He threw a sheet over the cage, and on his way back downstairs, he observed that, hopeless causes aside, he felt better than he had in days. Weeks. There was something about unburdening oneself to one’s friends that made one feel lighter.
Of course, six glasses of ratafia did tend to have that effect, too.
He rejoined the boys in the drawing room, where they sat by a roaring fire, chatting and smoking. They nodded at him and offered him a cigar, which he declined, and carried on talking about a horse Archie was thinking of buying.
Effie appreciated how the boys absorbed him into the room, into the discussion at hand. That they didn’t press him to discuss Julianna any further. He was glad he’d told them, but he needed a moment to adjust to having the knowledge out there, hovering in the world like a honeybee at a flower, rather than existing merely in his head.
When the talk of horseflesh dwindled, he asked, “If a ghost were to haunt a printing press, what sort of ghost do you think it would be?”
“The ghost of a printmaker, I should think,” Simon said.
“That’s a rather literal answer.” Though had he expected otherwise from Simon?
“The neglected wife of the printmaker who never gets to see him because he works such long hours?” Archie suggested.
“That’s more like it. But in that scenario, she would resent the press, would she not? It does not seem to follow that she would elect to haunt it for all eternity.”
“Do ghosts have a say over what or whom—or whether—they haunt?” Archie asked.
“I take the point,” Effie said. “Perhaps they don’t.”
“Why do you ask?” Simon said.
“Do either of you know the Earl of Stanhope?”
“Not particularly,” Archie said.
Simon shook his head. “Nor do I. Not well, anyway. Why?”
“He has invented a new type of printing press. I gather that a system of compound levers means it requires less strength to operate than a traditional press. I should very much like to get my hands on one.”
“So if, theoretically, a lady and her . . . friend had one of these presses,” Simon said, “they could operate it themselves.”
“Perhaps,” Effie said, suddenly feeling glum. He had been thinking along those lines, but there was no “friend” in his imaginings. He merely thought that if Julianna had a small, sturdy handpress, she might not need to employ a puller. But he really didn’t know. Because he didn’t know how much less “less strength” was, and he didn’t know anything about Julianna’s vigor or lack thereof. Was she slender and delicate? Or sturdy and hale?
He had to amend an earlier thought. He’d been thinking—and saying to the boys—that Julianna knew him. He’d meant that she knew him, and he knew her,elementally. Regardless of his deception, of the fact that she thought him a lady, theirsoulsknew each other. And while that might be true, it was disconcerting to think he didnotknow enough about her physically to know if she could operate a hand press. He knew what she’d told him, that she was tall and had dark hair and green eyes, but those were but the most general of descriptors.
He ached to know her. The corporeal form of her.
Was this desire? If so, it was as exhausting as love.
“So you are trying to procure a press for your Miss Evans,” Archie said, drawing Effie’s attention back to the conversation at hand.
“Yes, but all I have been able to get is the piece of rubbish currently taking up space—a great deal of space—at your house. I can’t seem to get it to work, and not because I lack the strength. It’s broken—something is wrong with the screw mechanism as far as I can tell. That’s why I named it Hamlet. I’ve decided it is haunted.”
Simon said, “Perhaps you ought to name your press Dogberry, or Bottom, after one of Shakespeare’s more inept characters, rather than the one who was haunted and went on to destroy everyone he loved before dying tragically himself.”
“Hmm. I shall consider it.”
Eventually, Simon went to bed. He always retired early. Usually, Effie and Archie conversed into the evening, but Archie surprised him by asking, “Have you got any copies ofLe Monde Joliwith you here?”
“I do. I have the most recent issue.”
“May I read it? I’ve read your poems in the magazine, of course, but I’d like to give it a closer look.”
“Of course.” Effie was touched. Archie, by his own account, had trouble with reading. But part of the beauty of a magazine was that it presented information in different formats. September contained the latest installment in a serialized novel about a runaway heiress but also an engraving of a scene fromTom and Jerry, or Life in London, a wildly popular stage adaptation of the equally popular book, not to mention the medical advice column Julianna so hated, which this month contained a wretchedly compelling essay on the dangers of neglecting one’s teeth. Teeth, and the many things that could go wrong with them both medically and aesthetically, had proven, to Julianna’s mystified dismay, a perennially popular subject.
When Effie returned with the magazine, Archie went to sit with it in a wing chair near the fire. He looked up before diving in and said, “Simon won’t say it, but he is beside himself to see the Pavilion. Can we go tomorrow?”
