Fortune's Rocks

by Anita Shreve

  “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.

  Because the air has become chillier, she reaches for the shawl on the chair. When she looks out her window, she sees that all along the beach of Fortune’s Ro
cks, bonfires have been lit and are now blazing. She does not at first understand the meaning of these fires until she notices the men in lifesaving dress and cork belts standing by the fire nearest to the cottage. Other men, among them Rufus Philbrick and her father and John Haskell, hover in their dressing gowns at the perimeter of this group. Since everyone is gesturing toward the sea, Olympia looks out to discover what it is that so excites them; and she is startled to see a large dismasted barque foundering in the white foam of the breakers not three hundred feet from shore. The bow of the vessel has shattered and has a ragged and splintered appearance. As she watches, the rudderless ship rises and rolls and hits the rocks that have been the site of not a few shipwrecks.

  The doors of the Ely station, built only the year before, are flung open. A half dozen men in oilskins and crotch-high waders begin to maneuver to the water’s boisterous edge the long, slim lifesaving boat that is kept always ready for such occasions. By now, the operation has drawn a crowd, and Olympia is compelled to throw her shawl over her shoulders and make her own way down to the beach.

  She stands in the cold and darkness, just beyond the revealing light of the bonfires, the gale already unraveling her patient plaiting of the night before. The wind blows sparks from the fires and threatens to extinguish the signal lights from the red-globed lanterns. In the foaming currents, Olympia can see that the disabled vessel has pitched to an unnatural angle and that men and also women are abandoning her decks for the rigging.

  She feels a hand on her arm and, startled, turns. “Olympia,” Catherine Haskell says, unfolding a cloak and laying it across Olympia’s shoulders. “I saw you from the porch. You should not be out here.”

  Olympia accepts the gift of the cloak by drawing it more tightly around her. “What has happened?” she asks Catherine.

  “Oh my dear, it is so dreadful. Such a horror. I only hope the lifesavers can get to them.”

  “Who are they?” Olympia asks.

  “According to Rufus, it is an English ship out of Liverpool. They were meant to put in at Gloucester, but the storm has blown them off course.”

  The gale makes conversation difficult. Catherine’s hair blows all about her face, and the skirts of Olympia’s nightdress snap at her shins. Together they watch as a gun is brought out of the station on a wagon and aimed at the ship.

  “What are they doing?” Olympia asks.

  “It is for the breeches buoy,” Catherine answers.

  A signal flare lights up the wounded vessel. A woman falls soundlessly from the rigging, and someone on the beach screams. Catherine turns to Olympia and pulls her toward her, as if to shield her face. But Olympia is taller than Catherine, and the embrace is cumbersome and mildly awkward; so they separate and watch as a man is swamped by a cresting wave.

  “My God,” Catherine says.

  So sheltered has Olympia’s life been up to this point that she has never seen death, nor anything resembling it. She flinches at the sudden boom of the gun. She watches as a ball with a rope attached spools out across the waves and lands behind the ship. A taut line is immediately established from the shipwreck to the shore. One of the men in lifesaving dress steps into the breeches buoy, a device that resembles nothing so much, Olympia thinks, as a large pair of men’s pants attached to a wash line. As the men on shore haul the line through a pulley, the officer makes slow progress toward the vessel, his legs dangling unceremoniously just inches above the surf.

  At the water’s edge, John Haskell and Olympia’s father take hold of the stern of the lifesaving boat and run it into the water. Her father’s face is grave, his features wholly concentrated. The sash of his dressing gown has come undone, and Olympia is surprised to see, as she seldom does, his thin white legs. Although Olympia is embarrassed for his body, she is nevertheless proud of her father’s strength in this matter: Haskell and her father seem oblivious to any possible discomfort from the wind or the sea or their endeavors as they both join in the effort to pull the line. Later Olympia and Catherine will learn that the ship, which was called the Mary Dexter and carried Norwegian immigrants, sustained damage at the docks in Quebec; but the captain, too eager to finish the journey, unwisely left before repairs could be made.

  Catherine and Olympia watch as the breeches buoy returns along the line, not with the man who only moments ago traversed it, but rather with the slumped form of a woman who is in turn carrying a child.

  “She will drop the child,” Catherine exclaims.

  Those at the shoreline must have the same fear, for Haskell sheds his dressing gown and wades into the surf in his nightshirt to snatch the feet of the cargo. When he has the woman in his grasp, he brings her onto dry ground and, with the aid of Rufus Philbrick, disentangles her from the contraption. Another officer steps into the buoy and sets off for the wounded ship.

  “I must go to him,” Catherine says. “Will you be all right here?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Olympia says. “I am fine.”

