Lucy Crown

2

WHEN WE LOOK BACK into the past, we recognize a moment in time which was decisive, at which the pattern of our lives changed, a moment at which we moved irrevocably off in a new direction. The change may be a result of planning or accident; we may leave happiness or ruins behind us and advance to a different happiness or more thorough ruin; but there is no going back. The moment may be just that, a second in which a wheel is turned, a look exchanged, a sentence spoken—or it may be a long afternoon, a week, a season, during which the issue is in doubt, in which the wheel is turned a hundred times, the small, accumulating accidents permitted to happen. For Lucy Crown it was a summer.

It began like other summers.

There was the sound of hammering from the cottages around the lake as screens were put into place, and the rafts were floated out into the water in time for the first bathers. At the boys’ camp at one end of the lake, the baseball diamond was weeded and rolled, the canoes arranged on their racks, and a new gilt ball put on top of the flagpole in front of the messhall. The owners of the two hotels had had their buildings repainted in May, because it was 1937 and it looked, finally, even in Vermont, as though the Depression was over.

At the end of June, when the Crowns drove up to the same cottage they had rented the year before, all three of them, Oliver, Lucy, and Tony, who was thirteen years old that summer, sensed with pleasure the air of drowsy, pre-holiday anticipation that hung over the place. The pleasure was intensified by the fact that since they had been there last, Tony had nearly died and had not died.

Oliver only had two weeks to spend at the lake before he had to go back to Hartford, and he devoted most of that time to Tony, fishing with him, swimming a little, going on leisurely walks through the woods, trying, as delicately as possible, to make Tony feel that he was leading an active and normal thirteen-year-old life, while keeping his exertions down to the level that Sam Patterson, their family doctor, had prescribed as being safe.

Now the two weeks were over and it was Sunday afternoon and one of Oliver’s bags was standing, packed, on the cottage porch. All around the lake there was a little extra traffic and bustle of departure, as husbands and fathers, lethargic from the Sunday dinner and peeling from the week-end sun, got into their cars and started back to the cities where they worked, leaving their families behind, according to the American custom which decrees that those who need them the least get the longest vacations.

Oliver and Patterson were lounging in canvas deck chairs on the lawn, under a maple tree, facing out toward the lake. They had glasses of Scotch and soda in their hands and occasionally one o£ them would shake his drink to enjoy the sound of ice against the glass.

They were both tall men, approximately the same age, and obviously of the same class and education, but they were marked by wide differences of temperament. Oliver still had the body and movements of an athlete, precise, quick and energetic. Patterson seemed to have let himself go somewhat. A slouch seemed natural to him and even when you saw him sitting down you had the feeling that when he stood he would stoop over a little. He had shrewd eyes, which he kept half-veiled almost all the time by a lazy droop of the eyelids, and there were habitual wrinkles from laughter cut into the skin at their corners. His eyebrows were thick and unruly and overhanging and his hair was coarse, unevenly cut, with a good deal of rough gray in it. Oliver, who knew Patterson very well, once told Lucy that he was sure that Patterson had looked in a mirror one day and decided quite coldly that he had a choice between appearing rather conventionally good-looking, like a second leading man in the movies, or letting himself go a little and being interestingly grizzled. “Sam’s a clever man,” Oliver had said approvingly, “and he opted for the grizzle.”

Oliver was already dressed for the city. He wore a seersucker suit and a blue shirt and his hair was a little long because he hadn’t bothered to go to a barber on his holiday and his skin was evenly tanned from the hours on the lake. Looking at him, Patterson thought that Oliver was at his best at this moment, when all the advantages of his vacation were so clearly marked on him, but at the same time wearing clothes that in this setting gave him an air of urban formality. He ought to wear a moustache, Patterson thought idly; he would look most impressive. He looks like a man who ought to be doing something complicated, important and rather dangerous; he looks like the portraits of young Confederate cavalry commanders you used to see in histories of the Civil War. If I looked like that, Patterson thought, and all I did was run a printing business that my father left me, I think I would be disappointed.

