u/mamaeverywhere

I can’t help speculating on what’s going to happen on the Emma-Pierce front post Stonecrop.
I don’t think the boys are going to take Emma’s choices away directly.

Would Islington invite his ward to stay in the house at Baron’s Square? Will Mariana press to offer her a decent chaperone, now that the family name is on the line? Will she spend the autumn at the Mirrenthal estate, wherever that is, and get to meet Islington’s nieces without a funeral?

Would Islington instead encourage Pierce to spend more time away from Lapis Lazuli? Is there some place Pierce would go to actually work through his things? I don’t think there’s any place as restful to him as being surrounded by these three friends.

What are your thoughts - do they try to “put a more respectable front” on it somehow? Does Islington continue his premarital counseling (inland or coast? Children?)?

Clearly I am spending too much time in the booms when I wake up with this:

Hawkes meets Jack twice and it should be revelations all around.

First, a decadent tea at the Langham (Feb 2, 1884, Vol 6)
Jack wonders what gave him away - how about the way Emma introduces them?
“This is Jack - Jack Hollingstell. Allow me to introduce you to Young Hawkes, our - meaning, my - vicar.”
She does not use any title while obviously trying to do a proper introduction (reminiscent of her awkwardness introducing him to Eugenia)
Also, Emma’s threatening him with her table knife a moment before might have helped.

So, Hawkes sees Emma having a fancy tea with a Fake Hawkes - at the same place where he’s apparently been… what? Emma later thinks of this moment when she’s stewing over the Pear Scented Letter.

Second meeting (March 7, 2884, Vol 7) Emma is dressed as if from the opera, grinning as she walks up Traitors, enjoying the lamps with Jack - this time a fake cousin who is a lot like that Fake Hawkes “husband” from the Jane Eyre excursion. If Hawkes had not actually seen them that day, he could now see the character Emma described as a slightly disheveled gentleman who had spent too much time in the library at Cambridge.

So, that would be the second (or third?) time Hawkes sees Emma having what appear to be romantic times with a man who appears to be faking parts of Hawkes’ identity.

This is when he gives her a look she struggles to interpret and “I believe it to have been caution.”

If he weren’t already struggling with lack of sleep, and regardless of where his own affection lies, that’s enough to keep a mind spinning while Emma then sleeps on his shoulder.

Early in Emma’s return to Lapis Lazuli, we have
- Emma single-handedly moving all kinds of furniture around the garret
- Emma so mad at Archibald, she breaks her teacup while holding it in her hands, tea staining her dress
- Emma so mad at Archibald, she bends a spoon
- Emma leading Pierce to the door she says she has already moved on her own, expecting he’ll need her help to carry it.

Then, no more feats of strength for Emma - other than walking for hours at a time.

Did Beth change her mind on Emma after volume 1 - was Emma being set up as an Amazon, and then there was a pivot?

Was Emma exaggerating about these things and did not actually break the cup or bend the spoon?

Responding to comments about Maggie on another thread, I discovered I feel some empathy for her - she’s got some meaningful things in common with Emma.

Remember Maggie’s confession in the newly-named Ladies Maze? She hates Stonecrop because it’s the only place she misses - the only place she doesn’t feel she can let go. And she puts out her cigarette on the stone of the tower as she transitions from that thought to asking Emma if it was her house, where Islington stayed while he was sick - she doesn’t even use her brother’s name, just says “he,” like she’s begun the conversation in her head already, and Emma should know.
And Emma does.
And Maggie asks if Emma thinks he’s truly recovered - same worry a lot of us have, about Islington dying.
This leads me to think:
Islington matters more to Maggie than she wants anyone to know.
And because she knows Emma was there for him in that crucial time, and that the guardian thing is a new mystery, and people don’t trust her with the details (justified!), this is probably from a place of jealousy and distrust.
If something happened to Hannah or Becca in the vein of what almost happened to Georgiana Darcy, and knowing that Islington has handled his fair share of unintended intendeds, Maggie can be forgiven for arriving at Stonecrop with suspicions.
Also, we don’t know the timeline on the deaths of the Deveroux parents - The father was alive when Islington met Declan, about 10 years before Vol 1? So, Maggie may have been around the same age as Emma when she became an orphan. Her grief wasn’t silenced in the same way as Emma’s (actually prohibited by a vicar 😮), but as Islington says on that Sunday in February, the pains of families like his never count because they have “houses and paintings and ten thousand hounds.”

