# Mosquitoes (Faulkner)/The First Day

THE FIRST DAY
ten o'clock
The Nausikaa lay in the basin—a nice thing, with her white, matronly hull and mahogany-and-brass superstructure and the yacht club flag at the peak. A firm, steady wind blew in from the lake and Mrs. Maurier, having already got a taste of the sea from it, had donned her yachting cap and she now clashed and jangled in a happy, pointless ecstasy. Her two cars had made several trips and would make several more, creeping and jouncing along the inferior macadam road upon and beside which the spoor of coca cola and the almond bar betrayed the lair of the hot dog and the less-than-one-percent. All the jollity of departure under a perfect day, heatridden city behind, and a breeze too steady for the darn things to light on you. Her guests each with his or her jar of almond cream and sunburn lotion came aboard in bright babbling surges, calling, “Ship ahoy, every one,” and other suitable nautical cries, while various casuals, gathered along the quay, looked on with morose interest. Mrs. Maurier in her yachting cap clashed and jangled in a happy and senseless excitement.
On the upper deck where the steward broke out chairs for them, her guests in their colored clothing gathered, dressed for deep water in batik and flowing ties and open collars, informal and colorful with the exception of Mark Frost, the ghostly young man, a poet who produced an occasional cerebral and obscure poem in four or seven lines reminding one somehow of the function of evacuation excruciatingly and incompletely performed. He wore ironed serge and a high starched collar ​and he borrowed a cigarette of the steward and lay immediately at full length on something, as was his way. Mrs. Wiseman and Miss Jameson, flanking Mr. Talliaferro, sat with cigarettes also. Fairchild, accompanied by Gordon, the Semitic man and a florid stranger in heavy tweeds, and carrying among them several weighty looking suitcases, had gone directly below.
“Are we all here? are we all here?” Mrs. Maurier chanted beneath her yachting cap, roving her eyes among her guests. Her niece stood at the afterrail beside a soft blonde girl in a slightly soiled green dress. They both gazed shoreward where at the end of the gangplank a flashy youth lounged in a sort of skulking belligerence, smoking cigarettes. The niece said, without turning her head, “What’s the matter with him? Why doesn’t he come aboard?” The youth’s attention seemed to be anywhere else save on the boat, yet he was so obviously there, in the eye, belligerent and skulking. The niece said, “Hey!” Then she said:
“What’s his name? You better tell him to come on, hadn’t you?”
The blonde girl hissed “Pete” in a repressed tone. The youth moved his slanted stiff straw hat an inch and the blonde girl beckoned to him. He slanted the hat to the back of his head: his whole attitude gave the impression that he was some distance away. “‘Ain’t you coming with us?” the blonde girl asked in that surreptitious tone.
“Whatcher say?” he replied loudly, so that everybody looked at him—even the reclining poet raised his head.
“Come on aboard, Pete,” the niece called. “Be yourself.”
The youth took another cigarette from his pack. He buttoned his narrow coat. “Well, I guess I will,” he agreed in his carrying tone. Mrs. Maurier held her expression of infantile astonishment up to him as he crossed the gangplank. ​He evaded her politely, climbing the rail with that fluid agility of the young.
“Are you the new steward?” she asked doubtfully, blinking at him.
“Sure, lady,” he agreed courteously, putting his cigarette in his mouth. The other guests stared at him from their deck chairs and slanting his hat forward he ran the gauntlet of their eyes, passing aft to join the two girls. Mrs. Maurier gazed after his high vented coat in astonishment. Then she remarked the blonde girl beside her niece. She blinked again.
“Why—” she began. Then she said: “Patricia, who—”
“Oh, yes,” the niece said, “this is—” she turned to the blonde girl. “What’s your name, Jenny? I forgot.”
“Genevieve Steinbauer,” the blonde girl submitted.
“—Miss Steinbauer. And this one is Pete Something. I met them downtown. They want to go, too.”
Mrs. Maurier transferred her astonishment from Jenny’s vague ripe prettiness to Pete’s bold uncomfortable face. “Why, he’s the new steward, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” The niece looked at Jenny again. “Is he?” she asked. Jenny didn’t know either. Pete himself was uncomfortably noncommittal.
“I dunno,” he answered. “You told me to come,” he accused the niece.
“She means,” the niece explained, “did you come to work on the boat?”
“Not me,” Pete answered quickly. “I ain’t a sailor. If she expects me to run this ferry for her, me and Jenny are going back to town.”
“You don’t have to run it. She’s got regular men for that. There’s your steward, anyway, Aunt Pat,” the niece said. “Pete just wanted to come with Jenny. That’s all.”
Mrs. Maurier looked. Yes, there was the steward, descend​ing the companionway with a load of luggage. She looked again at Pete and Jenny, but at that moment voices came aft breaking her amazement. The captain wished to know if he should cast off: the message was relayed by all present.
“Are we all here?” Mrs. Maurier chanted anew, forgetting Jenny and Pete. “Mr. Fairchild— Where is he?” She roved her round frantic face, trying to count noses. “Where is Mr. Fairchild?” she repeated in panic. Her car was backing and filling to turn around and she ran to the rail and screamed to the driver. He stopped the car, completely blocking the road, and hung his head out with resignation. Mrs. Wiseman said:
“He’s here: he came with Ernest. Didn’t he?”
Mr. Talliaferro corroborated her and Mrs. Maurier roved her frantic gaze anew, trying to count them. A sailor sprang ashore and cast off head- and sternlines under the morose regard of the casuals. The helmsman thrust his head from the wheelhouse and he and the deckhand bawled at each other. The sailor sprang aboard and the Nausikaa moved slightly in the water, like a soundless awakening sigh. The steward drew in the gangplank and the engine room telegraph rang remotely. The Nausikaa waked further, quivering a little, and as a gap of water grew between quay and boat without any sensation of motion whatever, Mrs. Maurier’s second car came jouncing into view, honking madly, and the niece sitting flat on the deck and stripping off her stockings said:
“Here comes Josh.”
Mrs. Maurier shrieked. The car stopped and her nephew descended without haste. The steward, coiling the sternline down, gathered it up and flung it outward across the growing gap of water. The telegraph rang again and the Nausikaa sighed and went back to sleep, rocking sedately. “Shake it up, Josh,” his sister called. Mrs. Maurier shrieked again and ​two of the loungers caught the line and dug their heels as the nephew, coatless and hatless, approached without haste and climbed aboard, carrying a new carpenter’s saw.
“I had to go downtown and buy one,” he explained casually. “Walter wouldn’t let me bring yours.”
eleven o’clock
At last Mrs. Maurier succeeded in cornering her niece. New Orleans, the basin, the yacht club, were far behind. The Nausikaa sped youthfully and gaily under a blue and drowsy day, beneath her forefoot a small bow wave spread its sedate fading fan. Mrs. Maurier’s people could not escape her now. They had settled themselves comfortably on deck: there was nothing to look at save one another, nothing to do save wait for lunch. All, that is, except Jenny and Pete. Pete, holding his hat on, stood yet at the afterrail, with Jenny beside him. Her air was that of a soft and futile cajolery, to which Pete was smoldering and impervious. Mrs. Maurier breathed a sigh of temporary relief and astonishment and ran her niece to earth in the after companionway.
“Patricia,” she demanded, “what on earth did you invite those two—young people for?”
“God knows,” the niece answered, looking past her aunt’s yachting cap to Pete, belligerent and uncomfortable beside Jenny’s bovine white placidity. “God knows. If you want to turn around and take ’em back, don’t let me stand in your way.”
“But why did you ask them?”
“Well, I couldn’t tell that they were going to turn to be so wet, could I? And you said yourself there were not enough women coming. You said so yourself last night.”
“Yes, but why ask those two? Who are they? Where did you ever meet such people?”
​“I met Jenny downtown. She—”
“I know: but where did you come to know her? How long have you known her?”
“I met her downtown this morning, I tell you; in Holmes’ while I was buying a bathing suit. She said she’d like to come, but the other one was waiting outside on the street for her and he put his foot down: he said she couldn’t go without him. He’s her heavy, I gather.”
Mrs. Maurier’s astonishment was sincere now. “Do you mean to tell me,” she asked in shocked unbelief, “that you never saw these people before? That you invited two people you never saw before to come on a party on my boat?”
“I just asked Jenny,” the niece explained patiently. “The other one had to come so she could come. I didn’t want him specially. How could I know her when I never saw her before? If I had known her, you can bet I wouldn’t have asked her to come. She’s a complete washout, far as I’m concerned. But I couldn’t see that this morning. I thought she was all right, then. Gabriel’s pants, look at ’em.” They both looked back at Jenny in her flimsy green dress, at Pete holding his hat on. “Well, I got ’em here: I guess I'll have to keep ’em from getting stepped on. I think I’ll get Pete a piece of string to tie his hat down with, anyway.” She swung herself easily up the stairs: Mrs. Maurier saw with horrified surprise that she wore neither shoes nor stockings.
