Watermarks

by Jarvis, J. L.

  "I don't suppose you have The Woodlanders," he said.

  "No." She had let him down. "I'm afraid not."

  He looked over the available books with a hint of a frown, and eventually chose A Laodicean. "I suppose this will do," he said with a perfunctory manner, which Maggie found enchanting.

  "Now that is a devout Hardy fan," she thought, as her eyes settled upon his shaved cheekbone and angular jaw.

  With an extended arm, Andrew Adair signaled for her to proceed back to the desk.

  "Do you have a library card?" she asked, knowing full well he did not. She helped him fill out the form, then issued a card and stamped his book.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Adair," she said as she finished.

  "Good afternoon, Miss--"

  Maggie eyes rounded and softened.

  "Miss--?"

  "Oh!" Maggie smiled, but not on the inside. "MacLaren."

  "Miss MacLaren."

  She watched his full lips caress her name. He made it sound mellifluous. On sweet echoes it wafted through her ear and her mind and on out the other ear. Her name on his lips; his lips on her--

  "And if one were to call you by your Christian name, Miss MacLaren, what would that be?"

  She was so charmed by his attention it barely seemed presumptuous of him to have asked. A blush burned her cheeks. He waited.

  "Miss MacLaren?"

  "Uh--it's Maggie MacLaren. Well, MacLaren's my surname." She laughed helplessly. "Of course, I'm not Maggie MacLaren MacLaren." She laughed, and sighed. "Just Maggie MacLaren." Maggie's voice trailed off in the direction of her inner self-loathing.

  "Well then, goodbye Miss Maggie MacLaren."

  "Goodbye Mr. Andrew. Adair. Mr. Adair."

  Mercifully, he turned and left. Maggie watched him and whispered, "Goodbye."

  Jake O'Neill walked in, with his blue jeans and brogans and homespun shirt, and he saw Maggie's face--with its glazed expression. He craned his neck to take a more critical look at the young man who was leaving. After a passing glance at the well-tailored clothing, he continued toward Maggie with a self-assured gait.

  "I have to stop home before work and I thought we could walk together," he was saying.

  Maggie's lashes dropped to the desk where her thoughts seemed to hover.

  "As I was saying," Jake continued, "Maggie?"

  He watched her and waited. His eyes lit with mischief. "You dropped something."

  "Oh?" Maggie glanced halfway toward him.

  "Down there," he said with a nod.

  She glanced about dreamily.

  "Right there,"

  She looked down.

  "You've nearly got it."

  "Got what?" She leaned lower. "What did I drop?"

  "Your jaw," said Jake.

  She rose with eyes glaring, face flushed.

  "Jake."

  "Maggie? Did you hear anything I said when I got here?"

  "Of course I did."

  "What?"

  "You said you're going to work."

  He paused for a moment to study Maggie's face. "Yes...but I have to go home first--Maggie who was that man?"

  "A new library patron."

  "What were you talking about?"

  "Talking about?" She and Jake had always talked about everything. "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Books."

  "Oh." Jake nodded.

  Maggie looked at his neck, too thick for his collar, and saw a workingman's brawn. She did not notice him tensing his jaw and broad shoulders.

  "Why don't you lock up and I'll walk you home."

  Maggie sailed through the stacks, shelving a handful of books and checking to make sure no one remained in the building.

  From behind brooding eyes, Jake watched her round a corner, and then glanced toward the library card application that lay on the desk. He scrutinized the handwriting on the card, and then tossed it back down. He knew Maggie too well. He could not compete, nor could Maggie prevail, against the lure of wealth. While Jake believed Maggie was above being impressed by money alone, he knew its accompanying education and sophistication would overwhelm her and overshadow him. He looked up and watched Maggie hurrying to complete her mundane tasks with balletic grace. Maggie would not see the remote longing that lay concealed beneath the surface of Jake's brow, for he would not destroy their friendship by revealing such feelings. This was, perhaps, how they had remained so close over the years.

