High Tide at Noon (33 page)

“Yes, he told us that.”

“Well, even with all my family to think about, I'd lay awake nights thinking about Alec, until my husband used to say we'd get rid of him, if he was going to make trouble—”

“What kind of trouble, Margaret?”

“Now don't look so white, child.” Joanna didn't know she was white; she made herself relax, leaning back in her chair. “It wasn't girls, though I wished sometimes it
was
girls instead of cards. In love with 'em, he was. There was always a pack of cards in his pockets, and sometimes more money than a boy sixteen or seventeen had a right to have, when he was just handlining for a living.”

“He gambled?” said Joanna.

“I should say so!” Margaret rocked, and her voice gathered enthusiasm. “He got more fun out of a poker game than from taking out the prettiest girl in town. Why, one night Jim and I came home and found him teaching the young ones how to play penny ante—he was giving 'em money and pleased as punch because young Jimmy kept winning. Well, we put a stop to
that!
But there were plenty of people in town to keep a young boy gambling, even if
we
wouldn't allow it.”

Joanna said quietly, “I haven't seen any signs of it in him.” One poker game a week through the fall and winter—you couldn't call that gambling. Only what about the boat savings? Where had they gone? She felt that vast emptiness again. Margaret said, “Of course you haven't seen any signs! Because he's cured, that's why. He's learnt his lesson. When we sent him down here—”

“You
sent him?”

“Sure. Us. The family. We didn't know what else to do with him, and since Jim and my sisters' husbands paid up the debts and saved his boat for him, he had to do as we said.” This isn't true, thought Joanna sickly, but Margaret's voice went on and on. “He was good and scared when he almost lost the boat, so he promised to turn over a new leaf. But like I said this morning, promises butter no parsnips, and many's the night when it's been cold and rainy I've waked up wondering if he'd kept away from the cards, or if the fever still had him so he'd gambled away his boat, and the house here—”

She leaned forward and put her hand on Joanna's knee. “Let me tell you, girl, I feel as if somebody had just given me a million dollars. I always knew there was good stuff somewhere in that boy, though sometimes I got downhearted about him. And now I know he's all right, and I give most of the credit to you, young woman. Alec's married a good girl from a good family. Oh, I used to hear my mother and my grandfather talk about the Bennetts, and Stephen Bennett! I couldn't wish anything better for my brother than to marry Stephen Bennett's girl. You're the one who's saved him from the cards and the gambling.”

Her eyes were suddenly wet as she glanced around the room. “He couldn't buy all this for you, if he was wasting his youth and money away in gambling. Just wait till I tell Jim Coombs! He was always saying there was a weak, rotten streak in Alec—just you wait till I tell that man a thing or two!”

Joanna sat stiffly in the big chair, trying to smile. Yes, he's given me all this, she thought, but it's not paid for. Then with a sudden revulsion of thought: How does that Jim Coombs dare say Alec's weak and rotten?

Never mind the bills and money box; there were men who paid their bills and kept up their savings, and weren't half as kind and sweet­tempered as Alec. Her Alec. She lifted her chin defiantly, and smiled at Margaret. Color was a flag flying in her cheeks.

“Yes, there's good stuff in Alec. You've seen for yourself. Let's go for a walk now, while there's still some sunshine.”

W
HEN AT LAST
J
OANNA AND
A
LEC
lay in bed, side by side, the curtains blew inward in the sweet frosty air, and the stars twinkled coldly against the panes. From the other side of Brigport came the occasional moan of the whistling buoy; that meant the weather was right for a fine day tomorrow.

“Meg's a good scout,” Alec murmured, reaching out to draw Joanna close to him. “Like her better now, Jo?”

“Yes, I like her a lot . . . Are you hauling again tomorrow?”

“Yep, I set the alarm for five o'clock. Philip got a hundred pounds today on a one-night set. What do you bet I can beat him?”

“I never bet,” she said. “Alec, did you get anything for the money box this afternoon?”

“I sure did, honey. And enough for you to feed Meggie like royalty all the time she's here.”

