The Dawning of the Day (43 page)

She started to put the letter away and then decided against it. Let it lie there on the table and lose its power. She was through with hiding; she had made a brave start this afternoon with Viola. She went back to work. Downstairs the clarinet went on, reeling one moment and waltzing the next.

Because of the clarinet, she didn't hear a definite set of footsteps on the stairs, but a wary creaking came to her ears during an interlude when Gregg presumably stopped to wet his throat. She sat gazing at the door, listening.

The creaking came again; she sensed the held breath, the painfully exact placing of the feet. Then the clarinet began. She was doomed by sound; she felt deaf and defenseless. She got up quickly and took her flashlight from the dresser, opened the door, and turned the light down the stairs.

At first she didn't recognize the two faces that stared blinking into the glare, two white ovals that seemed to bear no connection with living bodies. Then Syd Goward said timidly, “It's Ellie and me, Mis' Marshall.”

She laughed aloud in her amazement and lowered the light to the stairs ahead of them. “Come up, come up! I think I was expecting ghosts.”

They came up very carefully, Syd holding Ellie by the hand. He had a small cardboard carton under the other arm. He kept smiling a bashful, delighted smile at finding himself here. Ellie's narrow pinched face was immobile framed in the red hood of her parka, but her eyes moved everywhere.

“Well, this is
nice
,” Philippa said warmly.

Syd pushed the carton at her. “Brought you a few lobsters.” He chuckled and ducked his head. “They're all cooked. We got a small washtub full of 'em in the shed. Tomorrow's Helen's and Foss' anniversary, and we got a gatherin' of the clan comin' up.”

Philippa wanted to laugh. It was an incredible situation. Surely Viola hadn't sent the lobsters. She looked into the box and saw three.

“But can you spare them?” she asked earnestly.

“They'll never be missed.” Syd chuckled again. He looked down at Ellie. “Will they, Missy?”

Ellie shook her head. “Mamma never counted them,” she said primly. “She's over to Uncle Asa's.”

“It's a wonderful surprise,” said Philippa. “Sit down, both of you. It's nice to have company, with or without lobsters. This is my night, I guess. Jude was just here.”

Syd said, “Oh, we didn't come to stay. Jest to bring the lobsters. Hope you like 'em.” He turned to the door, still holding Ellie's hand tightly in his. She remembered, then, how, as she had come to her door that afternoon, she had seen a wispy flash of something. She would never know, and she could never ask, if it had been Syd who had stood there listening to her and Vi and then had ducked out of sight into Gregg's shop.

She said quickly, “At least stop long enough to see some of Ellie's papers. She does beautiful work, Mr. Goward.” She went across to the table and they followed her, holding hands like the two babes in the woods. She shuffled through the papers and found Ellie's spelling and arithmetic tests.

“Ellie's one of the best spellers,” she explained. “These are seventh-grade lists. She takes spelling with the older children.”

“Her mother was always good that way.” Syd studied the papers, bemused and shaking his head. “Now me, I can't even spell
cat
straight.” He looked lovingly into Ellie's face. “These are real beautiful, Missy. Real beautiful.”

Suddenly Philippa felt anxious to please him further; he was such a pleasant little man, his eyes so humbly bright and friendly under his brindle forelock. She said, “I've been saving some of the best papers to make up a notebook. It will be like a record of the year. I'll get it.”

She went into her bedroom, and when she came out, they were still standing by the table, hand in hand as if Syd were no older than Ellie. She thought, Tonight Ellie has changed for me. She keeps her hand in his with perfect confidence. His “migraine” means nothing to her.

Syd looked at Ellie's papers in the notebook, and Ellie waited, her small face content and quiet. Whenever he ducked his head down to smile at her, she gazed at him seriously. In a little while they left, Syd thanking Philippa profusely.

“Thank
you
, Mr. Goward,” she said in return, and she was not thanking him for just the lobsters.

P
hilippa settled down with difficulty that night. By a pure effort of will power, she could refuse to go over the day's snarl of events. She put Jude's note in the bottom drawer of her bureau, under her clothes. She found some dance music on the radio and turned it to an intimate tone. She took a sponge bath; then, in pajamas and robe, with her feet on the oven hearth, she ate a lobster sandwich and read
Boswell's London Journal
until she felt sleepy.

