Swamp Angel (19 page)

The wind got up. It is peculiar to fishing lakes that if a wind “gets up” it gets up with the utmost malignity in the middle or late afternoon when all the fishermen are at the far
end of the lake and have to make their way home to the lodge for supper against the wind. It is notorious. They
must
start, and only the fool or the hero will delay and have a few more casts. What a passion it is. Well, up gets the wind, and the fools and heroes have to pull against it and the waves bucket and rock and the oar flies out of a sudden trough and nearly upsets the rower who, looking at the shore, sees that he is not making any headway. That is what Mr. Cunningham did. He pulled and pulled on his oars and seemed to get nowhere. The waves on this small murderous lake, unpeopled as a desert, were irrationally high and fierce, and down came rain like arrows. The wind was implacable. At the head of the lake he had been a wiry elderly man of about – one would say – sixty. He became his age about halfway down the lake and then, laboring, pulling, making little progress against the storm, he more rapidly became an aged and exhausted man, breathing with difficulty, pulling with difficulty, wet through, game, and nearly done. It is a terrible thing to be alone, weak, and in a storm, far from the indifferent shore.

It was not until dinner was nearly over that Maggie noticed the absence of this unnoticeable man. People had finished their eating, finished their table talking, and had pulled away from the little tables; some had gone to the cabins to make an evening of it; three or four were gathered round the airtight heater in the dining room; chairs were scraped along the floor; stories were on.

Maggie did not like to hurry or chivvy the customers about mealtimes but, hesitating a little, she thought she had better go along to Mr. Cunningham’s cabin, and knock. She pulled on one of the slickers and went through the driving rain to the cabin. She knocked. There was no answer. She ventured to look in. No one was there and the cabin felt chilly, the air
was raw. Maggie went out of the cabin and hurried to the float. The rain streamed off her slicker. Peering, she saw through the grayness of driving rain, curling waves, and failing light a boat approaching very slowly. The oars dipped uncertainly.

Maggie ran back to Mr. Cunningham’s cabin and put on a fire in the heater. That took only a minute. The little stove made a hot blaze almost at once. She turned back the bed, and, moving quickly, took Mr. Cunningham’s pajamas and placed them on a chair near the fire. She shut the door and ran back to the float. The rower of the boat did not seem able to come alongside. Maggie untied a wet boat, got in, pulled a few strong strokes and reached Mr. Cunningham. She secured the rope at the stern and towed the boat in. Mr. Cunningham sat bowed as in a heap. She tied the boats. She helped and pulled Mr. Cunningham out of the bobbing boat. But he, vaguely motioning with a feeble hand, would not move a step. Maggie, divining, stood him up alone, like a doll, and then quickly knelt and reached down. She took out his precious rod and stained old knapsack. Then, carrying these, she turned to Mr. Cunningham, and, without speaking, but willingly, he allowed himself to be led to his cabin. Down lashed the rain. He was as wet as a sponge.

Maggie opened the cabin door and the warm air flowed out. She turned down the draft of the stove, and lighted the lamp.

“
There,”
she said, depositing Mr. Cunningham squelching in a chair, “do you think you can get your things off and get to bed or shall I help you?”

“I think … my boots …” said the sodden one, and Maggie went down on her knees.

Mr. Cunningham had not seen Maggie except as a presence, full of help and strength. Who was she. Was she the cook.
I don’t care who she is. I’m here.

“Have you any whiskey?” said Maggie.

Mr. Cunningham pointed to his bag.

“I’ll go and get some boiling water and make you a toddy. Do you like lemon … sugar?” He nodded.

“You get undressed and to bed and I’ll be back,” and Maggie went out.

Mr. Cunningham undressed and feebly rubbed his little body with a towel. He stood beside the lovely stove. Then he slowly pulled on his pajamas and clambered into bed. As independent as a mountain, he was not used to being an object of help and compassion, especially to an unknown woman who did not know that he was
the
Mr. Cunningham and regarded him only as someone in need. There was a pleasing novelty but also some humiliation that he, R. B. Cunningham, should have been all but conquered, obliterated, by wind, rain and waves on a small lake. Maggie reappeared with a tray from which steam arose. Before approaching the bed she peeled off her dripping slicker.

“You’re wet,” said Mr. Cunningham. It was obvious. She was wet. “My things …” he said apologetically, looking at the heap of soaked garments on the floor. He was a neat man by nature. (The rain beat outside.)

“That’s nothing,” said Maggie, sweeping them into a pile. “I’ll hang these on the kitchen racks in the ceiling and they’ll be bone-dry by morning.”

