Fortune's Rocks (9 page)
“She looks fine to me,” says Philbrick, who, having already had his sitting and having examined every aspect of the camera, is now impatient to reach the beach during the family bathing hours of noon to one and, perhaps more important, to eat the picnic that will be brought there.
“Lovely pose,” says Catherine, who is knitting.
“I think she should sit up straighter,” her mother says. “Olympia often slouches.”
“Relax your arm,” Haskell says, “and tilt your head like this.”
He demonstrates.
Slightly annoyed at all the instruction, Olympia lifts her arms and removes the pin that secures her hat to her hair. She pulls the hat off quickly and tosses it to the steps. She folds her hands in her lap. She thinks her mother, sitting near the railing, actually says, “Oh no,” for no female has been photographed this morning without a hat, not even the girls.
Haskell stands unmoving for a moment. And then he steps forward. She thinks he might speak to her. Instead, he lifts her chin with his fingertips. He raises her chin high and then higher, so that she is forced to look into his eyes. He holds this pose at its apex, studying her face, and then he allows his hand, which she is quite certain is hidden from the others’ view, to trail under her chin, to her throat. The touch is so brief and soft, it might be a hair floating across the skin.
This fleeting brush of his fingers, the first intimate touch she has ever had from a man, triggers a sudden image from the previous night’s dreams. Her gaze loosens and swims, and color comes into her face. There must be on her cheeks the hectic flush of confusion, she thinks. And she is afraid that she will, in the several seconds she is required to remain still, betray the content of the scenes and pictures that float before her eyes.
She waits for some confirmation that the others have observed Haskell’s touch. But she realizes, from the impatient and bored tones of the onlookers, that no one has noticed the moment at all. And she wonders then: Did it really happen, or did she imagine it?
Later, when she sees the photographs for the first time, she will be surprised at how calm her face looks — how steady her gaze, how erect her posture. In the picture, her eyes will be slightly closed, and there will be a shadow on her neck. The shawl will be draped around her shoulders, and her hands will rest in her lap. In this deceptive photograph, she will look a young woman who is not at all disturbed or embarrassed, but instead appears to be rather serious. And she will wonder if, in its ability to deceive, photography is not unlike the sea, which may offer a benign surface to the observer even as it conceals depths and currents below.
“Very good,” says Philbrick, standing. “I, at least, am off to the beach.”
• • •
As promised, they make their expedition at noon, all of them, that is, except for her mother, and then Catherine, who remains behind to keep her mother company. Josiah has packed an elaborate picnic in a wicker basket, so large it requires two boys to haul it. The day continues to be bright and breezy, and although the surf is decidedly energetic, everyone except Olympia and Haskell ventures into the water. Olympia has deliberately chosen not to wear a bathing costume, being uncomfortable in that company to be in such a state of undress. Haskell has not had time to change, since he has been working with the camera until the last minute. Indeed, he still has it with him in its mahogany box.
The day and the hour seem to have brought out nearly all of the population of Fortune’s Rocks. Olympia observes many children under the watchful eye of governesses. One woman, taking care of eight babies, has placed her charges in laundry baskets. From where Haskell and Olympia sit, they can see only tiny heads and faces bobbing and peering out over the baskets’ rims, altogether a most comical sight. In other groupings, there are women overdressed in black taffeta dresses with elaborate hats and gloves and boots and ruffled parasols, as though desperate not to let a single grain of sand or ray of sunshine touch their bodies. Olympia wonders how it is they do not melt from being swathed as they are in so many garments. In other gatherings, men stand in bathing costumes that quite cost them their dignity: The apparel has the impoverished look of union suits, and the cloth sags in an unfortunate manner when wet. But at the beach, she thinks, is there not a certain license in dress, a latitude in custom?
After they have set up their picnic on the rug, Philbrick and Cote and (reluctantly) her father accompany Martha and the other children, in sailors’ costumes and dark stockings, to the water’s edge, some fifty feet away. Haskell and Olympia are left behind. This is not contrivance on their part, Olympia knows, although she is certain they are both aware of the somewhat awkward circumstances as the others leave them. Haskell sheds his jacket and his shoes, removes his tie and his socks, and rolls the white flannel of his trousers to just below the knees. He leans back on the rug, propped up on one elbow, and watches the bathing party proceed to the ocean.
To busy herself, Olympia prepares a plate of boiled eggs and rolled tongue and bread and butter, and hands it to Haskell, who takes it from her. She makes a plate of food for herself. They eat side by side, Olympia on a small stool that has been brought for the occasion. They do not speak for some time. Occasionally, a gust of wind makes one or the other of them reach forward to anchor a corner of the rug or to lay a hand on a hat that threatens to stray. She pours lemonade into glasses and gives him one.
“What do you do when you are at the clinic?” she asks, her voice sounding strained, at least to her.
“A bit of everything,” he says. “Set broken bones, amputate mangled fingers, treat diphtheria and pneumonia and typhoid and dysentery and influenza and syphilis . . .” He pauses. “But this is not a fit discussion for a young woman,” he says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. His eyes are shaded by the brim of his straw hat.
“Why not?”
“Have you ever been to Ely Falls?”
“Only once,” she confesses. “With my father last summer. But I did not see much. My father made me remain in the carriage while he went about his business.”
“My point exactly. It is a fearful place, Olympia. Overcrowded and filthy and disease-ridden.”
The wind lifts her skirts, which she smooths over her knees. So bright is the glare of the sun on the water that even with her broad-brimmed hat she finds it necessary to squint.
“Do you think,” she asks, “that one day I could accompany you to the clinic? You speak of appalling conditions, and I should like to see them for myself. Perhaps I could help in some way. . . .”
