Emma
by Anna Austen Leigh
Published by Anna Austen Leigh at Smashwords
Text Copyright © 2011 Anna Austen Leigh
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
This file is licensed for private individual entertainment only. The book contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or otherwise) for any reason (excepting the uses permitted to the licensee by copyright law under terms of fair use) without the specific written permission of the author.
Also by Anna Austen Leigh
The Diligence de Lyon – an escapade published by Liquid Silver
Pilgrim for Love – published by Logical Lust
Emma – published by Smashwords
and shortly to be published
Horace and Hal – on Smashwords
Emma
by Anna Austen Leigh
Chapter 1
Romney wondered why he was bothering with her. She was a little on the chubby side for an artist's model (she'll run to far in a few years, he thought), and her heart didn't seem to be in the work. She could sit still all right, that wasn't the problem, but somehow she seemed ungainly, her arms hanging limply, as if her mind was disengaged. She was pretty enough, but there was something lacking. Yet his friend Greville had recommended her.
"All right. Enough of that pose."
She looked up, expressionless. "What do you want me to do now?"
He shrugged. He had already tried her with a posy of flowers, with a lapdog, with a basket of apples, the tried and tested portrait accessories. He looked again at his sketches; pretty but lifeless. He was just about to tell her to go when he remembered his idea of the night before, for a series of paintings of tragic queens; Medea, Berenice, Phaedra, Cleopatra... her face didn't fit, but at least he could sketch the pose, if she could hold it, and he'd use his imagination for the rest.
He looked up at her again. "Could you stand, facing me – that's right; left foot forward, your shoulders slightly turned to the right. That's good. Now raise your right hand, as if you have a knife in it."
She frowned. "A knife?"
"Yes, a knife. A dagger. The point downwards, and you're holding the hilt."
"Why?"
His models never asked why. They just did what he told them. It wasn't her place to ask... then on the other hand, it was refreshing to be asked a question. Sometimes whole mornings passed almost in silence, as he painted, and he missed the sound of another voice.
"You are Medea, Queen of Colchis. Your husband has left you for another woman. You poisoned her; now you are about to stab your two sons to death, as a revenge on your husband."
She raised her hand a little further, and he saw that her knuckles were white, as if she really was clutching a knife tightly. And had he imagined it, or had her face tightened too; were her eyes shining now, as they hadn't before?
Quickly, he grabbed his pencil, and sketched in the lines of her pose. It wasn't bad, he thought, smudging a dark shadow into the draperies. He hadn't intended to, but he decided now that he'd sketch the face in too; her eyes seemed wider, her gaze more intent than it had been.
"Why did he leave me?"
He jerked his head up. "Why did who leave you?"
"My husband."
"My dear lady, I had no idea you were even married." And he hadn't; no more had Greville, who kept her as his mistress. This could get embarrassing.
"You said my husband had left me for another woman."
"Ah. I see. Hm. I don't know. But he has."
She nodded, her eyes distant for a month. "Perhaps I don't know either. He's gone for no good reason. So... I understand, I need revenge. If he'd left for a reason, perhaps I wouldn't."
"Indeed. Well now, can you see if you could change the pose, so I can draw it from the side. If you could imagine the children on a sacrificial altar – I'll get a table, so – and if you could raise the knife, ready to bring it down and stab them..."
He broke off, amazed by the change in her. Suddenly, she had come alive. Her eyes sparkled, her head was turned just a little to one side, ferocity had entered the very way she held her body. He was glad he hadn't given her a knife; even without a weapon in her hand she looked dangerous, a little mad. With a start he realised he was still staring, hadn't even started drawing; and realised, too, that this time he wanted charcoal, which would let him sketch more quickly.
Four different poses later, he decided it was time to stop. His fingers were getting tense; he could feel the damp weather making his joints crackle, and he was cold. And so was she, he thought guiltily, wearing a simple muslin dress in this unheated studio.
"I'm sorry. Get your cloak."
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. Absolutely not. But you must be cold."
"Oh," she said with a start, as if she hadn't noticed it until he mentioned it. "I'm sorry."
