“Are you all right, Polly?” Johnnie asked, when he came back to her side.
“Just a little headache.” Then, under her breath, she said, “That woman’s rather a coquette, isn’t she?”
He laughed.
“She was flirting with you.”
“No! Anyway,” he said, squeezing her hand and giving her his warmest smile, “I’m most definitely taken.”
The shadow passed over her.
The autumn rains came, bringing with them damp and a chill wind. The leaves on the trees began to turn, the horse chestnuts first, then the sycamores. One morning when Johnnie was up in London seeing to the house, there was a rare, brisk sun, and Marian sat outside on the terrace with a blanket over her.
She heard the honking of geese and looked up and saw them flying in formation, following their valiant leader, scores of them, determined. The sound of geese echoed in the air, the sound of autumn, departure, death.
A few days later, she felt the ominous spasm, then saw the terrifying red in her urine. It had been months since this had happened. Please — let it not be true! Had the horror of what had happened in Venice weakened her? That night the pain came with a viciousness. She managed to reach over and ring the bell, and Johnnie came dashing in in his dressing gown. The bed became a rack upon which she tossed and writhed in agony. She drifted in and out of consciousness.
When she came alert, she saw an unfamiliar face, the local doctor, Mr. Parsons, bending over her, and Johnnie hovering behind him. There was the stab of the needle in her arm. Then, the waves of relief.
Again, recovery, but gradual. “She’s lost half her body weight,” Mr. Parsons said. “You must give her a diet of red meat and clotted cream and toddies with egg.”
She was surrounded by love. Johnnie’s sisters sent warm undergarments and a chamois dress. The dress was light gold, like silk. When finally she got out of bed and tried it on, it was too heavy for her frame to bear. The attack had gutted her.
She tried to take up her work. She had to decide on the exact date when the action of the novel would take place. Perhaps early March 1815, around the time of the Seventh Coalition, when the fighting between the French and the English and their allies was reaching its climax.
Now, the characters’ ages? Cyril would be twenty-five. That would make him born in 1790. Rastin, about forty, born in —? She tried to do the math. But she was too weary. She lay down on the divan, pulled the throw over her, and fell asleep.
In the morning, when she was usually at her best for work, she felt herself starting to fall asleep again. And if she were never to wake, it mightn’t be so bad. Death no longer frightened her. Then she’d never have to experience the pain of missing Johnnie when he went away. Would she be reunited with George? Was it possible there was such a thing as resurrection? That all along she’d been wrong in refusing to believe in it? What a gift it was to have faith. Foolish thought. She didn’t believe in it. But — if she were buried next to him? As the years passed — the centuries! — inevitably their coffins would rot and crumble together in the earth and their remains would mingle. Perhaps there was a kind of eternity, when the flesh turned to dust and blended with the earth, an eternal, indestructible essence containing the spirit, a state that couldn’t be clearly conceived of because the human brain didn’t have the means to conceptualize it.
She imagined floating in the warm air, a celestial light like sunlight, the blue sky, and particles of gold sparkling and drifting on the breeze, the heightened sound of a choir, the music of the heavens, a harp, the soft touch of cymbals, then the golden dust falling gradually through the air to the ground.
Outside the window, the sky was colorless, the wind blew through the trees. Where Johnnie had cut down the firs there was a clear view now to the sky and the meadows and hills beyond. In late afternoon, the clouds were silvery. The days were shortening.
The house was getting chilly, the big rooms difficult to heat. They decided to move up to London early to a hotel so he could more easily supervise the last stages of the renovations.
Bailey’s Hotel was warm, thank God, well equipped with its low ceilings for the London winter. While Johnnie was out attending to Cheyne Walk, she found a copy of Cornhill Magazine in the lobby with the old Scottish wedding song, “My Faithful Johnny,” in it. That evening, she read it to him:
When will you come again, my faithful Johnny?
When the corn is gathered, when the leaves are withered,
I will come again, my sweet and bonnie, I will come again.
