Page 37 of Now Comes the Mist

I wake up on the bench, cold and alone and aching with unfulfilled desire.

“Lucy, how tired and slow you are this morning,” my mother scolds me, coming over with a frown. Her dress of light grey mousseline de soie rustles as she bends to examine me.

I look up languidly from the sofa. “I’m all right, Mamma.”

“You look pale, and you’ve seemed distracted for weeks. Perhaps we ought to call the doctor. And my goodness, these dark shadows beneath your eyes.”

“I’m fine.” She lays her cool hand upon my forehead, and my cheeks flood with heat, remembering other icy fingers touching me. I grab my mother’s hand and press it harder against my face, giggling. “I feel wonderful. And so, so happy.”

Her worried expression deepens at my wild laughter. “Arthur has written again, then?”

It takes a minute for me to place the name. “Oh, Arthur. There is a letter from him almost every day,” I say listlessly. “He should not write so often if he wants me to miss him more.”

“Lucy, he isn’t just another lovelorn admirer. Are you writing him back?”

A sharp prickle of conscience bursts through my haze of languor. I sit up and smooth my hair. “Of course. I have already begun a very long letter to him, which I will finish tonight for the morning post. So do stop ruffling those dear feathers of yours.”

“You won’t have time tonight. Have you forgotten? Mina’s train will be here soon.”

I blink slowly. “Mina. Of course. Can it really be the eighth of August already? How easy it is to lose track of time in all this heat.”

Mamma’s face softens. “It has been uncomfortably hot, hasn’t it? But there is a lovely breeze off the ocean today. Wouldn’t you like to walk into town and wait for Mina’s train?”

I recognize a command masquerading as a suggestion when I hear one. Sighing, I stand and straighten my skirts. My head feels light, like a dandelion ready to blow away with one puff of wind. I collect my hat and gloves as Mamma looks on, her lips pursed with concern. But the minute I step outside and the salt-laced breath of the sea touches my face, I feel more awake. I will never again see, hear, or smell the ocean without thinking of my evenings on the cliff with the stranger. He occupies every corner of my thoughts as I wander distractedly into town.

At the station, I sit down to wait for Mina’s train. I have not decided if I will tell her of the nameless man in my dreams. She would be shocked if I confessed the things he has done to me in these secret, burning reveries. But she knows me too well, and even if I stay silent, surely she will still be able to see that I am different—that these encounters of lust andconnection and conversing about history and philosophy have irrevocably changed me.

When she steps off the train, however, she only hugs and kisses me as if I were the same Lucy she has always known. I breathe in the familiar floral scent of her hair and skin and hold her tightly against me. The comforting warmth of her arms clears my dazed mind at once. “How splendidly Whitby has treated you,” she says, pulling away to look at me. “That color in your cheeks! Though you do look a bit tired.”

“Only because I was sleepless with excitement for your arrival,” I say, trying to sound as cheerful as always. “I’ve been desolate without you.”

Mina’s eyes sparkle. “Nowthatis a lie. I can tell you’re happy. Arthur writes daily?”

“Like a great big grandfather clock, punctual to the minute. He even paid us a surprise visit in June and rode the train in just to stay an hour.” I feel a sudden pang of yearning for Arthur and his smile and his simple, uncomplicated self. Perhaps seeing Mina and remembering my life at home in London has made me realize how much I miss him. Since he left, his letters have been even more loving and tender, reassuring me that he eagerly awaits our wedding day.

“Oh, Lucy, what a lucky and loved girl you are.” A shadow passes over Mina’s face, one that might go unnoticed by someone who loved her less. But before I can ask her what is wrong, a porter approaches to take her bag. “Thank you. Would you point us to a carriage, please? I know the walk isn’t long, but I don’t feel quite up to it today,” she adds, glancing apologetically at me. For the first time, I notice the circles under her eyes and the peeling of her lips, as though she has been chewing nervously on them.

I slip an arm through hers. “You look even more tired than I feel. Whatever’s the matter?”

In the carriage, Mina confesses, “I have not heard from Jonathan in two months. He left in May and last wrote to me at the beginning of June, and his letter was so cold and curt. I’ve been torturing myself, imagining him hurt or lost or … or worse.”

I frown. “That doesn’t sound like him, not when it comes to you.”

“He warned that this trip might take longer than expected,” she says, and my heart aches at the pain in her eyes. “The route is difficult, and one can’t simply take a train and be there, the way I’ve come to you. He promised he would write often, so why hasn’t he kept his word? And why was his letter so short and formal? Oh, Lucy!”

“Hush,” I soothe her. “I’m sure there is a good reason.”

“Sometimes I think I love him so much, I can feel everything he feels.” Mina presses her white knuckles to her mouth. “I know something is wrong. Iknowit. Somehow, I feel that he is worried and afraid. But why doesn’t he tell me, when he has always told me everything?”

She begins to weep despite the presence of the carriage driver. For my ladylike Mina to cry before a stranger, she must be distraught indeed. I rock her gently and stroke her hair, wondering if Arthur and I are connected the way she believes she is to Jonathan.

I give her my handkerchief. “This is the first journey his employer has entrusted to him, is it not?” I ask, and she nods, blowing her nose. “Perhaps the client keeps him so busy that he had time to send only a quick note. I am certain he wrote you a longer letter afterward, perhaps several, and they were delayed by a bad storm of some sort. That would explain his unease. What was the region called in English again?”

“The Mountains of Deep Winter,” she says, looking a bit relieved. Where crying makes me red and blotchy, tears brighten the vivid blue of her eyes and the delicate softness of her face. “He did tell me they tend to have snowstorms there. I had not thought of that.”

“And you notified the post office that you would be on holiday in Whitby,” I remind her. “You gave them my address here, so that is yet another layer through which a letter must pass. I wager that soon you will be overwhelmed by a packet of fifteen letters, all come at once!”

She squeezes my hand. “I hope you’re right. I’m so glad you’re here. When I’m alone, I think all sorts of horrible things.” She glances at the carriage driver and lowers her voice to a whisper. “I have even imagined that he has forsaken me for someone else.”

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