Years of Grace

by Margaret Ayer Barnes

  Jane felt a little ashamed of her cynical utterance. It was all wrong, however, to confuse the practical issues with sentimentality. They had been discussing the problem for hours in the Lakewood living-room. Robin and Isabel and Muriel had come out for dinner in order to discuss it, and now it was half-past ten and they were no nearer a solution than they had been at seven. Robin and Stephen had said very little all evening. Jane and Muriel and Isabel had said a great deal. But from the very beginning of the argument, Jane had been conscious of a fundamental difference between her point of view and that of the mothers of the prospective bridegrooms. Isabel and Muriel were staunchly united in wishing their sons to have everything — anything — before they went to the front.

  'Those young lives,* said Isabel, now frankly sobbing, 'may end in another two months. We owe those boys all the fulfilment we can give them.'

  Of course, however, she did not want Belle to marry Albert Lancaster. Logic had never been Isabel's strong point. She wanted Gicily to marry Jack and Belle to consent to an engagement. Albert would not be twenty until the first of August. And twenty was a preposterous age for a husband. Jane could easUy understand, however, if Isabel couldn't, why pretty little pink-and-white Belle wanted to marry him.

  Albert Lancaster was a very alluring young person. He seemed quite grown up. He seemed older than Jack, in fact, who was two years his senior. He had inherited his father's easy social charm and combined it with his mother's dark beauty. Not that Albert really looked like Muriel. He looked like her family, however, though not at all Hke a Jew. Rather like some young Greek of the Golden Age, with his pale, olive-coloured face, his dark eyes and hair, his aquiline nose, his short supercilious Greek lip, and his flat, low Greek brow

  — a discus-thrower, perhaps, or runner — no, thought Jane, more like a youthful Bacchus. You felt that vine leaves would adorn Yds hair. They sometimes did, of course. That was probably one of the things that was troubling Isabel. Naturally she could not go into that in front of Muriel, Oh, yes— Jane could quite understand why Belle wanted to marry him.

  Now Jack, on the other hand. Jack who looked just like Robin —Jack with his snub nose and pleasant friendly twinkle —Jack who had played with Cicily from her cradle

  — why did Cicily want to marry him? He was a sweet boy, of course. Clever and kindly and considerate. A much safer son-in-law than Albert Lancaster, with his looks and his inheritance and his vine leaves! But still —Jane really could not understand how Cicily could want to marry him.

  T don't sec what either of you object to in either marriage,* said Muriel. 'We're all old friends. We've known all four children from the day of their birth. There's plenty of money. Cicily and Belle are charming girls and best friends. The boys have both been to Harvard and are going to war and arc very attractive young men. My goodness! When you think what some people's children marry! I can't see why it's not all very suitable'

  *But Muriel, they're children,* put in Stephen from the depths of his armchair.

  'Kids,' said Robin solemnly, from the corner of the sofa.

  'I don't care,' said Muriel. 'I W2is only just twenty when I married, myself And I've often thought,' she continued superbly, 'that life would have been quite a little easier for mc if Bert hadn't been nineteen years older than I. I believe in early marriages. I think they keep a boy straight all those important years when his character is forming. And a girl has her babies early and gets through with all that sort of thing when she's still young enough to enjoy herself *

  *But that's just what's dangerous about them!' wailed Isabel. Jane knew she had it on the tip of her tongue to say, 'Look at you, Muriel!' Time was when she would have said it. Isabel was growing discreet with age.

  *I think you're very cynical,' said Muriel. *I think it would be lovely — a double wedding, Jane, in your beautiful garden '

  'In any case,* said Isabel, 'I think Belle should be married from her father's house. It's very sweet of you, Jane, to offer '

  'I haven't offered!' cried Jane. *I haven't done anything all evening but say we shouldn't let them. The boys will be

  sailing in six weeks ' She saw, instantly, that she had not

  helped her cause at all. Isabel again buried her face in her handkerchief Muriel returned to the charge.

  'If little Steve were twenty, instead of fourteen, Jane, you wouldn't be so unfeeling!'

  That was quite true, reflected Jane. If Uttle Steve were the age to make suitable cannon fodder, she would want him to have everything, everything hfe had to give, before he went to France.

  *I suppose,' said Isabel, wiping her eyes, 'I suppose we'll have to give in.'