He spread the sketches out. Now he could look at them all, he found the earlier ones even more disappointing; they were flat, flabby. But the Medea sketches were full of life; electric with the anger and energy of a demon.
"Are they any good?" She had wrapped herself loosely in her blue cloak, and was looking at them over his shoulder.
"Oh, these are rubbish," he said, sweeping the first set off the table. "They're going in the fire."
And then, looking at her downcast expression, he wished he hadn't said that. He reached out for her shoulder, pulling her towards the table.
"Look at these though. These are sublime."
She looked at them dubiously. Her face had gone soft again, expressionless.
"Truly. They're marvellous. I'll start painting this one in oils tomorrow. The expression, the drama, the power! This one will make my fortune."
And for once, he really believed it. Though to be fair, he'd really believed it last time, too. And the time before that. And he'd still not made his fortune, though he did make a good living; good enough to afford this studio, in a tall, narrow brick house just outside the most fashionable part of London.
She smiled. "Medea," she said, the name soft in her mouth, and her eyes were suddenly dark with affection.
"You're a born actress, you know."
"I worked at the Drury Lane theatre for a while."
He hadn't known; that wasn't something Greville had mentioned. "What happened?"
"Mrs Linley found me wearing her cloth of gold. I couldn't resist it. I used to imagine myself as Titania; I used to daydream how the fairies would finish the housework for me. And every night, when I saw the actors on stage, I lived through their stories. It was very hard, then, to get up before dawn to make the fire and bring the water, and scrub down the floorboards in the pit." She lowered her eyes, looking glumly at the floor. He felt sorry for her; a natural actress, but her only job in the theatre had clearly been as a maid.
"I'll show you how Medea progresses next week."
"I'm coming next week?"
"Certainly. Perhaps we'll try you in armour, as an Amazon, or in a lion skin as a Maenad. Would you like that?"
Again he saw how her face suddenly transformed as she smiled at him. "Oh, yes."
But the gentle chime of the clock on the mantelpiece reminded him their time was at an end. He swept the sketches together into a pile, knocking the edges to true them up and keep them tidy. And with regret he heard steps on the staircase.
It was Greville, of course, come to fetch her. He cut a dignified figure in his simple, elegant coat, his hair swept back from his high forehead and tied in a queue with a plain black ribbon, hat in hand. He'd been Romney's friend for a few years now, and they'd often talked about art, the theatre, about scientific discoveries and antiquities; but Greville was never exactly intimate. In every conversation they had, Romney was aware of Greville's reserve; even in the claret-bibbing heart of London clubland, where three bottles a night was common and Richard Brinsley Sheridan was said to put down four at a sitting, Romney had never seen Greville drunk.
"Was she satisfactory?"
Typical of Greville to be so terse, Romney thought. "More than satisfactory; she'll make a fine model."
Greville grunted, non-committal. "You'll want her again, then?"
"Yes; as soon as possible. I've begun well, but I'll need more poses. Two hours is hardly enough."
"At the same rate?"
"At the same rate. At least till we know how well the paintings will sell."
Greville shook Romney's hand, settled his hat back on his head, and turned to Emma.
"Come," he said, already turning to go. "It's time we went home."
***
Home was a little cottage, just outside London. It wasn't grand, but nor was it squalid; it struck the mean between the functionally tedious and the elegantly useless. In short, it was pretty without affectation, and spacious enough for the two of them and a maidservant. There were roses in the front garden, and there was lavender by the white-painted door.
They lived a quiet life here. Greville went into Westminster a great deal – he wanted a safe borough at the next election, and was paying court to one of the Whig grandees. Every Wednesday, he went into the City, to look after business; and several evenings a week he spent at his club. But Emma rarely went out, even with Greville. The trip to Romney's studio had been her first outing in a week.
On Sundays they went to church, a handsome pair in their plain, good clothes. Greville could easily afford more fashionable dress for her, but he preferred her to wear a plain grey dress. The fabric was good, and soft, and the colour was nearer the soft grey of a dove's breast feathers than the dullness of a maid's dress. Still, she would have liked to wear something bright; but Greville said white was inappropriate for a fallen woman, however respectable she now was, and he was anxious that brighter colours might attract too much attention. He never liked to see another man look at her with interest.