She slept heavily. Toward morning she dreamed of turbulent, distressing events, none of them very clear to her. At first she thought the knocking on her door was in her dream, but it went on and on until she thought it had lasted all her life. She fought against it at first. Then, with a sick reluctance, she came awake. It was nearly eight o'clock. She called in a faint, drunken voice, “All right, I'm coming.”

It was Kathie. “What's the matter you aren't up?” she exclaimed. She was no longer apathetic. She came into the kitchen smelling of the cold morning. “Look,” she cried, holding out her mitten. “It's snowing! Oh darn, they've melted already. Well, it is snowing a little, but they all say it's not cold enough to amount to much.” She went over to the table and leaned across it to look out the window. Philippa began to make the fire. Kathie said, “There's nobody in sight. Rob must've got Foss and Asanath started all right. Golly, do you suppose they'll find her?”

“Who?” said Philippa. The kindling caught fire and began a fierce blaze.

“Lucy Webster,” said Kathie. “She's run away in her nightgown and bare feet. All the men are out looking for her. I wonder what set her off?” She came away from the window, entranced with speculation.

It was the note, Philippa thought, the vile note. I should take it down and put it up outside the post office and write under it, This is what made Lucy Webster run away in her nightgown and bare feet.

She said aloud, “It's hard to tell what makes people do things. Where are the children?”

“Down to Jo's. Steve came over and told us.” Philippa caught at his name.

“Steve? Was he out? How's his laryngitis?”

“Oh, he's croaking some. He's gone with Mark down the west side. They started right beyond the breakwater. Max is with them. That dog's awful good at finding things.”

“Steve shouldn't be out,” Philippa said. “There are enough men to look without his going.” She set the teakettle over the fire and went into her room to dress. Fool, she thought bitterly. Chivalrous, softheaded fool. What's Lucy Webster worth to me, compared to you? What if they never found her, how much of a loss would it be even to Jude and the children? And you have to go tramping over the rocks in this air, wheezing and croaking. . . . Shocked at her venom, she put her hands over her face. Poor Lucy, plunging out into a world that terrified her because suddenly the place of safety had been made even more terrifying. Poor Jude. The meek shall inherit the earth, Jude. Remember that, if you can take any comfort from it.

She went out into the kitchen again. Kathie had taken off her things and had set the table for her. The water was beginning to boil. It was curious what an atavistic sense of security came to one from the sound of a fire, the growing warmth, the positive sound of water boiling.

“Have coffee with me, Kathie,” she said. “It won't hurt you for once.”

Kathie grinned. “You know Finns and coffee. I keep telling Helmi she's sold her birthright because she makes me drink cocoa in the morning.” Suddenly she became sober. “I shouldn't be laughing about anything, with Lucy . . . you know. But I can't help being excited, because it
is
exciting. Everything that happens, I think, ‘This is Life. I'm living Life.' I go along for days thinking I'm half dead, and then something comes along to make me know I'm alive. Then everything changes for me. I'm sorry for Lucy and Jude and the kids. I'm not glad this is happening, but I'm glad I'm not feeling stupid any more.”

Ralph and Rob were in the search party, and they returned to school before noon, flushed with windburn and an exalted sense of their own importance. They reported the news antiphonally.

“Syd found her,” Ralph began, “under a big spruce down near Sou'west Point—”

Rob objected. “Max found her. Syd was just following, because he knows that dog's smart.”

Ralph shrugged. “Well, anyway, she was sitting under the tree, and she wouldn't speak to Syd. She was scared of him. She was scared of everybody.”

“Not Max,” said Rob. “She patted
him
.” He looked proud.

“How is Mrs. Webster now?” Philippa asked.

“She's all right, I guess,” said Ralph, with a rapid descent from exhilaration to boredom. “Scratched up, kind of, with her nightgown tore, and she was about blue with cold. But I guess she's learned not to go hypering off like that. She was some quiet when they took her home in Nils' boat.”

“You ought to have seen Jude shake,” Rob said in awe.

“He's had a terrible experience,” Philippa said. “You boys will have time to get your arithmetic done before you go home to dinner.”

