The Summer Hideaway

by Susan Wiggs

  “She belongs with me. Damn it, George, we’re in love. Don’t tell me there’s anything wrong with two people being in love.”

  “It’s not love,” George snapped. “You’re infatuated with each other. It’ll fade away—”

  “It’ll last forever. I feel it in my bones. I thought you’d be happy for me.”

  “Happy to see you marching straight into disaster?” George demanded. “I just don’t want you getting hurt.” As he spoke, he wondered if there was another reason for his objection, buried deep inside.

  “What hurts is being apart from Jane,” Charles insisted. “Wait until you fall head over heels in love. Then you’ll understand.”

  George crushed his hand into a fist, rubbed his bad leg hard. “Give it a rest, Charles. You are young. There’s no hurry.”

  “That’s why we’re going to wait until next summer to get married.”

  Married. Charles and Jane, married. “It’s not going to work.”

  “It’s Jane, for God’s sake. We’ve known her forever. We were the Three Musketeers, remember? One for all and all for one.”

  “We were kids, playing a game. This is life. Marriage isn’t a game. It’s playing for keeps. You’ll end up miserable. She’s a domestic, don’t you get that? She comes from nothing. She has no education, no refinements. She’ll drag you down—”

  “Hell’s bells.” Charles glared at him. “At least I’m not a coward. You’re a cripple, George, but not in the way you think. You’re crippled by your own fears.”

  George couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Go to hell,” he said.

  “Say, you just got me all riled up, George. I was going to ask you to be my best man—”

  “Don’t,” George warned him.

  “I won’t,” Charles said. “And I don’t need your blessing. I’d like to have it, but I don’t need it.”

  George was appalled by Charles’s plan. It felt wrong in too many ways to count. But Charles was determined; he forged recklessly ahead, picking out a date the following August, planning an open-air ceremony at Camp Kioga. The guy had stars in his eyes.

  Maybe, thought George, it was Jane who would see reason. Yes. He would talk to Jane, make her see what a mistake this was.

  He waited one evening outside the provost’s residence. It was a cool autumn twilight, the sky heavy with unshed rain. Visitors, faculty and administrators came and went. Then he saw a janitor come around the side of the building and realized the hired help would use a different entrance. He went to the mews behind the row of grand houses and leaned up against an old carriage house that had been converted into a garage. A row of dustbins and garbage cans leaned against the building.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her; they hadn’t seen each other since closing day at camp last summer. He halfway talked himself out of approaching her. Then, just as the lights came on in the windows of the big white house, a few people exited through the back. No one seemed to notice him as they headed to the street.

  He picked out Jane immediately: a slender girl in a dark dress, with an apron and a heavy-looking satchel. Although he didn’t want to feel it, his heart took a leap. She walked slowly, with a shuffling gait. He looked around, seeing students strolling between dining halls and libraries. In sharp contrast to Jane’s somber dress, they looked lively and fashionable in argyles and sweater sets.

  “Jane,” he said, approaching her, trying not to limp.

  “George!” Her face lit with a smile that made him catch his breath. “This is a surprise.”

  He glanced around. Then he felt ashamed for feeling furtive. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I wanted to talk about, uh…” What an idiot. What a tongue-tied idiot.

  She slowed her steps, tilted her head to one side. Something flickered in her face—recognition. Yearning. A tacit acknowledgment of the unspoken emotions that had flown between them last summer…before Charles had commandeered her attention.

  George cleared his throat, battled his nervousness into submission.

  “It’s about Charles,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed. The wind plucked at her apron. The expression on her face indicated that she understood just what the issue was. “Then shouldn’t you be talking to Charles?”

  “He won’t listen.”

  She tossed her head and walked on, leaving the campus behind. George had no choice but to follow her. And a tiny part of him was willing to admit a twinge of curiosity about the way she lived, in a part of New Haven he’d never seen, despite his years as a student. The air smelled of rain, and the wind picked up, ripping dry leaves from the maples lining the streets. Within a few blocks, they came to a working-class neighborhood of nondescript buildings and row houses.

