The Blind Bow-boy/Chapter 9
Greyness was the characteristic tone of Provincetown. The houses were grey; the sky and the sand and the sea often seemed grey. Even the trees, the leaves powdered with dust, assumed a greyish sagegreen tinge. One long curving street, fringed with tiny wooden cottages, ran along the shore. These little houses, many of which were surrounded by hedges of untrimmed privet, sprinkled untidily with white blossoms, indifferently faced the road or the ocean. Tods of ivy and clematis, blue and white, draped the painted boards, and in the gardens dahlias, cosmos, zinnias, petunias, verbenas, portulaca, asters, and golden-glow grew in great irregular clumps. The street culminated in two landmarks, a church-spire, that might or might not have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and a tall Italian tower of brick, the Pilgrim Monument. In the harbour a warship rode at anchor, and there were fleets of rude fishing-smacks, among which the smug white sails of pleasure sloops looked as uncomfortable and awkward as a Londoner with morning coat and top hat would look in the midst of Shoreditch. The shore was lined with quaint, dilapidated boat-houses, rotting piers, and great nets, their edges bound with bobbins of cork, hung out to dry. As in all fishing-villages, there was a prevailing odour of dead fish. In this grey, gloomy town, the only colour, save that of the flowers, was supplied by the tawny, smiling faces of the Portuguese settlers, who mingled, somewhat aloof, to be sure, somewhat derisively, with the visiting artists from Greenwich Village.
Campaspe's cottage was not on the main street. It was situated about a mile and a half northwest across the cape, facing the open sea, near the life-saving station. For a time, the rough road leading thither wended its uncertain way through a scattering of scrub-oaks, scrub-pines, and maples, with patches of tiger-lilies, golden rod, purple asters, old maid's pinks, and Queen Anne's lace, on either side, then straggled on across a mile of sand-dunes, rolling down and up, like great stationary waves, some as high as twenty feet, on which the only vegetation was beach-grass, beach-plums, and bayberry shrubs. The beach was low and here the sand was packed hard and smooth. Higher up, back a little from the beach near the life-saving station, solitary but for its gaunt, uncordial companion in the midst of the grey dunes, stood the little white cottage with its slanting roof of unpainted shingles, and its great chimney, fashioned of huge boulders by some local builder. From afar, of course, as she had never visited Provincetown, it had amused Campaspe to plan this house somewhat in the spirit (certainly not the style!) of the farms of the Trianon. It had been her intention to arrange an opportunity for a rustic, aquatic villeggiatura, where she might conceivably disguise herself as a sailor's bride and entertain thought of adventures with sea-faring men. Having arranged for this house, actually ordering it built and furnished, indeed, the necessity for further action did not seem to present itself. To all intents and purposes, Campaspe had lived in it, enjoyed the imagined experience, and forgotten the episode.
On the grey, rough plaster walls of the interior hung madonnas, photographs of celebrated paintings, madonnas as placid as though they had never suffered the pangs of childbirth. The furniture was of white maple, polished to a state in which tables might have been used as mirrors, had occasion for such a compromise arisen. The hexagonal dining-table, the ancient chairs and beds and highboys and bureaux, had been bought from nearby farmers, who were glad to dispose of this junk at a low figure so that they might make their homes more modern with show-pieces from the Grand Rapids emporiums and beds of shiny brass from Boston. Bayberry dips stood in the stately Colonial candlesticks. The coverlets on the beds were masterpieces of nineteenth century provincial ingenuity and the rugs on the waxed floors had been woven by tired and patient grandmothers, who had spent their dead living years at work on them. The service was composed of Brittany china, Spanish peasant porcelain, and a gay Hungarian pottery, painted with brilliant flowers. It had been Campaspe's satisfied desire that no two cups or plates should be identical. On the wall a brass ship's-clock ticked out the time, sounding bells in lieu of hours, and lanterns, burning sperm oil, which had formerly served to illuminate the cabins of old whaling vessels, hung from the ceilings. The doors, with their oval tops, together with the rest of the woodwork, like the shingles on the roof, were oiled but unpolished.
