"It's nice being on a pedestal," Ivy replied. I wondered if she would grow tired of such a relationship, as surely Robert would over time. "Should I swirl this in the glass? It makes me look rather sophisticated, don't you think?"

"You look stunning, as always, but I haven't the slightest idea if it's the thing to do with port. I shall ask Davis when we return to London."

"I think there are few things more comfortable than a good marriage, and I am thankful to have found that with Robert."

"Comfort is certainly important," Margaret agreed, though I could tell from her voice that it would not induce her to settle into such an arrangement.

"Do you love him, Ivy?" I asked. "I mean, really love him? Desperately, passionately? Does he fill your every thought? When you retire to bed at night, do you long for the moment he reaches for you?"

"Well, not exactly. Really, Emily, I think one has to have realistic expectations. I have read all the sordid novels you have, and I remain unconvinced that anyone ever achieves that sort of thing in real life."

"I'm not sure."

"I know you didn't think like this when Philip was alive, but do you feel that way about him now?"

"No, not really. Of course, he is dead, so it's rather frustrating to feel anything for him." I remembered his face as it looked when he kissed me for the first time on our wedding night. "But I will admit that when I look back on things, I feel rather more excited about them than I did as they transpired."

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Should I be shocked?" Ivy asked.

"No, not at all. I think that as we experience things, they happen too quickly to be thoroughly analyzed. I am sitting here contemplating the first time Philip kissed me after we were married and realize now how romantic and enrapturing it was. At the time, however, I didn't feel much other than fatigue. Had I been able to step back and observe us, I might have found the scene thrilling."

"But if you had been passionately in love with him, I think you would have felt the thrill. Surely passionate love doesn't require thorough analysis," Margaret said.

"You're right, of course," I replied. I sipped my port and slouched into the chair, but only for a moment. "We must return to the matter at hand. How am I going to determine the status of these things?"

"Will you ask the British Museum to assist you?" Ivy asked.

"No, I would prefer to avoid that for as long as possible. Do you suppose if my husband turns out to have really been a thief, I should be obligated to expose him?"

"I don't see how you could not," Margaret said.

"Perhaps if we determine that to be the case, we can concoct some way to return the original pieces to the museum and no one will be the wiser. Why tarnish his memory now?" Ivy suggested.

"I am going to consult with Mr. Aldwin Attewater. He should be able to tell me what is authentic."

"Can you trust him?" Ivy asked.

"I think I can. He spoke to me quite candidly in Paris. At any rate, I don't have to reveal to him why I suspect the museum is displaying reproductions." I paused. "You know that Colin Hargreaves very strongly warned me off the acquaintance. I do wonder about him. His behavior has been so strange at times. Did I ever tell you that Andrew actually told me to keep away from him? Said his charm could be deadly."

"What on earth could that mean?" Margaret asked.

"At the time I assumed he meant that he would trifle with my emotions; now I question that conclusion. Perhaps Andrew knows that Colin has connections to these forgers. He also told me that he has never felt he could trust Colin. It is almost as if he were warning me," I said, remembering the note I had found. "I wonder if he also warned Philip?"


For several hours after Ivy and Margaret had gone to bed, I sifted through every paper I could find in the library, hoping to locate some documentation of the antiquities. Philip's files were carefully organized, and I quickly found records of those objects displayed in his stunning gallery. There was no mention anywhere of the objects currently in the library, nor any suggestion that he knew of or suspected forgers at work in the museum.

Eventually I retired but still did not sleep. Finding myself alone in Philip's bed overwhelmed me, and I spent much of the night searching through the contents of the master bedroom. Philip had not been to the house since our marriage, and I felt that the room was a vestige of his bachelor life. His dressing room contained nothing of particular interest; the same could not be said of the bedroom itself. A low shelf standing below the windows across from the heavy four-poster bed held a surprising collection of books, among them Lady Audley's Secret, the edition of Beeton's Christmas Annual that contained A Study in Scarlet, a catalog of objects from the British Museum, and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, as well as a few volumes on the subject of big-game hunting. The selection of books kept in one's bedroom is highly personal and indicative of one's character, and after looking at these, I felt that I knew Philip more intimately than before. I loved the idea that he might have read Lady Audley on a blustery evening during which sleep eluded him, and I wished for the chance to nestle beside him with a novel of my own. How delightful it would have been to spend an evening in bed with him, reading and exchanging comments.

Ivy had told me about Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, but I had never read either of the novels. I picked up A Study in Scarlet to bring back to London and then noticed a series of leather volumes with unmarked spines identical to Philip's journal. As I suspected, they contained records of previous years of his life. I immediately opened the first book and began to read but stopped before I finished a page. Much though I wanted to know my husband better, I didn't feel entirely right reading his private thoughts, especially those written years before he ever knew me. I opened the book again.


Truly, she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and cannot imagine finding more beauty in a single being.


