The Ebbing Tide (36 page)

Charles had cleared his throat. “I had an idea maybe you'd do the job. I don't guess there's any here better than you.”

“Thanks.” Dennis smiled briefly. “But I'm not fit, right now, and it's something that has to be done immediately. I talked with the surgeon, though. He's a good man. I've heard of him.”

He'd settled back then with his pipe, and had not spoken since. Now when Joanna looked across at him he seemed unaware, his gray eyes were fixed on a point in space.

“He seems very tired,” her mother murmured.

“I'm afraid he is,” said Joanna. Other words seethed in her head.

You don't know all that he done . . . what sort of man he is. . . . He so much like Nils, in doing for people and knowing what to do. . . . One could get to lean on him—too much. . . . I'm afraid of it. . . . And when I see him looking so drawn, it hurts me. . . . I'm afraid of that hurt. . .
.

But you didn't say things like that. You shut them deeply inside of you, and you ignored their existence, because the very fact that they had existence was terrifying.

How long would it be before someone came and told them about Owen? After she found out, she'd get herself a room somewhere and sleep and sleep and
sleep
. She'd go home on the mail boat tomorrow, where familiar things set a rampart about her and she was not laid bare and vulnerable to her thoughts by foreign surroundings.

Beside her Donna sat straight-backed, her head erect, her dark blue coat and gloves immaculate, her good shoes without a speck on their polish; her hair, silver-gray where it had been fair, was no doubt satin-smooth under her hat, as glossy and ordered as the twist at the nape of her neck. She was reading a magazine, not just idly turning the pages. She had the calm, yet spirited, endurance of one who has had to weather a good many storms. She was hoping for the best, as she had said. And as far as Owen was concerned, nothing that happened to him could really surprise her, the only wonder was that something far worse hadn't occurred long before this.

Helmi went on with her knitting. Helmi had married Mark because she loved Stevie; it had probably been the most desperate gesture of her life. She'd accepted Mark because it meant she could be near Stevie, she hadn't looked ahead and realized the heartbreak of living with one man, who worshiped her, and seeing daily—on sisterly terms—another man whom she loved. Now both brothers were in the Pacific, Mark sure of her love, because she had never denied him his worship; Stevie unaware. And Owen, lying under the white glare of the operating-room lights, had fastened his hand once in the silver-gilt hair and kissed her until her lips were bruised. Mark had tried to kill him for that. The family thought afterward that Helmi hated Owen; but it was only Joanna who knew that Helmi didn't hate him, she had only wished with passion that it had been Stevie, who'd kissed her. Was she remembering those things now, as she calmly went on knitting?

A short, stocky, graying man in a tweed suit, hat in hand and a topcoat over his arm, came into the room and spoke to Dennis, who got up. The lights reflected, twinkling, on the man's glasses. His movements were crisp and concise; so was his voice.

Joanna straightened in her chair, Donna let her magazine close. Charles and Philip stopped talking. Dennis shook hands with the man, who glanced around at them all, nodded, and went briskly out.

“That's Dr. MacLeod,” Dennis said. He smiled faintly. “He was in a hurry. Dinner engagement. . . . Owen's in bed now, he won't come around for an hour or so.”

Donna stood up. “What did they have to do?” she asked steadily.

“They've taken three fingers off his right hand. The other hand they patched up. His right arm is badly lacerated, but they've done what they can. It'll require watching, but MacLeod's optimistic.”

“Thank you,” said Donna. Her eyes were radiant. “I'll wait until I can see him. Joanna, come here.” She laid her hand on her daughter's arm. “You and Mr.—Doctor Garland have been through a lot; now, Helmi's driving Horne, because she has to be at the library tonight, and there's a pot of beef stew on the back of the stove—” She turned back to Dennis. “I wish you two would go down there with Helmi,” she said with gentle firmness. “You could eat a decent meal, and relax. Philip and I plan to stay uptown all night—there's no need for you to wait around when you're both so tired.”

Joanna didn't look at Dennis. “Maybe Dennis has other plans—”

“I don't like to impose, Mrs. Bennett,” Dennis said. “I can stay at the hotel here—”

“Fiddlesticks,” said Donna, with a sparkle beginning in her eyes.

