Chapter 23

The next morning, Newland left the Fall River train. Boston steamed in the middle of summer. Near the station, beer and coffee filled the air.

Old fruit added a sickly smell. Crowds moved through the streets without their coats. They acted like people sharing one house, walking toward the bathroom.

Newland found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club. He planned to eat breakfast there. Even the rich streets looked like untidy homes.

European cities never seemed so careless, even in great heat. Workers in light cotton rested on rich people's steps. The Common looked dirty after a huge outdoor party.

No place seemed less fitting for Ellen Olenska. Newland often imagined her in unlikely scenes. Yet he could not place her inside this empty, heat-beaten Boston.

He ate with a good appetite and careful order. First came a piece of melon. Then he read the morning paper while waiting for eggs and bread.

New energy filled him since the night before. He told May that business required him in Boston. He would take the Fall River boat that night.

The following evening, he would continue to New York. Everyone already expected him to return early that week. An office letter made his changed plan look honest.

When he returned from Portsmouth, the letter waited on the hall table. Chance placed it in plain sight for him. Newland almost felt ashamed.

His lie came too easily. For one troubling moment, he remembered Lawrence Lefferts. Lefferts arranged false plans perfectly when seeking freedom.

The thought soon passed. Newland did not wish to study his own reasons. He finished breakfast, smoked, and read the _Commercial Advertiser_.

Two or three men he knew entered the club. They exchanged the usual greetings. Boston belonged to the same small world after all.

Still, Newland felt outside ordinary time and place. He seemed to slip through the fine threads holding his world together.

At half past nine, he entered the writing room. He wrote Ellen a short note. Then he sent a man to the Parker House in a cab.

The man must wait there for an answer. Newland hid behind another newspaper. He tried to judge the cab's travel time.

Suddenly a club servant spoke beside him. "The lady was out, sir."

"Out?" Newland repeated. The simple word sounded foreign.

He stood and entered the hall. There must be some mistake. Ellen could not leave her hotel so early.

Then he grew angry with himself. Why did he wait until after breakfast? He should send the note as soon as he arrived.

Newland took his hat and walking stick. Outside, Boston became strange, huge, and empty. He felt like a traveler from another land.

He waited on the club step. Then he decided to visit the Parker House. The hotel worker might be wrong.

Perhaps Ellen was still there. Newland started across the Common.

On the first seat under a tree, he saw her. A grey silk sunshade covered her head. How could he imagine her with a pink one?

Ellen sat without energy, as if no duty waited. He saw the soft line of her face. Her hair rested in a low circle under a dark hat.

A long glove covered the hand holding her sunshade. It was marked with many small lines. Newland moved a few steps nearer.

Ellen turned and saw him. "Oh," she said.

For the first time, surprise showed openly on her face. A slow smile soon replaced it. The smile held wonder and quiet pleasure.

"Oh," she said again, with a different sound.

Newland stood above her and stared. Ellen did not rise. She moved aside and made room for him.

"I came on business," he explained. "I just arrived."

For some reason, he pretended surprise at finding her. "But what are you doing in this empty place?"

He hardly knew what he said. It felt like shouting across a great distance. Ellen might disappear before he reached her.

"I also came on business," she answered.

She turned until they faced each other. Newland barely heard the words. Her voice itself held him.

He suddenly knew that memory kept no true sound of it. He forgot its low notes. He forgot the slight roughness around some sounds.

"You arrange your hair differently," he said.

His heart beat hard. The words felt final and dangerous.

"Differently? No. I only do my best without Nastasia."

"Is Nastasia not with you?"

"No, I am alone. Bringing her for two days seemed useless."

"You are alone at the Parker House?"

Old playful danger flashed in Ellen's eyes. "Does that seem unsafe to you?"

"Not unsafe."

"But it breaks the rules? Yes, perhaps it does. I never thought about that. I just broke a much greater rule."

A light smile remained in her eyes. "I refused to take back some money. The money belonged to me."

Newland jumped up and walked several steps. Ellen closed her sunshade. She drew shapes in the small stones with its point.

After a moment, he returned. He stood directly before her.

"Someone came here to meet you?"

"Yes."

"That person brought the offer?"

Ellen nodded.

"You refused because the offer had conditions?"

