“Then why is he threatening to take it all away? Just look at this place he’s put us in.” I jerk my head toward the oil portraits glowering from the walls, the bronze statues, the monstrous furniture imported from Europe, the mahogany staircase that winds up to the second floor, where a mirrored, octagonal ballroom awaits. From inside the dining room down the grand hall, I hear the house servants—two of Pa’s three slaves, the other being our aforementioned driver. They clank silverware against dishes and speak in low tones as they prepare the room for our Sunday dinner.
“How can he say he may not be able to afford my education,” I ask, “when he’s rolling around in piles of money? He’s one of the richest men in Virginia right now.”
“All he wants is for you to show him gratitude for what he’s done for you. Please, go upstairs and wish him a good morning. Start the day together on a peaceful note.” Ma smooths out the lapel of my coat. “For me.”
“He keeps calling himself a ‘self-made man.’ What a laugh!”
“Go! We have family visiting later today. And Aunt Nancy will return from her visit to the countryside soon. I don’t want tension in the house.” She backs away two steps and folds her hands in front of the skirt of her gray dress, watching to see whether I’ll obey.
I do, for her sake, not because I want to show any gratitude to Pa.
“The gay wall of this gaudy tower,” I say in my head during my climb up the winding staircase, my soles sinking against plush velvet runners, “Grows dim around me—death is near.”
I linger in the doorway, my fists clenched at my sides, feeling small and insignificant in this cold, garish tomb of a house. Near my right elbow, a bust of Pallas surveys the room from her post upon a marble pillar. A pair of medieval swords hang in a crossed position on the bricks of the fireplace, and above Pa’s head, a Revolutionary War musket awaits further action in its wooden mounting on the wall, next to an anxious clock that ticks away the seconds.
“Good morning, Pa,” I say, my voice shattering the near silence.
Only his eyes move, shifting in my direction. “How was church?”
I shrug. “Bishop Moore preached once more about God punishing Richmond through the fire.”
“How is Ma’s cough?”
“It worsened when we rode in the carriage through the snow. She sounds better now, though.”
Pa nods with a grunt and returns his attention to his book. The echoes of our shouting match from the night before thrum across the walls, which, just like downstairs, house shadowy oil paintings from centuries past, as well as faded yellow tapestries that smell of dust and mildew. Pa is a ferocious consumer of art—a wolf that feasts on the carcasses of long-dead geniuses. And yet he calls me a disappointment whenever I insist of late that I aspire to make my living as an artist.
I turn to leave.
“Where are you going?” he asks, that Scottish brogue of his making it hard to tell whether his tone is stern or light.
“To my room.”
“To write?”
My neck bristles. “I’m simply going to jot down two harmless little lines. They came to me during my climb up the stairs just now.” I peek over my right shoulder to gauge his reaction. “I remember what you told me last night about my writing, but it’s the revised opening couplet for the second stanza of ‘Tamerlane.’”
He closes his eyes with a wince and a belch, as though “Tamerlane” just gave him indigestion.
“Well,” I say, remembering Ma’s request for peace, “good morning to you.”
“You said the lines just came to you?” he asks before I slip away.
“Yes.” I turn back around.
Pa sits perfectly still in his chair, but something about the way he’s staring at me, his mouth pensive, his mind obviously churning, gives the impression that he’s trembling. He lifts his chin with a stare so cold, so devoid of emotion, he injures me more than if he were yelling at me or whipping me.
This is precisely how John Allan keeps me in his clutches. All the pride he once showered upon me when I was his intelligent little pet with long ringlets—his wee, charming fellow, whom Ma dressed in bright yellow trousers and a purple jacket to show off to their friends—drains from his eyes. He glares at me with the contemptuous stare he’s honed so well, as though I’m a stranger who’s swindled him out of his happiness.
“I never asked for you to bring me into your life,” I say.
Well, no, that’s not true. I don’t actually speak the words aloud. I long to remind him that he—a grown, free, relatively sharp-witted man—agreed to bring me into his home a month before my third birthday. And yet I don’t.
“I used to be just like you, Edgar.” He points at me with a long, crooked finger that rocks to and fro. “I believed myself a talented god—an artful wooer of women—who could seduce the world with language.”
My father, I now realize, is already a tad drunk this fine February morning.
“Yes, I know,” I say. “You’ve told me several times of your talent for writing. You were the next William Shakespeare.”
“Just like you’re the next Byron.”
I respond with a smile to deflect the sting of his barb.
With a lazy, languid movement, Pa reaches out to a candle that burns in a pewter stick on the table beside him. He pinches the flame between his fingers and snuffs it out. The soft sizzle of protest, the sudden whiff of smoke, make me gasp. I recall Bishop Moore’s warnings of muses inspiring us from firelight and shadows.
“What are the two new lines of ‘Tamerlane’?” Pa then asks, which throws me completely off balance, and before I can even think to hesitate, I respond:
“‘The gay wall of this gaudy tower/Grows dim around me—death is near.’”
Pa leans forward in his chair, his head tilted to his right, his elbows creaking against the armrests of his burgundy throne. His jaw waggles back and forth; he appears to swish my poetry around in his mouth and taste the flavor of every syllable and letter. His shaggy red eyebrows rise with interest, and for a moment I believe he might proclaim that he approves of the lines.
“Don’t write them down,” he says instead.
I blink, confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“We went over this very thing last night, Edgar. Quell the urge to compose these poems of yours. Snuff out your literary ambitions. Do something industrious for once in your life.”
“I know you don’t want me making a living as a writer, but why must you insist I refrain from at least enjoying the one thing that makes me happy in this wretched life of mine?”
“Oh, please.” He huffs and leans back in his chair. “Stop your melodrama.”
“It’s not melodrama, Pa. It’s the truth. I’m not happy unless I’m writing.”
“I’m the one who’ll be paying your expenses for the University of Virginia. I’m the one who’s been pouring money into your future for years. I don’t want to see you penning any more lines of poetry.”
“But—”
“If I walk into your room later today and find that new couplet penned in fresh ink, you’re through with your education. Do I make myself clear?”