Pearl Buck - The Goddess Abides

“And friends. That’s why I asked you to come here tonight. I haven’t seen you—”

Amelia interrupted. “Who is that long-legged fellow who has been here a couple of times?”

“He’s someone I happened to meet last whiter in Vermont. He is an admirer of my father—”

“Not of you?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Amelia!”

“Well, you’re ripe for it. I know — I’ve watched my friends when they’ve become widows after having faithful husbands like Arnold, especially pretty widows!”

“Please, Amelia!”

“Oh, very well, Edith! Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to tell me.”

“Amelia, there’s nothing to tell.”

“Then why did you suddenly invite me to dinner?”

“Because I was lonely. I dreaded coming back to this great dark old house. And — and—”

“Be careful,” Amelia said. “You’re getting in the mood for anything. I’ll have some more of the asparagus, Weston.”

…“So why don’t you come with me?” Jared asked.

His voice came clear and strong over the telephone. It was a crisp fine morning, the day before Christmas, and she had been wondering how she would spend the holiday. Millicent and her family had already moved to San Francisco, they had made telephone exchanges. The children were enchanted with the beautiful playgrounds, the beaches, the parks.

“And you?” Edith inquired.

“I’m going to have a maid,” Millicent cried, “and of course I’m enchanted. Tom has a good raise.”

“Then he’s on his way up and all is well,” she had said.

With this she had not forgotten her daughter exactly, but she was at ease about her and could forget her if she liked, very much as she habitually forgot Tony because really she was not needed any more, and so was free this morning to linger over breakfast, answer the telephone when it rang, and hear Jared’s clear voice at her ear. She gazed out the wide French windows meanwhile. The sky was cloudlessly blue, but the last leaves were fluttering down from the big oak tree by the east terrace. She had finished breakfast, and was deciding what to do with the day, something vigorous, she had thought, for she was feeling unusually well, and awake, impatient for physical exercise, perhaps a canter alone along the edge of the woods.

“But when?” she asked, uncertain.

“I’ll pick you up this afternoon and we’ll motor down the eastern coast. Have pity on me. My old uncle is in the Virgin Islands — he hates the cold. And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend Christmas with than you.”

“You don’t want to go to Vermont?”

“No. I want to take you to strange places where neither of us has ever been. Let’s just wander.”

She considered for a moment. On the inside pane of the wide window a late bee buzzed frantically, lost from its fellows, and she let herself be diverted.

“There’s a bee buzzing on the window. If I let it out will it freeze?”

“No,” he said. “It will find its way home.”

“Then wait a minute,” she said.

She opened the window and brushed the bee outdoors with her handkerchief. It flew away instantly, but the cold sweet air rushed into the room and she let it blow upon her face. The sharp chill stung her flesh and stirred her blood, she had not realized how close the air in this old house was, a scent not unpleasant, of leatherbound books and many Oriental rugs and hothouse flowers. A rush of impetuous desire for freshness and new vigor swept over her and she closed the window.

“I’ll be ready,” she called into the telephone.

“Good — at half past two,” he said.

…The road wound in and out along the coast. For miles the sea was hidden, the road entering the forest and then as suddenly emerging again to the curve of a bay or a beach. The sun slipped slowly downward in the western sky and they stopped at twilight at an inn, an old mansion, its pillared portico reaching to the roof. Jared pulled up at the entrance.

“We’ve been very quiet,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

Neither of them had felt like talking, it seemed. He had driven the small convertible in concentrated thought and she had not interrupted. A few times he had noticed the landscape.

“Those rocks down there by the sea—” he said.

“As though they had been tumbled there by a giant—” she replied.

The air had been golden with sunlight through the afternoon, turning at sunset to rose and crimson. Evening star and a crescent moon hung over the trees and a beneficent calm pervaded her — and him, too, she felt, a relaxed mood which was in itself communication between them. She was happy in his presence, she now realized, happier than she had been for a long time, happier perhaps than she had ever been. Certainly with no one had she felt this conviction of life and its goodness, this ease of presence with another human being. She turned to him impulsively and found him looking at her, dark eyes questioning.

“Shall we stop here? Dine and then walk on the beach?”

“Yes,” she said. “In this air — what is that scent? Fines, I think. It is too late in the year for flowers, though it’s still warm in this climate.”

“Pines warmed by the day’s sun,” he said. “And shall we stay here for the night? At this season the inn will be nearly empty, I daresay — people at home for Christmas, but you and I are making our own Christmas.”

“Let us stay,” she said.

He gave her a look, passionate and deep, and for an instant she wondered what it meant. There could be no question, surely there could be no question about rooms, separate rooms. She was startled to discover in herself the question answered, hidden in her own being a reluctant yearning to forget her years and her reserves. She was no longer any man’s wife. She was free to be what she wished to be, to do what she wanted to do. There was no need to refuse herself — or him — anything that pleased them. She had fulfilled all duties to others.

“Then I will engage our rooms,” he said.

He left her in the car while he entered the office of the inn and she sat alone, a sweet intoxication pervading her. She recognized it without ever having felt it before, a powerful attraction to this man, an attraction of mind first, but so complete that it flowed through her body in a warm current. She tried to stay it, to control it, to analyze it. Let her remember herself. Let her ask herself what she truly wanted — no complications, she told herself, no foolish complications of emotion. Above all, no heartbreak at this time of her life.

He came back in a moment, very cheerful, very composed.

“I got adjoining rooms,” he said. “If you want anything you can call me.”

…She woke in the night as usual after five hours of sleep. That was her habit — five hours of deep dreamless sleep and then she woke absolutely, her mind clear and aware. Moonlight streamed through the open window and the air was crisply chill. She pulled the covers about her shoulders and breathed deeply. There was a smell of the sea, the softly rushing sound of distant surf. This was how it would be in her house on the cliff when she slept there alone. Only now she was not alone. That is to say, Jared was on the other side of the closed door, not locked, only closed. She was suddenly acutely aware that it was not locked, only closed.

“There’s no telephone between rooms in an old inn like this,” Jared had said. “I’ll not lock the door in case of — anything.”

She had not replied. Instead she had stood quite still in the center of this big square room with its four-poster double bed.

“I hate to say good night,” Jared said.

“It was a delightful dinner,” she said. “I didn’t know how hungry I was.”