They ate on in silence, Elizabeth moving now and then to clear away some dishes, to refill Henry’s glass of water, to bring in the dessert bowls of blackberries and cream from the kitchen. As she went about, her full lavender skirts brushing and rustling against the stiff, polished furniture, she felt oddly that she was merging into someone else, her mother perhaps. Someone who was capable and industrious about household tasks. Strange that she, after all these years of independence, strange that she should again be back with Henry, circumscribed once more by domestic duties.
She gazed then at her brother, who was bent over his dessert, ladling spoonful after spoonful of berries and cream into his cavernous mouth. He blended, she thought, with the dim, translucent gloom of the shaded dining room, and she liked to see him sitting so, in the artificial twilight, when she knew that beyond the drawn blinds the sun shone, exact and brilliant.
Elizabeth lingered over washing the lunch dishes while Henry went to pore over some of the maps in his study. There was nothing he liked better than making charts and calculations, Elizabeth thought, her hands fumbling in the warm soap-suds as she stared out of the kitchen window to the blinking flashes of blue water beyond. Always when they were small Henry would be making charts and maps, copying from his geography book, reducing things to scale, while she would dream over the pictures of the mountains and rivers with the queer foreign names.
In the depths of the dishpan the silver collided blindly with the glassware in little tinkling crescendoes of sound. Elizabeth put a few last plates into the pan of soapy water and watched them tilt and sink to the bottom. After she was through she would join Henry in the parlor, where they would read together for a while, or perhaps go for a walk. Henry thought the fresh air was so healthful.
Somewhat resentfully Elizabeth remembered all the long days she had spent in bed when she was small. She had been a sallow, sickly child, and Henry had always come in to see her with his round, ruddy face aglow, beaming with vigor.
There would come a time, Elizabeth thought, as she had thought so many times before, when she would confront Henry and say something to him. She did not know quite what, but it would be something rather shattering and dreadful. Something she was sure of it, extremely disrespectful and frivolous. And then she would see Henry for once nonplussed, Henry faltering, wavering helplessly, without words.
Smiling to herself, her face rapt with inner enjoyment, Elizabeth joined Henry, who was looking at a book of maps in the parlor.
‘Come here, Elizabeth,’ Henry directed, patting the seat on the sofa beside him. ‘I have found a most interesting map of the New England States I want you to see.’
Obediently Elizabeth went to sit beside her brother. The two of them sat on the couch for a while, holding the encyclopedia between them and perusing the shiny pages with the pale pink and blue and yellow maps of states and counties. All at once Elizabeth glimpsed a familiar name in the middle of Massachusetts.
‘Wait a minute,’ she exclaimed. ‘Let me look at all the places I have been. Here,’ she traced a line with her finger up over the surface of the page west from Boston to Springfield, ‘and up here,’ her finger swung to the corner of the State of North Adams, ‘and then just over the borderline into Vermont when I went to visit Cousin Ruth … when was it? Last spring….’
‘The week of April sixth,’ Henry prompted.
‘Yes, of course. You know, I never thought’, she said, ‘of what direction I was going in on the map … up, down or across.’
Henry looked at his sister with something like dismay.
‘You never have!’ he breathed incredulously. ‘You mean you never figure whether you’re going north or south or east or west?’
‘No,’ flashed Elizabeth, ‘I never do. I never saw the point.’
She thought of his study, then, the walls hung with the great maps, carefully diagramed, meticulously annotated. In her mind’s eye she could see the black contour lines painstakingly drawn and the faint blue wash of color about the shore of continents. There were symbols, too, she recalled. Stylized clumps of grass to indicate the swamps and green patches for the parks.
She imagines herself wandering, small and diminutive up the finely drawn contour lines and down again, wading through the shallow blue ovals of lakes and shouldering her way among stiff symmetrical clumps of swamp grass.
Then she pictured herself with a round, white-faced compass in her hand. The compass needle spun, quivered, quieted, pointing always north, no matter where she turned. The relentless exactness of the mechanism irritated her.
