Foxfire Page 2

  “Probably a shoe clerk, married, with three children in Brooklyn,” said Peggy.

  “Maybe,” answered Amanda, “but I’d like to meet him. I think he looks lonely.”

  Peggy snorted, and it turned out that she was right. Dart was never lonely, at least not in the usual way.

  Amanda did meet him that night, as they all sat in the lounge and drank rich Bavarian beer. Some of the German exchange students clustered together and began clinking mugs and singing. Dart was sitting by himself in a corner, and emboldened by the fruity sentiment of “Alt Wien” Amanda walked over to him smiling. “Don’t you want to join us?” she said, indicating her own group. “We thought we might set up a rival chorus when they’ve finished over there—the ‘Missouri Waltz,’ or something.”

  Dart laughed. “Thank you, no. My bullfrog bellow would lead you all into international hostilities. I was just going to turn in anyway.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, flushing a little. She was startled by his voice. Whatever he might aver as to his singing, his speaking voice had unusual richness, and the intonation was that of cultured New England. Not a Brooklyn shoe clerk, anyway. She saw Peggy watching her sardonically, and smiled at him again with gentle directness. “I thought you might be lonely.”

  “Did you?” he said. “But I’m not.” He smiled back, answering her friendliness with equal candor and almost sparing her the implication that she was trying to pursue him. He had been pursued a good deal by women and he did not like it.

  Amanda, unused to rebuff and caught by a pull of attraction stronger than she had expected, could not quite hide her dismay: “I’m sorry,” she said, flushing again. She added lightly, “Well, if you change your mind...” and walked back to her table.

  “Misogynist?” asked Peggy with interest. “Impervious to female charm?”

  “My charm, anyway.” Amanda sank down on the cushioned bench between the two Cornell seniors who received her with delight and amorous sparring in which she carried her part without effort.

  The wind came up in the night and the next morning it was rough. The Bremen, large as she was, pitched convulsively and Tourist Third in the stern got full benefit of the motion. Peggy remained in her berth, as did most of the other passengers. Amanda, however, was immune to seasickness. She wandered up to her deck chair and began to read Shadows on the Rock which she had found amongst the novels in the ship’s library.

  She was unconscious of Dart until he sat down in the vacant chair beside her and said without preliminary, “Willa Cather, is it? Has she got a new book out? Death Comes for the Archbishop was a magnificent job. One of the few novels I ever enjoyed.”

  Amanda jumped. She looked from his face down to the book on her lap. So we have a literary discussion now, she thought, amused. She was happy that he had stopped and therefore wise enough not to make reference to last night’s rebuff. Moreover, she knew instinctively that this was not a belated gambit. He was interested in Willa Cather, he had not been interested in the singing, and in her as a pretty girl or even an individual, he had as yet no interest at all.

  “I’ve forgotten Death Comes for the Archbishop,” she said. “It came out some years ago, didn’t it? Wasn’t it about the West?”

  “Yes,” said Dart. “New Mexico. She got some of the real feel of the country. Few people do.”

  He had dark gray eyes, rather the color of the leaden waves beside the ship but, as he spoke, his eyes reflected light.

  “You know the West?” she asked.

  “Certainly. It’s my home. Arizona. I was born there.”

  She considered this with surprise. His voice was typically Eastern. Cultured and well-bred, her mother would have called it. And Amanda, like most people who had never traveled past the Alleghenies, had a vague mental montage of the West, pasted together from bits of Bret Harte, Zane Grey, The Virginian and cowboy movies.

  “You don’t sound like—I mean...” She stopped and laughed. “I thought you were a Yankee or a New Yorker.”

  Dart smiled but he withdrew a little. “My father came from Massachusetts,” he said, getting up, and for a moment she thought he was going to leave her like that. They were alone on the deck except for a scurrying steward and she had no wish to be thus consigned back to her book. With anyone else, she would have suggested that they walk around the deck together. With Dart she dared not but she gave him a look of unconscious appeal. He responded to it after a moment, held his hand out and pulled her up from the chair. “All right—” he said, as though she had spoken. “We’ll get some exercise.”

