VII
Five days later, Jimmy returned to Lakewood. He turned up, early in the afternoon, and found Jane superintending the gardener, who was spading up the rose-bed in the garden.
She looked up from the roots of a Dorothy Perkins and saw him standing on the terrace. She was no longer surprised that she was so easily able to dissemble her emotion. Jane had had plenty of practice in the fine art of dissembling emotion during the last five days.
“I think you’d better order another load of black earth, Swanson,” she said casually and turned to walk over to the terrace.
Jimmy stood there, quite motionless, watching her approach through the sunny garden. His face was very serious and his smile was very grave. Jane ascended the terrace steps and held out her hand to him. He took it in silence and held it very tightly.
“You don’t know what it does to me,” said Jimmy, “to see you again.”
“Have you accepted my decision?” said Jane.
“No,” said Jimmy abruptly, “of course not. Did you think I would?” He drew her hand through his arm and led her over to the corner of the terrace that was sheltered by the oak trees. The oak trees were just bursting into pink and wine-red buds. They did not give much shelter, but from that terrace corner you could not see the rose-bed.
“I asked you not to come back until you had,” said Jane, withdrawing her hand from the crook of his arm and sitting down on the brick parapet of the terrace.
“Jane, you’re really invincible,” smiled Jimmy. “Invincibly determined as well as invincibly innocent! Do you really mean to tell me that you haven’t spent the last five days regretting that you sent me out of your life?”
“I don’t think that there’s anything to laugh at in this situation,” said Jane severely.
“Darling!” said Jimmy—in a moment he was all penitence and contrition—“I’m not laughing. You know I’m not laughing. I’m preserving the light touch—something very different in situations of an emotional character. But I repeat my question—haven’t you been awfully sorry?”
“Of course I’ve been sorry,” said Jane. “I’ve been in hell.”
Jimmy looked down at her very tenderly.
“I’ve been there with you, Jane,” he said soberly. “Don’t you think it’s time you let us both out?”
Jane shook her head.
“I guess we’re there to stay, Jimmy,” she said. “Do you know, as far as I’m concerned, I almost hope I will stay there. The one thing that I couldn’t bear would be the thought that I could ever get over you.”
“Why?” said Jimmy.
“To feel the way I feel about you, Jimmy,” said Jane, “and then to get over it, would be the most disillusioning of all human experiences. I’m going to keep faith, forever, with the feeling I have for you at this moment.”
Behind the tenderness in Jimmy’s eyes glittered the ghost of his twinkle.
“Well, that’s very sweet of you, darling,” he said. “But don’t you think that assurance, taken by itself, is just a little barren? It has a note of finality—”
“It is final,” said Jane. “That’s all I have to say to you.”
“Well,” said Jimmy, drawing a long breath, “I’ve a great deal more than that to say to you. Listen, you ridiculous child—if you think I’m going to let you ruin both our lives with a phrase—”
“Jimmy,” said Jane, “I beg of you not to go into this again. I’ve had—really I’ve had—a terrible five days. But I haven’t changed my mind. I haven’t changed it one iota. I’m glad you’re going away. I hope I don’t see you again for years. It just kills me to see you. It kills me to live with your memory, but I wouldn’t forget you for anything in the world.” His eyes were very bright as he stood looking down at her. Jane turned her head to gaze out over the flat, sunny Skokie Valley. After a moment she spoke again. Her voice had changed abruptly. It had grown dull and lifeless. “When are you going?” she asked.
“That depends upon you,” said Jimmy.
“If it depends upon me,” said Jane, still not turning her head, “you can’t go too soon.”
“Jane,” said Jimmy, dropping quickly down beside her on the parapet. “You—you really won’t come with me?”
“No,” said Jane.
“You don’t want to live?”
“I’ll live,” said Jane tonelessly, “for Stephen and the children. That sounds very melodramatic, I know, but it’s exactly what I’m going to do. There’s just one other thing I want to say to you, Jimmy. I thought of it after you’d gone the other day.” She turned her head to look into his eyes. “I’m never going to tell Stephen anything about this, and I hope you won’t tell Agnes. I couldn’t decide, at first, just what I ought to do about that. I couldn’t decide whether it was courage or cowardice that made me want not to tell. I couldn’t decide whether Stephen ought to know. You see”—she smiled a little gravely—“I really feel terribly about it, and I know, no matter how dreadful the telling was, I’d feel better after I’d told it. Confession is good for the soul. I wish I were a Catholic, Jimmy. I wish I were a good Catholic and could pour the whole story into the impersonal ear of a priest in the confessional. But I’m not a Catholic and Stephen isn’t a priest. So I think I’ll just have to live with a secret. I’ll just have to live with Stephen, knowing that I know, but he doesn’t, just what I did.”
Jimmy’s sad little smile was very tender.
“You didn’t do so awfully much, you know, Jane,” he said.
“But I felt everything,” said Jane soberly, “I think it’s not so much what you do that matters, as what you feel. What I felt is somehow what I can’t tell Stephen. I’ve never had a secret before, Jimmy. I’ve never had anything I couldn’t tell the world. I hope—I hope you’ll feel that way about Agnes. For I really feel about Agnes just the way I do about Stephen.”
“I’m not going back to Agnes,” said Jimmy suddenly.
Jane stared at him in horror.
“You’re not—going back—to Agnes?” she faltered.
“Did you think I could?” said Jimmy harshly.
“Why not?” asked Jane. Her eyes searched his. Suddenly her mouth began to tremble. “Why not—if I can—stay with Stephen?”
“Oh—my darling!” breathed Jimmy.
“You must go back to her, Jimmy,” said Jane. “Don’t you see—if you don’t, I’ll have ruined her life just as if I’d gone away with you?”
“I can’t go back to her,” said Jimmy. He stood up suddenly and took a few steps across the terrace, then turned to look at her again. “No, Jane. If you won’t come with me, I’m going without you. I’m going to see the world before I die, I’m going West—out to the coast—to sail on the first boat I can catch for the Orient. I don’t know just how I’ll manage it, but I’ll work my way somehow.”
“But you’ll come back?” said Jane. She rose as she spoke and walked anxiously over to him. “You’ll have to come back, you know.”
“Oh—I suppose one always comes back,” said Jimmy uncertainly. “I’ll probably die in East St. Louis.”
“But before you die,” urged Jane, attempting a shaky little smile, “before you die, you will come back to Agnes?”
“Well—nothing’s impossible,” said Jimmy. He looked moodily down at her. “Except, apparently, one thing.”
“When are you leaving?” asked Jane.
“Tomorrow, perhaps. It’s Saturday, you know. I need my last paycheck.”
“Then this is goodbye?” They were strolling, now, side by side, back to the terrace doors.
“I guess it is, Jane. Considering how you feel.”
He opened the door for her and they crossed the living-room in silence. He picked up his hat from the hall table and stood looking down at her by the front door.
“Do you want me to kiss you goodbye?” said Jimmy.
Jane shook her head. Two great tears that were trembling on her lashes rolled down her cheeks. She ignored them proudly.
“Well—I’m going to do it anyway!” said Jimmy. He caught her roughly in his arms. In the ecstasy of that embrace, Jane knew that she was crying wildly. Suddenly, he put her from him. Without a word of farewell, he had opened the door and was gone. Jane leaned helplessly against its panels, exhausted by emotion. Suddenly she turned and ran rapidly up the stairs to the window on the landing. But she was too late. The gravel road was empty. Jimmy had disappeared around the bushes at the entrance of the drive.