The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey by Serena Burdick

Author:Serena Burdick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQ Fiction
Published: 2022-09-19T15:24:52+00:00

CHAPTER 23

London, England, 1900

July 16

The morning William and I departed for London, the sky was a pale blue, the air soft and warm. As we drove away from Burford, I thought of sitting on the bench in the churchyard when we first arrived. How deliriously happy and in love I had been.

What blind ignorance. What naivety.

* * *

Other than severe headaches, I have recovered completely from Henry’s birth. The doctor told me I was well enough to travel and that my head would be eased if I took my drops regularly. William tried to prevent my going. He said I should stay home with the baby, but Henry is better off with the nurse and Mother, who adores him. I told William if he tried to stop me, I would go on my own. That would be more difficult to explain, so he has let me come along. No need to let London society get a whiff of our marital discontent at this particular, glorious moment in his career.

Mercer Corner’s first impression has sold exceedingly well and the Quarterly Review spoke so highly of it that the name William Aubrey is on the lips of every Londoner. William’s vivacious energy is back, but with a nervous edge of deceit.

The fact that he does not know why I want to come to London, or what I am planning, gives me a certain power over him.

The weather was clear and pleasant when we arrived, the air full of rich, ripe odors. It was my first time in the motorcar, and I was covered in a layer of dust. It would have been faster, and more convenient to take the train, but William likes the prestige of driving one of the few automobiles on the road. We slowed in the thickening of omnibuses and street vendors, and I took off my goggles and pulled my scarf away from my face. I had forgotten how much I missed the smells, the noise and commotion, vendors shouting from every corner, the carriages creeping along. I watched the Dutch biscuit seller pushing her barrow with arms thick as logs and wondered what it would be like to be a woman with that much physical strength. What one could do with those arms! Much more than pick up a useless pen, I imagine.

William let a place on Belgrave Square, and when we arrived, I went straight to the servants’ quarters and made inquiries after Simon Gray and his daughter. None of the servants knew them, but they promised to ask around for me.

I waited a week, fulfilling my social obligations, making the appropriate round of visits, caring about none of it. The hardest thing was seeing my friend Gwyneth—bright, cheery Gwyn—arriving in a flurry of soft fabric, hugging me as if nothing had changed, her figure twice what it used to be. I listened as she babbled about her husband and three children and their villa at Fulham, just two miles west of Hyde Park. Mind you, she said, they could afford to live in fashionable Bloomsbury, but they preferred the suburb.

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