‘Well, I’ll soon know, won’t I?’ he replied. ‘I’ve got to start in to work there right after graduation.’
‘What about the camping trip? … Won’t he let you? …’
Jerry gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Not a hope. He says I’ve got to get a full summer in the bank under my belt before I start college. He’s all up in the air about the Amtec Laboratories getting started and all the new people coming in … says he heard rumours that the Carlisle bank is opening up here, and he wants as much new business as he can get settled with First National before that happens. I’m supposed to learn all about it in a couple of months …’ His tone was a dull, resentful acceptance of the fact. At the moment he could see nothing ahead but the four years of college, with each vacation spent under the eye of his father at the bank. He had an air of masculine grievance about him that was very appealing. Jeannie slipped her hand through his arm, and squeezed it gently.
‘Never mind ‒ you’ll have some time off. There’s lots to do.’
‘You bet!’ he said, suddenly regaining enthusiasm. ‘I made him promise that I could have the car whenever I wanted it this summer … and he’s just about promised that he’ll let me have my own when I go to college if I stick it out at the bank. We’ll be able to take trips to New York, Jeannie ‒ see the sights. You’ll like that, won’t you?’
‘Oh … sure!’ she said, a trifle uncertainly. ‘You mean Times Square, and all that sort of thing.’
‘What’s wrong with Times Square? It’s sure a change from Main Street! Look, Jeannie, I’ll take you to some ritzy restaurants … I’ll be earning pretty good money …’
The thought of the long car rides on the summer evenings was beguiling, but she didn’t know if she quite liked the idea of the expensive restaurants. She didn’t have the right clothes. But Jerry sounded happier now, and that was good. She tightened her hold on his arm a little; they were deep within the shadows of the tree-lined street that led down to the shellac plant. The houses had started to straggle out, with gaps between them. The railroad track came close to the road here. They passed two more houses and reached the edge of the vacant land that spread down the hill from the new laboratories. The small lake glinted dully under the stars. A few hundred yards farther on was the newly painted shellac factory, and a little beyond that was the small white frame house where the Talbots lived. The road curved here, and the Laboratories came into view.
‘Gee!’ Jeannie said. ‘They’ve got it lit up! I’ve never noticed that before!’
‘To-night’s the first night. I don’t suppose they wanted to do it before the official opening. They’re going to light it up every night. Awful waste of electricity!’
Jeannie halted to stand and stare at it. The glass building was lighted from inside ‒ a long, glowing bar of light in the surrounding darkness, a steely, cold light, impersonal and aloof. At first it attracted her, made her think of the shining clean jars and bottles she handled at Carter’s.
‘It’s … it’s just like those photos in magazines,’ she breathed, suddenly in awe of the place.
‘Dad says they’re going to light the fountains too, when they get them in place.’ They stood together in the deserted road, staring upwards. ‘Dad knows every single thing that happens in that place almost before they know it themselves. I think he dreams about Amtec at night.’
Then the lights of an oncoming car swept across them, and the spell was broken. They started walking again.
‘Dad told me to-day that that character he’s always talking about ‒ that Mal Hamilton ‒ is coming back to Burnham Falls to do some work for Amtec. Gee, you’d think it was Dad’s long-lost brother the way he talked about it.’
Jeannie nodded. The story of Mal Hamilton’s career in Burnham Falls was familiar to her, although he was gone from the place before she had been born. There had been something about Mal that stuck in people’s minds, and it was true that George Keston had never let anyone about him forget. Jerry had been brought up on the saga of Mal Hamilton ‒ how he had fought prejudice and poverty, and got to college without help from anyone. He had heard it all so often that he thoroughly disliked the sound of the other’s name. Every time his father uttered it, it was a reproach for Jerry’s own comfortable living, the ease with which things came to him. He moved his shoulders irritably, as if shrugging off the thought, and he suddenly spoke out his discontent.
‘I tell you, Jeannie, I’d like to get out of this place!’
