I did not go to America until the following year, and then I went
alone, leaving Jinny with your mother. You remember about that, how
after all they made me leave my child behind as a hostage. We won’t
dwell on it now. It was only significant in so far as it showed me that
my new intimacy with your mother was not quite what I had believed it
to be.
As for St. Mary’s Plains, it gave me a different welcome from the one
I had expected. It disapproved of me and showed it. My people went
for me. They greeted me with the proprietary affection that claims
the right to outspoken criticism. On the whole, I liked that. It was
a relief. Although at first I was bewildered, amused and occasionally
annoyed by their vigorous upbraiding, I was glad that they felt
entitled to treat me as they did: their scolding gave me a feeling of
their solidarity with me. And it was refreshing to find myself among
a group of people who had no respect for my fortune but blamed me
honestly for being so disgustingly rich and doing so little good with
my money.
Paris gossip had reached St. Mary’s Plains. I had thought it so far
away, so safe. I was mistaken. Many acquaintances had been going back
and forth across the Atlantic carrying information, more or less
correct, of my doings. The fact that my husband was no longer living
with me was variously interpreted. Had I come rushing home for refuge
that first summer they would have been on my side, but I had not. I
seemed to have cynically accepted his liaison with another woman and
was brazenly continuing my worldly life.
My Aunt Patience, as I came gradually to realize, had been the person
least affected by these tales. She lived the life of a hermit, wrapped
up in her studies, and had refused to listen to gossip. “I guess Jane
herself tells me what she wants me to know,” she had said to more than
one busybody, but of course I suspected nothing of all this on arrival.
I had gone to America because of an unquenchable longing to be with my
own people, but I was not without a certain feeling of pride. I was
scarcely fatuous enough to consider myself as a martyr, but it did seem
to me that I had suffered through no fault of my own and had taken
my troubles with a respectable calm. Philibert was still wandering
about Europe with Bianca. I had heard nothing from him directly. An
occasional message reached me through his solicitors, that was all. I
had continued to carry on. I was keeping my promise to your mother.
My Aunt Patty came to New York to meet my steamer. I saw her from
the deck, before the ship was in dock, a powerful figure, something
elemental about her, reducing others to insignificance; I waved. She
looked at me but made no sign; she did not recognize me. As I came
down the gangway I saw her peering about in the crowd still searching,
and when I walked up to her and said “Aunt Patty, it’s me, Jane,” she
dropped her large black handbag and gave a gasp. She of course was
the same, only more so, bigger and grander, with her black mackintosh
flapping, her bonnet askew and wisps of grey hair hanging down, a
grand old scarecrow. How she hugged me, her long arms round me, people
jostling us. That was a blissful moment. I was perfectly happy for that
moment, a child at rest and comforted.
Then she said, “Where’s your baby?”
“I didn’t bring her, Aunt.”
“Oh!” Her face fell.
“I couldn’t, Aunt, such a long trip for such a short visit, and her
father wouldn’t let her come.”
“I see.” She shut her grim lips. It was clear that she was very
disappointed.
We were to take the train that night for St. Mary’s Plains. There was
some confusion about my luggage and trouble about getting it across
the city. I seemed to have a great deal. A great deal too much, my
Aunt said. Celestine had a difference of opinion with the porters and
scolded them in her high, voluble, native tongue. My Aunt did not know
what to make of Celestine.
I was ridiculously excited when we arrived at St. Mary’s Plains and
drove up Desmoisnes Avenue, and then as our taxi stopped and I looked
across the grass to that modest old house I had a feeling of immense
relief. This was my home.
The Grey House welcomed me kindly. It had shrunk in size. It had grown
shabby and ugly, but it had the charm of an old glove or shoe, much
worn. I loved it with gratitude and pity and an ache of regret.
Standing in the front hall I knew that its spirit was unchanged. My
mind reached out comfortably to its furthest corners, to the cupboards
on the back stairs and the pantry sink that I knew as I knew my own
hand. I remembered the smell of the carpet on the dark stairs and the
way the Welsbach burner sizzled on the landing, spreading a round of
light on the stained wall. My room was just as I had left it twelve
years before. The white counterpane on the narrow bed, the flat pillow,
the rag rug on the waxed floor that my Aunt Beth had made for me when I
broke my arm falling off the stepladder.
Patience changed for dinner into a black silk blouse and serge skirt.
Her high collar was fastened with an oval brooch of gold, the only
ornament I ever saw her wear. There were two servants in the house,
a cook and a housemaid. I suspected that one had been got in for my
visit. It was clear to me that she was poor, even poorer than she had
been. The house was not too clean and very shabby. Patience Forbes
was no housekeeper. She never cared what she had to eat or poked into
corners to find dust. The drawing-room looked forlorn in the pale gas
light. I gathered that she never sat there but spent all her time in
the museum among her precious specimens. The drawing-room made me feel
dismal. In the days when my Aunt Beth kept house it had been a cosy
room. Now the old mahogany sofas and chairs, covered in frayed black
horsehair, were pushed back against the wall in ungainly attitudes.
They seemed to watch me reproachfully. I loved their austere, proud
forlornness, but I felt uncomfortable. The place did not disappoint me,
but I felt that I disappointed it. The blurred and misty mirrors that
held mysteriously behind their marred surfaces the invisible reflection
of my little grandmother’s sweet face and prim figure showed me myself,
large, bright and vulgar, a great outlandish creature in an exaggerated
dress, glittering, hard and horrible. I was profoundly disturbed. If I
looked like that to myself, how must I look to my Aunt Patience? I soon
found out. She was not a person to mince matters. She told me plainly
that I looked wicked.
“Wicked, Aunt?”
“Yes, Jane, that’s just about it.”
“But, Aunt, this is terrible. What is it? What shall I do about it?”
She stared at me grimly. “I don’t know. I guess it’s everything--your
clothes, that thick bang across your eyes, those ear-rings, that red
stuff on your lips. It looks bad. It makes you look like an ungodly
woman.”