Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [17]
There is no mistaking this gaze. It is not a look that turns itself into a polite moment of recognition or a nod of encouragement to speak. Nor is it the result of an absentminded concentration of thought. It is rather an entirely penetrating gaze with no barriers or boundaries. It is scrutiny such as Olympia has never encountered in her young life. And she thinks that the entire table must be stopped in that moment, as she is, feeling its nearly intolerable intensity.
She bends her head, but perceives nothing, not the fork in her hand, the lace at the sleeve of her blouse, nor the lamb medallions on her plate. When she raises her eyes, she sees that his gaze is still unbroken. She cannot, finally, keep the bewilderment from her face. Perhaps because of her confusion, which must suddenly be apparent, he turns his head away quickly toward her father, as if he would speak to him. And it is then that her father, doubtless startled by Haskell’s abrupt attention (or possibly unconsciously aware of the man’s gaze in his daughter’s direction), says to the assembled group, “I have given Olympia John’s new book to read.”
The silence that follows is more dreadful than any untutored comment she might have uttered in its place, a silence in which her father and his guests wait for her to speak, a silence during which she risks turning her father’s pleasure into disappointment. So that after a time, he is compelled to say, with the faint echo of the schoolmaster in his voice, “Is not that so, Olympia? Or perhaps you have not yet had time to glance at Haskell’s essays.”
She raises her chin with a bravado she does not feel and says to John Haskell rather than to her father, “I have read nearly all of the essays, Mr. Haskell, and I like them very much.”
She breathes so shallowly that she cannot get air into her lungs. Another silence ensues, one that, as it unfolds, begins to annoy her father.
“Surely, Olympia, you can be more specific,” he says finally.
She takes a breath and lays down her fork.
“The form of your essays is deceptively simple, Mr. Haskell,” she says. “You appear to have written seven stories without judgment or commentary, yet the portraits, in the accretion of detail, are more persuasive, I believe, than any rhetoric could possibly be.”
“Persuasive of what?” asks Philbrick, who has not read the essays.
“Persuasive of the need to improve the living conditions of millworkers,” she answers.
John Haskell looks quickly at Philbrick, who does, after all, own a number of boardinghouses in Rye, as if to ascertain whether the man will be offended by further discussion of the topic. But Haskell doubtless also sees, as she does, the small smile on her father’s face, a smile that indicates to her that perhaps his insistence that she speak about the book is, in fact, part of his plan to engage in lively debate. Haskell then turns from Philbrick to Olympia. She prays that he will not say that she is too kind in her comments, for she knows that to do so will be to dismiss her entirely.
“Your portraits are raw and have passages that are to me both illuminating and difficult to read,” she continues before he can speak, “not in their language but in the images they create, particularly as regards accidents and medical matters.”
“This is quite true, Olympia,” her father says, beginning slightly to recover his pride in his daughter.
“I think it would be the rare reader indeed who could come away from those portraits unmoved,” she adds.
“Your perceptions would seem to belie your age,” Rufus Philbrick interjects suddenly, appraising her with keen eyes. She finds she does not mind the frankness of his gaze.
“Not at all,” her father says. “My daughter is exceptionally well schooled.”
“And what school might that be?” Zachariah Cote asks, addressing her politely. Olympia does not like the man’s sudden smile, nor the exceptional length