Jane Was Here

by Sarah Kernochan

  Everything, as you know, has changed. Yet nothing that truly matters has changed. My mortal heart and eternal soul are ever yours.

  I was as astonished as anyone at Ellis’ proposal. When the words left his lips, I recoiled so conspicuously that he could not miss it. We were alone, as my father had arranged it, Papa knowing as I did not what was to transpire (Ellis spoke to him privately the day before, in his manager’s office). I stammered my lines, so often delivered to Mr. Haff, thanking him in all humility for extending such an honor, after which I requested some time to ponder my reply. All the while, images rushed into my mind: of myself before the altar pledging my existence to this arrogant libertine – of a life sentenced to the Graynier mansion – where no echo of God was ever heard – the vapid company of his sisters – and above all, a world of terrible emptiness, where Lysander once breathed.

  Ellis did not care that I showed my aversion. Rather he seemed animated by it. I will describe his aspect without exaggeration – eyes like a hound’s, when the game has burst from cover.

  I fear he is dangerous.

  More shocking still is that my father should force me to accept Ellis, when Papa has always championed my independence. He does not even permit discussion, but tells me sharply that ever since my rejection of Uli he no longer trusts me to recognize where my best interests lie and therefore he must decide this matter for me.

  Of course everyone is amazed that Ellis Graynier would choose a bride of lesser station and no fortune. I am stared at like a bauble in a shop. Yes, it may be beautiful, but the low price tells the tale. What can he want with a paste diamond?

  His sisters, it must be said, have been perfectly cordial, and perhaps their excitement is genuine, since in that dreary house any extra soul would enliven their days. They tell me how Ellis has changed, how deeply he must care for me to have achieved such a transformation of character (they freely admit his past roguery), how soberly he now shoulders his responsibilities, with the vigor of one inspired by love.

  I do not believe he loves me. He hunts me.

  And my sister – oh, Rebecca! She turns away so I do not see her pain. Twice now I have snatched, through no effort of my own, the object of her assiduous schemes. Worse, I do not even want what I have won. What would be her suffering if she knew there was a third one, whose heart she once coveted, who is mine – my true beloved – a union, moreover, nourished by the light of the Holy Spirit? She would never forgive it!

  And my poor father – weary and unwell – what an awful wound I would deal him, if I revealed our conspiracy! I cannot imagine confessing it now. Lysander, what shall we do?

  In despair,

  Jane

  Dearest angel,

  I have no appetite, no rest, no strength, and barely enough spirit to manage this reply, after a night lying awake with the choice I must make pressing down upon me like a lid of stone.

  Yesterday after Mrs. S brought your letter, and before I had a chance to read it in private, Ellis called at the house. He brought a gift – a pretty brooch wrought of gold – two roses entwined – that had belonged to his mother (who died when he was a small boy). I was happy to fix it to my blouse without the donor knowing that instead of interpreting the roses to be myself and Ellis, in my thoughts I assigned to them our own names, Jane and Lysander entwined.

  I concede Ellis has been very gentle with me of late, with no trace of his former mockery. Indeed he seems to want to know my mind, inquiring my opinion on all manner of subjects, whether music, books, or abolition. He quietly listens to my responses and then praises my intellect and character, declaring I am his better in every way and that he would make it his life’s labor to be worthy of me. His first step will be to free Dorrie, his father’s slave-woman! (I shall only believe this when it is done.)

  Then he sought to know how many children I should like to have, adding that he fancied six. “What if I answered none?” I asked boldly – for I thought I saw a way to end the engagement right then and there. He replied that he would respect my wishes, for my reasons must be well considered or I would not have them. He finished by saying, “I cannot believe you have any flaw, Jane, I worship you so entirely. You are my faith, where before I was without any.” After he left I did not know what to think. Either there was some cunning in his fair speech, or I have been wrong to detest him. How far can such a sinner change?

  That question returned to haunt me after I read your letter. You offer me an escape from hell into heaven – no less. To join Gabriel Nation by your side has been my dream. You have often described the life as very hard. I am equal to arduous work and prayer, to sickness, poverty and privation, and the persecutions by those who do not accept the prophet’s way. It would be easy, for the love of God and for you, Lysander – love is, and ought to be, easy. If only that were all that God demanded of His Gabrielites!

