The Honeymoon (36 page)

Outside the window the canal bank was now covered with daffodils. The fragrance of spring drifted in through the window. There was new leaf flesh on the trees. Beyond, on the water, a barge passed languidly by, the horse pulling it along the towpath, the man guiding it with his long pole.

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She told Brett to summon the landau so she could go for a ride.

Outside the house on the pavement, Abner, the coachman, was waiting. Noggin, the horse, was standing there patiently, all clean and white.

“I’m very sorry about the Master, Madame,” Abner said, removing his cap, when she came down the steps.

“Thank you, Abner. I deeply appreciate it.” She went up to Noggin and stroked his velvety black nose. “Hello, Noggin. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?” The animal gave her a flicker of a glance with his big, dark eyes.

Abner helped her up into the carriage. “Just drive,” she said, “anywhere. Where there’s green. Sunlight. I don’t care.”

Noggin clop-clopped along the North Bank in the sunlight, past the white stucco mansions, the flowering bushes peeking out over the tops of the high walls. Strange new world.

As they headed out toward Maida Vale it became more countrylike. There were little cottages and gardens, fresh green willows, lilacs blooming, their fragrance heavy in the air, the smell of the warmed loamy earth, the heat breaking down the old leaves and brush, and new cut grass, the full panoply of the English spring.

She ordered Abner to stop so she could get out and walk, and she set out along the road by herself.

As she went, a skylark lifted out of the field and, wings whirring, let out its complex trill of little syllables, the song of sunlight, and then it returned to the long grass where somewhere it had laid its nest. She spotted a flash of red and white in an oak tree, a woodpecker, and heard the dum-dum-dum of its drilling. A flock of yellow finches scattered through the air. She named the birds in her mind. The names of things. Words. Order in the universe, taking possession. Bringing things to life again. She’d escaped from prison. She raised her head to the sun and felt the warmth on her face. Delicious.

In the next few days, as she continued to work on George’s
Problems
, she realized the best thing to do was just to put some of his thoughts into her own words. She wrote an introduction for the section called “The Affective States.”
“A phenomenon may be accurately observed by us although we are incapable of explaining it.”
There are mysteries that can never be fully understood — like death itself, its finality. We will never understand them because our minds don’t have the ability, we lack the cognition. There are phenomena the meaning of which we can only imagine. In the end, she knew, he accepted that. And she too.

T
hey were circling her like vultures. Word had gotten out that she was getting better. They wanted to borrow money from her. Bertie’s widow, Eliza, whom she was already supporting, wanted fifty pounds more. Bessie Parkes wanted a whole five hundred pounds — probably for some women’s cause of hers. Bessie was rich in her own right. Why did she want Marian’s money? The rich liked others to give money to their projects, it conferred stature and validity. But she’d already given money to Bessie and Barbara for their crusades, albeit not that much. The woman question was much more complicated than they made it out to be, and their noisy declarations unsettled her. She was frightened too that if she used her fame as a writer to proclaim on such subjects as women and marriage, it would draw the world’s attention to the irregularity of her marriage to George, and she couldn’t bear to be scrutinized and judged, to have the moral, and physical, condition of their relationship discussed.

And as for Eliza, she and George had been giving her two hundred pounds a year since Bertie died. Eliza was always asking for more. What should Marian do? How much money did she and George actually
have
? Where was it all? She hadn’t been paying proper attention, she hadn’t cared as long as there was enough of it.

Johnnie Cross would know what to do. She dashed off a note to him.
“I am in dreadful need of your counsel,”
she wrote, and signed it,
“Your much worried Aunt.”

He sent back an answer immediately. He’d be there tomorrow.

The next day, before he was to arrive, she realized that he’d be the first outsider allowed into the house. There would be an introduction of beauty and youth into the dismal place.

It was raining, a bitter London rain that always came and disappointed you just when you thought it was spring. She wondered if, given the weather, he’d still come.

But she mustn’t be caught unawares in this disheveled state. After lunch, for the first time in weeks, she sat down at the dressing table and studied her face in the mirror. Since he’d died she’d avoided mirrors — the Jews always covered their mirrors when there was a death, an excellent custom.

There was even more gray in her auburn hair now, and strands of white too. His illness and death had made her hair turn white! There were new lines on her face, ridges down the sides of her mouth. Her eyes were close-set, dull, neither blue nor gray.

She rubbed her cheeks to give them some color and pinned her hair in loops on either side of her face to make it seem fuller. For the first time since he’d died, she rubbed powder on her face to try to soften the lines.

She put on her usual black silk dress with the lace collar, and the black mantilla over her head.

Just before four, when he was to arrive, she positioned herself by the fireplace in the drawing room, in the shadows,
as she always did. She heard the bell ring and the sound of voices. Brett announced him, and then there he stood in the doorway.

He came toward her, tall and youthful. His face filled her vision. It was grave and worn after Anna’s death. His red hair was damp from the rain. He was dressed in a black mourning suit, perfectly draped on his frame, obviously newly made. “Marian, I’m so glad you’ve let me come,” he said softly, fervently, in his sweet, soft, Scottish-American tones.

