The Dawning of the Day (48 page)

No one had come back, but there was no hope implied by their lateness. She waited a moment longer, almost convincing herself that she heard the distant hum of an engine somewhere outside the harbor. But all she heard was a door closing somewhere; then Nils Sorensen's dog barked perfunctorily. Joanna was up there, alone with the children, but she was strong and had no need of Philippa.

It was a long way upstairs. The water was boiling; how long ago was it, she wondered, when she had thought that the sound of boiling water was a comfortable thing? All comfortable things lost their comfort, all beautiful things their beauty, when you remembered that someone would never feel or hear or see them again.

While she was drinking the coffee, not tasting it, she heard the first engines. She didn't move. She had no right to be out on her doorstep like the other women; she was not an island woman and never would be. Never would be . . .

As she sat at the table, she could see along the path to the beach. Presently she saw two skiffs, almost abreast of each other, approaching the beach. Foss and Perley were in the first one to reach the shore. They hauled up their skiff. Perley made it fast and then lumbered off after Foss, his natural awkwardness intensified by the long cold hours spent aboard the boat. Terence, rowing his father, came in next. He had set out with Randall that morning, and Asanath had gone with Foss and Perley. They must have given up the search first, Philippa thought tiredly, and so Randall had transferred to another boat, a Bennett boat, for they would stay out to look as long as there was light on the sea.

All that had passed between her and the Campions was meaningless now. She had set herself against them, against all intolerance, and for what cause? For a handful of wizened children or for her own arrogance? And this was the end of it. She sat alone at her table, wrung so dry of emotion she could at last think of Charles and Fort without a surge of incredulous horror. And in this interval of dead calm, she knew what she must do.

Terence and Asanath were standing at the head of the beach, talking. As she watched idly, Terence turned quickly from his father and started home. He walked rapidly, like a man on an important errand. Asanath watched him for a moment, and then he looked up and down the empty path before he began to walk around the shore in the direction of the Binnacle. Philippa supposed he would be going up to tell Joanna when to expect the others. She took her coffee cup to the sink; it was while she was washing it that she heard the door open downstairs. She swung around, her heart beating hard. But it wouldn't be Steve, she remembered, and walked quietly to the door and opened it.

Asanath was coming up, slowly. She said in a steady voice, “Come in.”

“Thanks.” He was breathing hard when he reached the top, and his face was deeply lined. He stood before the stove, his cap pushed to the back of his head and his mackinaw unfastened, his hands in his pockets. He contemplated her under wind-burned lids. But she was beyond apprehension.

“Well?” she said calmly. “What's the news?”

For an instant she had a crazy suspicion that he might have come to say, “You satisfied now? You ready to get out before you kill off any more?”

“No news,” he said. His voice rasped. “There'll be no news till somebody finds a spray hood or a piece of the engine box washed up somewhere.”

She looked down at her hands, resting on a chair back, and willed them to relax. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“I might, at that.” No mellowness here, just dry, short words. She poured the coffee for him and put it on the table. He sat down to it stiffly, and she sat opposite, waiting.

When it did come, it startled her, though she had thought herself beyond amazement. He took a swallow of coffee and then looked hard into her eyes and said, “Terence is leaving here. He told me just now. He wouldn't say why, so I've come to ask you.”

“Why should I know?”

“Somebody's got to know!” It was almost a cry, coming from Asanath. Quickly he took another mouthful of coffee. “Spent all night wondering what's going on out in the bay, and seeing those kids' faces till I had to get up and walk the floor. Spent all day looking till I'm half blind—seen more logs floating that we thought was one of 'em held up by a life belt. . . . Come home just able to crawl, and then my boy tells me he's getting off here for good. And he won't say
why!
” Something flickered wrathfully in his tired eyes. “You see a lot of that kid Kathie—”

“Kathie's a loyal friend to Terence, Mr. Campion, nothing more,” Philippa interrupted. She was too weary to talk, but she forced the words anyway. “Terence is a much better man than you think he is. I know it, and Kathie does, but—” Her voice trailed off. She couldn't think.

