CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jean's work now took shape to her as something visible and apart. It was the system of wires that ran through life, connecting the days. The dynamo that kept it all vibrating was her love.
The depths of its peace surprised her. She loved, in secret, a married man. She had met his wife, eaten at their home, held their child in her lap. She had not only broken the standards of society, which did not matter at all, but she had broken what she had believed were her own. These did not matter either. There was nothing degrading in slipping away to meet Gregory, for nothing could degrade their love any more than a small boy could degrade the sun by throwing mud at it.
Christmas came. Applicants flooded the office, but Jean snatched as many hours as she could. When it was possible they had lunch together, and she often worked at night to make up for the teas they had in the quiet tea-room in the upper Thirties. They always went a bit earlier than the crowd and had an alcove to themselves. Jean had a sensuous delight in the contrast of leaving the office behind her, the waiting room never empty, the staff of extra helpers, the jangling 'phone, and then—this other world with Gregory. The place had once been a brownstone mansion, with carved staircases and pendulous chandeliers of crystal. Heads of baby angels looked down from the cornices and the shadows of stately men and women seemed always to lurk in the corners, aloof and disdainful, but curious of this new generation that smoked and talked immoderately on all subjects, at fragile tables, painted in strange colors. Waitresses, in chintz polonaises and powdered hair, served tea and muffins at extravagant prices. The same girl always served them, and Jean felt as if the alcove was theirs. It was the nearest they had to a home together. Here they retailed gossip and talked over their work. Gregory was giving every spare moment of his time to the designs for the auditorium and Jean loved to have him consult her even when the technical details were beyond her understanding. That he needed her in this way filled Jean with a warm glow, a distinct physical reaction that softened the outlines of her whole body. Coming from a happy hour with Gregory, Jean tackled problems that had troubled the office for weeks, and, as Berna said, "simply bored through them!"
Jean rarely thought of Margaret, and, when she did, it was as of one of their acquaintances. If Margaret had not been Gregory's wife, Jean would have enjoyed telling him about her. She could not feel personal about Margaret. She did not even resent her. In the natural world there were peacocks and orchids and slugs and worms; there were small, useful animals and needful growing things, and beautiful poisonous fungi that seemed to exist for no definite purpose. They all followed their own law. So there were Kittens and Tigers and Herricks and Marys and Jeans and Margarets and Pats. They were all different, and all needed. The mistake was in misunderstanding and confusing values. She had done this when she had married Herrick and Gregory had done it when he married Margaret.
But the really wrong thing, the wicked thing, was to be afraid. To refuse because one had not the courage to accept. To grow too weary spiritually to reach out and grasp the next rung of one's development and so swing up and up to the height of one's possibility. After a meeting with Gregory, Jean had often to make an effort to keep from running, so close was this tie between the spirit and the flesh.
On Sundays, when Gregory could get away without too greatly disturbing the plan of life in which he had so long acquiesced, or too greatly disappointing Puck, they went for long walks in the country. Jean lied to Mary and to her mother about these walks. She wanted every scrap, even the knowledge of their existence, to herself. Sometimes, at the last moment a complication arose, impossible to overcome, and the walk was postponed. Neither Jean nor Gregory ever asked why or referred to it again. They accepted, without the indignity of complaint, the conditions of their loving.
Gregory was happy, too. And, although, unlike Jean, he never realized in his muscles the spiritual values of their love, he did feel that life was a bigger and deeper thing than he had ever dreamed. Margaret's well-meaning scratching at his interests no longer annoyed him. He felt that she had been cheated, made in one of the small molds, when there were so many larger ones in which she might have been shaped.
The day before New Year, Jean took the afternoon off and they went for a long tramp through the snow in Jersey. It was a glorious day with blue sky and sunshine, faintly warm on the hill crests. They walked until dusk and then had tea before a log fire in a little French roadhouse, where the fat wife of the proprietor insisted on Jean's taking off her shoes and putting on a pair of Gustave's red carpet slippers while the shoes dried.
Jean laughed. "I shall never understand why such a healthy-looking, able-to-manage-herself being gets so much mothering. Every night in winter I have to restrain mummy by force from feeling if my stockings are damp. I wish you knew mummy, Gregory. She's so impossible to describe, but she makes such ripping anecdotes."
