by Anita Shreve
She notices then a gathering of people at the southern end of the porch. A late-season party, she deduces, and thinks: How fashionable the women look in their bishop’s sleeves. And then as she casually scans the guests, her eyes fall upon a familiar figure. She stiffens as she recognizes a certain self-conscious tilt of the head, a distinctive profile, a flash of white teeth. He has on a yellow-and-black checkered waistcoat, and he sports a new monocle. He has grown his whiskers in the muttonchops mode, a style Olympia has never found attractive. While she watches, Zachariah Cote throws his head back and laughs, and Olympia, even at a distance, can see that the gesture is exaggerated for his audience. She has heard that Cote is successful now, that his verse has become popular; he publishes in ladies’ magazines and is admired by married women in particular. Olympia has several times seen his poems in print, and she has remained steadfast in her opinion that they are dreadful: dripping with sentiment and overlaced with a penchant for the morbid. And she is seized with a sudden bitterness that it should be Cote, of all of them, who has fared so well. That it is Cote — and not her father or her mother or John Haskell or Catherine Haskell or even she (no, especially not she) — who is welcome upon that porch on a late summer day in 1903.
And yet, was not Cote, of all of them, the only one who acted with true malice? Did not Cote actually invite Catherine Haskell to inspect the view in the telescope, knowing what she would find there? And were not Olympia’s parents and Catherine Haskell utterly blameless but for an innocent, if intimate, association with scandal? Though Olympia would not absolve herself of any of the guilt associated with the catastrophe, her anger grows as she stands in the sand. What an ass, Catherine once said of the man. Olympia thought the observation fitting then, and does now. She wonders if Catherine Haskell herself ever had occasion to come inadvertently upon the poet’s verse, and if she did, how she managed the experience.
And it is as she is having this thought that Cote, still dissembling for his audience, turns slightly and spots Olympia on the sand — in her yellow gingham, her feet bare, her hair in knots along her back. She resists the impulse to walk away and instead returns his gaze as steadily as he bestows it. She can see the man’s surprise, his momentary bewilderment, the quick questions as his mouth relaxes from its smile.
The woman beside Cote speaks, and he briefly acknowledges her; but he does not remove his eyes from Olympia. The woman glances in her direction, doubtless wondering who it is that has captured Zachariah Cote’s attention so thoroughly. But if the woman recognizes Olympia, she gives no sign.
Olympia holds her ground as Cote extricates himself from the cluster of admirers and makes his way down the porch steps toward her.
What extraordinary nerve, she thinks as she watches him walk closer.
He stops when he is three feet away. For a moment, neither of them speaks.
“Miss Biddeford,” he says finally. He stares at her a long time, as if assessing how this encounter might unfold. A small smile begins at one corner of his mouth, the smile of a chess player who has possibly seen his way to a checkmate. “What a delightful surprise,” he says.
“I should think there is nothing delightful about it,” Olympia responds evenly.
“Of course, I knew you were in residence,” Cote says, ignoring her rude reply. “It is hardly a secret.”
She is silent.
“But are you truly living alone?” he asks. “Astonishing to think of it.” His posture is eerily familiar to her: One arm is folded across his chest, his chin resting on the knuckles of his other hand.
“How I am living, I believe, is none of your business, Mr. Cote.”
He puts his hands to his heart. “Oh, I am wounded,” he says, mocking her.
She continues, “But I am glad for this opportunity to tell you that I consider you to be the most despicable of all men.”
She watches as he takes in her bare feet, her disheveled hair, the unfashionable yellow gingham.
“This is rather rich coming from you, do you not think? But then I must make allowances for your impertinence, as you are certainly the most unfortunate of all women.”
“No,” she says. “I think the most unfortunate of all women is the woman who will one day be your wife. Or have you been refused already?”
“My, my, but you have changed, Olympia Biddeford. You used to be so sweet. And so accomplished. I did not know you for such a sharp tongue.”
“I would, on this occasion, wish my tongue as sharp as a razor,” she says.
“You little witch.” Cote’s lips are suddenly bloodless. “How dare you address me in this manner? You who have committed the foulest of sins? You who have displayed your wanton nature for all to see? Did you think I was blind to you and John Haskell? I knew from the moment I saw you by the side of the road in his embrace what you two were plotting. And I held my tongue. I held my tongue for weeks, Miss Biddeford. But you, you who were so much grander than I, could barely bring yourself to speak to me. Did you think that I would not notice your condescension? And did you think I would then stand idly by forever and watch you and Haskell carry on, with no thought of consequences? Did you think I could just let you ruin not only Catherine Haskell’s life but also those of your mother and father — whom I must say I can no longer admire? My God, Olympia Biddeford, you used to come to this hotel to fornicate with that man!”
He sputters this last and actually points at the hotel, causing several of the women on the porch to turn to see what the commotion is about. Olympia glances down at her hands and notices, for the first time, how red they are, how raw their knuckles.
She looks up at Cote. She knows, as indeed she has known all along, that he will shortly return to the porch and will tell all of the assembled guests of this encounter; and she imagines, briefly, exactly how he will narrate the story of the scandal and her family’s disgrace. She can almost feel the exquisite pleasure he will take in retelling this familiar tale.