“That's it,” he said. “That's it. You
do
know. He talks to ye, don't he? Look.” He sat back in his chair. “Whatever you know about him—whatever mess he's in—I got a right to know.” He gripped his long chin in his hand. “He's my son. I got a right to straighten it out for him. It'll kill his mother if he goes. Specially right after this.”

It'll kill you too, Philippa thought. You're scared, aren't you? But she felt neither anger nor satisfaction. She said, “The mess he's in doesn't have anything to do with girls, or gambling, or anything simple. The mess is—” she hesitated and was unexpectedly moved by the eagerness the man tried to hide. She was too tired to pick subtle words. “He thinks you wish he'd died instead of Elmo. He thinks you always liked Elmo better than him. That's at the bottom of it.”

“That ain't so.”

“You think I'm lying?”

“No, no. I mean, what he says isn't true. Of course we wanted Elmo back, but we didn't wish Terence dead in his place! It's just because he's always had this queer kind of hate for Elmo, even when he was a little tyke. We couldn't understand it.”

“He loved Elmo,” she said. “Whenever you think how you and Mrs. Campion grieved for him, you might wonder what Terence was feeling. He knew he'd never have a chance to let Elmo know he didn't hate him . . . and at the same time he knew nobody was ever going to call
him
a hero and weep over him the way you must have wept over Elmo.” She sighed and tried to find the rest of the words, staring away from Asanath's face to the snow outside. “He lost a brother he'd never had much chance to enjoy, and he felt he didn't have any parents either.”

Silence hung in the room for a long time. Asanath's face was bleak. “How do you know all that?”

“We talked about it.”

He pulled at his lower lip and watched her for a moment, then said slowly, “So now he's getting out. After all this, we got no boy.”

“If he goes with your blessing,” said Philippa, “he'll still be yours. That's all he wants. Pretend you think he's bright enough to make his own way . . . even if you don't believe it.”

“Lord, girl, I always said the young one was
smart
enough!” he said angrily.

“Did you ever say it to
him
?” She got up and went over to the stove, trying to warm her hands that had been cold all day with an inner chill. Asanath remained at the table, his head bent.

“Seems like anybody can make a yellow million mistakes without even trying,” he muttered.

“Yes, anybody can,” she said. “I don't know which is worse, to make a mistake that way, or to do the thing you think is absolutely right—and find out too late that it was absolutely wrong. Like my taking this job.”

She hadn't expected to say it. It came out because she was too tired to exercise control. But perhaps it was just as well. The Campions, at any rate, would be glad of her decision. “I'm leaving just as soon as you can get a replacement,” she said.

Asanath's sandy head came up. “What for? You and Steve had a falling out?”

“No. But you were right when you said the island was no place for me. I know it now.”

He said with a touch of his old humor, “I don't figger you been too conspicuous a failure, as the feller says. I hear you got Rob Salminen doing fractions.”

“Your brother and his wife don't like me,” she continued doggedly. “Peggy's left school and swears she won't come back.”

“Stuck-up little piece, that one. She'll be back, if Foss ain't altogether lost his manhood. If she doesn't, well, it's your gain.” He picked up his coffee cup and drank. “Sky likes you fine. He's the brains of that family—if they don't ruin him.”

“I don't know why you're defending me,” she persisted. “You certainly haven't forgotten all the fuss about the Webster children, and the things you said to me about stirring up trouble.”

“Since last night,” said Asanath, “they don't look awful important. 'Course, that Edwin not being right in the head and throwing rocks—he could be dangerous, you know that.”

“Edwin is deaf,” said Philippa. “It's been criminally foolish to keep it a secret all this time, and allow that child to be victimized. How would you behave, Mr. Campion, if you lived in a world of absolute silence, and people treated you as if you were either insane or idiotic? Wouldn't you fight back?”

