“I did not lie,” she said, quietening her voice to a murmur, hoping this was her moment to clear the air.
“You omitted,” Melville said, catching on at once.
“Out of necessity,” she whispered. “And only a little: we cannot be formally affianced until April. Until then, we are only . . . engaged to be engaged.”
“Oh,” Melville said.
A pause.
“How whimsically indeterminate.”
He sounded so much his normal self for a moment, that Eliza found herself leaning eagerly toward him.
“I am sorry for the deception, nonetheless,” she gabbled in a whisper. “I should not otherwise have concealed it to one I consider—one I consider a true friend.”
Melville took a thoughtful sip of his glass.
“And I do read,” she added defensively—for once again, this seemed important to establish.
Melville did not smile, but his eyes began to crinkle in amusement.
“I have not accused you,” Melville said.
“I know you are awfully bookish,” she retorted, so relieved at the tacit acceptance—for that is what it was, surely?—that she felt almost breathless.
“Awfully,” Melville agreed. He paused, then added, in more of his usual manner: “I could hardly write as I do, were I not.”
“The classics,” Eliza said, as knowingly as she could. “You enjoy reading such books? Homer and . . . the other one.”
“The other one most of all,” Melville said, smiling. “The scholarly populace would have them seem daunting, but they are just stories—magnificent and sprawling, but stories, nonetheless.”
“Before I read your Persephone, I did not understand them in the least,” Eliza admitted. “My husband bade me read more classics to improve my mind but I could not hold my attention.”
She had thought herself too stupid to understand all the unknown words, places and names—but Melville’s poetry had a way of re-spinning the tales, elaborating upon the romance, hinting at the salacious that . . . Well, one didn’t pause to worry if one was intellectual enough, in the hurry to gorge oneself upon it.
“There is more kissing in my versions, I will allow,” Melville said easily.
“It is more than that,” Eliza chided him. “It is a skill, to invite people in as you do.”
Melville blinked, fiddling with the stem of his glass as if unsure of how to respond—as if, despite all the praise he lavished on her, he was not expectant of receiving any in return.
“I am glad,” he said slowly, looking searchingly at her. “I was a boy, when I first read them—a swot even then,” he said, as if confessing something. “And I fancy even now I could return to the texts a thousand times over and still find something new to inspire me.”
“And is that what you mean to do?” Eliza said. “Write a thousand of such poems?”
“I . . . One day I . . .”
Melville’s eyes glanced warily around the table—the first instance Eliza had seen him concerned for eavesdroppers.
“It was my intention,” Melville said, quietly. “Once I had sufficient popularity, to write poetry inspired by classics of a different kind.”
Eliza tilted her head in question.
“My mother was a great linguist,” Melville said, speaking faster now. “Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit . . . She was educated in them all, and she would read to us, each night, from manuscripts she had brought with her from India. The Shahnameh, the Mahabharata . . . these are some of the longest epics ever to be written, as fascinating as the Aeneid and their warriors as great as Achilles or Ajax.”
Eliza’s eyes flickered over Melville’s face, waiting for him to continue. Out of all the conversations they had shared, all the confidences exchanged, she had the sense that this was the most intimate of all of them—here, at a dinner party, with the incongruous swell of conversation all around them—and Eliza would not have interrupted him for the world.
“There are thousands of stories within them,” he told her, hushed and reverent. “If I could just . . .”
Melville’s eyes, bright and animated, dimmed suddenly.
“Find a publisher willing,” he finished around a sigh.
His fingers clenched around his glass and Eliza fought the urge to brush his hand with hers.
“You will,” Eliza said. “I am sure you will.”
If anyone could, it was he.
“Perhaps one day.”
They paused as the table was replenished once more, this time with fruits, creams and jellies of all sizes, shapes and colors. Eliza, impatient to resume their conversation, accepted a selection at random and she leaned back toward Melville as soon as she could. It would be proper, of course, to have instead turned back to Admiral Winkworth: correct dinner table behavior, as Eliza had been taught since childhood, was to alternate conversational partners with each course, but nothing could have enticed her to do so tonight.
“You speak so many languages,” she said, marveling at how it would be to possess such accomplishments—her adequate talent at embroidery seemed very feeble in comparison.
“Not all of them well,” Melville said wryly. “When our parents . . . Well, there were fewer opportunities to keep up with them.”
Eliza wished that they were having this conversation in the privacy of her parlor, so she might have captured the soft melancholy of Melville’s expression in that moment.
“Thank goodness for Caroline,” Melville said reflectively. “Or else I would have felt most alone.”
Eliza’s heart clenched. She was so used to thinking the Melvilles’ singularity somehow prestigious—she had never stopped to consider it might also be lonely.
“You do not have a sister,” Melville said, accepting a footman’s refill of his glass with a murmur of thanks.
“I have Margaret,” Eliza said. “But no sister by blood. I used to wonder if it might have made my mother . . . easier upon me, were there another to share the attention.”
“She was firm?”
Instinctively, Eliza gave a little grimace. Melville laughed.
“I am sorry,” Eliza said, strangely apologetic to have broken the mood in such a way. “She is very firm—her opinions so strong, so loud, that it makes mine shrink, just to be around them.”
Though Eliza had not spoken untruthfully, she still found herself abruptly guilt-stricken to hear herself speak such words to one outside her family.