Ike O’Rourke had built himself a two-room cabin of unfinished pine, with a tar-paper roof. An adjoining lath and chicken-wire pen housed his three dogs. Across the entrance to the cove a pile driver on a barge had pounded a line of piles, lashed and meshed with heavy wire rope. Pontoons supported a gate which could be opened from the twenty-foot launch Ike had purchased in Monterey.

  The new construction, of course, had not been completed in a day, a week, a month. Events had intervened. Madeline Cheabrough had registered at Miss Pickett’s Academy. Fougasse came to occupy the post of chef de cuisine at Bird Island Hotel. And even Rexie the cat had his troubles.

  Chapter V

  The roster of the academy was at all times crowded, and only as a favor to Mrs. Cheabrough, herself a former student, did Miss Pickett consent to enroll Madeline for the spring term. The three stood on the sea wall looking out across the bay to Bird Island. Miss Pickett wore her customary black serge suit, with black flat-heeled shoes. Mrs. Cheabrough, a buxom woman with a stylish bust, was securely wrapped in the skins of dead animals. Madeline — a slim girl of seventeen, deceptively quiet, with long yellow hair, a pointed face with an expression designed to drive young men to drink — wore a gray flannel skirt and a pale blue cashmere cardigan.

  Miss Pickett had given Mrs. Cheabrough her field glasses for a look at Bird Island. “And those other buildings — what are they?” inquired Mrs. Cheabrough.

  Miss Pickett sniffed. “The construction on the crag will be the residence of a Mr. Green. The smaller house at the far left is the studio of Mr. Archer, really a gentleman. Behind the hill the Ottenbrights are —”

  “Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Madeline. “Look at the cute boys!”

  Mrs. Cheabrough complaisantly inspected a passing convertible with a crimson “Stanford” pasted to the windshield. Madeline turned to Miss Pickett. “I’m sure we’ll have ever so many parties and dances at the academy, won’t we, Miss Pickett?”

  “Of course, darling,” said Mrs. Cheabrough, whose memory of her years at Miss Pickett’s had been mellowed by the passage of time. “Miss Pickett understands that young folk like good times.”

  Miss Pickett’s mouth looked like a reef knot. “Primarily, of course, the academy emphasizes its scholastic and cultural program — but I expect —” the words dragged themselves forth reluctantly “— a few quiet affairs will be arranged.”

  “Nothing elaborate of course,” agreed Mrs. Cheabrough. “One reason I withdrew Madeline from the Sark Institute was their Midsummer Festival. Eight days, think of it! No, I fancy you plan nothing more than a weekly cotillion, perhaps a tennis party, a picnic, two or three formal dances a term. Am I right?”

  “Well, of course I expect the girls to enjoy themselves …”

  Mrs. Cheabrough did not appear to be listening. “I’m sure, Miss Pickett, you’ll think I’m a foolish old woman, and I know you want to be liberal — but I like Madeline to be in nights by twelve.”

  “Oh, Mother,” said Madeline disgustedly, “what’s the difference? Miss Pickett is up to date on things like that.”

  Mrs. Cheabrough shrugged. “Well, Miss Pickett knows best. But I’m sure she’ll insist on a curfew, at least during the week.”

  Miss Pickett found her voice. “Mrs. Cheabrough, you labor under the delusion that —”

  “Mother, look!” breathed Madeline. “Those boys are flirting with me! See them looking over here and smiling?”

  Mrs. Cheabrough gave the situation a swift glance. “No darling, I’m afraid not. It’s Miss Pickett at whom they’re smiling. I’m afraid her slip is showing.”

  “Oh,” said Madeline. Miss Pickett, after a shocked inspection over her shoulder, swept off toward the hotel.

  The catalogue of courses described Miss Celia Marlowe, A.B., as instructor for History of Music, Elements of Harmony, A Survey of Oriental Literature, Tennis: Beginners and Advanced. In addition to these formal duties, Celia found herself expected to correct and grade themes, essays, term papers for the English department, and in her spare moments, to manage Miss Pickett’s correspondence.

