The First of July(22)

She was as different as could be imagined from the dark-haired, secretive woman who had obsessed him for so long. Less desperate, less hungry, and less knowing. She followed his lead but did not reposition herself to suggest new ways he could take his pleasure as his former lover had. Now Marina smiled sleepily and put up a hand to stroke his face. “I hope you haven’t changed your mind after last night,” she said. “I hope there’s not a first Mrs. Sydenham locked in an attic in England.”

He forced himself to smile. “Only my stepmother, as far as I know. And she’s usually in the drawing room or the yard.”

Was she watching him more closely than usual? He turned and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I wish I could meet her when we’re in England,” she said. “I know we’ll only be there for a day or so, but it’s a shame she can’t come down to London.”

“I’m sure we’ll visit again; in better times.”

He found himself on the brink of saying that it would be too soon after his father’s death and remembered the father of a school friend, a top King’s Counsel who specialized in defending murder cases, saying that building a case was confused by criminals coming to believe, simply by virtue of repetition, the lies they told. Was he turning into such a man? He would tell her. Soon he would tell her. Must tell her. Though even then it must be a partial truth.

“We’ll probably take a brace of grandchildren with us to see her next time,” he said.

“But if she’s not very strong—”

“She’s scarcely an old lady,” he said. “All the more reason not to wait too long to produce Master and Miss Sydenham.” He turned and lay facing her. “Who will scandalize her with their American accents.” She gazed back at him, unspeaking, her hair untidy on the pillows. He rolled back toward her. Laid his hand on her breast, feeling comforted rather than aroused. “If we didn’t have a boat to catch and countries to conquer. . . .”

The journey to Europe had been mostly pleasure. “You’re not scared?” she’d said as the great liner pulled away from the waving crowds, the wharves, cranes, and storehouses.

He laughed. “Of course not. I’m British; we have seawater in our veins.”

“I just thought … after what happened.”

Again a shadow. He was not just a liar, but a careless one. Fortunately she mistook his reaction for distress. “I’m sorry. I’ve no sense of timing. Come on, Mr. Sydenham, let’s explore our newfound land.”

The journey had been much easier, much more luxurious, than his outward journey from Liverpool. That time he had been driven forward by anger and hurt as well the fear and excitement of starting a new life. He had removed himself from what he believed was an intolerable situation; exchanged his family and friends for a few letters of introduction and that portion of the inheritance his mother had left him that he could get his hands on. Now he had that new life, a better one than he had ever dreamed of or deserved; yet a small part of him harbored misgivings as they journeyed east. In New York his decisions had been clear-cut; as they crossed the Atlantic they became more complicated, more blurred, more tinged with regret.

Their stateroom was unreasonably large and strangely silent. Although he felt little sense of their occupying a cabin, there was, instead, the feeling of being slightly drunk in a country house. It was very quiet, but he was aware of an almost imperceptible tremor around him if he thought about it. He did think about it sometimes, at night, as Marina lay curled up against him, breathing evenly. Beneath them and the first-class warmth of their cabin lay fathoms of water, and his imagination traveled downward into the rocky abysses, getting colder and darker until, finally, all light was extinguished.

His reasons for spending so little time in England were largely valid: he wanted them to have a real honeymoon, exploring new places, sharing experiences they would remember when they were old. He didn’t want to be her teacher, to show her; he wanted them to find things together. They had both traveled to the Continent before: she, briefly, to Paris, he on walking tours in Germany and Switzerland after he left school. Marina teased him sometimes that he was a romantic only thinly disguised as a rational man, as he planned not only the places they should see but, sometimes, the time of day at which they should be seen.

“The Colosseum by moonlight is just a tradition,” he’d said. “Byron wrote about it. Shelley too.” But he even wondered himself why he needed it all to be perfect.

“Fine models for marriage, both men,” she said.