The Rebellion of Yale Marratt

by Robert H. Rimmer

  She picked up the phone. The voice that answered her "Hello" was strange and abrupt. She gasped when she recognized it.

  "Miss Carnell. This is Yale's father, Patrick Marratt. I wonder jf I could meet you for lunch. Say twelve o'clock at the Weathersham Hotel. I'll send a car for you. I think we should have a little talk."

  Cynthia looked at the phone unbelievingly. Why did he want to talk with her? It had been more than three years since she had seen him. Had Yale talked with Pat? Oh, my God, she thought, what shall I say to him?

  "Mr. Marratt, I can't have lunch with you. I have another engagement." Would he know that it was with Yale?

  There was a pause. She could hear Pat talking with someone else. "Look, Miss Carnell, I must talk with you. It's nine thirty, I'll have a company car in front of your dormitory in half an hour. Would you come to my office? It won't take very long. It concerns your father."

  "What's the matter with my father?" Cynthia asked nervously.

  "Nothing is the matter. As you know, we buy heavily from him. I want to talk with you about it. I'd think you would be wise to say nothing about this to Yale until we have talked."

  She told him she would come. A feeling of something-terrible-about-to- happen engulfed her. It was no longer a sunny May day. It was hot and humid and she could feel the flush in her face and nervous perspiration gathering on her forehead and under her arms. What could he want? Had Yale told him that they were going to be married? Was he going to give her his blessing? Not likely. She could remember that evening long ago in March; Pat questioning her, and she, cringing under his penetrating voice and glaring eyes. She had tried to be cool. She remembered her legs and arms throbbing with tension and fear. Then . . . Yale was just a friend. How would she act now? Would Pat be able to tell that she loved his son desperately? Would she dare tell him?

  Should she call Yale? It was ten thirty. She looked out the dormitory window. There was a beach wagon in front of the dormitory with gold and blue lettering on the door "Marratt Corporation, Midhaven." There wasn't time to call Yale. She'd just go.

  She ran down the stairs to the car. The driver, an elderly man, got out and opened the door. "Miss Carnell?" She nodded and got in. The ride to the plant was torture. The driver was talkative. He introduced himself as Johnny Mitchell. He talked about the unusually hot weather, told her he had been driving the company car for ten years and had known Pat Marratt since he was a young man. A good man, Mr. Marratt, firm but good to his workers. Johnny Mitchell liked him no matter what anyone said. Johnny Mitchell talked and talked and Cynthia confused, nervous, ready to cry from the tension and fear building up in her tried to answer. Oh, dear God, she prayed, please let Mr. Marratt be nice to me.

  If Pat Marratt could have really seen Cynthia when she walked into his office, he would have seen more than just a girl dressed in a white, princess style dress that shaped her hips and clung to her uplifted breasts. He would have seen more than her soft dark hair framing her round face, and large questioning brown eyes. He would have seen the youthfulness of her and recognized the fear and despair of a child entering an adult world. But, to Pat, she was just a problem. Perhaps, a little more personal, but a problem similar to many he encountered daily. Something, or someone stood in the way of his plans. You could side-step a problem, but that meant it was still there. Pat's way was more realistic. Simply cut the problem down to size, and stamp it out.

  "Sit down, Miss Carnell," he said pointing at a leather chair next to his desk. "I understand from his mother that you and Yale are seriously intending to get married!"

  "We love each other, Mr. Marratt. I want you to know that I would do anything to have Yale happy with you and his mother, and have your blessing."

  Pat looked at her searchingly for a moment. This technique of delaying a reply and studying his "man" always worked effectively. It created an uneasy feeling and gave Pat an advantage. "I am going to ask you to do something. You know, of course, that Yale has been accepted at Harvard Business School?"

  Cynthia didn't answer. She hoped Pat couldn't see the surprise in her face. She knew Yale had signed the application. Yale had told her the day Doctor Tangle had called him into his office. He hadn't told her he had been accepted. Why, she wondered?

  "I'm going to ask that you wait until Yale is finished at Harvard before you get married."

  "If Yale wants to go to Harvard, I would certainly encourage him."

  "That's not an answer, Miss Carnell," Pat said coldly.

