Becoming Mrs. Lewis(108)
Every Sunday we went to church together at Holy Trinity, where he and Warnie had gone for years, attending the service without the organ and sitting behind the pillar so the priest could not see when Jack disagreed with his sermon. Always, the three of us slipped out directly after Communion and walked to town for a beer. There were sections of the liturgy that fed my soul and others that made me bristle with argument.
One splendid evening in the beginning of the year, I dug out a fancy dark-blue ball gown from my days in New York. Surprised to find that it still fit, I wore it to attend a dinner that Jack threw in my honor at Magdalen. Here I met his friends I’d heard about but never encountered. I behaved. I smiled demurely. It was a smashing evening that ended with a cab ride full of laughter as he imitated each one of his friends. We were a team, the two of us understanding each other in a way that no one else could or ever had.
Twice I’d been to meet Jack before or after an Inklings meeting, which is where I learned that Tollers’s talking tree, Treebeard, was modeled after Jack.
Just when I believed I’d learned all I might, there was more to discover about this man. I was confident in this: it was only the beginning. I felt we were on a threshold, a precipice. We had a lifetime to grow closer and come to truly know each other.
A lifetime.
And who knows what that lifetime is made of? How many days, or hours?
“Jack.” I faced him as I plucked my purse from the hook on the wall to leave for the registry office. “Is this meant to be a secret? This marriage?”
“It isn’t so much a secret as it is between us. Because it’s not in the eyes of the church and we aren’t living together, it is ours to hold close. Of course Dr. Humphrey and Austin Farrer will be there today, so they will know.”
“I want the world to know,” I told him.
He smiled sadly and buttoned his jacket before looking directly at me. “We shall know, Joy. We shall, and that is what matters.”
I smoothed my cream suit to leave for the office on St. Giles, down the street from our beloved Bird and Baby, where we would sign the papers binding us legally as husband and wife on April 26, 1956.
CHAPTER 48
Open your door, lest the belated heart
Die in the bitter night; open your door
“SONNET XLIV,” JOY DAVIDMAN
“There might not have ever been a more sublime October,” Jack said quietly. The lit end of his cigarette glowed, its own full red moon, and then fell in sparks to the ground. “The mornings cool, the days warm, and the nights like this. I can’t remember another as beautiful.”
The October moon was full, hovering over us in the back garden of my Old High Street house. We’d grown silent after hours of talking as we sat on the same bench, our knees touching.
I nodded, and although he wasn’t looking at me I knew he felt the agreement. Kay and Austin Farrar and others had just left a little dinner party I’d given. Kay had whispered to me in the kitchen, “Austin and I agree that Jack seems more genteel in the past months. He’s quieter and more relaxed. It’s as if his sensitive nature has at last come through. And we all know it’s because of you.”
For dinner that night I’d cooked mutton the best I knew how, served mashed potatoes American style, and green beans I’d canned from last summer at the Kilns. I made the apple pie from my backyard apples and could almost taste summers in Vermont with the Walshes. The wine and conversation had flowed as smooth as could be.
It was eleven p.m. by then, and Jack was the last to leave. He was always the last to leave. Every day he walked to my house from the Kilns, and we worked or wandered into town.
“Today I bought fireworks for Guy Fawkes Day,” I said. “So don’t hoard any more or the boys will have enough to destroy your whole back forest.”
“I’ll tell Warnie,” he said. “He’s the one who stockpiles them. Oh! Has he told you? He’s reading your husband’s book, Monster Midway.”
I laughed and rested my head on his shoulder. “I believe you’re my husband.”
“Indeed I am.” Jack patted my knee.
I paused before delving into the subject I had held tight until all the guests had gone. “Jack, these days and nights have been some of the most treasured of my life. The dinner parties and friends. The conversation. I almost feel like I’ve made a life here.”
He turned to me, his cigarette almost to the filter. He dropped it to the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe. “But?”
“There’s talk about me. About us.”
“What kind of talk?”
“Can’t you imagine, Jack? The Oxford don who comes to the divorced woman’s house until late at night, every night. People gossip.” I paused. “Kay told me that Tollers is afraid of what Cambridge will think when they get wind of it. We appear inappropriate.”
He attempted a laugh but it didn’t work, so instead he quoted another sonnet. “‘Would smile contempt, and in the brazen noon.’” He paused after the line when I didn’t laugh or reply. “Since when have you started to care about what others think is inappropriate?”
“I care, Jack.”
“Would you like me to not come round as much? Because I couldn’t bear that.”