“Poverty is raw, Olympia. And ugly. The people are good enough — I do not mean to suggest that they are not — it is simply that the clinic is not a suitable place for a young woman.”
“Tell me this then,” she says, feeling slightly challenged and unwilling to forfeit the debate so quickly. “Are there fifteen-year-old female workers in the mills?”
She knows perfectly well that there are.
“Yes,” he says reluctantly. “But that does not mean they should be there.”
“And are fifteen-year-old females permitted into the clinic?”
He hesitates. “Sometimes,” he says. “As patients certainly. Or to tend to their mothers.”
“Well, then . . .”
“It is not a good idea,” he insists. “In any event, I should have to ask your father for permission, and I sincerely doubt he would give it.”
“Perhaps not,” she says. “But he may surprise you. He holds unusual views as regards my education.”
Haskell lifts up a handful of sand and watches it fall through his fingers. He takes off his hat, lies back on the rug, and closes his eyes.
Does he know she watches him then? He seems peaceful, as if he were dozing or sleeping. The lines of his face and his body are elongated, so that there is a hollow at his throat that echoes a hollow at the base of his shirt. Below his knees, his legs are bare; and she is struck by how smooth his skin is, how silky with dark hairs.
She looks quickly to the water and back at Haskell. She knows it will be only moments before the others return, wet and chilled and wrapped in rugs, their feet encrusted with fine wet sand, wanting food and drink and feeling both virtuous and vigorous for their exercise in the sea. She saw Haskell with the camera often enough earlier this morning to know how it is done. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, she lifts the camera from its case and peers through the viewfinder.
Beyond Haskell, in the background, is a fish house and a large family of bathers, some of whom, Olympia realizes, are watching her with the camera. They must be a family from Ely Falls, she decides, for they do not have much in the way of a picnic. They are crowded, all eleven or twelve of them, onto only one rug, so that those at the periphery are half sitting on the sand and have to lean into the center of the group. They have all been swimming, she determines, even the women, for their hair is unkempt and slicked back against their heads. They stare in a curiously impolite manner. She thinks that at least one or two of the children must be undernourished, as they have a sunken appearance about the cheeks.
She squeezes the shutter.
Startled, Haskell opens his eyes. She sets the camera back into its case.
“Olympia,” he says, sitting up.
She closes the top and fastens the latch.
Simultaneously, they see Olympia’s father emerging from the sea and draping himself in a robe he has left by the water’s edge so as not to have to appear too long in public in his wet bathing costume. She watches her father walk from the sea to where they sit, wondering if he has seen her take Haskell’s picture. When he reaches them, she thinks he cannot fail to note the strain which lies between Haskell and her and which they both immediately seek to defuse with over-attention to her father’s needs, Haskell standing with a wrap, Olympia preparing a plate of food. But her father does not ask her about the time she has spent with Haskell, either then or later.
The others soon follow her father, Zachariah Cote a somewhat comical spectacle in his union suit, which reveals rather large hips and suggests that the man is better suited to a frock coat. (But which man is not? Olympia wonders.) Philbrick, with little modesty or self-consciousness, walks briskly to the rug, sits down to lunch, and begins to consume his meal with enthusiasm. Unable to remain calm in their company, Olympia stands and walks to the water’s edge with wraps for the girls, who twirl themselves into the dry cloths as if forming cocoons. Even Martha seems happy to see her, although somehow the girl has gotten sand into her stockings and they bag with the weight and make odd lumps against her legs.
They walk back to the rug as if Olympia were a governess and they her waterlogged charges. Along the way, when she chances to look up, she sees that Haskell has gone.
• • •
He does not reappear for dinner in the evening. When Olympia inquires as to his whereabouts, Catherine says that he has been called away to the clinic. Olympia struggles through the meal with little appetite. She minds Haskell’s absence more than she ever could have anticipated. It is the first of many nights she will now spend when her life, which seemed complete enough only the night before, appears to be missing an essential piece.
Wishing to be alone, she pushes her chair back. Thunder shakes the house, and Olympia can feel the vibrations through the floorboards. A streak of lightning needles the sky outside the windows of the dining room.
“A storm,” Catherine says.
“The man who brings the lobsters said there would be,” her mother answers.
“I must go upstairs to close my window,” Olympia says, relieved to have an excuse to leave the table.
“Did you know,” her father asks the gathering, “that such a heavy clap of thunder will cause many of the lobsters in the waters hereabouts to lose at least one of their claws?”
“Fascinating,” Catherine says.
The rain starts then, a heavy rain that slants under the eaves and beats against the panes of glass in the windows, as if it would be let in.
Olympia walks upstairs to her room and lies down on the bed in a state for which she has had no preparation and of which she cannot speak — not even to Lisette, who might have some practical advice. For how can Olympia admit to any person that she harbors such extraordinary and inappropriate feelings for a man she hardly knows? A man nearly three times her age? A man who seems to be happily married to a woman Olympia much admires?
After a time, she sits up in the bed and reaches for the volume that is still on her night table. She begins to read Haskell’s book anew. She reads until her eyes blur and her senses dull and she can contemplate with equanimity her preparations for bed.
Later she will learn that Haskell did not go to the clinic that night, but rather walked with troubled thoughts along the beach until he was surprised by the sudden storm, which almost immediately drenched him and caused him to have to run back to the house for shelter.
• • •
Just before daybreak, Olympia is awakened by a hoarse cry. For a few moments, she thinks it part of another dream she cannot quite escape, until she realizes that the shouting comes from below her bedroom window. As she climbs out of bed, the hollering grows louder, and she can hear now that it involves several men.
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