The Incredible Charlie Carewe (3 page)

“Being a girl” or “being a boy” also had been convenient tags for the furtherance of peaceful relationship. When they went into high gear over the search for bird nests, they were equally agile in climbing the trees in Mercer’s woods, but while Virginia was content just to take a peek at a pair of blue eggs while the parents fluttered and scolded about them, Charlie had to remove them from the nest, “to take home.” For a time Virginia would plead with him not to, but when he persisted she decided this was just something that boys in general had to do. She had the wisdom to say nothing, but would have something else to do the next time he suggested a nest hunt. And Charlie, who could not bear to do anything alone, would find that he wasn’t interested in “some ole bird’s nest” either. It was a fine whip that Virginia held—Charlie’s need for an audience, a companion; but loving him, she used it kindly, feeling that she had enough advantage in the fact that she was “so much older” and therefore he had to be treated with understanding.

Charlie body-surfed on the last wave in, and scrambled to his feet, the black curls plastered on his forehead giving him the look of a small faun. He grinned as he approached her, dripping, and snatched the towel from her.

“What’re you looking so glum for?” he said.

Virginia was sitting on her spare haunches, gazing blackly at the horizon. “I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders. “I just feel glum.”

“What about, for cryin’ out loud? You hungry?”

“You won’t be serious.”

“What’s to be serious about? Go on, tell me. What.”

“Well—why did you swipe Elsie’s play-money?” That was a starter anyway, although Virginia felt it had nothing to do with the way she felt.

“I didn’t
swipe
it,” said Charlie indignantly. “She hardly ever plays with it any more anyway.”

Virginia made her point. “That’s what I mean. She’s
outgrown
it too! She has an
allowance
now. Real money. Who wants play paper money when they can have real money?”

Charlie said, “I don’t like money that jingles.
That’s
what’s kid stuff. Nothing would have happened if Dad hadn’t fished it out of the plate. Mr. Hinkle was real impressed—didn’t you see how he kind of smiled?”

Virginia’s little brown fist itched to do some pummeling. That Charlie should have such a blind spot seemed to be too extraordinary to be possible. She felt as though he were insisting that two plus two equaled five. Her own pride was somehow involved too. She was eager to grow up, she felt the process was something of an exciting challenge, and she wanted Charlie to grow up with her. Charlie’s insistence on
being
grown up seemed a headlong thing, containing danger. It was like taking a hurdle on a jumping horse. At riding classes Charlie always rushed his horse over the barrier, as though he wanted to be
there
, while she found a quiet excitement in feeling the nice sense of control, first in herself, and then in a communication with the animal, steady, poised, alert. And when the lift came and the wind rushed past her ears the fence seemed simply not to exist. It had been a problem to be faced, interpreted and valued—and disposed of. She had granted Charlie’s more vigorous approach as “boy-ness.” She felt his joy as he crowed and shouted when he was successful and went over without a “tick”—and she wriggled uncomfortably when he knocked the poles down, and then beat the horse with his crop, cussing him for a “darn fool lazy animal.” Finally, “boy-ness” and difference in age were not enough to excuse his unpleasant aggressiveness. Because in another boy in the class she found the same quality she herself had. And there was no “girl-ness” in Jeff Shelley.

Of course, Jeff didn’t have her brother’s charm, his easy grin, and his clear candid brown eyes. Nor was he really any “fun.” But when it was Jeff’s turn at the field, and the class quiet and watching at the fence, observing him, she would find an agreement, an understanding of his behavior, that completely eluded her in her brother. Jeff was tall and bony and blond, and when his name was called his face would flush slightly, and with a little duck of his head and a tight little smile he would trot his jumper to the starting point. From then on any sign of embarrassment left him. He would walk his horse to the barrier, patting her neck, seeing that she got a good look at it, then back to the starting point again. Virginia felt as though she were looking at someone who was completely alone, completely relaxed. She watched his lips move, as he asked the mare to be steady, steady. Then for a split motionless moment she could see the pale bony hands, curled firmly around the reins, a flicker in the white eyelashes, the pale yellow hair, and without a perceptible movement, simply as though he and the horse had decided it was time to go, they swung the arc, the scenery seemed to move behind them, and her heart would lift at the sound of his “Hup!” The horse lifted and cleared as though it was nothing at all.

