The Emerald Circus

  Once home again at Hughenden, Disraeli could finally relax. He got into his writing clothes and headed out into the garden. As he walked the pathways, he nodded at one of the young gardeners, but said not a word. The servants all knew that when he was alone along the garden paths, going in the direction of his writing folly, he was not to be distracted.

  No more playing at being the prime minister, he thought, and smiled to himself. I am to be a writer for a fortnight. He stopped, turned, looked back at his house for once shining in the last rays of the day’s sun.

  He cared little that the nearest neighbors had mocked the fanciful pinnacles of his house, calling it witheringly, “The little redbrick palace.” It was his comfort and his heart’s home. He’d heard that pitiful epithet for the first time from Mary Anne right after he’d transformed the place. Evidently her lady’s maid had carried the tale to her and she then to him. She admitted it after he’d found her weeping in her beloved garden, sitting alone on a white bench.

  “Silly Peaches,” he called her because of her gorgeous skin, even though she was quite a few years older than he. “Silly Peaches, how does it matter what the unwashed masses say of the house? We adore it.” He’d sat down beside her and put his arms around her then. “You know I married you for your money, but would do it again in a moment for love.” In fact, as they both knew, she’d little money of her own. It had all been for love—the courtship, the marriage, the house.

  Now that he was prime minister—again—the neighbors were creatively silent about the manor. And darling Mary Anne, dead these three years, couldn’t have carried tales to him about the foofaraw even if the neighbors had still been talking.

  But, oh—I’d let them natter on if only you were still here beside me, he thought, brushing away an actual tear, which surprised him as he’d begun the gesture without knowing a tear was falling.

  Walking along the twisting paths to his little garden house, the place where he wrote his novels, though not his speeches, he forced himself to stop thinking about Mary Anne. He had planned a fortnight to set down the final draft of a climactic chapter of Endymion that had been giving him the pip. As long as there was no new disaster in the making that he had to deal with, he would surely get it done. But, as he well knew, the prime minister’s vacations were often fraught.

  Also, he wanted to read more about a particular sort of Kabbalah that Rabbi Lowe had practiced a century earlier. It was in a book he’d discovered in his father’s library many years ago, after the old man had passed away. With all the horror about Mary Anne’s death and the fuss about his being raised up again to PM, he’d misplaced the book and only recently rediscovered it.

  What he knew about Kabbalah should have been deep enough already. He’d read a great deal about it. He understood the ten Sefirot, the division therein of intellect and emotion. He acknowledged as the Kabbalist did that there were forces that caused change in the natural world as well as corresponding emotional forces that drove people to change both the world and themselves. It was a fascinating idea, and he’d been playing with it for years.

  First he had read all about Kabbalah as an exercise in understanding where his ancestors had come from, and perhaps where his personal demons had come from as well, after an anti-Semitic taunt by O’Connell in Parliament to which he’d replied, “Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the Right Honourable Gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”

  He’d turned again to Kabbalah when Mary Anne had died, hoping to find solace in his reading. He had even built a Kabbalistic maze in the garden where her gravestone rested, thinking that walking it might give him some measure of peace.

  Finally, he’d learned a few small Kabbalistic magics, such as the momentary transformation he’d done on the queen over tea. It was for a distraction, really, not that he put great store in magics. He put more in his ability to change England—and thus the world—by improving the conditions of the British people. As he often told his colleagues in the House of Commons, “The Palace is unsafe if the cottage is unhappy.”

  But it was only when he’d flung himself back into politics, back into the Great Game, that he realized why he’d really studied the old Hebrew magics.

  “If I can learn the great miracles, not just the puny little transformations, I can make England rule the world.” He whispered the thought aloud, in the sure knowledge that no one was near enough to hear him. “And that will be good for the world, for Britain, and for the queen.”

  And, so thinking, remembering, justifying, and planning, he finally got to the little folly he’d claimed for his writing. He stopped a minute, turned his back on the building, and surveyed his land. It still surprised him that he had such a holding, having started from so little.

  Then he turned, opened the door, and went inside, shutting out the world.

  The queen was not amused. The prime minister was late. Very late. No prime minister had ever been late to a meeting with the queen. Neither the death of a spouse nor a declaration of war sufficed as an excuse.

  She tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, though resisted the urge to stand up and pace. It was not seemly for a queen to pace. Not seemly at all.

  When Disraeli finally arrived, nearly a half hour after he was supposed to be there, in a flourish of grey morning coat and effete hand waves, she was even less amused. She allowed him to see her fury and was even more furious because of that, especially as he did not seem cowed by her anger.

  “And where, Mr. Disraeli, have you been?” She pointed imperiously at the clock whose hands were set on nine-twenty-five, in a frown similar to her own. She had already had tea and three small slices of tea cake, two more than were absolutely necessary. Another black mark on his copybook.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m afraid I overslept.” His face was pinched as if he hadn’t slept at all.

  “Afraid . . . you . . . over . . . slept?” Each word was etched in ice. She no longer cared that she was showing how much anger she felt. She was the queen after all. “Have you not a manservant to wake you?” It was unheard of, in his position.

