The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [52]
Boxer Byron heard the voices and hobbled towards them on his sore club foot. He saw them, he saw what they were doing, making a travesty of living love. He could see the couple, bound together felon-like with the harsh bindings of the law, seated among the people who had taken Mary from him. He quickened towards them, rolling his shoulder as he limped.
There were attendants between Fairmead House and their garden, he saw, to keep him away, so he stood at a distance and watched, waiting until one was distracted. A little girl child ran up to one and gave him cake. The man followed after her for a few yards. Byron hurried through the gap.
He barged into the drifting people and sought the doctor, declaring so. The doctor made himself known.
‘Where’s Mary?’ he demanded.
‘John,’ the doctor said. ‘You should not be here.’
‘Where’s Mary?’
‘Now is not the time or place. You will have to leave. This is my daughter’s wedding day.’ He beckoned to an attendant.
‘Your daughter? And mine is Vicky, your queen. So what do you have to say to that? I demand your obedience.’
‘John, you have to leave.’
‘Under what compulsion? Obey me.Where’s Mary?’
‘John . . .’
Byron saw the dead no in the doctor’s face, the shut door, and tried to punch it. He missed. The doctor stepped forward and tried to hug the poet’s arms to his sides while the people stared. Byron worked an arm free. From someone’s plate he grabbed up a piece of cake and in his rage crushed it so that its currants and sweet paste fell from between his fingers. He tried to fling the rest into the doctor’s face and wipe his fingers onto his smug expression. The doctor shut his eyes and leaned back. Then William Stockdale was upon them. He grabbed Byron’s arms and lifted him for a moment entirely off the ground. He set him down and yanked an arm up the poet’s back, twisting his bones.
‘Please take him away.’
‘Happily, doctor.’
‘To Leopard’s Hill Lodge . . . simply deteriorating and deteriorating . . .’ Smoothing his clothes, he turned to his guests, avoiding Dora’s hard stare. ‘Nothing to fear,’ he said. ‘Nothing to fear.’
Charles Seymour stood apart with the self-assurance of rank. He leaned back after the commotion had subsided, head cocked on one side, idly spiralling the wine in his glass and smiling faintly at the other guests. Hannah was despatched by her father, who had assiduously courted his presence, to speak to him. Annabella also he encouraged to converse with the young heir. No doubt, he told her with crude gallantry, she could charm him. Hannah was annoyed. She had failed to talk to Tennyson and the minutes were dribbling away. Also, she was no longer feeling even nearly fresh or attractive. She must have looked damp, pale, half-blind, fussing with her handkerchief and squinting. Then, as they made towards Charles Seymour, Tennyson passed closely by, and Hannah, falling now into the crater of the moment, said, ‘Mr Tennyson.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he replied. ‘Good day to you.’
Annabella squeezed Hannah’s arm, and did so again until Hannah understood.
‘Allow me to introduce my friend,’ Hannah said. ‘Miss Annabella Simpson. Mr Alfred Tennyson.’
Annabella curtsied in her graceful way, lowering her chin as she sank down, then raising her countenance upwards as she straightened, softly smiling. ‘Indeed,’ Tennyson said, and advanced his face close to hers so as to see her clearly. He spluttered with an embarrassed laugh. Then he stood tall and said, ‘And what sort of creature are you - nymph or dryad?’
Annabella giggled. ‘I’m afraid I am merely mortal.’ ‘To judge from your appearance, it seemed in order to ask. Beautiful day, no?’
Of course, of course. Hannah wiped her forehead. She let them talk on for a moment more, then pinched Annabella’s arm. Annabella turned and looked into her friend’s red eyes and understood.
‘If you would excuse me,’ she said, ‘I must go and speak to Mrs Allen. I haven’t done so yet. She must think me terribly rude.’
‘By all means.’ Tennyson bowed.
Hannah smiled.