Raintree County (60 page)

—Let's go and see, she said.

He looked at her curiously again, and she turned her face away because it seemed to her that she simply couldn't bear to let him see her eyes. After all this was her teacher, Mr. Shawnessy, whose wisdom and passion were greater than anything else in Raintree County.

—We'd better not, he said. It's a perilous business, and we're not dressed for it. Besides, I don't know that it would do any good to find it. It's funny, but I've made a myth out of that tree, and I don't want to destroy the myth. Somehow, that tree embodies the secret of
life, the riddle of Raintree County, and yet I know it's not the physical tree itself that embodies it, and I don't want to disillusion myself. If I found the tree, I should remind myself that in the principle of its growth it's no more nor less miraculous than any other tree—and all trees are miraculous. I should see that the two stones were like all the other deposits of the glacier—having mass and form, and that the initials on the stones were just chipped letters, no more nor less remarkable than any of the billions of letters that mankind has strewn upon the earth. No, the tree is not the secret, but is itself, like the letters chipped on the stones, part of the secret only. There
are
secret places in the earth. Every county in America has its secret place and every American life its Delphic cave.

Esther sat very quiet now in the still, bright air, wishing that this time would never change. She felt certain that Mr. Shawnessy had just confided something to her that no one else knew.

—You've always lived in the County, haven't you, Esther?

—Yes, my father's father was one of the first settlers in the County. And then you know, they used to say that there was Indian blood in our family, but I don't think it's true.

—You don't say! Mr. Shawnessy said.

He studied her face.

—It might very well be, he said.

—I don't know why I told you, she exclaimed, shocked at herself. It probably isn't so. I was always ashamed of it. I don't know what got into me to tell you.

—You should be proud of it, he said. Perhaps that's the unique quality of your beauty.

—My beauty! she said, surprised. O, Mr. Shawnessy, I never thought——O, pshaw, you don't really think I'm pretty! Why, I never——

—Pretty! Why, my dear child, he said, of course you're pretty. Didn't you know that?

Esther had known that she was prettier than most girls, but she had never supposed that Mr. Shawnessy would notice it. It was not a usual type of prettiness, what with her sallow skin, her high cheekbones, her dark round, haunting eyes, and her austere, almost stern expression.

—Why, yes, he said, speaking with surprising energy. You're
very beautiful. I always thought so. I should think many a young man would have told you that.

—I've not been courted much, she said. Pa doesn't favor it.

They talked for a long time, and after a while they took the long path around, leaving the solitude of the wild side. Esther had put her shoes and stockings back on and had brushed off her dress. But she was still dizzy from the strange things that had happened to her across the lake. She kept thinking of the young man who had been lost there beneath the Raintree and had never come back. She knew who this young man was, he was just her own age, twenty years old, and to be pursued by this young man and to lie with him unclothed beneath the Raintree would be to . . .

Come to Lake Paradise, o, wandering one, come in the summertime and cross the lake to the wild side. Here you will lose the name and garments that you had in Raintree County. Come and seek the place where, amorous and young beneath the tree, the young god waited for you. For you, a long time there he waited, and only you can find him and restore him to himself. O, little wanderer from a dark earth, o, little vesselbearer from the Asiatic heartland and homeland of the race!

After their afternoon together on the wild side of the lake, Mr. Shawnessy was often in Esther's company. He went walking with her and sometimes boating with her. He sought out any party of young people which included her. He seemed to like to talk with her, though he didn't speak again of the daring young man who had been lost on the wild side of the lake, nor did either of them say anything about their afternoon there. He spoke, however, of many things—old days in Raintree County and his experiences in the Civil War. He now always called Esther by her first name, and she of course continued to call him Mr. Shawnessy. Gradually he seemed to recover from the remoteness and gloom of his first days at the Institute, and some of the sadness went out of his handsome eyes. He smiled and joked more frequently.

There were hours of fun at Paradise Lake such as Esther had never known in the world of Pa, who had little laughter and lightness in him. Esther herself didn't often participate in the funmaking, being by nature stoical and humorless, but she was excited by it and by the part which little by little Mr. Shawnessy took in it.