  There was a time when Jake had wanted nothing to do with Maggie MacLaren. He was seven. When Beth went to work as a domestic, both mothers agreed that Jake and his brother would see little Maggie to and from school. At first, the six-year-old trailed behind Jake and Will, not quite managing to keep up with their deliberately speedy pace. Yet she never complained or asked them to slow down. She trailed along as fast as she could, with her lunch pail rattling to the rhythm of her rapid steps. She scampered along in silence until her foot caught on an exposed tree root and she tripped forward and onto her face. Eight-year-old Will looked back long enough to make sure she was alive, then walked on. But Jake stopped. Maggie might have been an annoying little kid, but he could not leave her this way. He went back and helped her to her feet. She swiped the dust from her face and swallowed the blood from her lip. Then, without waiting for Jake, she marched on ahead until she reached the school.

  By the time Maggie no longer needed to be walked to school, she and Jake were best friends; fighting one another, but defending against others who dared do likewise. Jake revealed to Maggie a serious side that no one else knew, and Maggie trusted Jake enough to share her dreams.

  The day after Jake turned fourteen, he walked out of the school building, past Maggie and around the corner, where he waited in the alley between the General Store and the Bootery. Maggie rounded the same corner and hesitated in front of the alley long enough for Jake to emerge and take her books from her. This way they could walk home together without the tiresome school yard teasing. They reached Maggie's house first and stopped at the front walk, as they always did. Maggie turned to walk away, as she always did. This time, however, Jake reached out and grasped her arm.

  "Maggie." Jake stood his ground. Maggie stopped. He said nothing for a moment. His eyes were fixed. His brow was creased. He struggled so, but seemed unable to speak.

  "Just say it. You're scaring me." Maggie had never seen Jake behave like this.

  After a moment, he looked her in the eye and blurted it out. "I won't be walking you home from school anymore."

  "Oh." She tried to hide her dismay with annoyance. "Well it's not as if I need walking h--"

  "I'm quitting school. I'm going to work."

  Now Maggie was angry. "No."

  "I have to. My family needs the money. It's my turn to go to work."

  "But you can't!"

  "I'm fourteen."

  "But what about our plans? We were going to go to college together, and--"

  "Wake up, Maggie? This isn't one of your library novels. Open your eyes. This is what life is! This is who I am! Damn it all, who do you think you are?" As soon as he heard his own angry words, he regretted their harshness.

  She turned away and said nothing.

  Jake reached out to put a hand on Maggie's shoulder, but thought better of it. He lowered his hand.

  "They were just dreams." He couldn't let her see tears cloud his eyes, so he turned from her and walked away.

  She listened to his retreating footsteps.

  "But they were our dreams," she whispered to herself. She looked back over her shoulder and watched Jake walk away.

  Chapter 4

  The minister wore his Sunday smile as he stood outside the door of the First Presbyterian Church and shook hands with the small congregation filing out into the sunlight to disperse for the afternoon. For a fleeting moment his rhythm was broken when Maggie brushed by with a smile and a hasty "Good morning," and hurried down the steps and across the lawn. The Reverend quickly returned to the shaking of hands, but
the deacon's wives swarmed together to watch as Maggie tugged at her skirt to reveal an immodest split down the middle, designed so for horseback and bicycle riding. This prompted a series of low vocalizations and raising and lowering eyebrows and lids designed not to conceal the object of their concern, but to mask its intent. Thus engrossed, they watched Maggie straddle her bike and ride off in the direction of the South Fork Dam as the breeze liberated long brown locks that fluttered behind in her wake.

  She peddled uphill for as long as she could, then dismounted and pushed her bike along until she came within sight of the lake. It had not always been there. The lake formed when a dam was built some thirty-six years earlier. The reservoir was intended to provide water for the canal running from Johnstown to Pittsburgh. It was rendered obsolete when, not six months later, the Pennsylvania Railroad completed a run from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and effectively ended the need for a canal. Within three years, the Pennsylvania Railroad had bought the canal system for its right of way. The South Fork Dam was included in the purchase, but since the railroad had no use for it, the dam and its lake lay neglected for the next twenty years.