To Harold, satiated with what he regarded as an exotic and artificial atmosphere, this pseudo-communion with a more natural environment, which, in a sense, reminded him of his boyhood, his Aunt Sadi and Persia Blaine, seemed heavenly. He took long walks on the spar-strewn dunes and, clad in tarpaulins, went fishing for founders in a decaying boat, rowed to a suitable depth by a weather-beaten tar, who told him venerable yarns of the old leviathan hunts, and more recent scandals of the New England village. Occasionally, with Alice, he went for a sail, the veteran mariner guiding the helm and calling out to Harold incomprehensible nautical directions (subsequently translated) for handling the canvas of the sloop, a sorry affair smelling of dead fish. The sickly aroma of dead fish, indeed, haunted the nostrils and never entirely passed away, just as the dampness penetrated even the heavy cedar clothes-presses, and covered the books, ranged on shelves behind glass doors, with a film of mildew.
Alice, who had come to this retreat straight from Southampton, found this setting for a honeymoon a little primitive, a little abnormally primitive. Her pale blond beauty was curious in this regard, that in the city she seemed decidedly a rural type, while in the country one could only think of her as belonging to the city. She found the old sailor vulgar, and once or twice nearly lost her temper with Emma, a taciturn and sardonic Portuguese woman, of middle-age, who had acted as care-taker of the place and now lingered on in an ancillary capacity. Campaspe's taste in plates also annoyed Alice. Why were they all different? she asked herself. In this prospect only Harold pleased her. The two had had been here nearly a month now, idling together, and it may be reported that they had discovered some measure of happiness. Alice was bored rather than unhappy. She had no leanings towards domesticity, towards keeping house; she gave Emma few orders. It was characteristic of her to complain instead because her unuttered desires were not carried out. She was not interested in reading, resembling Harold in this respect. She sewed a little, finding occupation in the construction of a beaded bag, but time, on the whole, passed slowly for her. She liked best to sit on the dunes with Harold, holding his hand, making plans for the future. She talked quite easily of children, so easily, indeed, that occasionally Harold caught himself wondering if he really wanted children. Somewhat self-consciously, Alice was prone to regard this excursion, this singular honeymoon, in the light of a temporary lark, a lark from which she was not deriving any excruciating amount of pleasure. In the foreground of her mind rose a picture of a somewhat more solid life in New York, with a great house and servants, friends to dinner, dinners which would be returned in due course by these friends, a box at the opera, theatres and shops to visit, calls to pay, the conventional life of a respectable matron, and, in time, her daughters. . . .
She gave voice to some of her ideals, and Harold loved to hear her talk about them. He, too, would be glad of a home, he felt, a place that was his own, in which he might sit with his pipe, slippers on feet, slackly, but respectably, comfortable. He even looked forward to the social life, of which she had given him glimpses, into which they would presumably fit. Very different, he imagined it would be, from that of Campaspe. He wondered often how the two could be sisters. He remembered how they had appeared as strangely separate entities that afternoon in the little garden on East Nineteenth Street: Alice softly acquiescent, Campaspe radiantly benedictory, hovering like a bishop over some secret glory. How simple it all had been. He had expected strife, opposition, obstruction. There had been nothing of the sort. Oliver, apprised of his plan, had come forward with a sufficient sum to pay for a trip to Buenos Ayres, more than enough to cover an indefinite sojourn in this cottage by the sea. His father had telegraphed his congratulations, and had mailed a further cheque of quite an amazing denomination. Campaspe had presented them with this house. Paul had appeared to be rather melancholy, and he had shaken Harold's hand with an intensity which led the boy to believe that he must have misjudged his mentor. The Duke had sent the couple a set of Tennyson, bound in half-morocco. Harold was not acquainted with the works of Tennyson, but he had sensed a derisory intention in this gift. Mr. Blake, in a letter, had hinted of future delights in store for the happy pair when they returned to New York. Persia Blaine had sent a great pink and white cake. Only his aunt, incomprehensibly, had not been complaisant. She had written a letter which Harold had found it difficult to understand, and which now he was finding it difficult to forgive. Nearly a month had gone by and he had not yet answered it. Scarcely a day passed, however, in which he did not read it.
My dear Harold [the letter began in a manner which he recognized as not unduly formal for his decidedly formal aunt],
I do not feel much inclined to write to you, but I suppose it is my duty, and duty is something that I never shirk. This letter, however, will be no bearer of congratulations. To be blunt, I feel that you are making a mistake. You should never have gone to your father. Had it been in my power, I should have prevented it. He is wrecking your life with his ego and his selfishness. He broke your mother's will, and he will break yours. If I had stayed with him in business, he would have broken mine. I have wept hot tears since I received your telegram, as I understand only too well what all this means. Poor ignorant boy, you have walked straight into the trap set for you. When you are through with this marriage, come back to me. Your father will be enraged that he has lost you, but I will be glad that I have found you.
