III
It happened just seven weeks later. It happened Thanksgiving afternoon, out beneath the apple tree beyond the little clump of evergreens at the foot of the garden. Jane was very much surprised when it did.
The seven weeks had been full of incident. She had been seeing Jimmy quite often, of course. He had come out perhaps once a week to dinner. She had lunched with him in town one day and gone with him to a concert that he had had to review for his paper. That was the only time, really, that they had been alone. He usually brought his fiddle when he came out to Lakewood and they had had lots of Debussy and a few more ballads. The children adored him, of course, and he had, somewhat to Jane’s surprise, made rather a hit with Stephen. Jimmy had made rather a hit with everyone, in fact. With her mother and Isabel and Flora and Muriel, who had had him to dinner just as soon as Bert was pronounced out of immediate danger, and declared him charming—much too good, indeed, for Agnes. Mr. Ward had raised the only dissenting voice. And all he had said was, after Jimmy had spent an unusually scintillating evening at the Wards’ dinner-table, that Agnes deserved a better fate. Jane knew that her father would think almost any fate unworthy of Agnes. He had admired her since her first days at Miss Milgrim’s School. When pressed by his indignant daughters for further and more flattering comment, even Mr. Ward had admitted that Jimmy was very clever. He fitted delightfully in Jane’s most intimate circle. That was why she had asked him out for Thanksgiving luncheon with the family.
Thanksgiving luncheon had been like all Thanksgiving luncheons—not very brilliant. There had been too much turkey and too many children to make for clever conversation around the groaning board. Mr. Ward had sat on Jane’s right hand and Jimmy on her left. On either side of Stephen sat Mrs. Ward and Isabel. Robin and Miss Parrot and the five children filled up the centre of the table. They had eaten for nearly two hours and then had sunk in recumbent attitudes around the chintz-hung living-room. Suddenly, early in the afternoon, Jack Bridges had sprung to his feet and asked Cicily, rather sheepishly, to go for a walk. She had deserted the younger children immediately and, whistling to the cocker-spaniel puppy, had started off with him across the terrace. Jane had watched Jack help her, with adolescent gallantry, to climb over the stile that led to the open meadows. She had smiled, a trifle wistfully, over Cicily’s budding coquetry. Cicily could have cleared that stile at a bound. While she was smiling, Jimmy had roused himself from lethargy. He too had been watching the children.
“ ‘The younger generation is knocking at the door,’ Jane,” he had smiled. “But they have the right idea. Come out and walk five miles with me before sunset.”
She had gone for her hat and coat without a moment’s hesitation. Everyone was staying on for supper. The children were playing jackstraws, and Stephen was talking politics with Mr. Ward and Robin, and her mother and Isabel were discussing Bert Lancaster’s paralysis, with an occasional digression on Flora’s hat shop. She was not needed in the living-room and she would love a long walk.
They went out the terrace door and down the garden path and out into the fields in the opposite direction from the one which the children had taken. The November day was very cold and clear. The oak trees were already bare. The winter fields were brown. A high northwest wind was blowing across the Skokie Valley. It was difficult to talk in the teeth of the gale, and they had covered nearly two miles over the uneven stubble before they said much of anything. Then they paused in the shelter of a haystack.
“We must go back,” said Jane, trying to tuck her windblown pompadour under her felt hat-brim.
“Must we?” said Jimmy. “This walk was just what I wanted.”
“I’m all out of breath,” said Jane. “That last cornfield was rough going for an old lady.” She drew in a great gasp of the bracing autumn air.
“Was it?” said Jimmy. “You don’t look much older than Cicily this minute. Your cheeks are red and your eyes are bright and your mussy hair is pretty. That’s the true test of age for a woman. She’s young as long as she looks beguiling with mussy hair!”
“I look like a wild Indian,” said Jane, still struggling with the pompadour. “You ought to look at Cicily when the wind gets romping with her head of excelsior.”
“That’s Jack Bridges’ privilege,” said Jimmy. “I’m no cradle-snatcher.”
Jane left the haystack and started to walk back across the cornfield. It was easier to talk, now, with the wind at their backs. Nevertheless, they did not say anything for several minutes. Jane was hoping that Jack would bring Cicily home before dark. Jimmy broke the silence.
“Whose privilege was it, Jane, to look at you when you were Cicily’s age?” he asked.
Jane started at the question. But she did not answer.
“I bet someone did,” said Jimmy. “Who was he, Jane?”
“Oh,” said Jane vaguely, “he—he was—just a boy.”
“A broth of a boy?” questioned Jimmy. “Did you get much of a kick out of it?”
“Yes, I did,” said Jane simply.
Jimmy looked very much amused at her candour.
“We all do at that age,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll never forget the girl who fell off the mourners’ bench.”
Jane felt very indignant at the tacit comparison.
“Oh!” she said quickly. “He wasn’t like that!”
“How do you know what she was like?” smiled Jimmy.
“I know she wasn’t like André,” said Jane. The name had slipped out unconsciously.