“Patricia!” she shrieked. The niece paused, looking over her shoulder. Her aunt pointed mutely at her bare legs.
“Haul in your sheet, Aunt Pat,” the niece replied brusquely, “you’re jibbing.”
one o'clock
Lunch was spread on deck, on collapsible card tables set end to end. When she appeared her guests all regarded her ​brightly, a trifle curfously. Mrs. Maurier, oblivious, herded them toward it. “Sit anywhere, people,” she repeated in sing-song. “Girls will be at a premium this voyage. To the winner belongs the fair lady, remember.” This sounded a little strange to her, so she repeated: “Sit anywhere, people; the gentlemen must make. . .” She looked about upon her guests and her voice died away. Her party consisted of Mrs. Wiseman, Miss Jameson, herself, Jenny and Pete clotting unhappily behind her niece, Mr. Talliaferro and her nephew, who had already seated himself. “Where are the gentlemen?” she asked at large.
“Jumped overboard,” muttered Pete darkly, unheard, clutching his hat. The others stood, watching her brightly.
“Where are the gentlemen?” Mrs. Maurier repeated.
“If you’d stop talking a minute you wouldn’t have to ask,” her nephew told her. He had already seated himself and he now spooned into a grapefruit with preoccupied celerity.
“Theodore!” his aunt exclaimed.
From below there came an indistinguishable mixture of sound somehow vaguely convivial. “Whooping it up,” the nephew added, looking up at his aunt at her expression of reproof. “In a hurry,” he explained. “Got to get done. Can’t wait on those birds.” He remarked his sister’s guests for the first time. “Who’re your friends, Gus?” he asked without interest. Then he fell anew upon his grapefruit.
“Theodore!” his aunt exclaimed again. The indistinguishable convivial sound welled, becoming laughter. Mrs. Maurier roved her astonished eyes. “What can they be doing?”
Mr. Talliaferro moved deferentially, tactfully. “If you wish—?”
“Oh, Mr. Talliaferro, if you would be so kind,” Mrs. Maurier accepted with emotion.
“Let the steward go, Aunt Pat. Let’s eat,” the niece said, ​thrusting Jenny forward. “Come on, Pete. Gimme your hat,” she added, offering to take it. Pete refused to surrender it.
“Wait,” the nephew interjected, “I'll get ’em up.” He picked up the thick plate and flipping his grapefruit hull overboard he turned sideways in his chair and hammered a brisk staccato on the deck with the dish.
“Theodore!” his aunt exclaimed for the third time. “Mr. Talliaferro, will you—” Mr. Talliaferro sped toward the companionway, vanished.
“Aw, let the steward go, Aunt Pat,” the niece repeated. “Come on, let’s sit down. Let up, Josh, for God’s sake.”
“Yes, Mrs. Maurier, let’s don’t wait for them,” Mrs. Wiseman abetted, seating herself also. The others followed suit. Mrs. Maurier roved her fretted eyes. “Well,” she submitted at last. Then she remarked Pete, still clutching his hat. “I'll take your hat,” she offered, extending her hand. Pete foiled her quickly.
“Look out,” he said, “I’ve got it.” He moved beyond Jenny and put his hat behind him in his chair. At this moment the gentlemen appeared from below, talking loudly.
“Ah, wretches,” began the hostess with flaccid coquetry, shaking her finger at them. Fairchild was in the lead, burly and jovial, a shade unsteady as to gait. Mr. Talliaferro brought up the rear: he too had now a temporarily emancipated air.
“I guess you thought we’d jumped the ship,” Fairchild suggested, happily apologetic. Mrs. Maurier sought Mr. Talliaferro’s evasive eyes. “We were helping Major Ayers find his teeth,” Fairchild added.
“Tost ’em in that little rabbit hutch where we were,” explained the florid man. “Couldn’t find ’em right off. No teeth, no tiffin, y'know. If you don’t mind?” he murmured ​politely, seating himself next Mrs. Wiseman. “Ah, grapefruit.” He raised his voice again. “How jolly: seen no grapefruit since we left New Orleans, eh, Julius?”
“Lost his teeth?” repeated Mrs. Maurier, dazed. The niece and her brother regarded the florid man with interest.
“They fell out of his mouth,” Fairchild elaborated, taking the seat next Miss Jameson. “He was laughing at something Julius said, and they fell out of his mouth and somebody kicked ’em under the bunk, you see. What was it you said, Julius?”
Mr. Talliaferro essayed to seat himself beside the florid man. Mrs. Maurier again sought his eye, forced him and vanquished him with bright command. He rose and went to the chair next to her, and she leaned toward him, sniffing. “Ah, Mr. Talliaferro,” she murmured with playful implacability, “naughty, naughty.”
“Just a nip—they were rather insistent,” Mr. Talliaferro apologized.
“You men, you naughty men. I'll forgive you, however, this once,” she answered. “Do ring, please.”
The Semitic man’s flaccid face and dark compassionate eyes presided at the head of the table. Gordon stood for a time after the others were seated, then he came and took the seat between Mrs. Maurier and her niece, with abrupt arrogance. The niece looked up briefly. “Hello, Blackbeard.” Mrs. Maurier smiled at him automatically. She said:
“Listen, people. Mr. Talliaferro is going to make an announcement. About promptness,” she added to Mr. Talliaferro, putting her hand on his sleeve.
“Ah, yes. I say, you chaps almost missed lunch. We were not going to wait on you. The lunch hour is half after twelve, hereafter, and every one must be present promptly. Ship’s discipline, you know. Eh, Commodore?”
​The hostess corroborated. “You must be good children,” she added with playful relief, looking about her table. Her worried expression returned. “Why, there’s an empty place. Who isn’t here?” She roved her eyes in growing alarm. “Some one isn’t here,” she repeated. She had a brief and dreadful vision of having to put back short one guest, of inquest and reporters and headlines, and of floating inert buttocks in some lonely reach of the lake, that would later wash ashore with that mute inopportune implacability of the drowned. The guests stared at one another, then at the vacant place, then at one another again. Mrs. Maurier tried to call a mental roll, staring at each in turn. Presently Miss Jameson said:
“Why, it’s Mark, isn’t it?”
It was Mark. They had forgotten him. Mrs. Maurier dispatched the steward, who found the ghostly poet still at full length on the upper deck. He appeared in his ironed serge, bathing them briefly in his pale gaze.
“You gave us rather a turn, my dear fellow,” Mr. Talliaferro informed him with reproof, taking upon himself the duties of host.
“I wondered how long it would be before some one saw fit to notify me that lunch was ready,” the poet replied with cold dignity, taking his seat.
Fairchild, watching him, said abruptly: “Say, Julius, Mark’s the very man for Major Ayers, ain’t he? Say, Major, here’s a man to take your first bottle. Tell him about your scheme.”
The florid man regarded the poet affably. “Ah, yes. It’s a salts, you see. You spoon a bit of it into your—”
“A what?” asked the poet, poising his spoon and staring at the florid man. The others all poised their tools and stared at the florid man.
“A salts,” he explained. “Like our salts at home, y’know—”
​“A—?” repeated Mrs. Maurier. Mr. Talliaferro’s eyes popped mildly.
“All Americans are constipated,” the florid man continued blithely, “do with a bit of salts in a tumbler of water in the morning. Now, my scheme is—”
“Mr. Talliaferro!” Mrs. Maurier implored. Mr. Talliaferro girded himself anew.
“My dear sir,” he began.
“—is to put the salts up in a tweaky phial, a phial that will look well on one’s night table: a jolly design of some sort. All Americans will buy it. Now, the population of your country is several millions, I fancy; and when you take into consideration the fact that all Americans are con—”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Talliaferro, louder.
“Eh?” said the florid man, looking at him.
“What kind of a jar will you put ’em in?” asked the nephew, his mind taking fire.
“Some tweaky sort of thing that all Americans will buy—”
“The American flag and a couple of doves holding dollar marks in their bills, and a handle that when you pull it out, it’s a corkscrew,” suggested Fairchild. The florid man glared at him with interest and calculation.
“Or,” the Semitic man suggested, “a small condensed table for calculating interest on one side and a good recipe for beer on the other.” The florid man glared at him with interest.
“That’s just for men,” Mrs. Wiseman said. “How about the women’s trade?”
“A bit of mirror would do for them, don’t you think?” the florid man offered, “surrounded by a design in colors, eh?”
Mrs. Wiseman gave him a murderous glance and the poet added:
“And a formula for preventing conception and a secret place ​for hairpins.” The hostess moaned, Mr. Talliaferro! Mrs. Wiseman said savagely:
“I have a better idea than that, for both sexes: your photograph on one side and the golden rule on the other.” The florid man glared at her with interest. The nephew broke in once more:
“I mean, have you invented a jar yet, invented a way to get the stuff out of the jar?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve done that. You spoon it out, you know.”
