But the softness was easy to like. It was a veil obscuring things. It must have been what opium was like, she decided. Had she been alone, the scene before her might have seized ahold of her heart, but since she’d shared a bed with this man — the dark nights rustling — she felt drugged, unmoved by the old things. How would that thatched roof have looked to her before? Would the stretching bay have echoed something stretching in her? She made a vague effort to imagine it but found that, nestled against Gilbert Finch’s shoulder, silent beneath the car’s motor, she did not care in the least to find out.

On one of their last mornings, very early, before anyone stirred out in the halls or beneath them, Lilian was awakened by a loud downpour. The rain pounded the wide terrace off their room. The stone wall was swathed in shivering ivy. Lilian got up and stood at the terrace doors, the water was rattling down. Out on the bay she could see hooded fishermen bent over their lines. She opened the door and the sound of rain was louder in the room, waking Gilbert. He came and stood beside her. Her heart quickened. She put her arm out, out of the stuffy air of the room, and immediately the light fabric of her nightgown was soaked through, thrilling her. She took Gilbert’s hand, pulling at him to step outside. There was a glint in her eye which had only recently appeared, surprising from this quiet girl from Boston.

Now now, he said, pulling back. We’d get soaked.

Lilian nodded, with the new bright look.

Gilbert shook his head and smiled. Come on, he said, and the protective arm came around her, and he placed a guiding hand on the small of her back. It felt oddly prohibitive. Back to bed. He spoke gently, as always, with encouragement, and she went with him, docile, yielding, but with the faint disturbed sense that she’d discovered how it felt to be, for a moment, otherwise.

IV: Gilbert Finch

IV

Gilbert Finch

33 • Settling on Joy Street