Looking at those absurd struggles, Ronny had to laugh. It knotted his throat like sobs and doubled him into the mud. June, overcoming her fear of the marsh, ran and tried to pull him from his knees. She half dragged him to the bank where they both collapsed in the undergrowth. Ronny continued to laugh and, holding up the claw which he had kept in his grasp, went into fresh paroxysms. June looked into his face.
“How could you?” she demanded, squeezing his shoulder. “How could you?” The agony of the crab suddenly took on for her an unbearable meaning; the sin of the world. Yet now she, too, found herself laughing. They clutched each other and rolled on the ground. They were convulsed and helpless. Never had anything been so funny before.
But their laughter ended very soon, cut off as abruptly and as mysteriously as it had begun. Ronny turned over and lay with flat shoulders face to the ground. June sat up and regarded him. She arranged her clothes and brushed the leaves from her hair. The feeling of guilt returned to engulf her like a wave. Ronny could not feel it, she thought. He remained untouched, lying there with the sun on his shoulders. She forced herself to look into the marsh, to observe on its caked and parching surface the struggles of the now dying crab. The crustacean had been unable to make its way back to its hole and the sun dried up the flow of its crab blood. Finally, after what seemed hours, it tipped over onto its back. The joints of its shell were visible on its underside; intricate and made by God.
Ronny now sat up also. Dragging back the hair from his face, he turned to her naturally and asked in an eager voice: “Did you see me? Did you see how I fixed that horrible old crab? Where’s the claw? I’ll give it to you as a trophy.” He searched around for it but it was lost amongst the grass and weeds. Then Ronny, too, caught sight of the fiddler lying on its back in the mud, its remaining claws still feebly stirring. His expression changed and he looked uncertainly at June. He jumped to his feet and ran to where Gambol was grazing.
“I thought you were lost,” he said, putting his hand on the firm neck and locking his fingers in Gambol’s mane. The horse lifted his eyes for an instant before he resumed his grazing and looked out onto the drying mud of the swamp. Ronny turned away and retraced his steps with a swagger. “I think I’ll just dig a little grave,” he said loudly to the air. “After all, that crab died honourably in battle.”
“Not much battle really,” observed June.
Ronny gave her a nervous smile. “It’s all the fault of James Stevens,” he said. He stepped down again into the marsh, sinking to his calf and fearful now of the other fiddlers who infested the mud and of the strange bugs, swift as lightning, that darted across the slime. With a shudder he picked up his victim, now motionless and rotting already beneath the sun. He made his way to the bank and then with his knife dug a little hollow in the ground beneath a tree. He put the remains in it, covered them and stamped once or twice on the spot. As a last touch he stuck his knife, blade in the ground, beside it.
“There,” he said, “that will be his gravestone. The handle is ivory so he will have a monument from the tusk of an elephant. A gravestone from Africa, or India maybe, for this poor crab.”
‘What am I to think of Ronny now?’ wondered June.
“I shan’t pray,” continued Ronny, “because I don’t think crabs need it.” He got up. The mud on him had dried green. It had smeared onto his shorts and his cotton pull-over. His hands and face were covered with it and it stank.
“You better rinse yourself at the spring,” suggested June, leading the way through the woods.
Ronny followed without a word and, crouching near the water, dipped his arms in its small, fresh flow. June plucked a stem of silver-weed and trailed it in the stream. The forest sounds closed about them but they could still hear the seagulls mewing over the bay.
When Ronny was quite clean he rose and, with a wistful movement, came near June and leaned against her.
CHAPTER SIX
Old Mrs. Grey sat out on the porch, knitting. As evening came on, the fireflies began to flash around her and, above, the first star of evening stared down surrounded by the fathomless azure of the sky. Mrs. Grey’s fingers slackened. She recalled how as a girl she had wished upon that star—Star light, star bright—Wishing gave such a lift to the heart. One believed at each moment of wishing that one’s desire would come to pass. How many desires she had had! How many wishes! And now they were done.
Mrs. Grey moved a little in her rocking chair so that it swayed gently. She was dressed all in white; a white silk dress with long sleeves, and white stockings and shoes. Her shoes had old-fashioned heels, thin as a man’s finger and curved in under her foot. They were pointed and small and she had worn them for years. Mrs. Grey, even in old age and with her cane, walked so haughtily that she never wore out a pair of shoes. The only untidy thing about her was her hair; of a harsh, grey colour which refused to turn white, it grew in wispy strands which escaped from her bun. She was forever raising a hand to tuck it in place.
