第 三十 章 · Chapter XXX

FERN Mullins rushed into the house on a Saturday morning early in

September and shrieked at Carol, “School starts next Tuesday. I've got

to have one more spree before I'm arrested. Let's get up a picnic down

the lake for this afternoon. Won't you come, Mrs. Kennicott, and the

doctor? Cy Bogart wants to go--he's a brat but he's lively.”

“I don't think the doctor can go,” sedately. “He said something about

having to make a country call this afternoon. But I'd love to.”

“That's dandy! Who can we get?”

“Mrs. Dyer might be chaperon. She's been so nice. And maybe Dave, if he

could get away from the store.”

“How about Erik Valborg? I think he's got lots more style than these

town boys. You like him all right, don't you?”

So the picnic of Carol, Fern, Erik, Cy Bogart, and the Dyers was not

only moral but inevitable.

They drove to the birch grove on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie.

Dave Dyer was his most clownish self. He yelped, jigged, wore Carol's

hat, dropped an ant down Fern's back, and when they went swimming (the

women modestly changing in the car with the side curtains up, the men

undressing behind the bushes, constantly repeating, “Gee, hope we don't

run into poison ivy”), Dave splashed water on them and dived to clutch

his wife's ankle. He infected the others. Erik gave an imitation of

the Greek dancers he had seen in vaudeville, and when they sat down to

picnic supper spread on a lap-robe on the grass, Cy climbed a tree to

throw acorns at them.

But Carol could not frolic.

She had made herself young, with parted hair, sailor blouse and large

blue bow, white canvas shoes and short linen skirt. Her mirror had

asserted that she looked exactly as she had in college, that her throat

was smooth, her collar-bone not very noticeable. But she was under

restraint. When they swam she enjoyed the freshness of the water but

she was irritated by Cy's tricks, by Dave's excessive good spirits. She

admired Erik's dance; he could never betray bad taste, as Cy did,

and Dave. She waited for him to come to her. He did not come. By his

joyousness he had apparently endeared himself to the Dyers. Maud watched

him and, after supper, cried to him, “Come sit down beside me, bad boy!”

Carol winced at his willingness to be a bad boy and come and sit, at

his enjoyment of a not very stimulating game in which Maud, Dave, and

Cy snatched slices of cold tongue from one another's plates. Maud, it

seemed, was slightly dizzy from the swim. She remarked publicly, “Dr.

Kennicott has helped me so much by putting me on a diet,” but it was

to Erik alone that she gave the complete version of her peculiarity in

being so sensitive, so easily hurt by the slightest cross word, that she

simply had to have nice cheery friends.

Erik was nice and cheery.

Carol assured herself, “Whatever faults I may have, I certainly couldn't

ever be jealous. I do like Maud; she's always so pleasant. But I wonder

if she isn't just a bit fond of fishing for men's sympathy? Playing

with Erik, and her married----Well----But she looks at him in that

languishing, swooning, mid-Victorian way. Disgusting!”

Cy Bogart lay between the roots of a big birch, smoking his pipe and

teasing Fern, assuring her that a week from now, when he was again a

high-school boy and she his teacher, he'd wink at her in class. Maud

Dyer wanted Erik to “come down to the beach to see the darling little

minnies.” Carol was left to Dave, who tried to entertain her with

humorous accounts of Ella Stowbody's fondness for chocolate peppermints.

She watched Maud Dyer put her hand on Erik's shoulder to steady herself.

“Disgusting!” she thought.

Cy Bogart covered Fern's nervous hand with his red paw, and when she

bounced with half-anger and shrieked, “Let go, I tell you!” he grinned

and waved his pipe--a gangling twenty-year-old satyr.

“Disgusting!”

When Maud and Erik returned and the grouping shifted, Erik muttered at

Carol, “There's a boat on shore. Let's skip off and have a row.”

“What will they think?” she worried. She saw Maud Dyer peer at Erik with

moist possessive eyes. “Yes! Let's!” she said.

She cried to the party, with the canonical amount of sprightliness,

“Good-by, everybody. We'll wireless you from China.”

As the rhythmic oars plopped and creaked, as she floated on an unreality

of delicate gray over which the sunset was poured out thin, the

irritation of Cy and Maud slipped away. Erik smiled at her proudly. She

considered him--coatless, in white thin shirt. She was conscious of his

male differentness, of his flat masculine sides, his thin thighs, his

easy rowing. They talked of the library, of the movies. He hummed and

she softly sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” A breeze shivered across the

agate lake. The wrinkled water was like armor damascened and polished.

The breeze flowed round the boat in a chill current. Carol drew the

collar of her middy blouse over her bare throat.

