House Of Storm (5 page)

It loomed up ahead of them, a green-gray shadow, lying flat upon the water, so flat, like a sandpit, that it looked further away than it actually was. There was Elbow; and invisible now, but waiting, was the mail boat which would take Jim to the plane, away from Beadon Island and out of her life in, at most, fifteen minutes.

She wanted to go with him.

It was an impulse so strong and sharp that it was like a physical compulsion. It seemed impossible to deny; and she must deny it, at once, finally, forever. She was under a sudden spell; something unforeseen, something wildly improbable had happened to her—and something she must immediately conquer.

She ought not to have yielded even so far to that compulsion; she ought not to have come with Jim to Elbow Beach. Well, she’d stop it. She’d break the spell before it increased its hold. She’d say good-bye, hurriedly, briefly. There would be no time for a prolonged leave-taking. She’d turn the motor boat; she’d circle back out of the harbor; she wouldn’t even look back over her shoulder at the mail boat and at Jim. She’d go back to Beadon Island, steadily through the blue water. Back to Beadon Island, to Beadon Gates.

Back to Royal Beadon and a wedding on Wednesday.

And all her body clamored, bidding her to go with Jim; nerves and muscles and flesh and blood for a strange frightening moment refused obedience to the will she must impose upon them and Jim said suddenly: “I wish you were coming with me.”

“You—wish …” she cried incoherently and stopped. She would not look at him, yet she could see his face against the blue water as clearly as if she had looked at him; his straight nose and chin and dark eyebrows drawn together, the curve of his cheekbone, his narrowed eyes. And then he said: “Look here, Nonie. I’m going to be impertinent. But I have to know. Are you happy about your marriage?”

Her heart, too, had no relation to her will and mind; it had an independent life of its own and was beating like a wild strong bird.

But she must reply, promptly and firmly; and there was only one reply to make. She tried to say it: yes, yes, I’m happy. Of course I’m happy. But he turned and looked at her and she met his look fully and all at once unsaid words were spoken, unadmitted facts acknowledged, a secret, sudden truth proclaimed. Jim’s eyes darkened. Nonie thought wildly, I must stop this, I must look away, I must not tell him all these things.

Yet the utter revealing candor of that long look had its own inevitable power and she couldn’t look away.

Jim said in a rush, swiftly, as if he didn’t mean to say it and couldn’t stop his own words: “I meant that, Nonie. I can’t help it. I wish you were coming with me.”

She couldn’t answer; yet all at once she did. “Jim,” she stammered. “Jim …” and began to cry. She didn’t sob but she couldn’t stop crying. Tears rained down her face; she didn’t want him to see them and she couldn’t do anything about that, either. She wouldn’t look at him and the tears blurred into the curtain of spray that fanned out beside her, blurred everything, yet she knew that he gave her a swift look and then quickly looked away again, straight out over the engine toward Elbow, which was, by now, much nearer, leaping into greater distinctness with every pulse of the engine driving toward it.

He said: “I love you, Nonie. I didn’t mean to tell you. I’ve got to leave Beadon Island.”

S
UNLIGHT FLASHED ON SOMETHING
narrow but distinctly white at the end of the low-lying mass of greens and grays which was Elbow Beach. It was the small jetty, so the light flashed, too, upon the mail boat, waiting for its appointed moment of departure—waiting actually for Jim.

He turned the wheel a little and the swells were longer. They drove through one long wave and into its trough and for a few seconds Elbow Beach disappeared. Jim, looking straight ahead into the long blue swell and its curving foamy ridge, said: “I didn’t mean to tell you. But I’m going to.” They came up the long gentle slope. They crested the wave and there was Elbow Beach, too distinct, too near. “It happened right away,” Jim said suddenly, his brown profile clear and hard against the blue water. “It happened the first time I saw you. You and Roy had arrived only three days before and Aurelia had invited Hermy and Dick and me to dinner to meet you, the girl Roy was going to marry. I was standing talking to Dick. I hadn’t seen you come in. Somebody said, “Nonie, this is Jim Shaw …! I turned around and you were there, looking at me, smiling a little, and—and I fell in love with you. Just like that,” Jim said. And added: “You had on a thin, light dress, with a sort of red belt. You looked straight at me and—I don’t know; it just happened. Funny thing is I knew it. I sat by you at dinner and every time you said anything I heard it, no matter who was talking on the other side or what—every time you made a move I—I felt it.” He threw his cigarette over into the wash of foam beside them. “Funny, isn’t it?”