  Amanda had read a great deal about electric thrills running between man and woman, and now while Dart held her hand to pull her out of the chair, she felt one. It frightened her and as they walked as briskly as possible, teetering from one side to the other on the heaving deck, she scolded herself, trying thereby to regain an inner balance.

  Physical appeal, pure and simple, she told herself. One-sided at that, since he seemed to feel nothing at all. Humiliating and ridiculous. At the second turn around the deck it occurred to her that she did not even know his name and this reflection annoyed her into decisive action.

  She stopped dead, saying, “I’ve had enough exercise, thanks. I’m getting chilly.” And turned to leave.

  It was then that Dart first really saw her as anything but a pretty and self-assured little Eastern girl, ripe for shipboard dalliance.

  There was gallantry and unconscious dignity in the way she held herself braced on the deck, her dull gold hair whipping about her head, her nose and cheeks pink from the biting, salt wind. Under the straight, dark brows her clear eyes looked up at him with direct honesty, the coquetry had vanished. Her mouth, almost bare of lipstick, quivered a little and he had a sudden impulse to kiss it which startled him.

  He smiled suddenly, half at himself. “Well, come on into the lounge if you’re cold,” he said laughing. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

  His amusement, which she did not understand, made her feel childish and flat. She would have liked to punish him by disappearing but she was sure it would not punish him, that he would have returned into the self-contained solitude which he obviously enjoyed.

  He was, however, by no means a recluse, she found after she had followed him into the lounge. He talked easily and well when he wished to, and though reserved about himself, she did learn that he was a mining engineer. That he had just been recalled from an unfinished journey to the Transvaal because the American mining company which had sent him had suddenly collapsed, unable to weather the depression.

  Later, Peggy and the two Cornell seniors drifted wanly up from their staterooms and joined them. Peggy was too feeble to express surprise when she saw Amanda sitting with Dart, except to growl that smugness could apparently draw people together when nothing else could, and that people who did not get seasick deserved to be drowned.

  Dart laughed and ordered her a brandy and remained with them chatting until lunch time.

  From then on he joined the other young people at times and they all liked him, though the boys deferred a little to his five years’ seniority. Dart was twenty-seven, it developed, and had graduated from the Arizona College of Mines at Tucson. Since then he had worked in mines in Colorado, in Mexico, and this recent brief abortive job in South Africa. Other biographical data appeared casually in the course of conversation. His name was Jonathan Dartland, but he had been known as “Dart” since prep-school days. He had gone to prep school in the East, to Andover. Here a Williams junior pricked up his ears and said that he’d thought the name Dartland was familiar. “Didn’t you win the interscholastic track meet for Andover once?”

  Dart said briefly that he had and changed the subject. The Williams boy who had attended Andover several years after Dart looked puzzled, as one who is trying to remember. He mentioned this to Amanda later. “Something about that guy—something else I heard at Andover—something sort of screwy but I can’t get it.”

  Amanda did not encourage hi
m. She wanted to know all about Dart but she wanted no possibly unsympathetic comments from the sidelines. Nor was their relationship progressing. Dart, when he now joined their group, was pleasant with everyone. He did not single out Amanda for special attention. He even seemed to assume that she was paired off with one of the Cornell seniors, and devoted what impersonal gallantries he showed to Peggy, or a little redhead from Memphis who had drifted somehow into their crowd.

  On the next to the last night out there was a gala dance, humbler replica of the Captain’s dance taking place three decks up in First Class, and Amanda, while she batted balloons and drank inferior champagne, was actively and consciously miserable. The ship had entered the Gulf Stream now, the air was balmy, and Amanda had worn the most filmy and seductive dress she owned. It was of peacock-blue chiffon trimmed with gold, both colors designed to enhance her eyes and hair. Its effect on the other young men was instantaneous, but from Dart it evoked a long, thoughtful look. From this look she took what comfort she could and prayed that he would ask her to dance. Her prayer was answered presently; because all the others were dancing, they were left alone at the table and there was nothing else for him to do. His reluctance prompted her to schoolgirl gaucherie.

