Years of Grace

by Margaret Ayer Barnes

  Jane shivered as she thought of it. Men should marry when they were young. Andr6 should have married when he loved her. But if he had he would never have become one of France's most distinguished sons. Chicago would have stifled him. Andre might have been a banker by this time, thought Jane, if he had taken her on at nineteen. And he had had the sense to foresee it. His abrupt departure from her hfe had been much in the romantic tradition estabUshed by Romeo in the balcony window. His alternatives had been the same. 'I must be gone and live, or stay and die!'

  But she had married young. And Stephen had been young when she married him. They had had together those ridiculous, unthinking, heart-breaking years of almost adolescent domesticity, with two babies in the sand pile and another in the perambulator and a contagious disease sign often on the front door and a didy always on the clothesline! They'd had

  all that. But had they really had romance? Romance, such as she'd known with Andre? Stephen had had it, perhaps, in the first years of their marriage. But — had she? Hadn't she always been rather afiraid of romance, all those young years when it might have been hers for the taking? Did a woman ever really value romance until she felt it sUpping away from her? Wasn't that the surest sign of all of being middle-aged? You might be still slim and agile and not grey, but when you felt that wistful, almost desperate impulse to live your Ufe to the full before it was over, didn't it really mean that it was over, that youth, at any rate, was over, that it was too late to recapture the glamour that you saw only in retrospect

  But this was ridiculous, thought Jane. Life wasn't over at thirty-six. She loved Stephen and Stephen loved her. He had never looked at another woman. Anything they wanted was theirs for the taking. Their personal relationship was only what they made it. She must say to Stephen, 'LooK at me, Stephen! Really look at me! You haven't for ten years!' And

  he would laugh — of course he always laughed at her

  That was Stephen's step on the stair.

  Jane looked quickly about the bedroom. Yes, it was very neat. Mrs. Carver was an excellent housekeeper and Jane herself was always tidy. Her underclothes were meticulously folded on a chair by the dressing-table and the hnen sheets of the twin four-poster mahogany beds were turned smoothly down over the rose-coloured comforters. Stephen's clean blue pajamas were folded on his pillow.

  As he opened the door, Jane rose from her mirror to meet him. He stood a moment on the threshold, smiling contentedly around the lamplit room. Dear old Stephen — even in the soft light he still looked white and jaded. Jane walked slowly over to him.

  'Glad to be here?' she smiled up into his eyes.

  'You bet!' said Stephen fervendy.

  'I'm glad you've come,' said Jane.

  Stephen closed the door.

  'How's it been?' said Stephen. 'Family been bothering you?'

  *Oh, no,' said Jane.

  Stephen slipped off his grey sack coat and hung it carefully over the back of a chair.

  'It's a prett)'^ good old place,' said Stephen. He walked over to the window in his shirt-sleeves and peered out into the darkness beyond the screen.

  'Smell that sea-breeze,' said Stephen. He snuffed the briny air luxuriously for a moment in silence.

  'Put out the lamp,' said Stephen. 'The moon's just rising over the bay.'

  Smiling a little, Jane pushed the button and walked blindly over to him in the darkness. She slipped her arm though his. The brown film of screen had grown suddenly transparent. The lawn and beach and harbour were flooded with silver light. The waning moon swung low in the eastern sky. Jane gazed in silence as small objects on the lawn slowly took form and substance in the unearthly radiance. The outcrops of granite rock cast clear-cut shadows on the greyish grass. The weather beaten outline of a clump of stunted cedars at the foot of the pier stood out in black silhouette against the silver waters of the harbour. The slender mast of the catboat rocked uneasily at its moorings. A lighthouse winked, deliberately, far out in the bay. One white flash and two red. Jane could hear the little harbour waves, quite distinctly, as they rippled on the shingle. Then the faint moaning of the bell-buoy that marked the hidden reef beyond the point. Jane pressed her cheek gently against Stephen's arm.

  'I'm very glad you've come,' she said.

  Stephen turned his head abruptly. Her voice seemed to rouse him from revery.

  'I guess it was time,' he said cheerfully. 'Mother seems a bit on edge.'

  Jane dropped his arm. She moved away from him in the square of moonlight that fell through the casement.