Some of the best sport was the swimming. The girls wore yards of frilled stuff designed to conceal the shape of their bodies. The lake and the surrounding hills echoed squeals and screams as the young men and women frolicked in the water, splashing and ducking each other. Mr. Shawnessy avoided the more boisterous fun and undertook to show Esther how to swim. She learned to make patient, rhythmical gestures with her arms under the water, pointing her hands as if in prayer and stroking out from her breast like the figurehead of a ship cleaving the water. But her bathing costume was so heavy that these motions never served to keep her afloat, and she went down beneath the water again and again, still stroking stoically as Mr. Shawnessy had shown her. Each time, he would reach down and pull her out.

—Esther, my word, child, you'll drown! You don't have to go on doing it after you sink.

—I was doing it all right, wasn't I?

—Perfectly, he said. Only you always sink. If it weren't for your suit, you could swim.

He blushed.

—After all, he said, a fish couldn't swim dressed like that.

One night, the girls went to a remote part of the lake in boats and took off their clothes and bathed and soaped themselves. While they were giggling and dipping their pale forms in the water, they heard a shout from across the lake and a lantern flashed. Some men were rowing in a boat toward them. The lantern palely illumined the white bodies of the young women beside the lake, and they all screamed shrilly and put their hands over their breasts and the dark mound hair.

There was a loud chorus of song, a confused shouting of male voices, the boat drifted slowly farther out on the lake, and the girls spoke in loud voices indignantly as they dried themselves and dressed.

The next day there was much speculation as to what men had made up the party.

—From what I hear, John Shawnessy got the whole thing up, Carl Foster said, winking.

—Mr. Shawnessy is too much of a gentleman to do any such thing, Ivy said. It sounds like some of your doing, Carl Foster!

—The boat was loaded exclusively with married men, someone said.

—More's the pity, Ivy said. Why waste such a sight on married men!

—Give me a boatload of lusty bachelors any day, said another lady, slightly past forty and of redundant outline.

—The whole thing was the doing of John Shawnessy, Carl Foster said. That's what I heard.

—What about it, Mr. Shawnessy? several girls said.

—I know nothing of all this, Mr. Shawnessy said. I do, however, recollect rowing out on the lake for a quiet pipe yestereve with a party of kindred spirits, when chancing to put our boat in close to a sequestered arm of the lake, behold! we saw what seemed to be mermaids bathing in the water. More lovely were they than mortal maidens, and like Ulysses we were hard put to keep from beaching our boat there, but as luck would have it, an illomened breeze sprang up and bore us away. Can any rede me this riddle?

The affair was a subject for mirth days afterward, but as for Esther, she was wondering if Mr. Shawnessy had really been in the boat, and if his long blue eyes had been able to spy directly out her own naked form through the lanternlit darkness.

Come to Lake Paradise, ye nymphs. Ungarb and stand beside the lake, brownlimbed, with dark hair down. Plunge deep and cleave the glaucous depths and watch the frogs go by with long legs trailing. On the floor of Lake Paradise, the waterweeds are a dense mat. Be a white form fishlike in the vitreous waters while the god is watching from the glades.

So the days passed at Lake Paradise in the deep of that mythical summer in which Esther Root first left her father's home. It might have been ages since the evening when she had come down the sloping hills to the lake. So precious was this new existence to her that she had ceased to count the time, for she didn't wish to remind herself that only a few days remained of the Teachers' Institute. Nor did she seek to analyze her association with Mr. Shawnessy. She was teased by the other girls because of his obvious preference for her company, but she didn't dare to imagine what his kindness toward her meant. Perhaps in his mood of bereavement he preferred her stern simplicity to the lighthearted frivolities of the others. She lived
lost in the wholeness of the experience and waited for time to tell her what to do.

