The Honeymoon (20 page)

She wrote back, trying to be playful and not too forward.
“No credit to me for my virtues as a refrigerant. I owe them all to a few lumps of ice which I carried away with me from that tremendous glacier of yours.”
Careful to keep a joking tone so that he wouldn’t be frightened off, she continued,
“We will not inquire too curiously whether you long most for my society or for the sea breezes.”
So he wouldn’t think she was flirting,
she called herself
“a Medusa.” “But seriousness and selfishness apart,”
she wrote,
“I should like you to have the enjoyment of this pleasant place.”
She knew of a hotel where he might stay — of course she couldn’t invite him to stay with her.
“Do come Saturday, if you would like.”

Five days later, she stood on the pier to meet him. As the boat pulled in, all around her children jumped up and down excitedly, calling out, “Papa! Papa!”

Catching sight of the familiar stooped figure in the shabby suit, happiness welled in her. A man of her own age, coming to visit her. A man who wasn’t married, who had sought her out, who cared for her, a man whose mind she so admired.

He spotted her and took his hat off and waved. When he alighted on the pier, he stepped toward her as if he were going to kiss her. Then he hesitated, and a vaguely startled look came to his face. He looked almost frightened, as if he hadn’t expected to see her. At length he gripped her arms as if both to greet her and to keep her at a distance. He didn’t kiss her.

She’d booked a room for him at Ballard’s on Albion Street, and they’d arranged to have supper there too. As they studied the menu, he said, “This place is really too expensive for me, I’m afraid.”

She felt a moment of trepidation. Would he be angry with her for booking his room at such an expensive hotel? She’d written him the rates and he’d told her to go ahead. Was he going to leave early then?

“I’m afraid I got a bit seasick during the journey and I’m not that hungry,” he said.

“Have some ale,” she suggested, “that’ll settle your stomach.”

The meal came and they spoke, as usual, about his new book on cognition. “I’m afraid I’ve taken on more than I can manage,” he said

“Why not publish something on it in the
Westminster
first, and see the response? Perhaps it’ll help.”

His lips pursed as he thought it over. “A good idea,” he said.

When they’d finished their trifle, he said he was tired. “I’ll walk with you to your cottage,” he offered.

There were still people about, mostly couples, strolling arm in arm along the promenade, looking out to sea. The night air was warm and sensuous, suffused with the smell of the ocean and the gentle sound of breaking waves. The sky beyond was deep violet. Below, on the sand, the breakers were iridescent, cresting and foaming along the sand, their phosphorescence glowing eerily in the darkness.

At the door to her cottage, he stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. Then, gently, he let it drop. He took his hat off to her, a signal for her to enter the house. From the door she watched him walking down the path. There would be no more from him tonight.

In the morning, they walked on the beach, northward under the cliffs. They walked apart from each other, but it was difficult to talk anyway because of the wind. They stopped to explore the tunnels, supposedly dug by smugglers, and she scanned the beach for shards of sea glass and pocketed them as souvenirs.

On the way back to town, she hid behind a rock and removed her shoes and stockings so she could go barefoot. She continued on ahead of him, hoping that he’d be drawn by her few inches of bare flesh, her naked feet and ankles.
She turned around. He wasn’t looking at her. He was bent over a tidal pool examining something.

The long hike left her languid, her limbs suffused with a sweet relaxation. At dinner, they drank ale again and it made her limbs feel heavy, her body feel ripe.

“Shall we walk on the beach one more time before we say good night?” she suggested.

“If you wish.”

The night sky was clear, the stars glittering in the blackness. “Look!” she said. “Is that the Scorpion?”

“I can’t see it,” he said.

She traced the air with her fingertips. “Over there. See it?”

“Sort of,” he said.

She inhaled the night air. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sky this beautiful.”

“Yes,” he said distractedly.

For a moment he was caught in her glance, his face visible in the starlight. She held him with her eyes and refused to let him look away.

She asked him softly, “I hope you’ve liked it here. I very much wanted you to enjoy it.”

“Why — yes …,” he said, as if he didn’t quite understand the question.

“We’ve been happy together, haven’t we? We share so many interests, our work …”

“Yes.” He began scraping the sand with the toe of his shoe.