  'What about?' she asked.

  'Oh — nothing much,' said Stephen still cheerfrilly. Then, after a moment, 'Don't you think, Jane, you could persuade Miss Parrot to use the back stairs?'

  Jane moved in silence back to her dressing-table. She switched on the light abruptly and sat down on her chair.

  'I've said all I could,' said Jane. 'You know how Miss Parrot is. She's an awfully good heart nurse. I don't want to rock the boat.'

  Stephen untied his necktie and removed his collar in silence. He walked slowly across the room to place them on top of his chest of drawers. Jane watched him in her mirror. Suddenly she caught the gleam of irritation in her own eyes. She gazed steadily at her reflection until it faded into a twinkle of amusement.

  'Stephen,' she said resolutely, wheeling round in her chair, 'don't talk about Miss Parrot.'

  'All right,' said Stephen, 'I won't.' He was unbuttoning his waistcoat a trifle absent-mindedly. 'How's the weather been? Good sailing breeze, all month?' As he spoke he turned to smile at her. Jane regarded him steadily. Poor old Stephen — he looked very tired. As for herself, from the nature of his smile Jane knew what she looked like. There was absolutely nothing to be done about it. She looked Uke Jane.

  IV

  'I'd go, if I were you,' said Silly.

  'It's only for a week, of course,' said Jane.

  *The children will be all right with Miss Parrot,' said Silly.

  'Oh, yes,' said Jane. 'It's just moving them back West.'

  'Stephen can do that,' said Silly.

  They were lying side by side in the shadow of a rock on the sands of Pine Island. Two weeks of Stephen's precious hoUday had already passed. The Utter of a picnic luncheon defiled the beach at tlieir feet. A few yards away httle Steve, in his scarlet bathing-suit, was digging a canal in the wet brown sand where the waves were breaking. Cicily and Jenny were tossing a baseball back and forth, a Httle fartlier down the beach. Stephen and Alden, leaning back against a boulder, were enjoying their after-luncheon cigarettes and discussing the hilarities of the twenty-fifth reunion of the Glass of '88, which Alden had superintended at Cambridge the preceding June.

  'And on Sunday,' said Alden, with a reminiscent chuckle, 'we had an excursion by steamer to Gloucester. Some excursion! More hquid in the bar than in the bay!'

  'I'd go,' repeated Silly. 'I'd do whatever I wanted to, whenever I could.'

  On Silly's lips the simple statement took on a wistful significance. Jane's absent eyes had been fixed on her unconscious children. She turned, now, to contemplate her sister-in-law. Silly's long angular frame was carelessly clothed in a weather-beaten brown tweed skirt and sun-streaked tan sweater. A dilapidated brown felt hat of Alden's was pulled well down over her forehead to protect her eyes firom the glare. Her clean white sport shirt was buttoned mannishly about her neck, and a diamond horseshoe pin, which had been Mr. Garver's generous gesture on the occasion of her forty-fifth

  birthday, was negligently thrust through her orange tie. It twinkled, inappropriately, in the brilliant sunshine. She lay flat on her back on the beach, gazing up at the silver clouds that floated in the stainless August sky. A queer weather-beaten figure curiously akin to the rocks and the sands and the clumps of stunted pine trees that gave the island its name. A pathetic figure and, strangely enough, it seemed to Jane, a beautifiil one at the moment. The rough outline of tweed and worsted could not conceal the Diana-like grace of Silly's lank body, nor mar the deHcacy
of her slender ankles nor the strength of her shm wrists nor the angular beauty of her long, lean hands. Jane peeped under the turned-down hat-brim. Silly might boast the body of a goddess, but her face was uncompromisingly that of a forty-six-year-old New England spinster. Plain, tanned, and austere, it was set in its famihar lines of controlled resignation.

