Now Harriet did put out her hand and touched the girl, the lightest touch on the arm. ‘Can I help?’ she repeated.
Jeannie looked at her. Some of the indifference was gone. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Can anyone help me?’
‘I don’t know if anyone can help, Jeannie ‒ but you can let me try.’ She pressed gently for the girl to talk. ‘You didn’t want to get into the car?’ she prompted.
Jeannie turned to her fully. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get into your car, Mrs. Dexter. It’s just that … I didn’t want to go back to Burnham Falls.’
‘Burnham Falls is where you belong,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s always there to go back to. There are a lot of people in Burnham Falls who love you, Jeannie. Your father loves you … very much.’
‘Yes, he loves me,’ Jeannie answered with some heat. ‘But love isn’t enough, Mrs. Dexter. It can’t wrap a cloak round you and keep out the world. It can’t stop you getting kicked and hurt …’
Harriet checked the words she had been going to say, because Jeannie was speaking the truth, and all she had to offer were the same old platitudes ‒ the same worn patterns by which she had cut out her life so long ago. It didn’t matter how much a father loved you, he couldn’t change the world for you, as Jeannie had said. But she, Harriet, had refused to see that; she had meekly gone along with his wishes all her life because love seemed a convention, not a reality. Jeannie knew different. She loved her father fiercely, but also knew that he was powerless to help or change things. She was free for the rest of her life to love him without obligation or guilt. Suddenly Harriet envied her because she had the strength of this freedom.
‘Jerry Keston left town this morning,’ Jeannie said. ‘I thought I couldn’t live through a day like this, but here it all is, in its usual place, and everything seems normal and ordinary.’ She uttered a queer little sound that might have been meant for a laugh of bravado, but which came out wrong. ‘You know, I suppose half the town knows that Jerry’s gone ‒ and probably guesses why. And I thought I’d show just how little it bothered me, so I marched right into Carter’s this morning, and expected to find my job waiting there for me. Wally told me that Judy Thomas had been filling in ‒ just till I wanted to come back. Do you know what Wally said to me this morning, Mrs. Dexter?’
‘No,’ Harriet answered. Her hands tightening a little on the wheel; she felt herself bracing inwardly.
‘Well, he made me a nice gentle speech about not thinking it was quite the right time to come back … how he thought I would be happier somewhere else for the time being … how he didn’t think I’d enjoy being there so much now since everyone knew Patrino and Reitch had been in that night, and that I’d talked with them in the booth. In a roundabout way he hinted that I’d be bothered by a lot of strangers who thought I was an easy pick-up. And, of course, since I was such a nice girl, and wouldn’t want any of these things, that naturally I’d be happier somewhere else.’
‘Are you sure he really meant that, Jeannie?’
‘I’ll tell you what he meant! He meant that all the people at the construction camp are pretty sore about me, and that they would take their business to Bailey’s if they saw me back behind the counter. And I’ve caused quite a bit of embarrassment and trouble for Amtec, too, and they’d rather not be reminded. Wally … he’s not going to lose business for old time’s sake, so out goes Jeannie!’
‘I’m sorry …’ Harriet mumbled inadequately.
‘And you know ‒’ Jeannie went on, ‘I thought there weren’t very many people in Burnham Falls who realised how much they depended on Amtec. But Wally knows it, and he knows how to play the game with them. He’s smart.’
‘Not everyone is like Wally.’
‘All those who matter are! And the ones who aren’t ‒ well, they’re not going to be running things in this town very long. I thought I was going to be one of the ones who ran things in the future, but Wally showed me different. It’s like a politician who suddenly gets a scandal in the family. He’s finished.’
‘You can’t be finished here, Jeannie. There are other things to try ‒ other people.’
‘Not the things or the people I want. Oh, yes, there are other things. But what kind? Wally told me about a job that was going in Elmbury ‒ in Sandra’s Terrace Shop. That’s that dress shop on Chester Street that tries to be a bit Fifth Avenue. I didn’t want to apply for it, but I didn’t want to go home, either. So I caught the bus over, and went to see Mrs. Maybury, who owns it. Do you know the Terrace Shop? There are four assistants and Mrs. Maybury. She’s very efficient and attractive, and as tough as an old copper kettle. There’s only room for one person like that in a small town business. If you worked yourself to death there you’d never get a cent more than the salary she’s offering. No chance of a partnership, or an interest …’
‘Didn’t she want to hire you?’
