High Tide at Noon (28 page)

“I love you, Alec.”

“I love you, Joanna,” he answered, and bent to kiss her throat.

The familiar sounds of an Island night in October had a new and intimate delight for Joanna, walking beside her husband. The distant screaming of the gulls, the surf on Goose Ledge, the smell of wet rockweed as they passed the beach, the scents of the marsh and the blessed darkness all around them, the darkness that would soon be starlight.

Joanna thought: Mateel will be all right, and in a little while we'll be home again.

Lights burned high in Nate Bennett's house, and the sound of guitar and accordion came through the closed windows, and the lusty singing of a melancholy tune.

“Sounds as if the gang moved up here,” said Alec, “What kind of a song is that?”

“Don't you know it? He stabs her in the last verse—I mean in her snow-white bosom, but she forgives him, so it's all right.”

“A fine way to celebrate our wedding, with a dirge like that.”

When they came out of the woods and looked down across the rolling ground, with the Head bold and high against the stars, there were lights in both houses at the Eastern End. The old dog came to meet them, and escorted them to the nearer building—Charles' house. Charles himself opened the door to them.

“Mother's upstairs. Sit down. Take off your coats.”

Alec put his hand on Charles' shoulder. “Sit down yourself. Hello, Maurice. How do the lobsters crawl for you, these days?”

Maurice was pale too; his mouth shook when he tried to smile. He was terrified, Joanna realized, and remembering the mischievous Maurice who had been Owen's equal in deviltry, she felt queerly hollow inside.

Men are always frightened about babies, she thought. But it wasn't very calming; she didn't like to see their fear.

She listened to the uneven talk that Alec tried to keep alive. Then her mother came down the narrow stairs from the open chamber overhead, and said, “What are you two doing down here?”

“Mark came over and told us. I thought you might need me.”

“Mark ought to have his bottom spanked. Maurice, will you go to the harbor and call the doctor?”

Maurice took a step forward, his mouth moving before the words came. “She's—she's bad?”

“Yes,” Donna said evenly.

Maurice took his cap and went out. Charles fumbled with his cigarettes and dropped them, and Alec handed him one. There was no sound in the house, no sound from upstairs.

“Mateel's the bravest girl I've ever seen,” said Donna, and her quiet words broke the spell.

“Mother,
how
bad?” Charles said quickly.

“I don't know, Charles. But not too bad, I think. Mateel's sturdy.”

“Does it hurt her much?” His words came harshly, with difficulty.

“Babies always hurt,” said Donna in her most practical voice. “But Mateel's got grit. She won't make a sound.”

Joanna sat very straight and trembled a little inside her coat. She didn't look at Alec, who was scratching the old spaniel's ears. I was married tonight, and I've thought about having children, and upstairs a woman is having a baby. Upstairs a woman is in terrible pain.

She felt as if every nerve of her body was pulled taut. She couldn't stop thinking of Mateel. Sometime Alec might look as Charles did now, sometime she might be biting back her moans. But it didn't have to be like that, if she didn't want it that way. She and Alec didn't ever have to go through this ordeal.

And in the middle of her tumbled thoughts, she knew something else; that Charles had turned to his mother as he had always turned to her. And that there had been tenderness as well as admiration in her mother's voice when she said, “Mateel's got grit. She's the bravest girl I've ever seen.”

The door opened violently and Aunt Mary came in with all the force of an easterly gale, Mark grinning over her shoulder and making wild gestures at the others. Her great voice and presence filled the tiny kitchen, making Donna seem twice as quiet, and twice as slender too.

“Well, I never!” Aunt Mary boomed at them. “A wedding and a baby in the same day!” She wagged a roguish finger at Alec. “Good thing you folks ain't responsible for the baby as well as the wedding—then there
would
be something to talk about on this God-forsaken place!”

Alec lifted an eyebrow at her. Donna said sincerely, “I'm glad you came down, Mary.” Nate's wife was in her element with sickness and new babies, and most of the Islanders were willing to ignore her candid humor, at least until after the crisis.

“Well, when Mark come and told me, I knew you'd be needing me,” she said without false modesty. “You can't tell about these things—all the Bennett babies I ever knew was in such a hurry to start raising a rumpus that they never waited for any doctor. Course none of 'em was ever way ahead of time . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “Just how much ahead of time
is
Mateel, Charles?”

Charles said, “Next month it should've been.”

“Well, that's not too bad.” Without invitation she went upstairs. Donna, smiling faintly, removed the singing teakettle from the flame and said to Joanna and Alec, “You two might as well run along. It was good of you to come down but I don't need you, now that Mary's here.” The smile broadened. “The two of us should be able to manage a Bennett baby. We've had plenty of experience, God knows.”

Charles ssid haggardly, “Yes, thanks, kids.” Alec laid his cigarettes on the table. “Just in case you run out of 'em, son . . . Coming, Mark?”

“Mark, you go on back to the harbor and round up Stevie, and go home,” Donna said.

“I been trying to dig him up all evening,” said Mark sulkily. “I don't know where he is.”

“He went down to take David some wedding cake and ice cream, don't you remember? That's where he is.”

Joanna stopped, her hand on the knob. “Wasn't David at the wedding? No, he wasn't! I don't remember seeing him. Did Gunnar—”

“Yes, the old bastard,” said Mark simply. “He was mad as hell 'cause David went up in the woods with Stevie and me to get some greens for the house. Dave went off without asking . . . and him fifteen! The goddam old—”

“
Mark!
” said Donna.

“Well, he's worse than I could ever think up words for,” said Mark candidly. “I bet he was good and mad when Stevie went down with the eats, too—it's a wonder he'd let Dave have 'em.”

