“We don’t have a telephone,” Al explains in his laconic way. “And the closest fire company is nine miles from here. If there’s a roof or chimney fire . . .”
“Got it,” Andy says.
These questions are easy to answer. But over time his inquiries become more personal. Why do Al and I live here alone, with all these empty rooms? What was it like when it was full of people, before most of the fields went to flower?
At first I’m guarded. “It just turned out that way,” I tell him. “Life was busier then.”
Andy isn’t satisfied with evasions. Why did it turn out that way? Did you or Al ever want to live somewhere, anywhere, else?
It’s hard to say what’s in my head. It’s been a long time since anyone cared to ask.
He insists. “I want to know.”
So little by little, I open up. I tell him about the trip to Rockland when I refused to see the doctor. The disappearing treasure in Mystery Tunnel. The witches, the sea captains, the ship stranded in ice . . .
What did you miss about going to school?
Why were you so scared of doctors?
He is as gentle as a dog, as curious as a cat.
Who are you, Christina Olson?
In the Shell Room one afternoon Andy finds Papa’s wooden box of keepsakes and opens the lid. He strokes the smooth tines of the whalebone comb. Picks up the tiny tin soldier and raises its arms with his forefinger. “Whose is this?”
“My father’s. This box is the only thing of his I kept after he died.”
“I used to collect toy soldiers,” he muses. “When I was a boy, I created a whole battlefield. I still have a row of them lined up on the windowsill in my studio in Pennsylvania.” He sets the soldier back in the box and runs a finger over the black lump of anthracite. “Why do you think he held on to this?”
“He liked rocks and minerals, he said.”
“This is anthracite, right?”
I nod.
“Coal’s glamorous cousin,” he says. “In the Civil War—did your father tell you this?—anthracite was used by Confederate blockade runners as fuel for their steamships to avoid giving themselves away. It burns clean. No smoke.”
“I’ve never heard that,” I say. But I think: How apt. Papa was never one to give himself away.
“They called them ghost ships. It’s a terrifying image, isn’t it? These ominous ships materializing out of nowhere.” He sets the anthracite back in the box and shuts the lid. “Did he ever go back to Sweden?”
“No. But I’m named after his mother. Anna Christina Olauson.”
“Did you know her?”
I shake my head. “It’s strange, don’t you think—to name your child after a living person you’ve chosen never to see again?”
“Not so strange,” he says. “There’s this great line from The House of the Seven Gables: ‘The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease.’ Your father must have felt he had to forge his own path, even if it meant cutting ties to his family. It’s brave to resist the pull of the familiar. To be selfish about your own needs. I wrestle with that every day.”
SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER Andy and Betsy return to Chadds Ford for the winter, I get a letter from Betsy. In September she gave birth to a sickly child, Nicholas, who needed a lot of special care but seems to be all right. In November Andy was drafted into the army. When he reported for his physical they took one look at his twisted right leg and his flat feet and rejected him on the spot. “He truly feels he’s been given a reprieve and is determined to make the most of it,” she writes.
A reprieve of one sort, I think. But though I may not have a child of my own, I know all too well how the demands of family life can become consuming. I wonder if, as a father, now, Andy will feel even more torn between the pull of the familiar and the creative impulses that drive him.
1913–1914
I’m in the henhouse early on a warm June morning, gathering eggs, when I hear voices coming closer across the field. We’re not expecting visitors. Standing up straight, I lower the warm eggs I’m holding into the pocket of my apron and listen closely.
Ramona Carle—I’d recognize her throaty laugh anywhere.
Ramona, along with her siblings Alvah and Eloise, are summer folk from Massachusetts whose family bought the Seavey homestead down the road several years ago. Alvah is the oldest; Eloise is my age, Ramona a few years younger. They stay in Cushing from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But unlike some other from-aways (with their languid indolence, their impulsive thrill-seeking), the Carles do their best to fit in with the locals. I always look forward to seeing them. They organize egg-in-spoon races at our annual Fourth of July clambake on Hathorn Point, convince everyone to play games like Red Rover and Olly Olly Oxen Free, and bring bags of fireworks to light after dark.
