The Transit of Venus

When Grace and Caro first moved to London, they gave most of their wages to Dora as compensation for her taking care of them during childhood. Now Dora has come from Portugal with her new husband, Major Ingot, to attend a celebratory lunch thrown by Christian. While it’s Grace who faints with the first signs of pregnancy, Caro appears to Christian as a “hollow-eyed […] pale, impressive ghost at the feast despite a crimson dress” (124).

After the party, Caro goes to find Paul in the foyer of the theater where his play is being performed. Caro feels that in the whirlwind success of Paul’s play, “he ha[s] not merely left her but left her behind” (125). After a tour of the theater, Paul and Caro leave together. Their dynamic is characterized by mutual admiration and contempt. Paul takes her to a property he has recently purchased. Caro will be his first guest there, as it is in too much disarray for Tertia to see it. While Paul wants praise for his play and new home, Caro offers criticisms of both. Paul confesses, “I have kept loving you. Through all the interesting things that have happened to me” (133). Caro says that she wants to rediscover the old version of herself before she got mixed up with Paul. Paul believes Caro sees him as a personal weakness and says that for him the affair is “the proof of everything [he] disbelieve[s]” (134). They make love and continue their affair because they are unable to resist each other despite their higher principles. 

Caro writes a letter to Ted, telling him that she has seen Paul’s play and that she will have dinner with Ted when he returns in a month’s time. Then she goes home to her furnished flat near Covent Garden market, where she meets Paul. They make love, and Paul confesses that “this is the most [he] ever felt for anything or anyone” (138).

This chapter gives us a glimpse into the government office where Caro works. The women are subservient to the men and run domestic errands such as making tea. A young woman called Valda is the only one who speaks up about her experiences with men, whereas all of the others consider the discussion of such matters “indelicate” (142). Valda considers Caro “a possibility lost,” as she “might have done anything, but had preferred the common limbo of sexual love” (143).

Paul writes to Caro from Los Angeles, which he is visiting as part of a two-month North American trip. He finds that he thinks of Caro unceasingly and says that her letters “move [him] to the heart—an organ which in [his] case [she] invented anyway” (144). He says that he came across Christian Thrale at a conference in Washington and was happy simply for the opportunity to say Caro’s name. 

When Ted meets Caro in a Piccadilly tea-room, he can tell from her body language that she has a lover and is in love with him. While Ted also has a sexual relationship with a woman he met at work, he still holds a torch for Caro and cannot bear to think of her with another man. Caro, for her part, displays “the lover’s indifference to the unbeloved” (149). He ends the meeting early.

Caro meets Paul and they drive to Covent Garden. When Caro tells Paul that she had tea with Ted, Paul seems to dismiss it, but when he mentions Ted’s name an hour later, Caro realizes that he has been thinking about him. When Caro asks Paul what will become of their affair, he notes that she now wants definite answers, whereas she was previously an enigma. Paul asks Caro to excite him by telling him something about Ted Tice. She divulges Ted’s secret about sparing the German prisoner of war.

On a later occasion in Paul’s bedroom, Paul confesses that Tertia is pregnant. Caro says little and then begins weeping openly. It is the first time that Paul has seen her cry. 

A Mrs. Pomfret calls Caro to let her know that the Major has abandoned Dora and that she is in a pitiful and moneyless state. As Grace is pregnant with her second child and Christian angry that the sisters have given Dora their money, Caro has to be the one to go to Portugal. Caro, whose employers deny her compassionate leave, has to fund the trip by asking for an advance on her salary. Ted offers to lend her the money, but she is too proud to accept. He notices that she bears the physical signs of unhappy infatuation. Ted kisses her at the departure gate and finds that she barely registers this gesture.

In Portugal, Caro looks after a depressed Dora who wishes for her own death, saying that she will struggle to find work at her age. Caro feels guilty that she betrayed Ted’s secret about the prisoner of war to Paul. When Caro gets home, Nicholas Cartledge telephones her and asks to see her again. She refuses. 

Caro is lonely, broke, and cold during a London winter. Repaying the bank loan she took to visit Dora has meant that she has not been able to afford heat all winter. She forwards a letter full of Major Ingot’s demands to Christian, who decides to use his influence at the embassy to find a solution.

Caro spends her free time walking around London wondering if she will bump into Paul, who has abandoned her. She is nostalgic about the time when she came home to her flat to find him waiting for her. She senses that while he previously wished that Tertia did not exist, “now it [is] Caro whom, for his convenience, he wishe[s] away” (166). The two of them meet by chance in the park, and Paul sees that Caro is still obsessed with him. He goes home to his London flat to find that Tertia is there and on the verge of tears. 

Caro, who is trying to get over her love affair with Paul, fears that she might be a spinster. She recalls that when she was 19 and in Granada, an unmarried cellist looked at her as though she might also be facing “solitary, chaste, ineffectual decades” (172).

Christian learns that his father Sefton has had a stroke and goes to Peverel. A nurse cares for Sefton all summer, but he dies in September. Christian inherits the wealth but tells Grace they “should keep [the will’s contents] to [them]selves” (176).