6 July, 1891 — Greengrass Garden, Bartonburg

If pocket watches had limited uses, Ford likely would have burnt through the one he'd inherited from his father today as he continued to check the time every five minutes. Not that it made any difference; he got off of work at five just as he always did and then had three and a half agonizing hours to wait until he'd planned to meet Macnair. Luckily, he had things to occupy himself, otherwise he'd likely drive himself crazy pacing his room and trying to focus on poems and daydreaming. Dinner with his siblings would fill an hour, and before that he was expecting Wye for one of their usual reading sessions.

They'd moved from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, which was the inferior of the two works as far as Ford was concerned, but he was reserving his opinions on it until they'd gotten a bit farther so that he didn't influence Wye's experience too much. He liked to hear what Wye thought of it all after hearing it for the first time, so he kept his commentary to himself until they'd reached the breaks between books (or, occasionally, when they took a break because Wye had something to interject). Normally Ford looked forward to these meetings, but he scanned the passage they were about to read before heading to the garden today — titled Christ determines his path is made of suffering — and rolled his eyes. After the turn things had taken with Macnair, he simply wasn't in the mood for more poetry that wallowed in misery.

"What if we switched it up today?" he asked Wye after they'd exchanged greetings. "Something a little happier. Love poems, maybe. I've got a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese somewhere." Not that it needed to be love poems, necessarily, but they were certainly unlikely to be such a jarring mis-match from what he was feeling as Christ determines his path is made of suffering.

---

Barnaby, for his part, always felt entirely out of time when it came to these reading sessions – not that time meant a great deal to him to begin with, but when they were in the midst of Milton this might be the 1800s or the 1600s or indeed the Garden of Eden itself, before the dawn of anything so constraining on humanity as time.

But he had barely settled in before Greengrass had decided to disrupt the schedule. Barnaby did not mind a little spontaneity, to be sure; but this felt a little suspect, and he narrowed his eyes. “Happier?” he echoed, with some skepticism. What was he supposed to do with happier? He was dead! Where was he going to get the epic Miltonian drama of existence in a little love poem? “Well, are they much good? I did not even know the Portuguese wrote sonnets,” Barnaby remarked, raising an eyebrow idly. (He did not recall any especially famed Portuguese poetry from his own era, at least.)

Nor had he thought Greengrass’ tastes were much inclined that way, to happy love poetry. Maybe it was just the sort of person who worked in the Spirit Division – rather like they had sold away their lives to death prematurely – or the fact that Greengrass was unmarried at what, twenty-four? which in Barnaby’s mind was frankly quite late, seemed like a glaring oversight that he had not; but he had not, in short, expected Greengrass to be a very successful lover.

So this was a mystery indeed.

---

Ford couldn't help but chuckle at Wye's response. "They're not actually from the Portuguese. That's just the title," he explained. "The poet's perfectly English, I think. She's married to another poet, but I don't have any of his books." All of Ford's books of poetry were relics from the days before his father had died. He'd used to be in the habit of buying new books for himself once a month, or every two months at a stretch, because he liked reading new things; he'd been doing it ever since he was old enough to have an allowance from his parents. Since he'd taken charge of the finances, however, he'd never felt it was worth the expense to buy himself much of anything beyond the bare essentials, and books of poetry were, unfortunately, not essential.

"One minute, I'll grab it. You'll see," he said, before abandoning Milton on the garden bench and ducking back into the parlor. He returned a moment later with a slender purple volume. "They're fairly short. We could probably read all of them in one go, if you like."

---

Barnaby merely shrugged at the revelation about the Portuguese – or the English, as it be. He did not understand to any great extent, but he did not question it. He had missed a few literary developments since his living days, so perhaps by this era all the good titles had been taken, and Sonnets from the English was trite and overdone.

Or perhaps this was merely meant to signify that these poems were more exotic love poems. Barnaby could not say he would mind this, but he was loath to agree to something without being quite certain what he would have to endure. Greengrass was a trustworthy fellow, in general, when it came to possessing tact and taste, but he was nevertheless not sure how well their opinions of love poetry would overlap.

He leant back until he was suspended nearly horizontally in the air, tucking his hands up behind his head to better listen to something of this sort. “You may read me one, for now,” he declared, with a lazy jerk of his chin to say he would thenceforth judge its quality. “Your favourite, if you know them well enough to say.”

