Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [62]
“If there is someone of your own you would like to invite . . . ,” her father offers. Once again, he examines her face, which she hopes gives nothing away.
“No, there is no one,” she says.
He nods. “I must write a note and send it. Yes, Josiah must take a note to Haskell, for I need to know whether the date is suitable for him and Catherine. I doubt John would ever forgive me if I had Hale here on an evening when he could not make it. John and the reverend share, I believe, an abnormally keen interest in motorcars.”
“Let me take it,” Olympia says impulsively. “I should welcome the walk.”
They both simultaneously turn to look through the windows at the weather, which is not particularly fine. But she knows her father will assent to her suggestion, since he is nearly as keen a believer in her physical education as he is in her intellectual one.
“Yes,” he says. “A walk is just the thing after a hearty breakfast. But leave the note at the desk. I should not like Haskell to think I am reduced to relying upon my daughter for my errands.”
“Of course,” she says, overbuttering her second piece of raspberry cake. Her appetite will not be appeased.
“A remarkable man, do you not think?” her father asks.
“I like him very much,” she answers.
“I meant Hale,” he says.
• • •
A shallow cloud cover prevents shadows and causes the landscape to take on a flat aspect that is unrelieved by color. Perhaps no palette in nature, Olympia thinks as she walks along the beach, is as capable of transformation as the seashore. Just two days earlier, the water was a vivid navy, the beach roses lovely blots of pink. But today, that very same geography is bleached of color, the sea now gray and the roses dulled.
She walks with her father’s note in her pocket and her boots in her hand. She is imagining how pleased Haskell will be if she takes the note to his room. But then she has another thought: Might he not be offended, or engaged elsewhere? She does not know his schedule, nor yet know his routine.
There are few people on the hotel porch, one a woman knitting, who smiles at Olympia when she climbs the steps, and another a governess with a small child. Olympia pushes through the door to the lobby, takes the note out of her pocket, and hands it to the clerk behind the desk, who is, fortunately, a different clerk than was there the day before.
“Oh, Dr. Haskell is it then?” the clerk asks, reading the envelope. “He is just breakfasting in the dining room, miss. . . . I will have it sent in straightaway.” He signals for the porter and gives the man the note.
“Thank you,” she says.
She walks out onto the porch and lingers by the railing. She fastens her eyes on the ocean, though she sees nothing. She hears Haskell’s footsteps behind her before he speaks.
“This is more than I could have hoped for,” he says quietly. He is dressed in a blue shirt with a gray linen waistcoat. His hair is wet and still bears its brush marks.
Olympia turns. Haskell takes an involuntary step toward her and puts a hand out, as if he would touch her, but then stops himself just in time. Although he does, Olympia thinks, give himself away in the very next moment by glancing over at the woman who is knitting.
“Olympia,” he says.
She cannot call him by the name that she has heard his wife use so endearingly.
“You were about to leave,” she says, noting his coat and satchel.
“I have to be at the clinic.” He walks closer to her. “I have thought of nothing but you,” he says in a low voice only she can hear. “It is an agony to be so distracted. Yet it is an agony I wished for. That I cannot deny.”
There is much she wants to say to him, but she cannot think how to form the words.
He misunderstands her long silence.
“You are sick at heart,” he says. “It is why you have come.”
“No,” she says, feeling