‘Why … Jerry, what do you mean?’
‘Well, hell! The way Dad’s planning it, I’ll be here in Burnham Falls for the rest of my life. That sounds great, doesn’t it? When I go into the Army I might be lucky enough to be sent as far as New Jersey, and that’ll be that! I mean I don’t want to come home from college and settle down to exactly the same sort of life Dad has had …’
Jeannie broke in. ‘Now you listen to me, Jerry Keston!’ She pulled on his arm roughly, urgently. ‘You’re a fool to talk like this! You’ve got to have an education before you can go anywhere or do anything. Maybe when you’ve finished with the Army you’ll be glad to come back here ‒ maybe you won’t. You can’t blame your father for hoping …’
‘Well, don’t you want to go?’ he demanded.
‘Away from Burnham Falls? Not very much ‒ and not for good. I like it here. It’s comfortable.’
‘You’re not kidding, Jeannie?’
She glanced sideways at him; he was tall, but so was she, and their gaze was almost level. ‘Of course I’m not kidding! I’m going to learn shorthand and typing over at Elmbury this summer, and Mr. Dexter said he thinks he can get me a job with Amtec in the fall.’
‘Well, don’t you want to try a slice of life somewhere else?’
‘Where? … New York, for instance? You can keep that! I’d have a routine little job like millions of other girls, for which I’d have to dress like a fashion model every day ‒ and pay those sky-high rents for some pokey little apartment. Do you think I haven’t thought about it? In my book, Burnham Falls has got enough of what I want.’
‘Gee, Jeannie, a smart, pretty girl like you is wasted in a …’
‘Maybe I’m smart enough to know what I want.’ Her voice had an edge to it, a coldness; she was defending something she loved, and she was too young not to feel ruffled by Jerry’s accusation that she was dull and unadventurous, that she was too conventional to make use of her own talents. Whatever she dreamed of in her idle moments, dreams that took her far from Burnham Flats, she recognised them as such.
She was looking straight ahead, turning an angry profile to Jerry. Her hand dropped away from his arm. Then she felt his gentle touch on her shoulder as he swung her to face him.
‘Jeannie, I’m sorry … honestly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s nice to know you like being here, and you don’t want to rush off and be a film star, or Miss America … and all that junk. It’s going to make a whole lot of difference to me having you around.’
She stretched up and put her arms about his neck. Their kiss was a mutual clinging together in the face of an uncertain future. They were young, and their bodies needed the comfort and security of each other; they kissed with a desperate, lonely kind of passion, a kiss that started as a gesture of affection, and then as it lengthened, grew to a full and complete enjoyment of the act itself. In the shadow of the trees, they clung to each other very tightly, shaken a little with the urgency and tumult of youth.
Jeannie flung open the door, and a rush of cold air swept into the kitchen. Her mother was frying something in a spluttering pan at the stove, a long fork in one hand, and a pot holder in the other. Chrissie was sitting in a faded flannel nightgown at the table, her golden head bent over a picture book.
Jeannie closed the door quickly. ‘Hi, Mom!’ She stooped and gave her sister a quick hug and dropped a kiss on her rounded, silken cheek. ‘How’s my pink baby rabbit?’ she said. Then she called in a louder voice to the front room. ‘Hi, Dad! I’
m home!’
She was shining and flushed, and transformed into sheer beauty. Her mother glanced back over her shoulder.
‘Hallo, dear. Take your things off now ‒ we’re just ready to sit down.’
II
George Keston had flicked off the light switch and was fumbling for the right key on his ring when he saw Jeannie Talbot and Jerry standing at the traffic light opposite the bank. He waited where he was in the darkness until they had moved off; he had a rather embarrassed relationship with his son, and he had never learned to treat lightly the fact that all teenagers had romances before they left school. Rather than meet them, and hear himself make foolish conversation with Jeannie, he waited until they had crossed the road and passed out of sight.
