He went swimming. Clarissa remained on the sand, bundled in her wrap. When he came out of the water, he lay down near her. He watched his neighbors and their children. The weather had been fair. The women were tanned. They were all married women and, unlike Clarissa, women with children, but the rigors of marriage and childbirth had left them all pretty, agile, and contented. While he was admiring them, Clarissa stood up and took off her bathrobe.
Here was something else, and it took his breath away. Some of the inescapable power of her beauty lay in the whiteness of her skin, some of it in the fact that, unlike the other women, who were at ease in bathing suits, Clarissa seemed humiliated and ashamed to find herself wearing so little. She walked down toward the water as if she were naked. When she first felt the water, she stopped short, for, again unlike the others, who were sporting around the pier like seals, Clarissa didn’t like the cold. Then, caught for a second between nakedness and the cold, Clarissa waded in and swam a few feet. She came out of the water, hastily wrapped herself in the robe, and lay down in the sand. Then she spoke, for the first time that morning?for the first time in Baxter’s experience?with warmth and feeling.
“You know, those stones on the point have grown a lot since I was here last,” she said.
“What?” Baxter said.
“Those stones on the point,” Clarissa said. “They’ve grown a lot.”
“Stones don’t grow,” Baxter said.
“Oh yes they do,” Clarissa said. “Didn’t you know that? Stones grow. There’s a stone in Mother’s rose garden that’s grown a foot in the last few years.”
“I didn’t know that stones grew,” Baxter said.
“Well, they do,” Clarissa said. She yawned; she shut her eyes. She seemed to fall asleep. When she opened her eyes again, she asked Baxter the time.
“Twelve o’clock,” he said.
“I have to go home,” she said. “I’m expecting guests.”
Baxter could not contest this. He drove her home. She was unresponsive on the ride, and when he asked her if he could drive her to the beach again, she said no. It was a hot, fair day and most of the doors on the island stood open, but when Clarissa said goodbye to Baxter, she closed the door in his face.
Baxter got Clarissa’s mail and newspapers from the post office the next day, but when he called with them at the cottage, Mrs. Talbot said that Mrs. Ryan was busy. He went that week to two large parties that she might have attended, but she was not at either. On Saturday night, he went to a barn dance, and late in the evening?they were dancing “Lady of the Lake”?he noticed Clarissa, sitting against the wall.
She was a striking wallflower. She was much more beautiful than any other woman there, but her beauty seemed to have intimidated the men. Baxter dropped out of the dance when he could and went to her. She was sitting on a packing case. It was the first thing she complained about. “There isn’t even anything to sit on,” she said.
“Don’t you want to dance?” Baxter asked.
“Oh, I love to dance,” she said. “I could dance all night, but I don’t think that’s dancing.” She winced at the music of the fiddle and the piano. “I came with the Hortons. They just told me there was going to be a dance. They didn’t tell me it was going to be this kind of a dance. I don’t like all that skipping and hopping.”
“Have your guests left?” Baxter asked.
“What guests?” Clarissa said., “You told me you were expecting guests on Tuesday. When we were at the beach.”
“I didn’t say they were coming on Tuesday, did I?” Clarissa asked. “They’re coming tomorrow.”
“Can’t I take you home?” Baxter asked.
“All right.”
He brought the car around to the barn and turned on the radio. She got in and slammed the door with spirit. He raced the car over the back roads, and when he brought it up to the Ryans’ cottage, he turned off the lights. He watched her hands. She folded them on her purse. “Well, thank you very much,” she said. “I was having an awful time and you saved my life. I just don’t understand this place, I guess. I’ve always had plenty of partners, but I sat on that hard box for nearly an hour and nobody even spoke to me. You saved my life.”
“You’re lovely, Clarissa,” Baxter said.
“Well,” Clarissa said, and she sighed. “That’s just my outward self. Nobody knows the real me.”
