Gretchen shook her head at Jean’s simplicity.
“It wasn’t finding her that was the problem. It was proving myself. And you did that for me.”
“Oh?”
Through a mist of incomprehension, a distant gleam of light.
“When I found out I was going to have a baby I went to see her in Chatham at her parents’。” I thought of the baby as ours—it had come to me while we were in St. Cecilia’s together. I thought she was the one person who would understand. But she wouldn’t believe me. She thought I had been with a man and nothing I said would persuade her.
“We had a terrible row. I said I would prove my innocence one day and she would have to kneel at my feet and apologize. Then she told me to get out and shut the door on me, and I never heard from her again until this summer, when you went to visit her and told her you believed my story.”
“So all this was for her?” Jean said.
“When I saw that article in your newspaper it seemed to call out to me. I thought if you could prove I was telling the truth, my picture might be in the paper and Martha would see it and feel sorry for all the things she said.”
“I see.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me that I might see her again. I assumed she would have forgotten me and found someone new. I just wanted her to know the truth. That was all.”
“And did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Kneel at your feet and apologize.”
Gretchen laughed, embarrassed. “Well, not exactly. Martha’s not really the kneeling kind.”
I bet she isn’t, thought Jean.
“But she believes me, and that’s what matters.”
“And do you think you’ll be happy here? And Margaret?”
Jean cast a disparaging eye around the room. Even Gretchen’s efforts to make the place more homely could not disguise its seediness.
“I know it’s rather crowded and messy, but that’s because Martha works so hard. But I can help her to make it nice. And if I’m happy, Margaret will be happy. I’ll explain it to her. She and her friend Lizzie are inseparable. I’ll explain that it’s the same for Martha and me—she is my best friend and we have to be together. She’ll understand.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is—why can’t it be? I love Martha and I love Margaret, but I love Howard too, and even you, Jean. Especially you, because you brought Martha back to me.”
Jean received this declaration with a stony face.
“I’ve trusted you and defended you against people who assumed you were a liar or a fantasist. And all this time you were deceiving me.”
“I wasn’t!” Gretchen’s voice was shrill with protest. “Everything I told you about Margaret’s birth is true. I never lied about that.”
“You were playing a different game. And you haven’t been honest. How can I know what to believe?”
“Can’t you be happy for me?”
“I’m more concerned for Margaret’s happiness.”
She had gone too far, trespassing on a mother’s territory. Gretchen blinked, wounded.
“I’ve always put Margaret first in everything,” she said, the words thick with stifled tears. “You can’t accuse me—”
“I’m sorry,” said Jean. “I spoke out of turn.”
She was only now beginning to realize that her own relationship with Margaret was in jeopardy—dependent as it was on Gretchen’s goodwill, which could be withdrawn at any moment. The thought of being frozen out, replaced by Martha as unofficial aunt, was too much to bear. But Gretchen was not in a vindictive mood and seemed to crave only approval. She took Jean’s hand between hers and squeezed it.
“We’re still friends, aren’t we?”
Jean nodded.
“And you’ll look after Howard, won’t you? He admires you so much.”
“I don’t suppose I shall have any reason to see him if you are no longer living there,” Jean said, in part to test out her suspicion that Gretchen had deliberately thrown them together in order to ease her own escape.
“Oh, but you must! He has so few friends. Will you give him a message from me?”
“I think you need to talk to him yourself. About your plans for Margaret. I can’t do that for you.”
“But it was so painful last time. I can’t bear it.”
“You must. May I give him this address?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Will you give him my . . . love . . . or whatever you think.”