The Dawning of the Day (28 page)

“He should've stuck to his carpent'ring,” said Asanath, taking a wedge of cabbage. “Perley's more of a lobsterman than Jude could ever be.”

“He'll get off here now, won't he?” Suze didn't look at Philippa, but there was a barbed vivacity in her. “He'll have to.”

“It's an act of God, looks like,” said Asanath. “Better to have it this way, no violence except from old Mother Nature. She knows how to take care of the ones that ain't fit.”

Terence grunted. His father went on. “I was hoping for something like this. There's uglier ways of getting rid of a nuisance, but I don't subscribe to 'em, myself. Though there's some that don't think much of the law.”

“Who would bother a poor stick like Jude?” Philippa asked. “And why? He doesn't take up much room. There seems to be plenty of ocean around here for everybody to fish in.”

Terence didn't look up from his plate. Asanath laid down his fork deliberately. “Well, my girl, it's like this,” he began. “The Bennetts walk down the road like they owned the earth, not just this island. And they don't want any lame ducks flopping around and spoiling the looks of their paradise. Speaking of lame ducks, you know what a flock of healthy ones does to a lame one . . . ? The Bennetts might've brought Jude out here to shingle some roofs and build somebody a new fish-house, but they didn't figger on him staying around and being a liability and a disgrace. They don't cherish him or his kids any more than the rest of us, but they'll smile in his face and do the dirty work at night.” He picked up his fork and loaded it with food before he spoke again, gentle and smiling. “If an easterly didn't ruin his gear and run him off the island, something else would. Ever heard of Paddy's hurricane? Andthe next day the ones who did it would be as innocent as a nestful of newborn robins. And smug, too. They'd preserved the peace and the fitness of things.”

Philippa's stomach contracted against the rest of her dinner. Bennett faces moved across her mind, vigorous, laughing, angry, contemplative. She could not believe there was a devious one among them; Steve was the only one who showed a trace of subtlety. And yet Asanath could be right. He was an intelligent man, and he had lived here several years; she had been here less than a month and had fallen in love with a Bennett. She had no moral right to judge. She said, deceptively agreeable, “It seems impossible that there could be people like that in this day and age.”

“Oh, I know they've made a good impression on you,” he said encouragingly. “That's fitting, I suppose, since they're all comely enough, and they're the kind who'll agree with everything. It's yes here, and ain't it a shame there, and they make you feel real fine and noble when you're talking with them. They don't keep a yammer going about things that don't suit 'em. But they're the ones, my girl, who think they made the law—or that it don't include them. They've been brought up to feel like little kings that don't have to complain like common folks; they just go out and do what comes into their heads to do, and the devil with the consequences.”

Yes, it could be the truth he was telling; but there was something else revealed too. Apart from her oppressive doubts, she was painfully disappointed in Asanath. She could not have believed, a month ago, that he was capable of such hatred. She had seen him as a survival of a leisurely and tolerant age, a mellow man. But it had been borne in upon her during that month that the island, remote as it was, was not free after all but contaminated by rivalries and resentments. She would cling stubbornly to one belief out of all the rest, that Steve was different, that he was set apart.

She spent the afternoon walking around the western end of the island. If she could not be with Steve, it was best to be alone. It was satisfyingly wild and isolated at the far end, it claimed one's whole attention. She felt as if she were standing in the center of a world of water and primal mists. As far as she could see, there were green waves tumbling ceaselessly after one another, like explosions of water thrown up from the ocean bottom. The long white crests of foam rode, broke, re-formed. There was a dull booming each time a sea hit a long dark reef nearby. The sun was bright between gray masses of rushing clouds.

Gulls flew low over the waves and some small sea ducks rode on the surge close to the breakers. She watched them, wishing she didn't have to go back to the Campions'. The argument with Asanath a few nights ago had been one thing; this noon was something different. She did not want to sit across the table from him. But by all the laws of common sense she was bound to consider the significance of his words. Because of Steve, because she understood Mark's angry concern about Kathie, because she was drawn to Joanna and Nils—because of all this, had she any basis for believing Asanath was wrong about them?

