CHAPTER FIFTY
The evenings from early dusk until late, Jean spent upon the roof, and her first feeling, of being high and safe from all turmoil, deepened. Its peace was tangible. Something within herself reached out to meet it, as something within had reached toward the spirit of the hills and sea in the blue days with Herrick. Something within herself was part of a universal spirit, and here upon her roof, the spirit was one of peace.
On Friday a note was forwarded from Alice. The wedding was to be on Saturday afternoon at four o'clock. "Don't forget, four means four because we have to catch the seven boat," Alice wrote, as if she were inviting Jean to a tennis match and four o'clock marked the limit of the entries.
Jerome must have returned. The wedding was to take place. Things were going to be as they had been, untangled and proceeding logically. Jean was happy. The last miserable days on Grove Street, dimmed by this wonderful week, high on her quiet roof, faded to sincere pity for Catherine, bitter, caustic, and slyly watching from windows; and Philip, weak, servile, lonely Philip.
On Saturday, a little before four, Jean entered the Stuart living-room, and then stood wondering whether, after all, she had not mistaken the hour and the ceremony was not over. Alice, in a pale yellow dress, a favorite of Jerome's, was laughing with the minister, a venerable, white haired person with twinkling, merry eyes. Sidney and two friends were moving a victrola and Jean caught Jerome's voice arguing with Malone about the supper seating. The next moment, Alice caught sight of her and hurried over.
"Awfully glad you made it. We're just about to begin."
"I'm glad it's not over."
"It would have been only Sid forgot to tell the minister and so we had to scratch round and get old Dr. Gillet. Isn't he a dream?"
"Made for the part."
"Looks like one of the Prophets after a good dinner, doesn't he? The old duck!"
Just then Sidney joined them.
"Ready, dear?"
"Yes. If dad's through. Oh, there he is. All right, come on."
Passing through the French window Jerome saw Jean standing a little apart, the smile at Alice's flippancy touched with sadness at the thought of what Martha would have felt at having to "scratch round" for another minister who looked "like one of the Prophets after a good dinner."
In the six weeks of absence, Jerome had settled the matter of the concert night to his own satisfaction. Away from Jean, he had analyzed it thoroughly and was glad, by the time he had put a few hundred miles between them, that it had happened as it had. It would never happen again and it had taught him much. Now, as he saw her standing, a little lonely it seemed to him, with that look of mingled amusement and sadness on her face, he felt a deep tenderness, almost as if she were Alice, a tenderness which had in it no room for passion. He was crossing the room to stand beside her—Alice absolutely forbade being given away—when the minister opened his book and the short service of the Episcopal Church began. Jerome stood where he was, and after a moment forgot Jean.
Standing aside from the group of young people, all strangers, Jean listened and, as she listened, the room faded into the walls of the little western church at the foot of the Berkeley Hills. In the pew behind, Martha stifled her sobs and Elsie dabbed with surreptitious slaps at the fidgeting Tommykins.
What a dreary affair it had been. Jean felt again her rebellion and shame at the sordid ugliness of Martha's sobs and Elsie's whispered rebukes.
"Do you, Alice, take this man, to be your wedded husband ... to love, honor and obey, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"
"I do."
She, too, had promised, firm in belief of herself, of Herrick, of any test the future might hold. And she had understood nothing, nothing at all. It was a terrible promise to make in one's youth, untried.
"Do you, Sidney, take this woman, to be your wedded wife ... succor and cherish in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"
Franklin had promised, just as clearly, and she had thrilled with the safety of his protection. How awed she had been, almost grateful, for this opportunity to build a life together, not a life with all beauty drugged to nagging duty, but a free life, brimming with opportunity, overflowing with beauty. And even while he promised—she knew now what had been Franklin's mood as he stood beside her—desire, throttled to control until the effort whitened and sharpened his face to the Galahad look.
Jean's head drooped.