Miss Perkins is here and sends her love to you. Persia has not been very well. You will remember that she always suffers from hay fever at this time of year. I cut my thumb a few days ago, paring peaches to preserve, and it still bothers me considerably.
your Aunt Sadi.
Harold could explain this letter satisfactorily to himself on no other ground save the ground of jealousy. She is enraged because I am married, he thought, and she is blaming my father for something with which he had nothing whatever to do, to which certainly, in the beginning, he was opposed, for did he not send me to Paul and to a life which is the farthest removed from the life that I wish to live? Now that I have married Alice, he has accepted the situation with more grace than could have been expected from him. He said, Do anything you please, and apparently he meant it. How much broader and bigger in spirit he is than Aunt Sadi.
He had not yet showed the letter to Alice, but one day, when he had been talking about his childhood, he felt moved to do so. Drawing it from the pocket where he always carried it, he handed it to his wife, with a few words of explanation.
Do not let it hurt you, he said. She is an old woman, and what she says cannot matter after all. I have meant a good deal to her, probably, in her loneliness, and she thinks she is losing me. But she is wrong about my father. He has been very good to me.
He was not surprised to observe that she flushed as she read the letter. Handing it back to him, she stared at him in a peculiarly searching manner. There was an expression around her eyes that he had never noticed there before.
The letter does not hurt me, she said at last, only . . .
Only what?
Regarding him more intently still, she paused for a moment. Then, turning her head so that their eyes no longer met, she replied: Your father may have had some purpose in view, Harold, but he meant it for your good, I feel sure.
And now that I have done what he didn't want me to do he has forgiven me?
Ye-es, she replied, rather hesitantly, although he was not conscious of her lack of enthusiasm. Quite suddenly, she bent towards him and kissed his eyes. Let us go back to the house, Harold, she said.
They had been sitting on the dunes in the dying sunlight, for the day had been bright with a brightness, however, which merely served to accentuate the cold greyness of the place. A dragon-fly, shining purple and green, steered his course round and round Alice's head, like a miniature airplane. A flock of gulls swooped down over the sea, crying mournfully, and some of them disappeared under the grey waves, capped with white. A cool breeze was blowing in over the water and, as Alice rose, she drew the blue knitted scarf she was wearing more closely about her shoulders.
In the cottage, when they arrived, Emma, silent and stern, was laying the table with the gay variety of design which Alice instinctively hated. She especially detested the opaque white glass chickens of the Civil War period, consecrated to hold eggs, but the Spanish, Hungarian, and Brittany china offended her taste almost equally. She liked white plates with gold borders for the roasts, and engraved glass plates with gold borders for the salad and dessert. The cotton print curtains at the windows annoyed her, and her mind reverted to the consideration of some striped stiff taffetas she had examined at Johnson and Faulkner's. Their magnificence, distributed at the windows and in the wallpanels, would almost serve to furnish the drawing-room. There would also be a great divan, upholstered in royal blue velvet, and a royal blue velours carpet on the floor. This maple! Mahogany was Alice's favourite wood. Some of these opinions she had uttered aloud at one time or another, safely enough, she thought, because this cottage represented her sister's taste. If Harold had been responsible . . . !
Harold was both pleased and alarmed by these discourses on the subject of interior decoration. Alice seemed so practical and matter of fact. He had not sensed these qualities in her before marriage. He was coming to believe, indeed—he was thinking in terms of fact and not of deprecation—, that he had known nothing whatever about his wife before marriage. He had hardly even conversed with her. But, fundamentally, he felt, she was his kind, and this interest in house furnishing, this passion for children, however incautiously and belatedly divulged, were part of what he wanted. They were fractions of a great normal entity to which he aspired. Yet, sometimes, with the cold breeze from the sea, a parallel psychic frigid wind had blown across his soul, an unknown terror had assailed him. His reason could not tell him what it meant but, instinctively, he understood, dimly enough at first, perhaps, that it portended disillusion. He was also amazed, sometimes, to find himself thinking—so little was he analytical—that a great part of Alice's charm for him, in this newly and none too securely established intimacy, consisted in the essential fact that she was Campaspe's sister, for, from that brief excursion into an alien world, he had borne away a perplexing but permanent affection for Mrs. Lorillard. She had seemed to him the only real person he had met in that world, and he never ceased to wonder why it interested her, what she got from it, for it was apparent, even to him, that it did interest her. Gradually, however, from Alice he had learned how closely Campaspe was bound to other more conventional circles in New York society, how in the fall she attended the Horse Show, and during the winter was seen in the boxes of people whose names frequently appeared in the newspapers, how she gave dinners and dances for these people, and went to theirs. Very often there was mention of Laura, who, he gathered, with an adumbration of perception, would not have been altogether comfortable in the presence of the Duke of Middlebottom.