Greville wanted her to be a good little housewife; she spent her time sewing, in the garden when it was fine, or indoors. Greville loved to watch her sewing; she was working on an embroidered tablecloth now, in ivory silk thread on white linen, with a design of pinks and gillyflowers, but all in white and cream.
She'd started reading the books in Greville's library, too. Not the great legal tomes on the bottom shelves, with names like Blackstone, Coke, Selden, Whitelocke - huge tomes that looked heavy and severe - but the little palm-sized books of verse bound in supple morocco. She couldn't read well, and she still moved her lips gently as she read, but she loved the easy rhythm of the lines, the charming sentiments of the pastorals. Greville hadn't encouraged her to read, but he had helped her with her writing; every night that he was at home, they made up the accounts for the housekeeping. Her handwriting had been round and thick, like a boy's; he had helped her acquire a prettier hand, holding the pen more lightly, rounding off her letters with flourishes and curlicues.
"How was your work with Romney?"
"He seemed a little disappointed at first."
"What did he ask you to do?"
"He just wanted me to sit and smile. It was rather tedious."
"No doubt. Did you smile?"
“Yes, but he didn't seem quite happy with it. Then he asked me to pretend to be some Greek lady, with a knife.”
Greville frowned. “A Greek lady?”
“A lady from the tragedy, he said. I pretended to be her. He told me all about her, Greville; how she was angry, how her husband had gone with another woman, how she killed her children...”
“Hardly a suitable story for a young lady yourself,” Greville said severely.
Emma flinched, and lowered her eyes.
“He didn't disarrange your clothing for this Greek tragedy, did he?”
“No!” She looked at him angrily. “I would never let him do that. I'm yours, Greville, you know I am. I love you, and no one else.”
“Despite your past wickedness?”
“Despite my past wickedness.” She knew now he was going to start that catechism; how she had been a sinful woman, and how he had saved her, and she should be grateful. She gave the answers almost by rote; it was meaningless to her. It meant something to him, though, and because she loved him, she told him what he wanted to hear.
“No one else?” he asked, at the end of it all. She smiled at him. He always needed to hear this; he would never believe it.
“Never. Just you, Greville.”
He smiled then, at last. His stern face, so used to frowning, seemed to come alive when he smiled; he looked young again, no longer the prematurely aged lawyer with his neatly tied grey queue. She reached out, and touched his cheek; the lines which had started to set in about his mouth were quite smoothed out.
He had rescued her from Madam Kelly's, a year ago. It was the best brothel in London, and sometimes she wondered what would have happened to her had she stayed. Might she have captivated a royal Duke? Would some dashing hero have fallen in love with her? But she had fallen in love with Greville, and he had been willing to take responsibility for her. Though she missed the gaiety of the house, and the company of the other women, she was happy with Greville. For his part, he had not been back to visit Madam Kelly's, though his friends went on there after the club.
They kept sober hours here in Twickenham. If Greville was at his club, or late with his patron, she would go to bed alone, and sleep with her arms thrown around his pillow, smelling the scent of his pomade on the linen. He might wake her when he came back, but sometimes he slid under the covers while she slept, and she would wake next to him in the morning. Those mornings, his mouth was acid with the last night's wine, and the lines on his face seemed more deeply etched.
Most nights, they were in bed before ten. She would have thought that ridiculously early at Madam Kelly's; there, the night often started only once the first round of gaming at Almack's or Brook's had finished, around eleven. Tonight, she heard the church clock strike the hour just before Greville came up, having finished his correspondence.
“Have you said your prayers?”
She nodded. She thought there was something rather hypocritical about Greville kneeling to pray before joining her in bed; but he took his prayers seriously. He'd told her once that the only thing he remembered of his mother was her teaching him to say his prayers; and he kept his mother's prayer book in his desk drawer, a tiny book bound in parchment with a faded pink ribbon tied round it.
She felt the bed lurch as he climbed into it. His breath was hot against her ear as he reached his arms round her and kissed her neck gently. She heard him sigh.
