The Dawning of the Day (42 page)

The deep-seated lids slipped over Viola's eyes. She looked at Philip-pa from under them; her mouth was bloodless. “
Your time has come
. Do you realize what that means? The Bennetts know now what you are and what you've done, with all this cutting and vandalism, and that boy starting to drink.”

“Perhaps,” said Philippa. “But tell me something, Mrs. Goward. Did I really start anything? Wasn't it always here? Didn't it start when the Campions moved out here and found that if they owned deeds to half the houses on the island, it would still be
Bennett's
Island? Didn't it start because some persons have a hate born in them for the ones who have a little more, who always have had it and always will have it?”

“You're talking like somebody escaped from the state hospital.” Viola was trying to keep her voice down, but it had a wild stridency. Her gaunt cheekbones were blotched with color. “Nobody sane could understand a word of it. The trouble started when you brought those dirty little wretches in from out of the woods! We were supposed to
pay
to let our children sit next to them and have their heads bashed in!”

“Did anyone ever hurt Ellie?” Philippa asked.

“Not yet, but it's coming. What about that rock Edwin threw today? Big as a pot buoy. He's getting wild again. He's going to kill somebody, and it'll be all your fault. I suppose you'll say he was driven to it.” Her chin jerked upward and the cords of her neck were taut.

“Mrs. Goward,” Philippa said with a patience calculated to madden, “are you sure the Webster children are so important? Aren't they just a symbol, something you and your brothers and your sister-in-law can wave around like a flag and cover up the things you won't admit even to yourselves?”

“The Websters will be cleaned out of here yet,” said Viola. “And as for you, if you get off with being fired, you'll be lucky. You've sowed the wind, Philippa Marshall, and you'll surely reap the whirlwind.” She held up her strong bony hand and ticked the charges off on her fingers. “You've been carrying on ever since you got here, not content with a man somewhere near your own age, but you had to get boys under your influence. Nobody in this world ever heard Terence Campion swear at his mother and father the way he did that night on
your
account! You started this trap war by persecuting Perley. You can't keep order in the school. And let me tell you one thing more, Mrs. Marshall!” Her long forefinger lunged forward like a rapier. “We're not paying—neither Campions nor Bennetts—to have a teacher entertaining her men friends in the schoolhouse after hours and sending the kids high-tailing it for home so she can have privacy!”

Philippa said out of her weightless calm, “I suppose it will all be brought out into the open when your brother Asanath gives the word. Thank you for advance notice, Mrs. Goward.” She looked at her watch. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do.”

She nodded at Viola and left her. As she unlocked her door, she thought something wavered at the side of her vision beyond the corner of the entry. She glanced past the side of the building, out by Gregg's workshop, toward the Gowards'. Nothing moved in the thin, subtle sunshine. When she looked back, Viola was walking fast toward the beach.

Going around to tell brother Asa, Philippa thought. It didn't matter. She had spoken her mind to Viola, and whether it had been wise or not, she was past caring. She was carried on by a wave of heady satisfaction.

S
teve stopped in after he had come back from hauling to tell her in a windy, ludicrous whisper that he had laryngitis. She said aggressively, “Why did you go out today?”

“It was lonesome in bed.” He laughed at her.

“You'd better go back to it and continue to be lonesome,” she said. “Honestly, Steve, men are all alike. They think it's noble to go staggering on. If you get pneumonia so Viola Goward can look smug, I shan't marry you.”

He leaned against the door. “What has Viola Goward got to do with it?” he whispered.

“Nothing, except that she said this was pneumonia weather.” Suddenly she felt burdened with exhaustion, not so much of the body as of the spirit. “Steve,” she said quickly, and put out her hands. He caught them, lacing his fingers through hers and pressing palm against palm.

“Don't come any closer, sweetheart. If we were married now, the germs wouldn't matter, would they?” He squeezed her hands until he made them ache, and then let go. But she held on, twining her fingers insistently around his.

“Steve, stay in bed tomorrow or at least in the house, and get over this, please. I don't want another evening without you.” She was too depressed to put the story about Jude's traps into words. He'd know about it sooner or later. “Darling,” she said.

