Evening Star

The knock came late in the day on the twenty-third of December.

If it had been most days that week, Henry Devereux would have been in his rooms, and it would have gone unanswered. Only he’d had in his mind a passage from Dante’s Inferno all afternoon and as light leaked from the final hour before nightfall—as it had all year, more or less—he was determined to read the thing, settle the exact passage, and then fling it from his thoughts. What was great literature but a failure in true crisis? Or so he had told himself before going down to the library and lighting the fire.

He had been left without servants. It had been on his father’s insistence. Henry had heard the entire exchange.

“If he chooses to remain in London, he will do so on his own.”

“Is Henry not to eat?” his mother had asked, the iron of her grief tempered and cold.

“He’s a substantial allowance. No reason he can’t face the world. This is London, not some backwater—”

“Islington, I insist you—”

“He joins the family or remains alone. At nineteen, he’s not a child.”

Oh, yes, Henry had heard, heard and chosen to stay where he was. Last December at Stonecrop had been unsupportable, this year promising an equal measure of misery. It was his own fault. All of it. One tragedy bringing on another and all responsibility squared firmly on his shoulders. That he still wore half-mourning irked his father. So let them be at a distance. Henry would not change. There was more to grieve than not.

Thus he had remained in the house at Baron’s Square, without so much as a footman.

No matter.

A Christmas of silence would be much better than any alternative.

It had been a quiet week of shadows, aided by the darkest nights of the year. Henry had passed nearly all his time in the house, setting a fire only in his own room with few exceptions. His aunt had remained in town, discreetly sending over a basket of cold meat, fruit, cheese, and bread. She’d included a few select bottles—expensive spirits—but they went untouched. Henry had set his high drinking of Oxford aside, as the remembering that came after the disassociation of a careless evening was too brutal. Unbearable, really.

These repeated thoughts cobwebbed their way across his unsteady mind as he sat on one of the two sofas before the fire. Dante was in his hand but still unopened. Henry rubbed his eyes, giving little attention to the waning light outside the windows. If only he could read something—anything—until his anger melted into a sullen, guilty relief that he had found a measure of comfort, despite it all. What a hellish, unending year.

Henry stood, tossing Dante onto his chair. And as he stood, the sickle-shaped moon of his own darkness rose with him.

A knock sounded.

In a house empty as a December mausoleum, the sound echoed with a cruel generosity.

The knock came again.

Henry stilled.

He was going to leave it unanswered, certainly. There was no one in London with whom he wished to speak.

The knock came a third time.

Henry did not quite remember if he’d decided to open the door, but there he was, pulling it open, a brace of cold air presenting itself to the stale hall without introduction.

From what he could later remember, it was the quality of the sky that struck him first. For it was not a typical London expanse, so often thick with man-made clouds of smoke and haze. No, what stretched overhead appeared to have been blown in from the sea on special request. And below the clouds but above the dark silhouette of St. Crispian’s, a break of blue so warm as to be turquoise. Perhaps it was his own imagination that touched the horizon with the early, white stars, like dabs of luminous paint. The image struck Henry so forcefully he took a deep breath. Then he became aware of the figure waiting on the landing. The man was more shadow than anything, backlit as he was.

“May I help you?” Henry said, his voice rough from neglect.

“I’ve come to rest at your fire a moment, if you’ve no other company.”

The dark house behind him had never betrayed Henry more than it did in that moment, for clearly there was no contrary claim he could make.

“My apologies, there isn’t a fire set in the drawing room,” he found himself saying, taking a half-step back, grasping for any excuse to leave his solitude undisturbed.

“I’d accept any fire you have, no matter the room. But let me introduce myself. I’m a neighbour here in St. Crispian’s. When I’m in town, that is. You can find me Whereabouts way. I’m an artist by the name of Declan Lion.”

“A pleasure,” came Henry’s automatic response, while his brain processed the words and their Irish lilt. And then, “Ah! Oh, I see. Mr. Lion! I— You’ve no idea how—” Henry straightened his already tight shoulders. “Your recent exhibit was—”

“It’s cold, Devereux. Where I’m from, a man brings his guest inside and offers him a drink before anything else.”