“Hold me, Emma.”
She turned to him, her arms open. He pushed his face into her neck, hugging her tightly to him, and she responded, stroking his smooth back, feeling him grow hard against her. His hands moved to her breasts, kneading gently; he liked to get a whole breast in each hand, to feel their weight and roundness, and she loved this greediness in him. Her nipples hardened, and she felt the slow habitual warmth spreading between her legs.
He was suckling at her breast now, as he often did, his mouth soft and greedy like a baby's. She stroked his hair. There was a small patch of thinning hair just on top of his head, she noticed; it hadn't been there a year ago, she was sure...
Greville raised himself up on one arm, using his other hand to ready his cock to enter her. She moved her hips forwards, relishing the sensation of the thick head of his prick against her, slowly pushing against it. She pulled his shoulders down against her. The bed started to squeak as they moved together, gradually picking up the pace, his cock pushing further and further inside her. She felt her arousal building, like a wave swelling, almost about to break; she was hot, and full, and breathless.
Then suddenly, he jerked his body back and withdrew, and shot his seed over her thighs with a groan.
Unsatisfied, she felt the cold air on her body where he had pulled away. Her breasts felt sore, and she could hardly still her rapid breath. Clumsily, Greville reached over and hugged her.
“I'm sorry, Emma. I love you too much.”
“I love you, Greville,” she said, but her voice was muted.
Chapter 2
After that first afternoon with Romney, she was never posed as a society lady again. Instead, her roles were tragic. She was Ariadne abandoned on Naxos by her lover, looking out to the dark sea where his ship had sailed away. She was Thais, courtesan, mistress of Alexander the Great, raising a torch to fire the city. She was Dido, Queen of Carthage, lamenting the false Aeneas and preparing her funeral pyre. She was Cleopatra with the asp, imperious, fierce and ready to die.
She enjoyed being fierce, Romney thought. She was a little on the chubby side, her face plump and pleasing, but not beautiful. She seemed a little downcast at times, as if she expected him to chastise her for some fault, but as soon as he explained the character he wanted her to take, she changed. As Cleopatra, she stuck her chin up, her eyes blazed, she breathed more deeply, seemed to be considering the whole empire she was about to lose. As Ariadne, she sobbed, fell to the floor, clasped her hands before her breast, turning her eyes upwards to heaven as she invoked the gods against her faithless lover.
She was Circe, the sorceress, weaving her magic on Romney and his studio. At least, she would weave her magic for two hours at a time, as agreed with Greville; then Greville would come, her charms would leave her, and she would be once more a pretty but rather grey little girl. Romney wondered how long Greville would keep her; mistresses didn't last long, and Emma's prettiness would soon fade into middle aged chubbiness. He'd give her a couple of years – less, if Greville found that heiress he'd been looking for.
He was puzzled by her dramatic talent, though. I bet Greville never sees that side of her, he thought. She seemed subdued by Greville. Romney shrugged. Well, he had never really understood women, other than how to paint them – and how to keep them quiet while he painted them.
Still, the paintings were excellent. He was becoming genuinely excited by the prospects for his autumn show; he knew his portraits of her in these tragic poses were strikingly different from the usual showcases of elegant poise. Even his brushwork had changed; hazes and zigzags of white straight from the tube, instead of the satin sheen of his earlier work. Emma's ready dramatic sense had called out a roughness and truthfulness in his own hands that had never been there before; he was painting faster and more fluently.
But still, sometimes she'd arrive in that grey, sullen mood, and it was difficult to interest her in the pose. He needed all his tact – his resources were not great – to bring her out of herself. That was the case this afternoon. She was dressed as Cleopatra – he never tired of her as the Egyptian beauty - but while she wore the crown and held the sceptre, even her deportment showed her to be only a trumpery queen. Her shoulders sagged, and she looked down at the floor.
He sighed. There was no point carrying on like this.
“Come here. I've finished that sketch. Time for a break.”
“I don't need one, honestly.”
“But I do. Come and sit down with me.”
