Charming Artemis by Sarah M. Eden

Chapter Thirty

Artemis was utterly unreachable. She kept entirely to herself. She spoke to no one and did not emerge from their bedchamber, except at night when the house was still. Charlie’s concern only grew when Linus said he had also failed to chip away at the walls she had so firmly re-erected. He’d been hopeful about the future ahead of them. All of that felt lost now.

Fortunately, his brothers had provided him with a welcome distraction. Sorrel had reached the point where she needed the aid of a wheeled chair. She had, however, adamantly refused to accept the aid of a Bath chair. As Philip had explained it, her objections arose from the fact that Bath chairs provided the user with almost no true independence. They were large and cumbersome and could not be used without a second person being involved.

The task had been set to all the brothers to sort the matter of a wheeled chair that was a blessing rather than a curse. The lot of them had navigated any number of tricky puzzles over the years, including lowering a soon-to-be sister-in-law out of a window using ropes. They were determined to sort this latest quandary as well.

Charlie was seated at a table with Corbin and Jason, the three of them bent over a stack of parchment, sketching out various ideas for a wheeled chair better suited to Sorrel’s needs.

“Bath chairs are designed like pony carts,” Corbin said. “Pony carts aren’t meant to be self-operated or agile.”

Jason nodded. “Its elongated shape is a significant part of the problem. If it were more like a proper chair without the wheel in the front . . .”

Charlie shook his head. “Without that wheel, the chair would constantly tip over.” He made a quick sketch as he explained. “It’s like an unbalanced equation: it will defy sorting until symmetry is achieved. The front wheel of a Bath chair prevents the chair from spinning forward on its axis, while the weight of that front extension prevents the chair from spinning backward. Having only the one axis leaves it unbalanced.”

“Perhaps small feet in the front?” Jason suggested, using his lead pencil to add little feet to Charlie’s one-axled sketch. “Short enough that if she leaned back a bit, they’d be off the ground and the wheels could move.”

“She would tip all the way back,” Charlie said. “It cannot be stable with only one axle. That is the reality of physics.”

Corbin rubbed at his chin. “Cabriolets tip when not hitched up.”

“Precisely,” Charlie said. “So long as our design has only one axle, Sorrel’s chair will tip as well.”

“But putting a second axle in front, like in a Bath chair, renders the contraption too cumbersome to navigate the house and corridors and rooms filled with furniture. She would be limited by it, not liberated.”

“There is an answer. I know there is.” Charlie looked to his brothers. “The missing variable is there somewhere if only we can identify it.”

Corbin dropped a hand on his shoulder. “None of us will abandon this or her.”

“Of course we won’t,” Jason added his determination. “We are the Jonquil Freers of Prisoners. No one is abandoned. No one is forgotten.”

The deeply familiar motto, one adopted by the lot of them in childhood and recited whenever they came to one another’s rescue, proved both a reassurance and a bit of sadness in that moment. They were helping Sorrel, and Charlie was glad of that. But Artemis was so very alone. She felt entirely abandoned and forgotten. Charlie wanted to help her, but it was more than he could do alone.

A knock sounded at the library door, odd since the door was not closed.

Charlie looked to Jason and Corbin, neither of whom rose to investigate. He was seated closer to the doorway, likely the reason they were leaving it to him.

As he approached the threshold, he spied Wilson standing still and silent, his chin tipped upward, his perfectly bald head held at a dignified angle. In his right hand, he held a battered black rod.

Charlie looked back at his older brothers. “Black rod,” he said.

Laughter answered the explanation.

Every one of the brothers knew what was expected of them, this ceremony being a long-established one amongst them, having been adopted from the centuries-old ritual calling parliament to session.

Charlie slammed the door shut—that was what he was required to do.

Three hard raps echoed off the door. Wilson would have done the knocking with the rod; that was an important part of the undertaking. Charlie opened the door again.

Wilson declared, “Mr. Corbin Jonquil, Mr. Jason Jonquil, and Mr. Charlie Jonquil, you are hereby commanded to remove immediately to the House of Peers.”

Their version of Black Rod’s summons to the House of Commons at the State Opening of Parliament was a bit muddled and simplified. Charlie thought he’d heard that Philip and Layton had reworked it while they were still young. Most of this had been decided upon when Charlie was a baby, perhaps even earlier than that. Being the youngest of so large a family meant he’d missed out on a lot of their adventures.

So while resuming their playacting with the Black Rod ritual was a bit juvenile, he was excited. There were few opportunities for him to feel connected to his brothers. He clung to every last one of them.

Wilson handed the rod over to Charlie before bowing and walking away. In the actual ceremony, the members of the House of Commons followed Black Rod with as much disinterest and ruckus disrespect as possible without actually injuring their dignity to the House of Lords. The brothers undertook the thing a bit differently; they traveled in whatever groupings they were summoned to the gatehouse, the brothers’ version of the House of Lords, where Philip and Layton reigned supreme. Both brothers had claim on titles, making them peers amongst the Jonquils.

