All's Fair Part 3
All's Fair part 3, fourth story in the Regency Sentinel series, J/B.
PG here. Jim tells his family of his travel plans. Next installment should be the sea journey. This section references the previous stories in small ways.
"I cannot say which of you is the greater madman!" William Ellison snapped out the words with the impatience he always had for things he couldn't control - his own body, the ways of the world, and his elder son in particular. "South America! A journey of months into countries ravaged by civil war and Spaniard misgovernment, when there are not savages laying in wait. And all so that Sandburg may play explorer - or so I surmise, since you are hardly communicative as to his reasons."
"Sandburg's reasons are of no matter to you, Father." Jim had stood by now. He could not stay sitting with his father spitting out this invective, regardless of the man's inability to rise from his own chair. It was a small advantage to Jim's morale.
"His reasons are of great matter to me when they mean that he must drag you with him. Your dependency upon him..." William halted. It griped his pride that any Ellison must be dependent upon the likes of Blair Sandburg, and Jim's clear loyalty and affection towards the man griped even more. William was dependent upon servants for the most basic of care. That didn't mean that he held any of them in liking. "He knows of it, and he still insists on an action that means you must risk harm to yourself, whether you stay or go.'
"I doubt that Blair considers that I'm dependent on him."
"Oh, I am sure that it's quite the other way around."
William had never overcome his suspicion of Blair's motives for his friendship with Jim. So the man had some small resources of his own. Spending half of his time at Jim's home surely enabled economies which Sandburg might put to his own enjoyment. And William knew that his son might not move within Society the way that William once had, the way that Stephen and Louise did now, but he was in no doubt that Jim's friendship gave Blair Sandburg a prestige that he would never have otherwise.
Jim bit back any defence he might have made of his friend. His father would never believe it, and if he ever did he might turn his intellect, which was strong enough within the confines that William had chosen, to finding out why Blair and Jim were so close. William understood that the two of them shared one form of physical relationship, strange though it was. His understanding had thus far looked no further.
"Sandburg can go where he pleases," Jim said. "That's his business. If I choose to follow, that's my own."
"Rather than take the chance of descending into illness without him? I doubt that this business between you will protect either of you from the yellow fever or malaria. God knows that England sees its plagues, but it's a far more healthful land than where you plan to go."
"Nevertheless, I will go."
"Yes. Am I supposed to grateful for the courtesy of your information?"
"You may be grateful or not as you please," Jim replied heatedly. "I was never aware that you required more than courtesy of me, aside from obedience, of course. I regret that you will receive only the one."
"And little enough of that," William said waspishly.
At that sting, Jim was filled with a childish desire to fling the last of the truth at his father, to declare that Blair was his love and his lover and that Jim would follow him for far better reasons than selfish bodily need, whatever his misgivings were. He could imagine shock dulling the eagle sharpness of his father's face, the humiliation that an Ellison had birthed such a cuckoo in a nest of privilege and propriety. It would be his mother's fault, no doubt.
Jim had just restraint enough to keep his secret within his mouth, but no more tolerance for remaining in the presence of his father. "I see no point in turning over old arguments. I'll be gone soon enough. The end of the month most likely." He turned for the door.
"I might be dead before you return."
Jim halted sharply, his face twisted in embarrassment that William Ellison of all men should play that card. "Oh, for God's sake, Father!"
"It's a truth." Williams pale face was unapologetic in expression.
"And how would it change anything?" Guilt and anger made Jim cruel.
William accepted that his ploy was ineffective. His own pride would permit no more. He was no woman to moan, 'oh, think of your parent' and then reach for the smelling salts. "You have a harsh way of looking at things, my son."
"I know from where I learned it." Jim left, slamming the door behind him, and William was left to mull over the unsatisfactory nature of his dealings with his son. His grief over it he admitted to no-one; indeed, he barely admitted it to himself.
***
Jim made his way down the expensively carpeted stairway in a stew of righteous anger. He hadn't expected his father to greet the news with pleasure, but to bring out the same old suspicions of Blair - and that last effort... His father must die as all men had to die, and Jim told himself that it didn't matter if Jim was in South America or England when the inevitable finally came.