She put the sceptre down, took off the crown, and came to sit at the table with him. She smiled gently at him, as if doubtful whether he would smile back.
“I'm not doing very well today, am I?”
He looked down at his hands, noticing that yet again he'd got charcoal on his cuffs. She'd put him in a difficult position. If he admitted that she was less than inspiring today, he'd destroy the little confidence she had. But if he pretended all was well, he'd have another hour of wasted time. Another hour's worth of wasted money. He needed these last few pictures, too; he'd painted Emma so much this summer that he'd hardly seen any other sitters. He'd once turned out three aristocratic portraits in a week; now, he'd painted two in three months, and his engagement book was empty. The autumn show had to be a success.
He looked her in the eyes. “I think we're both lacking something today. It's a grey day, isn't it?” He smiled, and reached for her hand. “I think we're lacking some poetry.”
“Poetry?”
“I seem to remember from my distant school days... Oh! I must sound very old to you, Emma. But I seem to remember a lovely speech in Shakespeare. 'The throne she sat on was of burnished gold, burning...' no, I haven't got that right... let me see...”
He frowned at the bookcase, as if that would help locate the right book. Finding it, he drew it out, finding that it fell open where a silk bookmark held the place. He squinted at it for a moment, puzzled at the way the letters seemed to swim blurrily in front of his eyes, before he realised he was not wearing his reading spectacles, and couldn't remember where they were. Better, anyway, for an artist to have long sight than short sight, but it was a nuisance; he always forgot where he had put them. He held the book out at arm's length.
“You want these?”
Emma was holding his glasses out to him.
Taking them out and perching them on his nose, he thought with a little pang of slighted pride; I must appear very old indeed. The type came into focus. A miracle; the page he'd opened was exactly the scene he'd wanted. But his memory was faulty; it was the barge she sat in...
“The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, burnt on the water. The poop was beaten gold.”
“The poop?”
“The front part of a ship, I believe. Though I'm no sailor.” He continued.
“The poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.”
He could hardly see Emma through his reading glasses, but he could tell that she was listening intently.
“That's beautiful. But who is she?”
“She?”
“The she who's sitting in the boat?”
He smiled. “The she we are talking about here, my dear – or rather, the she about whom Master Shakespeare is talking – is Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt.”
“Oh.” Her mouth was round, her eyes huge. “In a golden boat. And love-sick... I hadn't thought of her that way.”
He looked up at her. “Hadn't thought of her what way?”
“Sick of love. I thought she was killing herself because she was defeated. But it's for love. You never said.”
True, he thought; I never said. I probably know more about defeat than I do about love.
“Can I pose for Cleopatra again?”
It was the first time she had ever asked him for anything. She'd asked him questions – and that was unusual – but she'd never asked for anything. That was unusual too, he thought. The ladies who sat for their portraits didn't ask, they commanded, but models were full of requests – a break, a longer break, a cup of tea, another cup of tea, and could they take the fur, or silk, or feathers away with them afterwards – yet Emma had never asked for anything. Except now.
“You can pose for Cleopatra right now.”
As she walked over to where the carpet was spread out for her, he noticed a new confidence in her stride. When she reached her place, she turned to face him, tall and imperious as her Cleopatra had always been; but there was a new tragedy in her face. Her eyes seemed huge, moist with tears; her lips were slightly parted, as if she'd been in the very act of saying farewell, and had then decided not to say it.
Greville came early that day – unusually; he was normally a precise man, as much in the small things of social life as in his business or his scholarship. He seemed a little discomposed, and he had got wet on his way; the shoulders of his coat were spattered with raindrops.
“We need to go early today,” he explained; “We have an appointment. I have an appointment.”
Romney hesitated. He only needed a few more minutes; the sketch was nearly done, and though he would have lost a quarter of an hour of the afternoon, he could finish the painting. But he needed those few minutes to sketch in the line of her mouth; without that, the painting would lack something, and its emotional effect might be lost. Just a minute...Yet he couldn't antagonise Greville. After all, it was Greville's indulgence which allowed Emma to model for him.
“Not yet.” To his great surprise, Emma spoke. “We must finish this pose first.”