‘Oh, sure she wanted to hire me! She got very persuasive once she recalled where she’d heard my name before. She had the very opposite idea from Wally ‒ she could have used the publicity value of having me work in her store. I don’t come from Elmbury, so there’s no feeling against me there, and I suppose she figures there’s a good number of women who’d come in just to get a good look at me. And she would have gotten the credit for helping out someone who was in trouble. Between her and Wally, I’m beginning to feel as if I’d just come out of jail.’
‘That won’t last long. People forget ‒ they find other things to talk about.’
‘Well, I’m not sticking around to see whether that’s true or not. I’m leaving Burnham Falls ‒ as soon as I can.’
Harriet didn’t say anything. If she spoke, she felt that for Ted and Selma’s sake she should try to dissuade Jeannie from going. But in a sense she knew it was the only thing possible for a girl like this one beside her. Jeannie was not another Harriet Carpenter, who had come back because she had not known what else to do. Jeannie was not patient and enduring; she had ambition and had to find a way for it to go. She would not wait meekly for people to forget, or allow herself to slip into the background so that their sense of security would not be disturbed. She had intended to be many things for and to the town, and the town would not let her. But inside, Harriet was crying a protest that Burnham Falls was losing Jeannie, when it had such need of people like her ‒ people who had been part of the life of the town before Amtec came, who had known it before the strangers took over.
‘I’m not going to stay around to be punished for Patrino and Reitch!’ Jeannie cried suddenly. ‘Why should I be the scapegoat? Why should I have to be grateful to people like Wally Carter and Mrs. Maybury? Why do I have to stay in Burnham Falls to have that kind of treatment dished out to me ‒ I can earn double for taking the same thing in New York!’
‘Are you going to New York?’
Jeannie shrugged. ‘Where else is there? It’s the first step, in any case. Dad and Mom won’t mind so much because they think it’s close ‒ and I’ll tell them I’ll come home on week-ends. But I doubt that I will. Once you leave a small town, you shouldn’t try to come back.’
‘It takes a lot of courage …’ Harriet started to say.
‘Not courage,’ Jeannie broke in. ‘It isn’t courage when there isn’t any alternative. What’s there for me here? I can’t ever take a job with Amtec, and I’ll never get any support now to start my own business. Everything else is just second rate ‒ filling in time until someone wants to marry me. I couldn’t take that kind of a deal!’
Harriet strained to see ahead. A small wind had risen, and the rain was slanting against the windscreen. It was like the sad rain of autumn.
‘So that’s why I was standing at the bus stop ‒ wishing the bus would never come, and I didn’t have to go home and tell Dad and Mom.’
Harriet had to slow down, because the rain was heavier, and the old-fashioned wipers cleared such a small part of the windscreen. Her body felt cold, and she didn’t know whether it was the dampness o
f the air or the effect of what the girl beside her had said. There had been such dead, calm logic in what she said, and the truth had a sting in it.
Jeannie had looked at Burnham Falls, and found that it had nothing to give her now. It was what she, Harriet, should have done long ago, back before it was too late to do it.
Jeannie said slowly, and the words came from her painfully, ‘Jerry went away this morning, Mrs. Dexter. I wanted to stay in Burnham Falls and marry Jerry ‒ because I loved him. Even with all that’s happened I would have stayed if I’d known he loved me, and would come back. But he doesn’t love me. I have nothing now ‒ not Jerry ‒ nor the town.’
Harriet was aware that Jeannie’s body was suddenly shaken with sobs. She hadn’t expected her to cry. There was such a fatalistic toughness in her. And yet all women wept sometime, and Jeannie had the right to weep over a boy she had thought loved her, and a town where she thought she had her place. The sobs increased, hysterical little cries that Harriet guessed might have been her first tears since that Saturday night. Jeannie wasn’t used to crying ‒ in her, the act had no grace or appealing quality. She wept with a kind of wild violence that was protest and passion.
