CHAPTER XII. DEALING WITH REVELATIONS
At Banff, Jane improved very rapidly. Soon she was taking daily
walks - a short one in the morning, accompanied by Mlle. Lefèvre and the child;
a longer one in the afternoon with her father. They were lodged in the sanatorium,
in four rooms one of which was their common sitting room.
Jane's mood persisted. She was reconciled with her fate. She kept all thought of the troubles of her past at a distance. Yet, with her returning vitality, one ingredient of the mood of the day at the lake disappeared or rather paled; till it was once more replaced by a re-awakened consciousness of essential virginity. At the lake, she had felt old and experienced; past all desire for the sweetness of love, for an awakening, in her, of that power of passion in which she felt she could give herself without residue to some one without her. But if this, the source of her restlessness during years past, and the cause of the bitterness which she had felt for Jim, re-arose in her now, she consciously tried to see in that "some one" Jim. In spite of her pregnancy she felt young again; she knew once more that within her were reserves of feeling and abandonment never yet tapped. The supreme moment of her life would come when that had happened. For that moment she must keep herself in readiness; and, for a fortnight or so, she went on thinking that her problem henceforth would be to force Jim to give her, late in life, what he had promised her once in the days of her girlhood.
One consequence of this state of mind of hers was that she took great pains with herself. She was proud of her beauty once more. When, on the forest paths along Bow Falls, and on the trails along Spray River, she met pedestrians, she took note of the fact that people looked at and admired her; and vicariously she felt thrilled. Nor did she deny to herself that she liked to be accompanied by her father who, though smaller than she, in his way looked equally well; his narrow face with the well-brushed, short, though grey moustache gave
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his whole slender figure an air of distinction which she loved. Strange to say, wherever they went together, he was mistaken for her elderly husband. He was a little over sixty and exceedingly well preserved; a father to be proud of. And proud she was even of the matter-of-course way in which he took the obsequiency of the attendants for granted; for at the time the resorts in the mountains were still socially exclusive; and western Alberta as well as British Columbia were strikingly English as compared with the more democratic middle west.
Thus, in a seemingly futile but all the more curative idleness, time went by. Away from home, Jane felt for the first time since her marriage that there was a home; yes, that, after all, there was a man in the east to whom she belonged by right. If there was no great past to look back upon in her life, there was a peaceful future to look forward to. She went so far as to write almost daily notes to that man in the east; and often she carried them to the station herself and handed them to the mail-clerk in the express car of the train that arrived from the coast in the afternoon.
It was an existence as life in a dream. And as in a dream she went through another experience.
For, one day when she had thus taken a letter to the station, she met there, on the platform, a party of travellers who had just alighted from the cars. Before her, and coming towards her, she saw a tall man, dressed in a conspicuous mountaineering suit of soft, beige-coloured serge, with wide knickers and flat, highly polished, red oxfords. In his magnificent head, covered with a Highland cap, the most striking thing were the prominent, impulsive, coal-black eyes and the large, sensitive, fleshy nose.
This man was accompanied by an overdressed and yet frowzy-looking little woman who, compared with her husband, looked vulgarly middle-aged; behind them came four children, the oldest of whom, a girl, was thirteen or fourteen years old.
Mr. Rosebaum met Jane with outstretched hand; a moment later he was
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introducing her to his wife.
He moved and spoke with that same vitality which had so impressed her in the past. "You didn't keep word," he said. "You've never looked us up in Montreal."
Jane smiled. "I was not aware that I had promised."
"Couldn't we stop over?" he asked of his wife as if he were giving an order.
She laughed - a trifle unpleasantly, Jane thought. "I don't know," she said to Jane, "how well you may know him. If at all, you're aware, of course, that previous arrangements, convenience to others, and expense don't count where a whim of his is concerned."
Jane looked on as at a thing that did not concern her. Her eye was resting on the children who were Jewish to the point of exaggeration. But the awkwardness of the youngest, a little girl just out of her frocks, touched her almost to tears. She bent down and fondled her cheeks.
"Curtsy, Dorothy!" her mother admonished. "Curtsy when the lady speaks to you."
Mr. Rosebaum went into ecstasies over Jane's graceful gesture. "No," he exclaimed, looking about for the conductor of the train. "This will not do. I am going to have our tickets endorsed for a stop-over."
Jane straightened and looked at him. Her smile was purely ironic.
He, standing erect, his head flung back, his eyes on hers, seemed to insist; and then he understood; this woman was not going to succumb to his charms; the quality of her smile was convincing. To her he was no more than he was to himself: an erratic youth strayed into middle-age, surprised at his own success with others.
