VI
When Jane opened her eyes next morning, the cold light of the April dawn was breaking over the garden. She had come into the house with Jimmy some four hours before. They had turned out the lights in the living-room and crept silently up the stairs and exchanged one last kiss at the door of Jane’s bedroom. She had opened the door with elaborate precaution and moved quietly into her room. Precautions, however, were unnecessary. Stephen was sound asleep on the sleeping-porch. Jane had slipped out of her clothes and into her nightgown in the darkness and had stood, for a moment, in her bedroom window gazing out at the silvery garden. She had raised her bare arms in the moonlight, as if to fold to her heart a phantom lover. She had smiled at their milky whiteness. Then she had jumped into bed and covered herself up and waited, a little fearfully, for besieging thoughts. They had not come, however. Defeated by victorious feeling, perhaps they lay in ambush. Jane wondered and, while wondering and feeling, fell serenely asleep.
She was wakened at dawn by the chirping of birds in the oak trees on the terrace. She opened her eyes in her familiar blue bedroom. She did not remember, for a moment, what had happened in the garden. Then the thoughts pounced on her. They had been in ambush. Serried ranks of thoughts, battalions of thoughts, little valiant warrior thoughts that rose up singly from the ranks and stabbed her mind before she was aware of their coming. She recalled the events of the evening with horror and incredulity. It could not have happened. If it had, she must have been mad. She was Jane Carver—Mrs. Stephen Carver—Stephen Carver’s wife and the mother of his three children. She was Jane Ward—little Jane Ward—John Ward’s daughter—who had been born on Pine Street and gone to Miss Milgrim’s School with Agnes and to Bryn Mawr with Agnes. Little Jane Ward, who had loved André and grown up and married Stephen. She had been Stephen Carver’s wife for nearly sixteen years. Yes, she must have been mad last night in the moonlit garden. Mad—to let Jimmy speak, to let him hold her in his arms. Mad to sit with him there—beneath the apple tree—how many hours? Four—five—six hours she had sat with Jimmy beneath the apple tree, deceiving Stephen and betraying Agnes and planning to abandon her children.
Had it really happened? Was it a dream? Something should be done about dreams like that. You should not even dream that you were deceiving your husband or betraying your friend or planning to abandon your children. But it was not a dream. If it were a dream, she would be lying beside Stephen in her bed on the sleeping-porch. No—it had happened. It had irrevocably happened. The long path into which she had turned at the moment that she had looked into Jimmy’s eyes on the threshold of the Greenwich Village flat had come to its perhaps inevitable ending. She loved Jimmy. She had, incredibly, told him so. The telling had changed everything. It had changed Jimmy. It had changed herself, most of all. It had changed everything, Jane saw clearly in the light of the April dawn, but the most essential facts of the situation. You did not deceive your husband—you did not betray your friend—you did not abandon your children.
Yet she had promised Jimmy only four short hours ago, on the bench beneath the apple tree, to do all those things. She had promised him, just before parting. Jane closed her eyes to shut out the awful clarity of the April dawn, to shut out the familiar walls of the bedroom, to shut out the serried ranks of thoughts that clustered about her bed. It was no use—the thoughts were still there, crowding behind her eyelids. They would not be denied—battering, besieging thoughts. No feeling left, curiously enough, or almost none, to combat them. Only an incredulous bruised memory of feeling—feeling so briefly experienced, to be forever forsworn.
Of course she would forswear it. She had been mad in the garden. Moon-mad. Man-mad. She had been everything that was impossible and undefendable. She had not been Jane Carver or little Jane Ward. She had been some incredible changeling. But she was Jane Carver now, and Jane Ward, too. Little Jane Ward, who had been brought up on Pine Street by a Victorian family to try to be a good girl and mind her parents. Jane Carver, who had behind her the strength of fifteen incorruptible years of honest living as Stephen’s wife. Of course she would forswear the feeling. She would tell Jimmy that morning.
Jimmy. At the memory of Jimmy the serried ranks of thoughts fell back a little. A sudden wave of emotion reminded her that feeling was not so easily forsworn. Jimmy’s face in the moonlight—his eyes—his lips—his arms about her body. Suddenly Jane heard Stephen stirring on the sleeping-porch. It was seven o’clock, then. The day had begun. This day in which thoughts must give birth to action. This day in which feeling must be forsworn. Stephen, struggling into his bathrobe, appeared on tiptoe at the door to the sleeping-porch. He looked a little sleepy, but very cheerful.
“Hello,” he said, “you awake? Why did you sleep in here?”
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” said Jane. She was amazed at the casual tone she managed to achieve. “I sat out very late with Jimmy in the garden.”
“I went up early,” said Stephen, “just as soon as I finished with the paper. Coming down to breakfast?”
“No,” said Jane. “Ask Sarah to bring up a tray.”
Jane felt she could not face a Lakewood family breakfast. Whatever life demanded of her on this dreadful day, it did not demand that she should sit behind her coffee tray, surrounded by her children, and pour out Jimmy’s coffee under Stephen’s unconscious eye. She would wait in her room until Stephen had gone to the train, until the children had left for school. Then she would go down and tell Jimmy that she had been mad in the garden.