And now he owed Sally the same news that he owed his father. He had advised her that he would see her when he was finished with William, and Jim suspected, quite rightly, that she would be ready with food and tea, as if Jim was the small child that he once was. Even then, fruitcake had been an ineffective panacea.
He knocked at Sally's door and let himself in.
"And for what do we employ footmen, my dear?" Sally asked, a twinkle in her eye.
"I know where to find you without a lackey to show me the way," Jim said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. The room smelled of potpourri and wax, and the tea and sweet delicacies sitting on the little table.
Jim settled himself. His face was schooled, but Sally knew William and Jim well.
"You did not leave your father's corpse behind you?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"No," Jim said morosely. "Although it was made clear to me that my news is likely to slay him."
This checked Sally's hand; the teapot tilted above the cup but not enough for anything to flow from the spout.
"You jest?" Her tone was uncertain though. She knew Jim well enough to know that turmoil hid behind that tense, restrained expression.
"Not at all. I intend to travel, and this will apparently break my father's heart."
Sally ignored the bitter sarcasm to dig for more information.
"Then you must be travelling a great distance."
"South America," Jim said, and looked directly at her, waiting for her reaction. He received one to satisfy him, as the teapot clattered noisily back down to its silver tray.
"South America!" Sally exclaimed. She could not have sounded more amazed if Jim had declared that he would fly to the moon.
"Peru to be precise," Jim said, sipping with unwonted care at the tea in its delicate cup.
"Peru!" Sally repeated, dazed by these foreign vistas. She recovered herself soon enough. "For what earthly reason would you travel to such a place? The continent, perhaps. But Peru!"
Jim shrugged, and Sally calmed enough to do a little reasoning.
"If you don't want to go then why go at all?" Then she answered her own question. "I take it that this is Blair's grand plan." Her face became troubled. "Could he not consider you in this matter?"
Jim's mouth tightened, and he placed the cup back down on the table between them. "Why? Is Sandburg to remain ever tied to nurse-maiding me? He's not my servant."
Sally's hands fluttered in deprecation. "Of course not. But such a distance and to such a place. When you both know that there is this - tie - between you." Stephen had made explanations to the family when Jim had recovered from his illness of 1814. It was a strange thing, that one human being could have such an influence on another, but the world was full of the unexpected. Sally wished only that nature might provide such a convenient mutuality in other matters.
"It's important to Sandburg."
"To do with his studies I suppose. And you have travelled before, when your 'condition' didn't trouble you."
Sally had visited Ashford on occasion, had even called upon them at Blair's house, and she liked Blair. He was an unlikely companion for Jim and betrayed his lack of breeding all too often, but still, Sally liked him. He was attentive and charming to her, even if he did tend to run on upon subjects that were beyond her. She enjoyed his assumption that she might care for something beyond tea and gossip.
Jim had no inclination to explain that they were crossing half the globe because of dreams, and turned to another topic. "I expect that Father will be in no good mood. A warning to you."
Sally smiled. "Bless you, my dear. If I let your father's moods distress me I'd have had no peace these thirty years. And since his accident he has little troubled me. Why call me in to discuss the business of the house, so long as all goes well?" She shared an ironic glance with Jim. He had been called to his father's presence all too often before he left home. "But it does distress me that you are always at loggerheads."
"Then you must have been distressed these thirty years and more."
"He's no longer young, my dear. And he knows that he made errors with you." It struck Jim that Sally was no longer young, either. But she, at least, made no effort to blackmail him with frailty.
"Perhaps I made errors with him, too. But he must needs throw his age in my face, along with Sandburg's presumed motives. I won't have it, Sally, I won't!" Jim stopped; his voice was too loud. He shouldn't let this anger him so much, but it was all of a piece with everything that was in the past. Jim never could be the acceptable son.
"He has never met Blair. And it's hard for him to accept that your closest intimate is - well, I am fond of Blair, but he is hardly a usual friend for someone of our degree."
