“Mamma,” said Marianne, “sometimes you’re awfully funny. Of course I know him—in a way.”
“Don’t tell me, Marianne, that you’re my daughter and telling me the truth? Grafton, do be quiet. So you know him, do you, dear?”
“Of course!” Again that little laugh of hers rang out as sharp as an arrow. And as sweet as evening bells. “He gave me a lesson yesterday afternoon. How else could I know him? Isn’t he the professional’s boy?”
Yes, just like that she said it, looking straight at Tommy Michael and Tommy stood there looking back. She had denied him, without a quiver.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Jellett. “Perhaps Mr. Ross had better give you lessons after this. Come, Grafton, it’s very late.”
“Just a minute,” said Mr. Jellett.
Dumbly, stupidly, Tommy stared. That laugh of Marianne’s had cut him like a whip. Mr. Jellett had moved closer and was speaking gently.
“Young man,” said Mr. Jellett, “do you realize you’re being devilish rude?”
“Rude?” Something in Mr. Jellett’s tone made Tommy start, as lots of others had started. “I—I didn’t mean to be rude, sir.”
It was sheer surprise that made Tommy answer so, even in the anger that suddenly surged through him.
“Didn’t mean to be, eh?” said Mr. Jellett. “Well, I didn’t think you did. If you didn’t mean to be, take this bill or I’ll report you for incivility and see how you like that.”
That was what Grafton Jellett said, and it was like him to say it. Tommy Michael knew what happened to employes who were uncivil just as well as Grafton Jellett knew. Tommy could still remember what had happened when he had walked from store to store in Michael’s Harbor alone in his dusty boots, though Grafton Jellett had forgotten long ago. Tommy Michael’s lips were straight, exactly like his mother’s.
“I—I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
“Sorry, eh?” said Grafton Jellett. “Well, that’s all right Here!”
“Thank you, sir,” said Tommy.
And that was the second time that he met Grafton Jellett face to face.
Oh, Tommy was drinking bitter beer, and beer is never bitterer than when you are eighteen. His body was numb and cold and when he tried to think he could not, because a cloud of anger would whir like a tempest through him. All that he might have said came singing to his ears until he could almost hear himself reply, “Keep your damned old money!”
And Marianne had looked at him and laughed. Yet he walked down the path to the professional’s house as though not a thing had happened.
“Hey, Tom!” Mal Street trudged behind him with the clubs. “Did he loosen up? Did he give you anything?”
Without answering Tommy groped for the knob of the door, and then he and Mal were alone inside, with the workbench and the bags of clubs.
“I said,” Mal had a way of sticking to the point, “did he give you anything?”
“Take it,” Tommy spoke like some one in his sleep. “Take it. You can have it, Mal.”
There was no use telling Mal, of course, because Mal would never have understood. In fact, even to that point Mal did not understand.
“Hey?” cried Mal. “Have you got bats in the belfry? It’s five dollars, Tom!”
Tommy stood looking out of the window. Though he wanted to turn on Mal with a shout, Tommy didn’t move. Some part of himself that he did not know had taken full control.
“I wish you’d go away,” said Tommy. “I kind of want to think.”
Mal slammed the golf bag he was carrying to the floor and scowled.
“Aw, what the blazes!” he said. “You always want to think. What good does thinking do you? Switch me if I see.”
Those were strange thoughts, lonely thoughts, that Tommy was thinking then, such as Mal would never see. They were in the trees outside, and in the sunlight. There was a new strength in Tommy’s hands. How could he tell Mal Street that he was thinking about things that did not grow old because they were ideas? There was no good telling Mal, for he was some one whom Tommy had passed miles back in a race, as Mal himself sometimes seemed to know.
“Hey, Tom!” Mal scowled and scratched his head. “We’re pals, ain’t we, you and me?”
Of course they were, and had been for a long time, and Tommy told him so. Nevertheless, Mal still scowled and scratched his head again. Long ago he had given up understanding Tommy Michael and his silences, as lots of others had, and accepted them instead as you accept the mysteries of the tide and wind.
“Tom,” Mal coughed and kicked at something on the floor. “You’re not thinking about Mary, are you? Mary thinks a lot of you and … I’d kick anybody else she thought a lot of. I’d kick ’em straight to hell!”