The tears on Nonie’s face were still wet and she brushed them away with her hand, openly now and frankly. “No. It isn’t funny.”

He looked at her then, again, quickly and searchingly. And Elbow Beach was so near, the boat waiting for him was so close that the only thing that mattered now, the only thing that was important and had to be said was the truth, so she said it. “It happened to me, too. Only I didn’t know it until …”

“Until when?” Jim cried. “Until when?”

“Until this afternoon. Until I was writing about my wedding, until I was telling Aunt Nona how happy I was going to be and all at once I knew that wasn’t happiness. And then I knew, then I knew what would be happiness for me.”

Jim said suddenly, looking ahead again, very quietly, as if his voice alone might change and shift some precious cargo, “Nonie—does that mean—do you feel like this, too?”

It was not possible to deny the utter candor that had come into being between them; and she knew as well as she had ever known anything in her life that then, just then, that moment, that instant was the most important one in her life. “Yes.”

The boat dipped down into the trough of another long, slow swell of blue; again Elbow Beach disappeared and there was only Jim and herself and a world of blue and sparkling sea and sky.

The boat thudded over cross currents; spray flashed everywhere, she caught back her hair and Jim said: “Do you realize what this means?”

“I—yes. Yes, I do realize it.”

“I’ll never love anyone else all my life.”

“I love you like that.”

“You’re to marry Roy. The wedding is Wednesday. It’s so soon—so soon.”

Beadon Island was there, just the same; she was going back to it. And Elbow Beach lay ahead, just the same, in spite of what had seemed a private and lovely world of their own. They would be there in only a few moments now, and Jim would leave and she’d go back to Beadon Island. And a dress, a bride’s dress that hung waiting for her, and for Wednesday.

Jim said: “Why didn’t you wait?”

Truth was still like a current between them; she knew exactly what he meant and she knew that he would understand her. She said honestly: “I thought it was right. I thought I loved him. I do love him—but not like this. This is—different.”

“This is it,” Jim said. They reached the top of the long and lovely swell and there was Elbow Beach and it was so near, so terribly near that she could see the clumps of twisted mangroves, the green and jagged tops of the palm trees, the white jetty and the boat.

Jim saw it too. He turned the wheel still further and said: “You can’t marry Roy.”

She whirled around toward him as if pulled on strings, catching back her flying hair, crying: “Oh, Jim, I have to! The wedding is Wednesday. Everything’s settled. I have to …”

“You can’t.” His face was hard and brown and strained. “Look here. I hate it, too. But, thank God, you are not actually married to him.”

“Jim, I can’t do that to Roy …I’ve got to go on with the wedding. Aurelia, Roy …”

“I won’t let you,” Jim said.

Again, mercifully, they plunged down into a long blue trough so she could not see Elbow Beach and the waiting boat, so they were alone together in a queer yet real sense. He turned and put his hand out upon her own and held it hard. His face was very sober, his eyes as grave as if he were making a vow. “I don’t want to do this to Roy, either. I know exactly what you meant when you said you love him; and you owe him loyalty and truth. I could argue on that line and say you owe him the truth about this; that it wouldn’t be fair to marry him knowing you were not”—he hesitated, groping an instant for words and said—“not in love with him. That’s the difference between affection and friendship and—and this. Between us.” He stopped again as if the thing between them that he could not describe, that existed like the earth and the sea and the sky above them, demanded an instant of reverence, a moment of obeisance. His hand was warm and firm and curiously familiar as if she had known its touch and loved it for a long time. She wanted never to relinquish its hold; and in ten minutes, five minutes, she would have to do so. And become Roy’s wife …

“I could advance that as an argument,” Jim said. “But I won’t. I hate it; but I won’t let you marry him.”

And he wouldn’t.

Surrender washed over her as if one of those long blue waves had washed over the boat; there was something in his eyes, something in his face that had to be accepted and she did so, completely and suddenly, and with a strange deep contentment. She felt that inner contentment; she did not define it; but she knew it was tied somehow to the rightness and balance of love for a man and woman together.