“What I did,” Olympia says to Cote, “I did for love. What you did, you did with the heart of a snake.”
She turns then and walks away, slowly and with a steady gait, striving for as much dignity as a woman in bare feet and gingham can manage. Her temples are pounding, and she can barely breathe; she forces herself to move forward without looking back. When she is certain she is beyond his ken, the trembling in her body begins in earnest, so much so that she has to walk into the sea, even with its seaweed and the threat of jellyfish, so that the shock of the icy water upon her feet and shins and knees might bring her to her senses. But when she is in the water, she finds she cannot move, either one way or the other; and thus she remains in that position, the only bather on the beach, the focus of many curious stares, until her feet become so numb that she can no longer feel them beneath her skirts.
When she returns to the place where she has left her shoes and stockings and hat, the boy, Edward, is waiting for her. He jumps up when he sees her approaching.
“I was worried for you, miss. You have been such a long time in coming back.”
She reaches out to touch the top of his hair, which is thick with curls and silky.
* * *
1 September 1903
Dear Miss Biddeford,
Forgive my tardy reply to your request, but it took me some time to discover the answers to your queries, and more time to ponder the wisdom of passing this information on to you. Mother Marguerite, as you know from experience, is quite a formidable gate-keeper, and even as a member of the Board, I found it took nearly all of my powers of persuasion to convince her to allow me, so to speak, in the door.
Now, Olympia, heed what I have to say here. I have written the facts you have requested on a separate piece of paper and have sealed it within the enclosed envelope. But I am going to urge you to have the courage to destroy the envelope before opening it. What is written here has the potential to cause both you and very many other persons considerable anguish.
If you have further need of me i
n this or in any other matter, please feel free to call upon me at any time.
I remain faithfully yours,
R. Philbrick
She lays the enclosed envelope on the table and studies it for some time, partially out of respect for Rufus Philbrick and his warning, and partially out of fear of what she might find. But within minutes, she knows that she has neither courage nor sound judgment in this matter and that her desire to discover her son’s last name and his circumstances outweighs all other considerations. With hungry eyes, she rips open the second envelope.
The boy is called Pierre Francis Haskell. He was baptized 20 May 1900 at Saint Andre’s Church. He was given into the care of Albertine and Telesphore Bolduc, both employees of the Ely Falls Mill, who reside at 137 Alfred Street in Ely Falls. He is healthy and has been so since birth.
Olympia shuts her eyes and brings the crumpled piece of paper to her breast. She has a son, she thinks calmly, and he is healthy. She has a son, and his name is Haskell.
LIGHT-HEADED FROM the press of bodies, Olympia emerges from the trolley at the corner of Alfred and Washington Streets. The sky, too brilliant, casts a dull white light upon the streets, turning elms to nickel and women’s faces to porcelain. It is among the worst of days the New Hampshire seacoast has to offer: the hot, close air unrelieved by even a breath of east wind. Perhaps there will be a storm.
With Philbrick’s letter in her hand, she moves along the sidewalk, checking the wrought-iron numerals beside the doors. Alfred Street, she discovers, is both commercial and residential, the ground level taken over by shops, the upper stories of the buildings left for housing. Today, nearly all of the windows of those upper stories are open, with people leaning on sills, fanning themselves, hoping for an errant breeze. Olympia finds the numbers 135 and 139 and deduces that 137 must belong to the narrow building without a number sandwiched in between, an ochre brick edifice next to a dental office. She checks her piece of paper, not quite daring to believe she has found the correct address. Wishing to remain as anonymous as possible, however, she quickly puts the paper in her purse and casts about for a suitable place to linger.
Two possibilities appear to her: a bench under an elm about twenty yards north of the house, and a bakery behind her that is advertising in its window tea cakes and jelly rolls. Deciding that the bakery might be stifling in the heat, Olympia makes her way instead to the bench.
Alfred Street is crowded with men and women trying to stand in the shade of the shop awnings, the men in collarless shirts, their braces hanging from their waists, and women in open-necked blouses with sleeves rolled. A vendor selling ice cream and tonic has attracted a considerable following of children, some of them barely dressed, who hover around the vendor, doubtless looking for a stray ice chip to suck on. Olympia, thirsty from her journey, is momentarily tempted to buy herself a cold drink, but the prospect of calling publicly to the vendor and thus drawing attention to herself seems unwise.
She wishes she had not worn her hat and that she had worn her white lawn, which is much the coolest dress she owns. As it is, she is awash in perspiration against the back of her thighs and inside her boots. She studies the signs in the windows across the street. TEETH. ARTIFICIAL SETS. $8.00, she reads. SILVER FILLINGS. 50 CENTS. Near the dentist’s office is a drugstore promoting, in a hasty scrawl on a cardboard sign, COLD SARSAPARILLA. All of the doors to the shops along the street have been thrown open, and Olympia can see many shop owners, identifiable by their white aprons, standing in the doorways, some smoking, some wiping sweat-stained necks with handkerchiefs.