  'Of course we will,' said Muriel briskly. Then added piously, 'My greatest regret is that dear Bert isn't able to share in Albert's happiness.'

  'How is he now, Muriel?' asked Isabel curiously. For a moment the war /eddings were forgotten.

  *Oh — quite helpless,' said Muriel. 'In bed, of course. He can't talk and I don't know how much he does understand. He has two very good nurses, however. Such pretty girls. I hope Bert can realize how pretty they arc '

  'But Isabel,' said Jane, returning to more important issuer

  'you don't mean you think we've lost the fight? You don't mean you think we ought to let them?'

  'How can we help it?' said Isabel. 'But about the double wedding *

  •Oh, I think that would be lovely!' said Muriel again. 'Your apartment is so small, Isabel, and June's so pretty in the country. If Jane will take it off your hands '

  'I won't take it off her hands,' said Jane. 'Anyway, I think we oughtn't to decide until we've talked it all over with Papa.'

  'Oh — Papa!' said Isabel doubtfully. 'You know how Papa is, Jane. He's really quite — difficult, sometimes. The war has aged him awfully.'

  'I don't think he's difficult,' said Jane. 'I think he's very wise. And I think we ought to talk with Mrs. Lester.'

  'Well, Jane,' said Muriel, 'you know Mother's eighty. Of course she's wonderful and she adores Albert, but I often think she's a little out of sympathy with the modern generation. Rather critical, I mean.'

  'Mamma's terribly critical,' said Isabel. 'Sometimes I think she just hates her grandchildren.'

  'She doesn't understand them,' said Jane. 'But she loves them. And Papa adores them. He's always been so proud of Jack, Isabel — with the name and all.'

  'Then he ought to want to see him happy,' said Isabel. She rose with a sigh as she spoke. 'Come on, Muriel, we must be getting back to town.*

  'What do j>ou think, Robin?' asked Jane. 'You haven't said a word all evening.'

  'I think it's fierce,' said Robin solemnly. 'Like life.'

  'But what can we do?' persisted Jane.

  'Nothing, probably,' said Robin. 'Again like life.'

  Jane slipped her arm through Stephen's. They walked slowly -with their guests to the firont door.

  *Wcll —I'll talk to Belle again,' said Isabel. 'Perhaps she'll listen to reason. And I'll write to Jack at Rockford before I go to bed to-night.'

  'I'm going to wire Albert,' said Muriel. *A very hopeful wire. I think he needs cheering.'

  'I'll take it up with Cicily,' said Jane. 'And Stephen wants to talk to her. But I know it won't do a bit of good.'

  'Good-night,' said Isabel, from the depths of the motor. 'Button up your coat, Robin. It's a cold evening for June.'

  *Good-night,' said Jane. The motor crunched slowly around the gravel cur'e of the driveway. Jane turned to Stephen. 'Stephen,' she said, 'what will we do?^

  'Let nature take its course, I guess,' said Stephen grimly. "You didn't get much help from Isabel.'

  'Wasn't Muriel terrible?' said Jane. 'Did you hear what she said about Bert's trained nurses?'

  'Yes,' said Stephen, turning back to the front door.

  'I'm glad it's not Albert,' said Jane solemnly, as she entered the hall. 'I'm awfully sorry for Isabel. I couldn't bear it, Stephen, really, I couldn't bear it, if Cicily were going to marry Bert L
ancaster's son.'

  'It's pretty rough all right,' said Stephen. 'I'm sorry for Robin.'

  'He's always adored Belle,' said Jane.

  ^Fve always adored Cicily,' said Stephen.

  'I know,' said Jane. 'But we hke Jack.'

  'He's a nice kid,' said Stephen. 'But as a husband for Cicily *

  'I know,' said Jane. They stood for a moment, gazing rather helplessly into each other's eyes.

  'Well,' said Stephen, turning to bolt the front door, 'we'd better go up to bed. I'll turn out the lights.'

