Читать книгу Beginners Luck - Emily Hahn - Страница 3

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He stepped off the train at Lamy expecting nothing at all. He had no idea of the city he was entering: what it looked like, how one passed the time, what people one would know—it was all unexplored. He had never in his life been west of Buffalo. Mary, his mother, had written him a few letters about it, but she had not had time to write much, and anyway she was very busy finding out for herself. Mary expected to settle down in Santa Fé for a long time; it was good for her health out here and she liked it.

Blake, on the other hand, had no plans. He was not supposed to have any: he was too young to have plans. Mary had plans for him, no doubt, but as yet he had no notice of them.

He stood for two forlorn minutes on the platform at Lamy, wondering what to do next. A chauffeur—a stranger—found him and took him in hand and put him away, with the baggage, in a new limousine. The limousine then turned around and began to drive up a winding hill, toward Santa Fé, Mary and revelation.

It was a beautiful drive up a long hill, the road twisting and leading up and down in an intriguing manner. Blake tried hard to appreciate it, but his mind would not behave. It kept reverting to another theme; a tiresome theme; a threadbare theme. His mind was an independent disagreeable thing with a passion for theatrical revivals. Just now it disregarded the beautiful heights of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and devoted itself to a New England scene, the setting of an unpleasant memory. Heedless of Blake’s desire, it carried the props to the stage and set them up. Wearily, Blake helped. Obediently he placed the head-master’s desk in the exact middle of the head-master’s room, just below the window that looked out on the front view of the school. Doggedly he put the head-master into the chair behind the desk, and sullenly took up his own old position before the desk, facing Dr. Miller. Everything was ready, and with lifted hand Dr. Miller began the dialogue:

Dr. Miller: I regret the necessity of this more than you can possibly realize, Lennard. Some day, I hope that you will remember this moment and then perhaps you will understand the difficulty of my position. This is a moment that I have been dreading, frankly, dreading for some months.

Blake: I’m very sorry, sir.

Dr. Miller: It is a little late to be sorry. You must understand it is too late. No amount of apology——

Blake: I wasn’t apologizing, sir. I said I was sorry. I haven’t apologized.

Dr. Miller: Very well, Lennard. I have written to your mother. I hope she will understand that I have done my best. You will leave here in the morning in time to catch the nine-thirty. Your mother telegraphed that you are to go——

Blake: I know. She telegraphed me.

Dr. Miller: I think that is all. Good-bye, Blake.

Blake: Good-bye, sir.

Dr. Miller: Once more, Lennard; I’m more sorry than I can say that this happened.

Blake: Yes, sir, good-bye, sir.

Here, at the exit, his mind was most tiresome of all. Just here at the original performance Blake had slipped while making his exit. He had done his best to leave that part out of the repetitions, but the more he struggled the more ridiculous became the by-play. Today the stumble was worse than it had ever been: he slipped on the rug at the door, waved wildly about as he tried to catch his balance, and ultimately, after the most ludicrous contortions, landed on his neck in a Charles Chaplin abandon. All of this went on just as the limousine turned from the Lamy cut-off to the main road. Writhing in an agony of embarrassment, Blake forgot where he was and said aloud, in protest to the tyrannical stage-manager, “No, I didn’t!”

The chauffeur cocked an ear and Blake burrowed down hastily behind a suit-case. He left the charade with relief and began to look at the mountains. Up ahead there was a group of buildings that looked as if it might be the outpost of Santa Fé. It occurred to him that he might ask the chauffeur to point things out to him. On second thought he decided to wait and pick up his knowledge in a different way. The effort of breaking silence would be terrific.

So in silence they rode down the hill into town, past the first little adobe houses and then by way of the outskirts to his mother’s house. He liked the outside of it: irregular and old-looking, with a wall that started at the side and enclosed—imperfectly—a garden. Mary heard the car and came to the door, in quite a hurry. That was nice of her and it made Blake feel better. He had expected to find the door locked.

She kissed him and didn’t mention school. She asked after his aunt in New York, disapproved of his tie, and sent him to his room to get acquainted. There were three pieces of furniture in it: a low bed with straight brown posts, a light dressing-table, and a wardrobe. The walls were painted a light yellow and he walked all the way around wondering how to decorate them with murals. He would need a bookcase: he could paint it himself, purple to match the mountains. But now as he looked from the window the mountains were not purple. They were blue, a deep expressionless color. They were like pieces of passe-partout about the edge of the valley, cut out in great rolling curves and pasted over the disorderly meeting of sky and land. He leaned out of the window and sniffed. His nose expected an odor of pine and wet ground; instead there was a faint parched perfume of burning wood and sunburnt clay. It was almost dark. He changed his tie and went in to tea.

