Mona Williams The Messenger


  The Messenger


  The Messenger

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Begin Content

THEY CAME TO THE ISLAND

LOOKING FOR AN UNSPOILED PARADISE.

WHAT THEY DISCOVERED WAS SOMETHING TERRIFYINGLY DIFFERENT.

An island off the coast of Maine.

On it, an abandoned, decaying Victorian mansion.

Around it, a curtain of silence from frightened

fishermen and tight-lipped mainland villagers.

The Bradley clan?ten men, women, and children?came

to summer on the island, wondering why no one had

claimed this enchanted spot before them.

They found out. . . .

THE MESSENGER

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ii

by Montf Williams

©

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MARKETING DIVISION, NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY, INC., 1301 AVENUE OF THE
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Copyright © 1977 by Mona Williams

All rights reserved. For information address Rawson Associates
Publishers, Inc., 630 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10017.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-53298

Permission to quote material from: Voices in the Dark by Mona Williams,
copyright 1968 by Mona Williams, reprinted by permission of Doubleday
and Co.

This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Rawson
Associates Publishers, Inc. The hardcover edition was published
simultaneously in Canada by McClelland and Stewart,

SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

REGISTERED TRADEMARK----MAROA REGISTfiADA

HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.

Signet, Signet Classics, Mentor, Plume and Meridian Books

are published by The New American Library, Inc.,

1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019

First Signet Printing, April, 1978 123456789

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

iv To SHIP OARS and all those who have loved it

v

1

It was the first day of August, midsummer, and only five in the
afternoon, but on foggy days an evening chill came early to the bay. The
three visitors?a man, a woman, and a young girl?were expected; a muffled
figure in denim pants and a gray sweater was waiting at the wharf to
take them across to Wyndom Island. He introduced himself briefly and
spared a comment on the weather. Here, on the Maine coast, weather was
not small talk?that was evident in the tone of his voice.

"Day shut up like a clam soon's the fog came in," he told them. "The
folks were worried you wouldn't make it over before dark."

"We made it," the woman said, shivering. She took a pair of rubber-soled
flats from her big tapestry handbag, and leaning against a mooring post,
exchanged them for her high-heeled sandals. Now, standing erect again,
she was an inch or so shorter than her daughter, nearly a foot shorter
than her husband.

"Just about made it," conceded the man in the gray sweater.

His boat, a flat-bottom skiff with an outboard motor,

2

was tied to a mooring off a point of land that looked out across the
bay. He stowed their luggage and held the boat steady for them to step in.

"So we're the last to arrive," the city man said in an ingratiating
musical Virginia voice. He was all of a pale no-color in his belted
raincoat, with a glisten of fog on his silver-blond hair. "I suppose
you've been back and forth all day. Or all week, more likely, bringing
over the supplies."

"Last two days," the boatsman said, fitting oars into locks. "Bradleys
didn't get here till day before yesterday."

"I consulted an almanac," the fair man said, smiling and anxious. "I
tried to figure our arrival right close to high tide. I understand it's
easier to land on the island when the tide's up."

"Ayuh, just about peak tide now. Dock's on the far side; thought we'd
circle around the sea end of the island to avoid the offshore ledges,
underwater now, although it's shorter to go straight across." With a few
strokes of the oar, he swung away from the mainland, then bent to start
the motor.

The three passengers huddled into their coats and looked out over the
ruffled pewter-gray water. They could see nothing, sky and sea were one,
a clinging shroud of mist, but the little boat began to move steadily,
purposefully forward into the pearly blankness. The inland heat, through
which they had driven from Ellsworth to North Fork, fell away even from
memory, dissolved in the chill salty wet against -cheek and eyeball. The
drone of the motor was just loud enough to absolve them from speech.

Cynthia Sutherland, the woman in the bow, sat tensely upright,
marshaling her resources. She had come here against her will, and she
saw the few weeks ahead of her as an ordeal. Her life, as well as the
lives of her husband and daughter, had changed profoundly in the months
that had passed since she last saw the people who were

3

gathered and waiting for them on the island. She asked herself now how
much of the change they would see at first glance.

How well she knew the look that would greet her in those familiar faces!
The clan look, first the sharp searching gaze, alert for change and
alienation, dissolving sheepishly into a kind of blood warmth, into a
tribal sensibility?compounded of loyalties and bitterness, of grudges
and boredom and deep exasperated concern. Sometimes of love, too. But
love was the premium, the golden extra, not to be counted upon.

There would be a first brief reassurance that the Sutherland
unit?father, mother, and daughter?had arrived intact, although tardily.
They would be prepared for the girl, having heard something of her
illness, but no one had prepared them for Edwin.

The family look would center upon Edwin with a small sense of shock,
upon the set smile, the glazed eye, the thin ravaged face. Edwin had
become a shell, a hollow man, a man who daily confronted tragedy and
steadfastly refused to see that it was there.

Cynthia understood; it was not only that he could live no other way, he
must also share Trudy's illusions as he had tried to share every thought
and emotion she had had for sixteen years. Trudy was Edwin's feminine
counterpart, himself reborn. Sometimes Cynthia felt that she had been no
more than a womb, an incubator in which her daughter had lived not quite
nine months before she grew wings and took off on her own?the
earthiness, the strain of crassness in Cynthia's side of the family had
by-passed the girl completely.

Both father and daughter were fair, tall, and delicately boned. They had
gray eyes, and mouths such as you see in old portraits, indented at the
corners, the lips fitting sweetly together. The resemblance between them
now was almost cruel; this past year, which had burned away Trudy's
little-girl prettiness to the very shape and

4

substance of beauty, had taken from Edwin the last vestige of his youth.

But when Cynthia first knew him he had worn an air of special privilege,
touching and innocent, which is the birthright of the lovable, the
guiltless, and the unaware. Trudy still wore it, but not Edwin. Admit it
or not, Edwin was afraid.

The family would see. It would take a little while before the veiled and
ruthless probing would begin, but the family would see almost at once
that something was wrong.

The boat was circling close to a tip of land?could it be the island? She
could just make out the shape of a small shack?yes, inhabited; a faint
yellowish luminosity, lantern or candlelight, penetrated the mists as
though from a window. Cynthia leaned toward it, peering, and the boatman
shouted back something, a name perhaps. All she could make out were the
words "live here year around."

But her brother-in-law, Brad, had written that the island had been long
uninhabited! She sat back, puzzled. Caretakers? But for whom, for what?
What was there to care for on an abandoned island? The boat moved on,
the faint light faded.

Several minutes had passed; their pilot leaned back and cut the motor.
His voice was clear now. "Tip end's cut off at peak tide from the bulk
of the island. Rest of the time there's a neck about forty feet wide
joins it to the whole. Well, here we are, there's the dock just ahead."

He stood up, and with one oar guided them into the blanket of fog. They
all stirred; Edwin asked, "How big is it?the island?"

"Near sixty acres. Sixty acres good timber, never been cut. Nothing else
on the place except the big house and that little shack we passed, faces
out to sea."

The boat floated soundlessly toward the dark emerg-

5

ing shape of the island; presently it bumped softly against the wooden
planking.

"They're waiting for us," the girl said eagerly. "I can see someone moving."

"Ayuh, looks like you got a welcome committee."

Faces and voices emerged from the mist. Cynthia rose, her feet in their
canvas shoes, sturdily braced. She reached for the dock rail and pulled
herself up without help. Behind her the girl stood up, swaying in the
tipsy bow of the boat, clutching her bag and camera case, and smiling up
into the ghost faces above her. Arms stretched down to lift her onto the
dock. Edwin followed; the three latecomers were absorbed into the babble
of welcome.

Embracing them all, distributing kisses and greetings, Cynthia made a
swift survey. Not counting the child, a boy of seven, the greeting
committee consisted of six: her brother-in-law, Brad; his wife, Gert,
who was Cynthia's older sister; her brother, Oliver; his wife and their
grown daughter, Eloise; and Gran. Gran was Cynthia's mother, mother of
Oliver and Gert as well?matriarch of the tribe.

Each of these six Cynthia knew well; she could have written accurate
portfolios on each?dates of birth, marriages, major illnesses and
accidents, professions, politics, and religion. She could have made a
rough guess at the state of their finances. She knew the original color
of her mother's hair, and that her niece, Eloise, wore contact lenses
and had never driven a car since the day she ran over a dog and killed
it, and that her brother, Oliver, had sliced off the tip of his little
finger teaching his son to use an electric saw. That son had been killed
in Vietnam. The boy child was the fruit of his brief union with a girl
who had abandoned the baby to the care of his grandparents, Oliver and
Mildred, six years ago. To these facts Cynthia could have added a
haphazard larding of funny, dramatic, or mildly scandalous stories, well
polished by having been passed around inside the clan.

6

Each of the others could have done as much for her. They considered
themselves a close-knit family, but there were questions they had never
asked each other, questions such as: Do you believe in God? Do you
consider life worth the living? Do you like and respect yourself as a
human being? Such matters could conceivably be discussed with strangers;
inside a family they were a little too intimate, a kind of bodiless incest.

Brad and Gert, who were their hosts, were stacking their luggage on the
dock. Cynthia, glancing about her, called out to him. "Well, honestly,
Brad! I feel as though I'd landed on another planet."

"I know," he said happily. "Isn't this something? We're stuck right out
in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing on the place but the house.
And I must say that whoever planned it thought big?wait till you see it."

"But it can't be the only house. We passed some little cottage?it didn't
look like much, from what we could see in the fog?when we came around
what the man who brought us over called the sea end of the island."

"Oh, that?nothing but a fisherman's shack. We'll have it down by fall."

"But he said people were living there."

" 'Surviving' is more the word for it, fifty years or more, so I'm told.
Cling to it like clams to their shells. Couple of old squatters, no
legal rights at all. I'll tell you about them later?let's get on up to
the house now." Brad's voice had become impatient. Clearly the old
couple were a sore point with him. Cynthia forgot them as she began to
take in her surroundings.

The island rose steeply from the dock, superbly crowned with dark
pointed spruce and hemlock, lit here and there with tapers of white
birch. A rough stony path led upward toward, as far as she could see,
nothing at all but the army of trees that marched down almost to the
shoreline.

She was filled with misgiving. Even Edwin must see that they couldn't
keep Trudy in a place as isolated as

7

this for more than overnight! Except for the makeshift dock and a
boxlike structure nearby she assumed to be a boathouse, she could see
nothing that suggested the island was fit for civilized living.

The little boy offered to show her the way to the house, and Cynthia
started up the path after him. In spite of her dismay, she moved
buoyantly, a healthy woman still two or three years under forty. She was
Gran's youngest. It was hard to realize that the child leading her was a
grand-nephew and that her brother, Oliver, was now a grandfather.

No one noticed that she had gone on ahead. The greeting committee was
clustered at the dock now, around Edwin and Trudy. This was the first
time the girl had been on display since the most reecnt report of her
had spread throughout the family, carried swiftly by long-distance
telephone and interlacing correspondence. Trudy was not going off to
Julliard to study music this fall, as had been expected, because she had
been ill and was unaccountably slow in recovering.

The brief announcement, written by Cynthia on a single sheet of paper to
Gert, with no illuminating details, was open to all kinds of conjecture.
It was cause for alarm, naturally. But the alarm was bittersweet,
slightly tinged with complacency. Oh, Cynthia knew! Like it or not, they
must all tacitly acknowledge Trudy as the flower of the family. But only
childless Gert, who kept a scrapbook of her niece's triumphs, could take
an honest pride in her, untouched by the secret comparisons the
Osbornes, Oliver and Mildred, must have made with their own children.

Trudy's place in the family had been established early. At six she had
been singled out of a mob of schoolchildren to present a bouquet to
visiting royalty. Her fleeting appearance on television had brought a
flurry of fan mail from enchanted viewers, also some commercial offers,
which Edwin, in angry pride, threw into the waste-basket. He had already
discovered and was skillfully

8

bringing out the child's precocious interest in music. For his own
pleasure. Not until she entered her teens did he resign himself to
sharing her and allow her to play in public. Since then every year had
brought fresh laurels. Until these past few months.

Eventually, of course, the family must be told about Trudy. But not yet.
It was not the kind of news to bring to a family reunion.

Jody, the little boy, cavorting on ahead, called back, "This is a real
keen place, Aunt Cynthia! There's a tree house with a rope ladder to
climb up it, and a pirate's cave somewhere on the island! They won't let
me look for it alone, but I heard about it at the hotel and then Uncle
Brad found this old map, looked like it was drawn by kids, under the
stairs, and there's arrows pointing to 'cave.' Mariner?he's the guy that
brought you over?I bet he could find it."

"Well, it's high tide now," Cynthia told him, "so the cave is probably
full of water. We'll ask your Uncle Edwin?he's an expert on time and
tide." She halted, astonished, rounding a turn on the path. "So that's
the house!"

She had seen the island on a chart Brad had sent them. It was shaped
like a teardrop, much wider and bulkier at one end than at the other,
and much higher, she realized now, on this side than at the dock from
where they had just climbed. The teardrop must have narrowed
considerably at this point, because they had crossed from one side of
the island to the other.

The house stood on a rocky cliff, directly above the ocean,
gray-shingled and weathered to the satin sheen of driftwood. It wasn't
built into the contours of land and rock as a modern house would have
been, nor was there any look of a summerhouse about it. It stood, tall
and upright, two-storied, porched and balconied, like an old-fashioned
city house, confronting them with age and

9

dignity. In one room lights bloomed, dim and diffused through the veils
of fog.

A woman came out of a side door and stood there looking down at them,
plain and thick-bodied, arms akimbo.

"Who's that?" Cynthia asked the boy.

"Mrs. Coffin?she cooks for us. Let's go in the kitchen first. She's
probably got some cookies for us."

"Did your Uncle Brad and Aunt Gert bring her along with them?"

"No, she lives here in the town. She knows all about this place. She
tells stories better than television."

"What kind of stories?"

"Oh . . . like ghost stories?only true. The real scary ones, she tells
just me. Like about those two old people that nobody's seen yet, who
live in the shack at the little end of the island. She says nobody's
ever going to get 'em off here, no matter what Uncle Brad says."

"I guess she doesn't know your Uncle Brad."

The housekeeper attempted no greeting until Cynthia scrambled up on the
side porch. "I'm Mrs. Coffin, hired help," she said then. "I hope you
like down-east cooking, because that's all you'll get from me. I tell
Mr. Bradley he'll have to wait till he gets his French chef for his
fancy dishes. One who he was going to bring with him backed off in a
hurry when he heard about the wood stove." There was a gleam of humor in
her eye, but none of it got into her voice.

"Down-east cooking is one of the things we came for," Cynthia said
pleasantly, and introduced herself.

The woman nodded. "If you're fog-wet, you better come into the kitchen.
I've got a good fire going, and coffee on."

She led them in a side door and nodded Jody toward a plate of cookies.
Cynthia brushed a hand across her hair?it was beaded with moisture. She
hadn't realized how damp and chilled she was, but now the big warm
kitchen with its enormous cast-iron stove, rosy with heat

10

Mona Williams

and as crackling alive as another presence in the room, was a comfort,
"This is lovely," she said gratefully.

The woman did something to a damper and shoved the coffeepot to the
front of the stove. "Mr. Bradley says this stove's got to go. Being
related, I guess you know what he plans to do here. Tear down everything
and put up some kind of a resort place. Very stylish, I gather."

"Yes, I know."

"Says he is. He'll never do it. Not on this island, he won't."

"Well, he bought it, you know. I suppose he can do what he likes with it."

"Law may say so. That don't mean the Learnings do. They come to this
island on their honeymoon fifty years ago, and been here ever since.
They figure it belongs to them."

The flat voice asked for no comment on this, and Cynthia gave none. But
they'd find out different, she thought?Brad was a good man, but not one
to allow sentiment to interfere with business.

There was a short silence, accented by the slap of a stove lid. "Want
some coffee? It's hot enough."

"Thank you?I think I'll wait for the others." Cynthia glanced out the
window. "That's my husband?the tall man in the raincoat. And the girl he
has by the arm is Trudy, our daughter."

Jody raced outside again.

The housekeeper stood at the window beside Cynthia. Her flat voice
softened a little. "I hear she's had some kind of sickness?your
daughter. I heard them talking about it."

"Well . . . it's an infection. Mononucleosis?glandular fever, it used to
be called. It seems to strike young people, and sometimes it takes a
long time to get over it."

"That's hard. It's not right for a young girl to be sick."

11

11

so

"No. Especially Trudy, who's always been so . radiantly well."

She swallowed, dry-throated, watching them all approach, still clustered
around the slight figure of the girl. Even through the darkening mist of
evening her fairness shone out. She was like a princess with her
entourage, a myth princess, not quite real. Cynthia often felt this way
now?that Trudy was not quite real.

"I guess it frets you some, bringing her to a place like this," Mrs.
Coffin observed. "Oh, it's pretty enough here when the sun's shining.
But wild. Not like you could run down to the corner drugstore if you was
to need anything."

"I so agree with you! I didn't want to bring her. But her doctor thought
the change might be good. He had no idea of how much of a change it
would be. Sea air?well, Bar Harbor, where we were before we came here,
has sea air without being so cut off from everything."

"I didn't say should fret you, just that it likely does. Truth is, if
she's well enough to get here, Wyndom Island isn't going to hurt her
any. Leastways, I wouldn't worry she'd take a turn for the worse here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Better you find out for yourself."

They watched the family swarm up to the front door of the house and
vanish inside.

"I must ask you," Cynthia said in a low and guarded voice, "to please
not refer to her illness in speaking to Trudy. It's been such a long
siege, and I don't think she realizes how much it has changed her. It's
better for her not to realize."

"Better for us all not to realize how much we change."

Cynthia didn't reply. Country philosophy, she thought a bit scornfully.
True enough for Trudy, who was hardly more than a child, but for a grown
man, refusing to realize was a weakness?no, "sickness" was a better

12

Mona Williams

word for it. She was thinking of Edwin now, Edwin's sickness.

She sat down on a hard wood chair to change her shoes, at the same time
taking in the big high-ceilinged kitchen, the dozens of cupboards, the
old-fashioned sink, big enough for a hotel, and on a shelf above it,
cleaning things?Sapolio, Gold Dust?names that struck faint chords of
memory. Besides that, a meat grinder, chopping boards, boards for
rolling out bread or pastry dough. Nothing for convenience, a kitchen
built for servants. Still, the crackling stove, the rag rugs on the
floor, gave it a kind of coziness.

"Well," she said, standing again, feeling abler to cope, more of a
person in her city shoes, "since this is supposed to be a festive
occasion, I think I had better join the family and be festive."

When Cynthia came in from the kitchen, Edwin was settling Trudy in the
big chair by the living-room hearth. No one was allowed to serve her as
long as he was there to do it; servant and jealous guardian he had
become, as well as father.

Several voices were raised at once, full of questions and opinions. Was
the room too chilly? The fire was laid ?should they put a match to it
now or go to their rooms first? Did they want their luggage upstairs
right away? Did anyone want to wash his hands? Mrs. Coffin came to the
door and stated that she had either tea or coffee available. Or was this
a liquor-drinking family? Certain matters she had still not been
informed about.

"We'll take care of the refreshments, Mrs. Coffin. Just bring us in some
water and ice." Brad, who was a hotel man, well accustomed to the role
of host, was bouncing about the huge room, flashing his big toothy
smile. "In the booze department," he announced, "name it, we've got it.
Gin, scotch, bourbon, champagne. And ice. You should see the icebox
here?and I mean icebox, not refrigerator?big as a house. I got a
two-hundred-pound slab, special-delivered, packed in

13

13

sawdust. Besides a bucket of ice chips. Being long acquainted with
Gran's side of the family, I came well prepared."

The grandmother clearly took this as a compliment. "Well, bring it on,
boy?bring it on! I'm holding out for champagne, seeing this is a
celebration."

Over the hearty, gravelly old voice, Trudy's voice floated out,
flutelike, a pure distillation of sound. "Now, Papa, remember I'm a big
girl now and Dr. Healy told me to have fun. I'm going to have champagne,
too."

Cynthia could see Edwin start to protest, and Gert girding herself to
override him. Not only was she Brad's wife and therefore mistress here,
but Gert was privileged in a much closer way?Trudy was her namesake.
Trudy had been a premature baby, and when Cynthia had come home from the
hospital, weak and depressed because she couldn't nurse her, Gert had
moved in, taken over the delicate baby, and doggedly experimented with
formulas until she had her thriving. Gratefully, Cynthia and Edwin had
christened the child Gertrude, at once dropping the only syllable of the
name Gert had ever used.

Still, it gave her a special status in regard to Trudy, and now she said
shrilly, "Why, certainly you'll have champagne! Sixteen's practically a
young lady, almost old enough to get married."

"Half a glass," Edwin conceded, controlling himself. "She's not yet out
of the woods, you know. We have to be very careful?"

"Half a glass nothing! What is she?a baby, to have her father say yes or
no every time she makes a simple normal request? Brad, you see that
Trudy gets the first glass."

Gert's face was fierce with love. Cynthia felt a twinge, seeing the
matronly middle-aged figure of her sister standing over the girl,
defying Edward. Yes, she thought, you found that, too; in the sluggish,
stony, run-

14

Mona Williams

clear, run-muddy stress of family feeling, you glimpsed, from time to
time, the face of love.

A sociologist walking into the room could have looked at the nine people
for whom Brad poured champagne and have picked out the original clan
without hesitation. Gran and her offspring were ruddier in color, bolder
of eye, coarser-featured than their children or their mates. An appetite
for life ran strong in them, most of all in Gran and in her youngest and
favorite child, Cynthia.

Gran was seventy-two. She spoke of her age often, but always as though
it were a joke, a challenge to people's credulity. She spent herself
lavishly, her vitality formidably renewed day after day, holding tight
to what she had always been?lusty, warmhearted, greedy for praise and
pleasure, impatient for whatever was going to happen next.

But yet, sturdy as she was, haunchy and thickset as a Shetland pony, old
age was like a secret illness in Gran, an enemy biding its time. She
fought it back with rowdy stories and jokes, she picked up current
slang, she was quick to criticize people past their youth for not being
up-to-date.

Gran's last husband had died ten years ago, but as someone moving out of
town still pays dues to a favorite club, Gran still held a nonresident
membership in sex. She was keenly interested in the love life of her
juniors, and ready with confidences about her own colorful past. Her
favorite costume (which she wore now, as suitable to the rigors of
island life) was a shirt and blue jeans, and her short curly hair was
currently tinted dusty blue.

Brad and Gert may have instigated it, but this reunion was entirely
Gran's show; Gran was the source and fount of all. She had become a
grandmother in her early and vigorous forties, thirty years ago, when
Oliver's son was born. They had all started calling her Gran then,
making a joke of it, but her name stuck, and now they all used it,
regardless of relationship.

15

15

If you measured success by money, which was certainly the way Gert and
Brad had always measured it, Gert had married the most successfully of
her three children. Of course, Cynthia had married a little money, too,
along with all that old southern background, but Edwin's money was
inherited, which, to a self-made family, could never have the impact and
importance of earned money.

When Gert had married Joe Bradley, he had been night clerk in a
moderately priced hotel. Gert, in her mid-twenties, fidgety with
untapped energy, had begun and abandoned several careers; she was going
to be a nurse, she was going to act, she was going to be a war
correspondent. Nothing had turned out; Gert didn't know what she wanted.

When she met Brad she knew. She wanted to love, to serve, to pour
herself into somebody else, to be used. Maybe she and Brad fell in love,
maybe what they mistook for love was a passionate agreement that Brad's
getting ahead in the hotel business was the most important goal in life.

At forty-eight, Gert was a vulgarization of her voluptuous younger
sister. Work had thickened and coarsened her, and although she looked
motherly, she had never had time for childbearing.

"Togetherness!" she would cry out in her shrill, combative voice. "Why,
these kids today don't know what togetherness is!" Then she would launch
into the long story of how she had worked along with Brad after they'd
scrimped and manipulated to buy into the first hotel. Not just nice
clean desk work, either, but as dishwasher and chambermaid when
necessary, and later, as Brad got ahead, she had trained help and stood
over them, fought waste and spoilage and larceny in the kitchen, wangled
special prices from wholesalers, wooed conventions, and drilled Brad in
such refinements as remembering guests' names and idiosyncrasies.

Brad had taken on quite a polish since she met him.

16

Mona Williams

As he rose in his business and his guests became more stylish, so did
Brad. He was almost completely bald, and he wore a perpetual smile like
a fluorescent light that is never turned off. He was a little hunched,
although he was just past fifty, shoulders and arms rounded as though to
embrace or shake hands, head inclined in the classic stance of the
professional host.

He had worked very hard in his profession, and now, after twenty-five
years, he owned a big hotel in Boston and a prosperous resort complex on
Cape Cod. At last he and Gert could afford to indulge themselves, to
create something, not only for money, but for uniqueness, a hotel man's
dream of perfection.

They had bought the island for so little that they were ashamed to tell
anyone the price. They had found it listed in a prospectus, an obscure
item among glittering properties and estates. But some romantic chord in
Brad was touched?an island! When he learned that the present owners were
elderly sisters in ill health, long settled in Florida, who wanted to
tidy up the loose ends of their estate, he made an absurd offer,
expecting to negotiate. It was accepted, and, exulting, he had closed
the deal at once, without laying eyes on the property. All he knew was
that he was buying some sixty acres of sea-washed rock, thick stands of
spruce, and a house that no one had lived in for fifty years.

Speaking as reasonably as possible for a man who was shaping up a dream,
Brad had dictated a letter to his secretary, and Xeroxed copies on his
hotel letterhead had gone out to various members of the family.

"In my business," the letter had observed loftily, "it is essential to
keep a finger on the public pulse. What that pulse tells me now is that
there's a crying need for escape. From tension, from too many people and
over-communication, from computerism and crime in the streets. But
escape where? Most of the once-exclusive resorts are overrun by
everybody and his brother. Sure ?there's still some open space out west,
but it doesn't

17

17

embody the escape image the way an island does. If you want to get away
from it all, what?as Gert puts it?is as away as an island? Cute, huh?"
He was always careful to include Gert in everything.

"What we propose is to cater to this need by building an exclusive
rustic resort, not simple-rustic but deluxe-rustic. Maybe twenty
cabanas, not one in sight of another, served as unobtrusively as
possible by a central building. Each would be different?some out on
ledges with sea spray dashing against them, some in sunny enclosures
aswarm with birds and bees, some deep in the fragrant pines. What are we
offering? Something beyond price?a place where a man can explore his own
soul and feel that he's more than a statistic. Shangri-la or
Nepenthe?that's a Greek word for easing pain?what would you think of
that as a name for the place? It kind of incorporates the whole idea, as
we see it."

The family, reading this poetic description of what Brad meant to do
with the island, were impressed. Even Edwin was momentarily diverted. He
was too courteous to ever allow Cynthia to feel the cultural discrepancy
between her family and his, but since Brad was only an in-law, he could
let himself be amused by fashionable phrases such as "escape image" that
Brad picked up from hotel conventions and resort literature.

Meanwhile, the letter concluded, before the old house was blitzed, he
and Gert had this crazy notion that the family might like a look at it,
get a taste of what it was like living in a world that only Gran could
remember. A month-long house party?they could all get to know each other
as families should and seldom do once they have gone their separate
ways. They had already discussed it with Gran, and she was rarin' to go.
The house was furnished; in fact, Brad gathered, left just as it was
when the previous owners moved out back in the twenties. He and Gert
would go up ahead and get things ready, taking plenty of modern comforts
with them?bedding and sporting equipment and some kind of re-

18

Mona Williams

frigeration. No TV?just a little radio to catch a spot of news
occasionally to hear how the world was getting on without them.
Arrangements would be made for fresh and frozen food to be flown to the
nearest airport.

Well, how about it?didn't it sound like a bit of a lark, as his British
maitre d' would put it? Say the word and he'd write on ahead to get the
county clerk to hire local workers to take the boards off the windows
and connect up the gutters so they would get plenty of water in the
cistern. No kidding?that was their water supply, a cistern filled with
rainwater and a pump to get it up into the pipes. Talk about
nostalgia?this would be the real thing!

They eagerly awaited affirmative replies from all, especially from the
Virginia contingent. Gert was complaining that she hadn't seen her
namesake, Trudy, for over a year, and if the child was still trying to
pull out of that mean old infection, Gert said why not try that good old
remedy, salt air?

Even Brad must have been surprised when they all agreed to come. Oliver
and Mildred, with a lively seven-year-old on their hands during the
school-free summer, had been thinking of a month of camp for him near
the Boston suburb where they lived, but Mildred worried about his being
too young to be sent to strangers. Besides, OUie was too sentimental to
resist the idea of a family reunion. Mildred allowed herself to be
persuaded; maybe, in spite of the hazard of vacation traffic, it might
be a good idea to break the end-of-summer doldrums for all of them. With
the child on her hands, she could suffer just as well one place as
another. Especially since Eloise, whom Mildred was beginning to think of
as her spinster daughter, was out of a job and could go along to help
care for the boy.

When Brad's invitation had first arrived in Virginia, it did not occur
to Cynthia to take it seriously. She had left the letter unanswered on
Edwin's desk; one day she

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19

came home and found father and daughter rereading it. And this time with
no chuckles over Brad's poesy.

"I've never been on an island," Trudy said dreamily, and Edwin, rising
to go over to the bookcase, commented, "It might be very interesting to
see a place like that?untouched for fifty years."

He found the book he was looking for, opened it to a place already
marked, and read, "There are people who find islands irresistible, and
the name for their affliction is islomania. They may well be the
descendants of the Atlanteans, and it is toward the lost Atlantis that
their subconscious yearns."

His voice had striven for a scholarly detachment, but there had been
something in it oddly emotional.

Cynthia steeled herself, as she had before, to oppose Edwin's erratic
impulses with sober reason. She did not speak of Trudy's health, a
subject they could no longer discuss even in private. She simply
reminded him that, since he had never felt more than an amused
indulgence for her family, to gather with them for a whole month would
be very trying.

Reluctantly he had agreed. The next day two things happened. A bad heat
wave had set in, and Trudy's doctor, dropping in at the house finding
her unusually well, clearly at the beginning of a remission, had decided
it was a good time to take off for his annual fishing holiday in Maine.
Edwin had handed him Brad's letter.

Dr. Healy saw no reason why they shouldn't visit the island. If they
established themselves at some comfortable resort nearby, they could at
least go over and have a look at the place. How about Bar Harbor? He
would be cruising in and around there and would be glad to know he
wasn't entirely out of touch with his patient.

"Why not?" Edwin said at once. "We'll have to go somewhere to get out of
this heat."

Later that evening he had come into Cynthia's dressing room after his
nightly ritual of tucking Trudy in bed. "She's delighted," he had said,
and then, almost as

20

Mona Williams

though he were talking to himself: "You know the real basis for
islomania? An island is a little world in itself?it need not necessarily
submit to any law existing outside its own boundaries. That's the
fascination."

"Well, if Ralph Healy says to go, I guess that settles it." Cynthia's
voice, speaking that name, was not quite steady, but Edwin didn't notice it.

Oliver's wife, Mildred, was a small, excessively thin woman, all bones
and big apprehensive eyes. The eyes and her thinness gave her the look
of a worn, prematurely aged girl. Mildred had lived in a perpetual state
of anxiety since the blinders of childhood had fallen from her and she
had seen how fraught with peril was the whole business of living.

She was afraid of snakes and thunderstorms, of airplanes and Sunday
traffic, of infections and people with foreign-sounding names. Her only
desire was to hold off a nervous breakdown until her daughter was safely
married and her small grandson old enough to free her from the frightful
responsibility of raising him.