Poor Mal Street! Even in the embarrassment that surged over him, Tommy could feel the hopeful friendliness. It almost seemed, though Mal stood still staring at the floor, that Mal was stretching out his hand to him where he stood entirely alone, too far away to touch.
“No,” said Tommy, and he dug his nails deep into his palms. “No, it isn’t Mary, Mal—and please don’t be mad. I wish you’d get away before—before—Mal I wish you’d let me have your boat to-night. I want to take—a sail.”
And then Tommy was alone in a place of hopeless grief, where all of us have been, to the borderland at least, when anger and humiliation fly in stormy clouds, and pain, not of the body, flashes in forks of light. That was where Mr. Simeon Danforth found him, his face on the workbench, his hands opening and shutting on nothing but the air.
“Here,” said Mr. Danforth. “I saw it. Don’t mind me.”
Tommy had never been as bitterly ashamed as when he heard Mr. Danforth speak, because it was more than he could bear to have Mr. Danforth see him in his weakness, with his face all wet with tears. He forgot that Mr. Danforth had been kind to him. He was always ashamed of that. But what shamed him most was that he could not speak because of the sobs which shook him.
“Don’t say it,” said Mr. Danforth. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, boy. The best of us get taken that way now and then. We’ll just pretend that no one saw you. Are you feeling better now?”
Tommy Michael nodded and bit his lip.
“I wish,” he said, and it was terrible to hear himself speak, “I wish I was dead rather than anybody saw me.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Danforth. “I know what happened. It really wasn’t Jellett’s fault. Here—shake hands.”
Mr. Danforth was not joking. His hand was as steady as a rock.
“Now,” said Mr. Danforth, “what are you going to do?”
Already Tommy had been asking himself that question. What was he going to do?
“You’ve got to do something, boy,” said Mr. Danforth. “You see, you’re not the kind to stay here always.”
Tommy Michael was standing at the crossing of the ways. He drew a sharp breath.
“Yes, I see,” he said, “but I don’t want any help. I’ve been alone. I guess I’ve always been alone.”
Mr. Danforth’s face did not change a single wrinkle, but Tommy knew that Mr. Danforth was watching him in a different way, and often afterwards Tommy wondered what he thought, and whether he saw the road ahead as an older man sometimes can. Sometimes Tommy thought that Mr. Danforth was the only one in all of Michael’s Harbor who really knew him, or guessed that he walked with shadowy thoughts trooping close behind.
“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Danforth. “I never helped anybody in my life, and I’m too old to start if I wanted. Don’t be afraid of that. But it won’t hurt to see there’s some decent people up on Warning Hill—before you get as hard as nails.”
They must have made a strange sight enough in the professional’s house, old Simeon Danforth, heavy and indolent, with his hands deep in his pockets and eyes very dark and still, and Tommy with the sharp straight Michael nose and with his mother’s lips. Sometime much later, Tommy would feel a sharp uneasiness. How much did Simeon Danforth know? He had a marvellous capacity for
watching while those around him struggled in the muddy water. He might—Tommy would not have put it beyond him—he might have known about Marianne that very afternoon.
“Yes,” said Mr. Danforth, “hard as nails, and not afraid to hitch your wagon to a tissue-paper star.”
XVI
Deep in his heart Tommy always knew that Marianne was as right as could be, for Marianne could not be wrong. There was no reason why Marianne, lovely as the night, should have understood that he was sensitive beyond the ordinary. It must have been splendid enough for her to have felt that storm of anguish was all for her, to rise in fury at her touch, and to be quiet at her word. It was all for Marianne, and already she must have had the premonition of a hundred starlit nights and of a score of arms around her and of scores of other voices made faltering by the misty whiteness of her upturned face and the invitation of her lips.
There was a brightness to it, then, though later it might have been to laugh, to weep, for all bright deeds are close to tears and laughter. There was a brightness to it which she would always remember, ridiculous though it was, and a mystery and a danger also, which made it very sweet. From out of the dark a boy was coming ever so different from other boys, and Marianne was there at the beach to meet him, when she should have been safe in her bed. No one heard her creep down the servants’ stairs nor saw her slip down the garden path with a wrap around her shoulders, that was very soft and dark.
