Lizzie

3: London — 1890

The Newbury house looked rather forbidding.

Surrounded by a tall iron fence (the coachman stepped down to open the gilded gate), approached by a driveway that circled round a grassy oval, it resembled nothing so much as the courthouse back home in Fall River, with its Grecian columns and solid gray stonework. She climbed two low, flat steps to the massive wooden front door, lifted the handsome brass knocker fashioned in the shape of a Medusa with snaky locks, let the knocker fall, and waited. The door opened almost at once. A pretty young woman, wearing a black dress, a white apron and a lacey black cap, smiled out at Lizzie, and in an Irish accent said, “Miss Borden, mum? Do come in, please, mistress is expecting you.”

The interior of the house came as something of a surprise. The floor of the vestibule was paved in alternating squares of black and white marble. Immediately facing the entrance door was a mantelpiece upon which stood a pair of terra-cotta vases. To one side of the mantel was a carved oaken bench; to the other was a Gothic-style chair that looked like a king’s throne. An ornately designed bronze umbrella stand, its supporting rod decorated with sculpted flowers and flanked by sculpted birds resembling flamingos, stood to one side of an opening beyond which a short flight of steps led downward to another area. Plant stands and pedestals surrounded the umbrella stand, creating a flowering arbor in which the sculpted birds seemed quite at home. On the other side of the opening was a statue of a voluptuous nude woman, surely Italian in origin, its marble illuminated by the soft light of the gas fixture overhead. Beyond the steps was a paneled wall. One of the huge doors in that wall opened, and Alison came through it, a smile on her face, her hand extended.

“Do forgive our monstrous home,” she said at once. “It’s Palladian, I fear, and quite out of fashion at the moment.”

She was wearing a satin tea apron over a skirt and blouse, the apron edged with embroidery and pastel satin ribbons. Her blond hair, frizzed onto her forehead in front, was swept straight back into a French twist and a bun worn rather higher than American women were wearing them.

“Moira,” she said to the maid, “do bring in the tea, won’t you? Come in, dear Lizzie, come in,” she said, and took Lizzie’s hand in both her own and led her into a room that quite took her breath away.

“You’ll find the drawing room a bit cluttered,” Alison said. “Albert so loves clutter. Please sit down, my dear. Tea will be here in a moment.”

She had called it a drawing room, and Lizzie assumed it was the equivalent of what at home would have been either their parlor or sitting room. But, oh, the immensity of it! A fireplace dominated the room, a carved wooden mantel above it — stained the same darkish brown as the woodwork and the bookshelves — a brass coal scuttle beside it, a huge mirror in a gilded frame above it. The bookshelves ran around all four walls of the room, standing as tall as Lizzie herself did, brimming with books bound in red and green leather. The wallpaper above the bookshelves echoed the books themselves, a leafy green embossed upon a deep red field. The carpeting on the floor looked to be Oriental, with glowing reds and muted beiges and here and there a touch of blue that complemented the jungle green of the wallpaper’s embossing. The green was again repeated in the plush velvet upholstery on a buttoned, padded sofa and the armchairs beside it. As in the vestibule outside, there were any number of stands topped with blooming flowers and ferny plants, as well as lower inlaid tables bearing porcelain and glass. In one corner of the room—

A knock sounded at the door. The maid came in and placed the tea tray on a gateleg table flanked by a smaller sofa (again done in the green plush velvet) and two chairs upholstered in red.

“Thank you, Moira,” Alison said, and the maid curtsied and soundlessly left the room.

“Now then,” Alison said, “would you prefer lemon or milk?”

“Milk, please,” Lizzie said, and sat in one of the armchairs facing the sofa.

“We’ve all sorts of goodies to tempt you,” Alison said, and began pouring from a richly ornamented silver pot.

In one corner of the room was a small, upright piano with music spread on its rack and a piano stool before it. There was a needlework cushion on the stool’s seat, and all about the room were framed needlework samplers. Lizzie wondered all at once if the handiwork was Alison’s. She wondered, too, if the predominately green theme of the upholstery and heavy draperies had been deliberately selected to complement Alison’s eyes. Behind the drapes on each window were white lace curtains that seemed a trifle gray from London’s interminable soot. A writing desk stood against a wall upon which hung framed water colors of nude women frolicking in a vernal—

“... to be making your first trip abroad now,” Alison was saying.

“Pardon?” Lizzie said.

“Our clutter has overwhelmed you,” Alison said, smiling.