Naturally it was Oliver who had decided to adopt the boy. When Jody's
mother had abandoned him a year after his birth, to take up with a new
lover, her parents had made a halfhearted offer to take the child. But
Oliver had really wanted him, and the other grandparents had gladly
handed him over. Oliver was a big sloppy emotional man with droopy
melting brown eyes, and it was hard for him to say no to anything. Like
all of Gran's children (he was her first, born when Gran was only
twenty), he had once been clamorous and impulsive, full of demanding
appetites. But the long years with Mildred had infected him with some of
her distrust and apprehensions.

Their son, drafted young into the war, had escaped early, but in
Eloise?twenty-seven and still living at home?the infection had gone
deep. Sometimes it seemed to Oliver that Mildred brought on misfortune,

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21

that misfortune could smell out her fear the way they say horses and
dogs smell fear and react to it.

The time he sliced off his finger with the electric saw, Mildred had
just come to the basement door to call down a warning about it; the only
time he'd ever had an accident in the car was the time she told him he
was bound to if he went out that winter night when it was raining and
freezing at once. And when Eloise lost her job in June, Mildred had
fretted for a month beforehand, complaining that if Eloise didn't come
out of whatever it was, this walking dream she seemed to be living in,
she wasn't going to be able to carry on at the library.

Eloise was a quiet, gentle girl, not easy to talk to. She had her
mother's big fearful eyes, liquid and long-lashed, and her thinness was
still sweetly softened by youth. At work she had worn her dark silky
hair pinned into a haphazard bun; other times it hung to her shoulders.
She liked flat slippers and schoolgirlish clothes that made her look not
quite adult.

Sometimes Oliver hoped that Eloise would fall in love, that some good
man would take over half his burden?two such women, mother and daughter
both so fearsomely dependent, were just too much for one man; other
times he despaired of it?wasn't sexual love too fierce an emotion for
Eloise, wouldn't it tear her apart? He had an uneasy hunch that there
was a man mixed up in the loss of her job. Her vague explanation that
the library was under new management, that there was no place for her
there now, didn't convince him.

Whatever had happened, he was sure Eloise had been too meek about it. He
wished she would ask more of life, demand more. Why, even her cousin
Trudy, sick or not, stood up for her rights?look at the way she had
asked for champagne, and got it, too! Maybe, he thought hopefully, maybe
during this month they'd be together, Eloise could talk to Trudy, or
listen?Eloise

22

Mona Williams

wasn't much of a talker?and a little of the younger girl's spirit would
rub off on her.

Still and all, now they had Jody, he didn't think about Eloise so much.
Jody was an enchanting child, the focus of his life now; already Brad
and Gert were crazy about him. He was glad he had persuaded his son to
name him after Joe Bradley, so that nine years after Gert had a
namesake, Brad did, too. What was it Brad had said at lunch today?their
first meal here? It was after the kid had laid into his food with the
gusto that only a hotel man could relish. "You know, Oliver, this kid's
a winner. Occurs to me he's the first child of a new generation in the
family. Man-child, too. Who knows? We might start a little dynasty of
our own on this place ..."

Gert had given her great sigh. "If only Brad and I had had a son!
Someone to carry on all we've built up. Well, as we keep reminding
ourselves, we can't have everything. God has been good to us."

Brad was still grinning at Jody. "We've got this kid, Gert?named after
me. How'd you like it, Jody, if you knew you'd be lord and master of
Wyndom Island yourself someday? King of Shangri-la?"

"Sure," Jody had said, "I got a lot of ideas about what I'd do with it."
No shrinking violet about that boy?had something to say, and he said it!
Brad was talking. Good old Brad had gone to a lot of trouble and expense
to bring them all here?he should be paid attention to.

". . . only arrived day before yesterday, next morning Gert and I saw
the sun rise, first sunrise we've seen in years. We've been so busy
unloading and settling in just to make the place livable, we haven't had
time to look the place over. Thank God for Mrs. Coffin?she took over the
kitchen. And we staked out the best bedrooms and got you all assigned.
Big sleeping deck upstairs we haven't even peeked into."

"What I can't get over," Gert said, "was how clean the house was.
Disordered, yes, but it looked dusted, as

23

23

if the owners had left in an awful hurry only a couple of days ago. Of
course they took their clothes, and I suppose silver and jewelry. What I
can't understand is why they never came back for the rest."

"When did they leave?the last owners?" Cynthia asked.

"Only owners until us. That's not counting the old sisters who never
lived here. Wyndom?you saw the name on the chart. They built the house,
spent all their summers here for several years. Nobody remembers much
about them. No wonder?fifty years? Anyone who was living then would be
dead now, or too old to remember."

24 The night before, in the North Fork hotel room she shared with her
sleeping nephew, with her parents closed behind the door in the next
room, Eloise had sat in the dark, looking down into the dimly lit main
street of the little town.

At ten o'clock it was deserted; only a gas station and a cafe, which
lived on tourist traffic streaming through the town, were open. This was
a small, clean hotel, but old-fashioned; there was no telephone in the
room. But Eloise had seen the public phone booth downstairs in the lobby.

She had not undressed because she knew that eventually she would have to
go downstairs to that telephone. She would have to make sure that David
Loeb was still in his apartment in Boston, that he had not followed her
here. She would have to impress upon him all over again that she saw no
possible way to explain him to her family or even tell them anything
about him.

Tell them what?what were the words for such a telling? Could she say
that she had met a man who could open windows in her mind as though it
had been a

25

25

dusty, boarded-up house? Who could also control her blood pressure by
the simple act of scooping up her hand in his own? Could she tell her
family that she had fallen in love with a Jew, a divorced man,
child-support-poor, forty-five years old, a liberal?worse than that, an
artist?both thinker and dreamer?

Already he had affected the course of her life; she looked back,
appalled, at what she had thrown away for him. Her job, her good safe
pleasant job at the branch library that she had held with no trouble for
three years. He had walked in one day, a stranger, a medium-sized man
with horn-rimmed glasses, curly black hair touched with gray, and a
wonderful deep voice that went into her like music. He had asked for a
book on the erotic sculpture of India.

She had told him they didn't have the book, and he had said that was a
pity because it was beautiful and of much interest to artists. He was a
photographer, which was a kind of artist, at least he liked to think of
it that way. Someone had walked off with his copy of the book, and now,
here he was, wanting to look up something in it.

He had talked to her for several minutes, leaning carelessly against the
desk?agreeable, cynical, and humorous talk?and he had made her feel that
both she and the library were swaddled in prudishness.

The next day, when Miss Mapes, the head librarian was out to lunch,
Eloise had seen on her desk the list of new books to be ordered. She had
picked up a pen and added the name of the book on erotic Indian
sculpture. Later, seeing Miss Mapes put the list into an envelope
without glancing over it again, Eloise had been astonished at herself.
She had never in her life done such a thing!

Days afterward, when the books arrived, the typed order was returned
with them, the unauthorized addition clearly recognizable in her
handwriting. Miss Mapes brought it to her, along with the offending book,

26

Mono, Williams

quivering with indignation. Eloise resigned at once. She could not bear
to try to explain what was, even to herself, unexplainable.

It was the end of her job, but not of David. During the interim between
her incredible act and her resignation, he came into the library again
near closing time and suggested that he drive her home. There was a bus
strike at the time, and she agreed without protest, as a good child
accepts arrangements made by maturer minds. But she did not invite him
in to meet her parents.

Nor did she tell him about ordering the book for the library. She had
looked all her life for a man who could so dominate her, but he must
recognize her defenseless-ness for himself. David, her mind said to her.
David . . . David.

The first time he kissed her, she had been so shaken that he had had to
hold her quietly for a moment until she stopped trembling. Then he had
sat back and regarded her, unsmiling. "Well, now we know. Either we have
an affair or get married. I think . . . married."

She panicked at once. Didn't he understand that both were equally
impossible? No, of the two, marriage was more alarming?to leave the
safety of her home, her own little bedroom with a key she could turn in
the lock, to share his life, her body, her selfhood with a strange man?
Even perhaps to bear his children? The alternative loomed up in her mind
like doom. An affair. If only she could hold on to this perfect time in
their relationship, to keep David as a suitor, a private excitement she
could back away from when it threatened her, as she had from the shivery
thrill of that first kiss. But of course she could not; nothing ever
stood still. It was lose him or surrender.

The first time he took her to his apartment, she prepared for the
sacrifice. Nothing happened. He opened cans of beer and made
cheese-and-salami sandwiches. Cheerfully he harangued her about Steichen
and Genthe and Ansel Adams, and the fascinating similarities and

27

27

differences between painting and photography. He played his favorite
records, and while she lay on the sofa, quivering and sacrificial, he
lounged across the room, feet on the coffee table. At ten-thirty he said
he would take her home.

But out by the elevator in the deserted corridor he took her in his arms
and kissed her, long and deep, like a man taking over an inheritance.

"Listen, David, I think I've got to tell you this. I... I'm sure it's
unusual at my age these days, but... I've never had a man."

"A virgin?" he cried out in surprise and delight. "Really? It's like
finding a unicorn! Very well, my darling, next time we meet, I shall
teach you all the pain and pleasures of making love."

Pain? She said, "Not yet, David! I agree that there is something very
good between us. But could we let it ripen a little before we ... commit
ourselves?"

"I see. Ripen. What does that mean?that before we become lovers we have
something that I think used to be called an understanding? Just short of
an engagement?"

"Yes," she murmured, "something like that."

"No sex. A matter of self-discipline. Well, I must recall the techniques
I employed when I gave up cigarettes."

She pushed the elevator bell, offended by his irony. Yet she continued
to see him. Always in public places, bars, restaurants, theaters, walks
in the park. She didn't go to his apartment again, nor did she invite
him to her home.

For a few weeks he allowed this; then he told her that since they were
engaged, it was time he met her family. Also, he wanted her to meet the
teenage children of his first marriage, who would soon be leaving their
mother in California to come east to school. Immediately she quivered
into a state of resistance.

28

Mona Williams

"Oh, David, no. Why should we drag in other people? They'll only spoil
things. I mean, what's the point?"

"The point is that if a man and a woman marry, their families, in some
degree, must marry, too. They become grandparents and aunts and uncles
of the same babies."

The blood rushed up over her face. "You still really think that . . .
that you and I?people as unsuited, as unlike?could actually marry?"

"Certainly. I think we're ideally suited. Of course, since the
proprieties have become so rigidly observed up to now, they should
continue to be. You must meet and win over my children and my elderly
mother. Certain barriers must be surmounted. With my children, the
stepmother image; with my mother, first her belief in the old-country
ways, then her conviction that since my first marriage to a goy was a
failure, this will be, too. There'll be no trouble?you're too appealing
to run into real opposition. Then, I must meet your family and win them.
These are the proprieties."

She put her head in her hands. "I tell you it's impossible?impossible.
My family would never ... never ... You're too old for me, you're
divorced, you pay to support another woman's children . . ."

"And I belong to a minority group." He asked pleasantly, "Are your
people anti-Semitic?"

"Of course not! Oh, how do I know? The question has never come up, it
wouldn't occur to them that it could come up. We've always known people
like ourselves, belonged to the same groups . . ."

"Well, it's about time it did come up. Because you belong to me now,
don't you? You've come over to my side."

She made a small gesture, intended and taken for acquiescence. "I'm a
coward," she whimpered against the wall of his chest. "That must have
been the first thing you learned about me."

"Well, skittish, maybe, about men," he said, soothing

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29

her, stroking her dark hair. "Perfectly natural for both unicorns and
virgins. You'll get over it."

A week later she told him that she was going on a trip with her parents
and small nephew. A family party on an island off the coast of Maine.
She would be away from him for a month. His dark eyes, barricaded behind
heavy brows and spectacles, looked out at her, absorbed and attentive.

"You mean the whole clan will be there?uncles, aunts, cousins?"

"Enough of them. Even my grandmother."

"What a setup. Sitting ducks. A stray poacher could bag the lot of them
with one shot."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just what you're afraid I mean. Why win them over separately when I
could maybe make it with one big try? Suppose I just happened to be in
the vicinity of?what's the name of the town, North Fork??some weekend?
Suppose I rowed over to this island and delivered an ultimatum. Either
they vote me into the tribe or I carry you off right in front of their
eyes before anybody could even yell murder. Or rape."

She laughed nervously. "That's quite a ... quite a fantasy."

"Actually, I would present myself as a very lovable and ingratiating
fellow. Unless they got tough, of course."

He took off his glasses, and his face looked naked and dangerous and
unfamiliar to her.

He didn't refer to this proposal again. The night before she left, he
spoke of some work that he had to do while she was away. But she knew
him too well to be reassured. If she were to get any sleep tonight, she
must make that telephone call.

She got up and found her purse in the dark. There was no sound from Jody
or from her parents' adjoining room. She slipped out of the room and
hurried down to

30

the lobby. She nodded to the desk clerk and shut herself hastily inside
the phone booth. She tried out bright little sentences in her mind.

"About Operation Island," she would say. "I'm glad you thought better of
it. When I get back, we'll talk out everything. We'll make decisions."
Her voice would be warm, but she would not speak of love.

The operator was ringing the number, but there was no answer. She waited
out several rings, canceled the call, and walked out of the booth. The
double front door of the hotel was open, and she recalled that a veranda
ran the width of the building and was furnished with a row of rockers.
She went out and curled into a corner of a hanging swing at the far end.
She could think better here than upstairs.

So he was not at home. Where, then? With another girl perhaps, a girl
who could open herself to a man without thinking twice about it. A
picture formed in her mind, a naked girl lying on a bed, legs spread
wide, smiling up at David. A twinge of jealousy went through her, but
then a coolness set in. If that was all he really wanted, then she was
well out of it. All that talk about following her up here?it was just to
see her reaction! Not even David would walk into the enemy's camp,
unwanted, unwelcome. She felt reprieved. A whole month ahead of her when
no decisions could be made.

The wide front door opened, and two people came out onto the veranda.
From the creak of the rockers, she judged that they had settled down for
a breath of cool air before retiring. They were hidden from her by the
canvas side of the ceiling-hung swing, but she recognized the voices as
those of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsdell, the elderly proprietors of the hotel.
The woman was speaking, as though continuing a dialogue begun indoors.

"How long do you give this Bradley bunch to stick it out? Couple of
weeks, a month?"

"More than that. Don't forget, Sarah, this fellow put

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down real money for the place. He owns it now. Man with his name on a
deed of land, and big ideas for it, don't discourage that easy. Not like
some folks we could name that just figured to borrow the island for a
time because there was that big elegant house just sitting there
gathering dust. Borrowing something don't make a person feel real easy
about it to start with. Particularly when the new owners might show
up?who knows??just as sudden as the old ones left."

His wife gave a dry little laugh. "I guess, stay long enough, you could
get easy about it. I guess comes a time when Bible law seems bigger than
your name on a piece of paper."

"I see what you're getting at. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You
got that wrong, Sarah. That's Shakespeare or Aesop's Fables?one of those."

"Well, whatever. I'd say that in forty or fifty years it gets to be a
pretty powerful law. Learnings' Law, you could call it. They may not
live in the house but to my mind, and to most folks around here, the
Learnings own Wyndom Island."

"Not anymore they don't." He sighed. "Fifty years, is it? Ayuh, that'd
be about it. The year the meteor fell on it, and all those scientists
came from Boston to prowl around. Island was empty then, no Wyndoms left
except the old man, and he crazy as a coot, shut up somewhere. It was
about two months later, as I recall, that the Learnings showed up. It
was when my granddad owned the hotel?I was maybe fifteen, strong enough
to help with luggage and like that. They drove into town in an old
jalopy, and just about a block from here it gave out. So here they come,
carting all they had, and walked into the hotel. And she still carrying
her wedding bouquet. First thing she wanted was a pitcher of water to
put it in. Handsomest pair I ever laid eyes on, then or since. About
twenty they looked. Honey-mooners. Wasn't sure they could afford to stay
here. Well, softhearted Granddad said their first night in town

32

Mona Williams

was on him, wedding present. I could find their name on one of those old
ledgers if I looked for it."

"Handsome?they were like movie stars! I saw them?I was in grade school
then, and when it came out that they didn't have any money or prospects,
and the Aiken brothers had moved 'em into that old fishing shack on
Wyndom Point, why, folks couldn't seem to do enough for 'em. My own
mother gave them a feather comforter and some pots and pans to start 'em
off." She said after a minute, "Wonder what they look like now. Older
than we are, past seventy, I'd say ?probably look more like eighty,
living as rugged as they have."

"Well, you're not likely to find out. The Mitchells never did, and they
were most set on it. Remember that fourth of July, oh, about fifteen
years back, they went over to Wyndom? Real old-fashioned holiday picnic
was the idea, but what they wanted was a look at the Learnings. Chuck
had the boat loaded with all the kids and foods and fireworks?they said
they'd smoke 'em out if nothing else worked. Well, I forget just what
happened to scare the whole family off before they even give it a try,
but something sure as hell did."

"I remember. First they were going to have their fried-chicken picnic,
and then the fireworks, soon's it started to get dark. They brought a
couple of live chickens they didn't have time to butcher beforehand?had
to catch the tide just right?just grabbed up the chickens in a
carry-coop, plenty of time to ax 'em after they got there. Why, Mary
Mitchell told it all over town what happened then?how could you forget it?"

"Well, but I thought: That's Mary for you. Crazy story like that."

"You had to believe it?whole family saw it happen. Chuck axed those
chicken's necks, like he'd done a thousand times before, heads flew
clean off the bodies, and those chickens wouldn't die. Now, you're

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33

going to say, sure, happens all the time, reflex action is all, like
when you turn off the TV and that little dot of light stays on couple of
seconds, but then it goes out, Ira, it goes out. Those chicken bodies
kept dancing around and the chopped heads squawking like crazy and never
stopped tUl the whole family froze spellbound from what their eyes was
seeing. So finally Chuck came out of it enough to get ahold of all four
parts of those hens and threw them out as far as he could into the
ocean, still squirming in his hands, as he told it, and the family got
their stuff together and got into their boat and took off like the devil
was after them. And that's not the only story about Wyndom Island, as
well you know."

"Well, half of 'em you can put down to human nature. Once you put a
spooky name to a place, it gets hard to draw the line between what you
see and hear and what you think you do. Go to bed in a house somebody
said was haunted, and you'll hear creaks and groans all night. Ever hear
the real old-timers, like old Doc Winter, near ninety he must be, talk
about that island? He'll curl your hair. That's how old-timers get
themselves listened to."

"I believe Mary Mitchell," Mrs. Ramsdell said. "She's only fifty-five,
and she couldn't dream up that chicken story. Gossip, now, that's
different."

"Ayuh, well. What interests me is that couple?the Timings. Fifty years
in that little shack, and never leaving it. It's like they planted
themselves, rooted into that island like a couple of trees. If they're
still there. Whose word have we got for it? Two old brothers, peculiar
themselves as Dick's hatband. If they weren't still lobstering and still
supporting themselves, they'd be put away. Can't last much longer,
that's for sure; once they're gone, who's to fetch and carry for the
Learnings? Suppose they're still alive. Either they come back into the
real world again or they stay there and

34

Mona Williams

starve and freeze the first winter after the Aiken brothers are gone."

The chair rocker told Eloise he had gotten to his feet. "Let's get up to
bed, Mother. There's people here to feed in the morning."

Eloise scrambled out of her hideaway, terrified of being locked out. She
said in confusion, "I fell asleep in the swing. I came out for just a
few minutes, and . . . well, driving all day, I guess I just dropped off."

She could feel their unease. Mrs. Ramsdell said awkwardly, "We got to
chatting. I hope we didn't disturb you."

"Oh, no, I was really out. Good night." She ran into the little lobby
ahead of them, up the stairs to the room she shared with the child, Jody.

They were having lobsters for dinner fresh from traps hauled only this
morning and killed while they were still on the lobster boats. Brad was
cooking them over banked coals in the fireplace, squatting over the
grill, his white-duck behind presented roundly to his guests.

The room had noble proportions, a ceiling of heavy beams and a superb
stone fireplace topped by the mounted head of a young buck, the horns
still downy with youth, in spite of its great age. Long ago someone had
hung a chain around the deer's neck, with a dangle of abandoned keys at
his throat, and he gazed out over the heads of the company, as oblivious
of time as the grandfather clock that stood in a corner. The hands
didn't move, but the mechanism of the pendulum was miraculously
preserved; it continued to move steadily back and forth, measuring
nothing. To Edwin, the room seemed suspended, infinitely patient,
waiting for a ripeness of circumstance to resume its old way of life.

The deer head and the sturdy wicker chairs cushioned in chintz were a
concession to rusticity, but the ornate kerosene lamps with globes of
rose-wreathed china,

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35

the flowered Aubusson on the floor, and the ancient phonograph that
stood in a corner might have come out of any upper-class city house
early in the century. A soft golden light shone from the lamps, and the
sound of the sea stole into the room like faint music.

Presently a new sound reached their ears?rhythmic and purposeful,
mechanical and yet not made by a machine; there were variations in the
rhythm, as in human breathing, and it seemed to come from some region
both outside and beneath them.

"Sounds like a pump," Ollie observed, and Brad said, "That's just what
it is?hand-operated. There's a cistern under the house that holds enough
water to supply us two or three weeks without rain. Gutters from all
those angled roof lines lead into it, and the water's pumped up into the
pipes."

"Who's doing the pumping?"

"Mariner?fellow that brought you over in his boat. That's his real name,
Mariner?how do you like that? It means boatman, you know, like in the
Ancient Mariner. That tickled Gert and me. They tell us this coast is
full of towns and people with fancy names, some Spanish and Italian,
that the sea captains brought back a couple generations ago."

Trudy was examining a collection of stuffed birds she'd found in a
cupboard. "Mariner's cute," she said, looking up. "He told me his wife
had a pet seal. He's going to bring it over so I can take a picture of it."

Edwin asked, his voice a little strained, "Then this . . . this fellow's
not staying here on the place?"

"Not on your life," Brad said. "Oh, these characters are independent! If
they feel like it, they give you a hand. If not. . . Well, for instance,
we thought we had Mariner's wife signed up to cook for us. But at the
last minute, no, she didn't feel like it. They have a little shack on
another island just across the bay. He'll go home after he finishes
pumping. He'll be over again in

36

Mona Williams

the morning with mail and supplies, and he'll condescend to do a few
chores."

"Actually," Gert explained, "he's the indispensable man around here,
pumps the water, keeps us supplied with fuel for cooking and heating and
the kerosene lamps." She chuckled. "I suppose you could call Mariner our
public-utility system."

"But at night, after he leaves, then we're quite . . . quite cut off?"
Edwin persisted. "Since his boat goes with him and there's not another
one on the place?

"Absolutely," Brad said with relish. "Oh, in an emergency we could
always signal for help, build a big bonfire or toll the bell?we found an
authentic old ship's bell in that closet under the stairs . . . weighs a
ton and makes a hell of a noise. Give that thing a few whacks?you know
how sound carries over water?maybe somebody'd hear it, maybe not." His
voice grew hearty and consoling at the same time. "Now, don't panic,
Edwin. That old couple down on the point?you saw that shack they live in
when you came around the small end. You know how long they've lived
there? Since 1926, moved in just after the island was abandoned. Never
moved out. Way they tell it in North Fork, the only contact they have
with civilization is a couple of lobstermen who bring them supplies;
winters, even they can't always get over. The Greenings or Learnings,
some such name, just lay in enough to last them until spring. Point I'm
making is simple: fifty years, they never had an emergency, I guess you
can risk it for a month."

"Winters must be bitter here," Mildred said, shivering. "How can they
keep warm?"

"Well, they sure don't lack for firewood. Old fellow must be pretty spry
at stacking it, from what I saw of their woodpile. You know what they
say about cutting your own wood?warms you twice, the cutting and the
burning."

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37

"What you going to do about them . . ." Oliver asked, "the old couple?"

"Oh, I'll let them stay through the summer. No harm in building up a
nice-guy image with the local yokels. Sometime in September, when it
starts getting chilly, my lawyer will get in touch with the offer of
some comfy little cottage in town. As for now, they don't bother
anybody. Apparently they've always had the good sense to declare this
house and the main part of the island off bounds. Just settled into that
little dump nobody wanted and camouflaged themselves right into the
landscape. Oh, they know we're here, and that something's up; they'd
have to, with all the boatloads of supplies we brought in. Unless
they're both blind and deaf. Senile, probably, living here so long, got
to be in their seventies."

"Watch your words," Gran said tartly. "Seventy's not in the grave."

"I'd like to see them," Trudy said. "They sound like some woodland
creatures that hear men stomping around in their woods and lie very
quiet hoping not to be seen."

"Tarzan and Jane on their golden anniversary," Brad said, laughing. He
dismissed the Learnings; another oddity caught at his mind. "Now, here's
an interesting thing. Mariner tells me that all the years this house has
stood empty, no caretaker, no protection except the windows boarded up,
it's never been broken into. At least, his father, who used to look in
on it now and then till he died a few years ago, never saw any evidence
of looting. Oh, there's nothing very valuable here. Still, tools,
bedding, antiques?why, fog like we had this afternoon, you could run a
barge right up to that little beach off the dock and carry away
everything in the damn house! Well, why didn't somebody?"

"One thing," Oliver said, "nobody but a native can navigate around here.
That's a hell of a piece of water

38

Mona Williams

between here and Tipton Point. Underwater ledges, tricky
currents?hotelman was telling me a nephew of his, fished here all his
life, got stuck on a reef, boat split open, tide coming up, got rescued
just in the nick of time. Well, there's your burglar protection right
there."

"Don't you believe it," Brad scoffed. "There are plenty of lobstermen
buzzing around here, hauling traps every day. They know this water like
you know your backyard. What kept them from moving in? Deserted house,
all this loot lying around?don't tell me everybody's that honest!"

"I think," Trudy said in her high lilting voice, "it's because this is a
magic place. I think anyone would feel it, that it's not to be ...
violated."

The family, as if embarrassed by so romantic an answer, was silent.

Then Brad said, "Well, anyway, it's not your run-of-the mill island. You
know, it was hit by a meteor once? Nineteen-twenty-six it was?year the
Wyndoms left. Probably scared the hell out of 'em. Stayed just long
enough to pack up their personal things?clothes and valuables?and took
off. Paid somebody to come over, board up, and lock up later. It was
pretty small for a meteor, but it's rare enough to be recorded in the
Hayden Planetarium in New York."

"A meteor!" Mildred cried. "But it must have hit something, left some mark."

"Oh, yes, they tell me there's a pit, deep but only a few yards across.
Full of seawater now, I'd guess. Just the other side of the neck,
luckily, so it won't interfere with our building. Be a kind of natural
attraction, actually. Help to make the place unique."

Edwin said abruptly, "You know my watch has stopped running." He held up
his slender wrist. "Five o'clock. That's almost, to the moment, the time
that we stepped foot on the island."

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39

"Saltwater," Brad said matter-of-factly. "Plays the devil with watches."

"This watch is waterproof. I've had it seven years, and it's never given
me any trouble before." There was a note of something like elation in
Edwin's voice. He looked around as though challenging someone to
question this, but Mildred only rose and said, "Let's get the table set.
You figured how you're going to sit us, Gert?" One end of the long room
contained a table that would easily seat ten, clearly intended for
dining. It opened onto an enclosed porch, also set up with tables and
chairs, where meals have been served in good weather. The breakfast
porch, Mrs. Coffin had called it, since it would take full advantage of
a rising sun on a fine day.

Edwin was studying the domestic scene around him. Ordinary people doing
ordinary things, and yet, in this old room, in this lamplight, they
seemed to take on a color of the past, a sepia cast over faces and
clothes, like an old family photograph brought alive again.

Eloise was sitting on the floor reading to the little boy out of a heavy
volume she had found in the bookcase. Oliver (he'd once been a builder,
Edwin remembered) was leaning back in his chair studying the beams of
the lofty ceiling. Mrs. Coffin was in and out of the kitchen. The
sisters-in-law, Gert and Mildred, were laying out napkins and silver
marked with the name of Brad's Boston hotel. A bouquet of garden flowers
brought by Mildred from the village made a centerpiece. Gran and Cynthia
were sitting, heads together, half up the stairs on the landing, Gran
with plump blue-jeaned knees spread and a cigarette in her mouth.

Talking about Trudy, Edwin thought jealously. Oh, undoubtedly Gran
wanted to hear all the latest about her granddaughter! What, in God's
name, Gran would want to know, was her doctor doing? Why couldn't he
kill off this infection with one of the new drugs?

40

Mona Williams

Was the girl keeping up with her music, did she have a serious boyfriend
yet? An exquisite shiver went through him; no man, he thought suddenly,
ever laid a carnal finger on Trudy.

He looked over at the girl, and at once she rose and came to sit beside
him. Her blondness took on a sheen of light from the lamp globe behind
her, and she was smiling. It had been a long time since he had seen her
so animated.

"Just think of this place a year from now," she said gaily, "or however
long it takes Uncle Brad to remodel. A lot of beautiful people sitting
around in this very spot, drinking cocktails and talking about how at
last they've got away from it all. But after dinner, they'll probably be
watching a television program that millions of other people are watching
at the same time."

Oliver gave a little whinny of protest. "I don't want to hear about it.
Tear down a house like this? Why, it would hurt a man's conscience. Look
at those beams. I'd say they were built by a ship's carpenter. Leave
them alone, and they'll outlive our great-grandchildren."

A word crept up in Edwin's mind and jeered at him. "Humiliating"?that
was the word. It was humiliating to have the durability, the
imperviousness of things thrust in your face, to be reminded of how they
outlasted human beings. Cynthia was wearing a necklace of garnets and
diamonds that had once been his grandmother's. Cynthia's round white
throat would become old, and the flesh would wither from it, but the
necklace would continue to wink and sparkle just as it had when his
grandmother had received it as a bride.

The necklace, the great beams that supported this house, suffered no
tensions or frictions, no wear and tear from the pendulum of time. The
secret was to have no moving parts. The human body was in constant
agitation. Even in sleep, the heart, the digestive system, the cellular
action, never ceased, and the mind

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41

kept up a senseless manufacture of dreams, nightmares . . . Stop that!
he ordered himself. Trudy had now joined Eloise and Jody on the floor
beside the bookcase, and he called out to them. "What are you finding to
read? Anything published after World War One?"

"Look," Eloise said, holding out the big thick book to him. "Old bound
volumes of St. Nicholas! Marvelous reading. The Art of Butterfly
Mounting is also available, and Gulliver's Travels. The Adventures of
Tom Swift, the Bobbsey twins, and Sims Family Robinson. It's obvious
that children lived in this house once." Trudy laughed out loud at
something she was reading. A warm trickle of comfort slid into Edwin.
Brad's words chortled like a brook in his mind: This place has never
been broken into?what's the answer? And Trudy's: It's a magic place, not
to be violated.

As though sensing his mood, Trudy looked over at him. "I've been feeling
so well ever since we got here, Papa."

"I can see that. How's your appetite?"

"Wonderful."

"Well, we're all set," Brad announced. "Take your seats, everybody, and
prepare for a feast. Got the lemon butter ready, Gert? I got these
lobsters fresh-killed, but I brought over a roller full of live ones
besides, all pegged so they don't eat each other up. Cannibals^?that's
what they are. Mrs. Coffin's going to boil 'em up for a stew?we'll have
them tomorrow. Down-east lobster stew is nothing in the world but
lobster meat swimming in a bowl of hot cream and melted butter. The
natives like it with blueberry pie for breakfast, and I don't know any
better way to kill yourself."

"Sounds all right," Gran said, coming down from the landing and chunking
solidly into her seat at the head of the table. She reached out and
ruffled Trudy's, hair. "I've been hearing about this Dr. Healy of yours.
Now,

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Mona Williams

what I want to know is, if he's such an all-fired genius of a doctor,
why doesn't he get rid of this bug that's got you down?"

