“No,” she said. “I meant walking or riding or driving out. Yes, even in winter. Perhaps visiting neighbors and friends.”
“And yet,” he said, “you say the thought of winter’s approach makes you sad.”
It would be many times worse this year. She would be without him. Was she just needy? Or was she in love with him? Well, of course she was in love with him. But did she love him? There was a world of difference. How could she, though? He had given her precious little reason to love him. She really did not know him, and he was making good and sure that she never would.
She wondered if he was lonely.
“It is raining again,” he said, and she turned her head to look out through the window. “Even you cannot wish to go out in this.”
No. She had no boots. Besides, it was cold and windy and wet. Miserable. Yet cozy to look out upon.
“Your silence is ominous,” he said. “Please do not tell me the ferns are calling to you again, Viola. My instinct for gallantry would be put severely to the test. I suspect I would feel compelled to follow you out there.” He removed his hand from hers in order to finish his breakfast.
“I do not wish to go out,” she said.
They spent two full days indoors, enjoying the warmth of log and coal fires. They read—his great-aunt had been a reader and had left behind a whole wall of bookshelves in the writing room, all of them filled with books. They played cards with a faded deck they discovered in the writing desk. They even tried playing charades and kept it going for all of an hour before she collapsed in laughter and he told her she had lost the famed dignity he had always so admired and she threw a cushion at him. They talked. She told him about her childhood in Bath, incidents she had not thought of in years. He told her about various hair-raising exploits in which he had been a key player while at Oxford. She suspected the stories were much embellished, though perhaps not. And they were certainly amusing. They kissed, warmly and languidly, but never went beyond kisses, as either Mr. or Mrs. Prewitt was forever popping into the room after the most perfunctory of knocks, he to bring fresh coals for the fire, she to bring a constant supply of tea or coffee with biscuits or cakes or scones. She inevitably stayed to chat—or, rather, to deliver one of her monologues—while pouring their beverages and pressing food upon them.
Sometimes Viola dozed, his arm about her shoulders as they sat side by side on the sofa. He had told her he could never sleep unless he was horizontal on a bed, but once when she awoke his breathing was suspiciously deep, almost on the verge of a snore. She kept still and smiled into the fire while she indulged herself with one of those moments of total happiness.
They looked out at the valley and the weather. Or she did, at least, nestled on the window seat, her knees drawn up before her, her arms clasped about them—the sort of casual pose she had never before allowed herself. The valley was endlessly beautiful, even when clouds hung over it and wind and rain lashed it.
What if she . . . What if they lived here all the time, though? Would she continue to be enthralled by it all? Or would it become tedious and confining? But never that, surely. She could be happy here forever. But—cut off from all she knew? From everyone she knew?
And she was assailed by a stabbing of fear bordering upon terror for Harry. And by a dull ache of love for her daughters. Was Camille still going outdoors barefoot? Was Abigail still enjoying being in Bath? And her grandchildren. Was Jacob sleeping for longer stretches at night yet? Had Winifred finished reading A Pilgrim’s Progress? And did she still feel the need to summarize each chapter for anyone willing to listen? Oh, Viola was always, always willing to listen. Did Sarah still like to be cuddled? Was there a letter from Harry?
A hand closed warmly about her shoulder, and she covered it with one of her own and turned her head to smile up at him.
“What a marvelous invention glass is,” he said. “One can observe the inclemency of the outdoors while enjoying all the comforts of the indoors.”
He affected a dislike of fresh air and the outdoors for her amusement, she suspected. She did not for a moment believe that he was the hothouse plant he pretended to be—and she had once accused him of being.
“Mmm.” She turned her head to kiss the back of his hand.
“What do you want of life, Viola?” he asked her. “What do you most want?”
It was unlike him to ask such questions. He must be in a mellow mood. She turned her head to look through the window again. It was not easy to answer. The simplest questions very rarely were. What did she want? Happiness? But that was far too vague. Love? Still too vague. Meaning? But no one was ever going to spell out the meaning of life for her. What, then? She could not seem to focus upon anything specific. Except—
“Someone to care,” she said. “Are we all identified by labels, Marcel? I have always been daughter or sister, wife, mother, sister-in-law, grandmother, countess, mother-in-law. Perhaps it is why I was so disoriented when the truth came out after Humphrey’s death and some of those labels were stripped away from me, even my name. Oh, I know there are people who care for me. I am not self-pitying enough to imagine myself unloved and unappreciated. I am very well blessed with family and friends. But— Well, I am going to sound self-pitying anyway. It seems to me there has never been anyone who cares about me, the person who dwells within the daughter and mother and all the rest. No one even knows me. Everyone thinks they do, but no one really does. Sometimes it feels as though I do not even know myself. I am so sorry. I do not know quite what I am talking about. But you did ask.”
“I did, indeed.” His hand was gripping her shoulder more tightly.
The rain had stopped. For a few moments there was a glimpse of blue sky through a break in the clouds. A few multicolored leaves, blown far too soon from their branches, were strewn over the ferns, which were tossing wildly in the wind.
“And you,” she said. “What do you want most of life, Marcel?”
“Pleasure,” he said after a few moments of silence. “It is the only sensible thing to wish for.” And yet it seemed to her there was a sort of bleakness in his voice.
“Like this?” she asked, resting her cheek against his hand. “This escape?”
“Yes,” he said. “Precisely like this. Come to bed, Viola.”
It was the only time they went to bed during those two days, though they retired early both nights. He made love to her in silence and more swiftly than usual, without the lengthy foreplay at which he was so skilled. Yet she came to a shattering climax a few moments before he did—he always waited for her. He rolled off her almost immediately but kept his arms about her as he drew the bedcovers warmly up about them. He settled her head on his shoulder and laid his cheek against the top of her head before they both pretended to sleep. She was sure it was pretense on both sides.
There was so much pleasure, so much . . . vividness in these days of physical passion she was living through. She was nowhere near having had enough of him. She never would be. She knew that now beyond any doubt. And he was not done with her yet either. She would know if he were. She would sense withdrawal, loss of intensity and interest. He was not done with her. But there was something . . .
An edge of melancholy had crept into their affair with the autumn.
She suspected—no, she knew—that they had arrived at the beginning of the end.
Eleven