“Getting cold. Afraid we'll have to go back,” she said.

“Let's not go back to them yet. They'll be cutting up. Let's keep along

the shore.”

“But you enjoy the 'cutting up!' Maud and you had a beautiful time.”

“Why! We just walked on the shore and talked about fishing!”

She was relieved, and apologetic to her friend Maud. “Of course. I was

joking.”

“I'll tell you! Let's land here and sit on the shore--that bunch of

hazel-brush will shelter us from the wind--and watch the sunset. It's

like melted lead. Just a short while! We don't want to go back and

listen to them!”

“No, but----” She said nothing while he sped ashore. The keel clashed

on the stones. He stood on the forward seat, holding out his hand.

They were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence. She rose slowly, slowly

stepped over the water in the bottom of the old boat. She took his hand

confidently. Unspeaking they sat on a bleached log, in a russet twilight

which hinted of autumn. Linden leaves fluttered about them.

“I wish----Are you cold now?” he whispered.

“A little.” She shivered. But it was not with cold.

“I wish we could curl up in the leaves there, covered all up, and lie

looking out at the dark.”

“I wish we could.” As though it was comfortably understood that he did

not mean to be taken seriously.

“Like what all the poets say--brown nymph and faun.”

“No. I can't be a nymph any more. Too old----Erik, am I old? Am I faded

and small-towny?”

“Why, you're the youngest----Your eyes are like a girl's. They're

so--well, I mean, like you believed everything. Even if you do teach

me, I feel a thousand years older than you, instead of maybe a year

younger.”

“Four or five years younger!”

“Anyway, your eyes are so innocent and your cheeks so soft----Damn it,

it makes me want to cry, somehow, you're so defenseless; and I want to

protect you and----There's nothing to protect you against!”

“Am I young? Am I? Honestly? Truly?” She betrayed for a moment the

childish, mock-imploring tone that comes into the voice of the most

serious woman when an agreeable man treats her as a girl; the childish

tone and childish pursed-up lips and shy lift of the cheek.

“Yes, you are!”

“You're dear to believe it, Will--ERIK!”

“Will you play with me? A lot?”

“Perhaps.”

“Would you really like to curl in the leaves and watch the stars swing

by overhead?”

“I think it's rather better to be sitting here!” He twined his fingers

with hers. “And Erik, we must go back.”

“Why?”

“It's somewhat late to outline all the history of social custom!”

“I know. We must. Are you glad we ran away though?”

“Yes.” She was quiet, perfectly simple. But she rose.

He circled her waist with a brusque arm. She did not resist. She did

not care. He was neither a peasant tailor, a potential artist, a

social complication, nor a peril. He was himself, and in him, in the

personality flowing from him, she was unreasoningly content. In his

nearness she caught a new view of his head; the last light brought out

the planes of his neck, his flat ruddied cheeks, the side of his nose,

the depression of his temples. Not as coy or uneasy lovers but as

companions they walked to the boat, and he lifted her up on the prow.

She began to talk intently, as he rowed: “Erik, you've got to work! You

ought to be a personage. You're robbed of your kingdom. Fight for it!

Take one of these correspondence courses in drawing--they mayn't be any

good in themselves, but they'll make you try to draw and----”

As they reached the picnic ground she perceived that it was dark, that

they had been gone for a long time.

“What will they say?” she wondered.

The others greeted them with the inevitable storm of humor and slight

vexation: “Where the deuce do you think you've been?” “You're a fine

pair, you are!” Erik and Carol looked self-conscious; failed in their

effort to be witty. All the way home Carol was embarrassed. Once Cy

winked at her. That Cy, the Peeping Tom of the garage-loft, should

consider her a fellow-sinner----She was furious and frightened and

exultant by turns, and in all her moods certain that Kennicott would

read her adventuring in her face.

She came into the house awkwardly defiant.

Her husband, half asleep under the lamp, greeted her, “Well, well, have

nice time?”

She could not answer. He looked at her. But his look did not sharpen.

He began to wind his watch, yawning the old “Welllllll, guess it's about

time to turn in.”

That was all. Yet she was not glad. She was almost disappointed.

II

Mrs. Bogart called next day. She had a hen-like, crumb-pecking, diligent

appearance. Her smile was too innocent. The pecking started instantly:

“Cy says you had lots of fun at the picnic yesterday. Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh yes. I raced Cy at swimming. He beat me badly. He's so strong, isn't

he!”

“Poor boy, just crazy to get into the war, too, but----This Erik Valborg

was along, wa'n't he?”

“Yes.”

“I think he's an awful handsome fellow, and they say he's smart. Do you

like him?”

