“That’s exactly what I am,” Thankful agreed, “so I’ll stay at home.”
“Anyway, it’s a costume party.” Selina’s tone made this a final point. “You know I’ve got an idea, Thankful.” Thankful looked up hopefully. “The other day I wanted to borrow a handkerchief”—she had the grace to look embarrassed—“and I saw the cutest little plaid suit in your drawer. It seemed to be about my size—I didn’t try it on.” She took a hasty look at Thankful. “But why couldn’t you lend it to me for the party?” She moved uneasily under Thankful’s disconcerting frown. “Well, why couldn’t you?”
Thankful’s brows met, darkening her eyes. Gladys would have known that look. “Because I’m going to wear it myself,” she said.
“Oh, well”—Selina banged out of the room—“I didn’t know you were going.…”
Didn’t myself, thought Thankful, but now I know. And if you ever touch my things again, young woman! But somehow Thankful knew that Selina wouldn’t.
Thankful regretted her threat instantly. What would she do sitting around with bare knees in Robbie’s Highland plaid? Robbie. Her eyes dreamed of this new Robert, so dark and smooth and finished. What would he think of her decked out in a boy’s suit? Oh, well, Selina had thought well of it, and she would borrow it yet if it were still in the drawer. There was nothing to lose, Thankful thought a little drearily. Though since she was neither a freshman nor a senior, no one would expect her nor look out for her.
She was wrong. The boy called Saunders stopped her after class and asked her to go with him. “Miss Haynes told me to,” he said frankly. “But as long as you don’t dance you won’t be any trouble.”
She looked at him, fat, complacent, and decided that probably no other girl would go with him. Yet she had no choice. “Thanks,” she said, “I’ll try to be as little trouble as possible.”
Her tone made him look up at her uneasily. “Oh, well, you know what I mean. Getting partners, ’n’ supper, ’n’ things.”
Thankful halted in her retreat. “You’ll get me some supper,” she said darkly, “or I’ll know why.”
“Oh, all right, all right. Meet you at eight at the gym door.” He ambled down the hall, arrangements complete.
Well, anyway, she thought, I’m not afraid of Saunders. And I’d be scared to death to go with a boy—with a boy like—she couldn’t quite finish even in her thoughts but Robert’s face was dim in her mind. Poor Saunders, she thought, he won’t like it any better than I do. But he’s good-natured.
Selina laughed when she heard about Saunders, laughed until Thankful inquired dangerously, “What’s so funny?”
“You! You in that queer little suit, miles taller than Fatty! You’ll certainly make a funny pair.” But she stopped laughing under Thankful’s frown.
Just wants me to say I won’t go, thought Thankful shrewdly. Well, I’ll go if I only stay five minutes. The idea that she might escape early cheered her and she held to it. But she talked no more about the party to Selina. Through her casual encounters with the other girls she found out all that she wanted to know. And felt a little sick every time that she thought of it.
The early dinner Friday night she looked at palely and left. How could she ever have told Saunders that she would want supper? Perhaps she would be really sick so that there would be no question about going. But that was expecting too much of Thankful’s healthy body. It would not help her out.
When she was dressed, Selina stared at her strangely between long dangling earrings. Selina was Mrs. Astor in all of the jewelry of the dormitory. She was going with a boy who would be Mrs. Astor’s horse. It was a difficult part and Robert had refused it, but Selina was certain of the prize. They had practiced a good deal.
Thankful broke the short and watchful moment. “You look cute,” she said honestly. “I’d never guess you were still in school!” She felt young and long and gawky. And as if a woman were staring at her. She turned uneasily to the mirror and pushed the Highland cap down over the pale hair which flew out around the edges. “I shouldn’t have washed it,” she said regretfully. “Do you really think”—she measured the pleated skirt with anxious eye—“do you think, Selina, that my knees show too much?”
Selina still stared. “You look all right,” she said, and swept out jinglingly.
