Chapter Eight - Surprised by Love

Chapter 8

Surprised by Love

"Good evening Mrs. London. Thank you for inviting me."

"Jack insisted."

"How's little Becky?"

"Getting heavy," said Bess, as she carried her youngest daughter away from the door, after allowing Charmian in. Charmian stared at her back for a moment, saw the face of Becky over Bess' shoulder, to whom waved a little "hi" in her direction. Charmian waved back, then turned her attention to the room full of "the Crowd."

George and Carrie Sterling. Anna Strunsky. Xavier and Mary, Jim and Cloudesley, all the gang. Reveling in their freedom, finding moments of happiness in their gaiety. Some sang. Others ate. Some sang and ate. Telling stories and planning adventures. The Russian River, the Bohemian Grove, Jack London's home...the names the same, the place's different, the friendship and love constant and true.

Complacent, happy, secure. No rocking boats here. Don't fix if it ain't broke.

"Hey, Charmian!", said Jack. Shouting across the room. Eyes turned, looked. Watched her at the door way, watching them. She smiled. She was with friends. A step, another, she was walking into their midst. For some reason Jack had given her the floor, simply by approaching her. That eyes were on Charmian was only because they were focused on Jack - as she wandered into his space, as he enveloped himself in hers.

"Miss Kittridge. Pleasant surprise to see you."

"You too, Mr. London," she thought of killing him.

Then (since he had an audience), with a melodramatic flair and flourish, introduced her (though she didn't need it, and, since she didn't need it, wasn't all too thrilled that he did it) to the Crowd, "Charmian Kittridge, editor, writer, world class horsewoman. Scholar. Pianist. And, she boxes as well."

Wild applause. More for Jack's delivery than for Charmian's well known talents.

"Fine," she thought to herself. Two can play this game. Ready to dual, big boy? She smiled, and said -

"I do anything 'as well'."

A chorus of "ooohhhs" bounced off the lips of all.

Jack smiled. Humoring said, and this time with pompous flourish, looking around at the Crowd, then back at Charmian -

"Some day you must let me show you a thing or two."

"You promised me that two years ago," she said, smiling, challenging. "No time like the present."

More applause. This time on behalf of Charmian's dare.

"You're challenged old friend," said George.

Jack smiled.

"Very good," he said. He also smiled. He went to George, who already had a set of boxing gloves in hand. Proceeded to help Jack place them on his hands, saying, loud enough -

"Be careful now, Jack. She is, after all, a girl."

A collective groan. Except from Charmian. Who - as Anna helped her on with her gloves - just smiled that woman smile which said "yeah, right, we'll see."

They both placed over their heads and over their chests protective pads. This was, after all, to be a game, fun, and not be a new approach to the eternal battle of the sexes.

Trained stance. Arms at perfect angle. Feet planted. Eye contact. Focus. Jack noticed these in Charmian. Indeed, she knew what she was doing.

"What's your problem?", said Charmian. "Throw the first."

He laughed in her face, "not a chance in the whole wide worl -"

That was what the opening she was looking for. His focused dropped, he was somewhere else, making a joke, relaxed - the perfect place for her to belt him one.

"Score! Miss Kittridge!", cheered Anna.

"I left myself open," said Jack, "didn't I?"

She smiled. "Yes, you did."

They danced, and they jabbed, and they teased and appreciation grew. Particularly in Jack's eyes...and in members of the Crowd...the male members, that is.

Anna loved Charmian. And was already there for her in heart and soul. The women, well...they were happy when they only thought of Charmian as one who was merely this bizarre however lovely creature who rode horses astride. But to show her worth against a man in boxing? A man's game???

"Oh, my," said Carrie, as Charmian flew a fabulous right to Jack's head.

And the audience went wild.

Well, the men anyway.

Jack stopped. A smile on his face which was longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon.

"How are you at the foil?", he asked.

"Heh, heh, heh," thought Charmian to herself. Then said aloud, "Let's find out."

Gloves off.

Boxing head protection off.

Fencing head protection on.

Foils in hand.

They approached the other. Saluted with foil. Commenced. And danced about the other. Focused. Intent on devouring their competition. Charmian was not some mere wisp of a girl. Yes, different than the others, everyone knew that. Talented. She even had a job. She was accepted. If not completely understood.

