The Wind and the Spray (17 page)

“Do you know what, Mrs. Larsen, I don’t believe you will, I don’t believe you’ll do that at all. I see a lot of things, you know
—
”

“How do you see them?”

He smirked and waved up the hill. “I have a very extensive view,” he grinned, “and I still have that very efficient spy-glass. It tells me a great deal. I must show you just how much one day. You’ll be surprised.”

“Why are you here?” Laurel asked it boldly.

“Reasons.”

“Are you afraid to go back to the coast?”

The man looked suddenly as though he would catch hold of her. This time Laurel did step back. “Did
he
say
that?” he hissed.

“Then you
are
wanted.”

“That’s my business.”

“No, it’s not, it’s ours.”

“Ours! Ours? Since when has the Larsen set-up been ours?” Again the sly laugh.

“I’m going to tell Nor, of course.”

“And of course you’re not. Do you know why?”

She stared at him, at what he was doing. He was taking a small revolver out of his pocket. He held it in the hollow of his hand.

“This is why,” he smiled.

Laurel felt herself go icy-cold, but with an effort she stood her ground, kept her voice steady and undismayed. “That wouldn’t stop Nor.”

“Really, and what would he fight back with then? A harpoon, do you think? A flensing knife? Listen to me, Mrs. Larsen, on this island there is just one firearm. Surprising, really, but it’s a small island, and a peaceful one, one that doesn’t need such things. You don’t have to have much intelligence to realize that the man with the firearm calls the tune, now do you?” Again the oily laugh.

“I’ve just seen your little girls go over the hill. Quite a pretty sight. If you don’t care what happens to Mr. Larsen, and my spy-glass tells me it’s no love nest down there, perhaps you do care about them.” He tossed the revolver lightly, caught it deftly, put it in his pocket again.

“You wouldn’t—you couldn’t—”

He stared directly at her. “Take a good look at me,” he said brutishly. “What do you think?”

He pushed his face almost into hers. She stared back horrified and knew her answer. There were no two ways as to how she could think.

“
I’m wanted by the police, yes,” he admitted. “But I look at it this way—if things didn’t go as I’m sure you would prefer them to go, the police could deal with me—afterwards—for both.” The smile was a leer now.

She stood petrified. What this man said could be true. Humpback was a peaceful place. Even the war in the Pacific, Nor had told her, had come nowhere near its shores. It was probable that this man, as he had just said, did hold the only firearm on the island. It was possible that if he had a sentence hanging over him on the mainland he would not be past using the firearm to prolong his stay here, to prolong it until he got whatever he wanted. Apart from a hideout, what was it Humpback Island had for him?

It was also feasible, and Laurel knew it, knew it sickeningly as she looked at the fellow, that he could do, would do, what he had just said.

“That’s the girl.” Jasper spoke easily. “Coming to your senses, eh? First thing, I’ll relieve you of this.” He took the picnic hamper away.

“But you can’t do that
...
the children
...
”

“There’s plenty where this came from, but I’m getting a bit peckish up there on the hill. Suspicious lot, these Islanders, keeping their things these days under lock and key. Tell me, is Larsen keeping his things locked up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find out and tell me.”

“I won’t be seeing you any more, Mr. Jasper, I’ll be keeping well away.”

“You’ll be seeing me
...
seeing me regular
...
and if you have your family of kids at heart you’ll slip a litt
l
e something in whenever you go walking just to keep things
pleasant. Understand?”

“I—”

“
Understand
?” He had taken a step forward. She saw his hand in his pocket.

“Yes,” she said.

“Meat,” he directed sharply, “tins of meat, and no stint, see? Don’t let me go hungry.”

There was a cooee in the distance. He stepped back.

“Get going now
...
and don’t forget I’m watching you. You, and the kids—and your dear husband, of course.” Again the oily laugh.

The little girls came racing back.

“Mrs. Larsen, we thought you were lost or something. Barbara said you must be eaten by a bear.”

“I wasn’t lost, but I did a silly thing, I lost the lunch hamper.”

Their eyes widened. “Lost the lunch hamper? But how could you do that?”

Mrs. Fuccilli widened her black eyes, too, when the hungry party returned.

“Lost all the picnic? Now how did that come about?”

Nor grinned when he learned. “I lose my temper often, but I never lose things like eats.”