  “I was writing late into the night, ma’am,” he said by way of explanation, sweat now beading his brow. “In my garden folly. My servants know never to disturb me there. I fell asleep.”

  “In . . . your . . . garden . . . folly?” She could not find the words to set this thing aright between them, watching in horror as he took out a silver-grey handkerchief that matched his coat and wiped his brow.

  “I could . . . show you the folly if you like, ma’am. It would be a great honor if you would visit Hughenden.” He took an awkward breath. “There is a superb maze I can commend to you. It is a replica of the Great Maze mentioned in the Bible.”

  The queen could not think where in the Bible a maze was mentioned, and her hand went—all unaccountably—to her mouth, as she used to do as a child when asked a question she should have been able to answer but couldn’t. This was, of course, before she had become queen. Long before.

  “King David’s dancing floor,” he said, as if he saw her confusion and sought to explain it to her.

  She remembered King David dancing, but she thought that was simply done before the ark, not on any kind of dancing floor. There was a dancing floor in one of the Greek myths, she distantly recalled. Then she blushed furiously, suddenly remembering that King David had danced naked before the ark. It made her even angrier with Disraeli.

  The gall of the man, saying such a thing to a lady. Saying it to the queen! She waved him away with her hand, waited to see him go.

  Instead, his own hand described a strange arc in the air. She wondered if he were drawing the maze for her. She wondered why he did not leave. She felt dizzy.

  “More tea?” she croaked, at the same moment realizing that he’d had none before. Her hand went a second time to her mouth and she felt sick. If she had been a man, she would have uttered a swear, one of the Scottish ones John
Brown had taught her. They were perfect for every occasion.

  The only way out of this situation, Disraeli thought, is to go further in. He turned the queen into a toad for a second time. He knew he must never do it a third. She might just stick that way. But at least it would buy him a little time. Time to figure out his next move, a move that—should it prove successful—would be for the glory of England and the queen. Would possibly mean an earldom for himself, though such would be worth so much less without Mary Anne alive to be his lady. Still, a peerage was hardly the reason he was doing this thing.

  There is danger of course, he thought. There is always a danger in such grand gestures. And such great magic.

  He’d stayed up all night thinking about all the aspects. He’d even written them down, the reasons for and against. The reasons for far outweighed the rest. His plan simply had to work.

  The toad looked at him oddly, its green hands wrangling together. The jewel in its head was what had given him the original idea, that moment a week ago when he’d first turned the queen into the creature.

  He didn’t regret doing so then or now. He might, he knew, regret it in the future. But that was part of the chance he had to take, for this was, indeed, the Great Game.

  “Ah, Peaches,” he whispered, “in the end it’s all for love.” Love of queen and country, he thought, though goodness knows she was a difficult woman to love, black-garbed Victoria, the Widow of Windsor, as the papers called her. A child and a grandmother at one and the same time. Silly, small in temperament and understanding. Her mind only goes forward or back. Never up and down. Never through the twisting corridors like . . . like his own mind, he supposed. She simply isn’t interested in . . . well, everything. His mouth turned down like hers. Albert, at least, had had a more original mind if a bit . . . he smiled . . . well, Germanic.

  He made another quick hand signal, and the queen became human again. Just in time.

  “Fresh tea is here, ma’am,” he said as the girl came in with the pot on a tray. “Shall I pour or will you?” He put a bit of persuasion in her cup, a simple enough bit of magic, along with the two lumps of sugar. He wasn’t certain it would help, but knew it couldn’t hurt, something his mother used to say all the time.

  The queen was a bit uncomfortable at Hughenden Manor. All that red brick, she thought with a shudder. All those strange gothicisms. Still, she did nothing but compliment the prime minister. His taste was—the red brick house notwithstanding—actually quite good. Looking back at the house, though, gave her a headache, so she looked ahead at the garden path.

  To be fair—she always liked to think of herself as fair—the ground floor reception rooms with their large plate-glass windows are delightful. And the south-facing terrace, overlooking the grassy parterre, has spectacular views over the valley. She thought it carefully to plant the words firmly in mind for when she spoke of the house later to her family. She wondered where Disraeli had made his money, worried that it might have been in trade. It can’t have been from those books. She shuddered.

  The day was cool but not cold, the skies overcast but not yet raining.

  “A lovely afternoon for a walk in the garden, ma’am,” Disraeli said.

  For once she agreed. Though she was used to her black garments, her stays, it made walking in the summer heat unbearable. Usually, she would be tucked up in her bedroom, a lavender pomander close by, ice chips in a glass of lemonade.

  “Lovely indeed.” She put her hand on his arm, which allowed him to help her along, he straight-backed and she nodding approvingly at the gardeners and sub-gardeners busy at work but who stood appropriately and bowed as she passed.

  Well done, she thought.

  The gardens, while not nearly as extensive as her own of course, were nicely plotted, and cared for, the grass perfectly cut and rolled. The flowers—banks of primroses, and a full complement of bedding plants—were in the formal part of the garden surrounding a great stone fountain. She must remember to ask about the fountain later, when Disraeli would certainly introduce her to the head gardener.

