“Oh, Nelson! Not one?”
“Not a single one.”
“Well, I do,” she said. “Anyhow, if there aren’t any around here I’ve known girls other places that would.”
He conceded a little. “Well, maybe there are girls other places that would; but anyhow you’re the only one here. That’s the reason I wanted to say something about — about—” He hesitated; then went on: “Well, what I mean: You take two people that are the only two people that understand each other in a place like this, and that really care about the same things that the others don’t care about, well, what I mean, I think two people like that, if they were at a dance like to-night f’r instance — and knew they cared about the same things the way we do — well, we could walk down to the rocks and sit there most of the time, if you’d like to. I hope you’d like to as much as I would, Claire. Would you?”
His tone was wistful, yet not without confidence in a favourable reply, for Nelson felt that a definite and exquisite tie had been established between them. He was surprised and troubled, therefore, when she did not immediately reply to his question; and after a few moments he repeated it, a little huskily. “You would, wouldn’t you, Claire?”
Still she hesitated. That evening was to mark her first appearance before a general collection of the younger summer inhabitants of the place, and her ambition was by no means limited to the capture of an individual. She wished Nelson to be an ardent suitor for her favour, and by his ardour an incitement to competition — in fact, a herald or advertiser for her; and she hoped to be kept too busy, even this first evening, to leave the dancing floor at all. But as the most useful diplomatic reply to his question was difficult, she fell back upon a repetition of something she had just used.
“Girls can’t always do what they want to, Nelson.”
“What?” He was puzzled. “Why, you could go down to the rocks with me if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”
“Not to-night, I’m afraid.”
“But you could!”
She shook her head sadly. “No — not if I’d promised my mother.”
“But why should she—”
“She’s old-fashioned, Nelson.”
“Oh, dear me!” he said, much depressed. “But anyhow—”
“Anyhow we’ll see a lot of each other,” she interrupted cheeringly, and she gave him a swift, bright look that lifted him to a state of adequate consolation. “Gracious!” she cried. “If you knew all I have to do!” And with that, she said, “G’by!” and flitted lightly up the driveway, while he stood gazing after her in precisely the fond condition she wished. She would see him again, she knew, in about four hours; and she now economically put him out of her conscious thought just as a cook who has set a dish in the oven to bake for some similar length of time, puts it out of her mind and turns to other matters. She went briskly to the selection of her dress, while young Nelson, having watched her out of sight, reverently picked a leaf from the ivy that climbed one of the gateway pillars, and then walked slowly homeward, sighing dreamily. He had lived a long time, he felt, much of it occupied with dreary illusions; and at last he was not only in love, but had found a nature that corresponded to his own. The great harmony had been established between them: she cared for the same things that he did.
III
HE WAS ALL the more in a sighing condition because of Claire’s devotion to the tasks that called her indoors. He understood them to be useful and altruistic — perhaps aiding her mother with household management, possibly performing secretarial duties for her father; at any rate, something better than the occupations of his sisters, who never did anything, he was convinced, except for themselves. Everything about this girl was beautifully admirable; hers was a deeper nature than that of other girls; and she was so conscientious that she wouldn’t even break a promise unreasonably extorted by the old-fashioned prejudices of her mother. Nelson recognized a noble loyalty; but he was a little gloomy about it, too. He had a foreboding of rivalry; there were three or four dashing contemporaries of his whom Claire had not met; and it was partly with them in mind that he had suggested the departure to the rocks. In particular, he felt an uneasiness about the effect upon her of two of his close friends.
Platter Thomas and Bill Reek were “all right among men,” Nelson thought; but he did not like their manners with girls. Platter and Bill were too informal; they were boisterous, coarse-grained, offhand; and they were incapable of making fine distinctions; they would not understand that Claire Ambler wasn’t the kind of person one slaps on the back. He had seen Platter and Bill presented to a girl on the beach and immediately take her into the surf and hold her under water as a means of establishing, without intermediate tediums, a proper camaraderie. The fact that girls seemed to be flattered by the attentions of the boorish pair, Nelson attributed to a swift and commodious motorboat, their joint property. The motorboat would not dazzle a girl who had seen so much of the world as Claire had, he thought; and yet her very conscientiousness might prevent her from declining invitations. Moreover, Platter and Bill would be certain to tell her about the boat as soon as they met her; — they never failed to drag in an apparently casual mention of it, and he had a premonition that he was going to find them annoying.
Herein he was a true prophet; they were so annoying, in fact, that he spoke of them to Claire before the evening was half over, and he showed feeling: “I s’pose they been bragging to you about that old tub o’ theirs,” he said severely, as he danced with her. “They never meet anybody new they don’t begin right away to blah-blah about it. I hope you didn’t flatter ’em by seeming to take any interest in it — I mean after this afternoon.”
“After this afternoon, Nelson?” she asked vaguely.
“Yes,” he said. “You know. I mean our caring for the same things. You know.”
“Oh, yes,” she returned quickly. “Of course.”
“You meant it, didn’t you, Claire?”
“Meant what?”
“Well — you know. I mean about our caring for the same things. Didn’t you — ?”