"I refused," she said after a pause.

Newland sat beside her again. "What were the conditions?"

"They were not very hard. I only needed to sit at his table sometimes. I would sit at its head."

Silence fell between them. Newland's heart shut itself again. He reached for words and found none.

"He wants you back at any price?"

"At a high price. At least, the amount seems very large to me."

Newland moved slowly around the question he feared. At last, he asked it.

"Did you come here to meet him?"

Ellen stared and then laughed. "Meet my husband here? At this time of year?"

"He is always at Cowes or Baden now."

"He sent someone?"

"Yes."

"With a letter?"

She shook her head. "No, only a spoken message. My husband never writes. I think he sent me only one letter."

Color rose in Ellen's face. Newland's face became just as red. Both remembered that one terrible letter.

"Why does he never write?" Newland asked.

"Why should he? That is what secretaries are for."

Ellen spoke the word as if it carried no hidden meaning. Newland almost asked whether the secretary came. The memory of Count Olenski's letter stopped him.

Instead, he tried another question. "And the man who brought this offer?"

Ellen still smiled. "He can leave whenever he wishes. But he plans to wait until this evening."

"He hopes I may change my mind."

"You came outside to think about that chance?"

"I came out for air. The hotel is too hot and close. I shall take the afternoon train to Portsmouth."

They watched people passing on the path. Neither spoke for a while. At last, Ellen looked at him again.

"You have not changed," she said.

Newland wanted to answer that he changed before seeing her. Instead, he stood suddenly. He looked around the hot, untidy park.

"This place is terrible. Let us go onto the bay. The air will be cooler there."

"We can take the steam boat to Point Arley. Few people travel on Monday morning. My train leaves this evening."

"I am returning to New York. Why should we not go?"

He looked down at her and spoke from his pain. "Have we not done everything we could?"

"Oh," Ellen said again.

She stood and opened her sunshade. She studied the park as if asking it for advice. Remaining there seemed impossible.

Then she looked into his face. "You must not say such things to me."

"I shall say anything you wish, or nothing. I shall not speak unless you ask. What harm can our day cause?"

"I only want to hear you."

Ellen took out a little watch. Its face was gold, and it hung from a bright chain.

"Do not count the time," Newland cried. "Give me this day. I want to take you away from that man."

"When will he come?"

Again Ellen's face grew warm. "At eleven."

"Then we must leave now."

"You need not fear anything if I stay."

"Nor should you fear if you come. I promise I only want your story. I want to know your life."

"We last met a hundred years ago. Another hundred may pass before we meet again."

Ellen still could not decide. Her worried eyes searched his face.

"Why did you not come to the beach at Granny's?" she asked. "She sent you to find me."

"You never turned around. You did not know I was there. I promised not to come unless you looked back."

Newland laughed at his childish rule.

"But I chose not to look," Ellen said.

"You chose it?"

"I knew you were there. I saw the ponies when you arrived. That is why I walked down to the beach."

"You wanted to get as far from me as possible?"

Ellen spoke very softly. "As far from you as possible."

Newland laughed again, now with a boy's delight. "Then you see it did no good."

"I may as well tell you the truth. My only Boston business was finding you. Now we must hurry or miss our boat."

"Our boat?" Ellen frowned, then smiled. "First I must return to the hotel. I need to leave a note."

"Write as many notes as you like. You can write here."

Newland opened a small paper case. He removed a fountain pen, a pen that carried its own ink. He even found an envelope.

"Everything planned itself for us," he said. "Place the paper on your knee. I shall start the ink."

He struck the pen against the back of the seat. "These pens need special treatment. It is like shaking down a heat meter. Try now."

Ellen laughed and bent over the paper. She wrote on the case across her knees. Newland walked several steps away.

He looked happily at nothing. Passing people looked at Ellen. A finely dressed woman rarely wrote on her knee in the Common.

Ellen put the paper in its envelope. She wrote a name outside and placed it in her pocket. Then she rose.

They walked back toward Beacon Street. Near the club, Newland saw the same public carriage. It carried his note to the Parker House.

This vehicle was a herdic, a small closed carriage for hire. Its soft seats faced each other. The driver now washed his hot face at a street water pipe.