  Infused by enthusiasm, Celia enjoyed the first few weeks — though authority over girls at most four years her junior was strange and uncomfortable. Then the more routine of her duties began to pall. The themes read like the essays and the essays like the themes. Miss Pickett’s correspondence lost its fascination.

  Theoretically she was free Saturday afternoons and Sundays, but there seemed to be a succession of week-end emergencies which demanded her attention.

  Sunday. A bright sunny morning. Celia, just out of bed, was brushing her hair. She counted the last five strokes aloud, put down the brush. “Hello,” she said to the mirror. “I think you’re rather pretty, more than not …” She experimented, tightening her cheek muscles, pursing her lips. She jumped up from the dressing table, swirled her dressing gown close around her hips, walked away, watching over her shoulder. Everything was satisfactory. She threw off her robe, hopped out of her pajamas into dark green pedal-pushers, a loose dark green blouse.

  An assertive rapping at her door. “Celia!” Miss Pickett was in her most executive mood.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m going across to Monterey to sign for some books, and I want you to type up the letters I dictated yesterday.”

  “But Aunt Lydia —”

  “They’re very important; they should have been out Friday.”

  “Okay,” growled Celia.

  Miss Pickett departed and Celia trotted downstairs to the dining room, ate breakfast, loitered over coffee. She sighed. Miss Pickett had undoubtedly dictated enough letters to keep her busy all day. Celia played morosely with the silverware. Typing was a dull business, and it was a wonderful day outside, with a light breeze from the direction of Honolulu.

  She dragged herself to the office. This was divided into two sections: Miss Pickett’s private office and an outer office. Miss Pickett’s private office was locked, together with the dictation.

  Celia shrugged. Too bad, Aunt Lydia. The keys were in Miss Pickett’s bureau, but it wouldn’t be nice to go through all her drawers. With Miss Pickett out of the way, there were things to do, people to see. She ran down the stairs, out the door — quickly.

  She was out in the open air, and free. She strode briskly across the meadow, climbed through an open woods of cypress, and breasted to the crest of the sway-backed ridge.

  In front of her lay the hotel and the long white beach, behind her the academy. To the right and up was Milo’s house of redwood, glass and gray rock.

  She came to Milo’s house, approached a door of russet planks almost as thick and heavy as railroad ties. After a moment of tingling hesitation, she pressed the bell button.

  The door presently opened. Milo looked out. “Oh, hello … Come on in.”

  Celia sidled through the door into a room floored with red tile, and furnished with a massive refectory table and six leather-and-oak chairs. The far end of the room was dim. Stepping forward, Celia found herself overlooking a large living room with wide windows opening on the blue, white and green expanse.

  “How lovely!” said Celia fervently. “And what lovely banisters! Or —” doubtfully “— is it a balustrade?”

  “Balustrade,” said Milo. “A baluster is a single support of a balustrade, the word ‘banister’ being a corruption of ‘baluster’.”

  “You slide down banisters.”

  “True,” said Milo. “Or rather, you slide down the balustrade of a staircase.”

  “I’ll take the banisters, and I bet I get down first.”

  Milo ignored the challenge.

  Celia’s mood changed. “Oh Milo, what an absolutely wonderful house!”

  Milo’s air of vague dissatisfaction lifted. “You like it?”

  “It’s marvelous!”

  Milo shrugged. “It would have been better if I’d had a sensible architect. Dray fought me at every turn. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  Celia followed him past the long refectory table, which was waxed till it glistened like a pool of oil. To the right a waist-high counter separated them from a kitchen with walls painted dark green. The range, sink, cabinets were enameled terra cotta; windows opposite opened out to the bay.

  “I wanted a livelier tone for all that stuff,” grumbled Milo. “Vermilion, or yellow. Dray insisted on that rusty stuff.”

  “It’s lovely, Milo! It’s warm and restful. I think Mr. Dray has very good taste.”

  Milo sniffed. They descended to the living room.

  “I had to bargain with Dray,” said Milo. “He had his way upstairs, vice versa downstairs … This is the living room. Dray and I agreed on the furniture.” These were low and massive pieces — dark wood upholstered with a tough natural-colored cloth.

