The Goddess Abides: A Novel (7 page)

“I see a change in you already,” Amelia now declared, dipping her fingers in a Venetian glass finger bowl.

“Tell me what you see.”

Thus encouraged, Amelia lit a long taper-thin cigar and proceeded. “Well, you are less restrained, more unconscious of yourself, even in the way you walk.”

“I suppose I was always unconsciously conscious of being Arnold’s wife.”

“He criticized you too much.” Amelia’s tone conveyed dislike of Arnold.

“Not really. He was always gentle with me,”

Amelia laughed. “As gentle as iron!”

“Perhaps I needed iron,” she replied mildly.

She decided within herself that she did not like Amelia as much as she had supposed, or perhaps it was that now, living alone and without Arnold to return to for masculine relief, Amelia seemed aggressive and overpowering. She must not, she reflected as Amelia led the way to the drawing room, fall into the mistake of becoming involved with women friends and their ever-narrowing interests in themselves and each other. She must take up an intellectual pursuit, she must discover an individual activity, alone and for herself. It seemed to her at this moment that the new house, built entirely for herself alone, satisfied the immediate answer to the question. But what intellectual pursuit, what mental activity? She remained in Amelia’s house for another half hour, however, her usual graceful, amiable self, that self which Arnold had so admired and, of course, had loved.

“My dear,” he had said more than once, “it is pleasant to live with a quiet woman, and one also beautifully serene.”

It occurred to her that she would miss such remarks when she had time to do so. Just now Edwin’s letters, arriving almost daily, took their place. Arnold’s letters, in their rare moments of separation, had not been at all like Edwin’s.

“I really must go, Amelia,” she said.

“What can you possibly now have to make you hurry away?” Amelia demanded.

She gave Amelia her somewhat absent smile as she rose. “There’s always one thing or another,” she said vaguely, and left.

…The new house now took possession of her. She was glad she had not mailed the letter to Jared, for had she done so she would have shared the house already, somehow. Instead she had taken the letter from her purse and torn it up when she came home from the luncheon with Amelia. Nonexistent though the house was, she was already living in it. The next morning, sitting at the writing table in the library, she was not even impatient for the mail. When the houseman delivered it to her on a silver tray, she saw on top a thick envelope, addressed in Edwin’s surprisingly bold handwriting, but she did not, as usual, open it immediately. Instead she finished the wing to the new house, now taking form in a plan drawn on a large sheet of paper. Then she opened the letter.

“My dear,” he began exactly as though he had not left off, “it now occurs to me that death has at least one important use. There is no human progress without death. Life is never static and thus inevitably it progresses from youth to old age. But the old become too wise, too prudent, and therefore life must begin over and over again in the young, if there is to be progress. For the young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation. You see I am seeking excuses to die! I admit it. When you are not here, I feel myself dying. I ought to die. It is time. But I cling to you, my darling. I prolong myself through love. And yet, upon further reflection, I realize that I myself need to die, in order that my life may be complete and whole. It is only when I have end as well as beginning that my individuality is definite. When I say
I,
it means as a human being. No, I am wrong. Since you opened to me the door of your room, I am set apart from all others against common sense. Time has become my most treasured commodity. ‘You must live long enough to see her again’—this is what I tell my body every night when I lay it down to sleep. It is still necessary that I live, although death waits, impatient.”

She read the letter carefully to the end, then folded its pages, put them in the envelope and slipped the envelope into a secret drawer and locked it with a combination. Her servants, as curious as any now that Arnold was dead and she was, so to speak, alone, would not be averse to reading a letter upon the envelope of which was written so blackly the name of a man. This done, she took up her drawing pencil. As Edwin had written, it was necessary to live, and for her, too, it was necessary. And since it was necessary, what more, logical than that she should have the sort of house she wanted to live in? For she realized that she had never had that house. This vast structure now surrounding her, its twenty-two rooms spreading over acreage, was merely the house in which she had been born, and in which she and Arnold had lived, with their two children.

