The Resurrectionists

by Kim Wilkins

  Virgil looked to Aunt Hattie, who turned to Mama and said, “Come, Annie, let the young people enjoy some fresh air.”

  “No,” Mama replied. “Georgette will stay here by me today.”

  And with that, Virgil was dismissed.

  I heard the downstairs door close behind him, and surreptitiously moved to the window, which had a good view of the Street. To my surprise and embarrassment, Edward and Charlotte waited below for Virgil. I saw him emerge, explain quickly to his companions what had happened, and then Charlotte looked up at the front of the building. I know she probably did not see me, but I felt she had. And I felt she wore the most condescending expression on her face, as though I were a mere Baby and she knew something much more than I could ever know. It made my skin burn with anger, and I turned on my mother.

  “This is so unfair!” I cried. “Why could I not go walking? I’m in no danger. Mr. Marley is the son of Mrs. Ariel’s friend the Barrister, and a decent and respectable man.”

  Instead of responding to my lament, Mama fixed Aunt Hattie with a stern eye. “I blame you for letting this young man become too intimate an acquaintance. You should have known better.”

  Hattie looked chastened.

  “Mama,” I said, moving to the sofa to put an arm around Aunt Hattie, “how can you be so cruel?”

  She turned those silvery eyes on me and said, “I know more about Mr. Marley than you do. As does your aunt. It was ‘unfair’ and ‘cruel’ for her not to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “His father is not a Barrister. He is a clerk in a law firm, and that an ill-regarded law firm on Fenchurch-street. Mrs. Ariel’s interest in Mr. Marley Senior is spoken about in giggles and hushes all over town, and poor Mr. Ariel is constantly made a fool of. I expect Marley’s son to be just as bad, for all he’s dressed in the pretty things that Mrs. Ariel is too witless to refuse him.”

  “Annie!” cried Aunt Hattie.

  “Don’t dare to say otherwise, Hattie, for you know it’s true. As long as I am staying here, I request that you do not invite Virgil Marley again. Once Georgette and I have returned to Lyon, you may do as you please.”

  Hattie, always a soft woman, mutely blinked back tears. I felt as though my whole world were collapsing from within. Not to see Virgil again? It was unthinkable. He had so quickly become the place from which the Daylight shone for me, that to remove him was to leave me in perpetual Night.

  “Is it true, Aunt Hattie?” I asked quietly.

  Hattie nodded, pulling out her handkerchief. “Most of it. Virgil’s family is indeed not a good family. But the rumours about Mrs. Ariel and his father are unfounded.”

  Mama straightened her back. “Where smoke blows, fire glows, Hattie.”

  “I feel unwell,” I said, standing. “Would you excuse me? I think I shall lie down until dinner.”

  Mama dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Go. Sleep, and rid yourself of thoughts of that young man. You will do much better than him, Georgette. Soon you will forget him.”

  I wanted to cry out “Never!”, but instead I kept the word inside, and it beat in my head along with my footsteps up the staircase. Ne-ver; ne-ver; ne-ver. I was utterly hopeless and desolate, and threw myself upon my bed to rage, to cry, to dream in dozy fits. If I were a more deceitful girl, perhaps I could have contrived a method to contact Virgil and tell him of our misfortune.

  As it turned out, he contrived a method to contact me.

  I had supped half-heartedly with Mama and Hattie at around nine, and we had all retired to bed shortly after. Because of my excited state and because of the nap I had taken earlier in the day, I could not sleep. I spent an age brushing out my hair, watching myself in the little glass atop my dressing table, and wondering how on earth I was to endure the long night with Virgil so far away from me, and bound to be that way Forever.