“No, it’s... beautiful,” Lizzie said. “Forgive me, I was simply admiring everything.”

“The cottage is Albert’s,” Alison said.

“The cottage?”

“The small piano. He plays abominably, but it relaxes him after a day of coping with high finance. He should be here by now, but undoubtedly he’s been buttonholed by one of his money-worshiping cronies. Sugar?”

“Yes, please,” Lizzie said. “You were saying earlier?”

“Only that you’re fortunate to be making your first trip abroad now, and not ten years ago — or even five, for that matter.”

“How do you mean?” Lizzie asked.

She considered herself fortunate to be making the trip at any time, and she could scarcely believe the stroke of good luck that had led first to their chance encounter on the train, and now this — to be invited into an English home! And such a home! As Alison continued speaking, Lizzie’s eyes roamed the room in wonder, touching upon the silver everywhere about, and the framed paintings and drawings, the cut-glass decanters, the bric-a-brac, the dark mahogany cabinet with its glass doors and its fine china within, the iridescent globes on the unlighted gas fixture overhead, the—

“... convenience, of course. Until last year, the only London hotel offering separate tables for dining in public was the St. James — quite near you, in fact — on the corner of Piccadilly and Berkeley Street. Now there’s the Savoy, of course, and many other such establishments where a well-bred lady” (and she rolled her eyes) “can dare to dine in public with a friend of her own sex, and without the fortifying presence of family or spouse. One can even dine at the Savoy on a Sunday now, rather than rushing off to Evensong, or wherever it is religious people are always scurrying to in the fog. You’re quite fortunate, truly.”

There was in Alison’s voice, as a counterpoint to its low and typically English musicality, a note of — mockery, was it? — and Lizzie felt somewhat uncomfortable in her presence. She could not imagine any respectable woman of her acquaintance making sport, first, of the cherished precepts of ladylike expectation, and next — not a moment later — of religion, which Lizzie considered the mainstay of her life in Fall River. Nor could she imagine that Alison would have dared to speak so boldly in the presence of her husband. And yet, hadn’t there been that same challenging tone on the train when Albert was talking about naming a child? “Note the male posture,” Alison had said, with the same slight raising of her eyebrows, the same half smile on her mouth, the same liltingly derisive edge to her voice.

“Not too many years ago, had you been a woman traveling alone,” she said now, “and I include your friends, of course — women traveling alone — you’d have taken a hotel in Bond Street, most likely, or perhaps Cork Street, and your accommodations would have included a dining room of your own. Horrors to have thought that a proper lady would have rubbed elbows with strangers at a common table in the coffee room below! Nor would you have enjoyed, as I’m sure you do at the Albemarle, the conveniences of running water and a gas fire, though I imagine the Albemarle has those new electric radiators, has it not?”

“Yes, it does,” Lizzie said. She was thinking that she herself would not have enjoyed dining with strangers, either, and she was grateful for the separate tables offered at the Albemarle last night and at the Criterion this noon.

“You’ll find things have changed on the Continent as well,” Alison said, “though most of the women there still consider any visiting American girl an opportunist.”

“Opportunist?” Lizzie said.

“Yes. Setting her cap for marriage to a titled foreigner with scads of money. You’re not looking for a French or Italian nobleman, are you?”

“No, of course not,” Lizzie said, and lowered her eyes.

“Am I embarrassing you?” Alison asked.

“Why would you be?”

“I shouldn’t think I was, but nowadays so much pressure is put upon young women to marry — how old are you, Lizzie?”

“Thirty,” Lizzie said. “Just.”

“I would have thought much younger.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s something so... fresh about you,” Alison said.

“Well... thank you,” Lizzie said again.

“Which could be said about most American girls, I suppose. Forgive me, I had no desire to dilute my compliment. It’s just that here in the Old World, we’ve become so accustomed to the sort of woman we see everywhere about us that American girls take us quite by storm. So open and frank, so — well, fresh is the word for it, after all. Now I am embarrassing you, do forgive me.”

“I’m flattered,” Lizzie said.

“One grows so weary of our young English girls, with their horsey ways, their lack of elegance and their brusque manner of walking,” Alison said. “And how tiresome the French girls are, those humble violets of supposed femininity. The American girl is more like an orchid, I would say, blooming in a way that surprises me incessantly. Beautiful, dazzling, it first charms by its strangeness, and then intoxicates with its subtle perfume. It lives on air, an orchid, and needs none of the material conditions of existence for other plants. The surprise is that it often comes from a gnarled stem which seems to defy beauty. Yet from this hideous stem, it blossoms frequently — with singular, but always incomparable, attractiveness. The American girl is surely the orchid among all feminine flowers.”