This was the time. Right now. If she didn't speak now, she never would. Her mouth dried suddenly and she had to moisten her lips; it was not for herself that she was nervous, but for him. “Alec, I opened the money box a few days ago. I needed some money.”

“Well?” he asked levelly.

“I didn't take any. There wasn't much, Alec. Not half what there should be in it.” Alec, don't try to kiss me and laugh it off, she begged him silently. Be straightforward, for once. “There were more bills than anything else. I thought they'd been paid. And I thought there was more saved toward the boat. Alec, you've made a lot of money this year. Where is it?”

“Honey, it takes a lot of money to run a house!”

“But I know what I've spent for food, Alec. We get our milk here, and our vegetables from our own garden, and enough to put up for the winter. We don't have meat much—mostly fish, or a chicken from Uncle Nate's. Our wood doesn't cost us anything.”

He hugged her close to him. “Snuggle down, sugar, and keep me warm.” His voice argued tenderly. “What about fixing up my gear, and our clothes, and things like that? You just don't realize . . . being married costs money, Jo.”

“I know it does.” She turned suddenly and put her arms around him. “I want to know something. Please tell me the truth, Alec.”

Be honest with me, she begged him from her heart. Because if you lie, I'll know you're lying, and I'll never be happy again. She said aloud, “Never mind about the bills. We've got to start paying them up, and going without a few things, but I'll take charge of them so you won't have to bother. But there's the box. Alec, did you take money out of the box to play poker with?”

The silence in the room was loud against her ears. She could hear her own heart beating. Alec lay still in her arms, and she put her lips against his cheek, and felt the tightened muscles there. Please don't make any excuses, just tell me if it's so, she pleaded silently, and waited.

“Yes, I took it,” he said evenly, after a long time. “Not to play with. I had to pay up.”

“I thought the stakes weren't high.”

“Sometimes they were. When the boys were flush.” How rigid he was. She tightened her arms around him and said bitterly, “Owen, I suppose, Hugo and Sigurd. They're the worst ones for throwing their money away.”

“You don't have to blame anybody else. And you didn't have to open the box.”

“I suppose you thought if I never opened it, I'd never know about the bills and the money.” She let go of him and moved away in the darkness.

“You didn't have to know,” Alec said shortly. “You left the business to me from the first.”

“But I thought—” She stopped. It was useless to tell him she'd trusted him to look after their debts as her father had always done at home. There was nothing more to say, and anger and doubt lay heavily between them, pushing them apart. Miles apart. A world apart. Her throat was clogged with bitterness. She turned over on her side, and looked up at the frosty twinkle outside the windows.

“I was going to pay for everything,” Alec said. “Those people expect to wait for their money.”

“They sounded kind of tired of waiting. ‘No further extension of credit—' ”

“Talk,” said Alec. His sulkiness was unfamiliar. “It's just so much talk. And I've been putting back the boat money, too. My God, Joanna, you act as if I was a thief!”

“It's not that!” Her voice was passionate against the cold anger in his. “Alec, don't you see? I thought we were all free and clear—we didn't owe anything, and pretty soon there'd be enough for your new boat. And then, all at once, I find out it's not like that at all. We haven't got
anything
, Alec.”

She turned back to him, trying to break down the wall between them. “I don't blame you for anything, darling. I just wish you'd told me.”

“In other words, you don't trust me to handle the money.”

She was furious again. Let him deliberately misunderstand her, put wrong meanings to her words. Let him try to make her feel miserable and ashamed of hurting him: it didn't change the truth.

“I didn't say I couldn't trust you,” she told him coldly, and was shocked to realize that was exactly what she had meant. She couldn't trust him.

Alec said nothing. His breathing was deep and regular. He had fallen asleep in the middle of the argument, or he was only pretending. Either way, she felt like slapping him. It was a much more invigorating feeling than sorrow. And why had she been sorry for him, anyway? She lay in the dark and contemplated the situation. It certainly wasn't too much to expect her husband to take care of his money.
Poker!
she thought scornfully, and fell asleep.