"He's never asked to meet him. Just assumed from beginning to end that Sandburg seeks his own advantage."
"It's the way of the world, Jim. You know that." At the furious light that sparked in Jim's eyes, Sally said, "No, no. I didn't mean that Blair is not your good and loyal friend. But you know what people think."
"People think too much upon all the wrong subjects."
Sally fiddled with the ribbons of her dress. "How long do you think you will be away?"
"A year, most likely. At the least. It's a long voyage, and then Sandburg wishes to travel the interior of the country."
"So he has grown tired of travelling through his books and plans to see for himself at last."
"Something like that. And I will travel upon his coat-tails."
Sally rose and tugged at the bell-pull. "I will the atlases fetched from the library, and you can show me where Blair's coat-tails will drag you. And you must write me letters."
Jim grinned. "There's every chance that I will come back before they reach you."
"That's as may be," Sally said. "And make sure that I can share them with my friends. There is such a glamour to a letter from foreign parts."
"I will do my best." The footman arrived, and Sally sent him forth on his errand to the library.
***
Stephen was as surprised by the news as his father and his cousin. However, he had endured bigger shocks of knowledge about his brother than the idea that he might travel to some alien land on the whim of Blair Sandburg, and so he offered Jim wine and snuff and sat the both of them down in his study.
"Sandburg has always been restless of mind, and now he must be restless of body. I suppose it's only a wonder that it hasn't come before now." Stephen smiled. "Although Rome or even Germany would surely have been a more pleasant destination."
"But he speaks no Italian or German," Jim said, and sipped his wine. It was more to his taste than the tea he'd drunk with Sally. His discussions with his father were never eased with the trivialities of refreshments, which was as well. Jim doubted he could swallow in such circumstances.
"Why South America, Jim?"
"You remember I spoke of that woman; Alicia Bannister."
Stephen winced. "I'm not likely to forget." Alicia Bannister; thief, would-be murderess. Associate of the Duke of Stavely, which had disturbed Stephen at least as much as all the rest.
"Blair obtained papers from her. They mention Peru, and matters relating to my senses."
"I see. But why now? It's years since."
"As everyone observes, travel to Peru is no small undertaking."
"It's a dangerous one, there's no denying."
"Ah well. If Sandburg and I never return, all the more for Thomas and Amelia."
Stephen glared at his brother, offended. "I am never sure if you restrain your tongue around Sandburg, or if he is simply more inclined to forgive your odd sense of humour."
"Something of both, I think." Jim tilted his glass towards his brother. "My apologies. Father threatened me with his impending death when I broke the news to him. Perhaps it turned my head to such thoughts."
"Impending death?" Stephen barked.
"Calm yourself, little brother. He's no more likely to die today than he was any other day. He merely pointed out that he was no longer young, and that South America is a goodly distance to return from for a funeral."
"Heaven avert." Stephen stirred uncomfortably in his chair. "We are none of us getting younger. Damn me, I've turned forty."
Jim turned gladly to a lighter subject. "You've kept more of your hair than I have. And Louise still looks admiringly upon you."
"As do I upon her. And you'd have more hair if you cropped it less brutally." Stephen paused. "The Sandburgs have done well by our family, I think, Jim. For all the difficulty of your intended travels."
"True enough," Jim replied.
Talk meandered into discussions of the journey, and the arrangements that Jim had made for his estate and his money. When Jim left, it was late. Stephen decided that he would visit his wife's room. Louise looked up at him from her little sofa beside the fire, and smiled sleepily.
"I was about to go to bed. I thought not to see you until the morning."
"And I thought you might wish to hear my news. Jim and Blair are to travel - to Peru if you please."
"Peru! Oh, that must surely be Blair's idea."
"Yes, it surely must, but my brother will travel with him."
"David and Jonathan," Louise murmured, low enough that Stephen did not hear her at first. When she repeated herself, he was hard put to control his face. Well, he thought dazedly, it was indeed a love surpassing that of women, but he didn't share that thought with Louise. There were things that decent women had no need to know.