Donna sighed. “I know. But we can't interfere. And Karl was such a nice young man, too, when we were all young married people together. I don't know what's come over him. Go along, Mark, and see if you can't find Stevie.”

“Am I my brother's keeper?” said Mark in a pained voice, but he unfolded his Bennett length and went out with Joanna and Alec.

They walked briskly back through the woods. The wind was rising, and though it came from the north, so that the path was sheltered, it hit them with a chill breath when they went down through the field. There was still music at Uncle Nate's, but Mark and his air of martyrdom accompanied Joanna and Alec to the harbor.

“I suppose I've got to find that kid,” he muttered.

“Cheer up,” said Alec. “We'll walk around the shore with you.” Facing the sharp wind, they went down the road through the marsh. As they reached the shore, they heard the dories and punts rolling and bumping at the water's edge, and the rattle of beach stones as the water pulled back, gathering itself to leap forward again.

“Making a little surf, isn't it?” Joanna said. She felt cold, yet her hands were sweating. She was nervous with the long excitement of the day behind her, the worry about Mateel, and the sharp anger that had come over her like flame when she found Gunnar had kept David from the wedding.

And then there was the serenade; she'd have to make sandwiches as soon as they got back to the house. Mark would find Stevie and pretend to go home, but they'd come through the woods with their firecrackers, and the others would come up from the village. And then the women would sneak upstairs—you weren't supposed to notice them sneaking—and do crazy things with the bed.

Joanna sighed. Just that to go through, and then she and Alec would be really alone.

Out of the darkness, as they passed the bait house, there was the sound of feet on the stony path, and a voice hailing them. It was Nils.

“Mark, is that you?”

“Yep!” Mark sang out. “Hey, have you seen the kid brother?”

“Have you seen
mine?
” Nils reached them now, and recognized the others in the starlight. “Hi, Jo . . . Alec. Mark, where'd those kids go?”

“How should I know?” Mark was injured. “Aren't they at your house?”

“I was just up there. They've all gone to bed, but David's gone. He sleeps with me, so I ought to know.” Worry made him curt. And suddenly Joanna knew where the young boys had gone. She heard herself saying, “What if they've run away? Are all the boats in?”

Mark was off with a whoop. “Hey, wait a minute, I'll get Nathan's flashlight—he's got a new one with a long beam.” They heard his feet running away from them on the stones. The other three waited in the chill autumn darkness, listening to the rising wind.

“But those kids, in a boat—” Alec began.

Nils said, “It's crazy. Only I was always going to run away too, but I never did. Do you think David—Oh, Christ, they're probably rammin' around the Island somewhere.”

Joanna had never heard his voice so jerky and uneven. Then Mark came back with the light, and they went out on the old wharf. Boat by boat the harbor fleet was picked out at their moorings by the long finger of light; Nils' boat, Sigurd's, Karl's, Owen's, Stephen's—but Philip's was not there. The
Gull
was gone.

“They took Phil's boat because they knew he'd be easy on 'em,” said Mark. “Young sons o' bitches. Why didn't they take me along?”

Alec took him by the shoulder. “You go home and round up your father and Philip. Then go up to your uncle's and get Owen and the other boys. And no side trips down to the Eastern End to tell you mother what's going on.”

“What do you think I am, a damn fool?” said Mark indignantly, and left them. As the others went back to the road, they almost collided with Maurice.

“What goes on?” he inquired with interest. “Me, I got to 'ang around till the Coast Guard brings the doctor. I don't know 'ow Mateel is, or anyt'ing.”

“She's doing all right,” Joanna said. Nils went to find his father and Sigurd, and Alec sent Maurice back to the store, to have Pete Grant call the Coast Guard again and give a description of the
Gull
and present crew.

For a moment Alec and Joanna were alone in the lee of the boat­shop. He put his arms around her and tried to stop her trembling. “We'll all have to go out, Joanna, and comb the bay for those kids. You'll remember your wedding night for a long time, honey.”

“Alec—”

“It's not like you to take on like this, Jo. Remember what I said. We've got the whole world before us, and the rest of our lives.” At the gentle reproach in his voice, she stepped back from him and put her hands on his chest.

“Don't talk as if I was a weak fool!” she said scornfully. “It's just that—Alec, Stevie told me a long time ago they were going to run away. Don't you see? I
knew!
”

“Well, somebody couldn't always be watching the kids,” he said sensibly. “Even if you'd told 'em. So don't fret. Here come the others.” He kissed her hard, a long hungry kiss as if it must do him a lifetime, and then they were going out to meet a swinging flashlight—Philip, the first of the searchers.

He said easily, “Looks like they've stolen a march on us, all right. Father went down to the Eastern End before Mark came, he's going to keep Charles company. No sense bothering him about it. I'll take his boat.”

Stephen had gone to the Eastern End—he'd put out his hand to his eldest son at last. But where was the youngest son now—the baby, with his puppyish awkwardness and the long eyelashes he hated, and his love of basketball?

T
HE NORTHERN LIGHTS, STREAMING HIGH
over Brigport, sent a weird light over the harbor as the boats left, one after another. There was no possibility of keeping the story quiet when most of the men had joined the search. Only the Eastern End remained oblivious. Maurice knew, and wanted to go too.

He stood beside Joanna on the wharf, watching the lights flash in the harbor, and said wistfully, “I could get my fadder to come up and wait for the doctor.”

“I don't want anybody down there to know!” Joanna's voice was sharp. “My father and mother and Charles have enough to worry about. So you needn't go down there and tell anybody.”

“All right, all right, Jo! Don't fly at me!”