Other things disappeared
...
gradually
...
carefully. Mrs. Fuccilli tut-tutted and said, “My goodness, have I used all those tins in so short a time?”

Once, in desperation, Laurel asked straight out of Nor, “Have you a pistol?”

“Of course not. Did you want one? Not that unhappy are you?” He laughed.

But Laurel could not laugh. She felt caught in a web. The only way to escape was to break right away, stop smuggling things out, food out, as she was doing now, stop leaving it where
he
could find it
...
and tell Nor.

But in the breakaway, the telling, something, anything, could happen. She remembered that hateful thing, that cold thing, in the hollow of that hand.

“You’re pale, child.” Nor said it with concern. “Anything wrong?”

“Of course not.”

“No need to snap me up like that.”

“No need to ask a stupid question.”

“All the same you
are
pale. I think I’ll let you go over to the mainland to Nathalie for a spell.”

Her heart leapt. To get away, she thought, to break from the web.

Then she remembered what
he
had said ... what he had in his possession ... the power he wielded.

“I don’t want to go. I’m not going.”

“Am I to take that as a compliment?” Nor asked. “Am I to infer you want to stop on here?”

“I can go later
...
when the Fuccillis have left
...”
That might give
him
time to get out of Humpback, she thought.

Nor smiled thinly. “I see your point. You prefer to stop on while there are numbers, go when there is not. But I assured you before on that point.”

In a rush she said, “You assured me, too, of David.”

Instantly Nor got up.

Short of racing after him, clutching hold of him, insisting that he do something about David, do what he promised he would, she knew their short talk had ended. Why did Nor always back out the moment David’s name was in the air?

She did not go after him. There was something heavy inside her. It was not just the thought of that thing of steel in the hollow of a man’s hand, it was not just Nor letting her down like this, letting David down, it was something else.

It was the sudden, curious knowledge, although she knew nothing, had heard nothing, that it wasn’t going to matter, anyway
...
that nothing was going to matter to David
...
not ever any more.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE teacher and the school equipment arrived.

Of the teacher, Nor observed, “A pity the Fuccillis are not about to leave, for then you could have followed them up with Mr. Brent, a
s
you promptly filled Nathalie’s empty niche. You could have kept the house full.”

“I didn’t fill it, the fire saw to that.” But had she not in a way, thought Laurel, done just what Nor said? If only she had told Nor of that first encounter on the cliff, Jasper would have been hunted out before he could do the damage he had. For at no time had Laurel nurtured any illusions as to how the fire had really begun.

Tony Brent, young, keen, gratified to be chosen to start a brand new school, found board with Mrs. Jessopp.

“The next thing,” said Laurel unthinkingly one day, “is to get some nice unattached girl at Humpback.”

“For Brent?” drawled Nor.

“He’s the only available male—now,” she returned.

He nodded idly.

“You do like tying things up, don’t you?” he said presently. “Making people permanent. And yet”—taking out his cigarette makings—“you’ve never become permanent yourself.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t really know, I can’t actually put a finger on it,
yet you’re on edge, aren’t you? You’re never sure, never settled in.”

Of course she was on edge, certainly she was unsure. Who would not be with that cold knowledge of that cold thing belonging to that cold man always on their mind?

Day by day, when she went for a walk, Laurel took something, some tin of food, with her. For caution’s sake she did not always leave it in the same place, but it did not matter, he still found it. Undoubtedly he watched her conceal it. He had boasted that he saw everything up there.

Then one day, when she went to the place where she had last planted a bundle of groceries, that previous bundle was still there. She glanced quickly up to the hill. Could it be that he had been unable to find it? Agitated, she chose a more obvious spot for this bundle, glancing up to the hill again.

The next day both lots of groceries were untouched. She felt as she believed ancient people must have felt when they heaped up sacrifices to appease the gods. She wanted to spread all she could at Jasper’s feet
...
anything to stop him doing what he had in his power to do
...
and to wield.

If she had paused to ponder on it, to consider it calmly, Laurel would have realized how foolishly, how near-hysterically, she was thinking and acting.

But she didn’t pause. She only hurried up day after day and almost burst into weak tears when the groceries were still not gone.

She went through a thousand agonies that week. Several times she saw Nor looking at her through narrowed eyes, but she was past caring what he thought.

