The Goddess Abides: A Novel (21 page)

…The great house stood silent in the golden light of late afternoon. The heavy door was locked. There, where Edwin had always stood to welcome her, his arms outstretched to enfold her, no one stood. The flower beds were neglected, early chrysanthemums and late roses blooming in bright confusion. A bird called, its lonely cry piercing the stillness. She lifted the huge brass knocker and let it fall and heard the echo inside the hall. She waited. Surely someone must be here, a watchman, a caretaker, a housekeeper? The house stood alone, five miles from the nearest village, a solitary road leading to the gate. With its treasures of books and paintings, the furniture of a lifetime rich in possessions, it could not stand untended here on this hill, surrounded by forests and beyond the forests, mountains. Five peaks were clear against the evening sky, two of them already tipped with early frost.

Now from a distance within the house she heard footsteps, now the grating scrape of a metal bar, or perhaps of a large key—she could not remember. The door opened a few inches, and she saw the gnarly face of Henry Haynes, Edwin’s manservant.

“Why, Mrs. Chardman!” His grainy voice had not changed. “Whatever—”

“Can you put me up for a week—or two—or three?”

“Well, now—”

He opened the door wide. “Come in. There’s nobody here but my wife and me. I married the cook. I don’t know as you remember her. Dr. Steadley put her in his will and it seemed easy just to—come in, Mrs. Chardman. The family was here for the summer but they’ve all gone and we was settling ourselves in for the winter.”

He led the way as he talked. She stood in the wide hall and looked about her. Everything was the same, the furniture polished, the floors dustless! There was even a bowl of golden chrysanthemums on the hall table, a great Satsuma bowl, which she remembered well, for Edwin had found it in Japan. Yet how empty the house was!

She stood hesitating. Could she bear his absence here in this house? The loneliness was too intense. She felt solitary as she had never felt before, not even when Arnold died and left her alone in her own house. Edwin had meant more to her than she had realized. Would the loneliness of his absence now overwhelm her, make her afraid?

“Everything is like when he was here,” Henry was saying. “Beds made, fires laid—everything. I even took out his winter things yesterday and aired them. My wife says, ‘Henry, he don’t know,’ but
I
know, I tell her,
I
know. Shall you have the same room, Mrs. Chardman?”

“Yes, the same.”

She followed him up the stairs and down the hall to the remembered door. He opened it and she went in.

“It looks exactly as it did,” she said.

“And will always be,” Henry said. “He wants it like that. ‘Henry,’ he says, ‘keep it like it always was. I don’t know if I can come back, but keep it as if I could!’ So I keep it, books dusted, everything.”

“Perhaps he knows,” she murmured.

Now that she was here, she was tired, she realized. She took off her hat and saw her face in a mirror, white and tired.

“You’ll have dinner early as possible,” Henry said. “I’ll tell my wife. It’ll be good to have something to do.”

“Thank you, Henry,” she said. When he was gone, she unpacked her two bags and put things away into drawers.

But I needn’t stay, she thought, I can just go away at any moment, any day, if I can’t bear it. Only where would I go?

She sat down before the small mahogany desk near the western window. The sun was setting, it seemed at this moment to rest upon the rocky peak of the highest mountain, and she watched it sink until the last edge of gold was gone. Then she lit all the lamps in the room and put a match to the logs in the fireplace, and having done so, felt herself somehow at home, though still alone.

…The first early snow was falling, although the last bright leaves were still clinging to the maple trees when she put aside the curtains of her bedroom one morning and saw the large soft flakes drifting past the window. Henry had turned up the furnace.

She drew back the curtain and fastened it, and a white light filled the room. She lit the fire, the logs piled ready in the chimney piece, and slowly, luxuriously, she showered and dressed and went downstairs to breakfast. There in the breakfast room Henry had lit a fire and had moved a small table beside it.

“It’s sharp this morning,” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Dr. Steadley always liked snow.”

“I know.”

“It’s queer how he still seems to be in this house,” Henry said.

“Do you feel it, too?” she asked.

“Times I come in, I almost hear his voice,” Henry said.

“If you believe he is here, then to that degree he is here,” she replied.