  He went back into the living-room. Jane started up the stairs. She was still overcome with a sense of inadequacy for not having foreseen this calamity. But who could have foreseen it? It was perfectly preposterous. What was the matter with the rising generation? What was the matter with her own? She thought again of herself and Andre. Of her father and mother. She felt she sympathized with them, as never before. But with Cicily, too, when she thought of Andr6. First love — was there not a bloom about it that never came again? What would her Ufe have been if she had married Andr^? If she had married Andr^ would he seem now like Stephen? If she had married Andr6 she would never have loved Jimmy. She would never have known Jimmy. Jimmy would be alive now, married to Agnes, living in New York. Jane could not imagine her life without her love for Jimmy. Without her marriage to Stephen, for that matter. Yet when she thought of Andre and of her young self as she had been that last winter before she went to Bryn Mawr

  Your inner hfe — how confusing it all was! A chaos of conflicting loyalties! You would like to think, of course, that you were the sort of woman who was capable of experiencing, once and forever, a central, dominating passion. But as far as the essential sense of emotional intimacy went, she might as well be Andre's wife, or Jimmy's, that moment, as Stephen's. Why had things turned out as they had? Predestination was probably the answer. Cause and effect. One thing leading to another. Free will was only a delusion. Why not turn fatalist, pure and simple, and not worry any longer? Not care.

  But you had to care about your children. Worry about them, too. You had to and you ought to. When you thought of them all theories of predestination were completely shattered.

  Jane turned to smile at Stephen, as he entered the blue

  bedroom. He looked terribly tired and quite a little discouraged, but he gave her an answering smile.

  IV

  'The older I grow. Papa,' said Jane very seriously, *thc more I admire your technique as a parent.'

  'That's very flattering of you, Kid,' said Mr. Ward with a twinkle.

  'Why, Isabel and I never gave you and Mamma any trouble,' Jane went on, still very seriously.

  *Oh, I don't know about that. Kid,' interrupted Mr. Ward. 'You went to Bryn Mawr over your mother's dead body '

  'Oh — Bryn Mawr!' threw in Jane contemptuously.

  'It seemed very important at the time,' said Mr. Ward. 'She thought it would damn you to eternal spinsterhood. And before that you had embarked at the age of seventeen on a clandestine engagement '

  'It wasrCt clandestine!' protested Jane. *Wc told you right away!'

  'Yes, you did,' admitted Mr. Ward, with his indulgent twinkle. 'You were very good children. Still — it was a bit disquieting '

  They were sitting side by side on the old brown velvet sofa in the Pine Street library. The brilliant June sunshine was pouring in the west window, striking the glass bookcase doors and making them look a little dusty, just as it always had from time inunemorial. The firelight was dancing on the shiny surfaces of polished walnut, here and there in the darker corners, and shining on the big brass humidor on the desk that held Mr. Ward's cigars. Mr. Ward always had a fire, now, even in summer. The room was hotter than it used to be and the big branching rubber tree in the west window was gone.

  Otiienvise everything about the Pine Street library was completely unchanged.

  Everything, that is, but Mr. Ward himself. Jane, looking tenderly across the sofa at her father, was suddenly conscious of how old and frail he seemed. Isabel was right. The war had aged him. Or perhaps it was his retirement from business tJhat had taken place two years before. Mr. Ward lived, now, in his little brown library. When Jane dropped in, she edways found him there, settled comfortably in his leather armchair, reading biographies, or poring over the war news, or perhaps just smoking, reflectively, a solitary cigar.

  The room was really very warm. Jane looked at the smouldering fire. Her glance, wandering casually over the familiar mantel-shelf, met the Bard of Avon's wise mahogany eye. The Bard of Avon always made her think of her wedding ceremony.

  'Papa,* said Jane, 'how can you tell, how can you possibly tell, just whom your children ought to marry?'

  *You can't,' said Mr. Ward promptly. *But you can make a pretty good guess at whom they ought not to.'

  'But how can you stop them?' said Jane.

  'I don't know,' said Mr. Ward ver>- seriously after a little pause.

  'You stopped me,' said Jane. 'You stopped me because you made me feel, somehow or other, though I didn't agree with you, that you were inevdtably right. Right, because you were my father. That's what's gone out of the family relationship since I was seventeen, Papa. Children don't think you arc right any longer, just because you arc a parent.'

  'Well, you're not,' said Mr. Ward promptly. 'That's probably a step in the right direction. Kid. What's known as progress.'

  *Wcll,it makes life terribly difficult for parents,' sighed Jane.

  *And I can*t help thinking it may make life terribly difficult for children.*

  'Life's terribly difficult at times for every one,* said Mr. Ward. *A little thing like filial obedience doesn't solve all the problems.'