  When had Silly ever done what she wanted to, thought Jane? Never since Jane had known her. For the last fifteen years, as all the Carvers knew quite well, Silly had wanted to do only one thing. To break away from the family and the place at Gull Rocks and the house on Beacon Street and buy a little stone-strewn farm at Topsfield, Massachusetts, and keep cocker-spaniel kennels there with Susan Frothingham. Susan was now forty-eight. For the last fifteen years she had wanted to break away from the Frothinghams on Arhngton Street and live with SUly on a Topsfield hilltop. Jane saw no charms in Susan. A fat, uninteresting New England old maid, if there ever was one. Still — if Silly liked her and she liked Silly — it was dreadful what life did to single women. What families did to single women. Well-to-do famiUes, throwing destitute middle-aged daughters an occasional diamond horseshoe, but denying them the right to independence. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  'If you want to go to New York to see Agnes,' pursued Silly, still gazing at the silver cloud, 'I think you ought to go.'

  'Your mother won't like to have Stephen take the children back West alone,' said Jane.

  'I'm tired of seeing the men in this family considered!' said Silly with sudden violence. 'I'd like to see one of the women get her innings for a change.*

  *Oh, I never consider Stephen much,' said Jane honestly. *And I get plenty of innings.'

  'Well, this is an outing,' smiled Silly. 'How long since you've seen Agnes?'

  'Oh, mercy!' said Jane. 'Ever so long! Seven years. Not since she married. The last time I saw her was when she came West for her father's funeral.'

  *I think you ought to go,' repeated Silly. 'Mother won't care as long as you're going to meet Flora.'

  That was probably true, thought Jane. The bond between Mrs. Carver and her brother was a very close one. Flora and Mr. Furness were on the water now, returning from a summer in England. Whatever Mrs. Carver might think of the folly of a headstrong daughter-in-law who deserted her husband and children to spend a week in New York for the purpose of seeing an old Bryn Mawr classmate, she would consider it a very suitable attention for Stephen's wife to meet his uncle and cousin on the dock at Hoboken, bearing appropriate greetings from the Boston connection.

  Not that Jane cared particularly about meeting Flora. She had seen her in Chicago at Easter and would see her again there in two weeks at the very latest. But the Furnesses' arrival did make a plausible pretext for a trip to New York, and Jane did care, terribly, about being with Agnes again for a few days and seeing her five-year-old daughter and meeting the

  gentleman whom Jane had always privately characterized as 'that dreadful husband.'

  In Jane's opinion, Agnes had ruined her life by marrying Jimmy Trent. She never understood how it could have happened. Level-headed Agnes, at the great age of thirty-one, with a reputation really established as a writer of short stories, with one good novel published and a better one half-finished, had succumbed to the incomprehensible charm of a ne'er-do-well journalist, hanging about the outskirts of the newspaper world of New York, three years younger than Agnes and perfectly incapable of holding down a lucrative job for more than two months at a time. When Jane considered Agnes as she had been in college, the marriage was really incredible. Agnes, on a Bryn Mawr window-seat, the level head triumphantly crowned with a wreath of potted ivy, saying seriously, *I*m not at all romantic. I just want to accomplish.'

  One moment of romance had ruined for Agnes ten years of accomplishment. The baby had come at once, of course, and the second novel had never been finished. After a year or two of living in boarding-houses and trying to subsist on Jimmy's non-existent income, Agnes had abandoned her writing and had taken a job in the advertising department of Macy's. It was a good job, she had written Jane very cheerfully, at the time. She Hked advertising. On the whole, she Kked it better than writing. They had taken a nice Utde flat in Greenwich Village and little Agnes was established in a play school at the age of three and Jimmy did a Uttle writing, now and then, mainly musical criticism, and worked with his fiddle, which amused him awfully, and took her to hear a lot of good music, of which he was very fond.

  Jzme's Hp curled as she remembered that letter. She had had another last week. It was this second letter that had determined her to go to New York.

  *I wish I could see you,' Agnes had written. 'Jimmy may go West for a few months. He's had a temporary position oflfered him on the Chicago "Daily News." I hope he takes it, I'd like him to see Chicago. Of course I have to stick at Macy's.*

  Jane read between the lines just what Agnes really wanted. She wanted Jane to meet Jimmy and like Jimmy and make things pleasant for him in Chicago, so that he would hold down this new job and make life a Httle easier for them all, financially speaking, when he returned to the Greenwich Village flat. Jane didn't relish the task. She knew perfectly well what she would think of Jimmy and what Stephen would think of Jimmy and what her mother and Isabel and even her father would think of Jimmy, when he showed up in the West. But Agnes was Agnes. And Agnes's husband was Agnes's husband. Jane would do what she could for him. But she would like to go to New York and look over the field.

