An Old Captivity (36 page)

The pilot smiled. “Sure, Miss Lockwood. I’ll slip down to the town and get a bottle. Shall I come to your room, or will you come to mine?”

She stared at him. “Whatever are you talking about?”

He said: “The licensing laws. You can’t get a drink in the hotel here, like you would in England. You’re allowed to buy one bottle a day in this province. You go and get it personally at the liquor store. You aren’t allowed to drink it in a public place, or with your meals in the restaurant. So when you want to have a drink, you throw a party in a bedroom. It’s the normal thing to do.”

He paused. Then he smiled slowly, and said: “It kind of breaks the ice when you take a girl out for the evening.”

“I’m sure it does, Mr. Ross. But is this true? You’re not pulling my leg?”

They reached the bedrooms; the bellboy opened the doors for them. The pilot shook his head. “Sure I’m not. See, here’s the bottle opener screwed on the window-sill, and here’s the corkscrew. And here’s the list of table waters, under the Bible.” He turned away. “I’ll only be able to
get just one bottle, so you can’t have a gin and Italian. Shall I get a bottle of Scotch?”

She said: “All right. Daddy could drink a whisky and soda, I expect. Let’s meet here, in my room, at seven o’clock.”

“Right you are. Would you telephone down for the soda, then?” He went down again in the elevator and took a taxi to the liquor store; then he came back and had a long, hot bath. At seven o’clock he tapped at her door, bottle in hand. Lockwood was there; they opened the bottle, poured out the drinks, and sat about the room drinking for a quarter of an hour before dinner.

“How far is it to New York from here?” asked Lockwood.

“Five or six hours’ flight, sir. If we’re in the air by eight o’clock it’s plenty time enough. I told them at the oil wharf we’d be down there at half-past seven.”

“How do we go?”

“Follow the coast down to Cape Sable, sir, and then straight on a compass course. Then there’s about a couple of hundred miles of sea to cross, and then we cut across a bit of Massachusetts. After that we go straight on down Long Island Sound.”

“Do you know the coast down there?”

The pilot shook his head. “I’ve never been down in the States at all, except once to Detroit.”

They emptied their glasses and went down to dinner. Then they took a taxi and drove down to the wharf. Ross left them there, to go and check up the refuelling and to drain the sumps. The Lockwoods took the taxi on for a drive round Halifax in the warm evening.

They got back to the hotel at about ten o’clock. The pilot was before them; they found him sitting in the lounge, He got up as they came in; for a few minutes they discussed the town. Then he said:

“I’m going to turn in before very long, sir. Would you like another whisky and soda before going to bed?”

The don shook his head. “I don’t think I will; I think I’ll go up now. You have one.”

Ross shook his head. “I don’t believe in solitary drinking.”

Alix laughed. “What nonsense! I’m thirsty; I’ll have a very little one with you, Mr. Ross.”

They went up in the elevator; Lockwood left them and went to bed. The pilot went with the girl to her room; the whisky and soda were still standing on her dressing-table among her personal articles, her brush and comb, her powder compact, her little bottle of scent. Most of these the pilot knew by sight already.

He poured out the drinks, a medium one for himself and a small one for her, and put in the soda. Then he took his glass and strolled over to the open window, and stood looking out over the harbour.

“It’s not a bad place, this,” he said. “I’ve had some good times here.”

She came and stood by him. “It’s a very shabby town.”

“I know. But there’s something about it that I like. It’s a man’s town.”

“Have you been here a lot?”

“Half a dozen times, perhaps.” He turned to her. “I’m glad we came here for the last night of our flight. To-morrow we’ll be in New York, and it’ll all be over.”

She said slowly: “I’ve been thinking of that, too. I’ve enjoyed this trip, every minute of it. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’ll be something to look back on, all my life.”

He glanced down at her. The curl of the hair around her neck fascinated him; it was all he could do to prevent himself from touching it.

He stirred suddenly. “It’s the last lap to-morrow,” he said a little harshly. Then he smiled, and raised his glass. “The last lap—may the luck still hold.”

She stood there looking up at him, more like Hekja than he had ever known her. Involuntarily he caught his breath. She raised her own glass. “To our luck,” she said. “No more dreams, Mr. Ross.”