After some rather hearty debate here, I trust we’re all still on Team Emma.

Some time ago, there was a post asking for opinions on your favorite entries:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EmmaLion/s/9gxlNArRAo

Since it’s not always easy to find and revive conversation on older threads, I hope it’s ok to repost like this.

There are some things I missed the first time through, that are so delightful when you know what’s coming next. What entries are you enjoying most, now?

What would you add to her library?

I am occasionally delighted to find stories that I had forgotten are old enough for her to have read - “Alice in Wonderland” (which might actually be referenced as something Emma is surprised that Pierce read?), and Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” for example.
(If that one shows up, poor Hawkes better beware 🦭 🐠 🧜‍♀️ 🫧 💨 ).

If there’s something more modern you’d wish she could read, there’s room for that, too - just let us know if it’s too recent to hope for it.

Wish we could send a memo to Roland…

I just love that so many of us are doing rereads with a purpose, and finding these foreshadowing and references and Easter Eggs.

I’ve got… too many notes I’m keeping track of and wonder:
What are you all drawn to, in your own reading?

My notes ( for future posts and questions) are named:
Doors
Meaning of Flowers
Greeks
Blood
Emma is art
Mirrors
Between worlds
Two names
Having blue eyes
My favorite Archibald Flat moments

….
And a dozen or so more. 😬😆

If Emma had not given Hawkes the pillow of freedom from fate, would he have asked her to come to confession?

No analysis, just a list that makes me smile. Thought about making a “what’s your favorite?” poll but I think there are too many options.
If I’ve missed your favorite, please add it. :)

Once upon a time, Emma called Jack ‘Pudding.’
Jack definitely has too much fun with this, and I love it.

As far as I can tell, Emma doesn’t continue the joke, but Jack calls her:

Sugarplum Fairy
Cherry Pie
Sweetmeat
Pain au Chocolate
Pumpkin
(wife of my youth)
Crème de la crème
Sweets (four times)
Not-so-sweetheart
Almond pudding
Strudel
Peach Cream
Sugar
Turkish Delight
😉

Did you notice the boxing foreshadowing that comes up on the first May 1, a full year before the May Day fair?

Emma’s thinking about the start of the season, and preparing for the demands Eugenia has in store. Emma remembers a phrase her Father used from pugilistic circles “You must be fighting fit , Emma, whatever else. Most of life is the ability to be ready for what comes your way. “

And then this:

“I prepared myself for the ring” by taking an early morning walk, meets Hawkes on his way home from a deathbed. “I hope you cleared all the tables”

Emma’s distracted by that awkwardness, but we get to see one year ahead to the May Day fair in Vol. 8.

So, we have this reference to her father, resilience and boxing just before she has her second conversation with Mighty Nigel Hawkes, leader of the Reprobates who value “a good sport, someone who can roll with the punches” (Jan. 26, Vol 6) and obviously is literally fighting fit (May 1 and June 18, Vol 8).

In between, I think one of her Maxwell memories is him also telling her to be fighting fit (can’t find the day); we learn that Pierce’s birthday is Boxing Day (a deliberate choice - Beth could have said “the day after Christmas” or “St. Stephen’s Day,” or just made it Dec. 27 instead, if she didn’t want the boxing significance).

We also have Vol. 3 Emma, reading and arguing with Emerson on Aug. 3:
“I’m not certain tonight if I’m a reader or a pugilist. Perhaps they are one and the same.”

All that to say: Emma asks Hawkes (after the after Nettle match) whether he plans to make a habit of pummeling and being pummeled, and he indicates “no.”

But I can’t expect Beth has used the imagery so far, to let it end here.

