The Magnificent Spinster

by May Sarton

  The trust fund her father had left for the general maintenance took care to some extent of the three year-round men who worked there, and of the boats. The trust was run by a board composed of members of the family who made all major decisions together. Jane swallowed a smile as she considered how much heat had been generated over the golf greens. Some members felt that it was an unnecessary expense to keep the grass cut, but John and Daisy, who liked to play golf, were upset and it was finally decided to do a rough job, just enough so a real aficionado could still play, although Pappa would have snorted at how inadequate it was. “Only a lunatic would play there now,” he might have said. Sarah, on the other hand, felt it was worth all the work because a few exquisite harebells grew along the edges and would be swallowed by long grass if the greens were not kept cut.

  Jane was interrupted by the sound of feet on the back porch. Bobbie, with Amy in tow, thundered in. “It’s awfully wet out,” he announced. “Here’s the boat I borrowed.”

  “Well, thanks to that plastic bag, it’s dry as a bone. Thanks, Bobbie.”

  Amy had gone over to Alix’s bear, which sat in a small rocker dressed in a middy blouse, and held it in her arms. “My bear wanted to come so badly,” she said, “to say good-bye, but I was afraid he would catch a cold.”

  “You look like an owl,” Bobbie said to Jane.

  “I do?” Jane wondered why, then realized it was her horn-rimmed glasses and couldn’t resist giving several owl-like hoots before she took them off. This reduced Amy to helpless laughter. “We might send your bear a message,” Jane suggested. “I’ll see if I can find a postcard.” And she turned back to the desk to rummage around in a pigeonhole where there should be a card.

  “Mummy said to tell you that if convenient we would be ready to leave at eleven,” Bobbie interrupted.

  “Good, I’ll tell Captain Fuller right away. He held off going for the mail and he’ll be anxious to know.” When the call was made, and Jane had looked at her watch and realized they had better hurry, she asked Amy what they might tell her bear. They decided after several tries on “See you next summer, dear Bear,” and this was written in Jane’s beautiful round hand. “How shall I sign it?”

  “Yourself.”

  “Well, maybe Aunt Reedy for Alix’s bear.” When that had been accomplished and the postcard had been carefully stowed in Amy’s pocket, Jane said, “Now kids, you’d better go back. Tell your mother I’ll meet you at the dock in about twenty minutes.”

  Jane took a slicker from the hall closet and put a pair of scissors in her pocket with which to cut seven sprigs of spruce for the seven buttonholes on her way down, and went in to see how Erika and Frances were getting on and to warm her hands at the fire, for they were quite stiff from the cold in the office.

  “I hate to see them go,” she said. “It doesn’t seem possible that a whole week has flown … nor for that matter that the English family will be here tomorrow.”

  “How do you ever keep it all sorted out?” Erika asked.

  “Oh, I don’t even try. I seem to get along very well by not looking ahead more than a day at a time!” Her eyes twinkled. “Then it’s all a surprise,” she added. “Next week is the distant future. The present is what matters … and I had better run or I’ll lose it.”

  It was a wet search for perfect little tips of spruce, for as Jane reached up to cut, water poured down from the branch and trickled down her nose and felt very cold.

  Captain Fuller had the curtains up on West Wind, she noted, as she came out on the pier. No sails out today, only a few motor launches and fishing boats.

  Sarah was the first to emerge from the path, laden like a camel with boxes and bags of this and that. Then John, with a pipe in his mouth and an enormous rucksack on his back with Amy’s bear sitting on top of it, covered by someone’s jacket. Then Nancy, not carrying anything, Amy’s hand in hers, and finally Bobbie, Wylie, Sylvie, and Tom, each with a canvas tote bag swinging along.

  “There you all are,” Jane said, “a sight for sore eyes. You look like pilgrims, a medieval band on their way—where, I wonder?”

  “It’s awfully wet,” Tom said rather crossly. “Why did it have to rain?”

  “Much better to leave on a rainy day,” Sylvie answered, smiling at Jane. “It would be too hard on a beautiful day.”

