The Dawning of the Day (40 page)

He might not have existed. Fort walked away from him, out of reach of those groping fingers. He passed Philippa and Charles with no apparent consciousness of them.

His father stood numbly watching him, his mouth pursed and his cheeks crumpled. His eyes grew watery; he looked distracted with weak, tearful anger. The false jauntiness of the plaid cap and the heavy shoulders of his jacket, the distraught way he rubbed his nose with his hand in the thick white cotton glove, made him as ludicrous as a clown.

Fort's boots crunched on the stones. He was walking fast toward home. Gregg glanced up from his work as Fort passed him. Philippa looked around at Charles; his eyes were half shut and he was chewing absently on the inside of his lower lip.

“Well?” she said softly.

“I don't know what the devil all that meant,” he muttered. She saw that he was disturbed beyond mere annoyance. For Fort to ignore her was one thing, but to ignore Charles was another thing entirely. Whatever had happened to set Fort in this desperate mood bothered Charles deeply; Philippa could see it plainly in his face.

“I must be getting home,” she said. She gave one backward glance along the beach and saw Randall trotting over the boardwalk toward Foss Campion's.

T
he next mail day was a Saturday, with a wet southerly wind piling great graybacks against the island. No one went to haul, but the mail boat, the
Ella Vye
, would come as usual. At Mark's store there was a fire in the potbellied stove and a warm scent of damp heavy clothing and cigarette smoke. A few women's voices leavened the soft rumble of men's conversation. Helen Campion turned her back ostentatiously at Philippa's entrance and drew Peggy toward her with an elaborately protective gesture. Peggy resisted with no change of expression. She gave Philippa a calm blue look. Philippa said, “Hello, Peggy.” Taking her time about it, to give the full flavor of the snub, Peggy moved her eyes and stared at a point behind Philippa's head.

Philippa smiled. She made her way around the groups of men toward the post-office window, speaking in a general friendliness to anyone who glanced at her. Foss Campion gazed through her, as usual, but Asanath said in his amiable drawl, “Well, now, young woman; wet out, ain't it?” Syd Goward was with him; he said, quite distinctly, “Mornin', Mis' Marshall.”

Mark said from inside the post office, “Anybody'd know Syd's wife wasn't here, he's speaking out so loud and clear to a good-looking woman.” There was a ripple of laughter, and Syd blushed.

“Well, I may be a gray-haired old wretch, but I ain't completely dried up yet!”

“That's the boy, Syd!” said Asanath.

“Old fool,” Helen hissed.

Syd said bravely, “Just because Foss never says ah, yes, or no when you're around, Helen, you don't want to figure he's not cutting up when you're stuck in the kitchen.”

Helen flushed. Her hand closed spasmodically on Peggy's shoulder. “Foss,” she said.

“Now, Helen,” Asanath soothed her, “a fine-looking woman like you hadn't ought to worry about what her other half's doing when her back is turned.”

Helen ignored him. “Foss,” she commanded, “you get the mail. Come, Peggy.” She went out, leaving a wake of heavy silence behind her.

“Gorry, Foss,” Syd said, looking up meekly at his brother-in-law, “I guess I ruffled her up a bit.”

“You sure did,” Foss agreed. “But I don't reckon as she'll leave on the next boat on account of it.” He turned back to his conversation with Asanath.

Behind the post-office window Mark fastened mailbags. Jude Webster leaned against the shelves, staring abstractedly across the store and out through one of the small-paned windows that gave on the harbor. He seemed totally divorced from the others in the room.

And so am I, Philippa thought. She stood with Joanna, but the tide of talk eddied around her and past as if she were a rock in a stream. What a pleasant scene this would be, she thought—the old store smelling of a good fire, the water sloshing and slapping under the floor, the easy voices—if I didn't know what lay behind it all. The rest can take it for granted, but I can't. I don't think I ever could. Perhaps you have to be an islander born and bred to live under such conditions in any sort of tranquillity.