Two hours later, Jane opened her bedroom door and walked down the staircase. No Jimmy in the hall. She entered the living-room and saw him standing by the terrace doors, gazing out at the apple tree. He wheeled quickly around at the sound of her step on the threshold. Jimmy looked tired. Jimmy looked worn. But Jimmy looked terribly happy. Jane smiled tremulously.
“Jimmy—” she said, still standing in the doorway.
“Don’t say it!” cried Jimmy. “I know just how you feel. I know just how you’ve reacted. Don’t say it, Jane! Give yourself time to—to get used to it.”
“I am used to it,” said Jane pitifully. “I’m terribly used to it. I’ve been thinking for hours.”
“I know what you’ve been thinking!” cried Jimmy. He walked quickly over to her and caught her hand in his. “It was inevitable, Jane, that you’d think those thoughts. Don’t—don’t let them trouble you, Jane. I knew how it would be.”
“You knew how it would be?” faltered Jane.
“I even knew you wouldn’t come down to breakfast. In point of fact, I didn’t come down to breakfast myself In spite of all the many things I’ve done, Jane, in and out of camp meetings, I can’t say that I ever planned to run off with the wife of a friend before. I didn’t seem to care much about meeting Stephen myself, this morning. I didn’t seem to care much about sharing his eggs and bacon.”
“You haven’t had any breakfast?” said Jane stupidly. Jimmy shock his head. “I’ll ring for a tray.” She moved to the bell by the chimneypiece. Jimmy followed her across the room.
“But, Jane—” he said.
“Yes,” said Jane, her hand on the bell-rope.
“Those thoughts, you know, aren’t really—really important. I mean—they don’t change anything.”
“They change everything,” said Jane dully. “Sarah, a breakfast tray, here in the living-room, for Mr. Trent.”
“And one for Mrs. Carver,” said Jimmy, with an affable smile for the maid in the doorway. “I’m sure you haven’t eaten a bite this morning. I’m sure you just drained down a cup of black coffee.”
“That’s just what I did,” said Jane, smiling wanly at Jimmy’s omniscience.
“Two breakfast trays, Sarah,” grinned Jimmy in dismissal. Then, when the girl had gone; “Sit down here, darling, on the sofa, with a pillow at your back. Put your feet up. There! Comfortable, now?”
“Very,” said Jane with another wan smile. “Jimmy, you make it awfully hard for me to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” said Jimmy brightly. “That you take it all back? Don’t trouble to tell it, Jane. Just sit there and rest and wait for your breakfast. When you’ve eaten it, life will seem much rosier.” He stood looking down at her very cheerfully from the hearthrug. “I wish I could sit down on the floor, Jane, and take your hands and tell you I adore you, but I really think I hadn’t better do it until Sarah has come in with the breakfast trays.”
“You hadn’t better ever do it,” said Jane.
“Nonsense,” said Jimmy. “I’m going to do it innumerable mornings. In the South Sea Islands and Siam and Burma—”
Jane couldn’t help laughing.
“Jimmy,” she said, “you’re perfectly incorrigible. But I mean it. I really mean it. I’m terribly sorry—I know it’s rough on you—but—but I made a dreadful mistake last night in the garden.”
“And now you’ve discovered that you don’t love me,” smiled Jimmy. “Well, presently you’ll discover again that you do.”
“No, Jimmy.” Jane’s voice was shrill with conviction.
“Here’s Sarah,” murmured Jimmy, turning with nonchalance to fleck the ash of his cigarette in the empty grate. Sarah placed the breakfast trays on two small tables and retired noiselessly from the room.
“Now eat, Jane,” said Jimmy commandingly. “I’m going to let you have all that breakfast before I even kiss you.”
Jane thought the breakfast would choke her. But somehow, under the stimulus of Jimmy’s pleasant conversation, she found she had consumed the entire contents of the tray. Jimmy rang again for Sarah. When the trays were removed, he stepped quickly over to her and sank on his knees by the sofa.
“Darling!” said Jimmy, seizing her hands in his.
“Jimmy!” cried Jane in terror. “Don’t kiss me! Don’t you dare to kiss me! I’m not the woman I was last night in the garden.” Her earnestness held him in check.
“Darling,” said Jimmy, still clinging firmly to her hands, “I know it’s terribly hard for you. I know it’s much worse for you than it is for me. You’ll have to face Stephen, whom you love, and a scandal, which you’ll hate. You’ll have to leave your children for a time—though, of course, you’ll see them afterwards. I love your children, Jane, and they like me. They’re great kids. But of course you’ll have to leave them. It’s a terrible sacrifice—and what have I to offer you?”
“Oh, Jimmy,” said Jane pitifully, “don’t say that! It isn’t that!”
“I know it isn’t, but still I have to say it. I’m a total loss as a husband, Jane. I’m a rolling stone and I’ll never gather moss. We’ll wander about the world together and I’ll write a little music and look for pleasant little jobs that won’t keep me too long in any one place. You’ll be awfully uncomfortable, Jane, a great deal of the time. And maybe lonely—”
“No, I wouldn’t be lonely,” said Jane.
