The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel (19 page)

It couldn’t have been simpler. The picture was started long before Imogen would have been pregnant and the studies were destroyed for
the most ordinary reason of all. They weren’t very good. Neither was the final picture. It’d been hard to find because it wasn’t worth displaying. Maybe Broginart wanted the earlier study because it was better, or because he collected modern paintings and thought Eleanor’s experiment might eventually pay off.

I’d been crazy to follow the painting. The letters in Sweden made me think I could find anything, but that had only been dumb luck. Then I’d tricked myself into believing I could solve everything with one piece of evidence. A painting. Of all the things in this world.

—You’re out of your league, I whisper.

I turn right into the Parc Monceau, following a wide path toward a rotunda on the north side. It’s time to admit I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m going after a huge fortune and I’m acting like a freshman researching a term paper. Maybe I should have hired a lawyer or a probate researcher, even if it broke the confidentiality agreement, even if I risked forfeiting my claim. Prichard had told me not to share the trust’s details with anyone, but in listening to him I’d chosen a stranger over my own friends and family. Today is September 3. In five weeks I stand to lose every cent and there’s no one I can turn to.

There are two choices now. I can go back to London and start over. I could even hire someone there. Or I can follow the only evidence I’ve found—Ashley’s letters—and go to northern France. Ashley last saw Imogen in the Somme, about a hundred miles northeast of here. The truth is I don’t want to go back to London empty-handed. And I don’t want to break the agreement when there’s a chance I can find the evidence on my own.

I walk past the rotunda and down the stairs into the métro, riding line 2 to the Gare du Nord. At the SNCF counter I ask for a one-way ticket to Amiens. I lean into the counter’s microphone and repeat the name of the city several times.

—Amiens, I say.

—Orléans?

—Amiens.

The woman lifts her eyebrows and hazards a guess.

—Rennes?

Eventually she understands me. I leave the counter with a ticket on tomorrow’s one o’clock train. At an
alimentation générale
behind the station I buy a bottle of cheap red wine and uncork it on the sidewalk, pouring it into my water bottle. I’ve wasted a week in Paris. At least I have one night to myself.

23 August 1916

The Langham Hotel

Marylebone, Central London

They take their dinner in the hotel restaurant. It is the night before Ashley crosses and Imogen would have preferred to eat in private in their room. But Ashley wants to be among a crowd.

—We’ll only have to go upstairs afterwards, he promises.

Most of the other diners are men in khaki or older couples in evening dress. When the waiter puts the menu before her, Imogen is astonished by the richness of the dishes.

—One would think there isn’t a war on.

—Not for those who can pay.

—Darling, I don’t want to eat us into the workhouse—

—You shan’t. Not tonight, anyway.

They eat bowls of potent consommé. They have roast shoulder of mutton in a rich brown onion sauce, served with plates of wax beans and lady cabbage. Ashley remarks that the mutton is dry, and as soon as he says this he wishes he had not. Imogen does not seem to notice. She seems distracted throughout the meal and Ashley does not know if she is nervous or impatient or simply unhappy.

For dessert they have pineapple ice followed by a wedge of
Roquefort. Ashley portions the whole cheese with a golden knife, but in the end they do not finish the slices. Imogen asks the waiter if they can have the coffee brought to their room. The waiter bows in affirmation.

They take the elevator up the three stories, the uniformed operator eyeing them curiously, Imogen holding Ashley’s arm as they ascend. They get out of the elevator and Ashley looks at her.

—Are you all right?

Imogen shakes her head.

—Let’s forget it’s the last night. Let’s not even think of it. Can we do that?

—Of course. But is something wrong?

—Darling, we needn’t talk about it. Let’s simply be together.

They go inside the hotel room and Ashley begins to kiss her as soon as the door is closed. He kisses her neck as she takes off her hat and throws it on the floor. He says things to her he has never said before, things he did not know he would say.

—You’re everything, Ashley whispers. You’re more than everything. The things I never believed in.

They are standing beside the bed and she is kissing his face, holding him very tight, her arms firm and tense. Ashley’s hand runs over the linen-covered buttons at the back of her dress. He touches her cheek but Imogen guides his hands back to the buttons. She is looking at him all the time. Ashley pulls the buttons through the fabric loops and the dress slips lower down her body.

—Darling, Imogen says. The curtains.

Ashley draws the curtains shut and flips the switch on the electric light. It is easier now in the dark. He takes off his tunic and necktie and they get in bed under the counterpane, Ashley pulling the sheets over their heads until they are close together in the blackness. Their hands are free now and Imogen takes off her lace chemise and silk hose. Ashley can feel her bare legs against his. There is a knock at the door.

—The coffee, Ashley gasps. I completely forgot.

Imogen laughs. She pulls the counterpane over her shoulders and
dashes into the bathroom. Ashley switches the light back on and dresses hurriedly. He opens the door and the waiter walks in with the coffee service on a silver tray. Ashley tips him a few coins. Ashley’s shirt collar is open and his necktie is balled up on the floor. The waiter salutes and closes the door behind him.

