High Tide at Noon (9 page)

“What's wrong with them?” asked Charles. His voice seemed suddenly sharp.

“What isn't wrong with them?” Owen said with easy contempt. “The
Cecile
looks like an old hake-boat—grease, old bait, and herring scales. I guess Jake never owned a broom to scrub up with.”

“The house hasn't been painted since Adam was a kitten.” That was Philip. “I suppose it doesn't matter so damn much, living down there on the Eastern End like some of those Kentucky mountaineers. But one of these days that fish house is going to topple to hell overboard.”

Stephen nodded. “The whole place down there is a disgrace to the Island. The Trudeaus are too far below the standard your grandfather tried to keep up. Nate was a fool to let Jake buy the Eastern End, just because Jake had a roll of bills in his pocket. Never even asked him where he got the money or why he left his home town in Canada.” Stephen began to fill his pipe. “I know Jake's been rum­running since he came to the Island, too. All those trips of his up and down the bay . . . And that lazy young devil Maurice—does he ever do anything but sit around with a fiddle under his chin?” He smiled as he said it, for everyone, even Stephen, had a half­contemptuous liking for Maurice. “I don't say they're bad people, they're just—”

“Just what?” Charles leaned forward, his coppery cheekbones darkening.

Stephen looked at him in good-natured surprise. Owen grinned, deviltry in his eyes. “He's scared you'll say something about that French filly there, Mateel.”

There was all at once a silence in the room. Owen broke it, his light tone forced, trying to wipe out what he'd said. “There's not a man on the Island wouldn't like to take her out. But I guess she's waitin' for one of those ginks on a big white horse.”

Stephen looked around the table at his sons, and his dark eyes rested on each one in turn; his voice was slow and pleasant. “It's a good idea to let her wait, then. Maybe he'll come along. You boys—” He glanced at his wife, a little current of understanding seemed to pass between them. “You boys will be in my place some day. I hope you pick out your wives as carefully as I picked mine.”

“Is that an order, Father?” Charles' eyes were narrow and brilliant. “You make it sound pretty clear.”

“I could make it sound even clearer,” said Stephen. “I could tell you I don't ever want to see a Bennett boat anchored in Eastern End Cove.”

“Don't worry, Father,” Philip said pleasantly. “I guess the rooster's right—Mateel won't look at anybody the Island can provide.”

“Same with Jo,” said Owen. “She turns up her nose at all of 'em.”

“Except Nils. Old Faithful,” murmured Philip.

Donna said comfortably, “There's no foolishness between Nils and Joanna.”

The taut instant was past. Joanna began to cut more cake, and the sharp intensity in the poise of Charles' head, in his whole bearing, relaxed. He sat back and took out his cigarettes.

T
HE HARBOR WAS A WILDERNESS
of tossing black water and a knife-edged wind keen with salt; the
Aurora B
. pulled at her already taut lines, the wharf groaned and creaked, the water gurgled and hissed and surged over the rocks below the planks. Every available man and boy on Bennett's Island was there to help carry the Fosters' goods ashore.

The
Aurora
's masthead lights, and a lantern hung high on the wharf, illumined the work that was a race against time and tide and the ever-rising wind. Joanna felt excitement run and sing through her veins; the hurry, the voices, the strong sea smell, the water, the swinging lantern, even the groaning timbers—they all made her wildly, almost drunkenly happy. She pressed close to the shed, to be out of the wind. There was haste and laughter and cheerful profanity all around her. She watched Charles run along the bulwark from bow to stern, agile as a tightrope walker. Nils and Sigurd, bare heads yellow in the lantern light, tossed chairs to the wharf with magnificent abandon. Philip and Jeff Bennett caught them with an equal flourish.

“Haven't they got nice furniture?” said Kristi Sorensen, close to her ear. Kristi was plump and fair, with round blue eyes and a wonderful capacity for bewilderment.

“Lovely,” said Joanna, “but not when those boys get through with it.” A high, irrepressible giggle shrilled from the dense shadows in the shed. “Thea,” said Joanna. “Your fascinating cousin. She's been switching her tail at the boys.”

Kristi looked shocked. “If Grampa comes down here and catches her—”

Joanna dodged, as Jeff and Philip came past with a table. She peered across the wharf to where her father stood in the dusk at the edge of the lantern light. There were two people with him, slight shadows against his height.