“Do you mean that André never taught you anything you couldn’t learn at a camp meeting?” queried Jimmy. “Oh, Jane!”
“I mean that André wasn’t like anyone—anyone else I’ve ever met,” said Jane.
“My God!” said Jimmy, addressing the empty November sky. “She never got over him! I hope,” he continued severely, “that you confessed him to Stephen.”
“Oh, I confessed him to Stephen,” said Jane.
Again Jimmy looked very much amused at her candour.
“Good girl!” he said approvingly. “You must always confess them to Stephen.”
Jane thought that her mother would think that Jimmy was taking the marriage vows lightly. She almost thought so herself.
“There haven’t been any others,” she said severely.
“Do you expect me to believe that?” said Jimmy.
“Not really any others,” said Jane.
“While there’s life there’s hope,” said Jimmy.
“I don’t want any others,” said Jane indignantly.
“Oh, Jane!” said Jimmy.
“I don’t,” protested Jane. “I think clandestine love affairs would be horribly inconvenient.”
“There are higher things than convenience,” said Jimmy sublimely.
Jane ignored his comment.
“And I think,” she went on, “they’d be dreadfully smirching and soiling. And too terrible to look back on when they were over. They would be over, you know. You get over loving anyone—”
“Oh!” said Jimmy. “You’ve discovered that, have you?”
“No, I haven’t!” said Jane quickly. “I—I’ve just—observed it.”
Jimmy chuckled quietly to himself. They walked nearly half a mile in silence. As they entered the garden, he resumed the conversation.
“You do get over loving anyone, Jane,” he said gently. “But you don’t always regret that love in retrospect.”
Jane thought that sounded very sweet and understanding.
“Perhaps not,” she said. By this time they had reached the apple tree.
Jimmy paused for a moment beside the clump of evergreens. Jane looked up at him with a smile. They had had a nice walk.
“Jane,” said Jimmy suddenly, “are you really as innocent as you seem?”
Jane’s eyes widened in astonishment. Jimmy’s eyes were very bright. His breath was coming quickly and a funny excited little smile twisted the corners of his mouth.
“You’re like a child, Jane,” said Jimmy. “An inexperienced child!”
Jane still stared at him.
“Jane,” said Jimmy suddenly, “I’m going to kiss you.” And he caught her suddenly in his arms and turned her face to his.
“Jimmy!” cried Jane in horror. “Jimmy!” His lips stopped her words. He kissed her long and ardently. Jane struggled in his arms. His cheek scratched her face. She pulled herself from his embrace and stood staring at him in the garden path.
“Oh, Jimmy!” she cried again. “How—how could you?”
Suddenly she remembered the house at the end of the garden. She glanced quickly, fearfully, at the white clapboard façade. The clump of evergreens hid the living-room windows. But was that Miss Parrot’s white sleeve in the playroom bay above? Jane felt suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of humiliation. She had been kissed—kissed like a pretty chambermaid in her own garden. She had glanced at her own front windows, fearful of a spying servant’s ironical eye.
“Jimmy,” she said, “I wouldn’t have believed it of you!” He was looking down at her, now, still breathing rather quickly. The excited little smile still twisted the corners of his mouth. He looked more like a faun than ever, thought Jane, with an unconscious shiver. “Will you please go back to Chicago, now, at once?” she said with dignity. “Will you please go back without coming into the house?”
Jimmy looked very much astonished.
“Why, Jane—Jane—” he faltered. “Do you really mind, so awfully?”
“I’m going in,” said Jane. “And I don’t want you to follow me.” She turned abruptly away from him and walked up the garden path to the terrace, trying to put her face in order. She opened the terrace door and entered the living-room. The family were all still lounging about the fire.
“Where’s Jimmy?” asked Isabel.
“He’s gone,” said Jane, turning her back on them to close the terrace door. “He wasn’t staying to supper. He had to get back to the News.” Lies, she thought contemptuously, lies, forced on her by Jimmy, forced on her by her own damnable lack of foresight! She ought to have known what was coming. She ought to have prevented it. She turned from the door and faced the family tranquilly.
“What’s up, Jane?” asked Robin. “You look like an avenging angel. Your cheeks are as red as fire.”
“It’s just the wind,” said Jane. More lies! “There’s a perfect tornado blowing.” She raised her hands to rearrange her pompadour. As she did so, she rubbed her fingers violently across her mouth. She could still feel Jimmy’s lips there. She could feel his kiss, still vibrating through her entire body. Suddenly she caught her father’s eye. Mr. Ward was sitting comfortably in Stephen’s armchair beside the smouldering fire. Behind a cloud of cigar smoke he was watching his younger daughter very intently. Jane managed to achieve a smile. No one else was paying any attention to her whatever. Jane sat down on the sofa beside Isabel and tried to listen to what she had to say about the cubistic designs that Flora was painting on the wall of the old coach-house. Isabel thought they were very comic. Mrs. Ward thought they were hardly respectable. Mr. Ward continued to watch them all from behind the cloud of cigar smoke. Jane tried to look as if she had forgotten that kiss.