PG here. Jim tells his family of his travel plans. Next installment should be the sea journey. This section references the previous stories in small ways.
"I cannot say which of you is the greater madman!" William Ellison snapped out the words with the impatience he always had for things he couldn't control - his own body, the ways of the world, and his elder son in particular. "South America! A journey of months into countries ravaged by civil war and Spaniard misgovernment, when there are not savages laying in wait. And all so that Sandburg may play explorer - or so I surmise, since you are hardly communicative as to his reasons."
"Sandburg's reasons are of no matter to you, Father." Jim had stood by now. He could not stay sitting with his father spitting out this invective, regardless of the man's inability to rise from his own chair. It was a small advantage to Jim's morale.
"His reasons are of great matter to me when they mean that he must drag you with him. Your dependency upon him..." William halted. It griped his pride that any Ellison must be dependent upon the likes of Blair Sandburg, and Jim's clear loyalty and affection towards the man griped even more. William was dependent upon servants for the most basic of care. That didn't mean that he held any of them in liking. "He knows of it, and he still insists on an action that means you must risk harm to yourself, whether you stay or go.'
"I doubt that Blair considers that I'm dependent on him."
"Oh, I am sure that it's quite the other way around."
William had never overcome his suspicion of Blair's motives for his friendship with Jim. So the man had some small resources of his own. Spending half of his time at Jim's home surely enabled economies which Sandburg might put to his own enjoyment. And William knew that his son might not move within Society the way that William once had, the way that Stephen and Louise did now, but he was in no doubt that Jim's friendship gave Blair Sandburg a prestige that he would never have otherwise.
Jim bit back any defence he might have made of his friend. His father would never believe it, and if he ever did he might turn his intellect, which was strong enough within the confines that William had chosen, to finding out why Blair and Jim were so close. William understood that the two of them shared one form of physical relationship, strange though it was. His understanding had thus far looked no further.
"Sandburg can go where he pleases," Jim said. "That's his business. If I choose to follow, that's my own."
"Rather than take the chance of descending into illness without him? I doubt that this business between you will protect either of you from the yellow fever or malaria. God knows that England sees its plagues, but it's a far more healthful land than where you plan to go."
"Nevertheless, I will go."
"Yes. Am I supposed to grateful for the courtesy of your information?"
"You may be grateful or not as you please," Jim replied heatedly. "I was never aware that you required more than courtesy of me, aside from obedience, of course. I regret that you will receive only the one."
"And little enough of that," William said waspishly.
At that sting, Jim was filled with a childish desire to fling the last of the truth at his father, to declare that Blair was his love and his lover and that Jim would follow him for far better reasons than selfish bodily need, whatever his misgivings were. He could imagine shock dulling the eagle sharpness of his father's face, the humiliation that an Ellison had birthed such a cuckoo in a nest of privilege and propriety. It would be his mother's fault, no doubt.
Jim had just restraint enough to keep his secret within his mouth, but no more tolerance for remaining in the presence of his father. "I see no point in turning over old arguments. I'll be gone soon enough. The end of the month most likely." He turned for the door.
"I might be dead before you return."
Jim halted sharply, his face twisted in embarrassment that William Ellison of all men should play that card. "Oh, for God's sake, Father!"
"It's a truth." Williams pale face was unapologetic in expression.
"And how would it change anything?" Guilt and anger made Jim cruel.
William accepted that his ploy was ineffective. His own pride would permit no more. He was no woman to moan, 'oh, think of your parent' and then reach for the smelling salts. "You have a harsh way of looking at things, my son."
"I know from where I learned it." Jim left, slamming the door behind him, and William was left to mull over the unsatisfactory nature of his dealings with his son. His grief over it he admitted to no-one; indeed, he barely admitted it to himself.
***
Jim made his way down the expensively carpeted stairway in a stew of righteous anger. He hadn't expected his father to greet the news with pleasure, but to bring out the same old suspicions of Blair - and that last effort... His father must die as all men had to die, and Jim told himself that it didn't matter if Jim was in South America or England when the inevitable finally came.