“He seems very polite.”

“Cy says you and him had a lovely boat-ride. My, that must have been

pleasant.”

“Yes, except that I couldn't get Mr. Valborg to say a word. I wanted

to ask him about the suit Mr. Hicks is making for my husband. But he

insisted on singing. Still, it was restful, floating around on the water

and singing. So happy and innocent. Don't you think it's a shame, Mrs.

Bogart, that people in this town don't do more nice clean things like

that, instead of all this horrible gossiping?”

“Yes. . . . Yes.”

Mrs. Bogart sounded vacant. Her bonnet was awry; she was incomparably

dowdy. Carol stared at her, felt contemptuous, ready at last to rebel

against the trap, and as the rusty goodwife fished again, “Plannin' some

more picnics?” she flung out, “I haven't the slightest idea! Oh. Is that

Hugh crying? I must run up to him.”

But up-stairs she remembered that Mrs. Bogart had seen her walking

with Erik from the railroad track into town, and she was chilly with

disquietude.

At the Jolly Seventeen, two days after, she was effusive to Maud Dyer,

to Juanita Haydock. She fancied that every one was watching her, but

she could not be sure, and in rare strong moments she did not care.

She could rebel against the town's prying now that she had something,

however indistinct, for which to rebel.

In a passionate escape there must be not only a place from which to flee

but a place to which to flee. She had known that she would gladly leave

Gopher Prairie, leave Main Street and all that it signified, but she

had had no destination. She had one now. That destination was not Erik

Valborg and the love of Erik. She continued to assure herself that she

wasn't in love with him but merely “fond of him, and interested in his

success.” Yet in him she had discovered both her need of youth and the

fact that youth would welcome her. It was not Erik to whom she must

escape, but universal and joyous youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in

offices, in meetings to protest against Things in General. . . . But

universal and joyous youth rather resembled Erik.

All week she thought of things she wished to say to him. High, improving

things. She began to admit that she was lonely without him. Then she was

afraid.

It was at the Baptist church supper, a week after the picnic, that

she saw him again. She had gone with Kennicott and Aunt Bessie to the

supper, which was spread on oilcloth-covered and trestle-supported

tables in the church basement. Erik was helping Myrtle Cass to fill

coffee cups for the waitresses. The congregation had doffed their

piety. Children tumbled under the tables, and Deacon Pierson greeted the

women with a rolling, “Where's Brother Jones, sister, where's Brother

Jones? Not going to be with us tonight? Well, you tell Sister Perry to

hand you a plate, and make 'em give you enough oyster pie!”

Erik shared in the cheerfulness. He laughed with Myrtle, jogged her

elbow when she was filling cups, made deep mock bows to the waitresses

as they came up for coffee. Myrtle was enchanted by his humor. From the

other end of the room, a matron among matrons, Carol observed

Myrtle, and hated her, and caught herself at it. “To be jealous of

a wooden-faced village girl!” But she kept it up. She detested Erik;

gloated over his gaucheries--his “breaks,” she called them. When he

was too expressive, too much like a Russian dancer, in saluting Deacon

Pierson, Carol had the ecstasy of pain in seeing the deacon's sneer.

When, trying to talk to three girls at once, he dropped a cup and

effeminately wailed, “Oh dear!” she sympathized with--and ached

over--the insulting secret glances of the girls.

From meanly hating him she rose to compassion as she saw that his eyes

begged every one to like him. She perceived how inaccurate her judgments

could be. At the picnic she had fancied that Maud Dyer looked upon Erik

too sentimentally, and she had snarled, “I hate these married women who

cheapen themselves and feed on boys.” But at the supper Maud was one of

the waitresses; she bustled with platters of cake, she was pleasant to

old women; and to Erik she gave no attention at all. Indeed, when she

had her own supper, she joined the Kennicotts, and how ludicrous it was

to suppose that Maud was a gourmet of emotions Carol saw in the fact

that she talked not to one of the town beaux but to the safe Kennicott

himself!

When Carol glanced at Erik again she discovered that Mrs. Bogart had

an eye on her. It was a shock to know that at last there was something

which could make her afraid of Mrs. Bogart's spying.

“What am I doing? Am I in love with Erik? Unfaithful? I? I want youth

but I don't want him--I mean, I don't want youth--enough to break up my

life. I must get out of this. Quick.”

She said to Kennicott on their way home, “Will! I want to run away for a

few days. Wouldn't you like to skip down to Chicago?”

“Still be pretty hot there. No fun in a big city till winter. What do

you want to go for?”

“People! To occupy my mind. I want stimulus.”

