Everything went wonderfully--up to a certain point. Have you ever known
it to fail? Everything swims along and all is lovely--and the thing,
whatever it may be, is being so successful that it is almost a
culmination; and then suddenly, out of a clear sky, there is a slip-up
somewhere and you want to crawl off into a corner and die.
Ferd had got there early and had a boat ready, all scrubbed out and
lined with old carpets. He was just as excited as any of us.
"The trouble with us," he said, as we rowed over to the island, "is that
we are all in a rut. We do the same things over and over, at the same
places, with the same people. The _hoi polloi_ never make that mistake
and they get a lot more out of life. Every now and then the puddlers
from the mill come over here and have a great time."
There were two islands, one just above the other, with about a hundred
feet of water between them. The upper island was much the nicer and it
was there that Ferd had planned the party.
He does things awfully well, really. He had had a decorator out there
early in the day and the pavilion was fixed up with plants and vines
which looked as if they grew on it. He had the table fixed too, with a
mound of roses and the most interesting place cards. Mine had a little
jewelled dagger thrust through it, and the card said:
_That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry._
He said the quotation was from Shakespeare and the dagger was for Day.
Annette's card said:
_She was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three,_
which delighted Annette, she being more than twenty-three.
Ferd's own card said:
_Another woman now and then
Is relished by the best of men._
I have forgotten the others. The dagger was a pin, and each card had
something pretty fastened to it.
We sat and gossiped while we waited for the others and then we wandered
round. The island was not very pretty--flat and weedy mostly, with a
good many cans the campers had left, and a muddy shore where a broken
dock, consisting of two planks on poles, was the boat landing. But it
was only later that I hated it, really. That afternoon we said it was
idyllic, and the very place for a picnic.
The other men arrived soon after, and it was really barrels of fun. We
made a rule first. No one was to mention an absent husband or wife; and
the person who did had to tell a story or sing a song as a forfeit. I
was more than proud of Ferd. He had even had a phonograph sent up, with
a lot of new music. We danced the rest of the afternoon and the Lee man
danced like an angel. I never had a better time. Jane voiced my feelings
perfectly.
"It's not that I'm tired of Bill," she said. "I dote on him, of course;
but it is a relief, once in a while, not to have a husband in the
offing, isn't it? And the most carping critic could not object to
anything we are doing. That's the best of all."
The dinner was really wonderful--trust Ferd for that too. We were almost
hilarious. Between courses we got up and changed our own plates, and we
danced to the side table and back again. Once we had an alarm, however.
An excursion boat came up the river and swung in close to the pavilion.
We had not noticed it until it was quite near and there was no time to
run; so we all sat down on the floor inside the railing, which was
covered with canvas, and had our salad there.
By the time dinner was over it was almost dark; and we took a bottle of
champagne down to the dock and drank it there, sitting on the boards,
with our feet hanging. Ferd had been growing sentimental for the last
hour or two and I had had to keep him down. He sat beside me on the
boards and kept talking about how he envied Day, and that Ida was a good
wife and better than he deserved; but no one had ever got into him the
way I had.
"I'm not trying to flatter you, Fanny," he said. "I've always been
honest with you. But there's a woman for every man, and you're my
woman."
He had come rather close and, anyhow, he was getting on my nerves; so I
gave him just the least little bit of a push and he fell right back into
the water. I was never so astonished in my life.
The way Jane Henderson told it later was criminally false. I did not
push him with all my strength and he had not tried to kiss me. Nobody
had had too much to drink. It was a perfectly proper party, and my own
mother could not have found a single thing to criticise.
Well, Ferd was wet through and not very agreeable. He said, however,
that he had merely overbalanced, and that he would dry out somehow. The
only thing was that he had to get back home and he felt he was not
looking his best.
The moon came up and was perfectly lovely; but about the time we had
settled down to singing soft little songs and the Lee man was saying
what a good lot of sports we were, and that he was going to take the
idea back home, a lot of puddlers and their wives rowed out from the
shore and started toward our island. Ferd was awfully annoyed. He stood
up and shouted at them.
"You can't come here!" he called. "This place is taken. Go to the other
island."
"Go to the devil!" one of the puddlers bellowed from the boat;
nevertheless they turned the boat's nose round and went to the other
island. We could hear them yelling and laughing there, and singing in
the commonest fashion. It ruined the moonlight for us. From that time
the bloom was off, as one may say, and things went from bad to worse.
