Page 124 of Confounding Oaths
On the bright side, it was the third time I would need to do so in this tale. And some numbers are auspicious.
The Caesars had, at least, managed to secure the earl’s carriage for the evening, meaning that they did not need to walk their children through a rookery by night. And it had been a long day, so as they rattled through the streets they let the motion of the vehicle rock them into a quiet somnolence.
… In the dark of the Folly, Mr. Caesar and the captain lay together, breathing in time and eye to eye across the shadows.“Thank you,” whispered the captain. “For coming. And for staying.” …
“Would it be very terrible,” Miss Anne asked the carriage as a whole, “if I did not marry immediately once I am out? I am beginning to think that men are more complex than I had expected.”
“That,” her father replied, “would be very wise. Indeed your mother and I would be quite happy if you would not marry at all.”
“Oh no.” Miss Anne looked aghast. “That would be most dreary. But I am beginning to see that finding a trulygoodman may take more work than I anticipated.”
… Mr. Caesar pressed his lips lightly to the captain’s and whispered against them. “We don’t have to, you buried a friend today.”
But Captain James drew him closer, turned him gently onto his back. “I’m a soldier, John. I’ve buried friends before and will again, but life has to go on.” …
As the carriage moved out of the worst parts of the city’s underbelly into those with better lighting and more socially acceptable crimes, Miss Caesar looked sleepily at the faces of her family and let her thoughts wander.
Miss Anne’s thoughts remained rather more focused. “I think it ill of John not to return with us. Now is surely the time to be with family.”
“Family,” Lady Mary pointed out, “can mean more than one thing.”
… Sex and death have walked hand in hand for millennia, and it can be a terrible pairing or a beautiful one. As I have said many times and will continue to say for as long as I fear mortals will fail to believe me, I find little beauty in mortal flesh, but I can find great poetry in mortal feeling.
So it was with some care that I watched the captain and Mr. Caesar tell one another, through the lyrics of fingertips and raggedstanzas of breath, a story of wanting and keeping and hoping that even now neither could quite articulate with something as vulgar as words. …
Miss Caesar’s thoughts, which had been straying across the city and the world, meandered back to the present and formed themselves, quite without her permission, into a question.
“Papa,” she asked, “what was Grandmama like?”
… Mr. Caesar lay still with his head on the captain’s shoulder. And his thoughts, which had been wandering past and future and flesh and blood, formed themselves, without his permission, into a request.
“Don’t go.” …
“You know your grandmother,” Mr. Caesar replied, genuinely perplexed.
“Not Lady Elmsley,” his daughter clarified. “Your mother.”
Mr. Caesar grew very quiet and then said, softly, “I find it harder and harder to remember.”
… “What do you mean, don’t go?”
“To France. To war. I don’t want to lose you.”
“It’s what I do, John.” There was no anger in the captain’s voice. But nor was there longing. “It’s dangerous, but it’s the life.”
Mr. Caesar shifted, apprehensive. “And what do I do?”
“Wait. Like all the rest.”
“You want me to stand on the docks and sing melancholy songs until you return?”
Captain James rolled over. “You wanted to be a soldier’s man. That’s how it goes.” …
“Then …” Miss Caesar was saying in the carriage. “I should like to know what you do remember.”
Settling back in his seat, the elder Mr. Caesar shut his eyes. “It is a long story. And there are reasons I have not told it to you.”
Miss Caesar lowered her gaze. “Even so, I should like to hear what I can.”