Trudy said, smiling innocently, "Maybe because then he wouldn't see Mama
anymore. He just adores Mama. He always refers to Papa as Mr.
Sutherland, but he calls Mama Cynthia, sometimes Cindy. Isn't that cute?"

"Don't be silly, Trudy!" Cynthia said sharply from the stairway.

Edwin looked up, frowning, from the lobster claw he was dissecting for
his daughter. He couldn't bear to hear anyone, even her own mother,
speak harshly to the girl.

Gert stood at the foot of the stairs and yelled, "Hey, Cindy, baby,
would you mind coming down off that balcony and wading into some solid
nourishment?"

Gran looked at the second lobster on her plate and wondered if she could
handle it. All the men were having seconds, and she always liked to keep
up with the men. She was fond of her daughters, especially Cynthia, but
on the whole Gran had never had much use for women. A man's woman, her
first husband had called her, and she'd always kept that as an image of
herself, although these last years she'd had to narrow her definition of
the term a little.

A man's woman meant to Gran the kind of a woman who was bored with
feminine small talk, who was not by nature domestic, who relished a joke
a bit on the raunchy side, who could walk into a bar alone and order a
drink, and who seldom had to pay for her second one. Gran had had
several interesting episodes in her life with men who had paid for that
second drink, two of whom she had married.

She still got on fine with men. Brad said he didn't know anybody that
was better company, and he always guffawed at all her stories. He gave
her an expensive

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room "in the hotel when she came to Boston, and if he wasn't too busy,
took her down to the bar and introduced her to the regulars. She was a
great success. But of course her drinks were on the house, and no one
tried to make dates with her anymore.

Sometimes Gran asked herself in honest bewilderment: How had it happened
that a healthy, lusty woman, through no doing of her own, had gotten to
be past seventy years old?

"I have to admit it, I'm no chicken," she would say briskly to people
she didn't know. She was still chatty with strangers, even if they were
usually housewives in the supermarket now or teenagers at a bus stop. "I
have a great-grandson, seven years old."

She would look at the strangers to see if they got the joke, the joke
that life had played on her, and if they simply nodded, unastonished, or
said, "How nice," Gran was offended. Because, as any doctor would tell
you, people age individually, regardless of the calendar. Biologically,
Gran figured, she was in her fifties.

She sighed steamily, looking at Edwin. She'd always wondered what kind
of a husband he made for Cynthia. He was getting to look more and more
like a nervous blooded horse, with handsome long face and arched
nostrils. As if he'd jump if you touched him. He'd lost weight and
seemed edgier than usual, but he had always had that touch-me-not air. A
man like that could be a real challenge to a woman. Still, she would
have expected Cyn to go for a more virile type. Sometimes she felt that
Cynthia was her own younger self. Not like Gert, who was a one-man
woman. Cynthia had been fighting off the boys since she was fourteen,
and maybe not always fighting very hard, either.

She had the feeling now that Cynthia was upset about something and was
just waiting for a little privacy to confide in her. Nothing about
Trudy?she had already said all she was going to say about Trudy. About
what else, then? About a man? It could be. Why

44

all this bridling at Trudy's innocent-sounding little joke about Dr.
Healy's being crazy about her mother?

Gran felt an agreeable stir of interest. She attacked the second
lobster, dug a good piece out of the tail, and drenched it in butter. It
tasted good, almost as good as the first one. No?forties, she thought.
Biologically she was still in her forties.

Dinner was over, and the dishes had been washed by Mrs. Coffin with
Eloise's help. Mildred had got the little boy in bed, preserved
miraculously intact for another day. The adults were grouped about the
living-room fire. For the moment, they were relaxed; they felt the ties
of blood and marriage, not as bondage, but as support and security. They
set more complicated emotions aside; to a degree, they enjoyed each
other. When Mrs. Coffin came to the door to say good night, Oliver
voiced their contentment.

"You can count me as a convert to down-east cooking, Mrs. Coffin. The
lobsters were mighty good eating, but those hot biscuits of yours helped
out a lot. Now, I'll just bet you don't use any of those mixes and
frozen stuff they sell now. Those biscuits were made from scratch."

"A mess of biscuits is no trouble," Mrs. Coffin said. "Frozen would be
the trouble. I just have a hunch, Mr. Bradley, all that frozen stuff you
hauled over is going to take a mighty long time to thaw out."

Brad laughed. "Well, I'll admit it's pretty cool here for August, but
don't you worry about that. Just allow a little more time for
defrosting. Most of our eating is going to be fresh?I've made
arrangements with local people for fish, vegetable, and dairy
deliveries, besides six big shelves of canned goods. Nobody's going to
starve around here."

"Not only defrosting," Mrs. Coffin said, stacking dishes on a tray. "You
got to allow plenty of time for everything. I've got a big pot on the
stove with tomor-

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45

row's lobsters in it, came to a boil near half an hour ago, and every
time I look in, I see they still got some squirm left in 'em."

"You mean," Trudy asked slowly, "you kill them that way? Boil them to
death?"

"They don't feel it much, honey. It's so gradual-like, they don't know
what's happening. Throw a live lobster into a boil and he'll tense right
up?makes tough eating. Lobsters are born green, you know?It's the
boiling turns 'em red. These are red, all right, but I swear I never saw
a mess of 'em hang on as long as these have."

"I don't know," Gert worried, "where you'll find room in the icebox for
them. It's jammed so full now . . ."

"Oh, I'm just going to lay 'em out on the cooling counter outside
overnight. I'll pick out the meat in the morning before sunup. I look
for a nice day tomorrow. Usual thing?fog as thick as this gets sucked
right into the ocean by morning."

"Mrs. Coffin is an oracle," Brad told them. "She tells me she'd never
stepped foot on this island till Mariner brought her over yesterday.
Nonetheless, I've discovered she's a fount of knowledge about it."

His eye fell on a glass, empty except for a piece of ice in the bottom.
He recognized it as Mildred's before-dinner drink, all she'd ever have,
mostly orange juice with a dash of gin diluted by lots of ice. One large
unmelted chunk remained. The room was fire-warmed, and she must have set
down the glass two hours ago. He frowned, puzzling a moment, but just
then Edwin stood up.

"It must be nearly ten?Trudy's bedtime. May I take her up, Gert? I know
. . . her room is right across from Cynthia's and mine."

"Sit right where you are," Gert said. "I'll take her up."

"Better let Edwin do it. He and Trudy have their own little ritual."
Cynthia rose as she spoke and put

46

Mona Williams

her hand lightly on Trudy's forehead. "How do you feel, darling? All right?"

"Fine, Mama." She moved free of her mother's hand. "Papa, how do you
know it's ten o'clock if your watch has stopped?"

Oliver took out a pocket watch. "Well, mine hasn't stopped. It's not ten
o'clock, it's only twenty-five after nine."

Edwin looked stunned. "But when we heard the foghorn, Brad said it was
nine then?surely that was more than twenty-five minutes ago!"

"Twenty-five after nine now," Oliver repeated.

A light came into Edwin's face; he looked suddenly younger. "You know, I
get so used to ... Every time I look at a clock, it's later than I
think. And now, to discover it's actually earlier?that's quite surprising."

"You see, Papa, I told you?this is a magic place."

A glance passed between father and daughter. A half-mischievous smile
lay on Trudy's lips, matched by no more than a tremor on Edwin's.

"Go up anyway," Cynthia said briskly. "You've had quite a day."

"All right. Come on, Papa."

Trudy rose and stood there for a moment, both docile and imperious, the
turn of her cheek and body enchanting. "Good night, everyone. It's been
a beautiful evening."

Gert took an electric lantern from the mantel and started ahead up the
stairs. Lightly supported by her father's arm, Trudy followed.

"Take one of your pills," Cynthia called after her daughter. "I think I
took them out of my bag?look on the dresser in the big bedroom."

"Here, sweetie, you can take this to find your way to the bathroom as
soon as I get this old oil lamp going," her aunt said, handing the
lantern to Trudy.

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47

She removed the chimney from the lamp on the bed table and touched a
match to the wick.

"We brought up all these electric lanterns," she told Edwin, "but I must
say they're nothing like these old relics for atmosphere. Thanks to Mrs.
Coffin. She got some kerosene from Mariner, filled the lamps, and showed
us how to work the damn things. Well, really, I told Brad?what
experienced chef could he have brought from the hotel at thirty dollars
a day who would have known how to trim wicks and run a wood stove?"

Edwin said nothing. He was looking at the white-painted iron bed where
Trudy was to sleep. The room evoked so powerful a sense of the past that
the present was lost in it. A mahogany wardrobe, paneled, with a long
dim mirror, reflected the pattern of dark branching trees on the
wallpaper. A Franklin stove, its little iron apron extending into the
room, stood between the windows.

Gert turned down the bedcovers and plumped the pillow. She glanced up to
see that Trudy had not yet returned. "Imagine, one bathroom in a house
this size! Even that was a luxury in those days, so Mrs. Coffin informs
me. Tomorrow we'll introduce you to a very elegant outhouse with a view
window on the sea, probably the most beautiful outhouse view in the
state of Maine. The idea is, we use it during the day to conserve the
water supply, and keep our indoor plumbing for mornings, nights, and
stormy days."

She saw that Edwin wasn't really listening. He dropped his voice and
said hastily to his sister-in-law, "Would it inconvenience anyone, since
there are two beds in the other room, if Cynthia slept here and Trudy
and I in there? Sometimes she wakes in the night, and I'm invariably the
one to hear her. I sleep more lightly than Cynthia does . . ."

"Now, Edwin." Gert put her hands on her hips, took a step backward, and
looked up at him. "Somebody's

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Mona Williams

got to put a stop to this! If Cynthia won't, then it's up to someone
else that takes an interest. What are you trying to do to that
girl?stunt her growth? Cynthia's your wife, you belong with her. You've
always been a perfect idiot about Trudy, we all know that, but I've
never seen you as bad as this. I swear, I think you'd breathe for her if
you could."

"She hasn't been well," Edwin muttered. "Of course, she's much better,
much better. We'll have her out of the woods now in no time. I think
this little change of scene may be the turning point."

"Let's worry about you for a change," Gert said. "You're thin as a
bicycle. Why doesn't Cynthia fatten you up?"

Trudy came back into the room. She was in pajamas, her clothes hanging
over her arm. "I never saw such an enormous bathroom! And the tub?they
could have bathed a few children at once, those people that used to live
here. Did you notice the towel rods?two high up, for the parents I
suppose, and then three lower ones at graduated heights. They must have
had three children."

"I noticed," Edwin said, and then he began to be very busy, hanging her
clothes in the wardrobe, getting out her slippers, and fussing with a
broken latch on the window. Gert was so exasperated that she had to get
out of the room. She picked up the lantern and stepped across the hall
to turn down the beds in Cynthia's and Edwin's room.

She remembered about Trudy's pills. She didn't see them on the dresser;
they must still be in Cynthia's handbag. It was right there in front of
her, and she opened it without hesitation. Riffling through the
hodgepodge within, she found nothing that looked like pills. She was
about to call down to her sister when she saw a zippered inner pocket in
the bag and pulled it open. There was nothing in the pocket but a small
card. Gert took it out and read it.

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49

"Gull Harbor Motel, Bar Harbor, Maine," was printed on the card, with
the phone number, and under that there was a penned scrawl: "Cindy?this
is where I'm staying when I'm not out with the boys. I recommend it, not
only for comfort, but because Cabin 18, at the far right, is easily
accessible without passing the main office. If you can get into a phone,
leave a message as to when, and I'll be there. R."

Gert stared at the card. Her lips felt dry. She moistened them with the
tip of her tongue. R. Who was R.? Edwin spoke from the other room, and
hurriedly she dropped the card back in the bag, snapped it shut, and
shoved it to the back of the dresser. Crossing the hall, she blurted to
Trudy, "I'm not going to go poking around for your pills?let your mother
find them for you."

Neither of them looked up. Trudy was lying on the bed, and Edwin knelt
beside her, removing the socks she had kept on when she undressed in the
bathroom. Gert looked down at her niece. Trudy was smiling up at her
father. Not so Edwin. Although the room was chilly, there was a light
perspiration on his forehead.

"You're not just trying to reassure me, darling?" he asked hoarsely.
"You're really all right? I was afraid . . . lobster and champagne after
the long drive, and all the excitement of a new place . . ."

"No, really, Papa, I've felt fine ever since we got here."

"I can hardly believe?"

"But it's true. I feel ... I feel at home here. As though I'd come home."

"Well, then," Edwin said, getting up, his voice brightening, almost
jaunty, "we won't argue with miracles, will we?"

Suddenly Gert was frightened. There was something in the room she didn't
understand. She backed out and stood for a moment in the dark hallway,
leaning like a seasick passenger over the railing that surrounded the

50

stairwell. She wished she had never come upstairs at all, had never
opened Cynthia's handbag or seen Trudy's pale smiling face on the pillow
and Edwin's awful, yearning profile bending over it.

Presently she pulled herself together, took a deep breath, and clattered
down the stairs to the bright warmth of the living room.

"Gran, Ollie, everybody," she rallied her guests, "How about some
charades? Isn't that what they always play at family reunions? Charades!"

The charades were hilarious; Gran was the leading spirit. She did the
word "egghead" all by herself, brooding and clucking over the egg, and
for the second syllable lying on a sofa and free-associating to some
invisible headshrinker. Eloise did a charade with Mildred and Brad.
Edwin sat in a corner of the room and drank quietly and steadily. No one
appeared to notice. But Cynthia saw; in these past weeks she had taken
to counting Edwin's drinks.

After Brad's performance, he announced that it was time for them all to
go to bed if they wanted to get up early the next morning to look around
the island. How about continuing the charades tomorrow night? Gert and
the Sutherlands and Oliver would entertain them tomorrow night.

Cynthia looked over at Edwin, but he was silent, staring into his empty
glass. Sighing, she straightened in her chair and addressed their host.
"Don't count on us, Brad. I'm afraid our little contingent must leave
tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Why, you just got here! What are you talking about?leave
tomorrow?"

"I'm sorry . . . this is all very charming, but it's much more
inaccessible than we had expected. I think we had better get Trudy back
to Bar Harbor."

Brad exploded. "You knew it was an island, for Christ's sake! Of course
it's inaccessible, that's the

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51

whole point of the thing, that's what you all accepted my invitation
for?the novelty!"

"I know," Cynthia said, "but we shouldn't have accepted. I don't know
what we were expecting?something just off the mainland, I suppose, a
stone's throw. But this is ... just too much. If there was an emergency,
we might be marooned, just as you said. Once your man has gone for the
day and taken his boat with him ..."

Edwin set down his glass and set up jerkily. "Now, listen, Cynthia.
Brad's right?as long as Trudy seems so well . . . And she does, she
does! She's just been telling me how happy she is here. I think we
should stay a few days. Brad is not a man to take responsibility
lightly, and in case of emergency, there's the signal fire and the
ship's bell . . ."

"Yes, but suppose we had a storm? Heavy rain would put out the fire, and
no one could hear the bell. Or likely wouldn't respond to it if they
did. Isn't that possible?more than possible?"

"Oh, I'm sure," Mildred cried out, "that Brad and Gert would never have
asked us here if there was any risk involved!"

Gran dug a pack of cigarettes out of her jeans. "My dear girl, nothing's
any fun unless it involves risk. That's a basic fact of life."

Gert, sitting at the table and shuffling a pack of old cards, said
loudly, "Now, what's all this scare talk going on? What if we were
marooned? We've got food, liquor, all the necessities. Who's risking
anything? We're in reasonably good shape?prime of life, most of us. As
for Gran, she's going to outlive us all. So what? Somebody going to have
a baby or get a toothache or something?"

No one answered her. Oliver held a lighter for his mother's cigarette.
His eyes looked faintly bloodshot over the flame. Someone had to speak
of Trudy; Ollie was girding himself to be the spokesman.

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Mona Williams

"It you're worried about your girl, Cynthia, it appears to me that
what's mainly the matter with her is, she's growing too fast. She's all
thinned out into length. If you could just get her to eat, get a little
fat on her. We had the same trouble with Eloise when she was in the
growing stage."

Mildred took over. "I suppose you've tried iron. Trudy looks anemic to
me. Eloise took these iron pills for anemia, but, looking back now, I
think what she might have had was a mild case of mononucleosis, like
Trudy's . . ."

"For God's sake," Cynthia cried in a high ragged voice, "will you all
have the kindness, the common decency, to please stop talking? Since you
haven't the faintest understanding of what you're talking about?"

The room dropped like a stone into shocked silence. Breathing shallowly,
twisting the ring on her finger, Cynthia looked at her husband. "Edwin,
I've about come to ... perhaps, after all, since I've said so much, the
family has a right?"

"No . . . no!"

Edwin sprang up and walked to the center of the room. He stood in front
of them, arms flailing out along the mantel for support, a smile
trembling on his lips. Visibly he tried to pull himself together.

"I'm sure you'll all forgive Cynthia for being the overcautious mother.
I've tried to tell her that it may be this very solicitousness, treating
her as an invalid, that holds Trudy back. When a young girl is ill, even
temporarily, everyone suffers. Yes, we've had a bad time! But, as I'm
sure Cynthia will willingly admit, since Trudy and I have always been so
close, since I've always made the decisions for her, that if"?he rubbed
distractedly at the side of his face, his words slurred a little?"that
if there were any real danger in our remaining here, that I would be the
first. . . the first. . ."

Gert rescued him. "That's right," she cried, glaring

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53

around the room. "When it comes to Trudy, I think we can all count on
Edwin's not taking any risks."

"I'm going out," Edwin said suddenly. "I'd like a little walk in the
fresh air."

He went to the door and stood there, motionless and irresolute. The
ghostly dripping from fog-wet trees wove into the silence.

"Should he go?" Mildred asked them in a tiny scared whisper. "I mean,
hasn't he had too much to drink? Why, he could step off a rock, get
carried off by the waves! Ollie, you go with him."

Obediently Oliver started up, but Cynthia stopped him. She took a
flashlight from the mantel and brought it to her husband.

"Here. You'll need this. Do you want me to come with you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Go on, then." She closed the door after him and
turned back into the room. "No one need worry about him," she said in a
tight, hard voice. "He won't step off a rock. Do you think he'd let
anything happen to him as long as Trudy needs him?"

The boy, Jody, had been put to bed early, but he was too stimulated to
sleep. He had been given the smallest room, over the woodshed, and on
the table beside him stood a portable lantern, battery-operated, turned
to dim. He could hear very faintly adult sounds from downstairs, his
Aunt Gert's high laughter and Uncle Brad's authoritative voice. After a
time another sound came to him, which began to concentrate all his
attention. It seemed to come from below, in the woodshed or just outside
it, a mufHed thump of heavy objects being cautiously moved. He was a
venturesome boy, more interested than scared. He listened for a time as
the sounds continued, intermittent but persistent, as though some
purpose was involved.

Jody got up, and carrying his lantern, made his way

54

Mona Williams

past the closed door of the sleeping porch to the back stairs. At the
bottom he knew there was a door into the woodshed, and a crack under it
told him that there was also some feeble illumination behind the door.

Jody left his lantern still turned to dim on a step halfway down and
felt his way to the bottom. He put his hand on the knob and listened.
Someone was working on the great pile of wood Uncle Brad had had cut and
piled for their stay there. Part of it was cut to stove and fireplace
size and stacked ready for use, but there were great logs, nearly tree
size, just outside. Almost against his will he opened the door a crack.

A kerosene lantern burning in a glass carrier set on a sawhorse in the
wide shed doorway showing the big logs outside and the stacked pile
inside; nothing else was visible. But from beyond, he heard a faraway
splash, as of some heavy thing hurled off the steep cliff just outside
into the sea. The next moment a man appeared in the open outer doorway
and bent to pick up another big log lying outside. As he turned, he saw
Jody.

They stared at each other a moment. The man was tall, broad, bare-armed,
and muscular. He wore a heavy black beard, and his dark hair was long
and ragged. The man put down the huge log and strode over to Jody.

He put his hands roughly on the boy's shoulders. Numb with shock, the
child didn't move.

"We can't have you here?you tell your folks that. I don't want to hurt
you, but you can't stay. You understand what I'm saying? That if you and
your folks try to stay, you all could get hurt."

The boy nodded.

"I never come to this house unless I have to. I don't like it. This here
tonight is just a sign to your family that they got to leave. If I have
to come again, it will be worse. Worse for you. Don't send anybody
looking for me, because I'll be gone. Nobody but you's ever seen me, or
will. You just get it straight to 'em what I just told you, you understand?"

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55

"Yes."

The man took his lantern and went away. The flickering light went with
him. Jody stood there in the dark until he was sure he was gone. He
thought of going to the living room and telling them all, the grown-ups.
He got as far as the cooling deck, thinking about it. Here there was a
faint milky moonlight beginning to shine through the clearing fog. He
could just make out the forms of the lobsters laid out on the counter.

He thought he saw a movement, a claw waving about, but his mind was too
full to think much about lobsters.

He knew what the grown-ups would say?that he'd had a nightmare, he'd had
them before, almost as real as this.

In the end, he went back to the enclosed back stair-. way, picked up his
electric lamp, and went back up to his bed. In the morning he himself
might think it was a nightmare.

Right now, he knew it wasn't.

56 Cynthia lay in her bed staring at the delicate moving pattern of leaf
and moonlight on the ceiling. As Mrs. Coffin had predicted, the fog was
gone. From Edwin, who was lying in the bed a few feet away, she heard
nothing. Sleeping or waking, there was no longer any communication
between them.

He had come in an hour before and undressed hi the half-dark. The
lantern had been left burning hi the hall between then" room and
Trudy's. There was nothing they could risk saying with the doors between
the two rooms left open.

For half an hour she had lain rigid, pretending sleep, listening for the
sound of breathing that might tell her Edwin slept. She was desperately
sorry for him. How could he sleep after that wild and solitary walk,
which must have cleared the alcohol from his head? Unless he had taken a
sleeping pill.

Reluctantly her thoughts crept back to a subject she had been trying to
avoid. Could Edwin, looking for Trudy's pills, which she had later found
in her dressing case, have opened her handbag to look for them? A

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57

woman's handbag is private property; no one, not even, a husband, opens
it without some feeling of trespassing. Especially would Edwin, with his
sense of privacy, feel so.

But unless the handbag had been opened, how could the card have been
removed from the zippered side pocket, so that it was the first thing
she saw, lying loose and exposed, when she opened the bag? She tried to
think back. Could she have removed the card herself from the pocket and
left it that way? No!

She had been too guiltily aware that she should never have kept it at
all. There had been no reason to?the name of the motel, the number of
the cabin, were engraved in her memory. Still, she had kept the card.
Why? Because it was tangible evidence that, in the midst of death, she
was loved . . . alive.

There in firm bold handwriting was tacit acknowledgment, signed only by
an initial, yet carrying all the force of the man himself, a handwriting
that until recently she had known only from pages torn from a desk pad
stamped ralph healy, M.D. She had watched his strong, thick fingers (so
different from Edwin's) grasp a pen and write out rapidly, almost
angrily, prescriptions that he knew were only palliatives.

But the words on the motel card had been written, not in anger, but in
desire?love.

In love. Love. She kept the word constantly in mind, as a traveler keeps
a ready hand on his passport. She believed now that she could go
anywhere with it, since she had first crossed crucial border between the
familiar tidy country of faithful-wife-hood into a dark jungle of
concealment and infidelity, so long as she clung to that one word. Love.
She and Ralph Healy were in love.

We're two of a kind, she thought; we recognized each other at once.
Even, so it seemed to her now, as far back as that first day after he
had examined Trudy, and then, leaving the girl outside with his nurse,
he had

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Mona Williams

asked her and Edwin to come into his inner office, closing the door
behind them.

"Well, I don't know any easy way to tell you this . . ." And then, as he
continued to tell them, the words, like blunt heavy hammer blows, had
for a few moments mercifully almost numbed understanding. Only Cynthia's
senses continued to function. She could still recall just how he had
looked, standing there, leaning against his desk, half a head shorter
than Edwin, but thick and planted like a tree. Enormously physical, as
she was?yes, like herself, perhaps a little coarse.

But he had been enough of a physician to see that for the moment the
girl's father was his second patient. The hammer blows stopped,
restoratives were applied, but not for her. She had known that even
then. The false and healing words were only for Edwin. Her memory could
play them back as faithfully as a tape recorder.

"There is not at the present time any proven cure, although premature
announcements are constantly being made. Maybe the miracle will occur
during Trudy's lifetime. I would say she is at present in a subacute
stage. There are several drugs which are enormously helpful, can prolong
remissions for weeks, months even; the patient regains what appears to
be normal health, can live normally. But gradually the body builds up
resistance to the drug, its effectiveness is gone. So we try another.
When that becomes useless, there's something else. The effect of the
drugs is to suppress blood-forming tissue in the bone marrow and to
reduce the multiplication of white blood cells. Later on, she'll have
blood transfusions, which have a dramatically instant effect?although
not long-lasting. Experimentation never ceases, we are never without
hope. But you cannot expect a cure."

Edwin had sat slumped in a chair like a man in a coma. This was the time
of shock before the frantic protests, the desperate evasions had set in.
Over his head, Dr. Healy had looked at Cynthia. His eyes said to her:

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59

There is hope only for one who must have it to live. You and I are the
strong ones.

Cynthia had returned his gaze steadily. But inside, the massive and
terrible adjustment was taking place. Leukemia. It did not occur to her
to think: This is only one man's opinion. They would, of course, go to
other doctors. This was just the beginning of the frenzied pursuit of a
miracle. But neither Cynthia nor Ralph Healy believed in miracles.

That was months ago. The date was unforgettable?January 19, in
Virginia's chill, wet, snowless winter. Trudy was just reaching her
sixteenth birthday. She had graduated from high school the June before,
two years younger than most of her classmates, too young to go away to
college or a music conservatory. It had been decided (Edwin, who could
not bear to part with her, had decided) that this year she would remain
at home and study with a local music teacher.

It was last Christmas that they had really begun to worry about her,
when she often came home early from holiday parties?Trudy, who loved
parties?and began to have mysterious attacks of fatigue. The family
doctor treated her for anemia, but it didn't help. Then came the
nosebleeds and the swelling glands in her neck. They were referred to a
specialist in diseases of the blood?a Dr. Healy.

From the January day when they first took her to him, on into spring,
into summer, Ralph Healy became a part of their lives, of Cynthia's
life. She saw him regularly every ten days, oftener when Trudy had a bad
spell. At such times he came to their house on Monument Avenue, bringing
with him some new drug. Usually they helped; then, for several weeks,
the young girl was well enough to go out, to see her friends, continue
with her music and lead a nearly normal life. At such times the office
visits seemed only routine, a new habit they had fallen into, a mildly
pleasant outing.

How did it happen that, when Edwin had always been

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Mona Williams

Trudy's self-appointed guardian, it was Cynthia who always took her to
the doctor? They lived on Edwin's comfortable inheritance; he occupied
himself with a charity organization, but since he wasn't paid for it, he
could take time off whenever he needed or wanted to. The tacit
assumption was that the office visits were too hard on Edwin
emotionally, and although she was not aware of it then, Cynthia saw
later that she and the doctor had fostered this assumption.

They had not needed to speak of it; they understood each other too well.
If, without flinching, she could face the truth about Trudy, she could
face something else as well, a burgeoning between herself and the
doctor, a new beginning.

Not at first. No, at first, like any despairing mother, she had turned
to God. She had gone to church, to kneel in the dusty twilight of the
Sutherland family pew, where the harsh edges of reality might be
dissolved in stained glass and organ music, and so make her peace with
tragedy.

But Edwin had shut himself away, wrapped in a cocoon of illusion and
substanceless hope, and Cynthia was too earthy a woman to come to terms
with God without another warm and human hand clasped in her own. For
comfort she had to look elsewhere. To Ralph Healy.

Did the doctor have a private life? She knew of him only what was
necessary for her to know. He had two children in school in Switzerland,
and his wife had gone abroad for their summer holiday late in May to
take them on a leisurely tour of Europe and expose them to its ancient
beauties. Whether this was the sole reason for their long separation or
whether it also indicated a rift in the marriage, she did not ask. It
was enough that he was, for a time, unencumbered.

Sometimes she thought that the reason it seemed quite natural to never
discuss his marriage (although from

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61

the beginning she had talked to him freely of her own) was that he was a
doctor. With a doctor one takes it for granted that the subject of vital
interest to both is oneself. Candor is expected only of the patient; the
doctor counters with analysis and prescription. Certainly he was not
expected to reciprocate with revelations about himself.

Often she would bring Trudy to his office late in the afternoon, just
when the nurse and his last patient were leaving. Then, after a routine
examination, she would put the girl in a taxi, send her home, and return
for a few moments of privacy to discuss the case as they could not in
front of either Trudy or Edwin.

Often the painfulness of these talks was eased from the bottle of
bourbon he kept in his desk drawer. When that happened, the talk would
spread in widening ripples from Trudy to other matters. Of the patient,
there was so pitifully little to say. And of Cynthia so much?so much!

"In the end, Cindy . . ." She recalled that day?it was the first time he
had addressed her so, by that endearing diminutive. "In the end, I think
you'll discover that this hell you're going through now may have its
compensations. It could very likely save your marriage. It takes a
hard-boiled man to tell you this, but that I am, and I think you need
the telling. After all this is over, you're going to have Edwin back in
a way you've never had him before. You'll be his only way back to
sanity, eventually to the normal zest a healthy man takes in simply
being alive. I'm assuming you want to save your marriage. . . . Do you?"

"I... Oh, I guess. I can't imagine abandoning Edwin if he needs me."

"You'll need him. Without someone like Edwin, without the
self-discipline you'll have to have to handle him ... well, you could
really go off the deep end."

"How would I?" she asked, only mildly interested. Supposition didn't
interest her, only the here and now.

62

"You could take to the bottle, for one thing. Or promiscuous sex. You're
a big strong girl. If you get knocked down, you don't just lie there.
No, you're back on your feet building up a big head of steam. If there
were someone dependent on you, in worse shape than you were, you just
might be saved."

"I don't know. I'm pretty tough."

"Tough enough to ride out all the hangovers, the diminishing returns in
your love life, the damaged pride, all of the problems of growing older?
I've seen women who could outride everything but their appetites, and
believe me, girl, beyond a certain age, that can be hell, too."

"That's my mother. You've drawn a very accurate portrait of my mother."

"Then she never had anyone like Edwin to take care of."

"No."

"Of course, what you really need is another baby. Edwin, too, although I
realize it would take some convincing."

"At our age?" She laughed harshly. "You know how long it has been since
Edwin has touched me? And when he loses Trudy, no matter how dependent
he is on me in other ways, I know very well there'd be nothing left of
him sexually?nothing."

"You could seduce him, Cynthia; as you must well know, you're a very
seductive woman."

He was speaking for himself now?they both knew it ?the tendrils of
desire that were growing up between them reaching out in the meeting of
eyes, the touch of hands. She recalled the instant response of her body
the day they came down from the office in an end-of-day jammed elevator
and she was pressed back against him. The chemistry between them was
there, maturing, biding its time.

The time came a week later. Ralph had made an appointment with another
specialist in Washington who

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would examine Trudy. The man was using tricky new techniques, and they
should have his opinion. Primarily it was Edwin who needed this, so
there was no question but that he would take the girl to Washington.
Ralph made all the arrangements for them. It would be an overnight trip,
since the examination would take place early in the morning, and Trudy
must be rested for it.

In all this, Cynthia knew that Ralph was sincere. He knew that
Edwin?that they all?should have this second verdict. He would have
recommended it if Cynthia had not existed?she was convinced of that.
Nonetheless, it would give them that night together. They had no need to
discuss it except for the details.

"Shall I come to you? Or would you rather . . . ? You know, I'm living
quite alone now, except for a woman who comes in and cleans during the
day. My wife left the first of the week."