He knew it was not Jerry’s fault but they were so inarticulate with each other; it was supposed to be the father who was mature and experienced enough to make the overtures. But in his case the overtures, fumbling and uncertain, had never worked. He was too old to be Jerry’s father. He had not married till he was past forty, and Jerry had come late in the marriage and had been his only child. He was aware of his failure, and the thought depressed him.
It was not that Jerry showed any lack in his development. He was everything a man could have wanted in a son ‒ intelligent, quick and courteous, and the captain of the football team ‒ the ideal of the American boy. And he was tall and good looking, with blond, sun-streaked hair, and a tan that did not fade even in winter. His body was tough and co-ordinated. George Keston wondered how he and his frail wife had come to have such a child. At times he felt humble before Jerry.
All of Burnham Falls knew that Jerry had been dating Jeannie Talbot steadily for a year. It was natural that they should have chosen each other; it seemed to George that they were so outstandingly superior to the other young people about them. Jeannie was a superb physical specimen; you did not expect a girl like that to have brains ‒ and yet she did. If you got tired of looking at Jeannie, George Keston thought it would be nice to talk to her.
But he worried a little about Jerry’s friendship with Jeannie. It was possible that when he was through college he might marry her ‒ he didn’t even permit himself to think that it might happen before then. The objections George had to Jeannie were hardly real, tangible ones. Her background and family, of course, wouldn’t exactly help Jerry, but there were no reasons except snobbish ones why they should hinder him, either. Ted Talbot was one of Burnham Falls’ most respected men ‒ not for what he had accomplished in life, but purely as a human being. He was a good man, kind and generous with what little he had, and his wife and children were decent and hard-working and clean ‒ and no one could say less than that of them. It was Jeannie herself who bothered George. She didn’t look as if she came from a family like the Talbots ‒ she looked ripe and easy, a voluptuous blonde with curving hips and breasts, and a sensuous sway in her walk. It was not what she did that so much worried him, it was that she was a person who would always attract talk and notice to her, in the way most women did not.
George knew he could not tell Jerry not to date Jeannie just because she was pretty, and because she attracted men. If Jerry could get a girl like that, he was entitled to her. There were no other reasonable objections to her ‒ she had never dated anyone before Jerry, and she had never been seen in a parked car during the high school dances. People spoke of her as ‘a nice girl’. George knew he was being unfair to her, but she had a healthy, abundant sensuality that would have made any man uneasy.
But there was nothing he was going to do about it. He wanted to keep his son; he wanted Jerry to succeed to his position at First National, he wanted him to have the safe, tidy life that he, George, had always had in Burnham Falls. Perhaps Jeannie Talbot would be the instrument for keeping him here; if she could do that, George would never question anything else about her.
He pulled the door behind him, and double locked it. He felt cold as he backed the car out of the lot and drove along Main Street. He was getting old, he thought ‒ or was it just that it had been a crowded day? The big white banner flapping in the wind reminded him that it had been crowded with many unusual happenings. It would be a long time before Burnham Falls forgot the day that Amtec came to town.
BOOK TWO
One
Burnham Falls grew accustomed to having the Laboratories and Amtec Park in its midst, in just the way it had grown used to the construction camp, the itinerant workers, and the new name on the shellac factory. It had its big row over the site of the new school, and that was settled, not to everyone’s satisfaction, but at least settled. Things started to cost a little more in Burnham Falls because there was a bigger demand for services and goods; at the same time more money flowed into the town. As in a marriage the first enchantment fell away, and Amtec and Burnham Falls settled to finding a working relationship with each other; there were compromises each way. Neither side was wholly winning.
Harriet had been very much involved in the external hustle of that first year of Amtec; she was conscious of being expected to stand on both sides of the line in every dispute that came up. She had been part of the school problem, the water supply problem, the road construction problem ‒ these were the every-day things of her life. And at the back of that, in the quiet place that no external thing seemed to touch, she was waiting for Mal Hamilton to return to Burnham Falls. She was waiting for the day, and dreading it. Steve mentioned him from time to time ‒ there was one delay after another in reaching the phase of the work on which he would be needed as consultant; then Steve didn’t mention him any more, and Harriet began to believe that the idea of bringing him to Burnham Falls had been shelved. She didn’t want to ask about it; it seemed better not to know.