“When she says that, you'd better hark to her.” Philip grinned. “My bed's ready and it's a good one, Doc. And I can guarantee the beef stew.”

“Sure, go on and take it easy for a while,” said Charles. “If anybody deserves it, it's you.” His dark face was curiously softened. “He'd be dead if you hadn't been there. Don't you think we all know that?”

“Stow it, Cap'n Charles,” said Dennis, and reached for his trench coat. “I'm outnumbered, Joanna. It remains for you to convince them that you can relax better by yourself.”

“I'm afraid they'd all disown me, since they're so set on your having beef stew and a good night's sleep.” She kissed her mother's cheek. “All right, Lady. Ready, Helmi?”

Outside, the night had a still cold and the first deep breath of it stabbed the throat. The snow sparkled under the street-lights. Joanna, going down the steps after Helmi, was unwillingly conscious of Dennis coming through the door behind her. Why couldn't she have what she wanted for once? Solitude—some sort of peace—

A taxi door banged, a girl ran across the sidewalk and up the steps. Joanna heard her short breathing, each breath caught with a sound like a sob, and she thought with impersonal pity,
Poor thing
. The glow from the door shone on a strained young face.

“
Laurie!
” Joanna said it aloud, and the girl cried out, “What is it?” She came to a stop, facing Joanna there on the steps. “Is that you, Joanna? Sigurd brought me over. Where's—is he?—”

“Come in,” Joanna said simply, and took Laurie's hand. Dennis held the door open for them, and Joanna led the girl into the warm, clean-scented corridor and thence into the waiting room. Donna rose to meet them. Philip and Charles turned away from the window where they stood.

“Mother, this is Laurie,” Joanna said. “Owen must know she's here, the minute he wakes up. It's important.” She looked into Laurie's face; cheeks stung red with windburn and tears, blue eyes bright with more tears. “You've got about an hour to perk up in—Owen hates people to cry, especially over him.” Then more gently. . . “Tell my mother who you are. You can tell her anything, and she's never surprised.”

When they went through the door again, Dennis said, “That was well handled, Mrs. Sorensen.”

“Thank you, Dr. Garland,” she answered almost gaily, and they went down to where Helmi was waiting in her small car.

I
T WAS SEVENTEEN MILES
to Pruitt's Harbor. Seventeen miles of sitting in the front seat between Helmi and Dennis, because it would look idiotic to insist there wasn't room; seventeen miles of trying to make conversation stay alive, when her brain kept lapsing into futile wrath with her family, who were responsible for this.

In the five years that Joanna had lived with her mother at Pruitt's Harbor, she had gone over this road innumerable times, but tonight there seemed to be no end to it. The last stretch, of frozen dirt winding through dense spruces that made a serrated black barrier high against the stars, was maddeningly long, even though Helmi drove fast and with expert ease. At last they came out on the crest of a hill, and below them the little town of Pruitt's Harbor twinkled and gleamed, scattered down the hillside and into the hollow. It ended where the sea began. Joanna felt a quickening of interest; for an instant, before the road tipped over the brow and descended, she could see Matinicus Rock Light out there in the distant dark.

The house was half-way down the hill, nestled into a spruce growth, and fronted by two towering elms whose branches made a dear and intricate silhouette against the sky. Helmi turned the car into the drive and stopped it. For an instant the silence beat hard in Joanna's ears.

“I'll drop you people, and get over to the library,” Helmi said.

“No supper?” Joanna demanded in sincere dismay.

“I haven't time. I'll eat when I'm through for the evening.” She waited for them to get out. There was no arguing with Helmi.

The house was dark but when Joanna opened the door the warmth came out to meet them and the faint but savory scent of beef stew, and there was a gracious purring about their legs, a small blunt head pushing against their ankles.

“I hope you don't mind cats,” Joanna said as she groped for the light switch. “That's Priscilla.”

“I can tell that she's a very superior cat.” His voice came pleasantly through the dark. “I can always tell by the purr. . . . Hello, Priscilla.”

