Blight

As Adele walked through the dingy alley toward the boathouse, she swayed her parasol to the rhythm of a waltz tune which lingered, not so much in her thoughts as in the feeling of her body. That had been a dance! At the old bridge she stopped, glancing down past the shed to the little dock. There he was, kneeling, shaking pillows into place on the floor of the canoe. Adele fluffed out the frill of her lingerie blouse, touched her dark hair with a questing finger, and started down the bank. The boy looked up, sunlight across his high forehead and heavy, fair hair.

“Adele!” Something brighter than sunlight in his eyes. “You’ve come!”

“Well——” She settled herself in the canoe, rose sweater across her white skirts, rose parasol behind her head. “Didn’t you expect me? Perhaps you hoped I’d send someone else.”

“There isn’t anyone else.” Adele, under drooping eyelids, saw his fingers grip over the edge of the canoe, and the tremor that ran through the craft sounded in her laugh. As he swung the canoe out into the stream, she peered at him. He was playing up faster than you would have expected. She stretched herself gently among the pillows. He was looking at her, intently. The canoe ran into the cool shadow of the bridge; when they came out she would look up. The sunlight through her parasol flushed across her skirt; she raised her eyes slowly.

The boy’s eyes held her; gray-blue, under straight brows; steady, and in their depths a curious, wistful hush. After a moment Adele glanced away toward the shore of the river. Most of the boys played the game carelessly—she would have to teach him. But there was a thrill in his seriousness.

“Too bad the river’s so ugly here.” She waved her hand toward a cluster of squalid houses on the bank.

“I don’t see anything ugly!” The boy sent the canoe swiftly against the current with long, even strokes of his paddle. “I never saw anything so beautiful.”

“Oh, the river is pretty, of course.” Adele let her hand droop toward the silver water. When the boy did not answer, she glanced up quickly, and was caught again in his grave, sweet look.

“Mustn’t be a silly boy, David!”

“It’s true.” His lips closed firmly over the words.

“You look like a monk, when you do that.” Adele laughed. “Did you know they called you that—The Monk—because you never would pay any attention to us poor girls?”

Over his face stole a faint color, as though her sun-shade threw its glow there.

“I was waiting.”

“Waiting?” Adele’s lashes drooped.

“Until I found you.”

For a monk he was going much too fast! Adele’s fine brows contracted in a little mocking reproof. She guessed he wasn’t the novice at the game they had all thought. As she smoothed a fold of her skirt and watched her slender white fingers, she thought idly of what she should tell Rebecca. Rebecca had been too amused at her conquest of the Monk last night. He was good sport! She smiled to herself. And yet—that awkward, humble kiss of his—He couldn’t have had much practice.

* * *

The banks of the river steepened, with few houses straggling on their slopes. The canoe quivered against the swifter current at a bend of the river, and then swung on steadily between stretches of fields, with lines of trees marching down to the edge of the water. Soon they would be out of the village, into the woods. She watched the shadows under the bank; green, deep, they felt somehow like that steady gaze the boy never lifted from her face.

Shifting on her pillows, she stretched out one hand to the arch of her parasol, noting the soft ripple of light on her arm. David was good looking, and he was acting as if he might be going in for a real case on her! She hummed a formless little tune, her eyes so nearly closed that only glints of light from the water flecked through the lids. This was the second affair she had started since college had opened! Her humming grew more distinct, swelled into a minor waltz theme, hummed over and over. Suddenly she opened her eyes. The boy was leaning toward her, his hands gripping the paddle, shooting the canoe ahead with long, tense strokes.

“Bet you don’t know what that is!”

“Know! It’s that last dance of ours.”

Oh! He remembers.

“I haven’t thought of anything else.” His paddle hung for a moment, the water beading off the sleek blade. “All night—Adele—And when I did sleep I dreamed about you. There under the pines—outside the armory. I kissed you again.”

Adele shrugged; kisses were things one took and did not talk about! But David, manœuvring the canoe around a jagged stump, missed her frown.

“Somewhere along here——” his eyes touched her face shyly, and dropped to his hands. “Somewhere there’s a place I’d like to show you.”

“Somewhere the sun is shining!” Adele mocked at him.

“No, it isn’t. Not there. It’s all pine needles and shade. Up a little bank. I found it last spring.”

“Who helped you find it?” Adele made her brown eyes very serious. “That girl you had last night?”

The boy laughed, his throat swelling out of his soft collar; the breeze whipped an end of his blue tie over his shoulder.

“She’s a friend of my sister’s I said I’d be nice to.”

“Well, who was it, then?”

