Years of Grace

but feel that they were distinctly unworthy. Even ridiculous. For years she had struggled against them. But emotions were strangely invincible. Ephemeral, however. That was a comfort. It was only when visiting at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, that Jane fell a prey to the baser variety of which she was subtly ashamed. Safe at home with Stephen, in her little Colonial cottage in the suburbs of Chicago, Jane could always look back on the complications presented by life at Gull Rocks with a tolerant smile. Seen from that secure perspective, the congenital peculiarities of Carvers seemed always harmless, at times picturesque, and often pathetic. For ten months of the year they figured in her life as mere alien phenomena at which she marvelled detachedly, with easy amusement. In July and August they reared their sinister heads as dragons in her path.

Jane had spent July and August at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, every summer but two since the birth of her first baby. The year that Steve was born, Stephen had gone East alone with their two little daughters. And the year after that Stephen had incredibly taken a three months’ vacation from the bank to make the grand tour of Europe, leaving the three children at home in the Colonial cottage in Mrs. Ward’s care. Twelve Julys and twelve Augusts at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit! When Jane put it like that, she really felt that she had joined the Holy Fellowship of Martyrs. Stephen didn’t know what it was like⁠—how could he, being born a Carver?⁠—marooned alone with the children at Gull Rocks summer after summer, while he held down his job at the bank at home and only came on to join them for a three weeks’ holiday. Stephen wanted his children brought up with some idea of the New England tradition. That was only natural, of course, still⁠—

However, Stephen was coming, that very afternoon, on the six o’clock train, for the three weeks’ holiday. Jane was very glad of that. Stephen’s coming would make everything much better. Gull Rocks was almost fun, when Stephen was there. They would swim with the children and Stephen would teach little Steve to sail and⁠—

Jane heard the screened door open behind her and the brisk, decided step of Aunt Marie crossing the piazza. She did not raise her head from her knitting.

“I’ve come out to keep you company,” said Aunt Marie pleasantly.

Jane made no comment. She was counting stitches again, softly, under her breath. She heard the Nantucket hammock at the corner of the verandah creak faintly under her aunt’s substantial weight.

“Have you read the August Atlantic?” asked Aunt Marie presently.

Jane shook her head in silence. She could hear the pages of the magazine flutter faintly in her aunt’s deliberate fingers.

“There’s a very good article in it,” continued Aunt Marie, in her pleasant practical New England voice, “by Cassandra Frothingham Perkins, on ‘The Decline of Culture.’ ”

“Twenty-three, twenty-four,” whispered Jane defensively. Then “Has it declined?” she asked. The innocence in her tone was not entirely ingenuous.

“Well, hasn’t it?” returned Aunt Marie very practically, as before. Then, after a pause, “You know who Cassandra Frothingham Perkins is, don’t you?”

“One of the Concord Perkinses,” said Jane, as glibly as a child responding with “1492” or “1066” to the question of a history teacher. She had not spent twelve summers at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, in vain.

“She’s the daughter,” said Aunt Marie, “of Samuel Wendell Perkins, who wrote the Perkins biography of Emerson and Literary Rambles in Old Concord. The Atlantic publishes a lot of her stuff.”

“I’ve read it,” said Jane briefly. Who cared, she thought perversely, if culture had declined? But the question was purely rhetorical. For obviously Cassandra Frothingham Perkins did. And Aunt Marie Carver. All the Carvers, in fact. Nevertheless, the decline of culture was not a burning issue with Jane.

She bent her head again over the knitting directions in The Woman’s Home Magazine and her eye caught a flamboyant headline on the opposite page. “How Can We Keep Our Charm?” by Viola Vivasour. And below in explanatory vein, “Fifteen minutes a day devoted to Miss Vivasour’s simple formula of face creams solves woman’s eternal problem.” But Aunt Marie was again speaking.

“Cassandra’s made a little schedule,” she said. “She claims that fifteen minutes a day, spent reading the best books⁠—and she adds a little list of one hundred⁠—”

How much less important, thought Jane wickedly, the decline of culture than that of charm! Not, however, in the Carvers’ circle. There the significance of a five-foot bookshelf would always rise above that of a good cosmetic. The society of her relatives-in-law made Jane feel wantonly frivolous. She would just as soon read one article, she thought, or follow one recipe, as the other. Both equally absurd. Prepared for different publics⁠—that was all.

Jane heard the screened door open once more behind her and the heavy, slightly hesitant step of her mother-in-law crossing the piazza. She did not turn her head. Her hands still busy with her knitting, she gazed steadily out over the close-clipped lawn, pierced here and there with outcrops of granite rock, stretching smooth and green and freshly watered, three hundred feet before her, to where the coarser growth of beach grass, rooted in sandy soil, met the yellow fine of beach that fringed the blue expanse of sea. Jane loved the beach grass. It continued to exist in a state of nature, rooted in primeval sand, defeating the best efforts of the impeccable Portuguese gardener to impose on it an alien culture. There it was. The Carvers could do nothing about it. Jane wondered if her Aunt Marie had ever reflected that her Western niece-in-law was rather like the beach grass.

Mrs. Carver’s footsteps paused at her side.

“Dexter doesn’t think he can get me any lobster today, Jane.” Mrs. Carver’s voice was grave and just a trifle anxious. “Do you think Stephen would prefer bluefish or mackerel?”

“I don’t know,” said Jane.

“He’s so fond of sea food,” said Mrs. Carver.

Jane felt again that absurd surge