—Safe to come out now.

—Do you promise?

Ashley switches the light off.

—Safe as houses.

Imogen comes out and wraps the counterpane around him, her naked body pressed against him as she pulls him toward the bed. She is breathing fast now and she gasps a little as he kisses her neck and shoulders. He puts his hand to her face, trying to look into her eyes. It is very dark.

—Are you certain?

—Hush.

—It’s what you want?

—Hush.

She reaches for him and draws him closer.

—I’m not so good as you, Imogen says. But I don’t care.

The night stretches long before them and still it is not long enough. Hours pass and Ashley drifts toward slumber, but when he wakes holding her he sees Imogen’s watchful eyes looking back at him.

—You don’t want to sleep?

She shakes her head.

—I can sleep when you’re gone. We’ve only a few hours left.

Ashley nods and sits up in the bed. He pulls the sheet over his bare chest. His mouth is dry and his head has a dull ache.

—I had a dream. Though I scarcely slept.

—What did you dream of?

—I’m not sure.

—Perhaps you dreamt of me, she teases.

He shakes his head. —I’d have known if I had.

Ashley grazes his fingers along her cheek.

—That will come later, he adds.

Imogen goes into the bathroom and when she comes back she is wearing a silk dressing kimono. She walks to the windows and pulls a long rope, gold-tasseled at the end. The curtains part in the middle and gradually draw open.

—It’s dark, Ashley says. You won’t be able to see anything.

—We can see the searchlights. That’s something.

Imogen pours a cup of coffee from the china pot on the tray. She takes a sip and frowns slightly.

—It must be cold, Ashley says. We could ring for more—

—It’s fine, darling. I like it cold.

Imogen cradles her saucer in one hand, holding the cup with the other. She looks out the arched windows toward Portland Place, the dim beacon of a single blue streetlamp among the darkness.

—Ashley. I’ve another of my fool questions.

—All right.

—Do you believe in what happens in dreams?

Ashley blinks wearily. He is watching her back, his eyes on the blue sash girdling her waist.

—You mean the events in dreams, he says. You’re asking if they really happen.

Imogen nods. —If they happen somewhere. It needn’t be here.

Ashley considers for a moment.

—I expect you want a better answer. But they’re just dreams. I suppose our minds need something to work on in the night, so everything’s let loose, fear and desire. We may dream about real people and places, but that doesn’t make the dreams real.

—But this hardly seems real, Imogen says. It’s only been a few days and here we are together.

—This isn’t ordinary.

She smiles.

—No, she says. I suppose it isn’t.

Imogen sets the empty cup and saucer on the tray and climbs into bed beside Ashley, staring up at the ceiling. She says that at times this world seems certain to her, but at other times the world of dreams seems equally certain, or even more certain, for dreams cast a shadow over this world, while the present world hardly figures in the world of the night.

Imogen sits up and asks which of the two domains is more human, for this world is cold and stark and banal, and here all is governed by exacting calculation, from the moment of our birth to the chemical causes of our death. She says that all of science and mathematics is but the feeble discovery of these ruthless mechanisms, and in this world all the affection or pathos one could ever summon would not shift a single physical atom. She says that it is an unholy world where human souls are decided through mean reckoning of the trajectories of bullets or the multiplication of diseased cells.

Ashley moves to touch Imogen, but she catches his hand and grasps it.

—We deserve more than that, she says.

It is the domain of dreams, Imogen continues, that is crafted on the scale of the human heart and constructed of the same materials, and for this reason feels warm and vivid and familiar even as it is strange. It is in the world of the night, she tells him, that we are at last set loose from the trivial and the crass, and left to seek what is truly worthy. Imogen says finally that in dreams neither distance nor even death can prevent the meeting of two hearts of sufficient will, and surely this is the way our world ought to have been fashioned, and if it was not so fashioned she wants no part in it.

—It isn’t fair otherwise, she says. It just wouldn’t be fair.

Ashley comes to Imogen and wraps his arms around her. He holds her tight, watching her eyelids sink slowly with fatigue. When her breathing becomes soft and regular, he sets a feather pillow beneath her head.

Clothed only in his underwear, Ashley goes to the desk and takes a
white card from the drawer. He writes a few lines on the card and studies them. He frowns and tears the card up, droppings the pieces in the wastebasket. He writes another card and reviews it carefully. When he is satisfied he hides the card inside her bag where it is not easily seen.

Ashley goes to the window and begins drawing the curtains closed with the rope. Through the paneled glass he sees the sky lightening faintly at its edges. He wonders if dawn is truly breaking, or if he is only imagining the coming of this light. He wishes he had not seen it. The two curtains meet in the center and cinch shut. Ashley climbs back into bed. He looks at the sleeping girl beside him.

—You’d want me to wake you, he whispers. We ought not to sleep tonight.

He smoothes the dark band of hair on her forehead. She stirs slightly. Ashley lies down beside her and shuts his eyes.