  In fact, he wasn’t far away from me at all. My window is directly above the drawing room, and as such looks over the street. On my first visits to Hattie, many years ago when only a girl of four or five, the sound of voices and hooves and carriages had purposed to keep me awake most nights, but I had gradually come to be soothed by them. There is a certain comfort in knowing one is surrounded by Man, by his laws and his machines and his civilised intentions, and I never feel this comfort back home in our chateau, where to wake in the middle of the night is to be surrounded by the blank darkness and amorality of Nature. Some say that Man is evil or wicked, but I hold that at least Man, or men, may be reasoned with, where wolves or blizzards or falling trees are invariably unheeding of entreaties.

  Virgil knew where my bedroom was, on account of Aunt Hattie having mentioned more than once that she found the street noise in the drawing room most bothersome, and remarked thereafter on the strange solace I found in the same sounds. It took merely a handful of pebbles to bring me to my window.

  He waited below, Edward and Charlotte with him once again. I lifted the sash and leaned out, my heart beating wildly, in love with his boldness, but terrified about where it may lead.

  “Gette!” he called. “Come down.”

  I looked over my shoulder and then back to the street. “Shh!” I said.

  He motioned with his arms. Come down. I was frozen for a few moments, listening for footsteps in the hallway or curious voices. There were none. Although it went against everything in my upbringing (or perhaps because it went against everything in my upbringing), I nodded and closed the window.

  It took me only a few minutes to dress and to pin my hair unevenly. I crept into the hallway. No light came from beneath my mother’s bedroom door so I knew she was asleep. I tiptoed down two flights of stairs and paused near the entrance-way, listening. I could hear the servants mumbling to each other in the kitchen as they finished their chores for the night. Nobody was in sight. Trembling, I reached for the door and within seconds stood out in the street.

  Virgil was nowhere to be seen. At first I thought a cruel joke had been played on me, but then I saw Charlotte lean around the corner and beckon to me. I ran to the corner to find the three of them, laughing hysterically. I couldn’t help but laugh too, I was in such a state of tumult and fear. Even though it was not proper, I threw my arms around Virgil’s neck, almost weak with excitement.

  “Oh, Gette, your mother doesn’t like me, does she?” he said, very close to my ear.

  I shook my head. “Hattie has been told not to invite you as long as I’m here.”

  “And how much longer are you here?”

  “Barely a week.”

  He fell silent. Edward’s and Charlotte’s laughter were dying away now. Edward jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. “Well. Tell her why we’ve come.”

  “Yes,” said Virgil, brightening. “We’ve come to take you for that walk in the park after all.”

  I smiled up at him. “I should be delighted,” I said.

  He very properly offered me his arm and I took it. Edward and Charlotte adopted the same pose and we walked off in the direction of the park. It seemed so thrilling to be out walking at night, under the glowing lamplight. I love that London does not sleep, that at nearly any time of the day or night there are people about some business or other. Why, even as I write this, I can hear the occasional carriage roll by in the distance. I was almost disappointed when we came to the dark wilderness of the park, away from the lights and from humanity.

  “Let us sit under a tree, far from the light,” Charlotte suggested. “I do love to sit and talk in the dark.”

  She and Edward led the way further amongst the bushes, until we found an ash tree whose branches all but obscured the stars above us. We sat down. I was growing cold despite my wool coat, and Virgil urged me to nestle close to him. I cannot describe what it felt like to have his body pressed so near to mine. I swear I could almost feel his blood moving around hot in his veins, he seemed so very warm and so very alive to me.

  “So, Mademoiselle Chantelouve,” Edward said as he settled nearby, Charlotte
pressed up against him, “what do you make of the situation in France? I should like to know as you are a native and your father so wealthy a landowner.”

  “Edward, let’s not talk politics,” Charlotte said, pouting. “I do abhor politics.”

  “I agree, Edward,” Virgil said. “Georgette need not answer your questions.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “Although I have little interest in such things myself, you should know that my Papa was always very sympathetic towards the Revolution. Against his own interests he supported the National Assembly. But daily we hear reports of new violence, and I think Papa is terribly disappointed by that.”

  Edward shook his head. “Sometimes violence is the only way.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Edward,” Virgil said, “he’s a raving Jacobin.”

  “And you?” Edward asked, almost a challenge.