She hadn't seen Fort and Charles together since the day Fort had walked by the bait house, away from his father. Steve hadn't been concerned. “It's only natural for a boy to have a chew with his father once in a while. Fort's probably sore at the whole world right now, but he'll get over it. You should've seen the fireworks when Young Charles used to lock horns with his old man.”

If he could dismiss it so casually, she supposed it was no affair of hers, but she thought of Charles and Fort often.

Randall Percy came into the store. He looked around apprehensively, slid by the Campions, and reached his wife. In a little while there was a heavier trampling on the wharf outside, and Steve, Nils, and Young Charles came in. Steve saw Philippa near the post-office window and smiled. Here was her tie with a reality that was strong, warm, and sweet, and just as much of a reality as the slashing of traps.

Nils took a position in front of the stove, his feet apart and his hands in his pockets. He was not a big man, and he was certainly a quiet one. But almost instantly he was the focal point. Talk ebbed into silence, and those who did not look at Nils stared nervously at the floor. Randall Percy was one of the latter.

“Somebody's been at my gear,” he said in a cool, moderate voice. “Everybody knows it. And now that we're all here, most of us anyway, it seems like a good time to mention it.”

Asanath Campion leaned back against the candy case, smiling. “Well, now, Cap'n, you're in the same boat with the rest of us.”

“There's a difference, Asa,” Nils said quietly. “The knife that started this dirty business didn't belong to me or mine. But however it started, I know how it's going to end. It'll end with the wardens down here, and we'll be shut out of our own waters. Well, I say if we're going to have a warden down here, let's have him now and save a lot of woe. Because I'm going out to haul my traps—and find my traps in good condition—if I have to take a warden with me every day.”

“Who needs a warden?” Charles blurted out scornfully. “I'm taking a rifle with me. It's faster.”

“Seems to me you're talking pretty wild,” said Asanath. “Of course, what the boy says don't surprise me none, but I never knew you was such a hothead, Nils.”

Foss watched bleakly. Syd Goward looked unhappy; he began to fill his pipe.

“Pretty wild,” Asanath repeated. “Carrying on about wardens and rifles. It don't sound very seemly, Nils. No matter what you say, you still better look to home. I ain't one to condemn youth—I guess I was jest about as hot-blooded as a young one could be.” He laughed gently. “But I figger a father—or uncle—has to know enough to haul back on the reins when a boy gets all fouled up and carried away with evil influences.”

Young Charles straightened up; his hands came out of his pockets, clenched. “Why don't you talk like a man and name names instead of sniffing around like a contriving mealymouth? What do you mean, evil influence? You got Terence reined in so close he's strangling to death right under your nose, and you stand here talking about other people's boys—”

“Shut up,” said Nils without raising his voice.

“I've got a right to be in on this,” Young Charles said passionately. “Who's an evil influence, Cap'n Mealymouth?”

“I said shut up,” repeated Nils, “or get out of here. The thing's over. I've given notice of my intentions. Anything else that's said is just so much spray on the wind.”

“That's a matter of opinion, ain't it?” asked Asanath. Nils walked over to the post-office window. “Give me ten three's, Helmi,” he said.

“There's a lot of queer stuff going on around here,” said Young Charles. He was springy with tension. His eyes moved shining over the others, slid by the Campions, and rested again on Randall Percy. Randall gazed at the canned tomatoes. His face glistened with wet; he kept wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.

Philippa turned and looked out at the harbor. She wanted to leave, but it would have been too conspicuous for her to reach the door from where she stood. They all know Asanath meant me, she thought. I'm the evil influence. It's getting to be the accepted thing. How long before the others, outside the Campions, begin to wonder if I'm the trigger that set off all these explosions?

Someone moved close to her, shutting off the rest of the store and creating an illusion of privacy about her. She knew it was Steve; she would have known if the place had been pitch dark. He didn't speak, and she remained motionless, watching the gray surge in the harbor and the pelting drive of rain over the wet wharves. Suddenly Joanna said, as if she had just remembered something she had meant to say earlier, “Philippa, Jamie told me to invite you to dinner today. It's lobster chowder. How about it?”