  “I do hate to say good-bye,” Jane said as they reached the float down the long gangway, and she slipped a sprig of spruce into each buttonhole or pocket, and, when she came to Nancy, gave her a warm hug. “It’s only till next summer,” she said then.

  “I’ll be thirteen,” Bobbie said. “It’s a whole year away.”

  “And I’ll be six,” Amy lamented, close to tears, Jane saw. So she lifted her up and swung her around and set her down again, laughing.

  “All aboard,” Captain Fuller called.

  And then it was all much too quick as they passed him all the bundles and boxes and finally scrambled in themselves.

  Sarah untied the rope and threw it to John, and very slowly West Wind turned out into the bay, with everyone standing and waving, until they were out of sight and Jane and Sarah stood on the float alone, stood for a moment in the sudden immense silence.

  “Well done,” Jane said then. “They really did have a good week, didn’t they?”

  “A splendid week,” Sarah said, “though I worked them pretty hard to get Siren in the water.” She chuckled. “Sylvie and Tom learned quite a lot about caulking and painting, maybe more than they wanted to learn.”

  “Well, dearie, what next? I guess we’d better go down to the little house this afternoon, check the stores down there, take fresh linen down.”

  “It’s a perfect day for a snooze, so don’t think of going till after tea. I’ll meet you down there.”

  It was not possible, Jane realized, to say in words to Sarah what a comfort she had become. But it was much in her mind as they walked up to the house together in companionable silence. Whatever tensions there sometimes were in the apartment in Cambridge, here on the island she and Sarah were in perfect accord. Little by little, Sarah was taking on more of the work to be done, and especially where the English families were concerned, for after Muff died she had become an intimate part of their lives in winter as well as in summer, something between a beloved governess and a mother, Jane thought, glancing over at Sarah as they walked. She had not changed in the ten years or more since they moved into the barn, looked amazingly young and boyish still, a timeless person. But such a reserved one, so deep inside herself, that even now Jane found it difficult to show the real affection she felt. Perhaps it was also, she considered, as Sarah went off by herself, no doubt to see that Siren was all right, that gratitude is the hardest emotion to express—and why was that? Marian would have known the answer. “I guess it is,” Jane told herself, “that I am a rather prickly character when it comes to independence. I don’t really like being dependent … so it is hard for me to admit it.”

  It flashed through her consciousness then, one of those moments when something in the past is suddenly illuminated by something in the present, that maybe just that reluctance had been at the root of Marian’s withdrawal in London so long ago … perhaps she, too, found it next to impossible to admit the financial help Jane was providing to make that summer possible. Acknowledging that possibility brought Marian very close again, and Jane, on a wave of happiness, burst into an old French song she had sung with the children in Normandy.

  The rain had almost stopped, she noted. But she must resist the temptation to walk down to the vegetable garden and must finally get the desk in order and those bills paid. There was a whole blessed hour before lunchtime and this time she would not be interrupted. “Perfect peace,” she said aloud to Alix’s bear as she swiveled her chair around and began to sort papers out, and to jot down things “not to forget” on a little pad as they rose into her consciousness. “I must remember to write a birthday word to Laurel Whitman,” and that was noted down and underlined. In f
act, it might be best to do it right away and get it done.

  The problem on the rare days when Jane could work in the office was the number of things that should be cleared away, and this morning she finally bogged down as she went through a pile of requests for money, from Appalachia, from Africa, where there was starvation, and twenty or more others to be considered. She wondered sometimes if, in her father’s day, he too had had to cope with quite so many needs?

  The whole room had filled in the last half-hour with desperate human voices … and the hardest thing was to make choices. This was almost the only thing now that made Jane feel exhausted, and when she had done all she could, she got up and stretched her long arms and then took refuge in the warm kitchen to have a little talk with Annie, since Erika and Frances had gone upstairs, and the fire was almost out.

  “What is that heavenly smell?” she asked. “Chocolate something?”