‘I wonder,’ she thought, looking up once again at the evening star, ‘if I would go through it all a second time were I given the chance.’ Yet Mrs. Grey’s life had been a happy and successful one. She had been wealthy and loved, the mother of sons, the friend of great men. Since the death of her husband, however, a sort of refining process had begun. She had gradually shed, so to speak, the fat of life from her soul. Despite the petty habits and quirks of age she was gazing now austerely in the direction of God.
Her son John would sometimes tell his wife: “It’s really so nice for Mother to have us here in vacation time. How lonely she must be when we’re away.” But it was only the kind of thing people say to convince themselves, to make themselves believe they are wanted and necessary. Mrs. Grey was quite happy to be alone.
Now behind her the lower windows of the house were turned to a pale gold—Catherine, lighting the lamps. It would be supper time soon. Then Mrs. Grey saw June coming slowly through the dusk.
‘She might be me long ago,’ thought the old woman, and she wondered if June had yet noticed that the stars were for wishing and whether her breast were yet troubled by the wars of sensuality and soul.
June’s voice had a strained note as she greeted her grandmother. “Am I late?” she asked.
“Not yet, my dear,” said Mrs. Grey. “Come and hold my wool for me, if you please.”
June obediently pulled up a chair and held out her arms. Winding steadily, Mrs. Grey said: “Mr. Stevens was here today and arranged for you to have your first lesson tomorrow.”
“Do you like him, Grandmother?” asked June.
“He seemed a perfectly adequate young man,” said Mrs. Grey, “although ‘like’ is a strong word.”
“I mean did you think I would like him?”
“You must know,” replied Mrs. Grey, “since you have met him.”
“Did he say that?” June was not sure why she pursued the conversation.
“Yes, he did,” Mrs. Grey said, and then after a pause went on: “I think it is nice that you have found a companion near your own age and within walking distance.”
“Well, Ronny’s not really near my age,” said June as though she were giving the devil his due. “He’s only eleven and I’m fifteen.” As she said this June realized that her birthday had come and gone without mention. Suddenly her arms felt heavy inside their woolen chain. The darkness made her and her grandmother pale blurs to one another and the wool loosened and sped away in the night. It twined from her wrists like the magic skeins of old which led through labyrinths—as though her grandmother could, if she wished, teach her to avoid the central monster.
Catherine came and called them to eat.
The following morning at ten James Stevens was at the door. He wore a tweed jacket from which his thin, hairy wrists protruded, and grey flannels. He carried books in a dark green felt bag of which he was very proud, for it meant he had been to Harvard University. Actually he had only taken a summer course there.
During the lesson Stevens sat with his pupil at a big polished desk beside the library window. From there they could look out at the moss-covered lawns and into the forest.
June found the lesson tedious. She was in any case only a very moderate scholar. In her disorganized brain facts, fantasies, poetry and dreams were thrown pell-mell to sort themselves out as best they could. Stevens recognized at once that in some ways she was as advanced as he. In other circumstances it might have amused him to try to set in order the curious mixture of her knowledge. Her mind was supple and fresh, held at bay by her sickness and excited by long, feverish hours of reading. But she was at an age which he disliked in girls and he had always tried to avoid them in this stage of development. From his point of view they were ridiculous, almost nauseating. Nothing could be worse, he told himself, than a raw female who giggled and blushed and had spots on her face. Now as he sat beside June he thought she gave out a musky odor. It was not really true perhaps, but the idea of her girlish body, ill-cared for as a child’s, unperfumed and unrecognized, made him almost unable to face her way.
When the clock struck twelve, June stood up with open relief. Stevens rose. “Well that’s all for today,” he said, and continued with a touch of malice: “I suppose it’s near your lunch time, and as for me I’ve been asked to lunch with your friend Ronny, so I must hurry.”
June was puzzled at the tone of his voice, but a feminine instinct made her answer: “Oh, Grandmother never eats this early!” Having indicated thus Stevens’ lack of worldly hours, she went on: “Besides, I told Ronny I’d be down for a swim.” She lifted her head defiantly and her face, too dramatic and positive for her age, jarred his nerves.
“You’re not very good for him, you know,” he said.
“Is he good for me?” asked June, her voice troubled with anger, surprise and shyness.
“You know that’s not the point,” retorted Stevens in the manner of a person really saying: ‘Who cares about you!’ He went on to explain with conscious patience: “Ronny is very high-strung. He is an extremely sensitive child and I want him to have every chance.”
“I’m sensitive too, Mr. Stevens,” said June in a dreamy voice, looking out at the woods as though at a far-off land. ‘Now why did I say that?’ she wondered. ‘What is all this talk about?’ At once her inner brain muttered a few stubborn words of reply that she could not quite catch.