He reached out for her and pulled her gently to her feet and kissed her on the cheek. As he drew her to him, she could smell the fresh spring air on his skin. She felt the dampness of the rain on his suit against her face, the mass of his body.

His blue eyes were shining with tears.

“I’ve been so selfish,” she said. “I forgot about Anna. I’ve been so engrossed in my own troubles, I didn’t even write. I couldn’t say the words.”

“Now I’m here to help you,” he said. “We’ll try to heal together. What can I do to help you?”

“I suddenly realized I don’t know where our money is, or how much I even have, or how to get it!”

“Not to worry,” he said. “I’ve got records of everything. We’ll get it straightened out.”

He was confident, serious. She felt her anxiety abating a little.

He took her hand. His was strong and very large, and it completely enveloped hers.

“Are you doing anything for yourself?” she asked him.

“You’ll laugh,” he said.

“Why would I do that?”

“I’ve started reading Dante. I’m trying to teach myself Italian. I’m using the Carlyle translation as a crutch.”

“That sounds like a wonderful thing to do. Why should I laugh?”

“Well, I’m not exactly a man of letters, you know. I’m more of a games man.”

“Everything’s contained in Dante. Perhaps I’ll read it with you.”

“Would you?” he said, as if she were offering him a present. “Your Italian’s so good. You could teach me.”

“Let me think about it. I’m not ready yet.”

“Please,” he said. “I hope you will.”

They chatted for a moment more. Then he kissed her hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow at four,” he said. “With everything you need.”

He came at four o’clock precisely. Clicking open the locks on his briefcase, he undid the straps, all solemn business, and took out a pile of papers. He’d done a summary of all their finances.

“I went to see the solicitor this morning,” he said. “He says that for the will to go through, to get at your money, you’re going to have to change your name.”

“Change my name?”

“You see, most of the money, and the two houses, the Priory and the Heights, are under the name Lewes.”

“But I
am
Marian Lewes. I’ve always been Mrs. Lewes.”

“Not legally.” He saw her anguished face. “I know. It’s terrible. Legally, there’s no such person as Marian Lewes because the marriage wasn’t —” He hesitated to say the crude word “legal,” but she knew, of course, what he meant.

They never discussed with Johnnie, or anyone else, the fact that they weren’t legally married. In the early days, they’d try to explain the legal issues to close friends. She’d tried to tell Isaac. But then they stopped out of pride. They refused to dignify their love with an explanation. As far as they were concerned, they were married.

Johnnie went on, tactfully, “You’ll have to change your legal name from Evans to Lewes. Under the law, it’s done by a legal document — it’s called a deed poll. I can arrange that for you with the solicitor and all you’ll have to do is sign it.”

“I’m so weary,” she said. “It’s so cruel. Before I can have my
own money
? Well, now at least my marriage will be ‘legal,’ after the fact.”

“I agree,” Johnnie said now. “It’s a travesty.” He coughed with embarrassment. “Now, for the money … You’ve got a great deal of it.”

“I don’t care about being rich. I just want to know I’ll be able to eat and have a roof over my head.”

“That’s certainly not going to be a problem.” He picked up a piece of paper and read down a list. “By my calculations, you’ve made about £45,000 from all the books together.
Middlemarch
has brought in nearly £10,000.
Daniel Deronda
, £9,200 so far. Even the poetry’s sold extraordinarily well.”

She told him about Bessie Parkes and Eliza asking for money.

“I’d advise you to wait until the estate is settled before giving anything away.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I feel a bit better. I know you’re partly responsible for helping George make so much out of
all our money.” Suddenly, tears welled in her eyes. “How am I going to manage without him?”

He took her hand. Once again she noticed his hand, big and manly and unblemished, even the nails were perfect, oval, their tips perfectly straight. “Don’t worry,” he said in his lovely, young, tenor voice. “You’ve got me to help you now.”

He shuffled through his pile of papers and passed one to her. “Here, I’ve listed all your investments.”

“I can’t look at it. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to know about it.”

“I realize that. But I do want to say that I think you should sell some of the American securities, the San Francisco Bank, and Continental Gas. They’re too unstable. I’d say you should sell about five thousand pounds’ worth. And then invest the money in London and Northwestern Debentures.”

She waved her hand. “Please. Just do it. It bores me.”

“Very well. I’ll draw up the papers for your signature.”

“Also, I’d like to arrange for the annual payments to Bertie’s widow, Eliza, to continue …” She hesitated. “And to Agnes Lewes in Kensington.”

At the mention of Agnes, he gave her a sharp look, knowing what this meant. He was familiar with their accounts.

At last, she returned to their bedroom, to the bed where he’d died. Brett had thoroughly cleaned the room, but she’d told her not to touch his things, to leave his clothes in his wardrobe, his silver brush and comb on his bureau. The thick, brittle strands of his black hair still clung to the bristles of the brush. She touched them with her fingertips. Here were the only remains of his flesh. Opening his wardrobe, she buried her face in his jacket: there was still
his vague, indefinable smell in the cloth, a bit of sweat, his cigar. Beyond, the bed was freshly made up for her, sterile in its cleanliness.

The first night, the sheets were cold, the mattress seemed hard, the bed too big, and she couldn’t sleep.