Years of Grace

by Margaret Ayer Barnes

  'Just the same,' she said, 'it wouldn't hurt you to get out and hustle for the class.'

  'We never hustle,' said Jane. 'We achieve our ends with quiet dignity '

  Mugsy arose in wrath.

  'You make me sick,' she s&id, with perfect amity, and strolled off across the campus.

  This place is so nice,' said Jane, returning to the contemplation of the cherry blossoms. 'You can insult your dearest friends with perfect impunity.'

  'There's Marion,' said Agnes.

  Marion approached, Livy in hand. She waved two letters at Jane.

  'Mail for me?' said Jane. Marion tossed the envelopes into Jane's lap and passed on, toward Taylor Hall. The letters

  were from her mother and Isabel. Jane opened Isabel's with a faint frown. Letters from home were not very inspiriting. Except her father's. Her eyes ran down the closely written pages.

  'Good gracious!' she said.

  'What's the matter?' asked Agnes.

  'Great heavens!' said Jane.

  'What's happened?' asked Agnes.^

  'Isabel's engaged!' said Jane, and turned the page. *Oh, mercy! It's a secret! Don't you write home about it, Aggie!'

  'Who's the man?' asked Agnes.

  'I haven't come to him yet, but I gather he's a god.' Jane turned anotlier page. 'She's awfully happy. He sounds perfectly wonderful.'

  'Who is it?' asked Agnes.

  Jane turned another page.

  *Oh — for heaven's sake!' she said. 'It's Robin Bridges.'

  'Robin Bridges?' questioned Agnes. Agnes didn't know many people.

  'Oh, yes. You know. The fat boy. He's been underfoot for years. Small eyes and spectacles. Too many teeth. Nice and jolly, though. He plays a good tennis game.'

  'When are they going to be married?' asked Agnes.

  'She doesn't say, but she wants me to be maid of honour.' Jane's eyes continued to peruse the letter. 'Rosalie's going to be bride's matron. Just us two. A yellow wedding. Oh — here she says — this autumn. September. She does sound happy.' Jane's voice was just a little wistful.

  'How old is Isabel?' asked Agnes. Perhaps her thoughts were following Jane's.

  'Oh — awfully old,' said Jane. 'Twenty-three, last January.' She opened her mother's letter. 'Let's see how Mamma takes it.' She continued to read in silence.

  *Well — how does she?' asked Agnes.

  *She thinks it's grand,' said Jane. 'She says he's a dear boy. Boy! Why, Agnes, he's all of thirty! As if I didn't know Robin! She says it's very suitable. She says Papa went to Harvard with his father. She says Isabel has a beautiful sapphire. She says the engagement's going to be announced May first. She says they've begun on the trousseau already and she's going to take Isabel to New York to get her underclothes.'

  'How romantic,' commented Agnes. 'There's a postscript on your lap.'

  Jane picked up the second sheet. She read it very slowly.

  'She says it's going to be very hard to give up her dear

  daughter and she says Oh, Agnes, she says — she says —

  that — that they want me home next winter because they'll be all alone.'

  'Don't you listen to them!' cried Agnes excitedly.

  Jane looked very much disturbed.

  'It's awfully hard not to listen to Mamma,' she said.

  'Don't you do it!' said Agnes. 'You got here, now you just stay!'

  'Papa got me here,' said Jane.

  'Well, he'll keep you here, if you put it up to him,' said Agnes.

  Jane thought perhaps he would.

  'Don't you let them put it over on you!' said Agnes.

  'It must be awfully hard,' said Jane, 'to give up your children.*

  'Don't talk like that!' said Agnes. 'Why do people have children?'

  'I suppose,' said Jane soberly, 'because they love each other/

  'Well — we don't ask to be bom, do we?' said Agnes. 'Just you stand firm, Jane.'

  Jane looked a little doubtful.

  'You gave up Andre,' said Agnes. 'I should hope that was enough.'

  A Uttle spasm of pain passed over Jane's sober face.

  'This — this isn't like giving up Andre,' she said quietly.

  'No,' said Agnes, 'but it's one more thing. You've got to do what you want to some of the time.'