Joanna found the switch. The light went on in the narrow, old-fashioned hall with its landscape paper, the open doors that led invitingly into the square dining room on one side and the square sitting room on the other side, with the steep white-painted stairs curving upward. Suddenly it looked very good to Joanna, after her silent rebellion during the long drive. It was warm, it was familiar, and the gray cat with the white face, and the tail held straight up in ecstatic vibrations of welcome, seemed the very personification of hospitality. She was a small, old-fashioned cat, like the house.

It was easy now to smile at Dennis, to say with eagerness, “Hang your things up there on the rack, and I'll get supper on as quickly as I can.”

Afterwards she knew she would have been miserable if she had been alone; for she had to talk. The accumulated tension of the last five hours had to work itself out, and to talk was the only way she knew. Over the lamplit supper table in the kitchen, she began to tell Dennis about earlier days, and it was amazingly easy to feel as if they were back at the first of their acquaintance, when he had been such an interested and encouraging listener, and she had known no self-consciousness but a deep and candid satisfaction in knowing him. It was a relief to remember Owen as he had been once, instead of the way he looked when they loaded him into the ambulance. When Dennis laughed at the stories she told, she thought of more stories. Relaxation came; she began to feel happy and at ease. They went into the sitting room, and built up a fire in the fireplace. Then Dennis sank into Philip's chair with a deep sigh, and reached inevitably for his pipe.

“Your mother's a wonderful woman,” he said. “Her idea was worth a million. . . . Well, talk on, Joanna. That clubhouse row sounds like something out of a western movie.”

“Of course Owen wasn't half so much interested in saving my honor as he was in having a darned good tousle. So he moved right in on the boy who'd tried to kiss me, and then the other boys got into it, and Nils —”

“And where were you? Standing on the sidelines wringing your hands?”

“No, I was out in the raspberry bushes listening to the noise and feeling pretty excited. . . . I was a brat, I guess.” She curled up more comfortably in the corner of the sofa.

It was dark in the room except for the leaping firelight. Dennis watched the flames.

“Nils was always sure to be where Owen was, I take it,” he said.

“They were pals from the time they could walk. Nils was a sort of sea-anchor for Owen.” Her voice slowed as her memories shifted, like the ashes under the logs. “Then they drifted apart for awhile, when Alec came. He was more exciting than Nils, and besides, he came from away.” She laughed. “Jonesport. It was practically New York in those days, when there was none of this commuting across the bay.”

“You've never mentioned Alec often,” Dennis said. “What was he like? I try to imagine, when I look at Ellen, but I can't get any ideas.”

“You'd never get any idea from Ellen, anyway. About Alec, I mean. She's her Grandmother Bennett all over again.” The flames drew her; she spoke dreamily as she watched them, remembering Alec in this small detached interval between today and tomorrow. “Ellen's tall and slim like Alec, though. He always looked so thin, almost gaunt, even when he was well-fed. He played the fiddle, and his eyes used to twinkle even when he wasn't smiling. He'd inherited a house on the Island — where the Fennells live now — and that was why he'd come down there.”

Her lashes drooped. Almost she could imagine the fire's warmth was the May sun on her face, and if she opened her eyes it would be to see gulls scaling against the blue, and Alec and Owen up there on the ridgepole of the Whitcomb place, shingling. They'd been mending the roof, fitting new window-frames, repairing the steps, for her, because in October of that year she would marry Alec. Owen had been cavorting so foolishly up there against the sky —

“It's odd,” she said aloud, “how many chances Owen's taken, and never been hurt. When he and Alec were shingling the roof, he acted like an idiot, just showing off. . . . It's a wonder he didn't fall and break his neck.” There, she was talking about Owen again. Her thoughts were an odd confusion of Owen, because of the last few hours, and of Alec, because Dennis had asked about him. When she tried to talk about one, the other always intruded.

“They were a pair,” she said. “They dreamed up the idea of taking sixty pots out to set on Cash's. If they could stand it, they could make hundreds of dollars apiece in a few days. Owen needed a new boat — his old one had sunk in the harbor — and Alec wanted money to get married on.” She glanced at Dennis, but he was watching the fire, his profile remote and peaceful. Yet she knew he was listening.