“I have indeed,” Amelia said with affectionate mockery. “And not only hearing! I had a letter from Millicent out in California. She’d had a letter from Tony. Would you like to read her letter? I have it in my bag.”
“No, thank you. If Millicent wants me to know what she thinks, she will write to me herself.”
Amelia closed the handbag she had opened. “She asks me to find out what is going on, but not to trouble you or worry you. But you know me, Edith. I can’t beat around bushes—never have, especially with you.”
“So what did you reply to Millicent?” she asked, evading the bushes.
“I told her that whatever you did was your own business, but if the gossip was true, I thought you were not only lucky but damnably clever and every woman of your age would envy you. After all, Queen Victoria is dead and we’ve buried the Puritans and why should teen-agers have all the fun nowadays?"
They were sitting on the glassed porch, the sun streaming through the eastern windows. The gardener had filled the place with blooming poinsettias for Christmas and in the midst of warmth and light and color it was impossible to be anything but gay.
“Thank you, Amelia,” she said.
She met her friend’s inquisitive look with daring and determination. No, she would not tell Amelia about Jared.
“Is that all?” Amelia asked.
“That’s all,” she said.
“Then there’s no truth to the gossip?”
“There’s never truth to gossip.”
“Have it your own way, my dear,” Amelia said, getting to her feet.
“I intend to,” she said and followed her friend to the door.
…Purposely during the week she reconstructed her usual life. She sat on three boards, of each of which she was a member, she consulted with her attorney over income tax matters in relation to Arnold’s will, she bought herself a sealskin jacket and small hat to match, she opened her belated Christmas presents and wrote notes of thanks. The household moved in its usual ways, surrounding her with care and comfort, and she slept well at night, postponing decision. After all, she told herself, she had not been asked to make a decision. It was possible, perhaps, and why not, simply to go on as she was, welcoming Jared when he came to visit her, accepting this remarkable friendship as a friendship and nothing more.
In this frame of mind two days before New Year’s, she gave directions after breakfast.
“Weston, Mr. Barnow will spend the next few days here.”
“Very well, madame. Shall he be here for dinner?”
“Yes. Please tell cook to begin with fresh oysters. He is fond of them.”
“Yes, madame.”
She went into the greenhouse that opened from the dining room and cut yellow snapdragons and pink carnations which she arranged for the guest room. When this was done she stood, looking about her and imagining him here, asleep in the great old-fashioned bed, or reading in the sitting room of the guest suite. She was in a tranquil mood and at this moment she thought of him with tenderness rather than desire, although she knew that desire waited. She realized, too, his loneliness, not only that he had no family except an old uncle, but the far deeper loneliness of the superior mind, dwelling in distant regions too far beyond the minds of others for ordinary companionship. She had seen her father’s loneliness, had indeed known something of the same loneliness in herself. Few women read the books that she read, or thought such thoughts as hers. Yes, she was quite right in clinging to this friendship. They were two people who communicated, in spite of the difference in their ages. Perhaps this very difference was her protection; if so, let it never be forgotten! Upon this she put away from herself everything except her joy, surely innocent, in his return.
…“Do you mind if I bring someone with me tomorrow?”
His voice, resounding over the telephone that night, seemed to echo through her quiet sitting room. Presuming she would be up late tomorrow night to see the old year out, she had eaten her dinner alone and had then come upstairs to read an hour or so and go to bed early.
“Whom do you wish to bring?” she asked now.
It was the girl, she supposed, and she felt a pang of ridiculous jealousy.
“My uncle, Edmond Hartley,” he said. “He came home unexpectedly this morning with a queer feeling that this might be his last New Year’s Eve, though he’s only sixty-seven, but I don’t like to leave him alone. I’m all he has, you know.”
“Of course, bring him.”
She spoke cheerfully enough, but she was chilled. A stranger, probably worldly wise and discerning, someone against whom she must protect herself! She went to bed disturbed at what could only be an invasion of the privacy in which her friendship with Jared had so far been conducted. She slept fitfully through the night and woke up the next morning late and ordered her breakfast sent to her room. She made no haste over the meal and it was noon before she was dressed for the day, choosing a suit she particularly liked of clear blue wool. Outside the sky was a lowering gray and the grounds, as she saw from her windows, were a darker gray, the trees, trunks and bare limbs, black with dampness. All the more reason, then, for cheer in the house, and when she went downstairs, she lit the lamps and set a match to the logs in the fireplace in the library.
About three, Jared had said, and promptly at three she saw his small car turn into the wide space, between the stone pillars at the far end of the driveway. She had waited in the library, reading desultorily, and was surprised when his uncle was ushered into the library by Jared himself. She was surprised for he, Jared, had not prepared her for this handsome debonair man, tall and slim, his silver-white hair shining above a tanned face, a trim white beard, and bright blue eyes. He came forward with outstretched hands and she rose and felt her own hands clasped in a warm handshake.
“Ah, Mrs. Chardman,” he exclaimed. “This is an imposition, an interruption, but my nephew insisted that I must come with him or he would stay with me, disrupting your plans, which I could not and would not allow. Besides, I was curious about you.”