However, to hold her own - against a man? Being his equal, even in fencing? Why, she was even better competition than that of Jack's friend, George Sterling.

George noticed. The notice made him sit down. Rather...flabbergasted there was so much - grit - in this woman.

The men, then, at this point, became rather unnerved at Charmian Kittridge.

Jack not only could not have cared less, he wasn't even aware of their feelings nor even if they had any feelings to change. As a matter of fact - to Jack - nothing mattered at all. He became oblivious to the fact that there were any members of the Crowd there. The room began to disappear. And the only voices he heard - where his own, and, of course, hers.

Step. Lunge. Counter and lunge.

She countered a move of his foil with a better one of her own.

Now the world began to disappear.

"I'm impressed," said Jack.

"Are you?", said Charmian, rather dryly.

"Yes."

"Who knows", said Charmian, "you might find we're an even match."

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing."

As he said that, Jack threw down his foil, took off his head protection, and grabbed Charmian, who was just an instant step behind, tossing her head gear off, dropping her foil, and allowing Jack to envelop her waist with his arms - and she let him draw her into him - her breasts fully pressed up against his chest, her lips finding his - and Jack could feel the taste of those lips, and they together melted into the other - passionately in embrace.

And the universe disappeared.

And Jack's heart -

Jack's heart -

Jack -

He stepped back.

But just an inch. Just an inch because something stirred inside he hadn't felt before. Something - matured within. He wasn't expecting this feeling. He really, really didn't know what to do with it now that he had, in fact, had it.

Charmian stared at him - with those woman's eyes which could melt a man's soul. "Did-he-feel-that???", and she wasn't talking about the physicality of the moment. She was wondering if he felt that excitement of the spirit. The connection. That gift. The passionate spark of something different, new, something she believed in and discovered that once, for once, she felt that gift of something she knew was out here - and one day would find.

For Jack, who never knew. And thus he never expected. Something that, well, he had tossed off and humored as non-science, seemed...now...very, very...real.

Wow.

Like a falling star streaking across a California sky, it walloped him with all the thunderous noise of the universe.

He was in love.

And drunk with it.

And Charmian wondered again, "did he feel it??? Did he know it when he felt it?"

She closed her eyes, just part way, to let him know, she wanted more. His lips again fled to hers, and found home. Their eyes closed and their hearts beat out of their chests. The world swirled about them, dreamlike, a fantasy - and, yes, the second time was better than the first, and was stamped approval that the first was, in fact, not an illusion, however very real.

Again Charmian pierced Jack's soul - with want, with question, with hope. Jack, for his part, felt like he'd been hit with a sledge hammer. Their hearts pounded still, and their lungs gasped for breath as the second kiss was deeper than the first. Their passion became like an infliction, one might say, a terminal one, one of which they both had never felt before, and would never recover from.

Charmian knew she was in love. And Charmian knew that Jack - God bless him, hadn't a clue in that swirling universe as to what, in actuality, had indeed hit him.

Only the distance between the moments of heartbeats would tell.

In the meantime, the world still spun. Except not one of the Crowd noticed. The dealings and doings of kings and queens, peasant nor nave, did not cross anyone's minds. Baseball scores and the state of the weather in Australia did not bring a flicker of thought to anyone. Not a ponderous thought - nothing deep nor shallow. Just - the overwhelming sensation of a miracle.

(Though Mary did pause long enough in fear to pray to God that Bess would not choose that moment to entering the room. Other than that, she was fine.)

The collective silence was sure a very loud one. If every heart stopped, not one could tell. Nor notice. For all the universe saw was Jack London and Charmian Kittridge in long, deep, passionate embrace.

A miracle in kissing, is what it was. Not a moment in history ever recorded such a kiss.

Some things, Jack felt as his soul (as well as his tongue) embedded deeply into Charmian, were well worth waiting for.

What could even be imagined to be the first thing that could break the silence? In a room full of artistic souls, to whom words were never a challenge to be uttered in any place or time, who would break it? And what word would be perfectly uttered, what intellectual, stimulating turn-of-phrase and literate chord would be struck, such a word to flow, like Hamlet beseeching the Players to speak his lines "trippingly over the tongue"?