She shook her head. "No. I'd rather it be someplace that has no
associations for either of us."

"A hotel, then. I'll find the right one and call you. It's fairly
certain that Edwin won't call until morning, after the examination."

At seven she met him in the hotel lobby, a little taken aback by his
street clothes?she had never seen him except in his starched office
whites. Why, he's just a man like any other attractive man, she thought,
and the realization eased her in some way. She felt a lovely richness of
time ahead of them, so different from the pressures of those stolen
moments in his office. They would have cocktails and dinner before they
went up to their room?to savor their leisure.

This was her decision. She saw his impatience; their time had come, and
he would have preferred to postpone lesser appetites until they had
satisfied this long-delayed body hunger. Still, if she wanted it, he
would permit her this nicety of foreplay. They went into the dining
room, and he ordered drinks.

"Considering the occasion," he began with bis first

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Mona Williams

sip of the martinis, "I presume a little more verbal intimacy than
heretofore may be permitted."

"What does that mean?"

"There are certain questions I've wanted to ask that I've hesitated to
ask you. Such as: How was it with you and Edwin in the beginning?"

"I see. Yes, you might wonder. Two such different people."

"Exactly. I have a scientific interest in crossbreeding. How did you
ever get together?"

"Well, it began when I was a freshman in college. Eighteen. He was in
the English department at that time, an instructor. He had to work
then?it was before his father died and he came into the money. The whole
freshman class was in love with him. Remember Leslie Howard in Gone with
the Wind? I'd just seen that picture?a revival. Edwin had that same
sensitive, easily wounded look, but with that kind of dash about him,
too. Gallant?what people mean by the word 'gallant.5 Well, he singled me
out. He made love to me in poetry."

"That sounds rather ... abstract."

"Not really, he made it personal. Once he sent me one perfect creamy
long-stemmed rose. With a note saying, 'Perfection should happen to a
man only once, as you've happened to me.'"

He gave a little laugh, indulgent and derisive.

"Yes, I know," she said quickly, defensively. "But Edwin talked that way
naturally. He was a poet. Poets aren't supposed to have much humor. And
you see what all that about the perfection would do to a quite ordinary
young girl who had a cavity in a back tooth, freckles on her arms, and a
rash on her left shoulder? Now suddenly I remember something."

"Tell me."

"Even then, Edwin was time-obsessed. He wrote me a kind of love
poem?that is, the love part was incidental to the rest. I memorized it
then, and I can still recite it verbatim."

65

"Recite it, then."

She set down her glass, sat up straight, and intoned:

"Beneath the glassy surface of our days, Behind the clock that meets the
passing eye Bland and unmoving?in the frozen seed Deep buried in the
earth, and, yes, within Our sworn fidelity, our timeless love Stealthy
and never ceasing?something moves.

"The eye cannot detect it or the ear, Only in blood and bone and nerve
and cell That, like the embryo within the womb Can mark the straw-eight
of a single hour?Sounds the precise relentless tick of change."

"Not bad," Ralph said, and then, bluntly, as if he deliberately opposed
himself to Edwin's fine feelings: "How about sex? When did the yearning
and the panting stage set in?"

"Not for quite a time. We stayed up on that lofty plane for weeks. I was
the one who kept wanting . . . something a bit more demonstrative. I'm
not sure I want to talk about it." But after a moment she went on. "I
think I started out bad?precocious. Oh, my God, not like Trudy, not
gifted, not a prodigy. I was precocious about boys. I was the little
girl the little boys took behind the bushes to play doctor with."

"Get back to Edwin."

"Yes, Edwin. Well, I suppose what I did was provoke him with the usual
display of cleavage and revealing clothes, but what I really did was to
make him conscious of his body. I would touch him, sit close enough so
we were touching, or say something physical. 'You're perspiring,' I
would say deliberately. He wouldn't be, but I'd say it anyway. 'What are
you so excited about?' I'd say. Well, in the end . . .

"Yes. And immediately, he insisted on marrying me.

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Mona Williams

It was a response so ingrained in him from generations of honorable
Virginian forebears that I don't think he ever questioned it. So we were
married. Trudy wasn't born until five years later. During those five
years we had what I think could be called by most standards a good
marriage."

"Good in what way?"

"In most ways. I left college, moved him out of the gloomy old place he
was living in?this was before his father died, before we had the income
from the estate?into an attractive apartment. I made him very
comfortable, and never bothered him about domestic details. I was a good
cook and a respecter of his work. He put on weight and was promoted to
full professor. That was good. I was lazy mentally. I loved having him
be the brains of the family."

The doctor said dryly, "I'm still waiting to hear if he became converted
to the pleasures of the flesh along with all the other domestic comforts."

She hesitated. "I can't really answer that. I think the best way to put
it is, he became converted to me. I think the very fact that I was so
different. . . You see, I was his contact with reality, with the real
raw crude business of daily living. In a way, I was his contact with his
own body. He got quite dependent on me ... yes, even on sex. But... I
don't know ... his own way, a funny kind of a way it would seem to you."

"All this until you had a baby."

"Oh, that changed everything. My pregnancy was our first bad time. I was
sick, to begin with, and when that was over, I couldn't stop eating and
got so big and awkward, and I kept thinking all the time how Edwin
worshiped beauty. We both just suffered through it. And then, out of it,
that gross animal thing, came that beautiful baby. From the beginning,
she looked just like Edwin.

"Then, as she grew older, her talent began to come out. He was
transported. He confided in me?he had

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had dreams of being a musician. He gave her her first lessons, picking
out notes on the piano, holding one of her little fingers in his. Well,
by then we had the family money, and since his job kept him away from
Trudy too much, he just gave it up. We could still live very
comfortably, but still?a promising academic career! Tossed away, just so
he could spend more time with his daughter. That's when he got tfte
no-pay, no-obligation job that took so little of his time, the one he
has now."

"And the marriage was not as good as it had been."

"Well, it was different."

"You want another drink. No, you don't, I'll order dinner." And picking
up the menu, he said, "There are two kinds of attractions that bring
people together. Want attractions and need attractions. A dog will go
for red meat, but he'll also eat grass if there's a condition in his
digestive system that requires it. You and I are red meat for each
other. My mouth salivates when you walk into the room. But we may be
better off with a diet that supplies the elements which we're deficient
in. Which I think you get from Edwin, or used to, before he became the
dedicated father."

"I suppose so."

He didn't add: And what I get from my wife. But he might as well have.

She was abruptly bored with the conversation. She looked across the
table at his square hands, and she had a sudden strong desire to feel
them on her flesh. She said, her voice thickening, "Let's skip dinner.
We can have something sent up later on, can't we? I think I'm ready to
go upstairs now."

The first thing she saw in the room was the flowers on the desk beside
the television set. No florist's box, just a big bunch of garden
flowers, a clash of color, held loosely together with a rubber band. He
must have picked them up from a road stand. His eye followed

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Mona Williams

hers, and he said ruefully, "Not much like one perfect rose, are they?"

"No, but I think they suit me better." A rush of emotion invaded her. "I
must put them in water."

She picked them up, looking blindly around the pleasant two-room suite,
seeing nothing she could put flowers in. She took them into the
bathroom, ran water in the bowl, and thrust the stems into it. Her face
looked back at her in the mirror above the basin, and it struck her that
she had never looked so well, her eyes dark and lustrous, all her
features full and rich. It was only, she decided, in contrast to Edwin
and Trudy that she looked overrich, overripe.

He was waiting for her to come back; she could hear the sound of his
impatience in the way he kicked off his shoes. She couldn't put him off
any longer, nor did she want to. Love between man and woman is a
cannibal, she thought?it must feed on flesh and blood or die.

It was the only full night they had together, and she had never doubted
that it was during that insatiable night that she became pregnant. Near
the end of May, it was?going on three months ago. He knew as well as she
that she was not on the pill, there were no precautions taken, yet they
had never again discussed a possible pregnancy. Had he considered it
unlikely at her age? Not so, she thought, with a twinge of pride! And
she pictured herself announcing the news quite calmly as soon as she
could get away to Cabin 18 in the Gull Harbor Motel. She had no idea
what would happen after that. Neither of them had ever spoken of
breaking up their marriages for each other.

All she was sure of was that he would want her to have the baby. He
would be glad that he had been able to give her what he had once
prescribed for her and Edwin, and that she would agree with him?she
regretted nothing.

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69

Edwin's voice, very low in the darkness, said, "Are you awake?"

"Yes."

A needle of alarm went through her. She waited in dreadful certainty for
him to speak of the card in her handbag. But no, his mind was on
something else.

"Cynthia, you weren't serious about leaving here tomorrow?"

She adjusted herself, she answered him as reasonably as she could. "How
could I not be serious? You know how I felt about coming here in the
first place. Now, seeing how it is, I can only feel more so."

"But a few days! Trudy is so happy here." He was pleading with her now.
"You saw how well she was tonight. How she enjoyed herself."

She said carefully, "I thought she seemed to take the trip?the evening,
too?very well indeed. It's just that if anything should happen ..."

He gave a stifled cry. "Nothing will happen! For God's sake, spare us
all these dire prophecies! Give her a chance?"

"Remember, the doors are open," she murmured.

They were both silent a moment, listening. Then very quietly she rose
and closed their door. He said then in a faintly petulant one, "Have you
anything to make me sleep? You usually have something, don't
you?Nembu-tal or tranquilizers? I left mine in the glove compartment of
the car."

Her heart gave a lurch. "Did you ... did you happen to look for some in
my handbag?"

"In your bag? No, of course not."

Of course not. He would no more poke about in her handbag than she would
go through his pockets. She should know that. But who, then? Fact and
supposition shuffled silently in her mind like the soundless fall of
snow in a toy paperweight. Suddenly, with enormous relief, she recalled
that Jody had been taken upstairs

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Mona Williams

early, that Mildred had to go up twice to settle him in bed. He had been
prowling around, he had got into her bag, it had been only a child's
idle curiosity.

"There are times I feel I've forgotten how to sleep, that it's a skill I
once had and lost," Edwin was complaining.

"I'll get you something." She rose from her bed, shivering, found her
dressing case and some sleeping pills, and brought two of them to Edwin.
"Can you take them without water? If I try to find my way to the
bathroom, I'll wake everyone." But she knew that he couldn't, his palate
was too sensitive, a lump in a dish of cereal could make him gag.

Suddenly he clutched at her hand. "Cynthia. T know how hard life is for
you now. You feel the whole brunt of responsibility. In bringing Trudy
here, you feel that her safety is entirely your concern. At the same
time, you feel that she and I?that we shut you out. Well, then, be one
of us?let me share your responsibility, and you share my hope. You
mustn't give way to despair, Cynthia? Tonight, when I saw what you were
about to say to the family, what you have, or think you have accepted as
inevitable, I was horrified. But you didn't say it."

"No, I didn't say it."

"Why? Because in your heart you can't?any more than I can?truly accept
it. Help me, Cynthia. If you'll only help, we can hold it off . . ."

His voice choked into silence; his hand clung to hers. Did it matter
what he was asking for? One gave what one had to give. Besides, didn't
she need him now even more than he did her? She had no future with Ralph
Healy. A seductive woman, Ralph had called her; once she had been that
to Edwin. Guile was creeping into her compassion; hating it, she could
not put it down. Plenty of babies were born weeks too soon?and lived.
And Edwin was so naive about physical things. But still, a man who had
loved her?yes, once loved her body,

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71

too . . . She sank to her knees beside his bed. A warm gush of words
poured out of her.

"Edwin, listen, while I still have the courage to say it. You ask me for
help?sharing. Yes, well, I've thought about this, about the only
possible solution for us. Don't say no automatically, don't take it as
disloyalty to Trudy?all I ask is that you think about it, as I have.
Edwin, we must have another baby! I'm not too old, I'd still be under
forty when it was born, plenty of women my age have babies.

"All the love and joy and pride that we've had in Trudy?if the worst
should happen?what shall we do with them, where will be a new home for
our feelings? Another child, Edwin, not like her, no one could be, but
still our own, a child of our own to love. Don't shut me out, away from
you, Edwin, it's so bad for us. Should we starve ourselves when we can
comfort each other as man and wife? . . ."

She dropped her gown and slid into his bed, naked, feeling her own body
heat enough for them both. He stiffened and then went rigid as she lay
on him, moving rhythmically, skillfully, her mouth stilling his, until
she felt his groaning response. Triumphant, she could rear back, astride
him, and see their bodies linked together, his closed eyes and impassive
face. What was behind it? She fell forward again so she could no longer
see him. His body, a traitor to him, labored compulsively to the
appointed climax; they lay still, his head turned sideways away from
her. So she had won?but what? A future, perhaps, for Ralph Healy's baby?

She heard nothing, but something caught Edwin's ear ?a creak of
floorboards from the hall? He sprang out of bed, toppling her aside. She
heard his voice from the hallway before she hardly realized that he had
left her.

"My darling girl, what is it? Why are you up? What are you trying to do?"

"Oh, Papa, did I wake you? I just thought I'd get the lantern you left
in the bathroom and bring it in here

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Mona Williams

awhile. I had a kind of strange dream. Remember when I played at the
museum concert and the photographers were there with all those hot
lights shining on me? That was what I was dreaming about. Then I
wakened, and there was just enough light from the hall so that I kept
seeing faces peering out at me from behind those trees on that funny old
wallpaper."

"Let me tuck you back in bed, darling. I'll light the lamp by your
bed?that should chase away the faces."

By the time Cynthia had found her dressing gown, Edwin had the lamp lit
in Trudy's room. She stood in the doorway and looked at them. Edwin had
his hand on the girl's forehead.

"She may have a little fever," Cynthia said almost coldly. "She usually
does at night. Why don't you take her temperature? I'll get the
thermometer for you."

They waited, silent, while Trudy held the thermometer in her mouth.
Edwin took it out and bent over it. He said wonderingly, "No fever.
Cynthia, do you hear? It's perfectly normal."

"I think Aunt Gert put too many blankets over me?that's why I dreamed of
heat." She was still in bed, but sitting upright, clasping her knees,
her eyes large and brilliant. "We're terrible guests, Mama," she
whispered. "All this commotion. If anybody wakes, just let's tell them
that we wanted to be up with the birds. Are any birds up yet?"

"I'm afraid not. It will be a long time till morning."

"Well, birds are very early risers. I don't intend to miss them. The fog
is all gone, blown away. Do you see the moon path across the water? Like
a crinkly scarf with gold sequins. If you saw it on a calendar you'd say
it was just too corny for words. But here it's beautiful."

"What's this about seeing faces?"

"Oh, that was just a silly coming-out-of-a-dream. I see now that there's
nothing but trees."

Cynthia looked at the walls, at the brownish-green clumps of trees, at
the dark spreading branches, re-

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peated endlessly around the room. "Could you lie down now, baby, and
stop talking? It will be a good two hours before you hear any birds."

The girl slid down obediently. Cynthia removed the top blanket and
smoothed over the covers. She could see nothing else that she could do.
She said to Edwin, "Now that I'm up, I'll get you that glass of water."

"I don't think I want to take anything now. I've slept enough. I think
I'm going to sit in here for a while."

Cynthia stood there, watching, while he pulled an old rocking chair near
to the bed and settled himself in it.

"Isn't this an absolutely dreamy place?" Trudy said softly, smiling at
the lamplight on the ceiling. "Let's stay here as long as they'll have us."

"We'll talk about that in the morning," her father said. He glanced at
Cynthia. "See if you can't get some sleep. I'll be back in a little while."

He leaned over and lowered the lamp wick to a blue rim of flame, then
settled back again in the chair. Slip-perless, Cynthia walked back
across the cold hall floor to the other room. She got into her own bed
heavily, like a woman who was no longer very young.

74

The fog was gone, the morning was such a dazzle of light that the eye
narrowed against it. The sun, just over the horizon, made a broad sheet
of diamonds across the water. An aspen outside the big window glittered;
the leaves, touched by the early sunlight, hung almost motionless, like
bright yellow-green coins.

Gert and Brad were up first; they had never quite outgrown the old days
when they got half a day's work done before breakfast. They wrapped
themselves in sweaters, made some instant coffee on the butane camp
stove they had brought with them, and brought it out on the breakfast
porch that faced the east. They drank their coffee companionably. Gert
had not had a good night; worry and foreboding had gnawed into her
sleep. But this was a new day?impossible to look at this gorgeous
morning without a lift of heart!

"Look how clear it is," Brad pointed out. "You can see that lighthouse
Mariner was telling us about. Look?over there, to your right.

Gert looked, slitting her eyes, so that the light danced in pinpoints
between her lids. "The mainland, too. You

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75

can almost make out the shapes of the houses on Tip-ton Point."

Brad breathed deeply. "Not a breath of wind. You could paddle a raft
across and hardly get wet. All that hysterical talk last night about our
being marooned!" He snorted with pride of property, as though even the
weather were his to bestow as an added attraction upon his guests.

Gert unbuttoned her heavy sweater as warmth crept into the morning sun.
Setting down her coffee, which wasn't very good, she lowered her voice,
hitching closer to Brad.

"I can't believe Cynthia meant what she said about leaving. Not on a day
like this. Trudy loves it here?she's got a strong little will of her
own, you know. If they whisked her off today, she'd want to know why.
Why, she might get the idea she was really sick, that they were keeping
something from her. Edwin would never risk that?even if it were true."

"I think you're right."

She nodded, her face resolute and merciless with love. "Cynthia wouldn't
dare take her away from us on a day like this."

There was movement in the kitchen, a brisk clattering of stove lids and
the drum of water drawn from a tap. Gert went to the kitchen door. "Why,
Mrs. Coffin?good morning! I see we have another early riser. Don't tell
me you're going to start breakfast so soon."

"Well, I'm going to build up a pot of coffee." Casting a brief
contemptuous glance at the butane stove, she laid an efficient
crisscross of kindling in the great iron stove, opened the draft on the
stovepipe, and applied a match to the paper and kindling. "Might as well
get a fire going now. Look up there." She pointed to a square of
grillwork hi the ceiling directly over the stove. "That's a register to
let the stove heat up into the bathroom. I see you brought all that
bacon; what I thought was, I'd oven-fry some. Smell of bacon will go
right up with the

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Mona Williams

heat, and I don't know any kinder way to get folks up in the morning."

"That's quite an idea." Gert emptied her cooling cup into the sink. "If
you're making coffee anyway, might as well make enough for us all."

"Might as well. While we're waiting, I thought I'd get started picking
over that lobster meat."

Mrs. Coffin went out to the cooling deck, and Gert lingered a moment,
listening to the hearty shout of the stove chimney as the fire caught
hold. Just then she heard Mrs. Coffin's voice raised in bewilderment and
dismay.

"Now, what in the world . . . where are they? I laid them out right here!"

Brad, still admiring his view from the breakfast porch, heard her too,
and they both followed her outcry out onto the cooling deck. It was a
long narrow area, screened on the open ocean side and so placed as to
avoid the sun even on warm days. A built-in counter ran the length of
it, covered with oilcloth scrubbed clean. The great old icebox stood at
one end, shelves at the other, with lowered shutters designed to draw in
cool sea winds. It had probably been an important storage device for
perishable foods, and still could be. Mrs. Coffin was still staring at
the empty counter.

"I laid them right out there soon's they cooled enough to handle! Just
before I went up the back stairs to bed. No kind of wood critter big
enough to carry off six lobsters could get in here. Look at that
screening. Not a hole in it."

They looked. There were two entries to the cooling deck, one from the
kitchen, protected from stove heat by a heavy swinging door, and at the
far end, a door into the woodshed. Brad went over to it. "You realize
this door isn't flush with the floor? That's because of the step down
into the woodshed. There's about a three-inch gap here. And the shed's
open. Some small ani-

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mal, I suppose it's possible, could have wriggled under it."

"Got through and been smart enough to come back six times and carry them
all off? Not leaving any mess? No cracked shells around? No, I wouldn't
think much of that notion, Mr. Bradley."

"I don't suppose they could have come to and just crawled away?" Gert
asked helplessly. "That gap looks high enough to me for a lobster to get
through."

Mrs. Coffin laughed scornfully. "Not unless there was holy water in that
pot. No, once a lobster is dead, he doesn't resurrect. And I tell you I
made good and sure they were that, boiled them twice as long as I
usually do. No sir, when I laid 'em out on that shelf, they were dead."

Brad looked at Gert. "You think that kid, Jody?you never know what a
kid's idea of a joke is . . ."

"Oh, Brad, no! Mildred took him up to bed long before the rest of us
went. I just can't see him sneaking back down here in a dark strange
house. Why, he couldn't even see to hide them anyplace. No, it couldn't
be Jody."

"Well, there's got to be some explanation," Brad said sharply. "I'd hate
to think there was some sneak thief on this island who had no business
here."

Only half-consciously he turned his head in the direction of the shack
on the island's tip, and seeing this, Mrs. Coffin said quickly, "If
you're thinking about that old couple, the Leamings, don't think it, Mr.
Bradley. Don't ever tell anyone in town you thought it. The Leamings are
kind of like a legend to us now; only a few of the oldsters ever saw
them, but we all grew up on the gospel story that they were
self-appointed guardians to this island. That they never laid a finger
on anything in this house or allowed anybody else to."

"Well, it makes a nice legend." Brad got the door into the woodshed open
and said, peering into it, "Senior citizens don't carry much clout as
caretakers."

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Mona Williams

"I'm not talking about muscle power. I don't rightly know what I am
talking about. Well, yes, I do. I'm talking about the bad things that
happened to people who tried to land here and had no business to.
Vacationers, people who thought because nobody lived in this house it
was up for grabs. Wild kids who heard stories about the place and had to
test out how brave they were."

"What bad things happened?" Gert asked.

"Oh, broke an arm or a leg or ate poisoned mushrooms and got terrible
sick?you got to watch out, there's both good and bad mushrooms grow
here. Or people from far away, who didn't know this water, got a boat
cracked up on a reef."

"And all those disasters are attributed to the Learnings and their
self-appointed function of keeping off intruders?" Brad had asked
sarcastically.

Mrs. Coffin looked at him coolly. "Let's just say that over the years we
townspeople have developed a healthy respect for them."

"Anybody ever get killed here?"

"On the island? Not that I ever heard of. Killed or died either." She
thought for a moment. "Of course, the Wyndom children?well, that's
another story." Her voice grew crisp. "I'm going to put in the bacon
now. Stove's ready for it." She went back into the kitchen.

The Bradleys remained, looking thoughtfully at each other. "What about
the Wyndom children?" Gert asked.

"I don't know?no record of them in what the lawyers dug up. All they
could find was that old man Wyndom died without leaving a legal will,
though there was some story about a couple who worked for him destroying
his will and forging another. If so, the forgery wasn't very convincing,
because it was thrown out, which legally left the estate to next of kin,
his sisters. Including this island. Apparently the sisters weren't the
type for islands?anyway, they never lived here. Never sold it, either. I
guess never needed the money. Of

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course, islands weren't worth much in those days, and this one was
scarred with the meteor pit, physically and psychologically. Could be
they couldn't sell it then, and after they grew old, kind of forgot
about it."

"Still, they're alive, aren't they?"

"Just about. Had a lawyer smart enough to advertise this place when he
found it in their holdings, but?lucky for us?not smart enough to have
any idea what it was worth. As for the Wyndom children, well . . ." He
dropped his voice, nodding toward the kitchen. "Don't forget, Mrs.
Coffin, among her more useful talents, is a skilled hint-dropper."

Gert argued, "Well, whatever happened to the Wyn-doms, or the meteor
either, can't be blamed on the Learnings. They didn't show up in North
Fork until weeks after that. Mrs. Ramsdell, at the hotel, told me about
them. Brad, are you bothered by all these peculiar disaster stories.
Intruders breaking arms and legs . . ." She gave her husband a
half-smile to make light of the question.

"Absolutely not. In the first place, we are not intruders. We own this
island, bought and paid for, every acre of it." He gave an angry little
laugh. "Oh, for Christ's sake, what are we talking about? Legends?even
Mrs. Coffin called them that, all her little horror stories. All
abandoned islands have legends. That's what we bought it for, that's
what we're going to sell?the island mystique. Come on, let's get some
decent coffee."

"Still," Gert said, frowning at the long bare expanse of counter, "it is
very odd what happened to the lobsters."

Something else not accounted for came back to Brad, put aside at first,
because of the lobster puzzle. That brief glance he had had when he
opened the woodshed door. Hadn't it looked somehow depleted? He had
thought when he first inspected it that there were more of the big uncut
logs beside the stack Mariner had already cut for stove and fireplace.
He may have imagined

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it. He decided not to speak of it now. Certainly not to Gert. She'd had
enough to worry about already.

Gran resented the need of her body to sleep. Sleep was a surrender; the
warmth and comfort of her bed drained her of vitality like a
too-possessive lover. Each morning she had to wrestle herself out of the
womb of sleep, to get on her feet, shudder into a robe, and stand at the
open window breathing in the cold and callous morning.

By the time she was dressed, had dragged a comb through her fiercely
curled permanent, and raised a bright flag of lipstick to her durable
face, she was herself again. Coming out of the bathroom, she saw Oliver,
her oldest child. His sagging bathrobe and disheveled graying hair made
him look less like a son than of her own generation. He was just at the
door of his bedroom, and he carried a small tray with two cups of coffee
on it.

"Mildred's still asleep," he told her. "I thought I'd bring her up some
coffee. I could smell it through that register in the bathroom?too bad
you got dressed. I could have just as well brought you up a cup, too."

Gran gave a small bark of a laugh. "Nobody's ever brought me coffee in
bed in my life. Or ever will, as long as I've got legs under me."

Oliver smiled. "You remind me of these ladies I hear about that give up
their social security because they won't admit to being sixty-five years
old. Even if it's a struggle making do without it. I expect that what my
daughter would call their self-image is more important to them than
comfort."

"You're not talking about me, boy! I never lied about my age in my life."

"Maybe not. All the same, you give up your benefits, and I'm not talking
about social security. Like being waited on, indulged a bit, as befits a
senior citizen. No, you'd rather struggle."

"Struggle," Gran cried angrily. "That's what being

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alive means! Struggle is what keeps you going." She subsided, fumbling
in her pants pocket for cigarettes, and bringing out a small
violet-tinted box, gave her hoarse little laugh.

"Here. Take a look at what I found at the back of my closet shelf this
morning. I was going to bring it down to breakfast, show the family that
I'm not the first brazen hussy that's visited this island."

The legend on the box, daintily decorated with flowers, was "Violet de
Milo?a lady's cigarette." Gran opened it, and four slender lavender
cigarettes were revealed. She crinkled one cigarette between her fingers.

"Somebody'd already come a long way, baby. Probably had to hide 'em away
from her husband because he found her smoking and locked her in the
outhouse." She sniffed it. "Smells sort of sickish sweet, but not bad
for a fifty-year-old cigarette." She stuck one in her mouth and lighted
it. "Well, I'm going downstairs and see what's cooking."

Cigarette still in her mouth, she started down. A faint odor of violets
hung in the air behind her.

Oliver went back into his bedroom and saw his wife curled up like a cat
on a narrow window seat built into the alcove across the room. She lay
on a folded blanket with her heavy coat over her, and she looked so
small and pitiful that he was moved to tenderness.

He gave his waking-up cough, and she said instantly, as though she had
been waiting for it, "I'm just so unused to sleeping in a double bed, I
couldn't relax, especially a sagging old bed like that, with you
weighing eighty pounds more than I do. Not that I was able to sleep over
here either. You know, I could hear those chairs creaking downstairs
long after we all came up? Room empty, but they creak just as when you
sit in 'em."

"It's natural enough. Fire dies out, room cools off, and that old wicker
contracts."

"Well, it was spooky."

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Mona Williams

"Nothing's spooky on a day like this. Look outside." He pulled a small
table toward her and set down the tray.

"Oh, Oliver. You even remembered the cream." She sat up, pulling the
coat around her. "Is anyone up yet? Besides Mrs. Coffin, to whom, I
suppose, we owe the coffee."

"Oh, yes, Gran's up, spry as usual. And I saw Jody outside with Eloise.
I heard voices from what they call the breakfast porch?our host and
hostess, I presume."

Mildred said, sipping her coffee, "I don't see how anyone with the least
claim to sensitivity could sleep soundly in this house last night. After
that scene Cynthia and Edwin treated us to. Did you notice the way he
started drinking again after dinner? You think that's why Cynthia wants
to get him off the island? That could very well be the reason we've
heard so little from them lately ?Edwin's become an alcoholic. They go
in cycles, you know, and it could be he's just starting one, and she
wants to get him away from the family before he makes a spectacle?"

"No," Oliver said, "I don't think that's why she wants to get off the
island."

"You think it's the girl, then?"

Oliver nodded.

"Ollie," Mildred said in a weak voice, "you don't think that was what
Cynthia started to tell us?that it was something serious about Trudy?"

"It could be."

"Oh, that's ridiculous! That lively young girl. You saw her?full of
little jokes with Eloise and Jody. I don't see how she could possibly .
. ." Her voice trailed off.

"What were all the dramatics about, then?" Oliver asked. "That
impassioned plea about if Trudy were in danger, wouldn't he be the first
to know? And then stalking off into the night."

Mildred stared at him distractedly. Then she burst

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out in a whimper of relief. "Dramatics?that's exactly what they were!
You know, I always thought Edwin should have been on the stage, he's
always way up in the air, you never can feel at home with him. Oh, it's
obvious that Trudy has lost weight, that she's had some bug or virus or
something, but I certainly don't think for one minute that there's
anything seriously wrong with her!"

"I hope you're right," Oliver said. "We'll see what the story is this
morning."

He rubbed absently at his stubbled jaw, and his voice lightened. "Is
that bacon and eggs I smell, or is it just wishful thinking?"

"Now, Ollie, you know bacon is not on your diet. It's almost pure fat."

"I'm having bacon," Ollie said, elbowing into a plaid shirt. "A diet's
nothing to take along on a vacation."

"Mama . . . are you awake, Mama?"

Cynthia struggled out of a drugged sleep. Trudy was standing in a square
of sunshine at the foot of the bed, fully dressed in yellow linen, her
ponytail held back with a blue ribbon. For a second, before her mind
clothed itself in familiar associations, Cynthia saw her daughter
clearly and without emotion, the pale radiant face with the broad brow
and pointed chin, the blond-ness that was more light than color, the
narrow stem of the figure.

She's tall enough, Cynthia thought sleepily, she's already passed me by
an inch or two, but girls don't grow after they are sixteen. Reality
flooded into her. Trudy grow? She sat up.

"Heavens! What time is it? I was going to get up early."

"Eight o'clock. Everyone's downstairs. I think we're the late ones."
Cynthia rose at once and began to assemble jeans and shirt from the pile
of half-unpacked luggage.

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Mona Williams

"Where's your father?"

"Asleep. He fell asleep in the chair in my room. I dressed in the
bathroom so I wouldn't disturb him."

Cynthia gave her daughter a second look quite different from the first,
sharp and searching this time, a mother's look, a nurse's look. "How do
you feel, darling? Did you get over all your bad dreams?"

"Oh, yes. I'm all right. Papa's the one I'm worried about. He stayed
awake so long to keep me company. Do you think we could just let him
sleep for a while? He never eats much breakfast."

"Yes, certainly." Cynthia was dressing rapidly. Trudy sat in a
low-seated rocker by the open window. They both spoke softly, almost in
whispers.

"Then you didn't go back to sleep right away after I left you two last
night."

"Not right away. We were talking about this place?what makes it so
special." She hesitated a second. "You know, it was very odd. While we
were talking, the faces came back?on the wallpaper, I mean. Only, this
time they were little gnomes and elves biding in the trees. Merry?not
frightening at all."

"That is odd."

"Mama . .."

"Yes, baby, what?"