He stared at her for a moment; she was Hekja to the life. “No,” he said very quietly, “no more dreams.” He set his glass down, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her.

In a moment he released her, and they stood facing each other, breathing a little quickly. “I’m sorry I did that,” he said unsteadily. “But it’s the last lap, and it’s just as well that you should know.”

She said: “I’m not sorry, if you wanted to, Mr. Ross. But please don’t do it again.”

He turned back to the window. “You needn’t be afraid of that,” he said. “I don’t know why I did it then—something you said about my dream. But you know the way I feel about you.”

She smiled faintly. “It was a pretty good demonstration.” She paused, and then she said: “I’ve never been in love. Not since I was a schoolgirl, and in love with Leslie Howard. It doesn’t happen easily to me.”

“I know,” he said. “Nor very easily to me.” He turned back to her, and took her hand. “Do you think that it would ever happen?”

She said in a low tone: “I don’t know, Donald. If it did, I’d let you know.”

They stood in silence for a minute; then he let her go. “I think I’d better say good night, Miss Alix,” he said heavily. “It’s a vicious law, this one that makes you drink in bedrooms. It puts ideas into one’s head.”

She came with him to the door. “Not a bit of it,” she said. “They’ve been there for a long time. I know that.”

He smiled. “Maybe you’re right.” He turned to her. “Good night.”

She said softly: “Good night, Mr. Ross,” and shut the door on him. Both went to bed, and lay awake most of the night. Neither of them slept for more than an hour or so before the telephone bell rang to call them to get up.

They breakfasted in the deserted dining-room, the pilot taciturn, and Alix very attentive to the requirements of her father. Then they went down to the seaplane in a taxi. They went on board, the mooring lines were slipped, and
the motor dory towed them out into the harbour. By eight o’clock they were in the air, and turning to head southwards down the coast.

For the first hour they flew down the eastern side of Nova Scotia, past Chester and Liverpool. At a quarter-past nine they came to the end of the land; the pilot got upon his compass course and they went droning out south-westwards over a deep blue sea. It was warm in the cabin of the seaplane, though they were flying at three thousand feet. Lockwood dozed in his seat beside the pilot. Alix sat behind, watching Ross at his work, thinking about the episode of the night. She had become aware that she was very fond of him; it was inconceivable that after the flight was over she should never see him again. But it was everything or nothing, now. She must be fair to him.

The pilot busied himself with the navigation, and with transmitting messages upon the radio from time to time. For two hours the seaplane droned on over the sea.

Presently Alix leaned forward and touched the pilot on the shoulder. She pointed at a shadow on the far horizon, dead ahead of them. “What’s that? Is it land?”

He nodded, and turned in his seat to speak to her. “It’s Provincetown—the north end of Cape Cod. We’re just about dead on our course.” He showed her the map.

Lockwood woke up and they all examined the map together; the pilot throttled a little and allowed the seaplane to lose height slowly as they approached the land. They sat back in their seats and waited as the end of the cape drew slowly near, as the machine sank gradually towards it. Fresh from his sleep, Lockwood looked around him and noticed the pilot’s face; it was drawn and tired, and very intent on the land. His appearance worried the don slightly; it was just as well, he thought, that this was the last flight they had to make. Thinking it over, it seemed to him that Ross had not had nearly enough rest. They had come from Julianehaab to Halifax in two long days of flying, and this was the third. It would be a good thing when they got down to New York, and there would be no more flying to be done.

The noise of the engine died suddenly to a whisper, and the nose of the machine dropped to a glide. The don glanced quickly at the pilot. He was still gazing intently at the spit of land now looming ahead of them dead on their gliding path, and growing larger every minute. Then he saw that Ross had his hand upon the throttle, and knew that he was gliding down on purpose.

The don said: “What is it?”

The pilot never took his eyes from the low, sandy spit. “It’s all right, sir,” he said irritably. “I throttled down.”

