it was the morning of the day that she was going to the delafield simms, and jane was packing her bag. she felt unaccountably depressed. during this week-end her engagement would be announced. and when judy came they would be married in the sherwood church.
and that would be the end of it!
her lover had planned the honeymoon with enthusiasm, “dieppe, jane, avignon—the north sea. such sunsets.”
jane felt that she didn’t care in the least for sunsets or trips abroad. she was almost frightened at her indifference to the wonders of a world of which frederick talked continually. oh, what were mountains and sea at a time like this? her heart should beat high—the dawns should be rosy, the nights full of stars. but they were not. her heart was like a stone in her breast. the mornings broke gray and blank. the nights were dark. her dreams were troubled.
she knew now what had happened to her. she had let herself be blinded by a light which she had thought was the sun. and it was not even the[305] moon! it was a big round artificial brilliance which warmed no one!
life with frederick towne would be just going up and down great stairs, eating under the eye of a stately butler, riding on puffy cushions behind a stately chauffeur, sitting beside a man who was everlastingly and punctiliously polite.
oh, half the fun in the world was in the tussle with hard things. she knew that now. life in the little house had been at times desperately difficult. but it had been like facing a stiff breeze, and coming out of it thrilled with the battle against the elements.
yet how could she tell these things to frederick? he was complacent, comfortable. she was young and he liked that. he never dreamed that he might seem to her somewhat staid and stodgy. for a moment, in chicago, he had been lighted by almost youthful fires. but in these days of daily meetings, she had become aware of his fixed habits, his fixed opinions, the fixed programs which must be carried out at any cost.
she had found, indeed, that she had little voice in any plans that frederick made for her. when he consulted her on matters of redecorating the big house he brought to the subject a wealth of technical knowledge that appalled her. jane knew what she liked, but she did not know why she liked it. but frederick knew. he had the lore of period furniture at his fingers’ ends. rugs and tapestries—paintings[306] and porcelains! he had drawings made and water-color sketches, and brought them out to jane. she had a feeling that when the house was finished it would be like some exquisitely ordered mausoleum. there would be no chintzes, no pussy-cats purring, no philomel singing!
as for clothes! frederick’s mind dwelt much on the subject. jane was told that she must have an ermine wrap, and one of persian lamb. most of her things would be made in paris—there was a man over there who did things in just the right style for her—picturesque but not sophisticated. frederick was already having certain jewels set appropriately. gray pearls and emeralds—he had even gone to the point of getting samples of silk and chiffon that she might see the smoke-gray and jade color-scheme he had in mind for her.
samples!
a man’s mind shouldn’t be on clothes. he should have other things to think of.
there was evans, for example. he had described the other night the boys’ club he was starting in sherwood. “in the old pavilion, jane. it will do as it is in summer, and in winter we’ll enclose it. and we are to have a baseball team, and play against the surrounding towns. you should see my little lads.”
she and baldy had been much interested. the three of them had put their heads together as they sat on the porch of the little house, with the moon[307] whitening the world, and the whippoorwill mourning far away in the swamp.
they had planned excitedly, and every word they had said had been warm with enthusiasm. they had been flushed, exultant. it would be a great thing for sherwood.
that was the kind of thing to live for, to live with. ideas. effort. she had always known it. yet for a moment, she had forgotten. had thought of herself as—curlylocks.
she flung up her hands in a sort of despair. there was no way out of it. she was bound to frederick towne by the favors she had accepted from him. and that settled it.
she went on feverishly with the packing of her shabby suitcase. she rather glorified in its shabbiness. at least it is mine own, was her attitude of mind.
as she leaned over it, the great ring that frederick had given her swung back and forth on its ribbon. she tucked it into the neck of her frock but it would not stay. at last she took it off and was aware of a sense of freedom as if she had shed her shackles. it winked and blinked at her on the dresser, so she shut it in a drawer and was still aware of it shining in the darkness, balefully!
briggs was not to come for her until four in the afternoon. she decided to go over to castle manor and talk to mrs. follette. she would take some strawberries as an excuse. the strawberries in[308] the castle manor garden were never as perfect as those which jane had planted. evans said it was because jane coaxed things into rosiness and roundness. but jane had worked hard over the beds, and she had had her reward.
