Part 27 (1/2)

there was no climb! Unconsciously Claire had hesitated before das.h.i.+ng at each sharp upsloping bend; had lost headway while she was wondering, ”Suppose the car went off this curve?” Milt never sped up, but he never slackened. His driving was as rhythmical as music.

They were so packed in that he could scarcely reach gear lever and hand-brake. He halted on a level, and curtly asked, ”That trap-door in the back of the car--convertible extra seat?”

”Yes, but we almost never use it, and it's stuck. Can't get it open.”

”I'll open it all right! Got a big screwdriver? Want you sit back there.

Need elbow room.”

”Perhaps I'd better drive with Mr. Pinky.”

”Nope. Don't think better.”

With one yank he opened the trap-door, revealing a folding seat, which she meekly took. Back there, she reflected, ”How strong his back looks.

Funny how the little silvery hairs grow at the back of his neck.”

They came to a settlement and the red cedar bungalow of Dr. Hooker Beach. The moment Claire saw the doctor's thin demanding face, she trusted him. He spoke to Mr. Boltwood with a.s.surance: ”All you need is some rest, and your digestion is a little shaky. Been eating some pork?

Might stay here a day or two. We're glad to have a glimpse of Easterners.”

Mr. Boltwood went to bed in the Beaches' guest-room. Mrs. Beach gave Claire and Milt lunch, with thin toast and thin china, on a porch from which an arroyo dropped down for a hundred feet. Fir trees scented the air, and a talking machine played the same Russian music that was popular that same moment in New York. And the Beaches knew people who knew Claire.

Claire was thinking. These people were genuine aristocrats, while Jeff Saxton, for all his family and his a.s.sumptions about life, was the eternal climber. Milt, who had been uncomfortable with Jeff, was serene and un-self-conscious with the Beaches, and the doctor gratefully took his advice about his stationary gas engine. ”He's rather like the Beaches in his simplicity--yes, and his ability to do anything if he considers it worth while,” she decided.

After lunch, when the doctor and his wife had to trot off to a patient, Claire proposed, ”Let's walk up to that ledge of rock and see the view, shall we, Milt?”

”Yes! And keep an eye on the road for Pinky. The poor nut, he hasn't showed up. So reckless; hope he hasn't driven the Teal off the road.”

She crouched at the edge of a rock, where she would have been frightened, a month before, and looked across the main road to a creek in a pine-laced gully. He sat beside her, elbows on knees.

”Those Beaches--their kin are judges and senators and college Presidents, all over New England,” she said. ”This doctor must be the grandson of the amba.s.sador, I fancy.”

”Honest? I thought they were just regular folks. Was I nice?”

”Of course you were.”

”Did I--did I wash my paws and sit up and beg?”

”No, you aren't a little dog. I'm that. You're the big mastiff that guards the house, while I run and yip.” She was turned toward him, smiling. Her hand was beside him. He touched the back of it with his forefinger, as though he was afraid he might soil it.

There seemed to be no reason, but he was trembling as he stammered, ”I--I--I'm d-darn glad I didn't know they were anybody, or 'd have been as bad as a flivver driver the first time he tries a t-twelve-cylinder machine. G-gee your hand is little!”

She took it back and inspected it. ”I suppose it is. And pretty useless.”

”N-no, it isn't, but your shoes are. Why don't you wear boots when you're out like this?” A flicker of his earlier peremptoriness came into his voice. She resented it:

”My shoes are perfectly sensible! I will not wear those horrible vegetarian uplift sacks on my feet!”

”Your shoes may be all right for New York, but you're not going to New York for a while. You've simply got to see some of this country while you're out here--British Columbia and Alaska.”

”Would be nice, but I've had enough roughing----”