She looked up. He had tears in his eyes.
There was another kind of love. It was a love without a name, not the sexual love of a man and woman, or the love of brother and sister, or parent and child, but a deep love between a man and woman that was beyond the physical. It was admiration and kindness. The sexual kind of love, she could only remember it — George was a gift that God had bestowed on her, with the proviso that she’d only have it once in her life. That need had gone from her. Age and weakness had robbed her of it. Perhaps even with George it would be different now too.
She was enveloped now in Johnnie’s special sort of love, sheltered and adored. George would have wanted this. It was hard to imagine this kindness coming from anyone else — except from George himself. She knew that whatever happened, Johnnie would always be there.
Chapter 26
At last moving day came, their new home all bright and sparkling. This was the first time she’d seen the house since it had been refurbished. It was filled with light, much lighter than the Priory, the paneling was warm and gleaming, “rosewood,” Johnnie said. And Mr. Armitage had designed a special wallpaper for the drawing room, a lovely detailed print of birds and strawberries in shades of blue-green and pale pink.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Polly.” He led her into the library. There were the new bookcases, holding rows upon rows of her volumes neatly arranged. “They’re in exactly the same order as you had them before at the Priory,” he said. “I hired a man to help me do it properly. I didn’t want you to have any trouble finding things.”
“It’s wonderful,” she said. That he would have noticed so exactly the way she’d arranged her books, and worked so hard to please her.
“I can go to work immediately,” she said.
The house smelled of fresh paint and varnish and polish. Brett and Mrs. Dowling had cleaned up the dust from the renovations, the floors and every piece of furniture shone. “It’s the most wonderful house I’ve ever seen,” she said. She felt new strength coursing through her body.
They had their first supper in the house, a fire crackling in the grate, the flames reflected in the silver and brass, the candles sending forth a lovely glow.
He raised his glass to her. “To you, Marian. And thank you for standing by me.” They’d still never spoken directly about the exact nature of his illness, that he’d tried to kill himself, to end his life. She’d surmised he had no memory of it and she was afraid to remind him of the awfulness, to say the words, “Johnnie, why did you try to kill yourself on our honeymoon? Did you hate me that much? Did I repulse you?” It was as if they had an unspoken agreement not to confront it directly, or to acknowledge that he’d been ill. She was content now to try to forget, and to pretend all was well. And it was. The more time that passed, the more he’d grown back to health, the further the likelihood of a new outburst seemed.
She had accepted what had happened. She’d accepted quietly, within herself, that there would be no sexual union between them. Illness and exhaustion had robbed her of the memory of desire. It was an abstraction, now and then a pang of remembrance, the fullness of her desire for George.
Johnnie wasn’t a man for women in that way. Whatever was in a man’s makeup for that wasn’t present in him. Perhaps it was a kind of purity. But as she contemplated it, her mind was shadowed, briefly, by the memory of the gondolier, by Johnnie’s love for Albert. Whatever it was, she thought, it couldn’t be a physical love. If it was
, she couldn’t bear to envision it. Thank God for ignorance. She recognized in herself that she didn’t want to know. And what did it matter? After this last illness, Johnnie was always at her side, he rarely left her.
Finally, now she was able to ask the question, barely audibly, that she’d longed to ask him. “Did you want to get away from me that much?”
He looked shocked. He stood up, came around the table, sat down beside her, and put his arm around her shoulder.
“No!” He put his face close to hers. “It wasn’t that.”
Her voice was a whisper. “What was it then?”
He looked away, his arm still around her shoulder. Then he turned back to her. “I didn’t want to get away from you. I wanted to get away from myself. I can’t even bear to remember —”
“Don’t,” she said, afraid again.
He ignored her. “If I could only describe it, make someone understand. It was like — an awful jangling in my mind, everything speeding up, and all your thoughts are cascading over one another, and you’ve got no control, your body isn’t your own. One has no volition … it’s like a cancer, only a cancer of the spirit, not the body … it’s that kind of agony.” He shook his head at the memory.