“Of course,” Henry said, feeling blood pulsing in his heart. He opened the door wider, closing it once Declan Lion had stepped into the hall. The darkness, previously a protection, was now an embarrassment. Only the hint of reflected light from the library reaching down the corridor. “Forgive the— You see, Mr. Lion, the staff have all gone, with the rest of my family. If you’re here to see my father—”

“No, no. ‘Tis you I’m here to see. A bit of luck on my part that you’ve not yet left London.”

Something inside of Henry felt, well, dusted off. “If you’ll follow me into the library, sir.”

“Gladly. A fire is always more steadfast in a library, or so I’ve found.”

 Henry led the way in disbelief for the dreamlike disruption to his solitude. But there were the footsteps behind him, and when he pushed the door of the library open to reveal the hearth, flanked by the two sofas, there was a generosity in the room, a warmth not previously felt.

“There now,” Declan Lion said as he stepped beside Henry. “A proper room. As many books as a soul could need, comfort, colour.” He whistled. “But there’s not holly about. Nor any ivy? Do you not Christmas, Devereux, or is that to be expected tomorrow for Christmas Eve?” When Henry didn’t answer immediately, the artist continued. “For you know that of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. Roses, now, we won’t find any about, except in Isaiah. Lo, how a rose. Which is hope enough for good Christian men to rejoice, and likely why God rests the merry gentlemen. But why not the gentlewomen? Are not enough of them merry? Likely not, being married to Englishmen and all.”

Henry didn’t mean to smile. It just rather happened. Like slipping on the ice of a frozen river. Declan Lion winked at him in return and asked, “Do you like carols, Devereux?”

“Yes, sir.”

This provoked Declan Lion to laugh. “Look at this young aristocrat saying Yes, sirrah, No, sirrah to the likes of me. Turning years of oppression on its head. I like the idea of this world’s order upside down. Not that I’m strictly Irish, by fact, but I am of soul. My father was one of your lot. There now, don’t look so surprised. I’m not a bastard, if you’ll forgive the word. The marriage was legal, a love match, too. But my mother now, well, she raised me for the island. The other one, that is. Enough of that. I see the cart there is well stocked.” He tsked. “But there’s no proper ale. What can one expect in a duke’s house? Let’s trust in the whisky, then. I’ll sit myself over here by the fire.”

And without so much as a glance at Henry—who was racking his brain for any similar situation in his carefully curated education regarding comportment and was unable to find one—Declan Lion moved towards the fire. He wasn’t a tall man, but neither was he short. He and Henry were almost of a height. Declan Lion’s dark hair was wild, his face lined prematurely and unafraid. The firelight caught on his eyes, reached for them hungrily, it seemed. Pale green, large, wide set, his eyes saw everything about him with uncomfortable clarity. As for his presentation, he was all faded blacks and comfortable lines, clean, but relaxed in a way Henry envied. Even in the rough-and-tumble school days of his boyhood, a straight line ran unalterably through his spine.

Mr. Lion, his gaze having perused the shelves with approbation as Henry went to the cabinet to prepare a drink, took a small sketchbook from the grey satchel over his shoulder, then eased the satchel to the floor beside the sofa opposite the one where Henry had been sitting. Henry watched from the corner of his eye as Mr. Lion fished in his jacket pocket for the stub of a pencil, and in the process, Henry noticed something escape with it, falling, paper light, to the floor. Declan Lion hadn’t taken notice, sitting on the sofa, crossing his legs, and opening his sketchbook.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, as if he’d just lit a cigar.

“Not at all,” Henry replied. He turned back to the cabinet and poured his guest two fingers of whisky, tipping the bottle over his own glass for a splash and nothing more, before returning to his guest.

“Bless you,” the artist said as he accepted his drink with a glance only, holding it with the same hand that steadied the sketchbook as if he’d done it a thousand times.

Henry bent down and picked the errant piece of paper from the floor, turning it over. It was an unused train ticket from earlier in the day.

“This fell out of your pocket,” he said.

“Did it now?” Mr. Lion replied, but his attention was given to writing the date above the early lines of a sketch. Henry watched as the letters appeared, beautiful and fluid. An art form in and of itself. Distinctive, yet clear enough to read. Upon finishing, Declan Lion looked up and held out his hand for his ticket.

