The First of July(21)

Then, looking relieved, he said “Gloves,” as if talking of precious jewels. “A pair of continental gloves of rare beauty, a present simple in conception, so acceptable to her mama. They will be my proxy: skin against skin; as soft and pale and pliant as Agnes herself.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


Harry, New York,

May–June 1914


HARRY MARRIED MARINA IN MAY, when blossoming trees lined the wide avenues. The day was unnaturally hot, especially for a man in formal dress. Harry waited inside the crowded Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He had asked her cousin George to be his best man. He knew it would please her, although he thought briefly of his own cousin Jimmy, who should have been at his side. He was glad that the wedding was in New York and James in Tanganyika, so any obligation, and need for deception, was eradicated by geography. The American cousin, a keen yachtsman, looked more nervous than Harry, and his recent haircut had left a white collar of skin below his sea-weathered tan.

But he had told Marina’s father a lie. There was no getting around it. It was a terrible, opportunistic lie and he hated himself for it; what Marina had come to mean to him felt like a punishment for a moment’s madness.

Two years earlier, ago a business acquaintance in the Deep South had contacted him. The great liner Titanic had sunk and, reading through the passenger list, the acquaintance had seen the name of Henry Sydenham as a first-class passenger who had not been saved. He had thought immediately of Harry, and was relieved to find him alive, well, and on dry land.

Some while later, but long before Harry had realized he wanted to marry his daughter, Mr. Van Guyen had invited him to dinner, a dinner at which Harry had drunk much more than was good for him. He was trying to impress upon the older man the importance of working conditions, and with Marina’s father talking of investment in his business and trying to find out more about him, Harry had impulsively sent his own father to the bottom of the Atlantic—although in the best of company. He hoped that this would allay Van Guyen’s curiosity about his background and motivation for leaving his home country. He had always known his father would not come to America; he would hate being cooped up on a ship. But Marina’s father had twice traveled to London. If Mr. Van Guyen wrote to Harry’s father, his father would reply and, in his expansive way, invite Marina’s father to Abbotsgate. Abbotsgate was where he had left the muddle of his former life. Neither father must ever know of the other. The easiest answer was for Harry’s father to be dead. But as soon as the claim was made, he knew that it was a stupid, unnecessarily dramatic story, even for a lie.

Within the year, everything had changed. There was Marina at the center of his life. There, now, were their kind friends, all of whom shared the distress of Harry’s tragic loss. One middle-aged woman among them had indeed been on the Titanic, but had not, unsurprisingly, met Harry’s father on board. He could never now be resurrected. It was not a matter about which there could have been a misunderstanding. His ghost, Harry’s lie, would have to accompany him into marriage; the lingering fear of his resurrection.

A year later, he had had two large brandies before plucking up the courage to approach Marina’s father and ask for her hand.

“I am well provided for,” he said. “My mother left me a substantial sum of money and property in England. I also have a stepmother. On her death I shall inherit considerably more and, of course, I have built up interests here” (how pompous he sounded; a liar and a pompous fool) “but I am confident I can keep Marina as I would wish to and as I am sure you would hope.” Her father looked close to tears.

“Your poor step-mama,” said Marina’s aunt. “Might she come to the wedding, or is she quite an elderly lady?”

“Not old, but not strong, and, given the circumstances … I don’t feel I could ask her to make a sea voyage.” He felt a simultaneous blend of self-admiration and self-loathing.

The aunt had been mortified. “Of course. How foolish of me. I am so dreadfully sorry.” She had taken his hand and he had known himself to be a complete cad.

Now he looked across at that kind aunt, taking the place of Marina’s dead mother. She beamed at him from under a purple hat, trimmed with tartan ribbon. She had traveled to England and Scotland as a young woman and developed a passion for all things British. She had always been for the marriage.

He and Marina had had one night in the Waldorf before joining their ship the next morning, and then, ahead of them, lay the freedom of a three-month tour around Europe.

She had surprised him. He’d thought she would be a compliant, even quite an enthusiastic, lover; she was no prude, and their kissing had often left her breathless and flushed; but the woman who was now his wife was eager and subtle and adventurous. When they woke, tangled in sheets in the morning, her skin tasted of salt, she and her hair smelled animal, and he looked down at her nakedness with a great leap of joy and a simultaneous delighted surprise and relief that she made no effort to cover herself. She was the one. She was his. He had his life back. Her damp skin had the sheen of pearls. She was, had been, entirely unexpected.