“Don't disobey me, Emma. Haste is necessary. I must be at Banks's on the hour, for his talk on the birds of the Pacific.”
“Mr Romney needs to finish his sketch,” she said firmly. “Will you be long, Romney?”
He was startled by this new side to her. “Three minutes.” He smudged in a shadow under her chin, defined the mouth with a few quick pencil strokes. “Maybe less.”
“So you see, Greville, we shan't be long.”
Greville assented, but he was clearly unhappy; he paced up and down, impatient to be gone, his hands twisted together behind his back. Then, when Emma had finished, he could hardly wait for her to do up her cloak before hustling her out, leaving Romney in a room that seemed suddenly empty and cold.
***
“Come on, we're late already.”
Greville was in a black mood. They'd failed to find a cab when they left Romney's, the one they'd finally found had dropped them at the bottom of Greek Street, it was still raining, and he was pulling Emma with him along the crowded pavement towards Soho Square and Joseph Banks's House.
“Who is this Mr Banks?” she'd asked.
“He's an interesting man. He's a scientist, who has been on expeditions to Newfoundland, to the Pacific, and to Brazil. He's invited us to a small talk he is giving on the birds of the Pacific. I hear he has several, stuffed, though plants are really his main concern.”
Greville had been reasonably polite then, but now, he was beginning to panic about getting there on time, and he pulled her along ruthlessly. Emma was short of breath, and her right shoe was beginning to leak, but she held tightly on to Greville's hand and struggled to keep up with him. Her cloak flapped in the gusting wind as she ran.
“Oh!” She'd collided with a chubby gentleman in a neat white curled wig, and sent his papers flying. Books, boxes, loose letters fell into the muddy gutter, and she and Greville and the portly stranger were bumping into each other trying to retrieve them before the damp damaged them beyond repair. She picked up a book that had fallen open, and started smoothing down the creased pages, so absorbed in the task that she didn't notice for a moment that Greville had recognised her victim.
“Mr Solander! I am so sorry – so very sorry.”
“But Mr Greville! I am sure I was looking at the place where I was going. If indeed I had been looking, then I would have seen you, you may be sure, and then the thing that has happened, would not have happened, and....”
“You're going to Banks's, I presume?”
“Indeed yes, I go to Mr Banks's, as I am his secretary now, as perhaps you know, and..”
“Then you have mistook your way, Mr Solander. Follow us.”
Solander had indeed walked right past Mr Banks's house in the square. Emma wondered quite how he had missed it; two links burned outside, though it was still daylight, and wide steps with a balustrade led up to the front door. He must be a most absent-minded man.
It was a grand house; from the front door, opened by a neatly clad servant, they ascended the staircase to the first floor, where candles were already burning and the smell of coffee pervaded the air. There were six or seven men there already, clustered round a table at the far end of the room. Looking round, Emma saw a dark, masculine room; oak panelling, walnut tallboys, bookshelves lined with leather-bound books, and on the table, an ox skull and a mounted bird's skeleton, at which one of the men was pointing excitedly.
As Solander and Greville came in, a thickset man with huge greying eyebrows detached himself from the crowd and came over.
“Greville! How good to see you! Solander – where have you been?”
He was evidently used to Solander's loquacity, since he gave him no time to reply.
“Greville, do come over and see this most interesting skeleton.”
“One of your Pacific birds?”
“No, not at all. Indeed you might even find it in this country. In Scotland perhaps, not in England. No, this is one I brought back from my voyage to the north. It's a Great Auk. Observe the huge beak. Most interesting in its adaptation to the vicissitudes of northern waters.”
Emma was left on her own. On her own, that is, apart from Solander, who was still trying to get the various books and papers he'd brought with him in order. She felt sorry for him; he was so serious, so clumsy, like a big child.
“Can I help?”
He looked up at her short-sightedly – and for the first time since she'd met him, was silent. She bent down, picking up one of the books he'd put on the table.
“Where does this go?”
He smiled gratefully. “This one goes with the other two that are in the same identical series, you see, here is one, and the other...”
“I have it.”