  The spring of 1862 brought a heavy rain, which prompted people to speculate about what would happen should the dam ever break. Break it did, but the lake was only half full and the valves had been opened to release excess pressure. As a result, very little damage occurred. From then on the level of concern over the South Fork dam was negligible.

  In 1879, the property was quietly purchased by a group of Pittsburgh's wealthiest, who developed the area into the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. By then the dam was badly in need of repair, prompting the new owners to employ some creative engineering tactics. Rather than replace the damaged and missing drainage pipes, they hired local workers to remove the remaining pipes and plug up the gaps with all manner of materials; including rocks, mud, and sticks.

  The new owners stocked the reservoir with bass to guarantee good fishing. Then, fearing their fish would escape through the spillway, they installed a screen. This kept them from losing fish, but the screen collected debris and clogged the spillway, thus keeping excess water from escaping, as well. To make it easier to gain access to the club, the level of the dam was raised enough to lay down a 930-foot long road to cross it. This also raised the level of the lake as several mountain streams fed into the reservoir and filled it up beautifully. It was dubbed Lake Conemaugh.

  By the time the club opened in 1879, its founder, Benjamin Ruff, had added to the membership such powerful individuals as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. There were sixty-one members in all that opening season, drawn together by at least one common interest: their wealth.

  For the people in Johnstown below, any threat posed by the dam was remote. No one worried much about it, except when heavy rains came in spring. Some would speculate that this might be the year the dam would break, but almost always in jest. There were intermittent scares over the years, but nothing ever came of it. People came to accept the dam and the money its new residents brought into the community.

  A bursting dam was the last thing on Maggie's mind as she got off her bike and imagined with each step what it would be like to see Andrew Adair once more. He belonged to a world beyond mills and mining and soot-stained muslin curtains. His world was rich with sailing and silk and sophistication, all of which were beyond her grasp.

  Maggie climbed to a perch on a low outstretched limb of an oak tree, and looked out over the shimmering metal gray water to the cottages on the opposite shore. A solitary rowboat glided across the still water, propelled by the strong and steady strokes of an oarsman.

  The casual observer could see the effect which, when properly performed, appeared effortless. Stroke upon stroke, the rower pulled harder, the boat moved faster, amassing momentum. Mass times speed; it was simple and fluid and arrestingly beautiful.

  Under closer scrutiny, however, one might notice the rower's strokes, the muscles contracting and releasing in a steadily beating pattern fraught with effort born of determination. Only with deliberate exertion could mass and speed thus combine to fight against nature's stillness. It was not easy for the rower, but he moved forward in an inert world, and thus obtained satisfaction through exhaustion.

  Maggie saw only grace and ease. She wondered at the lives of such people, freed by wealth from all the worries and cares that so afflicted the valley folks. She could not see the young woman seated on the porch, looking out over the lake and into the mountains beyond.

  Allison Kimball's thoughts were far away, in a place where despair was giving way to new hope, a place long ago abandoned yet inexplicably preserved. Turning from her fearful and fragile nature, she was choosing once more to give her heart to a man. And so she sat on the porch facing the lake and lifted her pen to write.

  My D,

  I will not accept your apology, for you have done nothing wrong. Last night, when you touched my hand you touched my heart. I thought it had died. But I think now, it was waiting for you. Since that moment--that touch--I've abandoned all rules of propriety. I will say what I feel. It is hope--hope for that in which I had not believed, and yet longed for.

  We know each other too well to hide. Have I misunderstood? Tell me now, for my heart is in peril. And if I have not, then what are we to do?

  A

  Allison arose and looked out at the lake once more, this time with a sense expectancy she had all but forgotten. She watched the rowboat near the shore, while the sun tucked itself behind a hovering cloud to cast a cool calm over the valley. The boat rubbed gently against the weathered dock.

