CHAPTER NINE

Jane had always been one for silence - not the echoing, empty silence of the Chapel Lane West house, but the still, tranquil quiet of a summer night; that was the kind of quiet she reveled in. That kind of quiet, and quiet in general, had grown scarce in the months since she had given birth. Sound was everywhere now - between Larkin, the baby, and Nina in the house, as well as the many visitors that had come by to see her and Anna in the time since the birth - Jane could not seem to find many moments of quiet. The best she could get were the groggy times in middle of the night that she tended to Anna. Those were not restful moments of silence and reflection though.

It was around three in the morning. The sky was a deep, rich blue and the moon was full; a large, luminescent ornament that cast a frosty glow on the world below. Jane should have been asleep by now - really, she should have been asleep many hours ago - everyone else in her house was; Larkin, Anna, and even Clara, who had spent the night at their house after coming over to see her niece that evening.

It was silent, for once. One could have heard a pin drop at the opposite end of the house in this kind of silence, Jane speculated. It was the echoing silence of a slightly-too-large house, though. It was not what she had been craving for months now. But, nevertheless, Jane lay awake, staring out the window at the moon. It's light made her surroundings visible, at least in part. The tall wooden bureau stood in the corner, as well as a small desk. She had hoped to use this desk for drawing and studying, but most of the time it stood there unused, much to Jane's distaste.

She got out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping form next to her. The hardwood floors were smooth and cool under her feet. Pulling her housecoat around her on top of her nightgown for warmth, she made her way down the hallway, past the nursery and the guest bedroom, and finally, down the staircase. The steps didn't creak here like they did at her old house, she noted. She pulled the front door open, stepping outside, and then closed it behind her carefully, picking up the spare key from under the woven doormat. The ground was cold beneath her bare feet, making her wish she had thought to put on a pair of shoes or slippers before coming out. A soft breeze blew, penetrating beneath her housecoat and nightgown, making her shiver. She sat down on the front steps, the rough bricks were not comfortable, but there was nowhere else to sit as the porch furniture had been stored in the cellar for the winter and had not yet been brought back out despite the recently burgeoning spring.

Jane stared up at the moon, not thinking much, but grateful to be outside. She often felt as if the house was swallowing her - like, one day, she would become a part of it and all of what it represented. It was a beautiful house - large, lavishly decorated, with food always on the table and in the cupboards. What could she possibly be disenchanted by? She did not know.

"Jane?" She heard a woman's voice call out from the street. She immediately looked towards the street, and turned her attention to where the voice had come from. In the moonlight, she could see the silhouette of a woman walking towards her.

"Angela?" she called back in little more than a raised whisper.

"Who else?" the approaching woman chuckled, finally standing in full view of Jane. She had been right - it was her primary school classmate, Angela. Jane could not imagine what she, of all people, was doing on the street so late, or so early. She hadn't seen Angela in many years, not since they had been very young girls.

"What are you doing out at this time?" she asked.

"I might ask you the same thing, Miss Porter." A smile stretched over Angela's lips, a small sparkle in her deep brown eyes. "I haven't seen you since we were about ten years old." She was right, it had been almost an entire decade since they had been in primary school, and nearly a decade since she had seen the young woman who now sat next to her on her front steps.

"Well, now that we're asking questions," Jane mused, "Where have you been all these years?"

Angela brushed dark curls of hair out of her face, shooting an amused smile at Jane. "My parents took us back to Italy - well, it was back for them, the first time for my sister and I. We were there for...I don't know, seven, maybe eight years. They found a nice young man for me to marry there, and so, I got married. I wasn't even half way done with my first year of university," she scoffed. Jane could make out an eerily familiar tone of resentment in her voice as she spoke. "But, he wanted to come back to London - business is better here, apparently, so, now I'm back."

"What happened to your sister—Giovanna, right?"

"Oh, her," Angela said, "She got married too, but she ran off the night of the wedding. He woke up the next morning to find his bed empty and a note on the nightstand. Can you imagine? The first morning of your married life and your wife has already fled," she laughed almost wistfully. "Maybe I should've taken her lead."

"You're not happy?" Jane asked.

The dark haired woman shook her head fervently, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders. "Goodness, no," she said, practically spitting the words out. "But, it'll be alright soon enough. I've got a ticket for a boat going to France, and from there, I'm going to live with my sister in Paris. I'm no one's domestic lady." She practically spit this sentence out with a bitterness Jane had not yet seen from someone else.

"Really?" Jane asked, both intrigued and taken aback by the idea of just up and leaving without a word.

Angela nodded. "But, you?" she said, pointing a finger at Jane, "What are you doing? Where have you been?"

The Englishwoman shifted nervously on the steps, unsure of how to explain herself and how she ended up on these front steps in the wee hours of the morning. She curled her feet, tending her body, inadvertently scraping the soles of her feet along the rough surface. How could she possibly begin to explain everything? She drew in a deep breath and began, "Well, mm, yes, I finished secondary school and went to university. I went until quite recently. Daddy and I studied together - you know how Daddy feels about gorillas; he's fascinated. I went with him to Africa to study them. But, we had to come back."

"You say that as if you would have preferred staying."

This bluntness caught Jane off guard. "Oh, uh, I don't know. I would've liked to study more. You know, curiosity and all."

"I'm not daft, Porter," Angela said, only partially jokingly, "There's something you left there that you want to go back for."

"There's a wealth of things to be discovered - you know, plants, organisms, animals to be studied. I would have liked to have seen more, but time and circumstances didn't allow for it," she said, dodging the topic of Tarzan. She mustn't think of him, or the jungle, too much - mustn't have her head running away with fantasies.

"Alright, I'll drop it. I know there's more than what you're letting on, though. But, how did you get here?"

"I..,uh, married, some months ago - almost a year," she admitted quietly, as if she didn't want Angela to hear.

"Really? You? Married? If you're married, I'm the prince of Wales."

"No," she sighed, "I'm married. Larkin Edwards. I doubt you'd know him."

"Never heard of him, but, he must be...wealthy," Angela said, looking up at the looming house behind them.

"That's one of his many...attributes," Jane said. "We have a daughter, and a lovely housekeeper, and things are...lovely."

"You make a terrible liar, you know that, right? I think you get that from your father."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked, tensing slightly. She was happy, wasn't she? Big house, baby, wealthy husband, housekeeper - what every young woman wanted, supposedly. "I'm very happy."

"Just think about what I said," Angela said, placing a hand on Jane's knee. "I'm leaving on the first of the next month. I'm sure there's room for one more lady on board the ship."

"I won't be needing it," Jane insisted, "I'm perfectly happy." Angela gave her a pointed look before standing up, and brushing off her dress. "You never really answered my question," she continued. "What were you doing out so late?"

"I was just out for a stroll," she said nonchalantly, "Who says you can't take a stroll at three o'clock in the morning?"

"Nobody, I suppose."

"Well, exactly. And, if I may ask, what were you doing out here, Jane?"

"Just...thinking," Jane said, settling on this explanation, "Just thinking things through."