Jane of Lantern Hill (20 page)

“If we could only make the summer last longer,” sighed Jane.

But that was impossible. It was September now, and soon she must put off Jane and put on Victoria. But not before they got Miranda Jimmy John married off. Jane was so busy helping the Jimmy Johns get ready for the wedding that Lantern Hill hardly knew her except to get a bite for dad. And as bridesmaid she had a chance to wear the adorable dress of rose-pink organdy with its embroidered blue and white spots which mother had gotten her. But once the wedding was over, Jane had to say good-bye to Lantern Hill again…to the windy silver of the gulf…to the pond…to Big Donald's wood-lane…which, alas was going to be cut down and ploughed up…to her garden, which was to her a garden that never knew winter because she saw it only in summer…to the wind that sang in the spruces and the gulls that soared whitely over the harbor…to Bubbles and Happy and First Peter and Silver Penny. And dad. But though she felt sad over it, there was none of the despair that had filled her heart the year before. She would be back next summer…that was an understood thing now. She would be seeing mother again…she did not dislike the idea of going back to St. Agatha's…there was Jody's delight to be looked forward to…and dad was going with her as far as Montreal.

Aunt Irene came to Lantern Hill the day before Jane left and seemed to want to say something she couldn't quite manage to say. When she went away, she held Jane's hand and looked at her very significantly.

“If you hear some news before next spring, lovey…”

“What news am I likely to hear?” said Jane with the terrible directness which Aunt Irene always found so trying.

“Oh…one can never tell…who knows what changes may come before then?”

Jane was uncomfortable for a few moments and then shrugged it away. Aunt Irene was always giving mysterious hints about something, throwing out wisps of insinuation that clung like cobwebs. Jane had learned not to mind Aunt Irene.

“I've never really been able to make as much of that child as I would like,” mourned Aunt Irene to a friend. “She holds you at arms' length somehow. The Kennedys were all hard…her mother now…you'd think to look at her she was all rose and cream and sweetness. But underneath, my dear…hard as a rock. She ruined my brother's life and did everything…
everything,
I understand…to set his child against him.”

“Jane seems very fond of her father now,” said the friend.

“Oh, I'm sure she is…as fond as she can be of any one. But Andrew is a very lonely man. And I don't know if he will ever be anything else. Lately I've been wondering…”

“Wondering if he'll finally work himself up to getting a United States divorce and marrying Lilian Morrow,” said the friend bluntly. She had had much experience in filling up Irene's blanks.

Aunt Irene looked quite shocked at such plain speaking.

“Oh, I wouldn't like to say
that…
I don't really know…but, of course, Lilian is the girl he should have married instead of Robin Kennedy. They have
so
much in common. And though I don't approve of divorce ordinarily…I think it
shocking…
still…there
are
special circumstances…”

Jane and dad had a delightful trip to Montreal.

“How nice to think we're an hour younger than we were,” said dad, as he put his watch back at Campbellton. He said things like that all along the way about everything.

Jane clung to him very tightly in Montreal station.

“Dad darling…but I'll be back next summer, you know.”

“Of course,” said dad. Then he added,

“Jane, here's a spot of hard cash for you. I don't suppose you get a very huge allowance at 60 Gay.”

“None at all…but can you spare this, dad?” Jane was looking at the bills he had put into her hand. “Fifty dollars? That's an awful lot of money, dad.”

“This has been a good year for me, Jane. Editors have been kind. And somehow…when you're about I write more…I've felt some of my old ambition stirring this past year.”

Jane, who had spent all her lion-reward money on things for Lantern Hill and treats for the young fry who had been associated with her in the episode, tucked the money away in her bag, reflecting that it would come in handy at Christmas.

“Life, deal gently with her…love, never desert her,” said Andrew Stuart, looking after the Toronto train as it steamed away.

Jane found that grandmother had had her room done over for her. When she went up to it, she discovered a wonderful splendor of rose and gray, instead of the old gloom. Silvery carpet…shimmering curtains…chintz chairs…cream-tinted furniture…pink silk bedspread. The old bearskin rug…the only thing she had really liked…was gone. So was the cradle. The big mirror had been replaced by a round rimless one.

“How do you like it?” asked grandmother watchfully.

Jane recalled her little room at Lantern Hill with its bare floor and sheepskin rug and white spool bed covered with its patchwork quilt.

“It is very beautiful, grandmother. Thank you very much.”

“Fortunately,” said grandmother, “I did not expect much enthusiasm.”