“Guess it was you. I went there alone, but this morning I thought it must have been you with me.”

* * *

Adele puzzled an instant over that; it seemed to have some meaning she couldn’t catch. The canoe, rounding another bend, drifted into the shadow along the bank. Adele lowered her parasol and tucked it beside her. One arm curved up behind her head, she watched the tree shadows tremble past the boat. Overhead, between the trees, hung a singing blue sky; here the river ran green, in a green gloom, with just a patch of red on a maple through the woods. Suddenly she closed her eyes, a flicker in her heart. Against her ankle lay quivering fingers, cold through the thin silk of her stocking. The little splash of the paddle stopped. Instead came her name, whispered—Adele. Slowly she drew her foot away from the cold fingers, and turned her head. Her sharp, “You mustn’t do that!” died, half-uttered, under the boy’s still gaze. She pulled herself up on the pillows, tucking her foot under her skirt. Was he going to be difficult to manage? He shouldn’t look at her—that way. Her face averted, she heard him plunge the paddle again.

Past them drifted another canoe, running swiftly down with the current. Adele waved to the boy in the stern, with a laugh at his shouted, “Come on back with us, Dele!” She half wished she could; he knew how to play without making her uneasy.

David was sending the canoe straight across the river, toward a sloping bank. She glanced at him, but his eyes were ahead, on the little hollow. The bow touched gently; another thrust swung the boat alongside, and reaching for an overhanging bough, he stepped out.

“There.” He held the boat steady, his face near hers. “Here’s that place. Just put your hand on my shoulder.”

“I don’t know as I want to get out.” She swayed away from him, a plaintiveness in her smile. “Will you be very good?”

“Good?” he echoed, and Adele, with a laugh at his uncertainty, laid her finger-tips on his arm and rising carefully, stepped out of the canoe.

Avoiding the spongy ground where a spring seeped down to the river, she picked her way to the top of the bank. David dragged the canoe well up from the current, and stowed the paddle higher under bushes, moving with a lumbering haste that amused the girl. As he scrambled toward her, she cried, “Oh—my sweater, David!” And then, as he came eagerly with that, “Would you mind letting me have one of your pillows?”

“How stupid—I never thought——” Down the bank he slid, chagrined.

“You haven’t taken many girls canoeing, have you, David?” Adele laughed at him as he reached her side, pillows pinioned under one arm.

“My sister, lots. But she liked to paddle and all that, you know. Here, it’s off this way.” He dragged aside a low branch. “There isn’t any regular path. Do you—You don’t mind a few briars?”

“How many briars? I have just pumps——” Her fleeting glance at him added, “As you may know!”

“I’ll go ahead and stamp them down.”

He stepped nearer Adele, his hand holding back the branch. Adele hung there an instant, swaying toward him, her breath just parting her lips. Then she ducked beneath his arm.

With David bending aside the crowding saplings, pushing away the tangled blackberry vines, and Adele following, her hand brushing the boy’s as she caught at the branches he held, they came presently into a little patch of spruce and fir trees, the ground smooth with their needles.

“Isn’t it bully here?” The boy threw down the pillows and turned anxiously. “All that scrubby woods around, and this——There’s the river.” He pointed at a bright flutter of water below them. “You like it?”

“It’s nice.” Adele was pulling twigs from her skirt. “If you’d fix the cushions by that stone——”

She curled up against the boulder, her sweater spread over the stone behind her dark head, glowing in the green dusk. David stretched beside her, letting the brown needles run through his fingers, his eyes seeking hers. Adele tipped back her head, the line of her young throat curving white against the rose of her sweater. She could hear the tiny click of the needles dropping, and then a quick intake of breath. Her hand lay in her lap, palm upward. Something touched the palm, wondering, hesitating finger-tips, sending a tingle of anticipation through the girl. She waited; the fingers brushed down to her wrist, and then closed over her hand with quivering strength. She looked down at the boy, and a thread of derision shot through her, so that she pulled her hand away. He looked too silly, hanging there with a quaver to his lips, just because he had touched her hand.

“Don’t look as if I scared you!” She softened her words with a laugh.

“You do.” The boy drew himself up to lean on an elbow. “You do. That you should love me—scares me.”

“Love you?” Adele stretched her arm up behind her head; her eyes narrowed over gleams of laughter.

“It’s almost too wonderful——” His husky voice broke off.