"You don't like it here much, do you? Not the way Papa and I do. I have
a feeling you'd like to turn right around and go home."

Cynthia was standing at the dresser, trying to do her hair at the wavy
old mirror. "Well, not home," she said evasively, "not till the worst of
the heat is over in Richmond. But perhaps back at Bar Harbor. I do think
we were rather more comfortable there."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. Because I'm so much happier being here."

The girl knelt forward under the window, her elbows on the low sill.
Behind her, the empty chair rocked gently.

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"I wish T could explain it to you. I have this kind of free, floaty,
unattached feeling here, as though?"

"As though time were standing still," Cynthia said quickly. She said it
because she was afraid Trudy was going to say it, and that she could not
bear, that Trudy should be haunted, as Edwin was, by time, the enemy.
She shook herself free of the thought. For Trudy, as for all young
girls, the future must seem to stretch forth as measureless as the sea.

"All right," she said lightly, "maybe we could stay for a while, since
you and the weather are both so perky this morning. Let's go down and
get some breakfast."

They stopped to look into the room across the hall. Edwin lay sprawled
in the chair, his long pale shanks protruding from his robe, his fine
profile turned sideways against the chair back. He slept very lightly,
his breathing uneven and disturbed.

Cynthia would have liked to make some gesture of comfort, to lay the
fallen blanket over him perhaps, but it wasn't necessary, the morning
was ripening into warmth. Better not risk touching him at all. He
stirred then, his eyes opening, but she tiptoed out to Trudy, waiting at
the head of the stairs. How wonderful, if only for a few moments, to
have her daughter to herself!

Clasping hands, they ran downstairs together, out to the screened porch
posed dramatically sixty feet above the water, where the table had been
set for breakfast.

The main topic at breakfast was the missing lobsters. Brad was still
looking for a logical explanation. One by one he examined his guests.
They were all getting a bit hysterical now, full of uneasy laughter as
increasingly ridiculous theories were presented. Was any of them capable
of perpetrating a practical joke?

Edwin, the last to arrive, he dismissed first?he had no sense of humor.
Certainly it could not be Cynthia or Trudy. Oliver and his family were
too proper, except for the kid, and Gert must be right about him. He had
been

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Mona Williams

quiet during the discussion, and seemed interested only in getting
outside to examine a tree house he had glimpsed from an upper window.
Had to be Gran, Brad decided. Gran liked to maintain her reputation of
being a mischievous old harum-scarum, a character.

"All right, Gran," he said to his mother-in-law, "what did you do with
them? Hide 'em in your suitcase?"

She said, mock-innocent, "So that's why my room smelled so good when I
woke up this morning! No, Brad, that's a cute idea, but happens I
haven't unpacked anything but my overnight case, and that would never
hold six lobsters."

Mildred said nervously, "Somebody must have plain stolen them. You said
yourself, Brad, no one ever locks up here, and somebody must have come
right into this house and taken them." She frowned at her husband,
starting on his second helping of pancakes, and thought about how he
would suffer from it later.

Oliver nodded, and still chewing, began to elaborate on his wife's
theory. "That lobsterman Brad bought them from?he knew we had them.
Maybe he had a skimpy catch yesterday and decided to recycle a few sales."

Cynthia said, "That's absurd. No down easterner would risk losing his
rockbound integrity so foolishly. He'd endanger the whole tradition."

How normal she sounded, Gert thought, as though her outburst last night
never happened. How unknowable people were, even your own sister! Her
eyes moved to Trudy, noting that she seemed to be eating pretty well for
a girl supposed to be ailing. No color, but hadn't she always had that
colorless, translucent look? "What do you make of it, Trudy?" she asked
fondly.

"I say let's keep it a mystery. Mysteries are as delicious as the
lobster stew we're missing."

The housekeeper had just come in with fresh coffee,

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and Edwin spoke directly to her. "Mrs. Coffin, are you quite sure those
lobsters were dead?"

"Of course I'm sure, Mr. Sutherland, had to be?I've cooked enough of 'em
in my lifetime!"

Eloise had been silent, only pecking at her food. Now, suddenly, in a
small breathless voice she spoke. "I think . . . perhaps I should tell
you all something. It ... it seems to fit in. Something I heard at the
North Fork hotel that I wasn't meant to hear. I haven't told you and
Daddy," she said, glancing at her mother. "It was such a strange,
frightening story, I was afraid it might prejudice you against the island."

They were all looking at her, surprised and waiting. Brad said
impatiently, "Well, go on Eloise, we're listening."

"All right, then." Speaking very fast, in a low voice, as if to get it
over with, she told them about the headless chickens that would not die
until they were thrown into the sea. There was a moment's silence, then
Gert said flatly, "If you believe a story like that, you'll believe
anything."

Mrs. Coffin had been standing in the doorway listening, and she now said
tartly, "Well, let me tell you, plenty of people did believe it. Mary
Mitchell told that all over town, and with her big family, who'd all
seen it with their own eyes, you couldn't laugh it off easy. Must have
been fifteen years ago. I declare, I'd forgot all about it."

' Brad rose abruptly. "I don't want to rush anyone, but let's get this
exploring expedition on the road. Can't waste a day like this sitting
around here gabbing." He swept an expansive arm seaward.

"Couple of years from now, our paying guests will be digging up eighty
bucks a day for that view. And you're getting it all for free."

"I know," Cynthia conceded, "I've been having second thoughts about
leaving."

Gert said eagertly, "Look over toward the mainland,

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Mono Williams

Cyn. Doesn't it seem you can almost make out the wharf where you got on
the boat yesterday? You couldn't feel so isolated on a day like this,
could you?"

"Not on a day like this."

"Good girl," Brad said, and there was a general scraping back of chairs.
It had been established last night that neither Trudy nor Edwin was to
join the exploring party. Now they sat on at the table gazing out at the
glittering sun-bright sea. The light was reflected on their faces.
Father and daughter both looked calm and thoughtful, and when their eyes
met, both smiled faintly, like conspirators.

Led by Brad, rakish in flannel shorts, knee-high hose, and binoculars on
a thong around his neck, the island explorers set off. Gert, Gran,
Eloise, Cynthia, and Oliver, with Mildred reluctantly tagging behind.
Jody, wild with energy, danced around the adults, mostly ahead but often
making side expeditions when something caught his attention. They had
long left the house behind, and the rough narrow path they followed
appeared to head toward the bulky cliff-high end of the island that
faced shoreward. They walked on spongy moss, and here in mid-island, not
even sea sounds could penetrate the velvety silence. The path, cut
through thick woods which even in this bright day looked dark with
density, was surprisingly little overgrown. Oliver commented on it.

"You'd think this path would have simply disappeared in half a centuy.
Woods taken over. I never saw a healthier stand of timber."

"I'm a city man," Brad reminded them. "What do I know about trees? I've
got to get me some natural-history books before I start cutting." He
pointed ahead. "There's one that sure ought to come down. It looks dead
so long it's petrified."

They all halted to look at the gaunt gray leafless tree, its branches
grotesquely hung with beards of gray

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lichen and moss. Cynthia said, "It's really rather beautiful in a
Daliesque way."

Mildred shivered. "A ghost tree. Remember, Jody, the Witch's Forest in
Disneyland?"

"Yeah, made of plastic or something. This one's real."

Brad appraised the thick green on either side, which seemed to grow
straight out to the rocky edges of the island. "I'd say a good half will
have to be cleared for the cottages. Oh, of course, plenty of green belt
in between to preserve the sense of privacy. Even so, with timber worth
what it is today, I've got a little fortune here before I even start
building."

"Two years," Gert gloated, "even with the winters, when nothing much can
be done, two years, and our whole dream will come true!"

Cynthia said softly, "Mrs. Coffin says you'll never make it. Not on this
island. She didn't say why?just that you never would."

"The hell we won't," Brad said, and Gran added shrewdly, "Mrs. Coffin is
convinced all city folk are weaklings. She likes to throw these little
scares into us?feeds her ego. That's why she hid the lobsters; what do
you bet tonight they conveniently reappear?"

"It's natural enough, her feeling that way," Eloise said. "We're
invading her country. Territorial imperative?that's what they call it."
She thought of David?he had explained the expression to her.

"Our little scholar," her father said indulgently.

Another half-hour, and they reached the high end of the island. This was
the closest spot to the mainland, but an impossible place to land a
boat. The shortest route from the wharf to their own dock would be
around this end of the island, but, Brad explained, they more often
circled the far end, not only to avoid the underwater reefs which lay
closer to shore, but because they were curious about the old couple that
lived on the sea end and hoped to get a glimpse of them.

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"Haven't yet, though," Gert said. "Only sign of life was a stack of wood
six feet high, and a wisp of smoke coming from the chimney."

A sudden thought struck Brad. Could old Learning be the woodpile thief?
But he dismissed the idea almost at once. If there were any missing
logs, and he wasn't at all sure there were, they were the big uncut
ones, and he couldn't see any man in his seventies making off with them.

"Tomorrow," he announced, "we'll hike in the opposite direction, at
least as far as the neck. They tell me you can see the meteor pit from
there?hit in 1926. Not very big, but deep. The shack's not far beyond
it. Maybe we'll even get a glimpse of our unsociable old tenants."

Jody had gone out on the steep grassy cliff edge directly above the sea.
He was squatting and peering into a rocky crevice, and now he reached
down to dig out something he saw there.

Mildred called out shrilly, "Come back here, Jody! That's dangerous."

He had found something, and now he stood up, stepping back to examine
it. "Hey," he called out, "look at this?I found something." He ran back
to the others, holding out his hand.

It was a small yellow rubber boat, a child's toy. Oliver took it and
turned it over. Clearly visible on the bottom were the indented letters
pat. pend., a series of numbers, and the date 1922. "Now, how in the
world," he said slowly, "could a thing like this, over fifty years old,
still look like new? Rubber doesn't last. It disintegrates. It's not
like plastic."

"Oh, for God's sake," Brad said irritably, "obviously some picknickers'
kid left it there two or three months ago."

"I doubt very much," Ollie said, "that any recent picknickers' kid could
gain access to a toy like this.

91

Or that a modern store would stock a toy patented back in 1922."

Brad took the toy in his pudgy freckled hand and squeezed it. It sprang
back into shape at once. "Got to be some explanation," he said uneasily.
"Now, let's not anybody else around here go mystic on us. Leave that to
Mrs. Coffin."

It was Trudy who suggested it. Since the others were exploring the bulky
shore end of the island, why shouldn't she and her father have a small
expedition in the opposite direction? The land sloped down gently toward
the sea end and was much more open. They would be able to see the house
from the neck. It was designed to be a landmark, built high on the rocky
sea edge, affording the most stunning view of the ocean.

They couldn't possibly lose themselves, and could turn back whenever
Trudy felt like it. Mrs. Coffin offered to pack them a picnic lunch;
they could see she would like to have the house to herself for a while
so that she could get her kitchen in order.

"I heard," she told them, fixing tuna sandwiches, "could be from Mary
Mitchell, there's a nice piece of open meadow just this side of the
neck. Likely there's raspberries ripe there now. You can make a dessert
of 'em. Nothing sweeter than a raspberry right off the vine."

Mrs. Coffin watched them set off, gilded by sunlight, hands swinging
loosely together, more, she thought, half-disapproving, like children on
a holiday than father and daughter. The breakfast dishes were done, the
kitchen tidy. Now she made a big platter of potato salad with cold meat
and melon, which Mrs. Bradley had ordered for lunch, and set them all in
the icebox. Mariner, when he came over to do the chores and pump the
water, would bring fresh food for dinner. She would get his views on the
missing lobsters. It still

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troubled her, but she had too much to do to let herself dwell on it.

There were still a dozen cupboards she hadn't even opened yet, also a
kind of alcove opposite the stove; all she had glimpsed was a long wall
lined with shelves. Except for her own room, to which she ascended by
the back stairs, she had no responsibility for the rest of the house,
but she was queen of the kitchen. It was up to her to decide where to
store the great boxes of canned goods the Bradleys had brought over, and
to organize her working area.

She noted now that a few ancient cans were left on the shelves?they must
date back to the Wyndom family! First thing was to clear those out.
Empty one of the new cartons so she'd have something to put that old
stuff in, and then get Mariner to dump the whole lot into the ocean.

She went into the alcove, seeing for the first time an old-fashioned
coffee mill fixed to the inside wall. A familiar fragrance assailed her
as she approached it?coffee beans! A tall can labeled "Garden of Allah,"
full of coffee beans, stood open beside it. She dropped a few into the
mill, gave the handle an experimental turn, pulled open the drawer
underneath, and saw the ground coffee, the fragrance intensified.

She stood there a moment bewildered. Well, then! If Mrs. Bradley had
meant to grind some coffee when they first got here (it had been a few
hours before Mariner returned to get her and the second load of
supplies), why should they have been drinking that poor instant stuff
this morning? Well, of course, she answered herself, relieved, they
hadn't known how to build a real stove fire; it would be an insult to
fresh ground coffee to make it on that butane thing.

She took down one of the cans and examined it. Tomato juice. S. S.
Pierce, Boston, Mass. The can looked all right, not rusted or anything.
She picked up a can opener and opened it, sniffed suspiciously, and

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poured a bit into a glass. Cautiously she tasted it, then drank it down.
Best tomato juice she ever drank in her life. Why, all these cans must
be from the Bradley's supplies! They must have just started to put away
the first load and then decided to leave it to the housekeeper. None of
the brand names were familiar to her, but then, rich people bought
differently.

She began to open cupboard doors. Not only cans now, packages, cereals,
baking powder, crackers, a sack of potatoes and another half full of
flour. These were not freshly purchased, but partly used and left that
way. Left when? The packages on lower shelves within a child's reach
were empty. Half a cracker was left in one. She bit into it. It was
crisp; a piece flew off onto the floor.

Mrs. Coffin sat down heavily in a sturdy kitchen chair. She had to think
about this, but no thoughts came to her. Her mind was as blank as a
turned-off television set.

Edwin and Trudy decided to come home by following the rocky cliff above
the sea. They had had a lovely picnic, and yes, the raspberries were
there, so ripe they almost fell into a reaching hand, soft and cushiony,
with a little prickle in the softness, like a kitten's paws. The air
above the meadow was full of the warm drone of honeybees; some lit
briefly on their bare arms, then flew harmlessly away. Trudy wasn't
tired at all, although it must be afternoon now?the sun was no longer
straight overhead.

"You know, Papa," she said, swinging the picnic basket, "what I'd like
is for you and me to get acquainted with those people on the point, the
Learnings, before the others do. Uncle Brad and Aunt Gert are awfully
good and generous, but for an old couple, not used to strangers, kind of
... well . . ."

"Overpowering," Edwin supplied.

"Yes. I think we could be?of us all?the gentlest."

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"I know, darling, and I agree with you, but I'm afraid that Gert and
Brad wouldn't like it much. They're the ones who must deal with them.
We're only guests. If we overstep ourselves, we wouldn't feel
comfortable about staying on. We want to stay on, don't we?"

"Oh, Papa, yes!" But she persisted, "Suppose it just happened that we
ran into the Learnings? Saw them outside their little cottage and just
said . . . hello?"

"They wouldn't let that happen. Remember what you said last night?that
you imagined them as wild creatures holing up and keeping very quiet if
they get a whiff of strangers? No, let's leave them in peace for the
time Brad has allotted to them. I think that's best."

"I suppose." But she didn't sound convinced, and they walked in silence
as they approached the big house. The windows were open, and the sound
of voices reached them. "I think I'd like to go upstairs before we see
everyone. We could go in through the woodshed and up the back stairs."

"All right, and leave the basket in the kitchen."

The woodshed door was only a step or two from a steep drop into the
ocean. Something caught Trudy's eye before they entered it. "Come here,
Papa," she said, pointing downward. Together they peered over the edge.
The tide was coming in now, and washed in with it they could count some
red objects tangled among the rockweed fifty feet below. As they
watched, two more were flung down by an incoming wave.

"Papa," Trudy whispered, "remember what Mrs. Coffin said? Only boiled
lobsters are red, aren't they?"

"You wait here, Trudy. Don't move. Don't go in or say anything to the
others."

She shook her head, and Edwin, slowly and carefully, digging his
rubber-soled shoes into cracks and crevices, climbed down to the shore.
He picked up

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the nearest lobster, one of the six missing, all right, not only boiled,
but the claws pegged. Dead, all of them quite dead. He pondered a
moment. What to do with them? Then he realized that the sea would take
care of them for him; a wave had washed them out once, another would
wash them farther out before tomorrow morning.

He clambered back up to Trudy. "No one would want to eat them now. Let's
not bother the others with this. I think everyone has heard enough on
the subject."

Trudy gave him a long, thoughtful look. "Papa, they weren't dead when
they got down from that counter and scuttled under that door. Somehow
they got themselves out to the edge, where they could drop back into the
ocean."

"I know," Edwin said softly. "If they fell at high tide?let's see, that
would have been at two or three o'clock this morning?they would have
dropped directly into the water. If they had fallen on rock, their
shells would have cracked."

"They didn't die on the island," Trudy said, "not until the tide took
them away from it."

They stood there a moment, each thinking the same thoughts. The
cathedral light of early afternoon, sun filtered through birch leaves,
lay all around them.

"Let's keep it a secret," Edwin said finally. "It's something we
discovered all by ourselves, Trudy."

She reflected for a moment. "I don't know, Papa. They'll all find out
somehow, not so soon as we have, not about the lobsters, but that this
island is a little world of its own. The why of it?that will be the
secret. You think we'll ever discover that?"

"I'm not sure we want to," her father said.

The family had finished lunch when Edwin and Trudy came in. But they
were still gathered in the living room, Mrs. Coffin with them. Some
fresh and

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disturbing puzzle was absorbing them, and very soon the newcomers were
told about it.

Canned and packaged food had been found in the kitchen and storage
shelves, dating back to God knew when. By now a number of cans had been
opened and gingerly sampled, and all appeared to nose and palate as
fresh as the supplies the Bradleys had brought or had had flown in just
this week. Several theories had been advanced on this phenomenon. Brad
insisted on his: campers had been illicitly living here, some fishermen
had warned them of the imminent arrival of the new owners, and they had
left in too much of a hurry to take much with them. Gran said she
thought that fellow who ran the independent grocery store in North Fork
(population 1,000, and the island's mailing address) was smart enough to
have laid in a little Welcome Wagon bribe to lure their trade from that
supermarket at'Ellsworth, thirty miles away. Oliver's theory was
scientific: hadn't they all heard of cryogenics, the proven fact that
temperatures below freezing preserved living organisms indefinitely?
Even people; there was a cult that arranged to have themselves frozen
and revived at some future favorable period. Surely they'd all heard?

"But, Ollie," Mildred wailed, "it gets warm here every summer. Like today!"

"Yes, but still, five or six months of the year must be below freezing.
Which would cut the actual living time of everything here in about half.
Everything in this house is theoretically only half its calendar age."

"I love it!" Gran cried. "Here I am, still in my thirties and rarin' to
go." She yawned hugely. "Only now, I think after that hike this morning
I'm due for a little nap."

The conversation petered out. It was vaguely decided to push the old
cans and packages to the back shelves until they decided what to do with
them. The family languidly dispersed for the afternoon. Trudy

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went up to her room, although she insisted she felt no need of a rest.

"Come up with me," she said to Jody. "Bring one of the St. Nicholas
magazines, and I'll read you a story."

Something had subdued Jody's natural exuberance; he needed comforting.
Trudy sensed it when he obediently plucked a volume out of the bookcase
and followed her upstairs. They settled themselves side by side, propped
against pillows on her bed, and she opened the book at random to what
seemed to be part of a long continued story: The Forest Castaways.
Chapter six, "The Face at the Window." Opposite was a full-page
illustration?three boys in a wooded camp, flickering candlelight on a
table, and a dim bearded face peering in at them. It was calculated to
conjure up menace in the reader?that nameless face staring in from the
dark at the unaware boys, motionless but alert, waiting to strike. As he
looked at it, a long shudder went through Jody, and he said quickly,
turning the page, "Read something else. Eloise read me a funny story
about a little boy who, when they cut off his hair, a bird made a nest
of it."

But when Trudy found the story and began to read, she knew he wasn't
listening. Suddenly he interrupted her.

"You think anybody could be on this island except all of us, and
sometimes Mariner, and the old people down in the shack? Could spy in on
us at night, like the man in that picture?"

"I don't think so. The picture was meant to be scary. To be interesting.
I think everything about this island is good."

"Suppose you saw somebody. A big man with a black beard."

"Even if I did, I wouldn't think he meant us any harm."

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"But if he didn't want us here, then he'd hurt us. Suppose he said that
. . ."

"Jody, did you see anyone?"

"Yes, last night. But he didn't take the lobsters?he just threw our wood
in the ocean. He said it was a sign that we should go away."

"A young man, Jody? Not old, like Gran?"

"No, like the strong man at the circus. Big and dark. He said nobody
would ever find him. So not to try."

"Jody, listen?have you told anybody else about him?"

"No. Because maybe . . . maybe I just dreamed it."

"Don't tell anyone, Jody. You told me. Now you don't have to think about
it anymore. I'll take care of it, Jody?I promise you. Perhaps it was
just a dream. If you begin to think of it like that, pretty soon it will
fade away, just as dreams do."

Jody sighed. "Okay. You can read the story now." He snuggled against
her, and she began to read.

Cynthia wandered outside; she had no particular purpose or direction in
mind except to be alone for a while, she needed to reconcile the turmoil
of her feelings about Trudy and Edwin?and Ralph Healy. She rounded the
house to the side that jutted out over a rocky ledge, just under the
breakfast porch. Approaching the house, as she had first, from the other
side, it had seemed built squarely onto the ground, but here, on the sea
side, the stony terrain sloped toward the cliff, and concrete pillars
supported the first floor several feet off bare rock, leaving a shadowy
cavern underneath. The cistern had been built under here, gutters from
every roof peak and gable ran into it, and the hand pump that lifted the
water into the pressure tank was cemented into rock just outside.

Cynthia looked at the pump with a dim idea of operating it?Mrs. Coffin
had complained that there was

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barely enough trickle from the sink faucets to wash the lunch dishes?but
she soon dismissed the notion. Mariner would be here soon enough to pump
fresh water into the pipes.

Hunching herself into a crouch, she edged under the house into the
twilight area that surrounded the cistern. Something touched her
forehead like spreading fingertips. For a second she went cold; then she
realized she had walked into a wall of cobwebs. She brushed them aside
and advanced, almost crawling now, to the huge sunken rectangle that
garnered and held rainwater for the household.

The cistern appeared to be at least half full. The murky surface of the
water wore an olive-green sheen and was so still it seemed almost a
solid. Trudy should see this?it was a swimming pool for trolls, elves,
little secret underground creatures!

A narrow edge of dazzling light rimmed the darkness at the far side. She
saw that the entire house was lifted off the ground?to escape the seep
of dampness, she supposed. Accustoming her eyes to the subterranean
dimness, she peered upward; the solid, beamed underpinning of the
structure, silvered over with a vast and exquisite filigree of cobwebs,
looked at though it would last forever.

She began to like this shadowy underworld; it fitted her mood better
than the heartless glitter of the day. She leaned her shoulders against
one of the supports and stretched out her legs on the cold concrete lip
of the cistern. For the moment she was at peace.

She became aware of movement outside her retreat. A pair of work pants
came into view, which she recognized as Mariner's, then a woman's legs,
weather-roughened above sox and sneakers. Mariner was talking, and he
sounded puzzled.

"What I can't understand is, a man smart enough to work himself up to a
big shot, like Bradley, can't

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tell the difference between a cord and two cords of wood. He saw how
much there was when I first showed him. Now, half of the big stuff's
gone?where? I ask him where, and all he does is shake his head and ask
me if I'm sure of my facts."

"What do you think happened to it?" the woman asked. Cynthia could
imagine Mariner's shrugging off the question, because the woman said
angrily, "Don't answer, then! Because there isn't any answer. Never is
to anything happens here!"

Cynthia felt uncomfortable. She got up, and, bent to the waist,
scrambled toward the light. In overalls and his duck-billed cap, Mariner
was unscrewing a valve on the pipe that led into the cylindrical tank. A
woman of no special age, kerchiefed head tilted to look up at the house,
stood near him. Cynthia greeted them.

"Good afternoon. I've been investigating our water supply."

They both looked around, startled, and the woman said, "My, you gave me
quite a turn! Mariner said nobody was around. That all the folks planned
to explore all around the island today."

"We did our exploring this morning. I'm sorry if I startled you."

"This is my wife," Mariner said, a bit flustered. "I persuaded her to
come along with me for company. She's not much used to strangers."

Cynthia remembered that this was the woman Brad and Gert had first
approached to fill in for their dropout chef. They said that Mariner had
favored the idea, but his wife had refused without explanation. It was
she who had recommended the widow, a Mrs. Coffin, who was reported to
need money real bad. Now Cynthia told her that they were all happy with
Mrs. Coffin?she was an excellent cook and had easily established control
of that monster stove. She tried to sound pleasant and casual, to put
the woman at ease. Her attempt failed.

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Mariner's wife mumbled something unintelligible and then spoke in a low
urgent voice to her husband. What she wanted was for him to take her
home and return without her to finish his chores here.

He frowned. "Belle, you know that's foolish. It won't kill you to stay a
little while. Go pick us a mess of berries. Look around?you never seen
Wyndom Island with your eyes before?you'll be able to tell your sewing
club." He added to Cynthia, "Not that she don't know all about it. She's
got a stack of stories about this place could keep you listening all night."

Cynthia looked at the woman with new interest. "Really, you've never
been here before? That seems strange, living only a boat ride away."

"Well, I'm pretty busy to home."

"Where'd you hear all the stories?"

"Oh, my folks been in North Fork a long time. Grandparents raised me on
stories about Wyndom Island."

"I'd love to hear some of them. The Wyndoms must have been a rather
strange family. Leaving so suddenly, with only their personal things,
and never coming back."

"It was when the meteor fell. That scared 'em off. My grandma saw it?the
meteor. It was like a big flash, she said, with a long greenish tail
after it. Said everybody thought it was the day of judgment come."

"It must have been pretty terrifying. Especially for the children. Tell
me about them. Mrs. Coffin thought the Wyndoms had children, although my
brother tells me there was no mention of them in the will. There were
children, weren't there?"

"I don't know anything about children."

"But there are children's books here! And special racks in the bathroom.
We found a child's toy this morning."

The woman glanced at her husband, moving a few

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steps away from Cynthia. She mumbled, "Visitors brought kids with 'em,
could be."

Mariner said, "She don't want to talk about that. Way her grandparents
raised her, it was bad luck to talk about children on this island." He
began to pump, resolutely changing the subject. "You folks use a lot of
water. I had the cistern pretty near full after I got the word the new
owner was coming, to clean her out and connect the gutters, and she's a
quarter down already. Well, no matter, I judge we still got a good two
weeks' full. Then we better look for rain."

"Rain? By that you mean a storm, a real storm?"

"If it holds off long enough, it could build up a storm. No rain for
over two weeks now, it's been unnatural clear. Evening fog like you come
over in last night don't count. August especially. I wouldn't worry.
That cistern's built to last just about as long as clear weather
generally does in these parts."

"Anyway, I'll spread the word to go easy on the water."

"Mind you, I'm not complaining. I'm being well paid to pump this water."

His pumping grew slower against the pressure of the filling tank, but he
went on chattily, perhaps to cover his wife's silence, "I gather Mr. and
Mrs. B. plan to stay on awhile after you all go. He told me they've got
big plans for this place. A lot of old-timers are going to blow off some
steam about that, but there's plenty of others like myself will say it's
right and good, after all these years its being wasted."

"I'm glad you feel that way." Cynthia asked carefully, "How seaworthy is
that little boat of yours? I mean, if we should have a good rain, a
storm even?"

"Oh, rain don't bother me. That little boat has rode out plenty of rain
and good sassy blows when she had to."

"We have a good hard blow," his wife said sharply, "and he don't take
her out just for fun."

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"I should hope not." A hard little fist of apprehension gathered in
Cynthia's middle. Suppose Trudy had a relapse ...

"Yoo-hoo, Aunt Cynthia!" Jody's voice reached them, small with distance.
"Wait for me! I'll show you how I can pump?Mariner taught me how!"

Belle watched the child approach, her face expressionless. Abruptly she
spoke again. "I wouldn't think it was a good idea a boy that age to play
around here by himself. Even at low tide."

"Now, Belle," Mariner said warningly, and as Jody came up, he told him,
"Not now, Jody. I just filled her up?time it's easy is when the tank's
near empty."

"Suppose you wanted to empty the whole cistern? Would you have to bail
it out like a boat?"

Mariner laughed. "No, we got a plug for it, like a big bathtub. Only,
it's on the outside. Do it every winter, or the ice'd crack it. Somebody
coming, we plug it up and fill it with fresh rain."

"Don't give him ideas," Cynthia said lightly. "Jody loves challenges."

"Ideas wouldn't help him much there. Taking out that plug is a
three-hour job for a man with plenty of muscle and know-how."

The boy sighed restlessly. "Mariner, when we going to look for the
pirate's cave?"

"Well, right now I got a few chores out in the woodshed. We'll get to
the cave sometime. You got a whole month ahead of you."

"Before you get to the chores," his wife said, "you take me home. I've
been here on this island just about as long as I want to be."

104

The second morning was as fine as the first. Both dinner last night and
breakfast today had been pleasant, though when Cynthia had recounted the
curious response from Mariner's wife to the subject of the Wyn-dom
children, there had been some speculation about it. Mrs. Coffin had been
called in and questioned, and she had stuck to her story. There had been
much talk among the oldtimers about the fact that when the Wyn-doms had
first built their house, there were two little boys. Why, old Doc Winter
told it for a fact that a third child had even been born in this house!
Of course, old Doc was ninety now, and not right in the head, but he'd
been sharp enough when he first told it around.

And yet?here was the peculiar part?other ancient eyewitness accounts
just as stubbornly attested to the fact that when the Wyndoms left,
there had been only adults, Mr. and Mrs. and their hired couple. Another
story had Mrs. Wyndom missing, too. Anyway, no children.

"Maybe the meteor hit the children," Oliver suggested, "killed them all
on the spot."

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Brad shook his head. "That meteor pit was thoroughly examined by experts
from Boston and New York. Any sign of human remains would have been
spotted as surely as they are after a plane crash."

"Let's not forget that it all happened back in the twenties," Edwin
reminded them. "If anyone around here knew the truth then, it would have
long since dissolved into myth."

There hadn't been much to say after that. Brad had brought the subject
back into the future. "Nostalgia," he said shrewdly, "is salable. What I
want to do is package all these little mysteries we have here and sell
them the way they sell antiques to people who go for the stuff. I tell
you," he said, warming to his subject, "the more people become
disenchanted with the present, the more the past is going to be the wave
of the future!"

After breakfast that second morning, Gert said, leading Mildred
upstairs, "I'm just about ready to do some indoor exploring. For
instance, that long room across the back of the house over the woodshed,
beyond Jody's, looks from outside like a converted sleeping porch. I've
been too busy getting the rest of the rooms livable to even look into
it. I know it wouldn't do for guests?too far from the bathroom. Want to
come along and see what we've got there?"

"Oh, yes," Mildred breathed, "it's like those novels about musty old
mansions, rooms nobody's ever seen for years."

She followed Gert upstairs and down a long hall, where Gert pushed open
a closed door. The room was quite dark except for the light that came in
with them, and long and narrow like a dormitory. Sliding battens, fitted
into slots, covered a long window set low in the outer wall, child-high.
Gert slid them back, and now she and Millie could see three cots
standing in a row, and, facing the end of each, a small dresser. A

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built-in wardrobe was set in one window corner; in the other, a small
commode holding a washbasin, a large pitcher, and a soap dish with a
cake of Pear's soap in it. When Gert picked up the pitcher, it gurgled
faintly; a little water was left in it.