Across the lake, where a slanting outcropping of granite dipped into the water, they could see Lucy and Tony, minute sunny figures floating quietly in a small boat. Tony was fishing. Lucy hadn’t wanted to take him, because it was Oliver’s last afternoon, but Oliver had insisted, not only for Tony’s sake but because he felt that Lucy had an unhealthy tendency to sentimentalize arrivals and farewells and anniversaries and holidays.

Patterson was dressed in corduroy trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, because he still had to go up to the hotel, which was about two hundred yards away, on the same estate, and pack his bag and get dressed. The cottage was too small for guests.

When Patterson had volunteered to come up for the week-end to check up on Tony, which would save Lucy and the boy a long trip down to Hartford later in the summer, Oliver had been touched by this evidence of thoughtfulness on his friend’s part. Then he saw Patterson with a Mrs. Wales who was staying at the hotel, and he had been less touched. Mrs. Wales was a handsome brunette, with a small, full figure and avid eyes, who came from New York, a place that Patterson found an excuse to visit, without his wife, at least twice a month. Mrs. Wales, it turned out, had arrived on Thursday, the day before Patterson had stepped off the train, and was due to leave for New York again, discreetly, the following Tuesday. She and Patterson made a point of being most formal and correct with each other, even to the extent of not calling each other by their first names. But after twenty years of friendship with the doctor, who had always been ambitious, as Oliver put it, with women, Oliver was not to be fooled. He was too reticent to say anything, but he tempered his gratitude for Patterson’s long trip to Vermont with a touch of fond, though cynical amusement.

From the boys’ camp a half mile away across the lake came the thin music of a bugle. The two men listened in silence, sipping their drinks, while the sound died echoing away on the water.

“Bugles,” Oliver said. “They have an old-fashioned sound, don’t they?” He stared drowsily at the distant boat in which his wife and son floated, just on the edge of the shadow of the granite shelf. “Reveille, Assembly, Retreat, Lights out.” He shook his head. “Preparing the younger generation for the world of tomorrow.”

“Maybe they’d be better off using a siren,” Patterson said. “Take Cover. Enemy Overhead. All Clear …”

“Aren’t you cheerful?” Oliver said good-naturedly.

Patterson grinned. “Actually, I am. It’s just that a doctor always sounds so much more intelligent when he’s gloomy. I can’t resist the temptation.”

They sat in silence for a moment, remembering the bugle, vaguely thinking of old, enjoyable wars. There was a telescope which belonged to Tony, lying on the lawn beside Oliver, and he idly picked it up. He put the telescope to his eye and focused it across the water. The distant skiff became clearer and larger in the round blur of the lens and Oliver could see Tony slowly reeling in his line and Lucy begin to row toward home. Tony had a red sweater on, even though it was hot in the sun. Lucy was wearing a bathing suit and her back was deep brown against the blue-gray of the distant granite. She rowed steadily and strongly, the oars making an occasional small white splash in the still water. My ship is coming in, Oliver thought, smiling inwardly at the large saltwater image for such a modest arrival.

“Sam,” Oliver said, still with the telescope to his eye. “I want you to do something for me.”

“Yes?”

“I want you to tell Lucy and Tony exactly what you told me.”

Patterson seemed almost asleep. He was slumped in his chair, his chin down on his chest, his eyes half-closed, his long legs stretched out. He grunted. “Tony, too?”

“Most important of all, Tony,” Oliver said.

“You’re sure?”

Oliver put the telescope down and nodded decisively. “Absolutely,” he said. “He trusts us completely … so far.”

“How old is he now?” Patterson asked.

“Thirteen.”

“Amazing.”

“What’s amazing?”

Patterson grinned. “In this day and age. A boy thirteen years old who still trusts his parents.”

“Now, Sam,” Oliver said, “you’re going out of your way to sound intelligent again.”

“Perhaps,” Patterson said agreeably, taking a sip of his drink and staring at the boat, still far out on the sunny surface of the water. “People’re always asking doctors to tell them the truth,” he said. “Then when they get it …” He shrugged. “The level of regret is very high in the truth department, Oliver.”

“Tell me, Sam,” said Oliver, “do you always tell the truth when you’re asked for it?”

“Rarely. I believe in another principle.”

“What’s that?”

“The principle,” Patterson said, “of the soft, healing lie.”

“I don’t think that there is such a thing as a healing lie,” said Oliver.