  “I, my friend, am a poet. I occupy a realm above the politic.”

  “I am a poet, too,” Edward declared. “And I can remember a time when you spoke with as much passion about the Revolution as any Jacobin.”

  “Oh, stop arguing you two,” Charlotte said. “They’re the best of friends, really, Georgette. They pretend to disagree all the time just to keep themselves entertained.”

  Virgil slipped his arm around my waist. “It’s true,” he said. “We’ve been the best of friends since we were but lads.”

  Charlotte turned her face to Edward’s. “Edward, will you come a little way into the bushes with me for a moment. I have something I’d like to say in private.”

  Edward smiled broadly. “Why, of course, Miss Andrews,” he said. “I think I might have something to say to you also.”

  “Excuse us,” Charlotte said, rising. “We won’t be but a few minutes.”

  The two of them wandered off into the dark, leaving Virgil and me alone. I was both thrilled and apprehensive. It seemed we had adopted such an intimate posture together, and every moment I expected my mother to find us, though she was fast, fast asleep in her bed.

  “What can they have to talk about that they can’t say in front of us?” I asked him, feeling that Edward and Charlotte were rude for running off together.

  “I think they may talk about love,” Virgil said, knowingly.

  I looked at my gloved hands as they lay in my lap, and thought that perhaps I was the most naive girl in the universe. Of course: love. And on my brief acquaintance with Charlotte, I had no doubt that her expressions of love would omit very little.

  “In any case,” he continued, “it allows us a chance to be alone.”

  I nodded shyly, cursing myself for being shy. I knew I was to go home in less than a week, and our time together was so very precious.

  He loosened my hair a little, and entwined a single finger in a stray golden curl. My heart lurched as he leaned in and kissed the fortunate curl delicately, then dropped it on my cheek. His breath seemed very close.

  “Gette, look at me,” he said softly, his fingertips gently tilting my chin so that my gaze might meet his. In the dark, his eyes were almost black. But not sinister: feeling, tender.

  “Do you know that I love you?” he asked.

  I smiled. My heart fluttered madly.

  “For I know that you love me,” he said, and before I could open my lips to tell him, yes, yes, I do love you with all my heart and more, his own mouth had pressed against mine. Yes, he kissed me! And what an upheaval it created in my body. My skin seemed to be turned to liquid, my stomach seemed to become quite hollow, my brain seemed to buzz , and my lips – as though independent of my thoughts and my fears – pressed hungrily against his and opened without protest to the insistence of his tongue. I had no idea that a kiss could wreak such chaos. I have seen Papa kiss Mama, but their kisses seem such a tidy affair. Virgil’s kiss was all body, all moisture, all hot hot blood, all pounding heart and wild thoughts. It was all I could do not to surrender to him completely, as I suspected somewhere close by Charlotte was surrendering to Edward.

  We kissed and kissed. I had no idea it was an activity one could involve oneself in for such a long time! I was intoxicated by his mouth, and every time he pulled away I would reach for him again. Finally, Edward and Charlotte emerged from their hiding place (and yes, her clothes were in disarray and he appeared quite flustered) and the four of us resumed our conversation. But by this stage I was becoming almost frantic with worry. I was certain that by now Mama had woken and that the house was in uproar because I was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t relax for imagining what would happen if I didn’t return home soon.

  Charlotte and Edward stayed in St James’s Park. For all I know they are still there now, though I can hear rain dripping off the eaves and suspect that the damp could discourage even their passion. Virgil accompanied me back to Aunt Hattie’s, and of course nobody was awake when I came home. The house was not ablaze with lights and worry. I crept in as easily as I had crept out, and now, somehow, I am supposed to sleep. But two thoughts conspire to keep me awake. The first is the memory of Virgil’s lips, and how thrilling and hot and delirious it feels when they are upon mine. The second is the knowledge that in only a handful of days, I must return to France without him.