“I’m afraid you’ve missed your train,” Henry said as he handed it back.

“The thing about life, my boy, is that there will always be another.”

Henry nodded, slowly, then becoming aware of himself, he moved to sit just opposite Mr. Lion, moving Dante aside as he did. Casting about for the proper way to host an unexpected conversation, he returned to the train ticket. “You still have business in London, then?”

“Indeed.” A sigh. “I needed to visit a friend. He’s in a bad way.”

“Ah. I’m terribly sorry. Has he long been ill?”

“In a way. You see, he’s not ill as much as he’s had a rather difficult year of it. So I decided to stay on, offer a bit of help.”

Henry moved the splash of whisky around the bottom of his glass, waiting.

Mr. Lion, taking a sip from his own glass, continued to draw effortlessly. “He’s been put through his paces, but too hard and for far too long. There’s a chasm that’s opened inside his chest. Despair carries out a lonely occupation and he can’t find his way out. I worry he believes it to be endless and doesn’t comprehend—however obscured by pain—that it isn’t. He’s young,” Declan glanced up then back down, “like yourself, and needs someone to walk into the darkness and stamp about on the floor he can’t remember is there. Knock about on the interior walls until he realises it’s not all void, but rather there is a great deal still left intact. We might have to repaint a few things, reupholster others. That’s fine. Life asks that of us, anyway, doesn’t it, Devereux?” And then he looked directly at Henry’s slack expression.

“Have you—” Henry lifted a hand to his temple. “Have you been able to see him then?”

“Yes.” Declan Lion looked up at Henry. “I have. Just today in fact.”

“I hope you left him well.”

Declan smiled. “Kind of you to say. More than leaving him well, I hope to give him a stronger understanding of how resilient he really is. But there will be time. I’ve a great deal of work to do in London over the course of the next year or two, and so I’ll be travelling down on the regular. Never mind all that. We’ve more interesting things of which to speak. I observed you at the open salon last month—your aunt brought you, the Countess of Alwick.” And then his trail of thought left the main road and was off through a field. Or so it seemed to Henry. “I rather like your aunt. We’ve had many a good conversation. You realise that she bought the house next door solely to irk your father? Otherwise, she would have outbid the baron instead.”

Henry’s gaze, having wandered to watch the artist’s hand at work, flashed up to Declan Lion’s face.

“I see that amuses you,” Mr. Lion replied without looking away from his sketch.

A burn in his cheeks, but Henry said nothing. There was an unexpected line of dark comedy in it all.

“Now where was I? Ah yes. You attended the open salon.” Declan Lion flipped the page of his sketchbook and now measured Henry as if he were a fit subject.

“Mr. Lion—”

“Declan.”

“Mr. Declan, that is, Mr. Lion.”

“Call me Lion.”

Henry, flustered, his cheeks pink for it, pressed his mouth into a line, then marched forward. “Why would a great artist—”

A guffaw at this.

“—choose to spend time in my company?”

Declan Lion, looking from his page to Henry then back again, frowned, face carrying more gravity for the firelight, his uncanny green eyes lit. He seemed to be giving Henry’s question due thought.

“Two reasons,” he answered at length. “I noted, despite it being clear that your aunt had forced you to accompany her to the open salon, how you studied the paintings—mine and others. You truly entered what was before you. Yes, you had quick recognition of what was done well, and gave little time for what was sloppy, or poorly executed. And you kept to yourself all evening long. But you could not conceal an excellent consideration. You’ve the soul of an artist bound to the fate of a sterner occupation.” Mr. Lion paused and let those words stand by themselves before he continued. “I thought to myself, there is a young man who has thoughts worth hearing. I’d like to know what they are. And something nudged your way this evening.”

Henry blinked. As if he’d taken a stunned step back. For he realised the terrible edges inside his chest—the razor pain that made it difficult to breathe—had been affected by those words. Not smoothed, no. But a gentle pressure had been applied by an expert hand, that seemed in no hurry to impose healing, but rather care. Henry felt exposed and comforted in equal measure.

But Declan Lion was back to his sketchbook.

“And the second?” Henry asked.

“Pardon?” The artist did not look up.