She walked more slowly, and as she approached the village, she wondered how long it would be before the Websters, ruined by the storm, left the island. Then the rest could all settle back, as smugly sure as Asanath that the problem had been solved by an act of God. No one would really be the victor, though of course Helen Campion wouldn't be able to forbear acting like one. I'm getting to be horrid, Philippa thought. I should be relieved that my crusade is fizzling out so I can relax and go on pleasantly with my job.

Finally she left the shore and went up through the brambly field to Mark Bennett's yard, still sheltered and green within its surrounding spruces. She knocked on the back door and Kathie opened it; a warm scent of wood fire and cooking flowed out past her. She said in honest excited pleasure, “Hi, Mrs. Marshall! Come in.”

“I was looking for permission to trespass,” Philippa said. Helmi Bennett's quiet voice called from beyond, “Just in time for a cup of coffee.”

“You'll have to come in, please,” Kathie reached out and caught her by the arm, tugging hard. Her face was brimming with something that had been there when she opened the door, even before she recognized Philippa. “It's a celebration. You'll be glad of it.”

Philippa went in, stirred without knowing why. Helmi was setting out cups on the big table by the windows that overlooked the island. There was no one else in the square bright room but her and Kathie and Philippa. She said, “The men wouldn't stay for coffee; they had other things to do. You'll have to help us drink it.”

“Has anything happened?” asked Philippa.

Kathie tucked her thumbs in her belt as if she were confronting rustlers on her dream ranch. “Foss sent Perley over this morning to try to buy Jude's boat. They couldn't even wait for the funeral, could they? And Syd Goward had his eye on that dory that Mark let Jude have cheap!” She laughed in pure unabashed exultation.

“All it amounts to,” said Helmi, smiling, “is that Mark's advancing Jude enough trap stuff for a good string, and the others will go good for it and help Jude get his traps built and set. Steve's going up to tell him that if he wants to try again they'll back him up.”

“I'm so glad,” Philippa said. She sat down gratefully. “I can't say how glad I am.” She felt almost rapturously happy. The warmth from the stove and the smell of coffee were sublime. Her troubles had not ended with the storm; there was a prospect of more strife before there was less. After this pleasant interlude she must go back to sit at supper with Asanath. If he calls me “my girl,” she thought, I shall tell him to watch his language. But for now she was happy.

T
he wind stopped blowing so hard and life swung into its normal tempo. The men went out to haul in the mornings, and the women did their long overdue washings and hung out the winter clothes to air. It was early November weather; a pale warm sunshine lay in a thin wash over the fields, the wind was cold when it caught one unawares, and if it dropped at sundown, by morning everything was thickly coated with a glittering hoarfrost. If the northern lights bloomed ghostly in the sky over Brigport, it meant a southerly spell. If a day warmed to an exquisite windless hush and the Rock appeared to float weightless between sea and sky, there would be an easterly spell.

The days moved quietly in the school. Then, as she was picking up her papers one afternoon, directly after dismissal time, Sky Campion came in again. His round face was flushed, and he kept putting his hand up nervously to the back of his black head.

“Back to school already, Sky?” Philippa asked him. “Short night, wasn't it?”

He took off his thick glasses suddenly, and she saw his eyes without them for the first time; they were beautiful eyes, wide-set and of the brown that seems almost purple and heavily lashed. They stared at her wildly. She felt the imminence of panic as if it were in herself.

“What is it, Sky?” she asked sharply.

“Perley's up there.” He pointed toward the Bennett meadow. “In the woods near the cemetery. He—” He stopped, breathing in short shallow puffs with his mouth open, then wet his lips and began again. “Hegot it all fixed up with Peg, to ask Rue and Edwin to take a walk with her after school, and Peggy did. She was sweet as honey, she said she was going to be friends.” He was pale, and sweat showed on his forehead and upper lip.

Philippa picked up her coat. She wanted to run out of the schoolhouse. Instead she said quietly, “Tell me as we walk along. Where are the other children, Dan'l and Faith?”

“Rue told Faith to take Dan'l home through the village because she and Edwin were going to take the long way home, with Peggy. She was pleased because Peg was nice to her. She didn't know which way to look, hardly, she was so pleased.”