For a moment the women were silent, taking in the surprising room,
empty, but still bearing so vivid an imprint of small breathing bodies.
Two of the cots were roughly made up with blanket covers, but the third
was a tangle of blankets and down-filled comforter, a burrow, a nest. In
the scramble were crumbled bits of food, as though a squirrel or a
woodchuck had made a home of it.

Except for the two blanket-covered beds, nothing else had been done to
restore the random disorder natural to young children. Garments were
tossed about, a Raggedy Ann doll lay on the floor beside a miniature
bedroom slipper, train tracks, a dollhouse, a slingshot, and a fire
engine. Cautiously Mildred opened a dresser drawer.

"Boys' clothes?a sailor suit, I suppose that's what they wore then.
Looks a bit too big for Jody."

Quickly, competently, Gert inspected the other drawers, then the
wardrobe. "Two boys and a girl," she reported. "I'd guess the girl about
four, the boys older, nine or ten, I'd say. How do you explain that? No
adult clothing was found in the other bedroom, closets, drawers?all
empty. But here, everything just . . . abandoned. Millie, what happened?"

She looked at Mildred's stunned face, trying earnestly to cope with the
question. "Could they have been rich enough so the children had two sets
of clothes for winter and summer? Toys, too? Left all these here for the
next year?"

"That's ridiculous. A year at that age? They'd have outgrown everything."

"Gert, look over there." Mildred was peering at some marks on the inside
of the door; it looked as

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if they had been made with a black crayon. They went over to inspect
them. Over one set of marks, spaced at intervals of a few inches in
height, letters were blocked out spelling john. Over another, not quite
so high, douglas. Much farther down, with only two marks, was the name
Eleanor. Beside each mark was a date. The first, John, was 1918; the
last for all three was June 1926.

"Eleanor was the baby," Mildred whispered. "She wasn't even born when
the boys were first measured. Funny to know their names, when your
lawyers found no mention of them at all. It makes me feel all prickly."

Gert picked up the small knitted slipper beside the unmade bed. The sole
was soiled, but the yarn top springy and unraveled. She threw it back on
the floor, herded Mildred back into the hall, and closed the door firmly
behind them. She gave a harsh little laugh.

"It appears that Brad and I got more than we bargained for. This is more
like a Chinese puzzle than a house. One box inside another."

"You going to tell the others about it?"

"In good time. Maybe tomorrow, when they've recovered from the missing
lobsters and the magically preserved food. That's enough for today.
After they've solved those, or exhausted the subjects, then we'll open
up a new box?the children's room."

At dinner that night Brad was full of plans for the resort. Yesterday's
long rambling walk, the first time he had taken any measure of his new
property, had inspired him with several ideas. Everyone had been helpful
in pointing out choice cabin sites and giving him the paying guest's
viewpoint. When the house party was over, he told them he and Gert were
expecting a Mr. Singleton to come and stay for a day or so. Singleton
was a member of an up-and-coming architectural firm?he'd have lots of
exciting notions about the possibilities of a place like this. Actual
building would

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not begin until late spring, what with the winters the way they were
here, but there should be enough good weather left this fall to get some
cutting and clearing done for the buildings.

"What are you going to do with this house?" Oliver asked him.

"Oh, I'll get some local people to take it down, March or April, before
the builders come. There's an outfit in Bangor that can handle it.
What's worth hauling away at their expense they can have. What
isn't?situated, as we are, on a cliff?they can just dump overboard.
That's the beauty of living on the ocean, the disposal problem is so
damned simple, ocean'll take anything from garbage to dead bodies."

Trudy said softly, "I thought of that this morning, when I watched
Mariner throw out the garbage. There it was, hurtling down the cliff,
and all the sea gulls gathered around screaming. Then, the next instant,
nothing, everything just as clean and peaceful as before."

No one spoke for a moment. Then Cynthia said, "When I was under the
house this afternoon, looking up from the cistern . . . the way the
house stands up off the ground, I suppose to keep the moisture out, I
felt that I was looking up at the hull of a ship."

"That's what I said," Oliver broke in, "she was built by a shipbuilder,
I'll swear to that. If you could slip her over the edge all in a piece,
I think she'd float."

"Well, it's a pretty picture," Brad said indulgently, "but not very
practical."

"It's an absurd house, really," Cynthia went on. "What kind of people
would build an elaborate mansion like this that could be lived in only a
few weeks in the year?"

"Crazy people," Gert scoffed. "Seven bedrooms and one bath! I don't care
how big the tub is and all that marble. That's one thing we'll
appreciate when we get back to civilization?bathrooms."

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"I'll tell you what kind of people they were," Eloise said unexpectedly.
"The kind of people who never change, no matter where they go or what
the circumstances. People who are proud of standing firm and letting the
world change around them."

She looked around the table, chin lifted, with her special air of
timidity and new defiance. "Oh, I can see them perfectly! A well-to-do,
very old family, proper Bostonians, much too good to mix with the common
herd whom they might meet even in plush resorts. So they built their
own?this house?and it never occurred to them not to model it on that
perfectly satisfactory house they had in Boston. Because they hated
everything new or foreign or different."

"A kind of Life with Father kind of family," Trudy contributed, smiling.

"Now, here's an interesting thing," Ollie said weightily. "In an
out-of-the-way place like this, everything is as difficult and
inconvenient as possible. Fresh food, communication, entertainment, all
that we take foi granted at home, are luxuries here. Everything, at
considerable effort, must be imported; if the tide and weather aren't
right, you do without. Values become inflated. A simple thing like ice
cream for dinner makes it a party."

"That's the attraction," Brad agreed. "Makes people feel more alive."

Mildred shivered. "I think it's partly the danger of living in such an
isolated, lonely place. Lots of people seem actually to enjoy danger."

Trudy returned to Eloise and her picture of the Wyndom family. "Eloise,
you said they'd never change, no matter where or how they lived. But how
is that possible? Every day we change a little. Even they must have.
You, for instance, aren't quite the same person you were the last time I
saw you. Don't you feel it?that something's happening, or could happen,
to change you?"

110

"I don't feel it," Gran said defiantly. "I don't feel one whit different
from how I felt a year ago."

"How have I changed?" Eloise asked Trudy in a low voice.

"Oh . . . you're the way people are when they're going somewhere. Like
people in an airport. Just sitting there, waiting, it's not like sitting
in a chair at home. Waiting for change. You know what I mean by that?

"No, I don't know." Eloise looked down at her un-tasted dessert.

It was that evening, after Mrs. Coffin had retired to her room, that
Cynthia found the ship's log. Jody had discovered that the top of the
window seat under the big bay window in the living room could be lifted,
to disclose a wealth of old magazines, L. L. Bean and Sears catalogs.
Now Cynthia brought some of them out.

Gert, flipping through an old Sears, had been hysterical with laughter.
"The way women tortured themselves! High collars, and those corsets.
Gran, did you ever get yourself into one of those contraptions?"

"Not me," Gran snorted. "Long before my day. I belonged to the flapper
age. The 'It Girl.' Hip flasks, rumble seats, and the Charleston."

Oliver had the catalog now. "Buggy whips," he said sentimentally. "I
wonder if you could buy a buggy whip anywhere in this country today."

It was then that Cynthia pulled out a large leather-bound volume under
the magazines. She read a few pages of it and looked up. "Listen,
everyone. This looks interesting. The name stamped on the cover says
'Ship's Log 1922.' It seems to be a kind of diary of that summer on the
island. Kept by Mr. Wyndom, who clearly saw himself as captain of the ship."

Edwin's long fine hand, refueling his lighter, halted. "Diary? that
sounds fascinating."

"Well, it is. It seems they had a storm that year??

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this entry's dated August 16. The family was stranded here just when the
wife . . . well, it's delicately put, but one gathers that Mrs. Wyndom
was very, very pregnant. Here, Edwin, do you want to read it to us??you
have a better light there."

Edwin took the book, looked at a few pages while the family settled into
their wicker armchairs. Then he went back to the beginning.

"Well, the first entry is June 20." And he read aloud: " 'Came across on
the old Folly yesterday, landed on the island about four o'clock, too
tired to do much more than unpack the necessities. Herman and Eliza made
us comfortable, however, and prepared a tasty supper. This is their
eighth summer here, as well as ours. Of course, the boys are too young
to recall those first years. Douglas remembers only the last two?he's
five this year, but to John, at seven, it's like coming home.' "

He glanced up from the log. "Well, that certainly clears up the question
of whether or not there were children. How strange that it's been kept
such a mystery." He found his place in the book while Gert and Mildred
exchanged a furtive look.

" 'Strange, the island never seems to change. Mother and I grow older,
the boys top last summer's mark on the measuring chart, but the house
remains the same?the furniture, the wicker chairs that creak so eerily
after we have gone to bed, the young buck that I brought from my den in
Boston to put over the mantel' "?the eyes of the family turned
obediently to the deer head?" 'show no sign of wear. I can imagine this
house outlasting generations of Wyndoms. Well, back to the present. Had
a look at the cistern, judged it to be no more than a third full. We
must hope for rain.

" 'June 21: Spent most of the day settling in. I enlisted the children's
help. We play the old game of captain and mates. Herman and Eliza are
crew, and Mama our precious cargo. Without, of course, know-

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ing why, the children understand that she must rest as much as possible.
She is geting very heavy, although the expected event is still three
months away.'"

"She was going to have a baby," Mildred guessed, and Gert laughed.
"You're pretty sharp, Millie. Read right through the lines."

Edwin's eyes were running down the page. "The entries seem to be three
or four days apart. I suppose whenever the captain felt in a literary
mood. Some of it, well . . . this looks rather lively." He read again.

" 'Gave in, against my better judgment, to the chil-drens'
importunities, and took them to Machias for a Fourth of July
celebration. Hotter than Billy be damned. Fireworks, popcorn, sweaty
small-town crowd, I suppose the children enjoyed it. We now have
balloons tied to the branches of what they call the jingle tree outside
the big window.'"

"There it is," Jody said excitedly. "That must be it?the jingle tree."
Just visible in the reflected firelight, the aspen tapped lightly
against the big window. The family looked toward it as Edwin continued
to read.

" 'Personally, after a day in town, I was much relieved to get back to
our blessed cool island. Brought Mama a surprise treat for her birthday,
Saturday?ice cream. Put it in the icehouse directly on landing, and when
Herman went down to get it Saturday, found it had kept surprisingly well."

"Icehouse!" Brad exclaimed. "That's the place down at the dock. Very
solidly built, no windows. Boathouse, I thought it was, but I couldn't
figure why the place was two feet deep in sawdust."

"Somebody must have cut ice for him in winter," Oliver informed him.
"One of the lobstermen. Ice will keep for months in sawdust.
Nineteen-twenty-two," he continued, frowning, "that's not exactly the
Dark Ages. Couldn't they have had some kind of electric plant here by
then?for lights and refrigeration? And to

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pump the water? These people were well off. Why didn't they have any
modern conveniences?"

"Herman and Eliza were their conveniences," Cynthia said. "I don't feel
that the captain was the kind of man to feel the lack of anything he
never had."

Brad nodded. He was sitting forward with interest, his bald head
gleaming in the lamplight. "I see this fellow as probably born back in
the eighties, and perfectly content to stay there. Boy, would he turn
over in his grave if he could see what was going to happen to this place!"

Edwin turned another page. "Shall we go on? Next come several rather
prosaic items about rebuilding the dock after the winter storms, and
some trouble they had with a native they brought over to cut firewood.
Then a nice bit about the boys very excited because they think they have
discovered the pirate's cave, and how he must investigate it because it
might be dangerous at high tide. If he finds it safe enough, he'll plant
some old coins in there or something for the boys to discover as treasure."

Trudy laughed with pleasure. "I like that. He may have been stuffy, but
I like what he says about the treasure."

"I'll find it," Jody said confidently, "and it will be real pirate's
treasure, not just that fake stuff."

"I'm afraid the captain never got around to investigating the cave,"
Edwin said lightly, glancing a few pages ahead. "Because I see that
about now he's running into a bit of trouble. Here we are, at the end of
July, and the children have come down with the mumps, due, naturally, to
that ill-advised Fourth of July expedition. Mr. Wyndom is full of
righteous indignation."

He read. " 'This is the kind of thing we come here to
avoid?contamination, both moral and physical. Nine months of the year we
are at the mercy of all

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kinds of people; the children pick up ideas at school, no matter how
zealously we guard against it.' "

"Heaven forbid," Eloise interrupted, trying to sound cynical, as David
would have, "that the children pick up anything as disturbing as an idea!"

"The disturbing element in this case seems to have been Mama," Gran
observed, snapping a cigarette into the fire. "Mama had picked up
something a little nearer home."

The family snickered, and Edwin went on reading. " 'We will definitely
leave here a week from Monday...' I've skipped a bit here about the
boys' convalescence?this is dated August 18. ', . . although that will
cut short our usual stay. Alice is anxious to get back to Boston; her
worrisome feeling persists that a certain event will happen prematurely,
so I suppose I can hardly blame her. Flounder for breakfast this
morning, caught right off the dock, and of course our own raspberries.
The weather is so beautiful now, it is hard to contemplate leaving. One
cloudless day after another.' "

"Doesn't last," Gran predicted. "As an old soap fan, I guarantee that
cloudless days always mean storm signals."

"That poor woman," Mildred sympathized. "Don't tell us a storm comes up
just when she's ready to go to the hospital!"

Her husband gave her a disgusted look. "Spare your tears, Millie. Just
stop and realize that that baby, if now alive, is older than you are,
and you're a grandmother."

Brad got up and dumped another log on the fire. "Well, you know, it's
damned interesting! To read, in this day and age, about people living
here like hermits. I felt it the moment I stepped off the dock?this
place had a history. Well, go on, let's get to all the excitement."

Edwin continued. " 'August 27: The day set for our

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departure. But departing is out of the question. We have been
storm-bound since day before yesterday. There's no doubt that it is
appealing to some primitive instinct still existing in civilized man.
Batten down the hatches, take inventory of the larder, is the woodshed
well filled? How long can we hold out? All this, I admit, except for my
poor Alice, would hold something of a thrill for me and the boys. But
poor Mama! She has had several alarms, a bad one this morning, due, no
doubt, to nervousness. I remind her that the predicted date is still a
few weeks away, but she won't be consoled.

" 'The wind howls around the house so we can hardly think. Herman and I
braced the big window with pillows, a two-by-four, and rope fastened
with set screws into the frame. Eliza is too terrified to stir out of
the kitchen, but I think the children are more excited than frightened.

" 'Before dark set in, I got on my oilskins and went down to see the
boats. They were tossing about in very heavy seas, the lines all rubbed
and chafed. I could not help wondering what would happen if they came
loose and worse came to worst in Alice's dilemma. Well! For everyone's
sake, I must remain calm. Made all as secure as possible at the dock,
wind nearly tearing off my clothes in the process. Now all is up to God."

A glint of fear came over the faces of the family. They were all quite
caught up in the story.

Edwin, lighting a cigarette, had propped the heavy book on his chair
arm, and now he picked it up again and read, his voice firm and
victorious. " 'Beautiful baby, born August 28 four a.m. Weighed in on
our kitchen scales at nearly seven pounds. Eliza and I are justifiably
proud of ourselves; between us, we did what Dr. Winter, who got over
yesterday, called an excellent job. Now, of course, we shall be staying
on for a time, until Mama is sufficiently recovered to make the move.
She is naturally delighted now at the turn of events, as

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am I?that this third child of ours was actually born on our beloved
island. Weather is turning fine again; I am considering, since we have
the children's schoolbooks here, temporarily taking over their education
myself. In which case we might all enjoy the glorious month of September
here without having to hurry home. Already there is a feeling of autumn
in the air. The jingle tree outside the big window is dropping gold
coins at the slightest stir of wind.' " Edwin closed the book.

The family stirred, as if they were emerging from a trance. Only Cynthia
was not satisfied. "What I'd like to read is the log for 1926, the year
of the meteor."

"Don't you think," Edwin said, "that we've done enough research on the
Wyndoms for one night? I feel rather like a Peeping Tom already."

"Wait a minute." Cynthia was rummaging under the window seat, and now
she brought out another volume. "Here it is?1926. I'd just like to hear
the very last entry. Whether there was some warning, perhaps something
they felt in the atmosphere . . ."

Reluctantly Edwin opened the book she handed him, turning to the last
page. "Very well, here's the final entry." He scanned it a moment.
"Nothing very revealing, I'm afraid. Wyndom's simply complaining about
the ice situation. He fears it won't last the summer. Not enough sawdust
put down. So little, in fact, that the boys found a field mouse nest
built into it. They brought up a litter of newborn mice to show Mama,
who nearly fainted at the sight?he describes it graphically, 'a
squirming mass, ugly pinkish color, all entangled and helpless. She
ordered the boys to put them back at once, where their mother could find
them.' That's all?not very enlightening, as you see."

He handed the book back to Cynthia, and Brad, official spokesman, summed
up his judgment on the Wyndoms. "Well, they were certainly your old-time
individualists. Fellow like Wyndom wouldn't last long

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today. School-busing, for instance. He'd have a stroke if you so much as
explained it to him."

Edwin rose. His face became agitated. A blood vessel throbbed in his
temple like a pulse.

"Ah, but this place has lasted. I recall your telling us that the first
time you set foot on it you felt it. The permanence. Let me tell you
what I feel. From the moment each one of us arrived on this island, we
became contemporaries of the man who wrote all this. We've taken over
his property, the limits of his world, the anxieties, the make-do of
isolation. Oh, yes, but also escaped danger, escaped contamination, as
he did."

"If by contamination," Oliver began, "you're talking about the dangers
of modern air pollution, or even, to be dramatic, nuclear fallout?"

Edwin brushed him aside. "I'm talking about a way of life, a time of
life. I contend that, at the present moment, we have more in common with
the Wyndom family than with the man whose voice we last heard on that
radio. Read the record. What concerned those people concerns us?the
water supply, the raspberry crop, the difficulty of getting fresh food,
ice, a small boat tugging on a haul-out our only link with the world . .
. For Christ's sake, can't you see that nothing has changed here, that
we have changed to fit it?"

No one answered him. They cleared their throats as they always did when
Edwin's theatrics embarrassed them. Oliver saved them.

"What I'd like to find," he said in a calm, conversational tone, "is
some old snapshots. Find out whether that third child was boy or girl. A
family like that, with children, must have taken pictures. You know,
photography and paintings tell a lot. You can almost tell by the style
what decade a picture belongs to."

"That's right." Gran released the tension with a whinny of laughter. "I
remember when it became the style to show how broadminded you were, to
photograph the baby stark naked?oh, I tell you that was

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Mona Williams

considered pretty daring! Lying stomach-down, of course, so you couldn't
tell whether it was boy or girl."

Mildred glanced at Gert, sitting on the edge of her chair. She couldn't
hold in much longer.

"Go ahead," Mildred whispered, "tell them, Gert."

"All right, I guess it's time. Listen, Gran. Listen, everybody. It just
so happens Millie and I do know what that last baby was?a girl. The
other two were boys. John was the older, then Douglas, then, quite a bit
younger, the little girl born on this island. They named her Eleanor."

She had all their attention now, and settled back to enjoy it. "Let me
tell you what Millie and I discovered this morning." During the telling,
her listeners sat spellbound, then exploded at once into a barrage of
questions as well as ready-made answers.

"Can you imagine abandoning your own children? They certainly don't seem
the kind of people to do that!"

"They probably grabbed up the kids and sent them over on the first
rescue boat. Along with the servants, to take care of them. That would
explain how they could have been seen arriving with no children. The
children were there waiting for them."

"Waiting where? Mrs. Coffin said the four adults arrived together. Would
they have sent the children on alone, to be taken care of by just
anybody, terrified as they must have been by the meteor? And then left
all their clothes and toys behind them?"

"Children's clothes are easily replaced. They could travel in what they
had on. Although you'd think somebody would have remembered if one of
the natives had the kids, even for a couple of hours."

"My God," Brad said, "do you realize that for their generation it must
have been like Nakajima? All any-body'd think of was to get the hell out."

Into a moment's silence Edwin's voice came out unnaturally high.

"Gert, you say you found the children's names and

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comparative heights marked on a door? Different heights for the
succeeding summers they spent here?"

Mildred nodded. "Just two marks for the little girl. Perhaps for when
she was three and four. I think she'd have been four that last summer."

Gert said, "What happened to those kids? The natural thing to assume
since that last summer was the year the meteor fell?is that it killed
them. But if it was established, as Brad was told, that no human remains
were found near the meteor pit or anywhere else on the island, I guess
we'd have to rule that out, wouldn't we?"

No one spoke for a moment. Then Edwin said, looking around him, as
though he spoke not only to the family but also to invisible ears that
might be listening, "It's odd how I feel about those children. I
know?reasonably?that either they must be dead or else grown people in
their late-middle years. Somehow I cannot believe they are either." He
gave a little laugh, half-embarrassed, half-challenging. "I know it's
completely irrational."

"What isn't?" Gran asked of nobody in particular. "Irrational's the
climate we all seem to be living in right now."

It had begun to seem to Edwin that he had always lived here. Especially
he liked to hear the sound of Mariner's boat leaving for the day, like a
link snapping. Then he left peacefully adrift, as though the island was
suspended, a satellite in empty space, and everyone on it was floating
and weightless, like astronauts, untouched by the natural laws that
govern the earth.

He guessed they had been here over a week now, and each day when he
heard Mariner leave after his daily chores, he had felt this sense of
release.

On this particular afternoon he was alone in the living room; he poured
himself a small whiskey from the bar set up at one end Four o'clock was
a little early to start drinking, but ordinary rules didn't apply here.

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Mona Williams

Holding his glass, he studied the bookshelves that lined the bar
wall?Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Gulliver's Travels, as well
as McGuffey's readers, arithmetic, and English Usage. Even here on
vacation, the children were expected to improve their minds. He picked
out a book called The Physical Nature of the World, published in 1897,
when it was naively supposed that the substance of all that could be put
between the covers of one volume. It was a big book, and at once his eye
was caught by a large double-page spread of the frontispiece.

The picture was a steel engraving, elaborately detailed and fanciful. It
showed a broad winding river with a boatload of people just rounding a
turn in it. The boat was moving through calm water, and the banks at
either side were sunlit and tranquil. But the artist showed also a
section of the river behind the boaters where a storm was raging, with
turbulent water and trees on the river-bank bent double. This, the
boaters had apparently successfully navigated; what they didn't know was
that around the next turn, a dangerous waterfall lay in wait for them.

The legend under the engraving read: "These people believe that the
storm is over, that the fair weather they now enjoy generally prevails.
They now have nothing to fear. But we can see that this is not true. We
must learn to stretch our imaginations, to understand that when it is
day for us, it is night for other peoples of the world, and that while
we enjoy our summer, other countries are suffering the cold winds of
winter."

It struck Edwin that the artist and the man who wrote about this drawing
had a true understanding of the nature of time. They were not obsessed
by the continuing tick of minutes, the stealthy eating away of life.
They invited their young readers to take a broader view. Perhaps nothing
ever ceased to exist, maybe no moment is ever lost, but is yours
forever, so long as you keep it

121

in mind, frozen, as a camera stops movement in a single frame.

Jody had been nagging them all to set aside a special day for a special
purpose?to find the pirate's cave. Gert and Brad, although they weren't
sure it actually existed except in the Wyndom children's imagination,
decided to indulge him. Eloise joined the search party, and at the last
moment, with nothing better to do, Oliver and Gran. These two brought up
the rear.

After struggling up a steep path to come out on a ledge high above the
ocean, Gran said, "I think I've got a pebble in my shoe. Let them go on
ahead, this isn't an obstacle race."

She plunked down heavily on the ground and removed a sneaker from her
broad stubby foot. Oliver dropped down beside her.

He said, "I'd just as soon take a breather. My heart's pounding."

"Pooh. You're just getting a second wind. What are you? Not fifty yet."

"You know better?fifty-two. Just twenty years younger than you are. And
what with you being a freak of nature, and women lasting longer than men
anyway, I figure we're about the same age."

Surreptitiously he put a finger on his pulse. It seemed strong and
steady. Actually, his heart was, too. Now that he was aware of it, he
felt very well; he must have simply assumed Gran must be winded, been
trying to give her an excuse to rest.

Now she was saying, "It's Mildred. She's got you thinking about your
heart. Only time you should think about your body is when it's giving
you some fun." She gave him a smirk, her old face, in spite of the
leathery skin and the liver spots, as impudent as a small child's. "I
still have fun. Of course, it wasn't always the good clean kind I have now."

Oliver laughed, and they sat for a moment in com-

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Mona Williams

panionable silence, more like an old married couple than mother and son.
Below them, translucent green water, edged with a lacy froth of foam,
ran over the rocky fretwork exposed by low tide and gurgled playfully in
the crevices. Across a deep gully, on another outcropping, they could
see Gert, Brad, and Eloise, and running around the three adults, the
small boy.

"Just taking a cigarette break!" Gran yelled, waving, and Eloise waved
back, but they couldn't hear what she said.

Oliver's brown eyes remained on his daughter. "That's the girl I'm
really worried about. Something's troubling and changing her, and my
guess is, it's a man."

"Only interesting trouble there is for a girl," Gran said crisply. "At
her age, if she hasn't got man trouble, she's not living."

"At her age," Oliver said, "she ought to be married with a couple of
kids. Eloise was twenty-seven last April."

"Who's the man?"

"Well, I don't know?she's secretive. Or reserved?I I like that word
better. A funny thing happened. Couple of weeks ago?more, we've been
here about that?a dark, broad-shouldered fellow walked into my office,
well in his forties, I'd say, maybe twenty years older than Eloise, dark
eyes, curly hair, says in this deep aggressive voice, just this side of
insolence, 'You Mr. Os-borne? I'm David Loeb, a friend of your
daughter's. Maybe you've heard her speak of me.'

" 'No,' I said, 'I haven't had that pleasure.' Sarcastic, you know.
'Well,' he says, 'I thought it might be a good idea if you and I looked
each other over, got acquainted.' Well, I didn't care much for that. It
was too..."

L'Pushy," Gran supplied, her eyes glinting with inter-

est.

"Not only that. I didn't like what he was implying.

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What I said was, Eloise had other friends that I didn't

know, and wasn't particularly interested in knowing. The

fact was, I couldn't quite see the purpose of this visit."

"Good for you," Gran said approvingly.

"Then he really puts his foot into it. 'Considering the

fact that Eloise is important to us both,' he informs me,

he thinks it's important for us to establish some kind of

a relationship. That burned me. That was really when

i gave him the clincher. 'People that are important to

ny daughter,' I told him, 'that she wants her parents to

.now, she brings home. I don't recall ever meeting you

our house, Mr. Loeb,' I said. 'Why don't we wait until

oise sees fit to invite you to our home before we try to

ablish any relationship?' So then he stands up with

is mean smile on his face and says, 'I see now why that

isn't happened,' and walks out.

"Well, I couldn't do any work for the rest of the

ifternoon. It was damned upsetting. A man like that!

fewish, that was obvious. God knows I'm as liberal as

the next man. But a fellow like that just doesn't belong

in Eloise's world."

"Well," Gran said practically, "a man like that wouldn't walk into your
office without some reason, ome encouragement. Unless he was a crank or
some-hing."

Oliver shook his head. "He was no crank. That was he thing that upset
me. What you said about encouragement, that he must have had some."
"What did Eloise have to say about it?" "I haven't told her. I'll be
damned if I will. If she doesn't care to confide in her mother or me,
then nobody's forcing her to." "You tell Mildred?"

"Tell Millie?huh! You know how she'd build it up. I wouldn't give the
episode the ... the dignity." "You want me to pump Eloise a little? Oh,
nothing

-rather forget it. I'd have dismissed it from

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Mono. Williams

my mind, except, as I say, she hasn't been acting like herself. Mopes
around all day, makes no effort to get another job, and then, three or
four nights a week?out! Very vague about where?movies, watching TV with
a girlfriend, et cetera. Well, you can't treat a grown woman like a
teenager?even Mildred knows that."

After a moment Gran asked guilelessly, "Was this man at all attractive,
would you say?"

"Oh, I don't know," Oliver said irritably. "All I know is, he had one
hell of a nerve talking about establishing a relationship with Eloise
and a family like ours."

Jody was shouting at them from below. He and Eloise had clambered down
to the sandy shale-covered tide-land between the two ledges. "We've
found the cave!" Jody was shouting. "Here's where you get into it! Come
on down."

Oliver stood up and called to them. "Now, you watch yourselves?those
rocks are slippery. We don't want any sprained ankles!" He turned back
to his mother. "Come on, we've got to go down and see the cave."

She got to her feet, holding to his extended hand, and stood beside him,
looking down at the brown rocks below, slimy with seaweed. The tide,
still going out, sucked the weeds back and forth. For just a second the
treacherous thought nudged Gran: Do I have to go? Do I have to explore
pirates' caves at my age?

"That looks like the best way down," Ollie said. He pointed to a steep
decline, a narrow opening between the two ledges. "You think you can
negotiate that boulder?"

"Sure," Gran said.

Spurning Oliver's arm, clinging sweatily to the sun-hot stone, she
inched down the passageway behind him to join Brad and Gert, her
granddaughter, and her great-grandson.

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125

The cave was at water level, even at low tide. As it was now, only a
narrow strip of grainy sand lay beneath it and the ocean. The little
waves ran up the beach, danced in the inlets, and retreated. The eye was
soothed by the repetition, as by a metronome.

Still, Gert and Brad, seeing Jody and Eloise disappear inside, fretted.

"This could be a trap, once the tide turns," Brad said. "It's clear that
Wyndom himself never found it?he'd have worried himself sick."

"I'd guess those boys were smart enough to know that," Gert said. "They
never let him find it. Now we'll have to keep an eye on Jody every
minute." She went to the mouth of the cave and peered in. "Where's Jody
now?" she asked Eloise.

Her niece was huddled on a rock in the middle of the cave mouth. The
light was bad there; her face had a greenish underwater cast from the
dank glisten on the walls. She pointed toward what looked like a small
opening at the cave back.

"He's poking around. There's a passage that seems to lead to a higher
level. So narrow only a child could get into it. I had to get down on my
knees to even look in. But Jody crawled in quite easily."

Gran and Oliver joined them now and bent to look into the cave. Gert
called out uneasily, "Jody, wherever you are, get out here now!"

His voice reached them, small and hollow as an echo from some higher
reach of the back passage. "I think I've found something!"

They all waited, anxious and expectant; presently Jody's legs dangled
into sight from the hidden ledge in the passageway, and then gradually
the rest of him dropped to the cave floor. He was clutching something in
his hand and talking excitedly. "I was climbing up all the time, and
then, when I was hanging on to a high place like a shelf, I felt
something. I couldn't see any-

126

thing in there?it was black dark?I just felt it." He opened his hand. It
held some small soft thing enclosing something harder. A child's long
black stocking. Jody shook it out, and then, as though looking for a
Christmas toy, delved inside and pulled out a smiling, pert-faced bisque
Kewpie doll. A doll. Dolls were for girls. What girl played in a
pirate's cave? Jody wondered.

That night the family held a kind of wake over the lost Wyndom children.
"There's no doubt in my mind," Brad said, giving Jody a look that was
meant to put the fear of God in him, "that those kids were trapped in
that cave. Probably ran there to hide when the meteor struck. Very
likely it caused some kind of a tidal wave that followed them right in,
and when they saw it coming, it was too late or they were too terrified
to get out. Poor little bastards never had a chance."

"Never knew what hit them," Gran agreed, sighing.