  Celia inspected the room with interest. The wall across from her was bare plaster, but evident were the first steps of a fresco. A rectangle had been lined out, a design blocked out on a grid. Milo noticed her interest.

  “It’ll be plants and flowers in bastard-Rousseau,” he told her gloomily. “I wanted a plaque in the Persian style. Dray saw my sketches and made me promise to put in nothing but those damn vegetables.”

  “I’m sure it will turn out nicely, Milo,” Celia soothed him. “I think the house is perfect.”

  Milo looked away. “Well I’m glad. Because eventually — perhaps — you’ll be living here.” He became absorbed in the view.

  “What?”

  “It’s not impossible that we might — be married,” said Milo, intent on the flight of a distant sea gull.

  “Milo!” cried Celia, in a queer voice. “Are you proposing to me?”

  “Proposals should be unnecessary,” said Milo.

  “How is a girl supposed to know then?” Her voice was hushed, rich, warm. “When she sees someone she likes, I suppose she says, ‘Since proposals are such obsolete blunders, if you’d like to get married, let’s not waste any time’?”

  “It should be a mutual understanding. Rapport. A telepathic intimation of singularity.”

  “People have to be in love before they marry,” said Celia.

  “See those window boxes? That’s where I’m going to plant geraniums,” said Milo vaguely.

  “Milo!” snapped Celia.

  “What?”

  “Oh … nothing. Show me your house.”

  He led her to a flight of stairs of lustrous maroon tile, each set with a sign of the Zodiac in red, blue, green and yellow glazes.

  “Here Dray’s area of authority ends,” Milo told Celia at the landing. “Everything below is more or less to my personal plan.”

  “What are those funny little masks, Milo? They’re — scary.”

  “Mahmoud Singh designed them —”

  “Who’s Mahmoud Singh?”

  “He’s a very good friend of mine — a Hindu. I’ve invited him to visit me as soon as he can get away. It was his idea to hang those masks along the staircase. They’re gods, Hindu gods. The fat one with the elephant head is Ganesa; then comes Vishnu, and Siva, and Brahma with the three heads, and Kali, the demon of vengeance. Tough, isn’t she?” Milo paused before the leering visage. “Then — the one playing the fiddle is Krishna — and here we are at the bottom. Ahead of us is the study.”

  They entered a room paneled with dark wood, furnished with a deep leather lounge, a desk, a chair, shelves of books. A carpet of dark green covered the floor; there was a fireplace with bronze andirons. It was a room designed for long, dark midnights by the light of glowing coals.

  Celia looked around without enthusiasm. “I’d put up some bright draperies and paint all that woodwork white. It would be so much more cheerful.”

  “Sit down,” said Milo. “I’ll mix us drinks at the bar.”

  “I want to see the bar,” said Celia.

  “First, you sit still,” said Milo mysteriously. “Then you see the bar.”

  So Celia sat on the big leather lounge and waited. Milo vanished into an alcove. Celia caught a glimpse of polished wood, the flash of bottles. She twisted, scanned the books behind the couch. The Works of Shakespeare, the Pigeon-Breeders’ Gazette (1932-1936), bound in brown buckram, Plato’s Republic, The Critique of Pure Reason, a book called Atlantis, the Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly.

  A gentle click-click-click caught her ear.

  Twisting her head, she found a toy electric locomotive pulling a flatcar down a track behind the couch. Two highballs rode the flatcar.

  The train stopped directly behind her back.

  Milo joined her. “It runs behind the couch, then back to the bar again.”

  “Milo,” said Celia gravely, “how much did all this cost?”

  Milo sat back and tasted his highball. “Complete with liquor, canned goods, typewriter, rugs, a few other items, like floor wax, fly swatters, shovels — by the way, did you see the road I’m building? I dig two hours every morning before breakfast.”

  “Milo.”

  “Well — twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty-five dollars. Some odd cents.”

  Celia sighed.

  Milo raised his eyebrows. “I work six hours a day, slave over the typewriter till the sweat runs off me —”

  Celia melted. “Oh Milo, I know you’re working. But have you accomplished anything?”

