it was Catherine’s turn for ignoring. She brushed the garment vigorously in preparation and said: “Isn’t it grand to see Miss June up again?” Catherine emphasized the ‘Miss’ which she had not used before June’s illness. “And it’s different she is now, I’m thinking. More of a young lady.”
“Is that an improvement?” asked June.
“Sure and you don’t want to be a kid forever,” said Catherine. “Now will you kindly step out and away while I dress your grandmother?”
June trailed out of the room, glancing up in passing at the portrait of her grandfather on the wall near the door. She had never known him and, despite this portrait and others in the house, she had no clear picture of the man in her imagination. The house too, which was outwardly his shrine, had secretly forgotten him. His robust footsteps had faded from the halls, and if the corridors had ghosts they were not his. Believing firmly in the harmony of body and soul, he had taken his spirit courageously with him to the grave.
June moved down the stairs, laying her hand against the banister. Beneath her palm the wood stuck and made a small, squeaking sound. She pushed open the side door, which was of screen, and held it deliberately ajar while a fly zig-zagged into the house. Then she walked down the veranda steps and onto the lawn.
Mrs. Grey owned all the peninsula of which the house was center and, except for a small corner, would neither let nor sell. She owned the acid, moss-covered lawns and the tangled woods. She owned the beaches with their bluffs, their stones, their quick-mud creeks. The unkept, rutted roads were hers. The taxes for these things took the place of the suburban villa and the comfortable apartment in town for which her daughter-in-law sighed. But Mrs. Grey would stay out her life here and ask no change.
June now wandered slowly between the trees on the lawn. The shade from their expanded leaves threw a tender light on her head, and beneath her feet fresh rings of moss were scattered here and there. These brilliant, soft circles of varying sizes were like secret signals, or an antique alphabet which no one could read any more. June and her brothers had played many games around them and had attached to them a hundred meanings. Now June looked down carelessly with abstracted eyes.
She stepped out of the shade. Had anyone been watching, he would have seen, in the instant the sun hit her, a gleam of future beauty. Just now June was only half formed. There was a lack of harmony about her; that soft, sliding, disturbing quality that is at once the despair of adolescents and their fascination. Her face was over-large for the skull behind it. The strong sweep of her jawbone met her ears as though surprised to come so suddenly upon these exquisite, small shells. Her eyes were yellow-brown; set deep with rough brows above them. Her forehead was too high. Only her nose, piercing through, so to speak, from behind the mask of her face, showed the same proportion as that dainty skull. It was straight, narrow, pure and of medium length. The nostrils were so thin that one could see the blood through, and they quivered with every emotion, giving her an angel look. Then too, softening the whole, were the rich, blond locks of her hair which fell wild upon temple, cheek and nape.
June kicked through the spiked grasses of the pasture and avoided the five cows with her eyes. She had never gotten over her fear of them and did not want to attract them with her regard. A few mushrooms which had sprouted in the morning dew now lay dying. Their rosy, pleated undersides were black. She reached the woods and started down the steep path to the bay. Occasionally her knees bent the wrong way from weakness and sent a sharp twinge along her leg. She had had the intention of bathing, but now she knew she would never have the strength to do so. She went on simply because it was downhill and had no idea of how she would ever get back up. The path wound around the trunks of trees like a cool, dark snake slipping downwards to drink in the marsh. Presently June could see the glitter of water through the branches and she came to a little dell at the bottom of the path where a spring burst out of the ground and ran away.
Someone was here already; a boy on a horse. He was a lad of eleven or so, with a dark mop of hair and his horse was drinking thirstily at the spring. June was startled. One might wander through these woods day after day and never meet a soul. Then she noticed that the boy had a bird on his wrist and, probably to protect himself from beak or claw, wore a leather gauntlet which reached up his forearm. The boy was regarding her, black-eyed, from a face which, even in repose, bore a mobile, nervous expression.
An unaccountable feeling of happiness came over June on seeing this child, like the pleasant recollection of a dream which one cannot really remember. She spoke first. “Do you live near here?” She neither smiled nor made any gesture of friendship, but the boy did not seem shy.
“Yes, over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the beach. His voice was in that fluty stage which not all boys have. So far no trace of manhood marred its tone although it was touched by shrillness. June, listening, thought that it reminded her of something. Then she asked, surprised:
“You don’t live in the millionaire’s boathouse, do you?”
She was referring to a large brick building which had stood tenantless now for years, yawning over the water. Mrs. Grey had rented the land over ten years ago to a rich man called Walsh. No one knew why and perhaps there was no reason. At any rate Mrs. Grey had never given one to her son. Walsh had built a house on it for his mistresses and his speed boats, but no one seemed to know what had happened to him lately. Only a caretaker and his wife remained, and they kept to themselves and were ignorant of the intentions of their employer. A high wall around the property kept out intruders, or rather wild animals, since forests and reeds had grown up on three sides and on the other the salt water slid beneath the building, in and out.
The boy, who had not answered her question, now stated: “My name’s Ronny. What’s yours?”
“June.”
“You look rather funny,” he said.
June defended herself. “I’ve been sick. It’s the first time I’ve been out and I think I shouldn’t have, come so far.”
“I’m never sick,” said Ronny with a look of regret. Then suddenly his face changed as though a secret thought had opened like a rose inside his brain. “I sometimes have headaches,” he offered, looking down at her with that flirting glance which children sometimes give, a glance to which June could not respond. With a proud gesture he took the hood from his bird’s head. The falcon fluttered for a moment and then lifted himself straight upwards. They watched in silence as his dark wings cut the sky above the trees. “He’s a hunting hawk,” said Ronny.
“Is he hunting now?” asked June.
“Well, he doesn’t really hunt yet. I haven’t got as far as that with him, but he comes when I call him home at night.”
June started and looked up surprised. Ronny’s horse, long finished drinking, was tearing at the foliage which grew near the spring. Now and then he stamped his hoof impatiently. A big fly with a brilliant green head was bothering him, giving him long, vicious bites so that his flanks quivered.
“Do you know,” asked Ronny in his high, excited voice, “what happens when you put the leaves he is eating into the water?” With a kick he threw his bare leg over the horse’s back and slid to the ground. Grasping one of the weeds from beneath the animal’s nose, he pulled it up roots and all and plunged it into the water. He was like a magician performing a star trick and at once the leaves turned into precious silver, glittering as they bent beneath the water’s current. Ronny crouched there in triumph by the spring and his black hair fell across his eyes.
“It’s beautiful!” cried June, who had known about silver-weed all her life.
Ronny rose