After grandmother had gone out, Jane turned her back on the splendor and went to the window. The only things of home were the stars. She wondered if dad were looking at them…no, of course, he wouldn't be home yet. But they would all be there in their proper places…the North Star over the Watch Tower, Orion sparkling over Big Donald's hill. And Jane knew that she would never be the least bit afraid of grandmother again.

***

“Oh, Jane,” said Jody. “Oh, Jane!”

“I know you'll be happy with the Titus ladies, Jody. They're a little old-fashioned, but they're so kind…and they have the loveliest garden. You won't have to make a garden by sticking faded flowers in a plot any more. You'll see the famous cherry walk in bloom…I've never seen
that
.”

“It's like a beautiful dream,” said Jody. “But oh, Jane, I hate to leave you.”

“We'll be together in the summers instead of in the winters. That will be the only difference, Jody. And it will be ever so much nicer. We'll swim…I'll teach you the crawl. Mother says her friend, Mrs. Newton, will take you as far as Sackville, and Miss Justina Titus will meet you there. And mother is going to get your clothes.”

“I wonder if it will be like this when I go to heaven,” said Jody breathlessly.

Jane missed Jody when she went, but life was growing full. She loved St. Agatha's now. She liked Phyllis quite well, and Aunt Sylvia said she had really never seen a child blossom out socially as Victoria had done. Uncle William couldn't floor her when he asked about capitals now. Uncle William was beginning to think that Victoria had something in her, and Jane was finding that she liked Uncle William reasonably well. As for grandmother…well, Mary told Frank it did her heart good to see Miss Victoria standing up to the old lady.

“Not that stands up is just the right word either. But the madam can't put it over her like she used to. Nothing she says seems to get under Miss Victoria's skin anymore. And does that make her mad! I've seen her turn white with rage when she'd said something real venomous and Miss Victoria just answering in that respectful tone of hers that's just as good as telling her she doesn't care a hoot about what any Kennedy of them all says anymore.”

“I wish Miss Robin would learn that trick,” said Frank.

Mary shook her head.

“It's too late for her. She's been under the old lady's thumb too long. Never went against her in her life except for one thing, and lived to repent that, so they say. And anyhow, she's a cat of a different breed from Miss Victoria.”

One November evening mother went again to Lakeside Gardens to see her friend and took Jane with her. Jane welcomed the chance to see her house again. Would it be sold? Unbelievably, it wasn't. Jane's heart gave a bound of relief. She was so afraid it would be. She couldn't understand how it wasn't, it seemed so entirely desirable to her. She did not know that the builder had decided that he had made a mistake when he built a little house in Lakeside Gardens. People who could live in Lakeside Gardens wanted bigger houses.

Though Jane was glad to her toes that her house hadn't been sold, she was inconsistently resentful that it was un-lighted and unwarmed. She hated the oncoming winter because of the house. Its heart must ache with the cold then. She sat on the steps and watched the lights blooming out along the Gardens and wished there was one in her house. How the dead brown leaves still clinging to the oaks rustled in the windy night! How the lights along the lake shore twinkled through the trees of the ravine! And how she hated, yes, positively hated, the man who would buy this house!

“It just isn't fair,” said Jane. “Nobody will ever love it as I do. It really belongs to me.”

The week before Christmas Jane bought the materials for a fruit-cake out of the money dad had given her and compounded it in the kitchen. Then she expressed it to dad. She did not ask anyone's permission for all this…just went ahead and did it. Mary held her tongue and grandmother knew nothing about it. But Jane would have sent it just the same if she had.

One thing made Christmas Day memorable for Jane that year. Just after breakfast Frank came in to say that long distance was calling Miss Victoria. Jane went to the hall with a puzzled look…who on earth could be calling her on long distance? She lifted the receiver to her ear.

“Lantern Hill calling Superior Jane! Merry Christmas and thanks for that cake,” said dad's voice as distinctly as if he were in the same room.

“Dad!” Jane gasped. “Where are you?”

“Here at Lantern Hill. This is my Christmas present to you, Janelet. Three minutes over a thousand miles.”

Probably no two people ever crammed more into three minutes. When Jane went back to the dining room, her cheeks were crimson and her eyes glowed like jewels.

“Who was calling you, Victoria?” asked grandmother.

“Dad,” said Jane.

Mother gave a little choked cry. Grandmother wheeled on her furiously.

“Perhaps,” she said icily, “you think he should have called
you
.”

“He should,” said Jane.

