and shamed. She pulled her chair back into the shadows. At midnight the music stopped, and she went home to her room and sobbed.
She began to have headaches, piercing pain coming from behind her eyes. Only darkness, and sleep, many hours of sleep, brought relief.
In June, Isaac married Sarah Rawlins. How could Isaac marry such a plain woman when he was so good-looking himself? She knew he was marrying Sarah partly because the Rawlins family was rich, and the marriage pleased their father, and it would pave Isaac’s way in the world. Again, Marian was a bridesmaid, at the Edgbaston Parish Church, wearing the same plain brown dress that she’d worn at Chrissey’s wedding and had patched and repaired so often since then. She was twenty-one, and the prospect of marriage seemed more remote than ever.
Chrissey was living in Meriden now with Edward Clarke. Edward was struggling to set up a practice, the new doctor in the town competing with the old doctor, Dr. Kittermeister, who’d been there for years. Soon they had three little babies to feed. Chrissey named her third child Mary Louisa after Marian, and sometimes she brought the baby over to Griffand let her sister keep her. At night, Marian would hold the warm little thing in her arms and sing and rock her to sleep.
Three months later, Mary Louisa was dead. Oh God, to lay the little creature in her tiny coffin in the merciless earth, the one she had warmed with her own body, whom she had loved so much.
Then her father announced that he was retiring. Isaac was taking over his job with the estate and he and Marian were moving to Coventry. She was being cast out of Griff, her childhood home, the magical countryside of her childhood, because Isaac wanted to live there.
She lay now in the Hotel Europa in Venice, her memories of childhood dissipated, but the sadness was still there. There were no kind arms to embrace her, no soft breath to ruffle her ear.
A new wave of homesickness passed over her. In this, the most exquisite city in the world, she longed for Witley and the Heights, the bright, clean sunlight of the English summer and her old routines, for Brett and Mrs. Dowling, the servants, so totally devoted to her, and Charley, George’s son, to care for her. To be at work again on the book that had been brewing inside her, completely absorbed as she summoned the words and tried to make sense of the universe. She hadn’t brought any of the books for the research — one wasn’t supposed to work on one’s honeymoon. It would be insulting to Johnnie. Perhaps she could write to Charley and ask him to send some of them to Venice?
But on your honeymoon you weren’t supposed to work, you were supposed to …
Chapter 4
I n the morning it was a lovely, sunny day. There was the murmur of voices in the
sala
. Johnnie was up, a servant was making an inquiry. She noticed for the first time the faded outlines of cherubs and garlands on the ceiling, the blue plaster on the walls stained and chipped and flaking from the perpetual damp. The paintings were copies of Titians and Raphaels. You could tell by the clumsy features of the people and the dull folds of their robes.
From beneath the window came the sounds of people talking and of banging. She rose and looked out at the canal, where tradesmen in their boats were delivering food and supplies to the hotels. Men were unloading wooden crates from the boats. Among them was the gray-haired gondolier, Corradini, in his striped shirt and black pants. She watched for a moment as he bent down to grip the crates with his sinewy arms. His striped shirt rode up and she could see the bare flesh of his waist, shining and soft and white where it had eluded the sun.
She dressed and went into the
sala
. Johnnie had on his white suit, a black silk cravat, and a waistcoat. He was freshly shaved around the contours of his beard, his cheeks pale from his morning toilette, his red hair brushed back from his high forehead, his curls
She began to have headaches, piercing pain coming from behind her eyes. Only darkness, and sleep, many hours of sleep, brought relief.
In June, Isaac married Sarah Rawlins. How could Isaac marry such a plain woman when he was so good-looking himself? She knew he was marrying Sarah partly because the Rawlins family was rich, and the marriage pleased their father, and it would pave Isaac’s way in the world. Again, Marian was a bridesmaid, at the Edgbaston Parish Church, wearing the same plain brown dress that she’d worn at Chrissey’s wedding and had patched and repaired so often since then. She was twenty-one, and the prospect of marriage seemed more remote than ever.
Chrissey was living in Meriden now with Edward Clarke. Edward was struggling to set up a practice, the new doctor in the town competing with the old doctor, Dr. Kittermeister, who’d been there for years. Soon they had three little babies to feed. Chrissey named her third child Mary Louisa after Marian, and sometimes she brought the baby over to Griffand let her sister keep her. At night, Marian would hold the warm little thing in her arms and sing and rock her to sleep.
Three months later, Mary Louisa was dead. Oh God, to lay the little creature in her tiny coffin in the merciless earth, the one she had warmed with her own body, whom she had loved so much.
Then her father announced that he was retiring. Isaac was taking over his job with the estate and he and Marian were moving to Coventry. She was being cast out of Griff, her childhood home, the magical countryside of her childhood, because Isaac wanted to live there.
She lay now in the Hotel Europa in Venice, her memories of childhood dissipated, but the sadness was still there. There were no kind arms to embrace her, no soft breath to ruffle her ear.
A new wave of homesickness passed over her. In this, the most exquisite city in the world, she longed for Witley and the Heights, the bright, clean sunlight of the English summer and her old routines, for Brett and Mrs. Dowling, the servants, so totally devoted to her, and Charley, George’s son, to care for her. To be at work again on the book that had been brewing inside her, completely absorbed as she summoned the words and tried to make sense of the universe. She hadn’t brought any of the books for the research — one wasn’t supposed to work on one’s honeymoon. It would be insulting to Johnnie. Perhaps she could write to Charley and ask him to send some of them to Venice?
But on your honeymoon you weren’t supposed to work, you were supposed to …
Chapter 4
I n the morning it was a lovely, sunny day. There was the murmur of voices in the
sala
. Johnnie was up, a servant was making an inquiry. She noticed for the first time the faded outlines of cherubs and garlands on the ceiling, the blue plaster on the walls stained and chipped and flaking from the perpetual damp. The paintings were copies of Titians and Raphaels. You could tell by the clumsy features of the people and the dull folds of their robes.
From beneath the window came the sounds of people talking and of banging. She rose and looked out at the canal, where tradesmen in their boats were delivering food and supplies to the hotels. Men were unloading wooden crates from the boats. Among them was the gray-haired gondolier, Corradini, in his striped shirt and black pants. She watched for a moment as he bent down to grip the crates with his sinewy arms. His striped shirt rode up and she could see the bare flesh of his waist, shining and soft and white where it had eluded the sun.
She dressed and went into the
sala
. Johnnie had on his white suit, a black silk cravat, and a waistcoat. He was freshly shaved around the contours of his beard, his cheeks pale from his morning toilette, his red hair brushed back from his high forehead, his curls
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