The Ebbing Tide (43 page)

“It is to me. Garland didn't ask me questions, and he didn't look at my foot when he thought I wouldn't notice. He'd been through all hell down there in the Pacific, so what had happened to me didn't matter to him— except that he knew what it was like. . . . Aren't you hungry, Joanna?”

“In a minute. Nils . . . did it bother you, what Thea said that night?”

“What night? Did Thea ever say anything important in her life? Anything worth remembering?” His smile deepened, as if he were thinking of a very funny joke. “She said plenty last night, as I recall, but I don't remember anything else—” He looked at her questioningly, and stroked her cheek with his finger.

Some force stronger than herself impelled her to speak up, when she could have let it go. “She said some nasty things about Dennis and me. Remember? That first night you were home.”

“Thea's humor. You don't take her seriously, do you, Joanna?” He poised a spoonful of soup invitingly. “Dennis is all right. I've thanked God many times because someone like him was here on the Island and you weren't alone when Owen kicked up.” His eyes darkened and his face grew somber. “Any man who could do what he's done with Owen— stopped his drinking and set him on his feet—” He shook his head.

“There's something else, Nils,” she said haltingly. “That night when you — got up, and then you began sleeping on the couch in the sitting room. . . . What about that?”

He put the spoon back in the dish, and took both her hands in his. She felt the warm, firm clasp of his fingers over hers, and it was as if he had taken her in his arms. His eyes held hers steadily.

“Joanna,” he said in the quiet voice she knew so well, because its quietness was not remote, but very close to her. “I knew I was hurting you, but I couldn't help it. I knew that if I tried to tell you, you'd be sympathetic, but at the same time you couldn't really understand what was tying me up in knots. Nobody can— unless he's been through it.” His clasp on her hands tightened. “I got up and went out for a walk that night, Joanna. I could have told you, yes—but in another way, I couldn't make myself tell you. Joanna, that boat down there was a hell of a place for a fisherman to be! It was like tying down a gull. There was never a minute to myself, never a place to be alone—never a time when I wasn't under orders.”

Her eyes filled with easy tears, she wanted to speak, but he shook his head. “I'm not complaining, Joanna. I'm glad I was in it. But if you could just see how I felt—and not be hurt—” Far within her a small, surprised, and rejoicing voice said,
This is when he needs you, Joanna. He's asking you for help
. “All the time I was overseas, Joanna, I never slept a whole night through. I almost forgot what quiet was, except when I dreamed of it. . . . When I had a chance to dream.”

If she'd had any intelligence at all, she wouldn't have made a fool of herself, she wouldn't have caused all this bother and worry for him. If she'd only left him alone. . . . The tears rolled down her cheeks, and he took out his handkerchief and began to wipe them away. “Listen, dear, it's all over now. It's past. Don't think about it. Just try to see how it was to want to sleep at night when I'd forgotten how. After that first night, I was pretty discouraged. I'd lie here with my skin crawling, not wanting you to know I was awake.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth gently. “I wanted you—God, I wanted you, but there was that damn' crawling and twitching going on inside of me. When you reached out to me, I wanted to take you, I'd been thinking about you and these Island nights for a year. And now I had them . . . and I began to wonder if I was going insane. . . . I had to get up, Jo, and go out.”

“Now,” she whispered. “How is it now, Nils?”

“Maybe we owe something to that eagle, Joanna. I asked Garland to go with me—I had some idea of talking to him because I'd got to the state where I had to talk to somebody. But when we got down there, sitting around waiting, I didn't seem to want to talk about it. We covered about everything else, and that was good in its own way. And then, when we got home, you were gone.” His arms slipped around her suddenly, lifted her to him and held her in a steel-muscled vise. “I can't tell you about that, Joanna. I don't think I'll ever tell you what I thought. But we found you, and brought you home—with pneumonia coming on—and—” He smiled faintly and kissed her again. “Well, I stopped thinking about myself, that's all. The crawling and the twitching's gone. Crazy as you were to run off like that, you helped me. . . . Are you going to eat now?”

“Yes, I'll eat now,” she said. Her eyes were shimmering, she felt light-headed and radiant with joy. The trip hadn't been in vain after all; there'd been some sound and valid reason behind it, even if she had only known of the wrong one.

“I'll tell you the news while you eat,” Nils said. He laid her back against her pillow and turned to the tray. “There's been a Navy officer to see Owen, and there's going to be a routine search of all the beaches to find drifted mines. . . . And Franny and Leonie eloped in Franny's boat yesterday.”

She choked on her soup, in incredulous laughter, and he nodded his head. “That's right. He couldn't stand Thea, and Leonie couldn't stand Sigurd. She can mother Franny. . . . Do you want to know about Dennis?”

Her laughter died. But Nils said quickly, “He's all right. But he's leaving us, Joanna. He told me that down on Sou-west Point.”

“I knew he'd go sometime,” she said, feeling a repose, a hushed acceptance that was a fusion of grief for herself and the Island, and of rejoicing for Dennis, who was no longer running away. “He couldn't forget, after all, what he was.”

Nils shook his head. “He said he'd tried to forget, but everything conspired against him. No matter what he did, or how hard he set himself against keeping any part of the other thing, there was always something he couldn't turn away from.” Nils' simple words dropped peacefully into the quiet room. Far away, Jamie was calling to Dick, someone dropped a pan in the kitchen, but these sounds had no relation at all to the present. Nils went on. “This business with Owen was the final thing. Fixing Owen up and going with him, talking to the man who was going to operate—” Nils shrugged. “He knew, that day, that he'd be leaving here. He'll sell the Place, by the way—to Owen, if he wants it.”

She should have felt wild delight at that, but she didn't, only this quiescence. “He wasn't really a coward, was he?” she said briefly. “I knew he wasn't.” And I wasn't a coward either, she thought.
I thought I was, but I'm not. Silly, but not afraid
. “Will he be up before he goes?” she asked.

“Yes, he'll be up.” Nils looked at her with the slight smile she loved; it held all the warmth and truth she would ever need for the rest of her life. “We've come round in a circle, Joanna. It's been just a year since he came and I went. Now we'll be back where we started.”

“No, we won't, Nils,” she answered him with clear and honest conviction. “
I
don't think we've come round in a circle, neither you nor Dennis nor I— nor Owen, for that matter. To me it's just as if—” She drew her black brows together, seeking for words within her tired but eager head. “As if we'd been on an ebbing tide. But now the tide has turned and we're with it, going back into the harbor that we'd never have left, if something hadn't cut our moorings. Isn't that true, Nils?”

He nodded; and their eyes, holding, grew lost in each other's gaze until she reached up; she cupped his head between her hands as if it were infinitely precious, and drew it down to hers.

Elisabeth Ogilvie lives for the better part of each year on Gay's Island, Maine. There she enjoys long walks among the rocks and woods of the island, reveling in air and space and sky. The remainder of the year is spent across Pleasant Point Gut, at her nearby mainland home, where plumbing, a telephone, and other amenities await. Her interests include the Nature Conservancy, Foster Parents Plan, reading (“a necessity of life!”), and music of just about any kind.

Miss Ogilvie's latest book is a historical romance, the second of a planned trilogy. Despite some thirty-six books for children and adults produced over the past forty years, though, the author is still caught up in the spell woven by Bennett's Island and its inhabitants and is presently at work on a fifth installment (the fourth
, An Answer in the Tide,
was published in 1978) in the continuing story of Joanna Bennett
.