“Oh, Theo. Never be ashamed of love.”
“Even if it is a stupid, unrequited love?”
“Theo. Love is never stupid,” she’d insisted. “Especially when it is unrequited. Because then the heart has to gather all its strength to love even more so it can let go.Even if it feels like your heart is breaking, you’ll have loved the noblest love of all. One day, you’ll find the right person who will be able to love you back equally.”
She might as well have driven a dagger into his soul with those words.
Theo had sobbed even harder. “I can’t let go, Mama. I simply can’t. I don’t want to. I won’t!”
Julius had squirmed in his chair as an unwilling eavesdropper, grappling with his own dark emotions, understanding the sentiments only too well.
He found himself consumed by something akin to envy. He wished he could also let go, and sob and cry and bury his head in Lena’s lap, like Theo had. Maybe she would rub his shoulders, as she was doing now, and hug him.
Dash it all.
He made an unsteady movement with his hand, nearly oversetting the inkwell.
In general, there was too much hugging and crying and laughing and fighting and an excess of freely exhibited emotion to which he was quite unaccustomed. He was in uncharted territory.
Then there wereother people who thought it was their right to interfere in their family affairs.
That neighbour, for one. Karl Bauer and his wife, Emma.
Karl, had, at first, peered at him suspiciously through two small, narrow eyes. “Who are you?” They’d been in the front garden, and he’d suddenly appeared at the otherside of the fence, his arms on his hips, a pipe in his mouth.
“This is, um…” Lena had looked at Julius helplessly. They hadn’t agreed on a story to tell outsiders about why he was here.
“Julius Stafford-Hill,” he introduced himself. “A friend of the family.”
The man stood in front of him with his legs firmly planted apart and his shoulders squared, assessing him from top to bottom. He crossed his arms. “English?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he here?” he asked Lena, his eyes never leaving the Duke’s.
“Well…because of the Congress, of course. He’s also a friend of Simon’s,” she added.
Karl’s suspicious expression softened, giving way to a broad smile. “In that case, welcome. Any friend of Simon’s is also my friend.” He extended a calloused, beefy hand and after a moment’s hesitation, Julius took it. The man’s grip was crushing, and Julius fought the urge to pull away.
“Care for a pipe?” Karl asked, holding out his own. Julius stared at the discoloured, roughly carved pipe with a chewed-up mouthpiece. He wistfully thought of his elegant briar pipe resting in a silver pipe dish on his desk back at his residence. He forced a smile and accepted it.
“Good tobacco,” he commented after a slow draw. It was true; it was a surprisingly rich and potent blend.
Karl nodded approvingly. They stood side by side by the fence, passing the pipe back and forth between them in silence.
“Not much progress with the Congress, one hears,” Karl said suddenly between puffs. “What with Talleyrand insisting on a place at the table with the Big Four. Has Metternich agreed yet?”
Julius’s brows shot up. “Things aren’t that simple.”
“They never are.”
“At the rate it’s going, I predict the Congress will drag on much longer than anyone anticipated,” Karl said.
“Possibly.” Julius was surprised at the sharpness of Karl’s observations. For a simple farmer who tended a vineyard and sold cheap cider at the market, Karl’s observations were unexpectedly astute and revealed a far deeper understanding than most Congress delegates.
Karl Bauer, it turned out, was keeping an eye on the Arenheims. He provided them with fruit and vegetables, performed random repairs in the house whenever necessary, and his wife frequently cooked for the entire family. He looked unkempt and wore dirt-speckled clothes, but he was surprisingly conversant on politics and current affairs, expressing a sharp intellect that belied his humble background. This Karl was not to be underestimated, and Julius reluctantly admitted that there was more to the man than met the eye.
In the end, they parted on friendly terms.