  Jane wondered if you ever really did. Life seemed terribly complicated. She rose to her feet.

  'Come walk with me to the Pike,' she said. 'I want to wire Isabel.'

  Agnes rose in her turn.

  'Jane,' she said, 'don't tell me you've given up already!'

  'No,' said Jane very seriously. 'No. I haven't. But families are difficult. I never know — what to do.'

  She didn't know any better that night, as she lay wide awake in her little wooden bed. Miss Thomas would say — take your education. Her mother would say — honour your parents. Jane thought she honoured her parents and she knew she didn't want an education, really. Not enough to fight for it. What she wanted was liberty. But was even liberty worth the fighting for? Jane hated to fight. But perhaps, her father ? He was something to tie to. Jane

  honoured him. She honoured him more than any one, really. Except Andre. Her father would see her through. He Hked

  people to be fi"ee. Her father Anyway there were two

  more months to this semester. Jane fell asleep at last with a final thought for Isabel. Isabel — who had a beautiful sapphire — and was happy with Robin — fat funny Robin — with spectacles—who was suitable—and thirty—so he could marry Isabel — when he wanted to — without any one making a fuss

  IV

  'It's grand,' said Agnes, *to think you're really here. I can't get used to it.'

  'I felt like a dog to leave them,' said Jane.

  They were sitting out under the maple row in the bright October sunshine. The leaves overhead were incredibly golden. The October sky looked very high and hard and blue. A stiff west wind was blowing and the leaves were fluttering down all around them in the gale. Golden maple leaves twisting and twirling and drifting in every direction. The tops of the trees were already bare.

  'That's nonsense,' said Agnes. 'You have to live your own Hfe.'

  You did, of course, but just the same Jane had felt it was almost impossible to take the train to Bryn Mawr the week after Isabel's wedding. Her mother had been very sweet about that wedding and very sorry to lose Isabel. Her father had been very sorry, too. He had come out of Isabel's bedroom, when he went up to say good-bye to her after the reception, choking and blowing his nose. He had squeezed Jane's hand very hard on the staircase, where she stood watching Isabel throw her bouquet. Under the awning, a few minutes later, in the midst of the laughing, jostUng crowd, waiting for Isabel and Robin to rush madly in a shower of rice from the front door to the shelter of the expectant brougham, Jane knew just how he had felt. Her own eyes were full of tears as she saw the brougham, absurdly festooned with bows of satin ribbon, disappear down Pine Street. Incredible to think that Isabel was married. That she had left home forever.

  That very evening, over the haphazard supper, mainly !X)mpounded of leftover sandwiches and remnants of caterer's cake, Mrs. Ward had begun on Bryn Mawr.

  *How you can think of leaving your father and me at 2 moment like this ' she said.

  'I thought it was decided, Lizzie,'Jane's father interrupted.

  Jane bit into an anchovy sandwich in silence, then discarded it in favour of a macaroon.

  *How you can want to waste any more time in that ridiculous college,' said Mn. Ward, 'instead of coming home and making a debut with the girls your own age, friends you've had all your Ufe '

  'Minnie,' said Mr. Ward, *do you think you could get me a cup of coffee? Lizzie — do we have to go over all this again?'

  'Flora and Muriel will be grown up and married before you come home,' prophesied Mrs. Ward gloomily. 'You'll come out with a lot of girls you don't know — years younger than yourself *

  'Flora and Muriel,' said Jane indifferendy, 'aren't coming out
this year, after all. They're going back to Farmington.' Muriel had told her yesterday. She hadn't thought to mention it at home.

  'Flora and Muriel,' said her mother incredulously, 'are going back to Farmington?'

  Jane nodded and passed her father the cream.

  'Why?' asked her mother.

  'Muriel wants to be with Flora,' said Jane, 'and Flora's mother doesn't feel up to a debut this winter. You know she — she hasn't been very well.'

  Jane didn't want to say quite all that Muriel had told her about Flora's mother. In a moment, however, she observed that discretion was not necessary.