  "I don't think Yale and I should wait another two years," Cynthia said, blinking through her tears. How could they wait, she thought? They needed each other too much. She had a vision of months without Yale and furtive meetings in hotels. Could their love survive that?

  "You're not pregnant, are you?" Pat demanded.

  "No, I am not, Mr. Marratt." Cynthia's voice reflected a tiny bit of anger. How crass could Pat Marratt be? "If Yale wants to go to Harvard, we could be married, Mr. Marratt. Many graduate students get married, I could get a job in Boston. I could help him with his studies."

  He was going to have to go all the way, Pat thought. Too bad. The girl should have been a little more pliable. Tell him she would wait for Yale. If she had, Pat would have been friendly. Shook hands with her. Give it another two years and he was sure this love affair would fall apart. But this girl was too adamant.

  "The point, Miss Carnell, is that I think Yale is too young to get married. Furthermore there are problems here that Yale's mother and I agree would not make for a good marriage." Pat picked a paper off his desk. "Here's our annual contract with the Carnell Farms. Did you ever see this, Miss Carnell?" He handed the paper to Cynthia. "We place several of these with New Jersey farmers. We buy on the open market, of course, but these are placed to protect ourselves. There's been a contract like this with your father every year for the past twelve years. I've been wondering whether to renew for next year?" He paused and stared at Cynthia.

  "You mean that if Yale and I get married you won't buy from my father?"

  "That sums it up exactly."

  "My father could sell to other companies," she said defiantly.

  "Look, Miss Carnell. If you wish I'll pick up this phone and get your father on the line. I'll put it to him bluntly that I don't want my son marrying a Jew. I'll suggest to him that under the circumstances he, himself, wouldn't want a 'goy' in his family. How do you suppose he will react?"

  Cynthia couldn't hold back a sob. "He would be sick at heart." She could see her father. Not cold and remote like Pat. Her father would have tears in his eyes and there would be sorrow on his face. "I'd like to leave, Mr. Marratt." Cynthia stood up. For a second the expression of utter hopelessness on her face pierced Pat's frigid manner. He almost felt sorry. It was a rotten thing to do, he thought. He recovered quickly. She would get over it. She must know that it was for the best. "Wait, I'll call Jimmy. He'll drive you back to college."

  Cynthia had reached the door. Her cheeks were wet with tears. "Thank you, no, Mr. Marratt. I'd prefer to take a bus. I'm sorry that you hate so much."

  Walking down the long corridor, she passed several office girls who turned to look at her. "Oh, God, let me get out of here without going to pieces."

  She got to the bus stop and leaned, faintly, against a telegraph pole. "I am going to cry. I'm going to cry and cry, and the tears won't stop." But somehow she held her tears back. Finally, a bus came headed toward the College. She boarded it and slumped into a seat. Dazed, she watched the traffic sweep by.

  What should she do? She felt numb. Yet, uncontrollably, the nerves in her legs and chest and arms shuddered and leaped spasmodically, as if she were somehow being wrenched apart. The clock on the Midhaven Herald building caught her eyes. It was twelve thirty. Yale would be waiting for her at the dormitory. She couldn't see him now! She had to think. What should she do? The bus stopped. She jumped up and got off. She watched it disappear along Midhaven Avenue, breathing the acrid fumes from its exhaust. She fel
t the enervating heat of the day. Almost stumbling she walked in the direction of the college. Then suddenly it was no longer possible to hold it back. She retched, miserably vomiting against the side of a building. A woman passing by turned back and offered to help her. "I'm sick," she gasped. "It must be the heat." The woman led her into a small dress shop and another woman, evidently the owner of the store, guided her into a back room.

  "I'm so sorry to bother you," Cynthia murmured.

  "Don't you worry a bit," the woman said. She patted Cynthia's face with a damp cloth. "It's probably the heat. It's a terribly hot day for May. Lie down here for a moment. You'll feel better. Are you getting your monthly, dear?" Cynthia nodded. It was a convenient explanation to cover the inexplicable.

  It was one thirty. Yale sat on the front steps of the dormitory greeting various senior girls who went in and out, answering their pleasantries about graduation. And agreeing with them: "Yes, he was waiting for Cynthia."

