The Luminaries

have had the most delicious time together,’ saidLydia. ‘But the expedition is easily postponed, and I love to look forward to an outing. Unless you would like to come shopping in Anna’s place? Perhaps you cherish a passion for women’s hats!’
    ‘I could feign a passion,’ said Gascoigne, and Lydia laughed again.
    ‘Passion,’ she said, in a low voice, ‘is not to be feigned.’ She rose from the sofa and went to the sideboard, where a plain bottle and three glasses were set out on a wooden tray. ‘I’m not surprised, you know,’ she added, turning two of the glasses right side up, and leaving the third upended.
    ‘You mean—about the pistol? You’re not surprised she tried to take her life again?’
    ‘Oh heavens, no—not that.’ Lydia paused, the bottle in her hand. ‘I am not surprised to see you here alone.’
    Gascoigne flushed. ‘I did as you asked,’ he said. ‘I did not give your name; I told her it was a surprise. Going with a woman to look at hats, I said. She was pleased by the idea. She would have come. It was only this business with the pistol. She was shaken by it—and she wasn’t in a fit state, afterwards.’
    He felt that he was gabbling. What a fine woman she was—the widow Wells! How smartly the ruffled bustle curved away from her!
    ‘You have been ever so kind to humour my silliness,’ said Lydia Wells, soothing him. ‘I tell you: when a woman approaches my age, she likes to play the fairy godmother, once in a while. She likes to wave her wand about, and make magic, for the betterment of younger girls. No, no—I knew that you had not spoiled my surprise . I simply had a premonition that Anna would not come. I have premonitions, Aubert.’
    She brought Gascoigne his glass, carrying with her the sharp-and -cloudy scent of fresh-cut lemons—for she had bleached her skin and nails with lemon juice that morning.
    ‘I did not break your confidence, as I swore I would not,’ Gascoigne repeated. He wanted, for some obscure reason, her continued approbation.
    ‘Of course,’ Lydia agreed. ‘Of course! You wouldn’t have!’
    ‘But I am sure that if she had known that it was
you
—’
    ‘She would have rallied—in a heartbeat!’
    ‘She would have rallied.’
    (This conviction, rather weakly echoed, was formed on Lydia’s assurance, repeatedly made, that she and Anna had once been the best of friends. It was on the strength of this assurance that Gascoigne had agreed to engineer Lydia’s ‘surprise’, whereby the two women would reunite, and renew their intimacy at once—an offer that was an atypical one for Gascoigne. It was rare for him to perform tasks for others that they might just as well have done themselves, and social manoeuvring of any kind generally made him uncomfortable: he preferred to be manoeuvred than to move. But Gascoigne was, as will now be fairly evident, somewhat in love with Lydia Wells—a foolishness that was powerful enough to drive him not only to act against his inclinations, but also, to alter them.)
    ‘Poor Anna Wetherell,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘That girl is the very picture of ill luck.’
    ‘Governor Shepard thinks that she has lost her mind.’
    ‘Gov. Shepard!’ said Lydia Wells, and laughed gaily. ‘Well, on
that
subject he is a veritable expert. Perhaps he’s right.’
    Gascoigne had no real opinion about Governor Shepard, whom he did not really know, or his lunatic wife, whom he did not know at all. His thoughts turned back to Anna. He was already regretting the sharp tone he had taken with her just now, in her room at the Gridiron Hotel. Gascoigne could never stay vexed for long: even the shortest of intermissions was always sufficient to engender self-reproach. ‘Poor Anna,’ he agreed aloud. ‘You are right: she is a wretched picture. She cannot make rent, and her landlord is to cast her out. But she will not violate her code of mourning by returning to the streets. She will not disrespect the memory of her poor late child—and so, you see, she is in a bind. A wretched picture.’
    Gascoigne spoke with admiration and pity.
    Lydia leaped up. ‘Oh, but she must come live with me—she
must
!’ she cried, speaking as if she had been impressing this notion upon Gascoigne for some time, instead of having only just proposed it. ‘She can sleep in my bed, as a sister—perhaps she has asister, somewhere far away; perhaps she misses her. Oh, Aubert, she
must
. Do be the one to beg her.’
    ‘Would she want it, do