me by my Christian name). “I read whatever I can obtain, by any means available to me — lending libraries, secondhand-book
shops, books borrowed from relatives…”
“Then you are self-schooled.”
She laughed. “If I am, it is an education riddled with holes, though I hope one that will continue for a lifetime. My father,
before he passed away, was a teacher of Mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy.”
“An academic family.”
“But I myself know nothing of mathematics or of the sciences. I’m sure that my uncle William thinks me hopelessly dull.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” I said, somewhat recovering my composure and adjusting my portrait of Etna Bliss to include
this new information. Such qualities were slightly unnerving in a woman but might prove valuable, I could see, in a wife.
We reached forward together for the silver sugar bowl, and our hands touched. She withdrew hers at once, and there was between
us an uncomfortable silence. And that, I was soon to discover, was to be the pattern of our small outings. If we spoke of
books or of ideas, Etna was animated, as though she had not had benefit of conversation in some time. But if I tried to speak
to her of personal matters, or if I inadvertently touched her, she withdrew so quickly it was as though a cloud had covered
the sun, the light going out of her face that swiftly, that absolutely. I had to learn, therefore, to speak so as to draw
her out and not allow her to retreat into silence. I was, for the remainder of that first outing, moderately successful in
this endeavor, successful enough to put a foot forward when she said, rather abruptly, that it was time for her to return
to her uncle’s house.
She stood, and I stood with her. “I hope you will allow me to call upon you again,” I said.
Surely she hesitated too long for good manners, under the pretext of searching for her gloves. She turned to me.
“Yes, thank you,” she said simply. But did Etna Bliss understand that the freedom, both physical and spiritual, that she longed
for might come only with a price?
My suit began in earnest. If the way to Etna Bliss’s heart was through books, then I should become, I determined, an extensive
lending library of one. And I believe I saw, even on the first day I went calling with Rider Haggard’s
King Solomon’s Mines,
that Etna understood the currency of my petition. Though she gave little away, it was difficult not to take her acquiescence
as something more than acquiescence. In other words, I had hope.
I established a pattern of calling twice a week, and there cannot have been any doubt in that household as to my intentions.
Indeed, I should have been regarded as entirely dishonorable had I occupied so much of Etna’s time with no future in mind
at all. I could see that Bliss himself was baffled, though less baffled, I am bound to say when I began to reveal, in odd
bits of conversation, the extent of my modest fortune. Perhaps, in the end, he regarded me as a solution to a mildly thorny
problem.
As often as was feasible that winter, Etna and I left the Bliss house and went walking, returning at the end of these excursions
to take tea with Bliss or with his wife. I would arrive punctually at three o’clock, nearly desperate to see Etna after an
absence of three or four days. Following some brief pleasantries, Etna would don her cloak and hat and then take my arm, and
I would feel a profound excitement. I craved the sensation as a man will his laudanum, and it seemed proof that Etna Bliss
was someone with whom I had been destined to mate, someone whom I was fated to have loved. (I cannot help but wonder, however,
if we do not invent our own destiny, design our own fate, to suit our circumstances. How much of love is a trick of the mind,
a mere feat of verbal acrobatics, to accommodate persons who just happen to cross our path and who suit our needs at one particular
moment in time? I
shops, books borrowed from relatives…”
“Then you are self-schooled.”
She laughed. “If I am, it is an education riddled with holes, though I hope one that will continue for a lifetime. My father,
before he passed away, was a teacher of Mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy.”
“An academic family.”
“But I myself know nothing of mathematics or of the sciences. I’m sure that my uncle William thinks me hopelessly dull.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” I said, somewhat recovering my composure and adjusting my portrait of Etna Bliss to include
this new information. Such qualities were slightly unnerving in a woman but might prove valuable, I could see, in a wife.
We reached forward together for the silver sugar bowl, and our hands touched. She withdrew hers at once, and there was between
us an uncomfortable silence. And that, I was soon to discover, was to be the pattern of our small outings. If we spoke of
books or of ideas, Etna was animated, as though she had not had benefit of conversation in some time. But if I tried to speak
to her of personal matters, or if I inadvertently touched her, she withdrew so quickly it was as though a cloud had covered
the sun, the light going out of her face that swiftly, that absolutely. I had to learn, therefore, to speak so as to draw
her out and not allow her to retreat into silence. I was, for the remainder of that first outing, moderately successful in
this endeavor, successful enough to put a foot forward when she said, rather abruptly, that it was time for her to return
to her uncle’s house.
She stood, and I stood with her. “I hope you will allow me to call upon you again,” I said.
Surely she hesitated too long for good manners, under the pretext of searching for her gloves. She turned to me.
“Yes, thank you,” she said simply. But did Etna Bliss understand that the freedom, both physical and spiritual, that she longed
for might come only with a price?
My suit began in earnest. If the way to Etna Bliss’s heart was through books, then I should become, I determined, an extensive
lending library of one. And I believe I saw, even on the first day I went calling with Rider Haggard’s
King Solomon’s Mines,
that Etna understood the currency of my petition. Though she gave little away, it was difficult not to take her acquiescence
as something more than acquiescence. In other words, I had hope.
I established a pattern of calling twice a week, and there cannot have been any doubt in that household as to my intentions.
Indeed, I should have been regarded as entirely dishonorable had I occupied so much of Etna’s time with no future in mind
at all. I could see that Bliss himself was baffled, though less baffled, I am bound to say when I began to reveal, in odd
bits of conversation, the extent of my modest fortune. Perhaps, in the end, he regarded me as a solution to a mildly thorny
problem.
As often as was feasible that winter, Etna and I left the Bliss house and went walking, returning at the end of these excursions
to take tea with Bliss or with his wife. I would arrive punctually at three o’clock, nearly desperate to see Etna after an
absence of three or four days. Following some brief pleasantries, Etna would don her cloak and hat and then take my arm, and
I would feel a profound excitement. I craved the sensation as a man will his laudanum, and it seemed proof that Etna Bliss
was someone with whom I had been destined to mate, someone whom I was fated to have loved. (I cannot help but wonder, however,
if we do not invent our own destiny, design our own fate, to suit our circumstances. How much of love is a trick of the mind,
a mere feat of verbal acrobatics, to accommodate persons who just happen to cross our path and who suit our needs at one particular
moment in time? I
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