“But tell ’em how you know all Americans are constipated,” Fairchild suggested. Mrs. Maurier rang the service bell furiously and at length. The steward appeared and as he removed the plates and replaced them with others, the florid man leaned nearer Mrs. Wiseman.
“What’s that chap?” he asked indicating Mr. Talliaferro.
“What is he?” Mrs. Wiseman repeated. “Why— I think he sells things downtown. Doesn’t he, Julius?” She appealed to her brother.
“I mean, what—ah—race does he belong to?”
“Oh. You’d noticed his accent, then?”
“Yes. I noticed he doesn’t talk like Americans. I thought perhaps he is one of your natives.”
“One of our—?” She stared at him.
“Your red Indians, y’know,” he explained.
Mrs. Maurier rang her little bell again, sort of chattering to herself.
two o'clock
Mrs. Maurier put an end to that luncheon as soon as she decently could. If I can only break them up, get them into a bridge game, she thought in an agony. It had got to where every time one of the gentlemen made the precursory sound of speech, Mrs. Maurier flinched and cringed nearer Mr. Tallia​ferro. At least she could depend on him, provided . . . But she was going to do the providing in his case. They had discussed Major Ayers' salts throughout the meal. Eva Wiseman had turned renegade and abetted them, despite the atmosphere of reproof Mrs. Maurier had tried to foster and support. And, on top of all this, the strange young man had the queerest manner of using knife and fork. Mr. Fairchild’s way was—well, uncouth; but after all, one must pay a price for Art. Jenny, on the other hand, had an undeniable style, feeding herself with her little finger at a rigid and elegant angle from her hand. And now Fairchild was saying:
“Now here’s a clean case of poetic justice for you. A hundred odd years ago Major Ayers’ grandpa wants to come to New Orleans, but our grandfathers stop him down yonder in those Chalmette swamps and lick hell out of him. And now Major Ayers comes into the city itself and conquers it with a laxative so mild that, as he says, you don’t even notice it. Hey, Julius?”
“It also confounds all the old convictions regarding the irreconcilability of science and art,” the Semitic man suggested.
“Huh?” said Fairchild. “Oh, sure. That’s right. Say, he certainly ought to make Al Jackson a present of a bottle, oughtn’t he?”
The thin poet groaned sepulchrally. Major Ayers repeated:
“Al Jackson?”
The steward removed the cloth. The table was formed of a number of card tables; by Mrs. Maurier’s direction he did not remove these. She called him to her, whispered to him: he went below.
“Why, didn’t you ever hear of Al Jackson?” asked Fairchild in unctuous surprise. “He’s a funny man, a direct descendant of Old Hickory that licked you folks in 1812, he claims. He’s quite a character in New Orleans.” The other ​guests all listened to Fairchild with a sort of noncommittal attention. “You can always tell him because he wears congress boots all the time—”
“Congress boots?” murmured Major Ayers, staring at him. Fairchild explained, raising his foot above the level of the table to demonstrate.
“Sure. On the street, at formal gatherings, even in evening dress he wears ’em. He even wears ’em in bathing.”
“In bathing? I say.” Major Ayers stared at the narrator with his round china-blue eyes.
“Sure. Won’t let any one see him barefoot. A family deformity, you see. Old Hickory himself had it: that’s the reason he outfought the British in those swamps. He’d never have whipped ’em otherwise. When you get to town, go down to Jackson square and look at that statue of the old fellow. He’s got on congress boots.” He turned to the Semitic man. “By the way, Julius, you remember about Old Hickory’s cavalry, don’t you?” The Semitic man was noncommittal, and Fairchild continued:
“Well, the old general bought a place in Florida. A stock farm, they told him it was, and he gathered up a bunch of mountaineers from his Tennessee place and sent ’em down there with a herd of horses. Well, sir, when they got there they found the place was pretty near all swamp. But they were hardy folks, so they lit right in to make the best of it. In the meantime—”
“Doing what?” asked the nephew.
“Huh?” said Fairchild.
“What were they going to do in Florida? That’s what we all want to know,” Mrs. Wiseman said.
“Sell real estate to the Indians,” the Semitic man suggested. Major Ayers stared at him with his little blue eyes.
“No, they were going to run a dude ranch for the big ​hotels at Palm Beach,” Fairchild told them. “And in the meantime some of these horses strayed off into the swamps, and in some way the breed got crossed with alligators. And so, when Old Hickory found he was going to have to fight his battle down there in those Chalmette swamps, he sent over to his Florida place and had ’em round up as many of those half-horse half-alligators as they could, and he mounted some of his infantry on ’em and the British couldn’t stop ’em at all. The British didn’t know Florida—”
“That’s true,” the Semitic man put in. “There were no excursions then.”
“and they didn’t even know what the things were, you see.”
Major Ayers and Mrs. Maurier stared at Fairchild in quiet childlike astonishment. “Go on,” said Major Ayers at last, “you're pulling my leg.”
“No, no: ask Julius. But then, it is kind of hard for a foreigner to get us. Were a simple people, we Americans, kind of childlike and hearty. And you’ve got to be both to cross a horse on an alligator and then find some use for him, you know. That’s part of our national temperament, Major. You'll understand it better when you’ve been among us longer. Won’t he, Julius?”
“Yes, he'll be able to get us all right when he’s been in America long enough to acquire our customs. It’s the custom that makes the man, you know.”
“Ah, yes,” said Major Ayers, blinking at him. “But there’s one of your customs I’ll not be able to acquire: your habit of eating apple tarts. We don’t have apple tarts at home, y’know. No Englishman nor Welshman nor Scot will eat an apple tart.”
“You don’t?” repeated Fairchild. “Why, I seem to remember—”
​“But not apple tarts, old lad. We have other sorts, but no apple tarts. You see, years ago it was the custom at Eton for the young lads to pop out at all hours and buy apple tarts. And one day a chap, a cabinet member’s son, died of a surfeit of apple tarts, whereupon his father had parliament put through a bill that no minor should be able to purchase an apple tart in the British dominions. So this generation grew up without them; the former generation died off, and now the present generation never heard of apple tarts.” He turned to the Semitic man. “Custom, as you just remarked.”
The ghostly poet, waiting his chance, murmured “Secretary of the Interior,” but this was ignored. Mrs. Maurier stared at Major Ayers, and Fairchild and the others all stared at Major Ayers’ florid bland face, and there was an interval of silence during which the hostess glanced about hopelessly among her guests. The steward reappeared and she hailed him with utter relief, ringing her little bell again commandingly. The others looked toward her and she passed her gaze from face to face.
“Now, people, at four o’clock we will be in good bathing water. Until then, what do you say to a nice game of bridge? Of course, those who really must have a siesta will be excused, but I’m sure no one will wish to remain below on such a day as this,” she added brightly. “Let me see—Mr. Fairchild, Mrs. Wiseman, Patricia and Julius, will be table number one. Major Ayers, Miss Jameson, Mr.—Talliaferro—” her gaze came to rest on Jenny. “Do you play bridge, Miss— child?”
Fairchild had risen with some trepidation. “Say, Julius, Major Ayers had better lie down a while, don’t you think? Being new to our hot climate, you know. And Gordon, too. Hey, Gordon, don’t you reckon we better lie down a while?”
“Right you are,” Major Ayers agreed with alacrity, rising ​also. “If the ladies will excuse us, that is. Might get a touch of sun, you know,” he added, glancing briefly at the awning overhead.
“But really,” said Mrs. Maurier helplessly. The gentlemen, clotting, moved toward the companionway.
“Coming, Gordon?” Fairchild called.
Mrs. Maurier turned to Gordon. “Surely, Mr. Gordon, you'll not desert us?”
Gordon looked at the niece. She met his harsh arrogant stare calmly, and he turned away. “Yes. Don’t play cards,” he answered shortly.
“But really,” repeated Mrs. Maurier. Mr. Talliaferro and Pete remained. The nephew had already taken himself off to his new carpenter’s saw. Mrs. Maurier looked at Pete. Then she looked away. Not even necessary to ask Pete if he played bridge. “You won’t play at all?” she called after the departing gentlemen, hopelessly.
“Sure, we'll come back later,” Fairchild assured her, herding his watch below. They descended noisily.
Mrs. Maurier looked about on her depleted party with astonished despair. The niece gazed at the emptied companionway a moment, then she looked about at the remainder of the party grouped about the superfluous card tables. “And you said you didn’t have enough women to go around,” she remarked.
“But we can have one table, anyway,” Mrs. Maurier brightened suddenly. “There’s Eva, Dorothy, Mr. Talliaferro and m— Why, here’s Mark,” she exclaimed. They had forgotten him again. “Mark, of course. I'll cut out this hand.”
Mr. Talliaferro demurred. “By no means. I’ll cut out. You take the hand: I insist.”
Mrs. Maurier refused. Mr. Talliaferro became insistent and she examined him with cold speculation. Mr. Talliaferro at ​last averted his eyes and Mrs. Maurier glanced briefly toward the companionway. She was firm.