They were coming close to Burnham Falls, and Harriet knew that she couldn’t just drive to the Talbot house and deposit Jeannie there with a pat of the hand and a few cheering words. Neither could she take her to her own house because Nell was there. So when they came to the Downside road, without a word to Jeannie she turned off the highway and headed for the lake and the fishing cabin.
The violence of Jeannie’s sobs had subsided a little by the time they reached the cabin; she seemed in a daze, giving a little hiccup as she tried to draw a long breath. She didn’t question Harriet’s taking her to the cabin ‒ just following her obediently from the car, and waited in silence while she unlocked the door. Harriet took her raincoat from her, and steered her towards a sofa.
‘Make yourself comfortable there. I won’t be long.’
In the kitchen she put on water to boil and poured a stiff shot of brandy into a glass. Jeannie looked at her with weary, tear-blurred eyes as she approached. She wiped a hand under her nose with an unconsciously childish gesture. Harriet fished in her handbag for a handkerchief and handed it to her. Then she held out the glass towards her.
Jeannie took it dubiously. ‘What’s this?’
‘Brandy.’
‘I haven’t ever drunk brandy before.’ She looked down into the liquid and shivered slightly.
‘Now’s as good a time as any,’ Harriet said firmly. ‘Drink it ‒ you’re cold.’
Jeannie took the first sip, and grimaced. Then she sipped again. Harriet left her to go and make the tea, and when she came back with the pot and two cups, and a blanket from one of the beds, Jeannie had almost finished the contents of the glass.
‘Now I know what they mean by Dutch courage,’ she said.
‘Slip your shoes off,’ Harriet said. ‘They’re wet.’ She draped the blanket over Jeannie’s legs, and then handed her a cup of tea. Jeannie carefully placed the glass on the floor. Harriet poured her own tea, and sat down opposite Jeannie.
Jeannie took a long drink of tea; she looked across the cup at Harriet. ‘Thanks, Mrs. Dexter. It was nice of you to know I couldn’t have gone home then.’
Harriet took a pack of cigarettes from her bag. She proffered it to Jeannie, but the other shook her head. ‘Isn’t it time you called me Harriet? You’re not a little girl any more.’
Jeannie smiled wanly. ‘No, I’m not. I feel a hundred years old, which probably shows just how young I am. It’s young, isn’t it, to be so optimistic about everything ‒ to be so sure. I was so sure of myself ‒ and everything. Jerry and this town … I thought I had it all sewn up.’ She sighed. ‘There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that.’
She laid the teacup down beside the glass, and settled herself back against the cushions, slipping down farther under the blanket. Her face looked white and exhausted; her hair matted damply against her forehead.
‘I won’t be so sure again,’ she said, staring straight up at the ceiling. ‘You always have to make allowances for what you think can’t happen.’
She closed her eyes. Harriet leaned back in her chair, sipping her tea and watching the young, tense face opposite. A few times Jeannie’s lips twitched, and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t say anything. After a while the brandy began to take effect, and her breathing grew deeper and slower. The face softened and relaxed. When Harriet was sure she was asleep, she put down her own cup, and moved gently towards the door leading on to the terrace. The rain had slackened to a fine, misting drizzle. She stepped outside and breathed in the dampness of the air under the dripping trees. The wind had died again.
The path to the lake was wet, and the elegant shoes she had worn to lunch with Martha Torrens were soiled as the thin heels cut into the ground. She wondered how long it was since she had been by the lake alone ‒ years perhaps. It was grey and still, lightly hazed in rain. The silence rested on it absolutely and completely. In the distance she could vaguely distinguish the outlines of the Downside Seminary. Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the wooden jetty. She stood for a moment looking at her wavering shadow in the grey water, then she sat down on the jetty steps, indifferent to the wet on her dress.