Ramona is my favorite. A friendly, impulsive girl, she is slight and energetic, with hair the color of melted chocolate and eyes as large and shiny as a fawn’s. Once, when I was with her in town, an old lady told her she was as cute as a button. (No one has ever said anything remotely like that to me.)
Ducking out of the henhouse with my bounty of eggs and a big smile of anticipation, I nearly run into a man I’ve never seen before. “Why—hello!” I say.
“Hello!” He’s about my age, I think—I’ve just turned twenty—and about half a foot taller than me, with light-brown hair that flops in front of wide-set blue eyes. He’s wearing thin linen pants and a soft white shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows.
Self-conscious all of a sudden, I smooth my sleep-matted hair, glancing down at the soiled apron I baked bread in this morning and the wooden clogs I wear to wade through mud.
“Walton Hall,” he says, extending his hand.
“Christina Olson.” His hand is surprisingly soft. This is a man who has never handled a plow.
“Walton is visiting from Malden,” Ramona says. “He and Eloise went to high school together. At the end of the summer he’s heading off to Harvard.”
“Admit it, you’re shocked,” Walton says with a small wink. “‘Must not be as dull as he looks.’”
“Just because you’re going to Harvard doesn’t mean you’re not dull,” I say.
When he smiles, I see that one of his front teeth slightly overlaps the other. He raises an invisible glass in a mock toast. “Good point.”
“All right, enough,” Ramona says. “Let me remind you, Walton, that an entire household awaits breakfast.”
“Ah, yes,” he says. “We’ve come to procure some eggs.”
“Right,” I say. “How many?”
“Two dozen, yes, Ramona?”
She nods.
“Okay, that’ll be fifty cents for the eggs and a penny for the bag,” I tell them.
“My word, you drive a hard bargain!”
Ramona rolls her eyes. “You could’ve asked for fifty cents an egg, Christina. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
One by one I slide the eggs into a bag, counting out twenty-four as he teases: “Not that one! It’s not oval enough,” and “They must all be exactly the same size.” He is standing quite close to me and his breath smells of butterscotch. Ramona’s talking about the weather, how dull a winter it was and how she counted the days until June, what a beautiful day it is today, but do you think it might take a turn? Will it be calm enough to go out for a sail later on? She wonders what her mother will do with all these eggs if breakfast is over by the time they get back: a soufflé, perhaps? An omelette? A lemon meringue pie?
“Come with us,” he says.
Ramona and I both look up.
“What?” I say, confused.
“Come sailing this afternoon, Christina,” he says. “The wind will be perfect.”
“You might’ve said that when I was fretting about the weather,” Ramona mutters.
I don’t usually take off afternoons, especially to sail with strange boys I’ve only just met. “Thank you, but—I . . . can’t. I have to make bread. An
d my chores . . .”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, come along,” Ramona says. “We have to entertain Walton somehow. And bring your brother Sam. He’s such fun. I need someone my own age to flirt with.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”
“My word, you’re a hard sell. Look, I’ll sign your hall pass,” Walton says.
“Hall pass?”
Seeing my puzzlement, Ramona laughs. “They don’t have hall passes in one-room schoolhouses, Walton.”
“I can’t,” I say.
He shakes his head and shrugs. “Ah well. Another day, then.”
“Maybe.”
“That means yes,” Ramona tells him with the confidence of a girl accustomed to getting her way. She flashes me a smile. “We’ll try again. Soon.”
When I return to the house from the brightness of the yard, I lean against the wall in the dim foyer, breathing heavily. What was that?
“Did I hear voices?” Mother calls from the kitchen.
I touch my face. Smooth the front of my blouse. Take a deep breath.
“Was somebody here?” she asks when I come in, untying my apron and taking it off.
“Oh,” I say, straining for a casual tone, “only Ramona, to buy eggs.”
