.” She knew he didn’t like her to use Maman’s French name for him, but that wasn’t enough to make him go away.
He ignored his sister’s wishes, as he’d done with Mr. Brand, and opened her door. “I brought you soup.”
She sat on the edge of her bed, pondering her clasped hands. “No bread?”
“Shall I go get some?”
“No. I’m not hungry.”
He sat next to her on the coverlet and offered the bowl. “Please eat.”
She took it, but her hands drifted back to her lap. Fischer tipped up the edge of the bowl so the soup didn’t spill.
“I will never be happy,” Lydia murmured.
He slid an arm around her shoulders. “Surely you will.”
She laughed without humor. “I know you don’t believe in love —”
“Of course I do. What do you mean?”
Lydia hesitated as if she’d been caught out. “You never, before last year — what about . . . Abby?”
“Abby?” he repeated. “Peters?” The girl he’d fallen desperately in love with when they were seventeen? “What about her?”
Still his sister faltered. “You didn’t love her very long.”
How long had it been? He hardly remembered the beginning of that connection, though he’d never forget the end — that night he’d impetuously induced her to elope, naïvely thinking they could have convinced some parson they were of age. They hadn’t even made it out of Boston before he’d pulled her off balance on a patch of ice, breaking her ankle.
He’d let himself get so wrapped up that he’d only hurt the poor girl.
Just as he’d found himself getting caught up in his affections for Constance.
“She was better off without me,” Fischer said at last.
“At least you had the excuse of youth,” Lydia murmured. “I’m merely a fool.”
Fischer held her shoulders more firmly as if that could give her the strength of spirit she needed. “‘La raison contre l’amour est un faible parti.’” Reason against love is a weak match.
“What have you been reading?”
“That’s Mademoiselle de Scudéry.” He hadn’t read the works of Maman’s favorite for a decade, but clearly he’d learned a few lessons well.
Lydia rested her head on his shoulder, sniffling, and he leaned his cheek against her cap. “I certainly feel like un faible parti,” she murmured.
“‘L’amour fait les plus sensibles infortunes de la vie.’” Love makes life’s tenderest miseries. That was precisely why neither of them could be with the person they loved: Lydia, because it was legally and morally impossible, and Fischer, because his integrity would not allow him to hurt Constance.
Lydia sat up. “Thank you for the soup.”
“Shall I get you that bread now?”
She patted his knee. “No.”
He could not settle for that. In successive trips, he returned with the bread, the cutting board, the knife, his own soup bowl, and a chair, drawing a tiny smile from his sister at the ridiculousness.
“Fischer?” she said as he finally started to eat.
“Can I get you something?” He was already halfway to his feet, ready to repeat the act.
But she held out a hand to stop him. “You should reread Mademoiselle de Scudéry.”
He promised to take the non sequitur under advisement and watched to make sure Lydia ate every drop of soup.
Hopefully they would never hear from Phineas Brand again.
Constance stretched her ink-stained fingers. It had been so long since she’d written this way, fully absorbed in the story even when she was away from her quill and ink.
She hadn’t meant to pick up the pen at all; she’d only meant to sneak up to their room for a moment while the iron heated for Verity to use. Once she’d set it on the kitchen fire, she’d been struck with a perfect line, and now she wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
Reveling in her imagination again was delicious. She’d spent so many years of her life lost in daydreams and plays and poems. When she’d tired of tormenting Fischer — rather, St. Mark — she’d set aside even her dream worlds.
Her two projects last year had focused so heavily on Fischer that she found it stung to put a quill to paper afterward. She’d been so enthralled by him, her daydreams had still revolved around him. She’d even had to stop writing letters for months, when each time she tried, she remembered things she’d told Fischer and Lydia, the stories he’d written to her about his own childhood, opinions, principles, debates. She could still picture his measured, controlled hand.
Thank you so very much for coming to visit us this week. It was a delight to host you and show you our garden. Thank you for your forbearance with our meager meal. I hope you didn’t go home hungry.
