Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [38]
There is a long moment of silence between them.
“Olympia,” Haskell says quietly, withdrawing his hand. “I must say something to you now. In a moment, we shall be at the fire and with your father, and there will be no more opportunity.”
Her breath catches in her chest.
“I have reproached myself a thousand times since that day at your house when I took liberties with you,” he says. “When I was photographing you. I felt then that I could not help myself, though it is pure cowardice to hide behind the excuse of helplessness now.”
She shakes her head slightly.
“It is unpardonable, unpardonable,” he says heatedly. “And I do sincerely ask your forgiveness, and you must give it, as I cannot work properly for thinking of it and of the harm I have done to you.”
All about them, children squeal and run, oblivious to the drama that is taking place so near to them. Gulls, ever hopeful of a discarded morsel, swoop dangerously low to their heads. Haskell opens his mouth and closes it. He shakes his head. He turns once quickly toward the sea and then back again.
The aeronauts land on the sand. The balloon continues to fly overhead.
“I am going now,” Haskell says. “If your father has seen us together already, please tell him that I have been urgently called away. And it is true. I am going now to the clinic. I will not visit you again. You understand that. I will not call on your family, however awkward that may prove.”
And because she thinks he truly means to leave her then, she reaches for his arm; and though she catches only a small bit of his shirt cuff, it is enough.
“I shall go with you,” she says calmly. She does not feel reckless. She is sure of her words and clear about their implications. “You yourself have said you would be dreadfully shorthanded this afternoon.”
“The clinic is no place for . . . ,” he begins, but then he stops. They have already had this conversation.
“I trust I can fetch and carry as well as the next person. Did I not prove myself the night of the shipwreck?”
“Olympia, you will regret this,” he says gravely.
She looks out toward the horizon, where the balloon is only a speck. She wonders where it will finally land.
“Then allow me at least to have it before I regret it,” she says calmly.
He opens his mouth as if to speak, but then hesitates. “No, I cannot allow this,” he says finally, and leaves her.
• • •
She watches him walk away until he is only a blurry dot on the sand. When he is almost out of sight, she begins to follow him. For a time, she walks at a normal pace, and then she breaks into a run.
SHE WAITS, as they have agreed, at the back of the Highland while he fetches a carriage from the stables. She stands, with sand in her boots, praying that she will not encounter anyone known to her or to her father, for she will not easily be able to explain her presence by the road nor, if Haskell were then to appear, her intention to accompany him in the carriage. She hopes her father has had enough to drink that he will take his customary Fourth of July nap on the sand by the seaweed fire, as do many of the men on this day, a democratic falling-out if ever there was one.
Haskell comes around the corner in a small buggy with a canopy that bobbles wildly on the rutted dirt road. The coach is painted bottle green and has yellow wheels. On its side is written, in chaste script, The Highland Hotel. He has gathered from his room his physician’s satchel and his jacket and hat, and he presents such a pleasing aspect to her eye that despite her nerves, despite the fact that she has begun to tremble at the audaciousness of her actions, she cannot help but feel a gladness in her heart at the anticipation of riding beside him. He steps down from the carriage to help her up.
They drive the length of the winding road between the bay and the ocean, passing many cottages and stone walls and carriages that jostle along the hard-packed dirt surface, much as they