And then it came.

"Oops", said Carrie.

To be followed by the longest sigh, and the most understated and loaded sentence in any known language since Eve said to Adam, "wanna bite?"

It came from Anna, and this is what she said:

"So much for the scientific marriage."

Chapter Six - The Crowd

Chapter 6

The Crowd

"Those were the best of times "the Crowd" would ever know. There was always good, clean, wholesome fun. Boisterous, kindred hearts beating in love and freedom. We'd lay aside our cares, fears, and dance away through those bright California days and nights of our youth...oh, youth...gone too soon.” - Charmian Kittridge London

Time spent along the way to any of the Crowd's adventures was always dreamingly simple and gentle like a meadow wind. The days spread onward, one to another. Life was grand and Jack wrote, and poets dreamed and singers sang. The Crowd, again, had gathered along the banks of the Russian River. The setting, the same, the cast too. Artists all. Save for Bess. Who really didn't have a reason to be there...except for Jack.

Some chased each other, and others picked up wooden instruments and played. Kids blew bubbles and laughed at the sun. Xavier Martinez had his canvas out, and could be seen working on a portrait of a lady (and there she was, too, sitting on a fallen Redwood), with the river as backdrop. Beauty complimating beauty.

Some waded in that river, and others just talked, listened, mused upon the day. All found contentment in the company of themselves. Happy in their own skin. Enjoying life and being amused in the moment.

Bess, however, was not amused.

She tapped her foot upon the earth. No one heard. No one cared...save ground squirrels, hunkering down in their borrow beneath her feet...fearful of their home being caved in. Not a happy squirrel camper in sight. Annoyed at this intrusion.

However not as annoyed as Bess.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She did not like artists. Lazy never-do-wells. Why couldn't Jack be like - well, like HER. And HER family.

Women adored Jack.

Men adored Jack.

Bess adored Jack, she just didn't adore any of the Crowd.

No one played like her husband. And when he spoke, even if it was to chase a mosquito off his arm, his voice had a presence that commanded attention. There was something in his character...not really grace, nor beauty, but PRESENCE. In a world where no one liked everybody, everybody liked Jack London.

Bess' attention was drawn from her mournful thoughts, to the Crowd. They were laughing. And all focus was on Jack. Jack - telling a tall tale, or perhaps a shopping list - didn't matter. His words were what drew you in...he was real, and people were starving for what he freely gave.

Bess sighed.

The laughter came and came from the Crowd. They laughed at Jack's amusing story (laughing in all the right places, Jack noted), and they applauded (warmly, he noted), when he was finished. Had nothing to do with ego, it's just nice to know if you're losing your audience or not.

His drawing power over others always befuddled him. He never tried to be successful...he just WAS. He never tried to be liked...he just WAS - and more - LOVED. He just couldn't quite clearly see it.

"And that," said Jack with his boyish grin, "is why the duck mistook the polar bear for an ice flow."

Everyone laughed, save for his wife. Thumping the ground, Bess was not happy. This was not appropriate behavior for an adult. Such a child. When would he grow up?

"I have had enough," Jack laughed, waved away the Crowd, and walked across the meadow.

One asked, "Tuckered out?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Where you going?"

"I see a hammock, with my name on it."

Bess rolled her eyes. The man she loved would disappear, rest, and forget she was there. The Crowd wouldn't know what to do while he was gone, at least, not for a few minutes until they recovered over the shock. Their dependence on the object of their affections was - unnerving.

(The dependence would have tragic effects, soon after Jack died. Evidenced by the fact that a good number of Crowd members committed suicide. They had lost their beckon...the heart which pumped their lives.)

However...

There was another woman there. One to which she had been born to love. She figured knowing him, and the chance to be with him, would be worth the pain of the mother who bore her. He was different than the...well, average sort. The type where - you really didn't know what to do with. She had some thoughts on that subject...but didn't see much promise in wishing for a future regarding those thoughts.

