The Two Saplings. Mazo de la Roche
and then subsiding into bickerings. Robert seemed inclined to take this crisis seriously, to be glad they were on their way back to America. She wanted a cigarette but knew she could not light it in the strong breeze. It was annoying. She kept imagining what it would be like to light a cigarette, to draw from it those first satisfying puffs.
She wondered where Palmer was. She wished he would come and get his warm sweater. After that nasty cold he’d had in Paris he needed special care. She took up her book and tried to read. But she was uneasy. She was certain that the Customs would charge a ridiculous duty on the things she had bought in Paris. If only Robert weren’t so terribly honest about declaring their purchases! She remembered the time she and Janet had come over by themselves and how she hadn’t declared anything and had got away with it.
Palmer came up. “Hey, Mom,” he said, “did you see all those planes?”
“No, darling, I was reading. But you’re just the boy I want. I want you to put on your sweater. Here it is.” She drew it from behind her and handed it to him with a tender yet half-annoyed look. “You’d stay out till you froze and never notice it.”
He drew back from her as though she were offering him poison.
“Why, Mom,” he exclaimed, “you don’t want to roast me alive, do you? Gee whizz, just feel me! I’m hot as an oven already.” He held out a rather grimy hand and round brown wrist.
“No. I don’t want to feel you. I want you to put your sweater on.” She pushed it against him.
“The boy I was with up in the bow has nothing but a cotton shirt on!”
“Palmer, will you please believe that mother knows best, and do what she tells you?”
When Camilla began to talk of herself in the third person, Palmer began to feel bored. He’d rather do what she said than go on listening to her. He took the thick striped sweater and began to struggle into it, as though there were not an instant to be lost.
“Palmer, do it more quietly. Goodness’ sakes, you’ll have it torn in another minute.”
“O.K., Mom.” There was defiant acquiescence in his voice. Then suddenly he gave her his sweet smile and escaped. The sweater wrinkled across his shoulders but, somehow, Palmer always wore his clothes well. He had a good figure and a good walk.
She was tired of fresh air. She yawned and thought of the moment when she would have a hot bath and a cigarette in her bedroom in the hotel. Now she saw Robert coming toward her down the deck. He had a boy Palmer’s age with him. It must be the boy Palmer had spoken of, for he wore a soft white shirt open at the throat. He was tanned a deep brown. Contrasted with his skin, his fair hair and eyebrows looked almost silvery. Robert and the boy stopped quite near her and leant against the rail staring at some planes circling overhead. She watched them, feeling rather amused by the similarity of their attitudes. Each had his elbows bent above the rail, his legs stiff, his face upturned and jaw dropped; one large figure; one small; it was ridiculous.
When the planes had passed she caught Robert’s eye and beckoned to him. He came, smiling.
“What is it, Camilla?”
“I’ve been dying for a smoke for ages but I can’t get a light in this wind. I feel stiff all over. Who is that boy?”
He gave her a cigarette, lighted it from his lighter, and said,—“You might feel better if you walked around. I don’t know who the youngster is but he’s mighty intelligent. He’s with his parents—they’re English.”
She closed her eyes and took a few delicious puffs at the cigarette. When she opened them the boy had drawn a little closer. He was looking at her with polite interest. She smiled.
He returned the smile, flushed a little and was turning away, when she asked:
“Have you been on your vacation too?”
He nodded. “Yes. We’ve been to Italy.”
“Is this your first trip there?”
“Oh, no. Some of us always go in the summer holidays.”
“It’s pretty hot there in the summer, isn’t it?”
“Rather.”
“I should think you’d go to Norway or Sweden.”
“Well, you see, my grandmother—that is, one of my grandmothers—lives in Bordighera.”
Robert interrupted,—“There’s that queer-looking plane again! I’ve never seen one just like it.”
He and the boy stared upward, and Camilla was struck by their resemblance. This time, however, it was more than mere attitude. If the boy had been Robert’s son people would have said he was the image of his father. What a strange thing resemblance was! There was Palmer, not really looking like any of the family. And here this strange boy with a profile so extraordinarily like Robert’s. He had even the same odd little nick in the edge of the nostril and the cleft in the chin. She wished they would not keep moving their heads about. She would like to have them right in front of her and compare them. She began to talk to the boy to keep him from going away.
“Aren’t you chilly in that thin shirt?” she asked. “I should think after being in Italy you’d feel this wind raw. I certainly do.”
“I’m quite warm,” he answered a little distantly, as though he were afraid she was going to be interfering.
“I think you’ve met my son,” she added quickly. “He was speaking of you. He’s like you, he never feels the cold.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I see him now up in the bow. I think I’ll find out what he’s up to!” He ran off.
Camilla drew a deep breath. She turned to Robert who had sat down beside her.
“I’ll be damned,” she said, “if I’ve ever seen anything like it! It’s enough to frighten you.”
He looked at her blankly. “What’s enough to frighten you?”
“The resemblance between you and that boy. He’s a hundred times more like you than Palmer is.”
“So what?”
She laughed. “So what yourself? Perhaps your interest in him has some foundation.”
But, though she laughed, she stared hard at Robert. He bore her scrutiny with the calm of the deeply innocent.
“I’ve got to find out his name,” she said. “I guess Palmer will know it.”
Robert grunted. “Boys never know names,” he said.
As they spoke, Palmer came running toward them dishevelled and excited.
“We’ll land in half an hour!” he exclaimed. “Hadn’t we better collect our baggage, Boss?”
“Keep your hair on,” said his father. “What’s the name of the boy you were with?”
“Boy! What boy?” Palmer looked up and down the deck.
“Well, you were with a boy a minute ago, weren’t you?”
“Oh, him! I dunno.” He made as if to go. Camilla caught him and held him. “Palmer, listen to me: you’re to go and find that boy and ask him his name.”
“Gosh, Mom, I don’t want to know his name.” He moved his arm under her fingers as though she were hurting him.
She felt like hurting him. But she controlled herself and said,—“I want to know his name, Palmer. It doesn’t matter why. Just go back to him and, in a moment or so, say, just casually, that you’d like to know his name. Then, as soon as you can, come back and tell me.”
He gave her a look of mingled pity and reproach.
“I do wish he wasn’t so heedless!” she said to Robert.
“They’re