The Incredible Charlie Carewe

by Mary Astor

  Standing beside Charlie at the altar, Gregg watched Zoë’s approach, leaning on her handsome silver-haired father’s arm, looking like royally. His compassion for the beautiful girl was deep, but his onetime desire to protect people from Charlie had died down. It had been a losing game. He preferred to be the spectator. Last night he had made some jocular admonition to Charlie about being on time for the ceremony and Charlie had said, “Don’t be crazy, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s going to be a hell of a good show.”

  As Zoë joined him, and the others stepped into their positions, there was a hushed moment. The organ began a soft tone poem of Grieg’s, the minister cleared his throat discreetly. “Dearly beloved,” he began. Charlie looked down at Zoë with a slight smile, and she caught his look briefly, her eyes shining. “Funny,” thought Charlie, “her eyes are blue; dark blue. Not brown, like Mavis’s.” He wondered for a moment if Mavis had seen any newspapers. Not possibly of course. She could barely read, and the only paper that ever appeared in that God-forsaken place was just a local sheet. If she had gone back to Clarke Falls. He wondered what had become of her. The little brown bird. Mavis. His wife.

  It was the tiniest of portage stations, just inside the United States on the Canadian border. Hunters and their guides made the stop briefly, overnight. The falls reared up, ahead of the traveler, who would pause for the night, to rest, to get a good meal, to put in a few supplies and take off in the morning to where the river was again navigable, some ten miles upstream. There were a few weeks in early spring when the ice broke, and imprisoned logs began to groan and move and then spin over the falls like matchsticks. There were gangs to greet them, to shepherd them into order, and for a time there were voices shouting in strange dialects, the sound of a donkey engine, the rattle of chains, and the heavy sound of boots on the stone floor of the Inn. These were the thirsty men, the sundown drinkers of quarts of ale or tumblers of whisky, the men who cleaned out the larder and brought a flush to the face of the small plain girl who served them. She accepted ribald remarks in English and in French without comment, and the redness of her cheeks was caused as much from removing the hot meat pies from the oven in the kitchen as from the content of their remarks.

  “They’ll be gone in a day or two, sir,” she had apologized to the young gentleman, who had made loud complaints about the “service around here.” “Then I’ll be able to take care of you.”

  “Thanks, Mavis, I’m doing fine.” He relented a little. “Just save me a few of those beautiful fat strawberries, will you?”

  She bobbed a curtsy as she closed the heavy door. It stuck a little, she pulled harder, and winced when it slammed. She pushed at the white kerchief which held her hair. It was damp at the forehead, and wearily she leaned against the planked wall for a moment.

  It was new to her, the weariness. Usually she looked forward to the few hectic weeks of the spring run with some excitement. The preparation, the scrubbing and scouring, the anxiety of reporting to Grand-mère the state of supplies from the border station; Louis’s bad temper in the kitchen, whose cooking was hearty and unimaginative, but whose touchiness equaled that of a French chef; it made the slow blood of the winter months move again, and tumble it through the body like the logs speeding down the river.

  The young gentleman had arrived about a week ago, with some hunting companions. They had gone on without him, because he had an ankle that was swollen to twice the size of its mate. For a few days he had seemed to be in a very bad temper. He had complained about everything, the poor man, and Mavis had stood quietly at the door while he growled and grumbled at his misfortune. About the lack of consideration of Joe and Mitch at leaving him in this “God-forsaken place——” Amazed at her own bravery, she had pointed out to him, “It’s a fine time of year, here in Clarke Falls—it’s spring—that big tree there, outside your window, any day now is covered with blossoms and they smell just beautiful. There’s good fishing in the little streams—when your ankle gets better, it would be easy to get to them.” Then she had turned crimson at her effrontery, muttering, “I’m sorry, sir, excuse me, please,” and had backed hurriedly toward the door.

  But he wasn’t offended. He was smiling in the most friendly way. “You're nice, Mavis. It's me who should be excused. Come back and talk, when you're free. I’m lonesome, that’s all.”