---

"I don't know them that well," Ford said, a touch defensively. He liked poetry, and obviously Wye did as well, but there was something about love poetry that felt a little riskier. Maybe it was just residual fears from having been bullied as a younger student at Hogwarts, but Ford wasn't sure he wanted to get a reputation as the sort of person who read a lot of love poetry. Particularly since Wye had already demonstrated he had no qualms about sharing what he learned in their conversations, in song and verse if the opportunity arose.

He opened the book and scanned the title page to refresh his memory. He'd read all of these before, on a few occasions, but it had been a while. One stood out, though, from just the first line, and he flipped to the relevant page in the book. He read, with enough feeling that the poem flowed but otherwise taking care to keep his tone level:

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .
Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God’s future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Ford liked it, particularly the link its ink has paled with lying at my heart that beat too fast, and there were echoes here of what he'd been feeling as he and Macnair exchanged letters earlier that week. He didn't want to make any comments before he'd heard Wye's judgement on it, however, so instead of saying anything he merely raised an eyebrow at the spirit: Well?

---

This sonnet had a familiar Petrarchan form, so evidently poetry had not suffered too badly in the interim centuries; and Barnaby appreciated the allusion of dead paper seeming somehow alive, for obvious reasons. So he allowed Greengrass to make his way through it, and it was very – fluttery, wasn’t it?

“It is not terrible, I confess’t,” Barnaby offered, glad to have an audience ready for his judgement: “but you would do better to read it with a little more drama, I say,” he chided; Greengrass was a good reader, he knew that, but this poem about tremulous hands and quivering letters ought to have made his heart flutter, if his heart were capable of beating at all; and Greengrass need not be so even-keeled and cautious in his reading!

“But, he wished to have me in his sight once, as a friend...” Barnaby echoed, turning over the poem in his mind with creased eyebrows. “‘Tis not terribly – erotic, is it?” The poetry of his (living) day had been founded upon Ovid and Catullus, all erotic elegies and naked mistresses, lewd verses passed around from gentleman to gentleman. Greengrass was not so much a stranger to him to feign that his ideas of love poetry were some quiet lettered declarations, was he? Not that Barnaby was one to talk, given he had no body left to make any use of – oh, he would weep to have someone even touch his hand now! – but all the spiritual letter-writing and tender I love thees seemed a little dull, for a young Living fellow.

---

Not terrible was actually fair praise, coming from Barnaby Wye, so Ford was pleased with the assessment. At least, he was until Wye got around to talking about the poem's eroticism, at which point his cheeks colored heavily. "Er... ah... no," he admitted, rather at a loss for words. Ford interacted with ghosts regularly enough to know that it was silly to expect they would hold all the same values as living people, when it came to morals and societal norms and everything like that, but he was still fairly shocked to hear someone discuss something so taboo so openly. He nearly asked were you hoping for an erotic poem? but decided against it; he wasn't sure he would enjoy the answer. Ford's poetry collection didn't really extend very far into that area, so if that was what Wye was expecting he was bound to be disappointed... unless Ford brought out the diary that Elmer Macmillan had gifted him earlier that year, which contained quite a bit of poetry that was unsettlingly explicit. It wasn't very good, though, so it was equally likely to leave him disappointed — just in a different way.

"I don't think any of these are. They're written by a woman," he pointed out in defense of the Sonnets. "I don't think they're — er, allowed to write about those sorts of things," he said a little awkwardly. Not that women didn't have sex, of course, but they certainly didn't write poetry about it when they did. And if they did, it didn't get published and spread around. Women were supposed to be dainty and modest, after all. "And besides," he protested weakly, "I can't read you erotic poetry in the garden. We'd shock the neighbors. Especially if I read with — drama," he said, approaching new heights of embarrassment at the mere thought.

---

We could go inside, Barnaby would have quipped, if he could not already predict Fortitude’s counter to that too: no doubt then they would shock his pretty sisters. That, he supposed he understood – the fairer sex, and whatnot – but Greengrass was blushing a little much for his own good. Barnaby was almost concerned about him.

“Ah,” Barnaby granted him, supposing he understood part of it now. That had not changed with the times: women were much less likely to publish to begin with, and anything they did would not be so free in theme. Still, Greengrass had promised him love poetry and Mrs. Sonnets From The Portuguese had so far disappointed on that score.

