“But no one wants a woman with nearly grown children,” Victoria says with a small sigh. “Particularly not a woman who has little money of her own.”
“I do not think a man chooses a woman solely on the basis of her fortune or lack of it,” Olympia says. “Or will refuse to be interested in the woman because of a grown daughter. Is there not the matter of love?”
“Oh, I doubt very much my mother has much hope of love,” Victoria says. “It is a husband she wants. With an income. Will you dance if someone asks you?”
“I suppose I shall have to,” Olympia says.
“Olympia, you sound like an old woman who is tired of life already.”
“I am sorry,” she says. “Perhaps I am simply tired.” She takes another sip of champagne and watches as Rufus Philbrick, in white beard and white tie, his studs near to bursting from his shirt, approaches them.
“Here comes someone now to ask you,” Victoria says conspiratorially.
“For heaven’s sake, Victoria, the man is older than my father,” Olympia says, thinking immediately of, and then dismissing, the irony inherent in the statement.
Rufus Philbrick takes Olympia’s hand. She introduces him to Victoria. Philbrick bows slightly in her direction. “I knew your father,” Philbrick says. “We did some business together. I liked him very much. I hope you and your mother are enjoying your summer?”
“Oh, we are,” Victoria says. “Thank you. And I am reminded that I should go to her. If you will excuse me . . .”
Together, Philbrick and Olympia watch Victoria thread her way through the guests who have come out onto the lawn.
“Have you made any other friends this summer?” Philbrick asks her, and Olympia has a sudden image of the night Philbrick and Haskell sat at the dinner table together.
“Actually, I have been much occupied with other matters,” she says.
“I hope nothing serious?” he asks.
“No,” she says. “Nothing too serious.”
Olympia has an unbidden and powerful urge to tell the gruff and well-intentioned man the story of her and Haskell. To tell someone, however inappropriate. To say the words aloud, to give them life. It is a reckless urge, not unlike that of standing at the edge of a precipice and having an overwhelming desire to jump.
“To your very good health, my dear,” Philbrick says, summoning a waiter to refill his champagne glass. “I think the chap who will one day snatch you away will be very lucky indeed.”
Olympia looks up at the man who owns hotels and thinks how different in tone his words are from those of Cote, for Philbrick’s contain nothing of the suggestiveness of the poet’s.
“Oh, I hope I shall not be snatched too far away from my father and mother,” she says lightly to forestall the rest of the sentence.
“You seem adventurous to me, Olympia Biddeford.” He thinks for a moment. “Yes, I can see it. You will meet a cattle rancher and will go west and will own hotels and will have eight children.”
She laughs. “I hope you are not as good at prophecy as you are at business.”
He smiles and regards her over the lip of his glass. Around them, there seems to be a change in the pitch of the general conversation, a ratcheting up of the volume, which causes them both to turn in the direction of the porch, nearly filled now with guests.
“I had a look through your telescope,” Philbrick says. “I am told it is your father’s present to you on your birthday.”
She nods.
“Marvelous instrument. Quite keen. I could see all the way out to Appledore with it earlier this week.”
“One could not tonight,” she says.
“No, but the mist is always intriguing, do you not think?”
Olympia wonders suddenly why she never sees Philbrick with a wife or children. Does he live alone? In one of his hotels? She studies the porch, where the guests seem to be converging in a cluster. She reflects once again, there in the presence of Philbrick, that each of the glittering and perfectly groomed persons at the party has come into the world in the manner of the Rivard child; and further, that most on the porch have at one time or another, if not actually often, opened their mouths and their legs and been naked in the presence of a lover and have strained for pleasure and have cried out, and perhaps have even made indecent or terrible sounds; and further, that there are couples at her house who have known each other in these intimate ways this very day. And all of this causes her to wonder at the disparity between the silk dresses and the natural postures of the body, and to think: How far,
how far,
we are willing to go to pretend we are not of the body at all.
“Ah,” says Philbrick. “Hale has arrived. Our guest of honor.”
“No more honored than you,” Olympia replies.
He looks at her and smiles broadly. “I knew you for a democrat,” he says.
They watch together as the personage makes his way out onto the porch, a woman on his arm. Olympia has a glimpse of a pale face, thinning hair. Because the man is surrounded by guests who either want to make his acquaintance or want to watch those who do, it is hard to keep sight of him; but Olympia knows that she will be introduced to Hale soon enough. It is an event she is not much looking forward to, since she has not read the man’s sermons as she was instructed to do by her father. She doubts very much that Hale himself will care, but she knows that her father will mind. She hopes her father will be so distracted by the evening, however, that he will not think to question her on the matter in front of Hale himself.
But as it happens, she never does meet Hale, either that night or later.
“There is John Haskell and his wife,” Rufus Philbrick says beside her.
Her heart stammers a beat inside her chest. She scans the crowd quickly and sees the couple emerging from the front door onto the porch. She notices immediately that something is amiss. It is in the solicitous way Catherine hovers near to her husband, or perhaps it is in the strain on Haskell’s face. They move not toward Hale, but away, as if by tacit agreement they had decided to drift to the fringe of the gathering. Slowly, they make progress toward the railing nearest to where Philbrick and Olympia are standing.
Philbrick walks forward a few steps to greet them, but Olympia cannot move.
Haskell’s hair is slightly disheveled, as if he had combed it and then, unthinkingly, run his fingers through it. His tie is poorly knotted. Catherine, in long white silk gloves, touches her husband’s arm briefly. He seems not to see Olympia, who stands in his direct line of sight, but rather he appears to be gazing into that middle distance that reflects only the viewer’s own thoughts. Philbrick walks up onto the porch and greets Catherine, kissing her hand. Haskell turns briefly in Philbrick’s direction but seems not to be able to say much beyond the absolutely necessary.