“Stimulus?” He spoke good-naturedly. “Who's been feeding you meat? You

got that 'stimulus' out of one of these fool stories about wives that

don't know when they're well off. Stimulus! Seriously, though, to cut

out the jollying, I can't get away.”

“Then why don't I run off by myself?”

“Why----'Tisn't the money, you understand. But what about Hugh?”

“Leave him with Aunt Bessie. It would be just for a few days.”

“I don't think much of this business of leaving kids around. Bad for

'em.”

“So you don't think----”

“I'll tell you: I think we better stay put till after the war. Then

we'll have a dandy long trip. No, I don't think you better plan much

about going away now.”

So she was thrown at Erik.

III

She awoke at ebb-time, at three of the morning, woke sharply and fully;

and sharply and coldly as her father pronouncing sentence on a cruel

swindler she gave judgment:

“A pitiful and tawdry love-affair.

“No splendor, no defiance. A self-deceived little woman whispering in

corners with a pretentious little man.

“No, he is not. He is fine. Aspiring. It's not his fault. His eyes are

sweet when he looks at me. Sweet, so sweet.”

She pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that

in this colorless hour, to this austere self, it should seem tawdry.

Then, in a very great desire of rebellion and unleashing of all her

hatreds, “The pettier and more tawdry it is, the more blame to Main

Street. It shows how much I've been longing to escape. Any way out! Any

humility so long as I can flee. Main Street has done this to me. I came

here eager for nobilities, ready for work, and now----Any way out.

“I came trusting them. They beat me with rods of dullness. They don't

know, they don't understand how agonizing their complacent dullness is.

Like ants and August sun on a wound.

“Tawdry! Pitiful! Carol--the clean girl that used to walk so

fast!--sneaking and tittering in dark corners, being sentimental and

jealous at church suppers!”

At breakfast-time her agonies were night-blurred, and persisted only as

a nervous irresolution.

IV

Few of the aristocrats of the Jolly Seventeen attended the humble

folk-meets of the Baptist and Methodist church suppers, where the Willis

Woodfords, the Dillons, the Champ Perrys, Oleson the butcher, Brad Bemis

the tinsmith, and Deacon Pierson found release from loneliness. But all

of the smart set went to the lawn-festivals of the Episcopal Church, and

were reprovingly polite to outsiders.

The Harry Haydocks gave the last lawn-festival of the season; a splendor

of Japanese lanterns and card-tables and chicken patties and Neapolitan

ice-cream. Erik was no longer entirely an outsider. He was eating his

ice-cream with a group of the people most solidly “in”--the Dyers,

Myrtle Cass, Guy Pollock, the Jackson Elders. The Haydocks themselves

kept aloof, but the others tolerated him. He would never, Carol fancied,

be one of the town pillars, because he was not orthodox in hunting and

motoring and poker. But he was winning approbation by his liveliness,

his gaiety--the qualities least important in him.

When the group summoned Carol she made several very well-taken points in

regard to the weather.

Myrtle cried to Erik, “Come on! We don't belong with these old folks.

I want to make you 'quainted with the jolliest girl, she comes from

Wakamin, she's staying with Mary Howland.”

Carol saw him being profuse to the guest from Wakamin. She saw him

confidentially strolling with Myrtle. She burst out to Mrs. Westlake,

“Valborg and Myrtle seem to have quite a crush on each other.”

Mrs. Westlake glanced at her curiously before she mumbled, “Yes, don't

they.”

“I'm mad, to talk this way,” Carol worried.

She had regained a feeling of social virtue by telling Juanita Haydock

“how darling her lawn looked with the Japanese lanterns” when she saw

that Erik was stalking her. Though he was merely ambling about with his

hands in his pockets, though he did not peep at her, she knew that he

was calling her. She sidled away from Juanita. Erik hastened to her. She

nodded coolly (she was proud of her coolness).

“Carol! I've got a wonderful chance! Don't know but what some ways

it might be better than going East to take art. Myrtle Cass says----I

dropped in to say howdy to Myrtle last evening, and had quite a long

talk with her father, and he said he was hunting for a fellow to go to

work in the flour mill and learn the whole business, and maybe become

general manager. I know something about wheat from my farming, and I

worked a couple of months in the flour mill at Curlew when I got sick of

tailoring. What do you think? You said any work was artistic if it was

done by an artist. And flour is so important. What do you think?”

“Wait! Wait!”

This sensitive boy would be very skilfully stamped into conformity by

Lyman Cass and his sallow daughter; but did she detest the plan for this

reason? “I must be honest. I mustn't tamper with his future to please my

vanity.” But she had no sure vision. She turned on him:

“How can I decide? It's up to you. Do you want to become a person like

Lym Cass, or do you want to become a person like--yes, like me! Wait!

