High Tide at Noon (29 page)

She had to laugh at him, in spite of her anxiety. They went back to the store, which Pete had kept open because of the emergencies. He was doing a rising business in cigarettes, pop, and candy. There was a festive air about the place, a sharp excitement in the voices of the women who spoke to Joanna.

“My lands, I hope Jud don't catch his death of cold runnin' around the bay tonight!” Marion Gray said. “Those two boys need their bottoms warmed, that's certain.”

Susie Yetton was loyal. “They ain't no worse than any other kids. What about the time your Peter set the Western End on fire?”

Thea and Maurice had wandered outside, looking casual. If Joanna hadn't been so upset, she would have been amused. Maurice had stopped worrying about Mateel; he had called the doctor, and that was the end of it, as if the mere act had accomplished some magic down at the Eastern End and removed the danger. That was the way with men.

The women's acid voices were maddening, and she went outside again in the cold windy darkness. She had not forgotten Mateel, nor the silence from upstairs, that had struck on her ears with the impact of a scream. She had not forgotten Charles' gray face.

Perhaps Mat eel was dying now. Perhaps the two boys were already drowned. No, don't think of that, she told herself harshly. It's wrong to think that. They know how to run a boat. It's just the ledges, and the wind rising. It's getting colder, too . . . There it was again, the terror that wanted to spread like smoke through her brain.

Mark had gone off around the shore somewhere, furious because the older boys had refused to take him. Joanna walked down to the wharf and stood in the lee of a stack of Pete's lobster crates. It seemed to her that she was always waiting somewhere, alone.

She touched the wedding ring on her finger, and knew she was not really alone now. She was a married woman, and yesterday she'd been Steve Bennett's girl, nineteen years old. Now she was Mrs. Alec Douglass.

The water chuckled and banged under the wharf, and the lobster car thumped against the spilings. Over the long black ridge of Brigport the northern lights shot up long fingers of light, pale green and rose. Joanna watched them, wondering why David had chosen tonight to run away.

There were firm, heavy steps in the shed, and she knew, before he came toward her and flashed his light on her, that it was Gunnar Sorensen. His son Karl walked behind him—he hadn't gone out with the others.

“Ha, Yo, your man gone on the vedding night, huh?” said Gunnar.

“Hello, Mr. Sorensen. Hello, Karl.”

“Oh, hello, Joanna,” Karl said vaguely. He leaned against a hogs­head and lit a cigarette. In the glow she saw his features, strong like Nils', yet not strong; as if there had once lived in him a loyal, resolute spirit that had marked his face, but had since died, leaving only the imprint.

“You better do to dat Stevie what I do to David.” Gunnar said, chuckling. “I von't say Stevie made David a bad boy—David vass plenty bad to begin with.”

“I always liked David,” said Joanna stiffiy. In a minute now she would walk away—she couldn't stand the sight of that old man with his Santa Claus face, gloating so cheerfully over what he would do to David.

“They've got courage, haven't they, Karl?” she said to him. “You can't say they're cowards. I'm proud of them.”

Karl said nothing. His profile was unreal against the starlit sky behind his head. Gunnar cleared his throat, sniffed, chuckled. There was a lantern coming down through the shed now, and above the sound of wind and water, a high plaintive voice arose.

“Kristi, can't you valk faster?”

“
Anna!
” said Gunnar sharply. “Karl, take your madder home.”

“He vill not take me home,” said old Anna. Leaning on Kristi's arm, she confronted her husband and her son. “Do you hear anyt'ing of the children?”

“No, no,” said Gunnar. “You go home, Anna. Get to bed. No place for a voman. Kristi, you take her—”

Anna Sorensen was little and rosy. I n the lantern light Joanna saw the shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders, and the short wrinkled hand she laid on her husband's arm. “Gunnar,” she said in her soft anxious voice, “you are cross with David, you are more than cross. Please, remember your Bible, Gunnar, and forgive the boy.”

He shook off her hand. “Anna, go home as I tell you. If the boy is bad, you have made him so, always spoiling him, so soft. Begging me to not punish him. I vass beaten, Anna. My modder begged for me, too, but my fadder knew how to raise a boy.” His voice was thick with rage. “Anna, vill you do like I tell you?”