“Roaring,” “golden,” “fabulous” were some of the adjectives that would be applied to the twenties in later years. But the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald, of Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Charleston, and the worshipers at the shrines of Garbo, Clara Bow, John Gilbert, the new freedoms of the younger generation, was a world apart from families like the Carewes. The children were too young to be swept into the raccoon-coat, flask-carrying set that roared through the countryside in a Lancia or a Stutz. And their elders felt that it was simply an exaggerated mood of carnival gaiety that could not happen to “their kind.” They regretted it, they shook their heads over the capers, and said, as all generations have classically remarked, “It wasn’t like that when I was young.” Unacceptable social behavior quite simply didn’t exist, in their protected world of family tradition, education at fine schools, money, solid homes. The modern term “neurotic” could have been applied only to people on their own level, such as, for example, an unfortunate man who had never recovered from being “shell-shocked” in the war, or a bereaved wife who hadn’t yet “got over” her husband’s death, or Cousin Elizabeth, who was, after all, getting on in years. Otherwise he or she was simply the victim of poor ancestry or a “weak” character which could have been corrected by proper discipline.

“Virgie’s just getting a little sensitive, that’s all, Walter dear. Girls do, you know, at her age—it’s only natural.” Beatrice dimpled her wisdom smilingly into the mirror at her husband.

“It’s more than that, Bea.” Walter, already in bed, a cigarette between his lips, folded his arms behind his head. “She beat me good at chess tonight; sharp as a tack, that kid. Getting so I can’t be careless any more when I play with her.” He chuckled with affection, then, raising himself on one elbow, doused the cigarette in a glass tray beside him.

“Well, it’s been a long time since you’ve been quite so hard on Charlie, about a little thing, as you were tonight.” Bea smoothed cream into her soft chin.

“Look, I know a boy of twelve isn’t supposed to have perfect table manners—but belching, for God’s sakes——”

“Walter dear,” murmured Bea, automatically.

“——out loud, not only once but three times. Even Elsie was shocked. I had to send him upstairs. The kids left that kind of stuff with their nursery days and Miss Hale.”

“Now, Walter dearest, you’ve just forgotten, that’s all. When you were his age, didn’t you think it a great accomplishment when you learned to belch automatically?”

“Sure—but we practiced in private—had contests. I know all that. But I’d’ve got my bottom tanned if I had done it at the table. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. It isn’t what we were talking about. It’s something else. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. At least up till now. But Virgie did.”

“Another hot day tomorrow,” sighed Bea as she slipped between the sheets of her bed and snapped off the table lamp. There was a period of silence. Sleep was closing in.

“Virgie did what, darling?” Bea said, as if just hearing Walter’s remark.

Virgie had said, “Why doesn’t Charlie——well,
change?
”

Walter said, “It was your knight that did the trick. That was a great move. Right out of the book . . . What did you say?” Together they were replacing the ivory chessmen on the board. Only a moment before Virginia had gleefully announced, “That’s check—and ’mate, Dad!” Winning had made her feel expansive and warmly confident; temporarily she was on a mental level with Walter; the difference in years, the father-daughter relationship evaporated, and they were, wonderfully, friends.

Walter lighted his pipe, puffing, tamping gently—settling back in the twin wing chair opposite his daughter. She had touched a nerve. She was asking a question that had been in his own mind, suppressed and disregarded.

“What are you talking about, honey?” he said guardedly.

“Well, I don’t know
exactly
how to say it, but——” She chewed on the ball of her thumb. “I mean—I’ve gotten over acting in certain ways, like, well, walking once in a while instead of
always
running. And—I don’t like it if my hands are dirty, and I
want
to wash them before I eat. And a lot of things don’t seem quite so
hilarious
as they used to—oh, I don’t know!” She squirmed a little in the chair, and her eyes roved to the ceiling.

“And Charlie?” Walter quietly led her.

