The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [100]
Geoffrey opened his telescope. We took turns looking. The village slept below. An excitement ran through me.
The same sky, I thought when it was my turn and I found the comet in the glass. Here or India or America, it didn’t matter. The same moon and the same stars, and on this night the same wild light on everything. I felt as if the world were turning and must change. No more sewing, no plucking warm eggs from beneath the chickens, no walls built up against my deepest yearnings. I could study and travel and have adventures and be a priest or anything I wanted, I could give voice to the truest aspects of my nature.
I do not know how long we stood under the spell of the strange light, watching the comet, before birds began to sing in the still-dark trees.
Geoffrey folded up the telescope and looked at Joseph. “You go on”, he said. “You go on, Joey. I’ll see her home”.
“I’ll wait”, Joseph said.
“No need”, Geoffrey replied, his voice reserved, dismissive.
The Wyndhams owned the land. They owned our cottage. Joseph stood for a long moment, his eyes as dark as the sky, before he punched the wall and started down the stairs.
I could not speak. I was as powerless as Joseph. Also, I was full of anger and desire. I was like the bird that senses a cat amid the leaves but can’t resist the brightness of the flowers. We started down the stairs, around and then around again, and at first I thought it would be all right, that we would reach the bottom and he’d see me home beneath this comet sky, as he had promised.
But at the landing he caught my arm and pulled me into the bell room with its long windows.
That first time he never touched me, only asked me to stand in that faint light, so he could look at me, he said. Step out of that old dress, he said, I only want to look, and after a long time of hesitating, tears in my eyes, I did. That time he kept his promise, walking around me and whispering oh, my beauty, and he never touched me. My fingers were shaking when I dressed.
When I stepped out of the tower, the shapes of things were starting to come out from the darkness. Joseph was waiting. We never spoke, walking home.
I did not seek him out, but he found me that whole summer long. In a clearing, by a stream, in the dusty barn at the end of the lane. Oh, my beauty, I’ll marry you one day. He said this each time. I believed him. I understood nothing, I see that now. I told myself I was the princess in a fairy tale, helped from a silver carriage, unfastening my hair in the tower, even though it hurt my heart to do it. Later, when Mrs. Elliot talked about the rights of women, my face would burn at how little I had cared for myself and what might happen to my one and only life. But I was very young, and I had no power, and I believed this was a fate I could not question.
My phone rang, startling me so much that the papers slipped from my fingers to the floor. I had to dig through my bag for it, and by the time I found it the ringing had stopped. Yoshi—it was Monday morning there, early, so he must have arrived, it must be before his first day of meetings. I pulled up the number and pressed REDIAL, standing up to stretch and pace in the little room. The lake was as smooth as glass, a silver gray.
“Hey,” I said when Yoshi picked up on the second ring. “Where are you?”
“On my hotel balcony. Overlooking a river of traffic. Where are you?”
“In the cupola at the top of the house, watching boats on the lake. I found her letters, Yoshi. Rose’s letters. I’m in the middle of reading them now.”
“Are they good?”
“They’re amazing. Very moving. I don’t know the whole story yet. I wish you were here,” I added, though in fact I was riveted by the letters and had hardly been thinking of him at all.
“Why can’t I just be there?