Thankful tried to see her knees in the mirror, gave it up, and put on her long coat. She would at least keep covered until she reached the gym. Funny she never felt that way before about Robbie’s Highland plaid. What had possessed her to wear it! The girls were all in girls’ clothes. Gypsies, nuns, queens, fairies. Would she never learn what a girl’s for?
An outrageous clown leaped out at her. Saunders’ voice! “Hustle up.” He started in without waiting for her to take off her coat. “We got to march past the faculty. Music’s beginning. I want to get near the head of the line.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Thankful. But she had no choice. Before she had time to do more than throw her coat over a rail, Saunders without looking at her dragged her into the big hall. Laughter broke through the music. Saunders was bent on playing his part. He cavorted about her in spasms of silent mirth. And he was funny. Thankful knew it and tried to smile as he made a telescope of his hands and stared up at her Highland cap. She thought her face was frozen, and she knew that her spirit was. How could she endure the ordeal ahead of her, that endless march past staring eyes, that laughter at her, the object of a clown’s fun! If floors could open—it must have been someone who felt like her who wished that—but the floor was waxed and hard under her feet. The procession started.
Past the grandstand of faculty. Thankful dropped her curtsey, and Saunders stood on his head. Clink, clank, she kept step when she was not pushed by Saunders. He was getting worse in his frenzy of showing off. Clink, clank, even her lips were too stiff to move into a smile anymore. She was faint with terror that tears might at any minute be running down her face. Clink, clank …
“Out into the middle of the hall with you, my little man! You need more room.” A fine long hand placed hers on a black sleeve, and Saunders bounded away. She looked up into Mr. Fletcher’s face, and then quickly down before he could see the rim of tears on her lids.
But now it was easy to swing along beside that tall figure, and the tears flowed miraculously back until she could speak and even laugh at his caustic comments. When the march broke with a clash into a fox-trot and he slipped an arm around her, terror returned. “I don’t know how, I don’t know how!”
“Well, you soon will,” he said. “Just follow me.”
She stumbled after him, and stepped on his perfect shoes, and nearly wept again. Oh, this was a party! What had possessed her to come! He was moving smoothly, firmly, as firmly as he could with her walking on him! Why couldn’t she do it, too? She caught a glimpse of his suffering face.
And then suddenly she got it! She didn’t know how. She didn’t care. But somehow she was moving with him instead of against him, the rhythm which she had felt inside of her was outside. She could dance! At least with Mr. Fletcher. Selina with Mrs. Astor’s horse passed her and stared.
The music stopped and he wiped his forehead. But he looked as pleased as Thankful felt. “It isn’t as if I had to teach Latin,” he said. “I could be a dancing master any moment I chose.”
“You could! You certainly could!” Now the blood was warm and fluid again in her veins. She didn’t mind going home at all, and she would hurry before Saunders caught her again. “Good night, and thank you.” That sounded so cold but how could she thank him? He had turned her humiliation into an accolade. Urbane, but warm, he left her. She hurried for her coat which she had left on the rail.
Turned and ran squarely into Robert, met the mischief in his face, and laughed. “Teacher’s pet!” he said. “You told me you couldn’t dance.” The music startled her with its sudden assured attack at another dance. Robert reached for her. “Now we’ll waltz,” he announced.
She pulled back and he saw panic in he
r face. “The gal means it,” he said. “Come outside and I’ll show you the ropes.” He led her toward the door. Better, after all, try her out first.
Robert was her own height. Their even glances crossed and she saw his impatience. It made her feel a monster of clumsiness. “I don’t know where to go,” she murmured desperately. “I don’t know where to step.”
“Ouch! Anywhere but on me,” advised Robert. He backed warily off at arm’s length. “Now see, it’s easy. Oh, no! Follow me!”
But Thankful was now concentrated on dodging him, and the torture of Saunders’ clowning was as play to this agony. “Please! Please!” she cried and stopped short.
Robert dropped her. “Never the twain shall meet,” he observed and stalked with her into the hall. The dance had ended and he left her with a brief “Thank you.”
