The Victorians Collection

Chapter 6

“Bennett, glad you could make it.” James Cary commented, extending a glass of brandy. His hazel eyes twinkled with their usual naughty gleam and his curly, sand-colored hair stood on end with his habitual habit of running fingers through it.

“Of course, of course, Cary. What did you expect? My mother wanted to talk to me.” Christopher rolled his eyes, gratefully accepting the glass. He sank onto a high-backed sofa of carved wood with blue velvet upholstery; the best seat in the brick row house provided to Cary as vicar of a small, working-class neighborhood chapel.

A threadbare blue and black oriental rug on the floor and a mahogany table where he had arranged his prized collection of leaded glass bottles and decanters decorated his parlor. The rich burgundy and brown hues of the liquors inside the bottles glowed dully in the fading light.

“About what?” came a voice from one of the armchairs beside the fireplace. Colin Butler, Viscount Gelroy, swallowed from his glass, perhaps a little more deeply than was wise.

“A woman. What else?” Christopher replied, taking a more modest sip of his own.

“Did she finally hear about your opera singer?” Colin asked, smirking.

James grinned.

“No, not that one.” Christopher grimaced. “You know,” he drawled, “you two have gotten a great deal of conversation out of a single night that had more to do with wine than passion. It was eight months ago, and anyway, she was really not worth the trouble.”

“Then who?” Colin asked.

Christopher rolled his eyes heavenward. “Mother wants to introduce me to her young friend. I fear she"s matchmaking.”

“Oh, Lord. Who?” James asked, raising his glass to his lips.

“Miss—or I should say Signorina—Katerina Valentino.”

Colin stared open-mouthed at Christopher"s words, and James choked on his brandy.

“What?” he demanded. “Is she hideous?”

“No,” Colin said cautiously, “she"s… powerfully timid.”

“Boring, really,” Cary added. “I tried dancing with her once. Felt badly she was standing alone. I don"t think I saw her eyes once during the entire waltz, and if she said a word, I didn"t hear it.”

That didn"t sound promising. Christopher flung himself backwards against the upholstery and glanced out the window, taking in the details of his surroundings, as was his habit.

In the brilliant crimson light of the sunset, the red bricks of the row house across the narrow cobblestone street seemed to glow, the light diffused by the particles of soot that always hung in the air. In a city whose population has been swelling and is predicted to reach nearly six million in the next decade or so—with nearly all homes warmed by coal—soot and haze are inevitable. The added soot from steam-powered factories only made it worse.

In a city whose population has been swelling and is predicted to reach nearly six million in the next decade or so—with nearly all homes warmed by coal—soot and haze are inevitableA strangely-scented draft seeped around the window, reminding Christopher that the vicarage also sat uncomfortably close to the Thames. “Well, I told Mother I would meet her, so I will. If she"s nothing, at least I can say I tried.” Christopher sighed, taking another sip of his drink.

Cary snorted.

“So, gentlemen, what do we have to look at today? Something… intriguing?” he asked, changing the subject. “That "newly discovered" work by Byron?”

“I read it. It was an utter fraud.” Cary dismissed it with a wave of his brandy glass. “I suspect a barrister-in-training. It reads like legal documentation. No, no. I have something we"ve never seen before.”

“What is it?” Christopher asked, leaning forward.

“The poet is called… Browning.”

“Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” Colin complained. “Her poetry is hardly worth our time. A lot of girly sonnets to be used on susceptible young women. I"m not trying to woo one of you.”

“No, i***t,” Cary rebuked his friend with a laugh, “her husband Robert. I"ve never read any of his works before, but the title is promising.”

“And that is?” Colin pressed.

“‘Porphyria"s Lover,’” James announced, lifting a folio from his side table and producing a crisp sheet of printed paper.

Christopher raised his eyebrows. “It does sound intriguing. Perhaps he"ll be the next Shelley. Who"s reading?”

“I"ll read,” Colin volunteered, grabbing the folio from James" hands. “‘The rain set early in tonight/ The sullen wind was soon awake,’” he began, and then continued reading.

As he progressed through the poem, Cary raised his eyebrows in pleasure as the young lady partially undressed and cuddled up to her lover. And then, the poem took an unexpected turn.

“‘I found/A thing to do, and all her hair/in one long yellow string I wound/three times her little throat around/And strangled her.’”

Cary"s eyebrows snapped together.

Christopher had to tighten his jaw to prevent it from dropping open. This is no lascivious love poem.

This is no lascivious love poemColin started at what he had just read but bravely continued to the end, as the murderer embraced the corpse of the woman who had once loved him. “‘And yet God has not said a word,’” he finished.

“Good Lord,” Cary said at last, dark eyebrows rolling like a ship on the sea of his discomfort. “What the devil was that?”

“I don"t know,” Colin replied. “I"ve never heard anything like it. How… distasteful.”

They both looked at Christopher. The subject matter appalled him, and yet…a new thought germinated, took root, and grew. “I think he was trying to make a point rather than a beautiful poem,” Christopher said cautiously. “Social reform, you know? Speaking out against violence towards women. Certainly, things like this do happen.”

“Are you defending it?” Colin"s disbelief hung heavy in his voice. “It"s terrible. It hardly rhymes. I"m going back to Tennyson. At least he"s elegant. Besides, any girl stupid enough to trust such a madman must know the risk.”

“I don’t think so,” Christopher said without thinking, his mind preoccupied with trying to understand what he felt—let alone thought—about all the new ideas the poem had generated.

“You’ve been talking to your mother too much,” Cary said, breaking the tension with a laugh.

The teasing bark shook Christopher"s mind back to the present.

“It"s only a poem, Bennett,” Cary added. “Don"t read so much into it. As for me, I"ve had enough for one evening. Shall we go get some dinner at the club?”

“Yes,” Christopher replied, shaking off the somber mood of the poem. “Colin?”

“Sorry, no money.” The young nobleman shook off the offer with a shrug but hunger glowed fever-bright in his eyes.

“I"ll pay for you,” Christopher offered.

Colin swallowed. “Very well.”

Setting aside their glasses and collecting their coats, they went out.