“Seems to me we’ve a trek to make,” Jason said as he and Corbin passed Charlie. “Don’t neglect to bring the black rod with you.”

They made their way across the grounds. Corbin was as quiet as ever but appeared to be enjoying this favorite childhood adventure. The door to the gatehouse had been left open in anticipation of the arrival of the House of Commons.

The three of them stepped inside only to find all the other brothers had arrived already. Harold sat not far from the door. Stanley lounged comfortably in an old, battered chair. Philip, Layton, and Crispin were seated and waiting, appearing to be quite thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Charlie set the black rod on an obliging table. It was not meant to be removed from the gatehouse, except when used to extend the summonses. He was the last of them to take his seat.

“I see the House of Lords is well represented today.” Charlie motioned to the three of them.

“Couldn’t toss Crispin in with you lot,” Philip said. “He’s quite a fine and proper baron, you know.”

“Baron, yes,” Layton said. “Fine and proper . . . ” He gave a shrug.

“I defer to the earl,” Crispin said in condescending tones. “Please, your lordship, begin the proceedings.”

“Thank you, your lordship.” Philip turned toward Layton. “Your future lordship.”

Stanley made a show of being sick in his mouth. Jason muttered something along the lines of “Off with their heads.”

“We have assembled here today to address three pressing matters,” Philip said. “The first is my wife’s current difficulties.”

“We’re not going to do away with you, no matter Sorrel’s suffering,” Jason tossed out.

The brothers snickered and grinned. Philip pretended to be deeply offended.

“Allow me to slip us all past the theatrics,” Layton said. “Has anyone sorted out a better version of a Bath chair for Sorrel?”

“We worked on it a bit this afternoon,” Jason said. “Charlie pointed out the many ways in which we were dunderheads about it, but we’ve not found any solutions.”

“I do not believe I used the term dunderhead even once.” Charlie made the objection in a tone of dramatic disapproval.

Crispin laughed. “That is a tone I have heard your wife wield to great effect. She is having an influence on you.”

“And on your fashion sense,” Philip added. “I’m pleased to see you’ve kept it up.”

He was undeniably pleased at the thought that Artemis’s influence on him was both positive and apparent, and he hoped the same could be said in reverse. If only he knew how to lift her spirits and help her endure the heartbreak currently crushing her.

“We have sorted out that it is the front axle of a Bath chair that makes it so cumbersome,” Jason said, “but our very intellectual brother has rightly informed us that the front axle is also what makes the chair stable. We can’t simply do away with it.”

“Could the axle be moved behind the chair?” Harold asked.

Charlie nodded. “But it would only shift the cumbersomeness to the back.”

Philip rubbed at his temple. “She is quickly losing hope. I have to find a means of giving her back what she’s lost before she gives up entirely.”

How painfully familiar that sentiment was.

Stanley sat up a little straighter. “Philip, none of us is simply going to toss our hands up and say ‘Too bad, it’s not worth sorting.’ If your Sorrel needs a chair she can maneuver about in, then we will stop at nothing to get it for her. You know that.”

“We are Jonquils,” Harold said. “We save people.”

Philip’s composure returned once more. “Which, actually, brings us to the next matter before Parliament: the happiness of our newest sister.”

He was speaking, of course, of Artemis.

Philip continued. “She has been so obviously grief-stricken and downcast these past days. And though we all suspect Mater, Mr. Layton, and Artemis’s brother are aware of the reason for her sorrow, we are not so well-informed. And it is plain to see that her happiness is vitally important to Charlie’s.”

There was no point denying it. As featherbrained as his brothers could be at times, they were right on this score.

“Our marriage did not begin the way any of yours did,” Charlie acknowledged. “We weren’t granted the joy of marrying because we were in love. But I’ve come to know her better and . . . ” How did he put into words what he himself barely understood? “I can’t bear to see her unhappy without at least trying to—She tugs at my thoughts and—I would do anything—”

Philip waved a hand. “Yes, yes. You love your wife. We don’t need to sort that bit out.”

You love your wife.

“They had seemed to be doing better,” someone said.

“Hard to tell sometimes though,” someone else chimed in.

Charlie was too distracted to even identify the speakers. You love your wife.

“So what changed?”

You love your wife.

“Hold a moment, brothers,” Layton said. “Charlie’s either having an epiphany or a stroke.”

“I like Artemis better than I used to—I like her quite a lot, in fact—but I don’t know that I love her.”

“You do,” they all answered in near unison.

Charlie pressed the balls of his palms against his forehead. “I hated her not three months ago.”

“No, you didn’t,” Harold said. “She confused and frustrated you, but that’s not the same thing.”

Charlie shook his head. “None of your wives drive you mad.”

That was met with snorts and outright laughter.

“Perhaps not so mad as we drive them,” Jason said.

“But you love each other,” Charlie said. “You’ve known that from the beginning of your marriages. That makes a difference.”