Jane extended her hand. "I am under treatment here," she said. "At the sanatorium. I have been ill. You must not stay if it inconveniences Mrs. Rosebaum."
"Much he cares about that!" Mrs. Rosebaum said and laughed. But she was pleased with Jane and shook hands rather more cordially than before.
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A moment later, the conductor's "All aboard" rang out over the platform; and Mr. Rosebaum, strangely changed, almost shrunk by his lack of success, precipitately herded his family back into the train. From the steps of the car, as he mounted them, he waved his hand at the tall, stately woman who stood on the platform. Jane had the odd impression that he checked that hand under her look just a moment before it would have touched his lips.
In a not unpleasant, almost complacent confusion of thought she turned to the exit.
"This middle-aged child," she reflected, "was the man of whom I have sometimes thought with regret; the man of whom I have said, If I had met him with my present knowledge of life, free, being free myself, I should have said to him, You are He!" Yes, he was a "magnificent Jew". But in her heart she added, "God protect all women from the eternal youth!" And not without pleasure she realised that her confusion arose, not from having met him again, but from the surprise at the discovery of how far a woman who is disappointed in life may go astray in her thought. The knowledge that it had been in thought only, and not in deed, made her feel inwardly gathered and strengthened - as he might feel who finds that, without knowing it, he has crossed deep water covered by dangerously thin ice.
Yes, she was lucky. She was going to be a mother; and only through being a mother could she be a wife. Yet, strangely to herself, she looked at her image in the mirror when she reached her rooms.
Another week went by. She was collecting herself. In spite of her pregnancy
she felt more and more virgin. She was she, uninvaded by the personality of
any other. The memory of how she had lain in Jim's arm, at the lake, became
a half incredible vision, subtly disturbing her thought. And then she said to
herself that, whatever might be in store for her, must henceforth come from
him; he was her husband. Yet, what should it be? At the best, it could only
be peace with herself and the world! And she smiled as he smiles who is deceiving
himself
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and knows it.--
Then, on the first day of her fourth week at Banff, Mlle. Lefèvre entered her bed-room early in the morning.
"Mrs. Forrest, there's a woman downstairs who wishes to see you. She won't tell me her name. But she gave me this envelope to give to you."
Jane was sitting at her dressing table, arranging her hair. It was before breakfast; she had just risen. A sudden uneasiness seized her, incomprehensible to herself; it was almost sickening. Her life had come to rest at last; she felt the distinct foreboding that it was going to be disturbed, disastrously. She took the envelope from the hand of the governess and tore it open; but she did it awkwardly so that she tore the sheet inside and had to hold the two fragments together in order to read. She blanched and had to put forth an effort in order not to betray herself. Instantly she realised that nobody must see this paper; it was of the utmost importance to keep this thing secret. She did not speak at once, for she had to regain control over her voice.
Then she turned to Mlle. Lefèvre. "You may tell her that I am dressing but will see her in a quarter of an hour. Take her to the parlor on the second floor. I will find her there. And, Mademoiselle, I have a letter here which I wish you will be kind enough to mail personally. I want it registered; so you will have to go across the river to the office. It is important and urgent. Take Norah along. You might go to the park with her. It will be quite all right if you don't get back before dinner. You have had your breakfast, I suppose?"
She realised that she was speaking too much and a little too fast; that the very exaggeration of her assumed ease was apt to betray her inner agitation; and so she ceased, rising, and went to the small desk in the corner by the window, took an envelope and addressed it. Her first impulse had been to address it to Jim; from that she suddenly recoiled; then she thought of Ann Aikins; next of Stephen Carter.
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These, however, she rejected because she had nothing to write; she meant to put a blank sheet of paper into the envelope; for the whole thing was only a pretext to get rid of the governess and the child for the morning. To send either Ann or Stephen a blank sheet of paper would have elicited a prompt enquiry. She must find a fictitious name; but she could not think of any. Mechanically, at last, since she must not delay any longer in order to avoid arousing suspicion, she addressed it to Arthur Forrest at Fisher Landing. She felt as if she had already delayed for many minutes. In reality, her thought had proceeded with such lightning swiftness that Mlle. Lefèvre had not noticed the slightest hesitation in her behaviour.
When she handed the envelope to the governess, she repeated, "Let her wait in the public parlor. I shall find her there."
Mlle. Lefèvre left the room. Jane waited a moment, standing by her dressing table and listening. Then, when the door of the living room adjoining her own had been closed, she refitted the two fragments of the message which she had received and stared at it.
"If you are Mrs. James Alvin Forrest, I must see you. My name is Mrs. James Alvin Forrest."