  “It won’t be so painful—” she said crossly. “The dances aren’t long. You aren’t by any chance afraid of me, are you?”

  Dart considered this remark. Then he laughed. “Sorry if I seem rude. I’m not afraid of you but I guess I’ve always been wary of your type.”

  This remark would have annoyed a saint and Amanda snapped, “I’m not a type, I’m me, you dope. You have the most insufferable...”

  Suddenly Dart put his arm around her, she felt the faint pressure of his chin on her hair. “Shut up and let’s dance,” he said.

  Unlike many tall men Dart had lightness of foot and perfect muscular control. He also had a superb sense of rhythm. Amanda had little time to note this before she was swept by more compelling emotions. The physical contact with him overpowered her. Her body terrified her by a sensation of melting into him, of identification. The saloon and the other dancers, the lights and the colored streamers, the gentle creaking of the ship, the honeyed strains of the “Pagan Love Song.” all receded to an opalescent blur. She knew nothing sharply except the feel of Dart’s hand on her waist, of his body against hers.

  Surely this violence of physical response could not be onesided. The very essence of a feeling so primitive was reciprocity. She looked up into his face and knew from the expression of his eyes as they met hers that she was right.

  When the orchestra stopped they both turned silently and went out on deck. Other couples had had the same impulse and all over the scanty deck space there were murmurs and giggles from the shadows. They moved toward the taffrail and stumbled over Peggy and somebody sitting behind a stanchion, their arms and faces commingled.

  Amanda made an involuntary sound of revulsion and leaned against the rail watching the foaming wake flow back into darkness. Dart put his arm around her and also leaned against the rail. “I’m quite willing to neck too,” he said, “if you want to. I’m sure we’d both enjoy it.”

  “Yes—” she said after a moment. “But no. Cheap. Wasn’t there more than this”—she gestured towards the entwined couples behind them—“while we were dancing—It felt beautiful to me—deep—was I wrong?”

  Dart glanced at her, removed his arm and lit a cigarette. “No. You weren’t wrong. You’re a sweet thing, Andy.”

  “That surprises you?” she said, smiling faintly. “You haven’t liked me, have you? But I liked you from the minute I saw you. I don’t know why exactly.”

  Or do I—she thought. Because, though he isn’t technically handsome, he’s physically so attractive to me? Because he’s different from any man I’ve met? Deeper, more mature? Because I can’t dominate him? But you shouldn’t analyze love. That’s what it is, she thought. Love, but not like the other times I’ve felt it.

  Dart, when he chose, had intuition. He said now, “You’ve been in love quite often?” And the edge of indulgent amusement had returned to his voice, cutting the deeper intimacy.

  She sighed. “Oh, in a way. The sort of thing everybody does in their teens. And you?”

  “Girls—women from time to time. Not love. ‘One word is too often profaned for me to profane it,’ I guess and, anyway, I don’t much like spilling emotions around. Untidy.”

  “Do you have any emotions to be untidy with?” she asked bitterly.

  Dart laughed. “Yes,” he said. “I think I do.—Come on, let’s go in and sit someplace, unless you’d like to try that German gallop that’s going on in there.”

  They did not dance again, nor did they go out on deck, but they stayed together for the rest of the evening, drinking a little and talking of desultory things. Amanda was content with what she could get and tried not to batter herself against the barrier he had again raised against her. And despite the barrier there was an encouraging change in their relationship. She knew that he was aware of her now and twice their eyes met in a long, searching look. This happened late in the evening, after the orchestra had vanished and several of the usual crowd had joined them in a corner of the lounge. One of the German students, a pimply youth in horn-rimmed spectacles, started a beery exposition of the virtues of Aryanism. The Williams junior was a liberal and said so. He cited the names of famous Jews—what about Mendelssohn, Einstein, Freud: The German countered with contempt. Peggy, looking rumpled and self-conscious, reappeared alone from outside anc jumped into the discussion. She brought up the mass psychology of social problems.