  Olympia watches as Catherine Haskell runs against the wind toward her husband. While Olympia’s father attends to the female passenger, wrapping her in a blanket Josiah has brought to the scene, John Haskell lays the child immediately upon a rug and begins to administer lifesaving breaths. Olympia watches as Catherine puts a hand to her husband’s back, and he looks up at her. He tells her something, perhaps gives her instructions, for she immediately takes charge of the woman Olympia’s father has been attending to. Haskell, apparently having restored the child’s breathing, scoops the girl into his arms and begins to walk briskly with her toward the house. Olympia inhales sharply. For she can see that in order to get to the house, he will have to pass by the place where she is standing at the perimeter of the rescue effort.

  Her hair blows all about her face, and she has to hold it back to see him. He carries the child close to him, but flat, level with the ground, his arms cradling her underneath. He does not pause, he cannot stop now, but he nevertheless looks directly at Olympia as he passes her. It is only a moment, because he is moving fast. Perhaps she speaks his name, not John but rather Haskell, which is how she has come to think of him. And in an instant, he is gone.

  She stands as if she had been hollowed out.

  She hears her father calling to her. She waves to him. She wants to help; of course she does. She tries to run, but there is something wrong with her legs, as if her body were momentarily paralyzed. Her father beckons her impatiently on, and she can see his need is urgent. The sand is a drag against her feet, and her movements are sluggish, as they sometimes are in dreams. She tries to run, but she steps on her nightdress or her legs buckle, and she stumbles.

  When she looks up, she can see that her father is walking toward her and saying her name. She shakes her head; she does not want him to see her like this. He bends over and puts his hand on her shoulder. His touch is foreign and strange, for they do not ever embrace, but the unfamiliar touch brings her to her senses. She rubs her eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress.

  “Olympia?” he asks tentatively.

  Awkwardly, she stands. It is almost daybreak now, and she can see the sinking vessel and the drama unfolding there more clearly than before.

  “I am fine, Father,” she says. “I tripped on my nightdress.”

  She slips her arms into the sleeves of the cloak Catherine has brought her.

  “Tell me what you want me to do,” she says. “I want to help.”

  • • •

  In the early morning hours of June 23, 1899, seventy-four passengers and one ship’s officer from the Mary Dexter drown, while fifty-eight passengers and seven marine officers are brought across in the breeches buoy. Another man, a lifesaving officer from Ely, is lost in the rescue effort. The lifesaving boat itself, with nearly a dozen volunteers, pulls away from the unfortunate barque just before the vessel pitchpoles into the sea and splinters into wooden lathes against the rocks.

  Despite the gravity of the wreck, the citizens of Fortune’s Rocks cannot help but
be somewhat prideful about the success of the breeches buoy, which has not ever been tried before at the Ely station.

  • • •

  Because the house is an unusual one in that it was once a convent, there are still a great many cell-like rooms with beds and dressers on the second floor, several of which are occupied by help, but many of which are vacant. With the Haskells in residence, a kind of field hospital is established, and they become, her small family and their guests and servants, its officers: her father the retired general recommissioned for the event; John Haskell the medical officer with all the responsibilities and intimacies that such a position demands; Catherine Haskell the nursing sister in her simple gray dressing gown with the white apron she found in the kitchen; Josiah the veteran sergeant, excellent in a crisis, his organizational skills beyond compare; Philbrick the quartermaster, who takes upon himself the task of securing foodstuffs for the bursting household; Zachariah Cote a kind of AWOL soldier, who feigns sleep during the entire lifesaving effort and who seems to think his only contribution lies in sitting with Olympia’s distraught mother in her rooms; and Olympia the fledgling private initiated into the ranks of adulthood by default, there being few other able women present.

  Olympia does not get any more sleep that night, since she and the others are employed in numerous tasks. Because no one amongst the Norwegian immigrants speaks even the most rudimentary English, nor any of the Americans Norwegian, Olympia is called upon to decipher requests and pleas by facial expressions alone and is often reduced to hand gestures for replies. As a large number of the Norwegian menfolk have been lost to the sea, many of the women are deranged by grief. One such woman, with chestnut hair and light gray eyes, has with her five children under the age of eleven. Her face, when she enters the house, is wild, as if she were still in mortal terror for her life, and she is at first unable to care for her children, who are bathed and dressed by Olympia and Catherine. It is frustrating to Olympia not to be able to speak even the crudest expressions of sympathy to the Norwegian woman, although she hopes that her gestures and the tone of her voice are reassuring enough. Olympia notes that she, like most of the refugees who have come into the house, is in a physically deplorable state, even considering her ordeal; and this causes Olympia to wonder at the conditions aboard the immigrant vessel even before it foundered.