High Tide at Noon (11 page)

Her voice was level and chill. “My father has never forbidden anyone to go on his land. But if I can't walk on it without being annoyed, he'll have to do something about it.” She felt a sharp pleasure in seeing his face darken. “We can't keep people off the water, no matter how rotten they are. But we
can
keep them off our property.”

He took a step toward her, his lips twisting, and she said tranquilly, “The boys are just up yonder in the woods. And they don't like you, for some reason.”

She turned back toward the trees, forcing herself to walk when every nerve and muscle cried out to runs. He won't dare touch me, she thought. He won't dare . . . Behind her, Simon spoke.

“I won't forget this in a hurry,” he said clearly through the ocean's roar. “I won't forget this, sweetheart. And you won't forget it, either.”

T
HE ACCORDION RIPPLED BACK
and forth between Sigurd's hands. He kept time with one foot, and his forehead glistened with sweat.
Ha ha ha! you and me!
the accordion laughed, merry and loud and unfaltering over the sound of dancing feet. Maurice Trudeau leaned against the stove with his fiddle under his chin, and its voice was elfin-sweet. Sigurd was a yellow-maned Viking, and Maurice was a French-Canadian faun, and the music they made together was lilting and intoxicating and like no other music in the world. The bright notes cascaded from one tune to another. “Soldiers Joy,” “Stack of Barley,” “The Girl with the Hole in Her Stocking,” “The Devil's Dream,” and many a nameless polka and hornpipe they had known forever, yet couldn't say where they had first learned it. But they always came back to “Little Brown Jug.” Charles Bennett, leading Mateel Trudeau up the hall in a Lady of the Lake, began to sing, and the others picked it up.

“Ha, ha, ha!” they all sang in a mammoth explosion of laughter, until the hanging lamps seemed to sway, and those who stood out­side, smoking in the soft April darkness, looked in at the windows. Everybody sang. Old Gunnar, swinging his rosy little wife with almost as much lionlike strength as he used to have, sang, and bowed to his partner with an Old Country flourish. Sigurd roared over the accordion. Jake Trudeau, whom even a white shirt and a shave couldn't keep from looking like a buccaneer, sang it too, swinging Miss Hollis, the teacher, until her feet came off the floor and she forgot her dignity long enough to shriek. Everybody laughed, and Marcus Yetton's youngest, tucked in its basket, woke up and howled.

This was the first dance since last summer, called up in a hurry because of this April day that was like a breath of June. It had been a day of forget-me-not seas and tranquil skies; and now the moon rode high overhead. It was the moonlight and the lack of wind that had enticed the Brigport crowd across the sound.

A good dance, one part of Joanna's mind said, while another part dreamed a little; a good night to walk, it thought. A good night to walk, if you were in love. You could live in another world on a night like this, if there were someone to help you bear its beauty.

But she wasn't in love, and here in the hall her brother Charles was swinging her faster and faster, his dark face laughing and a little crazy; the music might have been strong wine. He let her go, still spinning, and Tim Gray caught her and swung her again. But Tim, tall and quiet-spoken and sandy, was no devil on the dance floor. He held her gently, and then they went down the hall and back, hand in hand, for the Ladies' Chain.

Her father swung her next. “You're as bad as the boys!” she gasped as the rafters whirled across her vision. He laughed and released her. As she went back to Tim she had a glimpse of her Aunt Mary moving toward Stephen like a ship in full sail. Donna was at the dance, but the contre dances were too much for her.

When Hugo slipped his arm around her waist, she smelled liquor. His dark eyes were blazing. He'd been out on the porch with the Brigport crowd.

“Promenade the hall!” Sigurd shouted, and the dance was over in one final mad whirl. The women sank to the benches, handkerchiefs patting wet faces. Most of the men disappeared outside. Joanna went into the little kitchen and found Nils there. He filled a thick white mug from the water pail.

“Have some Adam's ale.”

“Thanks. When did you get here? I thought you were going to bed early.”

“I thought I'd come over and keep an eye on you.” They grinned at each other and let a companionable silence overtake them. Joanna leaned on the serving shelf, watching the faces that were vague in the soft lamplight, filmed with cigarette smoke. The door to the pool­room was open; she saw her father, Karl Sorensen, and Pete Grant, playing, with an intent gallery of spectators.

