Jane of Lantern Hill

Chapter 32

When Jane ticked off March she whispered, "Just two and a half months more." Life went on outwardly the same at 60 Gay and St Agatha's. Easter came and Aunt Gertrude, who had refused sugar in her tea all through Lent, took it again. Grandmother was buying the loveliest spring clothes for mother who seemed rather indifferent to them. And Jane was beginning to hear her Island calling to her in the night.

On a wild wet morning in late April the letter came. Jane, who had been watching for it for weeks and was beginning to feel a bit worried, carried it in to mother with the face of

One to whom glad news is sent From the far country of his home after long banishment.

Mother was pale as she took it and grandmother was suddenly flushed.

"Another letter from Andrew Stuart?" said grandmother, as if the name blistered her lips.

"Yes," said mother faintly. "He ... he says Jane Victoria must go back to him for the summer ... if she wants to go. She is to make her own choice."

"Then," said grandmother, "she will not go."

"Of course you won't go, darling?"

"Not go! But I must go! I promised I'd go back," cried Jane.

"Your ... your father will not hold you to that promise. He says expressly that you can choose as you please."

"I WANT to go back," said Jane. "I'm going back."

"Darling," said mother imploringly, "don't go. You grew away from me last summer. If you go again I'll lose more of you...."

Jane looked down at the carpet and her lips set in a line that had an odd resemblance to grandmother's.

Grandmother took the letter from mother, glanced at it and looked at Jane.

"Victoria," she said, quite pleasantly for her, "I think you have not given the matter sufficient thought. I say nothing for myself ... I have never expected gratitude ... but your mother's wishes ought to carry some weight with you. Victoria"-- grandmother's voice grew sharper---"please do me the courtesy of looking at me while I am speaking to you."

Jane looked at grandmother ... looked her straight in the eyes, unflinchingly, unyieldingly. Grandmother seemed to put a certain unusual restraint on herself. She still spoke pleasantly.

"I have not mentioned this before, Victoria, but I decided some time ago that I would take you and your mother for a trip to England this summer. We will spend July and August there. You will enjoy it, I know. I think that between a summer in England and a summer in a hut in a country settlement on P. E. Island even you could hardly hesitate."

Jane did not hesitate. "Thank you, grandmother. It is very kind of you to offer me such a lovely trip. I hope you and mother will enjoy it. But I would rather go to the Island."

Even Mrs Robert Kennedy knew when she was beaten. But she could not accept defeat gracefully.

"You get that stubborn will of yours from your father," she said, her face twisted with anger. For the moment she looked simply like a very shrewish old spitfire. "You grow more like him every day of your life ... you've got his very chin."

Jane was thankful she had got a will from someone. She was glad she looked like dad ... glad her chin was like his. But she wished mother were not crying.

"Don't waste your tears, Robin," said grandmother, turning scornfully from Jane. "It's the Stuart coming out in her ... you could expect nothing else. If she prefers her trumpery friends down there to you, there is nothing you can do about it. I have said all I intend to say on the matter."

Mother stood up and dabbed her tears away with a cobwebby handkerchief.

"Very well, dear," she said brightly and hardly. "You have made your choice. I agree with your grandmother that there is nothing more to be said."

She went out, leaving Jane with a heart that was almost breaking. Never in her life had mother spoken to her in that hard, brittle tone. She felt as if she had been suddenly pushed far, far away from her. But she did not regret her choice. She had no choice really. She had to go back to dad. If it came to choosing between him and mother ... Jane rushed to her room, flung herself down on the big white bearskin, and writhed in a tearless agony no child should ever have to suffer.

It was a week before Jane was herself again, although mother, after that bitter little outburst, had been as sweet and loving as ever. When she had come in to say good night she had held Jane very tightly and silently.

Jane hugged her mother closer to her.

"I have to go, mother ... I have to go ... but I DO love you...."

"Oh, Jane, I hope you do ... but sometimes you seem so far away from me that you might as well be beyond Sirius. Don't ... don't let any one ever come between us. That is all I ask."

"No one can ... no one wants to, mother."

In one way, it occurred to Jane, that was not strictly true. She had known for a long while that grandmother would like very well to come between them if she could only bring it about. But Jane also knew that by "no one" mother meant dad, and so her answer was true.

There was a letter from Polly Garland the last day of April ... a jubilant Polly.

"We're all so glad you're coming back this summer, Jane. Oh, Jane, I wish you could see the pussy-willows in our swamp."

Jane wished so, too. And there were other fascinating bits of news in Polly's letter. Min's ma's cow was worn out and Min's ma was going to get a new one. Polly had a hen setting on nine eggs ... Jane could see nine real live wee baby chicks running round. Well, father had promised her some hens this summer ... Step-a-yard had told Polly to tell her it was a great spring and even the roosters were laying; the baby had been christened William Charles and was toddling round everywhere and getting thin; Big Donald's dog had been poisoned, had had six convulsions, but had recovered.

"Only six more weeks." It was weeks now where it had been months. Down home the robins would be strutting round Lantern Hill and the mists would be coming in from the sea. Jane ticked off April.