She recovered herself sufficiently to withdraw her hands gently. “Now I am curious about you,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll want to go to your rooms first after so long a drive. Jared, Weston has put your uncle next to you. You’ll share the sitting room between you.”
Thus she dismissed them for the moment, with a smile and glance for Jared, and waited downstairs. Three o’clock was an awkward hour, she decided, left to herself, a space equidistant between luncheon and dinner, and the hours ahead suddenly became a burden. Three instead of two, and she could not devote herself either to Jared or his uncle! But now Jared came in alone, and stooped to lay his cheek against her hair.
“I’m leaving you to my uncle,” he said. “I’ve an appointment with an engineer. We’re to discuss something I’m making. He’s a practical sort of fellow and he’ll pick holes in my dreams.”
“Don’t let him discourage you,” she said, holding his hand and looking up at him while she spoke. “I’m not sure I like people who pick holes in dreams.”
“It will be good for me, and I’ll be back for cocktails.”
With this he put her hand to his lips and was gone, leaving her waiting and half afraid.
…“In fact,” Edmond Hartley said, a few minutes later, “had I not been curious about you, I would not have presumed to descend upon you in this fashion.” He seated himself opposite her by the blazing fire and continued. “You have had the most extraordinary effect on my nephew, Mrs. Chardman, a—a maturing effect, I suppose would be the best way to express it. From a most disarranged young man, not knowing what to choose among at least half-a-dozen possibilities as his lifework—and I do assure you he could be a shining success in any one of them—he is settling with a most interesting combination of them all, and it is something I’ve not really heard much about, but it appears to be extremely useful, a science and engineering sort of thing, which I confess I don’t at all understand but which seems to me might be
extremely useful. He is so much like his mother, my sister Ariadne, and again so totally unlike, her, that I am bewildered in general, and not knowing what to do, I leave him to his own devices, and consequently, I am afraid, I have not been very helpful to him. But you seem to understand him so marvelously well, that I felt I must meet you, if only to thank you and, hopefully, to gain some of your wisdom.”
This he poured forth in a mellifluous voice, rich in emphasis, his beautiful bauds active in gesture, and his blue eyes shining, extraordinarily youthful eyes, she thought, and yet the combination conveyed a central coldness which she could not immediately fathom.
“I should like to know more about Jared’s parents,” she said quietly.
He looked at her. “You are so beautifully restful,” he said irrelevantly. “I can see why Jared says he can always talk to you. I am not such a good listener. Indeed, as he very well knows, I usually do not know what he is talking about. My own preoccupations are early French poetry and English stained glass—cathedral glass.”
“Neither of which I know anything about,” she said. “And if I have done anything for Jared, it is nothing in comparison to what he has done for me. He has given me a new interest in life, which I badly needed. His youth, his enthusiasm, his energy, his extraordinary gifts are, well, quite bewildering and certainly exciting.”
He leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped on his knees. “My dear lady, may I ask? I’m his only living relative, you know. Are you by any chance—lovers?”
She hesitated before the sudden confrontation. Then she used the narrow dagger that Jared had so innocently plunged into her heart a few days ago.
“He does not think of me in that way,” she said quietly.
He leaned back in his chair and his hands relaxed.
“Ah, I am almost sorry to hear you say that. He is so lonely.” She wondered, watching the mobile handsome face, if she were going to dislike this man. “He told me something about a girl,” she said.
“Yes, there is one in the offing—the very far offing. He’s really not ready for marriage, I’m afraid. He’s devoted to his work, as you know, and all these ideas floating about in his own mind—I doubt he is ready to undertake any permanent relationship. I dread it, for I saw Ariadne wither under exactly the same sort of—obliviousness, shall I say? Barnow—Jared’s father—was a, well perhaps one should say he was a disorganized genius. He was highly talented, one of those brilliant men of whom in college one expects everything, but when they get into the practical world, all their talents disintegrate.
“Ariadne was mad about him. They were both mad, for that matter. She was a beautiful debutante. Our family was—well, it doesn’t matter now, but she could have married anyone and she chose Barnow. The marriage was doomed—an exquisite girl, but spoiled—oh yes, who could help spoiling her? The only daughter—there were just two of us and our parents were, well, never mind, but they were disappointed in young Barnow as a son-in-law. I suppose divorce was just ahead, but death struck first. Barnow was on his way to an exciting new job in the West somewhere and Ariadne was with him. They were driving, and probably quarreling. At any rate, they were crossing the Rockies, one of those dreadful passes, you know, still icy in early spring, and their car went over a cliff.”
“How horrible!” Her voice was a whisper.
“Horrible,” he agreed, “and I thought of suing someone, for there was no barricade, you know. But it was explained to me that it was safer not to have a barricade, you know, on those heights, where no barricade would hold on the rocks, but people might trust to it and drive at high speed, and so if there were no barricade they would realize they must be careful. But being careful was one thing Ariadne never was, nor Barnow, either. Anyway, Jared was left to me as his only relative, for my parents had died a short time before of natural causes, first my father of a cerebral something and then my mother out of sheer willfullness, I do believe, because she wouldn’t live without him, and I never forgave her for it. I adored her and I hated my powerful, domineering father, who of course hated me in return and poured out his love on Ariadne. But why am I telling you all this about the most confusing and confused family that ever lived? Oh, yes, it’s to explain Jared. So you see I’ve had to let him simply grow up in his own way, because I knew nothing of how to bring up a child.”