  'I shouldn't think she would be,' said her mother tartly. 'I always knew how it would end. Lily Furness is a little fool and always has been.* She looked eagerly over at Jane's father. 'I don't blame Bert Lancaster for getdng tired of it

  He's been dancing attendance, now, for four years and more, and what does he get out of it? I shouldn't think she would feel very well, and I'm not at all surprised that she doesn't want Flora on her hands. She's got ail she can do to hold Bert enough to keep up appearances. Why her husband didn't put a stop to it long ago, before it got to this pass '

  'Lizzie!' said Jane's father with a glance at Jane. 'Minnie, I'd like another cup of coffee.'

  Jane felt she had unconsciously dragged a very effective herring across the scent. Her mother had forgotten Bryn Mawr. Her thoughts were busily employed on more congenial topics.

  'So Lily Furness doesn't want Flora home this winter,' she said dreamily. 'Well — I don't wonder. A great girl of nineteen in the drawing-room doesn't make it any easier to keep up the illusion.'

  'Pass me a lady-finger,' said Jane's father.

  There was a moment's pause.

  'Well,' said Jane's mother at last, 'if Flora and Muriel aren't going to come out I suppose you might just as well be in Bryn Mawr as anywhere else for one more year.'

  Jane could hardly believe her ears. She threw a startled glance at her father. He was draining his coffee cup with a sHghtly sardonic smile.

  'But — leaving you and father,' began Jane conscientiously.

  'You don't think very much of your father and me,' said Mrs. Ward, with a sigh. She rose from the table. 'This house is a sight,' she said. 'Minnie, get the dead flowers out of the way to-night. The men will come to pack the wedding presents in the morning.' She moved toward the door. 'If there's any punch left, keep it on ice.' She paused on the threshold to look back at Jane's father. Her face suddenly

  softened and looked a little wistful. 'Didn't Isabel look

  lovely?' she said.

  'She did, indeed,' said Jane's father, rising in his turn.

  'Robin's a sweet boy,' said Jane's mother. *I hope *

  She paused inarticulately and looked up a little helplessly in her husband's face.

  'I hope it, too, Lizzie,' he said very tenderly. Incredibly, he kissed her. Jane, staring at them in amazement, felt her eyes fill suddenly with tears. That was when she had felt Ukc a dog to leave them.

  'My Gawd!' said Agnes. And Agnes never swore. She was staring at the letter held open in her hand. Jane had just brought it upstairs, as she came in for tea. Marion was kneeling on the window-seat, looking out at tlie afternoon sunshine slanting palely over the March campus.

  'What is it?' cried Jane. She paused, tea-kettle in hand, at the door.

  'Scribner's — has — taken — my — story!' said Agnes solemnly.

  Jane dropped the tea-kettle.

  'Agnes!' she cried.

  'They've sent me a check for one — hundred — and — fift)' — dollars!' said Agnes. 'Jane! It can't be true! I must have died and gone to heaven.'

  'Let me see it!' cried Jane.

  There it was — the httle green shp. One hundred and fifty dollars.

  Jane and Marion could hardly believe their eyes. They all had tea together. They had tea together almost every afternoon, but this was a festival. They made a laurel wreath out of a strand of potted ivy and crowned Agnes's triumphant

  head. Jane began to quote Byron. They had just reached the Romantic Poets in General English.

  ' "Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story, The days of our youth are the days of our glory, And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plentyl"

  There's your ivy, darling, we haven't any myrtle, but *

  'Don't you beheve it,' said Agnes. 'Byron was wrong. He was a funny man, anyway. I'd give up anything — anything in the world —just to write.'

  'Maybe you won't have to give up anything,' said Jane. 'You write awfully well, now. Maybe you'll have your cake and eat it, too. Byron did,' she added very wisely. 'All the cake there was.'

  'I'm not a bit Uke Byron,' said Agnes very seriously. 'I'm net at all romantic. I just want to accomplish.'

  Marion nodded her head soberly as if she understood. There it was, again. AccompHshment. That thing for which Jane could never muster up any enthusiasm. Jane just wanted to Hve along and be happy. Live along with nice funny people who were doing interesting things and told you about them. Like Agnes and Marion. And Andre, who had always told her so much. Nice funny people who thought you were nice and funny, too.