  It is harder to repudiate my family, as you did. Do I have the courage? Perhaps I do. It would not matter if we fled in secret, as you suggest, or if we told them our intention openly – the blow would hurt the same. But there is another impediment to my escape, against which my courage would fail if put to the test.

  You have always been truthful to me about the rigors of self-sacrifice at Gabriel Nation – particularly, that all those entering must be of an incontestable chastity. I do retain my innocence, as you know right enough. But I am far from truthful, my Lysander, and I shall be honest now. I have tried so hard to overcome my weakness, when you have held and kissed me – I told myself that innocence was a matter of resolve, and of resolve I had plenty. Yet now when you propose a lifetime spent in resolute purity, I suddenly see my true fiber. It is weak and will not hold.

  The truth is – I long for the love that vanquishes chastity. I would be married, and receive a husband’s caresses, and bear children. All this time indeed have I wanted those things with you, though I tried to smother my desire and become the higher being you wished. But God has made me so – an ordinary sinner, unworthy of more. Do not squander another prayer on me, nor write. My love, go to Gabriel Nation alone. I will marry Ellis, and maybe I will be happy. Certainly everyone thinks I should be.

  It is dawn, and the world feels unutterably strange on this new day – the first day of honesty, the first without hope. Ellis believes I have no flaw, and you have tried to exalt my purity – I am a false idol for you both. I cannot write more, my heart will break

  Dear Lysander,

  I hope I may trust the new hired girl with this missive. She has not been long enough with us for me to know her character well, but perhaps the money I have given her is enough to seal her loyalty. I thank God you did not follow my directive and you are still in Graynier. I could not know, when I wrote my last letter, that the most appalling reversal was yet to come.

  Ellis came to see me today. Papa was at work, and Rebecca had gone out to call on someone, she said, though she mysteriously refused to say whom. I soon learned why.

  The minute Ellis entered I could see his demeanor was changed. In his eyes was hard contempt, and an unpleasant sparkle of triumph. Once seated in the parlor, he requested a glass of water, and when I called for the girl he said he would rather have it poured by my own hand because he should like to know the taste of holy water. His tone was very impertinent. I ignored it – as I conceived I must often do after becoming his wife – and remarked gently that we had only ordinary water to offer whether or not I touched it.

  “What?” he feigned surprise. “You’re not an angel yet?” He appeared to derive an almost sensuous enjoyment from my look of confusion. He continued, “I thought you might have received your angelical diploma from the infinitely immaculate Mr. Trane.”

  I was overcome with dread and could not speak. He would not relent – he desired to know why Mr. Trane’s kisses had not elevated me to sainthood, were they deficient? Then he laughed, saying I was beautiful enough without beatification.

  I found my voice and demanded to know his reason for addressing me
thus. At that he pulled from his jacket a bundle of letters. Lysander, I believed those precious pages well hidden, never dreaming anyone would look under the wedding linens in my hope chest. I did not reckon upon Rebecca’s habitual larceny, or her spite. She found them – every page written in your hand to me – while I was out visiting Emerald in the shed – and then – my own sister! – straight away she brought them to Ellis.

  I expect Rebecca thought this evidence of our secret relation would compel Ellis to break our engagement. On the contrary, he said it relieved him to know that I was no paragon, no miracle of virtue, and therefore he was quite content to revert to his old religion, which was to believe in nothing – and he called me a hypocrite, a minx, and a little fool – as if these were tenderest endearments.

  He would still marry me, he said. He would still love me, moreover, but not as before, for I am someone he may now look down upon which was a great deal more comfortable than the view to be had on one’s knees.

  My temper rose at this. I retorted that the only liaison between man and woman he had known or would ever understand was one in which both are debased – that I felt no shame for loving you from a pure heart. Nay, I had only shame for allowing myself to be forced into such an abhorrent engagement with himself! I insisted he release me at once from my obligation. Then I held out my hand for the return of my property.