So. “You mustn’t mind the neighbours,” Barnaby countered, drifting up to a sitting position. “Have you not anything a little more – stimulating? ‘Love's mysteries in souls do grow / But yet the body is his book’... Donne’s The Extasie,” he quoted pointedly. (Since becoming a ghost, Barnaby had been rather more taken with talk of souls.) Granted, Donne had said a fair amount in that poem about metaphysical unions as well as bodily ones – but nevertheless. It was still a more sensual poem than Greengrass’ offering.

“Have you any Donne? To His Mistress Going To Bed?” Barnaby suggested keenly. “Or Marlowe’s Hero and Leander – or, better yet, have you a mistress of your own?” (It might not necessarily be publishable work, but if Greengrass had a paramour she could probably be persuaded to write him some.)

---

Ford was fairly certain he did have something of Donne's somewhere or other, but he wasn't familiar enough with any of the works to quote them. He wasn't sure he wanted to go find a poem titled To His Mistress Going to Bed and read it out loud, particularly if he wasn't sure exactly what was in it yet. He might have said something to that effect, except that then Wye asked him about mistresses, which entirely distracted him from the idea of poetry, erotic or otherwise. Ford snorted, like a laugh except entirely mirthless, and very nearly rolled his eyes.

"A mistress of my own?" he repeated dryly. "Yes, of course. An Italian soprano I put up in the most stylish neighborhood in London and send pearls to on the fortnight." The idea of someone like him having a mistress was patently ridiculous. Wye may have been a bit out of touch with the way things worked in this day and age, but he was neither stupid nor unobservant, so Ford was sure he hadn't meant the question seriously.

"Mistresses are for men with too much money and too few responsibilities," Ford pronounced, flipping back to the table of contents in Sonnets from the Portuguese. This opinion was born from the general categorization of women into three groups, in Ford's mind: proper women, like his sisters, who were delicate and modest and would never consent to be anyone's mistress; loose women, who attached no value to modesty and propriety and were inclined to trade romantic favors for material things like lavish apartments and nice dresses and fine wines; and working women, who existed in a category of their own and were almost more similar to men than either of the other two groups. It stood to reason based on what he thought of mistresses as a group that the process of having one would be expensive. It was the sort of thing people like Macnair could do, if they pleased, but it wasn't even within the realm of possibility for Ford.

It occurred to him only then that his thoughts about men who kept mistresses and the women who indulged them might say something about his character, as a person who had made plans to fool around with a soon-to-be-married man the night before his wedding. Probably something not very good.

---

“Yes, I forgot you were poor,” Barnaby replied a little peevishly, rolling his eyes to suggest that poverty and unwanted responsibilities were petty problems compared to – oh, serious dampers like being dead for nearly three hundred years. And unable to eat or drink or touch anything, or have any money at all, let alone send mistresses pearls. (It was the thought of an – unattainably alive – Italian soprano that had put him out of sorts, probably.)

If he wanted to keep bickering, he might have pointed out that in Life he had been precisely the sort of man Greengrass was disparaging, with more mistresses than responsibilities, but Barnaby suspected his pout was making that clear enough already.

“Well, perhaps you ought to find yourself one to relieve the pressure of all your responsibilities,” Barnaby offered after a beat, in an attempting-to-be-a-helpful-friend sort of magnanimous tone – since Greengrass was doing him favours turning pages for him to begin with, and had been in a fairly good mood before this difference in opinion, even if he was trying to shove feeble love poetry down his throat. And this had nothing to do with poetry anymore, but all the same. Greengrass did work terribly hard in his day-to-day. “She may not be a talented soprano, but I’m sure there is still a strumpet somewhere whom you could afford.” He waved a hand knowingly. “Unless you’re saving up to wed some pretty childhood sweetheart, I suppose?”

---

Ford frowned at Wye's remark about being poor. The ghost was likely just being sarcastic, but it hit too close to the truth for Ford to just laugh it off. He hoped his sisters weren't near enough to overhear and take that comment the wrong way. The last thing he needed was for Verity to get it into her head that they were nearing the workhouse door. He might have been gratified that Wye quickly moved on, if the next thing he said hadn't been even worse in its own way. Relieve the pressure. This was as sexually graphic a conversation as Ford had ever had (poetry, even the erotic variety, decidedly didn't count) and he could feel his cheeks growing hotter by the second.