  Maggie descended from her perch and indulged in one last look at the glassy lake before she mounted her bicycle and coasted back down to the valley.

  The last member of the Ladies' Shakespearean Society bid Maggie a cordial goodbye and departed from the group's Thursday lecture. "Ophelia--what a beautiful name," she thought as she busied herself returning chairs to their usual places, and organizing the library just enough to fill the void in the remainder of her day. She returned the last book to its shelf and headed back to her desk. As she rounded the last row of shelves, she stopped abruptly. Before she could smooth back her hair or wipe the book dust from her hands, Andrew Adair turned and smiled with white teeth and blue eyes.

  Maggie's eyes shone with emotions she thought she'd understood from her reading. He stepped toward her and handed her a bundle of three books bound in green pebble-grain cloth and tucked inside a cloth slipcase. The bundle was tied together with a dusty rose-colored ribbon of watermarked taffeta.

  "Miss MacLaren. I hope you don't mind. I thought you might like this."

  Maggie glanced up at him. She feared he could hear her heart. Andrew nodded toward the books in his hands and, for the first time, Maggie looked at the title. "The Woodlanders!" Her fingers caressed the gilt lettering with unabashed delight, until the thought came to her that perhaps she had assumed too much. She reigned in her emotions. "It's a lovely donation for the library. How generous of you."

  He looked down with the most endearingly bashful grin, and then lifted his eyes. Brilliant gray-blue eyes locked onto hers. "Well, actually, I intended it as a gift for you, Miss MacLaren."

  Maggie's heart skipped a beat, no doubt resting up for the pounding that followed. "Oh." Breathe, Maggie. "Thank you, but--no. I can't accept this."

  "But I want you to have it."

  "Mr. Adair," she paused, for his eyes smiled--along with the rest of his face, she could only assume, since she could not avert her gaze from his. She went on. He continued to smile as though words didn't matter. "Mr. Adair, this is very kind of you. And I do thank you for the gesture." With no small regret, Maggie held out the books for him to take. Andrew took the bundle of books and, in doing so, placed his hands upon hers.

  Maggie glanced at the books and their joined hands. Then she lifted her gaze to his eyes. They were the color of a windless lake, into which she was sinking. He off
ered no help. He just watched her with deepening interest, and perhaps some small pleasure. Maggie endeavored to keep her shallow breaths silent.

  The front door of the library opened. Jake walked in and, seeing the two of them, glanced away, but not before he met Maggie's eyes with a sharp look that ran through her. Maggie slipped her hands from beneath Andrew's.

  "Since you refuse me, may I donate them to the library?" Andrew's charm overpowered her.

  "I suppose so." Andrew seemed so self-possessed. She was not. Her heart whirled wildly.

  Andrew said, "Well then, I hereby donate this set of books to the Johnstown Public Library." He looked into her eyes to a place she had never allowed Jake to glimpse for more than an instant.

  Jake studied Maggie with wonder, and then eyed Andrew with suspicion. In this moment, Maggie's face was more legible than anything else in the library. His heart compelled him, overriding his good sense, to pore over her face, the sweet expression for which he had longed. And now with such ease, she regarded this man, whom she'd known scarcely a week, with--Jake clenched his teeth--interest. He fixed his eyes on her, hoping the sight would sear her heart until it was numb. Or his. And while he did, he would come to terms with his torment.

  When he was able, Jake stole toward the wall then up and down row after row of books, leaning his head against spines of volumes whose content mocked his lack of schooling. When footsteps drew near he would pick up a book and pretend to read, but the letters would thicken and render no meaning. He wished, as he slammed a book closed, he did not have to bear witness to love as it passed him by on the way to another. And yet, he could not look away.

  Maggie studied the bundle of books but did not touch them again. Her eyes darted about the library as though she did not know what to do with books in such a place. The propriety of accepting a gift from a relative stranger seemed no longer of any import, for between one moment and another, the books had become charged with emotion that passed from his hand to hers.