The Dawning of the Day (14 page)

Jamie and Linnea were on the slope toward the woods, their heads gleaming gold against the damp shadowy trees. Eric had never picked cranberries, or any kind of berries that she could remember. This business that Jamie conducted with such grave pleasure had no similar thread in the texture of Eric's short past. Eric would be bored, perhaps, but at eight even a city child wouldn't have grown too far away from the earth. There was an affinity between young animals and the soil.

Joanna and Nils were in the slight depression between the two slopes, and suddenly Jamie stood up and called to them. “I've got a coo! You can pick in it if you want to!”

“Thanks, but we've got a coo of our own,” Joanna called back. “Pick it clean, now.”

“Ayeh!” Jamie went down on his knees again. Linnea was wandering down toward her parents, singing a formless little song.

Philippa looked guiltily at her own patch to see if she'd picked it clean, then took her pail and moved within conversational distance of the Sorensens. Joanna was busy, but Nils sat with his back against a boulder, smoking his pipe. “What's a coo?” she said.

“I don't know where it comes from,” said Joanna, “but when a man finds a place where the lobsters come good, he has a coo. What does it mean, Nils?”

He lifted a blond eyebrow at her, and shrugged.

“A man of few words,” said Joanna. “After ten years with me Nils is just as quiet and I'm just as noisy. Is that good or bad?”

“It sounds like an ideal arrangement,” said Philippa. “You've each preserved the integrity of your personality, it says in the book.”

“All wrong,” Joanna said darkly. “I'm supposed to spring alive only when I hear my master's voice, and let him pick out my shoes for me in the catalogue. ‘Asa, these are the ones I kind of like—'” It was Suze's voice, tentative and without hope. “‘Waal, I'll tell ye, old woman, seems like you're gittin' a little giddy, choosin' a heel like that.'” Joanna narrowed her eyes. “Giddy! He doesn't care what she wears, he hardly ever looks at her, but if he doesn't keep her in line, maybe she'll forget for one second that he's the Big Man. And if he had that Joanna Bennett for a wife, the way
she
rampses over the island, he'd put the wood to her, all right!”

“Did you ever hear him say anything like that?” asked Nils.

“I only have to look at him, darling. And he only has to look at me.” She drew her finger fast across her brown throat, and laughed. “Now Foss likes women with spirit. He figures he's great shakes as a lion tamer. It's in his voice. It's supposed to gentle you into a state of coma.”

Nils pointed between them with his pipe, out at the mouth of the cove. “Tell us about Terence,” he said. “You're doing fine.”

They looked and saw the double-ender going by, moving like something entranced on the summery sea. The rounded side of the boat was patterned with glimmering reflections. It shone between water and sky like a pearl. Terence was not alone. Kathie sat opposite him, on the stern seat. Her head was bright against the water. They were too far away for the others to see their faces, but there was a peacefulness about them. Terence rowed with long effortless strokes, and Kathie sat with one elbow on a bare knee, her chin in her hand.

Philippa's reaction was first pleasure and then dismay. She glanced warily at the others. Nils's eyes, a cool withdrawn blue, were almost shut. He seemed intent on the action of his pipe. Joanna watched the peapod pass out of sight beyond a point of red rock, her lips parted. There was a faint crease between her black eyebrows.

“Steve says there's nothing to it,” she said. “He doesn't know much about Terence, but he says Kathie is sound. Charles says Terence isn't—well, I'll say virile, but that's not his word.”

“The rest of the place maintains an open mind,” said Nils dryly. “Just waiting for Kathie to get in trouble.” He nodded at Philippa. “You have Kathie in school. What do you think? Mark would appreciate some backing. He and Helmi don't jibe on it.”

“Helmi's like Steve,” said Joanna. “She thinks Kathie has common sense.”

Philippa said reluctantly, “I couldn't make any guesses about what's going on. Terence never says two words to me. Well, he says ‘Good morning' or ‘Good evening,' sometimes. I like Kathie. We get along well, and I'm sure she'd give me a lot of helpful advice, if I'd just
ask
her.”

The Sorensens laughed, and Linnea, coming to them with her empty tin cup, laughed too. “That's Kathie,” said Nils. “Efficient as all getout.”

