Ellen Glasgow - The Sheltered Life

"I won't." She smiled up at him, for, in spite of everything he said, she knew—oh, she knew! "That will be another secret between us."

"Another secret." He frowned, but she saw that he was angry with himself, not with her. "We'd better forget all our secrets."

"But I don't want to forget. Shall I come back to-morrow to see Ariel? There are only three days before—before--" Not until she checked herself in confusion did she realize that she had started to say, "before you bring Mrs. Birdsong home."

He looked down at her, torn, as even she could see, between two sides of his nature. "I ought to say no, but I can't. After all, I'm going away in three days, and when I come back we'll settle down quietly. We'll settle down and be chums again. We'll be the best chums in the world, darling."

Darling! Though the word did not escape her lips, she clung to it as fiercely as if it were hidden treasure. For the first and only time, he had called her, not "my dear child," not even, "my dear," but "darling." Tremulous with delight, she turned away and hastened round the side of the house, just as John's substantial figure passed up the front steps and into the hall. John, she felt, would spoil everything. He would begin to preach; he would harp on the prose of living when she asked him for rhapsody; he would scold her because people were poor, or even because Belgium was invaded; he would, as usual, she told herself, act his inevitable part of a kill-joy. "After to-morrow, I shan't mind so much," she murmured, every quivering thought, it seemed to her, fringed with suspense, "after to-morrow . . ."

"Jenny Blair," her mother called from the library, "have you been to the Birdsongs'? Is there any news?"

Was there any news? Had she heard? Had she forgotten to ask? Spinning round at the question, Jenny Blair hesitated, suffered a throb of self-reproach, and answered defiantly, "Yes, Mrs. Birdsong is coming home. She is coming home in three days." Why was it, she wondered resentfully, that life so often tripped her into falsehood or evasion? She liked as much as anybody to speak the truth, though it seemed that the privilege of speaking the truth was seldom accorded to her.

"Then she is better," Mrs. Archbald said thankfully.

"Yes, she is better."

"When is George going? Did you hear?"

"He is going on Saturday. He is going to bring her back."

"I hope her canary is all right."

"Yes, he is all right." She had forgotten to ask. She had forgotten to ask after Mrs. Birdsong; she had forgotten to ask after Ariel. For all she knew, Ariel might have died in the summer. There was the throb again, only this time it was a sharper stab. "I can't help it," she thought indignantly. "I can't help anything."

"Come here, Jenny Blair," Mrs. Archbald said mildly but firmly.

"I was just going up to dress, Mamma. Do you want anything?"

Entering the library, the girl stopped by the threshold, and swayed restlessly on her small feet in red shoes. Every minute seemed to her a solid barrier between the tiresome actuality and her own palpitating delight.

"Stop fidgeting, my child. What is the matter?"

"I'm not fidgeting, Mamma, but I'm awfully tired. I want to rest before dinner."

"Well, I shan't keep you a minute. But I am not quite easy about you in my mind. Are you sure, Jenny Blair," her voice was very grave, "that you are not keeping something from me?"

"Oh, Mamma, you know I'm not."

"Are you thinking about any boy you met at the White? Did you let yourself take a romantic interest in that good-looking Agnew boy?"

"I never thought of him for a minute."

"Of course I admire your reserve, my dear, but I've sometimes wondered if you were not just a little bit too stand-offish with boys—nice boys, I mean. Times have changed since I was a girl. Not that some girls were not fast in my day. Even then, we used to say that it was hard to be a belle and a lady too. Of course I don't want you to be bold like Bena Peyton; but you might be the least bit more encouraging."

"I can't help it, Mamma. I am made that way."

"I know, darling, and I like your reserve. It shows that you were well brought up. Are you sure, then, that you are not holding anything back?"

"Nothing, nothing. May I go now and lie down?"

"Yes, run away. I suppose, after all, it is only your youth that makes me think you lack something. In a few years, after your character is formed, I may feel safer about you."

Escaping at last, Jenny Blair flew upstairs to her bedroom, and while she flew her whole being seemed to recoil from the hard surface of facts, and to fold, depth on depth, into the happier world of her memory.

The evening passed, the night, the next morning; and slowly, after an interminable waiting, after starts and pauses of expectancy and disappointment (she had been obliged to read to Aunt Etta, and to drive with her grandfather), the day declined, and she watched the shadows of the elms begin to slant over the pavement. Afternoons, thank Heaven, were shorter now! It would have been distracting, she thought, as she entered the Birdsongs' yard, to wait through one of the endless days of summer. But no sooner had she turned the corner of the house than she saw that much had happened since yesterday. The swinging garments and the clothes-line had disappeared. Decrepit old Jacob was cutting the weeds very slowly, for his arm was rheumatic, but with the utmost precision, for his stroke was still accurate. In the overgrown borders, which had looked so straggling, the few autumn flowers had been rounded in and neatly confined. "They are getting ready for Mrs. Birdsong," she told herself, with a sigh. "How she would hate all that untidiness." What Mrs. Birdsong meant to her, she felt vaguely, was order, beauty, perfection, an unattainable ideal of living.

While the thought touched her and was gone, she turned back to the house, and saw, after a breathless instant, Mrs. Birdsong in the flesh looking down on her from the porch to the library. So changed was the face she remembered that she asked herself with a shock of fear, "Is she there? Is she really alive? Or is it only a vision?" Then, as she hesitated and drew back, her name was called joyfully, "Jenny Blair! I was just thinking of you and wishing you would come over."

Very swiftly, almost as if she were running, Mrs. Birdsong came toward her, with her thin arms held out, and her wasted features illumined by pleasure. "Jenny Blair, my darling child!" she exclaimed, while her voice revived the old fervour, the animation that had always been so strangely exciting. How lovely it was to see her again, the girl thought, as she ran up the steps into the open arms. In that thrilling embrace everything else slipped away. Her own visit needed no explanation; there was no suspicion, no question, in her friend's pleasure at seeing her; there was not the faintest shadow over the unaltered confidence, the old fascination.

"How did you know?" Mrs. Birdsong held her away and gazed tenderly into her face. "Oh, you're lovely, Jenny Blair, you're far, far lovelier! But how did you know I was here? I came so suddenly. All summer I had waited, hoping to be well again, hoping some miracle would happen. Just waiting until they said I might come home. Then, when it came to just three days longer, I felt I couldn't stand any more waiting, not a day, not an hour. After waiting three months, three days seemed too much for me. So I decided only yesterday, and took the night train down. I didn't tell anybody. Even George didn't know I was coming home until I walked in on him this morning at breakfast. I might have been a ghost. I really believe he thought at first that I was dead and he was seeing an apparition." While the words gushed out she seemed to regain colour and energy. "Come upstairs with me," she added, with her arm on the girl's shoulder. "I made George go to the club and tried to do something to this poor forlorn house. Never have I seen such a sight as it was! Maggie is a faithful soul, but she has no sense of order, and George never notices anything so long as he has good food and his shirts are washed right. I started them all working, but it has worn me out, and I look worse than ever. Come upstairs with me while I rest. I want to hear all about your wonderful summer and how many men fell in love with you."