  When the loggers had left, the post settled down, back into its unfeverish activities. The stillness of the forest moved in closer as if to watch. And the falls, free of the rifle-cracking, tumbling, jarring cargo of logs, was able to hear its own voice again, to pick up its lost place in the chorus of sound. To furnish the proper, steady background for the wind and the rain and the choirs of birds who had returned home.

  There had been no answer to Mavis’ knock. She went into the room and picked up a tray Mr. Charles had left on the table in front of the window. With a frown she wondered how he had managed the stairs. Through the branches of the big apple tree she could see him leaning on the cane that Grand-mère had loaned him. It was of no use to her, Mrs. Durand had said when Charlie protested. She only kept it in the corner in case her knee got bad; when it was cold mostly, she had said. He was at the edge of the kitchen garden, talking to Louis, who was working the black soil with his hoe.

  For a long moment Mavis watched, secure in not being seen, able to look at Mr. Charles without having to endure the flush of modesty that overcame her in his presence. Other men looked at her, the loggers with their leering, their jokes, their eyes that were like hands. This had no effect, they could be shut out simply by not looking at them, by being busy filling mugs and wiping tables. There was Emile presiding over his domain of merchandise down by the river’s dock, where she went to buy thread and spices and Epsom salts for the compresses for Grand-mère. But Emile was looking for sympathy, his eyes were always saying, “Be kind to me,” for the voice of his wife was always just beneath the screaming point, even when she only said, “Good day.” And there was Louis, her cousin, whose eyes were like the red calf’s in the barn.

  Mr. Charles looked back toward the window and Mavis ducked from sight, even though she was sure he couldn’t see her. She went about tidying the room, picking up things to be washed that he’d left in a trail. She took a little pride in his carelessness. It meant that he was highborn, he was used to people picking up after him. His underthings, his shirts had the unaccustomed feel of fineness, made of fabrics she had never seen. Even the “lumberjack” shirts were bright and gay but made of no material ever worn by a logger. She reached for the pillow to plump it up into shape, and suddenly buried her face into the center where his head had lain. The faint odor of his hair, of the dressing he combed it with, of tobacco, and the elusive, faint, unexplainable odor that was his alone, that if you were blind and deaf you could tell he was near. She inhaled it deeply, hungrily, acquainting herself with him, like a little forest animal breathing in the scent of a friend, reassured, coming closer.

  The enforced idleness would have made Charlie irritable with boredom if it had not been for his fascination with the Durand family, and especially the challenge of a new kind of human being, the unbelievable Mavis. She seemed to project an innocence that was its own protection. He knew that anything so crude as a “pass” would either go unnoticed or she would disappear, silently, swiftly, and his only sight of her would be at her duties, eyes down, expressionless, absorbed. There was other protection, the good-humored Grand-mère, Berthe Durand, with her black dress and her rattling keys, who made him uncomfortable, gave him the long-forgotten feeling of “itchiness.” She received his flattery with an amused glint in her black snapping eyes, said, “M’sieu is very kind,” and went back to the columns of figures in her books, leaving him with a sense of dismissal, a feeling that he had been waved out of mind by a duchess. The cousin, Louis, was simply a boor, sullen, ugly-tempered, whose hands and strength went to work automatically at a sharp word from Mme. Durand.

  Charlie’s attempts at conversation
with the young man were met with little response, in sentences that were almost cablese in their brevity. It made Charlie feel as though he should speak louder, and as simply, in order to establish some kind of communication.

  He had watched Louis hoeing in the vegetable patch, turning over the loam preparing it for seeds. His wrists were thick and dark with hair, his back moved with the ripple of deep muscles beneath the faded shirt and its oval of sweat.

  “What are you going to plant in there?” Charlie had asked, pleasantly.

  The man stopped, looked at Charlie as though he had just seen him, wiped the perspiration from his eyebrows, and shook it off with a flick of his thumb. “Beans. Green ones,” he answered, and leaned on the hoe, still looking at Charlie.

