The Story of Lucy Gault

4

They stayed in Basel, calculating there the kind of life Heloise’s legacy would support. There was some anxiety at first in case she had been more optimistic than the facts allowed when she’d anticipated there would be money enough; in fact there was. The Captain’s only assets, being the house and land they had left behind, would remain untouched unless some unforeseen circumstance dictated otherwise. Employment in a shipping office or something similar would not be easy to find abroad; fortunately it would not be necessary.

It was while discussing all this that the Captain realized they now saw the future differently, that although they shared so much in what had befallen them they were less at one than they’d seemed to be when he had called it that. In the brief time that had elapsed since their departure he had begun to sense that he’d been wrong to imagine he would not ever wish to return to the house they had abandoned. But he sensed as well that Heloise’s contrary feelings had strengthened with every mile they had covered. Exile was what she longed for, where all her faith was, and her hope. He did not intend to cajole her out of that; looking after her was more his task. She was still a shadow of the woman she had not long ago been.

They moved on when the business they had chosen to do in Basel was complete. They went south, to Lugano, and stayed for a few days by its peaceful lake. On a cloudless autumn afternoon they crossed the border to Italy and then, again, went slowly on.