She was aware of a strange confidence as she spoke. If any presence could be believed, surely Edwin was that one. But she was a skeptic. What had been was no more. He had left this shell, this habitation, behind him and was gone. She was singularly alone, more alone, she reflected, than if she had never lived here with him. Nor did she wish him back. She had come here to learn how to live alone, and she pressed her loneliness into her heart and flesh. She was alone, alone, so wrapped in her solitary being that she did not even notice that Henry had left the room.

…The solitary days passed, one after the other in a gray procession. Since no one knew where she was, there were no telephone calls. She spent her waking hours in the huge library, studying books she had never read before, books of Asian history and philosophy. Edwin had traveled much in that part of the world, and now she began to understand how much Asia had shaped his character. The natural freedom, the ease with which he had accommodated the physical with the philosophical, was Asian. The body was only the manifestation of the spirit, translating into terms of flesh and blood, pulse and heartbeat, the yearnings of the spirit. The need for physical love was only a materialization of the spirit's craving for communication. There was no essential difference between flesh and spirit, simply a difference in mode of expression.

Jared had not progressed so far, however. Nor indeed had she. Flesh was of the flesh. When she thought of Jared in the flesh, she thought of his body. His spirit was apart. She could and did think of his spirit, but it was something in itself. Spiritually he was a creator. Just now, of course, he was only a beginner. He was creating tools, mechanisms to satisfy his creative compulsion. He had to make something with his hands, something he could see and use, a noble instinct, but on a first level, His creativity was motivated by compassion, a worthy instinct, but not strong enough in itself to reach the fulfillment of his capacity as a creator. In days gone by, the creator always found his fulfillment in art, but now the greatest artists were scientists. Science was so exciting, so new, so all but insuperable that it challenged every creative mind. She had no doubt that if he were not impeded, Jared would grow into a great scientist.

If he were not impeded! But no one could impede him except her, herself. Somehow she had come into his life at a moment when he needed to worship and he had worshiped her. What does a woman do with a man’s worship? She can destroy it by her own selfish need—or she can use it for his development and growth.

I must never let him know, she thought.

But know what?

She must never let him know that she was merely woman. She must never descend to daily need, if she wanted to keep him. No, even that was selfish. There could be no question of “keeping.” She must rise to heights of her own. She must be quite willing to release him while she loved him—even because she loved him, for love, if it be true, seeks only the fulfillment of the beloved and this on the highest level.

Slowly, day after day, she moved her way dimly to a new definition of love, eliminating every trace of selfishness in order that she might find the purest satisfaction. Slowly she rejected even loneliness and became no more alone but absorbed in her search for the substance of love in its essence. And all during this search she did not write to Jared or telephone him. She needed to be alone in order to outlive loneliness. When she was no longer lonely, she would find him again, or he would find her.

In such mood the days passed in the silent house. Days passed in which she spoke to no one except lo acknowledge Henry’s greeting, or answer his wife’s occasional question.

“Is everything all right, Mrs. Chardman?”

“Yes, thank you, Margaret.”

“Is there anything you would fancy to eat?”

“No, thank you. Whatever you prepare—it’s quite all right.”

Days passed into weeks. The snow fell heavily now and settled into permanence. Winter loomed. She wondered if she should return to her own house, and did not. Edwin was gone, and she lived entirely in the presence of Jared. He was no longer the young man from whom she had withdrawn herself. Slowly she came to see him as the man he would be someday, Jared the fulfilled, Jared the creator, master of himself, imaginative, dedicated, uncompromising in his creativity. He had become one of the few great men of his time, his acts of creation of art were no longer mere inventions. How would she know his greatness? When artist and scientist combined in him, he would be that great man.

…“Now I have found you,” Jared said.

He announced himself by arrival. She was at the piano that morning when the doorbell rang. She stopped to listen, she waited for Henry or Margaret to open the door but neither appeared. Then she opened the door herself and Jared stood there in the rain. Three days of rain had washed away the last snowfall.

“Have you been looking for me?” she asked. “Everywhere. No one could tell me where you were.”

“Because I told no one.”

“You wanted to hide from me!”

“Come in out of the rain.”

