The Goddess Abides: A Novel (18 page)

They were silent again after that. In the car the miles sped by. What he was thinking she did not know, his handsome profile stern and set, his eyes ahead on the road. But she did not know, either, what she herself was thinking. Perhaps it was not even thought, only feeling.

It was long after sunset, the darkness falling, when at last he pulled up in front of her house. Weston, hovering near the door, opened it when he heard the car.

“I didn’t know what to do about dinner, madame, not hearing from you.”

“We’ve dined,” she said, “and Mr. Barnow will be staying the night—at least, I suppose so?”

She turned to Jared and he nodded.

“If you will have me—”

“Of course.”

She turned to Weston. “You might bring us coffee and liqueurs in the library. I’ll just go up and change.”

She went upstairs exultant and afraid. Whatever was to happen would happen. She could not stay the inevitable, though she did not know what it was. She would yield, she would yield. Whatever he offered, she would take; whatever the cost, she would pay. Then upon an impulse she did not understand, she made no effort to look younger than she was. She twisted her hair carelessly upon her head, she put no makeup on her face, the sun and sea air had burned her fair skin and she let it be. She chose an old green frock and slipped it over her head and did not pause to look in the mirror. This was she, this flushed, sunburned woman with careless hair and bare feet thrust into silver sandals. She was forty-three years old and let him see her as such a woman. If he drew back, then it was her fate. But if he did not draw back? She refused the possibility. Why plan that which she could not know? She had a perverse instinct, lasting no more than a moment, when she wished that he would reject her and thus take from her the necessity for decision. She hesitated at the door, then opened it and went downstairs.

…He was waiting for her in the library. At the door she had hesitated again, longing and yet in dread. Then she opened it gently and only a little, but he was watching. He came swiftly across the room, he shut the door and standing with his back to it he took her in his arms and kissed her impetuously again and again.

“When I think what might have happened,” he muttered.

She stood within his embrace, yielding to it, accepting, her whole body responding. Then, after a moment, she drew back. “I wasn’t meant to die, it seems.”

“Not if I could prevent it.”

They moved hand in hand toward a sofa before which Weston had placed a small table with the liqueurs and coffee. She poured coffee, her hands shaking slightly, which he observed. “You are trembling,” he said.

“I suppose it’s something of a shock,” she said.

“I’m certainly shaken.” He tasted neither coffee nor liqueur. Instead he began abrupt talk.

“I must tell you—I’m completely confused. I’m facing an entirely new situation. I’m committed to you. I’m not a free man any more. I’ve never committed myself in my life before. I’ve never been possessed. But now I am. I’m not even sure I like it. What does a man do when he’s possessed by a woman? I only know I’d marry you tonight—if I could!”

She listened, her eyes fixed upon him. He was not thinking of her, and she realized it. He was thinking of himself, caught in a web of desire for her, resenting her because he was beginning to know how deeply he loved her. He wanted her physically and was horrified at himself. Yet if she put out her hand, if she touched him, she could have him. If she smoothed the back of his head, if she laid her hand in the curve of his arm, if she so much as looked at the slimness of waist and thigh, she could have him. She held her eyes steadfastly downcast, she refused her own desire and for reasons she did not understand except that they had nothing to do with her, but only with him, she began almost incoherently to speak out of some part of herself which, although she did not understand, she wanted him to know.

“Yesterday was such a wonderful day, Jared! I saw you as I hadn’t seen you before. And I thought I knew you! We’ve really been together a good deal, haven’t we? And yet it took yesterday, and seeing you with that amputee, to show me what you really are—a scientist, yes, and much more—a man brilliant but compassionate, strong but gentle. I love you—of course I love you—how can I help it? But it was only yesterday that made me know I love you. I shall always love you. I’m so grateful that I do. Once long ago—or it seems very long ago—a dear old man, a very great man he was, too, loved me. And he paid me a high honor. He told me that his love for me kept him alive—not only living but alive, so that his brain could stay clear and he could do his work. That, he taught me, was the great service of love—that it gives life to the lover as well as to the beloved. I’ve never forgotten what he taught me—about love.” She was silent for a moment. Then she repeated softly what Edwin once had said. “Love keeps me not only living but alive.”

