Years of Grace

by Margaret Ayer Barnes

  She came out of her trance at the applause of the intermission. Andre was wild with enthusiasm. Agnes was talking of the German music she hoped to hear that summer.

  *While you drink beer, Agnes!' cried Andre cheerfully. 'And eat sausage. Beer and sausage do a lot for a symphony!*

  The last half of the program was all Wagner. It was over all too soon. Andre and Agnes and Jane descended the stairs very slowly. Jane was beginning to think once more of the Clark Street cable car.

  'I'll take you home in a four-wheeler,' said Andre magni-ficendy, as they stood at the entrance. 'Jane looks tired.'

  Jane smiled at him gratefully. Andre always understood. He hailed a disreputable vehicle. They all climbed in. It smelled dreadfully of the stable. Andre lowered the windows. They rattled quickly north up Wabash Avenue and over the Rush Street bridge and down Ohio Street, then turned into Pine. Nice familiar streets, safe ones, that Jane had known from her babyhood. Jane shpped quickly out of the cab at her door.

  'Don't come up the steps with me, Andre,' she said. 'I'm all right.'

  She opened the door with her latchkey. It was not late, barely half-past ten. Her mother came out of the library. She looked quite pleased.

  'I didn't think,' she said, 'that Mr. Johnson would have the sense to bring you home in a cab.'

  Jane made no comment. It was really a backhanded compliment for Andre, if her mother only knew it. And this time her mother was right, though there was no use in saying so. Jane knew perfectly well that a girl of almost seventeen shouldn't go downtown alone with a couple of contemporaries to a Thomas concert in a Clark Street car.

  n

  *Don't get oil on that coat!' called Jane's mother from the dining-room window. Jane was oiling her bicycle under the willow tree.

  'Don't worry!' retorted Jane with a grin. The coat was made of tan covert cloth with large leg-of-mutton sleeves. It had just come home from the tailor's and Jane thought quite as well of it as her mother did. It looked very pretty with her blue serge skirt and white shirtwaist and small blue sailor. She had laid it very carefully on the grass before getting out her oil can.

  It was late June and school was over. Jane had just been thinking, under the willow tree, how strange it was that school, incredibly, was over forever. The Commencement Exercises had been vei'y impressive. Jane and Agnes and Flora and Muriel had sat in a row on a temporary platform at the end of the study hall with seven other classmates, all dressed in wliite musUn and carrying beautiful bouquets of roses. A clergyman had prayed over them and a professor from Northwestern University had delivered an address on 'Success in Life,' and Miss Milgrim had made a httle speech about the Class of '94 and all it had done for the school and had handed each of them a little parchment diploma tied with blue and yellow ribbon. Blue and yellow were the school colors.

  Ten days before that Jane had taken her Bryn Mawr examinations. Only last week she had heard that she had passed them. Her mother had received that information with a tolerant smile. But her father had been very much pleased. He had given her a little green enamel pin shaped like a four-leaved clover, for luck, with a real pearl, hke a dew drop, in the centre. She was wearing it now, at the collar of her shirtwaist.

  Jane felt a little sad when she thought of that important entity, the Class of '94, already irrevocably scattered. Agnes had sailed for England and the day after school closed Flora and her mother had left for Bar Harbor. The Lesters were

  packing up for the White Mountains. Edith was going to join them there later with her beautiful little boy.

  Jane would see Flora and Muriel, of course, in Septembei, but Agnes was gone for a year and, what was much worse, Andre was leaving for France next week.

  Jane was waiting for him now, in the afternoon sunshine, under the willow tree. She was going on a supper picnic with his father and mother up the lake shore beyond the City Limits. Jane was oiling her Columbia Safety in preparation for the fete. Suddenly she saw him, pedaling down Pine Street, a big picnic box strapped to his handlebars.

  'Yoo-hoo,' she called.

  He waved his cap and turned to bump up over the curb stone, then dismounted at the gate.

  'Ready?' he asked.

  Jane picked up her coat and wheeled her bicycle dowa the path.

  'Just,' she said.

  Andr6 held her coat for her.

  'Isn't this new?' he inquired.

  She nodded, smiling under her tiny hat brim.

  'It's awfully good-looking.'

  Jane mounted her wheel.