The poplar trees were so tall by then that no one from the house could have seen the beach where she and Tommy used to play, even if it had been day. It was shut off from Warning Hill by a whispering curtain of leaves darker than the sky, with the water before it rippling in the starlight to a tune as old and lonely as the earth. Tommy Michael saw her by the porch of the old gunning shanty when he beached his boat, so indistinct that she did not seem much different from a bit of mist. When he was beside her, she was still like some unsubstantial figure one might conjure from the dark-white cheeks, white throat and faintly shining eyes.
That faint sight of her was enough to make him pause in a sort of bewilderment, forgetting almost what he had to say, in spite of all his planning. He was like the King of France who marched his men up the hill only to march them down; he could only stand bewildered when Marianne touched his hand.
“Sit here,” she whispered. “I knew you’d come.”
That was the trouble. Marianne always knew. Tommy could always remember how his heart beat fast and in his throat, and how his blood leaped when she touched him.
“Marianne,” only the agony within him made him speak, “why didn’t you say you knew me? Why didn’t you say so, Marianne?”
“Oh, hush!” whispered Marianne. “Oh, Tommy, don’t be such a goose!”
“But why didn’t you say so?” Tommy seized her wrist and suddenly his awe of her was gone. “You’re ashamed of me, that’s why.”
“Don’t!” whispered Marianne. “Tommy—you hurt! Tommy—really I’m not like that! Tommy, listen … don’t you see, Mamma would send me away from here if she even thought—”
“Thought what?” Tommy’s voice was like the clang of metal, and Marianne gave a little start.
“Thought we knew each other … thought we saw each other.… You don’t know Mamma. She always thinks I’m perfectly dreadful because she does dreadful things herself, I suppose—I don’t care—but don’t you see?”
And Tommy Michael saw, as clearly as he saw later what part was played by the stubbornness of his blood.
“Yes,” said Tommy slowly, “yes, I see. You’re ashamed of me. That’s it.”
“No!” whispered Marianne. “You know I’m not. I never was. I wouldn’t be here now. Don’t you see I—oh, Tommy—I—I love you, Tommy,” whispered Marianne.
Call them what you like, those golden moments when the whole world pays a graceful homage. Call it the sly trick of life that plays the dancing music. Call it calf love or puppy love, or anything at all; there is an instant that keeps its luster no matter what may follow.
Beautiful, unattainable though she was, suddenly his arms were around her and she was no longer like the mist. All at once he was holding Marianne as fiercely as if some one else would snatch her from him. And for Marianne too, that moment must have been ineffaceable and bright, and she too must have understood the sad impermanence that made it sweet.
“Tommy,” she whispered. “Please don’t let me go. No—never-never-never!”
Her words were only a whisper, as soft as the faintest rustle of the breeze, but sometimes Tommy could believe that she had cried them out, for they stayed in memory like a cry; and, though his answer was only a whisper too, it always seemed to him as if he must have shouted it until it echoed across the harbor so every one could hear.
“I’ll show you. You wait and see. I’ll walk in your front door some day, and no one’ll be ashamed!”
XVII
There was a firmness to Tommy Michael that was not plodding. He had a sort of high-strung steadiness already, forged from lean, hard years. It was just as well, for he needed it that night.
He never understood why he knew that something was not right; it came in that strange, sharpening of the sense such as all of us have known. It came to Tommy as a voice might come, when he was sailing back toward the lights of Welcome River. All at once he stared about him as if he was just awake. There was nothing, no sound save the lapping of the water on the bow of that yellow skiff. There was only that lightness of the water such as lingers even on the darkest night. Yet it seemed to Tommy that some one had called him.
“Tom!” Just as clearly as though some one had spoken he had heard that soundless voice. “Tom!”
And then the night was so dark that he could seem to touch the black. He seemed to be a small boy again, afraid to cross the hall because there was something in the dark. Some one was on the shore of Welcome River, in the Street’s backyard.