"I told you everything was planned for us," Newland said. "Here is our carriage."

They laughed at this small wonder. Finding a public carriage there was unusual. Boston still saw carriage stations as a foreign idea.

Newland checked his watch. They had time to stop at the Parker House. Afterward, they could drive to the steam boat.

The herdic shook through the hot streets. It stopped before the hotel. Newland reached for Ellen's letter.

"Shall I carry it inside?" he asked.

Ellen shook her head. She jumped out and disappeared through the glass doors. It was only half past ten.

Still, Newland feared the messenger came early. The man might already sit among the travelers inside. Cold drinks stood near those waiting guests.

Newland walked up and down beside the herdic. A young Sicilian offered to shine his shoes. The boy's eyes looked like Nastasia's.

An older Irish woman offered him peaches. Every few moments, the hotel doors opened. Hot men came out with straw hats pushed back.

Each looked at Newland while passing. He wondered why the doors opened so often. All those hot faces seemed alike.

Across the country, similar men crossed similar hotel doors. They flowed in and out without end.

Then one face broke the repeating pattern. Newland saw it only for a moment. His walk carried him far from the door.

He turned and saw a young pale man among the others. Some faces were long and tired. Others were round, surprised, or gentle.

This face held many things at once. Heat or worry almost put out its life. Still, it looked quicker and more awake.

Perhaps its foreign difference caused that effect. Newland hung from one thin thread of memory. Then the thread broke.

The face disappeared with the crowd. It seemed to belong to some foreign businessman. Newland returned to walking.

He did not want hotel guests seeing his watch. So he tried to count the minutes himself. Ellen soon seemed gone too long.

Perhaps she met her husband's messenger inside. Perhaps the man stopped her from leaving. Newland's fear became real pain.

"If she does not return soon, I shall find her," he thought.

The doors opened again, and Ellen stood beside him. They entered the herdic. Only then did Newland check his watch.

Ellen was gone for three minutes. The loose windows made a terrible noise. Talking became impossible as they crossed the broken stones toward the water.

They sat side by side on the half-empty boat. At first, they found almost nothing to say. Their silence spoke better than words.

They were free for a few hours and alone together. This fact filled the quiet between them.

Wide side wheels began to push the steam boat forward. The docks and ships moved away behind a curtain of heat. Newland's old world seemed to move away too.

He wanted to ask whether Ellen felt it. Perhaps they began a long journey with no return. But he feared disturbing her trust.

He truly did not want to betray it. For many nights, memory of their kiss burned on his lips. The day before, thoughts of Ellen ran through him like fire.

Now she sat beside him. Together, they moved into an unknown world. They reached a deeper closeness.

One touch might break it apart.

The boat left the harbor and turned toward the open sea. A cool wind moved around them. The bay first rose in long smooth lines.

Soon little waves appeared, each with a white edge. A cover of heat still hung above Boston. Ahead, fresh water opened under the sun.

Far points of land reached into the bay. White lighthouses shone on them. Ellen rested against the boat's rail.

She opened her lips and drank the cool air. A long thin covering wound around her hat. Her face remained clear.

Newland saw calm happiness there. Ellen treated their journey as natural. She did not fear meeting someone they knew.

Nor did that danger make her too excited. This troubled Newland even more.

At Point Arley, they entered a simple hotel. Newland hoped its eating room would be empty. Instead, noisy young men and women filled it.

They looked harmless and good. The hotel owner said they were schoolteachers on holiday. Newland's heart fell at their loud talk.

"This is impossible," he said. "I shall ask for a private room."

Ellen raised no objection. She waited while he found one. The room opened onto a long wooden verandah.

Sea air entered through its windows. The room was cool and bare. A rough cloth with squares covered its table.

A bottle of pickled vegetables stood there. A blueberry pie rested under a cover. No secret couple ever found a more innocent room.

Newland saw the same joke in Ellen's small smile. She sat across from him without fear.

Ellen once escaped her husband. People said another man helped her. Such a woman might learn to accept strange scenes calmly.

Yet her peace removed the sharp edge from Newland's thought. She was quiet, simple, and unsurprised. Beside her, ordinary social rules disappeared.

Two old friends needed privacy. They carried years of words between them. Being alone together seemed the most natural thing in the world.