  •Where are your father and mother?'

  Andre pointed.

  'Here they come,' he said. 'Aren't they sweet?'

  Jane's glance followed his finger. Half a block away Mr, and Mrs. Duroy were approaching down Pine Street. They were mounted on a tandem bicycle. Mrs. Duroy's tall figure rose above the handlebars with a certain angular ease. Her long brown skirts flapped gaily against her mudguard and her sailor hat was rakishly askew. Mr. Duroy, behind her, was riding the bumps of the cedar-block pavement vvdth Gallic

  grace. He wore a grey tweed suit with knickerbockers and he looked very plump and elderly and debonair. When he saw Jane he waved his tweed cap and tried to kiss his hand and his eyeglasses fell off prompdy. The wheel wobbled perilously as he recaptured them.

  'Don't be so gallant!' said Mrs. Duroy. 'Hello, Jane.'

  Jane and Andre bumped down over the curb and swung into Hne with them. Jane's mother was waving from the parlor window. She was laughing, a Uttle, at Mr. and Mrs. Duroy, but she looked very good-natured. As if she weren't thinking anything worse about Mr. Duroy than that he was French.

  Jane and Andre sailed easUy ahead of the tandem.

  'They are sweet,' said Jane. 'They have so much fun together.'

  'They always do,' said Andr6. And added simply, 'They're so much in love.'

  That was a strange comment, thought Jane, to make on a pair of parents. She would never have thought of saying it about her father and mother. Nor about Flora's mother and Mr. Fumess. To be sure Mrs. Lester often spoke very tenderly to Edith and RosaUe and Muriel of their father. But that was different. He was dead. Now that she came to think of it, it was obviously quite true of Mr. and Mrs. Duroy. He never looked at her, queer as she sometimes looked, without a littie beam of admiration in his wise brown eyes. Even when they argued, as they often did, and he disagreed with her utterly, he greeted the sallies that routed him with a whimsical air of flattering applause. Very different from her father's 'Oh, all right, Lizzie!' that terminated so many domestic discussions. Funny, when she thought of it, she could hardly remember Flora's mother ever speaking to Mr. Fur-ness at all, really speaking to him, even to argue. Marriage

  was a strange thing. It began, she supposed, as Andr^ said, by being so much in love and it ended ?

  Andre's thoughts must have followed hers.

  'They're lucky, I suppose,' he said. 'All marriages aren't like that.*

  Jane didn't reply.

  'But they could be,' said Andr6, 'if people cared enough.'

  Jane went on pedaling in silence.

  *I don't see how it comes,' said Andr6, 'that change — in the way you feel — toward the girl you want to — marry.'

  Jane still felt that really she had nothing to say. Andre had never talked just Ukc this before. Of how people felt. Real people — not people in books. It was part of growing up, she supposed.

  The lake was very bright and blue as they bowled along up the Drive. The Park was lovely in fresh June leaf North of the Park the city stopped abruptly. The yards grew larger and the big brick and frame houses further apart and the pavement very much more bumpy. For some time they had to follow the car-tracks, jolting off the cobblestones at intervals, to let the horse-cars jingle by. Soon they turned off toward the east again.

  The road here was so sandy that they had to push the bicycles and there were no more houses. Just clumps of willow trees and groves of scrub-oak and stone pine, with wild flowers underfoot. They hea
rd the lake before they saw it. The sound of litde waves, breaking and pausing and breaking again, on the long hard beaches. They found an oak wood, crowning a tiny sand dune. The ground was blue with wild geranium and a few late violets, purple and yellow dogtooth, stunted by the cool lake breeze, still lingered in the damper places. Beyond the trees was the great stretch of yellow sand and the stainless wash of blue that was the lake.

  Mr. Duroy stretched himself beneath an oak and took out a long black cigar. Mrs. Duroy began unpacking the picnic basket at once. She had brought a little brass kettle, with an alcohol lamp, in which to boil water for tea.

  'Don't be so restless, rrCamie,^ said Mr. Duroy lazily. 'The sun is still high.'

  'It's six o'clock,' said Mrs. Duroy capably, as she laid the tablecloth. Jane was getting out the sandwiches. Andre was walking over the sand to fill the kettle in the little breakers.

