When I was a little girl, I remember an old faded print on my uncle's wall, showing a string of camels around a desert with a palm spring. I've always wanted to travel and see that place. To see the Taj Mahal, the pillars of Karnak. I want to know, not just believe, that the world is round.
~Katherine Brooke, Anne of Avonlea
XXX
September 7, 1926
It was shortly before closing time at Madison Public Library, and Jane Hearst lingered in the ancient languages aisle, dreamily awaiting the arrival of her husband. Like Miss Marian, she had elected to continue working at the library even after her marriage and, for once, her reputation as a bluestocking served her well, as the River City-ziens weren't the least bit surprised or even scandalized by her academic dedication.
However, although Jane had returned from her honeymoon tour a full two weeks ago, she still hadn't quite adjusted to spending wakeful nights with Jim followed by busy days serving library patrons, and so had developed the alarming tendency to yawn frequently, particularly during the mid to late afternoon hours. Fortunately, Miss Marian proved quite understanding of such lapses of propriety in a newlywed, and did nothing more than regard the assistant librarian's indolence with a smile that was both knowing and indulgent.
Yet it wasn't just the heated embraces with Jim that excited Jane's mind. Their honeymoon tour had broadened her horizons both literally and figuratively. The Hearsts had traveled by train to New York City and boarded a steamer to Venice. From there, they traveled to Rome, Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Cairo, wending their way clockwise around the Mediterranean. Jim's favorite of all their destinations was Greece, particularly the ruins of Delos Island in Mykonos. Jane's favor, however, was inclined to Egypt, especially the pyramids of Giza and the Valley of Kings on the west bank of the Nile. As she gazed in awe at these magnificent structures, she could hardly fathom their advanced age – as her erudite husband informed her, they were already considered old by the time of the ancient Romans! Jane was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the Egyptians spoke French with foreigners, a language she could read fluently and speak passably. Her favorite souvenir was a little gold cartouche necklace with the symbols for snake, arm, and water: a rough approximation of the letters of her first name in the hieroglyph alphabet. Jim had also insisted on purchasing a miniature figurine of Seshat, the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and writing. Jane treasured this keepsake so much that it now rested in the center of their parlor mantel.
Indeed, the assistant librarian arrived home with so many lovely trinkets for herself and her loved ones: fabrics, dresses, hats, spices, statuettes, jewelry, and books, to name a few. She felt a bit like an Iowan Marco Polo, bringing home goods and tales of adventure from halfway around the world. So many River City-ziens peppered her with questions about their trip, asking her to provide accounts of where they had been and what they had seen. It was a good thing she'd made sure to keep a highly detailed travel journal, scrupulously noting everything she could think of during their two-month journey: the weather, flora, fauna, architecture, customs, cultural mores, fashions, archaeology sites, libraries, museums, the advice and character of their hosts, and other observations she found interesting or illuminating in some way. Abhorring the overly flowery style of most Victorian travel journals, Jane endeavored to record her observations as simply and candidly as possible, without omitting anything important. Yet it wasn't a dry recitation of facts devoid of enthusiasm or private interest. She also noted her emotional states, the academic conversations and pillow talk between her and Jim, when and where they made love, and her struggles and triumphs as she adjusted physically, emotionally, and spiritually to the transition from lonely backwater spinster to well-loved cosmopolitan wife.
Though Jane omitted the most deeply personal and sensual recollections when she copied portions of her journal for the pleasure and edification of others, she chose not to censor the entirety of her innermost thoughts, in order to give her observations color and context. Her passages on her impressions of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea were especially popular, so much so that they caught the attention of big-city reporter Fred Gallup when he and his glittering actress-wife Lucy Dixon were in town visiting the Hill family. And Mr. Gallup had been so impressed by her humble scribblings that he actually offered her a guest spot in his travel column! With Jim's encouragement, she submitted a series of her best writings to the reporter. When these articles achieved acclaim and proved very popular with the column's readers, Mr. Gallup then offered to find a publisher for the full body of her work, as appropriate, if she would consent to compiling her recollections into one comprehensive volume. So this became Jane's special project for the fall. She could scarcely believe it – a travel journal, written by her, published for others to read! Apparently, the same bald-faced yet whimsical straightforwardness of rhetoric that made her a clumsy conversationalist translated wonderfully to the written page, captivating readers young and old alike.
Of course, some River City-ziens were inevitably perplexed and even scandalized that a married woman was writing a book about the joys of gallivanting all over the world, instead of diligently tending to her household and placidly knitting small booties for the new arrival that was surely imminent. (They were most likely wrong, as she surmised they had little hope of such fecundity – not that it was anyone's business but hers and Jim's!) Jane found this dichotomy of opinion absurd. The same people who were pooh-poohing her authorial aspirations had enjoyed her stories just fine when she told them informally or passed them around town as handwritten letters. But to actually type up her words and sell them? Apparently, that was too much for those with more traditional-minded sensibilities to stomach!