At the end of a blue and silver day in March, Jane was doing her lessons in her room and feeling reasonably happy. She had had a rapturous letter from Jody that morning…all Jody's letter were rapturous…giving her lots of interesting news from Queen's Shore…she had had a birthday the week before and was now in her leggy teens…and two bits of luck had come her way that afternoon. Aunt Sylvia had taken her and Phyllis with her on a shopping expedition, and Jane had picked up two delightful things for Lantern Hill…a lovely old copper bowl and a comical brass knocker for the glass-paned door. It was the head of a dog with his tongue hanging waggishly out and a real dog-laugh in his eyes.

The door opened and mother came in, ready dressed for a restaurant dinner party. She wore the most wonderful sheath dress of ivory taffeta, with a sapphire velvet bow at the back and a little blue velvet jacket over her lovely shoulders. Her slippers were blue, with slender golden heels, and she had her hair done in a new way…a sleek, flat top to her head and a row of tricksy little curls around her neck.

“Oh, mums, you are perfectly lovely,” said Jane, looking at her with adoring eyes. And then she added something she had never intended to say…something that seemed to rush to her lips and say itself.

“I
do
wish dad could see you now.”

Jane pulled herself up in dire dismay. She had been told never to mention dad to mother…and yet she had done it. And mother was looking as if she had been struck in the face.

“I do not suppose,” said mother bitterly, “that he would be at all interested in the sight.”

Jane said nothing. There seemed to be nothing she could say. How did she know whether dad would be interested or not? And yet…and yet…she was sure he still loved mother.

Mother sat down on one of the chintz chairs and looked at Jane.

“Jane,” she said, “I am going to tell you something about my marriage. I don't know what you have heard about the other side of it…there
was
another side, of course…but I want you to hear my side. It is better you should know. I should have told you before…but…it hurt me so.”

“Don't tell it now, if it hurts you, darling,” said Jane earnestly. (Thinking…
I
know
more
about
it
than
you
suppose
already.
)

“I must. There are some things I want you to understand…I don't want you to blame me too much…”

“I don't blame you at all, mother.”

“Oh, I was to blame a great deal…I see that now when it is too late. I was so young and foolish…just a careless, happy little bride. I…I…ran away to be married to your father, Jane.”

Jane nodded.

“How much
do
you know, Jane?”

“Just that you ran away and were very happy at first.”

“Happy? Oh, Jane Victoria, I was…I was…so happy. But it really was…a very unfortunate marriage, dearest.”

(That sounds like something grandmother said.)

“I shouldn't have treated mother so…I was all she had left after my father died. But she forgave me…”

(And set herself to work to make trouble between you and dad.)

“But we
were
happy that first year, Jane Victoria. I worshiped Andrew…that smile of his…you know his smile…”

(Do I know it?)

“We had such fun together…reading poetry by driftwood fires down at the harbor…we always made a rite of lighting those fires…life was wonderful. I used to welcome the days then as much as I shrink from them now. We had only one quarrel that first year…I forget what it was about…something silly…I kissed the frown on his forehead and all was well again. I knew there was no woman in the world so happy as I was. If it could have lasted!”

“Why didn't it last, mother?”

“I…I hardly know. Of course I wasn't much of a housekeeper, but I don't think it was that. I couldn't cook, but our maid didn't do so badly and Little Aunt Em used to come in and help.
She
was a darling. And I couldn't keep accounts straight ever…I would add up a column eight times and get a different answer every time. But Andrew just laughed over that. Then you were born…”

“And that made all the trouble,” cried Jane, in whom that bitter thought had persisted in rankling.

“Not at first…oh, Jane Victoria darling, not at first. But Andrew never seemed the same after…”

(I wonder if it wasn't you who had changed, mother.)

“He was jealous of my love for you…he was, Jane Victoria…”

(Not jealous…no, not jealous. A little hurt…he didn't like to be second with you after he had been first...he thought he came second then.)

“He used to say ‘your child'…‘your daughter' as if you weren't his. Why, he used to make fun of you. Once he said you had a face like a monkey.”

(And no Kennedy can take a joke.)

“You hadn't…you were the cutest little thing. Why, Jane Victoria darling, you were just a daily miracle. It was such fun to tuck you in at night…to watch you when you were asleep.”

(And you were just a darling big baby yourself, mother.)

“Andrew was angry because I couldn't go out with him as much as before. How could I? It would have been bad for you if I'd taken you and I couldn't leave you. But he didn't care really…he never did except for a little while at the first. He cared far more for that book of his than for me. He would shut himself up with it for days at a time and forget all about me.”

