June and Ronny stood with Eddie in his little wheelhouse facing the prow of the ship while Eddie told them some of his adventures. The “Arabella” was not much to look at, with her squat lines, but she had been used, it seemed, for many purposes. Many a time she had bucked across the Canadian border; many a time had anchored in lonely Fundy, where the huge tides change the coastline from night to morning and where the bell buoys sound in the fog.
“She’s getting on now,” said Eddie, slapping the wheel affectionately. “I guess she’d just as soon take fishing parties and lovers.”
Flo climbed up to the bridge after they were underway and asked rather shyly to see how Ronny’s chest was making out.
“It isn’t sore anymore,” said Ronny, “and the little scabs all fell off.” He opened his shirt so that Flo could see.
Flo was proud of his work but still thought it should have had an arrow through it.
“Then all the blood would run out,” said Ronny, giving June a look. “June thinks it’s a real heart,” he continued with bravado, “but it isn’t.” Secretly he was not sure. Looking downwards, he thought it palpitated slightly like a wicked changeling draining his true boy’s heart away. ‘Or is it June who is wicked?’ he wondered.
At that moment she spoke in a teasing voice: “You shouldn’t have put my name under it if you can’t take the consequences,” and she asked herself angrily for whose benefit she was talking.
Ronny soon ran out of the wheelhouse and down onto the foredeck. Flo followed and from where she stood June could see them talking to each other and with the other man who was crew.
“Rather hard on him, aren’t you?” asked Eddie, twisting his head around to look at her.
“Oh he’s such a baby!” cried June, exasperated at Ronny and horrified at the sound of her own voice betraying him.
“Well he’s only ten or so,” said Eddie reasonably. “Why don’t you go and get yourself someone your own age?”
“I don’t want someone,” June answered hurriedly, and pictured at once several of her elder brother’s friends, all very handsome and all unaware of her existence.
“A good looking blond like you could just about take your pick,” continued Eddie, pulling the “Arabella” around in a large circle.
This novel theory made June laugh, but the laugh was not quite natural. They were silent in the stifling little wheelhouse, watching the lights grow nearer on the shore, take forms and wax large and beautiful as the stars. Now there seemed something else in the wheelhouse with them, as though a musky, tense animal were crouching in the corner. June felt the sweat roll out of her hair, warm and persistent, wetting the silk neckline of her dress.
Just as they were approaching the dock Eddie sighed and said: “It’s no use, see. I like you. You know that. But you’re jail bait, kiddy, jail bait.”
‘Did I really understand?’ wondered June, stupefied. ‘Did he really think—’ She would have liked to annihilate Eddie from the earth, make him disappear forever, at once, plumb down beneath the ocean. Yet at the same time the peculiar inflection of Eddie’s voice as he said that word ‘kiddy’, its hoarse, tender softness, entered her blood like a disease.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grace Villars, at the time she received Stevens’ letter, was not having a particularly successful season. She was of that age where, if one is a lively blond both piquant and experienced, one may have a flock of young men at one’s heels. But Grace was not interested in young men. She was interested in rich old ones and these were increasingly scarce on her horizon. It was strange that all her adult life had been spent making herself into their ideal and that now, when she had followed their every wish, they had rewarded her by disappearing. Did she not now have exactly what they had always pretended to admire? Was she not Grace of the blue starry eyes, dainty brown limbs and sunny curls? Was she not dressed smartly, but with that touch of coquettish bad taste that they loved—or used to love? This year, when she did get a glimpse of one of them, he appeared to be after something else. And surely that sulky brunette with the long, emaciated body, the big drooping mouth, the lank, falling hair could not afford him the same thrill. Ah, but men were stubborn creatures, and sheep to boot!
True, Grace was asked about a lot. She received more telephone calls than any of the three hostesses she had had so far that summer. She was in Newport. She was out every night and she played tennis and bridge every day with all her usual pert ardour. Nonetheless, she could see the change. All these occupations were merely frills; garnishings on the platter. When the meat was absent, they, too, were rendered useless. And the meat was definitely absent. Sometimes Grace wondered if she had not made a mistake in sending Ronny away, if perhaps his support would have been an advantage. He was surly, he wriggled, but he was handsome. His suave, olive darkness made her the more fair. She knew, too, that as she leaned her hand with its rosy nails on his shoulder and laughed down into his face, there was added to her aura another colour, a subtle incestuous shade.