Already Michael’s Harbor had electric lights. There was one in that narrow lane in front of Jim Street’s house which filled the yard with a dull illumination, made erratic by the darting shadows, where an elm branch waved across it. But there was light enough to see that Mary Street was standing on the shore. Though Mary had put up her hair that spring, little strands of it still broke and blew across her face. Her eyes had a distant look. It had seemed to Tommy that her eyes had often been like that of late, as Mary had looked at him always across the room at school or across the kitchen table, on those mornings when the men came in from gunning. Mary looked at him without a word and Tommy understood what Sherwood saw. It must have been her mother’s blood. He remembered what they once had said—that she flew in the face of things. Mary would also fly, heedless of what might happen, if once she chose to go. You had a wish to hold her, or follow until she came to rest. That was what Sherwood must have meant.
“I know where you’ve been,” said Mary. “Yes, I know.”
But Tommy scarcely heard her. It was not the voice of Mary which had called him in the dark. He saw Mary put her hand to her throat, exactly as though something hurt her.
“And you needn’t act so big about it!” Mary took a step towards him. “I can do it myself if I want to, Tommy. You’re not the only one they look at. I—oh, I wish we both were dead!”
“You wish we both were dead!” echoed Tommy. It was utterly beyond him for Mary had been so quiet always.
“I do,” said Mary. “I wish we both were dead!”
“But why?” And it was utterly beyond Tommy Michael. Mary pushed the hair savagely from her eyes. “Why are you angry at me? I’ve never done a thing to make you angry, Mary.”
Then she gave the queerest laugh, unlike any laugh that Tommy had ever heard.
“Ever done anything?—No, you never would—not you!”
Tommy was glad when the back door opened. The sight of Mal walking down the steps filled him with curious relief.
“Hey!” said Mal, rubbing his eyes. “What’s all the noise about?”
“No noise!” Mary whirled about to face him. “Tom’s just back—from seeing the Jellett girl.”
“Huh!” said Mal. “From seeing the Jellett girl?” Mal Street scratched the back of his head as a new thought dawned on him. “So we ain’t good enough for you, hey? After you coming around here—and everything. What have those dudes ever done for you? Say, Tom, ain’t you and me pals?”
That was all Mal ever said about it. Yet Tommy could always recall Mal’s look and it always hurt him, the surprise in it and the pain, exactly as though Mal had never grown up, though Mal was six feet tall. There would surely have been more to it if Jim Street had not come round the corner of the barn, walking very fast.
“Mal,” he called, “have you seen Tommy Michael? What, you here, Tom?”
Mr. Street paused. Tommy could remember that Mr. Street was growing old. There had been an added stoop to his shoulders lately and a shuffle to his step, which made him lose in height as if the world had worn him down. That impression was nothing more than a flash in his mind, however, running weakly beside another thought. How had Mary guessed that he had seen Marianne that night? All Michael’s Harbor would know it before morning. Tommy knew that marvellous intuition for gossip which could seize upon a whisper, and he was not wrong. All of Michael’s Harbor always guessed the story. But Jim Street was speaking so harshly that Tommy had to listen.
“You here, Tom? Well, they’ve been looking for you all over town. Your ma’s been taken awful bad. She’s had a sinking spell. Ah, what’s the use of pussy-footing, now you’ve grown to be a man? I guess your ma is dying.”
The silence was what Tommy remembered most, when he reached his mother’s door, that silence which gave his breath an indecorous loudness, for Tom had run all the way. It was not a peaceful silence, but a stillness of suspense which made it plain that everything was waiting, even the house and the shadows in the hall. His Great-aunt Sarah was waiting in a stiff chair beside a yellow bed. It always seemed terribly grotesque to Tommy that little trivialities dashed before him first. The room was stifling from the light of a glass oil lamp upon the bureau. There was a smell of straw matting from the floor, which mingled with unburned kerosene. Aunt Sarah’s face, yellowish-white from the yellow light, and damp from the heat, made you think of a school relief map, worn and wrinkled with eroded hills and valleys. The bed was yellow and grained in imitation of wood. Tommy could remember how bright and new it had seemed when he had climbed upon it as a little boy, and how the roses and lilies painted at its head and foot had seemed richer and more splendid than any living flowers.
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