“You come from the North,” said Patterson, smiling. “Remember, I’m from Virginia.”

“You’re no more from Virginia than I am.”

“Well,” Patterson said, “my father came from Virginia. It leaves its marks.”

“No matter where your father came from,” Oliver said, “you must tell the truth sometime, Sam.”

“Yes,” said Patterson.

“When?”

“When I think people can stand it,” Patterson said, keeping his tone light, almost joking.

“Tony can stand it,” said Oliver. “He has a lot of guts.”

Patterson nodded. “Yes, he has. Why not—at the age of thirteen.” He took another drink and held up his glass, turning it in his hand, inspecting it. “What about Lucy?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about Lucy,” Oliver said stiffly.

“Does she agree with you?” Patterson persisted.

“No.” Oliver made an impatient gesture. “If it was up to her, Tony would reach the age of thirty believing that babies came out of cabbage patches, that nobody ever died, and that the Constitution guaranteed that everyone had to love Anthony Crown above everything else on earth, on pain of imprisonment for life.”

Patterson grinned.

“You smile,” Oliver said. “Before you have a son, you think that what you’re going to do with him is raise him and educate him. That isn’t what you do at all. What you do is struggle inch by inch for his immortal soul.”

“You should have had a few others,” Patterson said. “The debate gets less intense that way.”

“Well, we don’t have a few others,” said Oliver, flatly. “Are you going to tell Tony or not?”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

“I want it to be official,” said Oliver. “I want him to get used to the verdict of authority, unmodified by love.”

“Unmodified by love,” Patterson repeated softly, thinking, What a curious man he is. I don’t know another man who would use a phrase like that. The verdict of authority, he thought. My boy, do not expect to live to a ripe old age. “All right, Oliver,” he said. “On your responsibility.”

“On my responsibility,” Oliver said.

“Mr. Crown …?”

Oliver turned around in his chair. A young man was approaching across the lawn from the direction of the house. “Yes?” Oliver said.

The young man came around in front of the two men and stopped. “I’m Jeffrey Bunner,” he said. “Mr. Miles, the manager of the hotel, sent me down here.”

“Yes?” Oliver looked at him puzzledly.

“He said you were looking for a companion for your son for the rest of the summer,” the young man said. “He said you planned to leave this evening, so I came right down.”

“Oh, yes,” Oliver said. He stood up and shook hands with the young man, examining him briefly. Bunner was slender, a little above medium height. He had thick, black hair that was cut short and naturally dark skin that had been made even darker by the sun, giving him an almost Mediterranean appearance. His eyes were a profound, girlish blue, approaching violet, and they had the shining clarity of a child’s. He had a thin lively face which gave an impression of endless youthful energy and a high, bronzed forehead. In his faded gray sweatshirt and his un-pressed flannels and his grass-stained tennis shoes he seemed like an intellectual oarsman. There was an air about him, too, as he stood there easily, unembarrassed but respectful, of the privileged but well-brought-up son of a polite family. Oliver, who believed in having handsome people around him whenever possible (their colored maid at home was one of the prettiest girls in Hartford), decided immediately that he liked the young man.

“This is Dr. Patterson,” Oliver said.

“How do you do, Sir?” Bunner said.

Patterson lifted his glass lazily. “Forgive me for not getting up,” he said. “I rarely get up on Sundays.”

“Of course,” Bunner said.

“Do you want to grill this young man in private?” Patterson asked. “I suppose I could move.”

“No,” Oliver said. “That is, if Mr. Bunner doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Bunner said. “Anybody can listen. Anything embarrassing I’ll lie about.”

Oliver chuckled. “That’s a good start. Cigarette?” He offered the pack to Bunner.

“No, thanks.”

Oliver took a cigarette and lit it and tossed the pack to Patterson. “You’re not one of those young men who smokes a pipe, are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” Oliver said. “How old are you?”

“Twenty,” Bunner said.

“When I hear the word twenty,” Patterson said, “I feel like reaching for a pistol.”

Oliver peered out at the lake. Lucy was rowing steadily and already the boat seemed much larger and the red of Tony’s sweater had grown brighter. “Tell me, Mr. Bunner,” he said, “were you ever sick?”