  'She must be practical,' said Mr. Duroy to Jane. 'It's her British blood. Thank God I'm a Celt. WTiat is time on a night Uke this?' His brown eyes twinkled as he watched Jane arranging the sandwiches in neat little piles on the paper plates. 'But you, too, little Jane, are practical.'

  'Oh, no!' said Jane earnestly. 'Really, I'm not.*

  'Why, then,' continued Mr. Duroy lazily, 'do you arrange the sandwiches?'

  Jane could easily answer that.

  'Oh,' she said again, 'I just do what's expected of me.'

  'That's a bad habit,' said Mr. Duroy seriously. 'Especially for youth. You must stop that in time, or you'll never get anywhere.'

  Jane looked at him, a litde perplexed. Andre came back with the kettle.

  'What must Jane stop?' he asked.

  'Doing what's expected of her,' said Mr. Duroy prompdy.

  'You're right,' said Andr^. 'The unexpected is what's fun.'

  Mr. Duroy nodded at him approvingly.

  It was all very well, thought Jane, for them to talk like that. Their Hves were full of funny surprises. In three weeks they'd all be in Paris, where anything might happen. But the unexpected was never allowed to happen to her. If it ever did,

  thought Jane, she'd embrace it with joy. She'd fight for it, against the world, and hug it to her heart.

  When the water was boiHng they all began to eat their supper. The sun sank down behind the oak trees in a saffron sky and a silver glow hung over the eastern horizon. Almost immediately the great golden disk of the moon came up out of the lake. It rose, incredibly quickly, balanced a moment on the water's edge, then floated, free, in the clear evening air. The sky was still quite blue. Jane could see Venus, through the tree trunks, low in the west, paled to a yellow candle in the afterglow. The colour faded quickly out of the world. The lake grew grey and the path of the moon more silvery. When Venus vanished in the sunset mists Jane could count seven stars, high overhead, piercing the pale sky.

  Mr. Duroy lit his second cigar. Andre produced his cigarette. Mrs. Duroy lay flat on her back, her hands under her head, gazing spellbound at the moon.

  'It is a night for a serenade,' said Mr. Duroy. And no one contradicted him.

  'Sing, Andre,' said his mother after a brief pause. 'Sing, or your father will!'

  Andre smiled a little self-consciously at Jane.

  'Do, Andre,' she said.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the grass beside her. His strong, capable hands, sculptor's hands, she'd heard his mother say, were crossed between his knees. His cigarette trailed negligently from his slender fingers. Without moving, his eyes upon her face, he suddenly began to sing. His Hght, young tenor soared softly up in the words of the old nursery rhyme.

  'Au clair de la Itme, Mon ami, Pierrot, Prlte moi ta plume. Pom ecrirt un mot.

  Ma chandelU est morte, Je n'ai plus defeu, Ouore moi ta parte Pour Vamour de Dieul'

  It was a serenade. Why, it was — it was a love song. Jane had never heard that note of tender entreaty in Andre's voice before. Her eyes fell quickly before his own. His mother was looking at him a little anxiously.

  ^Magnifiquer said Mr. Duroy. *It is a splendid old song. And it always makes me think of rocking you to sleep.' He cast away his cigar. 'You inspire me to emulation!'

  'Georges!' said Andre's mother warningly.

  'Mine,' said Mr. Duroy imperturbably, 'is a more modern ballad. In tune with the age. And very appropriate to the lady of my dreams.' In his booming bass, humming as he started Uke a great bumble bee, trilUng his r's as he continued, he shpped into the familiar cadence of 'Daisy Bell*:

  'Daisy, Daisy, give mc your answer, do! I'm half crazy, all for the love of you! It won't be a styUsh marriage. I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet Upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two!'

  His voice was shaken with mock emotion. Andre's mother and Jane were both laughing uproariously. Andre, however, sat very still, just smiling a Uttle, his eyes on Jane's face. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.

  'Come walk on the beach,' he said.

  Jane looked up at him questioningly. Then quickly at Mrs. Duroy. Her eyes were fastened on Andre and they had again that faintly worried look. Andre's glance followed her own.

  'It's all right, isn't it, Mother?' he said.

  *Yes,' she said slowly. 'Quite all right, of course. But don't stay long. We must be starting home.'

