High Tide at Noon (30 page)

Then she saw the light come into his wind-reddened eyes, and knew that he felt the same.

“Mrs. Douglass,” he said in a faintly unsteady voice. “Did I ever tell you I love you?”

T
HE LAST DAHLIAS FLAMED
on their tall stalks as Joanna walked down from her house to the gate, where the wild pear tree was fragile and bare except for a few tattered leaves and a brave-hearted sparrow. But anyone could be brave-hearted on a day like this, brilliant and blowing, with the dry tawny grass rippling in the wind like a golden sea, the clouds whiter than a gull's breast as they drove across the sky.

It was noontime, and the month was almost November. Joanna and Alec had been married a year. A year, and still his name was a little song that ran on and on inside of her, and still he came home to her as a lover would come. A year, and still Joanna walked down to meet him when she saw his boat go past the cove, and he looked for her on the beach when he rowed in from the mooring.

Walking down to the harbor now, she thought without smugness: We've been blessed from the start. Some people are cursed, and nothing ever goes right for them, but it'll always be right for us.

Everything in the past year had been as she had known it would be; indeed there had never been a doubt in her mind, never an instant of fear. It had been meant that Alec should come to her across the bay, it had been meant that she should never want to love anyone till he came. It had been planned from the beginning, so there was no reason for doubt and fear.

Now, at the beginning of their second year, they were even more deeply in love than they had been when they married.

Joanna Douglass, walking down the lane by the clubhouse, thought only distantly of a young girl's terrified flight along this lane, of the thick shadows under the trees, of the cold sickness that had lived with the girl for so long afterwards. It was almost as if she hadn't known that girl. Even when she turned at the end of Gunnar Sorensen's spruce windbreak and met Simon Bird coming from the well, she could smile as she spoke to him.

“Hello, Simon!”

“Hi, Jo.” His lips flickered in a smile that didn't touch his eyes, which glanced almost imperceptibly at her mouth as he passed with his brimming pails. But it meant nothing to her now, when she could see Alec's boat at the car. She walked faster.

As she passed the Binnacle, she met Ned Foster, who spoke to her in his gray voice. He always spoke to Joanna, but Leah never spoke. She never spoke to Owen, either, and it was Maurice who now carried a bucket of water for her sometimes when Neddie was away.

On the beach Nathan Parr and Johnny Fernandez and Theresa sat on Johnny's doorstep in the sun, the two men smoking while Theresa took an absent-minded bath.

“Here comes that girl lookin' for her man again,” said Nathan. “Too bad Steve Bennett never had but the one girl.”

“Why?” asked Johnny obligingly.

“Cause there's plenty other young ganders'd like to marry into that family. They got the golden touch, that's it. The golden touch.”

“Well, her Alec's caught it, from the looks of things.”

Joanna laughed and shrugged, and went down the beach, but her pride was a warm and satisfactory thing. Yes, Alec had done well; her family said as much and the Island admitted it too. Alec belonged, at last. She remembered that first night, when he had told her over the dishes that he wanted to belong. Well, he had succeeded now. Not just because he married me, she told herself, but at the same time that counted. He had wanted to prove his worth to the Bennetts, because they were her family.

I would have married him anyway, she thought now as she waited for him to come from the mooring. With or without a cent.

But she was too honest not to admit she respected his capacity for work. She had been brought up in a family of men who neither shirked nor stinted. Consequently it was no poor living that the sea had yielded up to them; the sea, and the Island, which would never fail them. It won't fail us, either, she thought confidently, and here was Alec's punt coming past the old wharf.

They walked home sedately through the village, not arm-in-arm as they walked at night. “Hello, sweetness,” Alec murmured.

“Darling,” she whispered. Then aloud, “What kind of haul did you get today?”

“Fair. The fall spurt can't last forever. And they've gone down two cents.”

“They'll go up again.”

“They always do.” They went up the steps, and in the kitchen they went into each other's arms, their bodies seeming to merge into one, their lips like one mouth. Their embrace was long and silent, and it ended in Joanna's little broken laugh as they separated.

