The Magnificent Spinster

by May Sarton

  “Oh dearie, I bet you’re starving! Have your breakfast with us. But do, if you can, go back to bed for one more morning, will you? This is your chance, after all.”

  “But there are only five more days!”

  “You must do what you feel you want to do,” Jane said firmly.

  “I want to get going,” Nancy said, “but my ornery back is still rather reluctant.”

  “Scrambled eggs and bacon for the invalid.” Annie set a plate before her. “And more toast for all of you.”

  Lucy suggested then that Nancy have a try at getting up for midday dinner and maybe go down to the little house in the afternoon, “but tomorrow there’s a picnic on Baker’s Island … and maybe you could sleep here tonight and take that day in perfect peace with Frances and Erika.”

  “The children will mind,” Nancy murmured.

  “But getting in and out of that rowboat is not the best thing for a lame back,” Lucy insisted.

  “I’ll just have to see,” Nancy said. Jane felt she was depressed, near to tears perhaps. She got up and put an arm round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

  “This is the place where you can let down, dearie, so don’t let the gremlins plague you. What the children need more than anything is a rested mother.”

  She looked at her watch. “Good heavens, it’s after nine. We’d better go and find some flowers for Frances. Where does time go on this island? It just vanishes!”

  Luckily, perhaps, the search for flowers—there were none yet in the formal garden—led Jane and Lucy down to the pool, and on the way they noticed that a rowboat was out near the dock with Bobbie and Wylie in it alone.

  “Come on, Lucy, we can’t have that!” At seventy-five Jane could not run as fast as she used to do, but she outdistanced Lucy and was on the dock waving and calling, “Come right back, boys!” by the time Lucy caught up with her.

  The currents were quite strong, especially when the tide was going out, and it was clear that Wylie, who had the oars, was not finding it easy to bring the boat around.

  “That’s it,” Jane called, “pull on the right oar. There you go … now pull hard on both oars!”

  “It’s all right, Jane,” Lucy said as she caught up. “They’ll make it.” But she saw that Jane was flushed, and her unusually sharp commands showed that she was angry and upset.

  “It’s not all right,” Jane answered. “They know perfectly well what the rules are.”

  “What’s the matter?” Wylie said when the boat was firmly tied up and he and Bobbie were safely on the dock again.

  “Wylie, you know very well that no child is to take a boat out without a grown-up. You found out that the current is strong, and if I hadn’t happened along you might be drifting away now and not able to get back!”

  Wylie put his hands in his pockets and stood his ground. “I’m twelve,” he said, “after all. It’s a foolish rule.”

  “Last summer a boy drowned right out there. You were risking Bobbie’s life.”

  “I have my Junior Lifesaver’s badge. I could save him.”

  “Wylie,” Jane said quietly, “I think you have to accept that there are rules on this island, and whether you like them or not, they have to be obeyed.”

  “I’m too hot,” Bobbie announced, ripping off his tee shirt. “Let’s have a swim.”

  “Not without a grown-up, I’m afraid,” Jane said. “We’ll all be down around noon and then you can have a swim.”

  But this edict was apparently the last straw, and Wylie glared at Jane with something like hatred in his face. “It’s stupid,” he said. “We can’t have any fun.”

  “There are only five more days. You’ll just have to stick it out,” Jane said, smiling now.

  “What can we do?” Bobbie asked.

  “In about half an hour you can come down to the main dock with me and welcome Miss Thompson and Erika. Right now we must pick some daisies and buttercups for Miss Thompson’s room.”

  “Come on, Bobbie, let’s go to the boathouse,” Wylie said, and off they went without looking back.

  “Well,” Jane laughed, “that was quite a row!”

  While they picked the flowers, Jane stopped for a moment and stood looking out to the bay. “It’s awfully hard to be stopped short in the middle of an adventure.”

  “Children have to rebel, you know. It’s part of growing up … but you were very effective, Jane, I must say.”