  Friday, 13 September 1793

  I am so excessively tired that I can barely hold up my poor head. And yet, Diary, I have to relate the most recent Episode in the tale of Virgil and Georgette, for I fear it will soon come to its tragic close. I watched at my window after all had gone to bed this evening. A gusty wind had arisen, and the window panes all rattled. Windy nights always make me unsettled and, truth be told, I would rather have stayed in my warm room and burrowed down very low under my covers. But of course I was aware, too, of how little time Virgil and I have remaining to us. Just when I thought that perhaps he would not come tonight, he and Charlotte and Edward rounded the corner and waited for me in the street.

  Once away from the house, Virgil pressed me in his arms and called me his “pretty, pretty thing.” He seemed quite delirious with joy to see me, and was in very high spirits indeed. I expected that we would go once again to the park, but instead we started in a different direction.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the churchyard,” Charlotte replied, and I think I heard something of a challenge in her voice, as though she expected me to protest and say I was too scared to go near a churchyard after dark. And while, perhaps, that may have been my response under normal circumstances, I was not going to allow Charlotte to feel superior to me, when she was all but a whore, and I was a nobleman’s daughter. I grasped Virgil’s hand in mine and set my heart against childish superstition.

  We approached the churchyard in the dark. The tombstones stood ghostly grey beyond the gates. All around, the trees tossed their branches this way and that in the wind. I thought at first that we would have to climb over the wrought iron, and I was prepared to do so if Charlotte did, but they all seemed to know that the gates would be unlocked and proceeded through them and towards the mound where most of the graves lay. Clearly, they had been here many times before. It hurt to know that the three of them had shared this adventure without me in the past, or perhaps even shared it with another girl in my place. And it hurt even more to know that when I had gone, they would probably still come here, and Virgil would recover from his broken heart and find someone new, while for the rest of my life I would be thinking only of him. I was growing despondent by the time Virgil pulled me down to sit next to him on a grassy patch between two graves. Charlotte and Edward daringly sat on a grave nearby, and were within seconds indulging in a passionate embrace directly in front of us.

  “Not love tonight,” Virgil said, fumbling in his coat pocket for something. “Poetry, remember? If you weren’t so interested in making love you’d be a better poet, Edward.”

  Edward all but dropped Charlotte and turned angrily on Virgil. “And when have you talked of anything but love since you met your French wench?”

  “How dare y
ou so infamously defame her?” Virgil demanded.

  Charlotte intervened. “Stop it. What nonsense you pair go on with. Stop arguing. You know you’ll only be cooing over each other again in a few hours, so stop it.”

  They apologised to each other, and everybody seemed to forget how monstrously I had been insulted. Virgil and Edward had now each produced a notebook, and were deciding between them who would read first. In the end, it was Edward who read first, and thereafter they took turns. I cannot express to you my delight at hearing them read their own works. And it is no bias on my part, but rather plain commonsense, to say that Virgil’s work was far superior to his friend’s. I only wish that I could remember some of the lines well enough to write them down here, but Virgil insists he will make me a copy of all his best poems for me to keep forever. I could tell by the smug look on Charlotte’s face that she thought Edward’s writing superior, but that could only be Vanity, for if she had ears (which I have seen she does) there could be no doubt that Virgil was an infinitely better poet.

  “How delightful!” I exclaimed when all were finished and the little books were safely tucked away in pockets. “Have either of you published anything?”

  “Virgil and I are working on publishing a collection between us,” Edward said, putting his arm around Charlotte’s waist. He leaned with his back against a tombstone, and his legs stretched out before him as though completely oblivious to the poor soul who lay beneath him.

  “Yes, Gette, we shall be wealthy men before long, you shall see,” Virgil told me, excited eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

  “You had better hope for wealth, Virgil, as you refuse to learn any other vocation,” Edward said, laughing.

  “I cannot squander my time so casually as you,” Virgil shot back.

  “Squander?”

  “Learning to be an apothecary like your father. A poet must think always upon art, philosophy, the sublime. Not pills and potions.”