A Heart to Speak To

 

A Heart to Speak To

 

1830, London

 

She visited the newly-dug grave in the furtive dusk, avoiding the glare of the gas-lights, glad of the fog. It was late in September, so it might only be the cold which made her grip her black shawl so tightly about her as she moved in solitude along the streets—fingers white under her gloves, face as pale, and set as rigid. Her pace was brisk, and the iron gates of her destination were soon before her. She paused outside them gasping for air, stabbed by a sharp pain, unable to breathe. She held onto the gates for a long while, then with a noiseless motion, entered the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Soho.

 

She found him immediately. The dim light obscured the long epitaph as successfully as her tears, but no one disturbed them, no one saw as she bade her final, slow goodbyes. She was grateful, after all, for her exclusion at the funeral. But he was there, throughout the tribute of her grief, and followed her home when she at last departed—as ghosts and memories always do—standing in the shadows of her dark room, half unseen.

 

   “Words are the only things that last forever,” he seemed to whisper. “They are as endurable as the eternal hills.” She knew what he wanted, what he was asking her to do. But she couldn’t. She could not tell their story. She had paper and ink enough, but the old will to use it was gone now, like him. It came as no surprise to her though—his request.

 

His life, you see, had always been about words. Great words or strong ones, true words, and plain words spun into complexity, or life-changing ones to last for always. It did not matter which they were, he was master of them all. He had had a love affair with those he read, and a loathing for those he must write himself.

 

She closed her heavy, swollen eyes and realised that all she had left of him was his words. She would have to use her own now, no matter how small, or how uncertain their shadow beneath the monument of his. But it was all she had.

 

Inhaling sharply, she lit a candle, setting the gloom to dancing, his form flickering temptingly in her peripheral vision.

 

   “Will you write it?” he seemed to ask again.

 

   “Will I?” she asked herself aloud in turn, adding, with her usual doubt: “Can I?”

 

With her spoken words, his presence evaporated. But there is always something, something to bring a lost loved one back again. And she knew how to make him return. She pulled the familiar foolscap closer towards her on the desk before her, stroking the paper with her hands. His texture, she thought. The glistening, wet ink alone was needed to bring the page to certain life. Yes, he was right, it was time to resurrect him.

 

She took off her bonnet and shawl, and stoked up the fire with the bucket of sea-coal. She would face her brother’s complaints of extravagance later. He wouldn’t disturb her tonight. She had made him promise not to. Saying nothing, he had nodded, his mouth set as firm as his harsh resolution all those weeks ago.

 

The leaping flames brought her back to the present—their individual sparks a stimulus to the task before her, a fiery lexicon. She took up her pen, dipping it into the inkwell, her thoughts flowing, and she chasing after them over the page. She wouldn’t burn this one, she decided, like she had the others. And perhaps, one day, the world might see their story—told in her own words…

 

 

1807-8, Southampton Buildings, London

 

 

She was in her favourite position, sitting at the table by the window, watching the carts and waggons trundle by below her in the street, hand poised over paper, dreaming as she watched the life of Holborn hurtle by. Impatient for inspiration, she tapped her fingers musingly against her cheek, and pressed her face further to the window. A hackney cab had drawn up outside, a trunk strapped to the rear.

 

Is the new lodger arriving today? she thought, turning abruptly from the hurly-burly of the window to the calm interior, as though the answer resided there. She didn’t know, and the room was no wiser, devoid as it was of nearly all the things she wanted most. She would have to ask Tom when he came home. Peering outside again a minute later, the cab had driven away and there was nothing more for her to see. It was, seemingly, an unremarkable incident. Except for what she had felt, for what she had seen—a potent ripple upon the surface of her too-still world.

 

Shortly, there was a sound of steps and voices on the stairs outside her door, a thud of the newcomer’s box on the landing, the landlady’s shrill accents drowning out the low, deep tones of the new arrival beside her. A door opened, the voices died away, then it closed conclusively and a single step retreated down the stairs.