The house in Vermont, too, had not been built for her alone. No, she wanted a house where there was no place for anyone except herself alone. She could go to Edwin and would go to him when and if she chose, but he could never come to her and so there was no need to make a place for him. She would slip into his life occasionally and slip away again. As for her children, they had their own houses, into which she might or might not go as she pleased, and they had no need of a place in her house. Need there be even a guest room? Her mind flew to that snowy night when Jared Barnow stood at her door. What if he appeared again? But if he never appeared, a room for him would be a waste. Or, for that matter, there was always this huge house, its beautiful rooms empty, and she would simply return here to receive him. She had settled it. She would not have a guest room. The house would be entirely her own. Instead of a guest-room wing, she would have a sunken garden.

…It was perhaps a week later that the telephone rang just before midnight. She had worked ever since her solitary, eight o’clock dinner, drawing in meticulous detail the rooms of her house. Merely because she would be alone in it did not mean it would have only a few rooms, not at all. She wanted her interests separated by walls and spaces, the library separated from the music room, and especially she wanted a contemplation room whose semicircular windows encompassed the sea. She could not imagine how she would furnish this room, but when the time came she would know—and of course there must be the usual rooms for sleep and food and service, but where she dined must be open to gardens and where she slept must be open to the stars.

In the midst of total absorption she heard the muted telephone ringing persistently. Her daughter, she supposed, who, married long before Arnold died, made it a habit to call late at night, on the supposition that her mother lived a life violently social, whereas the fact was that she lived almost as a recluse, making excuse that she had not recovered from Arnold’s death. Thus prepared to hear Millicent’s high and silvery voice, she was unprepared to hear quite another, an impetuous baritone which she instantly recognized as belonging to Jared Barnow.

“It’s fearfully late, I apologize, but my little plane is grounded—something wrong in the engine—and it just occurs to me that this city, which has always been for me an adjunct to the airport, is in reality the place where you live. I could take a room at a hotel. On the other hand—”

He broke off expectantly and she quickly filled in the pause.

“Of course, come here. Have you dined?”

“Yes, in some other city. I’m due in New York tomorrow, but I don’t wish to go ahead and leave my little machine alone, not until I know what’s wrong. I don’t like tinkering strangers.”

“Come along, then. You’ll take a cab, of course—and the man will know the way. You have the address?”

“Do you think I could forget it? I’ll be there. Sure you’re not in bed?”

“I am here, respectably clothed and in my library.”

He laughed and hung up.

She sat thoughtful for moments. The day had turned chill in the deceptive early summer and she heard a spatter of rain against the wide glass doors that led to the east terrace. The fire was laid as usual in the great chimney piece and she rose and touched a match. No, she decided, she would not change her gown. She had chosen this one for herself, a green silk, a soft material and easy in its cut. Part of her new independence was choosing her garments for herself. Arnold had never liked green, her favorite color, the color of life and springtime and youthfulness of spirit, and the apple green of this gown was the one she liked best among the many shades of green. And then, to signify her new indifference, a manifestation of independence, she went back to the writing table upon which the plan of her house was taking form, and began to work as though he had not called.

She was absorbed enough, in spite of a secret excitement which she suppressed, so that in less than a hour, when he appeared at the door of the library, whither he had been ushered by her previous order, she forgot the intervening time.

“How good to see you,” he exclaimed, holding out both his hands for hers.

“Thank you for thinking of me when your plane came down,” she said, aware that he was holding her hands firmly, aware of his dark eyes warmly upon her, aware of his smile, frankly joyous. He was taller, younger, more sophisticated than she remembered him in ski clothes. She was acutely aware of his arm about her shoulders as they walked to the chairs by the fire and she drew herself gently away from his grasp and was shocked to discover herself uncertain as to how to proceed, confused merely by his touch. How stupid of me, she thought, as if so slight a gesture today had any meaning! She seated herself opposite him, unable to think of what to say, and so said nothing, but smiled at him, whereupon he began.