  'When I think of the ex cathedra pronouncements that Mamma used to make!' cried Jane. 'Why, I never thought of questioning them!'

  'And were they always right?' asked Mr, Ward.

  They were usually wrong,' said Jane. 'But at least they stopped discussion and they decided the issue. Parents used to be just Uke umpires. All they had to do was to make a decision and stick to it!'

  'It wasn't an ideal system,' was Mr. Ward's comment.

  'You didn't question it when it was in fashion,' retorted Jane. 'You didn't have the slightest hesitation in forbidding me to marry Andre. But we loved each other. We truly did, Papa. You never really took that into consideration. I might have been very happy as Andre's wife.'

  Mr. Ward's glance was just a little intent as he contemplated his younger daughter.

  'You've been very happy as Stephen's wife. Kid,' he said gently.

  'Yes,' said Jane uncertainly. Words were too crude to define the subtleties of emotion. 'Yes, I've been happy. But my marrying him was awfully irrelevant.' Suddenly that statement seemed terribly disloyal to Stephen. 'You know, Papa,' she said in extenuation, 'a war changed everything in my Hfe.'

  There was a pause, for a moment, in the sunlit room. Jane did not look at her father, but she knew, without looking, firom his sudden, breathless silence that he had suffered a sUght sense of shock. She realized then that her words were

  open to misinterpretation. She glanced quickly up at him. He was shocked. He looked at her a moment a little uncertainly. Then,

  'Which war, Jane?* he asked steadily.

  She was awfully glad that he had put the direct question. In answering it she could answer all the unspoken questions that had been worrying him for the last four years.

  'The Spanish one,' she said gravely. 'The other didn't — didn't really affect my action. I mean — I mean it was all

  settled before ' Her voice was faiUng her. She could not

  bear to mention Jimmy's name.

  'I'm glad to hear it, Kid,' said her father gently.

  He understood. She would not have to mention it. Jane drew a long breath and felt the emotional tension of the moment snap as she did so. She could return now to the problems of the younger generation.

  'All I mean is,' she went on brightly, 'you can't reall
y tell, can you, what will bring your children happiness? Perhaps they ought to decide for themselves '

  As she spoke, Mrs. Ward opened the library door. Isabel followed her into the room. They had been talking together in Mrs. Ward's bedroom.

  'Well, I hope you've convinced Jane that she must put her foot down,' said Mrs. Ward briskly. Her hand was on the bell-rope to summon Minnie to bring in the tea.

  'Mamma, you don't know what it's Uke to handle Belle and Cicily,' said Isabel wearily.

  'I handled you and Jane!' retorted Mrs. Ward. 'And very foolish you often were! If it hadn't been for your father and me '

  Jane and her father burst simultaneously into irreverent laughter. Mrs. Ward looked quite oflfended.

  'You don't make it any easier, John, to control the grandchildren,' she said severely.

  *I*ve retired,* said Mr. Ward, when he had subdued his laughter. *From my family as from my business. At seventy-two I'm glad to be a spectator. I hand the controls over to Jane.'

  Jenny's really so homely,' said Cicily frankly, 'that I think we ought to feature it.'

  'Feature it?' questioned Flora.

  'Yes,' said Cicily, 'make her look quaint, you know; as if she were meant to be funny.'

  'The first duty of a bridesmaid, in any case,' said Muriel, *is to look less pretty than the bride.'

  *No one could help looking less pretty than these brides,' said Flora, with a glance from Belle to Cicily.

  Isabel looked pleased. Jane felt herself smihng. Jenny did not seem at all insulted by her sister's candour.

  They were all sitting in Flora's hat shop. They had just decided on the model for the wedding veils and were now discussing the bridesmaid's hat.

  Flora's hat shop was doing a booming business. It had been just about to die of inanition three years ago when the Belgian babies came along and gave it a new lease of life. Flora had been planning to close it when the idea came to her to change it into a war charity. 'Aux Armcs des Allies,' she had rechristened it, and pasted French war posters all over the cubistic designs of the coach-house. She had charged fantastic prices and had really made a great deal of money. She had photographs of all the Belgian babies she supported, on the walls of the fitting-rooms. In spite of the submarines she made semi-annual trips to Paris for the hats and the photographs. She was a member of several French relief committees and so managed to get a passport. When Mr. Furness died