carrying a basket, therefore, of red and luscious fruit, jane went through the pine grove along the path that led to the castle manor. under the trees was a green light which she breasted as one breasts the cool waters of the sea. her breath came quickly. in a few short weeks she would be far away from this sweet and silent spot, with its sacred memories.
leaving the grove, she passed the field where the scarecrow reigned.
she leaned on the fence. with the coming of spring, the scarecrow had been decked in gay attire. he wore a pink shirt of evans’ and a pair of white trousers. his hat was of straw, and as he danced in the warm south breeze he had an air of care-free jauntiness.
jane found herself resenting his jaunty air. she felt that she had liked him better in his days of appealing loneliness. she had resented, in like manner, the change in evans. he, too, had an air of making a world for himself. she had no part in it, apparently. she was, in effect, the peri at the gate!
and she wanted to be in his world. evans’ world. she didn’t want to be left out. yet she[309] had chosen. and evans had accepted her decision. she had not thought it would be so hard to have him—accept.
his interests seemed now to include everything but jane. he was doing many things for the boys of sherwood, there was his work in town, the added responsibility he had assumed in the affairs of the farm.
“she’s such an old darling, jane. doing it with her duchess air. but she’s not strong. i’m trying to make her let things go a bit. but she’s so proud of her success. i wish you could see her showing edith towne and her fashionable friends about the dairy. with tea on the lawn afterward. you must come over and join in the fun, jane.”
“i am coming,” jane had told him, “but my days have been so filled.”
he had known who had filled them. but he had ignored that, and had gone on with his subject. “the idea i have now is to keep bees and sell honey. the boys and i have some books on bee culture. they are quite crazy about it.”
it was always now the boys and himself. his mother and himself. and once it had been himself and jane!
leaning on the fence, jane spoke to the scarecrow. “i ought to be glad but i am not.”
the scarecrow bowed and danced in the breeze. he had no heart, of course. he was made of two crossed sticks....
[310]jane found mrs. follette on the wide porch. she was snowy and crisp in white linen. she wore a black enamel brooch, and a flat black hat which was so old-fashioned that it took on a mid-victorian stateliness.
“my dear child,” she said, “stay and have lunch with me. mary has baked fresh bread, and we’ll have it with your berries, and some dutch cheeses and cream.”
“i’d love it,” jane said; “i hoped you’d ask me. we are going at four to delafield simms for the week-end. i shall have to be fashionable for forty-eight hours, and i hate it.”
mrs. follette smiled indulgently. “of course, you don’t mean it. and don’t try to be fashionable. just be yourself. it is only people who have never been anybody who try to make themselves like others.”
“well,” said jane, “i’m afraid i’ve never been anybody, mrs. follette. i’m just little jane barnes.”
her air was dejected.
“what’s the matter with you, jane?” mrs. follette demanded.
jane clasped her hands together. “oh, i want my mother. i want my mother.” her voice was low, but there was a poignant note in it.
old mary came out with the tray, and when she had gone, mrs. follette said, “now tell me what’s troubling you?”
[311]“i’m afraid.”
“of what?”
“oh, of mr. towne’s big house, and—i think i’m a little bit afraid of him, too, mrs. follette.”
“why should you be afraid?”
“of the things he’ll expect of me. the things i’ll expect of myself. i can’t explain it. i just—feel it.”
mrs. follette, pouring ice-cold milk from a silver pitcher, said, “it is a case of nerves, my dear. you don’t know how lucky you are.”
“am i lucky?” wistfully.
“of course you are lucky. but all girls feel as you do, jane, when the wedding day isn’t far off. they wonder and wonder. it’s the newness—the——”
“‘laying flesh and spirit ... in his hands ...’” jane quoted, with quick-drawn breath.
“i shouldn’t put it quite like that,” mrs. follette said with some severity; “we didn’t talk like that when i was a girl.”
“didn’t you?” jane asked. “well, i know you were a darling, mrs. follette. and you were pretty. there’s that portrait of you in the library in pink.”
“i looked well in pink,” said mrs. follette, thoughtfully, “but the best picture that was ever done of me is a miniature that evans has.” she buttered another slice of bread. she had no fear of growing fat. she was fat, but she was also[312] stately and one neutralized the other. to think of mrs. follette as thin would have been to rob her of her duchess r?le.
jane had not seen the miniature. she asked if she might.