Lizzie was struck speechless.

“Considering the more than eleven thousand virgins who migrate semiannually from America to the shores of England and France,” Alison said, “one might be compelled to argue that there is no such creature as the American girl, since — like the orchid — she comes in many different species and varieties. And, certainly, I’ve met or observed a great many American girls who commit the commonest sins — or supposed sins,” she added, “against public manners, like loud laughing and talking in hotel parlors or salles à manger. But rarely is she badly dressed, however unmusical her cackle, however much slang may pepper her speech. Her stylishness, of course, may be due either to the quickness of her eye or the length of her purse; one has no way of judging. But surely Paris dresses her à ravir, and she wears her clothes like a queen — or, rather, as queens but seldom do.”

Lizzie was staring at her now, quite overwhelmed.

“Here in the Old World,” Alison said, “the American girl is certain of attracting any young man who’s abused life, who’s a little blase, and who — to be captivated — has need of what we call du montant. But, surely, it’s the same for you at home, is it not? Your father must be plagued by gentlemen callers ringing your doorbell day and night.”

“Well... no,” Lizzie said.

“No?” Alison said. “I’m surprised, truly. I should have thought just the opposite. You have such marvelous color, Lizzie, that wonderfully fiery hair, and those incredible gray eyes. It’s a pity cosmetics are so frowned upon these days — oh, a little pearl powder, perhaps, or a faint dusting from a papier poudré, but only for married women, of course,” she said, and again rolled her eyes. “But how I would love to rouge your cheeks — or my own, for that matter — as many dotty dowagers do, or daub a bit of lip salve on your mouth, or line your eyes with kohl as black as Cleopatra must have used. How silly of me, you’re quite beautiful enough without any artifice.”

“I’ve... never considered myself beautiful,” Lizzie said, and realized she was blushing.

“Are there no looking glasses in all of Fall River then?” Alison asked, and smiled.

“You’re too kind.”

“Too honest, perhaps. I had no intention of making you blush.”

“I fear I am,” Lizzie said.

“But that is part of your American charm, dear Lizzie,” Alison said, and leaned across the low table between them to pat her hand as she had done on the train.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever had a conversation quite like this one,” Lizzie said, and smiled.

“The broadening influence of travel,” Alison said, and returned the smile. “But surely you have female companions at home.”

“Yes, but...”

“Well, what do you talk about there?”

“I’m not certain, actually. We talk about various matters, I suppose.”

“Matters such as...”

“Well... matters that might interest us.”

“And what might interest you, Lizzie?”

“The same things that might interest any woman my age. The church, of course...”

“Are you a regular churchgoer then?”

“I am.”

“Then you must forgive my earlier reference to Evensong.”

“I took no notice of it,” Lizzie said politely.

“And what other matters? Other than church matters?”

“The things that interest women most.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I’m sure it’s the same here in England.”

“I’m sure. But tell me.”

“Well, cooking, of course... I suppose we discuss recipes a great deal. And needlework... all sorts of needlework. I see you have some about. Is it your own handiwork?”

“Perish the thought,” Alison said. “I should sooner dig ditches.”

“Well... as I say... embroidery and knitting and common sewing. And other things, of course.”

“What other things?”

“Flowers... our gardens. And books we’ve read... or magazine articles. The same as here, I’m sure.”

“Which magazines do you read, Lizzie?”

“Harper’s Bazaar, of course. And Peterson’s Magazine, and Godey’s Lady’s Book, and Frank Leslie’s Gazette of Fashion...”

“Fashion interests you, I can tell. You dress so beautifully.”

“Well, thank you,” Lizzie said again. She could not imagine such wild compliments — or was it simply European flattery? — from a woman herself so beautiful. Again she felt herself blushing.

“How prettily you blush,” Alison said. “And the books you read? What of those?”

“I can scarcely recall, I’ve read so many. Let me see. This past spring, I think it was, I read The American Commonwealth...”

“Ah, by one of ours, an Oxford professor.”

“Yes, James Bryce.”

“Why such a learned volume?”

“I was interested in his views on the United States.”

“ ‘Sailing a summer sea’, wasn’t that his metaphor? ‘And setting a course of responsible liberty that will be a model for the world’.”