Mr. Cunningham, inhaling the steam of the toddy, looked at Maggie’s face.

“Your hair …” he said.

“And that’s nothing, too,” she said, “it’ll dry kinky. Are you feeling a bit warmer?”

“Very good,” said Mr. Cunningham, not looking very
good. “Very good.”

“I’ll bring you some hot soup and some bread, and you just take it if you feel like it,” said Maggie, putting on the wet slicker and bundling up the clothes.

“… did I thank you …?” asked Mr. Cunningham uncertainly.

“I don’t really know,” said Maggie with her special smile, with her rat’s tails, “yes, I’m sure you did.”

“No I didn’t. What is you name?”

“Maggie Lloyd … Mrs. Lloyd.”

“I’m sure, Mrs. Lloyd,” began the small man in the bed, but Maggie, saying “I’ll be back,” was out of the door. She brought the broth on a tea tray covered by a towel and covered again by a rubber coat. “It’s an awful-looking bowl,” she said deprecatingly, “but the soup is good.”

Mr. Cunningham looked at the thick chipped bowl and at a chipped jug that contained the soup, and he thought of the margin between what might have been and the validity and comfort of the warmth and of this woman who offered him life in a chipped bowl, with apology. “Try it,” she said, looking down at him.

Warmth spread through Mr. Cunningham and a resurgence of spirit. He knew that he had been near the point where Being touches Non-being, and that if the wharf had been fifty yards further off, he would have no doubt have died unless, of course, this Mrs. Lloyd had not come for him. That is, he would have ceased to exist at Three Loon Lake or New York or Santa Barbara, and he would not now be leaning back in bed sipping hot toddy and soup brought to him by that fine woman with wet hair. All his life and lives would have gone. This was not the first nor the fiftieth time that he had pitted himself against the powers of Nature, and he was inclined to
take survival as a matter of course and would continue to do so until in the operation of time and chance he reached extinction. He was a survivor by profession. Even now he might have a chill or pneumonia, but his native toughness assured him – and he agreed with it – that he would not have pneumonia. Life seemed to kindle again in him. The cabin, warm to the point of fug, the toddy, a bowl of soup with bread – these simple things spread comfort through his thin body and relaxed spirit. When Vera, stepping lightly, came in later for the tray and to have a look at the fire and at Mr. Cunningham, she saw that he was asleep. The jaw of that powerful and influential being had dropped; he snored lightly; the man in the bed who caused others to tremble looked very small, and old, but unquestionably he was still alive.

When, after resting for a day or two, Mr. Cunningham – wearing his good beige town suit – left on the week-end taxi, he was grateful to Mr. Gunnarsen and to Mrs. Gunnarsen but particularly to Mrs. Lloyd. He did not say You are beautiful, Mrs. Lloyd, with your hair – which is now drying – waving naturally and your gray eyes so impartial and kind, and your smile so white and pleasing to me, and your bountiful figure and I only a husk of a man now dammit, and you are good.

He only said seriously “You were very very kind, Mrs. Lloyd. I’m sure I’m much obliged.”

This incident would have been forgotten or, rather, it would have lain in memory to be taken out the next time that anyone might arrive back at the lodge too wet and too weary if it had not been that, in the following February or March perhaps, Haldar received a letter from Mr. Cunningham. The paper was expensive but not showy; the letterhead was chastely engraved; there was no exhaustive or imposing list of Mr. Cunningham’s interests; this was personal writing paper
and it breathed a refined opulence which had not been suspected in the man in the beige suit. Mr. Cunningham in his letter said that he was diffident about approaching Mrs. Lloyd about the subject he had in mind and, as he did not wish to disturb the happy condition of things at Three Loon Lake, he thought it better to approach Mr. Gunnarsen first. This preamble made Haldar wonder. Mr. Cunningham then offered Mrs. Lloyd the permanent position of looking after his lodge in the Adirondacks at a salary that nearly caused Haldar to faint. He left it with Mr. Gunnarsen, however, to acquaint Mrs. Lloyd with this offer, or not, as, he said again, he did not wish to disturb the status quo (what’s that, said Haldar, but he got the sense of it). After this horrific suggestion, Mr. Cunningham said that he was sending Mrs. Lloyd a small present as a token of gratitude for her kindness to him, and he hoped that this present would also be useful at Three Loon Lake of which he had such pleasant memories. By the way, the offer was always open. He then remained, Faithfully, Haldar’s.