And now he owed Sally the same news that he owed his father. He had advised her that he would see her when he was finished with William, and Jim suspected, quite rightly, that she would be ready with food and tea, as if Jim was the small child that he once was. Even then, fruitcake had been an ineffective panacea.
He knocked at Sally's door and let himself in.
"And for what do we employ footmen, my dear?" Sally asked, a twinkle in her eye.
"I know where to find you without a lackey to show me the way," Jim said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. The room smelled of potpourri and wax, and the tea and sweet delicacies sitting on the little table.
Jim settled himself. His face was schooled, but Sally knew William and Jim well.
"You did not leave your father's corpse behind you?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"No," Jim said morosely. "Although it was made clear to me that my news is likely to slay him."
This checked Sally's hand; the teapot tilted above the cup but not enough for anything to flow from the spout.
"You jest?" Her tone was uncertain though. She knew Jim well enough to know that turmoil hid behind that tense, restrained expression.
"Not at all. I intend to travel, and this will apparently break my father's heart."
Sally ignored the bitter sarcasm to dig for more information.
"Then you must be travelling a great distance."
"South America," Jim said, and looked directly at her, waiting for her reaction. He received one to satisfy him, as the teapot clattered noisily back down to its silver tray.
"South America!" Sally exclaimed. She could not have sounded more amazed if Jim had declared that he would fly to the moon.
"Peru to be precise," Jim said, sipping with unwonted care at the tea in its delicate cup.
"Peru!" Sally repeated, dazed by these foreign vistas. She recovered herself soon enough. "For what earthly reason would you travel to such a place? The continent, perhaps. But Peru!"
Jim shrugged, and Sally calmed enough to do a little reasoning.
"If you don't want to go then why go at all?" Then she answered her own question. "I take it that this is Blair's grand plan." Her face became troubled. "Could he not consider you in this matter?"
Jim's mouth tightened, and he placed the cup back down on the table between them. "Why? Is Sandburg to remain ever tied to nurse-maiding me? He's not my servant."
Sally's hands fluttered in deprecation. "Of course not. But such a distance and to such a place. When you both know that there is this - tie - between you." Stephen had made explanations to the family when Jim had recovered from his illness of 1814. It was a strange thing, that one human being could have such an influence on another, but the world was full of the unexpected. Sally wished only that nature might provide such a convenient mutuality in other matters.
"It's important to Sandburg."
"To do with his studies I suppose. And you have travelled before, when your 'condition' didn't trouble you."
Sally had visited Ashford on occasion, had even called upon them at Blair's house, and she liked Blair. He was an unlikely companion for Jim and betrayed his lack of breeding all too often, but still, Sally liked him. He was attentive and charming to her, even if he did tend to run on upon subjects that were beyond her. She enjoyed his assumption that she might care for something beyond tea and gossip.
Jim had no inclination to explain that they were crossing half the globe because of dreams, and turned to another topic. "I expect that Father will be in no good mood. A warning to you."
Sally smiled. "Bless you, my dear. If I let your father's moods distress me I'd have had no peace these thirty years. And since his accident he has little troubled me. Why call me in to discuss the business of the house, so long as all goes well?" She shared an ironic glance with Jim. He had been called to his father's presence all too often before he left home. "But it does distress me that you are always at loggerheads."
"Then you must have been distressed these thirty years and more."
"He's no longer young, my dear. And he knows that he made errors with you." It struck Jim that Sally was no longer young, either. But she, at least, made no effort to blackmail him with frailty.
"Perhaps I made errors with him, too. But he must needs throw his age in my face, along with Sandburg's presumed motives. I won't have it, Sally, I won't!" Jim stopped; his voice was too loud. He shouldn't let this anger him so much, but it was all of a piece with everything that was in the past. Jim never could be the acceptable son.
"He has never met Blair. And it's hard for him to accept that your closest intimate is - well, I am fond of Blair, but he is hardly a usual friend for someone of our degree."