  Amanda listened vaguely while the arguments ran along familiar tracks. Exceptional Jews but—the follies of racial mixture, and what about the Negro problem? asked the Ger man, with that air of triumph Europeans reserve for this question.

  Peggy replied hotly that all intelligent Americans were perfectly aware of it and, anyway, all this racial pro and con wa: a matter of half-baked emotion, not logic.

  Whereupon the Williams junior turned to Dart who had been sitting silently next to Amanda and said, “What do you think about all this, Dartland? Which side are you on?”

  Dart uncrossed his legs and Amanda was aware that his bod] stiffened but he spoke with amiable calm. “I don’t know tha my opinion on racial problems would be very objective, seeing that my mother is a half-breed Indian.”

  There was a moment of silence. The German’s jaw dropped. They all stared at Dart. Amanda’s heart jumped. So that’s it—she thought—oh, poor darling ... and she burst into speech.

  “But, Dart, that’s so different. Indian blood. That’s romantic.”

  Dart lifted his eyebrows. “More romantic than Jewish or Negro blood?” he asked.

  “But of course it is!” she cried. “People are proud of Indian blood. Think of all the people who boast about being descended from Pocahontas!”

  “That’s true—” said Peggy judicially. “Though it’s rather hard to analyze. It’s the only racial mixture that’s respectable in this country. Maybe because we subjugated them, and part of the ‘Lo the poor Indian’ complex, perhaps. Excuse me, Dart. But it’s interesting.”

  “Yes, it is,” Dart agreed placidly. “Particularly as it was not at all respectable fifty years ago when my grandfather, Tanosay, murdered my white great-grandparents and abducted my grandmother from a wagon train. Tanosay actually married her, Indian fashion, after a while but he was an Apache, and neither the Apaches nor the Arizona whites considered the match in the least romantic.” He glanced at Amanda. “My mother, Saba, was born to them and was raised amongst the Apaches.”

  “Himmel!” said the German student continuing to gape at Dart. “Apaches! It’s fantastic. One has read of them, naturally. So vicious -—and how you say—ferocious.”

  “Quite,” agreed Dart. “The ‘tigers of the desert.’”

  “But it’s ridiculous!” cried Amanda. “There must have been lots of nice ones. Besides, the Americans did d
readful things to the Indians, too. Everybody admits that now.”

  She subsided, flushed and disgruntled, because Dart laughed. He patted her hand and said, “Bless you, my child,” but he showed no special appreciation. And yet Amanda had sensed the faintest bravado in his presentation of his Indian ancestry. Had felt that he must have been hurt by it sometimes, and that he had brought out these lurid facts now for her—as a warning.

  The German, and the Williams junior, who looked embarrassed having now recaptured the additional fact about Dart’s Andover background, both fell silent; but Peggy, whose clinical interest was aroused, continued to question eagerly.

  “Please forgive me, Dart, but it’s really such an unusual heritage. You weren’t raised on a reservation, were you? What about your father?”

  Amanda thought for a second that Dart, having proved whatever point he had set out to prove, was not going to answer but relapse into his habitual reserve.

  “I’d like to know, too,” she said softly, looking up at him.

  Dart nodded after a moment. She saw his long body relax.

  “Okay,” he said. “Brief biography. My father was Jonathan Dartland, born in Ipswich, Mass., educated at Harvard, became a history professor at Amherst. He was a bachelor, caught T.B. and was sent to the Arizona desert to get well. That was in 1901 when he was about forty. He took an adobe cottage on the desert and hired an Indian girl from the Indian School to housekeep for him. That was Saba, my mother. They fell deeply in love and got married. I was born in 1905 and educated at home, by my father. When I was thirteen, Father began to fail, the old T.B. broke out, he wanted to see the East again before he died, and he wanted me to go to an Eastern school. So the three of us came East...” He paused a moment. “Father put me in Andover. They went back to Arizona and he died. After my graduation I went back to the College of Mines at Tucson. And that’s that.”