‘Most certainly,’ I said. ‘When shall we go?’
The visit was set for the following week, the 12th of April. Mrs Manners was otherwise engaged, and so, to my joy, we went alone. The rattle-snakes, in particular, delighted her, and she stood entranced for several minutes without saying a word. Later, we walked and talked in the sunshine as if we had not a care in the world. She laughed at the hippopotamus, which suddenly plunged into its bath, liberally soaking everyone close by with cold water, and clapped her hands in amusement at the pelicans being fed. As we were leaving the Gardens, descending a short flight of steps, she lost her footing, and reached out to me to prevent herself from falling down. I grasped her hand tightly until she had regained her balance; but I did not let go, and she did not pull away, not immediately. For some moments we stood a little awkwardly, hand in hand, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she gently released herself and placed her arm through mine as we walked on.
‘Where shall we go now?’ she asked. ‘It is such a beautiful day, and I do not wish to go home quite yet.’
‘Might you like to see St Paul’s?’
When we arrived at the cathedral, after observing a notice setting out the charges, she expressed an immediate determination to ascend to the Golden Gallery. I tried to dissuade her, knowing the final part of the ascent to be dirty and awkward, and unsuitable, in my view, for a lady to attempt. But she would not be put off; and so, much against my judgment, we paid our sixpences, and began to mount the steps to the Whispering Gallery. Here we paused for breath.
‘What shall we whisper?’ she asked, placing her mouth against the cold stone.
‘You have to speak, not whisper,’ I said. ‘Run, then. See if you can hear.’
And so I ran over to the other side of the gallery, placed my ear to the wall, and waved to indicate my readiness. At first, I could hear nothing, and signalled to her to speak again; then, gradually, her words began to percolate eerily through the very walls, indistinct, but sporadically audible: ‘… blind fool … to mine eyes … they behold … not what they see.’*
‘Did you hear it?’ she asked excitedly when I returned to her.
‘Did you mean me to hear it?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Come. I wish to go up higher.’
And so up we went, past the Clock Room, higher and higher, steeper and steeper, counting out the narrow steps as we went. At length, after much puffing and laughter at our situation, stooping through low-ceilinged stair-cases, and holding ourselves close to the walls of the landings to let other visitors pass by, we emerged into hazy sunlight on the Golden Gallery, just below the Lantern. Her black dress was dirtied with dust and cobwebs, and the exertion of climbing over five hundred steps had coloured her cheeks. As we stepped outside, we were immediately buffeted by a cool wind, and she gripped my arm tightly as we approached the low iron rail.
We stood in wondering silence. It seemed as if we were on the deck of a great ship, floating across an endless ocean of dirty cloud. Great thoroughfares lay far below, crowded with ant-like people and slow-moving streams of vehicles. The eye picked out familiar steeples and towers, palaces and parks, and distant factory chimneys, belching plumes of black smoke; the sun flashed off windows and gilded finials, and laid a shimmering cloak of gold over the grey river; but beyond London-bridge it was as if a dark curtain had been brought down across the port of the capitaclass="underline" not a single mast of the many ships moored there could be seen. Elsewhere, too, the drifting haze rendered every detail smudged, indefinite, and dreamlike. From this point of vantage, one did not so much see the great heaving metropolis below as feel its pulsing presence. I knew it well, that sense of the living power of Great Leviathan. But to her, its terrible sublimity came as a revelation, and she stood in a kind of wordless rapture, her great black eyes open to their widest extent, breathing quickly, and gripping me so hard that I could feel her finger-nails digging into me through her gloves.
She continued thus for several minutes, holding herself close to me as she looked down into the misty vastness. The illusion of her dependence on me was thrilling, though I knew it for what it was. But I look back on that frail and fleeting moment as one of the happiest of my life, standing with the woman I loved high above the dirty deceitful world of strife and sin, alone with her on a little platform poised between earth and heaven, with the restless smoky city sprawled below us, and the infinite sky above.
‘I wonder what it would be like?’ she said at length, in a strange quiet voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘To throw yourself out from here and fall through all this great height to the hard earth. What would you think, what would you see and feel as you fell?’
‘You would have to be unhappy indeed to contemplate such an act,’ I said, pulling her back a little from the rail. ‘And you are not so very unhappy, are you?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, suddenly animated. ‘I was not thinking of me. I am not unhappy at all.’
Throughout that spring, and into the month of June, I continued to wait upon Miss Carteret – whom I had now been allowed to call by her first name – nearly every day. Sometimes we would sit and talk for an hour or two, or perhaps stroll round Belgrave-square six or seven times, lost in conversation; at others we would go off on little expeditions – I recall with especial pleasure taking her to see the wax-work figures at the late Madame Tussaud’s Bazaar* in Baker-street (where, at Emily’s insistence, we paid an extra sixpence to view the grisly exhibits in the Chamber of Horrors). We went also to the Botanic Gardens at Kew, and on another occasion took a leisurely trip by steamboat from Chelsea to Blackwall, during which of course we passed the Temple Gardens, where I had walked so often with Mr Tredgold, and the Temple Pier, where my own skiff was moored. To observe her in such proximity to these familiar places gave me a kind of guilty pleasure, making me smile inwardly with delight, and with the hope that, one day soon, she would walk with me through those same streets and lanes, sit with me in the Temple Church, and climb the stairs to my room in the eaves, as mine and mine alone.
She appeared to take unfeigned pleasure in my company, always greeting me with a sunny smile as I entered the drawing-room of her aunt’s house, slipping her arm into mine as we walked, and allowing me to kiss her hand when I arrived to see her, and when I left.
She had become the most companionable of companions, the most considerate of friends; but now I began to discern unmistakable signs of something more – certain gestures and looks; a tone of voice; my hand retained a little longer, and held a little tighter, than previously; the eager, bright-eyed greetings; the intentional brush of her body against mine as we stood waiting to cross a road. These all spoke of something more – much more – than friendship; and I was overwhelmed with joy to know that love had finally come upon her, as it had come upon me.
And then, in the third week of June, Lord and Lady Tansor returned from the West Indies – Daunt was making his separate way home, having literary business in New York. Accordingly, Miss Carteret began to make preparations to leave her aunt’s house for Evenwood. On the morning before her departure, we walked out into Hyde-park. The day was overcast, and after an hour we found ourselves in a deserted corner of the Park, running towards a large oak-tree to shelter from a sudden downpour of rain.
We stood for several minutes, huddled closely together and laughing like children as the raindrops pitter-pattered through the branches. Then, away to the west, came a faint rumble of thunder, the sound of which caused her to look round anxiously.