She was silent. She was looking at the river as if she were all alone, and at the island. Robert drew the thin buggy cover over her clothing to protect her from the dust and she was not even aware of it.
“I found an admirable spot when I was visiting patients the other day,” Robert went on. “Very beautiful, very secluded. Very cool, even in this weather. With a view of the river, too.”
“That’s nice,” said Jenny in her strong clear voice, and then she looked at him with that lovely but uncertain smile. “It was good of you to invite me, Doctor.”
He hesitated. His kind eyes smiled down at her. His red-gold mustache was very bright in the sun. “It was my pleasure, Miss Jenny. But I hope it isn’t exclusively my pleasure.”
She was unaccustomed to gallantries, he saw at once, for she pondered his hint with amusing seriousness. Then she said, “I like it, too. The only picnics I’ve ever gone to were those given by Aunt Marjorie. Mrs. Ferrier, you know.”
“A charming lady,” said Robert.
“Yes,” said Jenny.
All at once the conversation died, to Robert’s disappointment. But it was enough for him that Jenny was beside him, her elbow sometimes touching his sleeve as the buggy rolled over uneven places in the road. She exhaled freshness and youth and innocence. Then Robert knew that he had loved this girl from the very beginning, and he was deeply moved. Because of the dangerous and sudden intensity of his emotions he looked for easiness. He wondered what she liked, this mysterious girl, and what amused her. He had heard she had had a good schooling, and then when she was fifteen, her mother had hired a tutor for her for two years to complete that schooling. (There were tales about that also, in Hambledon.) Yet, she had gone nowhere. She had seen nothing of the world. The only point of reference between him, Robert Morgan, and Jenny Heger, was Jonathan Ferrier. But he did not wish to talk about Jonathan, above everything else.
It was Jenny who indirectly approached the subject. He saw that it was awkward, even painful, for her to initiate a subject, so he was not surprised when she stammered, “Do you like Hambledon, Doctor?”
“Yes. Very much. I could have remained in Philadelphia, and I was offered staff positions in New York and Boston, but I wanted a small town. I don’t know why, Miss Jenny. But now I know, I think.”
He waited for her to ask for further elucidation, but she did not. She said, “New York. Boston. Paris. London. Vienna. St. Petersburg. I—I think of them often. I’d like to go.
I
think.”
“Perhaps you will someday.” He thought with what joy he would take Jenny to those far-off places, and what he would show her. They would explore, for the first time, together.
“Yes,” said Jenny, but there was no conviction in her voice. She waited a moment and then with that painful difficulty she said, “So you will remain here.”
“Yes.” (Damn that monosyllable!)
“And Jon—Dr. Ferrier—will truly go away?”
“Yes.” (He was falling into a helpless game.)
“Soon?”
“Yes.” (At least she was talking!)
“Where to?” asked Jenny. He was surprised that she was interested in a man she so obviously loathed. However, perhaps she was eager for him to get out of her sight.
“I don’t know,” said Robert. (Why weren’t they talking about himself, and, best of all, their own future?) “I don’t think, though, that he’ll ever come back to Hambledon. Never again. I have
a
feeling his mother will go with him, too, for it’s doubtful hell ever remarry. The town treated him abominably, as you know.” Now he was curious to know her own reaction to the murder trial. She said nothing. So, he went on, “How anyone can believe that Jonathan Ferrier killed his wife and—er—his child is beyond credibility.”
Jenny turned and looked at him gravely, and shook her head. “Jon never did that, Doctor. Never. He—he couldn’t have—he was away at the time. Of course, I once read that anyone is capable of anything. But Jon didn’t do that, he didn’t do that.”
He was surprised at her mixture of sophistication and ingenuousness. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Miss Jenny. But you and I make up a minority in this town, you know.”
“Yes.” She paused. “I didn’t think Jon was such
a
coward.”
“Coward?”
“Running away. He should stay—and fight.”
“I think so, too. But how can you fight cobwebs, even if they are poisonous?”