* * *

Wasn’t he serious! She dropped her eyes from his adoring gaze to his throat where the cords tautened. He pulled himself near her, and clumsily—if she breathed she would frighten him!—drew away from the rock, one arm behind her shoulders, drew her closer, closer, until his lips trembled on her cheek, brushed her mouth. She slipped an arm about his neck and clung to him, eyes closed, while his lips lost their trembling, grew eager and hard. Through her ran a stream of langour; she pushed herself away from him, one hand against his coat. How his heart pounded under that rough, tingling stuff! Curiously she opened her eyes, and shivering, pushed herself farther away. The white ecstacy of his face frightened her; as she watched, the color came back to his lips and heavy eyelids; she could see his slow breathing.

With an irritated shrug she pulled away from his arm and leaned against her rock. It was going too far, sitting there looking like that. Spoiled all the fun.

A shaft of sunlight struck through the arches of the firs, touched his fair hair, slipped along the column of his neck. Adele turned suddenly away from him and began shaping the needles under her hand into a mound. Like a stained glass window saint, worshipping! She hated him, making her uncomfortable.

“I wish we could stay here, like this, always.”

“Well!” Adele looked back at him. He had dropped to his elbow again, one hand touching the folds of her skirt.

“All night I dreamed of it. And then I forgot how wonderful—kissing you really was.” Above her brooded the woods, with that still whisper in it. He rolled over, catching at her hand, laying his cheek on it. “I’m not worth it—your loving. My father said once—a man must be true—and whole—and wait. And one day—the miracle would come.” He looked up, his head resting against her knee. “It is a miracle, isn’t it? Your waiting, until I came. My waiting—all these years—and then—this!”

Adele’s eyelids fluttered; from the pressure of his head a slow flame ate its way to her heart, spread over her face. Had he heard things—about her? Was he trying to shame her? His clear eyes, with that steady, chanting glow behind them, were dragging her out of her shallow play. She snatched at vanishing tricks.

“Oh, you think I’ve waited for you, conceited little boy!”

“Here we are,” he said simply. “Dear——” He hesitated over the word, and then repeated it, “dear. I can’t tell you, the things I’m thinking—But we’ll have all our lives for them, won’t we? You are so beautiful——”

He drew her fingers across his lips, and suddenly crushed them against the strong swift beating in his throat. Then he dragged himself up until his head touched her shoulder, his lips breathing warm on the little hollow at the base of her throat. She shrank back from the trembling pressure of his body, and his head slipped down to her breast. For a second she held it there, almost instinctively, staring down at his white, transfigured face. Then with a little cry she thrust him madly away, stumbling up to her feet.

“You mustn’t do that!”

His face buried in his arms, the boy lay there. Was he—crying? Adele crouched away from him, something twisting and struggling in her heart. At the shrill chatter of a squirrel back in the woods, she started. Muffled, came the boy’s voice. “It’s too beautiful to bear, isn’t it?”

The struggling thing leaped out at that, in a laugh as shrill as the squirrel’s chatter. Adele thrust her fingers over her mouth, but the laugh twisted out again, whipping the boy erect to stare at her.

* * *

“What is it?” he asked slowly. “I didn’t frighten you?” He got to his feet, Adele backing into the branches of a fir, away from the hands he held out. Her mouth and fine nostrils were drawn in sharp shadow. She looked at his hands, open, fingers wide. They were offering her—what? A thing all fire and white wonder and tenderness of worship. And she—she had no fire and wonder for return. How long ago had she pulled it down for a plaything? She hurried in a sickening, blinding search; no—finger-marred, dusty, all the wonder rubbed off. She clenched her hands.

“Don’t stand there, looking so—silly!” Her voice shrilled. With swift instinct she rushed on, fleeing herself, striking at him. “I thought you were a gentleman!”

His hands wavered, fell. He did look ridiculous, with his rumpled hair and his mouth drooping open, like a startled rabbit. The color swept up into her face.

“I am surprised.” She walked past him and lifted her sweater from the stone. “We must go.”

“Adele—” His fingers plucked at her arm. “I didn’t mean—”

“Was this the way?” She pushed aside the low branches, and then waited, tense, as he seized her arm.

“Adele—I only—why—I love you.” His eyes were opaque, with a fumbling disbelief. She caught her lip between her teeth; she must go, quickly, before he swept her back into that terrible moment again. Pulling away she plunged into the wood, stumbling against tearing branches, through vines that scratched at her ankles, catching her breath in little sobs. Was this the way? She couldn’t find the river. Ah, there it was, below her. Slipping in the moist earth about the spring, she reached the bank above the canoe. Behind her she heard slow breaking of twigs, pushing of feet. He was coming.

He dragged the canoe into the water and knelt beside it. She slipped down the bank, poised to step over the gunwale, when he spoke.