  “Then why come to me?” she demanded.

  “Because you will.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Jane, you understand the way the world works. You know marrying Charles would tear both our families apart.”

  Her face paled. “He told you we were getting married?”

  “Don’t do it, Jane. It would destroy our parents—”

  “Be honest, George. For once in your life, be honest. Tell me what your real objection is.”

  He regarded her, keeping his face devoid of expression, hiding everything. “You don’t really want to know that.”

  The rain started in earnest, sheets of big drops. They took shelter in the doorway of a linen shop that had closed for the day. The breeze lifted her hair in whimsical tendrils, creating a crown of autumn-colored curls. Instead of flinching from his anger, she took a step toward him. There was a terrible unspoken plea in her eyes, a mixture of pain and passion and a longing that mirrored his own. She took another step, and he had the strangest fantasy. The shop window behind her displayed a draped ivory tablecloth, and for a second it resembled a bridal veil, spread out behind her. She stood so close he could practically taste her, the lips full and soft-looking as she said, “Yes, George. I do.”

  With her yes filling him completely, George forgot where he was. He swept his arm protectively around her, and that was his undoing. Her nearness and the feel of her next to him turned into a consuming fire, fed by all the moments of self-denial, finally burned to ashes by the simple, stark honesty of her touch. His will was not his own; desire became a force larger than himself. He could no sooner stop it than he could stop the wind. He grabbed her by the upper arms, hauled her against him and crushed his mouth down on hers. At last, he thought. At last.

  A sound came from her—resistance? Surrender?—and there was a thud as her satchel hit the ground. Her fists dug into his shirt.

  George tried to ease away. This was his brother’s girl. Some small corner of his brain acknowledged that—his brother’s girl.

  But something kept him from letting go.

  Jane. Jane held him there, clutching his shirt, kissing him with the same hunger he felt.

  And then something shifted. A change in the wind, lashing like a ribbon of ice.

  No, he thought. No no no.

  With an effort that felt physically painful, he stepped back, holding her at arm’s length.

  She blinked against the driving wind, and tears streamed from her eyes. “George—”

  “Damn it,” he said, too afraid to hear her out. “We can’t….” He fumbled for the right words. “I came to stop you from marrying my brother.”

  She stared up at him. She looked beautiful, shattered, her eyes begging him for something he didn’t have in him to give. “George,” she said softly. And then even softer, her voice all but drowned in the squeal of the wind. “You know what will stop me.”

  He did know. And it was the one thing he could not offer.

  “Nothing but trouble can come from this,” he said, his heart turning to stone even as he spoke. “Leave the Bellamy family alone, Jane. I’m asking you—”

  “And that,” she said, snapping the spell like a dreamer suddenly disturbed fro
m sleep, “is why I refuse to do as you say.”

  “Jane—”

  She picked up her satchel. “If you care about your brother, you will forget this ever happened.”

  “If you cared about him, you wouldn’t have let me kiss you,” he shouted above the wind.

  “I didn’t let you.”

  “No, you begged me for it.”

  Her face paled to a dull white. “If anyone is going to ruin anything, it’s you, George. Unless you find a way to be the brother Charles needs you to be, then everything will be ruined. You have to understand that I want you—”

  “No,” he said. “Don’t say any more—”

  “I want you,” she persisted, “to be happy for Charles and me. To dance at our wedding as we celebrate our love.”

  “Your love?” he asked incredulously. “Your love?”

  “Charles loves me,” she said. “He’s the one who dared to say it.” With that, she tugged her shawl more tightly around her. Then, in a whirl of wind and icy sleet, she walked away with a curious dignity, her head held high, despite the lash of the rain in her face.