The last car went at ten o'clock, and at half-past nine we commenced to
pack up. Annette insisted on taking the roses; and there was the
phonograph and the club's silver and dishes, and almost a boat-load of
stuff. We could not all get in, of course, so Ferd and Emerson Riley
agreed to wait; but just as I got into the boat I dropped my gold bag
overboard.
I would not go without the bag. It was set with diamonds and I did not
know when I should get another. I just got out of the boat and refused
to stir until it had been fished out.
There was a great deal of excitement. The last car had come and was
waiting on the bank for its return trip, and every one was anxious to
get off. Ferd, who was wet anyway, waded in, but he could not locate it
immediately, and Jane grew hysterical.
"Come on and leave it, Fan!" she begged. "What's a bag compared with
one's reputation? That car's moving now!"
"Go on!" I said coldly. "I shall stay here until Ferd finds it. Go on,
all of you! You can send a man back with the boat, I dare say."
They did it! I never was more astounded in my life; but they all piled
in except Ferd and me, and made for the shore as fast as they could.
They said it was all well enough for me, with Day out of town; but the
rest of them never had any luck and they had to get that car.
"They're terribly nervous, all at once!" I said. "If that car goes
without me, Ferd, I shall jump into the river!"
It was moonlight, but not very bright. I sat on the dock and Ferd fished
for the gold bag. He brought up an empty bottle, two tin cans and an old
shoe.
"Look here, Fan," he said finally, "I'll buy you a new bag. I'll do
anything--only let's get out of this."
"Try once more."
"I'll get neuralgia," he said. "I have to be awfully careful, Fanny. Ida
has to watch me like a hawk."
"I should imagine so," I replied coldly.
"I mean about the neuralgia."
"Humph! Day never has anything the matter with him--that's one thing.
Try again, Ferd."
He stooped again, and this time he got it. He straightened up with it in
his hand. The car was still on the bank and a boat was putting out from
the shore. All seemed to be well.
"They'll bribe the motorman to wait," said Ferd. "I told Riley to. So
you see, little girl, everything's all right. Here's the bag and there's
the boat. Do you like me a little bit again?"
I felt rather queer, alone there on the island with him; and the only
thing that occurred to me was to keep him down.
"I'll like you well enough when we get back to civilization," I said
shortly.
"You're not like yourself, Fanny. You aren't a bit kind to me."
"Being nice to you with everybody round is one thing. This is another.
I'm scared, Ferd."
"Not of me!" he said, getting hold of one of my hands. He looked horrid
in the moonlight, with his collar in a crease and his coat stuck to him.
He looked awfully thin, too, and his hair was in straggles over his
face. "Fan, the boat's coming and I never see you alone. Do say you care
a little bit!"
Well, I had to play the game. I am not a quitter. I had let him get up
the party and spend a lot of money, and I had pretended for months to be
interested in him. What was I to do? You may say what you like--a lot of
married women get into things they never meant to simply because they
are kind-hearted and hate to be called quitters.
"I've always cared a little," I said, trying not to look at him. "Ferd,
you're dripping! Don't touch me!"
"Lady-love!" cried Ferd, very close to my ear; and then: "Good gracious,
Fan! Where's the boat?"
It had absolutely disappeared! Ferd stood up on the shaky dock and
peered over the water.
"He's gone to the other island," he said after a moment. "They'll tell
him he's wrong, but--time's passing!"
He did not start the lady-love business again, and we sat side by side
on the dock, with the river, damp and smelly, underfoot. It was very
silent, save for the far-away yells of the puddlers on the next island
and the drip-drip from Ferd's trouser-ends to the water below.
Somehow the snap was gone out of the whole thing. I hated it, being
alone with him there, and his looking so mussy, and my vanity case
soaking from the river. I hated the puddlers' picnic; there was nothing
I didn't hate. And the boatman did not come. Even Ferd began to get
anxious.
"The infernal fool!" he said. "He's probably joined the picnic,
and----Hello, there!" he called, with his hands to his mouth.
I think they heard us on the bank, for we could hear the trolley bell
very faintly. And, immediately after, the car moved off! I had the most
awful feeling. We sat on the boards watching it getting smaller and
smaller down the river, and neither of us said anything. It had been our
one tie, as you may say, to respectability and home--and it had deserted
us. After a minute Ferd got up on his feet.
"It's the puddlers, after all!" he said. "We'll have to hail them and
get them to send that ass of a boatman. Wouldn't you think that Emerson
Riley would have had sense enough to wait and see that we got over
safely?"