  He thrust the letters back in his pocket and grinned, saying he liked me best in a state of outrage, it put him in mind of the day I jumped from his carriage, dressed as a servant girl – it was then he fell in love with me, knowing that life with such a woman could never be dull.

  I asked him to what purpose he would marry someone who hated him. By this time I was weeping. He seemed to turn sorry for an instant, and took hold of my face and said, “Kiss me, Jane. You will forget your half-wit monk.” I covered my mouth with both hands rather than accept. He let me go, and left the house without another word.

  Oh Heavenly God, the difference between his touch and yours! I had rather submit to the clutch of serpents.

  I cannot live without you, my Lysander – I will go with you – I renounce marriage and children – father, sister – this wicked village – only take me to Gabriel Nation and I shall gratefully assume any penance – for love of God – it is the only way forward.

  Now indeed, dearest, you should follow my instruction. Depart from Graynier tomorrow, alone. Give no one an expectation that you will return. A day’s walk will take you to Huxberry, where you may stay at the tavern. Wait three days there. Ellis will believe you have conceded the field. But he will watch me carefully all the same. I shall seem contrite and docile, so that he will think me broken.

  On Saturday, there will be the Founder’s Social on the lawn of Graynier Glass. The townspeople will all be there, with the Grayniers hosting. I shall feign a migraine and stay home. Return to Rowell Hill, taking the way through the woods where you will not be seen. Wait for me at our Eden, beside Farmer Quirk’s wall. I shall come to you past noon, and never turn back to home again. God help us!

  Forever your

  Jane

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jack Meltzer believes in giving people a chance. That’s what he had given Hoyt Eddy: every chance.

  His wife Audrey was the first one to spot the huge hole in their lawn from the helicopter. On landing, she found the well nearly empty, gritty brown water flowing from the faucets, a poisoned dead mouse in the sauna, and wine bottles flung in the pachysandra. She showed the bottles to Jack, and with a sinking heart he went down to the wine cellar. The blatant gaps in the rows of prize vintages mocked him for his overly trusting nature.

  “If I ever see that shikker again I will rip him a new one,” Audrey raged, bursting into tears. When Jack left to buy groceries, she was being comforted in broken English by Silvio Pereira, their new caretaker.

  “Seen anything of Hoyt Eddy lately?” he asks at the liquor store. Not for a few days, they tell him. On impulse he asks for directions to Hoyt’s house. He’d rather fire him in person. Jack considers Hoyt a friend. But when an employee disappoints you repeatedly, he is asking to be dumped, and you should mercifully grant his request.

  It was obvious Hoyt had problems when he came to the Meltzers as a handyman: why else would a highly educated, handsome and charming man be reduced to menial work? Jack elevated him immediately to property manager.

  Now Jack will have no one to get down with on a fading summer afternoon. He’ll miss their lively conversations. Hoyt had an encyclopedic knowledge and a way of pulling obscure quotes out of the air. For instance, when Jack mentioned a business adversary who became tangled up in his many maneuvers and lost a deal, Hoyt cited some Greek poet: “The fox has many tricks, the hedgehog only one. One good one.”

  Maybe he used up his one good trick. As Jack reaches the dead-end on Old Upper Spruce Lane, turning onto the twisty rutted dirt road to Hoyt’s house, he worries that Hoyt may be in some kind of deep shit Jack doesn’t know about. Rounding the bend, he glimpses patches of red paint beneath a big pile of branches half-hidden by the pines. Hoyt’s Ford pick-up.

  Why would he want to hide his truck?

  Meltzer parks beside the house, trying Hoyt one more time on his cell. As it rings, he notes that some of the windows have new panes with stickers still on them. Others are broken, the ground beneath glittering with glass shards.

  Hoyt doesn’t pick up. His voicemail announces his mailbox is full.

  Jack gets out of his car, heart quickening. An aura of failure and incipient violence hangs over the mean lonely bungalow slumped under the shadow of Rowell Hill. The house seems devoid of life. He can’t push away the image of Hoyt shot gangland-style, or hanging from a rafter, the overturned stool below, his sins caught up with him at last.

