The School of Night (28 page)

He takes the instrument from her. Raises it to his eye. Arcs it across the sky.

—Margaret, this is …

—Yes?

—It is quite extraordinary!

—Do you think?

—Oh, by my faith! Everything is most agreeably enlarged! The resolution and the—the
grain
 …

A laugh escapes his throat as the stars swarm toward him.

—All my old friends! Shining like new again. There is Libra … there is Ursa Minor … there is—

The moon
, he is about to say. Only it sits in a different quadrant of sky.

Back and forth he swings the glass, unable to credit his senses.
Two
moons. One like the moon of old. One paler and smaller, ready at any moment to shrink back into darkness …

God have mercy.

—Venus.

He whispers the name. He whispers it again.

—
Venus …

*   *   *

For many centuries, men have spoken of Venus's phases, but few have ever glimpsed them with the naked eye. So few indeed that Harriot has long since ceased to believe they exist.

And now, in a trice, legend has become truth. And there lies Venus. Stuck against the heavens' blotter, like the clipping of someone's thumbnail.

To his shock, he feels his eyes soften. Not with the old dampness, which tasted of pitch and gall, but something more lucid.

Already he is muttering his excuses.

—The smoke, I think … blowing crossriver …

She takes his hand and looks at him. And what a relief to see how free of pity her eyes are. All he can say is:

—Thank you, Margaret.

And then he kisses her. And those lips that, in his blindness, he once believed too small … how they swell to his touch. How they taste of
her.

35

L
OVER
.

Nothing about it grows any clearer, any less strange with usage. How sensible, he thinks, were the old Romans. Knowing how elusive their quarry was, they came at it with a battalion of verbs.
Amare
, they called it. And
diligere
and
delectare
and
placere
and
observare.

Where in that linguistic stew lie his feelings?
Amare
, yes, he has known some of that. When he first went to London as a young man, he frequented the Cardinal's Hat, where brisk and practiced women asked for their eighteenpence up front and arranged themselves on tear sheets and unbuttoned themselves just far enough to get the act done.

It never occurred to him that the same act could be carried out at leisure, that it could be ushered in and teased along, savored and recollected, distilled … more verbs! There are days, indeed, when he imagines himself entirely reconjugated. And other days when he feels …

—Too old.

He says it once without even thinking. It is an hour or two before dawn, and they are in his fourposter, pressed against each other like mortise and tenon. His hand circles that miraculous thatch of honey-colored hair, that part of the female anatomy never before vouchsafed to him.

—Too old for what? she asks.

—For this. For you.

—Oh …

She reaches around him, caresses the space between his shoulder blades.

—How soft your skin is. A baby's skin.

But there is nothing remotely maternal in the way her fingers scuttle down his ribs, hook around the blade of his pelvis. And this, too, is a revelation. That his body, which he has spent most of his life shrouding, might long for the light. That it might desire, might
be
desired.

He draws her closer. He feels her parting to admit him. Not in submission but in power, for when they have finished, he cannot help but gasp the same word.

—Stay.

And her reply is ever the same.

—It is late.

—An hour more …

She will not relent. And how he feels the lack of her when she is gone. This spartan bed, once barely large enough to contain him, yawns open. The linen holds her shape, the wool her scent.

One night, Harriot brings to bed an old bottle of
spiritus dulcis
, and the aroma of grapes and roses and candy so overcomes him he decants it, in slow dribs, across Margaret's body and licks each drop away. She performs the same unction on him, and before they can even rise to a consummation, they have fallen asleep in each other's arms.

Where they are found the next morning by Mrs. Golliver, sailing in like some raven spirit, eyes glittering, face frozen.

—Forgive me, Master. I—I thought …

The next afternoon, Harriot is summoned for an audience—unscheduled—with the Earl of Northumberland. They meet in the earl's library, which, in keeping with the primacy he attaches to it, runs the entire length of the house's northern front. The best river views may be found here, but the earl is always to be found facing the other way, toward those rows of books, with their sumptuous calf-leather covers, their calf-vellum pages, their gilt-ruled spines, their richly annotated pages.

—Reports have reached my ears, Tom.

Even in addressing him, the earl does not change his position so much as a hair. It is Harriot who must come to him.

—Do these reports concern my assistant?

—Yes.

—Do they emanate from my housekeeper?

The earl waits before answering.

—'Tis a fractious household of which you are master, Tom.

—I have never pretended to be its master.

—Nor I yours. In the normal sway of things, my steward would never worry my peace with domestic alarums. In your case, he has made an exception.

—I am grieved to have troubled him.

—Understand me, Tom, I would not shame you for the world. How you live is your concern. It pains me, however, to see your good name sullied by rumor.

—My name is not so good, perhaps, as you believe.

The earl studies him. Then slowly draws out an oaken armchair. Lowers himself into it and motions to Harriot to do the same.

—So it is true.

—That my heart has a claimant? Yes.

—Your heart.

The earl's brows fork together. His hand passes before his lips.

—If Kit could see you now, Tom.…

—I hope he would not see as you do.

—And how am I in error?

—Your Grace believes I am casting myself away on a girl of low estate. You could not be more in the wrong. Margaret Crookenshanks possesses one of the finest—finest
natural
minds I have ever had the privilege to encounter. If you would but suffer me, I might show you some of the marvels she has effected with—

—Doctor Dee has wrought great marvels. So, too, Herr Kepler, they say. I do not believe you entertain the same passion for them.

Harriot folds his hands together. Lowers his head as if for a schoolmaster's reprimand. And is all the more surprised to hear the earl's gentle voice.

