Elizabeth 06: The Honeymoon

Sunday brought a summer shower, and of course my dress showed the signs of impromptu washing by hand. And so while I felt absolutely wonderful when I finally arrived back at the mansion in the afternoon, I did not look my best. It was only fitting, then, that Aunt should catch sight of me as I made my entrance with my clothing unchanged from yesterday and also a bit askew. She gave me the same withering look I had seen her give Elizabeth so many times. "Just when I thought we were rid of Elizabeth at last, I see her spirit is still very much present!" she said.

"You could not be more correct, Aunt," I said triumphantly, with a smile that was not forced at all. I did not give her the satisfaction of further eye contact as I started up the stairwell, but from the corner of my eye I was aware of her gaping at me in disgust. For all that, I was deeply grateful for her comment: for the very first time, I felt every bit as confident and sure of myself as I had always understood Elizabeth to be.

That sense of contentment was, I am pleased to recall, still very much with me three weeks later when Elizabeth and Jonathan returned to Westfordshire City. Irene had, of course, spent just as much time in the interim with Gregory as I had with James; but the afternoon of Elizabeth's return found Irene and me alone together on the train platform. There had been talk of having the men join us; but James had been the first to acknowledge that the reunion should be rather more intimate than that. And so as we waited for the train, Irene and I found ourselves alone together for the first time since our encounter just after the wedding. That had been tickling the back of my mind for days; but Irene was the first to address the topic. "It's been far too long since it was just us ladies, hasn't it?" she asked me.

"I've been thinking of that!" I acknowledged with a mildly embarrassed laugh. "I certainly didn't plan it this way..."

"Neither of us did," Irene agreed. "It is only that our attentions are both very much focused elsewhere now. Which is wonderful, of course; and I do like James so! You are a lovely match."

"And you and Gregory as well," I replied, though at that point I still did not know Gregory as well as I'd have liked to. "Such fun for us all to be spoken for once again, isn't it? I'm sure Elizabeth will be delighted."

"Undoubtedly; but more important is that you and I are delighted," Irene said. "We are both overdue for the sort of happiness she has with Jonathan, and it looks as though perhaps we have found it, wouldn't you say?"

"Indeed," I said. "But I must confess, Irene..." I touched her hand and let it linger perhaps a moment longer than I should have, "I will miss us."

"There still is an 'us', Agnes, you know that!" Irene said. "What we did, well, it was the most delightful fun, but it wasn't what we really wanted, was it? If it were, we hardly would have ended up with Gregory and James, after all."

She was correct; I knew that.

We passed a few more minutes in agreeable silence before the train pulled in. A sizeable crowd emerged once it had drawn to a halt; but Elizabeth would always stand out in a crowd for me and we had no trouble spotting her and Jonathan. They were tanned and robust from the long trip, and were just as thrilled to see us as we were to see them. "Elizabeth!" I squealed in a girlish tone that made me glad James wasn't there to hear it, throwing my arms around her. "You're looking wonderful!"

"As are you, Agnes, positively rosy!" she replied. After she had taken her turn hugging Irene and I had done the same with Jonathan, there were a hundred questions that naturally couldn't even wait for the luggage to be retrieved. Of course Irene and I wanted to hear all about France and the ship and all that they had seen, and they wanted to know all that we had been up to in their absence, and was there anyone special in either of our lives now, and Irene and I were just as eager to report that there was for both of us.

Elizabeth inadvertently broke the spell when she called a halt to the rapid fire questions. "What do you say we go home and get more comfortable, and then we can tell one another everything? It will all be twice as fun under your aunt's disapproving nose, after all, Agnes. Maybe little Joy will bend our ear with her own plans to go to France as well."

Jonathan and I looked at one another. He broke the ice. "Remember, darling, 'home' is my flat now."

Elizabeth was nonplussed. "Oh, heavens, I forgot. I am sorry, Jonathan, you know I adore your abode, but living there is going to take some getting used to."

"It will for all of us," Irene pointed out. "But there is ever so much for us to share, Elizabeth, let us not worry about whose home we'll use for the sharing!"

"Quite right," Elizabeth agreed, picking up her trunk. "Let's all go to Jonathan's flat - our flat - and open a bottle of wine, and let's hear all the news." She looked determined, but all could see she would miss Uncle and Aunt's house just as much as it was going to miss her.

Of course Elizabeth reserved the tales of her adventures on the ship and the beach for when we were safely ensconced at Jonathan's dining room table; such fare was not suitable for the cab driver to overhear. Rather, in the cab we heard all about their subsequent adventures on the train up the country to Paris after their sojourn at the beach, and all the marvellous food and wine and urban landscapes they had taken in, as well as the lovely American couple they had come to know on the beach (I was not at all surprised to learn, later on, just how well she had come to know them; this was Elizabeth after all!), and the most agreeable days and nights on the voyage home. She and Jonathan were both thrilled to learn of James and myself ("I had a feeling about the two of you at the wedding," Elizabeth told me), and they could hardly wait to meet Gregory as well.

We talked for hours at Jonathan's flat, and when at last it was time for Irene and me to take our leave, Elizabeth expressed her regret that the reunion had been so brief. "I feel like I could talk for days about it all," she told us at the door. "And..." after a cursory look over her shoulder to ensure that Jonathan was out of earshot, "I could use the company as I adjust to my new home. I shall miss the mansion horribly!"

"We shall miss having you there," I said. "But you know you are always welcome as long as I am living there!"

"Thank heavens for that, Agnes," she said, and she hugged us both good night.

On our next visit to the baths a few days later, I asked Elizabeth if there were any further racy stories after that of Howard and Linda. "Besides what I'm sure you and Jonathan were up to every night, that is," I said. "No need to share that."

"Every night?" Elizabeth asked with a quizzical look. "Don't I wish! No, it was delightful, but it wasn't quite that frequent. More's the pity, I suppose. In any event, Agnes, there wasn't anything else worth writing down. It was a delightful trip of course, but you've heard all the most adventurous parts of it already."

"Why do I find that hard to believe?" I wondered aloud.

"Perhaps because we're sitting here naked in public together," Elizabeth suggested with a giggle. "Honestly, Agnes, think about it: such things as happened on the beach don't happen every day here either, do they?"

I looked at her, deep in thought. "True," I allowed. "It is only that sometimes it seems as though they do when you are here, Elizabeth."

"Exactly, Agnes, it seems that way."

"Too right, Elizabeth. Too right." And I found I had taken another step away from my tragic belief of earlier in the summer that things were changing drastically.

Elizabeth did adjust quite well to her new home, and Gregory and James soon joined Irene and myself in being regular and welcome visitors there. As autumn came to Westfordshire City and a new sort of normal with it, things were soon just as comfortable as they had always been, with one exception. Aunt and Uncle's mansion always seemed rather larger and lonelier to me, an unfortunate development that time did not change. What the future held for some of us proved so tumultuous that it feels positively absurd to write those words now; but they are true nevertheless.

Irene and I were, as it emerged, more than up to the challenge of reclaiming our earlier platonic bond. If anything, it became stronger due to its uniquely informed nature. That was to serve us well, for we were destined to have one more intimate encounter. That encounter was to be arguably a far more intimate one than any we had experienced before, and definitely a tragic one in retrospect. But that is another story for another time.