“Poor Talliaferro,” the Semitic man said. Fairchild led the way along the passage, pausing at his door while his gang trod his heels. “Did you see his face? She’ll keep him under her thumb from now on.”
“I don’t feel sorry for him,” Fairchild said. “I think he kind of likes it: he’s always a little uncomfortable with men, you know. Being among a bunch of women seems to restore his confidence in himself, gives him a sense of superiority which his contacts with men seem to have pretty well hammered out of him. I guess the world does seem a kind of crude place to a man that spends eight hours a day surrounded by lace trimmed crêpe de chine,” he added, fumbling at the door. “Besides, he can’t come to me for advice about how to seduce somebody. He’s a fairly intelligent man, more sensitive than most, and yet he too labors under the illusion that art is just a valid camouflage for rutting.” He opened the door at last and they entered and sat variously while he knelt and dragged from beneath the bunk a heavy suitcase.
“She’s quite wealthy, isn’t she?” Major Ayers asked from the bunk. The Semitic man, as was his way, had already preempted the single chair. Gordon leaned his back against the wall, tall and shabby and arrogant.
“Rotten with it,” Fairchild answered. He got a bottle from the suitcase and rose to his feet and held the bottle against the light, gloating. “She owns plantations or something, don’t she, Julius? First family, or something like that?”
“Something like that,” the Semitic man agreed. “She is a northerner, herself. Married it. I think that explains her, myself.”
​“Explains her?” Fairchild repeated, passing glasses among them.
“It’s a long story. I'll tell it to you some day.”
“It'll take a long story to explain her,” Fairchild rejoined. “Say, she’d be a better bet for Major Ayers than the laxative business, wouldn’t she? I’d rather own plantations than a patent medicine plant, any day.”
“He’d have to remove Talliaferro, somehow,” the Semitic man remarked.
“Talliaferro’s not thinking seriously of her, is he?”
“He’d better be,” the other answered. “I wouldn’t say he’s got intentions on her, exactly,” he corrected. “He’s just there without knowing it: a natural hazard as regards any one else’s prospects.”
“Freedom and the laxative business, or plantations and Mrs. Maurier,” Fairchild mused aloud. “Well, I don’t know . . . What do you think, Gordon?”
Gordon stood against the wall, aloof, not listening to them hardly, watching within the bitter and arrogant loneliness of his heart a shape strange and new as fire swirling, headless, armless, legless, but when his name was spoken he stirred. “Let’s have a drink,” he said.
Fairchild filled the glasses: the muscles at the bases of their noses tightened.
“That’s a pretty good rejoinder to every emergency life may offer—like Squire Western’s hollo,” the Semitic man said.
“Yes, but freedom—” began Fairchild.
“Drink your whisky,” the other told him. “Take what little freedom you'll ever get while you can. Freedom from the police is the greatest freedom man can demand or expect.”
“Freedom,” said Major Ayers, “the only freedom is in wartime. Every one too busy fighting or getting ribbons or a snug berth to annoy you. Samurai or headhunters—take ​your choice. Mud and glory, or a bit of ribbon on a clean tunic. Mud and abnegation and dear whisky and England full of your beastly expeditionary forces. You were better than Canadians, though,” he admitted, “not so damned many of you. It was a priceless war, eh? . . . I like a bit of red, myself,” he confided. “Staff tabs worth two on the breast: only see the breast from one side. Ribbon’s good in peacetime, however.”
“But even peace can’t last forever, can it?” the Semitic man added.
“It’ll last a while—this one. Can’t have another war right off. Too many would stop away. Regulars jump in and get all the cushy jobs right off: learned in the last one, you know; and the others would all get their backs up and refuse to go again.” He mused for a moment. “The last one made war so damned unpopular with the proletariat. They overdid it. Like the showman who fills his stage so full chaps can see through into the wings.”
“You folks were pretty good at war bunk yourselves, weren’t you?” Fairchild said. “War bunk?” repeated Major Ayers. Fairchild explained.
“We didn’t pay money for it, though,” Major Ayers answered. “We only gave ribbons. . .. Pretty good whisky, eh?”
“If you want me to,” Jenny said, “I'll put it away in my room somewheres.”
Pete crammed it down on his head, holding his head tilted rigidly a little to windward. The wind was eating his cigarette right out of his mouth: he held his hand as a shield, smoking behind his hand.
“Its all right,” he answered. “Where’d you put it, anyway?”
​“. . .Somewheres. I’d just kind of put it away somewheres.” The wind was in her dress, molding it, and clasping her hands about the rail she let herself swing backward to the full stretch of her arms while the wind molded her thighs. Pete’s coat, buttoned, ballooned its vented flaring skirts.
“Yes,” he said, “I can just kind of put it away myself, when I want. . . . Look out, kid.” Jenny had drawn herself up to the rail again. The rail was breast high to her, but by hooking her legs over the lower one she could draw herself upward, and by creasing her young belly over the top one she leaned far out over the water. The water sheared away creaming: a white fading through milky jade to blue again, and a thin spray whipped from it, scuttering like small shot. “Come on, get back on the boat. We are not riding the blinds this trip.”
“Gee,” said Jenny, creasing her young belly, hanging out over the water, while wind molded and flipped her little skirt, revealing the pink backs of her knees above her stockings. The helmsman thrust his head out and yelled at her, and Jenny craned her neck to look back at him, swinging her blown drowsy hair.
“Keep your shirt on, brother,” Pete shouted back at the helmsman, for form’s sake. “What’d I tell you, dumbness?” he hissed at Jenny, pulling her down. “Come on, now, it’s their boat. Try to act like somebody.”
“I wasn’t hurting it,” Jenny answered placidly. “I guess I can do this, can’t I?” She let her body swing back again at the stretch of her arms. “. . . Say, there he is with that saw again. I wonder what he’s making.”
“Whatever it is he probably don’t need any help from us,” Pete answered. . . . “Say, how long did she say this was going to last?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe they’ll dance or something after ​a while. This is kind of funny, ain’t it? They are not going anywhere, and they don’t do anything. . . kind of like a movie or something.” Jenny brooded softly, gazing at the nephew where he sat with his saw in the lee of the wheel-house, immersed and oblivious. “If I was rich, I’d stay where I could spend it. Not like this, where there’s not even anything to look at.”
“Yeh. If you were rich you’d buy a lot of clothes and jewelry and an automobile. And then what’d you do? Wear your clothes out sitting in the automobile, huh?”
“I guess so. . . . I wouldn’t buy a boat, anyway. . . . I think he’s kind of good looking. Not very snappy looking, though. I wonder what he’s making?”
“Better go ask him,” Pete answered shortly. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to know, anyhow. I was just kind of wondering.” She swung herself slowly at arms’ length, against the wind, slowly until she swung herself over beside Pete, leaning her back against him.
“Go on and ask him,” Pete insisted, his elbows hooked over the rail, ignoring Jenny’s soft weight. “A pretty boy like him won’t bite you.”
“I don’t mind being bit,” Jenny replied placidly. . . . “Peter—. . .?”
“Get away, kid: I’m respectable,” Pete told her. “Try your pretty boy; see if you can compete with that saw.”
“I like peppy looking men,” Jenny remarked. She sighed. “Gee, I wish there was a movie to go to or something.” (I wonder what he’s making.)
“What horsepower does she develop?” the nephew asked, raising his voice above the deep vibration of the engine, staring at it entranced. It was clean as a watch, nickeled and red​leaded—a latent and brooding power beneath a thin film of golden lubricating oil like the film of moisture on a splendid animal functioning, physical with perfection. The captain in a once white cap with a tarnished emblem on the visor, and a thin undershirt stained with grease, told him how much horsepower she developed.
He stood in a confined atmosphere oppressive with energy: an ecstatic tingling that penetrated to the core of his body, giving to his entrails a slightly unpleasant sensation of lightness, staring at the engine with rapture. It was as beautiful as a racehorse and in a way terrifying, since with all its implacable soulless power there was no motion to be seen save a trivial nervous flickering of rockerarms—a thin bright clicking that rode just above the remote contemplative thunder of it. The keelplates shook with it, the very bulkheads trembled with it, as though a moment were approaching when it would burst the steel as a cocoon is burst, and soar upward and outward on dreadful and splendid wings of energy and flame. . . .
But the engine was bolted down with huge bolts, clean and firm and neatly redleaded; bolts that nothing could break, as firmly fixed as the nethermost foundations of the world. Across the engine, above the flickering rockerarms, the captain’s soiled cap appeared and vanished. The nephew moved carefully around the engine, following.
There was a port at the height of his eye and he saw beyond it sky bisected by a rigid curving sweep of water stiff with a fading energy like bronze. The captain was busy with a wisp of cotton waste, hovering about the engine, dabbing at its immaculate anatomy with needless maternal infatuation. The nephew watched with interest. The captain leaned nearer, wiped his waste through a small accumulation of grease at the base of a pushrod, and raised it to the light. ​The nephew approached, peering over the captain’s shoulder. It was a tiny speck, quite dead.