  He called her name but the wind snatched it away. Her words echoed in his head. He’s the one who dared to say it. Even louder was the roar of the words she didn’t say—she had not said that she loved Charles.

  Things were tense for the Bellamy brothers all that winter and into the following spring. George and Charles avoided each other, drifting further and further apart. George had made no secret of his disapproval of Jane. He had been a complete idiot about it, to be sure, but he couldn’t unsay the words he had hurled at Charles. Nor could Charles unsay the things he’d leveled at George—coward. Cripple.

  Ever since then, the brothers had dealt with one another on a perfunctory basis. Their manner toward each other was like an early frost—cold and brittle, though not very deep.

  George’s final year of schooling was challenging, and his plan to go to work abroad materialized. He was offered a chance to work at the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious paper headquartered in Paris.

  Charles was more and more absent from the school social scene. He either didn’t notice or didn’t mind that people gossiped about him for having a “townie” girlfriend. George’s parents found out about the situation and despaired over Charles, but he would not be swayed. The Bellamys clung to the hope that Charles was swept up in an infatuation that would wear off.

  George wasn’t so certain; Charles could be stubborn. George kept his own pain hidden behind a mask of disapproval. He steered clear of the provost’s residence, not wanting to encounter Jane. He still believed Charles was making the mistake of his life with this girl, but he was done trying to interfere.

  Until one windswept night in late March. Winter that year clung to the northeast with stubborn talons. Only the week before, there had been more snow. People worried aloud that springtime would never come. Freezing rain slung itself sideways against George’s window, reminding him inevitably of another stormy night in the fall, and a kiss that still haunted him no matter how many months had passed.

  As an upperclassman, he had the privilege of a single private room on the ground floor. His desk was situated below the single window. A narrow, Spartan bed was set against the opposite wall. He was up late as usual, working on a paper for a demanding professor. The rhythmic clack of his typewriter and the zip of the carriage return accompanied the din of the storm outside.

  At first he didn’t hear the knock at the door. Then the noise penetrated his consciousness, an urgent rapping. Mystified, he opened the door.

  “Jane?”

  “Please, I need to come in.”

  He stepped aside. “You’re soaked to the skin.”

  She was crying, shivering from the cold. “George,” she said through chattering teeth. “Oh, George.”

  “Over here,” he said, grabbing her hand. Her skin was wet and icy cold. “You need to warm up, or you’ll catch your death.” He brought her over to the big iron radiator, which exuded a dry heat. “It’s after midnight. What the hell is going on?”

  She was trembling so much she had trouble speaking. “It’s…it’s Charles. And me. Both of us. We quarreled, and it’s over between us, and the buses aren’t running and I didn’t know where else to go…” She shook with cold and with sobs that seemed to come from the deepest part of her.

  George went to the door, looked one way and then the other. The hallway was completely empty. It was an infraction of the worst degree to have a female in one’s room, though in practice it was quite a common occurrence.

  Not for George Bellamy, though. For him, this was a first.

  To his relief, no one seemed to be around at this hour. He shut the door quietly and turned back to Jane. Her face was pale as milk, her lips a vivid, alarming blue, and she convulsed with shivers.

  He snatched his terry-cloth swimming robe from its hook on the back of the door. “Get out of those wet things,” he said.

  Her hands shook so much she couldn’t unfasten her own buttons.

  “Here,” he said, “let me.”

  His hands were shaking, too. He forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. She wore a shirt dress fastened in the front by nine buttons. He counted them as he worked his way from north to south.

  The soaking wet fabric clung to her chilled skin. He peeled it away, trying to maintain a clinical detachment, not really succeeding. He draped the wet dress over the radiator, and steam rose from it, creating an eerie light in the room.

  Beneath the dress she wore a slip so sheer he could see everything beneath it. Without so much as a beat of hesitation, he peeled this off, as well. And even covered in goose bumps, even shivering and sobbing, she was unbelievably beautiful.