He is not himself, Olympia thinks. He is ill.
She does not know whether to leave the area altogether or to go to them on the porch. Philbrick, doubtless made uncomfortable by Haskell’s silence, begins to involve himself in a conversation with a man from Rye whom Olympia vaguely recognizes. Haskell puts his hands onto the railing and leans forward and looks down at his feet in the posture of a man who might need to be sick. From time to time, Catherine makes half turns of her head, trying to monitor her husband’s behavior. She seems more puzzled than anything else — concerned certainly, but also disconcerted by Haskell’s uncharacteristic rudeness.
But it is not rudeness that accounts for his unnatural behavior. Not rudeness at all. And it is Catherine, in making another half turn, who sees Olympia first.
“Olympia,” she calls, her face brightening. “Oh, Olympia, look at you. John, do you see? Does she not look marvelous?”
Haskell moves his eyes in Olympia’s direction. Though there is some distance between them, she can see him clearly. His face gives nothing away. She waits for a sign, an indication of how she should behave. But he only nods briefly and does not say anything.
Catherine speaks up brightly in the manner of someone who wishes to disguise an awkwardness.
“Oh, do come up here, Olympia,” she calls. “We must look at you. I had heard your dress was a dream, but I had no idea. Of course, it is the young woman inside that makes it shimmer, do you not agree, John? And how is it that you are standing there alone, Olympia, and that every young man in your father’s house is not clamoring to speak to you?”
Haskell presses his lips together.
Does Catherine know? Olympia wonders with alarm. Has Haskell told her? And is Catherine somehow, incredibly, determined to rise above the crisis? To put it all behind her? Is that what this is all about? What happened between husband and wife this afternoon in their new cottage? Olympia searches Haskell’s face, her eyes darting all about his eyes and mouth, but she can see nothing that answers her questions.
And then he straightens and seems to draw himself together.
“Olympia, good evening,” he says. “Forgive me.”
For what?
Olympia wants to cry out.
For what should I forgive you?
The fact that Haskell has spoken at all produces some small measure of relief in Catherine’s features. She manages a smile.
“Come up here, Olympia, or I shall come down myself and fetch you,” she says.
Olympia does as she is asked. She lifts her skirts and climbs the side stairs, the very stairs Haskell once stood at the top of as he watched her come back from the water’s edge. But it is Catherine who is there to greet her this time, extending her gloved hand. Olympia is enveloped in an embrace of gardenias and castile and, underneath this, just the faintest whiff of stale breath.
Catherine’s dress is gathered under her bosom in the empire style and drapes appealingly over her waist and hips. She is wearing moonstones. Her hair has been allowed to float about her face, and Olympia has the distinct impression that it is weightless, that it might suddenly dissolve altogether like spun sugar. Catherine holds her arm rather like a maiden aunt who has taken a niece under her wing. Haskell turns and bends and kisses Olympia’s gloved hand. Closer to him now, she can see the tight strain of the muscles of his face.
“How do you like your new cottage?” she is compelled by politeness to ask Catherine.
Haskell turns his head away and gazes out to sea.
“Oh,” Catherine says with evident delight. She brings her hands together as though she might clap them. “It is so wonderful. I have never seen such a house. One can see the water from every window, and the sea air . . . Really, Olympia, you must come to call on us as soon as possible, for I want to show you and your mother all of the rooms. The attention to detail . . . And the girls . . . Each has her own sitting room, and they are, as you can imagine, absolutely enthralled.”
Catherine pauses. Olympia is meant to reply, but she can find no words. The silence extends for seconds. All around them are animated voices, which serve only to underscore that hers is not. Olympia feels a tightness in her chest.
Catherine looks from Haskell to her and back again.
“John is not himself tonight,” Catherine says, apologizing for her husband’s ill manners. “He has been working too hard, I fear.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” Olympia says.
Even Catherine, with all her social skills, can make no further headway into conversation. Haskell’s strained silence is suffocating, and Olympia wants to flee. She cannot stand with this couple any longer. So great is the tension that she fears either she or Haskell will blurt out the true reason for the silence.
“If you will excuse me, I must find my father,” Olympia says hastily. “He will be cross with me if I do not make an effort to introduce myself to Mr. Hale early in the evening.”
Before either Catherine or Haskell can answer, Olympia leaves them and begins to make her way along the porch and into the house. Does the crowd part for her, or does she push them away? No, no, it is not so dramatic as that. She merely moves, nodding politely, slipping through breaks in the throng, feinting away from engagement. She walks into the house and through the sitting room, which is awash with persons and gaiety. She continues gliding, having no destination, wanting only to put a distance between herself and Catherine Haskell, to whom she can no longer in good conscience allow herself to speak.
As she walks, she silently chastises herself: She must never, under any circumstances, visit the woman again. She must discourage Catherine from ever coming to the house. She must avoid, at all costs, any possible chance encounters, all social engagements at which they might meet. She must leave Fortune’s Rocks and go back to Boston. An excuse will have to be invented, but she can do that. Her father can be persuaded to send her back. She will go immediately. In the morning. She is in a hallway, moving away from people. She hears an orchestra tuning its instruments. The music will soon begin.
Oh God,
she thinks,
how will I be able to do this?
She reaches the empty corridor that connects the main house to the chapel and slows for breath. She leans against a wall and puts her head back and closes her eyes. She stands in that posture, trying to calm herself, for some minutes. She can hear a viola, a waltz beginning. Will Haskell dance with Catherine? Olympia puts her hands to her eyes. She pulls the pearl combs roughly from her hair and studies them in her hands. She holds them tightly, digging the teeth into her palms.