"I do feel rather cheated, but I have a pretty clear conception. I think she's like this."
He drew a small shaft, firm at the base, tapering to a point.
"Mummy to the life," Jean chuckled. "Now do Mary."
"That's harder." The pencil poised over the paper some time before he made a line.
"There. That's as near as I can get, but I'm not sure that the proportions are right."
It looked like two triangles, one imposed on the other, apex to apex.
"What's that in geometry? It's not like anything in life. Poor Mary, why does she come to a point in the middle and then flare again?"
"Because that's what she does. I always had the feeling with her, more than with any one I ever met, that she was spiritually constructed in sections. She has the ground work of one kind of person, but she isn't that kind. She started out planted firm on the earth, then she spired to a point, refused to end there, wanted to get back to earth again, couldn't, and so her soul built another triangle, on top of the first. She ends in a firm base again, but it's in the air. Now what do you suppose she would say if you told her—about us? She might say almost anything."
"Why, I know exactly what she'd say."
"What, Infallible One?"
"She'd say that it was none of her business."
Gregory laughed. "I suppose she would. After all, she is almost always right."
It was dark before they started back. With the ending of their days they always grew a little silent. Small, clear stars pricked the black and the moon peered timidly over the ridge top. They walked through the dry snow hand in hand. Twice Gregory stopped, drew Jean into his arms and kissed her. It made them both giddy to kiss like that, alone in the open, under the stars. Jean's lips clung to his, and when his hold loosened, she drew him to her again.
The deck of the ferryboat was deserted and they stood together in the stern, watching the ice cakes swirl in the black water. A cold wind swept down the river and whipped their faces. When the boat docked, Gregory took a quick kiss.
"It was a great walk."
Jean nodded.
"Happy New Year," she whispered, and led the way down the gangplank.
On New Year's morning Jean astonished Martha by going to early church with her. Martha asked for no reason, but her heart sang its thanksgiving as they trotted along through the clean crispness of the New Day. It was only six o'clock, but the church was full. The high altar, white in its frostwork of sheerest lace, blazed with candles. The air was heavy with the odor of thick white flowers and incense that never quite died out. Through it, like a refreshing draft, came the woodsy smell of greens and berries.
Abject with gratitude and humility, Martha slipped into the last pew and Jean knelt beside her. It was like dropping back through the years into her childhood. From force of association, Jean leaned her head on the pews in front and closed her eyes. She did not pray but she felt strangely near a God.
After a moment she stole a look at Martha, just as she used to do when she was little and wanted permission to get up and sit in the seat. It was queer how a motion could start an old train of thought. As strongly as if she were feeling it now, she remembered the anger that had always stirred her when her mother went on praying, without seeing the look. She had always hated the way Martha knelt, almost crouched, in the last pew. It had always made her want to walk straight on, up to the very altar itself, and face God standing, with her eyes open. If people loved God, as they said they did, why were they so afraid of him? If this was His house, why did they sneak around in it like burglars? How furious it had made her! And now, nothing had changed: Martha still crept into the last pew and crouched before her God, and it did not make Jean angry at all. Instead, it made a lump come into her throat, and down to the depths of her she was glad that Martha had her God.
She had Gregory.
A young priest entered and the service began. Jean rose and knelt and made the proper responses. Words that she could not have recalled in any other setting, came spontaneously to her lips. While row after row of communicants went to the rail, she knelt, her head bowed. The monotonous murmur:
"Take and eat this—the body and blood of Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life."
Over and over, row after row, hung a background for her thoughts.
"Take, eat—preserve thy body—everlasting life."
Against it, she walked in the dark with Gregory and felt his lips seeking hers.
"—and may the blessing of God Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ remain with you always. Amen."
The young priest, followed by his assistant, moved across the chancel. Every head bowed before his going. There was a moment of silence, as if the earth had stilled, while God Himself went back to His own; then a rustle and people rose.
Martha and Jean were the first out. Jean slipped her arm into her mother's.
"Mummy, I'm terribly disappointed, but that belated Christmas present isn't done yet. You can't have it before Tuesday."
Martha pressed Jean's arm.
"I've had my present, Jeany, and it's made me wonderfully happy."
Jean smiled down at her. They walked along quickly for a few blocks, and then Martha said:
"Which do you think Mary would like better, Jean, chestnut dressing for the turkey, or just plain?"