“Oh, Golly,” Ralph blew out in a loud stage whisper. “Back to the old grind.”

As she was leaving school that afternoon, she saw Joanna Sorensen coming down through the meadow from the Homestead, and waited for her. Joanna always carried with her a special sense of sanity and humor. Philippa envied her; she had grown up on this island and could meet it on its own terms. What Steve called “island politics” could never defeat his sister.

“I've been up prowling around the old house,” she said. “Thinking of the past and trying to convince myself that the human race hasn't gone so far downhill after all.”

“Did you succeed?” Philippa asked. Joanna made a wry face. They laughed and started across the marsh toward the gray harbor.

“Have you seen Lucy Webster today?” Philippa asked.

“Yes, I went up when they brought her home. I had all the hot-water bottles I could collect. We tucked her in, as snug as an incubator baby.” She looked down at the path, frowning. “It's all the same to Lucy. She might as well still be down on Sou'west Point under that spruce tree.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not exactly sure what I mean. Jude keeps saying over and over that it's nothing strange, she just walked in her sleep. He says it so much you're darned sure there's a lot more to it than sleepwalking. He's so wrung out it's heartbreaking. And in the meanwhile Lucy lies there staring with those yellow eyes, not saying a word, and Rue waits like a devoted little dog.”

“That's a tragic family,” Philippa said.

“I'd almost think Lucy was having a tantrum, like a young one holding his breath. Maybe she's getting even with Jude for something.”

Philippa didn't look at her. “It might be that,” she said vaguely. “Maybe she hates the island and thinks Jude's indulging his own wishes at her expense.” She thought of the note, lying buried at the bottom of the bureau.

They had reached Philippa's doorstep. “Well, I'm going to the store,” Joanna said, “to see if Mark got any fresh vegetables on the boat this morning. Come up to supper, will you? Steve slept all day after they came back from the search and woke up with his voice.”

“I'd love to come,” Philippa said. Steve is my talisman, she thought as she went upstairs. Some people touch wood or cold iron to protect them from evil; I touch Steve. She looked at her watch. In two hours she would be seeing him; if she worked in the meantime, the hours would pass with blessed speed.

When she had replenished the fire, she took one of her water pails and went downstairs. She stood for a moment on the doorstep, listening to the silence and looking out at the harbor, where a pale cold glint of sunlight had suddenly appeared on the water from a break in the clouds. Gregg was coming home from the beach at his rolling, limping gait. When he saw Philippa, he gave her a watery smile and said gruffly, “Well, I can't say as I object too awful much to seein' a good-lookin' woman standin' outside my door.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Gregg,” she said.

“I s'pose I'd ought to follow that up by luggin' your water for you, but I ain't that gallant.” He squinted past the corner of the house. “I gorry, here comes one larrupin' along like the devil in a gale of wind.”

It was Joanna running back, laughing and excited. “I'm a sinner,” she said to them. “A downright sinner. I shouldn't laugh, but I can't help it. I heard all this racket from the Goward house, so I took a short cut up around there and went by as slowly as I could and still be decent.” She let out a long breath and looked dramatically from one to the other. “You won't believe this. But Syd's beating his wife!”

“You mean he's landing blows on the harridan?” Gregg asked.

“Well, he hadn't made contact while I was there, but maybe he has by now. The Salminen children are out in the yard watching; Randall Percy is shaking like a leaf in the entry; his wife is shrieking, ‘
Do
something!' Ellie isn't in sight. And Syd is chasing his wife with a kitchen chair.”

“I gorry,” Gregg whispered reverently. “I gorry. That'd be a sight to see.”

Joanna put her hand on Philippa's arm. “You aren't saying a word, as much as Vi's been on your neck. Is it sordid to you?”

Philippa shook her head. “I've been trying to imagine it, that's all. Since there aren't any of my pupils around, I can safely say I think it's wonderful and I'd like to be over there watching, but being an adult
and
a teacher has its disadvantages.” She was mildly exhilarated at the thought of Syd's wrath; but another current ran below the surface, the strong and sinister current that she was never able to forget. “Was Syd saying anything that you could hear?” she asked Joanna.