“He perhaps flattered us too much,” Lizzie said, and her eyes met Alison’s directly.

“As I flatter you, do you mean?” she said, picking up the challenge at once. “But surely there’s a line between honest praise and flattery, is there not? And equally as certain, one who denies a compliment only seeks the same compliment twice.”

“Well, I... I really wasn’t...”

“And now I’ve flustered my Lizzie,” Alison said. “Forgive me. Tell me what else you’ve been reading.”

“Time and Free Will...”

“Ah, yes, Essai sur les données, et cetera, et cetera. I read it in the French. Did it interest you?”

“I found it... difficult.”

“Perhaps something was lost in translation,” Alison said.

“Perhaps.”

“What else? Do you read many novels?”

“Those that are proper for me to read, yes.”

“Proper?”

“Morally acceptable.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve just finished A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

“Ah, your clever Mark Twain, yes. Did you read it as preparation?”

“Preparation?”

“For your journey here?”

“Oh, no. Only for pleasure.”

“And was it morally acceptable?”

“I would say so.”

“And what else? For pleasure.”

“Looking Backward,” Lizzie said. “Are you familiar with it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“It’s a sort of Utopian novel about the United States in the year 2000. It describes how all industry has been nationalized and all wealth equally distributed, and it...”

“How perfectly horrible!” Alison said, “I’m sure I shouldn’t want my wealth distributed, equally or otherwise. Are you wealthy, Lizzie?”

“I wouldn’t call ourselves wealthy, no. We’re comfortable, I suppose...”

“Ah, that delicious American word, ‘comfortable’. What sort of work does your father do?”

“He’s a banker,” Lizzie said. “That is, he’s involved with several banks in Fall River. And he owns property here and there. But I shouldn’t say we’re wealthy, no.”

“Do you live in a grand old house on a hill somewhere? I love those photographs of American houses high on hilltops.”

“No, we’re close to the center of town, actually. And the house isn’t grand at all.”

“Fully electrified, I’m sure.”

“We don’t even have gas illumination.”

“But, my poor darling, how do you see? To read all these books you’ve been telling me about?”

“We have lamps, of course. And candles.”

“Like your Abraham Lincoln.”

“Well, we don’t use candles unless we’re out of lamp oil.”

“Great big candles in heavy brass candlesticks, I’m sure.”

“Some of them, yes. And some of them rather old. One particularly handsome one used to belong to my mother’s mother. We keep it in the spare room across the hall. Emma says it’s eighteenth century. I would suppose it came from England.”

“Emma?”

“My sister.”

“And your mother? What sort of woman is she, Lizzie?”

“My mother is dead,” Lizzie said. “She died when I was two years old. I don’t remember her at all.”

“Has your father remarried?”

“Yes,” Lizzie said, and paused. “How did you know that?”

“Well, they all do, don’t they?” Alison said, and smiled. “And in this candlelit house of yours...”

“Lamps, usually,” Lizzie said.

“... are there many servants?”

“We have only one. A girl from Ireland. Her name is Bridget Sullivan, but we call her Maggie. My sister and I.”

“Maggie? But how odd.”

“Our previous girl was named Maggie.”

“You must have been very fond of her. The previous girl.”

“No, it’s just... habit, I suppose. Calling her Maggie.”

“Is she comely, your Maggie?”

“I would guess. I never really noticed. She’s young and healthy, and we get along quite well with her.”

“How young?”

“Maggie? Twenty-three, I would suppose. Twenty-four. Somewhere in there.”

“Do many people in your town have servants?”

“Some. Not all. Not very many, I guess.” She paused, and then said, “How many servants do you have?”

“Far too many, I’m sure,” Alison said, and laughed. “You met George, of course, who was kind enough to fetch you, and Moira, who deigned to interrupt her nap when you rapped on the door, and later served our tea. We’ve a gardener and a cook, but I don’t employ a personal maid, and Albert is quite capable of buttoning his own shoes. Neither have we any need for a nursemaid, thank heavens.”

“A person who employed such a staff would be considered very wealthy in America,” Lizzie said.

“Oh, we’re not half so wealthy as Albert would wish us to be,” Alison said, and again laughed. “There are families here in London — high society, don’t you know — who keep a staff of twenty or more, scurrying about underfoot. I should expect it costs them a quarter of their income annually — Lizzie dear, you must forgive me! We British haven’t the slightest qualm about discussing personal finance. In ten minutes’ time, a British stranger will ask you how large your fortune is. And, moreover, he’ll expect a reply. There’s nothing rude about it; it’s merely a national trait, our obsession with money. How large is your fortune?” she asked, and unexpectedly winked. “I don’t expect an answer, I’m pulling your leg. I’m so enjoying this, Lizzie, aren’t you? Have you tried the clotted cream? You haven’t touched a bite!”

