Jane of Lantern Hill (1937)

Chapter 43

The next day Andrew Stuart sent for the doctor, and a few hours later the nurse came. The word went around Queen's Shore and the Corners that Jane Stuart was very ill with a dangerous type of pneumonia.

Jane could never remember anything of those first days very clearly. She was delirious almost from the beginning of her illness. Faces came and went dimly ... dad's in anguish ... a grave, troubled doctor ... a white-capped nurse ... finally another face ... only that must be a dream ... mother couldn't be there ... not even if Jane could smell the faint perfume of her hair. Mother was in far-away Toronto.

As for her own whereabouts, Jane did not know where she was ... she only knew that she was a lost wind seeking some lost word for ever. Not till she found that word could she stop being a wind and be Jane Stuart again. Once, it seemed to her, she heard a woman crying wildly and someone saying, "There is still hope, dearest, there is still a little hope." And again ... long afterwards ... "There will be a change, one way or another, to-night."

"And then," said Jane, so clearly and distinctly that she startled every one in the room, "I shall find my lost word."

Jane didn't know how long it was after that to the day when she understood that she was Jane again and no longer a lost wind.

"Am I dead?" she wondered. She lifted her arms feebly and looked at them. They had grown terribly thin, and she could hold them up only a second, but she concluded that she was alive.

She was alone ... not in her own little room at Lantern Hill but in father's. She could see through the window the gulf sparkling and the sky so softly, so ethereally blue over the haunted dunes. Somebody ... Jane found out later it had been Jody ... had found the first mayflowers and put them in a vase on the table by her bed.

"I'm ... sure ... the house ... is listening," thought Jane.

To what was it listening? To two people who seemed to be sitting on the stairs outside. Jane felt that she ought to know who they were, but the knowledge just escaped her. Fitful sentences came to her, though they were uttered in muted tones. At the time they meant nothing to Jane, but she remembered them ... remembered them always.

"Darling, I didn't mean a word of those dreadful things I said... ." "If I had got your letter ..." "My poor little love ..." "Have you ever thought of me in all those years?" ... "Have I thought of anything else, loveliest?" ... "When your wire came ... mother said I mustn't . . . she was terrible ... as if anything could keep me from Jane... ." "We were just two very foolish people ... is it too late to be wise, Robin?"

Jane wanted to hear the answer to that question ... wanted to dreadfully ... somehow she felt that it would be of tremendous importance to everybody in the world. But a wind came in from the sea and blew the door shut.

"I'll never know now," she whispered piteously to the nurse when she came in.

"Know what, dear?"

"What she said ... the woman on the stairs ... her voice was so like mother's... ."

"It was your mother, dear. Your father wired for her as soon as I came. She has been here right along ... and if you're good and don't get excited, you can have just a peep at her this evening."

"So," said Jane feebly, "mother must have stood up to grandmother for once."

But it was several days before Jane was allowed to have her first real talk with father and mother. They came in together, hand in hand, and stood looking down at her. Jane knew that there were three tremendously happy people in the room. Never had she seen either of them looking like that. They seemed to have drunk from some deep well of life, and the draught had made them young lovers again.

"Jane," said dad, "two foolish people have learned a little wisdom."

"It was all my fault that we didn't learn it long ago," said mother. There was a sound of tears in her voice and a sound of laughter.

"Woman!" What a delightful way dad had of saying "woman"! And mother's laugh ... was it a laugh or a chime of bells? "I will not have you casting slurs at my wife. Your fault indeed! I will not have one particle of the blame taken away from me. Look at her, Jane ... look at my little golden love. How did you ever have the luck to pick such a mother, Jane? The moment I saw her I fell in love with her all over again. And now we will all go in search of ten lost years."

"And will we live here at Lantern Hill?" asked Jane.

"Always, when we're not living somewhere else. I'm afraid with two women on my hands I'll never get my epic on Methuselah's life finished now, Jane. But there will be compensations. I think a honeymoon is coming to us. As soon as you're on the hoof, Superior Jane, we'll all take a little run up to Boston. I have to see about that book of mine, you know. Then a summer here and in the fall . . . the truth is, Jane, I've been offered the assistant editorship of Saturday Evening with a healthy salary. I had meant to refuse, but I think I'll have to accept. What about it, Jane? The winters in Toronto ... the summers at Lantern Hill?"

"And we'll never have to say good-bye again. Oh, dad! But . . ."

"But me no buts. What is troubling you, dearest dear?"

"We . . . we won't have to live at 60 Gay?"

"Not by a jugful! A house we must have, of course. How you live is much more important than where you live ... but we must have a roof over us."

Jane thought of the little stone house in Lakeside Gardens. It had not been sold yet. They would buy it. It would live ... they would give it life. Its cold windows would shine with welcoming lights. Grandmother, stalking about 60 Gay, like a bitter old queen, her eyes bright with venom, forgiving or unforgiving as she chose, could never make trouble for them again. There would be no more misunderstanding. She, Jane, understood them both and could interpret them to each other. And have an eye on the housekeeping as well. It all fitted in as if it had been planned ages ago.

"Oh, dad," cried this happiest of all Janes, "I know the very house."

"You would," said dad.

THE END