“I could’ve sworn I heard a male voice.”
“Just a friend of the Carles’.”
“Ah. Well, the dough’s ready for kneading.”
“I’ll get to it,” I say.
OVER THE NEXT few weeks, Ramona and Walton, sometimes with Eloise and Alvah, stop by every other day or so, seeking eggs or milk or a roasting chicken, staying longer each visit. They bring a picnic basket and an old quilt and we sit on the grass, drinking tea steeped in the sun. I come to expect the sight of them sauntering up the field in the late morning or early afternoon. My brothers, with their gentle ways, tend to shy like deer from the summer folk, but the Carles and Walton gradually win them over. When they’re finished with chores, Al and Sam often join us on the grass.
One morning, when it’s just Walton and Ramona and me, Ramona says, “We’re kidnapping you, Christina. It’s a perfect day for a sail.”
“But—”
“No buts. The farm will manage without you. Alvah is waiting. Off we go.”
As we make our way down the path toward the shore I feel Walton’s eyes on me from behind. Aware of my awkward gait, I concentrate carefully on my movements. In front of us Ramona chatters away—“The sun is so bright! Mercy, I did not even think of it, but we do not have enough hats; maybe Mother left one or two on the boat”—seemingly unaware that neither Walton nor I say a word in response. And then the very thing I fear happens: I trip on a root. My legs buckle; I feel myself pitching forward.
Before I can make a sound, an arm is under mine. In a low voice, so Ramona won’t hear, Walton says, “What a long path this is.”
Though only moments ago I was flushed with anxiety, now I am oddly calm. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I have never been this close to a boy who isn’t related to me. My senses sharp, I notice everything in the clean morning light: daffodils pale and bowed; guillemots gliding overhead, black, with bright red legs, squeaking like mice; the trees in the distance, red spruce and firs and juniper and slender scotch pines, that frame the field. I taste the salt on my lips from the sea. But mostly I am aware of the warm mammal scent of this boy whose arm is ballast: sweat, perhaps, and the musky smell of his hair, a whiff of aftershave. Sweet butterscotch on his breath.
“I hope you won’t think this impertinent, but did you know that the blue flowers in your dress match your eyes exactly?” he murmurs.
“I did not,” I manage to answer.
The Carles’ boat is a single-mast sloop, with a jib in the front and a large white mainsail attached to the back of the wooden mast. They keep a wooden dinghy on the shore near Kissing Cove, paddles tucked inside, to row out to the sailboat. When we get to the beach, Alvah is waving from the deck of the sloop, about a hundred yards out in the bay. We drag the dinghy to the water. Walton insists on taking the oars and we meander toward the sailboat, this way and that. I have to bite my lips to keep from laughing: his strokes are choppy and inexpert, nothing like Al’s rhythmic motion. When we arrive at the boat, Ramona ties the small craft to the buoy, and Walton, taking Alvah’s proffered hand, jumps up first so the two of them can assist us.
“Gallant of you, I suppose, but unnecessary,” Ramona says, batting away Walton’s hand. I don’t protest. I need all the help I can get.
Once aboard, I’m more at ease. It is a mild, warm morning, with a gentle wind, and I know how to sail, having learned with Alvaro on his small skiff. Alvah hoists the mainsail, which flaps dramatically in the wind like a sheet on a clothesline, and I pull down firmly on the halyard until it stops. He turns the boat to starboard, weaving away from the wind, lessening the tilt to bring us to a more comfortable sailing angle as we approach open water. I have to warn Walton to duck so he won’t get hit in the head by the boom.
He seems surprised and a little impressed that I seem to know what I’m doing. “So many hidden talents!”
It’s a miracle I’m any help to Alvah given how distracted I am by the skin on Walton’s neck, slightly sunburned just above his collar. The small flaps of his ears turning pink in the sun. The quick flash of his gray-blue eyes.