  “I’m remembering one bitter moment in my life, the summer before Vassar. I wanted desperately to see an old school friend to say good-bye, over at Northeast Harbor. Pappa absolutely refused to let me row over! I still mind,” Jane said ruefully. “I was outraged. And, you know, I could have done it perfectly well.”

  “That, I expect, is what Wylie is telling Sarah now.”

  “Yes, but I was grown-up, Lucy, after all!”

  “Some people might say you’re not quite grown-up even now,” Lucy was laughing. “Oh Jane!”

  “At seventy-five? I’m afraid I’m a hopeless case.” But then Jane looked at the straggly bunch of flowers in her hands. “What can we do to make this look a little less forlorn?”

  “A little laurel might help,”

  Jane looked at her watch. “Mercy, we’d better hurry!”

  It was always like this, a slow start to the morning and then at some point a wild rush. But by half past eleven they were all waiting at the dock, Lucy and Jane sitting and talking on the benches at the top before the steep descent to the float itself, for the tide was low. Even John had come with Amy on his shoulders. Bobbie and Wylie were down on the rocks examining the mussels that clustered on the pier supports.

  “Hey,” John called, when he saw them, “maybe we could find a pail and have mussels for lunch.”

  “I bet it’s not allowed,” Wylie said, looking up at Jane.

  “Oh yes, it’s allowed,” Jane answered, “if you like mussels, go to it, kids.”

  But just then West Wind was sighted in the distance and everyone ran down onto the float and started waving.

  “It’s a perfect day,” Lucy said. “What luck!”

  Every arrival was momentous on the island, as though they had been marooned and were now about to be rescued. Such shouts of joy and hugs and lifting-out of luggage and large containers of the food Captain Fuller had fetched and, of course, the leather mail pouch.

  Frances was helped out by Jane, who treated her like Venetian glass, for Frances did look awfully tall and frail these days, laughing as she nearly stumbled when she stepped down off West Wind.

  “I’m here!” she said, holding fast to Jane’s supporting hand. “How wonderful!”

  Erika was already carrying her bag up, waving off help with a characteristic nonchalance. “I can carry it perfectly well. It’s the briefcase that is heavy.”

  “It will all fit in the wheelbarrow, won’t it, Captain Fuller?” And once on land, it did, so they all walked up slowly, without impediments, while Captain Fuller followed, taking his time. Frances was a little out of breath after climbing the porch stairs.

  “Come and sit on the porch for a minute,” Jane suggested. “It will take a minute for Captain Fuller to get your things stowed away.”

  “Erika is going to do nothing but work,” Frances said, “and I am going to do nothing but sleep and read.”

  “I do have a horrible load of papers,” Erika said, “but I intend to have some swims, willy-nilly.”

  “Splendid! I told the Speedwell boys we’d be down at noon. The water will still be rather cold, I’m afraid. But do let’s go!”

  “I think I’ll just settle in,” Frances decided. “It’s so lovely to be here.…”

  “Maybe a glass of sherry and a biscuit before you go up?”

  “That would be welcome.”

  Was Jane herself aware of some almost imperceptable changes in the customs of the island? No liquor had been served in her parents’ day. Now there was always a bottle of sherry to be produced on special occas
ions, and most of the older guests, like Frances Thompson, brought bottles of Scotch or Bourbon in their luggage.

  But for the moment the four sipped infinitesimal glasses of sherry, while Erika and Frances heard the island news, and promised to look in on Nancy, who had before her marriage taught at Warren, so she and Frances were old friends.

  As always when Frances came, there was a complete change in atmosphere. She was a highly charged presence, quite unconsciously a star who brought out Jane’s homage and chivalry as perhaps no one else did. Lucy sometimes resented this. She didn’t like to watch Jane being as deferential as she became when Frances was present. And something in Lucy obviously felt prickly when the conversation became intense. Yet she had to admit that Frances in her eighties was remarkable, still so involved in world affairs, still so caring, still on innumerable committees having to do with education all over the world.