"I went there again this afternoon just to check," Oliver chimed in.
"Tide had turned a couple of hours before, and already the cave floor
was a foot deep in ?water. Good high tide would fill every cranny of
that place, passageways and all. And then take out the bodies, clean as
a whistle, when it receded. Lost at sea?makes that old expression seem
pretty real, doesn't it?"

Jody said, more thrilled than scared, "What I bet is, they ended up
inside some big old shark."

"Now, you tell him, Ollie," Mildred said sharply, "he's our
responsibility. You lay down the law."

"You heard her, Jody. All right, so you found the cave. That's the end
of it, far's you're concerned."

"I found something in it, too," Jody reminded them. He set the Kewpie
out on the dining table, balancing it so it stood up straight, the
impish face and topknot as unblemished as if it had just come out of
store wrappings.

"What I don't understand," Edwin said, staring at it,

127

"is how could waves powerful enough to sweep away the bodies of three
children leave that doll untouched, intact?"

No one answered him. There seemed to be no answer. Trudy thought,
half-smiling: We're all beginning to accept the mysteries. As though the
island has put us under a spell.

A few days later, at the end of lunch, Trudy announced that she thought
she would go to her room and rest for an hour or so, not, she assured
her parents, that she felt unwell, she would simply like to be alone for
a time to finish an interesting book she had discovered.

She felt their eyes on her as she left the table, but she didn't look
back. At the head of the stairs she closed her door firmly enough to be
heard below; almost at once, very softly, she opened it, stepped out,
and eased it shut again. She tiptoed to the back stairway, where she
waited until she heard Mrs. Coffin emerge from the kitchen for her
after-lunch visit to the outhouse. Now she had free passage down the
back stairs onto the cooling deck and through the woodshed outside. She
began walking fast toward the neck, keeping well out of sight of the
living-room windows.

She was aware of the quickening of her heartbeat as she reached the
raspberry meadow, and although today she picked no berries, their
sun-warmed fragrance filled her nostrils, a foolish babyish easing of
the hard little fist of fear that was gathering inside her as she left
the meadow behind and neared the meteor pit.

There it was! Now she was actually standing on the scarred brink,
looking down. It wasn't so big?perhaps ten feet across and deep as a
tall man, but in a way more shocking in this green, sunny paradise
surrounding it than she had expected. Dark and cindery, like a great
iron pot set in the ground, with no kind growth of greenery to blur its
black ugliness.

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Mona Williams

With a conscious effort, she lifted her eyes. Quite clearly from here
she could see the fisherman's shack at the island's end, where the
Learnings lived. At the same time, a flash of white caught at the
periphery of her eye. She turned toward it. A figure lay stretched out
on a low flat rock at the water's edge, like a mermaid, the face turned
from her toward the ocean. All Trudy could see was that it seemed to be
a girl sunning herself.

She had waist-long brown hair and was dressed in something white that
covered her legs but left her shoulders bare. Trudy crept nearer. Now
one sun-bronzed shoulder, the flesh firm as a ripe peach, was clearly
visible above?yes, the old-fashioned garments named themselves instantly
to her?a ruffled camisole and a long petticoat.

Perhaps, in her astonishment, she made some sound, or a sixth sense
alerted the figure on the rock, because the girl sprang up, turned, and
saw her. The distance between them was maybe one hundred feet, too far
for speech, but their eyes locked together. Each stood motionless for a
few seconds; then the brown-haired girl turned and ran toward the
cottage, disappeared into it.

Trudy waited a few minutes; nothing happened. Reluctantly she turned
back to follow the path toward the big house. Mrs. Coffin was in the
kitchen, washing dishes.

"I came down for a glass of milk. I'm afraid I didn't drink mine at
lunch." As Mrs. Coffin poured it for her, she asked, "Did you ever hear
that the Learnings had a daughter? Or a granddaughter, who might visit
them?"

Mrs. Coffin shook her head. "Nobody ever visits them. What I hear, the
only living souls who ever lay eye on 'em are two old lobstermen named
Aiken. Must be about their age. Story is that when they first showed up
in North Fork, with their money all run out, the Aikens found 'em that
old shack they been

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129

living in ever since. Wonder it hasn't fallen down by now."

"I think they must have spruced it up, painted it maybe. It doesn't look
so bad, really."

Mrs. Coffin looked alarmed. "You been down there?"

"Not all the way. Papa and I walked far enough to get a glimpse of it."

She took the milk up the back stairs to her room. She sat down with her
book, but she didn't open it. She considered telling Papa about the
girl. But what she was thinking now was so fantastic that it could only
disturb him. Even people as close as she and Papa had secrets from each
other. He wouldn't tell her the truth about her illness, and she
wouldn't tell him that she knew. Nor would she tell him this. If the
girl had run away from Trudy alone, she would surely never show herself
to Trudy with a strange man.

When Edwin knocked gently on her door a little later, she said, "Come
in, Papa. That little rest was just what I needed?I think I'll make a
practice of it. I feel wonderfully refreshed."

130 It was the next day, just past the middle of their month-long
holiday, that Mariner told them about the county fair. "We got
everything this year. Not just the usual livestock shows, ladies'
handiwork exhibitions, hog-calling contests, and square dancing?we got a
real little traveling carnival scheduled to liven up things. The boy'd
sure get a kick out of it."

"A real small-town county fair," Mildred marveled as Jody immediately
set up a howl of delight, and Cynthia suggested that it might be a good
opportunity to lay in some fresh breads and pastries from the ladies'
baked-goods displays. But they all looked to Brad for a final decision.

He was smiling indulgently. "I suppose this is probably the only chance
we'll ever get to see a bit of pure old-time Americana. We might as well
make a day of it, so long as this weather holds."

The weather held. Mariner appeared early the next day with a small motor
launch rented for the occasion, big enough to hold the ten members of
the family, plus Mrs. Coffin, and Mariner at the helm. They had been on

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the island long enough now so that the fair was a welcome diversion, and
some of Jody's wild excitement at the prospect of the novel day ahead
infected them all. By ten o'clock they had landed on the mainland, and
almost from that moment, a subtle dampening and erosion of their spirits
set in.

Mariner and Mrs. Coffin promptly disappeared in his old car, and the
family, now separated into two other cars parked at the wharf, started
off over the rough, dusty twenty miles that would take them to the
fairgrounds. Brad's big station wagon, carrying most of them, was in the
lead; Edwin, Cynthia, and Trudy followed in their own, smaller car.

The warmth of the island was always freshened with salt breezes; here
inland, it was hot and muggy. Clouds of dust from a long drought blew in
on a steamy, sluggish wind. Gran sat up front with Gert and Brad.
Weariness and misgiving crept into her even before they got there. Was
she going to be up to it?tramping around all day in this heat, trying to
keep up with the young ones? She must have been crazy to think it was
going to be fun.

Brad was saying irritably, "Why do they always pick the hottest day of
the year for a fair?" and Gert answered in the same tone, "Don't start
complaining before we even arrive. We can cut it short if we feel like
it. Get some lunch, buy what we need, give Jody a ride on the Ferris
wheel and the merry-go-round, and get on back."

"No, we can't. We told Mariner to meet us at the wharf at six. Even if
we could find him earlier, we'd have a hell of a time landing. Tide
wouldn't be in far enough to land us at the dock."

"So we're stuck, then. Make the best of it?it was your decision."

Behind them sat Oliver and Mildred, their daughter and grandson. Mildred
was stricken with worries at pit-

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falls that lay ahead. "A small carnival. That probably means they can't
afford to keep it in good repair. A Ferris wheel that isn't regularly
inspected can be dangerous. You know what Jody's idea of lunch is? Hot
dogs and cotton candy. We'll have a sick little boy on our hands
tomorrow. Now, Jody, no running off by yourself. You could get lost and
give your grandfather a heart attack. You hear me?"

Heart attack, Oliver thought, what would happen to a man with a heart
attack in country like this? Nearest decent hospital probably fifty
miles away. Back in Boston they had ambulances equipped with instantly
available oxygen. Could sunstroke or heat alone bring on an attack?
They'd probably have those
swing-the-hammer-see-how-high-you-can-jump-up-the-ball things, and Brad
was just the type to challenge him. Better stay away from that.

Only Eloise was unaware of the heat. Her mind was completely fixed on
the handbag that she clutched in her lap. They had stopped on the wharf
to pick up mail in the general box used by the few people who lived
nearby, and Eloise had gone to get it. Only Gran's sharp eyes had seen
her separate one letter from the others and slip it into her handbag
before handing over the rest of the mail to Brad.

"A secret admirer?" Gran had asked with a conspiratorial smile.

Eloise pretended not to hear. Unopened, unread, the letter seemed to her
like an unexploded shell that she must hold until she could find a place
to open and defuse it. It could say he was coming here, wanted or
unwanted. It could say he had been in an accident. Or it could say he
had given her up because he had found a better woman. There are bound to
be rest rooms at the fair, she thought. You can be alone in one of those
cubicles, you can flush a torn letter down the toilet.

Only Jody was in a state of unshaken anticipation.

133

"We're almost there," he shouted now. "Look ahead?see? It's the top of
the Ferris wheel!"

Trudy sat between her parents in their small foreign car. Her head lay
back against the seat, and she was very quiet. From time to time, they
each looked anxiously at her, and she murmured, "I'm all right. I'd just
forgotten how hot it can be when you get away from the ocean."

She really wasn't all right; she'd been through this enough times before
to know. She had wanted to go to the fair almost as much as Jody had,
but now she couldn't hold all the childish pleasures and novelties it
offered in her head; her mind and body had both become listless and
slippery?they couldn't hold on to anything. Of course, she shouldn't
have come. The brown-haired girl on the rocks could have told her that.
How strange that not a word had passed between them, but something had.
Had the girl felt it too, some kind of communication? A time would come
soon when it would open up into words. She felt this as a promise. Once
she got back on the island, she would make it happen.

But suppose she didn't get back? If this should turn into one of those
really bad spells, they wouldn't take her back. They'd take her to a
hospital, and Dr. Healy would come, who didn't believe in miracles, who
knew it was only a question of time. She mustn't let that happen. With
some effort she straightened up. She brought forth words that sounded in
her own ears as bright and brittle as plastic.

"Look, we're here, there's Uncle Brad looking for a parking place. So
many people! I had no idea. It's going to be a wonderful day, isn't it?
Something we can always remember."

If her parents answered, she didn't hear. They had passed into the
fairgrounds, and a blast of crowd voices, harsh carousel music, and a
rock band engulfed them.

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Mona Williams

Eloise had escaped into a rest room. Two women were standing in front of
a strip of mirror talking into their reflected faces. Eloise locked
herself inside a cubicle. She first looked at the postmark. Mailed four
days ago. It must have lain in the mailbox for at least two of them,
perhaps three. She tore open the letter. It began abruptly, without
salutation.

"Remember that old joke about the two kids watching their elders at a
dancing party? One kid says to the other, 'I've discovered how you can
tell the difference between men and women?the women dance backward." Is
that what you're doing, Eloise? Is it that you want every move that
brings us together clearly made by me, so your family will see that you
do not willingly degrade yourself?

"I'm not going to let you get away from it. I'm coming after you, and
we'll confront your family together, and you'll make it clear to them
that you're going to marry me, not under any form of coercion or
infatuation, not that I've swept you off your feet. But because, having
taken into full consideration my age, my religion, my marital status,
you've accepted me, as I have you.

"What we're not going to tell them is that we're both paranoid?that what
you really want is a father who will rape you, and I want a child wife
whom I can instruct and despoil. Obviously a perfect match. You know
what I'm going to do after we're married? Walk into the neat clean
little house named Eloise Osborne like a big bad dirty boy with muddy
feet. I'll throw open all the closed doors and windows and start
trashing the place. So warn your family or not: an uninvited guest is
about to crash your elegant WASP hideaway. Commend me for my guts, baby.
It won't be easy.

"But worth it. We belong together, and so we're going to be. That's all
that matters. Get inside that one thought as if it were a bulletproof
vest, and we'll both come through this without a scratch." Nothing more,
only a big scrawled D.

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135

She gulped in a great breath of air that seemed to invade her whole
body. She saw herself lying with David, his mouth against hers,
breathing into her his own life-giving breath. She could sit up now,
even stand alone, she could walk, unsupported, without him, with only
the knowledge that he was coming. She was becoming less of a coward.

She folded the letter and tucked it into her bra, so that the crisp
paper scraped her bare breast. There was a pleasure in the discomfort.

Gran stood in line with the others, waiting to get into the pavilion
where they served lunch. Her legs ached; she could feel the veins
standing out against the rough denim of her pantsuit. She looked around
in a kind of panic for a place to sit down. When the line moved forward,
she fell out and slumped against a large trash-can. Cynthia saw and came
after her.

"You all right, Gran?"

"I'm just not hungry. If the rest of you want food bad enough to stand
hi line for it like a chain gang, count me out."

"Look, why don't you and Edwin and Trudy and I go to the hotel for
lunch? I don't like this for Trudy, either. Wait a minute, I'll speak to
Edwin."

In a moment she and Edwin were back with their daughter. In spite of her
own misery, Gran saw how pale the girl was. They're glad I had sense
enough to speak up, she congratulated herself. Now they don't have to
make an issue of getting Trudy out of this bedlam.

It was a small nightmare getting the four of them back to Edwin's car,
but they made it. Sitting in the narrow rear seat beside her
granddaughter, Gran felt her first real twinge of anxiety about the girl.

"Tell you what," she said, leaning forward between Edwin and Cynthia.
"When we get to the hotel, you

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Mona Williams

get us a room with a couple of beds in it, so Trudy and I can stretch
out for a while. Maybe have a sandwich and some iced tea or coffee sent
up. Then you two can go into the dining room and have a decent lunch.
How's that, Trudy, for an idea?"

The girl nodded. "I don't care about lunch," she murmured.

When her parents agreed, Gran sat back. She felt stronger seeing a
teenager so done in. That girl needed taking care of!

The hotel room was plain and old-fashioned, hot, of course, but
blessedly quiet. Gran shucked off her shoes, pulled up her pants legs,
opened her shirt front a little for comfort, lay down on one of the twin
beds, and went to sleep almost at once.

On the other bed, Trudy looked at her wristwatch. Twenty before two. In
four hours they'd be headed back to the wharf to meet Mariner at six.
Allowing time for the confusion of getting them all together?please,
God, let everyone be on time!?plus the ride back to the island in the
motor launch, much faster, she recalled thankfully, than Mariner's
outboard, they should be there before seven.

Between now and then, she must live on that thought. Not only that, but
somehow she must conceal from them all that this was no more than a
fatigue normal to a girl recovering from some weakening but temporary
ailment common to young people. At the moment, she felt that to get up
from this bed, go through all the motions necessary to get home again,
was beyond her powers. She knew, too, that she would be given the
strength to do it.

What was the alternative? A hospital, the pitying, helpless faces bent
over her, the useless blood transfusion. Only the island could make her
well again. Home. How could she not think of it as home? She drifted
off, thinking of the warm drone of bees that

137

swarmed over the raspberry meadow lighting on her bare neck and arms and
never stinging or leaving any mark.

Cynthia entered the room very quietly. Neither Gran nor Trudy stirred.
In a moment Edwin would be up with a tray of food and drinks?iced tea
and cold milk. The old hotel did not provide room service. Gran lay on
the bed nearest the door. Cynthia stood a moment looking down at her.

Gran slept fitfully, her head tilted back and her mouth open, an
unbeautiful sleep; her eyelids twitched, she sucked in her breath
greedily. Her short, sturdy legs under the rolled pants legs were
heavily veined; the opened top buttons of her shirt revealed the heavy
sag of her breasts. Cynthia saw that in Gran, fight it as long and
staunchly as she could, old age would have her in the end. A matter of
time, just as in Trudy . ..

The girl's eyes were open; she turned her face, glistening with
perspiration, toward her mother. Cynthia went to her at once.

"Darling, can you eat anything? Your father is bringing up?"

"What time is it? How soon can we leave here?" With an effort, she
lifted her thin, bird-boned wrist. "Only three o'clock! We don't have to
go back to the fair, do we? We can just stay here until . . . until it's
time . . ."

"Trudy, baby"?Cynthia sat down on the bed?"listen to me. You're not
well. Dr. Healy told me where we can reach him. He chose Maine to
vacation in partly so he could be near us. There's no use being brave
about how you feel when he can make you feel better. There's a hospital
not very far from here. I can call him and arrange?"

"Mama, no!"

Gran was awake, pulling herself together, and she broke in, "Now,
Cynnie, a hospital's going too far. You

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Mona Williams

put Trudy in some little hick hospital, and you'll make her sick.
Edwin"?she appealed to him as he came in with the tray?"you know that
fairground was enough to turn anybody's stomach! Smelled like a
barnyard. Look at me, healthy as a horse, why I tell you, it made me
feel like an old woman."

"Trudy's not going to any hospital," Edwin said. "Once we get back on
the island and she gets all that stench out of her lungs, she'll be
fine. You saw how she's been these past weeks, Cynthia. Radiant,
absolutely radiant."

He set the tray on the table between the beds and held the milk to
Trudy's dry lips.

"The noise alone," Gran elaborated, buttoning her shirt, "rock 'n' roll,
merry-go-round, people yelling. You know, Cynthia, it's been proven, you
get beyond a certain noise decibel, your nerves . . ."

But Cynthia was gone. The door was closed before Gran could finish. She
hurried down the stairs to the phone booth were Eloise had tried to call
David nearly three weeks ago. She was mortally afraid for her daughter.
The new drug she had been given just before she came to the island had
kept her in this blessed state of remission until now, but inevitably,
as today had proved, the effects would wear off, as Ralph had warned her
they would. Only a blood transfusion would help her now, and only a
doctor's authority could get her to a hospital for it, with Edwin so
blinded by his miracle mystique, and the vast ignorance of the others.

She got the little card out of the zippered pocket of her handbag. There
was the number of the Gull Harbor Motel. Little chance he would be in
his room in mid-afternoon, but at least she could leave a message. She
started to dial the number, but suddenly, convulsively, hung the phone
back in the cradle. Her hand, holding the coin, moved back to press
against the side of her stomach. She had felt a stirring, hardly more
than a flutter of movement, but real?real.

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139

And she thought, exulting: No woman ever really believes it until she
feels this . . . this physical shock of recognition. The first time was
like no other, but it would come again soon?she knew that. Something
happened in her mind, too. For a few seconds the image of Dr. Ralph
Healy disappeared; he became a man, her lover, who had put this new life
in her body.

After a moment she lifed the phone again and put in the coin. She would
not try to speak to him. To hear his voice, if by chance he was there,
and not speak of this ?impossible! And equally impossible to speak of it
and Trudy together.

An impersonal female voice answered the call. Cynthia left a message.
Mrs. Sutherland was calling. Please tell Dr. Healy as soon as possible
that his patient needed him. He would know where to find her.

The operator asked her to wait a moment. When she came back, she said
she was afraid Dr. Healy would be unavailable for a day or so. He and
some friends had rented a boat for a fishing trip. She said she
regretted she didn't know when he'd be back but that the message would
be waiting for him in his room.

Weary and sweaty, drag-footed and nerve-frazzled, the family waited at
the wharf for Mariner to stow them into the boat. Jody was crying
because Mildred had slapped him for trying to run back to the car to get
some forgotten souvenir from the fair. Gert and Brad were furious with
Mrs. Coffin, who kept them all waiting five extra minutes. Oliver looked
at Eloise, puzzled because she turned so eagerly, even started forward
at the sound of an approaching car down the dirt road when it was only
Mrs. Coffin's son driving her to the wharf. No one was in a mood to pay
attention to Trudy, who, ghost-pale, clung to her father as he supported
and lowered her carefully into the launch. Or to Gran, either, who had
scorned Mariner's offered hand clhnbing

140

out of the boat this morning and now had to be dumped into it like an
old sack of aging flesh.

The first sign of revival came when they got far enough out from the
wharf for the first salt spray to sting their cheeks. They all lifted
their faces to it, kept them lifted for the first sight of the island.
They hadn't long to wait. Mariner was taking the shorter route, keeping
well inside the bay. The sea was calm, and in the clear afternoon light
the high spruce-pointed headland of the island soon came into view. They
rounded it, heading toward the dock. No one noticed when Mariner rose to
a standing crouch at the tiller, peering ahead of him.

But a second later, when he cut the motor to idling so he could be heard
above it, he called, "Mr. Bradley, there's a pair of binoculars in the
cupboard under that seat. I'd like to take a look ahead, if yousd fetch
'em out."

Brad fumbled under the seat. "What's wrong?" he shouted, handing over
the glasses.

Mariner was standing now, looking through the binoculars. "Well, by God,
if I wasn't seeing with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it!"

"What the hell," Brad said. He got up, cautiously balancing his bulk, to
stand beside Mariner, who silently handed over the glasses.

"Look for yourself. Dock's gone."

Brad looked. All he could see through the lens was a wreckage of logs
and floating lumber that had once been their landing dock. "My God, what
could have happened? Couldn't be the weather. Couldn't be some freakish
undercurrent hit it . . ."

Mariner shook his head. "Sea's flat as the palm of your hand. No, sir,
that destruction's manmade. At least, looks from here as if it is."

"What can we do?"

"All we can do?land on the rocks is all. We'll have some pretty slippery
footwork getting everybody on

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shore, but I'll get her in as close as I can without hitting bottom;
we'll think on what happened later." He put the motor into gear, and the
launch sprang forward.

Brad went back to tell them all that had happened. He looked worriedly
at Gran. It was up to him and Oliver to get her onto solid ground. Let
Edwin be responsible for Trudy. What disturbed him even more was that if
Mariner was right, as became increasingly evident as they neared the
broken dock, there could be vandalism in this idyllic place?worse, that
someone bore him enough ill will, either personally or for what he
planned to do with the island, to commit such deliberate destruction.
The thought was not only frightening but also painful. A genial,
good-hearted man-?this was how people had always known him, the way Brad
knew himself. How could anyone be his enemy?

Mariner had got in as close as he could; he shut off the motor. Up
close, the sabotage looked even more impressive and intentional. "Must
be somebody knew everybody'd be gone all day," Mariner observed. "Took a
piece of time to do a job as thorough as this."

They all stared, stupefied, at the smashed dock. "Everyone wasn't gone,"
Gert suddenly remembered. "There's the old couple down at the shack. Now
Brad, you'll have to talk to them. See if they heard or saw anybody."

Mariner shook his head. "No use to that. Waves make such a racket down
to their place, even when it's calm here bayside, they'd never hear a
thing. Besides, what I hear, they scare like rabbits. If they'd seen
anything funny going on, they'd just hide inside and pull the blankets
over them. Thing to do now is get us all ashore and go on up to the
house. See if they done anything there. They or him?if this was a
one-man job?I'd guess it was just about enough to wear a fellow out."

"We've got to get someone working on this," Brad groaned, "building a
new dock and finding the bastard who did it. I'm not very happy to think
he could still be

142

somewhere around here on the loose. Who would we notify in a case like
this?the sheriff?"

"Coast guard. Soon's I get all you folks ashore"?Mariner was already
occupied with the business at hand ?"I'll run the launch out to the
mooring, bring in the dory, and put her on the haul-out. Then I'm going
on up to the house with you. Then I'll take back the launch and get word
to the Coast guard. First thing tomorrow, I'll get a couple of fellows
over here, and we'll build you a new dock in a hurry."

"What do you think, Mariner? Who did it?"

"We'll know better when we see if anything was smashed or took from the
house. All right, now, Mr. Osborne and I can handle the old 'un. Then
I'll take the girl?looks to me her dad's pretty near wore out himself.
You take the boy, let him sit on your shoulders, that'll steady you some."

Brad turned to look for Jody. He was crouching at the back of the
launch. He looked at his uncle wide-eyed, and his voice was thin with
fear. "I'm not going ashore. Nobody should. Can't we all just turn
around and go back to the mainland?"

"Now, Jody, I'm surprised, a big boy like you all op-set about a broken
dock. You think those pirates had any dock to land on? No, sir, they
waded up over the rocks just like we're going to. Nobody's scared around
here, we just want to know what happened."

"I know what happened."

"We'll find out," Brad said. He picked up the shivering child and set
him on his shoulders. "What I think is, some bad boys wanted to play a
trick on us, like a Halloween trick, because we're strangers in this
neighborhood. Only, it wasn't very funny."

"It wasn't boys. It wasn't a trick. It was just to say go away."

He knew his uncle wasn't listening, and he fell silent, trying to keep
his balance on the heavy shoulders as Brad cautiously maneuvered them
forward. But his eyes

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searched the shore ahead, looking for the powerful arms and the bearded
face of a man who had seen them all leave this morning and hadn't wanted
them to ever come back.

Gran sat down to rest on the rock where they had dumped her, her feet
planted solidly on the island. Gradually her breath steadied; the day's
ordeal was over. She watched Edwin reluctantly surrender Trudy's slender
weight to Mariner's surefooted care. She was carried over and set down
beside Gran. Gingerly, resigning themselves to wading in calf-high water
rather than risking the kelp-slicked rocks, some clutching breads and
pastries purchased at the fair, the rest of them made their way onto dry
land.

It took some time. Twilight was setting when they were ready to start on
the winding path up and across the narrow width of the island to the
high crest of the house. Surprisingly, both Trudy and Gran elected to
make the short trip on their own feet. After some argument, after Gran's
loud avowal that she'd had enough of being carted about like a sack of
grain, after Trudy's parents' searching eyes had noted the faint color
returning to her face, it was decided to risk it. At least, taking it
slowly behind the others, they would be protected from a first look, if
further shocks awaited them.

The front and kitchen doors had been locked, but this was no more than a
gesture; the house offered a determined intruder several other entries.
But it appeared at first glance, and then on further inspection, to be
exactly as the family had left it that morning, untouched by any other
human presence. The men examined the first floor; Gert and Mrs. Coffin
investigated the kitchen; Cynthia, Mildred, and Eloise went through the
rooms upstairs. They came down again to join the others, relieved but
baffled.

"It's beyond me," Gert said, lighting an oil lamp and setting it on the
table beside the fair-bought baked goods. "Cynthia's jewelry box was
standing open, and

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I had three twenty-dollar bills in my other bag right on the dresser.
Nothing touched."

Mariner shook his head. "It's a bad sign that nothing was took. I'd
rather deal with a common thief any day than one of those
sick-in-the-head fellows. They're the ones ought to be locked up."

Oliver, opening a chocolate layer cake and licking his fingers, agreed.
"I suppose if you already had a getaway boat loaded with valuables,
smashing the dock might make some sense?delay detection. But this seems
so absolutely pointless."

Gran and Trudy had arrived by now, and Trudy said earnestly and yet with
a thread of excitement running through her voice, "But you see, it does
make a kind of sense?it does to me. They didn't want to rob us, they
just wanted to tell us something. That we weren't welcome here. Oh, they
knew we'd come back?the island belongs to Uncle Brad now, they knew we'd
build a new dock, still... they had to protest. They had to make their
feelings known. That's all it was, a message."

She saw their surprised and puzzled faces in the lamplight; most of all,
she saw Jody, silent, big-eyed; partly for him she tried to laugh a
little. "Whoever they are. I know I'm fantasizing. You must blame
Papa?he raised me on fairy tales and ghost stories. Mrs. Coffin, could
we have some of that heavenly-looking cake over there for supper? We had
breakfast so early, I hardly ate anything, and no lunch. You know, Papa,
I think part of what was wrong with me today was I was plain hungry. At
least, I am now. It's this air?it gives me an appetite."

"That doesn't surprise me. We expected that, didn't we?"

She nodded, smiling. Seeing their faces so lighted with new hope,
Cynthia, looking from father to daughter, could feel only desperately
sorry for them both.

Mariner arrived early next morning with a load of

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lumber and another man to help him rebuild the dock. When he came up to
the house with ice and newly dug clams, the Bradleys were having their
first cup of coffee in the kitchen. The sky was overcast this morning; a
moist easterly wind made the kitchen more inviting than the breakfast
porch. Mrs. Coffin poured coffee for Mariner, and as he looked at it,
hesitating, Brad said hospitably, "Sit down. Let's hear what the coast
guard had to say about our big surprise last night."

Mariner sat down and cupped his hands around the warm cup. "Seems a
bunch of out-of-state punks arrived in Machias yesterday on a hunting
party. When they were told they couldn't get licenses because they'd
jumped the season by several weeks, they got mad, rented a boat, and
loaded up with food and liquor and set off up the river toward the bay.
Now, nobody thinks any of 'em knew enough about navigating in open water
to have made it out here to the island. But I guess it could happen. And
they could have been drunk enough and crazy enough to take it out on
what they'd think of as a native, to smash his dock. Coast guard admits
it's a pretty farfetched idea, and more so after the men were tracked to
their motel this morning and questioned. But they didn't have anything
more likely to tell me."

"So there's nothing more we can do about it?"

"Oh, they'll keep after it. Talk to the lobstermen who got traps around
here, see if they noticed anyone or anything peculiar to these parts.
Only ones who naturally get in real close to Wyndom is the old Aiken
brothers, and they only make it over three or four times a year now to
bring supplies to the Learnings. Mostly stay to home. Wouldn't talk
anyway, closemouthed as clams."

Gert said, "Brad, if you won't talk to the Learnings, I will. I know?you
gave them till September first. Well, it's only a week short of that now."

Brad considered. "Maybe Mrs. Coffin or Mariner

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could talk to them. They might feel more comfortable with . . . well,
just hearing a Maine accent."

"Not me. I wouldn't be comfortable?too many funny stories about those
two." Mrs. Coffin got up to check the coffeepot. "Besides, they're not
state-of-Mainers. Nobody knows where they came from. Two generations
ago?who'd remember, if they ever did know?"

Mariner didn't warm to the idea either. "Like I said last night, they'd
be no help. Better check it off to one of those freak things that
happen, never happen again. I'll get back down now and get on with the
building. We're going to get some rain pretty soon. Barometer took a
little drop." As he was leaving, he spoke from the door. "We found what
was used to pry up the heavy boarding before it was axed. Crowbar. It's
got some initials graved into one end. W. W.?that was Wyndom's first
name, Walter; we figured it must have been in the icehouse all these
years. But, funny thing?looks bran' new, not a sign of rust on it."

"Icehouse," Gert said thoughtfully, "Ice is a natural preservative."

Mrs. Coffin laughed. "Been nothing but sawdust in there since the
Wyndoms left." She got up. "I hear signs of life upstairs?I better get
my breakfast going. Seemed like nobody had enough to eat last night. I
hadn't figured on such hearty appetites. Way you all looked when I got
down to the wharf, about all you wanted was to fall into bed."

"We're a pretty rugged bunch, in spite of being city slickers," Brad
said, smiling, almost succeeding in putting the dock disaster out of his
mind. "We bounce back ?just as Gran and Trudy did last night."

Brad had his transistor radio on, and at twelve-thirty, when they were
all at the lunch table, they got a weather report. It seemed they were
having quite a storm way south of here along the Maryland coast, moving
north, but it was expected to blow itself out

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before it reached Boston. Meanwhile, here the sun had come out again;
through the open door to the porch they could hear the waves landing on
the rocks below, gentle and steady, like the heavy breathing of a
sleeper. A sense of ease and pleasure spread around the table. Yesterday
was beginning to seem no more than a bad dream.

Only Cynthia was troubled by the mix of her emotions. Because, with no
rational explanation, the evidence of her own eyes told her that Trudy
today was not the same girl who had lain so mortally ill on the bed in
the hotel yesterday. So, in all reason, she must regret her desperate
call to Dr. Healy. But also, the knowledge that in response to it he
might appear at any hour rilled her with a half-sweet, half-sickish
excitement.

"Let me give you my con$idered thinking," Brad was saying, lolling and
creaking expansively in his ancient wicker chair. "We should take full
advantage of maybe the last good day we'll all have here together. You
know that little beach just west of the dock, only piece of real beach
on the island? My thinking is, we have a clambake there tonight, early,
say, so we get the benefit of the sunset. Take a nice big shaker of
martinis and a rollerful of clams Mariner brought over with the ice this
morning . . ."