“Yes, Nelson.”
“Well, since we found that out, don’t you think it makes a difference? What I mean: when two people care for the same things, why, I shouldn’t think one of ’em would seem so excited about meeting a lot of new men, and look in their eyes, and seem so eager and pleased when they cut in when we’re dancing together and everything like that. What I mean: if I didn’t remember this afternoon, the way you been behaving to-night I wouldn’t even know we did care for the same things.”
“But we do, Nelson.”
“Well, then,” he said reproachfully, “I think you might act more like it, Claire. The way you been acting to-night I wouldn’t know whether you cared for the same things or just never thought about anything in the world except mere sex appeal. You haven’t promised you’ll go out in their old boat with ’em yet, have you?”
“Promised who?”
“Platter Thomas and Bill Reek.”
“Which ones are they, Nelson? I’ve met so many and I get their names mixed up.”
At this he was relieved. “Well, I’m glad you do,” he said. “So you haven’t.”
“Haven’t what?”
“Haven’t said you’d go out in their boat.”
“Let me see.” A slight frown, as of perplexity, appeared upon her pretty brow. “There were three boys who asked me to motor with them, and one to go canoeing—”
“What!” Nelson interrupted. “You didn’t—”
“Oh, yes,” she said, remembering. “And there were two that talked about motorboating. One wanted me to go to-morrow morning and the other in the afternoon.”
“Listen!” Nelson said. “You didn’t promise you would, did you?”
Surprised, she looked up at his flushed and troubled face. “Well, they all seem so nice and cordial—”
“All?” he gasped. “All! D’you mean you’re going to do what all of ’em asked you to? After this after
noon?”
“But you don’t want me to snub people, do you, Nelson? Just when they’re anxious to be friendly and make me feel at home in a strange place?”
“Listen!” he said. “You mean you told all of ’em you would?”
“But what else could I do, Nelson?”
Nelson looked desperate. “You did, then! After this afternoon! You said we care for the same things and then you go ahead and get yourself all dated up like this!”
“But Nelson —
“It’s terrible,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing.”
“But we do care for the same things, Nelson, don’t you believe it?”
“Well, then, if we do, what makes you go and date yourself up for all this—”
But here he was unpleasantly interrupted. A muscular hand descended heartily upon his shoulder; Mr. Platter Thomas was “cutting in,” and claimed the lady for his partner in the dance. Nelson was left with a sense of injury and no answer to an incomplete question. The sense of injury seemed to be located at first at a point in his lower throat; later, it spread to his chest, and then progressing rapidly, saturated his whole person. Breathing heavily, he determined to “cut in” himself, and insist upon a direct reply; but in this resolve he was anticipated by competitors. Indeed, he was thrice forestalled; and, when his chance came again, he had no more than said, “Listen! If we do care for the same things—” before another brisk slap on the shoulder warned him that his time was over.
He was unfortunate; he had bestowed his affections upon one who almost instantaneously became the outstanding belle of that sector of the New England coast. Claire was seldom able to dance more than the full length of the room without a change of partners, and, from Nelson’s point of view, the worst thing about this was her visible enjoyment of an odious popularity. Flushed, laughing, radiant, she turned sparkling eyes to every new applicant, even though he might be one of the mere loutish hobbledehoys of sixteen who cluttered the floor instead of being kept at home and sent to bed, as they should have been, Nelson thought.
“Pups!” he muttered, watching two of these pursuing to “cut in,” while a third danced rapidly away with her, evading them and evading Nelson too. “Pups!” And he said worse of them: “Mere filthy pups!”
For gradually, as the evening wore away, his disposition became soured. Whenever he was able to dance with her for more than a moment, he tried to obtain an answer to his question. “Claire, after this afternoon—” he would begin, and once that was as far as he got with it. Again, later, he said, “But if we do care for the same things, Claire—” and as she interrupted him there to say, “But you know we do, Nelson,” he found only time to add, “Then why don’t you act more like it?” She was not put to the trouble of a reply, as the noisy young Mr. Reek intervened.
True, as Nelson stood against the wall while she danced by with others, she would often give him a lovely, wistful glance. “Don’t you know we care for the same things?” this tender quick look seemed to say. But he had begun to doubt her seriously, and at last, stung by a little mistake of hers, he decided to hold himself aloof. This mistake was of no great importance, except to Nelson; she was so careless as not to observe until too late that he was standing beside his former friend, Mr. Thomas, and as she danced by them, she flashed to Platter one of those lovely little glances identically wistful. For an instant Nelson thought himself the recipient; then the fatuous expression of Platter and Claire’s slight confusion were together all too enlightening.
Immediately Nelson became more completely than ever a mechanism. That is to say, of course, he was like any other human being under the impulsion of strong feelings, a stoked engine compelled to motion. The metal engine will move as long as the fuel lasts; the engine of human appearance will move as long as the feeling lasts; and the difference is that the metal engine is (except for accident) guided by human intelligence while the human engine is not. Nevertheless, just as rails are provided for the metal engine, so are there tracks that the human engine must follow — tracks thus travelled for thousands of years by the mechanical humans stoked by common emotions. To Nelson it appeared that of his own choice he became haughty and indifferent to Claire; he believed that he selected this manner himself; for he had no means of knowing that this and his subsequent performances, as well, were only the operations of a machine running inevitably along over tracks so worn that they are among the most ancient.
