New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [254]
At lunch, Theodore asked her if she was going to sketch that day, and she said she thought she might. So after the meal, she went to get her sketch pad. When she came down again, Gretchen and Theodore were talking together, and Gretchen said, “You go on, Mary, and I’ll catch you up.”
She’d only walked a short way along the sand, however, when reaching into her bag, she realized that she’d left her pencils up in the room, so she had to go back. Arriving at the inn, she didn’t see Gretchen and Theodore, so she supposed Gretchen might have gone up to their room. But the room was empty, so she collected her pencils and went out again.
She was just setting off along the path when she saw them. They were a little way off, standing together at the end of the inn’s white picket fence, under the shade of a small tree. They didn’t see her, because they were too deep in their conversation, nor could she hear what they were saying, but you could see at once that they were having a quarrel. Gretchen’s normally placid face was screwed up in fury. Mary had never seen her looking like that before. Theodore was looking irritated and impatient.
The only thing to do was hurry away and pretend she had not seen.
The sight of her friends quarreling had made an unwelcome interruption into the idyllic day, like a dark cloud suddenly appearing in a blue sky. Mary walked swiftly along the beach, therefore, to put a distance between herself and the two Kellers. She did not want anything to spoil that afternoon. And by the time she’d gone a mile or so, and encountered nothing except the unbroken line of the ocean and the warm sand, she felt restored. She realized that she was approaching the place where she had sketched the day before, and crossing over a little dune, she started to look out in case the deer might be there again. She didn’t see it though.
However, she did notice a little wooden shelter some way off, which had obviously been abandoned, for its roof was off, and the small posts that had supported it were pointing jaggedly into the sky. Taken with a couple of trees nearby, it made a strange, rather haunting composition, not too difficult to draw, and so she sat down and began to sketch. After a while, when she had caught some of it to her satisfaction, she put the sketch pad down and got up to stretch her legs. She went over to the dune and looked back along the beach to see if Gretchen was coming, but it was quite deserted.
Returning to her sketch, she drew a little more, and then took off her straw hat and leaned back for a moment to enjoy the sun. Her face and arms were bare, and the warmth of the sun upon them gave her a delightful sensation. It was very quiet. She could hear the faint, gentle sound of the spreading surf on the sand. It felt so peaceful, as if out here she were in a separate world, a timeless place which had almost nothing to do with the city life she’d left behind. Perhaps, she thought dreamily, if she stayed there long enough, she’d turn into a different person. She remained like that for several minutes, as the hot sun beat down. This, she supposed, must be how lizards feel as they drink in the sun’s rays on a rock.
When she heard the faint rustle in the seagrass to her right, she raised her head a little, and was just opening her mouth to say, “Hello, Gretchen,” when another head appeared.
“Ah,” said Theodore, “I thought I’d find you here.”
“Where’s Gretchen?” said Mary.
“Back at the inn. She wanted to rest.”
“Oh.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
She didn’t answer, but he sat down beside her anyway. He picked up the sketchbook and looked at her drawing.
“It’s not finished,” she said.
“Looks promising,” he remarked, glancing toward the little ruined shelter. He put the sketchbook down on the other side of him, so she couldn’t reach it, and then lay down full-length. She felt a little awkward sitting up, and wondered if she should put her hat back on. “You should lie down,” he said. “The sun’s good for you. At least, a little sun. When I’m in the sun like this,” he said contentedly, “I pretend I’m