The Ebbing Tide (7 page)

Francis Seavey came in right behind Sigurd, in his smaller, dingier boat, whose engine sounded spotty and harsh after the expensive purring roar of Sigurd's marine engine. Joanna began to wish that Owen would come soon. Of course, if the stranger had to stand around over at Brigport in this penetrating chill, after the cold ride on the mail boat, he might be discouraged altogether from wanting to buy on an inaccessible island. But it was nerve-wracking to wait.

She gave up, finally, and went home. And they came when she wasn't looking for them; she had barely gotten Jamie's things off, established him in his high chair with a cookie and milk, when Dick barked on the doorstep. There was something uncanny about the way they had come. She hadn't heard the boat, or glimpsed it crossing the harbor, she hadn't even seen the men when they came up from the shore. But suddenly there they were in the house, with Dick circling them in excitement, and Owen laughing.

Owen laughing! He had been swearing when he went out this morning. She went slowly into the doorway and stood there, until they noticed her. The man who was scratching Dick's ears was as tall as Owen, but very lean. She couldn't see his face, but she saw his sandy, dose-clipped hair and the back of his narrow head; she saw the hand scratching Dick's ears. It was a long flexible hand with squarish-tipped fingers.

She saw all this in the instant before Owen, who was hanging up the man's heavy trench coat and hat, saw her.

“Jo, this is Dennis Garland,” he said, and she knew by his voice that he was no longer resentful. Feeling betrayed, she put out her hand to the man who came toward her. She saw deep-set gray eyes with a faint, questioning smile in them; it spread over his angular lean face and took away the austerity it might have had in repose.

“How do you do?” he said, and at the sound of his voice Dick pressed against his knees. It was an unhurried voice, an easy voice. Tired, too, Joanna realized. His hand closed firmly over hers.

“How do you do?” she murmured, and knew why Owen wasn't sullen. It would be hard to be set against a man who was so obviously tired, whose pallor had so gray a tinge, and whose manner was so friendly. He was young, perhaps forty; and he had the easy erectness of a man who has lived actively.

“I can't tell you how kind you are,” he said. “This is a great imposition, I know . . . in more ways than one.”

“Not at all,” she said. “You'll want something hot right away, won't you? After the trip on the mail boat—”

“He didn't suffer much,” Owen grinned. “Rode all the way in the pilot house with Link.”

Joanna raised her eyebrows. “You did well. Link's usually pretty stuffy about that.”

“I guess it was a case of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.” He followed her into the kitchen and spread his hands out gratefully over the stove. “I didn't know till your brother told me that the pilot house is the sanctum sanctorum. . . .”

“Link counts on his cigars to drive people out,” said Owen. He opened the cupboard door and took out a bottle and two glasses. “Have something to warm your bones?”

Garland shook his head, smiling a little. “No, thanks . . . I've smelled worse cigars. I stuck it out, and he told me quite a bit about the Island.”

Joanna said crisply, “Owen, why don't you take Mr. Garland's bag upstairs, and show him his room? I'll be getting dinner on.”

“Huh! I can't fly on one wing!” Owen took another, quick drink, and then picked up the bag. Garland, turning to follow him, saw Jamie standing in the doorway. Jamie, hands behind his back, looked up, his blue eyes calm and contemplative under the yellow bang; the tall man looked down, and his thin face lightened. “Hello, son,” he said softly.

“Hi,” said Jamie. “What's that?” His hand lifted; unswervingly his finger and his gaze went to the one thing Joanna had missed, the small gold discharge button in the lapel of the old tweed jacket.

She stood quietly in the kitchen for a moment, listening to the men's footsteps on the stairs, and the voices from above, Owen's vibrant and clear as it always was, Garland's no more than an easy murmur. She couldn't describe her feeling at the moment. It was not that she felt cheated. It was more of a let-down sensation. Owen had apparently gone over to the enemy; even Link, who never allowed anyone in the pilot house, had sold out. What's more, he had
talked
to the man. He'd told him about the Island. She had all this to stir around in her brain, and then there'd been the discharge button. Here was a man older than Nils, who had gone, and had been discharged while the war was still going on; it made her faintly uncomfortable, as if it was unfair to hold resentment to a man who had perhaps been wounded or made ill in the service.