Bob Stuart had come to welcome him. Sitting on the edge of a chair, talking fast and gesticulating with his free hand while he steadied his tea-cup on his knee, he looked all wrong out here. He was practically an uncle and he belonged to another world. He was embarrassing to Blake; he took from the adventure and the new world its exclusive adventurous quality. Still, he had changed. A funny little man with all his ideas coming in rushes, bubbling over in sudden gestures and rapid words, his orange hair had gained a dignity and he was not just an amusing little person. He was unique. After forty-some years of managing to hold his own, Bob had become independent. It was as if he had waked one day and stood in front of the mirror, probably with his stiff hair leaning the wrong way and his nose comically pink and small above the striped pajamas. Perhaps he had suddenly said to himself:

“Well, that’s the way I am. What are they going to do about it? I am I. That’s that.”

It must have been something like that. At any rate, immediately thereafter other people saw a change in Bob. He had put on a velvet shirt of vivid purple, white Mexican trousers, and brown sandals that exposed his big toes to friends and enemies, and to hell with them. He walked the streets of Santa Fé with his nose up, neither seeking nor shunning mirrors. It was not at all the same old Bob who now shook hands with Blake.

“Well, well, well,” he said as the hands went up and down. “And how’s the young rebel?”

This was a difficult question. Blake simpered and forgot to say anything. Bob made a benevolent groaning noise and patted him on the shoulder.

“You’ll outgrow it; you’ll outgrow it. Here, I have another young rebel for you to meet. Teddy! Where has he gone?”

“Huh?” Over in the corner some one was prowling about looking at the pictures. He came out of the shadows and stood waiting.

“This is Teddy Madden. He ran away from home and came here to find himself and be a genius.” Bob patted Teddy now, in the same fashion. “You must be great friends. Teddy, this boy has just been expelled from school. He’s going to tell us why.”

Across the painful benevolence that trembled in the air, the boys looked at each other and took stock. Madden was older. His legs and arms were sure of themselves. But he was not quite grown up; his mouth was not quite sure.

“Teddy’s a great artist,” Bob said. “Artists always run away from home, Mary. It’s a law of Nature. Didn’t they tell you that at school?” he asked Blake.

“No, sir. They never talk about artists at all.”

“Oh, come now.” Bob leaned forward hopefully, with his tirade against modern education all ready in his mouth. “Do you mean to say that you didn’t study Michelangelo?”

“But that’s not art,” Blake said, in all sincerity. “That’s Ancient History.”

“And that’s an epigram, my son,” said Mary.

Madden seemed pleased. “Whether it is or not, it’s a good one,” he said. Very sure of himself, he stood by Mary and handed tea-cups around.

Of all of them the tea-pot seemed to be the only one that expected anything of the gathering. The others subsided and waited for the tea-pot to make a remark that would start things going. Blake looked at it almost hopefully, it was so authoritative. What would it say? Being a member of the family, it had a good deal of license. Being of an aristocratic and expensive shape, it would doubtless waive its right, like Mary, and remain as composed and silent as Mary herself. This is just what it did.

Under his own half-developed sense of responsibility Blake squirmed. It was all his fault. If he had not been here, the tea party would have been an informal pleasant thing. If he had been in his own room studying Latin or looking out of the window at the reluctant New England spring, Mary and Bob would even now be talking smoothly, worrying about nothing at all. If he had not been here, gripping his cup with an angry defiance, Teddy Madden would have been free to go back into the corner and read. Instead, here they all sat, looking at each other.

Bob cleared his throat and said loudly, “Well, Blake, what was it all about? Tell us what crime you committed. We’re waiting.”

Mary looked distressed, but said nothing.

“I guess Dr. Miller wrote as much as I could tell you,” said Blake.

“He wrote, of course, darling,” said Mary. “He has a way of obscuring things. We just couldn’t make it out at all.”

“He writes an extraordinary letter,” added Bob. “Extraordinary. Wasn’t it, Ted?”