Laura and her children were the subject of a good deal of Alice's idle chatter. They were the most divine children, Alice asserted; she only hoped hers would be as good. She drew a showy picture of the nursery: Laura's Rollo-like offspring eating at a little table with their Belgian governess, while Laura in a Bendel gown received in the drawing-room below. Laura in most respects was obviously Alice's model.
At night, it was usually cold enough for a fire and, with the ruddy logs glowing in the great boulder fireplace, the pair sat on a wooden settle banked with cotton print covered cushions, facing the fire, holding hands. It was Alice who did most of the talking. She had so much to say. Harold was comparatively inarticulate; very few thoughts in his mind urgently demanded expression, and he had to search to find words in which to express even these. Half-comprehending, half-dreading life, he seldom asserted himself. He basked in the pleasant warmth of Alice's conversation, as she basked in the heat of the burning logs, enjoying Alice, talk, and fire, objectively. He, indeed, would have been glad to remain indefinitely at Provincetown, or near it, although they knew nobody and it seemed they never would, for Alice objected that she could not meet people from Greenwich Village, and, of course, she added, one can't know the natives. The Portuguese themselves, had she but been aware of it, would have taken the first step, had it been necessary, towards preventing any narrowing of this always ample breach. However that may be, although Harold and Alice crossed the dunes nearly every day to go to the post office or the market, they made no acquaintances of any kind.
Their intimacy was so complete and exclusive, indeed, that to the Provincetowners—both natives and visitors—they appeared to be a couple of youngsters revelling in their first illicit love. The married state, certainly, was never ascribed to them. Gossip was endemic among the Portuguese, and, as the rumour grew, biographies were invented to fit the happy pair. Letters passed back and forth as the gossip bubbled, gossip to which Emma added her unwholesome quota. Heartily disliking Alice, Emma permitted herself uncontrolled flights of the imagination once she met her friends in the village.
Emma brought in the soup. They sat down to eat at two adjoining sides of the hexagonal table. Later, there was fish. Almost invariably, indeed, there was fish.
Alice's glance was directed towards the prongs of her fork.
Harold, she asked, shall we live here much longer?
The boy showed his astonishment. Are you unhappy, dear? he questioned her in return.
Not unhappy, no, but restless. You know it isn't my kind of place.
But New York in the summer. . . .
We can't go back just yet, of course . . . but in a little while. I suppose, too, that you will want to be getting to work. She observed his expression of amazement, but she hurried on: You are going to work, aren't you?
Of course.
He felt confused and embarrassed. Here was an aspect of the situation which had never occurred to him. Now that he was a family man he would be expected to make a living for his bride.
You can't, she went on rather sententiously, always live on your father, Harold dear. My daughters . . . Well, dearest, they couldn't respect you.
What would he do? Harold helplessly interrogated himself. No more was said about the matter that night, but he tossed about restlessly in bed, his heart beating violently, revolving the idea over and over. It seemed that he could never accustom himself to the problems of life. As fast as the old ones were solved, fresh ones rose on every hand. Nothing seemed simple. How, for example, could he expect to get on sufficiently well to enable him to support his wife without his father's assistance? He could think of no possible opening in the business line except to go in with his father, and his father had expressly said that he did not wish him to do that. What could he do?
Alice, on her part, did not refer to the matter again for several days. She exposed the pleasantest side of her nature, wore her prettiest dresses. She even refrained from complaining about the plates. They took long idyllic walks together: on the dunes. They bathed in the sea. The actual clouds drifted out of the sky and the tone of the atmosphere grew more mellow, less grey. Their evenings they passed on the settle. The morose Emma, having washed the dishes and arranged the neat punnets of berries in the ice-chest, left them alone, after fortifying herself for three hours of creative gossip with a nip of perry, a beverage she was skilful in brewing. In spite of the apparent calm, Alice's words ate deeper and deeper into Harold's consciousness. He felt that she was right and, finally, one night, he summoned up enough courage to broach the subject again.
Alice dear, I've been worrying about what you said. . . .
She frowned, questioningly. What I said? she repeated, with an interrogative inflection.
About my going to work.