She saw him. Her eyes bathed him in loving contemplation. So much so he would have drowned, unless she stop contemplating. Not a chance. She couldn't shake her attention from his soul...his dancing eyes...his boyish, unpretentious grin. In him there was no guile. A creative, brilliant soul...with - she noted with a sigh - one obvious flaw.

His damnable notion on marriage, and the reasons for to be married. Scientific marriage based on scientific gobble-de-gook.

"I am mad to want him," she thought.

She tried to turn away from him, and stare, instead, at the glistening river, rushing by and jumping over the smooth Russian River Rocks...oh, but her body turned, but her heart could not. A heart which...months ago, he had - and not purposefully, she knew that, there wasn't a mean cell in Jack's body - broken.

Charmian looked upon the Crowd. And whispered to what ever gods there might be, a thanks, that she was with these magnificent people...and had been born to laugh along with them.

Freedom. Beauty. Truth. And love. And Charmian was there to enjoy it all. This was, with or without Mr. London, her element, her family. She belonged.

If only Jack hadn't been such a stupid, idiotic...

A tall, slender elderly gentleman with a long white beard sat on a log...crossed his legs, and planted a book in his lap. It was Joaquin Miller. "Poet of the Sierras", he was called. He thought, now might be good a time as any to read one of his poems. Why not? He was an artist, like them all. They needed to create...to share...to express.

Several of the Crowd members strolled over to him, and planted themselves about his earthy countenance. And this is what he recited:

"BEHIND him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules;

Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas.

The good mate said: “Now must we pray,

For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”

“Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’” ...

* * *

On the outer banks of the gathering, at the place where the meadow met the forest, Jack was snuggled in a hammock - tied between two Redwoods. Eyes closed. His thoughts drifting...trying hard not to think. Enjoy the northern California warmth...the sounds of the river, the wind gently touching the Redwood pine. In the background, he could her Joaquin speak...faint...and more faintly...as he fell into comfortable slumber.

"Too comfortable", said Sally. A teenage girl, daughter of a Crowd member.

"Very", said Robin. Another teenage girl.

They both looked across the meadow at the relaxed author. Arms folded. Staring with mischievous grins and daring eyes.

"Guess we better do something about that", said Sally.

"Immediately", said Robin.

Meanwhile, the Poet of the Sierras continued:

“My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”

The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.

“What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”

“Why, you shall say at break of day, ‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!’”...

Sally and Robin walked past their parents, the Crowd, Joaquin, with nothing more coming out of their souls but giggling.

"What are you girls up too?", asked Anna.

"Heh heh heh", was the girl's only response.

"Heh heh heh", they liked that so much they said it again.

Few noticed as they crossed the meadow and headed for Jack. Save Anna, who remembered easily what being a young girl was all about. Particularly when it came to warfare against unsuspecting adults...to whom they loved.

Anna watched.

Bess noticed. And fumed. What were they up too?

Joaquin ignored, moving right along.

"They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: “Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say”—

He said: “Sail on! sail on! and on!” ...

As the girls drew closer to Jack, they slowed down...stepped cautiously. Quietly. Smiling. Holding giggles. Jack was, as far as they could tell, deeply into sleep. Sally pulled from a deep dress pocked a needle and some thread. Robin gathered some twigs. Dried brush. Redwood bark.

The needle and thread went to work in sewing Jack up in his hammock.

The wood, twigs and such went to building a fire underneath Jack's hammock.

This gained more attention from the Crowd.

Anna stood, smiling wide, watching. George, too.

Bess folded her arms and questioned his ancestry.

Charmian tried to pay attention to Joaquin.

Xavier thought this might make a great painting.

Jack slept.

The sewing done. Robin lit the wood. The girls backed away, and the smoke curled up. A moment....and then....the first sniff from Jack.

Sniff.

Another. But his eyes were closed.

He tried to wake, and he tried to move his left hand to wipe away whatever it was that was annoying his nostrils. He couldn't move his hand...nor his other.

And now flames were making crackling noises.

And this is when he woke up.

"HEY!!!"

The girls turned, and ran, laughing hysterically. Looking at each other with glimming looks of victory.

Jack struggled out of his bonds, ripped the threads apart, and burst out of his hammock -

- right down into the fire.

Hysterical laughter, this time compliments of the Crowd.