“I feel that I’ve never quite had the same sympathy with anyone … as I’ve had with you.”

And then suddenly, without even thinking, she found herself moving toward him. She put her arms around his
neck, pulled his face toward her, and kissed him full on the lips. She felt her body rise up to him, expectantly, longingly. But his mouth was tight, his teeth hard beneath her lips.

He stepped back and pushed her away. She could see, in the light of the stars, alarm on his face. “I …” He struggled for words. “I — I’m sorry …,” he said helplessly. “I think you misunderstand. You see, I don’t feel … that sort of … attraction …” For the first time since she’d known him, he looked desperate, as if he were going to cry.

He took his hat off and wiped his brow. “I think, perhaps, I’m not made for this …, that I can’t feel —” As if he expected her to come to his aid, to finish his sentence for him.

The beach was deserted now, the night air filled with the hush of the waves rushing in.

Then he said, “I think I’d best go back to London. On the morning boat. It’s best I leave.”

There was nothing she could say. All she knew was that she couldn’t let him see her face. She hurried back across the sand and up the steps ahead of him, leaving him there on the beach.

He didn’t say goodbye. She knew the boat left for Westminster at 7:30 a.m. She didn’t go out that morning, but lay in bed awake. He’d pushed her away, her desire to love him, to comfort him, to help him become whom he was to be. The shame would be with her forever.

She had loved him, yes, loved his sweet, shy, peculiar self, the deep unhappy part of him, the frightened child beneath his eccentricities, the little boy whose brothers and sisters had all died, who was afraid that he himself would die prematurely, who was so strong and determined that he walked a hundred miles at the age of thirteen to get home
to his mother and father, the man with his extraordinary ideas, ideas unique and peculiar to himself.

She couldn’t rest, couldn’t concentrate enough to go out, to walk about the town. All she could think of was that she was losing him, that it was like death, and now would come even greater, unendurable loneliness, without at least this one intimate friendship, this one closeness that she felt. She was sure that somewhere he felt it too, that he loved her in his own way. And now she’d driven him away and it was unbearable to her. She’d have no friend in London, no one approximating a beau in her life.

Sitting down at the little desk in her room, she wrote to him:
“I know this letter will make you very angry with me, but wait a little, and don’t say anything to me while you are angry. I promise not to sin again in the same way.”
She implored,
“I want to know if you can assure me that you will not forsake me, that you will always be with me as much as you can and share your thoughts and feelings with me. If you become attached to some one else,”
she wrote,
“then I must die …”

Never had any woman written such a letter to a man.

Two days later, she returned to London. Standing at the balustrade in the garden of Somerset House, she gazed down into the turbulent waters of the river.

As she watched the river flow by, she thought for a moment, how easy it would be just to jump. Drowning would take but minutes, if you didn’t fight it. Then it would all be over, this loneliness …

First, the water would enter your body. Your eyes and throat would burn. Then you’d cough violently as your body
tried to expel the water. But if you could just stay down underneath, in three or four minutes the water would fill your lungs and you’d sink. Blessed unconsciousness. Peace.

Why wasn’t death seen as a comfort rather than as a horrifying end to life? Eternal rest, surcease from pain, at the realization that no man would ever love her. No more, this fruitless search.

But as she stood there, looking down into the thick, gray waters, so cold even in late summer, swirling violently beneath her, filthy and opaque and filled with debris, bits of rubbish and wood drifting by, fear overtook her. There would be those few moments before you actually lost consciousness, when you’d know that this was your end — what if you changed your mind?

The longing for the water passed.

Back at 142 Strand, her work awaited her, a pile of manuscripts for the October issue of the magazine. She would lose herself in it, have the satisfaction of shaping another person’s language, of making it sing.

I
n Venice, the morning after the concert at the Teatro Malibran, she got up, went into the
sala
, and found Johnnie still dressed in his evening clothes from the night before. His face was exhausted.

“Johnnie, didn’t you go to bed?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You didn’t sleep?”

“No.”

“But — what did you do?”

“Just sat here.”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

“You look terrible.” His hair was awry. There were deep circles under his eyes. He began walking around the room in a slow, rhythmic pace, ignoring Gerita, who was setting up the morning tea.

“You didn’t even undress?”

“I was afraid to.”