The Wind and the Spray (16 page)

The killers took some driving away.

“They’ve got the taste,” explained Luke, “but don’t you fret, Mrs. L., Nor won’t give up.”

“But for what?” despaired Laurel, for even this soon she, and the children, had adopted this whale, as well as the cow and calves, as theirs. “For the flensing deck?” she almost sobbed.

Luke gave her a look. “You watch,” he advised.

As long as the killers attacked, Nor kept attacking them. At one time Laurel had an accurate if distant glimpse of his face, and its set determination startled her. This man would tear a grampus off barehanded, she thought, before he’d give in.

But it was the killers who eventually gave in. They turned out to sea and the
Windward
and the
Clytie
and the
Leeward,
all three, chased them just to make sure.

“Nor never half does things,” Luke said, “not Nor.”

The injured whale did not flee. It stopped where it was in the bay.

“Wounded and dazed like it is, it’ll rest a few weeks,” said Luke.

“Nor won’t touch it?”

“Even if he did, which just couldn’t happen, there’s not one of the whalemen wouldn’t walk off the job at the idea, Mrs. L.”

“How does the whale know that?” persisted Laurel.

“Reckon he senses it, reckon he knows he is under protection. He’ll stop like that cow with her calves until he’s ready to move off.”

After that there was no planned occupation for the children; the whales took over Laurel’s chore. Every movement, every turn, every gambol, even—Laurel declared— every eyelid flick was triumphantly reported.

Then one morning the mother whale and her babies were gone. “Just like that, Mrs. Larsen,” Jeff Blade sniffed.

The next morning the bay beyond the jetty had four whales in it, however. Besides the injured whale, the cow and her calves were there.

“So they were married all the time,” marvelled a little girl’s voice.

The morning afterwards again, all were gone. There was not a trace of a whale. The children watched anxiously as the
Clytie
put on her chase, and Laurel knew what was on their minds. She knew it because it was on her mind as well.

At dusk she went down with the others to watch the
Clytie
come in. She noticed that it towed no buoyant whale. She sighed a little, supposing that the catch had been so good that a row of captured whales—their whales?—had been left inflated and marked with flags to be picked up the next day.

But Nor Larsen came off the whale-boat and put his two big thumbs significantly and definitely down.

Instantly all the children set up a relieved “Hurrah!”

“I
have
overdone it,” admitted Nor ruefully that evening, “or rather our mother whale and her children coming round the bay to our injured whale did the damage.” He heaved a mock sigh. “Marriage,” he stated wryly, “does a lot of damage, Mrs. L.”

It was good that he could put in a day’s work for nothing at all when he was behind schedule and still react like this.

And all this was in Laurel’s eyes as she smiled warmly back into Nor’s eyes.

“Yes, Mr. L.,” she laughed, “marriage is a very disastrous thing.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BUT as the days went on, there became less and less laughter between the two of them, between Nor and herself. But for the Italian family in their midst, Laurel knew that their grievances would have come to a head.

And perhaps it would have been a better thing, she thought, than this polite antagonism that gradually yet steadily had established itself, this perpetual waiting on her side, anyway, for opportunities to say what was on her mind and in her heart.

What was on Laurel’s mind? In her heart? David, of course. She still had not heard from him. She could not understand it. He never had been a regular correspondent; he wrote spasmodically, when his health permitted it, but she had not heard for weeks. In those weeks she had been married. David would never let anything like that pass without taking up his pen, however much the physical cost.

On one occasion when Louisa received quite a bundle of mail from her native Roma she looked apologetically across at Laurel and smiled, “We are a big family, Nino and me, lots of brothers, lots of sisters, so we have lots of letters then. But you have a letter today too, carissima. That is good, is it so?”

“A letter? I have no letter, Louisa.”

“But I see a letter in the mail.”

“To me?”

“Yes—at least I think I see one.” Louisa frowned.

“Spidery writing?” asked Laurel eagerly, her heart leaping.

“What you say?” begged Louisa.

“The writing thin and straggling and all over the place, not steady, someone—someone sick?”

“No, written on a machine,” said Louisa.

“Oh ... It must have been Nor’s letter, then.”

“No, you. I remember.” Louisa smiled. “You look now,” she said.

Laurel looked. There was no letter. She told the Italian so.

The woman plainly was puzzled. “Perhaps I am not as good as I believe I am, perhaps I read wrong, perhaps I only think Mrs. and Mr. it really is. But—” Obviously Louisa was still unconvinced.

Unsettled herself, Laurel taxed Nor when he came in. “Was there a letter for me?”

“Wouldn’t I have said so if there was?”

“I didn’t ask that, I asked was there a letter.”

“You’ve had your answer.”

“I don’t consider it an answer. Was there or was there not a letter?”

“There was not a letter.”

“Louisa said she saw a letter.”

“Did she say she saw it or that she thought she saw it?” “Why should she think she saw it?”

“But she did only think it, didn’t she?” he returned casually. “She made a mistake. We all make mistakes.”

Something inspired Laurel to ask, “Have you made a mistake not handing over my letter?”

He turned furiously on her. “You have no letter.”

He paused. It was a heavy sort of pause.

“Anything else to ask?”

“Yes, David. Have you done anything about him yet?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you in due course.”