  It made Lucy feel in an odd way diminished, and silent. She had sensed the same atmosphere in Germany, as though Jane were not quite in the same league as Erika and Frances. She had certainly been invaluable through the years of negotiating to get the Nachbarhaus going, but she had not, Lucy had to admit, been at the center of power.

  Here on the island, a tiny microcosm of a world, she was at the center of power, and Lucy sometimes wondered whether anyone really saw with what skill and tact that power was used, by means of how many small decisions and inummerable acts the atmosphere was created in which so many and such various people found rest and nourishment.

  She was thinking these thoughts as she followed Erika and Jane back from the pool, where they had all had a glorious swim and were now hurrying back, late as usual for dinner, as it was after one. Then, as their animated voices preceded her, Erika saying how amazing Frances was, Lucy admonished herself not to be as defensive as she felt about Jane. For Jane was clearly both happy and at ease, and that, after all, was what mattered. On the island Jane flourished because here all her gifts could be used. Here she was empowered.

  Nancy was striking the three-tiered Japanese gong on a long rope that announced every meal as they walked into the house.

  “Ah,” Jane called out. “She’s up and downstairs!”

  “And high time,” Nancy laughed.

  “We’ll start without Sarah,” Jane told Annie, “she’ll be along soon.”

  Sarah slipped into her chair just as Jane was saying grace. “Benedictus bendicant,” she said with a smile. “Short because we are all starving.”

  And for a moment all eyes were fixed on the haddock as Jane very carefully sliced and passed along one portion after another and Lucy passed the vegetables, summer squash, and mashed potatoes.

  “John is having trouble with the stove,” Sarah explained. “I wanted to help him get it started. They’ve got a big pail of mussels to cook.”

  Nancy looked around the table and said, “It has been a blessed time, a respite, but I’ll go down right after lunch and hear all the news, especially what mussels taste like!”

  “They’ve been doing very well,” Sarah said reassuringly. “Amy had a swim in the shallow end of the pool this morning.”

  “I can’t believe that baby is old enough to swim!” Frances said.

  “She paddles like a little dog.” Nancy smiled across at Frances, who was eager to hear about all the children, and also about Nancy’s job at the kindergarden.

  “Even those little kids are aware of the war,” she was saying, “and it’s hard to explain what is happening.”

  “Awfully hard,” Frances said earnestly, “especially since we ourselves don’t know what is happening, do we?”

  “It’s a horrible war,” Erika said, “horrible.”

  “I feel sometimes it will never end … that we are being sucked into quicksand,” Nancy said.

  “As indeed we are,” Frances was quick to agree. “We are busy destroying a civilization, for what? The chimera of communism!”

  “Has a war ever been stopped by people rising up against it?” Nancy asked. “I mean after Kent State surely people must see that it’s not possible, that something is cracking inside the country.”

  “But how to end it? No government can afford to admit defeat, and we have five hundred thousand men now engaged,” Lucy said. “I really feel for Johnson these days.”

  “He won’t be re-elected, that’s for sure,” Erika said.

  “I wonder.” Frances was leaning forward in her chair, intensely absorbed by the conversation. “It is rare to change administrations in the middle of a war—some would think not possible—even after Kent State and all the violence of feeling in the colleges and universities.”

  And so the discussion went on through dessert and coffee, until they parted to go and have naps and Sarah and Nancy to go down to the little house.

  It was hard to keep quiet after the disturbing talk. Lucy and Jane, lying on their beds, did not feel able to relax for a while.

  “What am I going to do without you?” Jane said, looking across at Lucy. “You always manage to pour oil on troubled waters.”

  “Do I? I hardly said a word.”

  “I know, but somehow when you are there it creates an island of peace even when the discussion gets hot. Isn’t Frances amazing? She is just as intense and involved as she ever was.”

  “Yes.” Lucy thought this over. “But so are you. And you never make one feel guilty and upset.”

  Jane sat up. “That’s it,” she said. “I never have admitted it, but you’re right. It’s that intensity. I always feel attacked by it. But,” she added, “it’s wrong, for that is not what Frances intends, Lucy. That is not in her mind at all.”