He took his hand away. The engine had slowed; he was looking over his shoulder. Suddenly she realized he was going to turn the boat, heading away from Elbow. She cried: “Jim, what are you doing? You’ll have to hurry. … ”

“We’ll go back to Beadon Island.”

“No—no.”

“I’ll tell Roy.”

“Jim, no. Wait a moment! Let’s think, let’s … Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

Roy was so proud; so proud. So was Aurelia. And they had been so kind to her. All the island knew of the wedding; all the island—Roy’s home. Roy’s friends.

“No, Jim—no. Not this way. It’s Roy I’m thinking of. No—wait.”

She was thinking desperately, quickly, trying to find a clearer path. “Jim, listen. This is not the way. It’s too—too public. Too sudden. Time would help. I’ll go back. I’d have to go back. I’ll tell Roy. I must do that myself, anyway. I promised him. I said I’d marry him. I’ve got to face him myself.”

He waited a moment, the boat barely under way, rocking with the waves. “Yes,” he said finally, “Yes, I see that. But nevertheless …”

“You must go on. Just as you had planned. There’s your job; you’ve got to have that.”

But she had enough money for both of them, all the money they could possibly want! His job need not matter to them. She almost said so, and then she saw, swiftly, that that very fact made his job matter the more. She caught back those nearly uttered words and cried: “I’ll tell him. Then I’ll come.”

“To New York?”

“To wherever you are.”

Again he waited a moment, his face grave and thoughtful. “I’d rather face him myself.”

“No—no, Jim! I’ll tell him only, now, that I don’t—I can’t marry him. But not about you. Not yet; not now.”

“I’d rather wait and take you with me.”

“He’s so proud! I can’t tell him it’s because of you. I can’t do that to Roy. Not in the face of the whole island, all his friends. So short a time before the wedding!” He waited again, frowning, thinking, and at last deciding. She knew it when the motor began to throb loudly again.

“All right. I can see that; I was thinking of myself. I wasn’t thinking of Roy. But I don’t know what to do,” he said. “If there were time!”

There wasn’t time. Suddenly Elbow Beach was directly ahead of them, the mail boat so clear that her brass shone in the sun and little black clouds of smoke drifted from her small funnel. Almost unconsciously, Nonie thought, Jim pushed the accelerator.

And it was right. She’d go back and tell Roy. Jim would go on to New York, on to his job, and then soon, she would come.

The boat crashed through the waves and Jim said suddenly, shouting over the deafening thud of the engine, “You’ve got to think about this, Nonie. I want you to have time, too. I love you … I’ll always love you. Look at me.”

She was already looking when he turned to meet her eyes; storing up in her mind and memory every line and angle of his face. His look plunged into her own as irresistibly as the boat cleaved through the waves. “I do love you—for always. I want you to marry me. I want you to think about it; it’s happened, all of this, so fast. Think about it, Nonie. And then come. Will you?”

There was again a sort of mist in her eyes; but this time it was happy, so happy that she let it stay, she let him see it as she would have let him see her heart. “Yes, Jim. I’ll come.”

“My darling,” he said. “My darling.”

And then suddenly they were at the jetty; the whole little island, the mail boat with its puffs of black smoke and gleaming brass and tiny gangway, the palms, the warehouses, were no longer a picture seen in a frame of distance; they were within the picture itself, they were a part of it, and the boat turned under Jim’s hands in a wide half circle, and the engine slowed and the jetty leaped up, immediately ahead of them.

It was all real and it was unreal. Jim was leaving and that was unreal. He was still beside her, she could touch him, she could speak and he would reply. That was real; and so was the smudge of black on one knee of her white cotton slacks, the sting of her hair blowing across her cheek, the frothy curds of foam at her side.

Incredibly, as if it had an undefeatable will of its own, the squatty, sturdy mail boat came up beside them. Jim cut off their motor and in spite of the muffled thump of the mail boat’s engines, it seemed suddenly remarkably quiet. The motor boat slid alongside the jetty, past the mail boat. Jim stood and the boat rocked gently, quietly. He secured the line and glanced at the mail boat.

“Hurry!” Her voice too, was a part of the picture, unreal, artificial. It did not mean, hurry, leave me; take the plane to New York.