“You were the only thing that was keeping me alive,” he said. “You loved me. You’d agreed to marry me. Everything I’d ever wanted had come true. And then, it came over me, and there was nothing I could do. Except …” He looked at her again, trying to anticipate her reaction. “Except destroy myself.”
She took his hand and held it tightly. For a moment, they said nothing as she searched his face and tried to communicate to him that she loved him and had forgiven him for wanting to leave her alone and helpless in the world. She knew he’d be well now.
He pulled her to him and kissed her gently. “Thank you. That’s all I can say. Thank you.”
The next day she sat down at her desk and took out her quarry. Johnnie came in and saw that she was working. “You are a noble soul,” he said. “I just want to tell Albert that we’re definitely coming down for Christmas. He wrote to ask us about it a week ago.”
“Do tell them yes,” she said. “It’ll be fun, as always.” There’d be a family, children around them, games and charades. And most importantly, Johnnie would be happy with Albert.
“Are you sure it won’t be too much?” he asked. “You’re still not totally recovered, I think.”
“I have tremendous will,” she said with a laugh. “You underestimate me.”
“I know,” he said. “I always do. You’re a very strong little thing.”
“In mind, if not body,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll let you get to work.”
She went back to her quarry. When Cyril is arrested, how exactly would that go? She took the weighty Principles of the Law of Evidence down from the shelf. When poor Cyril is brought to trial, she’d get it right, so when it was published no man of the law could quarrel with what she’d done.
On Saturday morning, when she awoke, her throat was dry. It was as if there were a lump on one side of it. Then, as she was getting dressed, there was the twinge in her back, in her kidney. Not again. She couldn’t stand it. This afternoon they were going to one of the Pop Concerts at St. James’s Hall. The German pianist, Agnes Zimmerman, was playing Liszt.
She ignored the feeling in her back. As the day wore on, and she’d had some good hot tea, her throat seemed better. But she felt warm and it was cold out. Her brow was moist. If she told Johnnie about it, he wouldn’t let her go and she was very eager to hear Zimmerman.
After lunch, she put on her mantilla and Johnnie bundled her up in her beaver mantle. “We don’t want you catching cold.” He stood over her and tied the black satin ribbon under her chin as if she were his child. They set out for Piccadilly.
As they entered the lobby of St. James’s Hall, she kept her head down as always, to hide her face, and increasingly now, to watch her step. But soon she could feel the recognition spreading through the crowd, people stopping to stare at her, the eminent old woman on the arm of the tall, fresh-faced young man, Johnnie, in his frock coat with his top hat and cane — the cane a bit of an affectation, she thought, given his young age. Never mind, he was proud to look so elegant, she knew. Glancing up, she saw a few familiar faces, Dean Stanley of Westminster, a tottering old man now. She raised her hand in greeting.
They took their places in the pewlike seats close to the stage. Johnnie settled her in. It was much too warm in here. “Don’t you think it’s hot?” she asked Johnnie, letting the beaver slip from her shoulders.
“I feel a draft,” he said. “Better keep the mantle on.” He pulled the mantle up again around her. A few moments later, she was again too warm and she shrugged it off and let it fall to the seat.
She gazed around her. The place was a veritable temple to music, with its churchlike windows and Florentine ceiling.
Onstage, a hand appeared and drew aside the curtain. Miss Zimmermann entered. She walked across the stage, reached the piano, and gave a little bow. She was wearing a simple black dress. Marian examined her through the opera glasses. She had a small, gentle look, her wavy hair was piled on top of her head, her nose was straight, her eyes deeply shadowed, her lips thin.
Miss Zimmerman seated herself. The moment of drama.
She began playing Liszt’s “Bénédiction,” the slow beginning, the gentle notes, the themes repeated in variation, the heartbreaking warmth of it. The audience was motionless, following her.
