289: Lorna was surprised ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 7 continues
LORNA WAS SURPRISED and suspicious when, on the day after her reunion with Herb, Luther asked her to come to his office at the mill, but her curiosity was aroused by Luther’s conciliatory attitude. She agreed to go because she wanted to find out what Luther wanted from her.
“Lorna!” said Luther, rising from his desk and rushing to greet her. “How are you?” He took her hands in his and looked her up and down. “No need to answer, my dear, I think you’ve never looked prettier. You’re glowing! Positively glowing.”
Lorna turned away. She knew that what Luther said was true, and she didn’t want him to begin speculating about why her cheeks had that rosy glow, why she was so quick to smile. She didn’t want him to have anything to do with Herb; if it could have been arranged, she would have kept him from knowing anything about Herb at all.
“It’s the springtime, Uncle Luther,” she said. She gave him a knowing look. “Surely you’ve noticed that girls glow in the spring.”
“So I have,” said Luther. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes.
“Well, that’s enough of that, wouldn’t you say?” Lorna suggested.
“Yes,” said Luther. “That is enough of that. Sit down, Lorna. I want to show you something.” He waved her toward the leather wing chair in front of his desk. He settled himself in his own chair, paused for dramatic effect, and lifted the top from a small box on his blotter. From the box he produced Herb’s animated couple. He held the object out for Lorna to examine.
“Why, Uncle Luther!” she exclaimed.
“Spring seems to be advancing in your cheeks, Lorna,” said Luther. “We’ll be in high summer in a moment.”
“Who made this?” Lorna asked. She took the gadget from Luther.
“That’s not important,” he said. “Turn the little wheel at the side.”
Lorna gave the wheel a turn. “Oh, my,” she said. There was admiration in her voice, and Luther was encouraged. “Who carved these figures?” she asked.
“Originally? Gerald Hirsch, I’d say,” said Luther.
“You’re probably right,” said Lorna. “They look like his work. Who on earth performed the — ahhh, modifications?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Luther, “I don’t know. Nobody with any talent in that line.” He smiled and brought the tips of his thumbs and index fingers together. “Clumsy work,” he said, “but a brilliant idea, and a fine, fine job mechanically. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” she said. She twisted the wheel again, slowly, while she observed the little copulating couple from various angles. They enchanted her. In part, they won her over with their fluid agility and their cunning construction, but most of all, a small gesture won her: a gesture that Herb had supplied by shaping one tiny pulley with an eccentricity, the slightest little bump, like the lobe on a cam, so that at one point in the performance the man brushed his lips against the woman’s cheek. It was a tiny gesture, one that Lorna had to see several times before she could be sure that it wasn’t accidental, that it wasn’t caused by the way she held the figures or the way she turned the wheel. When she satisfied herself that it happened every time, with the precision of all the other gestures and exertions that composed the performance, when she was certain that it was intentional, that whoever had made the little couple perform had considered this sign of affection an essential part of the performance, she was charmed.
“Interested?” asked Luther.
Lorna looked at him, but a moment passed before what he had said registered. “In what?” she asked then, taken aback.
“In returning to carving,” Luther said. “None of the others could do this kind of thing the way it should be done. Trumbull, maybe. But not as well as you. Aren’t you intrigued? Think what you could do with movable joints. Imagine — ”
“No, Uncle Luther,” said Lorna. “I’m through with all that. Forever.”
[to be continued on Tuesday, July 5, 2022]
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