  'Stephen!' called Silly suddenly. 'Don't you think Jane ought to go to New York?'

  'Sure I do,' said Stephen amicably. 'I'm going to make her go. Of course, I've never seen the fatal charm in Agnes '

  'But you're a perfect husband!' cried Jane, sitting up in the sunshine. 'It's time we set sail for home. Come on, girls!'

  Cicily and Jenny turned at her call. Jenny threw the baseball, with unerring aim, straight into the group around the picnic basket. It landed with a plop, right in the centre of her father's waistcoat. Cicily and Jenny and htde Steve all burst into laughter as he collapsed in mock agony under the force of the blow. Jenny came running up in hilarious apology. An Alice in Wonderland child, with straight fair hair strained back firom a round comb on her forehead, and a plain practical little face that was her Aunt Silly's all over again. She had none of Cicily's blonde beauty.

  'Come help us pack up,' said Jane. 'We must leave a clean

  beach.' She was picking up eggshells as she spoke. Silly's support had strengthened her determination. She would go to New York. Suddenly she realized that she was humming aloud. The refrain of an old Bryn Mawr song, 'Once there dwelt captiously a stern papa!' Good gracious! She hadn't thought of it for nearly twenty years! It would be fun to sec Agnes again.

  CHAPTER II

  I

  Nevertheless, seven days later, as Jane stood on the platform of the Bay State Limited in the Boston South Station, waving good-bye to Stephen and the children and Miss Parrot, she felt her eyes fill suddenly with tears. She was always absurd over partings. That very morning, on the front porch at Gull Rocks, when she was saying good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Carver and Uncle Stephen and Aunt Marie, she had felt a sudden surge of emotion. They were all over sixty. She wouldn't see them for another ten months. They had been awfully good to her. The congenital peculiarities of Carvers already seemed harmless. Jane had embraced her relatives-in-law with ardour.

  And now, at the sight of the little smiling, waving group on the dingy platform, Jane had an almost irresistible impulse to jump off the New York train and return to the West with her family at half-after two that afternoon.

  'Mumsy!' shouted Cicily, hanging on Stephen's arm. 'Can I order the meals 'til you get home?'

  'Don't you let her!' cried Jenny, tripping over the cocker-spaniel puppy's leash in her excitement. 'She'd forget and we'd starve!'

  'Now, don't worry about anything, Mrs. Carver,' called Miss Parrot, almost losing her balance as little Steve tugged at her hand. He was on
his knees on the platform, peering under the train.

  *I want to see the air brakes!' he cried.

  'Have a whirl with Agnes,' smiled Stephen. 'Don't let that husband cramp your style!'

  *I won't,' said Jane. 'But I know I'll hate him.'

  The train jerked into motion. Jane pushed by the porter to the step of the car.

  'Kiss me again, Stephen!' she cried. Stephen jumped to the step beside her. She raised her Hps to his. Suddenly he realized that she was crying.

  'Good-bye, goose!' he said tenderly. As the train gathered speed, he swung back on the platform.

  'Don't worry!' called Miss Parrot again, dragging little Steve to his feet. The children were aU waving wildly. Stephen threw a last kiss.

  The porter led Jane firmly back into the vestibule and closed the train doors. She couldn't see the family any longer. She hoped Miss Parrot would hold little Steve's hand until they were out of the trainshed. It would be just like him to run out on the tracks. But she would, of course. She was very responsible.

  Jane made her way slowly back through the narrow Pullman corridor to her seat in the parlour car. She was really off. She had not been in New York since she came home from Europe, eight years before. It would be fiin to see Agnes again. The children would be pcrfectiy safe with Miss Parrot. And she would be home in a week.

  The heat of the September day still pervaded the city streets as Jane descended from the top of the Fifth Avenue bus and turned, a trifle uncertainly, under the arch, to walk south and west across Washington Square. Jane had had very little experience in looking after herself and she always felt a trifle uncertain when wandering alone in strange places. Earlier that very afternoon, in emerging from the Bay State Limited, she had found the congested turmoil of the Grand Central