  Jane liked her work, though. Jane Hked it awfully. She could really read French, now, almost as well as English, and she had loved the lectures on Shakespeare and she was thrilled by the Romantic Poets. She always did a lot ol outside reading and she had learned pages of poetry by heart. Nevertheless she never got very good marks. Not marks Uke Agnes and Marion. It was because she couldn't be bothered with learning grammar and dates and irrelevant facts that didn't interest her. She had missed that entire question in the English

  midyears paper on the clauses of Shakespeare's will. Why should any one remember the clauses of Shakespeare's will? Jane couldn't be bothered with them. Not when she could curl up on the Pembroke window-seat and learn 'Romeo and Juliet* by heart. Jane thought 'Romeo and Juliet' was the most beautiful thing that she had ever read. She loved to repeat it aloud when she was alone in her bed at night or striding over the Bryn Mawr countryside with Agnes and Marion.

  'What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?*

  'I know not, sir.'

  'O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

  It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

  Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.'

  Lovely sounds — lovely phrases!

  'He jests at scars that never felt a wound! But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun!'

  What fun to know lines like that! To have them always with you, like toys in your pocket, to play with when you were lonely.

  'It was the lark, the herald of the mom, No nightingale. Look, love, what enviom streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.*

  Who would learn the clauses of Shakespeare's will? Agnes and Marion had, however.

  Philosophy was simpler. Philosophy was very easy to learn. It was all about just what you'd thought yourself, one time or another, after you'd begun to grow up. It was strange to think that every one had always thought about the same things,

  Andre hi

  down the ages. God and man and the world. Herself and Sophocles. Agnes and Plato. And felt the same things, too. Romeo and Juliet. 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound.* That was what Isabel had done, when Andre went to France. Maybe, now she had Robin, she understood.

  'Let's go for a walk,' said Agnes.

  Jane jumped to her feet. There would be mud underfoot but all the brooks would be running fast and the stripped tree branches would be tossing in the mad March wind, and the sun would be bright, and the sky would be blue, and perhaps they would fmd the first hepatica.

  They would go for a walk.

  VI

  The Commencement procession was forming in front o
f the gymnasium. The day was hot and sultry, with the promise of rain in the air. Jane and Agnes and Marion were all Sophomore marshals. They were dressed in crisp white shirt-waists and long duck skirts and they had on their caps and gowns. They each held a little white baton, with a white and yellow bow on it, sacred insignia of office. The Seniors were in cap and gown, too, and all of the faculty. The staid professors looked strangely picturesque, standing about on the thick green turf, with their brilliant hoods of red and blue and purple silk. One scarlet gown from the University of London made a splash of vivid colour against the emerald lawn. The Seniors' hoods were all white and yellow, trimmed with rabbit fur. President Thomas was talking to the commencement speaker. Some college trustees were clustered in a little group around her. Funny old men, thought Jane! They looked very flushed and hot in their black frock coats under academic dress. Some of them were fanning themselves with their mortar boards.

  Jane was busy getting the Seniors into line. She knew nearly all of them well. She couldn't imagine how the college was going to get along next year without the Class of '96. She couldn't imagine, either, how she was going to get along without the college. It was settled, now. She was not coming back.

  Her father had done his best for her. They had talked about nothing else all Easter vacation. Except Isabel's baby, which was coming in July. Her mother was determined that she should 'come out' with Flora and Muriel. Nothing else mattered. Her father had championed her cause wholeheartedly. But Jane had detected in his final surrender a certain note of reUef

  'Two years,' he said, 'has been a long time to live without you. Kid. In this big house.'

  The procession was taking form and substance at last. The trustees had Uned up at its head. Miss Thomas had fallen in behind them with the speaker. Jane slipped into her place with Agnes just behind the wardens and in front of the Seniors. The procession began to move slowly along the gravel walk.

  The day was really terribly hot and the air was lifeless. The maple trees in the distance looked very round and symmetrical, almost like toy trees. Their boughs were thick with leaves. The shadows beneath them were round and symmetrical, too, and very dark. The air was sweet with the odour of newly cut grass.