“The second reason, sir?”

“Glory be, son,” he said in comic exasperation. “If you call me sir one more time, I’ll have to find a switch out back in that fancy garden of yours.”

Henry’s expression did not falter. He was the son of a duke after all, and he wished an answer. He waited.

“Do you know all the things that can kill a man, Devereux?”

Henry hesitated, then, “Everything, sir.”

Mr. Lion laughed. “Quite right. Bullets, ropes, wild boars. Illness and age. Enemies of all sorts. But loneliness also can, you see. And anguish. The forces we let into the fissures and fractures of our bones. Aye.” He whistled. “They’re a far reach worse than most poisons, for they take a body to the same end but use memory and guilt and disproportioned torments to do the job. Brutal. Quiet. Almost impossible to prove, but a man can’t stand against them. It isn’t possible.”

Henry waited.

“At least, not on his own. The good book says with God all things are possible. So there we have it. Impossibility and possibility. Thankfully, when it comes to truth and contradiction, I’ve always tipped the balance towards the side of hope.” Declan Lion turned his sketchbook around to reveal a portrait of Henry, sitting in serious contemplation, the firelight outlining half his face. He looked older than he saw himself to be. He looked surer. He looked capable.

“You strike me,” Declan Lion closed his sketchbook and slid it into the satchel on the floor, “as a young man who not only appreciates art but would like to collect, to preserve, to support.”

Henry, feeling a complicated but not displeased confusion for having seen his image so captured, sat up all the straighter and leaned forward. “A friend of my father’s is a patron of the arts, a great collector. I intend to do the same. I— I think it very important.”

“Aye, it is at that. The smallest reason is one must pay for unused train tickets and the like.” Mr. Lion took another sip of his drink. “But why do you believe it to be important?”

No one had ever asked that question. It had been assumed, or told to Henry, by teachers at Eton, by his aunt, dons at Oxford. “I suppose…” And Henry, for the first time in fourteen months, released something—some lever, some pull—allowing unimpeded freedom to words that had nothing to do with mourning, describing instead composition and colour, proclaiming in impassioned and youthful assertion that art was the epicenter of cultural remembrance. Declan Lion treated such statements as those from an equal, in every way. He replied, questioned, told stories. He spoke like he painted. Confident strokes, but with time for consideration, pauses where the words hovered about the conversation before he added a dab of colour here, a brightening of an observation there. He was not a man of few words, but neither did it feel needlessly abundant. He was practised in the art of saying many things with a restrained palette.

After—what? An hour? Two? —Mr. Lion asked, “Have you had your supper, Devereux?”

“Supper? No, that is… I haven’t.”

“How fortuitous. I was going to make my way to The Cleopatra. A good meat pie, that. Why don’t you join? We’ve only just managed to get somewhere. Oh, there now. I can see by your face that you’ve never been. Can’t be! It won’t do. As a man of St. Crispian’s, you’ve got to show your face there on occasion. Tonight is as good a night as any.”

“Do you not have to find another train?”

“My wife will understand, and my daughter has a handful of presents awaiting in my satchel to smooth over my arriving a day later than planned. For you, Devereux, are worth a man’s time. Never forget that. Shall we?”

Henry felt the weight of what he had been carrying rise up against the idea. But for one night, for this night, he spoke as if there was no burden at all. “I’ll happily join you, Mr. Lion.”

“What dreadful habits you have. Lion. Or Declan. I can’t abide fuss. And I’ll call you whatever I like. Go put on your coat, fetch a scarf. It’s cold out, but nothing we can’t prepare for.”

Henry smiled. Again he pushed aside the heaviness.

Declan Lion stood. “I’ll wait for you outside. The evening is rare for these streets. Wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”

Henry followed him out of the library and watched as Declan Lion reached for the door with all ease, opened it, and stood awhile on the threshold. What had been turquoise was now faded into a royal blue. The clarity was leaving, whatever wind having moved on, letting the chimneys of London pull the false and opaque heavens low. But it was not as heavy as it would have been had the clarity never come.

The door left ajar, Declan Lion stepped down onto the pavement and waited.

A silent reiteration of the spoken invitation.

Yes. Yes, Henry Devereux would take it.