She gave Mrs. Melsom a grateful smile. “Nothing serious, but the truth is, I was feeling rather low. When I look at the future everything seems a bit . . . bleak.”
A mittened hand rested on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Things must be very hard for you,” came the reply. “Why don’t we go back into the vestry and I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
This encounter led to one practical improvement to Jean’s situation. She had not disclosed the details of her recent sorrows with regard to the Tilburys but had hinted at the ending of a love affair, and her feelings of regret and isolation. Her mother’s reduced horizons had also come up in conversation, and Mrs. Melsom had immediately volunteered to come and sit with her on Saturday afternoon so that Jean might enjoy a little freedom. They would play cards, or chat or do their crocheting together in silence—whatever Mrs. Swinney preferred. There were other good sorts at the church who would be happy to do the same on subsequent Saturdays, she was sure. Maybe, by degrees, she might be tempted downstairs again.
For Jean’s aching heart, of course, she could offer no remedy and didn’t try. There were only the time-honored methods—endurance, distraction, work—of which Jean was well aware, having had recourse to them once before in the matter of Frank, and recalled now without confidence. Previous experience taught her that the pain would not be unending—but neither would it subside smoothly, incrementally, but rather in a series of crashing waves, some of which might still knock her off her feet.
It was the first Tuesday in December, a few days before the Echo was to carry the Strange Case of the “Virgin Mother” as its front-page story, when Jean was hit by one of these waves as she tidied her desk and filed away all her correspondence and notes. The personal letters from Howard, which had come to her home address, were not included in this archive but remained in her dressing table drawer, awaiting the day when she felt resilient enough to reread them. The sight of Gretchen’s handwriting on that first brief note—I have always believed my own daughter （now ten） to have been born without the involvement of any man—made her feel suddenly queasy, and she had to go to the window and press her face against the cool glass.
“I’m just going for a walk,” she whispered to Larry, who was talking on the telephone, feet up on the desk, at his end of the office.
He gave her a thumbs-up without any interruption to the flow of his speech.
It was that hour in the late afternoon when the winter sun is just above the horizon but giving no heat. Her shadow stretched the length of the path, long, flared legs scissoring as she walked along, kicking through the last spiny chestnut shells and feeling the crunch of twigs underfoot. She could hear the distant shouts of children, playing, and somewhere deep in the trees a dog barking. Her scarf was still on the hook in the office and the cold air drilled into her ears.
As always, she followed the path she had taken with Howard, and at the point where they had abandoned the walk she turned back. In the gray distance, a figure emerged from the mist, a smudge of hat and coat. It was not so much the silhouette she recognized but his walk, as unique as a fingerprint, and she stopped, fixed to the spot until he raised a hand in greeting, and only then hurried toward him.
“I went to the office. Your colleague said you’d gone for a walk, so I guessed it might be here.”
“Why aren’t you at work?” Idiotic that this, of all possible questions, was the first to spring to her mind.
“I wanted to see you and I couldn’t wait, so I closed the shop. You can do that, you know, when you’re the shopkeeper.”
They had stopped about a yard apart on the path, hands in pockets, uncertain what kind of greeting was allowed.
“How are you? How’s Gretchen?”
“I don’t know about Gretchen. I’ve been miserable. Your letter just about finished me off.”
Hope, that treacherous friend, began its jabs and whispers.
“It finished me off to write it.”
“I’ve thought and thought about what you said, and I’ve tried to see how it could work, because I know you are good and wise, but I can’t do it. I can’t give you up.”
Jean felt joy flowing through her veins, unfreezing her blood. She had tried to be brave and do the good and decent thing, but she couldn’t do it for both of them.
“I thought I could. But it’s been awful. Worse than I ever imagined.”
He pulled her toward him and they clutched each other almost fearfully, it seemed to Jean, as though unseen hands would otherwise pry them apart. But he was solid as a tree; strong enough to withstand anything.