  There was also a lovely, intimate orchard of apples and pears, only a few of them espaliered, as well as a fine small vinery. None of it was too much. It was, in fact, rather perfect, and the controlled perfection annoyed her slightly. She wanted to find something to scold him for, or to tease him about, and could not.

  Disraeli was in full spate about the gardens, the plants, the hedges and sedges, the blooms. But as they headed toward the folly and the maze beyond, he grew unaccountably silent.

  I do hope he has no political agenda on his mind, she thought, a bit sniffily. It would not do to spoil a lovely day out of doors with such talk. She simply would not allow it.

  She was still thinking about this when the sun came out and she began to perspire. It gave her something else to gnaw on.

  Now that he’d enticed the queen into the garden, and they were approaching the maze, Disraeli was suddenly full of apprehensions. What if it is dangerous? Or if not actually dangerous, perhaps wrong? Or if not wrong, perhaps even unsupportable. He had tested the maze many times over the last few weeks, using first an under-gardener, then his secretary, even his dog. They were all easily tricked into doing his bidding, by a sort of autosuggestion. Only it wasn’t like that German imposter Mesmer a century earlier. There was real magic in the maze. It made the things he wanted to happen, happen.

  But, he thought, the worry turning into a stone in his stomach, this is the Queen, not an under-gardener or a secretary. He felt the pressure of her hand on his arm and turned to give her his most brilliant smile. She may be resistant to the magic. She may not be so suggestible. She is possibly . . .

  Then he saw a bead of sweat on her brow and chuckled inwardly. A queen I have twice turned into a toad with a jewel in its head, he reminded himself. She is as human as I. “Ma’am?”

  “Are we almost there, Mr. Disraeli?” she asked, like a child in a carriage agonizing about the rest of a long trip.

  He wondered if the heat was getting too much for her. All that black silk. And she is no longer a slender young thing.

  “Just on the other side of that small rise,” he said, pointing with his left hand, past the folly that commanded the top of the little hill. “There is a bench at the center of the maze that will make the perfect garden throne. You shall rule my garden, ma’am, and my heart from there.”

  “Then I shall have to solve the maze quickly,” she said, “to get to that throne.” She smiled winningly up at him, almost as if they were a courting pair.

  “All thrones in England belong to you, ma’am,” he said. “And in the Empire as well.” There, his plan was begun.

  He recalled saying to a friend long ago, during his first turn as prime minister, that the way to handle the queen was that one must, first of all, remember that she is a woman. He had all but forgotten his own advice over the past few years, so he added, “If I had my way, you would rule the world.” Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel. Step two in his plan. He wondered if it was succeeding in planting the seed.

  She patted his hand. “Perhaps that would be overreaching, even for you, Mr. Disraeli.” But she said it lightly, as if she hadn’t dismissed the notion entirely, nor should he. “To the maze then.”

  “You are, ma’am,” he said, “the quickest woman at puzzles I have ever known. I think you will have no trouble at all with my little maze.”

  He knew he had, indeed, laid it on with a trowel, but evidently he had said the exact right thing, for she was grinning broadly.

  “So I have been told, and recently,” she said. “Though you are the maze, dear sir.”

  He had no idea what she meant and no reason at all to follow up the conversation.

  They walked on, she clinging even more tightly to his arm.

  At the top of the rise, she stopped as if to admire the view, which was quite lovely. But really, it was so she could catch her breath. Below, whe
re the hillock smoothed out once again, was the maze. It did not look particularly difficult to her. In fact, she could see immediately straight into the heart of it.

  Lightly, as if she were once more the girl she had been when she ascended the throne, she let go of Disraeli’s arm and began to run down the hill, a kind of giddiness sending her forward.

  She gave no thought to the man behind her. She never gave any thought to the men behind her. Not even dear Albert. Or dear Mr. Brown.

  Her delighted laughter trailed behind her like the tail of a kite.

  Disraeli was overcome with fear and it almost riveted him to the top of the hill. The queen, corseted and bonneted, was bouncing along like an errant ball let loose by a careless boy. Any moment she might come crashing down and with her, all his dreams.

  He was the careless boy, letting the ball go. What had he been thinking! This was madness. All his calculations for naught. The maze all by itself was exerting a gravitational pull on the queen and neither he—nor God, he supposed—knew how it was going to end.

  He pulled himself loose of his fear and began to run after her.

  “Ma’am!” he cried. “Take care. The stones . . . the hill . . . the . . .”

  But he needn’t have worried. She reached the bottom without misstep, and threaded through the maze as if it were a simple garden walk. Before he was down at the hill’s bottom himself, she was already sitting on the stone bench, huffing a bit from the run, her face flushed, a tendril of greying hair having escaped from the bonnet and now caressing her right cheekbone.

  “Ma’am,” he said when he got to the center, “are you all right?”

  “Never better,” she said, looking, somehow, years younger, lighter, happier.

  She held out her hand and he knelt.

  It was then he realized how foolish he had been, playing about with Kabbalistic magic. She was the royal here, as high as King David. He knew now that he was only a minor rabbi in this play. Of course she can command the magic, whether or not she knows it is here.

  “What you will, ma’am,” he said.