“Have you seen the Fosters?” she asked Kristi. “He's a little gray man. But I can't get a good look at her.”

“She prob'ly isn't much. It's awful cold, Jo. Come on up to the house for a while.”

“I want to see this Foster woman,” said Jo. “Who's afraid of a little weather? Or is it Gunnar you're scared of?”

The words faded on her lips. Her father and the Fosters were coming toward her across the rough planks where the lantern threw its yellow glow. Owen took this moment to leap from the boat to the wharf, his plaid mackinaw flying, his hair a black crest in the wind. Nils sprang up after him, caught him by the arms, and shouted, “Over you go!” For a moment they swayed, laughing, at the wharf's very edge, teeth a white glitter in their tanned faces, cheeks red with cold, one head so fair and the other so dark.

“Careful, boys,” Philip said, and they stopped their horseplay. But their eyes still shone with laughter and excitement, they were breathing hard. Mrs. Foster looked up at them, the lantern light full upon her. Joanna saw a trimly plump woman with a white face; a woman whose slow smile curled her pale mouth oddly at the corners, and slipped upward to the heavy-lidded eyes. A pretty woman, one might call her; pretty in a strange, a quiet, and an exquisitely neat fashion.

“Yes, please don't drown yourselves,” she said, and Joanna heard as if in a little bubble of silence the low, almost throaty quality of her voice. She had never heard tones like these; on the Island, voices were soft and quick, with slurred consonants and broad vowels.

The boys stood looking at her, quickly intent. Joanna saw their eyes grow keen. There was something about her that sharpened one's glance.

“That fur coat is some handsome,” Kristi whispered enthusiastically. “Real fur, too.'

In the shed there was a panicky squeal from Thea, a scramble among the hogsheads, Hugo's merry salute.

“
Hullo
, Thea darlin'! How's my little Dutch heifer tonight? And who's that with you? Oh, I won't tell on you, my boy!” He came out on the wharf, flashlight in hand, and grinned at Joanna. “More damn fun with this buglight—My God, is
that
what I helped ashore a little while ago? I didn't get a good look.” He stared at Mrs. Foster, his eyes narrowed, as she smiled up at Owen and Nils.

“She doesn't look like much to me,” said Kristi. “And she's married, Hugo Bennett, so you'd better not have ideas.”

“Well, sweetheart, if you won't let me love
you
up, I gotta have something!” His eyes were dancing. “Christ, I'll bet old man Foster has his hands full with that one!”

“You're crazy as a coot,” said Kristi, with a sniff.

“Come on, you guys, look alive there!” Link Hall yelled from the hold. “If I stay here much longer my boat'll go to pieces!”

“And my wharf'll be sailing to hell down the bay!” Pete Grant yelled back at him. Hugo took a flying leap aboard, Nils and Owen behind him.

“Keep your shirt on, Link m'boy,” said Owen paternally. “We'll get you out of here faster'n you can spit through a knothole.”

“Come
on
, Jo,” said Kristi between chattering teeth, and at last, acknowledging the cold wind, Joanna left the wharf.

M
ARCH, FULL OF WIND AND STORM
, came to a boisterous close. Spring was perceptible in the soft breathing of the wind, a new and tender blueness in the sea, the increasing clamor of the gulls who had been silent for so long. Joanna woke in the morning to hear them harsh and jubilant, rising and falling over the harbor like scraps of white paper blown by the wind.

At noon, now, the sun was very warm, and the ground smelled damp and fresh, and there was green grass in the sheltered places. The men stood around on the beach, talking about the spring crawl when the lobsters came in from deep water. But most of the time they were busy making traps, painting buoys, and many a ball of marlin was carried home to be knit into trapheads by the women.

Joanna knit for her brothers and her father, and they paid her for her work. Her hands were quick and strong, and her knots held. She didn't mind the oiled green twine that was harsh to her fingers. It didn't take long to knit up a ball; she sat by the sitting room window and worked at odd moments, while she was waiting for the men to come down to breakfast or in the few minutes before the dinner potatoes were done. Or she might spend an hour or so in the afternoon while Donna mended, and they would talk.