  Charlie laughed and said, “I’ll bet you’d rather plant beans than work in the kitchen.”

  “Work is work. We work hard, Mavis and me.”

  “You do, indeed,” replied Charlie. “Don’t let me disturb you,” and limped off, leaning heavily on the briarwood cane. He heard a whole essay on the situation in the words, “We work hard, Mavis and me.” It sounded the contempt for the city man who invaded their woods in search of fish and game, the intruder who was tolerated only because he paid for his intrusion. It said that he and the girl belonged there, together, and held the warning, “Stay out of our life, you’re not our kind.” As he moved away along the path he felt that the man was still looking after him, but the sound of the hoe biting into the ground had begun again.

  His walk carried him through the orchard, which was a small world of fragrance and sound. The bees staggered and blundered drunkenly among the odor-drenched branches, and the throat of a thrush bubbled with ecstasy just above his head. The ground slid away at the edge of the orchard, down a grassy slope to a noisy stream. Charlie slipped a little on the dried winter weeds, flattened by the high waters of the past winter. He was perspiring from the effort of sparing his tender ankle, and he sank down and pulled off his sweater vest. Glinting among the rocks in the water were swift, undulating forms and he wished he had brought a rod. He lay back, pillowing his head with the sweater, squinting his eyes from the warm sun. New York seemed far away, all the fuss and turmoil of a stupid lawsuit, in which he and his company had been accused of fraud. They hadn’t been able to prove it, of course, because old Charlie boy was just a little faster on his feet than the other side. The details began to come back to him, and impatiently he brushed his arm over his head as if brushing away a fly. Soon the muttering of the stream and the drone of the bees from the orchard, the warmth of the high-noon sun relaxed his body and his mind let go and gave up to sleep.

  He was roused more by the sense of Mavis’ presence than by any sound she had made. She was placing a napkin-covered basket beside him.

  “Louis said you’d come this way. I thought you’d like to take your lunch here. It’s so good for you not to be in your room.”

  Charlie sat up, pleased. “Well, now, you needn’t have bothered.”

  “Oh, it’s no bother, sir,” replied the girl. There were thick hunks of cheese between dark slices of bread, some pieces of fried chicken, a bottle of wine, and a large cold pear, which she lifted from the basket and arranged on the napkin.

  “This is wonderful. I’ll never eat it all.” He watched the girl as she knelt beside him, absorbed in arranging the food. She carefully poured the wine into a heavy glass and held it to the light. The sun caught at its depths and a dancing ruby was reflected at the corner of her mouth for an instant, and then it slipped beneath her chin and came to rest on the little pulse throbbing at the base of her throat. Charlie watched, astonished. She seemed so cool, so impersonal, and yet there was a wild tempo dancing beneath the stain of light.

  “There’s a bit of the cork in it. I’ll get it out——” She pulled a blade of grass and fished out the offending fragment. Charlie kept quite still, waiting for her eyes.

  “There now. Eat it all up!” She smiled, pointed at the food, and looked at him. The smile vanished as their look held.

  “Mavis,” Charlie whispered. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and, dropping her head, she started to rise.

  “Oh, don’t go, please, Mavis. Sit with me while I eat. Talk to me, can’t you?”

  Almost obediently, slowly, she sank back on her knees. “I haven’t nothing to talk about, sir.”

  Charlie busied himself with the lunch, taking his attention away from her, for fear she’d disappear like a squirrel.

  “Sure you have. Talk about yourself. Do you ever get away from this place? Go to the movies? Isn’t there a town south of here?”

  “Only Grand-mère and Louis go—once a year, maybe. Grand-mère says the town is noisy and the people very rude.”

  “Well, what do you do in this God-forsaken place? Do you read a lot?”

  She was quiet for a moment. A little frown appeared between her eyebrows. She seemed to be trying to find the words. “I think—God has not forsaken us. I feel He is very much—present. No, I have no time to read.”