She threw the door wide, he shook himself, and came in, and took off his raincoat and hat. At the same moment Henry appeared, astonished at a guest, and taking both hat and coat, looked at her with inquiring eyes.

“Yes, Henry,” she said. “Mr. Barnow will be here—for the night, Jared?”

“If you’ll have me, but tomorrow I am taking you home.”

She did not reply to this, but led the way to the living room. The wind from the open door had blown the sheets of her music about, and he stooped and picked them up and set them on the rack of the piano. Then he sat down and looked her straight in the eyes.

“I’m doing what you told me to do,” he said. “I am marrying June Blaine.”

She heard and did not hear. Instead there was the rush of a sudden downpour of wind-driven rain. It beat against the French windows, it thundered upon the stones of the terrace. She lifted her head and listened to the sound of the storm.

“We’ll not get away tomorrow,” she murmured.

He stared at her. “Are you all right, Edith?”

When she did not reply he went to her and took her face between his palms. “I asked you, are you all right, Edith?”

She looked into his eyes. “Yes,” she said distinctly.

He released her then but he stood looking down at her. “You’ve been too long alone, that’s what’s wrong.”

She pushed him away gently. “Oh, no, I’m quite happy being alone. I’ve learned how.”

“I’m still in love with you,” he said with bitterness.

“Don’t say it!” she cried.

“But I will say it,” he insisted. “It’s hopeless, I know—but true, for all that!”

“It’s not fair to June,” she said.

“She knows,” he said doggedly. “I couldn’t marry her otherwise. Between you and me, I’ve told her, everything must be the same—forever.”

He turned away from her and walked to the window and stared out into the storm. “I hope I’m not trying to substitute her for you!”

This was no longer to be borne. She determined not to bear it. By force she would break the mood, too tense, too charged with emotion.

“Impossible,” she declared. “We are two entirely different women!”

In her heart she added, “She has her place—but I have mine!”

But she did not speak the words aloud.

…The change in mood continued. Henry entered at this moment to announce luncheon and over the business of food and drink, Jared’s appetite excellent, she made a show of mild interest in his plans.

“Shall you marry soon, Jared?”

“After she graduates from college in June.”

“Still so young! Lucky you!”

“I’ve known her for a couple of years, remember!”

“She’s a sensible little thing.”

“I wouldn’t marry her otherwise. I’ve made it clear to her that I have my work to do and that comes first—always will. It’s the penalty for marrying a dedicated scientist.”

“Shall you stay at this rehabilitation work?”

“No. Not really. I see now that it’s a side job, an avocation. I’ll always work at it occasionally. But it’s not my real job.”

He frowned and she waited. He began again. “I don’t know what my work is. Mending broken bodies—yes, of course, but that’s not it. Something in mathematics. I love the order, the elegance of mathematics. But even that is merely a tool, a means. I want to discover—”

“What?” She pressed him when he paused.

He lifted eyes half apologetic. “You’ll laugh—but it’s the only word that fits. I want to discover—the universe.”

“Thank God!” she cried softly under her breath.

He frowned again. “Why do you thank God?”

“Because you belong in your laboratory, Jared.”

She spoke with such decision that he put down knife and fork.

“How did you know?” he demanded.

“I know you,” she said. “I know you are basically an artist and an artist is always seeking revelation. You’re not just a technician. You’re a creator.”

Their eyes met, now unwavering, his in awe, hers in confidence.

“You know!” he whispered.

“Of course,” she said quietly, “And so I love you.”

…It was summer again. She was in a little church, waiting among a few strangers for the wedding march to begin. It was Jared’s wedding day. She had gone home in March, the snows of the winter melting except on the mountains. He had not stayed long, a day and a night, but she was not lonely when he left. She knew her place now in his life and her duty to love him as only she could do. She understood that the more she fulfilled her own life, the more wisdom she could learn, the more she could achieve in herself, the more complete she became—yes, even the more perfect, the better her love could serve him. She must be forever the abiding goddess. And this could only be fulfilled if she found her own way to that fulfillment, apart from Jared. But what was the way? Now that she had years ahead, how spend them toward fulfillment? She was her father’s daughter in mind and spirit, though her mother had created her flesh. She must, once this wedding was over, go apart and live with herself alone.