He whispered it back at her. “Darling. All right. It's hell to miss somebody, but it's close to heaven to be missed. Good night.” He kissed the backs of her hands and went out.

The early winter dusk came down quickly in a soft blurring dark that still kept the deceptive Marchlike scents of damp earth and spruce. As she ate her supper, she thought of Kathie, then of the Websters, then of Fort, whom she had not seen since the day he left his father on the beach. From him she returned to Kathie, and the ugly cycle began again: the light blown out in Kathie, Edwin's disturbed condition, Fort's new anger. She wondered sadly if he missed Charles as much as Charles missed him. The night when he and Gregg played their music here in the kitchen seemed very far away.

She washed her day's dishes and put them away, then got ready to go out, not sure where she would go. As she stood before the mirror of the old-fashioned bureau, she thought, I don't look a bit like a bad woman. I wish Justin could know what a reputation I've got. He'd laugh and tell me it was my just deserts for wanting to look like a siren at eighteen. He said I could never look anything but what I am. . . . The child that is born on Sabbath Day is blithe and bonny and good and gay.

She laughed aloud. She didn't look as if she were morbidly preoccupied with good and evil, but like an agreeable young woman setting out to call.

The knock on the door was a timid one, and there had been no warning sound of footsteps on the stairs. She thought it was a child. It was Jude Webster, his cap in his hand; he smiled at her anxiously.

“Are you just going out? Or expecting company, maybe?”

“Neither,” she lied. “Just fortifying myself for an evening of spelling and arithmetic papers. Come in, Mr. Webster. Do you know how many ways there are of spelling the word ‘weather,' as in climate?”

He managed a hushed, uncertain laugh. “I imagine the kids put down all sorts of things.” He looked around the room, his thin face flushing. She took his cap and hung it up.

“Sit down, won't you? Would you like to see what your youngsters have been doing?” She shuffled through the papers, taking longer than necessary, hoping he would soon collect himself. His hands laced and unlaced over his knee; he moved continuously.

“Mrs. Marshall,” he said abruptly. “What I came to see you about—well, it's not the children's work—or maybe it is in a manner of speaking—” He was red again; his eyes were feverish and distressed behind his glasses. She looked squarely at him and realized that there was a quite primitive panic in his face.

His hand plunged swiftly into his mackinaw pocket and came out with a folded paper. He gave it to her with no explanation. She opened it. It was a piece of plain white letter paper of poor quality. There was a message on it, pieced together of words and individual letters cut from newspapers and magazines. It read:

“Jude Webster: If you're any kind of a man, you'll take your kids out of the school and get yourself off this island bag and baggage. You've got no right to keep them in school with bright decent children. They aren't fit. Take them and get out of here.”

There was no signature, of course. Philippa sat down by the table, spreading the note out under the lamp. She felt the same way she had felt when she saw the defacing of the schoolhouse door. But Jude could not know that any more than he could know how her legs felt at this moment. “When did this come?” she asked.

“About fifteen minutes ago. Rue found it, pushed under the back door.” He put his hand up to cover his mouth. “I—I couldn't hide it from my wife. Rue opened it up before we knew. She was all excited.” His fingers kneaded his lips apologetically. “She thought it was a party invitation—one of the Percy girls was talking about a birthday party.”

“How did your wife take it?” As long as I keep asking questions, Philippa thought, I shall keep calm.

“Well, she—” He took off his glasses. “You see, we've always sort of sheltered her, and the way she lives, it's like nothing comes through from the outside. She—” He cleared his throat and put his glasses on again, blinking exhaustedly. “It was an awful shock. She —she can't understand. And neither can I, for that matter. Mrs. Marshall—” He sat forward. “I'm going to leave this place, I have to. I've had another warning before this. All my traps were hauled a few days ago. But this. This about my kids—” His voice seemed to gather the strength of desperation.