  Swearing between his clenched teeth, he wrapped the big robe around her, held her close and rubbed her vigorously. Water from her dripping hair seeped into the shoulder of his sweatshirt. She felt like heaven in his arms.

  She started to speak in broken phrases but was still too cold and upset for coherence. She had been drinking, too. He could smell the faint, yeasty essence of beer on her.

  And all against his will, he was flooded with desire. He tried to focus on what she was saying. Over and over again she said, “We quarreled. It’s over. He doesn’t love me after all. I’m left with nobody to love me.”

  “Hush,” George said, cradling her head against his chest. “Hush, it’ll be all right.” He knew he ought to ask her what happened with Charles, but the truth was, something else was happening here and he didn’t want to say anything to stop it. He’d let an opportunity slip past before, and he wasn’t about to do it again. Instead he let the soothing, whispered words come without thought. “Hush, Jane, it’ll be all right. I’m here. I love you.”

  Her breath stopped, halting mid-sob. She gazed up at him, her eyes luminous in the glow from the desk lamp. “George?” She offered his name as a question, or maybe a supplication.

  He couldn’t think when she gazed at him like that. All he knew was what his heart told him, with no regard for common sense. He was in love with her. He had been for a long time, but never allowed himself to express it until now. Simply saying the words unlocked a mystery that had hidden inside him all his life. Now he knew for certain what love felt like.

  “Yes,” he said, cradling her face between his hands, talking between kisses. “Yes, it’s true, I love you. I never said anything because of Charles, but now I can tell you—I love you. I always have.”

  The robe parted, and he yanked off his sweatshirt one-handed over his head, filled with a wild need to feel his flesh next to hers. She was still chilled, but soon warmed in the press of his embrace, and within a few moments, a fire flared.

  In the tiny, cramped dorm room, the only place to go was to the bed. He lay her down and kissed her with a long, searing kiss, half-drunk with wanting her. She was everything—the world, the universe, everything. He touched her everywhere and she was still crying, but s
oftly now, and every few moments she would say the words “Please.” And then “Don’t.” And then, “Stop.”

  Please don’t stop.

  George couldn’t have stopped even if he had wanted to. The fire would not be put out. She was everything he’d ever wanted, every dream he’d ever had, and he was not going to stop. Ever.

  The night went on and on. They were by turns urgent and then tender, impossibly slow and irresistibly quick. Emotion and fulfillment flowed like a river between them, and George finally knew the true meaning of ecstasy.

  Did she know she was his first? He’d always been awkward with girls and self-conscious about his bad leg, and he’d never had a serious girlfriend. Now he was glad his heart had made him wait for Jane. He wasn’t certain whether or not she realized that, and whether or not it mattered. At one point—he was sure he had not imagined it—she leaned down and touched his withered thigh, anointing his flesh with her tears.

  George couldn’t be sure he was doing everything right. He was too embarrassed to ask, so he focused on Jane and took his cues from her. If he touched her one way and her breathing changed, or if she made a tiny involuntary sound or clutched at him, he knew he was on the right track.

  He felt drawn to her in so many ways. As kids, they’d clicked together like matching pieces of a puzzle. Even when he was recovering from polio that second summer, when he hated everything in the world including himself, she hadn’t given up on him. She’d forced him to push to the edge of his limitations. To push beyond. When he saw her again last summer, so very different, yet fully recognizable, she’d taken his breath away. So much so that he’d been unable to speak.

  That had been his fatal error. He’d missed his chance with her while Charles stepped boldly in. George regretted that moment so much, the hesitation that had cost him his heart. He would tell her he was sorry. He would spend the rest of his life making it up to her.

  The rest of his life.

  Suddenly the idea of making a life with Jane Gordon did not seem so insane. All his stupid prejudices fell by the wayside. The thought of stepping past artificial barriers erected by his parents struck him as incredibly liberating. No wonder Charles had been so convinced the world would embrace his romance with Jane.