The Transit of Venus

Christian bumps into Caro and Adam Vail at an art show. He is irritated that Caro has found a rich male protector, feeling as though she has outwitted and emasculated him. Christian acknowledges that he could have helped Caro when she struggled financially, but he hoped to see her fall into some tragic “dénouement that would vindicate, or redeem, the cautious order of his own existence” (191).

At work, Caro goes to see her boss, Mr. Leadbetter. Leadbetter complains that another female employee, Valda Fenchurch, has been refusing to retrieve lunch while the men sit at their desks. When Caro explains that Valda is justified in her refusal, Leadbetter insults Caro, telling her she “should seriously consider returning to New Zealand” (193). Caro is one step ahead of him, stating that she has come to offer her resignation because she is going to get married. Leadbetter is uncertain about whether to resent Caro’s escape or console himself that “she could only be delivered by male intervention” (193).

Grace bumps into Ted at Harrods and breaks the news that Caro is marrying Adam Vail. The news devastates Ted, who tells Grace, “[W]hat I have done has been for hope of her. What I do now will be for lack of her” (198).

Paul Ivory learns the news from the newspapers. Tertia is with him and makes a sarcastic remark about Dora being a calculating matchmaker who found the Bell sisters wealthy husbands (Adam comes from entrepreneurial stock and has made his fortune in bauxite). Paul is content that “at any rate the astrologer didn’t get her” (199).

Caro moves to New York, where she becomes Mrs. Vail. She lives in the house that Adam grew up in and gets to know his sister, Una, who is having an affair with Hansi, a bureaucrat. She also tries to bond with Adam’s troubled adolescent daughter, Josie. While Adam and Caro love each other, Caro is still a mystery to Adam. For example, he is bemused at her crying over a book of poetry.

Caro receives letters from Grace and Ted informing her of Ted’s wedding to Margaret, a scientist’s daughter. Ted has also inaugurated a great telescope he has been working on in a ceremony before the Queen.

When Caro suffers a miscarriage, Josie tells her that she felt threatened by the pregnancy. Caro is horrified by Josie’s cruel directness, telling Una that “Josie’s belief in her innocence is her warrant for doing harm” (208). Una replies that in this respect Josie is like America.

Adam reflects on Josie’s mother, Charlotte, who had numerous antipathies. Eventually he realized that Charlotte perpetually needed an enemy “and only he remained to fulfil the role” (209). He tells Caro that Charlotte’s “continual state of desperation” was tyrannical and made him feel more child than man (210).

Margaret and Ted have a serene marriage, although Ted is still in love with Caroline. As Margaret becomes a mother, the feeling that her husband does not love her as much as he could plagues her. On his way to Pasadena, California, Ted stops by New York and meets Caro. He finds her as beautiful as ever, and she finds that with age, his face has earned distinction.

Caro and Adam come to London, where Dora complains about Caro’s long absence, insinuating that Caro has been disloyal to her by marrying Adam and moving to America. Christian is happy to see Adam take on responsibility for Dora because “it seem[s] something—like Lend Lease, or the Marshall Plan—that an American should do” (218). Christian, who wants to avoid dealing with age and hardship at all costs, considers putting his aging mother Charmian in an institution. 

Christian feels that he can prevent regrettable things from happening to him until a summer in the 1960s, when he becomes infatuated with a young typist called Cordelia Ware. Cordelia has the new generation’s more permissive attitude to sex. Their dynamic progresses from Christian driving Cordelia home, to kissing on park benches, to consummating their relationship in the marital bed of his and Grace’s London home. Grace is at Peverel for the three weeks that the affair lasts. He considers “Cordelia Ware […] the only unpremeditated episode of [his] existence since Grace Bell” (236).

When Christian ends the affair, Cordelia is visibly upset, leading him to conclude she is “clearly neurotic” with an “unresolved fixation on the father” (240). However, he sees her onto her train home.

The next summer, Grace gives birth to a third son, Rupert.