He got up and walked to the tall windows and stared moodily into the shadowy gardens. A young moon rose over the pointed evergreens at the far end.

She continued, as though she talked to herself.

“I’m old enough to know that your loving me is—a miracle. I don’t understand it—I can only accept it and be grateful for it. It makes my own life beautiful. It makes me want to be useful to you in any way I can. I want to pour my life into yours, so that you’ll be all you dream of being—do all you dream of doing—which you would be and do without me, of course, but perhaps my loving you, as I do, will bring you more belief in yourself than you might have had alone—I mean, without me at this moment of your life, for of course there will be many others, many people, certainly one above all—”

She broke off lest she weep. Instead she smiled at him. She lifted the small glass of benedictine and took one sip and put it down again. The words had poured forth, from what source in her being she did not know, nor did she know why she had thought of Edwin. But she was herself again, her true self, and this, too, she must wait to understand, and be content to wait.

He came back to her slowly, pausing on his way to look at a bookshelf, to examine a painting on the wall. Then he returned to her side.

“Tell me,” he said. “Why was yesterday so important?”

“Because I saw the man you are meant to be,” she told him. “And I will do nothing to prevent that man.”

…When she was alone again, when she was upstairs in her own room, she felt dazed and yet at rest. She did not know how the words had been spoken, but they had come from a hidden part of her being. Yet now, as she recalled the moments, she realized that for a brief instant as though in a vision, she had seen side by side the man he had been only yesterday, the assured absorbed man, knowing what his work was and doing it well and finding content therein, and the man he had been today, distraught, bewildered, overwhelmed by discovering that he loved her. These two men, both of which he was, had drawn from her the words she had not known were in her, yet they were waiting to be spoken, and spoken they shaped the decision she had not known how to make. Between the two she must choose and she had chosen.

They had parted almost immediately, aware of a mutual exhaustion, and though at her bedroom door he had taken her in his arms again and kissed her, which kiss she had returned, it had been gently done, both in the giving and taking, and she knew that tonight she would open no door between them, nor would he. What she had now to do was to determine what was her place in his life. For she would love him forever. That she knew. So, knowing, what was the fulfillment of supreme love? What could it be except the fulfillment of the beloved?

She slept well that night, her inner tension released, and woke to find herself calm and rested. She lay for a while, watching the rays of the morning sun fall across the floor through the windows opening to the eastern sky. She had no sense of haste, the urgency in her was gone, and when at last she rose and made herself ready for the day, she was instinctively not surprised that Weston stood at the foot of the stairs.

“Mr. Barnow went away early this morning, madame. He left this note for you.”

“I hope you gave him his breakfast,” she said, with a serenity that surprised her.

“He would only have coffee, madame,” Weston replied, and led the way to the breakfast room.

She followed, but not directly, pausing to go out on the terrace and breathe deeply of the fragrant morning air. The locust trees were in bloom and their fragrance had attracted the bees. Long ago, when she was a child, her father had ordered hives to be set in the far end of the garden on the theory that honey was the most healthy sweet for children and then had planted young locust trees, now grown to these giants, their rugged trunks black under the branches heavy with white blossoms. Out of tender memory she had kept the hives and each autumn the gardener removed boxes of clear white honey, still fragrant with the scent of locust.

She stood for a few minutes, looking down the aisle of trees, at the far end of which was the pool and in the pool the white marble statue of the woman standing on a rock. The scene, so familiar to her that she seldom saw it, was today as freshly beautiful as though she had been away to some far place and only now had come home again. Peace pervaded her, an inner peace which enabled her to contemplate her surroundings, yes, and even her life, with new appreciation. She had made her choice and it was a right choice and she was at peace with herself.