“May I have this dance, Miss Bennett?” said Nils in her ear.
Smile the while you bid me sad adieu
, sang Maurice's violin.

“Yes indeed, Mr. Sorensen.” She dropped a mock curtsey and they moved out on the floor with the ease that comes of long practice. It had been Nils, at twelve, who taught a pigtailed ten-year-old Joanna to waltz.

There was Kristi, with pink in her cheeks, sitting beside young Peter Gray. Joanna lifted her hand to them in a mischievous salute. Gunnar was unexpectedly genial tonight, letting them sit together like that. . . . Joanna's smile died when she saw Thordis, Kristi's cousin; she sat beside her grandmother, yet she seemed curiously alone. The sleeping two-year-old in her arms didn't hide her swollen and discouraged body. The yellow hair was dull, there was no spark of invitation left in the weary blue eyes that watched Forest Merrill, her husband, joke endlessly with one of the young Brigport girls.

Joanna wondered where it had taken place, the mad instant when the gawky, sullen-mouthed Forest had suddenly become to Thordis the sum of her whole desire, blotting out the family, the dreaded grandfather, the gossip—blotting out the whole world until she wasn't strong enough to fight the sweetly evil tide that drowned her senses.

You fool, Joanna thought with arrogant pity. This is what you've got. Didn't you know you could have had more than this? More than Forest? Or didn't you care who took you and gave you a baby before you were eighteen?

There was Thordis' sister, coming in through the door and leaving someone behind her on the porch. Tonight it was one of the Brig­port boys. You'd never guess, as Thea sat down primly beside her mother, smoothing her skirt over her knees, that she'd gone anywhere but out on the piazza for a breath of air. But if Gunnar ever got his eye on the spruce spills in her hair, it would be a different story.

Maurice's bow quickened, and the dance whirled to a rather breathless close. It drew near to midnight and the older people gradually left; only the younger ones danced on. The square dances moved steadily toward a riotous state.

Her brother Philip led Joanna out for a Liberty Waltz, which from the beginning was a hopelessly confused affair. Spring was in the air tonight, and a sort of high-pitched exhilaration—only a small percentage of it alcoholic—spread through the group. They were like young horses turned out to pasture in early spring. They couldn't be serious or decorous on the dance floor to save their lives.

The Liberty Waltz turned into a romp. A few girls dropped out, and Joanna was much in demand. Tim Gray snatched her from a Brigport lad; laughing and out of breath she slipped from his grasp into Nils' arms.

Amiably he moved into step with her. “Slow down, slow down,” he admonished her. “If you want to hop, dance with Grampa.”

“He's gone. And he made Kristi go home, too.” Joanna frowned. “She's eighteen—she doesn't need to mind him.”

“Habit,” said Nils with a wry grin.

“All join hands!” Sigurd called, trying to restore order. But Joanna held back from the circle. “This is too much of a mess. And I'm scared I'll get Ash Bird again.”

“What's the matter with him?”

“He's got a feverish clutch, and he's afraid of me. Makes it awful for both of us . . . I want a drink of water and then a cigarette. If you're my friend, you'll fix it up so my strait-laced cousin Rachel won't see me.”

“Come on,” Nils said indulgently. For a moment he paused, looking down at her laughter-flushed face and sparkling eyes. She winked impishly and walked ahead of him into the kitchen.

The Robey boys, from Brigport, lounged against the sink. The little room was stifling with the mingled reek of liquor, fishy work clothes, and cigarette smoke. And Simon Bird was there. It seemed to Joanna that his face came suddenly toward her out of the gloom. He stared at her, his nostrils flaring a little, his eyes set in dark hollows. It was only for an instant, and then Tom Robey, an amiable young giant, was booming at her, “Evenin', fair one!”

She smiled at him. “Hi, Tom. Hi, Milt. Any water left in that pail?”

“If there ain't, one of these lubbers can go after some,” said Tom.

Nils spoke civilly to Simon, who didn't answer. Joanna felt his eyes on her. Let him stare, she thought, shrugging.

“Any lobsters around yuur island, Cap'n Tom?” Nils asked.

“Hell, the place is alive with 'em. Never saw the bugs so thick.” They were instantly deep in shop talk. Joanna looked out at the happy chaos that was the Liberty Waltz.