"He's never asked to meet him. Just assumed from beginning to end that Sandburg seeks his own advantage."
"It's the way of the world, Jim. You know that." At the furious light that sparked in Jim's eyes, Sally said, "No, no. I didn't mean that Blair is not your good and loyal friend. But you know what people think."
"People think too much upon all the wrong subjects."
Sally fiddled with the ribbons of her dress. "How long do you think you will be away?"
"A year, most likely. At the least. It's a long voyage, and then Sandburg wishes to travel the interior of the country."
"So he has grown tired of travelling through his books and plans to see for himself at last."
"Something like that. And I will travel upon his coat-tails."
Sally rose and tugged at the bell-pull. "I will the atlases fetched from the library, and you can show me where Blair's coat-tails will drag you. And you must write me letters."
Jim grinned. "There's every chance that I will come back before they reach you."
"That's as may be," Sally said. "And make sure that I can share them with my friends. There is such a glamour to a letter from foreign parts."
"I will do my best." The footman arrived, and Sally sent him forth on his errand to the library.
***
Stephen was as surprised by the news as his father and his cousin. However, he had endured bigger shocks of knowledge about his brother than the idea that he might travel to some alien land on the whim of Blair Sandburg, and so he offered Jim wine and snuff and sat the both of them down in his study.
"Sandburg has always been restless of mind, and now he must be restless of body. I suppose it's only a wonder that it hasn't come before now." Stephen smiled. "Although Rome or even Germany would surely have been a more pleasant destination."
"But he speaks no Italian or German," Jim said, and sipped his wine. It was more to his taste than the tea he'd drunk with Sally. His discussions with his father were never eased with the trivialities of refreshments, which was as well. Jim doubted he could swallow in such circumstances.
"Why South America, Jim?"
"You remember I spoke of that woman; Alicia Bannister."
Stephen winced. "I'm not likely to forget." Alicia Bannister; thief, would-be murderess. Associate of the Duke of Stavely, which had disturbed Stephen at least as much as all the rest.
"Blair obtained papers from her. They mention Peru, and matters relating to my senses."
"I see. But why now? It's years since."
"As everyone observes, travel to Peru is no small undertaking."
"It's a dangerous one, there's no denying."
"Ah well. If Sandburg and I never return, all the more for Thomas and Amelia."
Stephen glared at his brother, offended. "I am never sure if you restrain your tongue around Sandburg, or if he is simply more inclined to forgive your odd sense of humour."
"Something of both, I think." Jim tilted his glass towards his brother. "My apologies. Father threatened me with his impending death when I broke the news to him. Perhaps it turned my head to such thoughts."
"Impending death?" Stephen barked.
"Calm yourself, little brother. He's no more likely to die today than he was any other day. He merely pointed out that he was no longer young, and that South America is a goodly distance to return from for a funeral."
"Heaven avert." Stephen stirred uncomfortably in his chair. "We are none of us getting younger. Damn me, I've turned forty."
Jim turned gladly to a lighter subject. "You've kept more of your hair than I have. And Louise still looks admiringly upon you."
"As do I upon her. And you'd have more hair if you cropped it less brutally." Stephen paused. "The Sandburgs have done well by our family, I think, Jim. For all the difficulty of your intended travels."
"True enough," Jim replied.
Talk meandered into discussions of the journey, and the arrangements that Jim had made for his estate and his money. When Jim left, it was late. Stephen decided that he would visit his wife's room. Louise looked up at him from her little sofa beside the fire, and smiled sleepily.
"I was about to go to bed. I thought not to see you until the morning."
"And I thought you might wish to hear my news. Jim and Blair are to travel - to Peru if you please."
"Peru! Oh, that must surely be Blair's idea."
"Yes, it surely must, but my brother will travel with him."
"David and Jonathan," Louise murmured, low enough that Stephen did not hear her at first. When she repeated herself, he was hard put to control his face. Well, he thought dazedly, it was indeed a love surpassing that of women, but he didn't share that thought with Louise. There were things that decent women had no need to know.