“She feels sophisticated,” Philippa went on. “She was very airy when she told me her parents were divorced. It makes her different. At that age you can either suffer the torments of the damned if you think you're different, or you can be pretty well set up over it. Kathie is. She despises Peggy Campion for a smug brat who's barely beyond the Bobbsey Twins. I think Kathie feels she is equal to mastering any situation in the world. She's as brash as a fox terrier, and so likable that I don't know what I'd do without her.” She smiled from one to the other and lifted her hands in a gesture of defeat. “And I can't say she shouldn't be associating with Terence Campion because there's no magic way of telling what sort of relationship it is. It might be a beautiful friendship, and it might be something not beautiful at all.”

“When I was fourteen,” Joanna began, and Nils said lazily, “When you were fourteen, you were on your brothers' coattails, and they couldn't raise hell and neither could you. And you were mad all the time because girls couldn't go lobstering for a living.”

She looked at him with a charming air of surprise, as if there were something new about him. “Why, Nils. I didn't know you remembered so much.”

“I remember everything about you.” He sat up and knocked his pipe empty against the rock. “Pick your berries, woman. You've been talking about this all summer. Now you're here, and you'll pick.”

They smiled at each other. Philippa felt lonely all at once and would have moved away from them if it could have been accomplished gracefully. But after the instant of withdrawal into their own world, they came back to her, so casually she knew they had not even been conscious of the withdrawal.

“I suppose Kathie and Terence don't amount to a hill of beans,” said Joanna, “when you think about what's going on in the world.” She brought up a handful of berries and looked at them somberly. “Times when I wake up before dawn and lie there sick with the most awful sense of responsibility, as if I had a big share in the blame and ought to be doing something—but I don't know what. Then when everybody's stirring, and there's breakfast to get, and the men's dinner boxes to fix, and the boats go out of the harbor, then everything falls back into place and I think, Why, nothing can happen to the island.”

Yes, I know, thought Philippa. I know about waking before dawn. Waking alone, without Justin. She said, “Things are always worse when you're lying still.”

“Nils never worries,” said Joanna. “Neither does Stevie. They've been through the fighting. I suppose that teaches anyone to be so grateful to be alive that you can't waste precious moments worrying.” Suddenly she flushed deeply and stared at Philippa with anger and remorse. “Listen to me running on! Nils, why didn't you slap me?”

Linnea, who had been lying on her stomach helping a cricket through the grass, crinkled her small nose with excited interest. “No slaps. Use an alder switch.”

The uncomfortable moment passed in their laughter. Joanna said, “I suppose you think a few licks with the switch would be good for me, punkin. Well, I guess you're right.”

Nils reached for one of the short blond pigtails, and tucked an aster under the rubber band. “I'll go and see how Jamie's doing,” he said. He walked up the slope and toward the woods, not a tall man, but tidily built. The close-clipped hair on the back of his neck was lighter than his skin. The aroma of his pipe smoke floated behind him in the motionless air.

“He's very nice,” said Philippa.

“I wish he'd shut me up before I made a fool of myself.”

“Why do you feel like that?” Philippa asked in a casual way. “Do you feel guilty because your husband lived through the fighting and mine didn't?”

“I don't know. No, I don't think I feel guilty. But when Nils was away, and I wasn't hearing from him, and I was having the most hellish nightmares, there was a cousin of his who used to come in and prattle on and on, saying nasty, thoughtless things. . . . I felt like murdering her. And a few minutes ago I heard myself, and all I could think of was Thea.”

Philippa laughed. “I had an aunt once who was a widow. That sounds as if it was her occupation, and it was. Nobody ever mentioned her without using the word ‘noble,' and I'd swear that's how she thought of herself. Then one day a few years ago I heard someone refer to me as ‘noble' and my blood ran cold.”

Joanna let out a long breath and began energetically to pick cranberries. “I feel better. What a lovely day it is, after all!” They picked for a while without speaking, and the varied sounds of the place sang about them: a distant murmurous undertone, like the wind blowing through a pine forest, that was the sea on the shore; Linnea's singing as she toiled up over the Viking barrow; the cricket; all the nameless rustlings and stirrings in the grass.