“I must say this is a different setting for you, and very becoming. I like these great old houses. One doesn’t see them very often. Is it lonely for you here?”

She shook her head. “I have enough to do.”

“What, for example?”

She was not prepared, however, to tell him about the new house and she replied lightly. “Oh, music, friends, books, or just—reorganizing myself for a new life.”

“No worthy causes and so forth?”

“A few charities my husband was interested in, and in which I am not.”

“I can’t see you a lady bountiful.”

She maneuvered the conversation away from herself, which was easily done, for he was staring into the fire as though for moments he forgot her and she did not wish to be forgotten.

“Tell me what you are doing now. I’ve only thought of a skier.”

He came back to her. “I? Well, I came here to see a man who lives not too far away—a scientist—engineer fellow, who dreams of combining the disciplines to focus them on medical problems. Doctors, especially surgeons, are extraordinarily old-fashioned in technological ways. They keep on using antiquated tools—you wouldn’t believe—well, the idea of modernizing medical, especially surgical, instruments through the new engineering techniques fascinates me. I’m a bit of an idealist, I daresay. It gives me satisfaction to imagine that an invention of mine might save a life instead of just, adding gold to the coffers of a multimillionaire—or blowing someone on the other side of the world to bits.”

She was not prepared for this sudden submersion into his thinking and she had no wish to pretend to understand what he was talking about. Her own defense against this new and all but overpowering awareness of his physical being was to comprehend his mind, his swiftly moving, brilliant, perhaps moody mind, as she vaguely surmised. It occurred to her now that she was beginning to see dimly the real man, not the young skier who came out of the snows and into her house in the mountains of Vermont. He was looking about the room now and restlessly, as though in search, and suddenly he shivered.

“Have you something I could drink—something burning hot? I’ve caught cold up there in the upper regions. Stupidly I forgot to bring an extra jacket.”

“Of course,” she said, and touched a button. “I don’t think Weston is upstairs yet.”

Her elderly houseman came at her call and she spoke to him in her usual kindly but distant fashion.

“Weston, Mr. Barnow is catching cold. Can you make him something hot?”

“Certainly, madame,” the man replied.

“And, Weston, I suppose the green room is ready for guests?”

“Always, madame.”

“Turn down the bed for Mr. Barnow, will you?”

“Certainly, madame. Will Mr. Barnow be here for breakfast?”

“Yes—and perhaps longer.”

“Very well. Thank you, madame.” He made his old-fashioned bow and went away.

“This is your setting,” Jared said.

“Ah, you don’t know me,” she replied.

“No? But I shall, in time!”

“Is there time? You are young and very busy. And I have—dreams of my own.”

“I must be in them.”

He made the declaration boldly, so confident of her approval that in herself she felt withdrawal, almost distaste, even while she was aware again of his physical beauty. She withdrew from that, too, abruptly.

“Tell me what you meant a moment ago when you spoke of combining disciplines.”

He was leaning back in his easy chair, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes closed. Now he sat up abruptly and opened his eyes.

“What do you know about medical engineering?” he inquired.

“Nothing,” she said promptly. “It must be something new, since my father’s time.”

“Relatively new,” he agreed.

“Then please be simple.”

He laughed. “Simply, then, it’s this: the medical men have been and are extraordinarily backward in the new disciplines of mathematics, physics and engineering. Yet they are working with life systems, without enough of the research that is essential if they are to do their work successfully. The very instruments upon which they depend for accuracy of diagnosis and healing are often so old-fashioned as to be obsolete. Medical scientists are becoming aware of this and some universities are creating departments of bio-medical engineering. But that’s a neither-fish-nor-fowl sort of thing so far, in my opinion, only creating men for jobs that won’t exist after a few years. I have a different approach to such interdisciplinary activity and that’s what I wanted to talk to this fellow about. He’s a pioneer in the field. I wish your father were alive. He’d be the one I’d be seeing first.”