Читать книгу Good-bye, Son and Other Stories - Janet Lewis - Страница 11

Summer Parties

THEY WENT THERE because they liked to go someplace after supper, and because they liked Merle and because Mrs. Butler never seemed to mind how much noise they made or how they mussed up the house. The Butlers were living that summer in the old red cottage with the outside stairway. There were only the three of them—Mrs. Butler, Merle, and Claudine, who was just nine. Merle was eighteen, a drowsy, good-natured girl with a pretty oval face and drooping shoulders. She never seemed quite awake or quite aware of herself except when she was dancing. Even then she danced in a sort of dream. She had soft brown hair that curled about her cheeks and was pinned up in a loose bun at the back of her neck. She didn’t like to fish and not very much to swim. As for hiking, the thought never entered her head. She spent hours in the hammock on the porch, or she helped her mother with the housework. She did anything you asked her to quite willingly, but she almost never thought of anything to do herself. She never got sunburned or tanned, but at the end of the summer the color in her face was a little deeper, a little warmer. She sang all the popular songs, knowing the words about halfway through.

Rummy Blake and the two Atwood boys and Maretta Hotchkiss were the regular gang, and sometimes the young man from the inn whom they called Morpheus.

After supper while Maretta was still doing the dishes Rummy Blake would whistle from the river and come into the house to wait for her, amusing himself by chinning himself on the porch rafters while she washed her hands and smoothed her hair. They’d go in the canoe, not because the Butlers were on the other side of the river, but because it was pleasant to be on the water at that hour.

At the Butlers’ there’d be a fire in the living room, and some new dance records. They punched holes in the old records and put them on off center. The phonograph was an old one with a tin horn like a morning glory. They used the loud steel needles and put a pillow in the horn to muffle the noise. Rummy was learning to stand on his head that summer. They danced some, and when the matting made the floor seem too slow they engaged in acrobatics and pillow fights. The Atwood boys were ex-servicemen, one of them with the Croix de Guerre. They were both very handsome and up on all the latest steps. The Croix de Guerre was the better-looking. He was lithe and dark with a little black mustache, and he used to dance cheek to cheek with Merle, who was exactly the right size and complexion for him. They looked charming together. Rummy was huge and bearlike, with large good-looking features still in an unfinished stage, but roughly blocked out; pleased with being so strong and still exploring the possibilities of his strength. His feet, which were so often in the air, were clothed in blunt Canadian shoepacks. His father was rich, having made a fortune in paper tags, and Rummy would inherit the business.

Mrs. Butler was a woman of considerable energy and direction. She went berrying constantly, and put down quantities of wild strawberry and raspberry jam, and her nose was always red and peeling from long hours in the hot berry patches. In the evenings she sat by the fire, leaning her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand, the blunt strong fingers curving up over her mouth. She gazed into the fire or watched the children, never interfering, but ready to talk if one of them sat down near her. Often she made them hot chocolate or had ice cream for them in the freezer. She was not a pretty woman, but her dark eyes were bright, and she smiled in a generous friendly way, having no secrets.

People occasionally said that she was trying to catch Rummy for Merle, and Maretta Hotchkiss, when she heard this, thought such people vulgar.

Morpheus was loafing on the built-in bench by the fireplace, one foot on the floor and one on the edge of the bench, his knee propping up an illustrated magazine. Maretta borrowed a cigarette from him and sat down beside him. She wore khaki riding breeches and a slipover sweater. Her collar, which had been freshly starched, was very crumpled, and she was hot and mussed from wrestling with Rummy. She made herself comfortable and lighted the cigarette, and Claudine came across the room and leaned against her knee heavily.

“Leave Maretta alone, babe,” said Mrs. Butler. Claudine sighed and went around beside Morph, put her arm around his neck, and pretended to look at the magazine with him. He took no notice of her save to blow his tobacco smoke in her direction. She fanned it away with her free hand, leaning hard on his shoulder. She looked very much like Merle, except that her hair was a pale brown, almost a gold, and her face browner. It was a smooth oval, the features somewhat larger and fuller than Merle’s, but the same features. Her eyes were a cloudy gray, with long honey-colored lashes. She was really very pretty. Her hands were dirty, and she was wearing four or five of the little solder rings that used to come on sticks of candy. The gang had no objection to her, except that she was often sulky and was always grabbing ahold of their hands when they were busy, or wanting to sit on their knees. She was getting too heavy to be such a baby, they thought.

“Leave Morph alone, Claudine,” her mother said. “Morph, if she bothers you, shove her away.”

“D’you hear that, Claudine?” said Morph casually.

Mrs. Butler moved her chair nearer the bench and said, “Maretta, what would you think of me buying the old Hodges place?”

“What for?” said Maretta.

“So we could have more room for parties—this is an ugly old hole—it’d be nice to ask some of Merle’s friends from Detroit to come up for a few weeks during the summer. We could have grand house parties over there.”

“It’s so far away,” objected Maretta.

“Oh, but you’ve all got boats. I can get it quite cheap. There’s the cutest little playhouse in the yard, with a real fireplace.”

“That’s for me,” said Claudine.

“Shut up, Claudine,” said Mrs. Butler. “It would make a nice guesthouse.”

“It’s a lovely place over there,” said Maretta. “Wouldn’t it take an awful lot of fixing? It’s been empty so long.”

“Sure it would, but I could do a lot of it myself. What’s life for?” said Mrs. Butler.

“What do you think of going across the river to live?” Maretta said to Merle later in the evening, when they were dishing up hot chocolate in the kitchen.

“Oh, I don’t care,” said Merle. “I like it all right here.”

The room had grown hot and full of cigarette smoke. They sat around on the floor, drinking their chocolate cautiously. The phonograph was silenced.

