ChapterTwenty-Three
Joy, warm and familiar, surged through Andrew when Cambridge came into view.It would always be home to him.When his carriage rumbled up the cobbles into town, good spirits faded with each turn of the wheel.Georgiana was the heart of his home; without her, he had none.
“Here we are then, home again, and glad of it.”Jamie declaimed as he leapt from the chaise.Andrew responded with a nod.The homecoming failed his every fantasy.Quiet, at least, was a relief.Jamie’s incessant chatter flooded the entire trip and drained Andrew’s supply of conversation to the dregs.
Andrew took a moment to look around at the dark emptiness of his house while Harley saw to the baggage.
“I’ll have the shutters open in a trice,” Harley’s cheerful voice drifted from the back, “and start dinner.”
“Good man.”Jamie’s voice moved toward the kitchen, following the promise of food.
Andrew let instinct pull him up the stairs to the book-lined center of his house.He yanked open the inner sash and the diamond-paned windows.The shutters flew open under his hand.
Soft April light filtered between the familiar narrow rows of houses.It glowed off the deep red brick and fine English stone.Andrew breathed in deeply the smells of river water and cooking fires.No grandeur lay here, merely the familiar and the dear.
Neat pages and an index list remained as he left them, arranged on the worktable.Books on the small wheeled shelf, arranged for maximum utility, stood unchanged, waiting for his hand.He ran a finger over them with a smile and placed another hand lightly on the shelves behind, savoring the feel of leather and the scent of paper.He trailed his fingers along the shelves absentmindedly until he came to the door of his bedroom gaping open.A quick jerk of his hand slammed it shut.
Shutting out memory proved to be more difficult.The room lay dark and cold, like a tomb, like death itself.Jamie could have his room.He would sleep by the fire.
“Dinner will be catch-as-catch-can.Need to see if the markets are open still.”Harley broke into speech without preamble when he burst into the room.
“Forget that.I have a delivery for you to make first.”
Eyebrows shot up.“No matter to me, but there won’t be dinner here tonight if that’s the way it is.”
“That’s the way it is.”Andrew reached inside his satchel, pulled out a leather-bound book, and handed it to Harley.He had wrapped it in brown paper along with his hopes and dreams.
* * *
Some objects inspirefear and others loathing; the parcel on Georgiana’s worktable did both.The notes and papers she expected couldn’t be in so small a parcel, and her thoughts were jumbled.He is back.But where is he?All he sends is this package for goodness sake.
She paced to the windows looking for wisdom in the brown grass and newly bloomed trees outside.He didn’t come!A parcel.He sent a bloody parcel.Her eyes strayed to the fearful thing.Some objects inspire hope along with the danger that hope will fail.
“Oh bother.Where’s your backbone, woman?”she asked herself.
It took one movement to reach the parcel and another to tear open the covering.A folded piece of ivory vellum covered in a strong dark hand as familiar to her as her own fell out.
Georgiana,
I couldn’t reach you to finalize the draft.I have taken the liberty of obtaining a publisher for the work.All final decisions about the disposition of the work are, of course, yours.I believe the terms of our partnership have been discharged, and that partnership is now at an end.
A.Mallet
Liberty?Insufferable liberty.It looked plenty final to Georgiana, bound in gilt and leather, heavy in her hand.The work had been hers to publish, not his.
And the letter–no words of love, no joy of greeting, only business.She threw it down.Is there truly nothing between us but the work?
“An end?Who is he to tell me when it is at an end?!”Her words echoed in the cavernous emptiness of Helsington.
She hefted the leather bound book again.It wasn’t large, but it had a comfortable weight to it.It felt familiar, soft and warm, in her hands.She ran a finger over the engraved gold letters:Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece.
She opened it and inhaled the clean scent of new paper, heavy linen pages.She admired the watermarked inner lining.That title was repeated on the title page:Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece.
She concentrated on the title before she noticed what was written below in smaller letters:By an English Lady of Scholarship.
“‘An English Lady of Scholarship.’”A smile played at her lips, appearing and disappearing.It was, of course, impossible to use her name.
Below that she saw written in yet smaller letters,With the assistance of A.Mallet, gentleman scholar of Cambridge.