She sat still until the sick humiliation had drained away a little. Then she would go. “Oh, not Selina!” she cried to the approaching pair. But it was Selina, who still stared as if Thankful were something new.
“Well, you are getting rushed! My horse wants to meet you. Give him a good gallop!” and she was off with a clanking knight.
Gallop is just what I’d give him, Thankful thought bitterly. But the horse was a gentle friendly creature named Bill, and the music beat the evident rhythm of the fox-trot. Thankful was on the floor again with neither the exulting triumph of the first dance nor the devastation of the second. She was even able to ask Bill why it was that she could make her feet move in time to this beat, and not to the other.
He thought about it carefully as he guided her accurately in and out. Thankful was more wistful than she knew. Robert had ground her confidence under his proud feet. She wanted to go home but there seemed no chance to get away, and Bill was kind to her. She listened to him absently because she never really meant to try to waltz again.
“And so you see,” he ended, “just how easy it is.”
Thankful sighed and thought that she might have paid attention.
“Because,” he went on, “you are doing it exactly as I told you.”
Thankful’s startled look made him laugh. “For the last few minutes you have been waltzing unusually well. You never noticed when the time shifted. You just followed.” He smiled gently at her through his spectacles which looked odd in his horse head. “You’re all set now.” He motioned to a sandy-haired ruddy boy. “Hey, MacFarland, here’s a Scotch lassie you’d like.” She hoped that the horse would get the prize.
From that springboard, she slipped into the evening as easily as if it had always been her medium. Her plaid kilt swished among the gay skirts, and she forgot her bare knees, and perplexity of where your partner would step next. Angus MacFarland hadn’t known that there was a Scotch girl in school. “And can you do the Highland fling?” She could, and they tapped out a few steps together in a corner. That was the best of all.
Even Saunders was subdued by suppertime. His activity had so filled him with hunger that he had small attention for Thankful’s plate. But she had eaten no dinner and endured much since, so that she kept him busy. He disappeared when Mr. Fletcher sauntered up with an extra plate of ice cream for Thankful.
“I got so hungry!” Thankful apologetically finished the cream while he watched in companionable silence. “And I had such fun!”
“Good for you!” he applauded. “As far as dancing is concerned you’re a natural.”
Thankful thought bitterly of her struggle with Robert. Nothing could sweeten that tragedy. Though he had passed her many times he had looked away in blank indifference. What must he have thought of her clumsy failure with him who was, Selina said, the perfect partner. He would never ask her again. But Mr. Fletcher was talking to her.
“I like the Highland fling,” he observed.
“So do I,” agreed Thankful.
“You wouldn’t like to give us a bit of it after supper if I can stir up the music?” He lifted a sardonic eyebrow at her start. “I saw you jigging it up in the corner.”
The color crept over her face. What would this evening demand of her next! All the pleasure in it had come through his help. She couldn’t refuse him but she was so terrified that she could not remember even the first step of the fling.
“Probably they don’t know the tune,” she suggested hopefully.
“They said they did.”
Silence. She looked up at him desperately and he smiled. An engaging smile! She stared at the floor, her lashes dark on her cheek.
“Could Angus MacFarland do it with me?”
He beckoned to Angus who rose at once. The chattering room was more aware of her corner than Thankful knew. Angus said politely that he would be glad to help out if he had a plaid, but that a fellow would look a fool dancing the fling in a baseball costume.
Thankful wanted to disagree with him but she couldn’t.
Angus went back to his table. Silence again. Then a small voice, “I would but I can’t seem to remember how it goes.”
The man rose. “They’re all going back now. Let’s get it over with.”
Thankful stole a look at him. He was implacable. Now why, she thought angrily, must he spoil what fun I’ve had! He knows I have to do what he says. He knows I hate it. She caught Robert’s cold glance in her unwilling progress toward the orchestra, and moaned under her breath at what he must witness now. Not one step could she remember.