Alone at the breakfast table and facing the southern windows, she saw the grape arbors in full leaf, the gardener was there with a stepladder and he was trimming the vines so that the strength of the vines might produce a richer fruit. Alone, she wondered that she was not lonely. She had been so often restless without Jared. When he was not with her she listened for the telephone, she listened for the opening of a door, the sound of a voice. His habit of appearing without telling her that he was coming was exasperating but exciting and kept her tense. Yet she had never said “Let me know,” for she valued his sudden need of her and his impulse to go at once to find her. When a difficulty arose in his laboratory, a technical problem or a disagreement with his superior, his recourse was to come to her and talk, until in talking he found solution, his own solution at that, for what she might say seemed to her of no importance. His lucid mind could provide its own solutions. And all this while she was holding in her hand the envelope he had left with Weston to give to her. She tore it open and drew out the single sheet it contained.

Dearest:

From now on that is what you are to me. No matter who else comes—or goes—that one word is what you are, and will always be, to me. No change is possible. Why you said what you said yesterday, why you did what you did, I do not ask, because, whatever the reason, it was right. I know.

I am yours always,

Jared

She folded the sheet and put it back in the envelope. When she went to her sitting room she would lock it in her desk to keep and to read again and again. Their love was established in the only way it could be established. She need never again wait or listen for his coming. She understood why he had left her today and she knew that he would always come back. She had made it possible for him to return to his work. She had given him his freedom even from love, and so he would love her forever. Thus musing, and smiling to herself, she ate her breakfast and thought of him with peace. Only of him she thought as she went about her day. With no planning for the future she thought of him and felt alive and strong and well.

…At the beginning of May, when the pink and white dogwoods were in bloom, the season that year being somewhat late, she had a telephone call from a girl. She knew at once it was a girl for the voice that came singing over the wire was the freshest, most youthful voice she had ever heard and she knew she had not heard it before.

“Mrs. Chardman?” the voice inquired.

“It is I,” she replied.

“Yes, well, I don’t know how to begin, but I am June Blaine. You don’t know me but I know Jared Barnow. I’m his friend—sort of!”

“Yes?”

“Yes! And I want most awfully to talk with you.”

“About him?”

“Yes, about him.”

“Does he know?”

“I told him I was calling you today.”

“And?”

“He said you would understand his point of view so it would be all right. He says you’re the only person who really knows him. That’s what he thinks! But I know him, too.”

She was silent for a few seconds when the voice stopped speaking. Then she said quietly, “Very well. When?”

“This afternoon?” the pretty voice inquired.

“At four o’clock,” she said.

“Oh, thanks!”

The telephone clicked, the voice was gone. She considered a moment and then dialed the laboratory. At eleven o’clock in the morning Jared would be there. His voice answered almost immediately.

“Jared Barnow.”

“It is I,” she said. “A girl just called. She wants to see me. This afternoon.”

“That’s June,” he said quickly. “We were playing tennis last week at her place and she wanted to know if she could see you. I said why not. Don’t take her seriously, darling. She wants to marry me and she hasn’t a chance. I’m too preoccupied!”

She laughed. “Go back to your work, then! By the way, I’ve been reading a fascinating article on silicone rubber implants for replacing arthritic or destroyed joints in human hands.”

“I saw that. Heat—molded implants—wonderful.”

“Yes, well, I won’t keep you.”

“I’ll call you tonight.”

He called her every night now at midnight when he ended his day. If he waked her, as sometimes he did, she never let him know. If he called her, it meant he needed her.

“Do call me,” she said now, and put up the receiver.

…She was not restless while she waited for four o’clock, but she was stone silent. She did not try to busy herself. Instead she lay in a long chair on the terrace, submitting herself, her eyes closed, her body motionless. Clouds drifted over the blue sky, great billows of white, and she felt the chill of shadows as they passed, and then between them was the warmth of the sun. A cool mild wind rippled over the trees and passed, leaving a motionless quiet behind. Sometimes she was almost asleep but never quite. When Weston asked where she would have her luncheon, she said, “Bring it to me here, please.” And when he had brought it she left it half eaten.