And Laura Peters was waiting for something else; she was waiting for the day when she would cease to feel a resentment against the routine of life in Burnham Falls. She was waiting for the sense of panic to pass, the sense that she was wasting time. She did what she had to as the wife of the President of Amtec Laboratories, but no more. Her thoughts and interests still turned to New York. As she waited out the days in Burnham Falls she felt as if she were on a long, enforced convalescence there, and that soon someone would come and tell her she could return. She was still hoping for Al Roberts to find her a part in a Broadway production.
Jeannie Talbot finished her business course at Elmbury, but she did not take the job with Amtec which Steve offered to arrange for her. Instead she went full time into Wally Carter’s drug store, and she worked for a salary and commission. This was done in spite of the objections of her father, who thought that she was too clever to lose herself behind a drug store counter. But Jeannie had her own plans, and she listened with only half an ear. During the first year that Jerry was away at college, she spent most of her evenings studying book-keeping. Selma began to urge her to have more dates with other boys and she sometimes thought privately that four years was too long for Jeannie to wait for Jerry. George Keston was happy that she seemed content to wait. And as for Jeannie herself, she kept her plan in mind, and said nothing much to anyone.
And the first year in Burnham Falls went by Sally Redmond almost unnoticed, because she was happy.
II
The 4.25 express from New York to Derwent made a stop at Burnham Falls, and it was the only train of the afternoon worth catching. As the platform gates crashed open, Harriet quickened her pace towards them; there was already a crowd waiting to board the train, and as always the old hands who had found their way in by one of the open gates farther along the concourse would already be seated. She walked down the ramp quickly, following the crowd. Her nostrils contracted a little at the acrid, bitter smell that always met one at this point; she associated the smell with a sense of regret, the knowledge that it was the end of a New York visit. In the old days she had preferred driving back to Burnham Falls rather than taking the train ‒ the act of leaving the city was more drawn out, less final and complete.
Harriet step
ped into the third coach, and as she struggled with the heavy door and two dress boxes, she heard Laura Peters’ voice behind her.
‘Harriet! Here, let me. I’m not so loaded.’ An immaculately gloved hand reached past her and pushed open the door.
For a second Laura’s perfume shut away all other smells. It was the middle of June, and the temperature stood near ninety, yet she looked cool and unweary, as if it were the beginning of the day rather than the end.
‘Oh! Thank you!’ Harriet passed through the door, and waited for Laura to follow. They had ridden together on the 4.25 a number of times; Laura seemed to welcome Harriet’s company. They talked of nothing in particular, idle women’s talk of shopping and fashions, books, the theatre ‒ but never, Harriet had noticed, about Burnham Falls. Harriet had learned to let Laura choose what she would talk about; it was one of the small courtesies paid to the president’s wife.
She waited now for Laura to select the seat. There were only two other people in the coach.
Laura frowned. ‘The air-conditioning doesn’t seem to be working. Let’s go on to the next one ‒ in any case, this isn’t a smoker.’ She strode down the long aisle, and opened the farther door before Harriet could reach it. Harriet saw that she also was carrying a dress box, but it didn’t seem to hamper her movements at all.
‘You’ve been shopping too,’ Harriet said, rather pointlessly.
‘Yes ‒ and had my hair done,’ Laura answered. It was already well known in Burnham Falls that Laura went to New York every week just to have her hair done ‒ in any case, the fact spoke for itself. Harriet nodded in approval as she studied the back of the other’s head.
Laura glanced over her shoulder. ‘I picked up a dress from Bergdorf’s that was being altered ‒ I don’t let them send things any more. If there’s something wrong it’s such a nuisance bringing it back.’
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