Then, having almost consciously committed the words to memory, she lighted a candle on the night table at the head of her bed and burned the paper. She looked haggard as she did so and kept muttering to herself, "It can't be! It can't be!"
But all the time she knew that it was; it explained everything! Everything? Oh, there was no time to go into that now . Her head turned with the multitude of things which this thing did explain. But she put all that away; one aspect of the matter, one single aspect was of such immediate and paramount importance that it must eclipse all others. She took hold of herself; and she succeeded in appearing composed: she had to fight for her children. That there were children was a mistake; but never mind! They were there. Even Norah for whom she had never had any great love was entitled to a fair start in life.
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Like a general in battle, she felt that she must summon all her powers of training, breeding, self-control. She went to the door.
But before she reached it, she stopped again. "That explains everything!" What did it explain? She seemed to look sideways into corridors or lanes of thought that seemed to open up in many directions. But everywhere there stood at the end like an inferno her own reactions which she did not care to face just then. There would be plenty of time to do that later. Just now, "this" must be gone through with.
She entered the private sitting room to reach her father's door. Mr. Atkinson was just coming out, fully dressed. Only now did she realise that here was a difficulty. She must get rid of him. It would not do to tell him the truth; nor would it do to use a pretext pure and simple, for he would know it for a pretext and question her. Without reasoning further about it, she took the only possible course.
"Father," she said, "something has happened. I can't tell you what. Do you trust me?"
He smiled. "My dear girl!"
"I knew. Now listen. I want you to go down to your breakfast and then out for a walk. Don't go to the parlor. Don't come back here before dinner. And don't watch these doors. You must promise me."
He looked at her, greatly amazed.
"You know it could not be anything dishonourable, father."
"Of course not."
"And I can assure you it is nothing dangerous."
"Well, I promise. But don't let it excite you, dear, whatever it is."
"Excitement is nothing," she said and added in French as if she were afraid English walls might listen, "Ca va de nos vies, mon chèr! But you don't need to worry about me."
He hesitated for another second; then he held up his cheek to be kissed, reached for his hat, and left the room.
As she stared after him, Jane became conscious of the fact that her hair
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was only half done; on the right side of her head its long, loose tresses were still hanging over her ear. She returned into her bed-room and, as if that would help her to conquer her agitation, dressed with great and almost unusual care.
As soon as she had finished, she went down the stairs to the lower floor where the public rooms of the institution were located. As she ran down the easy steps, she realised that, in spite of her outward composure, she was tremendously excited, in a dull, oppressing way which would bring on a head-ache. Fortunately, she reflected, the parlor was generally deserted at this time of day. Still, as she reached the floor, she took the precaution of entering through the smoking and writing rooms which formed an open flight with the parlor, to assure herself that they, too, were empty. They were.
A second later she stood in the door to the large commodious apartment.
A single occupant was sitting forlornly on the edge of a chair. Jane hardly saw her.
"I am Mrs. Forrest," she said. "Will you follow me, please?"
And she turned. Before her eyes strange, coloured figures seemed to dance, geometric in shape.
Swiftly as she had come, passing the elevator by, she returned upstairs to her own rooms, pausing, however, at the door of the sitting room to let her caller precede.
A moment later she said, astonishing herself by the clearness of her enunciation, "Be seated, please." Then, sitting down herself, she faced the stranger who was in the full light falling through the tall, curtained windows. Once more, after a first look, she rose, went to the door, and turned the key. "Excuse me," she said, again with that extraordinarily clear, metallic enunciation. "I take it that we might just as well forestall any interruption."
The stranger smiled. Jane noticed that she had poor teeth and that she tried to conceal the fact by stretching her heavy upper lip. She
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was even conscious of feeling a certain satisfaction at that; yes, she was conscious of feeling a certain satisfaction at the extreme contrast between their persons. Naturally, so far, she thought she was facing an enemy.
The caller was distinctly middle-aged; she, in spite of her years, was a young woman. The caller was somewhat short and wide; she was tall and slender, in spite of her condition. The caller was conspicuously powdered and painted; she never used rouge and little powder. The caller was visibly embarrassed; she herself was, at least outwardly, at ease.
She spoke. "I think I understand the situation. May I ask when and where the ceremony took place?"
"At San Francisco. On July first, thirteen years ago." The senior Mrs. Forrest drew a paper from a wrist-bag which she carried.
"I believe you," Jane said, waving the paper aside. "Your...husband left you?"
"Yes."
"Without the formality of a divorce?"
"Yes. Unless he can get a divorce without my being aware of the fact."