  At the front door, Meltzer reaches over the daggers of glass bristling from the pane and turns the inside knob, stepping into the house. Before calling Hoyt’s name, he takes a moment to stare at an intimate hell: sagging floor, scorched rug, abused furniture, decaying books. Empty liquor bottles—most of them from Jack’s cellar—bob up from the depths of the sofa cushions like victims of drowning.

  Mixed with the odor of the dear departed grape is something else, a sick stench coming from the kitchen: a carcass smell. Crossing the sticky, matted surface of the rug, he peers through the kitchen doorway.

  The rotten smell originates from the garbage pail, which brims with at least three days’ worth of food scraps. The floor is gummed with ancient spills. The dinette table, however, is spotless. A clean plate sits before a chair pulled slightly away, as if inviting someone to sit. On the plate is a supermarket cupcake in a pleated paper shell, vibrant pink frosting and bright blue sprinkles on top—an innocent, perky touch in an otherwise squalid setting.

  In any case, no one is here.

  Jack is about to withdraw from the kitchen when a ring of cold metal presses into the base of his skull. The rifle barrel prevents him from twisting his head to look behind, but he’s pretty sure he’s about to be fucked up by Hoyt Eddy.

  “What are you doing here, Meltzer?” The man’s breath is raspy, humid, arrhythmic; shaking hands hold the rifle barrel to Jack’s neck.

  Now might not be the time to fire Hoyt. Coming to the house was a mistake, like wearing a tin hat in a lightning storm.

  “Hoyt, please. Put the gun down.” Jack feels the cold metal withdraw, hears Hoyt reset the safety, then retreating footsteps. When he turns, Hoyt is tossing the rifle onto the coffee table, sinking onto the sofa, bottles clanking around him; he has a week’s worth of beard, glazed eyes, and a maniac’s calm. Hoyt asks, “Is it your habit to sneak into a man’s house while he’s away?”

  His mouth dry with fear, Jack swallows hard. “I thought you were home. I saw your truck.”

  “It was supposed to be hidden. In any case, I’m not here.”

  The arrogance of the man! Jack can hear his wife exclaim. Angry now, he wants to loose a volley of accus
ations—the theft of his wine! the hole in his lawn!—yet he remembers the phrase: “You can’t break something that’s broken.” There’s no point in finishing off a man who’s finished.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” he asks.

  “Why would you think that?” Hoyt’s drooping eyelids snap up. Jack wonders how long it’s been since the guy slept.

  “You don’t answer your phone, your windows are smashed, your truck’s in the woods—it looks like you’re hiding from somebody.”

  “The only one I might hide from is you. You could be a trifle peeved at me, over the state of your estate. As it happens, I’m not hiding. I am lying in wait. There is a distinction, my friend.”

  “Don’t call me your friend.” Meltzer glances at the rifle, far enough from Hoyt’s reach that Jack can risk a little rancor. “You had a professional responsibility to me, which you walked away from. You owe me an explanation.”

  “I had an epiphany.” Hoyt belches in his throat. “I spent the night in a hole and saw the Virgin Mary.”

  “You could at least apologize.”

  “You want remorse?” Hoyt grabs the gun and levels it at Jack, flicking off the safety. “Get the fuck out of my nightmare.”

  Driving home, Jack decides not to tell Audrey about his contretemps with Hoyt, his hasty retreat at gunpoint. An employee departs, and the vacancy is quickly filled. By the time the backhoe arrives, the sinkhole disappears, and new turf is laid, Jack will have forgotten Hoyt.

  “THE MELTZERS ARE BACK,” Thom Sayre mentions over the noise of the fans, draining his iced coffee and rattling the ice cubes inside his cheek.

  They’re passing the time with town gossip. It’s sweltering inside the firehouse; even so, Hoffmann is making a pot of chili on the hot plate. The other three volunteers coming off the day shift are drinking beer. When the frankfurters are done on the grill outside, the firemen will sit around the parking lot in folding chairs, slapping mosquitoes, the sound of traffic on Route 404 dwindling as nightfall draws near.