“Back to work,” said Alec. “Where's my dinner, woman?” He laid a handful of bills and change on the table. “I'll bet I was low man today. Only forty-seven pounds.” He took a five-dollar bill from the handful and laid it beside Joanna's plate, but she pushed it back.

“Let it go this time, Alec. You'd better put it all in the money box.”

“But what about that order you want to send? That dress you've had your eye on—”

“'t can wait. I'm not buying dresses while the lobsters aren't crawling, Alec.”

He shrugged, grinned at her, and put the money back in his pocket. “You're the boss, honey.”

When dinner was over and the kitchen set in order, she went into the sitting room where Alec lay on the couch reading. He shut his book when he saw her, and moved over; she lay down beside him, her head on his arm. For a few moments they lay without speaking, caught up in a warm, half-drowsy contentment.

“Alec, I'm not going to get any new dresses for a while,” she said at last. “I've got more than enough now. We spent a lot on clothes this year. Now let's spend on something else.”

“On what?” he said lazily. “New radio? There's a peach of a set in the new catalog.”

“Not a radio. What's the matter with the one we've got?” She turned over and burrowed against him, and his arm tightened around her. “Not a radio. Not a new rug, or a set of dishes. Nothing like that.”

“Your hair smells nice. You want a dog? One of those collie pups over at Brigport?”

She rose up on one elbow and looked down into his thin dreamy face, his eyes narrowed and half-asleep, but bright between the lids. She was conscious that her heart was beating very fast because of what she was going to say.

“No, a baby, Alec.”

He wasn't half-asleep now. “A
baby?
”

“You know what a baby is, don't you?” she laughed down at him nervously. “Little gadget with arms and legs. They holler. Alec, I'd like one before we're two years married.”

He pulled her down and hugged her tight against him. He kissed her soundly and then, looking down into her entranced, flushed face, he said seriously, “Well, listen, Jo, I want a baby too. But look—we're just starting out. You're not even twenty-one yet, and we haven't got any bank account. And I made up my mind a long time ago, when I was a kid and there wasn't enough clothes to go round, and sometimes not enough to eat, that when I had a family, there'd be something to raise it on, first.”

“But Alec, we're not poor!” she protested. “We could sort of start the baby, and save while we're waiting for it.”

“That's no way to do. Lobsters went down two cents today. What if they keep going on? What if there's a spell of bad storms this winter and we keep losing gear? Honey, you know what condition my boat's in. Any day I expect to start a couple planks in her. We've got to have a good boat to make a living for children.”

She had never known him to be so pessimistic.
The gods will provide
, he was always saying gaily. Now she said, “If everybody went on like that, nobody on the Island would have any children. Of course lobstering's a gamble, but I thought you liked taking chances. What about the time you went out on Cash's?”

“That was different from having a baby. Your life wasn't mixed up in it. Joanna, do you think I want you going through what Mateel went through?”

“I won't, unless I fall downstairs.”

“I don't mean that. I mean that my wife is going to have our baby in the hospital, and she's going ashore in plenty of time, and she's going to have somebody to help out with the work afterwards. Joanna, can't you see what I mean?” He tightened his arms around her. “If you'd seen my mother dragging around doing washings, with a baby only ten days old . . . and they thought they'd have plenty to feed and dress those babies right. But when the time came—well, it was a different story.”

“Yes, but we're not going to be poor. Nobody's ever really poor out here on the Island. Mother raised all six of us with plenty to eat and wear.”

“You ask your father—I'll bet he had money in the bank long before Charles was born.”

She looked at him silently, too disappointed to speak, and he kissed her mouth. “Jo, you think I'm just talking, don't you? Beating around the bush. I do want a family, only let's wait a while, honey.”

When he was like this, his voice, his eyes, his touch all loving her, she couldn't be stiff and resentful against him. Besides, she understood his viewpoint. He was just as positive as she was, only he was positive of the need for
waiting
. After all, she reminded herself, his childhood hadn't been like hers, happy, sheltered, and abundant. She could understand and be patient with him. She put her hands behind his head.