“Well—like when we did our English theme paper last June—Charlie’s was real good.
Actually
better than mine, but when he turned it in he had drawn scallops and silly decorations all over the margins. The kind of thing we both used to do—oh, maybe
years
ago. Like in the fourth grade.” She paused, her thoughts deep in that, to her, distant past.

The moment was precious to Walter. Carefully he measured the gift of her confidence and chose his words to avoid any sound of paternal condescension.

“Honey, girls take an awfully big jump ahead of us males at your age—you know that.”

Virginia looked at him with a quick smile, the circles under her dark eyes betraying her most recent brush with nature.

“Oh, I don’t mean just that,” Walter said hurriedly, “but in every way: the way you think, the way you feel.”

“I don’t want to be ‘biggety,’ Dad—I know what you mean—I
think
. I feel quieter, I think quieter—most of the time. And I like being with Betty and Cheryl more than I used to. Ho!” she laughed. “It makes Charlie so mad sometimes. I tell him he ought to take Elsie out to the raft and help her learn to dive better. She still doesn’t keep her knees and ankles tight—flops like a fish.” Walter’s quiet puffing brought her back to the fact that she had digressed.

“It isn’t the difference between Charlie and me, Dad, it’s the difference between Charlie and other
boys
.”

Walter almost bit his pipe in two. His body tensed in every muscle, and he felt the hard thumping of his heart. What in heaven’s name was the girl getting at? What had she seen? He was aware of his son’s rather too perfect good looks, but he had never thought of him as
soft
. On the contrary, he seemed to lack even normal concern and caution against physical injury, for instance. There wasn’t a gesture or an attitude that was “precious.” As a very young child he was always disregarding obstacles; skinned knees and elbows were matters of no concern. Once, he remembered, at the top of the veranda stairs the child, in his eagerness to retrieve a ball that he had thrown, had disregarded the concrete steps and simply “taken off,” and for days carried around a scab on his nose and chin. It was true, there had been a “normal” period of tantrums, of screaming when he was opposed, but they were short stormy sessions that disappeared as quickly as they had come on. He seemed to carry no grudges, his sunny smile dissolved the protruding lip of sulkiness.

Walter kept his voice calm, objectively interested.

“In what way, Virgie?”

Virginia hesitated. This was dangerously close to disloyalty, she realized. She had never “told on” her brother. Neither her father nor her mother required one of the children to tell about the misdeeds of another. “Talk about your own faults,” the beam in one’s own eye, had been impressed on them very early.

Walter saw her thoughts and smiled. “It’s all right, honey,” he said, “we’re talking about Charlie as a person, not about something he has done that is punishable.”

“Well, boys like Roger and Toby and Joe—lots of others—kids he was real good friends with, act—well, not
scared
, exactly, but they just don’t seem to like him, because they don’t know what he’s going to do next. Like one day, they were playing some catch game with a medicine ball, round in a big circle. Charlie could throw it just as good and fast and hard as the rest of them—but, for no reason at all, once when he got the ball he just pitched it up toward the class window, and Jimmy Bleeker or somebody said, ‘Hey, what’s the idea,’ or something like that, and somebody else said, ‘If you’da broke that window we’d all be in trouble,’ and Charlie just grinned and said, ‘We would?’—not sarcastic or anything, just like it didn’t matter to him. Oh,” she wailed a little, “that’s not—that doesn’t show what I mean. I know he’s smart and strong—if I didn’t know he was really bright, I mean, I’d think the way he acts sometimes, that he just wasn’t growing up at all. I mean——” It was just too hard to put into words, this vague feeling of her own irritability with him, of the blows to her pride, when small eyebrows were raised.

Walter, relieved, raised another lighted match to his pipe. “Let’s put it this way, honey. Maybe you’re not taking into account the fact that everybody’s different—unique, is the word that says more exactly what I mean. And you have to watch out about deciding that because Charlie isn’t becoming the kind of person
you
think he ought to be, or others think he ought to be, he isn’t growing up at all. Maybe he’s just a good, healthy non-conformist—sometimes they can be quite interesting, although not always comfortably acceptable.” He chuckled to himself, while Virginia watched, letting it pass, because the discussion had begun to make her sleepy, and she wasn’t sure what her father was talking about.