Lockwood said no more, but turned to look ahead. They were down nearly to a thousand feet, and the details of the land were clear. It was low and sandy; to the south of them it stretched on indefinitely. To the north it ended in the sea almost beneath them, curving away in a curious hook of sandbanks. There was a town of white wooden houses in the sandhills, Provincetown, and a very high square tower built of grey stone. There was a loop of arterial road around the town, with cars dotted about on it as it ran through the sandhills.

Then all this swung round to their left as the pilot turned away, still on the glide. They were now low enough to see the detail of the sea, a heavy swell that broke in white surf upon the sunlit, sandy beaches. For an agonising moment both Alix and her father thought that the pilot was going to land upon the sea; the experience that they had gained upon the flight told each of them that landing on that sea could only mean disaster. Both controlled their feelings, neither of them moved or spoke to Ross. Then the beach appeared again on their right. The pilot’s hand moved slowly on the throttle, the engine came to life again, and they began to fly along the coast towards the south.

They flew only a hundred yards or so from the beach, and barely twenty feet above a hideously rough sea. Both Lockwood and his daughter had implicit confidence in Ross. He had never flown so low with them before and they did not like it; they knew that height meant safety in the air. Their confidence told them that he probably had some good
reason for it and that it would be better not to worry him. They relaxed a little, and looked at the land.

It was extraordinarily similar. A sandy cliff seventy or a hundred feet in height seemed to be crowned with bushes and low scrub; as the top of it was above the seaplane most of the time they could only catch glimpses of the land behind. The foot of the cliff ran out in a short beach on which the white surf rolled and beat in breakers. Ahead of them, as far as they could see, this beach and cliff stretched on continuously, evenly, uninterrupted. They flew on low beside it for minute after minute, mile after mile; there was no break or interruption in the cliff or in the beach.

Alix leaned forward and touched the pilot on the shoulder. “What a marvellous beach!”

He turned a white, strained face to her. “I know this place. We called it Wonderstrands.”

Alix was staggered for a moment. Then she rose to the occasion. She got up from her seat and leaned over his shoulder, her face very close to his, speaking into his ear. “Donald,” she said gently, “you dreamed about Wonderstrands. It was very wonderful, and lovely, but it was only a dream. This is a real place, Cape Cod.”

A stray wisp of her hair brushed his cheek. He said: “I know. But this is the place we came to in my dream. Don’t you remember?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t with you in your dream,” she said, a little sadly. “It was Hekja who was with you then, Donald. It wasn’t me. All I know is the present, that we’re in a seaplane, and we’re rather near the water. Don’t you think we might fly a little higher?”

He said: “I wanted to see it as we saw it then, just to be sure.” He eased the wheel back, and climbed to three or four hundred feet.

Lockwood stirred and was about to say something; his daughter motioned to him to be silent. She crouched beside the pilot, her head very near to his, her hand upon his shoulder. They flew on down the immense beach for another ten minutes; it seemed endless and unchanging.
Presently Ross said uncertainly: “There was a little sandy island, where we found the honey-dew. I can’t see it yet.”

Alix said gently: “You can’t expect everything to be quite the same as in your dream, Donald.”

“I suppose not.”

A minute or two later they came level with Eastham. Looking ahead, the girl saw a series of wide stretches of inland water separated from the sea by sand-bars, calm and inviting. She said quietly: “We could land on one of those lagoons. Why don’t we put down there? We could have lunch on shore, and see if we could make sense of it all.”

He turned to her, smiling bitterly. “I daresay you think I’m off my head. I’m quite all right, Miss Alix. But I’m telling you—this is the place I came to in my dream.”

“Wouldn’t you like to land?”

“I’ll land if you want to. But I’d rather go on, myself, and see the whole of it.”

She hesitated, and then said: “All right.”

He flew on down the coast past Pleasant Bay and Chatham, the girl crouching close beside him. They turned the corner of the land and began to follow the shore westwards on the south side of the Cape. They flew on down the low-lying, sandy coast for a quarter of an hour, past Harwich and Hyannis; presently the country got a little bolder, and the shores more thickly wooded. Suddenly the pilot put the seaplane into a steep turn above a harbour entrance between sandy spits, leading to inland water.

He said to Alix: “This is the place where we went in. I’m going to go down low again to have a look. Don’t be afraid.”