And she could remember quite vividly how, when they used to repeat and discuss these tantalizing stories about Clare, the girls would always look knowingly at one another and then, with little excited giggles, drag away their eager shining eyes and say with lurking undertones of regret or disbelief some such thing as: “Oh, well, maybe she’s got a job or something,” or “After all, it mayn’t have been Clare,” or “You can’t believe all you hear.”
And always some girl, more matter-of-fact or more frankly malicious than the rest, would declare: “Of course it was Clare! Ruth said it was and so did Frank, and they certainly know her when they see her as well as we do.” And someone else would say: “Yes, you can bet it was Clare all right.” And then they would all join in asserting that there could be no mistake about its having been Clare, and that such circumstances could mean only one thing. Working indeed! People didn’t take their servants to the Shelby for dinner. Certainly not all dressed up like that. There would follow insincere regrets, and somebody would say: “Poor girl, I suppose it’s true enough, but what can you expect. Look at her father. And her mother, they say, would have run away if she hadn’t died. Besides, Clare always had a—a—having way with her.”
Precisely that! The words came to Irene as she sat there on the Drayton roof, facing Clare Kendry. “A having way.” Well, Irene acknowledged, judging from her appearance and manner, Clare seemed certainly to have succeeded in having a few of the things that she wanted.
It was, Irene repeated, after the interval of the waiter, a great surprise and a very pleasant one to see Clare again after all those years, twelve at least.
“Why, Clare, you’re the last person in the world I’d have expected to run into. I guess that’s why I didn’t know you.”
Clare answered gravely: “Yes. It is twelve years. But I’m not surprised to see you, ’Rene. That is, not so very. In fact, ever since I’ve been here, I’ve more or less hoped that I should, or someone. Preferably you, though. Still, I imagine that’s because I’ve thought of you often and often, while you—I’ll wager you’ve never given me a thought.”
It was true, of course. After the first speculations and indictments, Clare had gone completely from Irene’s thoughts. And from the thoughts of others too—if their conversation was any indication of their thoughts.
Besides, Clare had never been exactly one of the group, just as she’d never been merely the janitor’s daughter, but the daughter of Mr. Bob Kendry, who, it was true, was a janitor, but who also, it seemed, had been in college with some of their fathers. Just how or why he happened to be a janitor, and a very inefficient one at that, they none of them quite knew. One of Irene’s brothers, who had put the question to their father, had been told: “That’s something that doesn’t concern you,” and given him the advice to be careful not to end in the same manner as “poor Bob.”
No, Irene hadn’t thought of Clare Kendry. Her own life had been too crowded. So, she supposed, had the lives of other people. She defended her—their—forgetfulness. “You know how it is. Everybody’s so busy. People leave, drop out, maybe for a little while there’s talk about them, or questions; then, gradually they’re forgotten.”
“Yes, that’s natural,” Clare agreed. And what, she inquired, had they said of her for that little while at the beginning before they’d forgotten her altogether?
Irene looked away. She felt the telltale colour rising in her cheeks. “You can’t,” she evaded, “expect me to remember trifles like that over twelve years of marriages, births, deaths, and the war.”
There followed that trill of notes that was Clare Kendry’s laugh, small and clear and the very essence of mockery.
“Oh, ’Rene!” she cried, “of course you remember! But I won’t make you tell me, because I know just as well as if I’d been there and heard every unkind word. Oh, I know, I know. Frank Danton saw me in the Shelby one night. Don’t tell me he didn’t broadcast that, and with embroidery. Others may have seen me at other times. I don’t know. But once I met Margaret Hammer in Marshall Field’s. I’d have spoken, was on the very point of doing it, but she cut me dead. My dear ’Rene, I assure you that from the way she looked through me, even I was uncertain whether I was actually there in the flesh or not. I remember it clearly, too clearly. It was that very thing which, in a way, finally decided me not to go out and see you one last time before I went away to stay. Somehow, good as all of you, the whole family, had always been to the poor forlorn child that was me, I felt I shouldn’t be able to bear that. I mean if any of you, your mother or the boys or—Oh, well, I just felt I’d rather not know it if you did. And so I stayed away. Silly, I suppose. Sometimes I’ve been sorry I didn’t go.”
Irene wondered if it was tears that made Clare’s eyes so luminous.
“And now ’Rene, I want to hear all about you and everybody and everything. You’re married, I s’pose?”
Irene nodded.
“Yes,” Clare said knowingly, “you would be. Tell me about it.”
And so for an hour or more they had sat there smoking and drinking tea and filling in the gap of twelve years with talk. That is, Irene did. She told Clare about her marriage and removal to New York, about
