Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [57]
• • •
Olympia waits through the long afternoon and through the night until daybreak — that time of day when there is light but the sun has not yet risen, when all the world is still for a moment, seemingly gathering itself in silence. She washes and dresses quietly in her room and listens for any restless stirring from either her mother or her father, or from Josiah or Lisette, who might be up earlier than usual. Hoping to disturb no one, she slips from her room, moves through the house, and steps outside.
The tide is dead low, the shoreline a vast flat of sand and sea muck. Long strands of sea moss droop from the exposed rocks like walrus mustaches. There are clam diggers already on the beach, and farther out, a lone boat with sails of dirty ivory moves parallel to the shoreline. At first, Olympia merely walks purposefully, holding her boots in one hand, her skirt in the other. But then caution abandons her altogether, and she breaks into a run. All the hard decisions have been made the day before. The debate, what little there has been of it, is already quashed and settled.
In the most brazen act of her short life, she sits upon the hotel steps, puts her boots and stockings back on, and enters the lobby, where she is immediately confronted with the stark reality of the night clerk. He is reading the racing form and smoking a pipe. He looks up and is clearly startled to see a young woman in the lobby at this hour.
“I have been sent to fetch Dr. Haskell,” Olympia says at once, inventing an emergency as she speaks. “He is needed at the clinic. Mrs. Rivard is having a difficult birth. . . .”
The clerk snaps to attention. “Oh, yes, miss,” he says at once, not eager for her to explain further. “I will go up myself. Just you wait right here.”
Olympia nods. Somewhat nervous now, she moves about the lobby, inspecting the horsehair sofas, the oil portraits on the walls, the carved pillars around which velvet banquettes have been placed for the guests. It seems she waits a long time for the clerk to return with Haskell. And as she does so, she begins to doubt the wisdom of her actions. What if Catherine and the children did not go yesterday afternoon as she said they would? What if Haskell is angry with Olympia for this ruse? In fact, he will be angry, will he not? Olympia hardly knows the man. He will undoubtedly think her foolish, if not altogether mad.
Suddenly panicked, she glances all about her. She did not give her name to the desk clerk. Haskell will guess who it is, but she does not actually have to be standing there, does she? She walks quickly to the front door. But as she nears its threshold, she hears the breathless announcement of the desk clerk.
“There she is, sir. Very good.”
Haskell, with his coat in one hand and his satchel in the other, sees her across the long expanse of the lobby. Olympia can move neither forward nor backward. With slow steps Haskell approaches her.
“It is Mrs. Rivard, then,” Haskell says quietly.
It is all Olympia can do to nod.
“Very well, let us speak further about this on the porch.”
Obediently, she passes through the door, onto the porch, and, following his lead, down the steps. Silently, they walk together to the back of the hotel. As they turn the corner, she stumbles on an exposed pipe, and in the sudden motion, he reaches for her arm.
“Olympia, look at me, please.”
She turns and raises her eyes to his.
“I wish with all my heart,” he says, “that it was I who could come to you. You understand that?”
She nods, for she believes him.
• • •
He will go up first, he says, to unlock the room. After a suitable interval, she is to follow.
The sun has risen, and through the windows in the hallways, the light is overbright, causing a continual blindness as Olympia passes from shadow to light to shadow. Not many are stirring in the hotel, although she does hear water running and, once, footsteps behind her briefly. Through the windows to the side, she can see wash on a line and a group of chambermaids sitting with mugs of tea on the back steps.
When she enters the room,