“I do,” said Jenny. Now her face was exceptionally pale under all that sunburn, and he could see the sudden whiteness around her mouth.
“I suppose you do,” he said with sadness. She jerked
a
little with her own surprise, and then, to his greater amazement, she colored violently and unbecomingly.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“The stories,” he said.
“About Jon? I don’t believe them in the least!” Her voice was vehement.
Then it came to him that Jenny knew nothing about the tales concerning herself, and he was sad and freshly moved, and filled with the desire to protect her. But, why was her face so red now, and so almost challenging?
“Does Jon ever talk about me?” she asked. Her voice was trembling.
“Jon? Why no. Why should he?”
“Oh.” The color left her face and she seemed to be relieved,
“He wouldn’t talk about his relatives, anyway,” said Robert.
“I’m not his relative!” said Jenny. “His brother is my stepfather—but Jon is no relative of mine!” She looked at the water and said, “Isn’t it beautiful? The sun on the sails, and the color of the mountains and the water? I’ve seen so many paintings of faraway places—the Rhine, the downs of Devon, the Seine, the Riviera, and the Orient. But none seems to me so beautiful as here, and
I
want to spend my life on my island.”
She looked at him with that touching candor of hers and said, “You know, everyone thinks Papa built the castle for Mama. But he built it for me. It was a secret between us, so that Mama wouldn’t feel neglected.” He couldn’t tell in what direction her thoughts were flowing, but he was enchanted when she smiled a real smile this time and he saw her small and brilliant teeth. “Mama and I had secrets, too. She said gentlemen did not appreciate intelligence in ladies and that it was the duty of ladies to play the fool to keep the gentlemen happy. She also said that a man never really forgives
a
woman for marrying him.” She laughed for the first time and he thought it an endearing and childlike sound. “Mama deceived Papa, and Harald, and almost everyone else, into believing she was only comfortable and fluffy. But she was really very sharp.”
“I am sure,” said Robert, “that it would be impossible for
a
stupid lady to have a daughter like you.”
She blushed and drew away from him a little, and her eyes were suspicious. Then, they brightened with anxiety. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Why, Miss Jenny, you are the handsomest young lady
I
have ever seen in my life!” He spoke with deep sincerity and Jenny watched him closely for a few minutes after he had spoken. Then she was smiling again.
“Do you honestly think so?” she asked, not in flirtation but with a real desire to know. “That is, as children say, cross your heart and hope to die?”
He lifted his yellow-gloved hand and crossed his heart and Jenny was openly pleased. “Why?” she asked with disturbing directness.
“Didn’t you ever look at yourself in a mirror?”
“Yes. Of course. I am very plain.”
He glanced at her with disbelief, but again she was perfectly sincere.
“Who told you that, Miss Jenny?”
“Why, Papa. And he was quite right. They used to call me
a
great gawk in school. You see, I am so tall and thin, and have big hands and feet—and I don’t look well in pretty clothes. I’m not gracious, not charming. I don’t know what to do with myself!”
Robert drew up the buggy under the shade of a giant elm, fastened the reins and turned fully and solemnly to the girl, and she instinctively shrank back from him a little. But he did not touch her. He said, “Jenny, I want to tell you now that I’ve seen many beautiful girls and women in my life, in big cities over all the eastern part of the country, and there is none who could match you. Did you ever ask yourself why I wished you to come with me today? Did you think it was my Christian kindness of heart?” He smiled into her eyes, which were widening slowly. “It was my selfishness. I wanted to be with a lovely woman, a great lady, and that is what you are, Jenny. A great lady.”
She pondered over every word he had said, weighing his truthfulness, his actual meaning, and finding nothing wanting at all. She looked faintly incredulous. She adjusted her hat, smoothed her gloves, bit her lower lip, but never took her eyes from his.
“Has nobody ever told you that before?” he asked.
“No. That is,” and she hesitated, “two did, but I didn’t believe them. I still don’t. Oh, yes, Aunt Marjorie told me, too, but she is very kind and so I couldn’t believe her. Truly, you don’t find me repulsive?”