“You’ll tell me now, Nor. After all, it was one of the conditions on which I married you. You promised to bring him out here.”

Evasively, if anyone so forthright, so sure of himself, as this man, could ever be evasive, unsure, Nor murmured something about the place not being ready yet
...
that it all took time.

“That’s what David possibly could have little of,” she called back passionately. “You wouldn’t understand that, would you? You’re big and strong, and weather and occupational risks permitting, you should have a long full life ahead of you. Men like you just don’t comprehend frailty, it doesn’t even touch you, it’s something you’ve never met. Toughness, durability, that’s all that matters. There’s nothing fine and delicate and sensitive in your make-up, nothing at all.”

“After which fine impassioned speech,” said Nor coldly, “we will close the subject on the same note that I closed it before, and the time before that—that everything will be done in due course.”

She could have seen by his face that he had had enough. The increased tempo of work was making its mark on him. There were lines under his eyes, a droop to his shoulder. Obviously he was a very tired man.

But Laurel herself was edgy. The edginess made her indiscreet.

“Has he ever received any of my money?” she asked clearly.

When Nor had handed her the usual money after their marriage with the casual, “This is for spending only, of course, I expect to support my wife,” she had promptly handed it back.

“I want you to send it to David,” she had said.

“Very well,” he agreed. “If you want it I’ll do that.”

Now her words stopped him instantly as he walked to the door. Furiously he swung round.

“Will you repeat that?”

“Yes. I asked if David had ever received any of my
money.”

“Why ask me?” The blue eyes were narrowed dangerously.

“As the sender, or the supposed sender, you should be able to answer the question,” she replied.

He crossed over to her. He put his hands on her elbows, pressing them hard against her sides. He held her at arm’s length from him yet directly before him. When he spoke it was quite evenly, but she did not miss the furious, barely disciplined anger within the man.

“What do you want? Signed receipts?”

“I—”

The fingers were biting into her flesh.
“Do you trust me or not? Answer that question.”

All at once his hands went down.

“It doesn’t matter what you answer,” he said.

Desperately, a little pitifully, Laurel hit out, “I’m worried about David, can’t you see that? Or is it that you can’t comprehend love between people, just as you can’t comprehend frailty? Love is a warmth, a reaching out, it’s not a meaningless thing. I’ve been reaching out to David, but he doesn’t respond. I can’t understand it, I must know.”

“There’s nothing to know.”

She looked at him curiously. “How would
you
know that?”

“Look, Laurel, I can’t discuss it now. Can’t you leave it as it stands?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Then, by heaven, you will. The subject is closed until I open it again. Your money has been sent, if that’s what you mostly want to know.”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Well, it has, anyway, and that’s all I can do for the while.”

“You can do what you promised.”

“I told you we were not ready yet
...
The Fuccillis are here
...
there’s no room
...
”

“There would be by the time David comes.”

“Yes,” said Nor
...
and somehow there was something in his voice that Laurel knew she could not, dare not, probe
...
“Yes, by the time he comes,” he said.

He went out then. She wanted to go after him, to catch his arm, to ask him what he meant, she wanted to apologize for having distrusted him, but the door had closed, and, as with Jasper, she left it too late to open up again.

Jasper.

Where was Jasper?

At times Laurel wondered a little sickeningly if instead of starting the fire, Jasper had perished in the fire. Then one day she saw him again.

Nor had taken the little boys out in
Clytie.
So that the little girls would not be deprived, Laurel was taking them to the north end for a picnic swim.

They scampered ahead and were soon out of sight, but she had no fears for them; they would wait on the beach for her, for they would be hungry and she had the picnic hamper. They were to eat first, rest, then bathe.

“My mother says one hour rest or you sink,” one little girl had declared solemnly, and Laurel had wisely decided to leave it at that.

All at once, it seemed to her, the man Jasper appeared. One moment there was only bush, the next moment he was standing in her path.

“Good morning, Mrs. Larsen,” the oily voice said. Laurel gave a start. She was annoyed with herself, at her own betrayal, so she said at once in as smooth a tone as she could, “Good morning. I thought you’d gone away.”

“Oh, no, I don’t believe you did, I don’t believe you thought that at all.” The oily voice laughed.

“Well, I haven’t seen you.” Why was she saying inanities like this?

“Did you want to?” He made a step forward.

With a supreme effort Laurel checked herself from stepping back.

“Full house just now,” he commented. He jerked his head in the direction whence she had come.

“We have the Fuccillis.”

“Yes.” He paused significantly. “I knew that.”

She looked to the ground. How did he know? That hateful spy-glass? The same personal way he knew other things about them? Why was he still on Humpback? Why didn’t Nor take the time off to rout him out?

But then Jasper had been lying low of late. None of the Islanders had reported seeing him. Probably Nor believed he had gone, that if he hadn’t gone he eventually would starve himself back to the mainland and so save Nor the trouble of seeing to his departure himself.

But why, she wondered again, did the man stop on? Before she knew it she was almost asking it aloud.

“You can’t be very comfortable living as you do.”

“Any suggestions as to how to improve things, my dear?”

“I’m not your dear.”

“No
—
nor someone else’s either, I think.” The mean eyes were half-lidded now, they were estimating her slyly through pale slits.

“You mustn’t talk like that,” she burst out. “I—I shall tell Nor—Mr. Larsen.”