All week, plans had been in the making for a big picnic which was to be held far up the river at the site of the Indian mounds, whence the picnickers were to row down to the lake. The whole affair had been planned as a climax to the first week's activities. For two or three days the girls talked of it continually among themselves at night. When the great day arrived, the weather was clear and fine. Already most of the young people had paired off.

At breakfast in the hotel, someone asked Mr. Shawnessy if he intended to go along.

—Why, no, he said. I guess that's just for the young people and the lovers.

He smiled, but not with his eyes. At the morning class, his voice was very gentle and remote, and it was only by a severe effort that he kept his attention on the wavering responses of the students. Esther didn't know when she had felt so much pity and love for anyone. She wanted to tell him that she, Esther Root, would be pleased to have him go along on the boating excursion and that to her he was as young as anyone there, no older than a boy of twenty who in some legendary summer had swum boldly across the lake and lain beneath the tree of life. The more she thought about the situation, the more upset she became, until she was annoyed by the excitement and laughter of the other students as they prepared for the picnic. She turned down two invitations from older men who wanted to escort her on the ride back. Just before they were all ready to leave, Carl and Ivy Foster came around for her. They were talking about Mr. Shawnessy.

—Maybe we could persuade him to go now, Ivy said.

—No use, Carl said. He just hasn't got over his sorrow. You can't get him now anyway. He left the camp a little after the class, and I don't know where he went. He hasn't been back since. John Shawnessy's a queer cuss in a lot of ways. He told me he was going out for a walk and not to worry about him. I asked him where he was going. I'm going to try to find someone, he said. Someone to love. We have to replace the old loves, Carl, don't you think? He was smiling and yet I never saw a man in tears look as sad as he did smiling.

When they were all getting into the buggies, Esther said to Ivy,

—I'm not going.

—Why not, honey? Come along.

Esther, who was no good at subterfuge and never lied about matters of fact, merely said,

—I can't tell you why. I'm just not going.

Carl and Ivy soon gave up trying to persuade her, and the party went off without her.

It was then about two o'clock in the afternoon. Esther ran back to the empty tents. She was wearing her white dress again, newly washed and ironed since the day she had stained it on the far side of the lake. She carefully washed her face and tied up her hair. Then she studied her face in the mirror. It was a slender face with smooth red lips, large liquid-brown eyes, high cheekbones. It had two spots of heatflush just under the eyes, and there was a burning excitement in the eyes. Then she went down to the lake, and taking a boat which didn't even belong to the Institute—all that did had been taken up the river the day before—she began to row across the lake.

Her stomach was all weak, and she was faint and dizzy. She had eaten little breakfast and no dinner at all. In what seemed an absurdly brief time, she had run the boat against the bank on the far side of the lake. When she climbed out, she was panting and the palms of her hands were red and hot from gripping the oars. She now set off on the wide path that skirted the swamps leading to the little neck of firm ground where she had met Mr. Shawnessy a few days before. She hoped that she would be able to follow the path, but as she went over it in the opposite direction, all was changed. Indeed the whole northern side of the lake seemed different. There was a kind of white soft mist in the air; leaves and grass had a vapory look. It was certainly the hottest day they had had yet, and her handkerchief was soon drenched with wiping her forehead. In a few minutes, she had quite lost her way and began to go on as best she could, pushing through the thickets and wading through low ground in the general direction of her goal.

All the time she kept telling herself that she was foolish and bad to do the thing that she was doing. Nevertheless, she kept on going and looking all the while for the trees. At last she felt sure that she had overshot them, for she was wandering and floundering in a wide
marsh of swampgrass and reeds, and began to think that she would have to turn back. She took off her shoes and stockings and stood for a moment looking about her. She was panting, her hair had come down, and her slight body was drenched with sweat. Her heart knocked at the top of her chest. She thought she might faint out here in the cruel sunlight: the bubbly substance of the swamp would close over her, and she would be like a flower destroyed before it could bear its seed. Once again, she saw the insouciant gaiety and swiftness of the water-creatures. A snake swam in a pool not far away. The shining green-shouldered frogs were everywhere. Noon, splendid, uncaring, blazed and buzzed around her.