“Forgive him, Boy,” Patterson said. “He’s one of those people who’s never been sick in his life and he regards illness as a willful sign of weakness.”

“That’s all right,” Bunner said. “If I were hiring somebody to hang around with my son I’d want to know whether he was healthy or not.” He turned to Oliver. “I had a broken leg once,” he said. “When I was nine. Sliding into second base. I was tagged out.”

Oliver nodded, liking the young man more and more. “Is that all?”

“Just about.”

“Do you go to college?” Oliver asked.

“Dartmouth,” said Bunner. “I hope you have no objections to Dartmouth.”

“I am neutral on the subject of Dartmouth,” Oliver said. “Where is your home?”

“Boston,” Patterson said.

“How do you know?” Oliver looked over at Patterson, surprised.

“I have ears, don’t I?” Patterson said.

“I didn’t know I gave myself away so easily,” Bunner said.

“That’s all right,” said Patterson. “It’s not unpleasant. It’s just Boston.”

“How is it,” Oliver asked, “that you didn’t go to Harvard?”

“Now I think you’ve gone too far,” Patterson said.

Bunner chuckled. He seemed to be enjoying the interview. “My father said I’d better get away from home,” he said. “For my own good. I have four sisters and I’m the baby of the family and my father felt I was getting more than my share of loving kindness. He said he wanted me to learn that the world was not a place where you have five devoted women running interference for you all the time.”

“What do you expect to do when you get out of college?” Oliver asked. He was obviously feeling friendly toward the boy, but he wasn’t going to skip any information that might have a bearing on his capabilities.

“I expect to go into the Foreign Service,” Bunner said.

“Why?” Oliver asked.

“Travel,” Bunner said. “Foreign lands. Reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom at the age of sixteen.”

“I doubt that you’ll be called upon to lead any camel charges,” Patterson said, “no matter how high you rise in the Department.”

“Of course, it’s not only that,” Bunner said. “I have a feeling that a lot of important things are going to happen in the next few years and I like the idea of being on the inside when they do happen.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “It’s hard to talk about what you want to do with your life without sounding like a stuffed shirt, isn’t it? Maybe I just fancy the picture of myself in a morning coat sitting at a conference table, saying, ‘I refuse to give up Venezuela.’”

Oliver looked at his watch and decided to lead the conversation into more practical lines. “Tell me, Mr. Bunner,” he said, “are you an athlete?”

“I play a little tennis, swim, ski …”

“I mean on any of the teams,” Oliver said.

“No.”

“Good,” Oliver said. “Athletes are so busy taking care of themselves, they never can be relied upon to take care of anyone else. And my son may need a great deal of care …”

“I know,” Bunner said. “I saw him.”

“Oh?” Oliver asked, surprised. “When?”

“I’ve been up here for a few days now,” Bunner said. “And I was here most of last summer. My sister has a place a half mile down the lake.”

“Are you staying with her now?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want this job?” Oliver asked suddenly.

Bunner grinned. “The usual reason,” he said. “Plus being out in the open air for the summer.”

“Are you poor?”

The boy shrugged. “My father survived the Depression,” he said. “But he’s still limping.”

Both Oliver and Patterson nodded, remembering the Depression.

“Do you like children, Mr. Bunner?” Oliver asked.

The boy hesitated, as though he had to think this over carefully. “About the same as people,” he said. “There’re several children I’d gladly wall up in cement.”

“That’s fair enough,” Oliver said. “I don’t think you’d want to wall Tony up in cement. You know what was wrong with him?”

“I think somebody told me he had rheumatic fever last year,” Bunner said.

“That’s right,” said Oliver. “His eyes have been affected and his heart. I’m afraid he’ll have to take it easy for a long time.” Oliver stared out at the lake. The boat was well in toward shore by now and Lucy was rowing steadily. “Because of his trouble,” Oliver said, “he’s been kept away from school for the last year and he’s been around his mother too much …”

“Everybody’s been around his mother too much,” Patterson said. “Including me.” He finished his drink.

“The problem is,” Oliver said, “to permit him to behave as much like a normal boy as possible—without letting him overdo anything. He mustn’t strain himself or tire himself too much—but I don’t want him to feel as though he’s an invalid. The next year or two are going to be crucial—and I don’t want him to grow up feeling fearful or unlucky …”

“Poor little boy,” Bunner said softly, staring out at the approaching boat.