“What is it, Josh?” his sister said, breathing against his neck. The nephew turned sharply.
“Gabriel’s pants,” he said. “What are you doing down here? Who told you to come down here?”
“I wanted to come, too,” she answered, crowding against him. “What is it, Captain? What’ve you and Gus got?”
“Here,” her brother thrust at her, “get on back on deck where you belong. You haven’t got any business down here.”
“What is it, Captain?” she repeated, ignoring him. The captain extended his rag. “Did the engine kill it?” she asked. “Gee, I wish we could get all of ’em down here and lock the door for a while, don’t you?” She stared at the engine, at the flickering rockerarms. She squealed. “Look! Look how fast they’re going. It’s going awfully fast, isn’t it, Captain?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the captain replied. “Pretty fast.”
“What’s her bore and stroke?” the nephew asked. The captain examined a dial. Then he turned a valve slightly. Then he examined the dial again. The nephew repeated his question and the captain told him her bore and stroke.
“She revs up pretty well, don’t she?” the nephew suggested after a while.
“Yes, sir,” the captain answered. He was busy doing something with two small wrenches, and the nephew offered to help. His sister followed, curious and intent.
“I expect you’d better let me do it alone,” the captain said, courteous and firm. “I know her better than you, I expect . . . Suppose you and the young lady stand over there just a little.”
“You sure do keep her clean, Captain,” the niece said. “Clean enough to eat off of, isn’t she?”
The captain thawed. “She’s worth keeping clean. Best ​marine engine made. German. She cost twelve thousand dollars.”
“Gee,” the niece remarked in a hushed tone. Her brother turned upon her, pushing her before him from the room.
“Look here,” he said fiercely, his voice shaking, when they were again in the passage. “What are you doing, following me around? What did I tell you I was going to do if you followed me any more?”
“I wasn’t following you. I—”
“Yes, you were,” he interrupted, shaking her, “following me. You—”
“I just wanted to come, too. Besides, it’s Aunt Pat’s boat: it’s not yours. I’ve got as much right down there as you have.”
“Aw, get on up on deck. And if I catch you trailing around behind me again. . .” his voice merged into a dire and nameless threat. The niece turned toward the companionway.
“Oh, haul in your sheet: you’re jibbing.”
four o’clock
They sat at their bridge on deck, shuffling, dealing, speaking in sparse monosyllables. The Nausikaa surged sedately onward under the blue drowsing afternoon. Far away on the horizon, the lazy smudge of the Mandeville ferry.
Mrs. Maurier on the outskirt of the game, gazed at intervals abstractedly into space. From below there came an indistinguishable sound, welling at intervals, and falling, and Mr. Talliaferro grew restive. The sound died away at intervals, swelled again. The Nausikaa paced sedately on.
They played their hands, dealt and shuffled again. Mr. Talliaferro was becoming distrait. Every once in a while his attention strayed and returning found Mrs. Maurier’s eyes ​upon him, coldly contemplative, and he bent anew over his cards. . . . The indistinguishable sound welled once more. Mr. Talliaferro trumped his partner’s queen and the gentlemen in their bathing suits surged up the stairs.
They completely ignored the cardplayers, passing aft in a body and talking loudly; something about a wager. They paused at the rail upon which the steward leaned at the moment; here they clotted momentarily, then Major Ayers detached himself from the group and flung himself briskly and awkwardly overboard. “Hurray,” roared Fairchild. “He wins!”
Mrs. Maurier had raised her face when they passed, she had spoken to them and had watched them when they halted, and she saw Major Ayers leap overboard with a shocked and dreadful doubt of her own eyesight. Then she screamed.
The steward stripped off his jacket, detached and flung a lifebelt, then followed himself, diving outward and away from the screw. “Two of ’em,” Fairchild howled with joy. “Pick you up when we come back,” he megaphoned through his hands.
Major Ayers came up in the wake of the yacht, swimming strongly. The Nausikaa circled, the telegraph rang. Major Ayers and the steward reached the lifebelt together, and before the yacht lost way completely the helmsman and the deckhand had swung the tender overside, and soon they hauled Major Ayers savagely into the small boat.
The Nausikaa was hove to. Mrs. Maurier was helped below to her cabin, where her irate captain attended her presently. Meanwhile the other gentlemen plunged in and began to cajole the ladies, so the rest of the party went below and donned their bathing suits.
Jenny didn’t have one: her sole preparation for the voyage had consisted of the purchase of a lipstick and a comb. The ​niece loaned Jenny hers, and in this borrowed suit which fit her a shade too well, Jenny clung to the gunwale of the tender, clutching Pete’s hand and floating her pink-and-white face like a toy balloon unwetted above the water, while Pete sat in the boat fully dressed even to his hat, glowering.
Mr. Talliaferro’s bathing suit was red, giving him a bizarre desiccated look, like a recently extracted tooth. He wore also a red rubber cap and he let himself gingerly into the water feet first from the stern of the tender, and here he clung beside the placid Jenny, trying to engage her in small talk beneath Pete’s thunderous regard. The ghostly poet in his ironed serge—he didn’t swim—lay again at full length on four chairs, craning his pale prehensile face above the bathers.
Fairchild looked more like a walrus than ever: a deceptively sedate walrus of middle age suddenly evincing a streak of demoniac puerility. He wallowed and splashed, heavily playful, and, seconded by Major Ayers, annoyed the ladies by pinching them under water and by splashing them, wetting Pete liberally where he sat smoldering with Jenny clinging to his hand and squealing, trying to protect her make-up. The Semitic man paddled around with that rather ludicrous intentness of a fat man swimming. Gordon sat on the rail, looking on. Fairchild and Major Ayers at last succeeded in driving the ladies back into the tender, about which they splashed and yapped with the tactless playfulness of dogs while Pete refraining “Look out goddam you look out christ watcher doing lookout” struck at their fingers with one of his discarded and sopping shoes.
Above this one-sided merriment the niece appeared poised upon the top of the wheelhouse, unseen by those in the water. They were aware first of a white arrow arcing down the sky. The water took it lazily and while they stared at the slow green vortex where it had entered there was a commotion be​hind Fairchild, and as he opened his mouth his gaping surprise vanished beneath the surface. In its place the niece balanced momentarily on something under the water, then she fell plunging in the direction of Major Ayers’ yet passive astonishment.
The ladies screamed with delight. Major Ayers also vanished, and the niece plunged on. Fairchild appeared presently, coughing and gasping, and climbed briskly into the tender where Mr. Talliaferro with admirable presence of mind already was, having deserted Jenny without a qualm. “I’ve got enough,” Fairchild said when he could speak.
Major Ayers, however, accepted the challenge. The niece trod water and awaited him. “Drown him, Pat!” the ladies shrieked. Just before he reached her, her dark wet head vanished and for a while Major Ayers plunged about in a kind of active resignation. Then he vanished again and the niece, clad in a suit of her brother’s underwear—a knitted sleeveless jersey and short narrow trunks—surged out of the water and stood erect on his shoulders. Then she put her foot on the top of his head and thrust him deeper yet. Then she plunged on and trod water again.
Major Ayers reappeared at last, already headed for the boat. He had enough also, and the gentlemen dragged him aboard and they dripped across the deck and passed below, to the derision of the ladies.
The ladies got aboard themselves. Pete standing erect in the tender was trying to haul Jenny out of the water. She hung like an expensive doll-confection from his hands, raising at lax intervals a white lovely leg, while Mr. Talliaferro, kneeling, pawed at her shoulders. “Come on, come on,” Pete hissed at her. The niece swam up and thrust at Jenny’s sweet thighs until Jenny tumbled at last into the tender in a soft blonde abandon: a charming awkwardness. The niece held the tender steady while they boarded the yacht, then she slid skilfully ​out of the water, sleek and dripping as a seal; and as she swung her short coarse hair back from her face she saw hands, and Gordon’s voice said:
“Give me your hands.”
She clasped his hard wrists and felt herself flying. The setting sun came level into his beard and upon all his tall lean body, and dripping water on the deck she stood and looked at him with admiration. “Gee, you’re hard,” she said. She touched his forearms again, then she struck him with her fist on his hard high chest. “Do it again, will you?”
“Swing you again?” he asked. But she was already in the tender, extending her arms while sunset was a moist gold sheathing her. Again that sensation of flying, of space and motion and his hard hands coming into it; and for an instant she stopped in midflight, hand to hand and arm braced to arm, high above the deck while water dripping from her turned to gold as it fell. Sunset was in his eyes: a glory he could not see; and her taut simple body, almost breastless and with the fleeting hips of a boy, was an ecstasy in golden marble, and in her face the passionate ecstasy of a child.
