Exactly how the pair reconciled their relations to one another, no one knew, probably not even themselves. Westover Village had grown tired of waiting to see what would happen, and cited the case variously as one of obstinacy, where neither would give in, or else crowning them as filial martyrs, according to the temperament of the narrator. Neither Jane Mostyn nor John Hale appeared to mope in the least, but of the two the woman’s life seemed the best rounded, and she, who in the beginning, though several years younger, looked older than the man, had now gained many years of youth.
Five years more passed, and Hale resigned what had then grown to a professorship, and, stopping his creative work altogether, relapsed to the mental drudgery of adapting the classics and editing schoolbooks.
So the world wagged on until, during the year that Jane Mostyn was fifty-five and John two years older, both parents died, Mr. Mostyn in June and Madam Hale in August. Then, again, the people of Westover were all alert to know if the old spark of romance would revive, or whether it was buried in cold ashes.
When the wills of the old people, one nearing and one past eighty, were probated, to the amazement of every one it was found that in each case there were restrictions placed upon the properties, so that the full enjoyment of them depended upon the two heirs not only keeping up the family homesteads as long as they lived, but in absolutely living therein, so determined upon dictation were these parents even after death. The same lawyer, as it had chanced, had drawn up both wills, and he seemed to regard the whole matter in the light of a huge practical joke that might easily be set aside, as there were no near kin, either in the Hale or Mostyn family, and the several institutions that were the conditional residuaries would, under the circumstances, of course compromise.
Jane Mostyn felt that she had done her duty, and was now prepared within proper limits to live to the full what of life was left; but John Hale, to whom independent action had so long been a stranger, would neither in spirit nor in letter, it seemed, deviate from his mother’s desires, and as her tyranny had been absolute, so was the gap it left in his life great. Thus by the last of September, after Madam died, people were all agog to know what would become of poor John Hale.
The Hale and Mostyn houses were of the same colonial type, and situated about half a mile apart, the one on the valley road that ran to Bridgeton, and the other on a parallel road that lay on the north side of Sunset Hill. The land holdings of each ran up the hill until merely a party fence in a wooded plateau at the top separated them. The houses were pleasantly located, but the view in front of each ran only the length of the village street, while the steep hill in the back shut off the east and west horizon respectively.
The morning after the first unexpected frost, John Hale had gone to the extreme boundary of his land on the hilltop to see to some fencing that the farmer said must be renewed. As he left the roadside for the rolling ground, a change came over him; as he began to ascend, his head grew clearer and his gait more elastic; he threw back his shoulders and a feeling of exhilaration possessed him such as he had not known for years.
A very short distance separated the heavy air of the river valley from the fresh breath of the hills swept by winds from across salt water, and he began to wonder why any one owning so much land should have literally turned his back upon the hill country as his grandfather had done. Then he began to realize that he, also, had his point of view limited by mere tradition. Coming out from the shelter of low-growing trees, the beauty of both day and scene burst upon him; he had almost forgotten how glorious the world is when seen from the hilltop on a ripe September morning.
He straightway forgot the broken fences, forgot the conditions of his mother’s will, forgot that he was nearing threescore. He felt himself a young man again with love walking by his side and ambition before him, and immediately his steps turned towards a well-hedged lane or pent-road that began nowhere in particular, crossed the hilltop at an angle and joined the upper road near his neighbour’s garden, for all at once his new-born sense of youth and freedom led him as directly towards Jane Mostyn, as it had that September morning when they had journeyed on the waterways of Venice. Surely, yes, it was the anniversary of that meeting, the thirtieth; how could such things be? He would forget the between time; it would not be difficult; already it seemed like some dark dream that had suddenly lifted. Would Jane Mostyn feel the same? He would go and ask her.