She slept heavily, without dreaming. She awoke to find gray daylight in the room, and Alec drawing her gently into his arms. Sodden with sleep, she murmured his name and burrowed against him; her mind was not enough awake to remember the quarrel, only her body knew his touch and responded to it without thought or hesitation. Drifting back into sleep again, she felt the light warmth of his lips on hers. It called her back, and her mouth looked for his and found it.

Somewhere a sparrow was singing.

When she woke up again, Alec had gone to haul, and sunlight had again turned the tawny grass to a golden sea. As she began to dress, she was conscious of a deep-welling serenity, of a firmer grip on life than she had ever known—her life and Alec's. It was not complex this morning. It was the simplest thing in the world. She wondered why she hadn't seen it so clearly before.

I'll take care of the bills from now on, she thought. He'll give me more money. I'll make him put back the boat savings, he'll take no more from the box for his poker games.

That was all there was to it. Lots of men were like Alec; married to a strong woman, they turned out all right. Her Bennett blood pulsed strongly through her body, she glowed with health and confidence. She was supremely sure of herself.

She was happy as she went down to get breakfast for herself and Margaret. It was a wonderful world that flashed and glowed outside her kitchen windows. A wonderful world, and it was all hers.

T
HERE WAS A GIRL ON
B
RIGPORT
who was telling around that Owen Bennett would have to marry her. The story reached Joanna by way of Mark who, though he considered himself a man grown at eighteen, still clung to his old way of being a bird of ill omen. If there was a tale to tell, Mark was the one to tell it first. Joanna never saw him lounge through her kitchen door, with a preoccupied glint in his dark eyes, without feeling a slight depression.

This time there was reason to be depressed. When Alec came home from the shore, she asked him if he'd heard anything. He laughed.

“Lord, yes. She's been talking that way for a month. Nobody ever pays any attention to her. She's always after some poor fish.”

“Is there any truth in it?” she persisted.

Alec twinkled at her. “Ask Owen.”

“It could be true, Alec.” She tried not to sound worried, but she couldn't help it. “Owen's just foolish enough to get mixed up with something like Trudy Loomis. Especially if he's been drinking—oh, you know how crazy he can be! And Trudy'd give her eyeteeth to get her claws into him.”

“I'm betting Owen's not that foolish. Buck up, honey.” He hugged her and rubbed his cold cheek against hers. “You're so warm and smooth. When I was out hauling today I thought I'd never be warm again. Vapor flying till my face felt frozen, and now it's blowing a livin' gale of wind.”

They listened to the sweep of the March wind coming in from the cove and roaring through the trees behind the house. “Never mind, darling, you're home now,” she said against his cheek. “And we've got a special supper tonight. Mother and Kris baked beans and brown bread today, and sent some down to us. I've fixed pickled herring and onions, too.”

“Kris was in the store when I went in,” Alec said, looking appreciatively at the table. “She looks swell. Your mother's done a good job on her.”

Joanna nodded. Donna had needed someone, and Kristi had seized with both hands the chance of freedom. She had defied Gunnar at last, and now she was a new Kristi, whose wide blue eyes weren't so easily frightened, and who laughed a great deal more.

“Peter's courting her like everything,” Joanna said. “When he's hauling outside Goose Cove, he rows ashore and drops into the kitchen, and sits there watching her while she works. The boys ride him, but he doesn't care.”

“That's because he's in love,” said Alec, and gathered his wife into a mighty hug.

Owen came in after supper, looking extraordinarily handsome. His red plaid mackinaw set off his bright dark eyes, and his brown cheekbones were whipped scarlet by the wind. In his extravagant vitality he seemed to tower over Alec. Joanna couldn't blame Trudy Loomis for wanting him.

As she cleared away and washed the dishes, she listened to the men's easy talk of lobstering and weather, Washington and politics. Traditionally the Bennetts were Republicans; Owen was convinced, he told Alec profanely, that Bennett's Island wouldn't get a breakwater in a Democratic administration.

She was always contented to listen to her menfolks as she worked, but tonight she was frankly worried. It was just possible Trudy wasn't lying; Owen was crazy and reckless enough. Look what had happened to Charles. . . .