Well, there was nothing to do about it but get dinner on, and wish this week to be over quickly. But in the very instant that she wished it, she knew how endlessly it would reach across the hours.

D
INNER WAS A PLEASANT MEAL
, on the surface at least. Owen and Dennis Garland kept up the conversation, and Joanna listened, marveling. The two men were so different, and yet Owen was as free from self-consciousness as if he had known the other man all his life. Not that Owen was inclined to be self-conscious anyway, but she had expected some inner reserve in Owen, some withholding of himself, as she was keeping herself remote.

She was courteous, she spoke often enough not to seem sulky, but she excused herself as soon as possible to take Jamie up for his nap. She took her time about it; there was the small pink pot, the shoes to take off, the overalls, the presentation of the one-armed teddy bear which had belonged to Ellen, the snuggling down, the drawing of shades. When she went downstairs Owen was sitting by the radio, which he had turned very low; he sat leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely between them. The scent of his pipe was strong and sweet in the room. Dennis Garland wasn't there.

She began to clear the table. Presently Oven turned off the radio and came out into the kitchen, carrying stacked cups and saucers.

“Has he gone to look at the Place?” Joanna asked without looking up.

“No, he's up in his room.” Owen lounged against the dresser, watching the boiling stream from the teakettle explode the soap flakes into foam. “Not a bad guy, Jo.”

“I could tell that you thought so.” She slid the silver into the pan, ladled in cold water from the pail.

“Could have been much worse!” said Owen. He shoved the dishes back from the edge of the dresser with a nerve-wracking clatter, strode across the kitchen and got his jacket and cap.

After he had gone she waited in the kitchen, watching him go down past Thea's and Sigurd's to the fish house. She listened. There was no sound in the house at all; no human sound.

It was late in the afternoon when Dennis Garland came downstairs. She had lit the Aladdin lamp against the encroaching gray dusk and sat reading by the table in the dining room, while Jamie played around the floor with his trucks and airplanes. She heard the footsteps on the front stairs, and coming through the sitting room, but she didn't look up until she knew he was standing in the doorway.

She had a faint shock when she raised her eyes; it was one of those disturbing impressions that seem so familiar, but that pass so swiftly one cannot be sure. He stood in the doorway, touched by the outer edge of the lamplight, a tall, lean figure in tweeds; the light touched his strong nose and caught the glint of his faint smile in his eyes. He glanced from her to Jamie, and his gaze lingered for a moment on the baby's yellow head; then his glance moved back to her. All the while he was filling his pipe.

“I slept too long,” he said. “I expected to walk over to the property this afternoon. What sort of silence do you have on this Island? I couldn't fight against it.”

He came forward into the light. The familiar sensation was gone. “I don't know,” she answered. “But it's not often this quiet. There's the rote and wind—” She put her book aside politely, thinking,
Now I'll have to make conversation until Owen comes back again
.

“Don't stop reading,” he said quickly. “I shan't disturb you. I'm going out and walk on your Island, so I'll know it's real.”

She understood, and was for this reason uncomfortable. She had felt the same way about the stillness herself. She picked up her book again, but instead of reading she watched him as he walked out through the kitchen. He moved quickly and easily, as quickly and easily as his hands had moved to fill his pipe. There was a freshness about him that had come since he'd slept, and she remembered that while he had been speaking about the silence the lines in his face had seemed less deep, the pallor less gray. He brought in his trench coat and hat from the sun parlor, and stood by the stove as he put them on. Before he went out, he scratched a match on the stove and lit his pipe. In the dimness of the kitchen the quick puffs of light illumined his face, the strong lean features and deepset eyes, and again she had that baffling moment of recognition. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had come.

Now he will go out
, she thought, and was ready to breathe deeply again, as if his presence in the house were stifling. He turned toward the outer door; then suddenly, he came back into the dining room and the yellow circle of light. He dropped his hat on a chair and stood before her, hands in the pockets of his trench coat.