 

She was relieved that the obligatory introductions were postponed, naturally shy of strangers, of people generally. She had a greater affinity with animals, and stroked the puss curled up in her lap, making it purr contentedly.

 

This was her usual routine. The war in Europe, rising taxes, political and social unrest—none of it existed inside this small strip of street and smaller apartment. But she wanted change too, wished for something more—a discovery of the mind or a journey of the soul. She felt an answered prayer in the glimpse of a glove on the cab door, a hat poking from the cab’s interior as the passenger began to alight. That’s why she turned away—to keep the hope, to stop her world contracting.

 

She liked to imagine the particulars of anybody new, filling in the details herself, furnishing them with faces, forms, pasts and idiosyncrasies. The man in question today, however, defied her usual skills of invention. He seemed to elude the art of calculation.

 

She put her pen down, all concentration evaporated, and tidied her papers away impatiently. The breakfast plates were still on the table from when Tom had dashed down his toasted bread-roll, taken a swig of tea, and disappeared out of the door for the day. She picked up her tea-dish and took a sip. The beverage had gone cold, and she left it on the table for the maid to clear away.

 

The walls of her room pressed in heavily, she was suddenly too restless to sit, to stay indoors. Fastening on her pelisse, and tying on her bonnet, she decided to go out. The landing was quiet, with nothing to resolve the novel mystery behind the closed door opposite to hers. Lodgers came and went often enough at 34 Southampton Buildings, but none that promised friendship as certainly as he. The rooms themselves were of special interest anyway due to their former lodger, but the present tenant made them even more so.

 

The wooden stairs she descended were narrow, and on the second set, she met the girl coming up with a tea-tray.

 

  “Sorry, miss,” the maid said curtseying, waiting at the turn of the stairs for her to pass with her basket.

 

  “Is it for the new gentleman?”

 

   “Yes, miss. He takes it very strong!” She smiled at the remark, but asked none of the questions revolving in her mind—it was a nameless taste she wished to savour, without the limit of description. Out on the street, she breathed the freezing, foggy air, and turned into Chancery Lane, thinking of her brother round the corner busy in the Inns of Court. The snowy streets were crowded, but her purse unfortunately was much less so. She made a few hasty computations, ignoring the distracting calls of the street-hawkers, mentally making her purchases for the day. There would be enough left over for a treat she had been saving for, and she made her way to Fleet Street, browsing the second-hand bookstalls, hoping to see one author in particular among the titles she rummaged through.

 

As she was busy with her occupation, a lady approached, well past middle age, pronouncing her name uncertainly. She turned, startled by both the intrusion and the familiar designation on a stranger’s tongue. The woman was smiling kindly, and as she took in her small form, and plain, neat but well-worn dress, a slow recognition dawned.

 

  “Miss Lamb?” she asked the woman tentatively.

 

   “Yes, that’s right. I’m Mary Lamb. Your brother worked with my brother, Charles, at the East India Company, before he left for the law.” She nodded, recollecting now. Tom sometimes visited them socially, but she had only ever been casually introduced if they passed each other in the street.

 

   “How is Tom? We don’t see him much these days.”

 

   “Very well, thank you.”

 

   “I do hope to see him at our Wednesday gathering. We have quite a party now!”

 

   “I dare say you will,” she affirmed, and after a pause, “I believe your friend, who Tom recommended our lodgings to, has just taken possession of the rooms today.”

 

   “Oh! That is good news! He has his own lodgings at last! Charles will be pleased. He is so very dull with the loss of Manning, who has gone to China, and he likes Hazlitt better than anybody except him.” All three names meant nothing to her, but she nodded. Her mystery had a title now.

 

   “Well, my dear, I shan’t keep you. I have just bought a good, cheap copy of Beaumont & Fletcher for Charles,” and she held up a small volume wrapped in brown paper. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” She did not want to admit the name of the novelist now, to a woman who bought someone named Beaumont & Fletcher, but she told her anyway.