“You’ve never married?”
“I’ve not been so lucky,” he said abruptly.
She felt the central coldness of this man, yet not, perhaps, a basic chill so much as an absolute restraint, self-imposed in some fashion she did not as yet understand. Something was hidden in this man, be was wary in spite of his frankness.
“A tragic story,” she said, “and I am glad you told me. It will help me the better to understand Jared.”
She touched a bell near her and Weston came to the door.
“Put a log on the fire,” she directed, “and bring us cocktails in half an hour.”
She understood now why Jared was impulsive and searching everywhere for life. He had been prepared for nothing and realizing the emptiness out of which he had sprung her heart turned toward him in a fresh surge of love and compassion. She faced the ascetic figure opposite her.
“Tell me something about French poetry,” she said.
… “I don’t know,” Jared said.
She was alone with him as the clock approached midnight and the old year neared its end. An hour ago his uncle had risen to his feet.
“I never watch the end of an old year,” he told them. “At my age it is only painful. If you will excuse me, I will thank you for a pleasant evening and take my leave.”
He had bowed to her and smiled at Jared. “Good night—and sweet dreams.”
“I don’t know,” Jared now repeated. “He wanted to come. He wanted to meet you. He said I was changed and he wanted to know why. I asked him how I was changed, and he said something was crystallizing in me, whatever that means. He lives a frightfully controlled life.”
“Controlled by whom?” she asked.
“Himself. And I was wrong about his ever having a mistress. He’s never loved a woman.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes—when I told him about you.”
“What did you tell him about me?”
“That I am hopelessly in love with you. And he said that he envied me because he’d never been in love, not with a woman, that is. And suddenly I understood him completely. He’s so damnably—good. He won’t accept love on any other terms but the highest. So he doesn’t accept love at all. He’s lived alone with his books and his paintings. Even friends he keeps at a distance. Even me.”
She allowed the full tragedy of this to permeate her mind until her heart seemed physically to ache. “And do you approve of this rejection of love just because it is unorthodox?”
“Yes, I do,” he said simply. “Now that I know what love is.”
They looked steadfastly into each other’s eyes.
“And what is love?” she asked.
“I am finding out,” he said. “Someday—perhaps—I will tell you.”
The minutes had slipped away as they talked and suddenly the grandfather clock in a corner struck twelve. They waited in silence, and he reached for her hands and held them in both his own. At the twelfth stroke, he stooped and kissed her lips.
“It’s a new year,” he said. “A new year, and in it anything can happen.”
…But in the night she woke, and remembered everything that Jared had said about his uncle. In all her life only Edwin had been articulate about love and being a philosopher he had made even love a philosophy. Thinking of him, she could imagine him declaring in his gently dogmatic fashion that love had manifold forms, and none of these was to be summarily rejected. Thus remembering him, she found herself contrasting the two older men, Edwin so free in his own fashion within the limitless boundaries of his organized freedom and Edmond so controlled within his self-imposed restriction. Each in his own way proclaimed the
supreme meaning of love, the one by acceptance and delight, the other by refusal and abstinence. The difference defined the nature of the two men, the one accepting and joyous in spite of age and infirmity, the other diffident, hiding himself in a mist of words, signifying—what? And Jared, how was it with him? Would love enlarge or confine him? For that matter, what would love do to her? Neither question could be answered as yet. She did not know the limits of love. She had only acknowledged love. She had declared, by such acknowledgment at least, its presence within her. The question now was what she would do with it—or more accurately, what it would do with her.
She lay in the silence of the night and the darkness until, oppressed, she put on the light by her bed and saw snowflakes piling on the sill of an open window and blowing softly upon the blue carpet of the floor. Getting up, she closed the window and brushed the snow into the brass fire shovel and thence upon the dead gray logs where the fire had died. She was about to get into bed, shivering with cold, when she heard footsteps pacing down the hall. She listened, wondering, and then put on her blue velvet dressing gown and opened her door. Edmond Hartley was at the head of the stairs about to descend, fully dressed, when he saw her.
“I am sleepless,” he said, “and I was about to go in search of a book I saw in the library today.”
“Shall I come to your help?” she asked.
“My dear lady, you are very kind.”
“In a minute,” she said, and returned to her mirror to brush her hair and pin it back, and touch her face with powder, her lips with color. Vanity, she told herself, but vain she was, even when she was alone. And leaving the room, she found him waiting at the head of the stair without the slightest sign of noticing that the blue of her robe matched the blue of her eyes, or that she was, in fact, quite beautiful. With an air of almost tolerant patience be allowed her to precede him down the stairs and into the library, where expertly he coaxed the dying coals in the fireplace into flames again, while she lit one lamp after another until the whole room glowed, the books on their shelves, the great bowl of flowers on the long mahogany table, the ruby red in the pattern of the Oriental rugs, the polished floor.
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