The nightmare that was Jasper coming down the track, gun in his hand, faded painfully at last, and another nightmare took its place. This time it was Jasper dead up there in the bush. She hated him, and she was afraid of him, but the thought of his lying ill, unable to come down for food, eventually perishing, haunted her even more than had the previous nightmare. Then at last, through exhaustion of repetition probably, both nightmares faded, and she had peace at last.

Jasper had just got sick of everything and gone away, that was all. Now that the island was more populous, it would be comparatively easy to slip back unnoticed to the coast.

Yes, Jasper had gone, the web was broken, she was free to breathe again.

She came out of the darkness so noticeably that Mrs. Fuccilli as well as Nor had a comment.

“You see the end of us in sight,” laughed the Italian, “that is it. For many days you think: ‘Still and still and
still
these people, how long more?’ Then all at once our house that is getting built becomes more like a house, and you know soon we go. Yes, that is it, I think.”

“It is not, Louisa, I like you very much, and I don’t want you to go.”

But Louisa brushed aside her words. “Ah, now, was I not young and newly-wed too, once? When two are so new in love is there room for more?”

“But—”

“You are good, Laurel, and Nor is good, you share so willingly with us. But time passes, and our house is nearly ready, and you will be alone, carissima. And that is right, for soon you are
not
alone.” Louisa gave a resigned shrug. “Look at me, little friend, five bambinos in so many years. They are sweet, yes—but so, too, that green time before the harvest.” Louisa sighed gustily for a vanished spring. Nor’s comment was less poetical.

“So you’ve snapped out of it,” he said.

To make up for her lethargy, Laurel threw herself into Island activities and organized left and right. Tony Brent looked a little startled, and Laurel thought laughingly to herself that perhaps she had better curb some of her enthusiasms lest she frighten him into believing all women worked madly like this.

That long longed-for letter at last from David, too, gave her new spirit ... yet there was little reason why it should, really, for there was less in it than ever. And then, too, it was opened when Nor passed it across to her
...

“Sorry about that. I just saw the Larsen
...
never thought to look closer. Careless of me.”

It was something that could happen with anyone, she knew that, but somehow his words did not convince. Why had Nor opened her letter? she thought.

“Dearest Sis, Grand news about your marriage. Things just the same here. Will write more later. My love always, you know that, Dave.”

It was typical of David’s letters, except that it was briefer. She examined it closely. Was the weak, disembodied writing a little more thin and spidery? No, it was just the same, she was imagining things. But she had not imagined Nor’s examination of the letter before he had passed it on to her. The broken seal, the re-folded sheet were evidence of that. Why had Nor opened it? Read it? What possibly could interest Nor in a letter from his wife’s brother? The answer, of course, was obvious. Nor, as yet, had made no real move to bring out David. He had said he had, but that had been only to silence, to appease her. He had opened David’s letter to make sure now that he was not yet involved.

Laurel had put the letter down.

“Nor,” she said, “you
have
started something about David, haven’t you?”

“I told you I had, didn’t I?”

“This letter”—she held the sheet up—“makes no reference to it.”

“Need it make reference? Because a man writes and states that in a short time he is bringing someone out it doesn’t mean that the recipient of the letter must write back pages of enthusiasm.”

Slowly Laurel said, “David never writes pages.”

“Very well, then, you’ve received a customary letter, there is nothing out of the ordinary. What, then, are you complaining about? Why meet trouble halfway?”

“Because I feel it
is
trouble, that’s why. I feel—I feel—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” flung Nor.

Tony Brent had asked Laurel to word Mr. Larsen for swimming baths.

“They have the whole sea, why do they want to confine themselves to a pool?” argued Nor when Laurel did.

“These children are not babies like Jill and Meredith, they are past the paddling stage, they must learn to swim. It wouldn’t be safe in the sea.”

“If it’s sharks, don’t worry. There are too many porpoises here. Where porpoises are, sharks are not. And the brats can learn to swim from them if they like. I did.”

“You were surely a very remarkable child,” came back Laurel.

“I was,” shrugged Nor in that maddening way of his. For all his argument, however, he had the baths built, though not near the school as Tony had requested, but on the shore. “At least let us have a right setting if nothing else,” Nor decreed.

While the baths were being erected, four visitors came into the bay one day, just beyond the farthest slats, two adult whales, two children, now very big children of many, many tons each.