At last her feet touched the deck again and she turned. She sped toward the companionway and as she flashed downward the last of the sun slid upon her and over her with joy. Then she was gone, and Gordon stood looking at the wet and simple prints of her naked feet on the deck.
six o'clock
They had raised land just about the time Major Ayers won his wager, and while the last of day drained out of the world the Nausikaa at halfspeed forged slowly into a sluggish river mouth, broaching a timeless violet twilight between solemn bearded cypresses motionless as bronze. You might, by lis​tening, have heard a slow requiem in this tall nave, might have heard here the chanted orisons of the dark heart of the world turning toward slumber. The world was becoming dimensionless, the tall bearded cypresses drew nearer one to another across the wallowing river with the soulless implacability of pagan gods, gazing down upon this mahogany-and-brass intruder with inscrutable unalarm. The water was like oil and the Nausikaa forged onward without any sensation of motion through a corridor without ceiling or floor.
Mr. Talliaferro stood at the sternrail beside Jenny and her morose hatted duenna. In the dusk Jenny’s white troubling placidity bloomed like a heavy flower, pervading and rife like an odor lazier, heavier than that of lilies. Pete loomed beyond her: the last light in the world was concentrated in the implacable glaze of his hat, leaving the atmosphere about them darker still; and in the weary passion of August and nightfall Mr. Talliaferro’s dry interminable voice fell lower and lower and finally ceased altogether; and abruptly becoming aware of an old mislaid sorrow he slapped suddenly at the back of his hand, with consternation, remarking at the same time that Pete was also restive and that Jenny was agitating herself as though she were rubbing her body against her clothing from within. Then, as if at a signal, they were all about them, unseen, with a dreadful bucolic intentness; unlike their urban cousins, making no sound.
Jenny and Pete and Mr. Talliaferro evacuated the deck. At the companionway the ghostly poet joined them hurriedly, flapping his handkerchief about his face and neck and the top of his unnurtured evaporating head. At that instant Mrs. Maurier’s voice rose from somewhere in astonished adjuration, and presently the Nausikaa put about and felt her way back to open water and stood out to sea. And not at halfspeed, either.
seven o’clock
Years ago Mrs. Maurier had learned that unadulterated fruit juice was salutary, nay, necessary to a nautical life. A piece of information strange, irrelevant at first draught, yet on second thought quite possible, not to mention pleasant in contemplation, so she had accepted it, taking it unto her and making of it an undeviating marine conviction. Hence there was grapefruit again for dinner: she was going to inoculate them first, then take chances.
Fairchild’s gang was ultimately started from its lair in his quarters. The other guests were already seated and they regarded the newcomers with interest and trepidation and, on Mrs. Maurier’s part, with actual alarm.
“Here comes the dogwatch,” Mrs. Wiseman remarked brightly. “It’s the gentlemen, isn’t it? We haven’t seen any gentlemen since we left New Orleans, hey, Dorothy?”
Her brother grinned at her sadly. “How about Mark and Talliaferro?”
“Oh, Mark’s a poet. That lets him out. And Ernest isn’t a poet, so that lets him out, too,” she replied with airy feminine logic. “Isn’t that right, Mark?”
“I’m the best poet in New Orleans,” the ghostly young man said heavily, mooning his pale, prehensile face at her.
“We were kind of wondering where you were, Mark,” Fairchild told the best poet in New Orleans. “We got the idea you were supposed to be on the boat with us. Too bad you couldn’t come,” he continued tediously.
“Maybe Mark couldn’t find himself in time,” the Semitic man suggested, taking his seat.
“He’s found his appetite, though,” Fairchild replied. “Maybe he'll find the rest of himself laying around somewhere nearby.” He seated himself and stared at the plate ​before him. He murmured, Well, well, with abstraction. His companions found seats and Major Ayers stared at his plate. He murmured Well, well, also. Mrs. Maurier chewed her lip nervously, putting her hand on Mr. Talliaferro’s sleeve. Major Ayers murmured:
“It does look familiar, doesn’t it?” and Fairchild said:
“Why, it’s grapefruit: I can tell every time.” He looked at Major Ayers. “I’m not going to eat mine, now. I’m going to put it away and save it.”
“Right you are,” agreed Major Ayers readily. “Save ’em by all means.” He set his grapefruit carefully to one side. “Advise you people to do the same,” he added at large.
“Save them?” Mrs. Maurier repeated in astonishment. “Why, there are more of them. We have several crates.”
Fairchild wagged his head at her. “I can’t risk it. They might be lost overboard or something, and us miles from land. I’m going to save mine.”
Major Ayers offered a suggestion. “Save the rinds, anyway. Might need ’em. Never can tell what might happen at sea, y’know,”” he said owlishly.
“Sure,” Fairchild agreed. “Might need ’em in a pinch to prevent constipation.” Mrs. Maurier clasped Mr. Talliaferro’s arm again.
“Mr. Talliaferro!”? she whispered imploringly. Mr. Talliaferro sprang to the breach.
“Now that we are all together at last,” he began, clearing his throat, “the Commodore wishes us to choose our first port of call. In other words, people, where shall we go to-morrow?” He looked from face to face about the table.
“Why, nowhere,” answered Fairchild with surprise. “We just came from somewhere yesterday, didn’t we?”
“You mean to-day,” Mrs. Wiseman told him. “We left New Orleans this morning.”
​“Oh, did we? Well, well, it takes a long time to spend the afternoon, don’t it? But we don’t want to go anywhere, do we?”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Talliaferro contradicted him smoothly. “To-morrow we are going up the Tchufuncta river and spend the day fishing. Our plan was to go up the river and spend the night, but this was found impossible. So we shall go up to-morrow. Is this unanimous? or shall we call for a ballot?”
“Gabriels pants,” the niece said to Jenny, “I itch just to think about that, don’t you?”
Fairchild brightened. “Up the Tchufuncta?” he repeated. “Why, that’s where the Jackson place is. Maybe Al’s at home. Major Ayers must meet Al Jackson, Julius.”
“Al Jackson?” Major Ayers repeated. The best poet in New Orleans groaned and Mrs. Wiseman said:
“Good Lord, Dawson.”
“Sure. The one I was telling you about at lunch, you know.”
“Ah, yes: the alligator chap, eh?” Mrs. Maurier exclaimed. “Mr. Talliaferro” again.
“Very well,” Mr. Talliaferro said loudly, “that’s settled, then. Fishing has it. And in the meantime, the Commodore invites you all to a dancing party on deck immediately after dinner. So finish your dinner, people. Fairchild, you are to lead the grand march.”
“Sure,” Fairchild agreed again. “Yes, that’s the one. His father has a fish ranch up here. That’s where Al got his start, and now he’s the biggest fisherd in the world—”
“Did you see the sunset this evening, Major Ayers?” Mrs. Wiseman asked loudly. “Deliciously messy, wasn’t it?”
“Nature getting even with Turner,” the poet suggested.
“That will take years and years,” Mrs. Wiseman answered. Mrs. Maurier sailed in, gushing.
​“Our southern sunsets, Major Ayers—” But Major Ayers was staring at Fairchild.
—“Fisherd?” he murmured.
“Sure. Like the old cattle ranches out west, you know. But instead of a cattle ranch, Al Jackson has got a fish ranch out in the wide open spaces of the Gulf of Mexico—”
“Where men are sharks,” put in Mrs. Wiseman. “Don’t leave that out.” Major Ayers stared at her.
“Sure. Where men are men. That’s where this beautiful blonde girl comes in. Like Jenny yonder. Maybe Jenny’s the one. Are you the girl, Jenny?” Major Ayers now stared at Jenny.
Jenny was gazing at the narrator, her blue ineffable eyes quite round, holding a piece of bread in her hand. “Sir?” she said at last.
“Are you the girl that lives on that Jackson fish ranch out in the Gulf of Mexico?”
“I live on Esplanade,” Jenny said after a while, tentatively.
“Mr. Fairchild!” Mrs. Maurier exclaimed. Mr. Talliaferro said:
“My dear sir!”
“No, I reckon you are not the one, or you’d know it. I don’t imagine that even Claude Jackson could live on a fish ranch in the Gulf of Mexico and not know it. This girl is from Brooklyn, anyway—a society girl. She went down there to find her brother. Her brother had just graduated from reform school and so his old man sent him down there for the Jacksons to make a fisherd out of him. He hadn’t shown any aptitude for anything else, you see, and his old man knew it didn’t take much intelligence to herd a fish. His sister—”
​“But, I say,” Major Ayers interrupted, “why do they herd their fish?”
“They round ’em up and brand ’em, you see. Al Jackson brands—”
“Brand ’em?”
“Sure: marks ’em so he can tell his fish from ordinary wild fish—mavericks, they call ’em. And now he owns nearly all the fish in the world; a fish millionaire, even if he is fish-poor right now. Wherever you see a marked fish, it’s one of Al Jackson’s.”
“Marks his fish, eh?”
“Sure: notches their tails.”
“Mr. Fairchild,” Mrs. Maurier said.
