Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [60]
“No.” As though she can never return to the girl she used to be. “I did not even know enough to wonder about this,” she says. “I did not have any idea. Not the slightest.”
“Are you disturbed . . . ?”
“No. I am not. It seems a wondrous thing. To become one. In this way.”
“It is a wonder with you,” he says. “It is with you.”
“I should go,” she says. “Before the maids come.”
And he seems sad that she has so quickly learned the art of deception. “Not yet,” he says.
They lie together until they hear footsteps in the corridor. Reluctantly, Haskell stands up from the bed, trailing his hand along the length of her arm, as though he cannot physically bear to remove himself from her. He dresses more slowly than he might, all the while watching her on the bed. Only when they hear voices in the hallway — native accents, chambermaids — does he collect himself and finish dressing more quickly. He leaves the room for a time and returns with a cloth, which he gives to Olympia. She feels the sudden incongruity of Haskell with his clothes on while she lies naked.
“You will need this,” he says, bending to kiss her.
Discreetly, he walks into the sitting room and closes the door so that she can dress. When she climbs out of the bed, she sees, on her legs and on the sheets, what the cloth is for. It shocks her, all the blood. She did not know. But he did. Of course he did. He knows everything there is to know about these matters, does he not?
He reenters the room as she is fastening her boots. She stands and turns to him across the bed, and as she does so, she realizes that she has not covered the stain. He opens his mouth to speak, but she waves her hand to silence him. There is a decorum to the moment, an action called for, though she is not certain what it should be. She is not embarrassed, exactly, but she does not want to discuss it. No, surely, she does not want to discuss it. Reaching down, and without haste, she brings the topaz puff up to the pillows and covers the discoloration. And she is certain that they are both at that moment remembering the childbirth they once witnessed together.
They walk together to the door. There is shame, she thinks, in his having to remain behind while she goes out. It is difficult to speak. She is glad that he does not feel it necessary to make plans to see each other again. She understands that it will happen of its own accord because now they cannot be apart.
He kisses her at the door. She leaves the room and steps into the corridor. All around her are the sounds of conversations, as though the rest of the world has come awake: the high-pitched voice of a woman, insistent, making points; the low snide chuckle of a man. The air has changed and has brought with it the smell of oranges. Behind her, she hears Haskell shut the door.
Her legs feel weak as she descends the stairs. She wonders what Haskell will do with the bloody flannel and the sheet. She catches sight of herself in a mirror in the hallway and is startled to see that her mouth is blurred and indistinct. Unwilling to go out the back door like a thief, she decides to brave the lobby, but when she walks across it, she knows that a dozen pair of eyes inspect her. She guesses that the desk clerk wonders what she is doing there, when she was to have taken Dr. Haskell to see the Rivard woman. Hotel guests, who have come down for breakfast and are waiting for their companions by the door of the dining room, glance at her as she walks by. Servants eye her as they cross the lobby to and fro with folded linens in their arms. She makes her way out to the porch, where she stands for a moment by a wicker chair, recovering her strength, unwilling yet to test her legs on the steep set of stairs. The sun is well up, but the light is muted. In the distance, she can see fishermen in their lobster boats checking their buoys.
“Miss Biddeford?”
Startled, Olympia turns. There must be an expression of fright on her face, for Zachariah Cote puts out a hand to steady her.
“I did not mean to scare you,” he says.
The sight of the