“Adele! What did I do—to make you angry?”

She shrank back from his yearning face, trying to beat away the persistent, buzzing thought—if she had known—if she had waited—for a miracle!

“You weren’t behaving very nice.”

“Nice! Adele, I love you. Why—I was thinking—if I tell you, maybe you would understand—I was all dizzy—from the touch of you.” He strained toward her from his knees, the white, rapt look on his forehead and eyes again. “Suddenly I thought—Oh, Adele—I thought when we loved each other so much—how beautiful our children would be——”

Adele felt the words riddle her heart in strange panic; she stared, as if somewhere in the dim air she could see them, grotesque, unbelievable.

“You must be crazy!” A flood of anger released her dry lips. “Why—you are bad! Thinking such things—about me.”

In the harsh silence that rushed between them, his face grew haggard, with a maimed, tortured thing crawling away behind his dark eyes.

“Bad?” It was a little dead whisper. “Bad—my father said—it was sacred.”

“Why—even if we were engaged you shouldn’t say such things!” A glow of indignation swelled within her; she straightened her body.

“You don’t love me. I thought—you loved me.”

“I never want to see you again!” She looked into the woods. “If I could only walk home——”

“I’m not so bad as that!” he cried out.

There was no other way, of course. Adele stepped into the boat, and sat erect, drawn back against the seat. Automatically David settled himself and swung the canoe around into the current. Over the river hung the faint chill of fall twilight. Her face averted, Adele hugged her sweater about her shoulders.

* * *

Dusk was creeping in. A gray vapor dulled the silver water. Along the bank the blotched trunks of the cottonwoods stood out sharply. When they had come up the river, everything had been warm and bright. And now—all spoiled. An unreasoning pathos wrapped itself into Adele’s anger. David was paddling steadily, his eyes strained past her to the river; the canoe whished ahead in swift uneven rhythm. Of course you knew men sometimes thought things they shouldn’t. But to say them! Out loud—The words snapped through her head, driving her back to the moment before them—there in the woods. For a second she felt that strange pressure of the boy’s head on her breast, felt that sickening thrill at her own tawdriness. She clutched at her anger. He shouldn’t make her feel that way, a boy who could say such things to a girl. She shifted a little, trying to sit more erect, pulling her sweater more closely about her.

“Would you take my coat—I don’t need it paddling?” he asked dully.

She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

After that he drove ahead desperately, the paddle sucking at the water, the canoe quivering. Adele peered sidewise at him; his lips were drawn into a thin line, his eyes clung to something beyond her. She clutched at the side of the boat. Past them rushed the trees; round a bend the river widened between fields. It was lighter there, reflecting the amber sunset sky. Houses now; they were almost at the bridge. The boy rested the paddle a moment; over them clattered a wagon, sending down patters of dust. Then they drifted toward the dock, just grazed it, and the boy clambered out.

Adele climbed the bank to the street slowly; her body ached, stiff with chill and emotion. The river mist, clinging to her hair, softened the oval of her face, blanched it. The boy followed heavily.

“You needn’t go up to the campus with me.” Adele quickened her step, but David strode silently at her side.

Once, as they climbed the hill toward the dormitory, she felt him turn his face. But until they reached the side entrance, and Adele laid her hand on the door-knob, he was silent. There he flung out a single word, “Adele!”—hoarse, distorted.

Adele turned her head. The light over the door filtered through the dusk upon his face, on his rigid, heavy eyes, his contracted mouth. Her fingers tugged at the door; without a word he swung away from her, down the gravel path.

Inside the building she listened. Except for a hum far down the hall there was no sound. The dinner gong had rung, then; there would be no one in the corridors, in her room. She climbed the stairs and closed her door. In the dusk the banners and pennants wavered along the walls. With a little rush she flung herself across the cot, her face buried in the bright pillows, her hands clutching together above her head.

A moment later someone rapped smartly at the door. Adele lifted her head, setting her teeth into a quivering lip. After an instant feet hurried down the hall. She leaned on an elbow. Suppose that girl had come in and found her making a fool of herself? With a long sigh she pushed herself erect. What was the matter with her, anyway! Suddenly she wanted the familiar turmoil of the dining room, longed for it, inarticulately, as a flood to wash away from her this stifling, unaccustomed weight of herself.

Running through the hall, she slipped down the stairs until she could peer into the dining room; a din of faces, voices, dishes, swelled out to her. With it came floating little shreds of the Adele who was pretty, popular, sought after. Fluffing out the crumpled ruffle of her blouse, she stepped over the threshold.