“But our fish at home have notched tails.” Major Ayers objected.
“Well, they are Jackson fish that have strayed off the range, then.”
“Why doesn’t he establish a European agent?” the ghostly poet asked viciously.
Major Ayers stared about from face to face. “I say,” he began. He stuck there. The hostess rose decisively.
“Come, people, let’s go on deck.”
“No, no,” the niece said quickly, “go on: tell us some more.” Mrs. Wiseman rose also.
“Dawson,” she said firmly, “shut up. We simply cannot stand any more. This afternoon has been too trying. Come on, let’s go up,” she said, herding the ladies firmly out of the room, taking Mr. Talliaferro along also.
nine o'clock
He needed a bit of wire. He had reached that impasse familiar to all creators, where he could not decide which of a number of things to do next. His object had attained that ​stage of completion in which the simplicity of the initial impulse dissolves into a number of trivial necessary details; and lying on his bunk in the cabin he and Mr. Talliaferro shared, his saw at hand and a thin litter of sawdust and shavings well impermeating the bed clothing, he held his wooden cylinder to the small inadequate light and decided that he could do with a bit of stiff wire or something of that nature.
He swung his legs out of the berth and flowed to the floor in a single beautiful motion, and crossing the room on his bare feet he searched Mr. Talliaferro’s effects without success, so he passed from the cabin.
Still on his bare feet he went along the passage, and opening another door he let subdued light from the passage into a room filled with snoring, discerning vaguely the sleeper and, on a peg in the wall, a stained white cap. Captain’s room, he decided, leaving the door open and traversing the room silently to another door.
There was a dim small light in this room, gleaming dully on the viscid anatomy of the now motionless engine. But he ignored the engine now, going about his search with businesslike expedition. There was a wooden cabinet against the wall: some of the drawers were locked. He rummaged through the others, pausing at times to raise certain objects to the light for a closer inspection, discarding them again. He closed the last drawer and stood with his hand on the cabinet, examining the room.
A piece of wire would do, a short piece of stiff wire. . . there were wires on one wall, passing among and between switches. But these were electric wires and probably indispensable. Electric wires. . . battery room. It must be there, beyond that small door.
It was there—a shadow filled cubbyhole smelling of acids, of decomposition; a verdigris of decay. Plenty of wires here, ​but no loose ones. . . . He stared around, and presently he saw something upright and gleaming dully. It was a piece of mechanism, steel, smooth and odorless and rather comforting in this tomb of smells, and he examined it curiously, striking matches. And there, attached to it, was exactly what he needed—a small straight steel rod.
I wonder what it does, he thought. It looked . . . a winch of some kind, maybe. But what would they want with a winch down here? Something they don’t use much, evidently, he assured himself. Too clean. Cleaner than the engine. Not greased all over like the engine. They mustn’t hardly ever use it. . . . Or a pump. A pump, that’s what it is. They won’t need a pump once a year: not any bilge in a boat kept up like a grand piano. Anyhow, they couldn’t possibly need it before to-morrow, and I’ll be through with it then. Chances are they wouldn’t miss it if I kept it altogether.
The rod came off easily. Plenty of wrenches in the cabinet, and he just unscrewed the nuts at each end of the rod and lifted it out. He paused again, holding the rod in his hand. . . . Suppose he were to injure the rod some way. He hadn’t considered that and he stood turning the rod this way and that in his fingers, watching dull gleams of light on its slender polished length. It was so exactly what he needed. Steel, too; good steel: it cost twelve thousand dollars. And if you can’t get good steel for that . . . He put his tongue on it. It tasted principally of machine oil, but it must be good hard steel, costing twelve thousand dollars. I guess I can’t hurt anything that cost twelve thousand dollars, specially by just using it one time. . . “If they need it to-morrow, I'll be through with it, anyway,” he said aloud.
He replaced the wrenches. His mouth tasted of machine oil and he spat. The captain yet snored, and he passed through the captain’s room on his bare feet, closing the door thought​fully so the light from the passage wouldn’t disturb the sleeper. He slipped the rod into his pocket. His hands were greasy and so he wiped them on the seat of his trousers.
He paused again at the galley door, where the steward was still busy over the sink. The steward stopped long enough to find a candle for him, then he returned to his room. He lit the candle, drew Mr. Talliaferro’s suitcase from beneath the bunk and dripping a bit of hot wax onto it, he fixed the candle upright. Then he got Mr. Talliaferro’s pigskin enclosed shaving kit and propped the rod upon it with one end of the rod in the candle flame. His mouth still tasted of machine oil, so he climbed onto his berth and spat through the port, discovering as he did so that the port was screened. It'll dry, though.
He touched the rod. It was getting warm. But he wanted it red hot. His mouth yet tasted of machine oil and he remembered the other cigarette. It was in the same pocket in which he had had the rod, and it too was slightly reminiscent of machinery, but the burning tobacco would soon kill that.
The rod was getting pretty hot, so he fetched the wooden cylinder from the bunk and laying the cigarette on the edge of the suitcase he picked up the rod and held its heated end firmly against the selected spot on the cylinder; and soon a thin thread of smoke rose curling into the windless air. The smoke had a faint odor like that of scorching leather in it, also. Machine oil, probably.
ten o’clock
It’s being an artist, Mrs. Maurier said to herself with helpless despondence. Mrs. Wiseman, Miss Jameson, Mark and Mr. Talliaferro sat at bridge. She herself did not feel like playing: the strain of her party kept her too nervous and ​wrought up. “You simply cannot tell what they’re going to do,” she said aloud in her exasperation, seeing again Major Ayers’ vanishing awkward shape and Fairchild leaning over the rail and howling after him like a bullvoiced Druid priest at a sacrifice.
“Yes,” Mrs. Wiseman agreed, “it’s like an excursion, isn’t it?—all drunkenness and trampling around,” she added, attempting to finesse. “Damn you, Mark.”
“It’s worse than that,” the niece corrected, pausing to watch the hissing fall of cards, “it’s like a cattle boat—all trampling around.”
Mrs. Maurier sighed. “Whatever it is. . .” her sentence died stillborn. The niece drifted away and a tall shape appeared from shadow and joined her, and they went on down the dark deck and from her sight. It was that queer shabby Mr. Gordon, and she knew a sudden sharp stab of conscience, of having failed in her duty as a hostess. She had barely exchanged a word with him since they came aboard. It’s that terrible Mr. Fairchild, she told herself. But who could have known that a middleaged man, and a successful novelist, could or would conduct himself so?
The moon was getting up, spreading a silver flare of moonlight on the water. The Nausikaa swung gently at her cables, motionless but never still, sleeping but not dead, as is the manner of ships on the seas of the world; cradled like a silver dreaming gull on the water . . . her yacht. Her party, people whom she had invited together for their mutual pleasure. . . . Maybe they think I ought to get drunk with them, she thought.
She roused herself, creating conversation. The cardplayers shuffled and dealt interminably, replying Mmmm to her remarks, irrelevant and detached, or pausing to answer sensibly with a patient deference. Mrs. Maurier rose briskly.
​“Come, people, I know you are tired of cards. Let’s have some music and dance a while.”
“I’d rather play bridge with Mark than dance with him,” Mrs. Wiseman said. . . . “Whose trick was that?”
“There'll be plenty of men when the music starts,” Mrs. Maurier said.
“Mmmm,” replied Mrs. Wiseman. . . . “It'll take more than a victrola record to get any men on this party. . . . You'll need extradition papers. . . . Three without and three aces. How much is that, Ernest?”
“Wouldnt you like to dance, Mr. Talliaferro?” Mrs. Maurier persisted.
“Whatever you wish, dear lady,” Mr. Talliaferro answered with courteous detachment, busy with his pencil. “That makes—” he totted a column of his neat fingers, then he raised his head. “I beg your pardon: did you say something?”
“Don’t bother,” Mrs. Maurier said. “I'll put on a record myself: I’m sure our party will gather when they hear it.” She wound up the portable victrola and put on a record. “You finish your rubber, and I'll look about and see whom I can find,” she added. Mmmm, they replied.
The victrola raised its teasing rhythms of saxophones and drums, and Mrs. Maurier prowled around, peering into the shadows. She found the steward first, whom she dispatched to the gentlemen with a command couched in the form of an invitation. Then further along she discovered Gordon, and her niece sitting on the rail with her legs locked about a stanchion.
“Do be careful,” she said, “you might fall. We are going to dance a while,” she added happily.
“Not me,” her niece answered quickly. “Not to-night, anyway. You have to dance enough in this world on dry land.”
​“You will certainly not prevent Mr. Gordon dancing, however. Come, Mr. Gordon, we need you.”
“I don’t dance,” Gordon answered shortly.
“You don’t dance?” Mrs. Maurier repeated. “You really don’t dance at all?”
“Run along, Aunt Pat,” the niece answered for him. “We're talking about art.”
Mrs. Maurier sighed. “Where’s Theodore?” she asked at last. “Perhaps he will help us out.”