In Haldar’s small intensive world which had recently become a sunny plateau of temperate climate this letter, though exciting, was as acceptable as a rattlesnake. He showed it to Vera in dismay, and his baser self told him to say nothing of it to Maggie, but this, he knew, was unthinkable. He would have to tell her. Vera, impelled by different feelings, could not tell Maggie fast enough. She resented, a little, that Maggie, if she took Mr. Cunningham’s offer, would receive an unreasonably large salary and much glory, but, on the other hand, Maggie would be removed painlessly, and still the lodge would begin its new season in a fair position, especially with this Chinese boy who seemed to be good. Vera did not at once realize that, with Maggie away, the boy might cease to be good. After this brief joy, reason reasserted itself and Vera was aware
that without Maggie the lodge would drop down again, the boy might not stay, and her troubles would be upon her once more. She hated Maggie for being indispensable, inevitable.

Haldar showed Mr. Cunningham’s letter to Maggie with trepidation. He watched her face as she read it.

Color flowed over Maggie’s face and stained her neck; pleasure sparkled from her eyes as she looked up at Haldar. She handed the letter back.

“How lovely! How lovely!” she exclaimed warmly.

Haldar waited anxiously, then “You’ll go?” he asked.

“Go!” said Maggie with surprise. “Of course I won’t go – not unless you want me to – but how
lovely
to be asked!”

Vera, who could not have things both ways, was then irritated with Maggie for behaving thus magnanimously but found a solvent in the thought that the offer was always open. At present, however, Maggie would remain, the irritant under her skin.

In the meantime Mr. Cunningham had written to a Mrs. Roger Harrison whose husband was his Vancouver agent. He paid his compliments to Mrs. Harrison and asked her to pick out some English earthenware and send it to a Mrs. Lloyd care of the following address. He said briskly that he did not want any of your bone china which was not suitable for a fishing lodge; he wanted a good gay earthenware of cottage type, six dozen of everything, breakfast, dinner, tea. He trusted Mrs. Harrison’s taste. Mrs. Harrison was delighted to go shopping at Mr. Cunningham’s expense and at once sent up two dozen of everything – a charming pattern – the rest to follow.

Maggie was enchanted. Such a nice thing, such a generous thing, had not happened to her since she could remember. These earthenware bowls and cups and plates which she fondled were honest and gay, and had been conceived by
people who were honest and serious and gay, living in the midlands of England, perfecting this creamy base and strong pattern and generous shape to give pleasure to Maggie Lloyd who had built a fire for Mr. Cunningham on a wet night which had not been forgotten by him. These speculative affinities of time and place gave Maggie, habitually, a private pleasure, and the English earthenware assumed a living entity which even its destruction would not destroy, and which was really beloved by her. The present was undeserved – she would have done what she did (so little!) for anyone. But here was something that was hers and would enhance the lodge. “We’ll make a Welsh dresser,” she said with delight.

Mr. Cunningham’s gift seemed disproportionate to Vera who said primly to Maggie “Oh, we mustn’t use
your
china! What
we
have is good enough for
us
. Oh, we couldn’t do
that!
” Vera, it seemed, could destroy the earthenware.

Idiot, thought Maggie, her pleasure checked. Aggravating idiot.

She turned toward Vera and searched her face. “Vera,” she said, “six dozen! It’s obviously for the lodge, not for me.”

“Well, why couldn’t he say so,” said Vera, and put more fuel on her private fire.

Maggie’s face clouded. She wrote to Mr. Cunningham and felt that she could not sufficiently express her thanks to him.

Many futile discussions now ensued as to Who should go with Who in the two cars to the lake to begin preparations for opening the season. Only Maggie could drive the old car. Haldar would go with Maggie – Vera took exception. Alan would go with Maggie – no, for some reason or other. Vera would go with Maggie – it became impossible somehow. Maggie would go alone, or before, or following. Vera spread
dissension in her own heart and irritated everybody. Angus arrived, beaming ingenuous pleasure, happily unaware of conflicts. There were times when Maggie said wearily to herself To hell with the lot of them, and turned her mind to Mr. Cunningham’s offer. It was not so easy sometimes to say “I am a swimmer and I swim round obstacles.” The words became smug and flatulent. These people were now her family. She had no other. One can say, also, “To hell with the family,” but the family remains, strong, dear, enraging, precious, maddening, indestructible … and think of Alan. I cannot do without Alan. If I cannot cope with Vera and her folly, thought Maggie, I’ve failed. She challenged herself, and went on. Haldar, who had felt in some way things were going wrong, knew himself mistaken. He saw Maggie, busy, serene, and knew that things were right. He hobbled about briskly, whistling.