Part 2 · Chapter 20The End of the Middle Ages

The Miss Alans went to Greece, but they went solo. They were the only ones from our group who’d double Malea and navigate the waters of the Saronic gulf.

They were the only ones visiting Athens and Delphi, both epic centers of intellectual life - one on the Acropolis, surrounded by blue seas; the other under Parnassus, where eagles build and a bronze charioteer drives relentlessly toward forever.

Nervous, anxious, and weighed down by tons of bread, they headed to Constantinople, essentially going around the world. The rest of us were settling for a decent, but less intense, destination: Italy!

We’re heading back to Pension Bertolini.

George said it was his old room.

"Nah, it’s not," Lucy said. " Because it’s the room I had, and I had your dad’s room. I don’t even remember why - Charlotte messed things up, for some reason."

He knelt on the tiled floor and rested his face in her lap.

"George, you big baby, get up."

"Why can’t I be a baby?" George mumbled.

Unable to answer, she put down his sock, which she was trying to mend, and stared out the window. It was evening, and spring was back.

"Ugh, Charlotte," she said thoughtfully. " What are people like that even made of?"

"The same stuff as preachers." "That’s ridiculous!" "Totally. It’s absurd."

"Now get off the cold floor, or you’re gonna get arthritis next, and stop laughing and being so silly."

"Why shouldn’t I laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows and moving his face closer to hers. " What’s there to cry about? Kiss me here." He pointed to the spot where a kiss would be welcome.

He was still a kid. When it came down to it, she was the one who remembered the past, the one whose soul had been hardened, the one who knew whose room this had been last year. It was strangely endearing that he was sometimes wrong.

"Any letters?" he asked.

"Just a quick note from Freddy."

"Now kiss me here; then here."

Then, threatened with arthritis again, he strolled to the window, opened it - like a true Brit - and leaned out. There was the parapet, the river, and to the left, the beginnings of the hills.

The cab driver, who instantly saluted him with a hissing sound, might have been the very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion a year ago.

A wave of gratitude - all feelings grow into passions in the South - washed over the husband, and he blessed the people and things who had gone to so much trouble for a young fool. He's helped himself, it’s true, but how cluelessly!

All the real fighting had been done by others - by Italy, by his father, by his wife.

"Lucy, come look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its name is, still shows."

"San Miniato. I’m just finishing your sock."

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with confident certainty.

George told him he was mistaken; they didn't have any money to waste on a ride.

And the people who hadn’t meant to help - the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils, the Miss Bartletts! Always prone to overestimating Fate, George counted up the forces that had swept him into this contentment.

"Anything good in Freddy’s letter?" "Not yet."

His own happiness was complete, but hers was tinged with bitterness: the Honeychurches hadn’t forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, maybe forever. "What does he say?"

"Silly boy! He thinks he’s being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring - he’s known it for six months - that if Mom wouldn’t give her consent, we’d take matters into our own hands.

They had a heads-up, and now he calls it an elopement. Seriously ridiculous - "

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro - "

"But it’s all gonna be okay in the end. He has to rebuild us both from scratch. I wish, though, that Cecil hadn’t gotten so cynical about women. He’s totally changed, like, for the second time. Why do guys always have theories about women?

I don’t have any about guys."

"I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe - " "You definitely wish that."

"He’s never gonna forgive us - I mean, he’s never gonna be interested in us again. I wish he didn’t influence them so much at Windy Corner.

I wish he hadn’t - But if we’re honest, the people who really love us are bound to come back around eventually."

"Maybe. Then he said more gently: "Well, I was honest - the only thing I actually did - and you came back to me. So, you probably know. He went back into the room. " Seriously, ditch that sock.

He carried her to the window, so she could see the view, too.

They knelt down, hoping they were hidden from the road, and started whispering each other's names. Oh my gosh, it was worth it! It was the amazing feeling they’d been hoping for, and so many little joys they’d never even imagined.

They were silent.

"Signorino, tomorrow we’ll - "

"Ugh, whatever with that guy!"

But Lucy remembered the photographer and said, "No, don’t be rude to him." Then, catching her breath, she murmured, "Mr. Eager and Charlotte, that whole frozen Charlotte thing. How brutal she would be to a guy like that!"

"Look at the lights over the bridge."

"But this room reminds me of Charlotte. It’s terrifying to grow old like Charlotte! To think about that evening at the rectory when she didn’t hear your dad was in the house.

She would have stopped me from going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense."

"You couldn’t have. When I’m super happy" - she kissed him - "I remember how little everything really hangs on.

If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me from going in, and I would have gone off to silly Greece, and become a completely different person forever."

"But she did know," said George; "she did see your dad, right? He said so."

"Oh, no, she didn’t see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don’t you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so." George was being stubborn again. " My dad," said he, "saw her, and I’m going with his word."

"He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. Just a few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn’t speak to her."

Then they talked about other things - the random stuff you talk about when you’ve been fighting to find each other, and your reward is just to rest quietly in each other's arms.

It was a while before they got back to Miss Bartlett, but when they did, her behavior seemed way more interesting.

George, who hated anything dark, said: "It’s obvious she knew. So, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church. They tried to figure it out.

As they talked, an unbelievable solution popped into Lucy’s mind.

She rejected it, and said, "How like Charlotte to mess up her own work with a last-minute, total fail.

But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered, "Or did she mean it? "Mean what?"

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro - " Lucy leaned forward and said gently: "Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati."

"Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle as he whipped up his horse. "Buona sera - e grazie."

"Niente." The cabman drove away singing. "Mean what, George?"

"Is this real?" he whispered. " Is this even happening? I’ve got something crazy to tell you. Your cousin - she's always hoped for this. Seriously, from the moment we met, she’s been secretly hoping, way deep down.

She fought it, of course, pretended she didn’t want it. But she was hoping."

I cann't figure her out any other way. Think about it - she kept me alive in you all summer long. She totally stressed you out, didn't let you have any peace. Month after month, she got more weird and unpredictable. Seeing us together?

It was clearly messing with her - otherwise, why would she have described us like she did to her friend? There were details... it was intense. I read the book later. She's not frozen, Lucy, she's not totally dried up.

"She tried to break us up twice, but that night at the rectory, she got one last chance to make us happy. We'll never be able to thank her or be friends with her.

But I really believe that, deep down, way below the surface, she's actually glad."

"No way," Lucy murmured, then, remembering how she felt, she said, "Actually... yeah, it’s possible."

They were totally caught up in the moment; it felt like the soundtrack to a rom-com - Phaethon’s song celebrating love finally happening. But they knew this was something way deeper than that.

The music faded out, and they could hear the river rushing, carrying winter snows all the way to the Mediterranean.