…It was perhaps a week later that the telephone rang just before midnight. She had worked ever since her solitary, eight o’clock dinner, drawing in meticulous detail the rooms of her house. Merely because she would be alone in it did not mean it would have only a few rooms, not at all. She wanted her interests separated by walls and spaces, the library separated from the music room, and especially she wanted a contemplation room whose semicircular windows encompassed the sea. She could not imagine how she would furnish this room, but when the time came she would know—and of course there must be the usual rooms for sleep and food and service, but where she dined must be open to gardens and where she slept must be open to the stars.
In the midst of total absorption she heard the muted telephone ringing persistently. Her daughter, she supposed, who, married long before Arnold died, made it a habit to call late at night, on the supposition that her mother lived a life violently social, whereas the fact was that she lived almost as a recluse, making excuse that she had not recovered from Arnold’s death. Thus prepared to hear Millicent’s high and silvery voice, she was unprepared to hear quite another, an impetuous baritone which she instantly recognized as belonging to Jared Barnow.
“It’s fearfully late, I apologize, but my little plane is grounded—something wrong in the engine—and it just occurs to me that this city, which has always been for me an adjunct to the airport, is in reality the place where you live. I could take a room at a hotel. On the other hand—”
He broke off expectantly and she quickly filled in the pause.
“Of course, come here. Have you dined?”
“Yes, in some other city. I’m due in New York tomorrow, but I don’t wish to go ahead and leave my little machine alone, not until I know what’s wrong. I don’t like tinkering strangers.”
“Come along, then. You’ll take a cab, of course—and the man will know the way. You have the address?”
“Do you think I could forget it? I’ll be there. Sure you’re not in bed?”
“I am here, respectably clothed and in my library.”
He laughed and hung up.
She sat thoughtful for moments. The day had turned chill in the deceptive early summer and she heard a spatter of rain against the wide glass doors that led to the east terrace. The fire was laid as usual in the great chimney piece and she rose and touched a match. No, she decided, she would not change her gown. She had chosen this one for herself, a green silk, a soft material and easy in its cut. Part of her new independence was choosing her garments for herself. Arnold had never liked green, her favorite color, the color of life and springtime and youthfulness of spirit, and the apple green of this gown was the one she liked best among the many shades of green. And then, to signify her new indifference, a manifestation of independence, she went back to the writing table upon which the plan of her house was taking form, and began to work as though he had not called.
She was absorbed enough, in spite of a secret excitement which she suppressed, so that in less than a hour, when he appeared at the door of the library, whither he had been ushered by her previous order, she forgot the intervening time.
“How good to see you,” he exclaimed, holding out both his hands for hers.
“Thank you for thinking of me when your plane came down,” she said, aware that he was holding her hands firmly, aware of his dark eyes warmly upon her, aware of his smile, frankly joyous. He was taller, younger, more sophisticated than she remembered him in ski clothes. She was acutely aware of his arm about her shoulders as they walked to the chairs by the fire and she drew herself gently away from his grasp and was shocked to discover herself uncertain as to how to proceed, confused merely by his touch. How stupid of me, she thought, as if so slight a gesture today had any meaning! She seated herself opposite him, unable to think of what to say, and so said nothing, but smiled at him, whereupon he began.
“I must say this is a different setting for you, and very becoming. I like these great old houses. One doesn’t see them very often. Is it lonely for you here?”
She shook her head. “I have enough to do.”
“What, for example?”
She was not prepared, however, to tell him about the new house and she replied lightly. “Oh, music, friends, books, or just—reorganizing myself for a new life.”
“No worthy causes and so forth?”
“A few charities my husband was interested in, and in which I am not.”
“I can’t see you a lady bountiful.”
She maneuvered the conversation away from herself, which was easily done, for he was staring into the fire as though for moments he forgot her and she did not wish to be forgotten.
“Tell me what you are doing now. I’ve only thought of a skier.”
He came back to her. “I? Well, I came here to see a man who lives not too far away—a scientist—engineer fellow, who dreams of combining the disciplines to focus them on medical problems. Doctors, especially surgeons, are extraordinarily old-fashioned in technological ways. They keep on using antiquated tools—you wouldn’t believe—well, the idea of modernizing medical, especially surgical, instruments through the new engineering techniques fascinates me. I’m a bit of an idealist, I daresay. It gives me satisfaction to imagine that an invention of mine might save a life instead of just, adding gold to the coffers of a multimillionaire—or blowing someone on the other side of the world to bits.”
She was not prepared for this sudden submersion into his thinking and she had no wish to pretend to understand what he was talking about. Her own defense against this new and all but overpowering awareness of his physical being was to comprehend his mind, his swiftly moving, brilliant, perhaps moody mind, as she vaguely surmised. It occurred to her now that she was beginning to see dimly the real man, not the young skier who came out of the snows and into her house in the mountains of Vermont. He was looking about the room now and restlessly, as though in search, and suddenly he shivered.
