Pearl Buck - The Goddess Abides

Edwin’s voice recalled her. “Are you still there, Edith?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” she replied quickly.

“Then you haven’t been listening!”

“Not quite,” she confessed.

“You’ve been dreaming!”

“Only thinking — about you and me.”

“Ah, then, I forgive you. And thank you! It’s not good for me to suffer jealousy, you know — at my age.”

“You needn’t. Now go back to your work, dear.”

She put up the receiver, turned to face the day, a bright sunlit day, the white slopes gay with darting figures, and she wasted it wantonly. A multitude of small tasks waited, a silver bowl to be polished and filled with fruit, a trip to the village store which she postponed so that she could sit by the window and gaze again at the mountainside, imagining which of the flying dots of color could be that of Jared Barnow. She had never known anyone named Jared and the strange name added to his attraction. Something new, someone new, had entered her house last night.

…When the sun had set and shadows crept over the mountain, leaving only the peak rose-red against the sky, she busied herself with the evening meal. For two? Or only herself? She would not set the table until she knew. Meanwhile she would prepare enough food — two small steaks, the larger one for him. Then suddenly she heard his footsteps, stamping off the snow, and he opened the door without knocking.

“I’m back,” he said.

“I was expecting you.”

She went toward him as she spoke and to her surprise and somewhat to her horror, she felt an impulse to put her arms about him. She restrained herself. To what absurdities could loneliness reduce her! She must be on guard. A new experience, this impulse, for until now she had only to be on guard against others, her own fastidiousness — coldness, Arnold had sometimes called it, when he was angry with her — until now had been her weapon. In her own being she had known she was not cold, withdrawn perhaps into a space which she had never shared with anyone, an inner space.

“I’m back, as you see,” he repeated.

“No luck in finding a room?”

“I didn’t try,” he said, unlacing his boots.

“I’m rather glad,” she said. “It makes me feel a part of life on the mountain.”

“You’ve never skied?”

“Oh, yes, I loved it when I was young.”

“It’s not too late, you know.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Nonsense! You look — about twenty-five, say!”

She laughed. “Add ten years and then another seven. I’m forty-two!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Never mention it again,” he commanded. He rose and went toward the door to the guest room. “I’ll just wash up a bit, brush my hair—”

“Everything is ready,” she said.

He paused. “You expected me?”

“I hoped.”

They exchanged a look and he went into the room and closed the door. And she stood, uncertain. Should she change her dark green wool suit? But if she did, would he suspect her of some absurd coquetry? She decided not to change and was glad, half an hour later, for he sat down and began eating with self-assurance and in a silence that was almost ingratitude, she thought. He was only young, she decided, watching him — young and very hungry. It would be absurd to change into her long red dress — or the black one trimmed in silver, merely for this greedy boy.

“How long are you staying on the mountain?” she asked at last, to break the silence. No, she was ready for him to leave, her pride wounded, remembering the foolish impulse she had resisted.

“I must go back tomorrow,” he said. “I have a job in a laboratory. Well, it’s more than that. It’s an opportunity — a chance at last to invent, to discover — do something on my own, perhaps — Brinstead Electronics.”

“A fine firm,” she said.

“You know it?”

“My father was a sort of consultant.”

“I wish I’d known him!”

“He died long before you were old enough to know him.”

The words stung her heart with a sudden wounding of her selfhood. When he had been born she was already out of childhood, a girl quarreling with her patient mother over the length — or shortness — of skirts and defending her right to come home after midnight when she was out with Arnold.

“The whole world knew him,” he was saying.

“I suppose so.”

Why was it difficult to talk? She felt depressed and apart, almost hostile to him because he was so young. Yet last night the conversation had flowed between them, easily and with understanding. She lifted her head involuntarily and realized that she had done so because he was staring at her, his eyes very dark under his brows. When their eyes met he spoke abruptly.

“I like you. Not just because you’re beautiful, either. I’m used to that sort of thing. The girl I’m going with is pretty enough. But you have something—”

He broke off and she made herself laugh.

“Age — that’s all!”

He did not reply with laughter. Instead he spoke almost with irritation. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about age! I’m ashamed of being — foolishly young. I’ve always been too young for what I wanted to do — too young to go to college, too young for a job. I ran away when I was fifteen, just to pass the time until I was older. I finished college too young. I’ve always done everything too young.”

“Where did you run?”

“I traveled — loafed would be better — around the world for two years.”

“So now you’re—”

“Twenty-four.”

She stabbed herself again. “Tell me about your girl.”

He frowned and turned his head toward the window. Over the rim of the mountain a slim new moon hung suspended, a decoration in the sky.

“She’s not my girl exactly,” he replied, still irritably.

“Why not?”

He pushed his plate aside, rose and went to the window. There he stood gazing at the shadowed mountain and the hanging moon.

“I’m in a strange situation,” he said.

“Yes?” Her voice invited.

“I’m always too young for what I want to do, but I’m too old for — for girls.”

A moment of silence hung between them, as tenuous, as quivering, as the new moon, glimmering in the clouds now drifting above the mountain.

“I don’t quite know what you mean,” she said at last, her voice gentle.

“I don’t, either,” he said abruptly and came back to the table and sat down. “More coffee, please. What’s your name, by the way? Your first name—”

“Edith.”

“Edith,” he repeated. “Edith? I never knew anyone with that name. My mother had a silly name — Ariadne. Still, it’s rather sweet. As I said, I don’t remember her, but my uncle said she was a sweet person.”

“What happened to them?” she asked in the same gentle voice.

“They were killed in a motor accident when I was two. Yet I seem to remember someone like my mother, a soft pretty someone — but probably I don’t remember, really — just a dream, perhaps, or even pure imagination.”

“And there’s been no one to take her place?”

“No. My uncle never married. Didn’t I tell you? I suppose he has a mistress tucked away somewhere. We never discuss such matters.”

“No one has ever taken your mother’s place?”

“I’ve never looked for anyone. Mothers are irreplaceable, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, and then after a moment, “but the girl? Is she younger than you really?”

“Not so many years — but otherwise—” He shrugged slightly. “Yet she’s clever enough, intelligent, all that. But I’m too old for her. I’m too old for myself. I’m a burden even to myself.”

She laughed, “Oh, come now!”