“Clotted?”

“The most sinful concoction ever devised by man. Or woman, as I’m sure the case actually was. Try it with the berries. Spread it on one of the scones. It’s from Devon, and my dairyman assures me it came into London fresh this morning.”

“I shall become fat as a horse,” Lizzie said.

“In which case, you’d be perfectly in fashion,” Alison said. “Here, let me help you.”

“I’m far too plump as it is,” Lizzie said.

“Plump? No, no,” Alison said. “You’re what my mother might have called wollüstig.”

“Is that German?”

“Yes.”

“Is your mother German?”

“Was. She’s been dead for quite some time now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lizzie said.

She watched in silence as Alison sliced one of the scones in half and then spread each half first with cream as thick as butter and next spooned onto them the tiniest strawberries Lizzie had ever seen.

“Thank you,” Lizzie said, accepting the plate. “What does it mean? The German word you used?”

“Wollüstig? Well, I suppose it would translate as ‘voluptuous’.”

“Oh, my,” Lizzie said. “Voluptuous, indeed!”

“Have your read The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night?” Alison asked.

“I wouldn’t read that, no,” Lizzie said.

“Why not?”

“It would not be in keeping with serious piety.”

“Are you seriously pious then?”

“I should hope so.”

“And you would consider that book improper? Morally unacceptable?”

“From what I’ve heard of it, yes.”

“What have you heard of it?”

“Only that the Persian monarch has many wives...”

“And you disapprove?”

“It’s beyond my ken. And that one of them...”

“Scheherazade, yes.”

“... tells stories that are bawdy.”

“Have you read The Golden Bough?”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s only recently been published. I was wondering if you might consider that morally acceptable.”

“I have no way of knowing.”

“Are you familiar with the work of Krafft-Ebing?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“He hasn’t been translated into English yet,” Alison said. “I found a copy of his book on our last visit to Germany.” She hesitated, and then said, “Psychopathia Sexualis.”

“Oh, my,” Lizzie said.

“You should look for it when it comes to America. I’m sure it’ll be widely translated. Or does the title frighten you?”

“If it means what I think it does,” Lizzie said.

“What do you think it means?”

“I’m not sure it would be polite for me to say.”

“It deals with sexual aberration,” Alison said.

“Which is what I imagined.”

“Now I’ve shocked you.”

“I do not shock easily,” Lizzie said.

“You’re blushing to your toes,” Alison said, and smiled. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“This cream is sinful, you’re right,” Lizzie said.

“I warned you,” Alison said.

The silence lengthened.

“When you’re with your friends,” Alison said, “do you talk about anything more intimate than cooking or sewing, or books and plays... do you enjoy theater, by the way?”

“Yes, I do. Whenever I’m in Boston, I try to see what’s on.”

“I shall have to give you a list of things to see here in London.”

“Rebecca is trying for The Gondoliers.”

“Bless D’Oyly Carte. He built the Savoy, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“She seems a clever sort, your Rebecca.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Your Felicity is a twit, though, isn’t she? Quite lovely, but oh, my!”

Lizzie said nothing.

“Now I’ve offended you,” Alison said.

“She is a friend,” Lizzie said.

“Forgive me, how rude of me. Do you ever discuss more meaningful things with her then?”

“More meaningful than what?”

“Sewing or cooking or...”

“Well, not with Felicity, no.”

“With some of your other friends then?”

“Yes, I would say we’re quite open and honest with each other.”

“As good friends should be,” Alison said.

“Yes,” Lizzie said.

“So I’m sure you discuss marriage and...”

“No, I don’t think I shall ever be married,” Lizzie said.

“Which, I assure you, is no great loss,” Alison said, and smiled. “Men are fun to discuss, but it becomes awfully tiresome when one has to live with them. Him, I should say. Singular rather than plural. Albert certainly is singular,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “You do discuss men, don’t you? With your close friends?”

“Hardly ever. We’re much beyond the age when such talk would seem appropriate.”

“Ah? Was it appropriate at one time?”

“When I was a girl, certainly. Oh, my, we discussed boys day and night.”

“Ah, didn’t we all?” Alison said, and again smiled. “What sort of talk, Lizzie?”