I do like that she uses the boxing images to mingle references to Declan, Maxwell, Pierce and Hawkes. I wonder what else there is to find, and I feel like I’m still missing something here.

What say you? Are we done with boxing? What other significance do you see?

(Spoilers warning because I expect we’ll have Vol 8 discussion here)

This particular statue in this particular neighborhood- we’ve got a lot going on. What are your thoughts on:

1. Emma has been calling her Aunt “the Gorgon” pretty consistently, but only specifies her as Medusa at the Duchess of Bedford’s ball, when warning Islington about her. They have that lovely banter about Perseus slaying Medusa and Athena helping him, and Emma 💯 casts herself as Athena when she refuses to tell Eugenia who Perseus is.
   Is Eugenia always Medusa, or does Emma generally think of her as one of the Gorgons who lacks the power to turn people to stone, but is fearsome anyway and also immortal?

2. While searching for clues with Archibald in Vol 3, Emma thinks about the statue - “it is heartbreaking. one does not cheer on the Victor as much as one marvels over the weeping head of the woman gripped in Perseus’ hand”
   Emma says she always remembered what her father said about the Medusa story and it makes her sad. Her father also called Eugenia a gorgon, so we can wonder what he did with this connection.
   It seems she’s referencing a version of the story (our surviving source/original writer, Ovid, gives only a few lines) wherein Medusa started out beautiful but … defiled a temple to Athena, with Poseidon/Neptune (so, probably against her will - power dynamic with those gods), and Athena punished her by making her this monster.
   Very much stirring the pity.
   We have to break this apart because we can’t believe Emma/Athena turned Eugenia into the monster she is, as an act of retribution for Eugenia’s being taken advantage of.
   But - does Emma’s pity for Medusa (which she mentions several more times) translate to her relationship with Eugenia?
   Like the real reason she lets Archibald stay (knows what it’s like to lose home and wouldn’t wish that on anyone), is this pity for Medusa behind her kind heart toward her aunt?

3. The statue isn’t just there for Emma. It’s close to Islington’s house. The original by Cellini was commissioned by a duke (an Italian, patron of the arts 😉) to intimidate hos detractors. We see Islington stare at the fountain, thinking he’s unobserved. For him, is it possible this represents another wronged woman whose loss he feels responsible for? Perseus didn’t really have a bone to pick with Medusa - she was asleep when he killed her, with Athena’s assistance - his motivation was tangled up in family duty (his mother) and responsibility to a king (“your obligations to Queen and country and the stern legacy of your father”). It can almost be a continuation of Athena’s punishment, as well, for Medusa. I wonder if the statue also makes Islington sad, and if it’s really more meaningful to him than to Emma.

4. I wonder about that story from Ovid, too. For a woman who has been wronged, giving her the power to turn men (anyone, but lets focus on her problem) to stone could have been a blessing.
   Also, the root of her problem there is Poseidon. In quite a few greek stories that I’ve been looking uo with this series, Poseidon is the problem, particularly where Athena is the hero. Anyone getting sea god vibes from anyone?
   (I know there’s a lot of Hawkes=water power going around, but not when she gets into Greek references)

Just wondering what to do with this.

(Definitely going to include material from Volume 8)
I’ve been trying to figure out what Hawkes means by:
“I’ve been too careless… Careless with Emma.”

Context: This is what he says to Islington while still dripping wet and freezing, after pulling Emma from the fountain on Valentine’s Day. However, Emma doesn’t learn of it (and so we don’t) until Volume 7, April 25, after Hawkes shows the guardianship letter to save Emma and Islington from Eugenia’s machinations. It’s after Hawkes leaves that Islington tells Emma.

What does Hawkes mean by, “careless?”

On a first reading, I thought it was about him letting Emma get too attached to him. After all, we’ve had the Christmas Eve chair, the Christmas pillow, the NYE vision, Twelfth Night, the birthday gift and the birthday party, the bench ribbon cutting - all sweet moments that built their friendship to the point that Emma basically tells General Braithwaite she doesn’t need to know the rules to trust Hawkes, and she jumps in the fountain to help him/ spite the General/ save Alice the maid from freezing.
That was my first thought.