“Yust the same, Gunnar, you should have let him have the cake Stevie brought him, and the ice cream. You t'rew it in the pigpen, and you know it vass not
right
, Gunnar.”

“Mother,” Karl said evenly. “I'll walk home with you.”

“Karl, if only I vass big enough to shake you like I did when you vass little!” She began to cry. “David iss your little boy!” She went away between her son and her granddaughter. Mter a moment Gunnar went up to the store, muttering to himself. And joanna, alone on the wharf again, realized she was taut with rage. So that was where the ice cream and cake went—into the pigpen.

Tears swam in her eyes. If those two boys are lost, he'll have killed them, she thought. There alone on the wharf, she cried with a passion of anger, and of sudden loneliness for Alec.

The sound of a heavy engine vibrated through the night air. Joanna went to the end of the wharf, hastily drying her eyes, and saw the lighted Coast Guard boat coming past the western end of Brigport. Well, that takes care of Mateel, she thought. The boat was making good time; already it was coming past the harbor ledges, pitching in the tide run. Some of the watchers were coming down through the shed.

Joanna went around by the other side of the crates, and when the shed was quite empty, she walked up to the store. She was not in a mood for any more quips about being left alone on her wedding night. She remembered suddenly that there was the serenade to go through when the men came back, and already she was so tired she wondered how she could bear it.

Pete had gone down to the wharf, so the store was empty. She sat down on a nail keg beside the stove and warmed her hands. It seemed like a year ago, those few heavenly moments with Alec in their own house, before Mark came in. Mark, with his loud and cheerful voice—

“Hi, Jo!”

Her heart seemed to come into her throat. Stevie shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “I didn't mean to scare you,” he said meekly.

“Stevie, where did you come from!” Yes, he was real, she put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. “How did you get here?”

“Coast Guard.” He grinned nervously at her. “Something went wrong with the engine. Philip'll be mad, but honest, Jo—”

“Stevie, you picked out an awful night to run away in. I doh't know whether to slap you or kiss you. Everybody's out looking for you.”

Stevie looked suddenly very young and weary. “I know it. Gosh, don't
you
start in on me, Jo! Everybody else got a dig in when I came up the wharf.”

“You'd better go home and go straight to bed. And don't get up when Mother and Father come in, because they don't even know you've been gone.” They went outside, and heard the others coming up from the wharf. She gave him a little shove toward the path, then caught his sleeve as Gunnar and Karl came around the corner.

“Where's David?” she asked swiftly.

“He's coming with the crowd, I guess. Thea grabbed him and was hugging him. Gosh, she's sappy. “ He blinked as Gunnar's light picked him out.

“Ha! The vanderer returns. Velcome, my boy!” Joanna felt Stevie's arm tighten under her fingers. He jerked free and walked swiftly toward the path, and was lost in the darkness.

“And here iss my fme grandson!“ crowed Gunnar, and the light fell full on David as he came out of the shed; a blinking, white-faced David shivering in his jacket, his yellow hair tumbled. He stood still and looked at the light, while Gunnar's voice came out of the darkness and curled around him like the tongue of his whip. Those who stopped behind David didn't move; Karl, behind his father, was a motionless shadow.

“So you come back to your grandfadder, did you? You couldn't stay away from him because you love him so much. And your grand­fadder love you too, my boy.” The words were honey-sweet, but when Gunnar was honey-sweet the Island walked warily. “Come, my boy,” said Gunnar, and David, his eyes widening, took a jerky step forward.

Somebody moved. Somebody said quietly, “Come here, David.” It was Karl. In quick bewilderment, the boy turned his head as a dog does. Karl stepped into the light.

“Come on, David,” he said. He was smiling, and it was odd, what a smile could do to a voice. Karl's voice was suddenly warm and pleasant; it was a voice to trust. He sounded a good deal like his son Nils.

Gunnar said coldly, “Leave the boy to me, Karl.”

“You'd better go home, Father. It's cold down here.” Karl's tone was level. “David's going to help me in the shop for a while. Then we'll come home.”

