Jane Journeys On. Ruth Comfort Mitchell
Vail! Going away? What for? Where?" She stood still on the sidewalk, exploding into tiny, staccato sentences.
"To New York," Jane heard herself saying with entire conviction. "I'm going away to work."
"To work?" They were all in the brightness of the street light now, and Sarah brought her nearsighted gaze close to Jane's glowing face. "Have you lost your senses?"
"Neither my senses nor my cosy little hundred-a-month," said Jane. "Come along, people—it's a scandalous hour." She started briskly up the silent thoroughfare and the others followed. "No, it's really all quite sane and simple." (The astounding thing was that she had known it less than five minutes herself, and now it was a solid and settled fact to her. Happily, gloriously, she didn't have to choose, after all. She didn't have to be either a Nannie Slade Hunter or a Sally Farraday; there was a chance to be something quite fresh and new.) "I'm going to New York to write. I mean, to see if I can write."
Martin Wetherby, heavily keeping step beside her, not even touching her arm at crossings, was silent, but her best friend was vocal and vehement.
"Jane Vail! I never heard anything so—so far-fetched in all my life! Going to New York to write! Can't you write here in your own town, in your own home? Of course you can. Why—see what you've accomplished already."
"I haven't accomplished anything, old dear, except a few papers for the Tuesday Club and the Ladies' Aid, and——"
"You've had three stories accepted and published and one of them paid for—I think you've had a great deal of encouragement, don't you, Martin?"
The stout young man made a husky assent.
"But Sally, you don't realize the interruptions, the distractions——"
"Interruptions! Distractions!" Sarah cut in hotly. "Why, your Aunt Lydia is perfectly wonderful about not letting you be disturbed! And anyhow—what about Harriet Beecher Stowe, writing Uncle Tom's Cabin with poverty and sickness and a debilitating climate and seven children?"
"My good woman," said Jane, cautiously, "it's entirely possible that I may not have exactly the same urge. I want to find out if I have any at all." She slipped an arm through Sarah's and through Martin's and gave each of them a gay little squeeze. "Don't be so horrified, old dears. It isn't across the world, you know, and I'll be coming home for all high-days and holidays. After I really get started I daresay I can work at home—and perhaps, you know, it will be Bo-Peep herself who comes home, bringing her tales behind her!"
But Sarah Farraday was still protesting in a cross panic when they had taken leave of a subdued Martin and were creeping upstairs in Miss Lydia Vail's house.
"Look!" said Jane, nodding at the transom over her aunt's door. "She's fallen asleep again without turning off her light. You go on, Sally, I'll be right in."
Miss Lydia was propped up on two pillows, an open book before her on the patchwork quilt, and her head had sagged forward on the breast of her blue flannelette nightgown. She was making a low comedy sound which would have distressed her beyond measure if she had heard it. When Jane took the book from under her plump hands and gently removed one of the pillows she came back to consciousness with a jerk.
"I wasn't asleep," she stated with dignity. "Not really asleep; I just closed my eyes to rest them and sort of lost myself for an instant." Her eyes narrowed intently. "My dear, what is it? You look—you look queer! Sort of—excited!" A quick, pink blush mounted over her face. "Jane! Oh, my darling child—is it—has Martin"—then, disappointedly, as the girl shook her head—"Is it just that you've been having a wonderful time?"
"It's just that I've been having a wonderful idea, Aunt Lyddy!" She patted the pillow. "I'll tell you to-morrow!"
"What, Jane? What is it? I sha'n't sleep a wink if you don't tell me!"
"I'm going away for a while, Aunt Lyddy, dear—to New York. I want to see if I can really do something with my writing."
The little spinster paled. "Jane! Going away?" Her eyes brimmed up with sudden tears. "My dearest girl, aren't you happy in your home? I've tried, oh, how I've tried to take your dear, dead mother's place! But it seems——"
"Of course I'm happy—I've always been happy, Aunt Lyddy! Now, we'll wait till morning and then talk it all over." She pulled up the gay quilt smoothly, but her aunt sat stiffly upright, her face twisted with alarm.
"My dear child! What is it?"
Jane stood looking down at her for an instant before she stooped and gathered her into a hearty hug. "It's nothing to be frightened about. It's just this, Aunt Lyddy; I do want to write, and I don't want to marry Martin Wetherby!"
In the difficult days which followed she found Sarah Farraday the most rebellious. Miss Vail had a little creed or philosophy which was as plump and comfortable as she was herself, and which had helped to make her, Jane considered, the world's most satisfactory maiden aunt, and after a few tears and those briskly winked away, she was able to be sure that her dear girl knew best what was best for herself, much as she would miss her, empty as the house would be without her. Nannie Slade Hunter, though she disapproved, was too deeply engulfed in the real business of life to be much concerned over the vagaries of a just-about-to-be-engaged girl, and Martin Wetherby, coached, Jane knew, by the sapient father of the Teddy-bear, was presently able to translate her exodus into something very soothing to his own piece of mind. Jane could watch his mental processes as easily as she could watch the activities of a goldfish in a glass globe; he was concluding that it was the regular old startled fawn stuff … he had been rushing her pretty hard … better let her have a little time … play around with this writing game. He'd be Asst. Cashier (that was the way he visualized it) the first of the year, and that would be a great time to get things settled.
But Sarah, in the burlapped studio, between piano pupils, was aghast and bitter. "'Going to seek your fortune!' I never heard anything so absurd, Jane! You've got more than most girls right now—a hundred dollars a month of your very own to do just what you like with, and when your Aunt Lydia—is taken from you, you'll have that adorable old house, jammed full of rosewood and mahogany and willow pattern ware!" Wrath rose and throve in her. "I've sometimes—I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth—I've sometimes envied you your advantages, Jane—going away to that wonderful school, and six months in Europe after you graduated—but if the result has been to make you dissatisfied with your own home and your own friends"—she was crying now—"why, then I'm thankful I've always stayed here, and never known or wanted anything different!"
Jane crossed over to her and put penitent arms about her, and at the touch Sarah began to cry in earnest.
"Oh, Jane! I can't stand it! I can't have you go away! Jane—for you to go away——"
"Oh, Sally dear," said Jane, patting her, "it isn't really going away—geography doesn't matter! It's just—going on, Sally! That's it—I'm just going on. And on, I hope! And I'll write you miles of letters."
"Letters!" her friend sniffed. "What are letters?"
"Mine are something rather special, I've been told. I'll write you everything, Sally—letters like diaries, letters like stories, letters like books. Think of all the marvelous things I'll have to write about! Why, Rodney Harrison thinks my letters from Wetherby Ridge, with nothing——"
Sarah Farraday jerked away from her, her cheeks suddenly hot, her eyes accusing. "So, that's it! That's the reason! It's the man you met on the boat!" She said it with hyphens—"The-man-you-met-on-the-boat!" She knew his name quite well, but she always spoke of him thus descriptively; it was her little way of keeping him in his place, which was well outside of the sacred circle of Wetherby Ridge.
Jane laughed. "Goose! Of course, he's part of the picture, and a very pleasant part, and it will be very nice to have him meet me and drive me opulently to Hetty Hills' sedate boarding-house. Aunt Lyddy is so rejoiced to have me there with some one from the village that I couldn't