This is a day to be out, Joanna thought one afternoon, as she watched the patterned circling of gulls high above the harbor. Clouds raced across the northern sky; great white ones shadowed with purple, small soft gray ones. The prospect was forever changing, only the line of trees and rocks below remained the same.

From the room behind her came Donna's quiet voice. “Joanna, you've been working at that long enough. Why don't you get out into the air for a while? Why don't you go down and see Kristi?”

“There's only one thing wrong with that, Mother. Kristi has a grandfather.”

“It's wicked to hate that old man, Joanna.”

Joanna shook her head. “I like Kris too well to go down there and watch that old devil bully her.”

“Gunnar
is
hard. But he's had a hard life,” Donna said. “It was too bad Karl's wife died, and he had to take his children to his parents, but Anna is a good woman.”

“She's a saint. And Gunnar is a fiend.” Joanna pulled a knot tight with a vindictive jerk. “Wish I had his neck right here!” Some day he'll pay for what he did to Nils and me, she thought. Gunnar and Simon. Gunnar for his sarcasm and Simon for his lies.

She looked down at the harbor and saw a boat come around Eastern Harbor Point, a gallant white boat riding the combers like a thoroughbred. It was Nils. He had his own power boat now. Another boat came in behind him, a low-slung green boat. That would be the new man, Ned Foster, whose wife was so quiet and neat. Joanna saw her sometimes in the store on boat days; she always stood at one side, hardly speaking, but smiling her odd smile when anyone greeted her. She seemed to be withdrawn into a world of her own.

“The boys'll be in soon,” Donna said. “They'll probably want a mug-up.”

“Coffee and pie,” said Joanna. She went into the kitchen and moved the teakettle over the fire. Winnie, under the stove, thumped her tail in greeting. “Hello, old lady,” Joanna said to her. “Kind of tame around here without those wild Indians, isn't it?” Winnie thumped some more and went back to sleep and a dream of the mice she liked to hunt in the barn.

Owen was the first to come in, with a great stamping of feet and slamming of doors after which he said in concern, “Mother asleep?”

“No, you idiot,” said Joanna. “How could she be, with you coming in like the devil in a gale of wind? What's that all over your boots?”

“Bait,” said Owen with relish. “Doesn't it smell good?”

“It smells good in the bait house but not in my clean kitchen. Take off your boots, my little man.”

“What makes you so ugly? God, what a face to greet a hardworking man with!”

She laughed at him, because his eyes were so merry. “You must've got a good haul.”

“Hundred and sixteen pounds, darlin' mine! I'm high man today. Where's my mug-up? Set out a couple extra cups, kid. Nils and Hugo are coming up and we're going to cut pot limbs.”

“Why don't you go with them, Joanna? You haven't been out all day,” said Donna from the doorway. She smiled at her children, her eyes luminously blue, her fair head held with serene dignity.

Owen went to her and laid his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Well, my dear,” he said, and there was a sudden tenderness across his bold dark face. “All you need is a crown and a train and you'd look like a queen.”

“She looks like one already, even in a housedress,” said Joanna. She set out mugs and spoons with a cheerful clatter and cut extra­large wedges of dried-apple pie.

The tide was racing in Goose Cove as they followed the grassy edge of the beach; the three boys with hatchets in their belts, potwarp coiled over their arms. Nils carried a saw. Hugo, whose red plaid shirt set off his dark good looks, was brimming with his own particular sort of deviltry. Owen was still in a glow of triumph from his good haul. Nils alone was silent, almost morose.

Joanna managed to fall behind the others when he stopped to examine an old trap on the rocks. “What's the matter?” she asked bluntly.

Nils' mouth twitched. “Grampa.”

“As usual! Honestly, Nils, I pity you kids, having to live with him! It almost makes me glad my grandfather's up in the cemetery. What ails Gunnar—spring in his blood?”

“Yep. Kris and David wanted to come along with me—no reason why they couldn't! We were halfway across the barnyard when he yelled at us. It was just plain damn ugliness, and I told him so. . . . Well, Gramma's crying, Kris is in her room, and David's washing down the henhouse.”

His words came hard and tight. “He won't dare touch Kris. But if he lays a hand on that kid—Joanna, before God—if he's touched David, when I get home I'll string the old bastard up by the thumbs and take his own whip to him.”