“I guess we've got plenty of time to have babies, darling. But we can start the bank account right away, can't we?”

“Sure. Next time we go ashore we'll go to the bank.” He gave her a breathtaking hug and stood up. “My God, I hate to go back to the shore and leave you. You don't know how you look, lying there.”

He stood looking down at the warm clear color of her skin and the blackness of her halr sprayed over the pale cloth of the cushion under her head, the dark curl of her lashes, the way her mouth curved as she smiled up at him.

There was a crash and a clatter in the kitchen, and Owen's voice burst through the silence. “All hands on deck! Hey, Alec! You to bed?”

He laughed at his unsubtle humor, and waited. “Leave it to a Bennett,” said Alec briefly, and went out to the kitchen. In a few minutes the two men had gone down to the shore, but Joanna still lay dreamily on the couch.

She was disappointed about the baby, but since it was his baby too, she must consider his views. Only she wished now that she had taken the five dollars at dinner time; it would have made a good beginning for that bank account.

Before she went over to see her mother, she went upstairs to take a final look at the spare room. Margaret, the elder sister with whom Alec had lived in Jonesport, had written that she was coming for a visit as soon as she could manage it. It all depended on whether another sister would come and keep house for Jim and the children. It was rather an exciting prospect for Joanna, to entertain one of her husband's family, though she wouldn't have admitted it to anyone. And it was a good excuse for a frenzy of painting and papering, which Joanna loved. The spare room, as she now beheld it, was pure delight.

She smiled as she caught herself rearranging the starched curtains and straightening an imaginary wrinkle in the bright bedspread. She had hated housework ever since she could remember, but it was always there to be done, and it was silly to slop through it. If you had to spend precious time sweeping floors and doing up curtains, you might as well get some satisfaction out of it. And in your own home, that belonged to you and your husband,
and
the bank-account babies, it was surprising how satisfactory housework could be, if you didn't let it tyrannize you.

So even if the unknown Margaret was one of those fanatical housekeepers who bowed down in worship of spotless paint, and “floors you could eat off'—the Island standard of cleanliness—she couldn't possibly find any fault with her brother's home. Most of the time there was a pleasant clutter of books and magazines left wherever Alec and Joanna happened to drop them, but not today, or tomorrow, or any day when Margaret was likely to arrive on the mailboat. Joanna was taking no chances on being caught at a disadvantage.

Alec told her at supper that he was going out in the evening. “Poker game down at the Eastern End. Why don't you come along and keep Mateel company?”

“I'm too tired, Alec. Me for bed and a book. You go ahead and have your poker game. It's only once a week, and it's all the social life we've got around here, except for the clubhouse in the summer.” She added seriously, “Only don't let the stakes get too high, Alec.”

“We never do.”

“I know, but with all the money everybody's making, I should think it would be a temptation to be reckless. Really gamble, I mean.”

“Don't worry, honey.” He shaved and put on a clean shirt while she washed the dishes. When he was ready to go, he came to where she stood on tiptoe before the cupboards, and caught her around the waist. “What'll I give you if I win a lot tonight?”

She leaned back against his shoulder. “Would it be sinful and scandalous to start a bank account for a baby with the money you won in a poker game?”

She watched him from the corner of her eye, her mouth ready for laughter, but he said seriously, “You really want a baby, don't you?”

“Don't
you?
” She turned in his arms to face him. “Alec, I don't want a baby just because it's a baby—I'm not one of those born mothers who marry just to have children. I want your baby.”

He caught her to him, kissing her forehead and the widow's peak so sharply black against her smooth warm skin. “Don't be too tired when I come home,” he said, his lips on her cheek, and was quickly gone.

M
ORNING DRIFTED OVER THE
I
SLAND
as lightly as fog; or else it came like a trumpet call. On these days, before the winter set in, that burned in one triumphant burst of flame, it was the trumpet that awoke the Islanders; a trumpet whose notes were rose and gold and scarlet, streaming across sea and sky, exciting the gulls on their barren sanctuaries until they launched on strong white wings into the brilliant air, and began the day.