So it was that on the morning Grace opened Stevens’ letter, she contemplated fetching Ronny at once and letting him pass the rest of the season with her. Then she reflected further and thought of his sullen behaviour and his nervous manner which bordered on the eccentric. Besides, the tutor was so indefinite that her curiosity was aroused. Looking at the date at the top of the page, she got a flash of inspiration. Of course, Walsh! He and his yacht were due to arrive any day now. He had told her so and she knew it to be true from other friends as well. She would go to him with her problem. It would be an innocent link between them which she would know how to accentuate.
Sitting in the breakfast room of her friend’s house and drinking her morning coffee, Grace began to dream. Who knew, she thought, if after all a happy ending might not come about? For if Jim could be made truly to believe that he was Ronny’s father, he might wish to assume responsibilities. He was rich. He was old and childless. He would soon be lonely. Of course she would have to be subtle, and there must be no possible hint of compulsion. Walsh would never stand for that. Grace woke up from her reverie to hear her hostess of the moment saying:
“Grace dear, do look out over the harbour and see if that isn’t dear Jim’s yacht.”
‘Fool,’ thought Grace. ‘So he’s dear Jim to you, is he? Why he wouldn’t even spit in your direction, my girl.’ Aloud she said: “Why yes, I do believe it is—or very like it.” Grace added this last phrase warily because she had never seen Walsh’s yacht. In her time Jim had not owned one. No doubt he had taken to the sea with age: to travel in comfort and spare his steps.
Two days later Grace had not only seen Jim’s yacht, but was aboard her. Walsh was mixing drinks beneath a striped awning. He had once got it into his head that women—his women—liked a pink, sweetish gin drink and he had mixed the same kind for them ever since. He would have been shocked if they had asked for anything else—except champagne, of course.
Grace, after trying vainly to turn her back to the light, lifted her chin and made the best of it. Jim was getting on, she noted, watching him shake the ice and liquor together. Only his captain’s cap hid his naked scalp, but his arms were covered by a grizzling mat which reached down to the knuckles of his hands. His face, on which the crude colours of the awning were reflected, was puffy, the features enlarged. Beneath his immaculate white flannels his great belly thrust itself out to strain against the cloth. He would surely not last much longer.
They were alone on the boat because she had asked for it that way and now, abruptly and with no further small talk, Walsh said:
“Well Grace, what’s on your mind?”
“Why must something be on my mind to want us to have a little chat?” asked Grace in her pouting way, raising her blue eyes to his.
Jim laughed and poured her a drink. “What’ll we talk about? The old days?” He looked at her straight on, and she saw that whatever else had vanished, those deep, hungry, Jewish eyes were left. For an instant she was startled by them, drawn into their humid and lecherous depths, but for all their promise Grace knew that they were as impersonal as her own china blue ones. She sighed.
“The old days! You can sneer at them, Jim, yet they were nice.”
“Were they, Grace?” asked Jim. “Were they any nicer than other days? Oh I know you were a cute kid with cute tricks, but the world’s full of cute kids, and full of cute tricks too.”
“That’s just it,” said Grace quickly, “I was only a kid. Do you remember, Jim, how you always said I would be better in ten years?”
Jim tilted his glass and in one gulp finished his drink. “I’m an old man now,” he said, “I guess I must have changed.” He leaned forward and explained brutally and with coarse emphasis: “Because these days I like ’em young.”
While Grace bit her lips and tried to control her mortification, Walsh continued to lean forward, examining her silently. This light, which was so hard on him, did not treat her as badly. She was made even more vivid by it. Her hair, eyes, lips and cheeks stood out brilliantly. Yet these distractions could not hide the rough skin on her throat and the few pale brown spots on her hands. She was right though; once she would have tempted him. Now there could be no more question of desire between them. He reached out and patted her hand.
“I had to do it that way, Grace,” he said. “I know you scheming little creatures. I’m not a fool. I’m an ugly old man, but I’m rich.”
“Oh,” said Grace, lifting her eyes which were filled with tears, “why are you so unjust? Are you so sure of yourself that you don’t need friends anymore?”
Walsh sat back in his wicker chair and spread his feet. His glance was now turned outwards on the sea. “I don’t fool myself about friends either, Grace. I can have any friend I like as long as I’m paying the bill.”
Grace sat up straight. Her eyes narrowed and an angry, scornful expression was on her mouth. “Poor little rich man!” she mocked. “What a trite mind you have for all your wealth! You can buy and sell a thousand silly creatures like me every day no doubt, but you can’t make one new, honest observation.”
Jim Walsh laughed freely. He was relieved in an instant of all his brooding philosophy. A grin flattened out his mouth. “Well, Grace, you must admit you started it, with your phony sentiment. Come on and have another drink and tell me how Ronny’s doing. Does he write to you?”
Grace at once handed him Stevens’ letter. “It’s really what I came to see you about.”