Henry was looking at her still with something akin to shock. She noted that his eyes were very cold and very blue, rather like the waters of the Atlantic on the encyclopedia map. Fine black lines rayed out from the pupil. She saw the short black fringe of lashes drawn suddenly distinct and clear. Henry would know where north was, she thought desperately. He would know precisely where north was.
‘Really, I don’t think direction matters so much. It’s the place you’re going to that’s important,’ she announced petulantly. ‘I mean, do you truly think about the direction you’re going in all the time?’
The very room seemed to take offence at this open insolence. Elizabeth was sure she saw the rigid andirons stiffen, and the blue tapestry above the mantel had paled perceptibly. The grandfather clock was gaping at her, speechless before the next reproving tick.
‘Of course I think where I’m going on the map,’ Henry declared staunchly, a ruddy color rising to his cheeks. ‘I always trace out my route beforehand, and then I take a map with me to follow as I travel.’
Elizabeth could see him now, standing brightly in the morning on the flat surface of a map, watching expectantly for the sun to come up from the east. (He would know exactly where east was.) Not only that, he would know from which direction the wind was blowing. By some infallible magic he could tell from which slant of the compass the wind veered.
She visualized Henry in the center of the map, which was quartered like an apple pie under the blue dome of a bowl. Feet planted firmly he stood with pencil and paper making calculations, checking to see that the world revolved on schedule. At night he would watch the constellations go ticking by like luminous clocks, and he would call them cheerily by name, as if greeting punctual relatives. She could almost hear him bellowing heartily: ‘What ho, Orion, old man!’ Oh, it was thoroughly unbearable.
‘I suppose telling direction is something anyone can learn,’ Elizabeth murmured at last.
‘Of course,’ Henry told her, beaming at her humility. ‘I would even lend you a map to use for practice.’
Elizabeth sat quite still while Henry turned the pages of the encyclopedia, studying maps that he found of especial interest. Elizabeth was cherishing the way she would a dear, slandered friend, the vague, imprecise world in which she lived.
Hers was a twilight world, where the moon floated up over the trees at night like a tremulous balloon of silver light and the bluish rays wavered through the leaves outside her window, quivering in fluid patterns on the wallpaper of her room. The very air was mildly opaque, and forms wavered and blended one with the other. The wind blew in gentle, capricious gusts, now here, now there, coming from the sea or from the rose garden (she could tell by the scent of water or of flowers).
She winced under the benevolent brightness of Henry’s patronizing smile. She wanted to say something brave and impudent, then, something that would disturb the awful serenity of his features.
Once, she remembered, she had ventured to say something spontaneous and fanciful … what was it? About wanting to lift up the tops of people’s heads like teapot lids and peer inside to find out what they were thinking. Henry had stiffened at that, had cleared his throat and said with a sigh, as if speaking to an irresponsible child, something like ‘And what would you expect to find inside? Not cogs and wheels certainly, nor thoughts stacked about like sheaves of paper, labeled and tied up with ribbon!’ And he had smiled at his ponder
ous wit.
No, of course not, Elizabeth had told him, deflated. She thought now of how it would be in her mind, a dark, warm room, with colored lights swinging and wavering, like so many lanterns reflecting on the water, and pictures coming and going on the misty walls, soft and blurred like impressionist paintings. The colors would be broken down in small tinted fragments, and the pink of the ladies’ flesh would be the pink of the roses, and the lavender of the dresses would mingle with the lilacs. And there would be, from somewhere sweetly coming, the sound of violins and bells.
Henry’s mind, she was certain, would be flat and level, laid out with measured instruments in the broad even sunlight. There would be geometric concrete walks and square, substantial buildings with clocks on them, everywhere perfectly in time, perfectly synchronized. The air would be thick with their accurate ticking.
