That’s what dear Jane said when I drove her home. She laughed about the meeting. “Christina, I did it for Jem. He tries so hard, you know. But my head was swimming off somewhere all by itself most of the time.” But she wanted to talk about John and insisted that I come in and have a glass of sherry, Hannah hovering about to be sure I didn’t overstay. I have learned so much from Jane over the years, and the last thing is this seraphic way she has of accepting dependence—it can’t have been easy for a person of her spirit. How does she do it? She floats—why do I say that? I mean she lets herself be carried by Hannah, yet never becomes a baby, the baby Hannah wants her to be. It takes wisdom to be able to do that with grace.

“We can’t measure the courage of that man,” she said to me about John. “But has he given up his interest in moths? Tell him to come and see me, Christina—if he comes for Thanksgiving. I do so much want to have a talk with him. He mustn’t give up on those things that are in him to do.” And she added, when Hannah was out of the room for a moment, “I’m not going to live forever, and I want to see John.”

Blessed person. That whole house just breathes with life. Every window is crowded with plants, books everywhere. “You know I’m the luckiest woman in the world still to be able to read—I have to choose, a little at a time—but I still can.”

I asked her whether she would let me come and make a drawing. I want to do it so much, Jane sitting in the little chair by the window, the plants on the window sill beside her, reading. If I could only get it right! (For once.) She said a curious thing: “It would be interesting to see it. The person inside seems to have so little relation to the person outside these days. Yesterday I got into a fit of giggles when I looked at this wild old creature in the mirror—before Hannah comes to do my hair I do look very odd.”

But she really looks like a small moss rose, crinkled and soft and so sweet! And she smells of lavender and sweet peas, always has. I felt when I left that I had literally rested my eyes on her face.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3