“Stitch?” Jane said, without looking up from the embroidery project in her lap.
Hildebert considered the page with very serious deliberation. “That will do.”
“What is the subject of today’s poem, dearest?” Jane asked, while Hildebert scribbled at his paper.
“The itch I had in the middle of my back last night,” Hildebert explained. “There was no help at all to be got for it, and it is ever so tragic, as I am bed ridden…”
“The trouble is quite clear, my own heart,” said Jane. “I am glad that you were able to bravely suffer through to morning.”
“It was very brave of me, wasn’t it?” Hildebert agreed. “That is why I am writing a poem about it.”
“Very brave,” Jane said. She set down her embroidery with a sigh. “Letty, I am restless. Take a turn in the gardens with me, will you?”
Clement cast a beseeching look toward Letty. If the womenfolk left the room, he would be stranded alone with Hildebert and his poetry composition.
Letty shrugged, and went out with Jane.
“Alone in my bed I toiled,” Hildebert said aloud. “Transports… transports of agony!”
Clement had made an attempt to introduce Hildebert to the value of metre in poetry, without success.
“Transports of agony,” said Hildebert, “I vainly foiled.”
“Sir,” said Clement.
“Yes, Clement? Oh, those flowers do look very pretty.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I ought to write a poem about them. Ode to flowers in a vase!”
“Sir.”
Hildebert fell silent.
“The thought had occurred to me,” said Clement, “that perhaps you might write a poem in honour of your lady wife.”
“A poem to Jane!” Hildebert echoed. The idea was a new seed upon the soil of his mind.
“A love poem.”
“Do you suppose she’d like that?”
“It is my understanding,” said Clement, “that wives are generally very appreciative of such things.”
“Oh,” said Hildebert. “Perhaps she would like that. A love poem. It would be a surprise!”
“I am sure she would be endeared to it, sir.”
Hildebert nodded with certainty. Clement went over to fluff his pillows.
“How shall I begin?” Hildebert asked. “My wife’s eyes are like… are like… Well, they’re like eyes, Clement, really. In an ordinary shade of hazel which is really rather pleasant to look upon.”
“What is it that you like or admire most about her?”
“Oh, well.” Hildebert blinked, entirely taken aback by this question. “That she is always so reasonable and level-headed, of course. But that isn’t the sort of thing one writes poems about, Clement.”
“It’s a love poem, isn’t it?” Clement took a seat in the chair by the bed.
“Yes. It’s supposed to be about how her lips are like petals.”
“But that isn’t why you love her. If it’s a love poem, it ought to be about your love.”
Hildebert considered that, torn between his conviction about proper love poems and the sincerity of his fondness for Jane. “Are you certain you know anything about love poems, Clement?”
“I don’t,” said Clement. “But I believe I know the sort Jane would like best.”
Hildebert’s eyes narrowed. “What sort is that?”
“The sort that expresses your genuine sentiment, not merely a pretty arrangement of words.”
Softening, Hildebert nodded. He set aside the poem about his itchy back and started on a new sheet. “My genuine sentiment. About how she is reasonable?”
“Just so.”
Hildebert waved a hand loftily as he composed aloud. “I do love thee for thy reasonableness.”
“Perhaps instead: it is thy good reason I do admire.”
“That’s more plain.”
Clement got up to fetch some small work of mending a pocket on Hildebert’s coat. “Do you think she’d prefer the poetical version?”
“No,” Hildebert decided, upon reflection. “She would like the plain.”
“What else do you like about her?” Clement said, aiding and guiding in order to craft a poem that might not scald Jane’s ears to hear.
“That she is always right. It is a very admirable trait for a wife to have. And, that she is clever. She is clever, don’t you think?”
“Write: I love thee for thy wisdom, and thy wit.”
“Oh, that isn’t so terrible,” Hildebert said, and wrote.
Clement got out needle and thread, deciding that he liked Hildebert’s poetry sessions much better when they were under his guidance.
Perhaps, he thought, we might write a few poems about horses and dogs.
“Clement,” Mrs. Ledford said, bringing him a parcel wrapped in plain brown paper, “what is this?”
Clement wrinkled his nose as the parcel approached. It smelled awful, like eggs that had gone off. Within the opened parcel was a glass jar, well padded within the plain wooden box.
Looking to Mrs. Ledford in hopes of some hint as to the contents of the box and finding none, Clement lifted out the jar, and opened it.
The wave of stench was overwhelming. Clement coughed and strove not to retch. Within the jar was a quantity of an ugly yellow powder which was giving off the nauseating scent. Clement clapped the lid back on the jar and fastened it securely.
“I believe,” he said, coughing a few times and returning the jar to the box before going to open a window, “that it is sulphur.”
“Yes, I had come to the same conclusion,” Mrs. Ledford said. “Why has a shipment of sulphur been delivered to the house?”
“I know not,” Clement said, flapping the curtains near the window in order to help freshen the air. “Who sent it?”
“Some supply purveyor in London. I am not familiar with their stock.”
“Was there no recipient specified?”
Mrs. Ledford showed him the address as written. Gennerly House, Herefordshire.