Jeannie’s cry of pain and anguish had touched off a response in Harriet that was keener than any emotion she had experienced for a long time. It had the sharpness of regret, the finality of a dead hope. She saw herself at Jeannie’s age ‒ she saw herself the night that Josh had walked out of the cabin, and her father had waited angrily here on this jetty. She had had her chance for revolt then; she had gone halfway only. Looking back, it seemed that the events of that summer night long ago had foreshadowed the night in the desert with Mal ‒ twice he had been the instrument of her revolt, and twice she had turned back. She hadn’t had the courage to keep the freedom that had almost been won. She had returned both times to her father, and in that return she had been on her way to a complete acceptance of his world ‒ the world of Burnham Falls, the world of the factory and the tradition of holding on to the small spheres of identity ‒ this cabin, the house, Burnham Falls itself. It had engulfed Steve, and this world had in turn been engulfed by the corporation. All the wonderful potential of that summer had come to nothing but this wishing and remembering by the lake, contemplating the limitless monotony of days that ended as and where they began.
Jeannie knew what she had not known ‒ that when you could control this small world it had its own excitement; when it controlled you, you were lost. So Jeannie was leaving it behind. And she was right.
It was hardly a surprise, then, to hear the steps on the jetty behind her. A few minutes back she had heard the sound of a car moving slowly on the dirt road. It could have been a visitor to one of the other cabins, but unconsciously she had sensed that it was not. Someone came here with purpose on a rainy Monday afternoon. She glanced expectantly over her shoulder.
Mal had left his jacket behind in the car, and he walked bare-headed in the mist. His step was unhurried as he came towards her. Slowly she rose to meet him.
They stood and looked at each other for a long moment without speaking. Then she said: ‘Why did you come?’
‘I come here whenever I get the chance. Just about every time I come to Burnham Falls. It’s always been empty ‒ until to-day.’
‘But why?’
He shrugged. ‘Who knows? Why does anyone ever go back? It doesn’t do any good …’
But she knew ‒ looking at his face she knew utterly and without doubt why he came here. She knew that the memory of the talks they had had that summer on this jetty were as alive for him as they were still for her. The question that had hovered between them since that day on the train was removed now. Through all the years and experiences in between, they still retained that much of each other ‒ that memory of freshness and hope.
With a jerky but almost involuntar
y gesture she opened her arms towards him. Then she felt his own arms about her violently, and she was clinging to him. When they kissed there was no strangeness about it. It was the same kiss, only warmer and deeper, as the one with which they had parted that morning in Los Angeles after they had come back from the desert.
They sat on the jetty steps and talked for more than an hour. Harriet’s hand lay in Mal’s confidently; occasionally he stroked the back of it, and exploringly touched her rounded fingertips. They didn’t talk of the present or future; they both knew that lay before them, yet to be examined. They filled in the gaps of the thirteen years, not the restrained, tactful talk of strangers treading warily and eyeing each other ‒ as it had been until then. They talked like lovers, frankly and easily, not afraid of blame or reproach.
‘I’ve been in love twice since then,’ Mal said. His grip on her hand tightened a little. ‘One of them was a married woman, and she never meant it to come to anything, and the other ‒ well, we would have been no good to each other. She was an obsession I knew I was going to resist. These were the only two who were important.’
She looked at the still stretch of water ahead of her as she talked. The mist was rolling away somewhat, but Downside had not yet emerged clearly. But she seemed to be looking at this scene differently. A sense of aliveness and satisfaction that Mal’s kiss had wakened in her had taken away its sombre chill. It was not dead, but only peaceful.
Quietly she told Mal anything that seemed important during those years, and she was aware of what little telling it took. The births of Gene and Tim had been the only great things of those years and that he already knew. She told him how entrapped Steve had been by Joe’s pleas, and Joe’s debts, and how she had never understood why he had chosen to remain with the old man. It was harder to express the monotony of that time, the slow loss of expectancy and waiting.
‘I’ve had no feeling of being special or particular in all this,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t fill any special need ‒ a special function. I don’t think I’m very important to Steve personally ‒ but he would deny it, because he doesn’t really know it. Sometimes I think he almost regards me as my father did. If I were not here he would miss me because I’m part of the pattern of things.’
Corporation Wife Page 30