And with Gregory, no open honesty like this, but smothering secrecy that she had tried to glorify.
To love, honor and obey, till Death do you part.
To seal the truth openly before all, as Alice was doing. In all her life she would never have a memory as this would be to Alice.
"In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, I pronounce you man and wife."
There was a moment of deep silence, in which it seemed to Jean that these two people as individuals, were effaced in this Thing they had just done, and that, never till the end of time could they again be two.
Then every one was crowding about, laughing and talking and trying to kiss the bride. But Alice fended them all off and Jerome took her in his arms. Jean saw his face twitch as he let her go.
"How he is going to miss her," Jean thought and then Jerome was crossing the room to her.
"Well, I thought you had decided to live in St. Louis. How did the conference go? I'm dying to hear."
With this flippant greeting, Jean pushed memory from her.
"Great. And I'm dying to tell about it. I tried to get over to the office this morning, but Alice discovered me. You haven't any idea what a lot of people and how much effort it takes to keep a wedding simple. I saw only the tag end of proceedings but if I had another daughter she should have everything from organ march to flower girls. It's a lot easier."
While he spoke he looked about for a quiet spot in which to tell Jean of the conference. The garden offered the only chance and he was just going to suggest it when Alice swooped down upon him.
"No, you don't, Dad Stuart. This ismyparty. Look over there at Mrs. Cather. Belle said she couldn't vouch for her mother not crying and she's just about ready to begin. Beat it. I will not have a single weep at this wedding."
"Can't I wait till she begins? I haven't seen—I want to tell Mrs. Herrick——"
"Run along. Sheisbeginning."
Alice watched until he was safely landed by Mrs. Cather. When she turned back, Jean saw with surprise that the blue eyes were misty.
"Do you know, Mrs. Herrick, that's the only spot that hurts in the whole business, having to leave Dad. He's going to be lonesome, whether he knows it or not."
"I'm afraid he is."
"He'll just stay over here by himself and putter with bulbs and things and get into a rut. I know he'll never go to a place except to the office when I'm not here to prod him."
"Well, the office is a pretty absorbing thing."
"Yes, I know it, but—don't you think that as people get older their work just kind of goes along without all of them that there is, and the rest gets into a groove?"
"Good gracious, what an uncomfortable thought!"
"He's gotten used to me in a whole lot of little ways he doesn't know anything about, and I'm afraid," she hesitated, took a quick summary of Jean and added hastily as she saw Sidney coming to her, "Would you mind, sometimes, just prodding him along a bit, Mrs. Herrick, till it all settles down again?"
"I'll prod to the best of my ability, but I'm afraid it isn't promising much."
"Oh, it's only for a little while. I'll be back in October to tend to the matter myself."
"Till then, perhaps I can manage it." Jean laughed, too, but she had a tenderness for this big girl who was afraid that Jerome Stuart would get into a rut.
In spite of the pleasant informality of the supper, it seemed a long-drawn-out affair to Jean, and try as she would, she could not share the gayety. With the exception of Mrs. Cather and Sidney's aunt, the rest were Alice's age, and there was a feeling of perfect assurance and untried strength in the air, that made Jean feel old. Seated between a young man interested in subnormal children and a girl cubist, who was advancing an intricate argument from which Jean could not gather whether Cubism was subnormal, or subnormality was misunderstood Cubism, Jean struggled to give her attention, but her thoughts drifted farther and farther away, and at last withdrew from the discussion altogether.
From his end of the table, Jerome snatched glances at Jean, and it was only the necessity of keeping Mrs. Cather amused that prevented Jerome, too, from sinking into a like silence, but he felt the mood, a strong wire, binding them together. He was as relieved as Jean when supper was over, and while the girls struggled with Alice to let them "do the thing as it ought to be done" and the young men began clearing the room and the veranda for a dance, he sought Jean again. As he reached her, Alice's clear voice rose above the laughter.
