Fortune's Rocks (12 page)
Her eye scans the porch and pauses at a figure seated in a rocker. Collarless and hatless, he is reading a pamphlet. She stops abruptly in the sand. Her sudden stillness must stand out in the scene, for he glances in her direction.
She turns around and begins to walk briskly along the beach, her boots in her hand. She can hear nothing but the surf of foolishness in her head: Whatever was she thinking to be so bold as to present herself at the hotel?
Knowing
that she might encounter Haskell?
Knowing
how inappropriate such a presentation would be? With her body bent forward, she is determined to retreat to the other end of the beach as soon as possible. And so it is that she does not at first hear her name called, and it is only when she feels a restraining hand upon her arm that she stops and turns.
Knowing
that she might encounter Haskell?
Knowing
how inappropriate such a presentation would be? With her body bent forward, she is determined to retreat to the other end of the beach as soon as possible. And so it is that she does not at first hear her name called, and it is only when she feels a restraining hand upon her arm that she stops and turns.
“Olympia,” Haskell says, breathless from trying to overtake her. “I spotted you from the porch.”
She drops her skirts.
He bends to catch his breath. “I have regretted not having had the chance to visit with you and your father,” he says, “as I very much enjoyed my stay with your family.”
“And we as well,” she says politely.
He rights himself and puts his hands on his hips. “And how are your father and mother?” he asks. “Well, I trust?”
“Oh, yes, very well,” she answers. “And Mrs. Haskell and the children? Are they with you on this holiday?”
“No,” he says. “I must be at the clinic in an hour, and I have given most of the others the afternoon off. It seemed pointless to send for Catherine when I could not join her in the festivities. In any event, I shall be with her in York tomorrow.”
Olympia crooks an arm over her forehead to shade her eyes from the light. She is forced to look up at Haskell in order to speak to him.
“And how is your work at the clinic?” she asks.
“Difficult,” he says without hesitation. “There has not been sufficient time for me to reorganize the staff in the way it must be done, and I am still awaiting supplies and medicines from Boston, which have been unpardonably late in arriving.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” she says.
“Oh, I think we shall manage all right. Although I shall be dreadfully short-staffed this afternoon,” he adds, putting his hands into his trouser pockets. He seems to have recovered his breath. “May I accompany you back to wherever you are going?” he asks. “I should welcome an opportunity to greet your father if he is here with you.”
His eyes scan her face.
She turns, and they begin to walk toward the bonfire. The beach slopes precipitously, and she is nearly as tall as he is. She imagines that her gait is self-conscious, her movements stiff and unnatural, for she feels unnerved in his presence. Haskell, however, seems considerably more relaxed and occasionally bends to pick up a shell or to send a flat stone skipping across the waves. After a time, he asks if he can stop for a moment since his boots are filling with sand. He puts the boots down where they stand, out of reach of the incoming tide, and says he will collect them later, which she thinks reflects rather more trust in human nature than perhaps is prudent. They walk together again, and though there are a thousand questions she wants to ask the man, she finds she is rendered silent. Voluble in her imaginings, she is inarticulate in his presence.
The sea that day is a brilliant aquamarine, a color seldom observed off the coast of New Hampshire, where the ocean most often presents either a deep navy or a gunmetal gray appearance. Indeed, so rich and lovely are the water and sky and light together that Olympia thinks that Nature, in her generosity, must be in a celebratory mood herself on this, the one hundred and twenty-third anniversary of the country’s independence.
“Have you eaten?” she asks.
“The food at the Highland, I am sorry to say, is remarkably poor, despite the high standard of the service. I think they need another cook.”
“You are in luck today, then, for the clambake is providing a savory meal for everyone. Do you know about this tradition?”
“I heard about it at breakfast and have watched the staff slink away in their finery all morning. I’m quite glad to be offered a meal, as I’m sure the dining room is like a ship deserted. Your face is growing pink,” he says. “I think you should have worn your hat.”
