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“I think we ought to stay here for awhile,” Mrs. Goodhart said, trying to keep her balance on the wet cord surface of the heaving raft. “Until it calms down a little.”
“It’s going to get worse, Mrs. Goodhart,” Thomas said. “In a few minutes you won’t have a chance of getting in.”
Dwyer, worried about being too close to shore, had gone out another five hundred yards and was circling there. Anyway, there was no chance of getting Mrs. Goodhart up on the rolling boat in that sea without hurting her badly.
“You’ll just have to come in with us right now,” Thomas said to Mrs. Goodhart.
Mr. Goodhart didn’t say anything. He was sober now.
“Nathaniel,” Mrs. Goodhart said to her husband, “will you tell him I’m going to stay here until the sea calms a bit.”
“You heard what he said,” Mr. Goodhart said. “You wanted to swim in. Swim in.” He toppled into the water.
By now there were at least twenty people clustered on the rocks, safely out of reach of the spume, watching the group on the raft.
Thomas took Mrs. Goodhart’s hand and said, “In we go. Together.” He stood up shakily and brought her to her feet and they jumped in, holding hands. Once in the sea, Mrs. Goodhart was less frightened and they swam side by side toward the ladder. As they came closer to the rocks, they felt themselves being swept forward by a wave, then sucked back as it broke against the rocks and receded. Thomas trod water and shouted, to be heard above the noise of the sea. “I’ll go in first. Then Mrs. Goodhart. Watch how I do it. I’ll go in on a wave and catch onto the railing and hold on. Then, I’ll give you the signal when to start. Swim as hard as you can. I’ll grab you when you get to the ladder. Just hold onto me. You’ll be all right.” He wasn’t sure that anybody would be all right, but he had to say something.
He waited, looking over his shoulder at the oncoming
waves. He saw a big one, thrashed hard with his arms, rode it in, smashed against the steel of the ladder, grabbed the railing, hung on against the pull away. Then he stood up, faced seaward. “Now!” he shouted at Mrs. Goodhart, and she came in fast, high above him for an instant, then breaking down. He grabbed her, held her tight, just managing to keep her from sliding back. Hurriedly, he pushed her up the ladder. She stumbled, but got to the safety of the rock platform before the next wave crashed in.
Mr. Goodhart, when he came in, was so heavy that, for a moment, Thomas lost his grip and he thought they were both going to be washed back. But the old man was strong. He swung in the water and grabbed the other pipe, holding onto Thomas at the same time. He didn’t need any help up the ladder, but climbed it decorously, looking coldly at the silent group of spectators above him, as though he had caught them prying into some intensely private affair of his own.
Kate came in lightly and she and Thomas climbed the ladder together.
They got towels from the locker room attendant and dried themselves off, although there was nothing to do about their wet suits.
Mr. Goodhart called the hotel for his car and chauffeur and merely said, “That was very well done, Captain,” when the car came down for Thomas and Kate. He had borrowed terrycloth robes for himself and Mrs. Goodhart and had ordered them all drinks at the bar while Kate and Thomas were drying themselves off. As he stood there, in the long robe, like a toga, you’d never think that he had been drinking all afternoon and had nearly got them all drowned just fifteen minutes before.
He held the door of the car open for Kate and Thomas. As Thomas got in, Mr. Goodhart said, “We have to settle up, Captain. Will you be in the harbor after di
Thomas had pla
“Very good, Captain. We’ll have a farewell drink aboard.” Mr. Goodhart closed the car door and they drove up the driveway, with the pines along its borders thrashing their branches about in the increasing wind.
When Thomas and Kate got out of the car on the quay they left two wet spots on the upholstery where they had been sitting in their bathing suits. The Clothilde hadn’t come into the harbor yet and they sat with towels wrapped around their shoulders on an overturned dinghy on the quay and shivered.
Fifteen minutes later the Clothilde came into port. They grabbed the lines from Dwyer, made her fast, jumped on board, and rushed to put on dry clothes. Kate made a pot of coffee and as they drank it in the pilot house, with the wind whistling through the rigging, Dwyer said, “The rich. They always find a way of making you pay.” Then he got out the hose, attached it to a water line on the quay and they all three of them began to scrub down the ship. There was salt crusted everywhere.
After di
It was a clear, warm night, and Thomas sat on the afterdeck, smoking a pipe, admiring the stars, waiting for Mr. Goodhart. He had made up the bill and it was in an envelope in the pilot house. It didn’t amount to very much—just fuel, laundry, a few bottles of whiskey and vodka, ice and the twelve hundred francs a day for food for himself and the two others. Mr. Goodhart had given him a check for the charter itself the first day he had come aboard. Before going ashore, Kate had packed the Goodharts’ belongings, extra bathing suits, clothes, shoes, and books, in two of the hotel baskets. The baskets were on deck, near the after rail.
Thomas saw the lights of Mr. Goodhart’s car coming up to the quay. He stood up as the car stopped and Mr. Goodhart got out and came up the gangplank. He was dressed for the evening, in a gray suit and white shirt and dark silk tie. Somehow he looked older and frailer in his city clothes.
“May I offer you something to drink?” Thomas asked.
“A whiskey would be nice, Captain,” Mr. Goodhart said. He was absolutely sober now. “If you’ll join me.” He sat down in one of the folding canvas-and-wood chairs while Thomas went to the saloon for the drinks. On his way up, he went into the pilot house and got the envelope with the bill.
“Mrs. Goodhart has a slight chill,” Mr. Goodhart said, as Thomas gave him the glass. “She’s gone to bed for the night. She especially commanded me to tell you how much she enjoyed these two weeks.”
“That’s very kind of her,” Thomas said. “It was a pleasure having her with us.” If Mr. Goodhart wasn’t going to mention the afternoon’s adventure, he wasn’t going to say a word about it, either. “I made up the bill, sir,” he said. He gave the envelope to Mr. Goodhart. “If you want to go over it and …”
Mr. Goodhart waved the envelope negligently. “I’m sure it’s in order,” he said. He took the bill out, squinted at it briefly in the light of the quay lamp post. He had a checkbook with him and he wrote out a check and handed it to Thomas. “There’s a little something extra there for you and the crew, Captain,” he said.
Thomas glanced at the check. Five-hundred-dollar bonus. Like last year. “It’s most generous of you, sir.” Oh, for summers of Goodharts!
Mr. Goodhart waved off gratitude. “Next year,” he said, “perhaps we can make it a full month. There’s no law that says that we have to spend the whole summer in the house in Newport, is there?” He had explained that ever since he was a boy he had spent July and August in the family house in Newport and now his married son and two daughters and their children spent their holidays there with Mrs. Goodhart and himself. “We could give the house over to the younger generation,” Mr. Goodhart went on, as though trying to convince himself. “They could have orgies or whatever the younger generation has these days when we’re not around. Maybe we could steal a grandchild or two and go on a real cruise with you.” He settled comfortably back in his chair, sipping at his drink, playing with this new idea. “If we had a month, where could we go?”