  “Brownies,” Annie said, smiling. “I sometimes think you have a chocolate nose, Miss Jane.”

  “Ah,” Jane said, inhaling the chocolate-scented air, “smelling them is almost as good as eating one.”

  They had a long talk after supper about Vietnam, and read aloud an editorial from the Times. It was after ten when Jane got to bed. For a moment before she fell asleep it occurred to her that one of these days Esther, the daughter of one of her Vassar classmates, and her family would arrive in their boat and tie up overnight at the main dock. Esther and Dick were very independent, almost never came up to the house for a meal. Jane well understood their love of a gypsy holiday, and she herself rather enjoyed an arrival for which she had no responsibility for a change. Her last thought was about Tony, the little boy, who had had pneumonia in the spring, and whether they would be able to make the trip this year.

  She was fast asleep, and had been for hours when she thought she heard a hesitant tap on her door, waited a second, and was sure she heard it again.

  “What’s that? Who’s there?” When she opened the door a flashlight in her eyes blinded her. Who in heaven’s name could it be at one in the morning?

  “Aunt Reedy, thank goodness I got the right door.”

  “Esther! Good heavens, child, what’s up?” Jane whispered.

  “It’s Tony. He has a temperature of a hundred and five. I’m terrified that he has pneumonia again.”

  Half asleep still, Jane acted from some subconscious level. “You’re tied up at the dock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me think.” Then after a moment, “Come downstairs. I think I can reach a doctor in Northeast Harbor.” So they tiptoed down to the office.

  “You’ll freeze without a wrapper,” Esther said, for Jane was in pajamas.

  “Never mind. I’ll dress if we can find him and if he can meet the boat at Northeast … it would take about a half-hour. Is it still raining?” she asked as she found the phone, Esther holding the flashlight so she could see to dial.

  “No. It’s foggy, though.”

  “Not good.”

  The doctor did answer, bless his heart, and after talking with Esther agreed to meet them at the dock in Northeast in three-quarters of an hour.

  “Oh, what a relief!” Esther said, tears in her eyes now.

  “I’ll take a candle up and be down in five minutes,” Jane said. “It’s going to be all right, dearie.”

  It was strange how shock can slow one down, Jane thought, as it seemed to take an eternity to dress, and in spite of her comforting tone with Esther, she could not help wondering how they would make it through the fog. Did they have a powerful light on the lobster boat? She tried to remember what buoys to look for once they were in the sound. Dick would have a map, she supposed. What felt like hours later they were setting out, Jane with a powerful flashlight because they had, as she had feared, no floodlight on the boat.

  Luckily Dick had got the Tiny Tot stove going in the cabin and it was very warm, lit by an oil lamp. Jane had to laugh when she saw that not only little Tony was in there, all wrapped up and very pink in the face, but also a basket of kittens. “We couldn’t leave them,” Sonny said.

  “It is rather a gypsy caravan, I’m afraid,” Dick said. “We’d better get going.” He decided that Jane could stand on the ten-inch wash deck beside the cabin and light the way with her flashlight while he was at the wheel on top of the cabin, “my flying bridge,” he called it. Sonny and Esther sat down on the deck, leaning against the cabin door.

  “Bear left a little,” Jane called up as Dick righted the boat after the turnabout from the dock and crept into the fog.

  It was pretty scary, she had to admit, with visibility very poor indeed. But there was nothing to do now but do the best they could and just hope.… And farther out across the sound the fog lifted, what a miracle! So they made it to the town dock guided in at the end by the lights of a car, which must be the doctor’s, Jane thought.

  And indeed it was. Dr. Sherman turned out to be very young, and not at all dismayed by having been routed out in the middle of the night. “Let me see that boy,” he said at once. And congratulated Dick on the warmth in the cabin when he went down. “It’s pretty chilly outdoors.”

  Tony looked at him with drowsy eyes, as he sat down on the bunk, “Who are you?” he asked in a sleepy voice. “Please go away and let me sleep. I am awfully sleepy.”