  Milo gulped at his drink. “That’s a good highball, if I did mix it myself.”

  “Milo,” said Celia, “you were telling me about what you were writing.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, it’s a ballad — about a man who wanted to buy himself a new hat.”

  “Tell me about it. What’s the plot?”

  “Just a regular ballad plot. Joy, sorrow, tears and mirth.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, it’s divided into three parts, with a Prologue and an Envoi. The Prologue runs like this: A man decided to buy a hat. He went to the store, but nothing suited him. The clerk showed him everything in the place — fedoras, homburgs, top hats, derbies; tarbooshes, cloth caps, busbies, billycocks, shakos, fezzes, Tyroleans and turbans; sombreros, coonskins, and Panamas. Nothing suited him. The sombreros were too wide, the homburgs too narrow. The derbies too sedate; the toppers too pretentious, the turbans too eccentric. Finally he strolled to another counter, looked at some handkerchiefs, bought a tie clasp, and walked out. The salesman was furious. Presently another customer approached, an innocent young man from the country, fresh-faced, inclined to corpulence. The salesman says, ‘Yes, sir-r-r-r-r?’ The young man says, ‘I’ve been invited to dinner by my boss, who is also, I hope, my future father-in-law. It’s quite a formal affair, and I require a suitable piece of headgear. What would you suggest?’

  “The salesman brings out an immense Gainsborough hat of blue velvet, with a purple ribbon and a long blue plume. ‘Just the thing, sir,’ he says.

  “‘You don’t think it’s extreme?’ inquires the young man.

  “‘The latest mode, sir,’ replies the vindictive salesman.

  “The young man buys it and wears it proudly to the formal dinner, where of course he draws all eyes. His boss bawls him out, the girl he loves sneers at him, and his life is ruined. And that,” Milo concluded, “finishes the Prologue.” He glanced at Celia. “Do you like it?”

  Celia nodded. “That’s very nice, Milo. What’s the rest of it?”

  Milo settled back. “Well — Harvey Rotherhyde changes. The setback molds his character. He becomes dour and crafty, revengeful. He returns to his chicken ranch and plots. This is in Stanza One. In Stanza Two his plans mature. He loads the back of his truck with brooding hens, and in the dead of night drives to the city. He parks at the back entrance to the store, which he pries open. Then:

  With his cargo of hens,

  Direct from their pens,

  He steals through the store to Furnishings, Men’s.

  “Now he upturns all the hats on the shelves, and in each he places a hen and a setting of eggs. The hens settle themselves, cluck once or twice, and Rotherhyde steals away. That’s Stanza Two.

  “Next begins Stanza Three. A watchman sees him leaving the store and raises an outcry. A mounted policeman takes up the chase.

  “Rotherhyde is clever and resourceful, dodges into dark alleys, hides in garbage cans, generally keeps the policeman guessing. But always the thunder of hoofs draws closer and closer. At last he runs to a large hotel, pushes in through the revolving door and registers under the name of Claude Jenkins. The policeman, his horse all lathered and flaring at the nostril, tears around until at last he discovers where Rotherhyde has fled. But:

  Riding through the revolving door

  Delayed the policeman even more.

  “Little trick to the meter there,” Milo said. “Can’t seem to straighten it out. But anyway, the policeman jumps out of the saddle, asks the clerk, ‘Did a Harvey Rotherhyde come in here?’

  “The clerk says, ‘No one by that name registered, sir.’

  “The policeman is puzzled and uncertain, but at last he leaves, and Harvey Rotherhyde falls in love with the chambermaid, who, so it turns out, is his original girl friend’s younger sister, learning the hotel game from the ground up. And that’s the end.” He settled back on the couch and drained his glass.

  Celia nibbled at her ice. “It’s a wonderful plot … But is there any market for that kind of thing? Where will you sell it?”

  “Darned if I know.”

  Celia stirred. “Let’s go back to the living room. I love to look out those windows.”

  “I’ve got a pair of binoculars,” said Milo.

  They stood together looking out over the ocean. Celia had the binoculars to her eyes. She put them down and turned to speak to Milo. He was looking at her with an expression that stopped the words at her lips.