The leader, who had bent over the edge of the platform to hear Mr. Fletcher, straightened up, and lifted his stick. Poised couples waited for the first note, and stopped hesitant at the odd scrape of the violins. Only a few of the musicians could handle it, and they needed a moment of practice. Selina, the chairman, bustled up. “What is this dance?” And Mr. Fletcher waved her away politely. Now they had it! That inimitable sharp scrape which only the pipes could really sound.
Angus, well forward where Thankful could see him, shuffled his feet encouragingly into the first steps. Oh, yes, it went that way, but her feet were iron shod. The leader turned. “Now!” he shouted, and startled, Thankful sprang into the dance.
Forget the Highland fling? Forget how to breathe! She and her brothers dancing on the grass. Mother’s old accordion. The floorboards of the attic shaking under her feet. Robbie’s kilts flying, hair flying, spirits flying! The tune blew the wind from over the sea, cold and bright. Her feet were as light as its touch.
The scraping bows ground down to the end. And down came Thankful’s arms, her uplifted chin, her flying hair. What a queer thing the old tune had done to her! She felt alone and bleak now that it had stopped. The noise! The noise! “Could I go now?” Nobody could hear her and she went. Confused and uncomfortable under the beating applause. And filled with such homesickness as she had not known yet. This night had been too much!
Two more dances with boys cutting in, and the party was over. Her coat was still on the rail, but astoundingly Saunders held it for her. “Made quite a hit, didn’t you?” She hardly heard his patter. She ached as she had after she left the island. This night had been too much!
A vague sense of Selina, uncommunicative. Now, what have I done to her? Weary groping, with no solution. And Robert’s friendliness gone too. It was a party! Then against the dun quiet of her drowsy lids she saw faces pressing against her, interested, aware. Boys, girls, even those men and women on the platform. Looking at her as she shrank away from them. Yet seeing her, seeing her, she suddenly realized, for the first time. And then so sharply that it cut down deep into her sleep and brought her sitting up to the stars outside her window, she knew why Mr. Fletcher had made her do this thing. She was no longer a shadow! She lay down and slept the profound sleep of the tired young.
False Summer
The Indian summer sun lay soft on Thankful’s eyelids. She stretched into comfort on the pebbly beach and waited for old man Dinkle to come. He was going to haul up next week so that she would have no more Saturdays on the water. She knew it was time. This pale sea and soft light were false summer. Already
they had twice fought their way around the course on Saturdays when the fall wind had whipped the bay feather white. She knew, but she could not face the procession of weeks ahead when no shining day barred off each end.
Still there was today. The sun poured over and soaked into her, but without much heat. Winter was coming. She heard fewer crickets now in the harsh grass, and the bayberry twigs were stiff with dull blue clusters. The berries had been jade green when she left Bright Island.
It was curious, she thought, how Bright Island never left her. Always the feeling of it was in her senses, apple green of the sky, the taste of its fog on her lips, its lovely quiet. She knew now that she would never be tuned to the noise of many people. That she would always be troubled by their strange ways.
She sighed deeply as she thought of Robert and Selina. Since that dance they had dropped her entirely. When Selina had said, “Well, you had a swell time showing off, didn’t you?” Thankful had slashed back against her hurt. And then there had been quiet between them, but not the peace of this quiet in the sun. An ugly stillness. The kind that brooded before a storm broke. Thankful had never known it between humans before.
Robert she understood better. Boys were easier to understand. He was so gay, so irresponsible. He valued people who gave him a good time. She had failed him at that dreadful dance, had touched his vanity. Probably he thought that she showed off, too. Queer what Robbie’s plaid had done for her that night. She could hear now Robert’s voice, “Gal, where’ve you kept all those good looks!” and she saw Selina’s staring woman’s eyes. Anyway, she rolled over and felt the freedom of her overalls—she was part of the rest of the school now. Though even they looked at her puzzled sometimes as if trying to reconcile two different people. It was those dreadful clothes that the girls had bought her. She wished that the tide would carry away the dress which she had tucked behind a rock when she put on her overalls.
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