Who was this trollop tempting my future husband? I ground my teeth as I skimmed ahead, jealously hoping that she had died of consumption before the relationship grew serious. No, not consumption; that would take too long and almost certainly ensure the formation of the dreaded attachment. I sighed when I realized I was reading the musings of a fifteen-year-old Philip on the subject of a horse. I replaced the volume on the shelf. It would be naïve to think that Philip had not loved before he met me. The former object or objects of his affection were likely to have had the good sense to return his feelings; reading about it would serve only to remind me of the foolishness of my own behavior toward him.

When Mrs. Henley had unpacked my valise, she put on the nightstand next to the bed the photograph of Philip I now always carried with me. I looked at it and wondered how I could ever doubt his character. No matter what I had found in the library, how could I believe that Philip would knowingly purchase artifacts that belonged to a museum?

Even as I thought this, the seeds of doubt were forming deep in my mind. I never knew him; all I knew now was what others wanted me to believe. I blocked these thoughts, not wanting reality to crush the romantic fantasy I so desperately longed to be true. I tried to imagine Philip dealing in the black market, skulking around with forgers. All this accomplished was to show me that I had a great difficulty imagining him doing much of anything; I didn't know him well enough to improvise his speech, mannerisms, or expressions. Once again the feeling of lost opportunity rushed over me, and I spent the remainder of this restless night crying, clutching the picture of the man over whom I suffered an unbearable feeling of regret.


18 AUGUST 1887

BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON


As always, it is a great relief to escape from the Season in London, although for the first time, doing so has meant leaving behind someone more dear to me than I could ever have expected. Perhaps next year will have K join me here.

Fournier's discus thrower more exquisite than I imagined. Retaliated by acquiring two more vases-one depicts the Judgment of Paris and is perhaps the finest work of its kind. Don't know that I shall be able to give it up, although there is no question that it belongs in the British Museum. Also saw Renoir et al. in Paris-bought six more pictures for the villa. Something in the informality of my friends' paintings fits beautifully on this unspoiled island. Must convince Monet to come here and paint for me-his views of the caldera would be incomparable. How I would love to see him attack with bold brushstrokes the light bouncing on the Aegean.

18

Aside from his copy of A Study in Scarlet, The only thing I took from Philip's bedroom at Ashton Hall was a notebook in which he had recorded information on each of the objects in his collection of antiquities as well as observations on some of his favorite pieces in the British Museum. Back in London, comfortably ensconced in a large chair in the library (no corset for me that evening), I armed myself with the notebook and Philip's journal, resolved that a lively exchange of ideas about ancient Greece could be adequately replaced with reading my dear husband's thoughts on the subject.

Like me, he seemed to prefer red-figure vases to black, finding the detail superior on the former. He mused for several pages about the white lekythoi that Mr. Murray had mentioned to me when he first showed me the Judgment of Paris vase. Philip was struck by the humanity of these pieces, many of which he believed had been made as funerary objects, and wondered about the identity of the figures represented on them. I determined to take a closer look at them the very next day at the museum.

Not surprisingly, he adored any vase that depicted scenes of the hunt. I paused for a moment, considering their appeal, but could not bring myself to reach Philip's level of appreciation and decided to skim through the rest of his thoughts concerning them. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the notebook was filled with notes he had written about hunting in ancient times. I sighed, flipping through pages until I came across a draft of an essay of sorts that he had written about the Iliad.

In it I found no mention of the things I loved about the poem: its humanity, its energy, the heroic ideals of its characters. Most unsettling to me was his excessive praise of Achilles.

I had already admitted to Margaret that Achilles' strength on the battlefield was unparalleled. That this impressed Philip did not shock me. However, it overshadowed for him everything else in Homer's great work. He used it to justify Achilles' egotistical fits and could not praise the hero enough for his unwavering sense of morality. While it is true that Achilles' straightforward approach to his world could be considered admirable, I found it immature and overly simplistic. And in all these pages of writing, Philip never once mentioned Hector, except as Achilles' enemy. How could he have so overlooked Homer's most human character? A man who painfully realizes that his best will never be enough, whose heart-wrenching decision to fight Achilles nearly brought me to tears?

Dissatisfied, I put down the book, irritated that Philip was not there. I desperately wanted the chance to argue about these things with him. As I sat there, I slowly began to realize that my own opinions were quite different from those of my husband. Until then I had attributed all my interest in classical antiquity to Philip and had assumed that his own studies would serve as an adequate guide for mine. I no longer felt driven to study as a way to know Philip; I wanted to study because I loved the poetry, because the beauty of Greek sculpture moved me, because I was touched by the sight of tiny details on a vase. Suddenly Philip became one in a series of people whose academic opinions might or might not matter to me.

The culmination of these thoughts did not make me lose any love for my husband, nor did it make me grieve less for his loss. Instead it made me miss him all the more, because it revealed conversations I would never have with him. I could, and would, continue my studies, this time allowing only my own interests to serve as my guide. What I would never have, however, was the chance to end an infuriating argument on the merits of Hector versus Achilles with a series of soft kisses that gradually became more passionate as the topic at hand faded from memory.