“The usual nonsense,” Lizzie said. “Gossip about beaux...”

“Have you had many beaux?”

“Not very many. And none for a long time now.”

“This gossip...”

“Oh, the usual sort. We talked about — mind you, this was when I was much younger...”

“Yes?”

“... their good looks or their homeliness... whether they were conceited or not... when they planned their next visit to Fall River... whether or not a suitor was serious or merely...”

“Were any of them serious?”

“One. That is...”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure we should be discussing this.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we scarcely know each other, for one thing. And for another...”

“I feel I know you very well,” Alison said.

“Well, I do, too, of course. Feel I know you. But...”

“But you just said otherwise.”

“I meant... on such short acquaintance...”

“I had hoped we might become good friends, Lizzie.”

“I would hope so, too. But...”

“Then can’t you be as open and as honest with me as you are with your other good friends?”

“I’ve been nothing but, believe me,” Lizzie said. “I only meant to say that... well, surely you know this... talking about past romances is a matter more suitable for discussion by someone like Felicity.”

“Ah, then you do agree with me!” Alison said.

“Well, she is something of a twit, I suppose,” Lizzie said, and smiled.

“How old is she?” Alison asked.

“Twenty-four. Just twenty-four, I believe.”

“A lovely age,” Alison said. “And so beautiful. But, oh, so empty-headed.”

“Well, yes,” Lizzie said.

“She has a marvelous figure; she’ll be the envy of every woman on the Continent,” Alison said. “Just make sure she keeps her pretty mouth tightly shut and shows her breasts to good advantage.”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows.

“Well, surely,” Alison said, “breasts are a suitable topic of conversation for women, are they not? Morally acceptable, I’m certain, and — at least when hands are clasped over them in prayer — seriously pious.”

“She does have a good figure, yes,” Lizzie said, somewhat curtly.

“And who, after all, is better equipped — if you’ll forgive the pun — to discuss those lovely appendages of which we are the sole possessors? Although, I might add, when considering my own scant equipment, I sincerely and in all serious piety pray that ‘less is more’ may be more than idle supposition. I keep shocking you, Lizzie, I pray your forgiveness. I’m far too outspoken, I know, my worst failing. The Hastings Curse, actually, inherited by both my brother and me. Hastings was my maiden name — Alison Lydia Hastings, to be precise — and my father was quite the most outspoken man alive. I’m sure I’ll never be invited to Buckingham Palace, where our dear mourning monarch much resembles a pouter pigeon in Trafalgar Square. Moreover, I’m sure that if I were invited, I should politely decline. More tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” Lizzie said, and watched as she poured. “You think I’m terribly provincial, don’t you?” she asked, surprised when the words found voice.

“No,” Alison said.

“Then why do you mock me?”

“Mock you? No. But yes, I do admit to my feeble attempts at shocking you, Lord knows why. In the face of my incessant barrage, you’ve remained as unflappable as a cavalry captain. But you see, dear Lizzie, I am sick unto death of idle chatter...”

“If you think...”

“I could, if you prefer, advise you not to miss St. Stephen’s Crypt in Westminster Hall. Or I could offer a critique on The Sign of Four, if Mr. Doyle’s new novel is on your list of morally acceptable books...”

“That’s the mockery I spoke of,” Lizzie said.

“Is it? I’m sorry, it shan’t happen again. But, my dear, would you truly be interested in learning that a statue will be going up on the Thames Embankment this Thursday, in honor of the late Mr. W. E. Forster, and that Lord Cranbrook will do the unveiling? Shall we talk about the Lord Dunlo trial, and the interminably long time he’s been in court petitioning for a divorce from his wife? Shall we babble on about inconsequential matters as proper ladies are supposed to? I should sooner discuss the intensity of my most recent menstrual flow!”

And now Lizzie was shocked. Not only by the mention, from a virtual stranger, of a personal feminine matter best discussed between the closest of friends, but also by the fierceness with which Alison had spoken those last several words, as if the most natural of female occurrences was to her, in fact, abhorrent. Her green eyes were virtually blazing now, alarmingly so. For an instant, Lizzie suspected the woman would never have spoken so feverishly to anyone but a stranger lest a friend might consider her deranged. She decided she would make her apologies and leave. There was no telling what Alison Newbury might say, or do, next. And then, to her surprise, Alison’s green eyes softened so that they resembled jade now more than they did sparkling emerald. Her mouth and her features softened, too, as though a terrible summer storm had passed in an instant, leaving behind it a cascade of sunlight that illuminated her exquisite face. She reached across the table as if to pat Lizzie’s hand again. Instead, her fingers came to rest on Lizzie’s arm. Her voice, when she spoke again, was low and apologetic, almost beseeching.