(And yet you think he was the only jealous one.)

“I suppose I simply wasn't capable of living with a genius. Of course, I knew I wasn't clever enough for him. Irene let me see that she thought that. And he cared far more for her than for me…”

(Oh, no, not that…never that!)

“She had far more influence over him than I had. He told her things before he told me…”

(Because she was always trying to pick them out of him before he was ready to tell anyone.)

“He thought me such a child that, if he had a plan, he consulted her before he consulted me. Irene made me feel like a shadow in my own house. She liked to humiliate me, I think. She was always sweet and smiling…”

(She would be!)

“…but she always blew my candles out. She patronized me…”

(Do I know it!)

“‘I've noticed,' she would say. That had such a sting, as if she'd been spying on me right along. Andrew said I was unreasonable…I wasn't…but he always sided with her. Irene never liked me. She had wanted Andrew to marry another girl…I was told she had said from the first that she knew our marriage would be a failure…”

(And did her best to make it one.)

“She kept pushing us apart…here a little…there a little. I was helpless.”

(Not if you had had a wee bit of backbone, Mummy.)

“Andrew was annoyed because I didn't like her, and yet he hated
my
family. He couldn't speak of mother without insulting her…he didn't want me to visit her…get presents from her…money…oh, Jane Victoria, that last year was dreadful. Andrew never looked at me if he could help it.”

(Because it hurt him too much.)

“It seemed as if I were married to a stranger. We were always saying bitter things to each other…”

(That verse I read in the Bible last night, “Death and Life are in the power of the tongue”…it's true…it's true!)

“Then mother wrote and asked me to come home for a visit. Andrew said, ‘Go if you want to'…just like that. Irene said it would give things a chance to heal up…”

(I can see her smiling when she said it.)

“I went. And…and…mother wanted me to stay with her. She could see I was so unhappy…”

(And took her chance.)

“I couldn't go on living with a person who hated me, Jane Victoria…I couldn't…so…I wrote him and told him I thought it would be better for both of us if I didn't go back. I…I don't know…nothing seemed real someway…if he had written and asked me to go back…but he didn't. I never heard from him…till that letter came asking for you.”

Jane had kept silence while her mother talked, thinking things at intervals, but now she could keep silence no longer.

“He
did
write…he wrote and asked you to come back…and you never answered…you never answered, mother.”

Mother and daughter looked at each other in the silence of the big, beautiful, unfriendly room.

After a little mother whispered, “I never got it, Jane Victoria.”

They said nothing more about it. Both of them knew quite well what had happened to the letter.

“Mother, it isn't too late yet…”

“Yes, it is too late, dear. Too much has come between us. I can't break with mother again…she'd never forgive me again…and she loves me so. I'm all she has…”

“Nonsense!” Jane was as brusque as any Stuart of them all. “She has got Aunt Gertrude and Uncle William and Aunt Sylvia.”

“It's…it's not the same. She didn't love
their
father. And…I can't stand up to her. Besides, he doesn't want me anymore. We're strangers. And oh, Jane Victoria, life's slipping away…like that…through my fingers. The harder I try to hold it, the faster it slips. I've lost you…”

“Never, mother!”

“Yes, you belong more to him than to me now. I don't blame you…you can't help it. But you'll belong a little more to him every year…till there'll be nothing left for me.”

Grandmother came in. She looked at them both suspiciously.

“Have you forgotten you are dining out, Robin?”

“Yes, I think I had,” said mother strangely. “But never mind…I've remembered now. I…I shan't forget again.”

Grandmother lingered for a moment after mother had gone out.

“What have you been saying to upset your mother, Victoria?”

Jane looked levelly at grandmother.

“
What
happened
to
the
letter
father
wrote
mother
long
ago, asking her to go back to him, grandmother?
”

Grandmother's cold cruel eyes suddenly blazed.

“So that's it? Do you think it any of your business exactly?”

“Yes, I think it is, since I am their child.”

“I did what was right with it…I burned it. She had seen her mistake…she had come back to me, as I always knew she would…I was not going to have her misled again. Don't begin plotting, Victoria. I am a match for you all yet.”

“No one is plotting,” said Jane, “There is just one thing I want to tell you, grandmother. My father and mother love each other yet…I
know
it.”

Grandmother's voice was ice.

“They do not. Your mother has been happy all these years, till you began stirring up old memories.
Leave
her
alone.
She is
my
daughter…no outsider shall ever come between us again…neither Andrew Stuart nor you nor anyone. And you will be good enough to remember that.”