Clement sighed, taking the box from her. “Perhaps there’s some fashionable craze for sulphur as a health or beauty treatment that our employers have struck upon. Or Midgley has made some manner of mistake. I will speak to him about it, Mrs. Ledford. Surely he will know something of the matter.”
“Mind you keep the lid shut,” she advised. “And perhaps it would be best kept in the tool shed, until the matter is better resolved.”
Wrinkling his nose, Clement nodded. “I think that would be best.”
“Oh, I think it’s very good,” Jane said, looking over the page Hildebert had handed her.
The four of them were seated in the upstairs parlour. Hildebert had his lap covered with blankets, and had required the assistance of a wheeled chair to transport him from bed to parlour, but he was at least willing and able to stand unaided and did not need to be carried about by footmen.
“Don’t you, Letty?” Jane asked.
“Oh, yes. It is very heartfelt and … and creative. I do like it.”
The poem had been under a series of revisions by Hildebert, and was still unfinished. Clement had suggested that Hildebert present it to Jane as a romantic surprise over a private dinner, but that suggestion had evidently either been forgotten or abandoned.
“You are making very nice progress toward your book of poetry,” Jane said. “I think you ought to have a poetry recitation.”
“A poetry recitation!” Hildebert said. He touched his hand to his chest in flattered shock, and looked about the room at a loss.
“You might invite the local gentry,” Clement suggested, supposing that if their senses had not been permanently befuddled by Hildebert’s catastrophic invention, they could not be traumatised much worse by Hildebert’s poetry.
“Oh, yes, we should,” Jane said. “Wouldn’t that be lovely! I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Whistler would enjoy it ever so much. And the Deacons. I’ll send out invitations at once.”
“It would be good to
try the poems upon an audience before I publish a book of them,” Hildebert agreed.
“You should indeed,” Letty said, taking the page and holding it out to Clement. “Clement, you ought to go and see what your friend thinks of it.”
Jane and Hildebert looked to Clement in curious ignorance. “Your friend?”
“Oh,” said Clement, “my… I… the… the groomsman. Mr. Ogden. We are on terms of warm acquaintance. On occasion we take supper together in his rooms.”
“How charming!” said Hildebert. “I did not know that you had a friend.”
“I…” Clement tensed his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I am perfectly capable of making friends. And there is Letty. We are friends.”
“Letty is a different matter,” said Hildebert.
“She isn’t… it… really, my friendship with the stable groom is nothing at all of significance.”
“I am glad for your friendship,” said Hildebert. He took the page from Letty and himself offered it to Clement. “And I would be glad of Mr. Ogden’s opinion.”
“He is only a stable groom,” Clement said, at a loss. He took the page, as it would be rude to refuse, and clutched it uncertainly in his hands. “I am certain he knows nothing whatsoever of poetry.”
“But that is the appeal, Clement,” said Hildebert. “A rustic opinion! Unsullied by the whims of culture and fashion!”
All three of them were gazing at him with eager impatience.
Clement got to his feet, taking the page with him. He hesitated by the table, in the hopes that someone would think the better of this and bid him to stay.
The silence continued. Clement took several steps away from the table, page in hand.
Letty shooed her hands encouragingly at him.
Clement went into the hallway and shut the door. He looked down at the page in his hands. He was surprised to discover that it was his own, the original poem that he had guided Hildebert to compose, without any revisions whatsoever despite the time Hildebert had supposedly spent working on it.
Trapped in this peculiar circumstance, Clement headed for the stables.
He found Hugo brushing down one of the horses in the main stable. It was quiet and warm inside, and the air smelled of fresh hay and oats. “Hugo?”Clement called.
“Here,” Hugo called back, until Clement had found his way to the correct stall. The horse, a handsome bay stallion, rolled an eye in Clement’s direction, then went back to munching oats.
Clement lingered in the entry to the stall, still clutching the page of poetry.
“I don’t usually see you so early in the day,” Hugo said.
“I’ve been sent to read you a poem.”
“A poem? One of Hildebert’s?”
“Yes. That is, I helped. A bit. It is maudlin, I warn you.”
Hugo smiled, switching to a different brush and running it through the horse’s mane with slow, steady strokes. “Read it to me.”
Stepping into the stall, Clement leaned against one of the walls. It was harder to maintain his nervousness here, when Hugo was so calm and steady. Clement felt certain that Hugo would be pleased by the poem, no matter its quality.
“It is thy good reason I do admire,” he read, not daring to look up at Hugo. “I love thee for thy wisdom, and thy wit. For thy kindly face, and gentle fire, the braziers of my heart are lit…”
By the time he finished the third stanza, Hugo had set the brush aside and was giving Clement his full attention. “That was lovely.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“He wrote it for Mrs. Devereux?”
“Yes.” Clement folded up the page. He felt out of place, a fixture from the main house set down in the stable where it did not belong.
“How pleased she must be.”
“She is.”
Hugo walked over to him, standing a single pace away. “I would be ever so flattered if someone were to write such a poem in my honour.”
“Would you?” Clement asked.