Don't be flattering. Be honest. This is important.”

“I know. I am a person like you now! I mean, I want to rebel.”

“Yes. We're alike,” gravely.

“Only I'm not sure I can put through my schemes. I really can't draw

much. I guess I have pretty fair taste in fabrics, but since I've known

you I don't like to think about fussing with dress-designing. But as a

miller, I'd have the means--books, piano, travel.”

“I'm going to be frank and beastly. Don't you realize that it isn't just

because her papa needs a bright young man in the mill that Myrtle is

amiable to you? Can't you understand what she'll do to you when she has

you, when she sends you to church and makes you become respectable?”

He glared at her. “I don't know. I suppose so.”

“You are thoroughly unstable!”

“What if I am? Most fish out of water are! Don't talk like Mrs. Bogart!

How can I be anything but 'unstable'--wandering from farm to tailor

shop to books, no training, nothing but trying to make books talk to

me! Probably I'll fail. Oh, I know it; probably I'm uneven. But I'm not

unstable in thinking about this job in the mill--and Myrtle. I know what

I want. I want you!”

“Please, please, oh, please!”

“I do. I'm not a schoolboy any more. I want you. If I take Myrtle, it's

to forget you.”

“Please, please!”

“It's you that are unstable! You talk at things and play at things, but

you're scared. Would I mind it if you and I went off to poverty, and I

had to dig ditches? I would not! But you would. I think you would come

to like me, but you won't admit it. I wouldn't have said this, but when

you sneer at Myrtle and the mill----If I'm not to have good sensible

things like those, d' you think I'll be content with trying to become a

damn dressmaker, after YOU? Are you fair? Are you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Do you like me? Do you?”

“Yes----No! Please! I can't talk any more.”

“Not here. Mrs. Haydock is looking at us.”

“No, nor anywhere. O Erik, I am fond of you, but I'm afraid.”

“What of?”

“Of Them! Of my rulers--Gopher Prairie. . . . My dear boy, we are

talking very foolishly. I am a normal wife and a good mother, and you

are--oh, a college freshman.”

“You do like me! I'm going to make you love me!”

She looked at him once, recklessly, and walked away with a serene gait

that was a disordered flight.

Kennicott grumbled on their way home, “You and this Valborg fellow seem

quite chummy.”

“Oh, we are. He's interested in Myrtle Cass, and I was telling him how

nice she is.”

In her room she marveled, “I have become a liar. I'm snarled with lies

and foggy analyses and desires--I who was clear and sure.”

She hurried into Kennicott's room, sat on the edge of his bed. He

flapped a drowsy welcoming hand at her from the expanse of quilt and

dented pillows.

“Will, I really think I ought to trot off to St. Paul or Chicago or some

place.”

“I thought we settled all that, few nights ago! Wait till we can have a

real trip.” He shook himself out of his drowsiness. “You might give me a

good-night kiss.”

She did--dutifully. He held her lips against his for an intolerable

time. “Don't you like the old man any more?” he coaxed. He sat up and

shyly fitted his palm about the slimness of her waist.

“Of course. I like you very much indeed.” Even to herself it sounded

flat. She longed to be able to throw into her voice the facile passion

of a light woman. She patted his cheek.

He sighed, “I'm sorry you're so tired. Seems like----But of course you

aren't very strong.”

“Yes. . . . Then you don't think--you're quite sure I ought to stay here

in town?”

“I told you so! I certainly do!”

She crept back to her room, a small timorous figure in white.

“I can't face Will down--demand the right. He'd be obstinate. And I

can't even go off and earn my living again. Out of the habit of it. He's

driving me----I'm afraid of what he's driving me to. Afraid.

“That man in there, snoring in stale air, my husband? Could any ceremony

make him my husband?

“No. I don't want to hurt him. I want to love him. I can't, when I'm

thinking of Erik. Am I too honest--a funny topsy-turvy honesty--the

faithfulness of unfaith? I wish I had a more compartmental mind, like

men. I'm too monogamous--toward Erik!--my child Erik, who needs me.

“Is an illicit affair like a gambling debt--demands stricter honor than

the legitimate debt of matrimony, because it's not legally enforced?

“That's nonsense! I don't care in the least for Erik! Not for any man. I

want to be let alone, in a woman world--a world without Main Street,

or politicians, or business men, or men with that sudden beastly hungry

look, that glistening unfrank expression that wives know----

“If Erik were here, if he would just sit quiet and kind and talk, I

could be still, I could go to sleep.

“I am so tired. If I could sleep----”