“I'm takin' you home,” said Simon. He was suddenly very close. If she turned her head, she would be looking directly into his eyes. She didn't move. She only listened to that soft, whispering voice. “I'm takin' you home. So save the last waltz.”

She gazed straight before her at the dancers. “It's taken. And what makes you think I'd let you have it, anyway? You should know how particular I am, by now.”

“I don't know as you got any call to be fussy. There's others in your family that don't seem to care what they pick up with.”

She turned then and looked at him. She was aware of Nils' voice behind her: “But if you car your lobsters and take 'em ashore yourself, instead of selling out here —”

The cup of water was heavy in her hand. For a moment she looked at Simon, one eyebrow tilted. “You need to cool off,” she said, and tossed the water directly into his face.

For an instant he didn't move, then like a cat he came at Joanna, his hands reaching for her. She stepped back and felt a great arm go around her, to hold her tight against a rocklike chest. A hand the size of a lobster-pot reached past her and grasped Simon's sweater.

“Now stay off, son,” Tom Robey drawled. “You hadn't ought to get mad because a gal's a mite high-spirited.”

Simon was inarticulate and pale with fury. Milt Robey was chuckling, and Nils was saying calmly, “You'd better get out of here, Simon, before we tum the whole bucket over you.”

“Let go of me, Robey,” said Simon thickly.

“Don't lose your temper, m'boy.” Tom was paternal. “You jest rest a bit and let
me
handle the little spitfire. What'll I do with her?”

Simon told him, the ugly words grinding out between his teeth with shocking venom. The Robeys roared. Nils moved forward, but Owen, incredibly, was there first, and they hadn't even seen him come into the doorway. His fist took Simon neatly on the chin, and like a felled tree, Simon went down.

“Good enough,” said Nils. “You can let her go now, Tom.”

Owen scowled. “Yeah, let go my sister. What goes on here?”

“Run along, blackie boy,” said Tom. Joanna felt his laughter rumble in his chest. The reek of whiskey and fish was suffocatingly strong. “We was doin' all right before you showed up. What kind of a fool d'ye think I am, to get hold of a pretty girl and not even kiss her?”

His great voice carried above the hilarious racket in the hall, and the nearest dancers looked curiously toward the kitchen. His chin scraped Joanna's cheek. Furiously she swung her head hard against his jaw.

Robey laughed. “Fight away, darlin'! I like wild cats!”

Nils struck him then. Suddenly Joanna was free, and Tom Robey was staggering back against the sink, swearing. “What's up in here?” Philip Bennett asked mildly from the doorway.

“Yeah, let us in on it,” said his cousin Jeff, behind him. The music stopped suddenly, and the dancers streamed across the floor. Someone—probably Nils— pushed Joanna hard through the open door to the porch. She jumped off the doorstep into a thicket of raspberry bushes, and looked back.

In the band of light cast into the kitchen by the lamps in the hall, black shapes moved and reeled and twisted. The night was full of the terrifying and exciting sounds of crashing bone and flesh, of quick grunting breaths, of curses forced from clenched teeth, of yelps of excited laughter. Now and then there was a crash of crockery as an elbow swept a mug or a glass to the floor.

She saw a fist dart out into the light, she glimpsed a split bloody cheek for an instant, and eyes that caught the light and gleamed like fire. She saw Maurice Trudeau charge into the thick of it. She winced when Owen went down out of the light, but he was up again instantly. They were all in it, the Grays, the Trudeaus, the Bennetts, the Sorensens—versus the Brigport crowd. Her eyes caught Sigurd poised for a moment in the kitchen doorway; she heard his affable roar.

“Now boys, can't we settle this all peaceable and lovin' like?” His great fist reached out, caught a thin, embattled Brigport partisan by the shirtfront, and tossed him lightly aside. With imperturbable calm, he moved into the fray.

Joanna stood knee-deep in the raspberry bushes, her heart thudding, her mouth dry. Her attention was diverted by a flurry of girls' excited voices at the front of the building. She recognized her cousin Rachel's authoritative tones. “We'll find Joanna—she'll know how it started. She was out there.”

“Damn nuisances,” Joanna muttered. She waited for them to give up their search and go back inside. Then she turned toward the lane, wading through a thicket that ruined her stockings.