“Mrs. Sorensen,” he said quietly, almost without expression, “there's something I'd like to say. Perhaps it will make it easier for us if I say it now. I realize how much of an intolerable imposition this is—and believe me, I shan't subject you to it for long.”

She felt confused and embarrassed, and angry because Joanna Bennett should be feeling none of these things. Conscious of her rising color, she said stiffly, “It's no imposition. I wouldn't have told my aunt I'd board you, if I'd thought it would be too much work for me.”

“You know I don't mean that,” he corrected her gently. “You see, I know something of the situation. And my family has lived in Maine—for—well, almost as long as the Bennetts.” He smiled a little. “Don't you think I know how you feel about family land? Your aunt—and by the way, she's only an aunt by marriage, isn't she?—was quite frank. So I know just what sort of unfortunate position we have put you in. But if I hadn't bought the property, there was a strong chance of a New York man's buying it, with intentions of making it into a resort.”

“I see,” said Joanna. It was all she could manage, and she was quite sure that she hated him for knowing so much, for seeing so much.

“Well”—He put his pipe in his mouth and picked up his hat. Dick emerged from under the table and looked up at him, tail wagging, bronze eyes turning black with pleading. The man touched the broad silky head briefly. “May he go?”

Joanna nodded. Then Bennett pride reasserted itself; he should not think she was rude or ignorant. She stood up, strongly slender and erect. “Thank you for explaining. It makes it easier . . . when we know what you've saved us from.”

“Does it?” He gave her a searching, candid look from gray eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled, and it was not faint, but a warm and sudden thing. “I'm afraid it doesn't make me any less of a foreigner, though. . . . Coming, Dick?”

As quickly as that, he was gone. He had gone out to find the silence, and when the door shut behind him the silence swallowed him up. Yet something of himself had been left behind, so that even if he never came back there would be the echo of his voice, the wraith of his tobacco smoke, the sheen of lamplight across his hair, and that swift and final smile. And there would always be the memory of her stubborn antagonism. He was right. His explanation hadn't made it any easier; for whoever bought the Place would be an outsider, whether he was from Maine or from New York or from South America.

The next day was gilded by faint sunshine, and the day was mild and warm, with a spring-like dampness in the earth and on the wind. The alders were beginning to show an amethyst tinge, their branches cloudlike against the wall of spruce, and along the edges of the brook there were spears of clear bright green. Behind the blowing, shredded, wisps of cloud the sky showed blue; the tender blue that came only in early spring and in the warm days of fall.

Owen went out to haul, and Dennis Garland went out to explore his new property. He asked Joanna to make him some sandwiches, and said he wouldn't be back to dinner. Tormented because he was going to lay actual claim to the Place by walking on it, relieved because he would be gone most of the day, she made a lunch for him, of lobster sandwiches, coffee in Nils' thermos bottle, and an apple turnover.

No sooner had he gone than Thea was scampering across the yard, her curls bobbing—they were always “set” at night—her skimpy skirts blowing about her knees in the boisterous spring breeze. Her pale blue eyes were wide and shiny with excitement.

“Jo, who's that?” she demanded.

Joanna was getting beans ready to bake. “Who's who?” she said flatly, measuring mustard into the pot.

“
You know!
The fella Owen brought home yesterday! He just went down by . . . Who is he, anyway?”

“He's a man who wanted a place to board for a few days,” said Joanna.

“He must be nuts,” Thea observed. “Anybody'd come out here when he didn't have to . . . Kerosene lamps and outdoor toilets, my gosh!”

“That's what you were raised on,” Joanna reminded her. “Along with fish and potatoes, like the rest of us.” She forbore to remind her that no one had forced her to come back to the Island to live, and that anytime she wanted to leave, it would be perfectly all right with the Island.

Thea arranged a curl, standing on tiptoe to examine her reflection in the mirror over the sink. “Oh, sure, I know all about it. But even if you was raised on it, you don't have to like it. In most cases, anyway.” She giggled and Joanna was thankful that Owen wasn't there; Thea's remark would have been the signal for a ribald exchange, punctuated by insults from Owen and more giggles from Thea, who never knew when she was being insulted.