"He cannot. Perhaps you realise that we shall never arrive at an understanding without perfect frankness on both sides? You must, therefore pardon me if I seem inquisitive."
The caller smiled deprecatingly. "I have nothing to hide, madam."
"Do you know any reason why he may have left you?"
The caller squirmed under the directness of the attack. "There may have been misunderstandings." Suddenly, as if a mask were falling from her face, she smiled again. This time it was a girlish smile, almost shame-faced. "To be quite frank, I always realised that I was no wife for Jim."
Jane winced when she heard her caller use his first name. But she looked encouragement.
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"You know," the senior Mrs. Forrest went on, bending her head to one side and smiling down at her hands, "he was so ambitious. And he was...He laid so much stress on the dessous."
A cold shock went through Jane; she stiffened.
"I did not have the knowledge along those lines. He wasn't my class. He was spoiled."
It took Jane half a minute, though she grasped the implications in a flash, before she could trust herself to speak. Then she asked in an almost ingratiating voice, "Were you aware...I mean before you became his - wife...That he did not come to you...How shall I say?...Fresh?"
The caller smiled. "Do any young men come fresh to their wives these days?"
Jane nodded. She felt as if she were being initiated into things enormous. "Any children?" she asked at last.
"A boy, twelve years old."
"What did you do when he had left you?"
"Well, the child was coming. I had my parents living. So I went back home. If it had not been for the condition I was in, I should not have bothered them."
"Where did they live?"
"At Vancouver. My father was a long-shoreman."
"I see," Jane said in a matter-of-fact tone. This senior Mrs. Forrest was the first woman of her type she had ever spoken to. She liked her. She liked her frankness and her honesty which was not to be doubted. "You said you had parents living. They are not living now?"
"No. Father died ten years ago. Mother, last year."
"If your child had not been on the way, what would you have done?"
"I'd have gone back to the cafe where I had been working. I am a waitress."
"That was no doubt where...Jim had met you?" Jane was astonished
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that she could still use his name though, for a moment, she had been at a loss how to refer to him.
"Yes. At first he did not mean anything except to have a bit of fun with me. But I was not brought up that way."
"I understand," Jane said musingly. No; it was easy to see that this woman "had not been brought up that way." In fact, it was also easy to see that to this very day she had not learned to make life easy for herself by accepting passing attentions. "How do you happen to be at Banff?"
"Wages are high here in summer. I am working at the Arlington. I got the place through an ad."
"Your child is with you?"
"Yes. I am rooming out. It costs more that way. But I could not think of leaving him with strangers."
"We must try to arrange that I can see him."
That won her caller's heart. She smiled at her in a new way.
"Have you ever made any attempt to find Jim after he had left you?"
"Father did. But you see I did not know where he had come from nor where he had gone. I thought he was a Californian."
"How did you find out about me?"
"I read your name in the local paper."
"I see. The paper, I suppose, gave my...gave Jim's full name?"
"Not the full name. The initials. Mrs. J.A. Forrest. I did not realise right away what it meant. I thought it was just chance. Then I began to think about it. You see, it is my legal name. At last I thought I would make sure."
Jane nodded. Then she rose and took a few steps through the room. The implications and consequences of this thing were once more unfolding themselves before her vision. Every now and then, as she mentally glanced this way or that, she seemed to look into a new avenue of possibilities. Several minutes went by in silence. Jane was standing at one of the windows overlooking the road that wound along
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at the foot of Mount Sulphur, flanked by pine-woods, her hand on the back of a chair. She felt that the mental shock was slowly becoming a physical one. Then she turned to the caller.
"What do you intend to do?" She was herself struck by the air almost of friendship that had sprung up between them in half an hour. She made no secret of the fact that the stranger had won her complete respect though her world was different from her own. They were simply consulting in order to find a way out of a difficult situation.
"I don't know," her caller said slowly. "I don't want to interfere between you and...him. But I think he should do something for the child."
"You are aware that you could send him into penal servitude and make me an unmarried woman and my children bastards?"
"Yes," the caller said, holding her head very still. "But what for? I've lived without him for more than twelve years. I don't want a husband again. And besides, if I sent him to jail, I couldn't have him anyway. I don't even know where he lives. And for myself, I shouldn't care. But Lionel...my boy, you understand..."
"Yes. Of course. I, too, have to consider my children."
"I thought there was only one. From the paper, you know."
Jane looked at her and glanced down at herself.
The caller nodded. "Oh yes. I see."
Jane could not help herself. This woman had not the remotest idea of what this meant to her. But suddenly she found herself bending over her and sobbing, her face on her shoulder. The caller rose, disconcerted and distressed.