“I seek your friendship,” she said.

“You shall have it,” Lizzie said. “But surely, Alison...”

“Ah, then we are friends. That’s the first time you’ve said my name.”

“You do have a bad habit of interrupting, you know.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“And, really, if you assumed I might prefer idle chatter...”

“The thought crossed my mind,” Alison said, and smiled. Her hand was still on Lizzie’s arm.

“Wrongly, I’m sure. I do not, in fact, much care for it.”

“I don’t care for it at ally Alison said.

“Then why do you want to hear about a boy I’ve forgotten years ago?”

“Only if you care to tell me,” Alison said, and took her hand from Lizzie’s arm.

“And if I choose not to, you shall accuse me of being as empty-headed as my friend Felicity.”

“The horns of a dilemma, to be sure,” Alison said. She was no longer smiling.

“Your friendship may prove too costly,” Lizzie said, and sighed.

“Most real friendships are,” Alison said.

“What would you know, then?” Lizzie said.

“All, everything, all,” Alison said, and suddenly clapped her hands together like a child. “Who was he, what was his name, how did you meet — all, Lizzie,” and she leaned forward with great anticipation, clasping her hands in her satiny lap now, the long fingers intertwined, her green eyes wide, as though waiting for a cherished older sister or aunt to tell a fantastic story about witches and fairies and golden palaces.

“I shall disappoint you,” Lizzie said. “It’s a dreary tale.”

“I’m certain it’s not,” Alison said.

“Very well,” Lizzie said, and sighed again. “His name was Stephen Carmody... he was a student at Brown, visiting his aunt for the summer.”

“How old were you?” Alison asked.

“Nineteen.”

“A perfect age for a summer romance!”

“You haven’t yet told me how old you are,” Lizzie said.

“Oh, my!” Alison said, and burst out laughing. “And I was the one insisting on honesty!” Her laughter — bubbling from her mouth with such spontaneous mirth, such self-mockery this time — surprised Lizzie as much as had her earlier intensity; she had never met so mercurial a woman in her life.

“Well, how old then?” she insisted.

“Thirty-seven,” Alison said.

“You seem much younger.”

“My compliment returned. Bread upon the waters. Oh, would that I were, Lizzie! But you mustn’t believe for an instant that this aged crone...”

“Crone, indeed!” Lizzie said.

“... can so easily be sidetracked or hoodwinked. Oh, no, my dear. You were about to tell me of your beau...”

“Not precisely a beau...”

“Your young man, then...”

“Yes, young.”

“How old?”

“My own age. Nineteen at the time. Well, about to be twenty. He, I mean. Stephen.”

“Eleven years ago...”

“Yes.”

“In the summertime...”

“And continuing into the fall.”

“And did he love you madly?”

“So he said.”

“Then he was a serious suitor.”

“I believe so.”

“Well, Lizzie, what happened? You could give Mr. Doyle lessons in suspense, truly!”

“He behaved badly. I was obliged to...”

“Behaved badly how?”

“Well...”

“A stolen kiss in the barn?”

“We do have a barn,” Lizzie said. “But...”

“A barn, how delightful! And was it there that he behaved... badly?” she said, lowering her voice and narrowing her eyes.

“No. Alison, I shall call you to account each and every time I feel you’re mocking me.”

“Am I mocking you now?”

“A barn is surely not so uncommon a thing in England as to provoke...”

“But I’ve never had a barn!”

“Well, we do. Just behind the house.”

“And I’ve certainly never had a young swain who behaved badly in one.”

“I told you it wasn’t in the barn.”

“Then where was it? Some deserted pasture? Some idle country lane? An August moon shining above, the stars...”

“There’s the mockery again. I realize Fall River isn’t half so grand as London, but it is a city, you know, and not quite so rural as you’d have it!”

“How fierce, my Lizzie!”

“Yes!”

“How splendid in her anger!”

“I am angry, yes.”

“Your very hair is on fire!” Alison said.

