Page 27 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"Fanny, welcome! This is Rook, my driver. Or I should say, with less pretense, he’s Lady Catherine's driver…lent to me along with the car."

The large man smiled, but it did not make him seem any more or less friendly. It was like a boulder smiling.

Wickham was dressed in expensive clothing and emitted a subtle musk fragrance. She smelled it?not strong but present, pleasant?before she reached him.

She understood his power. He was nicely built, if slim, and his face was pleasing; his features beckoned the eye. In the long afternoon sunlight, she thought he was perhaps more beautiful than handsome, the reverse of some women who are more handsome than beautiful. There was no doubt that, whatever the precise term, he was downright attractive.

He stepped away from the door and took Lizzy's hand, helping her to slide inside. She could feel his eyes again. Then he was in and beside her, and Rook closed the door with a surprising silence.

Wickham rubbed his long hands together. "Since we don't have a lot of time, I've picked just two places to see, two very different sorts of architecture. They're a few minutes from us but not that far from one another. We should be able to see them both comfortably, especially since I had Lady Catherine call in a favor."

He sat back without further explanation, careful to leave a small gap between them on the vast, couch-like backseat. Then he gestured to the driver, waving his hand with authoritarian flair. "To Marina City, Rook."

The chauffeur’s frowning nod was an avalanche.

Wickham talked quickly, excitedly. He did know something about architecture. "So…Marina City. You've probably seen pictures. It’s hard, I've heard, to take it in unless it's on one of the long architectural boat tours, but we don't have time for one of those. Still, we might be able to manage.” Wickham spoke informatively about the architect, Bertrand Goldberg, and his planning concept for the area. “I believe Golberg was a minor genius, a prophet of sorts. He conceived of it as a city within a city, sort of a microcosm of the larger city, Chicago, the macrocosm. A little City of Big Shoulders."

Lizzy looked at him. She had not quoted that bit of Sandburg.Did Wickham hunt down the poem?She did not know what to make of that. It seemed he had. "I confess, I know next to nothing about architecture."

"Not a problem, and tell me if I'm boring you. At the end of the day, great buildings should speak directly to the soul, but I'll have a hard time not interrupting."

So far as she could tell, his enthusiasm was genuine. "How did you get interested in architecture in the first place?" It seemed like a natural first question, innocuous.

He turned toward her. "It's hard to say. I can't remember when I was indifferent, not even when I was young." He was pensive for a few beats and then went on. "I've always preferred buildings to people, although perhaps I should not admit that. People are so changeable, not just in response to externals. Building are that, too, of course, to weather and sun and planned alterations. But people change internally, inside out, all that pesky…psychology." He smiled in a disapproving way. "It'smessy and complicated, and the laws that govern the changes are more complicated, of a different sort, not like the laws of physics. Give me things, not people." He paused and then laughed as if trying to undo any sting the remarks might have had. "Not that I'm indifferent toallpeople."

"I look forward to seeing it."

When the towers of Marina City came clearly into view, Rook slowed the car.

Wickham leaned across the seat, crowding Lizzy slightly, his musky cologne stronger as he did, and he pointed. "There! The 65-story towers. Sometimes they've been calledthe corn cobs.Marina City was the first building in the US to be constructed using a tower crane." He studied the building in rapt fascination.

Lizzy leaned farther back, toward her window, away from Wickham, and stared out at the building, the towers. The towers did look like corn cobs, after eating and not before. At any rate, they looked futuristic even now, and they must have looked even more so when they were first built. They seemed familiar to her, though she was sure she'd never seen them before, not in person.

Rook increased the speed of the car, taking them closer, and Wickham leaned back with a long sigh. He put a hand softly on her forearm. "Do you ever have the feeling that everything worth happening already has?"

His question expressed an aggravated, frustrated loss that Lizzy could not fathom and found unnerving. Since she had no ready response to the question, she kept her eyes steady on Marina City as if she had not heard him.

After a lingering moment, he removed his hand when Lizzy made no effort to remove it herself. He did not return to his previous place on the seat but remained close to her. She gave him a small, unsure smile.

Play the game, Lizzy. Let him win a little at a time.She thought of Darcy and checkers, losing battles for the sake of thewar. She wondered what he was making of all this, listening to it, seeing much of it. Charlie was listening, too.

Rook took them by Marina City, and Lizzy and Wickham saw it up close. He stopped the car and let them out. Wickham led her down to the Marina level, next to the water. They went through the door of the Chicago Electric Boat Company.

"George? What are we doing?"

"A little surprise. I didn't think I could lure you into the full-scale architectural boat tour, so I reserved one of these small electric boats. We'll go out on the river and get a better view of the towers. We won't be out for long, and the boats are quite safe, easy to steer."

She thought of her image of him as a dashing ship's captain at the party. Going onto the water with him wasn't the best idea, but it was daylight, they couldn't go far, and they would be in clear view of anyone along the riverside.

The man at the counter took Wickham's name and then led them out to a small, docked boat. It looked like a giant inner tube, with a kind of table in the center, a steering wheel, and an umbrella that shaded the seating inside the tube, around the table. Opposite the steering wheel?you can't call that a helm with a straight face?was a step for entering the boat. Wickham helped her aboard.

For Darcy and Charlie’s sake, as soon as the salesman had shown George how to operate the boat, she asked: "How long will we be out?"

"Not long. I want to see Marina City from the river. We'll get a good look and then hurry back. Remember, we have another stop before we eat."

He started the boat and maneuvered it masterfully out of the dock and into the river. The electric motor ran with a hum felt rather than heard. The boat did not move quickly, but Wickhamdeftly moved it out into the water and positioned it where, by looking up, they could see Marina City, the towers.

The view was splendid, overwhelming. The city was above them and reflected all around them in the glassy river. They seemed suspended between the city and itself. The boat drifted in one place for a time, allowing them both to appreciate the view,

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