“That’s exactly the wrong tack,” Oliver said quickly. “No pity. No pity at all, please. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad I can’t stay up here for the next few weeks with Tony myself. That’s why I don’t want him left alone with his mother. And why I’ve been looking for a young man as a companion. I want him to be exposed to some normal, youthful, twenty-year-old callousness. I imagine you can manage that … ?”

Bunner smiled. “Do you want some references?”

“Do you have a girl?” Oliver asked.

“Now, Oliver,” Patterson said.

Oliver turned to Patterson. “One of the most important things you can know about a twenty-year-old boy is whether he has a girl or not,” he said mildly. “Whether he’s had one, whether he’s between girls at the moment.”

“I have one,” Bunner said, then added, “approximately.”

“Is she here?” Oliver asked.

“If I told you she was here,” Bunner said, “would you give me the job?”

“No.”

“She’s not here,” Bunner said promptly.

Oliver bent down, hiding a smile, and picked up the telescope, collapsing it against his palm. “Do you know anything about astronomy?”

Patterson grunted. “This is the damnedest set of questions,” he said.

“Tony is sure he wants to be an astronomer when he grows up,” Oliver explained, playing with the telescope. “And it would help if …”

“Well,” Bunner said doubtfully, “I know a little bit …”

“What time tonight,” Oliver asked, like a schoolteacher, “do you think the constellation Orion will be visible?”

Patterson shook his head and heaved himself to his feet. “I certainly am glad I’ll never have to ask. you for a job,” he said.

Bunner was grinning at Oliver. “You’re very devious, aren’t you, Mr. Crown?”

“Why do you say that?” Oliver asked innocently.

“Because you know that Orion can’t be seen in the Northern Hemisphere until September,” Bunner said cheerfully, “and you were waiting for me to make a fool of myself.”

“The job pays thirty dollars a week,” Oliver said. “It includes teaching Tony how to swim, going fishing with him, watching stars with him, and preventing him, as much as possible, from listening to those damned serials on the radio.” Oliver hesitated and then spoke in a lower and graver tone of voice. “It also includes winning him away—diplomatically—a certain distance from his mother, because their relationship, as of this moment …” He stopped, conscious that he was on the verge of sounding harsher than he wanted to sound. “What I mean,” he said, “is that for the good of both of them it would be better if they weren’t quite so dependent upon each other. Do you want the job?”

“Yes,” Bunner said.

“Good,” Oliver said, “you can start tomorrow.”

Patterson sighed in mock relief. “I’m exhausted,” he said. He sank into the chair again.

“I turned down three other young men, you know,” Oliver said.

“I heard,” said Bunner.

“Young men today seem to be either vulgar or cynical and the worst ones are both,” said Oliver.

“You should have tried a Dartmouth man sooner,” Bunner said.

“I believe one of them was a Dartmouth man,” said Oliver.

“He must have gotten in on an athletic scholarship.”

“I suppose I ought to warn you about a troublesome little wrinkle in Tony’s … uh … character,” Oliver said. “I guess you can talk about a thirteen-year-old boy’s character, can’t you? When he was sick and had to stay in bed for so long he developed a tendency toward—well—fantasy. Tall stories, fibs, lies, inventions. Nothing serious,” Oliver said, and Patterson could see how painful it was for Oliver to make such an admission about his son, “and my wife and I haven’t made an issue of it, considering the circumstances. Although I’ve spoken to him about it and he’s promised to put a rein on his—imagination. Anyway, if it comes up, I don’t want you to be surprised—and at the same time, I’d like to see it discouraged before it grows into a habit.”

Listening, Patterson had a sudden, chilly insight into Oliver. He must be disappointed, Patterson thought, he must feel that his own life is somehow empty, if he is working so hard on his son’s. Then Patterson rejected the idea. No, he thought, it’s just that he’s used to running things. It’s easier for him to run things than to let other people do it. His son is just another thing that he automatically runs.

“Oh …” Oliver was saying. “One more thing … Sex.”

Patterson waved his hand warningly. “Now, Oliver, now I think you’ve really gone too far.”