Dearest boy, I didn't mean to worry you. . . . Only—she was nervously switching her suede shoes with a willow-bough she had cut during her afternoon walk—, only, it has seemed to me at times that perhaps you are taking things too easily, too much as a matter of course; that was all. We can't stay here for ever, you know.
I understand. His tone was low and serious. I have been thinking about it and I know that you are right.
She brightened, and threw the switch into the fire.
I'm glad you agree with me, Harold. Now, what are you going to do?
That's just it, he groaned. I haven't the least idea!
Don't you think it's best for you to go in with your father? He would help you so much, and you would get on so fast, and we should all be so proud of you!
But my father doesn't want me to go into his business. I've explained all that to you.
Alice gazed at him intently for a little while, as if weighing him and the consequences of what she was about to divulge. As she began to speak, her glance dropped to the fire.
I think it's only fair that you should know something, Harold, she said at last.
He searched her face with some alarm.
Nothing serious. She grasped his arm and rubbed her cheek affectionately against his cheek. He has done it for your good, dear. Your father has been deceiving you.
My father! He sprang away from her in amazement and stood, helplessly, a little apart, trying to find some kind of meaning in her words.
It was a sort of plot or plan, she went on in a somewhat pedantic manner, as though she had been rehearsing this speech for a long time. You see your father had the feeling that, as you had been brought up by women, you were innocent and ignorant of life. He was afraid if he took you right into his business that you might break away, be misled—Oh! I don't know what exactly. Anyway, you said you didn't want to go in with him, and he hoped you would eventually decide for yourself that you did want to. So—she tried to ap proach him again but his manner warned her that this would be dangerous, or at least difficult—, he thought that if he threw you into the wrong kind of life in the beginning you would hate it, and come round to him of your own accord. That is why he made life unpleasant for you, as disagreeable for you as possible, hoping that a year of it would tire you. You were tired in a month. He was so pleased. He wants you with him, Harold—she was pleading now—; he is expecting you. Only, you must ask him. He won't ask you. Don't you understand?
Harold was standing with his back to the fire, his face, in the shadow, almost green in its pallor. His head seemed to be reeling around and around. Suddenly he realized that he was excessively angry.
I'd see him in hell first! he cried.
Harold!
I mean it. Who's to blame for the way I was brought up? He didn't do much to prevent it, did he? the boy asked scornfully.
Harold!
And so, he went on, the whole thing was a trick!
Now, completely the prey of alarm, a suspicion of tears crept into Alice's voice. It was for your good, Harold, to make a man of you. She was whining, whimpering.
And who kept me from being aman? Who? I should like to know.
His voice had grown so incisive and cold that it scarcely seemed to be he that was talking.
Alice was really crying now. I shouldn't have told you, she sobbed. Only, it seemed to be the right time . . . and . . . and I thought you loved me, Harold . . . I couldn't help telling you, Harold, because I love you.
He ignored this. How did you find all this out? was his next question.
She was trembling. Your father, she began.
Our meeting . . . the stalled car . . . arranged? He was sneering.
No, Harold, no! That was an—accident. Only . . .
Only what?
Only, you see, after we met . . . Well, your father, of course, knows my father. . . . It seemed best to keep us apart.
You knew all this?
Why yes, Harold. It seemed all right. I loved you, Harold, and they told me. . . .
Did Campaspe know?
She stopped crying at once and her tone became petulant.
Campaspe? Why do you bring in Campaspe? Campaspe! Campaspe! Campaspe! Why are you questioning me? Why do you look at me like that?
Did Campaspe know? His tone was colder, more acid.
No.
Harold, who until now had stood as stiffly as a birch-tree, began to move about the room. Presently, he laughed.
So, he said, she's clean. They're all clean: Paul, and Bunny, and Ronald, compared with my own wife, my own father.
Harold!
You've tricked me: Your father, my father, you. At last I understand what Aunt Sadi meant in her letter. It doesn't matter. Only this—he grasped her shoulders firmly and held her at arm's length—only this, you can tell my father that I'm going straight back where he sent me!
Harold!
Straight back. They're clean. They didn't know what it was all about, but they were natural and real while all you rotters have been playing parts.
Harold, you can't mean what you're saying!
I haven't even begun to say what I mean! He threw her roughly back against the settle, relinquishing his hold on her shoulders. I'm through.
He crossed the room in great strides and rushed out through the door. Her screams rang in his ears as he staggered off across the dunes, black in the night, stumbling, falling even, in the deep sand. There was a distant rumble of thunder, faint flashes of lightning. A storm was arising over the sea.