“It is just the sort of sentiment which I have always wished would one day be directed toward my person.”
“Have you… have you never been the subject of such sentiment?
“Not unless one counts a few fleeting infatuations in my youth.”
Clement smiled, wondering what sort of infatuations Hugo had nurtured. “None of them involving poetry?”
Hugo laughed. “None of them involving poetry.”
“You’ll have to develop a taste for more poetical women.”
“There were none,” Hugo said. His gaze was steady on Clement’s face as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall near Clement. The horse flicked his tail irritably at the two of them.
“… What?”
“Women. There were no women.”
Clement opened his mouth, then shut it again, swallowing. “I… had heard,” he began, carefully, “that such… inclinations were the sort of thing that one grew out of. A schoolboy’s weakness.”
“I haven’t found that to be true,” Hugo said.
“Ah.” Clement crossed his own arms over his chest.
The horse stamped down on the hay beneath its feet, whisking his tail at them again.
“Have you?” Hugo asked.
Clement felt trapped by the question. It felt like the host to a dozen further questions, most of which he had never been able to answer. “No,” he said, very quietly.
They stood together, mirror images against the wall of the horse’s cell.
“I’ve never met anyone,” said Clement, “who would speak of it plainly.”
“I have,” Hugo said.
Clement’s eyes lifted, too fascinated by the possibility to resist. “Have you?”
“Come upstairs,” Hugo said, pushing away from the wall. He patted the horse’s withers as he went by. “I would very much like a cup of tea. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” Clement said. His head felt light on his shoulders, as though it might float away. He followed after Hugo in a daze.
Hugo did not look back at him, as they climbed the stairs to his rooms. There were a few coals still burning in his fire. He added some tinder and blew upon the coals until they took flame.
Standing in the centre of the parlour, Clement watched.
Once the fire was built, Hugo took up the kettle and found it empty. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked away down the stairs.
Clement stared after him, heart pounding. His head was full of questions, and the walls seemed to be revolving around him, leaving him unsteady on his feet.
Hugo returned with a full kettle, and hung it over the crackling fire.
“You said…” Clement paused and cleared his throat. He didn’t know what to say.
“That men can love other men? Yes. I’ve heard it called the French vice. Or the Greek.”
“But it isn’t… it isn’t love, really, is it?”
“I’ve never met two people who could agree on the nature of love,” Hugo said. He smiled wryly over at Clement, and left the fire to stand in front of him. “If neither poets, nor philosophers, nor shepherds can agree on what love is, then how can they agree on who may and may not feel it? Is not friendship a sort of love?”
“Yes,” Clement said.
“And do not men, in friendship, declaim all love and affection for each other, in the warmest language?”
“I don’t know.”
Hugo blinked at him.
Fidgeting, Clement stared down at the knots of wood on the floor. “I have not had a great amount of luxury in which to make friends.”
“My sympathies,” Hugo said.
He sounded as though he meant it. Clement looked up. “But we are, are we not? Friends?”
Hugo was very close, dark eyes brimming with sincerity. “Yes.”
The floor seemed a much safer thing to stare at. It was in need of polishing. “I would vow all love and affection for you,” Clement said, “in the warmest language, but I cannot think of a single thing to
say.”
“There are other ways to express affection,” Hugo said.
Clement glanced up. Hugo was still very close.
Curling his hand around the edge of the table, Clement was surprised to realise that he’d backed up against it. Glad for the stability, he trusted a little more of his weight to the edge of the table. “Are there?”
“Men may kiss,” Hugo said.
“In greeting,” Clement said.
“In affection.”
“As friends,” Clement insisted.
“As lovers.”
Clement’s heart was pounding, head dizzied by the possibility.
“May I kiss you?” Hugo asked.
“Certainly,” Clement said. “It is allowable. In the French style. As friends.”
“What if I wished to kiss you not as friends?” Hugo asked.
“Are we not friends?”
“A kiss can be more than friendship.”
Hugo was very near to him, trapping him against the table, but he did not lay a hand upon Clement, waiting for permission.
Clement’s breath was loud in his own ears, sharp little pants of air going in and out. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
Hugo took a step back. Clement felt bereft.
“Forgive me,” said Hugo. “I overstepped.”
He turned again to the fire.
A kiss, Clement thought, longing to try but not knowing what words he might use to call Hugo back.
The page of poetry was still in his hand. He had crumpled it, unknowing.
Ashamed of his own carelessness, Clement smoothed it out on the table. The wrinkles in the foolscap were unmistakeable. It could be recopied, and would have to be for the inevitable book of poetry that Hildebert had planned, but this copy was ruined.
“I should return,” Clement said. He felt a sick wash of guilt settle in his belly as he said it.
Hugo did not look up from the kettle. “You won’t stay for tea?”
Clement smoothed his hand over the page again. The wrinkles remained. “Hildebert will be expecting me.”
“I understand.”
“Hugo,” Clement said, desperate to repair the situation.
Hugo’s head turned toward him.
“Perhaps… briefly. In farewell.”
“I would not mean it in farewell,” Hugo said.
The Valet and the Stable Groom Page 13