“You are not wrong. Yet you are not exactly right, either.” Effie paused, trying to think how to explain. “We have all heard of gentlemen who prefer the company of their own kind.” Would they understand what he meant? He didn’t get the impression that Simon and Archie attracted the Mr. Lansings of the world the way Effie himself did. “Do we all know what I mean by ‘prefer the company’?”
“We do,” Archie said with an amused glimmer in his eye, and Simon nodded his agreement.
All right, then, onward. “To the extent that I have yearned for the company of anyone, I have never made a distinction between ladies and gentlemen.”
“I see,” Archie said.
“But at the same time, it is rare for me to . . . prefer company in that way. Increasingly rare, the older I get. I suffered the odd childhood infatuation, but it has been years.”
In fact, when they were young, Effie had, for the briefest of moments, thought he fancied Archie. Archie had been so good at archery, and so dedicated to antagonizing Nigel Nettlefell, a boy whose principal hobby was being unkind to Effie.
But the sentiment had come and gone like a cloud over a picnic on a windy day; there was no point in dredging it up now. Archie was his brother in all but blood, and Effie cared little for blood. Where had blood ever got him?
“I always thought it was because I am an artist, a poet,” he went on. “There is so much beauty in the world, and so much ugliness. There are big sentiments everywhere, just waiting to overwhelm one. The sunrise and the fall of an army. Revolutions and new planets being discovered. Did you know that there are great rings around the planet Saturn? There are who knows how many planets in the sky all around us, and some of them areringed! Just the other day I tried to paint those rings.”
“And?” Simon asked.
“I remain a better poet than painter. But I persevere.” He paused to refocus his thoughts. Saturn was not the point. “What I am trying to say is that while I understand that for many people, love—and desire—are seemingly animating forces, to me they have historically seemed so . . . small. Inconsequential, even.” He understood now, though, what all the fuss was about. “Was I that out of step?” He turned to Archie. “I must have been, for I watched you absolutely lose your mind over Clementine Morgan last year.”
“I did not lose my mind.”
“You did, and I am not sure you’ve found it yet.”
Archie sent an appealing look at Simon, who merely lifted his glass and said, “May you never find it.”
Effie said, “Miss Austen says, ‘To love is to burn. To be on fire.’ I had never felt that before. Mind you, she also says, ‘We are all fools in love,’ and I rather think I am already accomplished enough on that front without adding love to the pot.”
“You are speaking in the past perfect tense,” Simon said. “You said, ‘Ihadnever felt that before.’ But you do now?”
“I do now,” Effie affirmed.
“For this Miss Evans,” Simon said, his tone gentler than was typical for him.
“Yes. But it wasnotlike in novels. I wasn’t in love with her from the start. It was only once I got to know her rather intimately that I was . . . struck. But struck I was.” Effie put his head in his hands. He had so much love in his heart. If this was what love felt like, love was exhausting. “I have come to understand that for me, a bond of friendship is a precondition for love.”
“What is the difficulty here?” Archie asked. “This would seem to be a happy revelation, no?”
“The ‘difficulty’ is not singular,” Effie said through his hands. “My situation is beset with numerous difficulties. One, she does not feel the same.” He lifted his head. “Two, I could never marry her. I could never be with her.”
“Because of your father? Your title?” Archie asked.
“Yes. Miss Evans works for a living. She lives with her sister but aspires to become a woman of independent means. I would argue she already is, except her stepbrother is proprietor of her magazine and pays her a wage not at all commensurate with the value of her work.”
“So how will she ever become a woman of independent means?” Archie asked.
“She wants to buy a printing press.”
“Ah,” Simon said. “Certain things have suddenly become clear.”
“The notion was born because she sometimes has trouble getting her magazine printed to her specifications,” Effie said. “For example, a year or so ago, she had a regular slot with a chap on Grub Street, but he started printing pamphlets for the abolitionists and told Miss Evans he could no longer accommodate her. While she sympathized with the pamphleteers’ cause, she struggled to find a new arrangement.” He paused to wonder how October, which should be off the press, was looking. “And even when she can find reliable printing services, her stepbrother—the proprietor who profits off her toils—often will not allow things like a color plate when one is clearly called for, and—”
He was getting carried away. He needn’t mire the boys in the details. “If she owned a press, she could print the magazine exactly as she liked.”
“It sounds as if she has a head for business,” Simon said.
“Oh, she does. She is artisticandcunning.” Effie put his head back in his hands. “Artistic and cunning and employed.” He thought of another “difficulty.” “And eight-and-thirty years old.”
If the boys were scandalized by the ten-year age gap, they said nothing. But perhaps the silence that settled was indicative of their shock.