Jack rolled off of the fire the moment he landed on it.

Rose, dusted himself off. And laughed, in a ghoulish way, and ran after Sally and Robin. Pretending to be angry. "Come back here and take your medicine!", he shouted.

"Run, girls!", said Anna, laughing herself silly.

Sally and Robin ran across the meadow, jumped over logs, people and things. Jack followed in, well, hot pursuit. "Take it like women now!"

George said, "Tell 'em Jack! Don't let yourself be shown up by a couple of teenage girls!"

They all laughed.

Bess sulked.

Joaquin recited:

"They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:

“'This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone?” The words leapt like a leaping sword: “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”

The girls stopped on the edge of the far clearing, panting, turning to Jack, who was just about to pounce on them. With a youth's skill, they leaped out of the way of his grasp, and darted yards away. Stopped. So did Jack. Himself out of breath.

"What's the matter, old man?", said Robin.

"Old??? Dare you call me old???"

"Twenty-six, aren't you?", asked Sally.

"I'd say death", said Robin.

"Then you shouldn't be afraid", Jack, with his winning smile, like trust-me-I'm cool, said to the girls, "Come, let's go back, and we'll have a go at the gloves."

They were young, pretty, and too smart to fall for that one.

Robin laughed, "don't think so!"

"Not with you!", said Sally.

"Why not? Afraid I'll forget you're ladies?"

All three turned, and headed back to the meadow, where the Crowd watched, anxiously and approvingly, at them.

"Naaah", said Robin. We just want to quit while we're ahead.

Moments later they walked into the Crowd's midst. To various forms of applause and comments. Robin and Sally bowed, curtsied, congratulated themselves.

"Nicely done!", yelled Anna, "you won that round!"

"Good for you!", said Mary.

"Not seeking revenge?", asked George of Jack.

Jack just hung his head. "Oh-I-am-so-defeated", his look seemed to say.

"Not me," replied Jack to George.

The women made a big deal out of it, and hugged the girls, and made them feel like they were - well, they were - victorious women warriors.

Joaquin, continuing on -

”Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck— ...

Jack, ever so quietly, taking advantage of the fact the focus of attention was not him, walked about looking for...hmm...there it was...right...there - he could not believe his good fortune.

He picked up a bucket of water...slowly...carefully...without a care.

He arranges his world in that he is now behind the girl's backs, carrying aforementioned pail of water. Water which was fished out of the Russian River. Which flows from the Sierra Nevada...which, even in the summer, is still, very very very cold.

Whispering..."You really got me, yes you did"

And then -

Quick like a cat, Jack moved quickly toward the girls (standing next to Anna, Mary, and Carrie), raising the bucket over his head, ready to throw the cold clear Sierra water at them -

Joaquin, stopping for nothing -

"A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”"

Carrie saw, out of the corner of an eye, Jack, with his pail of water sloshing out (he never could keep liquid from spilling from a pail), ready and aimed at Robin and Sally. She shrieked, "Girls, run!"

At the same time she shrieked, she pushed the girls out of the way of the flying water - it sailed right toward them.

Then sailed right past them, finding a landing place somewhere else. That somewhere else would be Charmian. Dead in the way.

Charmian was hit full force with all the water left in the pail. Drenched. And it was then, and only then, that Joaquin Miller stopped reading his work. And this is what he said - turning to Charmian -

"I wish you would go and tidy your hair, young woman."

The magical land of distant snowy peaks. Rivers running wild, clear, and blue underneath blue skies and puffy white clouds. Where the coast is near enough to touch, and where you can't see the tops of the trees. Where gentle hills are covered with orange trees and livestock and grapes. And people can laugh at the day. And play in harmony.

The Crowd laughed. And I suppose someone found Charmian a towel. She wasn't angry. Happy for the joy she felt in her heart...the acceptance. The connection. She loved them and they loved her...they loved each other.

And the day sped along in its joyful hour.

The squirrels came out of their earthen shelter (hadn't heard much pounding lately), to witness what these creatures where laughing about. What the singing of their voices might mean.

(Bess, it should be mentioned, had one thought on her mind -

"Husband and I are going to have a chat.")

A foot pounded again, and the squirrels ran and hid.