They walk side by side, the walking irregular and slow-going in the sand. Occasionally one or the other of them stumbles, and a sleeve brushes a sleeve or a shoulder a shoulder. The heat causes a prism of air above the sandy beach that distorts the view. Waves surprise them, and Haskell yelps once from the cold, which is always a shock upon the tender skin of the ankles, no matter how often one visits this part of the coast of New England.
In the distance, Olympia can see that the festivities have gathered some momentum in her absence. Men and boys are playing with balls and nets and racquets. Nearer to the water, where the sand is harder, several couples have set up wickets and are engaged in croquet, although it seems a fruitless enterprise since all the balls naturally roll toward the sea. Beyond the seawall and the fish shanties, hucksters hawk their wares from carts: ice-cold tonics, Indian baskets, ice-cream cones, and confections of all sorts.
She stops suddenly, unwilling to reenter the crowd so soon. Haskell strolls on for a few paces before realizing that she is behind him. He walks back to where she is standing.
“What is it?” he asks her. “What is wrong?”
Her eyes skim the tops of his shoulders, his braces making indentations in his shirt. She is perspiring all about her collar and wishes she could unbutton it. She sees a blue-and-orange-striped balloon rise above his right shoulder.
The balloon ascends slowly into the thickish air — a massive thing, both gaudy and majestic. The balloon gains height and floats in their direction. Two men are standing on the parallel bars suspended from the balloon. They wave to the throng below. Olympia wonders at the view of Fortune’s Rocks the men must be having, and for a moment, she feels envious and wishes to be aloft with them.
“Olympia, are you not well?” Haskell asks again.
He stands so close to her that she can see the pores of his skin, smell the scent of him mixed with the starch of his shirt. There are perspiration rings under his arms. She wants to lie down. She watches as the balloon begins to ascend more rapidly and to pass overhead. And then she is startled by the sight of the aeronauts cutting loose from the balloon and falling to earth with parachutes. They scarcely seem to drift. In the distance, she can hear the muffled elation of the crowd.
Slowly and without preamble, Olympia takes hold of Haskell’s hand and lifts it to her throat. She opens his fingers and presses them against her skin.
There is a long moment of silence between them.
“Olympia,” Haskell says quietly, withdrawing his hand. “I must say something to you now. In a moment, we shall be at the fire and with your father, and there will be no more opportunity.”
Her breath catches in her chest.
“I have reproached myself a thousand times since that day at your house when I took liberties with you,” he says. “When I was photographing you. I felt then that I could not help myself, though it is pure cowardice to hide behind the excuse of helplessness now.”
She shakes her head slightly.
“It is unpardonable, unpardonable,” he says heatedly. “And I do sincerely ask your forgiveness, and you must give it, as I cannot work properly for thinking of it and of the harm I have done to you.”
All about them, children squeal and run, oblivious to the drama that is taking place so near to them. Gulls, ever hopeful of a discarded morsel, swoop dangerously low to their heads. Haskell opens his mouth and closes it. He shakes his head. He turns once quickly toward the sea and then back again.
The aeronauts land on the sand. The balloon continues to fly overhead.
“I am going now,” Haskell says. “If your father has seen us together already, please tell him that I have been urgently called away. And it is true. I am going now to the clinic. I will not visit you again. You understand that. I will not call on your family, however awkward that may prove.”
And because she thinks he truly means to leave her then, she reaches for his arm; and though she catches only a small bit of his shirt cuff, it is enough.
“I shall go with you,” she says calmly. She does not feel reckless. She is sure of her words and clear about their implications. “You yourself have said you would be dreadfully shorthanded this afternoon.”
“The clinic is no place for . . . ,” he begins, but then he stops. They have already had this conversation.
“I trust I can fetch and carry as well as the next person. Did I not prove myself the night of the shipwreck?”
“Olympia, you will regret this,” he says gravely.
She looks out toward the horizon, where the balloon is only a speck. She wonders where it will finally land.
“Then allow me at least to have it before I regret it,” she says calmly.
He opens his mouth as if to speak, but then hesitates. “No, I cannot allow this,” he says finally, and leaves her.
• • •
She watches him walk away until he is only a blurry dot on the sand. When he is almost out of sight, she begins to follow him. For a time, she walks at a normal pace, and then she breaks into a run.