“I had to see you about it and ask you before we go. What's wrong with 'em? I'm their father, maybe I'm too close. You read about kids committing terrible crimes, and their parents never knew what they were really like. Mrs. Marshall, what's wrong with my kids? I know Edwin's deaf, but that's no crime. So what else is wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Philippa. She turned the note over, to hide its obscenity from them both. “They're what you think they are, Mr. Webster. Good children, sensitive children. Edwin's deaf, but he keeps up in school. Rue is what I'd call a gifted child.” She looked steadily into his beseeching face. “Do you believe me?”

“I have to. You wouldn't lie. But
that
—” He pointed to the note.

“It doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's a blow struck by the losing side, just for the sake of striking a blow. They don't care where it hits. I might have got a note, or one of the Bennetts, or Nils Sorensen. It's a cruel thing but completely idiotic.” She wondered who could have concocted the note. Viola and Helen would shout their accusations for the whole village to hear. Was it Peggy, working secretly? Or Suze, who never dared raise her voice? She looked at Jude again and said, “It doesn't matter. It's just words.”

He was slumped back in his chair, wiping furtively at the corners of his eyes. She did not like to think what he had gone through in the short time since the note had come. “I'm grateful to you,” he mumbled. “I kept remembering the things I read. They say there's always a warning if a child's not right. And I kept wondering if I'd missed a warning. I didn't know how I could. Rue's such an old-fashioned young one. But kids live a secret life, I know that. I
could've
missed something.”

“You haven't missed anything, but some others have,” she said. “They'd better look to their own children. But will you talk to Steve or Nils or any of the others before you decide definitely to go? They have a right to know about your traps, and they may not want you to go.”

“Why not? I'm just a liability to them.” His face gathered a worn determination. “I've just come to, I guess.”

“
Please
,” she said.

“I'll do anything you say. I'm grateful to you.” He got up with caution, like a man who has been sick for a long time and can't gauge his strength. He reached out tentatively for the note, and she put her hand over it.

“You don't need it now, do you? I'd like to keep it for a while.” She smiled at him. “And tell your wife everything's all right, at least as far as the children are concerned.”

“That's all she knows about, anyway. I didn't tell her about the traps. The kids know, but not Lucy.” He fingered the edge of his jacket while his mouth worked painfully at shaping words. “She wouldn't understand. She—well, you see, it's like she lived in a world of her own. Sometimes I have a feeling she never wanted to grow up, and she's tried awful hard not to.”

Oh, Jude, Jude, Philippa thought, keeping her look of calm omniscience while she could have wept for him. Had Justin ever felt like this when they came into his study, all their anguish explicit in their fingers while they tried hard not to make a show of themselves, telling their tragedies in bare apologetic words? Perhaps they didn't have to try too hard; how numbed and inarticulate they could be, patiently accepting, mutely trying to understand.
Blessed are the meek
, Justin had said with a particular emphasis. And had he ever hated their meekness because it made him feel so furiously helpless? Perhaps
for they shall inherit the earth
meant the terrible burden the meek put on the strong. So in the end, the meek were the strongest after all.

Jude misinterpreted her silence and her downcast eyes. “Maybe you think she could do better,” he said humbly. She looked up at him and shook her head.

“No, I know she can't help the way she is. None of us can. Even the person who sent this note must have something hateful driving her.”

“Well—” Jude went toward the door. He smiled in a shy illumined way that reminded her of Daniel. “You've been more than kind, Mrs. Marshall. You kind of steadied me. A man can take most anything except what touches his kids. I'll go round now and talk to Nils, I guess.” He nodded at her. “Good night, now.”

He had just gone when Gregg's clarinet began. It was too much; she could not mesh its pure note of grieving with the letter lying across the table under the lamp. She wondered tiredly where she would go to be cheered. Certainly not to Mark Bennett's, to see Kathie as lusterless as a dandelion gone to seed. Besides, there were her papers to correct. Downstairs the clarinet went on and on, as if it had a life of its own. She had a fantastic picture of it dancing around the kitchen in the smoky glow of the hand lamp, slim and black with its silver fittings glowing like the frogs on a hussar's tunic. A drunken hussar.