There was a sudden brightening outside, and the room seemed to expand in the fresh light. ‘Come, it will be a fine afternoon for a walk,’ Henry said, rising from the couch, smiling, and holding out a square, substantial hand to her.
Every Sunday afternoon after dinner it was his habit to take her for a stroll along the boulevard by the ocean. The brisk salt air, he said, would be a bracing tonic for her. She was always a bit sallow, a bit pinched about the cheeks.
In the blowing air Elizabeth’s grey hair would loosen and flutter about her face in a wispy halo, damp and moist. But in spite of the healthful breeze she knew that Henry disliked to see her hair untidy and was glad to have her smooth it back in the accustomed bun and secure it with a long metal hairpin.
Today the air was clear, yet warm for early September, and Elizabeth stepped out on the front porch with a sudden gaiety, her grey cloth coat open loosely over her lavender dress. In the distance she could see a small pile of dark clouds that might be a storm rising slowly on the far horizon. Like tiny grape clusters the purple clouds were, with the gulls wheeling in cream white flakes against them.
Down against the stone foundations of the boardwalk the waves were braking powerfully, the great green crests hanging suspended in a curve of cold glass, veined bluish, and then, after a moment of immobility, toppling in a white surge of foam, the layers of water flaring up the beach in thin sheets of mirrored crystal.
Her hand resting securely on Henry’s arm, Elizabeth felt tethered, like a balloon, safely in the wind. Breathing in the draughts of fresh air made her feel peculiarly light, almost inflated, as if at a slightly stronger puff of wind she would go lifting, tilting out over the water.
Far, far out on the horizon the grape clusters were swelling, dilating, and the wind was queerly warm and pushing. The September sunlight seemed suddenly diluted, weakened.
‘Henry, I think there’s going to be a storm.’
Henry scoffed at the distant looming clouds. ‘Nonsense,’ he said resolutely, ‘It will blow off. The wind is wrong.’
The wind was wrong. Blowing in impulsive, freakish gusts, the wind teased Elizabeth. It flickered at the edge of her petticoat. Playfully it blew a strand of hair in her eye. She felt strangely mischievous and elated, secretly pleased that the wind was wrong.
Henry was stopping by the sea wall. He was taking his massive gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. The tide, he said, should be high in fifteen minutes now. At seven minutes past four exactly. They would watch it from the old pier that jutted out over the rocks.
Elizabeth felt a mounting exhilaration as they walked out on the boards of the pier, which creaked and complained beneath them. Between the cracks she could see the deep green water winking up at her. The seething waves seemed to be whispering something mysterious to her, something that was unintelligible, lost in the loudness of the wind. Giddily she felt the moss-covered piles of the pier sway and squeak beneath them in the strong pull of the tide.
‘Out here,’ said Henry, leaning over the railing at the end of the pier, his conservative blue pin-stripe suit rippling in the skittish wind, which lifted the carefully combed hairs from the crown of his head until they vibrated, upstanding in the air, like the antennae of an insect.
Elizabeth bent over the railing beside her brother, staring down into the waves churning up on the rocks below. Her lavender skirt kept billowing and flapping about her legs, and although she tried to hold it down with her thin, frail fingers it would still blow about rebelliously.
Something was pricking her throat. Absently she lifted one hand only to feel her amethyst brooch loosen, slip through her fingers and fall, raying purple flashes as it spun down to lie on the rocks below, sparkling spitefully.
‘Henry,’ she cried, clinging to him. ‘Henry—Mother’s brooch! Whatever shall I do?’ Henry’s gaze followed her pointing hand, her angular, trembling index finger, down to where the brooch lay glinting. ‘Henry,’ she cried, half-sobbing, ‘you must get it for me. The waves will take it!’
Henry, handing her his black bowler hat, was suddenly responsible and protecting. He leaned over the railing to see what was the best possible footing. ‘Never fear,’ he said bravely, and the words were flung back at him by the derisive wind, ‘never fear, there is a ladder of sorts. I will get your brooch for you.’