They went across the shaded schoolyard and into the late sun with its faint, deceptive warmth. Far beyond them, Rue and Peggy and Edwin were halfway across the Bennett meadow. Peggy's red jacket blazed like rowan berries against the tall faded grasses around her.

If I could lay hands on Peggy now, I would want to kill her, Philippa thought. She went on speaking, calmly, keeping her hand on Sky's shoulder. “How do you know Perley's waiting?” she asked.

“I heard them planning it at dinnertime, down in the fishhouse. Perley gave Peg a dollar. But I didn't think she'd do it. Lots of times she gets money off him and doesn't keep her promises. I thought all afternoon she wouldn't do it. Then, after school, she started talking to Rue.” He shuddered violently, as if with a chill.

Down at the harbor, men walked back and forth across the beach; the faint wind carried fragments of voices, of hammers pounding. Philippa shook Sky's shoulder. “It'll be all right. Run down and get your father.”

He hurried down the road. Up in the meadow the children had disappeared past a knoll of gray ledge and bay thicket. Philippa began to run. No stranger, she thought grimly, could imagine what infamy lay in this hush of bronze grass stirred gently by the wind and ringed with peaceful trees; who could imagine Perley waiting in the thick growth beyond the cemetery?
This
time, he must be thinking,
this
time maybe even Rue will cry out. He knew what strange terrified noises he could draw from Edwin, but to crack Rue's composure—that would be the challenge.

The thought of Perley waiting in the woods was monstrous enough to put the taste of nausea in Philippa's mouth as she ran. But at the same time she knew Peggy to be even more monstrous, for Peggy was intelligent where Perley was not.
My Peggy is a sweet innocent little girl
, her mother was always saying fondly.

Beyond the knoll there was a lake of shadow cast by the woods. The three had just reached it, and for an instant the last edge of sun slanted across their heads. Peggy's motions were leisurely and good-tempered. Rue pointed to a crow in a dead spruce. Edwin, a skinny slight boy in overalls, leaned down to look at something in the grass. Then they strolled on into the shadow.

Philippa shouted Rue's name and the girl turned quickly. In the blue glaze of shadow, her face shone white. Peggy caught at Rue's arm, she strained toward the woods, but Rue hung back, looking over her shoulder.

“Wait for me, Rue!” Philippa called. “
Wait
!”

Peggy was trying to run, dragging Rue and Edwin with her. She was a strong girl, and they were frail. But they had spirit, and Peggy's sudden change of mood seemed to frighten them into revolt. If only Perley didn't come out of the woods to help. . . . The sweat burned in Philip-pa's eyes. She knew she was covering ground, but it was like running in a bad dream where one stays eternally on the same spot.

Someone pounded past her like a pony. It was Kathie. “Terence is coming!” she flung back at Philippa, and ran on. She reached the shadow and went forward in a series of long leaps. Edwin had already pulled free and was pounding at Peggy with his fists. When she saw Kathie she flung Rue savagely from her, and ran into the woods. Kathie passed Rue and Edwin and followed the other girl out of sight.

Terence and Philippa reached the children simultaneously. Terence knelt down where Rue crouched in the grass and took her by the shoulders. His hands were gentle, but there was no gentleness in his face. Philippa put her arm around Edwin's rigid shoulders; he ignored her, and kept staring toward the woods.

“Perley's waiting, isn't he?” Rue said in a bemused voice.

“I don't know,” Philippa said. She sat down beside Rue, pretending to be merely companionable. Her legs ached and she felt weak. “I came after you because I wanted to talk to you about your work.”

“You don't have to make up a story,” said Rue. “I knew he was there when she started to pull at us.” She rubbed her forearm gently.

Terence sat back on his heels and got out his cigarettes. “It would be easy to shoot him,” he remarked.

“Then you'd have to pay,” Philippa said. “There's a way to handle these things, and we've got to find it. Today is the end.” She spoke in a reasonable way, as if it were a quite ordinary problem. “Where's Foss? He should have come. I wanted him to see for himself.”