“
Deaf
, you say?” He scowled at her. “Stone deaf? What ailed his folks not to do something about it? I always knew Jude was an odd stick, but not
that
odd.”

This was no time to defend Jude. Besides, there were other things to say.

“What ails Perley's folks?” she asked. “Do they think, like poor Lucy, that if they ignore the problem it will cease to exist?”

Asanath's tired eyes didn't blink. “Foss always was stubborn. But I've got after him about the boy, if that's any satisfaction to ye. He'll keep him from doing any more harm.”

“That isn't enough,” she protested, but she was too weary to find the sharp imperative words. “There must be someone, somewhere,” she said vaguely, “who could puzzle Perley out, channel that destructive energy into something safe and useful—” She pushed her hair back from her aching temples.

“Foss isn't altogether numb,” said Asanath. “If he can just break Helen down.” He smiled wryly. “Talk about tigers!”

“But a mother tiger tries to teach her children.” Her voice trailed off, and she roused herself. “Anyway, I'm glad the younger children will have some protection after I leave.”

He got up, slowly, as if his aching joints had stiffened while he was sitting. “Steve going with ye?”

“I wouldn't ask that of him. This is his home.”

“You're just about the most honest woman I ever knew.” He stared fixedly at her face in the failing light. “But that don't signify I think you're right about this. Whatever bee you got in your bonnet, better give him a while longer to buzz around before you decide for sure about leaving us. . . . I'd ought to thank you for telling me about my boy, I s'pose. But it's cussed hard to thank somebody for pointing out my mistakes.”

“I know what that's like,” Philippa said dryly.

“But I figger it's better to have him go on a good day, all open and aboveboard, than to run off at night and end up in the bottom of the bay.” He cleared his throat. “So I'm putting my pride in my pocket, young woman. You've helped out.”

“You're welcome,” she said. “Good-by.”

He didn't answer but went on down the stairs, slowly. As he opened the outer door, she heard several boats coming into the harbor at once, the echo of the engines reverberating from the harbor points, and she knew that Steve had probably come home at last.

S
he stood at the window and watched Joanna Sorensen with her children and the dog go by on the way to the wharf. Philippa knew that Steve was coming when she saw Joanna going home again. Nils walked ahead of her in the narrow path through the drifts, with Linnea on his shoulders and Jamie plodding behind him. They were unnaturally quiet; Joanna looked down at the broken trail thoughtfully, and it was strange to see her not walking with her head up.

Steve's feet were slow on the stairs. She sat listening, deliberately stilling the clamor that his footsteps had always stirred in her. She was a little shocked that it should start up now, when he was returning from such an errand.

As he came in, he didn't look at her but leaned against the wall to kick off his boots. His motions were heavy and tired. Standing in his thick white boot socks, he took off his mackinaw and stripped off the navy turtle-neck he wore under it. She did not stir until he padded over to the stove and lifted the coffee pot. Then she moved quickly, setting out a cup and saucer for him and putting yesterday's meat pie in the oven to warm.

He caught her by the arm as she passed him. His mouth was chapped; the usually clear whites of his eyes were bloodshot, the lids were reddened and dry, the lines were deeply accentuated from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. She wanted to put her arms around him and lull him into sleep, but she said quietly, “You'd better sit down and eat, Steve. You look exhausted.”

“What's the matter with
you
?” he asked hoarsely, holding her by both arms.

“Did you find anything out there?”

“No. Neither did the Coast Guard. We didn't expect to.” He tightened his grip deliberately on the soft flesh inside her upper arms. “It's over. Randall's moving his family off. There's nobody to notify about Gregg.” There was a tremor of his eyelids. “So tomorrow we start new.”

“You say that as if it were all so simple!” she burst out. “Like wiping off a blackboard at the end of a lesson!”

“But it's the truth, isn't it?” He looked at her angrily. “We can't help the kids by mulling it over and over. We can't take the load off the Percys, any more than they could take ours. These things have happened before; they'll happen again. I should have taken you with me, then you'd know what I mean.”