It was in Philippa's mind to refuse, but she recognized the intent behind Joanna's gesture. It was to show Asanath Campion beyond a doubt where the Bennett family stood. If he could make his assertions, veiled and yet definite, in public, so could they. Philippa had no right to withdraw.

T
he island's tension could be felt everywhere. Kathie, Rob, and Ralph had a serious fight in the schoolyard Monday morning, and Philippa kept them all after school that afternoon. The boys seemed to have forgotten their differences by noon, but Kathie remained unnaturally sullen all day.

She had lost her shimmering mobility of expression and now appeared merely stolid. Her mouth drooped and her eyes were without depth, like a doll's. Philippa tried several times to establish contact; it was hardly possible that they could look at each other for any length of time without the dissolution of this new barrier. But the girl sat lumpishly at her desk and ignored Philippa.

That afternoon she dismissed Ralph and Rob after a short discussion of proper conduct in the schoolyard. Kathie sat in her own seat, reading her next day's assignment of
Julius Caesar
. Philippa reached into her handbag for some new snapshots of Eric, taken on Thanksgiving Day, and laid them out on her desk. “Come here a minute, Kathie,” she said.

Kathie came and stood by the desk, her hands hanging heavily at her sides.

“I have some new pictures of Eric,” Philippa said. “Aren't they nice?”

Kathie had always been interested in Eric. Now she didn't lean forward, didn't even incline her head. Her eyes moved across the pictures without a pretense of looking.

Philippa motioned to the chair beside the desk. “Sit down and be comfortable, Kathie.”

Kathie obeyed, staring patiently at Philippa. It was incredible that she should have been capable of such moronic stillness. It was a defense, and as such Philippa respected it. But a defense against what?

“You don't remember what started the trouble this morning?” she asked. Kathie shook her head.

“I have a hunch that Ralph said something to plague you,” said Philippa. “I know something about boys. And Rob helped you fight, didn't he? If I'm right—well, next time, Kathie, ignore Ralph's remarks. I'm not advising you to be like Peggy, but it's a pretty sure thing that anyone who gets under Peggy's skin isn't going to have the satisfaction of knowing it.” She gathered up Eric's pictures and looked at the top one seriously. “I like this one where he has his bicycle. No cowboy was ever more devoted to his horse.” She put them back in her bag. “Aside from everything else, Kathie, we can't have these tangles in the school-yard. I've always counted on you to help keep things on an even keel.”

She smiled, her eyes holding Kathie's and willing them to respond, to begin to crinkle at the tilted outer corners. “That's all, Kathie. Or are you going to wait and walk home with me?”

“I guess I'll go home now,” Kathie said. Nothing had changed, but for a moment Philippa wondered if there was a tremor in her, as if Kathie were reaching the end of her endurance. The girl got up and went quickly down the aisle to the door, and left without looking back.

All at once the emptiness of the schoolhouse became more than the ordinary emptiness at the end of the day; it seemed especially significant, as if this were a schoolroom that had been emptied years before by some great catastrophe.

Steve came in soon after supper, and she went to him with an ardor that surprised them both. He held her away from him, laughing, “When we're married you can have everything I've got, but right now I keep my sore throat to myself.”

“How sore is it? Have you got a temperature?” She laid her hands on his cheeks. “I can't tell, your face is cold from the wind.”

“I'm going to bed,” he said. “It'll be gone in the morning. How are
you
?” He held her by the shoulders and looked at her narrowly.

“Fine,” she said. “Except for taking my pupils a little too seriously. There's something bothering Kathie.” Now that she said it aloud, it was miraculously minimized. “A case of ordinary adolescent megrims, I suppose. It's not fatal, but it can be so darned uncomfortable.”

She reached up and held his wrists. “Have you heard anything more about anyone's traps?”

“Nobody's made any more complaints, as far as I know. Maybe the thing has reached its peak, and now the mess will begin to slack off.”

“I hope so,” she said fervently. “The contagion's getting into the children. And what with Asanath's comments about evil influences, I feel like something out of the
Scarlet Letter
.”

“There's some women would be set up by that.”

“Not me,” she said. “I'm easily intimidated. I can feel guilty even when I know I'm not.”