“Tony has no brothers or sisters,” Oliver explained, “and as I say—for the most natural reasons in the world, he’s been rather overprotected. And I’m afraid both his mother and myself have ducked the question up to now. If all goes well, he’ll be going to school this autumn and I’d rather he heard about sex from a bright young man who is studying to be a diplomat anyway than from the thirteen-year-old lechers of a fashionable private school.”

Bunner pulled gravely at his nose. “Where would you like me to begin?”

“Where did you begin?” Oliver asked.

“I’m afraid I’d have to begin later than that,” Bunner said. “Remember, I told you I have four older sisters.”

“Use your discretion,” Oliver said. “After six weeks I’d like him to have a calm … uh … understanding of the theory, without a violent desire to plunge into the … uh … practice—immediately.”

“I’ll do my best to be explicit,” the boy said, “without being lascivious. Everything in grave scientific language. No word under three syllables. And play down the more … uh … pleasurable aspects as much as possible?”

“Exactly,” Oliver said. He looked out over the lake. The boat was nearly into the shore by now and Tony was standing in the stern waving at him, over his mother’s shoulder, the sun reflecting off his smoked glasses. Oliver waved back. Still staring at his wife and his son, he said to Bunner, “I suppose I sound a little like a crank on the subject of the boy but I hate the way most children are being brought up these days. Either they’re given too much freedom and they grow up into undisciplined animals—or they’re clamped down and they become secretly vicious and vindictive and turn on their parents as soon as they can find some place else to get their meals. The main thing is—I don’t want him to grow up frightened …”

“How about you, Oliver?” Patterson asked curiously. “Aren’t you frightened?”

“Terribly,” Oliver said. “Hi, Tony,” he called and walked down to the water’s edge to help beach the boat.

Patterson stood up and he and Bunner watched Lucy drive the boat up onto the shingle with two last strong sweeps of the oars. Oliver held the bow steady as Lucy gathered a sweater and a book and stepped out. Tony balanced himself, then jumped off, disdaining help, into a few inches of water.

“The Holy Family,” Patterson murmured.

“What’s that, Sir?” Bunner asked, surprised, not sure that he’d heard what the doctor had said.

“Nothing,” said Patterson. “He certainly knows what he wants, doesn’t he?”

Bunner grinned. “He certainly does.”

“Do you think it’s possible for a father to get what he wants in a son?” Patterson asked.

Bunner glanced at the doctor, looking for a trap. “I haven’t thought about it,” he said carefully.

“Has your father got what he wanted from his son?”

Bunner almost smiled. “No.”

Patterson nodded.

They watched Oliver approach, flanked by Lucy on one side and Tony, carrying his fishing rod, on the other. Lucy was putting on a loose white sweater over her bathing suit. There was a slight gleam of perspiration on her upper lip and forehead, from the long row, and the wooden clogs on her bare feet fell noiselessly on the short grass. The group passed in and out of the sunlight between the trees and Lucy’s long, naked thighs shone, briefly and goldenly, when she emerged from the shadow of the trees. She walked very straight, keeping her hips in a strict line, as though trying to minimize her womanliness. At one point she stopped and put her hand against her husband’s shoulder and lifted her foot to dislodge a pebble from her clog and the group was posed there, immobile for one midsummer moment in slanting leafy sunlight.

Tony was talking as the group approached Patterson and Bunner. “This lake is all fished out,” he was saying. His voice was a clear, high childish alto, and although he was tall for his age, he seemed frail and undeveloped to Bunner, with a head too big for his body. “It’s too close to civilization. We ought to go to the North Woods. Except for the mosquitoes and the moose. You have to be careful of the moose. And you have to carry the canoe in on your head, Bert says. There’re so many fish, Bert says, they splinter the paddles.”

“Tony,” Oliver said gravely, “do you know what a grain of salt is?”

“Sure,” the boy said.

“That’s what you need for Bert.”

“Do you mean he’s a liar?” Tony asked.

“Not exactly,” said Oliver. “Just that he should be taken salted, like peanuts.”

“I’ve got to tell him that,” Tony said. “Like peanuts.”

They stopped in front of Patterson and Bunner. “Mr. Bunner,” Oliver said, “my wife. And Tony.”

“How do you do?” Lucy said. She nodded briefly and buttoned her sweater up to the neck.