  “It’s the doctor, Tony.”

  “My legs hurt,” Tony said. “I think I’m sick.”

  The cabin was awfully hot, and Jane took Sonny out on deck with her while the examination proceeded. When it was over the doctor suggested they go outside. He laid a cool hand on Tony’s forehead and said, “You’re going to be all right, son. Now you go back to sleep.”

  “Well?” Esther asked, when they were all outside in the cool darkness.

  “My guess is that it’s a virus, not pneumonia. The temperature is high—you were quite right to call me—but I expect it to go down within twenty-four hours. But he can’t stay on this boat.”

  “Where can we go?” Esther asked. “We were on our way north—it’s a holiday.”

  Jane had been listening intently and wondering where she could bed them down, all four. Why not Edith’s house? Angela would not be coming for a week or so.… “I think I can put you up, dearies,” she said.

  “Oh Aunt Reedy, that would be wonderful!” Esther breathed.

  “It seems like an awful imposition,” Dick said.

  “It’s a bit of luck that the nieces and family won’t be coming till a week or so. Of course we can manage. She turned to the doctor. “Do you think Tony would be warm enough in the boat till tomorrow? It will take a bit of organizing, you know, to open a cold house and get fires going.”

  “Oh, he’ll be better off tonight right where he is,” the doctor said reassuringly. “I wouldn’t think of moving him in this night air.”

  “Good,” Jane said, “so all we have to do now is get back to Wilder.”

  “Wilder, is it? I’ve always wanted to land on your island. Maybe I could pop over tomorrow and see how Tony is getting on.”

  “Could you?” Esther said. “Oh, how kind that is of you!”

  “Glad to do it. Now you keep the boy warm. Keep him on liquids and I’ll be over in the afternoon after my office hours.”

  “Good night, then, or rather good morning,” Dick said, “and so many thanks.”

  They watched the doctor’s flashlight cast a beam on the car, then the car lights go on, and he was off and away. They were alone in the dark while Dick fiddled with the motor, but finally it did start. Jane took up her position; Sonny went to the bow and Esther down to the cabin, where Tony fortunately had fallen asleep.

  “We are homing pigeons,” Jane said as they rounded the dangerous turn and just missed a buoy. “It does seem a lot easier now.”

  It was three o’clock when Jane got to bed again in the silent house. She did not feel tired, only elated that the whole expedition had been brought off. Wonderful what the adrenal gland will do! But the pr
oblem now was to get it to quiet down. It was dawn before she had got all the logistics together in her mind about the morning. She must call Bruce before seven and tell him to bring the jeep down to the dock so Tony could be driven to Edith’s house. And also carry up their provisions, sleeping bags and such. But finally, as the first birds were cheeping, she fell asleep, with the alarm set for half-past six.

  “What an adventure!” was her last conscious thought.

  It was a great comfort next morning to find Sarah and Annie having their breakfast when she went down in her wrapper to call Bruce. She had quite a tale to tell as she drank down a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. On occasions like this, Sarah’s quiet efficiency and imagination were simply invaluable and Jane gladly let her take the reins in her hands. The English family were expected at noon, but Sarah would take charge there. “And we’ll have the Wellens settled in long before that,” she said. “What time did you say we’d go down and move them?”

  “I think I said nine. It all seems like a dream now, so I’m not sure. But I know I told Bruce nine, so that’s it.”

  “My guess is they’ll sleep late, so if we go down at nine, all will be well.”

  “Miss Jane,” Annie intervened, “you just go up and have an hour’s sleep … that’s what you need.”

  “Oh,” Jane laughed, “I’ll never wake up if I do. I’ll have a good breakfast and a hot bath and that will do the trick.”

  By next day, a brilliant morning, everything was smooth sailing: the Wellens settled in and Tony feeling a lot better; the English family happily ensconced in the little house and Christopher, their eldest, delighted to find a playmate his age in Sonny Wellen. Dick planned to take them fishing in the lobster boat, and Jane came down to breakfast after eight singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” and quite herself again.