Philippa looked up at the yellow-green curve of the barrow against the sky, expecting to see Linnea there. Instead, there were the Webster children, motionless and staring.

“Visitors from another world,” she said in a low voice.

“What?” Joanna, on her knees, straightened up and looked around. “Oh. Hello, up there! Come down and see us!” They came uncertainly on bare feet that looked too large for the thin knobby ankles. Rue led, holding the waxy little boy by the hand. She kept her yellowish eyes fixed on Joanna, as if by ignoring Philippa she could keep her outside an invisible wall. Her light hair was strained back from her rounded, childish forehead and tied as usual at the back with a bit of twine. The faded, skimpy dress was very clean. All the children looked bleached and parboiled with cleanliness. Edwin was scowling bitterly and carrying his stick, and the little girl with flyaway hair came sliding down over the short turf hand in hand with Linnea. She laughed; it was a gay, entirely natural sound of childhood. Then, as if she felt Philippa's glance, she let go of Linnea's hand and looked down at her feet.

Joanna sat back on her heels. “Isn't this nice? Come over here, Dan'l, and let me see if you're putting on weight.” The smallest child looked at her, his upper lip lengthening as if he was trying not to smile, and Rue let go of his hand and gave him a little nudge. Joanna held out her arms, and he went to them at a trot and was cradled against her breast. How small he is, Philippa thought, like a shadow beside Linnea, who is so solid.

Joanna's tanned hand, patting gently, covered the thin little bottom. “He must be drinking his milk, Rue,” Joanna said. “There's more meat on his sit-down and his ribs.” She held him back to look into his face, and now he couldn't hide his smile, the one-sided quirk to his mouth. “You're a scamp, Dan'l,” she said. “There's two tiny devils in your eyes, I can see them. Yes, I can.” Daniel wriggled with pleasure in her hands, bumped his forehead gently against hers, then tore loose and rushed back to Rue.

“Hello, Edwin,” Joanna said. Edwin dug savagely at the ground with his stick. Joanna smiled and put out her hand to the little girl, who looked at Philippa sideways through her pale lashes and went stiffly to Joanna.

“You're at least two inches taller,” Joanna said with awe, “since the last time I saw you.” She touched with a finger the sun-bleached hair at the girl's temples. “Rue, this child is going to have a natural wave, I'm sure of it.”

There was a tinge of color in Faith's cheeks. Rue said hoarsely, “How could she get it? It's a lie to say carrots will do it.”

“I never believed in that myself,” said Joanna, “but Faith's got a tendency to wave and if you keep her hair clean and brushed, you can help it along.”

The child touched her head with delicate sticks of fingers. Her pale hazel eyes were luminous.

“Well,”
said Joanna briskly, “have you been looking for cranberries? Had any luck?”

“We've got some.” Rue's glance slid toward Philippa, and her uneasiness hung strong between them.

“We want to pick for money!” Faith burst out, as if her exhilaration about her hair were too big for her spindly body to contain. “We want to earn—”

“You shut your mouth, Faith Webster!” Rue cried.

Philippa stood up. “If you want to talk to Mrs. Sorensen alone,” she said to Rue, “I'll go down on the beach or over where Jamie is.”

Rue looked at her steadily. “I guess it's all right,” she said after a moment. “It ain't so important as all that. Everybody'd know it soon enough.” She turned back to Joanna. “We want to pick to sell, like Faith said. I heard Mark say once in the store he was figgering to sell cranberries over to the main this year if he could get enough picked, and so I thought he'd hire us.”

“And you want me to ask him, is that it?”

Rue nodded. Joanna said, “I'll ask him, then. I can't promise you anything except that. Mark whiffles around. Maybe he's changed his mind. In the meantime, though, you go on picking because I've got to send Bennett's Island cranberries to everybody and his brother, and I'll hire you for that.”

“We don't need any favors.”

“Land of love, it's no favor, except to me!” Joanna's heartiness blew around them like a salt wind. “I can't get down here the way I'd like to, and you'll be saving me some steps and some worry.”

Rue reached for Daniel with one thin tense hand and for Faith with the other. “Thank you,” she said.