—Tell me, Tom.

—Yes?

—Is it a great wonder? This passion of yours.

—Much of the time it is terrible, Your Grace. Much of the time it is wondrous. And it is everything that lies between.

The earl nods, as if satisfied. Then rises and turns away.

—In that event, I suggest you pursue your inquiries to their natural end.

Taking this for dismissal, Harriot tenders his bow and makes for the doorway. The earl's resonant drawl stops him two feet shy of freedom.

—You might, at some juncture, consider marrying the girl, Tom. I should be the last to raise an objection, having one less mouth to feed.

A moment's pause before he adds:

—There is
honor
in marriage.

A grand flare to his nostrils when he speaks, as if he were exhaling an entire code of conduct.

But this has never been Harriot's code. His work has always been the most jealous of mates. That a woman might come along who could embrace it and be embraced by it … this had never once crossed his mind. And now that he has found such a woman, the old assumptions can no longer hold. And so, as much as the Earl's words rankle him, they also harry him.

There is honor in marriage.

For a week, he broods on the question. He catches himself staring at her, as if her very presence might jar him in one direction or the other. In strange moments, he actually clears his throat, like a Saint Crispin's Day orator, ready to hold forth. Each time, she gives him the same expectant look; each time, his well runs dry.

On Sunday afternoon, she finds him in his study, half loafing through an old volume of Sallust. Sly with mischief, she curls her finger at him.

—Come.

They follow the same path they took on Midsummer's Eve: to the house's northwest tower, Margaret leading the way this time. No perspective trunk in her hands, but her stride is martial with purpose. She leads him up the steps; she draws the keys from her apron pocket; she shoves open the door, and then, striding onto the parapet, points westward.

There, on either side of the sinking sun, stand two shards of rainbow. Nothing but air between them.

Harriot blinks. His mouth hinges open.

Parhelion
, that is what men of learning call it. But what rises up in his mind is the name he first heard as a child:
sun dog.
His mother used to tell him that, whenever God grew jealous of the rainbow's beauty, he would snatch it up in its very birthing and leave behind only those two stubborn roots of light, with just the tiniest halo to connect them.

He had believed her, of course. And the shock of seeing it once more, coupled with the sensation of being
here
, fifty feet above the earth, with Margaret's shoulder pressed against his … once more he is mute before the occasion.

It is up to Margaret to find the words.

—The light is red, as you see, on the sides nearest the sun. Blue on the sides opposite. In between … well, violet, to be sure, but mark how blurry and indistinct are these hues. When set alongside those of a fully formed rainbow—

He marks how the dropping sun makes a translucency of her fair skin. How it calls out that trembling blue vein on her left temple.

—I am disposed to wonder if some additional order of refraction is at work, she says. —A form of crystal, invisible to our eyes. Something there must be, do you not think? Driving the rays from their natural—

—Marry me.

He had meant it to sound self-evident—the most natural proposition in the world. But she jerks away, as if from a musket blast, and all the attention she had given those trunks of light bears down on him.

—You ask me to marry you?

—I do.

—And you ask this freely? Of your own heart?

—I do.

—Knowing I am
not
with child? That you bear no duty of any kind towards me?

—I know all this.

—Then let me answer you with another query: Why must we marry?

He raises his hands in a gesture of supplication.

—What else shall we do?

—Carry on as before.

—I do not know that we can. I do not know that I wish it.

And by now all the translucency is gone from her skin. Her face is a brittle white mask.

—What in heaven's name has possessed you? The two of us …

—Yes?

—Begin with this! We scarcely know each other. We hail from altogether different spheres—different
worlds
. Not two months ago, I was your housemaid.

—And in the days since, have we not spent virtually every waking and sleeping moment together? Is there any part of my heart, of my—are we not known to each other in all aspects?

Flushing, she wheels away. Walks to the other side of the parapet, with the sun dog at her back. Her voice comes back low and nettled.

—I can just hear the gossips now. They will say I maneuvered you into it. What a schemer they will think me—

—Margaret …

—A
whore.
Far worse is being said already, I've no doubt, under the good offices of the Gollivers.

—What care you for the world's opinion? What care I?

They are both silent. Then, very slowly, she comes to him. She takes his long chalky fingers in her hand. She raises her eyes to his.

—I wish I had words to tell you.

—Tell what you can.

—For the first time in my life, I feel free. And that freedom is your gift to me. I beg you, do not take it away from me.

—But I never should—

—Not by design, I know that. You would marry with the very best of intentions—most men do—and the end would be the same. I would be your property.

—What do you take me for?
Property
 …

—And that being the case, I should sooner be your servant.

She puts her hand to his cheek. Not in anger, it seems, but in pity.

—I love you, Tom. But I must not be your wife.

*   *   *

He spends the next day apart from her. Not from wounded feeling, as she must think, but from a surfeit of feeling. She has refused him, yes, but for the first time, his Christian name has tumbled from her lips. And in this extraordinary context.

I … love … you … Tom.

How elusive that verb had once seemed to him. And now it has been unmistakably conjugated, with Harriot as its direct object. And this somehow trumps every other consideration: the Gollivers' ill will, the earl's proprieties, even Harriot's own sense of mission. There can
be
no mission without her inside it.

*   *   *

The next evening, he reports to the laboratory at the usual time. She is waiting for him. Neither says a word about what has passed. They carry on. And, indeed, it is in the act of carrying on that he resigns himself fully to Margaret's refusal—or, more truthfully, sees the lie in it.

For it becomes clearer with each second: She has refused him nothing. She is well and truly his.