“Jenny!” He wanted to take this woman, who was still
a
child in her mind, in his arms and kiss her hard and repeatedly, but he knew that that would frighten and outrage her. He was so sensitive to her by now, so full of the acuteness of love. “Jenny, you are as repulsive as a rose, as ugly as
a
young green tree, as hideous as a butterfly! Now, is that sufficient?”
She laughed reluctantly. “Perhaps to you, and thank you,” she said.
He saw that she trusted him, and he was elated. He said after a moment, “Who were the ‘two’ who told you what I’ve told you in all honesty?”
Now her blue eyes left him and she looked down at the dust cover that lay over her knees. “They don’t matter. One was Harald, and the other was Jon.”
“Well, Harald should know. He’s an artist, a painter, and they are very perceptive of beauty. And Jon—well, I understand he is quite a connoisseur of women.” He added this delicately, but it was apparent at once that she took his remark on its face, for she nodded.
“Mavis was the prettiest woman I ever saw,” she said. “She was like the princess in the fairy tales I read as a child. Rapunzel. The Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella. Snow White. She was all of them, Mavis. Of course, she was a lot older than
I
was, four years. She was—dazzling. People always stared at her, absolutely hypnotized. I wanted to look at her for hours —but she was never still.”
“You mean, jiggling with her hands and her head, the way the ladies all do now—except you, Jenny? The fashionable jiggling, pretending to animation or something?”
She giggled. She actually giggled. He thought it an adorable sound. “They do look as if they have the palsy, don’t they?” she said. “No, Mavis wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that she was quiet. On the contrary. She laughed all the time, boisterously. It was the only ugly thing about her, and
I
thought how it spoiled her appearance. But others seemed to like it!” She shook her head in wonder. “They always talked about Mavis’ laugh, as if it were marvelous. Perhaps
I
was the one who was wrong. I don’t like noisy people.”
“Mavis was noisy?”
“Well, yes. I know that sounds unkind, but it is the truth. She was noisy. And cuddly. She was always cuddling against people, and laughing that raucous laugh of hers,” and now Jenny’s voice rose with honest indignation. “She would do that with Jon when they were first married, and I felt sorry for him, for she embarrassed him. But no one else was embarrassed. I think Jon annoyed Mavis.”
“He’s too severe, perhaps?”
“I never thought so.” She was again surprised. “In fact,
I
began to think him frivolous, light-minded, superficial, since Mavis—died.”
There was no limit to the power she had of astonishing him. “Jon—frivolous? He seems very bitter to me, and I’ve heard he was harsh, though I know better. He is the most unhappy man I’ve ever known. But grim men like Jon always make disastrous marriages, and heaven only knows why.”
The buggy was jogging along again now and the sweet dusty breeze blew over their faces and Robert was filled with a huge content. So, this was what love was like, was it? A kind of peace, a contentment, a radiant serenity, a quietness and sweetness of the spirit. Sweetness, above all. Everything had a shine to it to his eyes, the sun, the earth, the tall dry grasses along the road, the quiet water, the hills. He saw Queen Anne’s lace in the grass and heard the bees and thcicadas, and he wondered at the beauty of the world when it was lit by this inner illumination of passion and tenderness. There was more to love than desire, the Jon Ferriers to the contrary. Desire was the least part of love, though it was its foundation, its earth. Above the roots rose the living tree with the rosy fruit and the jade leaves, the everlasting tree which not even death could cause to decay, for it was changeless and immutable, imperishable and fashioned out of some loveliness deep in the sullen and restless human spirit.
“Yes,” said Jenny, “it was disastrous for both of them, Mavis and Jon.”
There are some who would call this gossip, thought Robert Morgan. But Jenny is as guiltless of the intent to gossip as an infant. She speaks whatever comes to her mind without malice or cruelty. Now he was afraid for her. She had no one in the world of her own, no way of protection, no wall against her vulnerability. Her only defense would be marriage, and he was more than ready to offer that defense.