“It has been since birth!” Lizzie shouted, and both women burst out laughing. Neither of them could speak for several moments. Their laughter was the sort of spontaneous explosion Lizzie remembered from her girlhood, when the slightest comment could trigger an endless succession of irrepressible giggles between her and her sister. What was remarkable about the laughter now was that two grown women were overcome by it on a darkening afternoon in the city of London. The very thought of such an unimaginable happening caused a new burst of laughter from her and provoked a similar gust of mirth from Alison, who clutched her knees to her bosom and, gasping, said, “Tell me what this cad did to you!”

“Undid!” Lizzie said, and burst into fresh laughter. “My corset!” she managed to say, astonished to find herself laughing at what surely had been the most embarrassing event in her life. “Or tried to!” she said, and laughed till tears came to her eyes.

“Oh, the raging maniac!” Alison said, laughing.

“He couldn’t get the ties undone!” Lizzie said. “I was wearing the shorter corset...”

“Yes!”

“Laced down the back, you know, and he kept fumbling about...”

“Mr. Fumblefingers!”

“Oh, my dear Lord!” Lizzie said, and brushed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “We struggled for what must have been a full ten minutes...”

“Under that bright August moon...”

“It was October, actually.”

“He bobbing for apples, then...”

“Apples!” Lizzie echoed, exploding into laughter again.

“Or pears, more precisely. Or at least a pair!” Alison said, and threw her head back and let out the sort of bellow she’d earlier attributed to ill-mannered American girls. “Oh, Lizzie, I can just visualize it! There you were in the hay... your skirts above your head...”

“It was in a carriage,” Lizzie said. Her cheeks were burning. She had never before this discussed the incident with anyone, so embarrassing had it been. And to be talking about it now, relating it in the manner of a... well, yes, a bawdy tale... hearing Alison compare her breasts to apples first and then to pears, and then punning on her own words, and to find it all so hilarious — she simply could not believe herself!

Both women were suddenly and surprisingly sober.

“In a carriage,” Alison prompted.

“On the way home from a church social,” Lizzie said.

“Oh, the heathen!” Alison said, and burst out laughing again.

“I was shocked speechless!”

“I can well imagine!”

“His hands were cold!” Lizzie said, and began laughing so hard she thought she would choke.

“Oh, dear,” Alison said.

“Oh, my goodness,” Lizzie said.

“Your goodness assailed!” Alison said. “So tell me what happened. How did you rid yourself of the bounder?”

“I was obliged to return his ring.”

“Ah? That serious then, was it?”

“Not an engagement ring, no,” Lizzie said. “Nothing of the sort. But he’d given me a simple gold ring he used to wear on his pinky, and which I wore on the third finger of my right hand. I gave back the ring, but it came again in the mail not three days later, together with a note apologizing for his...”

“... beastly manners,” Alison said, nodding.

“He didn’t put it quite that way.”

“How did he put it?”

“He said he couldn’t understand what had come over him...”

“How original!”

“... and he promised it would never happen again.”

“Unless he first warmed his hands by the fire,” Alison said. “And did you forgive him?”

“I never saw him again. Oh, around town, of course, whenever he was visiting his aunt. But not as a beau.”

“Did you return the ring yet another time?”

“No.”

“You certainly didn’t throw it away, did you? Gold?”

“I gave it to my father,” Lizzie said. “He still wears it.”

“How clever of you,” Alison said. “I must confess that the first time a strange man began fumbling with my stays I was less embarrassed than I was surprised. The very thought of a grown man actually desiring to fondle my meager treasures...”

“Hello?” Albert called. “Anyone home?”

“We’re in here, darling,” Alison said, rising and smoothing her apron. “Come say hello to Miss Borden.”

He came into the drawing room, hatless this time, and dressed rather more somberly than he’d been on the train, wearing a black coat with a low, narrow, rolled velvet collar and trousers of the same cloth. He extended his hand, took Lizzie’s in it and lowered his lips to it, brushing it lightly in the European manner.

“How nice to see you,” he said. “Have you been having a pleasant chat? Is that clotted cream I spy?”

“Do help yourself, Albert,” she said, “I’ll ring for more hot tea.” She turned to Lizzie and added, “My husband is a glutton.”

“For punishment, if your tongue’s any indication,” Albert said, and smiled. “Has she been talking your ear off, Miss Borden?”

“Please call me Lizzie, won’t you?”

“Lizzie then,” he said. “But not Elizabeth.”

“Such a keen memory,” Alison said.

“We’ve had a lovely afternoon together,” Lizzie said.

“Yes, haven’t we?” Alison said.

“Interest rates will be going up from four to five percent,” Albert said, and reached across the table for a scone.