Layton assumed the kindly, knowing bearing he was rather famous for among them all. “Mater and Father didn’t know that at the beginning of theirs, and I can’t imagine any of us don’t still aim to claim half the love they shared. Beginnings do not determine endings, Charlie.”

“But how do I skew our chances toward a happy ending?”

“You let us help you.” Corbin didn’t often break his silence. When he did, everyone listened. “Tell us what’s causing her pain, and we’ll—we’ll do all we can to—to alleviate it.”

It would help to talk about the situation. It would help even more to not be alone in facing it.

“Artie’s mother died when she was born, and her father was—let us just say that ‘neglectful’ falls horribly short of the mark.” Charlie rose and began pacing the small, crowded gatehouse. “When she was still little, a gentleman passed through her village. Through a series of circumstances, they sort of adopted each other. He passed through a few more times, and their connection grew to the point that she thought of him as a father. She has spent the years since looking for him, hanging all her hopes of healing from her own father’s neglect and dismissal on finding the man she came to refer to as her Papa and being reassured by his fondness for her that she was a person worth caring about.”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck.

“I promised her I would help her find him. If you’d heard her recount her history with him or seen the pleading in her eyes, you wouldn’t doubt how important it was for her to have him in her life again. He was clearly a member of Mater’s generation, so I recounted what information I had to her, and she knew very quickly who he was.”

They were watching him closely, listening raptly.

“It was Father.”

A collective intake of breath. A couple whispered exclamations of surprise.

“He had been passing through after visiting Lord Aldric and happened upon her weeping by a shop because she was lost.”

“He never could turn away from a crying child,” Stanley said.

“After that, Father changed his usual route when traveling to either Lord Aldric’s home or Mr. Barrington’s to make certain he always passed through her village. From what Mater and Mr. Layton have told me, he did what he could to learn her name without raising any alarms in the area or in her family. He never was able to, but he worried about her, just as he worried about Arabella and Sarah and Scott—”

“And me,” Crispin added.

“Realizing the gentleman she pinned all her hopes on passed away and has been gone for the entirety of the years she’s been looking for him has devastated her,” Charlie said. “It’s as if every breath of hope was squeezed from her and she has nothing left. She won’t talk to anyone, interact with anyone. She has entirely collapsed in on herself, suffocated by her grief, and I don’t know how to reach her there.”

For a moment, there was no discussion, no movement. Had Charlie finally found the crisis his family was not equal to addressing?

“She’s mourning the loss of a dream,” Philip said. “That is a very deep and personal grief. Has she other dreams to cling to?”

He thought on it. Artemis hadn’t expressed many hopes or aims or wishes. Marrying for love had at least been implied, but that dream had also been snatched away. “She said once that she wished ladies of birth were permitted to open dress shops. She and Rose, her abigail, are remarkably good at designing and fitting gowns; they are constantly undertaking it. But that’s not something I can give her.”

“Why not?” Jason asked.

Charlie looked over at him. “Ladies cannot run shops. Her reputation would be ruined, and no one would patronize it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen alike run establishments quite regularly, actually,” Jason said. “They simply do so with the help of a go-between.”

“Truly?”

Crispin joined the discussion. “My brother-in-law, Henley, has some experience in such things. He could likely offer insights and warnings of potential pitfalls.”

Those pitfalls were numerous. “Is he dependable enough to entrust with such a secret?”

Without hesitation, Philip and Crispin both said, “Yes.”

He didn’t want to get his hopes up. The thought of giving Artemis one of her dreams, especially one that she had never imagined was possible, filled him to bursting. But what if they were wrong? What if he tried, only to disappoint her again? He knew in his bones she would not recover from that.

“What else can we do for her?” Harold asked.

“Bribery?” Crispin suggested.

“There’s not enough money in all the Lampton coffers to make her happy about being one of us,” Philip said. “A comedown for one with her sense of fashion and Society. Except for me, of course.”

Laughs and looks of lighthearted annoyance were tossed about in abundance.

“Could we offer her a puppy?” Layton suggested.

“Ginger biscuits?” Jason tossed out.

They were jesting, but Charlie had every confidence they were taking the matter seriously. “Make it bread pudding and sweetshop peppermints, and you might just be on to something.”

They looked at him, curious.

“Bread pudding is her favorite dessert,” he explained. “And Father purchased her a peppermint at her village sweetshop more than once.”

“He did like sweets,” Corbin said.

With a look of nostalgia, Philip said, “He probably was as excited about going inside the shop as she was.”

“I don’t remember that about him,” Charlie said. “Maybe I should tell Artemis about that. It might help.” He shrugged. “But then, what do I know?”

“Don’t fret,” Layton said. “We’ll not let you drown.”

Relief rolled over Charlie. Far from stumped, his brothers were going to help him. Better still, they were going to help Artemis.

“What is our third item for discussion?” Jason asked Philip. “You indicated three matters, and we’ve discussed only two.”

Philip steepled his fingers and eyed them all with a look a pirate captain would have been hard-pressed to match for authority and mischief. “Brothers, I think it is time and past we did something about George Finley.”