by H. G. Parry
“This country decided a long time ago that we could not expect anyone, Commoner or Aristocrat, to find themselves under threat and not act to save their own lives, even if that necessitates illegal magic.” He raised his voice effortlessly over the shouts from the other side of the House. “If we cannot expect magicians to refrain from using magic in the defense of their own lives, how can we possibly expect them to refrain from doing so in the defense of those they love?”
“Mr. Speaker, if we start accepting excuses for illegal magic, as the honorable gentleman suggests,” someone called back from the opposition benches, “might that not see a relaxation of other laws surrounding Commoner magic? Might bracelets not become a mere formality, and explosions of magic on the streets a common sight?”
“I really couldn’t speak to that,” Pitt said dryly, “without indulging in illegal divination.” He carried on over the titters from his own cabinet. “If the honorable gentleman means to ask whether such outcomes would be inevitable given the passing of this motion, then my answer is no, of course not: the relaxation of any one law does not lead to the relaxation of others unless this House deems it necessary and appropriate. That is how law and government work. We thankfully have yet to see regular explosions of any kind on the streets. What we could stand to see, now and always, is more compassion for Commoner magicians who try to obey the law, and less of the courts’ time wasted in pointless trials that result at best in undue distress and wasted resources, and at worst in families torn apart and livelihoods ruined.”
He sat down at last, on a crest of exhilaration. The walls were striking a low, achingly clear vibrato; it was one of those moments, which came so frequently in the House and so rarely anywhere else, when he felt completely and utterly himself. His speech had worked. He knew it had, even before the final votes were announced and the bill was found to have passed by a very respectable margin. The words had been right, the room had resonated, and the law had changed.
“Well, that went extremely well,” Henry Dundas said to Pitt as the House collapsed around them into a rumble of footsteps and shuffle of papers. The wily middle-aged Scotsman had been one of the masterminds behind Pitt’s appointment. Pitt had been wary of him the first time they had met, but as it happened they were perfectly suited both politically and conversationally, and they had fallen into the habit of staying up late into the night planning the next day’s maneuvers and drinking what were staggering amounts of wine even by Pitt’s standards. Dundas had learned drinking, arguing, and strategizing at the Scottish law courts and was a force to be reckoned with at all three. “We’ll have a strong majority this year, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I wouldn’t be too sanguine about that,” Pitt said. He was trying to be calm and collected in the still-public gaze of the House, as he felt a prime minister should be; as he had been practicing this since he was an excruciatingly awkward fourteen-year-old at Cambridge, he was very good at it. Inside, though, he was exultant. “This was a humanitarian issue. Fox had no objections. After Christmas, we’ll have him to contend with.”
“And he’ll have you to contend with,” Dundas returned. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Pitt let himself smile, just for a moment. “So am I.”
In the year and a half since the king had appointed Pitt head of the new government, relations between Charles Fox and himself had gone from guarded courtesy to outright war. The older politician was easily Pitt’s equal in rhetoric, and almost comically his opposite in person: plump, vehement, expansive, legendary for his excesses in gambling, wine, and womanizing. The two of them had grown up, ten years apart, in the shadow of the famous political rivalry between their fathers. Now, history was set to repeat itself with a vengeance. More than once in the early days, it had seemed as though Fox would force him from office before the election even took place.
Pitt had refused to back down then, as he had refused to back down through one of the most cutthroat elections in the history of English politics, and he had won. His reward was that since then, he had debated, planned, argued, budgeted, considered, calculated, and attended meeting after sitting after meeting almost without a day’s respite, sometimes it seemed without an hour’s. His head was a constant storm of ideas, and they tumbled over each other to be put into the world.
When he had been proclaimed head of the new government in the House of Commoners, the opposition had burst into laughter. They weren’t laughing now.
Eliot caught up with him as he left the House and stepped out into the crisp night air. The stars overhead had the crystalline brightness of shards of ice.
“Are you still joining Harriot and me for breakfast tomorrow?” Eliot asked. “I know you said that if you had time—”
“I don’t think I do, unfortunately,” Pitt said, with genuine regret. He felt the last of his public reserve fall from him as he turned to face his friend—now, as of a few months ago, his brother-in-law. Eliot had, after months of dithering, finally done what everyone had predicted and married Pitt’s elder sister, Lady Harriot. It was an excellent match, in every way that mattered: Harriot was, as Pitt had told Eliot, really far too clever and beautiful for her new husband but didn’t seem to realize it, and the two of them were hopelessly in love. The only one not happy had been Eliot’s father, who had wanted his son to marry into a wealthy family with a title more than a generation old. Fortunately, the fact that Eliot’s new position in Pitt’s government brought with it a title of its own and a decent salary had quieted his protests.
“It’s because you won’t wake up in time for breakfast tomorrow, isn’t it?” Eliot answered him knowingly.