Thus, running smoothly on rails — though in his own belief the way was rough and painful — he danced no more that night with Claire, nor so much as looked at her, nor bade her even the most frigid or careless good-night, nor any good-night at all; but in his own mind said farewell to her definitely and for ever. He would have nothing more to do with a girl who had only pretended to care for the same things that he did; and, to make her fully aware of his indifference to her, on the following morning, he risked his life.
IV
ALMOST ANY BODY of water with a depth of a few feet, even an inland creek, will afford the means to those desirous of taking such a risk; but an ocean is unquestionably the handiest thing for the purpose. The North Atlantic, in particular, offers opportunity during the glassiest calm of a summer day as well as when distorted by winter tumults; it is necessary only to reduce to the proper degree the staunchness of the craft in which one goes to sea. Upon this point there have been arguments; many coastwise seafarers holding that no canoe whatever is an appropriate vehicle for these waters; while, on the other hand, there are records of notable ocean voyages made in canoes. But not in such a canoe, all will agree, as that selected by young Nelson for his gesture of indifference to Miss Ambler.
It was a dainty slip of a boat, pretty in pea-green and gold, fourteen feet long, with green-and-white cushions: it belonged to the youngest of Nelson’s sisters, and she kept it upon an inlet to be used there as an adjunct to moonlight and a banjo. Upon its bows, in gold letters, twinkled the unromantic name, Peanut, never intended for salty incrustations; but salt already dimmed the gold leaf, that morning, when the Peanut spanked itself through the harbour mouth and fantastically stood out to sea. The breeze was from the east, and Nelson knew that Platter Thomas would take the Caliph — the Reek and Thomas motorboat — straight into the breeze, because thus the consequent splashing would be more impressive to a passenger. This was the canoeist’s unhesitating cynical conviction, and therefore, desiring to prove to Claire his utter indifference to herself, he paddled straight into the wind and was two miles off shore before the Caliph came in sight.
Of course he expected to show her more than his indifference; he meant her to see a greater man than either of the owners of the Caliph. And here a little mystery is reached. It is difficult to understand why he felt that going to sea in a fourteen-foot canoe proved his indifference to her in particular; though his thought that the voyage would show her his superiority to Platter and Bill is more comprehensible. If she admired daring, his position, compared to that of people in a forty-foot vessel, was admirably perilous; but to explain his feeling that a special indifference to her was thus exhibited, it can only be supposed that she was to understand herself included as a part of his life, and he was certainly proving his indifference to that.
For the morning sea had become lively. That is, it was pleasantly choppy for a forty-foot boat, heavy in mahogany and brass, but rather showily rough for a canoe; and the roughness increased with the freshening breeze. In fact, long before he heard the powerful exhaust of the Caliph behind him, Nelson knew he was committed to the eastward course, which took him always farther off shore; he was committed to it because he didn’t dare to turn round. He knew that he couldn’t trust the Peanut broadside in the trough, which was growing deeper and deeper, richly green and crested with sparkling white; and, since he had no choice but to go on, though the farther he went the more threatening was the sea, his situation began to present an aspect dishearteningly like the realization of a nightmare. He had intended his gesture to be magnifice
nt, but not suicidal; and now, as more and more it bore the latter appearance, he heard with relief the exhaust of the Caliph growing rapidly louder. The glittering motorboat overhauled him; then slowed down and came to its lowest speed, moving alongside the Peanut and not ten feet away. Platter Thomas and Claire sat side by side in the control cockpit, and she was laughing merrily.
Nelson, paddling with tired arms, gave them only a cold and hasty side glance; but there was more than one reason for him to keep his eyes strictly ahead.
“Nelson!” Claire called. “You haven’t any idea how funny you look! All you need is a pussy cat and plenty of honey wrapped up in a five-pound note! Where on earth’d you find that ridiculous little boat? Oh, look!” She grasped her host’s arm, and Nelson was well aware of this impulsive friendliness of hers, even though he perceived it with the tail of his eye. “Do see its name?” she cried. “It’s called the Peanut.” And, thoroughly comprehending that she was the reason for the Peanut’s present voyage, she uttered peal on peal of girlish laughter.
Platter Thomas was more serious. “Yes,” he said. “A peanut’s about all it is too.” He addressed Nelson sternly. “Look here; you ought to know a thing like that hasn’t got any business outside the harbour. You ought to know that much, anyhow.”
Nelson did know that much; he knew it poignantly; but when Claire laughed at him and grasped Platter’s arm, his bitterness became more acute than his anxiety. “Run along!” he said. “That old gas-tub’ll blow up if you ever get a back fire. Run along!”
“Look here!” Platter said. “You go on back where you belong. That canoe’s about a quarter full o’ water right now, and if you stopped heading her up long enough to bail, she’d capsize on you. Haven’t you got any sense?”
“Run along,” Nelson said. “Run along and play you’re a sailor!”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 420