"I'm not saving up to marry anyone," he said quickly — maybe snapped. He couldn't actually tell if he was irritated or just flustered. Ford didn't want to be talking about this any more. He didn't need Wye giving him advice about how to find a mistress, because he didn't want one — and now that he'd made the mental connection between mistresses and what he was doing (or planning to do) with Macnair, he didn't want to talk about this at all.

"I've got more than enough family already," he said dryly. Of course he didn't mean it; he loved all of his siblings, and Mama too, even though she could be maddening at times (most of the time, even). The idea of trying to marry someone himself when he still had three unwed sisters was patently ridiculous, however. Even if he did manage to get them all through this and see each of his sisters safely married to someone who could support them, he expected to be buried under debt the rest of his life (particularly if he had to keep looking after Mama). He couldn't in good conscious invite someone to share that kind of a life with him.

---

Barnaby eyed him pensively at that snappish first answer, letting his gaze linger as he tried to decide whether Greengrass was actually annoyed with him. (Hard to believe as it was, Barnaby would prefer not to add unnecessarily to his list of ‘people who thought him an annoyance’. It was quite lengthy enough already.)

So maybe he softened a little at the latter part of Greengrass’ answer. “Ah, the woes of family,” Barnaby put in a touch melodramatically, although with an entirely unironic sympathetic shake of his head this time. If they could agree on any sentiment, it was that – family could indeed be more trouble than it was worth.

Admittedly Greengrass’ family on the whole seemed rather less unbearable than some, but still – Barnaby was determined to show some loyalty here. “When I go, shall I drift through your brother’s little den of iniquity –” the potions workshop, Barnaby knew it was a potions workshop, but it sounded more nefarious and less mundane this way, “– to make certain that he is concocting no wicked schemes against you?” Barnaby wouldn’t mind Fortitude dying if he happened to Stay On, he supposed, but he would prefer not to take the risk, to lose a valuable Living contact, and besides, he would rather not see another superlative young fellow be cruelly usurped by a jealous brother.

---

Ford snorted at that. He wasn't sure which was funnier: the characterization of Noble's workshop as a den of iniquity or the idea that he might be devising schemes against Ford. Ford had been in the workshop often enough, and he knew his brother well enough, to know what he was up to when he disappeared into it for hours on end, and it wasn't devious or scandalous in the slightest. He was a workaholic even before their money issues had surfaced; if his workshop was a den of anything it might have been of foul odors, either from the potions or from Noble having forgotten to bath too many days in a row. And as for the notion that he'd be plotting against Ford — well, there was nothing to inherit except the debts and the responsibilities. Ford often felt that Noble might have shouldered them better (or at least he'd thought that initially — after the incident that spring he was less sure), but he was under no illusion that Noble wanted to deal with any of it.

"You can if you like," he said with a shrug. "He'd probably be properly annoyed by that. Particularly if you got in the way of his cauldron." Not that a ghost could really get in the way of anything, but Ford doubted Noble could keep working undeterred if he had to keep reaching through Barnaby Wye's chest in order to stir his potion.

---

“I imagine I can succeed in that,” Barnaby said, cocking his head thoughtfully as he pictured it. He was perfectly happy with the idea of being an annoyance, since that was as close to a career as he had in society in this day and age, what with all his physical limitations. But spying on Greengrass’ family was not just an entertaining activity, whatever Fortitude made of it: Barnaby liked him enough that it felt a duty to him, one that he would willingly take on.

“But know that if there is ever anything I can do to be of service to you, I would be glad to repay you for all your reading assistance,” he added with new solemnity and a wave of his hand to express it. Of course, he fancied he was the most enthralling garden-guest anyone could ever have, so that perhaps he was the one doing the favour here already; but Barnaby did want to stay in Greengrass’ good graces as long as he could, so it didn’t hurt to make sure. (He supposed he could have promised to make his life easier by getting into fewer altercations with the residents of Hogsmeade, but that was probably a little unrealistic an offer.)

Because sometimes he thought Fortitude Greengrass, for all he tried to seem cool-headed and collected, dry and satirical and down-to-earth by nature, was really rather green. Dewy-eyed and fresh-faced, and a little more naïve and optimistic and innocent than he supposed himself: still young, in short. A little too trusting. The love poetry he had chosen had exposed this, Barnaby felt, and the not-well-taken, er, romantic advice. And something about the poor boy made him feel protective.

(And, indeed, mayhaps it was not his family who would get him into trouble after all – Barnaby wasn’t sure what would – but, regardless: he still simply did not trust younger brothers, as a set.)

---