“In practice, that’s very possible. In theory, it’s because I’m still hoping to actually see the country house I bought during the recess before Christmas. The plan is to wrap up all my London business tomorrow and then try to go out to Kent the day after. I’m already being optimistic with that plan, given how many things I have left to do. If I actually try to eat as well…”
He was only half-joking at the last, but Eliot laughed. “Oh well, never mind. It’s in my best interest, since we’re planning to come spend Christmas out at your house too, and we can’t in good conscience if you’re not there.”
“I don’t see why not. I used to go out to Wilberforce’s country house all the time when he wasn’t there. He thought I was quite mad, but plenty of people think that now for far stupider reasons.”
Eliot smiled, then hesitated. “Wilberforce wasn’t here this evening.”
“No. He’s been unusually reclusive lately, hasn’t he? I sent him a note to remind him this was up for a vote tonight, but he must have missed it.” He belatedly caught Eliot’s tone. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“Not exactly wrong,” Eliot said, which deepened Pitt’s apprehension to actual concern. “It’s only that a few of us have received similar letters from him: Smith and Arden yesterday, and I myself this morning. We were sure he would have written to you too.”
“He may have, actually. I haven’t had the chance to read the post this evening—yesterday evening now, rather. What do the letters say?”
“I think I’d better let him tell you himself,” Eliot said.
The library at Lauriston House was a little small for Wilberforce’s liking, and in summer it missed a good deal of afternoon sun thanks to an inconveniently placed oak tree. In winter, however, the crackling fire warmed it beautifully, and the worn armchairs were like open arms offering refuge from the cold outside. Since Wilberforce had entered Parliament it had seen its share of joyous, idiotic parties, when a host of unruly young MPs had filled it with games and pranks and too much wine; it had seen quieter evenings, too, when he and Pitt and Eliot had read by the fire or spun threads of nonsense as the skies lightened into dawn. Lately, when Wilberforce had been alone in the room, it had seemed filled with the ghosts of those evenings; he had seen them as a succession of steadily older versions of himself and his friends, bursting through the door
and throwing themselves on the window seat. It had been comforting in a way; in another, like everything else, it had twisted his stomach with guilt at time misused.
Pitt followed Wilberforce into the room somewhat more sedately this time than he had in those days, but that was out of respect for the conversation ahead rather than any innate maturing: his friend had changed very little since he had taken power, despite the added pressures and cares. From the frown that had crossed Pitt’s face as they’d greeted each other, Wilberforce suspected he himself was not looking quite so young and vital. He had lost a good deal of weight in the last few weeks, and though he didn’t think his health had suffered, he was starting to feel the difference as winter sank in its claws.
“Sit down and warm up,” Wilberforce invited, pulling out a chair unnecessarily. “I’ve been hiding in here all morning. It must have been icy getting here.”
“Both roads and carriage,” Pitt confirmed. He sighed a little as the warmth of the fire reached him. “Much better.”
“Tea?”
“Better still.” His eyes took in the room with obvious pleasure. “I’ve missed this place. How long has it been since I visited?”
“Here? Weeks, I think. Months. You used to be out here almost every day. How long do you have now?”
“All morning, if we need it. I’d already arranged to go out to Holwood this week; I’ve rearranged to stop here on the way.”
Wilberforce felt a stab of guilt, not so much at disrupting the smooth running of the country as at the realization of the concern he was causing. “It was very kind of you.”
“It was very important.”
“Still. I know you’ve been impossibly busy lately.”
“Not impossibly; I’d say improbably, if that. I still haven’t pushed through a fraction of what I meant to. It’s a good thing I started young; it’s going to take the rest of my life. We did manage to pass the bill allowing for defense of others in the case of unregistered magic, by the way.”
He said it without reproach, but Wilberforce caught his breath in horror. “I completely forgot! That went through on Friday, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry. I had so much to say about it too.”
“There was no need. It was a comfortable victory; your vote wasn’t required. Thank you, Richard,” he added to the footman as he was handed a cup of tea.
“I’m sorry,” Wilberforce repeated. “I just—I haven’t been myself lately.”
And there it was. By silent agreement, they sat without speaking as Richard retreated. Despite the easiness between them, Wilberforce couldn’t quell his anxiety, and he was sure Pitt felt the same. There was too great a chance that everything could change once again.
“So,” Pitt said, settling back in the chair. “Reading between the lines of your letter, I couldn’t help but form the idea that you’ve been having a rather more difficult time than any of us realized.”
Wilberforce, who had been preparing himself for ideological confrontation, was thrown off guard by a rush of gratitude. He should have known his friend better.
“I didn’t want any of you to realize,” he said. “You all have problems of your own—especially you. And it seemed too personal a thing to discuss with anybody. Or perhaps I didn’t know clearly enough what I was feeling to let myself discuss it.” He shook his head. “It’s still difficult to explain. I told you about my brush with Methodism when I was twelve, didn’t I? I think not long after we met.”
“I remember. Your mother sent you on a course of strict hedonism. I thought you said it worked.”