Tony went over to Bunner and politely shook hands.

“Hello, Tony,” Bunner said.

“Hello,” said Tony. “Boy, your hand is calloused.”

“I’ve been playing tennis.”

“I bet in four weeks I can beat you,” Tony said. “Maybe five weeks.”

“Tony …” Lucy said warningly.

“Is that boasting?” Tony turned toward his mother.

“Yes,” she said.

Tony shrugged and turned back to Bunner. “I’m not allowed to boast,” he said. “I have a hot forehand, but my backhand has flaws. I don’t mind telling you,” he said candidly, “because you’d find it out anyway, in the first game. I once saw Ellsworth Vines play.”

“What did you think of him?” Bunner asked.

Tony made a face. “Overrated,” he said carelessly. “Just because he comes from California and he can play every day. You’ve been swimming.”

“Yes, I have,” Bunner said, puzzled and amused. “How do you know?”

“Easy. I can smell the lake on you.”

“That’s his one parlor trick,” Oliver said, coming over and ruffling the boy’s hair. “He had his eyes bandaged when he was sick and he developed the nose of a bloodhound.”

“I can swim, too. Like a streak,” Tony said.

“Tony …” It was Lucy again, with the tone of warning.

Tony smiled, caught out. “But only for ten strokes. Then I go under. I don’t know how to breathe.”

“We’ll work on that,” Bunner said. “You can’t go through life not knowing how to breathe.”

“I have to put my mind to it,” Tony said.

“Jeff’ll teach you, Tony,” Oliver said. “He’s going to stay with you until the end of the summer.”

Lucy glanced sharply at her husband, then dropped her eyes. Tony, too, stared at Oliver, carefully, with guarded suspicion, remembering nurses, medicines, regimes, pain, captivity. “Oh,” he said. “Is he going to take care of me?”

“Not exactly,” Oliver said. “Just help you catch up on a couple of things.”

Tony examined Oliver for a long moment, trying to discover just how candid his father was being. Then he turned and silently inspected Bunner, as though now that their connection had been announced it was necessary to start the process of judgment immediately.

“Jeff,” Tony said finally, “how are you as a fisherman?”

“When the fish see me coming,” Bunner said, “they roar with laughter.”

Patterson looked at his watch. “I think we’d better be going, Oliver. I have to pay my bill and throw on some clothes and I’m ready.”

“You said there was something you wanted to tell Tony,” Oliver said.

Lucy glanced from his face to Patterson’s, distrustfully.

“Yes,” Patterson said. Now that the moment had come he was sorry he had given into Oliver’s demand. “Still,” he said, conscious that he was being cowardly, “don’t you think it could wait for another time?”

“I think this is the very best time, Sam,” Oliver said evenly. “You’re not going to see Tony for another month, at least, and Tony after all is the one who’s finally responsible for taking care of himself and I think it’d be better if he knew just what he has to expect and why …”

“Oliver …” Lucy began.

“Sam and I have talked all this out already, Lucy,” Oliver said, touching her hand.

“What do I have to do now?” Tony asked, eyeing Patterson distrustfully.

“You don’t have to do anything, Tony,” Patterson said. “I just want to tell you how things are with you.”

“I feel fine.” Tony sounded sullen as he said this and he looked unhappily at the ground.

“Of course,” Patterson said. “And you’re going to feel a lot better.”

“I feel good enough,” Tony said stubbornly. “Why do I have to feel better?”

Patterson and Oliver laughed at this, and, after a moment, Bunner joined in.

“Well enough,” Lucy said. “Not good enough.”

“Well enough,” Tony said obediently.

“Of course you do,” Patterson began.

“I don’t want to stop anything,” Tony said warningly. “I stopped enough things already in my life.”

“Tony,” said Oliver, “let Dr. Patterson finish what he has to say.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Tony.

“All I want to tell you,” Patterson said, “is that you mustn’t try to read for a while yet, but aside from that, you can do almost anything you want—in moderation. Do you know what moderation means?”

“It means not asking for a second ice-cream soda,” Tony said promptly.

They all laughed at that and Tony looked around him, shrewdly, because he had known it was going to make them laugh.