  Jane rose to her feet and set off with Andr6 across the beach. They plodded silently down to the water where the sand was dark and firm and the Uttle waves broke sofdy on the shingle.

  'Jane,' said Andre almost immediately, *do you realize that I'm — leaving you — next week?'

  'Yes,' said Jane softly.

  There was a httle pause.

  'Jane,' said Andre again, 'I can't go without — without talking to you.'

  'Talking to me?' repeated Jane stupidly.

  'Telling you,' said Andre. He was walking quickly along the beach, not looking at her. Jane was hurrying a little to keep up with him.

  'TelHng me?' she said.

  Suddenly he stopped. He stood looking down at her in the moonlight.

  'TelUng you,* he said. 'Though of course you know. Telling you that I — love you.'

  Jane felt her heart jump, as if it skipped a beat. She felt terribly excited. And terribly happy.

  'Oh, Andre!' she said.

  'I — love you ,' said Andre again.

  She was staring up at him. His face looked very stern.

  'Oh, do you?' she cried. 'Do you, really?'

  'Don't you know?' said Andre.

  Jane suddenly began to tremble, tremble uncontrollably, all over. She put out her hands to him, quickly. He clasped them in his own. Suddenly he seemed to realize how she was shaking.

  'Jane!' he said, and his voice was suddenly tremulous. For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes. Then

  'Jane!' he said again, and took her in his arms.

  'My love,' said Andre.

  Jane clung to him desperately. Why, this — this was terrible. She was utterly shattered.

  'Jane,' said Andre again, 'look at me.*

  Obediently she raised her eyes to his.

  'You're crying!' said Andre. Jane hadn't known it.

  'Jane — you do love me,' said Andre.

  Jane only wept the more.

  'Kiss me,' said Andre.

  She raised her lips to his. The ground fell away from under her feet. The world was no more. Nothing existed but just — herself and — Andre.

  'My love,' he said again.

  She opened her eyes, then, upon his face. And there wa^ the moon and the lake and the beach. The world hadn't vanished, after all.

  'Andrei' she said desperately, 'What will we do?*

  'You'll marry me,' said Andre.

  She pushed away his arms.

  'Andre — I can't. We're too young.'

  'You're seventeen,' said Andre.

  'Last month,' said Jane.

  'I don't care,' said Andre. 'You'll marry me.'

  'Andre — I can't.' The world was back indeed. Jf her mother — and Isabel — and, yes, even of her father. 'They'll never let me.'

  'I'll talk to them to-morrow. I'll tell Father to-night.'

  'And your mother, Andre. They'll never ItlyouJ*

  *Oh, yes, they will,' said Andr6. 'When I tell them.'

  *Marry you/ said Jane wonderingly. 'Marry you — now?'

  'If you will,' said Andre.

  'I — I couldn't — now.' The thought of temporizing brought a little hope. 'I am too young.'

  'Well — later, then,' said Andre confidently. 'In the fall. When your family are used to it. I'll come back and get you '

  Suddenly just his saying it seemed to make it true.

  'Oh, Andre,' breathed Jane. 'I — I can't beHeve it.'

  'What?' said Andre.

  'That we're — engaged.'

  'You bet we are,' said Andre.

  'Andre!' It was his mother's voice. 'You must bring Jane back. We're leaving, now.'

  'Kiss me, again,' said Andre. He took her once more in his arms. This second kiss was not quite so wildly unexpected. And his mother was calling.

  ^Andre!'

  'Yes, Mother! We're coming.' They turned back across the beach.

  'I have you, now,' said Andre. 'I have you.'

  Jane didn't deny it. She clung to his arm until they were very near the oak grove.

  The supper was all packed away. Mr. Duroy still sat beneath his tree but Mrs. Duroy was erect by the tandem. She looked at Andre still a little anxiously, Jane thought.

  They pushed their wheels in silence back to the car tracks.

  'Stay with us, children,' said Andre's mother. 'It's very late.' They pedaled slowly home. The park was filled with bicycles. Their myriad lamps ghttered like fireflies in its bosky alleys. Jane kept glancing at Andre's face in the moonlight. It was very stern again. But beautiful, Jane thought. He threw her a smile, now and then. A happy, confident