By eleven the two men were washed and dressed, their luggage repacked, their landlord paid, and they were ready to present themselves at the court of the Temple sisters. They sat once more on the chairs on the back lawn and made plans for walks and outings. As the tea was served and the conversation began, Henry felt as though he had been dipped in something; what had happened lingered as an obsession importunate to all his senses; it lived now in every moment and in every object; it made everything but itself irrelevant and tasteless. It came to him so powerfully as he drank his tea and listened to his cousins that he had to remind himself that it was not still in progress, and a new day had begun with a new day’s duties.

As time went by, he noticed that Minny was remaining apart from the plans and seemed unusually quiet and reserved. He spoke to her alone when the others were busy with further talk and laughter.

‘I did not sleep,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I did not sleep.’

He smiled at her, relieved that her distance from them was something which could be rectified.

‘And did you sleep?’ she asked.

‘It was not easy,’ he said. ‘The bed was not comfortable, but we managed. Despite the bed perhaps, rather than because of it.’

‘The famous bed!’ She laughed.

WHEN JOHN GRAY arrived that afternoon, Henry noticed that Holmes, who, even in the short time away from other soldiers, had lost some of his military glow, now continued his role as the veteran of a war, and Gray did everything possible to complement that role and take it on, indeed, himself. They were led to an old farmhouse a few miles from the Temples ’ quarters where each of them was given an attic room by a friendly young farmer’s wife. The floorboards creaked and the beds were old and the ceilings were low but the fare was reasonable and the husband, when he appeared, offered to ferry the young gentlemen through the neighbourhood should they require transport. Indeed, he added in a friendly, earnest tone, should they require anything at all, he would provide it if he could at the most reasonable rates in all of North Conway.

Thus began their holidays, the two men of action settling into the world of easy civilian life. It was a little realm of relaxed and happy interchange, of unrestricted conversation, with liberties taken while delicacies were observed, allowing the discussion of a hundred human and personal things as the American summer drew out to its last generosity.

Henry basked in the afterglow of his introduction to North Conway. It played for him the part of a treasure kept at home in safety and sanctity, something he was sure of finding in its place each time he returned to it. He watched his friends, waiting for a pattern to emerge, conscious that he wanted his two fellow guests to appreciate Minny Temple as he did, to differentiate her from her two sisters, sweet and charming as they were, knowing that Minny was the glittering spirit among them. He found himself silently promoting her, attempting also in various small ways to quicken their appreciation of her. When he saw Holmes engaging with her, he felt deeply implicated in what passed between them, and wanted nothing more than to witness their growing interest in one another.

Gray’s tone was dry; in his regiment and in his own domestic setting he had obviously been listened to a good deal, and his study of the law now added to his language a Latinate vocabulary of which he grew fonder as the days went on. He had much to say about books, and each day would cross his legs and clear his throat and talk to the ladies about Trollope, how droll and excellently drawn his characters were, how fascinating his situations, how strong his grasp of the rich public life of his country, what a pity no American novelist had emerged who could compete with him.

‘But does he,’ Minny interjected, ‘does he understand the real intricacies of the human heart? Does he understand the great mystery of our existence?’

‘You have asked two questions, and I will answer them separately,’ Gray said. ‘Trollope writes with precision and feeling about love and marriage. Yes, I can assure you of that. Now, the second question is rather different. Trollope, I believe, would take the view that it is the function of the preacher and the theologian, the philosopher and perhaps the poet, but emphatically not that of the novelist, to deal with what you call “the great mystery of our existence”. I would tend to agree with him.’

‘Oh, I don’t agree with either of you then,’ Minny said, her face bright with excitement. ‘When you close The Mill on the Floss, for example, you know much more about how strange and beautiful it is to be alive than when you read a thousand sermons.’

Gray had not read George Eliot and when presented with a copy of The Mill on the Floss by an enthusiastic Minny he flicked through the pages judiciously.

‘She is,’ Minny said, ‘the person in the world I most adore, the person I would most like to meet.’

Gray looked up quizzically, suspiciously.

‘She understands,’ Minny went on, ‘the character of a generous woman, that is, of a woman who believes in generosity and who feels keenly how hard it is, practically, to,’ she stopped for a moment to think, ‘why, to live it, to follow it out.’

‘Follow “it” out?’ Gray asked. ‘What’s the “it”?’

‘Generosity, as I said,’ Minny replied.

Minny also handed Gray a copy of the March issue of the North American Review which had a story by Henry called The Story of a Year. She told him that while she and her sisters had been forbidden to read Henry’s previous story, full, they were told, of highly French immorality, they had been permitted to read his new one. Over the previous days, Henry, a novice in the matter of publication, had waited for Holmes to say something about the story. He knew Holmes had told William that he believed the mother in the story was based on his mother and the soldier was based on him. Suddenly then, William had a new and interesting way to tease Henry. The Holmes family, he told him, was in a rage and old father Holmes was going to complain to Henry’s father. Later, William had confessed that he had invented most of this, except for Holmes’s original comments.

Holmes had said nothing. Now Henry watched Gray crossing the garden with a chair in one hand and the North American Review in the other to find a shady place in which he could sit and read the story. Henry was nervous about Gray’s response, but pleased also that the story could now be mentioned. He imagined Gray reading it with the sharp eye of a war veteran, finding not enough about the action of the war and finding too much about women. Watching him begin the story, and being able from the vantage point of another chair in the garden some distance away from him to see him proceed, was difficult, almost unnerving. After a while he could manage it no more, he had had enough, and he took a long walk that afternoon and did not come back until suppertime.

As soon as they were sitting down, Minny spoke.

‘So, Mr Gray, what did you think of the story? For me, it is so exciting having a cousin who is a writer, it is exciting beyond imagining.’

Henry realized, and he wondered if Minny did too, the effect her words would have on the two young men who had offered their lives for their country. For them, the war remained raw and fresh, and their very presence was a reminder to all of the great losses and heroism of their side. In her enthusiasm for Henry’s story, Minny now seemed to be lessening the importance, indeed the excitement, of having two soldiers at her table.

‘Interesting,’ he said, and seemed ready to leave it at that.

‘We all loved it and are so proud of it,’ Elly, Minny’s sister, said.

‘If it had not had his name on it,’ Gray said, ‘I would have guessed that the author was a woman, but perhaps that was part of your plan.’