Alvah, passionate for sailing in the way that boys who grew up on boats with their fathers and grandfathers can be, is happy to do the brunt of the work, and once we’re out on the ocean we fall into an easy rhythm. Ramona opens a basket and cuts chunks of bread, slices of cheese, passes around hard-boiled eggs and salt and a tin canteen of water.
In the course of conversation, I learn bits and pieces about Walton’s upbringing. His mother is obsessed with social decorum, his father a banker who stays in Boston in a small apartment several nights a week—“when he has to work late. Or at least that’s what he tells us,” Walton says. I’m not sure what he’s implying and fear it’s rude to ask; I don’t want to look ignorant but also don’t want to pry. It’s as hard to picture where Walton grew up as it is to imagine life on the moon. I conjure parlor rooms out of Jane Austen, a redbrick mansion, the walls of the dining room adorned with gilt-framed paintings of Harvard-educated ancestors.
He tells me that he had a curved spine, scoliosis, as a child, and had to wear a plaster body cast for a long, hot summer after an operation when he was twelve. While other boys were climbing trees and kicking balls around, he lay in bed reading adventure stories like Swiss Family Robinson and Captains Courageous. He doesn’t say so, but I know he’s trying to explain that he understands what it’s like to be me.
As the hours pass, the sky drains of warmth. It’s not until I notice goose bumps on my arms that I realize I’ve forgotten a sweater. Without a word, Walton peels off his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders. “Oh,” I say with surprise.
“I hope that wasn’t too forward of me. You seemed chilly.”
“Yes. Thank you. I just—I didn’t expect it.” In truth, I can’t remember the last time anyone noticed my physical discomfort and did something about it. When you live on a farm, everyone is uncomfortable much of the time. Too cold, too warm, dirty, bone tired, banged up, injured by a tool or hot grate—too preoccupied to worry much about each other.
“You’re quite an independent girl, aren’t you?”
“I suppose I am.”
“You’ve never met anyone like Christina, Walton,” Ramona says. “She’s not like those silly girls in Malden who don’t know how to light a fire or clean a fish.”
“Is she a suffragette, like Miss Pankhurst?” he asks in a teasing voice.
I feel woefully ignorant; I don’t know what a suffragette is and I’ve never heard of Miss Pankhurst. I think of all the years Walton spent in school while I was washing and cooking and cleaning. “A suffragette?”
“You know, those ladies starving themselves for the vote,” Ramona says. “The ones who thin
k, God forbid, they can do anything a man can do.”
“Is that what you think?” Walton asks me.
“Well, I don’t know,” I say. “Shall we have a competition and find out? We could split logs for firewood, or fix a drainpipe. Or maybe slaughter a chicken?”
“Careful,” he says, laughing. “Miss Pankhurst was just sentenced to three years in jail for her treasonous words.”
There is, I am almost certain, a spark between us. A flickering. I glance at Ramona. She raises her eyebrows at me and smiles, and I know she senses it too.
ONE DAY WALTON shows up alone on a bicycle. He’s wearing a pin-striped sack coat and a straw boater, not the kind of hat any man around here would wear. (For that matter, they don’t wear pin-striped sack coats either.) Around my brothers he looks slightly preposterous, like a peacock in a cluster of turkeys.
Holding his hat between his hands, he kneads the brim with his long fingers. “I’m here to do you the favor of relieving you of some eggs. Can you believe they’ve entrusted me with this important task?” And then, conspiratorially, “Actually, they have no idea I’m here.”
“I’ll get my coat,” I say.
“Don’t think you need one,” he says. “It’s not actually—”
But I’ve already shut the door.
I stand in the dark hall, my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know how to act. Maybe I should tell him that I’m needed in the—
A rap on the door. “Are you there? All right if I come inside?”
I reach up to the coat pegs and pull down the first thing I find, Sam’s heavy wool jacket.
“Christina?” Mother’s voice filters down the stairs.
“Getting eggs at the henhouse, Mother.” Opening the door, I smile at Walton. He smiles back. I step onto the stoop, putting on the jacket. “Two dozen, yes? You can come with me if you want.”