  Where could she be? He tried to assure himself that she could be any of a dozen places. A professor wanted to see her? Unlikely. She had gone shopping for a dress? Maybe. No. She already had her graduation gown. He hadn't seen it, but she had told him that it was "extra-specially" nice, so she would look pretty for him. Would Sue Wallace, her roommate, know where she was? He was about to go back in the dormitory and ring for Sue, when a Chevrolet stopped in front of the dormitory. Cynthia got out.

  "Gosh," he breathed his relief. "Where have you been?" As Cynthia walked toward him, he noticed her blanched face. He sensed something wrong. "What's the matter, Cindar? Don't you feel well?"

  "I'll be all right." She forced a smile. "Are we going on our picnic?"

  Yale nodded. "I've got the sandwiches and the beer."

  "Okay," she said, trying to force a gay sound into her voice. "I just want to change and wash up. I'll be down in a minute."

  She fled into the dormitory ignoring Yale's "Where the heck have you been?"

  Lying in the back room of Mrs. Hearn's dress shop, she had decided what to do. It was hopeless. She should have known it from the beginning. She would never marry Yale. As much as they loved each other, there were problems that love alone would not solve. If she told Yale about this morning, he would immediately break with Pat. But what would happen then? She knew that Pat was not the kind of man who threatened idly. In the end Yale would come under his domination. Even now Yale hadn't told her that he had been accepted to Harvard Business School. It would mean that he had decided it was best to give in to Pat. Certainly, Yale's plans about going to Columbia and trying to get a teaching job in September were vague. The best thing she could do was to make this, their last afternoon, a warm, pleasant memory, and then tomorrow after graduation, go home.

  A hike of about a mile and a half, and a picnic on Strawberry Hill is a favorite springtime attraction for Midhaven College students. Strawberry Hill overlooks the Atlantic, dropping in a sharp eroded cliff into the sea. From the top of Strawberry Hill looking inland you can see the Midhaven College campus and beyond the campus the taller buildings of the city outlined against the horizon. To the east are the sky and ocean merging and endless.

  As they climbed the wooded path leading to the top of the hill Yale mentioned, as he had before, "This would be a wonderful place for a home, Cindar. Maybe someday we could find out who owns it and build a house here."

  Cynthia didn't answer. We'll never live here or anywhere , she thought.

  Yale liked the feeling of discovery that came to him when he stood at the summit. He ran ahead. "Yale Marratt discovers the Atlantic!" he shouted, grinning and happy. She walked toward him tears in her eyes.

  "Cindar, you are so sad and quiet today. What's the trouble?"

  "Nothing, nothing, I'm just drinking in the sight of you. Boyish. Your hair messy. You look so impish. I would like to hug you and remember you like this always."

  In one of his walks Yale had discovered a sheltered ledge on the Atlantic side of the hill. It was difficult to get to, because parts of the hill, particularly the windward side, grew lush with a thorny beach rose. In June the roses bloomed briefly and the hill turned deep red. From the sea, to a passing boat, the high cliff looked like a huge strawberry. Now, the leaves on thorny creepers that in some places reached almost shoulder high had just started to bud. Yale led the way trying to hold the pointed vines away from Cynthia.

  They reached the secluded ledge. A hot breeze from the sea seared their faces. Two hundred feet below they could see a rocky beach where the tide had gone and left the stones burning and dry in the sun.

  Yale spread out a blanket and opened two cans of beer. It was still cool. They drank silently, watching the ocean below.

  "I love you very much, Cindar. I don't know how I would be without you. These years have been wonderful, but I am glad they are over. Now, at last, we can be married."

  "Yale, how do you know our love isn't just physical? How do you know that it wasn't just a physical something or other that pulled us together in this little circumscribed college world? Maybe if we had met somewhere else we would have just made love, enjoyed a moment's passion, and then have been glad to be rid of each other."

  Yale took her hands in his. "Cindar, of course I love you physically, but you should know that it is a great deal more than just physical. You are me . . . only female. I wish I could tell you what you are for me. Even just physically. When I look at your body it is you and even more than you. You have a beauty for me that is the essence of everything beautiful. The abstract beauty that the philosophers like to discuss is very much a part of the beauty that is you -- Cynthia." Yale smiled. "You do get the silliest ideas. Is that why you have been so sadly quiet all day? I think you are getting your period. Well . . . next week anyway."