It was most wonderful to talk with you and to hear you and Lydia laugh together. I do hope you’ll visit us again very soon.
Fischer’s first letter continued with a story about pickling grapes with his mother as a little boy, and how he’d eaten half the grapes before they went into the jars. His mother had been aghast until he grinned at her with a mouthful of grapes, and she burst out laughing. Constance had found herself laughing as well. Although she had daydreamed in front of Fischer — about Fischer, no less — she’d never felt so vivid and alive as she had talking and laughing with him.
But that was a year — and two stories ago. No version of Fischer appeared in her newest story. She had King George as the absent Farmer who spent all his time in town, living off the products of the farm Columbia. His servants — the Ministry — laid heavy burdens on the animals’ backs to help finance their lavish lifestyle. Constance made a note in the now-crowded margin to somehow try to refute the argument that the British had emptied their coffers defending their American territories in a world-wide war they themselves had provoked. She skimmed the page. It was becoming difficult to read the tale with all her notes and changes.
After too many injustices, a beautiful buff horse and a noble stag attempted to lead the animals in rising up against the absent Farmer. She hoped the allusion to General Washington was clear in Gérard the horse, strong and courageous. The stag’s meticulous attention to his coat and antlers was a private jest aimed at David, but he’d surely accept the teasing if he were portrayed as patriotic and heroic.
She’d crossed out a whole section of the tale where the stag, Solomon, spent considerable time in debate with the other animals who were quite set against taking action, not wishing to upset the Farmer who clearly didn’t care about them. The section moved too slowly, so she’d inserted a summary instead. But perhaps she should rather condense the original debates?
She didn’t have a character to embody Papa, but she hoped he’d identify with one of the heroes. No one wished to side with the aggressors in the course of history, did they?
Constance flipped to the ending, Gérard and Solomon gazing out at the animals, dispirited at the division among them. Unless they could unite the farm animals and rally them to the cause of liberty, things appeared very bleak for the animals already straining under the Farmer’s unjust burdens.
They needed some sort of messenger who would carry the stirring notes of freedom among them, as Common Sense had done only a few months ago. A bird, perhaps? Something that could spread the word quickly —
Constance abruptly stood as if to dispel that thought. She recognized when her thoughts were veering in the direction of Fischer,
and she didn’t dare follow. That path in her mind had to be barred. She couldn’t bear to consider it — consider him.
Still . . . She slowed to a stop halfway across her room. A bird — a kingfisher. With its bright blue plumage and constant, obnoxious chattering, it would be the perfect way to include Fischer — rather, a character — to share the news without elevating him to the level of David or Washington.
No one would read this outside her family. Why shouldn’t she include a little joke of the man who’d courted Patience? Only two members of her family had any idea she even knew Fischer: Owen, when he had placed a Watchman advertisement looking for witnesses and Fischer had sent one letter to her in her brother-in-law’s care, and David, after the one afternoon he’d seen the two of them talking privately outside St. Peter’s. The family would probably all chuckle to see the man who’d unsuccessfully wooed her sister eating insects.
Constance sat again and quickly made notes of where and how she’d add the kingfisher, who wouldn’t get a name beyond his breed. He would need to be mentioned in a few places, and in the grim finale, he could perch on Solomon’s antlers, to Solomon’s annoyance but toleration. David seemed to like Fischer better than that, but it amused her, at least.
She was admiring her editorial choices when the bedroom door flew open. “Constance, where—!” Verity exclaimed, her voice a reprimand all its own. “Oh, your story, I see.”
“I’m sorry,” Constance said.
“You said it was a patriotic story?”
“Yes.”
Verity folded her arms. “Were you not paying attention when I told you I was writing a patriotic play?”
Constance tried not to furrow her brow. She didn’t understand her sister’s insistence that no two of them could enjoy the same subjects. For that matter, she couldn’t understand the subjects of Verity’s previous political plays, where it was uncertain which side the characters aligned with sometimes — and not because of deliberate betrayals. “Did you say that?” Constance finally asked.