“Have you something I could drink—something burning hot? I’ve caught cold up there in the upper regions. Stupidly I forgot to bring an extra jacket.”
“Of course,” she said, and touched a button. “I don’t think Weston is upstairs yet.”
Her elderly houseman came at her call and she spoke to him in her usual kindly but distant fashion.
“Weston, Mr. Barnow is catching cold. Can you make him something hot?”
“Certainly, madame,” the man replied.
“And, Weston, I suppose the green room is ready for guests?”
“Always, madame.”
“Turn down the bed for Mr. Barnow, will you?”
“Certainly, madame. Will Mr. Barnow be here for breakfast?”
“Yes—and perhaps longer.”
“Very well. Thank you, madame.” He made his old-fashioned bow and went away.
“This is your setting,” Jared said.
“Ah, you don’t know me,” she replied.
“No? But I shall, in time!”
“Is there time? You are young and very busy. And I have—dreams of my own.”
“I must be in them.”
He made the declaration boldly, so confident of her approval that in herself she felt withdrawal, almost distaste, even while she was aware again of his physical beauty. She withdrew from that, too, abruptly.
“Tell me what you meant a moment ago when you spoke of combining disciplines.”
He was leaning back in his easy chair, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes closed. Now he sat up abruptly and opened his eyes.
“What do you know about medical engineering?” he inquired.
“Nothing,” she said promptly. “It must be something new, since my father’s time.”
“Relatively new,” he agreed.
“Then please be simple.”
He laughed. “Simply, then, it’s this: the medical men have been and are extraordinarily backward in the new disciplines of mathematics, physics and engineering. Yet they are working with life
systems, without enough of the research that is essential if they are to do their work successfully. The very instruments upon which they depend for accuracy of diagnosis and healing are often so old-fashioned as to be obsolete. Medical scientists are becoming aware of this and some universities are creating departments of bio-medical engineering. But that’s a neither-fish-nor-fowl sort of thing so far, in my opinion, only creating men for jobs that won’t exist after a few years. I have a different approach to such interdisciplinary activity and that’s what I wanted to talk to this fellow about. He’s a pioneer in the field. I wish your father were alive. He’d be the one I’d be seeing first.”
“He’d like you,” she said.
“And I’d have worshipped at his feet! There’s no mind alive today that equals his. Why do the great ones die young?”
“Trying to save the world,” she replied. “He was on his way to Japan, to help the Japanese rebuild the cyclotron we destroyed during the world war.”
“I know. I read about it,” he said.
There was a knock at the door and Weston appeared with a tall mug of steaming liquid.
“Toddy, sir,” he said in his high old voice.
“Thanks,” Jared said, and taking the glass he sipped its contents. “Ah, that’s good. It goes straight into my bones.”
“Yes, sir. Good night, sir. Good night, madame. Everything is in order.”
“Thank you, Weston, and good night.”
The door closed behind him and they were silent. Jared sipped the toddy, his mind absent, as she could see, and she did not try again to recall him. She sat quietly looking at him while he gazed into the fire, sipping until the mug was empty. Then he set it down and turned to her apologetically.
“Forgive me. I’m not a good guest tonight. When I have a problem on my mind—”
She interrupted him. “But I understand. I shouldn’t like you to feel as though you had to entertain me. I was thinking, myself.”
“Of what?”
Impossible to say the truth—“Of you!” She was too shy for that bold truth. She spoke lightly and rose from the chair.
“I was thinking you should go to your bed and sleep away your cold. Your room is the first door on the right, at the head of the stairs. If you find you need anything in the night, press the button, on the telephone that says W. It connects with Weston’s room.”
“What a palace,” he said. He had risen when she rose and now he stood tall above her, and looked down upon her, smiling, and she looked up at him, uncertain of what was next. It was he who decided, abruptly and frankly.
“Do you mind if I kiss you?”
She shook her head, but was speechless, helpless in absurd shyness. A kiss was meaningless, a kiss was nothing nowadays, a kiss could be no more than a casual gift to one’s hostess. Ah, but it took two, one to give; one to receive! She felt his lips on her right cheek, and then lightly, very lightly, he turned her head with his two palms, and she felt his lips upon hers, a quick brush of warmth.
“Good night,” he said. “What time is breakfast?”
“Whenever you like,” she said, as casually as though there had not been this kiss which lay upon her lips a living coal.
“When do you breakfast?” he demanded at the door.
“At nine o’clock.”
“Good heavens, what a lie-abed!”
He pretended to be shocked and she laughed.
“Good night,” she called as he mounted the stairs. “Sleep well in that room! It was mine when I was a girl.”
She was sleepless for hours that night, and when she woke it was nearly ten o’clock the next morning. Her first thought was of him and she rang the kitchen. Weston answered.
“Has Mr. Barnow breakfasted?” she asked.
“Yes, madame, at eight o’clock sharp and left immediately, begging your pardon. He wrote you a note, madame—I put it on the breakfast table for you.”