Joanna wondered if anybody else felt like cheering, if anybody else felt this devilish delight in Gunnar's silent rage. It had to be silent, for almost the whole Island was looking at him, the whole Island could see how his flashlight trembled in his hand. He made a harsh, grating sound in his throat and walked away. For a moment there was complete stillness, then the tension broke, and everybody was talking at once about the Coast Guard, the doctor, Mateel. Nobody mentioned Gunnar.

The women who had been waiting for their husbands went home to wait; now that the boys were safe, there was nothing to worry about. Pete Grant locked up the store. Down at the end of the wharf the Coast Guard boat waited for the doctor to come back. The men had tied up Philip's boat, and in the cutter's snug cabin they were drinking coffee and playing cards.

The Island seemed asleep. Joanna walked around the shore; she too could go home, but she dreaded entering the empty house. The thought was like a chill going over her, as if it would be bad luck to go up there alone. No, she would wait until Alec came back. It wouldn't be so long, now. She turned up her coat collar as the wind struck at her through a space between the fish houses.

The boat shop on the old wharf was open, the door was always unlocked. Jud Gray was building a new boat there, and when Joanna slipped inside, the air was warm and aromatic with new wood. Shavings were soft around her feet. Above her, the hull loomed whitely in the gloom.

She heard an engine in the harbor; the
Donna
was coming back, with Philip. It meant the others must be on the way. They would see the Coast Guard boat at the wharf, and go alongside, and then find the
Gull
.

She stayed in the boat shop, sitting on a box in the wood-scented darkness, listening to the water gurgle under the wharf and to voices on the beach outside, the sound of a dory scraping over the stones. She wondered how Mateel was coming along. She put the thought of Mateel's death from her mind. She couldn't die as quickly as that.

Perhaps she dozed a little, there in the warm dark. But it seemed to her all at once that she'd been there a long time, and there was another engine coming into the harbor. She sprang up wildly. What if Alec had come back, and didn't know where she was? She ran outside, and the cold wind was bitter around her body, the stars seemed very far away, with the distant frosty twinkle that meant a cold snap; her teeth were chattering as she went out on the end of the old wharf and strained to see through the darkness. Alec's mooring was so far from the wharf, and the northern lights had died out to a pale, curved glow. She heard the familiar clink of the mooring chain, the clatter of oar blades striking the thwarts—and she knew a joyous surge of relief.

Alec was a quiet, slow-moving figure in the starlight as he pulled the punt up and made it fast. He was the last man to come in. There were no lights around the harbor now; it was a desolate prospect of black trees against the stars, of blackness everywhere, that greeted him as he came slowly up the beach. Joanna remembered the return from Cash's, and how she had wanted to cradle his tired head in her arms.

Tonight she could do that; tonight she would hold his head against her breast. For he was hers, and the world belonged to them. The Island itself was theirs tonight—an island floating in a dark sea spangled with stars, an island where there was no one but themselves.

“Alec,” she said quietly, and walked toward him. He put his arms around her and held her close to him in a long and silent embrace; she felt his tired breathing, and the deep steady rhythm of his heart.

“So the boys are all right,” he said at last. “I met the Coast Guard going back, just off Brigport. I hailed them—the doctor said Mateel's got a fine boy.”

“I'm glad,” said Joanna peacefully.

“Me too . . . Well, let's go home.”

They walked slowly through the sleeping village, his arm around her shoulders. They hardly spoke until they had come to their own steps. Joanna stumbled a little, and he caught her to him. “Tired?”

“A little. I know you are.”

They opened the door and went in; warmth and lamplight spread about them. Joanna stood without taking off her coat, and watched Alec kick off his boots. He looked so utterly tired and worn out, and she felt like that too. A little depressed. What a way to feel on your wedding night.

Alec looked at her suddenly, a merry grin slipped across his face. “No serenade!”

It broke the spell. Joanna was laughing all at once. She ran across the room and put her arms around his neck, her face turned up to him with tears of laughter and love glittering on her lashes. She loved him so, and there was no gesture, no word big enough to show the bigness of her love for him. It ftlled her heart and her head and her throat.