“Oh, that is good. So these the three of them all together go into the bookcase that is by the second window, on the second shelf, the second shelf up that is, you will see the gap if you look closely...”
She had already found the gap, and slid the books one by one into their places.
Mr Solander was, of course, effusively grateful for her help. Some of the papers would never be quite legible again – one was splashed right across with mud – but the books were safe, and so were the contents of the two green covered boxes. She took one, and inspected it; it opened like a clam-shell, and she admired the snug fitting of the the halves of the box.
“You like it?” Solander asked.
“It's rather fine,” she answered. “What is it for?”
“For holding books that are fragile, or pressed flower specimens, or papers, or charts or maps. Charts at sea, and maps on the terra firma, that is the difference between the two.”
“It must be very useful.”
“Indeed, indeed it is, and it is my own invention, I, Daniel Solander, so pleased to make your excellentest acquaintance.” He nodded his head at her, as if in a bobbling imitation of a bow, and her mouth turned up in a broad smile.
“Emma Hart.”
“Ah, I see you've met Solander.” Greville was back, taking her by one elbow, and guiding her gently but firmly towards the table where the others were gathered.
“Who is he?”
“Banks's secretary, as he said. He's from Sweden, I gather, though he has learned quite good English since he's been here. Now come and look at this bird.”
***
Greville took a number of books home with him from Banks's. There was one on minerals, a particular interest of his; and one on the plants of South America. He'd been much interested by an account of a soporific drug, which administered in larger amounts was an effective hallucinogen. Banks said he had tried it out, and saw visions – vampire bats and planets with mad faces, vague dissolving clouds of colour and women with four breasts and six fingers on each hand. And another time, gentler visions, but when he began to speak about them, Greville shot a meaningful glance at Emma and hushed him, and she heard no more about that.
When they got home, the maid had already made them a simple supper; cold meat, chutneys, and a loaf of bread, with a pot of beer each. A couple of parcels had arrived for Greville, containing specimens of minerals, and he sat for a while after supper arranging them in his collection. They glittered, cold and hard; one was brittle, as he showed her, snapping the grey slab of stone in two. And there was gold, too, or so she thought.
“It's not gold.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “What it is then?”
“Pyrites. Fool's gold, they call it. Women seem especially attracted to it, for some reason.”
“And this?”
“Rose quartz. Pretty, but not useful. There are other kinds of quartz, too. Clear, striped, what we call tiger's eye or agate, milky. Now, be quiet, Emma, and let me finish my work.”
“Will you be late to bed?”
“No; I just have these last few to catalogue.”
She looked at the book he was writing in. What wonderful names; amazonite, malachite, orthoclase, hematite, ilmenite, chalcopyrite. She watched his careful inscription of each new mineral into the catalogue, his writing neat and precise, the copper nib scratching irritably on the paper. But when she looked at the minerals, though they glittered, they were hard and dead. Brought from half way across the world, she thought, but without life. Like the skeleton of the auk.
With a flourish of the pen, Greville finished his last entry, and having blotted the ink, closed the book carefully. He pulled one of the books he'd borrowed from Banks over.
“Banks is not just interested in the sex of plants,” he said. “There are some most interesting rituals in the south seas, of a sexual nature. He has come to be interested in such things... He suggested to me that I might... participate in an experiment.”
Typical of Greville to need an excuse, she thought. But none the less she was intrigued when he took a small silver box – like a snuff box, but larger – out of his pocket, and opened it. Inside was a ring of jade; too large as a ring for her finger.
“One of Banks's friends has been to the east, and was instructed in the use of this article. Let us see.” He opened the book at a page marked by a slip of paper, and having found the paragraph he needed, began to read aloud.
“The jade ring is fitted on to the root of the penis before sexual congress is begun. It is intended for the benefit of the man, who is able to continue his activity for a longer period, thanks to the compression and constriction of the flow of blood. This also assists the tumescence of the organ, in those cases where assistance is required owing to age or infirmity. Jade is believed by the Chinese to bestow longevity; it was also considered the imperial gem, the most precious being the pure white jade.”
He looked up at her.
“We can make a trial tonight, I thought.”