CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

In Kensington Gardens Snow stepped over a fallen tree branch that blocked a path. Hyde Park was as neglected as a ruin. Weeds with thick stalks sprouted everywhere, and dry leaves floated on the Serpentine, along with a dead swan, loud with buzzing flies.

Under a huge old hydrangea lay what seemed to be a corpse, or maybe even two. They stank of decay and cholera. Snow passed by as quickly as he could.

He had started work at seven that morning, hunched over his desk trying to untangle all the information about the Southwark and Vauxhall water. He needed more to prove his point, but he wasn't sure what would help. Lillian was due at ten, and he planned to ask her to go through his notes with him once more, the way Caleb had.

Finally he couldn't think anymore, and went out for a short walk, leaving a note for Mrs. Jarrett to give to Lillian.

Heavy rain clouds hovered overhead. When he came to the duck pond he stood for some time staring at the brackish water, hardly hearing the quacking or the tearing that their beaks made as they pulled at the turf. Poplars and elms in full summer foliage blew in a wind, showing the white underside of their leaves.

He looked up from the ducks and saw her. She was too far for him to focus on her face, a white spot above a brown dress.

Mrs. Jarrett must have told her where he usually went; he didn't think she'd follow him. She walked as fast as a man who's in a hurry but thinks running would be too extreme. In a moment she was beside him.

"Did you bring any crumbs for them?" Her words hung in the air after sounding, like bells suspended from the branches of trees. She took his arm and stood looking at the water.

"No. I didn't think." He felt in his pockets in an exaggerated gesture. Just lint.

"Here. I have half a bun." She dug into her bag and held out to him a raisin bun with two bites taken out of it.

He glanced down as he took it and saw her teeth marks in the bun. Her alignment was crooked. This one fact made him realize that until then he had seen her in a mythic light, as though she were perfect, with no past, born full grown from a seashell. His thumb stroked the crescent-shaped absences in the bread.

"I saw Sir Philip yesterday."

Snow's caution resurfaced, like a bad taste in his mouth. Her hold on his arm tightened.

"He says he has done something wrong. I'm beginning to wonder if you are right about him."

Snow burned to ask her again, "When did you know him? How well? What are you hiding?" But all he said was, "We should go back. It's not safe here. I could have been followed. Or even you."

He had been followed already, before Lillian caught up with him. Just inside the park, he had heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see the man he recognized as being so persistent in his digging the day of the riot. Close up he looked younger, with wide-set eyes and flushed cheeks.

"My name's Canty," the man had said. "I been trying to catch you, mister. I know you recognize me. I'm goin' straight now. Watch out. They're up to something. And there's more to tell."

Snow had been intensely curious, but he glanced at his watch. He had to get back to meet Lillian. "Will it take long?"

Canty turned, then, and looked through the trees behind him. "Best not here. Can we meet later?"

"What on earth —"

"You'll see. There's something you got to know about. But you'd better watch it. They're after you."

Snow had smiled, drily. "They haven't been too successful yet, have they?" Then the man must have seen something that frightened him, for he looked back once and ran off. Snow saw nothing suspicious, so he kept on walking toward Kensington Gardens.

No, it wasn't safe for her to be here.

Even so, neither of them moved. It was a new pleasure for him to be totally alone with her, free of Mrs. Jarrett's constant knocks, and with no street crowd around. He pinched off a bit of the bun and threw it in, disturbing the algae. The ducks swarmed for it.

"No. You're quite right. We should go." She held out her hand for a piece of the bun and he gave her one, not looking at her. She rolled it between finger and thumb and threw it in, a good strong toss. The ducks quacked and flapped their wings. A white feather drifted loose and landed on the water, turning slowly.

Lillian looked up at him, and finally smiled. Without speaking she turned and slowly walked up a path that led farther into the park.

Snow put the bun in his pocket and followed her. A few drops of rain fell from the slate sky. When he caught up with her, moisture glistened in her hair. She had taken off her hat and was swinging it from its ribbon.

The rain fell harder, steadily. It was with pleasure that Snow felt it trickling down his neck, wetting his shirt.

"Perhaps you could put up your umbrella."

He felt stung that she could object to the rain. He hadn't; he was too much in love. But he obliged and raised the umbrella over the two of them.

Their walk had a flavor of truancy for him. He knew he should be back at his house, working hard. They ambled for an hour, walking in circles, going nowhere. She told him about Schumann. He told her about his childhood. Snow found himself unable to walk and talk at the same time so they stopped often. He hadn't talked about anything but cholera for ages.

The rain grew stronger until the sky poured solidly. His feet were soaked and Lillian's made squelching noises with every step. At a turn around a grove of dripping Norway spruce they almost walked into the park's Cricket Pavilion. The door was unlocked and Snow opened it. The wet door handle left a smell of pennies on his hand.

Once inside they both stood still, relishing the dry air and the faint musty smell from a thatched roof. Snow's sense of truancy was still strong, and a schoolroom flavor to this space made it more so. Cricket bats stood in racks along the wall. Besides the thatch smell, there was a tang of sweat and playing shoes. Trophies glowed from dark corners of shelves. He felt that at any moment a school warden would catch them and send them back where they belonged. Rain drummed on the thatch.

Snow reached for his watch and was stopped, his hand halfway to his pocket, by her grip on his wrist. He looked stupidly at the soaking fabric of her cuff and the water on her skin over the carpal bones.

"I'm not like the others, you know. The women here. I can't hide things the way they do. There's no point in us waiting." Still holding his wrist like a wounded pigeon, and moving slowly, as if under water, she reached up with the other hand and pulled his head down to kiss her on the mouth, the way she had that first night.

He felt it again, that sense of communion with her, but this time it was expanded into an intense sexual longing that hadn't been there before.

He felt drugged, or as disoriented as if someone had changed all the furniture in his house while he slept. He wondered if he had a fever.

Her mouth was tight under his, and, at first, as resistant as someone in pain. She smelled of cinnamon this time, and curry. He pressed closer against her and felt the hard ridges of her crinoline against his knees and thighs.

"We must stop," he said, after a quick breath. He hardly recognized his own words, as if he had forgotten English.

She didn't answer, but pulled him to her. She kissed him again, her mouth open this time. Her hands pulled impatiently at his shirt under his jacket, and when she finally reached the bare skin of his lower back, she sighed.

It was then that he realized that her longing must be as strong as his. She loved him, and she desired him as well. It gave him an unbelievable sense of power; not power over her, but a power in himself. He felt like a giant, like a king of the earth. This goddess actually desired him. She wanted not just his sex, but his very being.

There was a pallet in a corner; perhaps for resting cricket players. He stumbled over there, holding her hand and hardly able to walk, feeling that he was drowning in joy and desire.

She lifted her skirts; layers and layers of them, it seemed to him, and reached behind her waist, untying something. There was a slight rip, and then the crinoline understructure of her full dress fell loose at her feet. She stepped free from it and joined him on the bed.

A long time later Snow opened the door of the pavilion and Lillian left. It was almost dark and the rain had stopped. 

"Please, won't you let me — "Absolutely not. I can manage. It's better this way. I must go immediately." She walked off quickly, but not without looking back and giving him a long look that was better than any smile. 

Snow put on his jacket and felt the bun in the pocket. After a while he took it out and ate it. He was exhausted and dazed, mostly with pleasure, but also with an observation that burned in his thoughts. She hadn't been a virgin. He hadn't said anything about it, and neither had she.