S
HE WAITS
, as they have agreed, at the back of the Highland while he fetches a carriage from the stables. She stands, with sand in her boots, praying that she will not encounter anyone known to her or to her father, for she will not easily be able to explain her presence by the road nor, if Haskell were then to appear, her intention to accompany him in the carriage. She hopes her father has had enough to drink that he will take his customary Fourth of July nap on the sand by the seaweed fire, as do many of the men on this day, a democratic falling-out if ever there was one.
HE WAITS
, as they have agreed, at the back of the Highland while he fetches a carriage from the stables. She stands, with sand in her boots, praying that she will not encounter anyone known to her or to her father, for she will not easily be able to explain her presence by the road nor, if Haskell were then to appear, her intention to accompany him in the carriage. She hopes her father has had enough to drink that he will take his customary Fourth of July nap on the sand by the seaweed fire, as do many of the men on this day, a democratic falling-out if ever there was one.
Haskell comes around the corner in a small buggy with a canopy that bobbles wildly on the rutted dirt road. The coach is painted bottle green and has yellow wheels. On its side is written, in chaste script,
The Highland Hotel.
He has gathered from his room his physician’s satchel and his jacket and hat, and he presents such a pleasing aspect to her eye that despite her nerves, despite the fact that she has begun to tremble at the audaciousness of her actions, she cannot help but feel a gladness in her heart at the anticipation of riding beside him. He steps down from the carriage to help her up.
The Highland Hotel.
He has gathered from his room his physician’s satchel and his jacket and hat, and he presents such a pleasing aspect to her eye that despite her nerves, despite the fact that she has begun to tremble at the audaciousness of her actions, she cannot help but feel a gladness in her heart at the anticipation of riding beside him. He steps down from the carriage to help her up.
They drive the length of the winding road between the bay and the ocean, passing many cottages and stone walls and carriages that jostle along the hard-packed dirt surface, much as they are doing. Men on bicycles ring their bells at them and tip their hats, and a family of Gypsies with begging tins tries to stop the buggy. This part of the world is flat, demarcated only by stone walls, clapboard cottages, a few trees, and low scrub pine. They pass a large party of revelers in a hay wagon, and as they make the turn at the end of the coast road, she sees again the lifesaving station. She wonders if the crew inside are allowed to partake of the festivities, and then thinks not, since Nature in her whims and frenzies knows not a holiday. At the very least, she imagines that the officers will have to be on the lookout for errant bathers who might be swallowed up by the breakers.
Behind the lifesaving station, the sun glints off the ocean with such ferocity that she cannot see her father’s house on the rocks at the end of the beach — which is fine with her since she does not much want to be reminded of it just now. She turns her head toward the bay, which presents a calmer prospect with its flotilla of sloops and yawls at anchor. She can see the brown and ochre Congregational church tower, the weathered fish cooperative, and the long pier that attracts commercial and pleasure vessels alike. Farther inside the bay are many skiffs and tenders with gentlemen at the oars and ladies sitting stiff-backed in the stern, enjoying their gentle outings under frilled parasols.
In a short time, they leave Fortune’s Rocks and enter the marshes, a watery labyrinth of long reeds, rare birds, and pink and white lilies. She likes best to travel through the marshes in a skiff at sunset, or rather in that half hour before sunset when the rusty light of the lowering sun sets the grasses ablaze and turns the water a metallic pink. Sometimes, on these solitary excursions, she will deliberately lose herself amongst all the shallow passageways, finding a kind of quiet thrill in the ginger-colored reeds. The challenge is then to make her way back through the watery maze, and she remembers only one time when she discovered herself at an unproductive dead end and had to summon help from a boy who was fishing along the harder ground of the shore.
Silently, they travel through the village of Ely with its stolid wooden houses built a century earlier by men who shunned adornment. In the center of the village is a butcher’s shop with a meat wagon parked to the side, a blacksmith’s shop, an apothecary, the town pump. Because of the holiday, there are no people about. Indeed, the stillness is almost eerie, as if a contagion has decimated the population, although Olympia knows it to be a fever of high spirits that has infected the people here and has caused them to flee their village.
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