"Don't, madam, don't!" she said. "I should not have come. This is going to upset you. In your condition!"
"Forgive me!" Jane said. "You are a dear creature! I am glad you came!"
"I could not help it. It was my name."
Jane kissed her on her brow. Her lips came away tasting of rouge;
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but she did not despise her for that any longer. "What is your first name?" she asked, tears still in her eyes.
"Mine? Dolly."
"Mine's Jane. And now let us see, Dolly."
"No. I wish I hadn't come...except that you're very good."
"Nonsense," Jane said almost gaily. "Not only Lionel will have to be looked after; but you, too."
Dolly smiled at the name of the boy.
"Come to my room, dear," Jane said and led the way. There, she sat down at her little desk. "You'll forgive me," she said, "if I seem callous. Such things should not be discussed in terms of money. But money is the only thing we can put our hands on in such a case."
Dolly shrugged her shoulders.
"Shall we say fifteen hundred a year?"
Dolly gasped.
"You know," Jane went on, speaking almost archly, "Jim is not exactly a pauper. We don't need to let him off too lightly. Now I intend to be personally responsible for these payments. Since you won't have to go back to your work, what will your address be?"
"General delivery, Vancouver," Dolly said promptly.
"Very well. I don't need to take note of that. Your name I am not likely to forget. Now I shall give you a cheque on the local bank for the first quarter. That is three hundred and seventy-five dollars. I shall give you another cheque, on my own bank in Stockton. No," she corrected herself. "I cannot do that. Our dealings must be in cash. I have my children and my father to consider."
"But I don't want you to suffer for what Jim has done."
"Don't fear," Jane said. "It is Jim who shall pay. But I want to handle this thing myself, so that I know that there is no slip." She pondered a moment and rose. "I'll tell you, Dolly, you meet me at ten o'clock sharp on Bow Bridge, near the centre, on the right-hand side. We shall go to the bank together. There must be no cheques and no
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receipts. As soon as I get home, I shall send you three thousand dollars in trust for the boy. More if I can. But three thousand dollars is all that I happen to have in my name at present; and I cannot promise for...him."
"It's too much..."
"It isn't enough, even granting that such things can be made up for in money." Jane was feverish. The excitement was slowly getting the better of her. Her eyes glowed in her face. The sooner she got through with this thing, the better. So, after a pause, she went on, "Leave me now, dear. My father is with me; and I would rather not have him see us together."
There was an air of conspiracy about her, and it was catching. Dolly straightened her dress. They went to the door of the sitting room which Jane unlocked. Again she had that peculiar feeling as if she were looking to right and left into unguessed-at lanes of thought. She realised that the thing she was doing scarcely touched the surface of the matter as yet.
Dolly hesitated. "I don't want you to think," she said slowly and without
raising her eyes, "that I came for this. I couldn't help myself. It hadn't been
easy, twelve years ago. But I'm glad I came...In a way...I...I like you tremendously.
I wouldn't for the world interfere between you and Jim. I hope you'll believe
me."
"Entirely," said Jane; but her preoccupation made her appear distant; and she was aware of it. So she went on, "We may not meet again where we can be private. I have recently been ill. I feel as if I might be somewhat unwell again..."
"Don't come. There is no hurry about all that..."
"Yes," Jane interrupted her; "there is; all the more; at ten on the bridge. I won't go with you now. And therefore..." Impulsively she took the other woman's head between her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. Then she opened the door and whispered, "So long, dear."
She was alone. All about her, waves seemed to be reaching up to
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her throat.
She waited for five minutes. Then she pressed the button of the electric bell. When the chambermaid came, she asked for a cup of coffee to be brought up to her; and when the coffee came, she ordered a car to be summoned by telephone. It was half past nine.
At ten, the woman whose existence she felt almost as that of a double entered the tonneau of her car; and together they went to the bank.
"I don't think I shall be able to see you again," she said when the matter of business had been attended to. "This has after all excited me. I shall have to lie down for the rest of the day; and if I can at all do so, I shall go east to-morrow. Good-by, dear."
"Good-by. And thanks...not so much for the money..."
"I know, I know," Jane said. Then, impulsively, she touched the other woman's cheek with her hand and went down the steps of the building to enter her car. The two were never to see each other again though, in after years, each wrote to another Mrs. J.A. Forrest.
When Jane reached the sanatorium, she lay down. When her father came in, at noon, she was feverish; and he summoned the doctor. It was not till two weeks later that she was able to board the train. Even then she seemed ailing; but it was thought best to let her have her way.
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