Despite the extraordinary heat and the distractions of the street, however, Olympia keeps her eyes trained upon the small blue doorway that is poised over three stone steps nestled between the buildings of the druggist and the dentist. And as she does so, she becomes aware that a man in a suit of buff-and-brown check has taken a seat beside her. In the stagnant air, the smell of an unwashed body mixed with the cloying scent of cheap cologne, and this in turn overlaid with the smell of cigar smoke, nearly makes her gag. She moves an inch or two away. To Olympia’s dismay, the man leans even closer to her and asks her when the next trolley is. Without fully turning in his direction, she says that she is sorry, but she does not know.
“I, for one, am off to the beach,” he announces. “I cannot tolerate the heat of this foul city a minute longer.”
Olympia remains silent, unwilling to encourage the man in conversation.
“Let me make a proper introduction,” the man says. “Lyman Fogg, traveling purveyor of Boston Drug, ‘administered by the wife in coffee for the treatment of alcoholic excess in husbands.’ Our slogan, by the way.”
He extends his hand, and Olympia, who has just removed her gloves because of the heat, is forced to put her own in his. The man is absurdly overdressed in a woolen suit and top hat, which he wears at a rakish tilt and from which an oily black curl has fallen onto his forehead. With his free hand, he stabs his cigar into his mouth and takes a quick puff, the exhalation hanging as though suspended in the air in front of them. His coloring is remarkably florid, and Olympia observes that in addition to the nearly intolerable smell, the man is giving off heat as well.
“Powerful hot, is it not?” he asks. He takes off his hat, revealing a brim that is black with sweat. Olympia turns away from him to watch the doorway.
“You waiting on the trolley yourself?”
“No,” she says politely. “I am just resting.”
“Well, aren’t I the one in luck then?” the man says jovially. “Because I was just saying to myself, ‘Lyman, that is a fine-looking bench with a fine-looking woman sitting upon it, so why don’t you just make yourself an introduction?’”
Even with her head turned slightly away, Olympia can smell alcohol on the man’s breath. He settles himself back against the bench and in doing so contrives to inch even closer to Olympia.
She removes a perfumed handkerchief from her purse and puts it to her nose, hoping he will take the hint. But the man seems impervious to her distress.
“Now I would say,” he begins speculatively, and she can sense the man’s eyes upon her, “that you are not from these parts, which causes me to wonder and even to be so bold as to inquire what a fine young woman such as yourself is doing sitting on a bench on Alfred Street, which, though not without its charms, is not a fit location for a lady?”
From the corner of her eye, Olympia can see the blue door between the dentist’s office and the drugstore open. A woman in a mauve cotton dress leans against the door, apparently holding it open for someone else. She has her hand extended into the building.
“No,” the man beside her continues, “I can safely assume that you are from over to Fortune’s Rocks, where all those fancy cottages are. Am I correct in this assumption?”
Olympia watches the woman in the doorway bend slightly to speak to someone in the interior of the building.
“Miss?”
“What?” Olympia asks distractedly. “Oh. Yes. I am.”
“Well now,” the man beside her says, chuffed to have made such a good guess. “And may I ask your name?” he adds, perhaps emboldened by his success.
The woman in the doorway touches her dark hair, which is arranged in a pompadour with fringe at the front. She smooths her hand over the bodice of her dress, three tucks extending from the yoke to the waist. She might be thirty, Olympia guesses. Over the skirt of her dress, the woman has on a black apron. She steps back into the building, letting the door swing almost shut. She emerges with a boy.
“Or perhaps I am being overforward,” the man beside Olympia is saying.
The mother and the boy, hand in hand, stand at the top of the cement steps, as though assessing the scene before them. Olympia can see clearly the child’s features.
Walnut hair. Hazel eyes. The resemblance is unmistakable.
Olympia presses her knuckles to her mouth.
The man beside her looks over sharply. “Are you ill, miss?” he asks.
The want is instinctive and overwhelming. Later, she will recognize this strange sensation within her as a double want: for the boy as well as for the father before him.
She watches the woman and child descend the stone steps. The boy has on faded blue short pants with a matching jacket. He turns and begins to walk with his mother away from Olympia. She can see only the back of the child now, the neatly cut hair, the scuffed brown leather shoes, the short plump legs. Olympia stands.
“Oh now, miss,” the man beside her says, standing as well. “There is no need for this. I hope I have not offended you. Perhaps I am being too forward? If so, please forgive a weary salesman in this heat.”
Olympia is losing sight of the woman and the boy in the crowd on the sidewalk. Panicky, she takes a step forward.
“May I start again by suggesting that we dip into that drugstore over there, where I am bound to tell you I am rather well known, and have ourselves two of those cold sarsaparillas they are advertising in the window, which, I may assure you, will be given to us free of charge?”
Olympia shakes her head distractedly. “Leave me,” she says impatiently, although it is she who walks away.
• • •
She crosses the street and moves briskly, searching for a mauve dress in the crowd. She is jostled rudely, and perhaps she jostles rudely in return. She picks up her pace, nearly running now, until she sees, at the next corner, the figures of a woman and a boy entering a shop. The sign over the door reads CONFECTIONERY .