And if that were the case, we should see Hawkes pull away again, like he did after giving Emma “Treasure Island,” shouldn’t we?

But if we look at what happens after that day, what does he do to course-correct?
- Emma sends him cinnamon buns to thank him for saving her; he replies promptly on fancy blue paper to apologize and sends it with a peppermint
- plays darts at Lapis Lazuli after church, three days later
- tosses her a butterscotch while passing in the street, calling “Well done” over his shoulder when she catches it.
- invites her to a reading tea at Islington’s

And that’s just takes us to Feb. 22. More notable events Volumes 6-8:
- lets her get involved in the duel
- starts asking her what she’s reading
- buys her another book (Wordsworth)- his third - and loans her Coleridge, though she’s a dangerous reader

So, if my first read was wrong and he’s not pulling himself out of her life to prevent her falling for him, what is Hawkes’ regret?

From the “imperterritus” lion to Emma’s “undefeatable” hair and her “indomitable“ sense of humor - I’m looking at how unstoppable Emma is, and whether she gets carried along in some of these shenanigans because she has to follow or she wants to.

I notice things like
Volume 1, April 4: “He (Archibald) lifted his hand as if he could stop my speech from the mere waving of an appendage.”
Obviously Archibald doesn’t really have authority over Emma.

And then I started noticing that Hawkes, “spiritual guide,” almost never gives Emma a command.
I’m in Volume 3 in this re-read and, granted, there’s not a lot of Hawkes here.

But I do think it’s notable that when he offers to help her, he stops mid-sentence: (May 12, 1883) “I am aware of the difficult situation he (Flat) has placed you in regarding your financial security… but, if you need help in any way.”
Most of us would complete that with something like “just let me know.” Hawkes avoids the imperative verb.

Exceptions: after the Cleopatra, he does tell her: “Come along. Put your arm through mine and mind the uneven pavement on the Diagonal.” But shortly thereafter, when he has Agnes mix her some hangover preventing drink, he tells her that if she wants to be OK tomorrow, “I would drink this.”
In later volumes, I think she knocks on his study door at the church and he says “Come in.” I think when she asks about the rules of the duel and what a “Fifth” does, he words it with imperatives: “Stand in your line. Answer the question.”
It seems very pointed that he otherwise avoids giving her commands, and (because?) she takes him seriously when he even gives suggestions (the Twelfth night invitation; the crockery smash at May Day).

After the conversation about the deal with Jack, Islington says: “Keep your sword sharp. Also… come and see me if you need help. Strictly as a humble squire to your glorified knighthood. I do not repeat the mistake of implying you are incapable.” That is all I notice, and I can’t think of any until the Volume 7 day he falls ill and tells her to get him out of the room with the jellies.

Eugenia, of course, gives exhausting lists of commands, which Emma mostly obeys until Christmas. We get the feeling she could reject any of them, and it’s maddening to Eugenia when she has to accept that.

But Pierce, on the other hand, is full of imperative verbs. When Flat is injured, he’s got a lot of instructions about that moment (“Pin his shoulders to the floor… Fetch something straight” etc.) and unrelated to the emergency: “Go to your play. Enjoy yourself”; when he’s giving her “Self-Reliance” - “read something you can argue with” and “Take this copy and see what you can do with it… Don’t be so bloody English. Scribble in the margins. Underline. Cross out. Whatever you care or dare but take the damned book” (damn book? Please correct me if I’m wrong. Audiobooks.); when she spills the Afghanistan pictures (“Sit…. Be angry…”)
And some kind ones - “Call me for anything you need.”

I also notice she uses words like “charmed” and “intoxicating” 😬 relative to Pierce, and I do find those more witchy than romantic (probably because of the Gazette with Mrs. Ribbits).

