Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [56]
It is a masculine room — there is no mistaking that — and though Catherine Haskell has obviously set her trunk upon a stand, it seems she is more a visitor than an occupant. Olympia notes a tortoiseshell brush and comb upon the bureau, above which is a spotted mirror. The bed, though made, is slightly rumpled, as though a man recently sat on it to pull on his socks. On a marble-topped table by the windows is a porcelain chamber set and a man’s shaving things, a brush and mug and razor. Beside the table is a valet with a frock coat hung upon its wooden shoulders.
Emboldened by Martha’s continued absence, Olympia moves farther into the room until she can see the whole of it — specifically, a wide oak bureau, the surface of which is covered with photographs. From a distance, she can make out images only: a profile, a portion of a hat, a railing such as might be on a porch. Gliding closer still, she sees that these are the photographs that were taken on the front steps of her house on the day that Haskell had his camera.
The pictures make a fan shape. At one of the edges, tucked behind the others, she notes a trouser leg. She slips the photograph away and recognizes the picture she took of Haskell on the day they had a picnic on the beach: a face, in repose; clothing loosened upon the limbs; rolled cuffs revealing legs covered with darkened hair and sand; a Franco family in the background. She closes her eyes. When she opens them, she sees the white border of a further photograph, tucked in behind that of Haskell. With her index finger, she slides it free. It is, she discovers, her own photograph. But it is not the picture itself that is so arresting; rather, it is the blurry impression of fingerprints that have stripped away the emulsion that compels her attention.
Martha steps into the room, her hand outstretched with her treasure. On her face is a look of confusion. Olympia drops the photograph on top of the bureau. She assumes an attitude of slight boredom and indifference. “I was looking for a lavatory so that I might wash my hands,” she says.
“It is not in here,” Martha says, frowning.
“You have found your shell,” Olympia adds, moving toward her.
“It is not a shell,” the girl replies. She retracts her palm and studies Olympia intently. “It is sea glass.”
“May I look at it?” Olympia asks, returning Martha’s gaze as steadily as she bestows it.
“We should not be in here.”
“No, of course not. Let me take this to the windows in the sitting room so that I can see its color better.”
As they leave John Haskell’s bedroom and walk to the windows, and Martha reluctantly offers Olympia her small treasure — a shard of pale blue, the surface of the glass brushed cloudy by months or years of battering on the rocks and sand — Olympia realizes, too late, that the fact that she has disturbed the order of the photographs on the bureau will be immediately apparent to their owner.
• • •
Olympia’s parents are standing with the Haskells in the lobby when they return. She does not look at Haskell, nor does she meet Catherine’s gaze. She is apprehensive lest Martha, for whatever private reasons of her own, blurt out her knowledge of Olympia’s having wandered into the Haskells’ bedroom. But Martha hangs back, still puzzled, Olympia thinks, by something she can sense but not quite understand.
Olympia’s father, who has drunk more wine with his meal than is perhaps prudent, invites Catherine and John Haskell to dine with them on Tuesday. Catherine thanks him warmly but says that she is returning with the children to York later that afternoon. She makes a remark about abandoning her husband, after which she takes her husband’s hand. Olympia happens to glance up at the moment of that touch; and then, because she cannot not help herself, looks further at Haskell’s face. And perhaps only Olympia can read the complex mix of anguish and remorse that resides there: anguish for his wife and for themselves, and remorse for deeds not yet committed but for which she already understands that they will one day have