  “But that is sometimes her effect. Nancy looked so relaxed when we got back from the pool, but I saw how tense and upset she was at the end.”

  “I’m not a very good lion tamer, am I?” Jane chuckled. “I wanted to change the subject, but I didn’t know how.” She lay back then and crossed her arms under her head, looking up at the ceiling. “We can’t shut out the world, Lucy. The island just has to be able to contain everything, I feel, and still give all these warriors a chance to rest.”

  “You do manage that, you know.”

  “The island does it.”

  “Yes, but you hold so many threads in your hands, Jane. You hold it all together and make it work.”

  Jane sighed. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. We’d better have a rest if we can. I’m still all stirred up, I must confess.”

  After tea Jane for once went off alone to the formal garden to do a little weeding and thinking. She was so rarely alone that it seemed a peculiar pleasure to get out tools and a basket and set to, thinking of Muff, for this garden had been her particular pride and pleasure. When a thrush began to sing, high up in a tall copper beech, and Jane answered him with as thrushlike a sound as she could muster, it seemed a perfect moment. She was so absorbed, her back bent over the flower bed, extricating the frail salpiglossis from an invasion of spreading weeds, that she did not hear footsteps on the grass.

  “Hi!” It was Tom, she saw, as she straightened up. “Want a job?” she asked. “It’s always a mystery to me why weeds are so much stronger than flowers!”

  “I don’t want a job,” he said, smiling at her, and Jane was amazed, as she looked up, at how tall he had grown in a year. “We’ve worked pretty hard on that boat of Sarah’s, you know.”

  He sat down on the bench and looked around, not at all self-conscious at watching Jane work; but having started, she was determined to finish at least the front so the border would look less ragged. “I’ll just keep at it,” she murmured.

  Then there was a silence and Jane sensed that maybe what Tom wanted was to talk about something. She really didn’t want to stop, but after flinging a last bunch of weeds into the basket, she straightened up. “I guess I’ll give my ancient back a rest and sit down a minute myself.” And so she did. “You’ll be off to college before we know it, Tom. Do you remember when you were a kid how fiercely w
e played parcheesi one rainy day?”

  “I hate losing,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance, but not amused. “I still do.”

  “Well, I hear you’re doing awfully well in school. You’re not a loser now.”

  “Oh school … that’s nothing,” he said, rubbing his knee as though to rub out something there.

  “What’s on your mind, Tom?”

  “I don’t really know. That’s the trouble. I can’t seem to connect.”

  “It must seem sometimes like a rather long journey ahead,” Jane ventured.

  “It’s not that. It’s that I don’t have the foggiest idea what I want to be or to do with my life. I don’t have a destination if it’s a journey, a life, I mean. You have to have some idea where you are going, don’t you?”

  Jane considered this for a moment. “I didn’t have the foggiest idea either when I was your age. I found out only in college, I guess, that I wanted to be a teacher more than anything.”

  “My parents are just too damned good!” he exploded then. “I’m tired of all the good deeds and everything. I would like to make a lot of money and not give it to the poor Africans! I’m sick and tired of worrying about conscientious objectors. We never have a meal in peace these days.” Then he added bitterly, “Everyone expects so much of me because I’m the oldest. Those brats are never off my neck!”

  Jane couldn’t help smiling at this outburst, it was so natural. Amy and Bobbie, the late arrivals, must have been hard to take. “It’s no joke being the oldest,” she said. Then she was thoughtful, looking out through the trees at the field and the brilliant sunlight there. “Would you like to go away to school, I mean for these last two years? Would that help?” Then she laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Not you, my dear. I was just remembering that Yeats poem about the cat and tame hare who he says ‘eat at my hearth and sleep there,’ and he prays to God ‘to ease his great responsibilities.’ It’s amusing because cat and tame hare are hardly great responsibilities.… I am not making sense,” she said. But she was still amused by what had flown into her head, a poem Marian had often quoted with a twinkle in her eye whenever things got to be overwhelming at school. “What about a last two years away from home?”