"Now quit it, Belle. I wasn't decorated for the sacrifice, and I'mnotgoing to be 'started on life's journey.' I'm going to wear that tan raw-silk you've all seen a dozen times, and it would be idiotic to help me get into that. Besides, the snappers are almost all off, and nobody but myself knows the trick of pretending they're not."
Jerome smiled. "This generation's a scream, isn't it?"
"I was just thinking—do you suppose it is or that we're just older?"
"No. Itisdifferent."
"Yes, I suppose it is." Jean looked about at the young men clearing the furniture to the veranda and the girls grouped about the victrola, choosing records. "But I don't think I ever realized before, quite so clearly, anyhow, that there is a 'this generation.' I always feel as ifIam this generation, and children like Tony are the future."
"Delusion, terrible delusion. But, then, you haven't a daughter Alice's age, who discusses her own children even before her marriage."
"Frightful," Jean agreed, pushing away a strange, new wish that she did have a daughter like Alice. "To be menaced with two generations at once—that would take the pep out of me."
Alice was back now, ready to leave. She sent Sidney on an errand, and joined the girls round the victrola.
"They're so terribly afraid of not being reasonable, or being sentimental, and they go to such lengths to prove their independence. Why, Alice would rather die than blush, even if she could accomplish that feat. She would think it was indecent."
"Maybe it is," Jean said lightly, hoping to keep the talk from dropping altogether to the depth of her own seriousness. For this wedding was full of intruding revelations that wearied and saddened her.
A daughter like Alice. If she had had a child. A child of Herrick's. It might have been ten or eleven years old, now. It was very strange to think of a child of Herrick's. She had never wanted a child of his, never for an instant. She remembered, vividly, the Sunday she had lain under the trees and thought of the possibility of a child that would have Herrick's high laugh. How queer it had made her feel! That was the same day she had asked her mother about the scene in the old Webster Street house, and Martha had let the match burn her fingers.
And Gregory's child. It would have been a little thing, scarcely more than a baby yet, not nearly as old as Puck the day she had told Puck stories and waited for Margaret to come home.
Franklin's child. Gregory's child.
For the first time Jean linked the two in the possibility of their fatherhood of her child. And for the first time, a child stood out as a separate entity, a distinct individual, owning its own existence. Her child. A part of herself, yet more its own self. A unit of "this generation," the generation in which she had felt, until this moment, that she herself belonged.
But she did not belong. She had no part in it. There was a chasm between it and herself. Forward across the chasm there was nothing. Back, there was Martha's grave.
"What do you think Alice told me?" The intonation caught Jean's attention and brought it to the man beside her. "I suggested that if she wanted to be really logical, she should have no ceremony at all. She said it was so inconvenient when you went to hotels, or among people who didn't understand. Imagine! Advancing that as a reason. I suggested that, under such pressure, she might lie about it, and she said, 'Lying always smothers things up. It isn't clean.'"
"She's right."
"Of course she's right. But how modern it is! She doesn't logically believe in a ceremony. She doesn't believe that marriage has anything to do with religion and she thinks, or thinks she thinks, that in time even the civil ceremony will vanish."
"It will."
"Of course it will. But nothing would induce Alice, or any of the young people here, to say honestly that they are afraid. Fear is a terrible bugaboo. They're too young to know that it is the deepest rooted instinct in the race. And so they wiggle out of the dilemma by an exaltation of—cleanliness. Terribly modern, like cold baths and exposed plumbing."
"I don't know that that's it," Jean said thoughtfully. "I feel, at the present moment, as if I could put up a perfectly sound argument on either side. That's the trouble with analyzing too hard, you always come clear round the circle and end in conservatism again. When they stood there, before the God in whom they do not believe, and promised in the old, narrow way, in the form for which they have no respect, to love, honor, and obey, till death does them part, itdidseem to be more than a ceremony. For a moment it did seem to reach down below any passing desire, down into an eternal reality. I suppose it's because we have no substitute yet for the old-fashioned God, and so, in big moments, we still stand up and promise things out loud, as we used to do, when we were children, to our parents." She turned suddenly to Jerome. "Would you have liked Alice to go away withoutanyceremony, the useless ceremony that some day will be done away with?"
