On Monday morning, Porter went down to Boston with his father to meet Aunt Tizzy, who was taking him to the pony show. They would return the following weekend when Gilbert came back up. The girls were still in Camden a few more days. So when Walter Vail arrived on the Island the next evening, a windy night in August, Lilian Finch was quite alone.

VI: Aunt Tizzy

VI

Aunt Tizzy

49 • On the piazza

HE WAS there a day and a night before he came to see her.

She had been in the attic all morning, the house being empty, batting through the cobwebs. As she ducked past the eyelid window, she saw his figure cross the lawn, striding straight-backed, not swinging his arms. She stood still, clutching an old canvas cushion cover. She had hoped for a glimpse of him, and maybe this was enough, for she recoiled from more. But she stood up and went downstairs. As she did, she composed a placid face.

You are here, he said, smiling broadly, coming up the piazza steps. He put his arms out and enveloped her briefly in them, not exactly awkward but somehow stiff, greeting her as an old friend — wasn’t that what she was now?

I heard you were coming, she said, at first unable to look at him. They stepped into the sun, talking cheerfully, exchanging news of their families. He was thinner, not more portly as she’d often imagined, with a good haircut, and was wearing the same sort of shirt Gilbert wore with a soft tennis collar. His eyes looked older, but otherwise he seemed hardly changed. She told him so.

I’ve come to take you away, he said in the old familiar way. We’re going on a day sail.

Oh, she said. When? She wanted to seem as if she had other more engaging things to do.

Come on, he said, ignoring her pose. We leave in half an hour. I’ve come to fetch you. He started down the steps of the piazza.

All right, she said, letting go the pretense. She needed some things and would meet him down at the float. She dashed back into the house and paused in indecision over which sweater to bring and changed her shoes and snatched up her one and only hat.

The When and If was a lovely boat, pale grey, with a brass overlaid steering wheel, a mammoth boom and stylish people on deck.

I am sorry your husband’s not here, said Walter Vail, and Lilian realized that for all their talk of children, of her father’s retirement, and of his mother’s poor health, they’d not mentioned each other’s spouses. But then Walter Vail and Gilbert Finch occupied different orbits.