Volume 2, June 26: “I had not realized how charmed I was by the occasional note slipped through our shared chink in the wall.”
Volume 2, June 30: “Having so often thought of Mr Pierce in terms of distant storm and the wild unknown, I was surprised at the lull of his voice in a warm garden. It was almost hypnotic.”
Volume 3, Aug 14: “The atmosphere that is Mr. Niall Pierce has been beautifully transferred to his studio. The result: a strange intoxication.”
Also: She notices two or three trees potted and placed artfully around the room “ I was and am complete charmed by them.”
In Volume 7, I believe she accuses him of “casting your charms “ while at the Reed & Rite.

What do we make of these?

We’ve also got Volume 2, May 20: Emma goes to church and hears “not a word,” because she’s distracted by the events of May 19, first tea with Pierce.
She rereads that journal entry:
“It unsettles me. In part because I did not fully sound like myself.”

I feel a sense of Emma being out of control in Pierce’s presence. She’s breaking social rules left and right, but she’s not actually defiant.

I’m not anti-Pierce. I trust Mariana’s very perceptive statement that he wields power just by existing, and I think we get to see a lot more of that than even she does.

Curious about whether this pattern continues or is meaningful into the later volumes (again, this is a re-read, so spoilers are welcome). Your thoughts?

On a re-read and I’ve gotten back to Volume 3. I’m looking for what I find unsettling about Pierce, and it isn’t really things like the drinking and Fairchild’s warning and whatever the soldiers think he did and foreshadowing that he might just leave - those are all solvable problems.

But what is Beth doing with all this imagery surrounding Pierce, with coins, death and rivers? It’s giving a rebellious Charon, the boatman who ferries the dead across the river Styx - well, supposedly those who have been buried properly and have a coin to pay him.

Setting aside the Roman completely, the things I noticed:
When Emma invites Pierce to join her for her mother’s birthday tea, she jokes, “The dead aren’t too particular about the company they keep, in any measure,” and notices “his face paled.”
July 11
There is a Potency about his person and I can’t decipher if it’s like the tremor before the storm or the uncertain relief after it’s broken.
Fear? Or awe? He certainly occupies a room like no other man I’ve met.”
July 15: Most cursing in Emma’s journal is Pierce-adjacent, especially references to “hell” and “damn.” As far as I note, she makes a couple references that shock Archibald, and the others cluster around interactions with Pierce. An example from outside her word choice:
Fairchild arriving when Flat has broken his leg: I’ll be dammed- if it isn’t Niall Pierce!”
Pierce: “What in blazes are you doing here?”

Also July 15:
“I finished badly with, ‘Your helping me felt like home.’
“that elusive shore,” He said.

July 27:
“The tenant always has a degree of the haunt about him, his eyes more mirage than stone. Starting at me, as if he were a specter, he said, ‘It’s the 27 th of July.’ His voice, the jaded angle of it, made his statement more flesh and blood than he.”

Also July 27:
“And yet you carry about your ghost. …You look for him over your shoulder … it’s not a criticism… it’s a hope that you don’t have to carry the dead for very long… I carry more ghosts than you could imagine, Miss Lion. I know the weight. It is no life.”

Aug 7: “Told him i certainly didn’t mind the open door. It’s nice. It brings life to the house. His smile when i said the word ‘Life’ looked like an anchor was tied to it. If one were to follow his clues, one might think Mr. Pierce was from another world entirely. I did not ask him if he was a changeling grown, tempted as I was.”
(A changeling is the idea that fairies have taken a baby and replaced it with something that looks human but isn’t really. This is the kind of imagery I’d actually expect to see with Hawkes, but here we are.)

Also Aug 7: as Agnes leaves the room
“She looks at me like I’ve drowned her cat.”
“You do seem to terrify,” I answered.
“As I probably should.”

Aug 14: “I wouldn’t insist you change, not even in death.”