Before her trip, Jane would have been embarrassed by her own temerity and annoyed by such cloying small-mindedness. Now, after having seen far more of the world than these narrow-minded townspeople ever could hope to fathom, she merely rolled her eyes at such petty gossip. She had not put her brain on the shelf to grow dusty with disuse once Jim slid the wedding band on her finger, and she was not planning to do any such thing in the future – she had been roundly incensed when Miss Marian laughingly related what her loving but prosaic-minded mother once opined to her about the credibility of uneducated married women over single women with robust educations.
Throughout her life, Jane had weathered so many cutting remarks about women who possessed so much as a spark of ambition. These were especially grating when they came from ladies who once dreamed of achieving something more, but whose zeal had been entirely subsumed by wifehood and motherhood. Despite the great felicity she had discovered in marriage, the assistant librarian absolutely refused to become one of those females who believed the world not only began and ended at the hearth, but also smugly alleged that women who held desires outside the domestic sphere – or worse, were feminists – were only fooling themselves, those poor misguided lost little spinsters who had not been so privileged as to attain true wisdom as to life's meaning. And they said this as if all women were a single monolith of purpose and opinion! While such views were expected, if repellant, from a female who had been traditional-minded from birth, they were thoroughly incomprehensible and disheartening in a woman who had once been one of those ardent feminists she now condescendingly clucked her tongue at as she cooked her husband's supper and cleaned his house, humored his tempers and ignored his extramarital affairs, and sat up alone at night in endless anxious vigils for influenza and croup and whooping cough.
It wasn't that Jane despised marriage or children. She was finding marriage very agreeable, and she would have dearly loved to be a mother if that could have been a possibility. She simply reviled the expectation that a woman ought to limit her interests, personality, and soul entirely to the concerns of her husband and children. However, as she was a charitable woman by nature, she mostly felt sorry for those who held such limited and myopic views. The assistant librarian relished the memories of her trip abroad, and she was not only unashamed but downright proud that her writings were being so widely distributed and discussed. No matter what they said, no one could ever take the joy of this metamorphic experience away from her. Now she knew the world was round, instead of having to settle for just believing it was. Fortunately, Jim fully supported her, both in her scholarly endeavors and in her belief that actively exercising her intellect was in no way incompatible with wifehood. But then again, she would never have married him if she had sensed he had the capacity to agree with the spiteful clucking of such intolerant hens.
Jane was so lost in the grandeur of her own recollections that she jumped when a pair of arms encircled her waist.
"I didn't mean to frighten you, dearest," her husband said, planting an apologetic kiss on her cheek.
Jane beamed and turned to meet his mouth with hers. Still in the mood to luxuriate in reminiscence, she asked, "Do you remember the conversation we had in this very spot three nights before our wedding? If we'd done that after we married, it would have been just as delightful, but not nearly as dangerous."
"It wouldn't have been quite the same," Jim agreed, giving her the avid smile and intent look that still made her stomach flutter and heart beat faster, even though she'd left her maidenhood well behind. "But I do beg to differ on one point: it would have been even more dangerous, now that we both know precisely what we're doing and just how much fun it is to do."
At such a ribald remark, Jane had absolutely no compunction in grasping her handsome husband by the lapels of his suit-coat and pulling him close for a much more heated and decadent kiss than the one she'd greeted him with. Although Miss Marian had sagely warned her that gossip still came down rather hard on a married couple who was too passionate outside of the bedroom, the assistant librarian was unconcerned about discovery at present. She and Jim were alone in the library and, although the main door was still unlocked, they were unlikely to be disturbed by any patrons at this late hour. And after two-and-a-half months of marriage, the assistant librarian matched the history teacher's boldness of fervor in lovemaking just as equally as she matched wits with him in academic debate. She had not only gained this carnal knowledge through practical experience, but also through certain books she continued to read on the sly in order to learn new ways of making love to her husband. However, even as Jim's hips pressed desperately against hers and Jane brazenly wrapped her leg around his body to pull him even closer, she knew full well that neither of them entertained any serious thoughts about making love in the library. But it was awfully fun to pretend.
"If goddesses truly exist, you are surely the manifestation of Seshat," Jim declared when their mouths finally parted. "I want nothing more than to pay homage to your beauty and brilliance – but in more private quarters. Let's go home, dearest."
He took her hand and tugged her to follow him at a brisk and eager pace that was just shy of being scandalously rushed. They were supposed to go out to dinner first, but Jane certainly wasn't going to gainsay this abrupt change of plans. They could always find something in the pantry later, for even in the midst of her honeymoon bliss, she made sure to keep their larder well-stocked with a variety of foodstuffs that could be simply and swiftly prepared as, more often than not, she was a dismal failure as a cook.