Carefully, expertly, Henry began his descent. He placed his feet, one after the other, precisely in the angles of the wooden crosspieces, letting himself down at last onto the dry, mossy top of the rocks, where he stood in triumph. The waves crashed a little below him, rhythmically rising and falling, making ominous knocking sounds in the caverns and crevices among the great rocks. Steadying himself with one hand on the lowest rung of his improvised ladder, Henry leaned bulkily to pick up the brooch. He bent slowly, majestically, puffing a little from his heavy dinner.
Elizabeth realized that the wave must have been coming for quite some time, but she had not noticed that it was so much taller than the rest. There it was, though, a great bulk of green water moving slowly, majestically inward, rolling inexorably on, governed by some infallible natural law, toward Henry, who was just straightening, about to smile up at her, the brooch in his hand.
‘Henry,’ she whispered in an ecstasy of horror as she leaned forward to watch the wave engulf the rock, spilling an enormous flood of water over the very spot on which Henry stood, surging up around his ankles, circling in two whirlpools about his knees. For a long moment Henry balanced valiantly, a colossus astride the roaring sea, an expression of unusual and pained surprise growing on his white, uplifted face.
Henry’s arms revolved in the air like two frantic plane propellers as he felt the moss go sliding, slipping away under his submerged, well-polished shoes, and with a last helpless look, faltering, fumbling, without words, he toppled back into the depth of the next black wave. With a growing peace Elizabeth watched the flailing arms rise, sink and rise again. Finally the dark form quieted, sinking slowly down through level after level of obscurity into the sea. The tide was turning.
Musingly Elizabeth leaned on the railing, her pointed chin cupped in her blue-veined hands. She envisioned a green, aquatic Henry dropping through layers of clouded water like a porpoise. There would be seaweed in his hair and water in his pockets. Weighted by the round gold watch, by the white-faced compass, he would sink down to the ocean floor.
The water would ooze inside his shoes and seep into the workings of his watch until the ticking stopped. Then no amount of irritated shaking and knocking would be able to jar the works into motion again. Even the mysterious and exact cogs of the compass would rust, and Henry could shake and prod them, but the fine quivering needle would stick stubbornly, and north would be everywhere he turned. She pictured him taking his afternoon stroll alone on Sundays, walking briskly in the dilute green light, prodding curiously at the sea anemones with his cane.
And then she thought of his study with all the maps and the sea serpents drawn decoratively in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; of Neptune sitting regally on a wave with his trident in his hand and the crown on his blown white hair. Even as she meditated, the features o
f Neptune’s kingly visage blurred, puffed, rounded, and there, turned to look at her, was the startled face of a much altered Henry. Shivering without his waistcoat, without his pin-stripe suit, he sat huddled on the crest of the wave, teeth chattering. And as she looked, she heard a minute and pathetic sneeze.
Poor Henry. Her heart went out to him in pity. For who would look after him down there among all those slippery, indolent sea creatures? Who would listen to him talk about the way the moon controlled the tides or about the density of atmospheric pressure? She thought sympathetically of Henry and how he never could digest shell-fish.
The wind was rising again, and Elizabeth’s skirts lifted in a fresh gust, billowing, belling up, filled with air. She tilted dangerously, letting go of the railing, trying to smooth down her petticoats. Her feet rose from the planking, settled, rose again, until she was bobbing upward, floating like a pale lavender mild-weed seed along the wind, over the waves and out to sea.
And that was the last anyone saw of Elizabeth Minton, who was enjoying herself thoroughly, blowing upward, now to this side, now to that, her lavender dress blending with the purple of the distant clouds. Her high-pitched, triumphant, feminine giggle, mingled with the deep, gurgling chuckle of Henry, borne along beneath her on the outgoing tide.
The afternoon was shading into twilight. There was a sudden tug at Elizabeth’s arm. ‘Come along home, Elizabeth,’ Henry said. ‘It’s getting late.’