She hung up, blaming herself. How could she have slept away the last hour of his presence? She made haste to shower and dress and, taking her seat at the table in the sunny breakfast room, she found his note under her plate.
“I am sorry to leave in this discourteous fashion, but I had an early call from the man I came to see. I am to meet him at nine o’clock in his laboratory. I have barely time to make it. My plane will be ready at noon. I shall be flying back to you one of these days. Here is my telephone number—and my thanks. Wonderful to see you again! Jared.”
She studied the handwriting. It was large and firm and very black.
…Summer moved into midsummer. Or was it only she who so lazily moved? In this first summer since Arnold’s death—he had died in the autumn of last year—she found herself given over to a lassitude that was far from empty. Indeed, it seemed to her that she had never enjoyed so richly the sensuous air, the scintillating clarity of sunshine, the lush glory of the flowers and foliage. Since she had not yet fulfilled the year of traditional mourning for her husband she had excuse to decline all invitations she did not wish to accept and to accept only those she did not wish to decline. Once or twice a week she went out to dinner or luncheon with some old friend of hers or Arnold’s, and on the intervening days she cleared from the house the last of Arnold’s personal possessions, his clothes, his pipes, his papers. When this was done, she took up her music again, and seriously, so that several hours a day were occupied at the piano, and other hours were spent in reading books.
She was only beginning to realize now that Arnold had absorbed her life, not purposely but quite naturally and always gently, or perhaps she had been too yielding in allowing herself to be thus absorbed. At any rate, she found a number of small desires to be fulfilled, certain garments, certain colors she had always wanted to wear and for which Arnold had expressed distaste; certain arrangements of the furniture which he had not approved, he being constitutionally opposed to change; even certain foods to which she had been tempted and which he had declared indigestible. Each liberty she now took for herself released her further until she no longer questioned anything she chose to do, as she had done instinctively and by long habit in the first months after Arnold’s death.
“You have changed,” her son told her on one of his rare and unexpected visits. He lived in Washington with his young wife and their only child, a junior executive in some government department leading to service abroad. She was never quite used to his seemingly sudden development from a sandy-haired rather prosaic little boy to a sandy-haired rather prosaic young man. He had been a good little boy and was now a good young man, touchingly so, she felt at this moment, when his honest blue eyes were fixed affectionately upon her. He had “dropped by,” as he put it, one day in early July, on his way to New York, where he was to meet a minor dignitary from some foreign country.
“How have I changed?” she asked half playfully.
“You look rested—and interested again.”
“Interested in what, Tony?”
“How should I know? Life, I suppose.”
“I am learning to live alone, that’s all.”
He leaned over her and kissed her cheek in farewell, glancing at his watch. “Now don’t you get lonely. Fay and I and the baby can always run up for a few days. Pity that Millicent lives so far away!”
She parried Tony’s suggestion.
“Oh, no—thank you, dear. I must learn to live my own life.”
“Well, let us know—”
He was off and she relapsed into indolence. She sauntered to the terrace upon which the drawing room opened and stretched herself upon a long chair. Indolent, yes, but a productive indolence, she told herself, sorting out life and feeling—feeling as she had not explored feeling since adolescence. The sun, warm upon her skin, enlivened her blood and yet infused it with delicious languor. And why, she inquired of herself, did she continue to dream of another house, a house of her own, when here she was the heir to beauty long inherited? From where she lay, she could see, and did appreciate, the vistas of clean-cut la
wn, tended shrubbery and vast old trees, culminating at a distance in a quiet pool, a fountain, the marble figure of a Grecian woman, installed by her grandfather when these acres, this house, were his inheritance.
This remembrance of Jared, which never left her, quickened into sharp longing of which she was half ashamed. Had he not come so suddenly, had he not left so abruptly, had he not been obsessed by a dream of his own, a dream that obviously had nothing to do with her, had he, in short, visited her wholeheartedly, with whatever intention she could not imagine, then would he not have lingered here, have been beside her in another chair as comfortable as this one in which she lay, warmed by the sun and made languid by beauty? She was too experienced a woman not to comprehend the danger into which she was moving, and more than anger, for it was also absurdity. She would not allow herself to fall in love with a man years younger than herself. Years? Decades—
“Madame, the telephone, please. Person to person,” Weston said at the door.
She rose at once. Of course it was Edwin.
“My love,” his kind old voice said at her ear. “I find it impossible to live any longer without a sight of you. Are you completely obligated to others or dare I suggest a little visit? If it were possible, how gladly I would come to you! Legs could do it, but my heart, an ancient valve, cries danger. I don’t want to become a sudden invalid in your house, although for me it would have pleasant aspects.”
She was not quite prepared for so sudden a move. There was another presence now in her house. On the other hand, might it not be a protection against that invading presence, a reminder of age and dignity, if she visited Edwin for a few days?
The Goddess Abides: A Novel Page 6