“i’ll get it,” said mrs. follette, and rose.
jane protested, “can’t i do it?”
“no, my dear. i know right where to put my hand on it.”
she went into the cool and shadowy hall and started up the stairs, and it was from the shadows that jane heard her call.
there was something faint and agitated in the cry, and jane flew on winged feet.
mrs. follette was holding on to the stair-rail, swaying a little. “i can’t go any higher,” she panted; “i’ll sit here, my dear, while you get my medicine. it’s in my room on the dresser.”
jane passed her on the stairs, and was back again in a moment with the medicine, a spoon, and a glass of water. with her arm around the elder woman she held her until the color returned to her cheeks.
“how foolish,” said mrs. follette at last, sitting up. “i almost fainted. i was afraid of falling down the stairs.”
“let me help you to your room,” jane said, “and you can lie on the couch—and be quiet——”
“i don’t want to be quiet, but i’ll lie on the couch—if you’ll sit there and talk to me.”
[313]so with jane supporting her, mrs. follette went up the rest of the flight, and across the hall—and was made comfortable on a couch at the foot of her bed.
jane loved the up-stairs rooms at castle manor. especially in summer. mrs. follette followed the southern fashion of taking up winter rugs and winter curtains and substituting sheer muslins and leaving a delightful bareness of waxed floor.
“perhaps i can tell you where to find the miniature,” mrs. follette said, as jane fanned her; “it is in evans’ desk set back under the row of pigeon-holes. you can’t miss it, and i want to see it.”
jane crossed the hall to evans’ room. it faced south and was big and square. it had the same studied bareness that made the rest of the house beautiful. there was a mahogany bed and dresser, many books, deep window-seats with faded velvet cushions.
evans’ desk was in an alcove by the east window which overlooked sherwood. it was a mahogany desk of the secretary type, and there was nothing about it to drain the color from jane’s cheeks, to send her hand to her heart.
above the desk, however, where his eyes could rest upon it whenever he raised them from his writing, was an old lantern! jane knew it at once. it was an ancient ship’s lantern that she and baldy had used through all the years, a heritage from some sea-going ancestor. it was the lantern she[314] had carried that night she had found evans in the fog!
since her return from chicago she had not been able to find it. baldy had complained, “sophy must have taken it home with her.” but sophy had not taken it. it was here. and jane knew, with a certainty that swept away all doubts, why.
“you are a lantern, jane, held high....”
she found the miniature and carried it back to mrs. follette. “i told you you were pretty and you have never gotten over it.”
she had regained her radiance. mrs. follette reflected complacently that girls were like that. moods of the moment. even in her own day.
she spoke of it to evans that night. “jane had lunch with me. she was very tired and depressed. i told her not to worry. it’s natural she should feel the responsibility of the future. marriage is a serious obligation.”
“marriage is more than that, mother.”
“what do you mean?”
“oh, it’s a great adventure. the greatest adventure. if a woman loved me, i’d want her to fly to me—on wings. there’d be no fear of the future if jane loved towne.”
“but she does love him. she wouldn’t marry him for his money.”
“no, she wouldn’t,” with a touch of weariness. “it is one of the things i can’t make clear to myself. and i think i’d rather not talk about it, mother.”
[315]they were in mrs. follette’s room. she had told her son about her heart attack, and he had been anxious. but she had been quite herself after and had made light of it. “i shall have hallam over in the morning,” he had insisted, and she had acquiesced. “i don’t need him, but if it will make you feel better.”
evans told her “good-night” presently and went into his own room. it was flooded with moonlight. he curled up on the cushions of the window-seat, with his arms around his knees and thought of jane. he did not know that she had been that day in his room. yet she was there now—a shadowy presence. the one woman in the world for him. the woman who had lighted his way. who still, thank god, lighted it, though she was not his and would never be.
in a few short weeks she would be married. would go out of his life—forever. yet what she had been to him, towne could never take away. the little jane of sherwood whom evans had known would never belong absolutely to her husband. her spirit would escape him—come back where it belonged, to the man who worshipped her.
he stood up, struck a match and lighted the low candle in the old lantern. it would burn dimly until he was asleep. night after night he had opened his eyes to see it burning. it seemed to him that his dreams were less troubled because of that dim lantern.
