"Long? Roseanne Cane was a Bishop. The Bishops built that house and the
house before it--back in the seventeen hundreds. They had a lot of
money. Have it still, I guess, but Cane's too tight to spend it." There
was nothing furtive in the youth's manner; he was evidently touching on
common village gossip. "Yes, sir, too tight. Won't give her a maid. But
before her folks died, it was Europe every year and a maid for every one
of 'em, and 'Why, deary, don't tell me that's the second time you've put
on that dress! Take it right off and never wear it again.'" The joke was
part of the formula for telling about the Canes, and the clerk snickered
appreciatively. "Yes, sir. You come down here some day when I ain't got
the Friday orders to fill an' I'll tell you some things about old man
Cane that'll turn your stummick."
Hugo accepted his bundle, set it in the seat beside himself, and drove
back to the big, green house.
Later in the day he said to Cane: "If you will want me to drive the
station wagon very often, I ought to have a license."
"Go ahead. Get one."
"I couldn't afford it at the moment, and since it would be entirely for
you, I thought--"
"I see," Cane answered calmly. "Trying to get a license out of me. Well,
you're out of luck. You probably won't be needed as a chauffeur again
for the next year. If you are, you'll drive without a license, and drive
damn carefully, too, because any fines or any accidents would come out
of your wages."
Hugo received the insult unmoved. He wondered what Cane would say if he
smashed the car and made an escape. He knew he would not do it; the
whole universe appeared so constructed that men like Cane inevitably
avoided their desserts.
June came, and July. The sea-shore was not distant and occasionally at
night Hugo slipped away from the woods and lay on the sand, sometimes
drinking in the firmament, sometimes closing his eyes. When it was very
hot he undressed behind a pile of barnacle-covered boulders and swam far
out in the water. He swam naked, unmolested, stirring up tiny whirlpools
of phosphorescence, and afterwards, damp and cool, he would dress and
steal back to the barn through the forest and the hay-sweet fields.
One day a man in Middletown asked Mr. Cane to call on him regarding the
possible purchase of three cows. Cane's cows were raised with the
maximum of human care, the minimum of extraneous expense. His profit on
them was great and he sold them, ordinarily, one at a time. He was so
excited at the prospect of a triple sale that for a day he was almost
gay, very nearly generous. He drove off blithely--not in the sedan, but
in the station wagon, because its gasoline mileage was greater.
It was a day filled with wonder for Hugo. When Cane drove from the
house, Roseanne was standing beside the drive. She walked over to the
barn and said to Hugo in an oddly agitated voice: "Mr. Danner, could you
spare an hour or two this morning to help me get some flowers from the
woods?"
"Certainly."
She glanced in the direction her husband had taken and hurried to the
kitchen, returning presently with two baskets and a trowel. He followed
her up the road. They turned off on an overgrown path, pushed through
underbrush, and arrived in a few minutes at the side of a pond. The
edges were grown thick with bushes and water weeds, dead trees lifted
awkward arms at the upper end, and dragon flies skimmed over the warm
brown water.
"I used to come here to play when I was a little girl," she said. "It's
still just the same." She wore a blue dress; branches had dishevelled
her hair; she seemed more alive than he had ever seen her.
"It's charming," Hugo answered.
"There used to be a path all the way around--with stones crossing the
brook at the inlet. And over there, underneath those pine trees, there
are some orchids. I've always wanted to bring them down to the house. I
think I could make them grow. Of course, this is a bad time to
transplant anything--but I so seldom get a chance. I can't remember
when--when--"
He realized with a shock that she was going to cry. She turned her head
away and peered into the green wall. "I think it's here," she said
tremulously.
They followed a dimly discernible trail; there were deer tracks in it
and signs of other animals whose feet had kept it passable. It was hot
and damp and they were forced to bend low beneath the tangle to make
progress. Almost suddenly they emerged in a grove of white pines. They
stood upright and looked: wind stirred sibilantly in the high tops, and
the ground underfoot was a soft carpet; the lake reflected the blue of
the sky instead of the brown of its soft bottom.
"Let's rest a minute," she said. And then: "I always think a pine grove
is like a cathedral. I read somewhere that pines inspired Gothic
architecture. Do you suppose it's true?"
"There was the lotos and the Corinthian column," Hugo answered.
They sat down. This was a new emotion--a paradoxical emotion for him. He
had come to an inharmonious sanctuary and he could expect both tragedy
and enchantment. There was Roseanne herself, a hidden beautiful thing in
whom were prisoned many beauties. She was growing old in the frosty
seclusion of her husband's company. She was feeding on the toothless
food of dreams when her hunger was still strong. That much anyone might
see; the reason alone remained invisible. He was acutely conscious of an
hour at hand, an imminent moment of vision.
"You're a strange man," she said finally.