Despite everything, he smiled. “You say that exactly as if it were a childhood disease I’d managed to get rid of.”
“I don’t mean it to,” Pitt said, with a wry smile of his own. “I apologize. But this is a little outside my usual vocabulary.”
“I understand. You’re quite right, really; it did work, for a while. I still don’t think I’d have been a good Methodist—I do believe, as you said when I told you, that you need to know the world to do any good in it. But it stopped working a long time ago. Parliament kept working a little longer, particularly helping you. It still isn’t enough.”
“Enough for what?”
He had asked himself the same question many times, yet still couldn’t put his answer into the right words. Perhaps it didn’t matter. “For me. For the world. For God, especially. My thoughts and studies led me to believe that I had misused my entire life until this point, and that I needed to be reconciled with God in ways that seemed continually to elude me.”
“I cannot imagine any thoughts or studies that would tell you, of all people, that you had been doing something wrong. The rest of us would have some excuse. I drink too much, never answer letters, and make sarcastic remarks about the opposition. Eliot panics and falls in love with unsuitable women, sometimes simultaneously. You never so much as cheat at cards.”
“Everyone does things that are wrong, but that wasn’t really the point. It was that I wasn’t doing anything right. What I read told me, quite simply, that living for my own enjoyment and my own public career was not enough, that if the religion of the Church of England was indeed true, then it was the most important thing there was, and it required all of me. I tried not to believe this, and it was impossible, and so I believed it, and that was harder still. I hope the worst is over now—I think it is, if I can get on the right path.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” Pitt said. He looked troubled, and Wilberforce wondered if he had glimpsed something of the hours of anguished introspection that had made up his recent days and nights. He didn’t think so—such things were completely outside Pitt’s character—but he had learned not to underestimate his friend. “I can’t flatter myself that I would have been of any assistance whatsoever, but you needn’t have gone through that alone.”
“I did need to,” Wilberforce assured him. “It helped. That’s why I want to remove myself as much as possible from company and politics for a while, at least until I can face them with a quieter conscience and a soul better ready for God.”
“I won’t insist that you have nothing in your soul that anyone could possibly find fault with,” Pitt said carefully, “because you clearly feel otherwise, and I can’t claim superior knowledge of God. I’d like to ask, though, what exactly you intend to do. You’ve said you still intend to be part of the world, which I must admit is a relief to me, but your letter mentioned leading a very different life, commencing with a period of retirement. It didn’t explain the degree or the duration of this retirement; it didn’t explain how the future of your life is to be directed, when you think the same privacy no longer necessary; and it didn’t explain what idea you’ve formed of the duties which you are from this time to practice. I’m sure you understand my concern.”
Wilberforce’s smile was genuine this time. “You do like things to be outlined and quantified, don’t you?”
“I’ve found that sooner or later they have to be.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But those are all questions I’m to some degree struggling to answer for myself.” He paused. “Are you concerned for my political support?”
The question came out with an edge he hadn’t intended, but Pitt didn’t take offense. To him, perhaps, it was reasonable and obvious. “Primarily, I’m concerned for your happiness. But I can’t deny that I’d miss you in the House of Commoners if you left altogether—I’d miss your company in every other respect too, if you honestly mean to retire from society, and I think you’re far too well loved in general to be allowed that luxury. There would be riots at half the clubs in London. If you’re referring to any public conduct to which your opinions may lead you…” He thought for a moment, then sighed. “Obviously, few things could go nearer my heart than to find myself differing from you on any great principle. I trust and believe that it is a circumstance which can hardly occur.”
“But if it should occur?”
“If it ever should,” Pitt said firmly, “it’s impossible t
hat it should shake the sentiments of affection and friendship which I bear toward you. They are sentiments engraved on my heart and will never be effaced or weakened.”
Wilberforce smiled again at that. “I hope you believe that I feel the same, and that it comes as a great relief to me to hear you say so. I have no wish to lose my friends.”
“But you do have a wish to isolate yourself from them, by your own account.”
“You think me foolish.”
“I would be the last person in England to think you that, and I certainly don’t mean to imply it. I do, however, worry that you are deluding yourself into principles which have the tendency to render your virtues and your talents useless both to yourself and mankind.”
“You mean by no longer speaking in the House of Commoners.”
“That, certainly. You’re a very good speaker; you have the greatest natural eloquence I’ve ever heard. But even more, by withdrawing from society. Society is where you thrive. I don’t mean that in the fashionable sense. You have a gift for seeing people at their best, and for bringing out the best and most joyful in them. I’ve never seen anybody who can forge friendships as quickly and as deeply as you. That’s a far rarer talent than good public speaking. To be honest, I’ve always envied you for it.”
Wilberforce was not quite sure what to say to that. He had never thought of himself in quite those terms before. He had never realized that Pitt had.
“Thank you,” he said. “I really do think, though, that I can be of more use elsewhere. Somewhere where I can do God’s work, not only my own.”