The Luminaries

come,’ Gascoigne said again. ‘This is entertainment you’re speaking of, not prophecy: let’s not go talking about realms.’
    ‘So you are a cynic!’ She pretended to be disappointed. ‘I would never have picked
that
—disillusioned, maybe; disbelieving, maybe; but tender underneath.’
    ‘If I am a cynic, I am a discerning cynic,’ Gascoigne said loftily. ‘I have been to several
séances
, Mrs. Wells; if I dismiss them as foolish superstition, I do not do it out of hand.’
    She hesitated—and then her plump hand shot out, and pressed his sleeve.
    ‘But I am being uncourteous: the subject is of some fascination to you,’ Gascoigne said, remembering himself.
    ‘It’s not that.’ She stroked the fabric of his cuff a moment, and then withdrew her hand just as quickly. ‘You are not to call me Mrs. Wells—not for very much longer.’
    Gascoigne bowed his head. ‘You wish to be addressed now by your maiden name?’ he asked, thinking privately that if this was true, it was a very improper wish indeed.
    ‘No, no.’ Lydia bit her lip, and then leaned in close and whispered , ‘I am to be married.’
    ‘Married?’
    ‘Yes—as soon as I dare; but it is a secret.’
    ‘A secret—from me?’
    ‘From everyone.’
    ‘I am not to know the name of your beloved?’
    ‘No: not you, nor anyone. It is my clandestine love affair,’ Lydia said. She giggled. ‘Look at me—like a girl of thirteen years,preparing to elope! I dare not even wear his ring—though it is a fine one: a Dunstan ruby, set in a band of Dunstan gold.’
    ‘I suppose I ought to offer my congratulations,’ Gascoigne said—cordially enough, but with a new reservation, for his hopes had been somewhat dashed by this news.
    He felt that a shaft of possibility had closed: a light had been extinguished; a door had slammed. Virtually since he first laid eyes upon the woman, Gascoigne had fantasised that Lydia Wells might one day become
his
lover. He had conjured her in his cottage, had seen her shaking out her russet locks at his bedside, had watched her stoking his range in the morning, wrapped in a flannel robe; he had imagined the heady days of their early courtship, the construction of the house that they would share together, the passing years. Gascoigne dreamed all of this without shame or embarrassment , and even without conscious awareness that his mind was straying so. It had seemed, simply, natural: she was a widow, and he was a widower. They were both strangers in an unfamiliar town, and they had struck up a cordial acquaintance. It was not so very unlikely, that they might fall in love.
    But now that he knew that Lydia Wells was betrothed, Gascoigne was forced to relinquish his fantasy—and to relinquish his fantasy, he had to acknowledge it, and see it for the foolishness it was. At first he felt sorry for himself, but as soon as he turned his mind upon this sorrow, he found that its shallowness amused him.
    ‘I am happiness itself,’ the widow said.
    Gascoigne smiled. ‘What am I to call you, then, if I cannot call you Mrs. Wells?’
    ‘Oh, Aubert,’ said the widow. ‘We are the very best of friends. You do not have to ask. Of course, you must call me Lydia.’
    (We will briefly interject with the correction that Aubert Gascoigne and Lydia Wells were not at all the very best of friends: in fact, they had known each other only three days. Gascoigne had first encountered the widow on Thursday afternoon, when the latter arrived at the Magistrate’s Court to inquire after her late husband’s fortune—a fortune that had already been found, and banked, by other men. Gascoigne filed Mrs. Wells’s request to have the sale of the cottagerevoked, and over the course of this transaction, the pair fell to talking. The widow returned to the courthouse again on Friday morning, and Gascoigne, emboldened by the evident interest with which she appeared to regard him, begged to escort her to luncheon. She accepted this invitation with a coquettish astonishment, and Gascoigne, holding her parasol, accompanied her across the thoroughfare to Maxwell’s dining hall, where he ordered two plates of barley soup, the whitest bread on offer, and a small carafe of dry sherry—and then seated her in pride of place, next to the window.
    It quickly transpired that Lydia Wells and Aubert Gascoigne had much to talk about, and much in common. Mrs. Wells was very curious to learn all that had happened since her late husband’s passing, a