“Well,” said Rummy in a little while, “what do you say we wash the dishes and go home?”

“Never mind about the dishes,” said Mrs. Butler, “but the evening’s yet young.”

“I’m sleepy,” said Rummy, stretching himself. “Come on, Maretta.” Maretta got up obediently.

Outside Rummy linked his arm through hers and flashed the bug light about their feet. It made the grass a sharp unnatural green. A heavy dew had fallen, but the night was clear, and the air fresh after the hot room. They breathed deeply of it. “It’s like a drink of water,” said Rummy. They went down past the fence to Miss Molly’s garden. The faint spicy fragrance of pinks and tangled flower stalks came to them. They looked up at the sky, in which there was no moon but millions of stars whose light fell on their lifted faces like big flakes of snow. Maretta stepped into the water up to her ankle, getting into the canoe. In the darkness the river seemed to be overbrimming its banks.

“You know,” said Rummy as the canoe floated forward into the darkness, “Claudine is getting to be an awful brat.”

Maretta Hotchkiss rowed slowly down the river. It was a calm morning. The sun burned softly on her hands and bare arms, on the blistered green paint of the gunwale. The bailing can knocked gently back and forth at each pull of the oars. The shouts of someone watering a team at the Canadian shore came to her, pure and small, floated on the water, together with the jingling of the harness and the footfalls of the horses, splashing and stamping.

It was early June, and another summer. Merle was dead. She had died very suddenly in the winter. Mrs. Butler had bought the Hodges place, before Merle’s death, and now she had moved into it, with Claudine.

Maretta passed the red house where they had had so many good times last summer. They had all been so foolish—she was a year older. She thought that even if Merle were still alive they couldn’t have such good times this year. Rummy was different this year too. His father wasn’t well. He had heart trouble, and Rummy was doing more things around the place. She had asked him to come with her this morning, pausing at the Blakes’ long dock, holding to the dock with one hand and keeping the boat in position with one oar dipped in the water.

She said, “Come on down and call on Ma Butler.”

He said, “I’ve lots to do. I’ve been down there once, anyway. No good reason to go again.”

As she shoved off and started downstream he called, “I’ll be around this afternoon to go swimming.”

She nodded, watching him turn and walk back to the boathouse. He was big, and thick around the shoulders. It made him look a little stooped sometimes.

Mrs. Butler was glad to see her. She came out of the house briskly, a hammer in one hand. She wore a mob-cap and a big gingham apron, the apron pocket sagging from a handful of nails. She wiped her face with a corner of the apron and put her arms about Maretta, giving her a brusque, strong hug. They sat down on the railing. There was only one chair on the porch and neither wanted to take it. Sawdust and wood cuttings littered the steps. They had been mending the porch roof, which had collapsed completely at one end under the heavy snow. Old tattered shingles lay below the bridal wreath and rosebushes. There were no curtains in the windows yet.

“I’m keeping busy, Maretta,” said Mrs. Butler. “My God, it’s the only thing to do. Plenty of work around the old place. Some days I’m glad I got it, and some days I hate the sight of it. You never saw such an old wreck. And pretty nearly everything stolen from the inside of it. I imagine I’d know where to find some of the things, too, if I cared to drive around the island a bit. But I don’t care. Let ’em keep ’em.”

“It’s lovely over here,” said Maretta. “Do you like it better than the other side?”

Mrs. Butler paused, turned her head a little, and gave Maretta a shrewd reproachful glance.

“You know well enough, Maretta Hotchkiss, that I’d never’ve left the other side except for one reason, and that was so Merle and her friends could have better times. My God,” she said abruptly, “sometimes I can’t believe it yet.”

Maretta looked down at the cedar railing and began to pick off minute shreds of bark. There was a short silence, then Mrs. Butler said, almost fretfully, “Why don’t the gang come down and see me? Claudine, she hasn’t got a soul to play with, poor little thing. She misses you so.”

Maretta said, “There’s almost nobody here except Rummy and me.”

“That’s it. It’s just Rummy I’m surprised at,” said Mrs. Butler. “Down at our house every night last summer, and plenty of ice cream and cake I made for him, too. Now he won’t even come near me.”

“He’s busier this summer,” said Maretta. “Mr. Blake isn’t very well.”

“Oh, he isn’t so busy he couldn’t come down here once in a while,” said Mrs. Butler knowingly. She laughed harshly. “Well, he was here once. Came down to say he was sorry, and all that.”

“Don’t you believe he’s sorry?” asked Maretta.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Butler, her voice relaxing. “I guess he’s sorry. I guess you’re all sorry enough. Did you see Claudine yet?”

“No,” said Maretta. “Where is she?”

“Around here somewhere. Oh, babe! Oh, Claudine! Come’n say hello to Maretta.”

Claudine came slowly out of the house and sat down in the rocker. She said, “Hello, Maretta.”

“Been primping, I guess,” said her mother. “She don’t make herself very useful, this one. But she’s all we’ve got, and we love her.”

She reached out a strong red hand and patted Claudine on the shoulder. Claudine made no gesture. She looked at Maretta with a slow languid stare, her gray eyes veiled, her figure drooping against the back of the chair. She had on a pink cotton dress and dirty white socks. Her knees were brown and bare. Maretta thought, “There’s something insulting about the kid.” She liked Mrs. Butler, but she wanted to leave.

Mrs. Butler followed her down to the gate.

“Come again. Come often, Maretta. And you can tell Rummy Blake from me he’s a cupboard guest. Yes sir, that’s what he is—a cupboard guest.” Her voice hardened again.

Maretta crossed the road where a few sheep were lying in the cedar shade. In her embarrassment she had nothing to say. She turned and waved and hurried along the grassy shore to the rowboat. The sun was almost at noon.