"No," Jerome answered slowly, "I don't believe that I would. No, to be honest, I would not. We haven't eliminated it yet and till then it's—safe."
"Safety—and weakness—and a fear-filled age."
"Don't! You make me feel like Methuselah in his last illness."
Jean laughed, but she was glad that Alice appeared just then. As she took the girl's hand in hers, she answered the signal that Alice sent, and her lips motioned, "Don't worry about that. I'll prod."
Then Alice put both arms about her father's neck and toned down the strain of the moment by instructions concerning the management of Malone.
"If it's any comfort, remember that I managed several housekeepers while you were in pinafores."
"I suppose you did. But maybe you've gotten out of practice." Alice gave him a last swift kiss, Sidney shook hands without saying anything, and, with a general good-by thrown among the guests as if they were going on an errand next door, Alice and Sidney were gone.
In the confusion of starting the dance that followed, Jean slipped away and got her things. She had intended to go unnoticed, but Jerome was waiting and walked to the gate. He looked grave now, as if the forced gayety of parting had taxed his pretense. Nor could Jean throw aside the seriousness of her own mood. The wedding had saddened her; against all the logic of her beliefs, against what she knew were her fixed deductions, something persisted, a fine, thin thread of regret, a sense of waste, of loss. A terrible clarity seemed to possess her, as if she could see the indestructible skeleton of all human dependence and weakness, under the conventions and forms with which society had clothed it. And Jean wanted the healing solitude of her roof.
They stood looking out over the empty field before them, each full of suppressed thoughts, each conscious of the other's absorption, very near in their understanding.
"Good-night." Jean opened the gate before he could do it for her and passed out.
"Good-night." Jerome watched her swing away, fainter and fainter through the dusk.
He did not go back again to the house, but to the farthest corner of the garden, beyond reach of the noise and lights. Here it was still and peaceful among the growing things, so still, that he seemed to be the only thing in motion on the earth, poised in ether. Time took on a quality of space, and incidents, some quite forgotten, rose near, like objects close to hand. He could see through time, all about him, back down the years, to his own wedding night. And, as he had not been since then, he was alone again with Helen.
How adorably clinging and frightened she had been, trusting in his wisdom, so little more than her own. What wild emotions had gripped him, almost as frightened as she, what longing and what desire and what denial all bound into a wonderful exaltation to make Helen happy always, to keep her trust! To hold her safe in the great love that throbbed and beat in him almost beyond his power to calm to the degree of Helen's white shyness.
He had done his best, even when the exaltation had gone, and only deep affection and tender loyalty were left for the clinging little thing who had remained to the end, the least reluctant and fearful.
The day when Alice had been laid in his arms. He had scarcely noticed her, because Helen was slipping so quietly away. And the months afterwards, stabbing remorse as if he had killed Helen, and long periods when he had forgotten her altogether, been quite absorbed in his work, Alice, and the wonderful fact of living.
Years since then. Happy years full of work and Alice.... Now Alice had gone and Sidney was only another man like himself, with all the weakness and hidden places in every man.
Then he thought of Jean, as she had looked at supper. She, too, was full of hidden places and contradictions. There was nothing simple, no absolute unity anywhere. Suddenly Jerome felt chilly. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past one. He stopped and listened. The house was silent. They had all gone, then, while he walked in the garden.
Jerome went back. The victrola was in the middle of the floor, the records scattered about on top of the piano. The room was littered with scraps of bonbons and crushed flowers; dirty saucers, half filled with sherbet, marked a second supper.
Jerome turned out the lights and closed the door. Life was a little like the room, he felt, filled with the tag ends of others' leavings.