Miss Zimmermann paused. During those seconds of quiet, the pain jabbed at Marian’s side. Her throat was dry again. As Miss Zimmermann took up the flow once more, she forgot the pain. She concentrated on the music. She knew the piece by heart, loved anticipating where it would go. Again the theme returned, each time culminating slightly differently. Then the furious crescendo. At last, the water slowed into little wavelets. A moment of silence and then the clapping began.
They hurried out of the theater to beat the crowd, and into the cold. Johnnie got her up into the landau and tucked the fur rug around her.
The sun had already set, in the distance a yellowish light in the black sky. The carriage made its way along Regent Street through the crowd of hackneys and cabs and omnibuses. The music from the concert still reverberated within her.
“That was extraordinary,” Johnnie said. “That’s one of the gifts you’ve brought to me. The gift of music. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”
She touched his hand. “Thank you.”
People were hurrying along the pavement buried in their hats and scarves in the cold. It was foggy. The shop windows were lit up, the gaslights diffused. There was a faint, clouded moon, but no stars. The trees were barren and skeletal, bits of rubbish caught in the branches. A group of ragged boys huddled together in a doorway. A plume of smoke rose from a food stand selling baked potatoes. She still felt hot but the cold air on her face was good. The pain in her side was increasing, her throat was scratchy again. Never mind, the music was still in her.
They rode west along the Embankment. Below them were the forbidding waters of the Thames, roiling and dark and dangerous, the waves broken up in the lights, the buildings along the shore murky and obscured, the faint red glare of bonfires on the wharves. The memory came to her of that night when Spencer had broken her heart and she’d wanted to throw herself into those black waters and die. But in the end, she’d been too afraid. She’d given that moment to Mirah in Daniel Deronda, standing on the riverbank about to drown herself in despair at losing her brother, only to be rescued by a man who would come to love her. Rescue … by George, by Johnnie, by a man who will love you.
Opposite her in the landau, Johnnie shivered. “Brr, it’s cold. We’ll soon be home, though. Are you freezing?”
“Not at all.”
At Cheyne Walk, Mrs. Dowling had left supper for them, but Marian had no appetite. The pain in her side was definite now, from experience she
knew that more would come. Her throat felt swollen. It hurt and it was hard to swallow. Never mind. She wouldn’t let it ruin the evening. The fever somehow buoyed her.
She went into the drawing room and sat down at her grand old Broadwood. Johnnie followed, a smile of expectation on his face. He stretched himself out on the divan, preparing to listen. She could feel the fever rising, the ache beginning in her bones. She would play through it.
She settled her skirts and began playing the “Bénédiction” from the concert for him, the careful melody at the beginning, then the stretches of slow contemplation. “D’où me vient, ô Mon Dieu! Cette paix qui m’inonde? Whence comes, O God, this peace which floods me?”
Softly … soft … but she could do that, quietly, in the spirit of what Liszt intended. “Whence comes this faith with which my heart overflows?” The music was saying, “I’m not afraid because You are blessing me.” Not just a holy passion, but also romantic, a rising up to Him.
Her arms stretched wide across the keyboard. And now the crescendo … I am with you … What did it matter who “He” was?
The music soothed her. The water falling … drawing to a close … This will ease your pain … will make you believe that once again peace and joy will come. Don’t be afraid — If there is no God, then at least there is this earthly comfort, even as now the pain in her side was more intense, beginning to move around her body.
She was ill again, the pain was worse than it had ever been, but she went on playing, hurtling toward the inevitable, whirling into the darkness of the cold winter London night. Playing above all pain, going forward against it, when her fingers touched the keys … she was within the music …
And there he was, sprawled on his chair, her beautiful man, enthralled by her … his eyes wide and blue. Adoring her. Nephew, husband, loving and protecting her, guardian, her long-limbed man …
She was aware next of Johnnie carrying her upstairs in his arms, calling out, “Brett! Brett! I need your help. Fetch Sir James! Send someone!”
The Honeymoon Page 32