“Absolutely,” said Madden. Blake was suddenly furious that Madden had seen it. What business was it of Madden’s? What had his mother been thinking of?

There were little pin-scratches on the wood of his chair. Some of them formed designs; just next to his hand on the right chair-arm was a lopsided fleur-de-lys. But the design in the cloth of his trousers was different; eyed closely, it had the appearance of a family of brown triangles turning their backs with one accord on another family of tan triangles....

“Blake,” said Mary gently.

He answered, “Well, I’m just trying to think of what to say. I don’t know what the matter is. I can’t get along with people, I guess.”

“What sort of people, darling?”

“Any sort. Masters. Boys. Anybody. It’s my general attitude.”

“What?” cried Bob, smiling.

“My general attitude. That’s what Dr. Miller said. He said I was unsocial and spoiled and an irritant to the community.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Bob. “But what did you do? He wouldn’t have sent you away for that. There must have been something more specific.”

“There wasn’t, really. I had a row with the English master about a theme because I left out some commas and they were putting it into the school magazine and he edited it. He put the commas back in and ran some of the sentences together so that they would be well-rounded, he said. I told him he hadn’t any right to do it. He didn’t have, either. He said there were certain rules of language, and I said, all right, I would make up some more. He was sore.”

“What else?” said Mary.

“Then there were lots of little things. Mother, I hate that place. I told you, Christmas. I said this would happen.”

“But you promised to try, dear. Did you?”

“I did try at first. There was a meeting in the auditorium last week and there was a man there to talk. He used to be a friend of Roosevelt and he was Miller’s cousin. They always play the Star Spangled Banner and you’re supposed to stand at attention, and I didn’t.”

“But why didn’t you?” said Bob. Blake said nothing. He couldn’t explain. It had been a sudden rush of anger at everything; he couldn’t put that feeling into words for Bob.

“Well, dear, and then?”

“I was called up to Miller and we had a fight about everything that had happened. There was something else; a silly old fight about making too much noise in the library.”

Blake’s eyes met Teddy’s, and he thought he saw the other boy nod at him. He was a little comforted.

“Well, well, well,” said Bob, standing up, “it’s a revolutionary age. We mustn’t take these things too seriously, Mary. Remember, we all outgrow it. I must be getting along. Come on, Ted. Remember Tuesday.”

He patted Blake’s head, kissed Mary, and went out. Teddy nodded casually and followed him. He looked a little embarrassed.

Mary patted Blake’s head, too, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. He put down a cookie on the table and said, “I’m awfully sorry. I couldn’t help it, honestly.”

“I know. But I’m a little worried. What will you do in the fall?”

“Couldn’t I stop trying to go to school? It’s no use, really. Let me go to work.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear. What could you do?”

“I don’t know. Something. I don’t want to worry you.”

“You know you don’t worry me. I want you to find yourself.”

“Uh-huh.” He twirled a button on his coat.

“Well,” she said, “we’ll think about it. You spend the summer here and get a good rest.”

“What’s it like?”

“Oh, I think you’ll like it very much. There are plenty of people for you to play with.”

“How are you?”

“Better, I think. Doctor Browning says to be very quiet this summer, and it ought to work wonders.”

“Who’s Madden?”

“That’s a very nice boy. Bob says he is really talented. He’s been here since early spring; I think he worked his way out just so he could join the art colony. So many of those boys do that sort of thing.... I think that we might find another school for you, dear, or a tutor. It would mean only one more year, and you’ll like college.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t want to go. Please.”

“Well, we’ll see.... I think dinner is ready.”

He almost fell asleep at the table. It was the fault of the fire, so near his chair. He couldn’t stop watching it. Along the cracks in the charcoal, little blue flames walked up and down lapping at the air. The room was filled with the faint parched sweet smell.

Anxious to get to his room and to look again at the mountains, he kissed Mary and went to bed. He undressed and lay down and turned to the window. But now there was nothing but darkness; the sky was full of very big bright stars and around the edge of the world there were no more stars. Big shadows had blotted them out, but what shape the shadows had or how far away they were, it was impossible to say. He drew his knees up and rubbed the pillow with his cheek and closed his eyes.

For a long time he could not go to sleep; he kept his eyes shut with an effort, against the waiting mass of the mountains; he smiled and jerked his pillow closer to his shoulder, with a nervous alert hand.