Everything seemed to vibrate with expectation, and she was filled with a new spirit. She bought a new fur coat and chose a string of pearls. Mr. Eliot said her character was sadly changing. The next day she bought flowers for her hat and changed it further. Aunt Tizzy, who had joined them in Paris, gave her some towels for her trousseau: they were so thick with embroidery there was no place to dry your face. Lilian was delighted by such beautiful, useless things.

31 • Looking at the moon

31 • Looking at the moon

THEY MOTORED through Brittany and Burgundy visiting churches. Lilian preferred the small ones which looked like barns and seemed twice as old as the Roman ruins. She was not as fond of the grander churches which Arthur liked, strolling through them with an authoritative air, his heels clicking smartly on the stone, not intimidated in the least by the vaulted ceilings and the cracked gaze of the saints. In each church she would imagine herself walking down the aisle, with Gilbert standing at the end, then her attention would be taken up by the marble drapes, or a tiny altar painting of a woman in bed, and wedding visions would disappear in a different sort of contemplation. When she snapped out of it, she experienced an odd discomfort at having forgotten her darling Gilbert for even a moment.

She wrote him letters. She wished they could go off and live in a tent in the desert, but then decided she liked seeing him with the other boys because he looked the nicest of all. She read his letters over and wished for the kiss at the end. Of course she had looked at the moon! She could not find the words to tell him how much she loved him, but would spend all her life trying to show him. She felt she might as well have been dead before.

For a long time she couldn’t read — the whole boat ride over, if it wasn’t about a couple she wasn’t interested, and if it was she would think about the two of them and cease reading altogether. But after a while her brain came back to her and when she read she found she understood the books better than ever.

In Milan, they went to the zoo and Lilian grew spellbound watching a lion pace back and forth in its cage, the low eyes glancing at her lazily. She knew she ought to feel sorry for it, but the creature seemed so certain and secretive and wild she felt it ought to feel sorry for her.