“I’m not so sure,” said Jimmy. “I think there are lots of raggle-taggle gypsies that you wouldn’t find so very congenial on closer acquaintance. They’re rather sordid, you know, and just a little promiscuous, in close quarters.”
“I wouldn’t care,” said Jane eagerly; “I wouldn’t care, Jimmy, as long as I had you.”
“Well, then,” smiled Jimmy, drawing a long breath, “well, then—if that’s the way you feel, just why am I not to dare to kiss you?”
“Because I’m not going away with you, Jimmy.” Jane drew her hands from his. “I’m not going to do it. This isn’t just the silly reaction of a foolish woman to a moment’s indiscretion. It’s something much more serious. I’m in love with you, Jimmy, but I love you, too. I love you, just as I love Stephen and the children. I love you as I love Agnes. And that’s one of the reasons why I won’t let you do this thing. Can’t I make you understand, Jimmy, what I mean? When you love people, you’ve got to be decent. You want to be decent. You want to be good. Just plain good—the way you were taught to be when you were a little child. Love’s the greatest safeguard in life against evil. I won’t do anything, Jimmy, if I can possibly help it, that will keep me from looking anyone I love in the eye.” Her voice was trembling so that she could not keep it up a moment longer. She turned away from Jimmy to hide her tears. In a moment he had tucked a big clean handkerchief into her hand. She buried her face in the cool, smooth linen. Jimmy rose, a trifle unsteadily, to his feet.
“Jane,” he said, “Jane—you almost shake me.”
Jane wept on in silence.
“See here,” said Jimmy presently; his voice had changed abruptly: “This won’t do, you know. For it really isn’t true—it’s very sweet, but it’s silly—it’s sentimental. It doesn’t do anybody any good for a man and woman who are in love with each other to go on sordidly living with people they don’t love. Stephen wouldn’t want you to live with him under those circumstances. Agnes wouldn’t want me to live with her. They’re both exceptionally decent people.”
“So we’re to profit by their decency?” said Jane coldly. “To be, ourselves, indecent?”
“Darling,” said Jimmy, “it isn’t indecent to live with the man you love.”
Jane rose abruptly from the sofa.
“You’re just confusing the issues, Jimmy,” she said sadly. “But you can’t change them. It isn’t right for married people, happily married people, to leave their homes and children for their own individual pleasure.”
“But we’re not happily married people,” said Jimmy.
“If we’re not,” said Jane steadfastly, “it’s only our own fault. Neither Stephen nor Agnes has ever sinned against us. They love us and they trust us. They trusted us, once for all, with their life happiness. I couldn’t feel decent, Jimmy, and betray that trust.”
“Jane,” said Jimmy, “I don’t understand you. With all your innocence you’ve always seemed so emancipated. Intellectually emancipated. You’ve always seemed to understand the complications of living. To sympathize with the people who were tangled up in them. You’ve always said—”
“Oh, yes,” said Jane, “I’ve done a lot of talking. It made me feel very sophisticated to air my broad-minded views. I was very smug about my tolerance. I used to say to Isabel that I could understand how anybody could do anything. I used to laugh at Mamma for her Victorian views. I used to think it was very smart to say that every Lakewood housewife was potentially a light lady. I used to think I believed it. I did believe it theoretically, Jimmy. But now—now when it comes to practice—I see there’s a great difference.”
“But there isn’t any difference, Jane,” said Jimmy. “Not any essential difference. Just one of convention. You’re a woman before you’re a Lakewood housewife. ‘The Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their skins!’ ”
“But they’re not, Jimmy! That’s just Kipling’s revolt against Victorian prudery. I suppose he felt very sophisticated when he first got off that line! The complications of living seem very complicated when you look at them from a distance. When you’re tangled up in them yourself, you know they’re very simple. If you’re really the Colonel’s lady, Jimmy, no matter how little you may want to do it, you know exactly what you ought to do.” She turned away from him and stood staring out through the terrace doors at the April garden. For a long time there was silence in the room. Then—
“I—I don’t believe—you love me,” said Jimmy slowly.
Jane turned her white face from the April garden.
“Then you’re wrong, Jimmy,” she said gently. “You’re very wrong. It’s killing me to do this thing I’m doing. It’s killing me to be with you, here in this room. Will you please go away—back to town, I mean—and—and don’t come back until you’ve accepted my decision.”
“I’ll never accept it,” said Jimmy grimly.
“Then don’t come back,” said Jane.
Without another word he left the room. Jane opened the terrace doors and walked out into the garden. She walked on beyond the clump of evergreens and sat down on the bench beneath the apple tree. She had been sobbing a long time before she realized that she still held Jimmy’s handkerchief in her hand. She buried her face in it until the sobs were stilled in a mute misery that Jane felt was going to last a lifetime. She sat more than an hour on that bench. When she returned to the house, Sarah told her that Mr. Trent had gone back to the city on the eleven-fifteen.