“He’s in bed. He went to bed right after dinner. But you might go down and ask him if he wants to get up and dance.”
Mrs. Maurier stared helplessly at Gordon. Then she turned away. The steward met her: the gentlemen were sorry, but they had all gone to bed. They were tired after such a strenuous day. She sighed again and passed on to the companionway. There seemed to be nothing else she could do for them. I’ve certainly tried, she told herself, taking this thin satisfaction, and stopped again while something shapeless in the dark companionway unblent, becoming two; and after a white Pete said from the darkness:
“It’s me and Jenny.”
Jenny made a soft meaningless sound, and Mrs. Maurier bent forward suspiciously. Mrs. Wiseman’s remark about excursion boats recurred to her.
“You are enjoying the moon, I suppose?” she remarked.
“Yessum,” Jenny answered. “Were just sitting here.”
“Don’t you children want to dance? They have started the victrola,” Mrs. Maurier said in a resurgence of optimism.
“Yessum,” said Jenny again, after a while. But they made no further move, and Mrs. Maurier sniffed. Quite genteelly, and she said icily:
“Excuse me, please.”
​They made room for her to pass and she descended without looking back again, and found her door. She snapped the light switch viciously. Then she sighed again.
It’s being an artist, she told herself again, helplessly.
“Damn, damn, damn,” said Mrs. Wiseman slapping her cards on the table. The victrola record had played itself through and into an endless monotonous rasping. “Mark, stop that thing, as you love God. I’m far enough behind, without being jinxed.” The ghostly poet rose obediently and Mrs. Wiseman swept her hand amid the cards on the table, scattering them. “I’m not going to spend any more of my life putting little spotted squares of paper in orderly sequence for three dull people, not to-night, anyway. Gimme a cigarette, some one.” She thrust her chair back and Mr. Talliaferro opened his case to her. She took one and lifted her foot to the other knee and scratched a match on the sole of her slipper. “Let’s talk a while instead.”
“Where on earth did you get those garters?” Miss Jameson asked curiously.
“These?” she flipped her skirt down. “Why? Don’t you like ’em?”
“They are a trifle out of the picture, on you.”
“What kind would you suggest for me? Pieces of colored string?”
“You ought to have black ones clasped with natural size red roses,” Mark Frost told her. “That’s what one would expect to find on you.”
“Wrrrong, me good man,” Mrs. Wiseman answered dramatically. “You have wronged me foully. . . . Where’s Mrs. Maurier, I wonder?”
“She must have caught somebody. That Gordon man, per​haps,” Miss Jameson replied. “I saw him at the rail yonder a while ago.”
“Ah, Mr. Talliaferro!” exclaimed Mrs. Wiseman. “Look out for yourself. Widders and artists, you know. You see how susceptible I am, myself. Wasn’t there ever a fortune teller to warn you of a tall red stranger in your destiny?”
“You are a widow only by courtesy,” the poet rejoined, “like the serving maids in sixteenth century literature.”
“So are some of the artists, my boy,” Mrs. Wiseman replied. “But all the men on board are not even artists. What, Ernest?”
Mr. Talliaferro bridled smugly through the smoke of his cigarette. Mrs. Wiseman consumed hers in an unbroken series of deep draughts and flipped it railward: a twinkling scarlet coal. “I said talk,” she reminded them, “not a few mild disjointed beans of gossip.” She rose. “Come on, let’s go to bed, Dorothy.”
Miss Jameson sat, a humorless inertia. “And leave that moon?”
Mrs. Wiseman yawned, stretching her arms. The moon spread her silver ceaseless hand on the dark water. Mrs. Wiseman turned, spreading her arms in a flamboyant gesture, in silhouette against it. “Ah, Moon, poor weary one. . . . By yon black moon,” she apostrophized.
“No wonder it looks tired,” the poet remarked hollowly. “Think of how much adultery it’s had to look upon.”
“Or assume the blame for,” Mrs. Wiseman amended. She dropped her arms. “TI wish I were in love,” she said. “Why aren’t you and Ernest more . . . more . . . Come on, Dorothy, let’s go to bed.”
“Have I got to move?” Miss Jameson said. She rose, however. The men rose also, and the two women departed. When ​they had gone Mr. Talliaferro gathered up the cards Mrs. Wiseman had scattered. Some of them had fallen to the deck.
eleven o’clock
Mr. Talliaferro tapped diffidently at the door of Fairchild’s room, was bidden, and opening it he saw the Semitic man sitting in the lone chair and Major Ayers and Fairchild on the bunk, holding glasses. “Come in,” Fairchild repeated. “How did you escape? Push her overboard and run?”
Mr. Talliaferro grinned with deprecation, regarding the bottle sitting on a small table, rubbing his hands together with anticipation.
“The human body can stand anything, can’t it?” the Semitic man remarked. “But I imagine Talliaferro is just about at the end of his rope, without outside aid,” he added. Major Ayers glared at him affably with his china blue eyes.
“Yes, Talliaferro’s sure earned a drink,” Fairchild agreed. “Where’s Gordon? Was he on deck?”
“I think so,” Mr. Talliaferro replied. “I believe he’s with Miss Robyn.”
“Well, more power to him,” Fairchild said. “Hope she won’t handle him as roughly as she did us, hey, Major?”
“You and Major Ayers deserved exactly what you got,” the Semitic man rejoined. “You can’t complain.”
“I guess so. But I don’t like to see a human being arrogating to himself the privileges and pleasures of providence. Quelling nuisances is God’s job.”
“How about instruments of providence?”
“Oh, take another drink,” Fairchild told him. “Stop talking so Talliaferro can have one, anyway. Then we better go up on deck. The ladies might begin to wonder what has become of us.”
​“Why should they?” the Semitic man asked innocently. Fairchild heaved himself off the bunk and got Mr. Talliaferro a tumbler. Mr. Talliaferro drank it slowly, unctuously; and pressed, accepted another.
He emptied his glass with a flourish. He grimaced slightly.
They had another drink and Fairchild put the bottle away.
“Let’s go up a while,” he suggested, prodding them to their feet and herding them toward the door. Mr. Talliaferro allowed the others to precede him. Lingering, he touched Fairchild’s arm. The other glanced at his meaningful expression, and paused.
“I want your advice,” Mr. Talliaferro explained. Major Ayers and the Semitic man halted in the passage, waiting.
“Go on, you fellows,” Fairchild told them. “I'll be along in a moment.” He turned to Mr. Talliaferro. “Who’s the lucky girl this time?”
Mr. Talliaferro whispered a name. “Now, this is my plan of campaign. What do you think—”
“Wait,” Fairchild interrupted, “let’s have a drink on it.” Mr. Talliaferro closed the door again, carefully.
Fairchild swung the door open.
“And you think it will work?” Mr. Talliaferro repeated, quitting the room.
“Sure, sure; I think it’s airtight: that she might just as well make up her mind to the inevitable.”
“No: really, I want your candid opinion. I have more faith in your judgment of people than any one I know.”
“Sure, sure,” Fairchild repeated solemnly. “She can’t resist you. No chance, no chance at all. To tell the truth, I kind of hate to think of women and young girls going around exposed to a man like you.”
Mr. Talliaferro glanced over his shoulder at Fairchild, ​quickly, doubtfully. But the other’s face was solemn, without guile. Mr. Talliaferro went on again. “Well, wish me luck,” he said.
“Sure. The admiral expects every man to do his duty, you know,” Fairchild replied solemnly, following Mr. Talliaferro’s dapper figure up the stairs.
Major Ayers and the Semitic man awaited them. There were no ladies. Nobody at all, in fact. The deck was deserted.
“Are you sure?” Fairchild insisted. “Have you looked good? I kind of wanted to dance some. Come on, let’s look again.”
At the door of the wheelhouse they came upon the helmsman. He wore only an undershirt above his trousers and he was gazing into the sky. “Fine night,” Fairchild greeted him.
“Fine now,” the helmsman agreed. “Bad weather off there, though.” He extended his arm toward the southwest. “Lake may be running pretty high by morning. Were on a lee shore, too.” He stared again into the sky.
“Ah, I guess not,” Fairchild replied with large optimism. “Hardly on a clear night like this, do you reckon?”
The helmsman stared into the sky, making no answer. They passed on. “I forgot to tell you the ladies had retired,” Mr. Talliaferro remarked.
“That’s funny,” Fairchild said. “I wonder if they thought we were not coming back?”
“Perhaps they were afraid we were,” the Semitic man suggested.
“Huh,” said Fairchild. . . . “What time is it, anyway?”
It was twelve o’clock, and the sky toward the zenith was hazed over, obscuring the stars. But the moon was still un​dimmed, bland and chill, affable and bloodless as a successful procuress, bathing the yacht in quiet silver; and across the southern sky went a procession of small clouds, like silver dolphins on a rigid ultramarine wave, like an ancient geographical woodcut.