 

   “Oh, you would be better taking it out on loan. We’ll go to my man, Smith. He’ll lend it out to you, on my say-so,” and she bustled her into the book-seller’s shop, the shelves towering to the ceiling, crammed with volumes of every size, colour, age and genre. One day, she thought, I will be among them. She emerged shortly, proudly bearing her own parcel, a three-volume novel.

 

They parted affably on the street, Mary pressing her to come to their literary Wednesdays, now she knew of her taste for books.

 

   “I have nothing suitable to wear,” she answered disappointedly, her eyes straying to the frays on her sleeve-cuffs and hem. Besides, she was shy of strangers…but her curiosity was greater now.

 

   “Oh, we don’t want finery!” Mary assured her. “Only fine conversation and good company! I hope to see you soon.” Her young friend seconded the hope and walked away, swinging her basket to and fro delightedly, looking at the volumes it contained, and hardly knowing how she made her other purchases at the vegetable stalls and the butchers on her way back home.

 

She returned from her errands nipped with the cold, a drop trembling at the end of her nose as she tapped up the flights of stairs. All was still on her landing, as before, and she pondered the old and the new together. She missed her many hours spent with her elderly neighbour, reading to her from the books it took a lifetime to accumulate—all commandeered by her family at her death—borrowing the modern novels to devour at her leisure, and receiving a small but kind remuneration for the services she rendered her now that her old eyes were gone—a little mending and sewing, running the odd errand, and being her companion during the day. Yes, the maid could have carried out the same office, but she had a soft spot for the young lady across the hall, and would rather line her pockets than any others’. How different does the apartment look now, she wondered, gazing at the closed door, before putting thoughts and books and basket aside to peel the potatoes for supper.

 

Tom tucked into the mutton chops and mash eagerly when he arrived home that evening. He was tired, and took off his greatcoat and his neck-cloth wearily. She told him of her meeting with Mary in the street, and repeated her invitation.

 

   “Might I come with you Tom?” She did not look up, but kept her eyes resolutely on the plate before her.

 

   “You’ve asked me that before. You’re too young sis,” was his inevitable reply.

 

   “I’m turned eighteen now!” she retorted. “Mary said you all talk of literature. You never told me, when you knew how I’d enjoy it. And it doesn’t sound like debauchery, or something unsuitable for a young lady to me.” He smiled at her naiveté.

 

   “The men can get a little carried away, and drink too much. I don’t want you involved,” and he shook his head, determined. He meant well, she knew that. Ever since their parents’ deaths, he had been overprotective of his younger sister, but she had so many reasons now to take her life in her own hands. And so many reasons now to want to go. However, she changed the subject to avoid an argument.

 

   “Mrs Wilson’s rooms are let,” she informed him. “The new lodger arrived today.”

 

   “Oh, did he? Lamb’s friend? I’ll go over and introduce myself,” he told her, nonchalantly picking at his teeth. “See if he approves of my recommendation.”

 

   “Shall I go too? I’d like to see the place again.” She raised her eyebrows and her hopes, but he quickly sunk them both with a dismissive shake of the head.

 

  “We don’t know the fellow!” he insisted. “Let me make his acquaintance first.”

 

   “He’s Charles Lamb’s closest friend! You know Charles well enough!”

 

   “Don’t question my authority!” he retorted, a warning gruffness to his voice. “You know nothing of the world.”

 

   “Because you don’t let me know it Tom!”

 

   “I mean its dangers, sis. I’m your only guardian, and I intend to keep you safe.” She hated that look he flashed her, which signalled the unquestionable end of the conversation.

 

   “I wish I was a man of twenty-five!” she snapped, “and could make all the rules like you!” He said nothing to her petulant outburst, and strode in silence to the door, leaving her alone once again.

 

He stayed across the way for an hour, perhaps two. When he returned, she had made up the cot in the sitting-room—which served as a sofa during the day—and was feigning sleep between the covers. He sat up a while, drinking small beer and reading a newspaper by the light of a candle. A church clock somewhere outside chimed midnight, and with that nocturnal music, he retired to bed himself.