🎧 307: A month or two ...

A MONTH OR TWO LATER, while on a visit to Chacallit, Lorna accepted Luther’s invitation to visit the mill one morning to “say hello to the girls in Links,” and to see “some of the new products we’re going to be making in ivory.” She knew what he must have in mind, and she was curious to see what the unknown designer of animated coarse goods had been up to lately.
     “Lorna,” said Luther, holding the prototype enclosed in his hand, “what I’m going to show you is a work of genius. I want you to appreciate that, and I want you to consider very carefully whether you shouldn’t be adding your talent to it.” He put the case in Lorna’s hands, pressed them together around it, gave them a squeeze, and said, in a hushed and reverent voice, “I’m going to leave you to contemplate it on your own.” He left the office, and Lorna, bursting with curiosity, opened the lid.
     She watched the couple for a long time. She found, while she watched, that she began wishing that she could show them to Herb. She wished that what they were doing could be put to trial in the big pine bed. She sighed and closed the lid. It wasn’t likely. She was a restrained lover, restrained by the fear that she might give herself away, by being ashamed of the work she did, and by the generations-old Huber conviction that it was safest not to appear extraordinary. Now and then she dared to surprise Herb with something, but only something small. She was usually careful, very careful.

“HERB,” she whispered that night, when they had retired to her old room in her parents’ house, “I think I’d like to do a little work for my Uncle Luther now and then.”
     “What do you mean?” asked Herb.
     “Well,” she said, beginning an explanation that she had practiced during her walk up Ackerman Hill from the mill, “when I saw the work that he’s getting from the people he has carving for him, I realized something. This is going to sound very immodest, but I have to say it. I realized that I was the best carver Chacallit has ever seen. Everyone who was working there in the carving section knew it.”
     “Uh-huh,” said Herb.
     “And you know what else I realized?” she asked, rolling onto her side and bringing her lips close to Herb’s ear.
     “What?” he asked.
     “I realized how much I liked the work. I really liked doing something that I could do so well. It made me feel — it made me feel — ” She stopped, unable to say what she had felt.
     “I know,” said Herb. He turned to face her. “I know what you mean. It made you feel — better — better than anybody else.”
     “That’s right!” whispered Lorna.
     “It’s hard to admit, but it’s nice, a nice feeling, to feel that you’re the best at something.”
     “Yes,” said Lorna. “Yes it is.”
     “But how could you manage to work for your uncle? You don’t want to move back here, do you?”
     In a rush, Lorna explained the plan. She would do everything by mail. From time to time, Luther would ship her some materials and a list of the subjects she was to carve — tiny roses, leaves, animals, and the like. She would set herself up with a place to work. She wouldn’t need nearly as much space as she would need for, say, a sewing machine. She would work during the day, while Herb was at work. She wouldn’t work too much — he didn’t have to worry about that, and no one would even know that she was working. He didn’t have to worry that it would look as if he couldn’t support her. Now and then she would get a package from Chacallit — nothing unusual about that. And now and then she’d send a package to Chacallit — nothing unusual about that, either! “Oh, Herb,” she said, “you wouldn’t mind, would you?”
     “Will you promise me one thing?” he asked.
     “What?”
     “I want you to spend the money on yourself.”
     “I — ”
     “Promise?”
     “Promise.”
     She nuzzled him and, silently because they were in her parents’ house, pressed herself against him. She remembered the little couple she had seen that afternoon. Do I dare? she wondered.
     Herb drew a deep breath, slowly. He thought about the routine he had devised for the little couple. Should I try? he wondered.
     It’s really just a matter of arranging myself in a slightly different way, she told herself.
     It’s a delicate matter, he reminded himself. It can’t seem like something I’ve thought out or — even worse — something that I’ve done before.
     I can’t let him think that it’s something I learned from someone else. It has to be just a little touch here, a little turn this way, like that —
     It has to be just sort of like going for a stroll, when you’re enjoying the walk and not paying too much attention to where you’re going and then you look up and find you’re in a part of town where you’ve never been before.
     Oh, my, she thought. I would never have thought it would be so easy. Or so, so —
     She doesn’t seem startled or — upset. It’s —
     — wonderful.
     — wonderful.

In Topical Guide 307, Mark Dorset considers Art: Media: Ivory from this episode.

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