“Exactly,” Patterson said. “You can play tennis and you can swim and …”

“I want to learn to play second base,” said Tony. “I want to learn to hit curves.”

“We can try,” Bunner said, “but I don’t guarantee anything. I haven’t hit a curve yet and I’m a lot older than you. You’re either born hitting curves or you’re not.”

“You can do all that, Tony,” Patterson went on, noting somewhere at the back of his mind that Bunner was a pessimist, “on one condition. And the condition is that as soon as you feel yourself getting the least bit tired, you quit. The least bit …”

“And if I don’t quit?” the boy said sharply. “What happens then?”

Patterson looked inquiringly at Oliver.

“Go ahead and tell him,” Oliver said.

Patterson shrugged and turned back to Tony. “Then you might have to go back to bed and stay there again for a long time. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“You mean I might die,” Tony said, ignoring the question.

“Tony!” Lucy said. “Dr. Patterson didn’t say that.”

Tony looked around him with hostility and Patterson had the impression, for a moment, that the boy was regarding the people who surrounded him not as his parents and friends, but as the instigators and the representatives of his illness.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. He smiled and the hostility vanished. “I won’t die.”

“Of course not,” said Patterson, resenting Oliver for having put him through a scene like that. He took a step forward to the boy and leaned over him a little, coming closer to his level.

“Tony,” he said, “I want to congratulate you.”

“Why?” Tony asked, a little guardedly, suspecting teasing.

“You’re a model patient,” Patterson said. “You recovered. Thank you.”

“When can I throw away these?” Tony asked. He put his hand up with a quick movement and took off his glasses. His voice suddenly seemed mature and bitter. Without has glasses his eyes looked deepset, peering, full of melancholy and judgment, alarming in the thin, boyish face.

“Maybe in a year or two,” Patterson said. “If you do the exercises every day. One hour each morning, one hour each night. Will you remember that?”

“Yes, Sir,” Tony said. He put on the glasses and they made him seem boyish again.

“Your mother knows all the exercises,” Patterson said, “and she’s promised she won’t skip a minute …”

“You can show them to me, Doctor,” said Bunner, “and we can spare Mrs. Crown.”

“There’s no need of that,” Lucy said quickly. “I’ll do it.”

“Of course,” Jeff said. “Whatever you say.”

Tony went over to Oliver. “Daddy,” he said, “do you have to go home?”

“I’m afraid so,” Oliver said. “But I’ll try to come up on a week-end later in the month.”

“Your father has to go back to the city and work,” Patterson said, “so that he can afford to pay me, Tony.”

Oliver smiled. “I think you should have allowed me to make that joke, Sam.”

“Sorry.” Patterson went over and kissed Lucy on the cheek. “Bloom,” he said, “bloom like the wild rose.”

“I’m walking past the hotel,” Bunner said. “Do you mind if I tag along with you, Doctor?”

“My pleasure,” Patterson said. “You can tell me what it’s like to be twenty.”

“So long, Tony,” said Bunner. “What time should I arrive tomorrow? Nine o’clock?”

“Ten-thirty,” Lucy said quickly. “That’s early enough.”

Bunner glanced at Oliver. “Ten-thirty it is,” he said.

He and Patterson started up the path toward the hotel, a big, gravely moving, bulky man and an agile, slender, dark boy in grass-stained canvas shoes. Lucy and Oliver watched them for a moment in silence.

That boy is too sure of himself, Lucy thought, watching the graceful, retreating figure. Imagine coming asking for a job wearing a sweatshirt. For a moment she thought of turning on Oliver and complaining about Bunner. At least, she thought, he might have let me be here when he interviewed him. Then she decided not to complain. It was done, and she knew Oliver too well to believe that she could change his mind. She would have to try to handle the young man by herself, her own way.

She hunched her shoulders and rubbed her bare thighs. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m going to put on some clothes. Are you all packed, Oliver?”

“Just about,” he said. “There’re a couple of things I have to collect. I’ll go in with you.”

“Tony,” Lucy said. “You’d better put some pants on, too, and some shoes.”

“Oh, Mother.”

“Tony,” she said, thinking, He never talks back to Oliver.

“Oh, all right,” Tony said, and he led the way, shuffling his feet luxuriously in the cool thick grass of the lawn, into the house.