  She laughed. "Yale, you know too much about women. You have a female second-sense. I think lots of women would love you."

  "But, I want only your love."

  She sighed. What could she say to him? Thoughts of this morning with Pat Marratt swarmed back into her mind. If I only could hate him. If I could meet fire with fire instead of shriveling into myself.

  After they had eaten their sandwiches she and Yale lay side by side, each thinking their own thoughts. Feeling keenly each other's presence, they would day-dream or talk sporadically or lapse into silence. Today Cindar was glad they didn't have to talk. She knew that she was too close to tears, too close to confessing to Yale everything that had happened.

  Later in the afternoon when the sun was low over the ocean, Yale reached over and undid the zipper on her skirt. Passively, she permitted him to take it off. In a moment he had undressed her. He kissed her belly and breasts tenderly, touching his hand lightly over her legs and mons. She shivered. It was cool despite the heat. Oh God, she thought. I want to love you, Yale. But now their love no longer seemed a clean and good thing.

  He tugged one of the hairs on her mound as he had often done before. A loving pull. She ordinarily would have responded by pulling his pubic hair, and they would have giggled joyously.

  "No, Yale, no . . . not today! I don't want to." Her voice was choked with misery.

  "But Cindar -- honey -- what's the matter? It's been so long. Please. What have I done?" Yale looked at her unbelievingly.

  She wanted to capitulate, but something drove her on. "Please, don't plead. You should never beg any woman." Cynthia stood up and started to pull on her skirt. Yale grabbed it. "No, darling. No! Today we must love!" He stood up and held her, trying to excite her with searching hands.

  "Give me my skirt!" Cynthia demanded, and the anger and hate that she so desperately needed swelled up in her. "I don't want you to touch me!" she heard herself scream. It was as if she were listening to a stranger. "If you love me how can you treat me like this? Making me stand naked here for the whole world to see?"

  Please, Cindar, Yale thought, desperately. Oh, my darling, what is wrong? I only want to be close to you. To be quiet and warm inside you. But he didn't say i
t. He tried to be lighthearted.

  "You are a lovely, angry Goddess, and the world would be frightened if they saw you, but they would adore you and love you as I do. Come on, Cindar, after we have loved your tension will be all gone."

  She started to cry, sobbing convulsively. "You're just like every man, Yale Marratt, all you think about is sex! I hate you! I hate you!" She ran, twisting out of his grasp, in complete horror with herself and the words she had never before spoken in her life.

  "For God's sake, Cindar, stop! Here's your skirt. I'm sorry." But Cynthia didn't stop. She ran heedlessly, naked, crashing through the underbrush, and the rose thorns. As she ran along the edge of the cliff, her foot caught, in a creeper. She staggered, caught herself, and then sobbing, inarticulate in her despair, she plunged headlong down the cliff, the wild thorns catching at her face and body and tearing deep gashes in her skin. She ran crazily, falling, getting up, falling and running again.

  Bewildered, Yale ran after her. When he caught her she was nearly on the beach, at the bottom of the cliff. Her body was streaked with angry welts and her face lashed cruelly. She lay limp in his arms.

  "Cindar, my God! my God! . . . What has gotten into you?" He took his handkerchief and tried to staunch the blood from the cuts on her face. "Talk to me. Are you all right?"

  "I hate you," she gasped.

  "You've gone crazy. What's come over you?" He tried to kiss her. She fought him wildly, scratching him with her nails. "I'll fix you! You're a bitch, too! I'll fuck you whether you want me to or not."

  "Go ahead," Cindar snarled. "Rape me. Go ahead! I'm just a kike! A hebe! I'm made backwards. I'm not like other women. My people killed Christ! Go ahead. Rape me!"

  Yale picked her up in his arms. "I don't know what I have done, Cindar, but I never could love you against your will." He struggled up the cliff with her. She sobbed hysterically. He looked at her poor torn face and scarred body, and whispered, "I'm sorry I used such a word to you. It's a cheap word, and nothing you could ever do would make our love cheap."