  “But the radio.” Charlie persisted in trying to find out the degree of her awareness of something other than Clarke Falls and Grand-mère and the clod Louis, and the few close-mouthed dull people he had seen around the dock.

  “The radio is full of other noises. Louis say it’s ‘static.’ We are too far from the station.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mavis!” Charlie laughed. “I don’t mean to quiz you. I just think you’re sweet and lovely and I’d like to know you better. You don’t need things like radios and people and movies. But it seems a shame that others can’t see you.” What a sensation she would be walking into the Stork Club with him, dressed in a simple dress from Bergdorf’s, and that rich skin with no make-up, and her hair pulled back. She had the kind of dignity that other girls tried for, and simply ended up by looking like a caricature of Garbo. She wouldn’t have to talk. He’d teach her enough so that she’d be comfortable, and—— He caught his dream in mid-air.

  She was watching the stream, alertly, intently. “There’s a big old one in there. Nobody’s been able to catch ’im.” She seemed to blend with the surroundings. The drab yellow of her cotton dress, with her small brown hands clasped in its folds. Her hair the color of shining wood, the coffee-and-cream skin tinged with the flush of ripe fruit on her cheeks and lips.

  No human being should be left to rot in such a place, at least no attractive human being, and he felt a glow of chivalry that was quite pleasant. He would be the one to save her from all this. To save her delicate person from the gross touch of some Canuck lumberjack, and possibly even—he shuddered—her cousin Louis. With this thought he felt a burning jealousy, wondering if he had been taken in by her dovelike innocence, if perhaps now and then she and that ape did some fumbling in the hayloft. It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt it out, to deliberately shock her into some admission, but he stopped in time with the realization that there were subtler methods of finding out without jeopardizing his own plans. If she were simply a quiet type, he could have a little fun and go on back when Mitch and Joe returned. If not—well, that took some planning. In the meantime it was pleasant to foster his chivalrous emotions, to feel the protector, the champion of innocence.

  Still, for some reason he went ahead, nearly defeating his own purpose. He smiled pleasantly enough, but his wink was vulgarly playful. “You got any boy friends, Mavis?” he asked.

  “No, sir, no one.” It was so completely simple. A statement of a fact, and as believable as if she had said, “I have never been to China.”

  Charlie was not the least ashamed of his question, but he said, “I’m so ashamed, Mavis. I shouldn’t have asked you such a personal question.”

  Mavis clasped her hands tighter in her lap, not knowing what to say next. With all her heart, she wanted to run and hide in her own room. She had no right to feel this way about a man such as Mr. Charles. Her love was a sickness, a weakness, and she felt sure that he knew it and, knowing, must feel
that she behaved so forwardly with all men. How tell him that the men she knew, the few villagers, the hunters, the transient loggers, the very thought of contact of any kind was abhorrent? That she welcomed the steely eye of Grand-mère when someone reached to pinch her cheek or tried to detain her at one of the tables. She felt the tears burn behind her eyelids again at Charlie’s apology and then forgave him because he had apologized—like the gentleman he was. Now she had no need to say anything because he was telling her about New York, where he lived.

  “How you would love it—the most beautiful clothes in the world, and everything shines—the automobiles, the windows in the sunshine. Why, just think of the tallest tree around here, and think what it would be like to be taken to the top of it and look down on the world. And theaters, Mavis—you can go to a show every night, and eat food the like of which you’ve never tasted.” She watched him talk, munching at the pear, watched the interplay of his jaw muscles, the beautiful bony hands that had no ugly fleshiness about them. She had heard about New York from Grand-mère, who said it was incredibly vulgar compared to Paris. But cities, all cities, held little attraction for her. She had felt secure, at peace with her own world, content to work, to care for the young things around the small farm; there was always the miracle of baby chicks or puppies or kittens to stir her tenderness, to need her. But now, and her heart ached in admitting it, it was all nothing, commonplace and meaningless. If somehow she could be with Mr. Charles in a kind of eternity, a never-ending period of servitude, simply to be with him, to listen to him, to care for him——