We reached New York. I was suddenly filled with foreboding. In the high
window of our towering hotel I sat with Patience far into the night. We
sat together like watchers in a tower, and a million lighted windows
shone before us in the blue night.
“I am afraid, Aunt.”
“Why, my child?”
“I am afraid to leave you.”
“Yes, I know.”
How much did she know, I wondered? What did she suspect? Philibert had
not written to me, of course. She must have noticed. She must know a
good deal.
“You have your little girl, Jane. Think of her.”
“I do. She’s a prim little thing, not a bit like me.”
“Promise me to love your child, to love her enough.”
“Enough for what, dear?”
“Just enough; you’ll find out how much that is.”
“I will try to love her as you have loved me, Aunt, always.”
She gripped my hand. “Janey,” she muttered, “my girl.” We sat a long
time silent. The desire to unburden all my heart was unbearable. But it
was too late now.
“Europe is too full of people, Aunt. They have made the earth into a
trivial thing. It is not good for people to subdue the earth. In Paris
one is never out of doors. I don’t feel at home there. I am sick for my
own country, for a wide prairie and a high sky.”
“You’ll come back again, Jane.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I will come back.”
I thought she was asking for a promise. I did not know that she was
stating a prophecy.
And in the morning I went aboard my ship and my aunt left me and went
down the gangway onto the pier, and the ship moved slowly away from the
dock. There she was again, standing in the crowd in her queer black
clothes, but this time the water between us was widening. She lifted
both her arms to me in a last large gesture of full embrace, then her
arms fell to her sides, and she stood there buffeted by the wind,
jostled by the crowd, a strong old woman, looking after me bravely. I
had a desperate moment. I wanted to jump, to swim back. I felt an agony
of regret, of longing, of warning. I struggled. It was horrible, such
pain. What did it mean? Why was I going? It was wrong, it was wrong.