Aug 16: Emma sees the pictures of Afghanistan:
“Death is here in my hands… do You still wish to look?”
“Would you?
“Yes. … i would want to understand, however painful the price.”
Also: “The damnation is only on the heads of the leaders of nations…”

And of course:
“… his eyes holding mine fast. ‘Do you despise me, Emma?’
‘Despise you? Why would I? Why should i?
‘You know what I am, what I do.’ He looked pained.
‘I am a man chained to dark places. I follow the pale horse.’
I knew the reference immediately. It swept through me with a hollow feeling.
‘And I looked And behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him,’ I quoted. Strange words to speak aloud.
For one irrational moment I wondered what exactly stood before me.”

River and drowning references abound - Emma threatens to throw Pierce into the Thames on Aug. 16 (because he’s walking too fast); when Agnes says she thought Pierce might have “done you in” but she couldn’t imagine where he’d have put the body, Emma says “Agnes really, anyone knows the river is as good a place as any.” On May Day, Pierce threatens to throw a boy into the fountain (if he won’t be still for a picture).

Emma talks about paying Pierce a visit; the cost of sharing about Maxwell being too high to ever do that again; on the day she sees Pierce’s photos from that war, “Is three years of grief enough payment?”
As they talk about their ages in the Great Considerations, (after she’s tossed Maxwell’s coin in the fountain) he says “you’ve paid your dues.” After the Volume 8 June 30 dream about a tree, Emma strangely shifts metaphors: “hope. Profound, peaceful hope… I knew that I would give the hope to Pierce if I could, every golden coin of it.”

What to do with this? My least creepy interpretation of this combination of images:
Pierce has a strong desire to honor the dead, and a righteous anger toward those who take the death of others too lightly.

What do you think? Am I collecting red herrings? Any other implications?

Why does St. Crispian’s love this play?
Of all the Shakespeare to re-enact - I’ve read it, listened to it, watched clips & the monologue Beth linked in her latest Bookshelf and am still wondering.
How did this become a tradition?

As we are enjoying the literary references, what do we think of Beth using other known stories - why does she do this?

I think it’s mostly to show where characters are starting from, especially in relationship to Emma.

I don’t think she’s using them to give us hints about where these characters are going to end up, or what they have to do.

For example, she starts with references to “The Tempest,” and it’s the first Shakespeare that she reads when she gets her father’s Shakespeare.
Following her descriptions- she’s described words as Hawkes’ “Ariel,” assigning Hawkes the role of Prospero, the master of the island and father of Miranda. She describes Pierce as both the storm and a sailor washed ashore. When she sees Archibald greet him, she says he’s pretending to be Prospero but he’s really Calaban, a kind of monster that tried to ruin Miranda and had to be subdued by Prospero’s magic - obv Archibald’s means of ruining her is different than Shakespeare’s, and I’m thankful Beth is giving us a Victorianized version of these not-safe-for-kids references.
If we were to follow that plot, a prince would show up - the next interesting character is Islington - and Prospero manipulates them into falling in love and getting married.
>!By the end of Volume 7, we learn that Hawkes actually kind of has that authority, as Emma’s guardian, to put her into that situation. But he doesn’t-!< and Emma repeatedly talks about fate, wondering whether her life is really hers to choose.

All that to say: I feel like Emma is kind of trying out these different plot lines - Do I want to be Miranda to this Ferdinand? Would I rather be Athena to these mortals? >!Is Plithco implying I’m just a d’Artagnan, tagging along with the renowned Musketeers?!<

She loves the surprises and magical characteristics that make St. Crispian’s and Stonecrop feel set apart, and she thinks about being fairy queen Titania - but she doesn’t have to be. She’s the Currer Bell, and she gets to choose.

The Romani woman tells Emma that for most people, when their “first heart is buried,” that’s the end of love for them.
For some reason, it’s different for Emma.
Why?

Is it something that happened because of her interactions with the Alchemy men - does Pierce’s support through the burial, or Hawkes’ encouragement, or Islington’s kindness, or her NYE vision, or reading Whitman, or (fill in the blank) enable her to love deeply and completely again?

Is it Emma’s flag, of hopeful green stuff woven - and is that more choice or nature?

Is it the choices that keep her undaunted?

I’m curious about what impact this has on other people.

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