Gert took over. "You bake 'em in seaweed," she cried, exulting, "dank
old seaweed?steam 'em for hours?that's how it's done down east. How's
that for exotic?"

Brad bounced forward in his chair. "That's just the four-ninety-five
appetizer. After that, we broil the steaks I got yesterday, and then the
huckleberry pie, blue-ribbon winner of the Ladies' Bakery Contest.
Hey?you know that old Fannie Farmer Cookbook in the kitchen? It's got a
kind of motto just inside the cover. How did it go, Mildred?"

And she quoted: " 'No Woman can ever Attain Great

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Power unless she be a Great Beauty, a Great Scold or a Great Cook.' "

"Miss Atlantic City, Bella Abzug, or Julia Child," Oliver translated smugly.

Mrs. Coffin came in just then from the kitchen and looked surprised and
flustered at the burst of applause that greeted her, as befitted, Mr.
Osborne said, any great power. City folks were certainly peculiar! Come
home yesterday with a sick girl to a smashed dock, and here they all
were, laughing like idiots.

"We might get some fresh fish tomorrow," Cynthia said. It was hard to
keep that name that so filled her mind from her lips. "Remember, Edwin,
Dr. Healy said if he got a good catch, he'd bring us some? You showed
him that chart Brad sent us, and where Wyn-dom Island was on it."

"Did I? Well, I certainly didn't expect him to make the trip over just
to bring us fish. A bit like bringing coals to Newcastle."

His comment was dry and brief, but secretly, this supposedly offhand
remark of Cynthia's confirmed his suspicion that she had somehow got a
message to Dr. Healy about Trudy. What he felt?feared?was a conspiracy
between Healy and Cynthia to get the girl back in his care, and
yesterday she would have had a good excuse?no, be fair, he reminded
himself, a good reason?to do so. Because Cynthia had no faith, she
couldn't believe, as he and Trudy had, that once she was back here?-

Trudy burst in on these reflections. "Oh, Uncle Brad, what a wonderful
idea. A beach picnic would be just perfect for tonight."

Looking at his daughter's bright eyes, Edwin thought: Let Healy come,
then. Let him see for himself there are things that science can't explain.

Gert said suddenly, looking at the table centerpiece, a brass pot of
marigolds. "You know, it just occurred to me. I brought those flowers
over and stuck them in

149

some water over three weeks ago, and they look just as fresh as they did
then."

Gran said, "Autumn flowers are hardy, they last. Not like those frail
spring ones."

"Never even changed the water." Gert leaned over the pot and sniffed
into it. "Smells all right, no sense throwing 'em out."

Cynthia's remark about Dr. Healy at lunch, some note in her voice as she
spoke his name, struck Gran as well as Edwin. But she drew from it quite
a different implication. It was time to pry a few facts out of her
daughter, and feeling her old cocky self, she decided to seek her out.
Cynthia was sitting in her room, holding a hand mirror to her hair as
she turned her head from side to side. She glanced at Gran as she came in.

"Can you see that I need a touch-up? I've been having them for the last
couple yeacs. I'm going to get gray early. I thought I might slip off
while the rest of you were at the fair yesterady and find some little
hairdresser, but of course, when Trudy became ill I forgot all about it.
Now I can't really see that I need a touch-up?I usually have one every
three weeks." She set down the mirror. "It's really quite remarkable how
much better she is today."

Gran sat down and lit her after-lunch cigarette. "What's the matter with
you, Cynnie? There's something on your mind besides Trudy and your
hair." She gave her daughter a shrewd glance. "It's a man, isn't it? If
not Edwin, then another one."

Cynthia was not quite ready for so blunt an approach. She had
half-expected that, yes, eventually she might confide in Gran, because
Gran would strengthen and justify her, make her feel that if she were
unfaithful to Edwin he would be responsible, that his neglect had driven
her to it. But she was not ready for it. Gran had given her an easier
answer.

"Of course I'm concerned about Edwin. He doesn't

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sleep, he's lost all interest in his work, he's drinking too much. Dr.
Healy?our doctor?thinks he'd be all right if he faced up to things. But
he won't?he just keeps blindly telling himself that there's nothing to
be afraid of."

"Well, what is there to be afraid of?"

Cynthia didn't answer at once. When she did, her tone had changed,
become minimizing and evasive. "Well, of course, what he won't face up
to is that this ... this virus thing that Trudy's had must be taken
seriously. Taken care of before we can even think of getting on with her
career."

"Well, take care of it," Gran said briskly. "Take her away from this
do-nothing Healy and get her well. Put her back in school, give her a
big party, and let the boys look her over. Let her fall in love?best
tonic in the world for whatever ails her."

"That's an idea." Cynthia stood at the window, watching a squirrel flow
from one branch to another and then sit frozen still, looking in at her.

"This Dr. Healy," Gran said after a moment, "the one Trudy says is sweet
on you. Could he be what's got Edwin all hot and bothered?"

"Oh, for God's sake. Trudy was joking."

"Joking. Now, listen, my dear girl, maybe she was, but many's the brass
tacks spoken in jest." Gran purled scornfully on her cigarette. "You're
enough like me so that I know if you're not having any fun with Edwin,
you've got at least an eye out for somebody else."

The crude and accurate guess hit Cynthia like a blow. Gran's interest in
her love life, in all affairs of the flesh, seemed, in her present mood,
obscene and repellent.

She said heatedly, "Edwin's mind is so full of his daughter that there's
no room in it for his wife. Me and another man? I can assure you such a
thing has never occurred to him."

"I wasn't concerning myself with what's in Edwin's mind. Only with
what's in yours."

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"Well, don't. I'm going down and help Mrs. Coffin with the picnic
things. I told her I'd help."

Without another word, Cynthia left the room. She's right, she told
herself despairingly, hurrying down the dark hallway to the stairs, I am
like her. Or, at least, I'll grow to be!

The picknickers were to gather at the beach at six. By four-thirty,
Mariner and his helper had finished a makeshift dock and were ready to
leave for the day. The new dock would see them tlirough the rest of the
summer, through the period that the Bradleys planned to stay on to
oversee what could be done before actual building of the resort would
begin as early next year as the weather permitted. No dock had ever been
built here strong enough to withstand a winter intact, Mariner had told
them; the Wyndoms, as the old folks recalled, rebuilt every summer,
knowing that ice floes and the tides of winter storms would tear away
most of the dock before they returned the next year.

When Eloise heard Mariner's outboard leave, she put on a modest bathing
suit, took a pillow from her bedroom, and went down the path to the new
dock. She stretched out full length on the fresh wooden planking. Sun
rays were slanted in the waning afternoon, but sunning was not her real
purpose. If any stranger approached the island here, she would be the
first to know.

The boards were still sun-warmed, and she lay on her stomach, arms
folded across the pillow, a dark tousel of hair falling across her eyes.
Here she was directly over the water and quite alone; no human sound or
sight assailed her senses.

Yet all around her was movement and disturbance, the dance of light on
water, the cries of gulls, a flock of curlews wheeling overhead, the
lively slap of water against the planking. As she watched, two seals,
poised on an offshore ledge, slid into the sea, making, not a splash,
but an intensification of glitter. She dropped her

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hand into the water, well above her wrist, and was thrilled and
astonished at the knifelike shock of cold that ran up her arm.

She turned on her back and pulled down the straps of her swinsuit. As
she abandoned her body to the sun and air, so she abandoned her mind to
the memory of David, to that time he had taken her deep into his arms in
the empty corridor outside his apartment. A sensuous languor overtook
her. Surprising that this dwelling on remembered kisses could so arouse her!

She became aware of a child's voice and turned her head, seeing Jody
emerge from the unused icehouse a few feet up the path from the dock. He
was carrying something before him in his cupped hands.

"Eloise," he called out excitedly, "I found something! Look?they're
alive, I can hardly keep a hold of them!"

She sat up, pulling up her suit straps, and the boy ran to her, his
hands held out as though he offered a gift. "I found them kind of buried
in a nest in the sawdust. Look at them, Eloise!"

She looked at his hands, opening to form a cradle. A tangle of tiny
pinkish creatures, obscenely alive and writhing like worms. She
recoiled, and a scream rose in her throat.

Suddenly it seemed that the scream and revulsion weren't hers at all,
but another woman's, a woman she had left behind in a rest room on the
mainland yesterday. The afternoon, still pure and tranquil, flowed back
around her. There was nothing unnatural here. This newborn life was just
an aspect of nature; if she did not find it beautiful, if she could not
reach out to ty, the flaw was hers. She steadied herself. She could say
quite calmly, "They're field mice, Jody, just born. Put them back where
their mother can find them. They need their mother to stay alive."

"Maybe when they get bigger I could take one home for a pet?"

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"Maybe." She watched him trudging back up the path with his treasure.
Newborn field mice? How had she known what they were?that crawling mass
of naked life? Of course! Edwin had read it in the log, the last entry
in the log that Mr. Wyndom had written. The hoys found a nest of field
mice in the sawdust in the icehouse. They couldn't have been more than
two hours old...

Eloise shivered. It meant nothing?what could it mean? Only that mice
liked to nest in warm sawdust and that it was the nature of young boys
to explore out-of-the-way places.

She looked out over the width of ocean, ruffling up now with the cooling
day, but empty as far as the eye could reach. The shoreline was too far
away to see. An island was an entity; it was not on the way to anywhere
else, not to be invaded by an impulse. And the impulse that had prompted
David's letter had had several days to cool by now. Impatience pricked
her, a feeling as alien to the peaceful afternoon as to herself. She
knew now that if he did not come soon, she would have to go to him.

154

Brad's household followed him, walking gingerly over the waxy carpet of
spruce needles that lined the rugged passage to the little beach just
beyond the dock. The adults all carried something, a pitcher of
cocktails, a bucket of ice, food, cushions and blankets to sit on, a
coffeepot. Trudy carried only a camera. Jody, unencumbered, circled and
butted them from all sides like a young dog herding sheep. Everyone
brought sweaters as protection against the expected cool of evening,
although the air still lay sweetly against the skin, the temperature of
milk tested against a mother's wrist.

But when they stumbled out of the overgrowth onto open beach, each
halted for a second, struck by the theatrical beauty of the sunset.
Streaks of flame melted in exquisite mutation through rose and orchid to
a tender smoky blue; the whole western sky was like a stage set. Under
it, long smooth swells of the ocean lapped at the shoreline. The tide
was coming in; only the upper half of the beach remained uncovered.

Mariner had laid a fire well up, kindling and wood from the broken dock,
in a sandy hollow protected by

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rocks. The party made for this spot, set down their burdens, and
established themselves on the cushions and blankets. Jody raced about,
aimless as a sand flea, and Trudy stood" apart with her camera and took
several snaps of the group before she joined them.

Gert and Mrs. Coffin unpacked the supplies. Cocktails and soft drinks
were handed around. Brad fussed with the clams (he had started them
sometime before), already steaming in their cradle of seaweed and
sending out an appetizing odor. Conversation was random and haphazard.
The sea, constantly, languorously advancing over the beach, and then
dragging back noisy gulps of shale and ground-up clamshells, took the
place of conversation.

Out of the corner of her eye, Eloise was aware of Trudy, now leaning
against a legless canvas beach rest her father had brought down for her,
a blue sweater over her shoulders. The girl was looking out to sea; her
face, bearing a faint rosy cast reflected from the sunset sky, was as
fair and unblemished as if it had been carved from alabaster. Eloise had
always been secretly jealous of her?it was easier to admit it to herself
since Trudy had been ill?not only for the obvious things, her beauty and
talent, but because of a kind of weightless quality in the younger girl,
as though she did not walk as ordinary mortals do, on the surface of the
earth, but floated an inch or two above it.

She no longer felt that. Her mind slid away from Trudy; it was too full
of herself and David and of the letter she'd slept with last night under
her pillow. She looked toward the mainland, though she couldn't see it;
beyond the waves tumbling on the beach, the water was glassy smooth.

"Storm must have blown out to sea," Brad had said complacently at lunch
after the noon weather report. "Certainly no sign of it here."

They had finished the clams and begun on their steaks when there was an
interruption. A heavy gust

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of smoke from the still-smoldering seaweed blew in Trudy's face, and she
began to cough. The coughing became a spasm. She bent double with it,
her frail shoulders shaking helplessly, her wheat-blond hair falling
forward over her face. She ignored her father's efforts to lift her out
of the way of the smoke; she seemed unable to move or to pull herself
out of the spasm.

Gert, sitting next to her, handed her a crumpled handkerchief, but
before Trudy could touch it, Edwin snatched it out of reach. Cynthia
produced a pack of tissues from a pocket; Edwin took them, and holding
the girl's shoulders, he waited until she caught her breath. Then, with
exquisite tenderness, he wiped her forehead and lips.

She managed a few words. "I'm perfectly all right. I just must have
swallowed some smoke."

"I know, darling," Edwin said. "Let's take a little walk around until
your Uncle Brad gets rid of that smoke."

He got her onto her feet, her eyes still streaming tears. In a sputter
of sympathetic duckings, the family watched them go.

Only Gert was stonily silent. As soon as the two were out of hearing,
she spoke out. "Really, Cynthia, some things are inexcusable!" She held
her discarded handkerchief, working it angrily in her fingers. "I'm
perfectly healthy, I have no loathsome diseases. I do not think my
clean, slightly crumpled handkerchief would have contaminated your
daughter."

Something passed over Cynthia's face, a look of being pushed too far.
"I'm sorry, Gert. It's just that everyone has germs, you know, perfectly
harmless to normal people. But with Trudy we have to be ... extra careful."

"For God's sake, so now she's not even normal! I think it's time you
gave us a full statement on Trudy."

Cynthia picked up the little packet of tissues and b@=

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gan to fold it into an intricate pattern. She looked over at Jody, who
had rushed through his food and was now squatting down to examine
something on the beach, well out of hearing. After a moment she said in
a low hoarse voice, "Edwin would not agree with me, but, yes, I think it
is time to ... speak out. Well, then, Trudy has myeloid leukemia. She
has less than a year to live. Edwin will not accept this; nevertheless,
it is true. Trudy knows only that she has some infection which
stubbornly resists clearing up. There's no need for her to know
more?Edwin and I agree on that."

She stopped talking; the sound of the sea, untroubled and indifferent,
filled the stunned silence of the family. After a moment Cynthia went on
almost clinically. "The disease is characterized by acute and quiet
phases. All this past month it has been inactive?remissions, they call
the good spells. That's why her doctor thought it safe to bring her here.

"But she will gradually become accustomed to shorter remissions. If she
asks questions, there will always be a reason?a bad side effect on the
part of some drug, and a new hopeful one to try. She won't suffer?that
we can prevent. And she will never cease to believe that eventually she
will be well again."

The low, rigidly controlled voice came to another stop. Now it was
Gert's great tearing sob that broke the silence.

"Of course she believes," Gert cried. "Young girls don't expect to die!"
Hot tears dropped on the plate in Gert's lap; she pressed her
handkerchief tight against her lips.

Gran said, thumping a fist against an open palm, "There must be
something that can be done! What're all these stories we hear about
miracle medicines? A year ... A girl like that, hardly begun to live?a
year!"

Eloise put her face in her hands. "I can't believe that anyone so
beautiful could . . . could . . ." She couldn't say the word; her voice
faltered and broke.

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Mildred whimpered. "That innocent, beautiful, talented child!" Oliver
gave a choking sob.

Cynthia said, suddenly bitter, "You're all free to love her now, aren't
you, no more petty jealousies, or resentments, or whisperings that we've
spoiled her. I'm not talking about you, Gert, I know how you feel about
Trudy, but . . . but love isn't always so beautiful." Her dark eyes
flicked over them. "Shall I tell you how ugly love can be? Edwin would
see every last one of us in hell, oh, yes, I'm included, if it would
make Trudy well again."

The family shifted unhappily. Brad cleared his throat. "Well, I guess we
can see how he'd feel. How you both feel. Gert and I never had any
children, but as you say, you know our sentiments toward Trudy, and we
all certainly share . . ."

Cynthia was not listening. She stood up abruptly, saying in a harsh loud
voice, "I've been very selfish?spoiling the party! I should have allowed
you all to go on chewing on your little nuggets of comfort, totting out
your little remedies, iron pills or salt air or parties or good
wholesome food. Edwin pins his faith on something bigger?a miracle! But
why should I be the only one to suffer, why should I bear it all alone?
It's too much, I tell you?too much!"

The family could find nothing more to say. After a moment Brad asked a
cautious question. "You say Edwin still thinks she's going to get well?"

"Oh, he knows the truth as well as I, but he won't believe it. He seizes
on anything. Get him in a place like this, removed from doctors and
statistics and case histories, and the whole crazy irrational illusion
springs up again?she's going to get well."

"Maybe she will," Gert said hoarsely. "Maybe we should all hope for a
miracle."

"No."

Mildred began to sniffle quietly, and Ollie put his hand on her
shoulder. Color was fading from the sky;

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food lay untouched on the plates. Oliver started to get up, muttering
apologetically, "We better find Jody. It's getting too dark for him to
be running around loose."

At that moment they saw him, a small red-jerseyed silhouette standing on
a rock that faced the cove, shouting something and pointing out to sea.

"Hey, somebody's coming!"

Their heads all swung seaward. Discernible at first only to those of
them who had good eyesight, the little dot far out on the water
gradually distinguished itself from bobbing lobster buoys and became
human and meaningful. It was a man in a boat, not Mariner, not
motor-powered, but soundless, propelled by oars and human muscles.

"Now what?" Brad grumbled, apologetic, as Oliver had been, at changing
the subject, and yet comforted, too, by this diversion. "What kind of
special service have we here? I left word at the hotel I didn't want to
be bothered by any business short of a catastrophe. Fellow probably
thinks he'll get a big tip for delivering something that could wait just
as well till morning."

"That's quite some distance to negotiate with nothing but a pair of
oars," Oliver said. "Important or not, I'd say he's earned a tip."

Abruptly Eloise stumbled to her feet, clutching her white sweater around
her. There was not an iota of doubt in her mind but that the rowing man
was David. The Sutherlands' tragedy no longer existed for her. Her
instincts mobilized for defense, to prepare herself, to establish her
relationship with this man before the family could say or do anything to
sully or destroy it.

"I think," she blurted out, the words sounding unreal even to her own
ears, "the fact is, I'm quite certain that he may be a man I know very
well! I know this surprises you, because I've said nothing, we've kept
it between ourselves. Perhaps because it was too important to risk being
hurt, no more secrets!"

"What can I tell you about him. He used to come into

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the library. He's a photographer, but, oh, much more than that?an
artist, too. When I told him we were going to make this trip, he said
that he might drop in on us, that eventually it would be necessary to
meet my family. So, now you know, and we both must take that risk of ...
of being hurt."

They all stared at her. Quite a speech for the timid Eloise. "Drop in on
us," Gert repeated with a hard unbelieving laugh. "Well, that's quite a
feat, to drop in on an island two miles offshore and row every inch of
it over a dangerous stretch of water! Taking risks must be one of the
best things he does. Seems more natural for him to wait till you got
home?meet your parents back in Boston."

"Parents wouldn't be the whole family," Gran pointed out. "This way, he
gets the whole picture firsthand, just as we do."

Oliver made a feeble attempt to dismiss Eloise's preposterous statement,
get back to something he could cope with. "My guess is, he's a
lobsterman. Got some shorts he wants to dispose of, too small to market.
Only a native would set out for the island this time of the evening."

They all spoke in quick refreshed voices, as if the sight of the rowing
man was a small curative for the terrible emotional burden that Cynthia
had put upon them.

Brad had Ms binoculars trained on the boat. "Dark fellow with glasses,"
he informed them. "Doesn't look like any fisherman to me."

Eloise looked around her. Separate faces came back into focus; the
enormity of the situation now dawned on her. She said slowly, painfully,
"If it is my friend, the man I was speaking of, I will, of course, tell
him at once that we have ... an illness in the family. That we can't
possibly entertain an outsider under these circumstances."

"Tell him nothing," Gran said brusquely. "There's

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been enough telling around here. Maybe an outsider would help us all to
keep our lips buttoned up. Maybe an outsider's what we need."

The man was standing, near enough to wave. "Nobody but a damn fool
stands up in a boat," Oliver said scornfully, but except for him and
Cynthia, the rest of them automatically waved back.

162 David leaned on his oars, and nearing shore now, turned to take his
first good look at the scene spread out before him. Objectively his
artist's eye appraised it?the background of massed spruce, almost black
against the blue dusk, streaked with white birch, and in the foreground
the huddle of figures around the fire, faces all toward the sea. A
figure stood out in luminous white (Eloise?) ... a dot of red on a rock
(a child?. . . and the yellow-orange heart of the fire. But, drawing
nearer, he lost his professional detachment. Like any lover, his eyes
raked through the blur of anonymous faces to seize upon the face of his
beloved.

Ah, yes?the girl in white! She had moved forward from the others and was
standing at the water's edge on a shelf of rock already washed by the
skittering advance of the sea. He could imagine something of what she
was feeling. But he had had to make this move, to force the issue.
Eloise needed to be led.

Still, he would try to make it as painless as possible. Feel his way,
keep it easy, hold on to his temper, all that he had not done when he
had confronted her father

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in his office six weeks ago. That had certainly been a fiasco! He had
meant to introduce himself, well armed with strategy and goodwill, but
the instant he sensed rejection, the fatal arrogance had risen up in
him?and the bitterness. He must not make that mistake again today.

The boat scraped bottom; he took the oars out of the locks and clambered
into the bow. Stepping out in water up to his ankles, he called out
softly for Eloise alone to hear, "There's my girl?I must have found the
right place."

She answered something, not loud enough to reach him, but he saw the
look on her face, lips parted, eyes wide?what did it mean? The next
moment, he was ashore. The small boy was yanking at his boat, a bald
toothy man was advancing with an anxious smile, also Mr. Osborne; both
were shooing the boy away so that he could beach his boat. Eloise stood
alone on the rock shelf, and now her voice came to him, wondering, and
yet?he could have sworn it?welcoming, too.

"You meant it?what you said in the letter! I couldn't be sure, you know,
not really sure."

Keep it light, he told himself, this isn't easy for her, let's have the
big easy casual smile. "Of course I meant it. I've been on your trail
ever since you left Boston. You just didn't run far enough or fast
enough to escape me."

"You meant it," she said again, "you didn't change your mind! Well, then
..." Now came the introductions; the bald man was her uncle, the child
her nephew, and here was . .. her father. It was clear to him at once
that she hadn't been told of his visit to Mr. Osbome's office (as he
hadn't told her), equally clear that neither of them was going to
acknowledge it now. Perhaps neither of them was proud of the part he had
played in that little skirmish! So they would begin this new encounter
in a conspiracy of silence, a bond of a sort, perhaps better than
nothing. Mr. Osborne was regarding him with the

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morose eye of a watchdog who hasn't expected to deal with the same
intruder twice. Still, he was less formidable with his shirttail hanging
out over rolled-up pants legs than he had been in business clothes.

Together they pulled the boat ashore. "Let's put her upwind," David
said. "She's a bit on the smelly side. A lobster dory was all I could get."

"I must say," Uncle Brad was babbling, "you had us all agape. We
couldn't think who the devil?seeing that little boat out there this time
of day, or night, rather ..."

"I know, I apologize for the hour. I intended this to be just an
afternoon call. But I was held up over on the mainland, and believe me,
there's an awful lot of water between here and there."

Bradley was still tugging fussily at the boat, shifting it an inch or
two farther up the beach. "The natives tell me it's a very tricky piece
of water, lots of hidden reefs you could get skewered on. You really had
nerve to attempt rowing it."

Holding on to his smile, David said, "I had a hell of a nerve to come at
all. But it did seem a golden opportunity to meet Eloise's family. I
shan't stay, the sea is so calm, I'm looking forward to a row back by
moonlight. Now that I have my sea legs."

"Come and meet the others." Eloise's voice was high, with a shade
of?what??defiance in it. "I've been telling them about our . . . our
meeting. I know they all want to meet you."

What had she told them of him? David wondered. Not much, he was sure of
that. Following her up the beach toward the group around the fire, he
thought: How mysterious is love! If I didn't love her, I wouldn't even
take her seriously. But seeing the nape of her neck, white and childish
under the piled-up dark hair, he knew that something in him, male and
dominant and a little jaded, had found what he needed in this
child-woman. He knew, too, that he loved her, not only as a man, but as
a teacher loves an eager and untutored pu-

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pil, an artist a stretch of fresh canvas. Virgin territory, all his to
shape and develop.

He now met the women of the family. The aunts, Mrs. Bradley, Mrs.
Sutherland, her mother and grandmother, acknowledging each separately,
giving each a special word or look, sorting out all the relationships
readily. A place was made for him beside the fire, and he was given a
drink. He relaxed slightly; the drink tasted fine after the long hard
row. Nothing seemed difficult at first; he was not a boy trying clumsily
to ingratiate himself with his girl's family; he knew how to talk to
people, to present himself as an agreeable and diverting addition to the
party, regardless of what he was to Eloise.

Nevertheless, he was ingratiating himself, saying just the right things
about the island, the view, the sunset, the wonderful air, linking
himself to the family in indulgent appreciation of the small-town
climate of North Fork, while, at the same time, carefully keeping his
distance from them.

Very gradually he became aware that there was something unaccountable
here. He had hoped for tolerance and good manners at best, but except
for Eloise and her father, who took little part in the conversation,
these people were almost too attentive, too cordial; they leaned into
his small talk as though into a fan: fresh wind. It was as though the
family as a whole was suffering from a light fever.

Disarmed but puzzled, he retreated a little?now let them do the talking!
But it wasn't until he managed to get the Bradleys on the subject of
their plans for turning the island into a summer resort that he was able
to sit back and allow his impressions of the family to crystallize. As
he did so, he began to label them in his mind by the names that they
called each other.

Gran and Gert would be the simplest to win over, he decided. Neither had
any particular emotional stake in Eloise, and both, he suspected, would,
as spectators, enjoy a romantic involvement, even though they might

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heartily disapprove of him as a suitor. He didn't think Bradley would
give him any real trouble. Eloise's father would be, of course, the last
holdout. As for the handsome, dark-eyed Cynthia, he felt nothing at all
from her. Although she sat with the other women, something set her apart
from them, something in her had withdrawn from them all.

Little Mrs. Osborne was a surprise. Yet, why should she be?she was so
like Eloise! From the moment he had sat down among them, she had hardly
taken her eyes from his face. Both repelled and attracted, he guessed,
as her daughter was. It wouldn't be difficult to turn her either way. He
smiled at her, and she fluttered into speech.

"I hear you're a photographer, Mr. Loeb. Perhaps you could take some
scenes of the island for us so we'd have them to remember it by before
all these changes take place. Have you a camera with you?"

He shook his head. "No camera. I wasn't going to risk being mistaken for
a publicity man. Or a tourist."

Gert looked at him appraisingly. "But you are a tourist, aren't you?
Tell us?how does a tourist provide himself with a lobster boat?"

"Well, I'll tell you. The desk clerk in the North Fork hotel made one of
those closemouthed phone calls, and then informed me that if I drove out
to Tipton Point, a man would be waiting for me there with a boat. What I
expected was to park my car, paddle across a little strip of water, drop
by and say hello to Eloise, and be back at the hotel in time for dinner."

Gert laughed. "It wasn't quite like that, though, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. First I had to wait for the guy to show up with the
boat, then stand around for quite some time while he sized me up and
decided whether he could trust me with it. About halfway across, there
were a couple of minutes when I wished he'd decided against it! I once
taught rowing at a boys' camp on a lake, but

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today I discovered that open-sea navigation is something else again."

They all laughed appreciatively?again that exaggerated response?but Mr.
Osborne said, elaborately sarcastic, "I'm sure we're honored that you
considered the trip worth the trouble."

"I wouldn't have missed it. A city boy?I never got out of my own
precinct until I was eleven?would go a long way to see those trees. I
had a curious impression rowing across: the whole island began to seem a
mirage. The farther I rowed, the more it appeared to recede. And then a
feeling of great triumph when I finally made it."

"That's the feeling we want to put across," Bradley said, "that we're
inaccessible! God knows there are plenty of island resorts, from Bermuda
to Hawaii, but the minute you get phone service or a place where you can
set down a helicopter, you lose that feeling."

Voluptuous Aunt Cynthia spoke for the first time. He could see the
effort it cost her; he didn't know why. "In spite of your success with
your boat, you must have had some trouble finding us to begin with, Mr.
Loeb."

"As a matter of fact, no. Everyone was eager to direct me. I gather that
you are North Fork's major interest at present. Of course, there was
some curiosity as to where I fit into the family."

"I can imagine!" Gert said with a pointed little laugh.

He swallowed an automatic resentment. "I simply told them I was a friend
of Miss Osborne, who might possibly be expecting me."

"Possibly," Eloise repeated, "but not sure at all until I got your
letter. Otherwise I would have told my family before." Would she have?
She now had a sense of bewilderment, recalling all the deceptions,
evasions she had practiced to keep her parents from knowing of him. "At
least, I think . . ." She stopped, too confused to finish the sentence.

Cynthia took pity on her. "Tell us about your work,

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Mr. Loeb. All we know from Eloise is that it entails visiting libraries."

"I'm a commercial photographer. But I work much harder when there's no
money involved, when it's for myself. Do you live in New York?"

"No, Virginia. Richmond."

"I was going to say that the Metropolitan Museum had a photography
exhibition you might possibly have seen, out on loan around the country
now. I have a couple of things in it."

"Maybe it will come to Richmond." She picked up a camera lying on the
sand beside her. "Since you didn't bring your own, perhaps you could use
this. It belongs to my daughter."

"Your daughter?"

"Yes, she's up at the house now."

There was a second's silence; then Gert said loudly, "Two of us you
haven't met yet. My niece Trudy, and her father"?she nodded toward
Cynthia?"this lady's husband. Trudy had a little coughing upset and had
to go back to the house."

"See what you think of it," Cynthia said, handing him the camera. "It's
fairly simple, but I'm sure real artists don't depend on fancy equipment."

"Photography," he told her, taking the camera, "like painting, is
primarily a way of seeing. A fresh and virgin eye. This is a nice little
instrument. If we had more light, I could make some very good pictures
with it."

"Tomorrow, then."

"But I won't be here tomorrow."

Brad said, his native hospitality overcoming his reluctance. "You really
shouldn't push luck with a little boat like that. Now you're here, you
better stay over for day-light."

"Not a shred of fog," Eloise's father said relentlessly. "In the dark,
Mr. Loeb will be able to see the lights better on the mainland?something
to head for."

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169

His wife burst out, "Row back in the dark? Why, he'd be taking Ms life
in his hands! Tell him, Brad, about how treacherous this water is.
Besides, he'll have to stay over to see this beautiful island."

Brad pondered, an innkeeper confronted with a difficult situation.
"Well, you see, we're quite a houseful here; far as an extra room is
concerned, I'm afraid that old 'No Vacancy' sign is up. Of course, there
is a seven-foot window seat in the living room, pretty well padded."

"Also," Gert remembered, "that sleeping bag we found under the
stairwell. I don't know how comfortable Mr. Loeb would be, but he'd be
safe."

David hesitated. He supposed that coming from his hosts, the invitation
was now official, but he had to know how Eloise felt before he could
accept it.

"What about it?" he asked her in a low voice. "Should I stay over till
morning?"

"Of course? you just got here! It's absurd to think of going back now."
She spoke so directly that he was astonished. Perhaps because she'd
expected more hostility from her family, when even her father had been
at least civil, she had relaxed her guard. Perhaps she was grateful for
his tact, his small talk that made his visit appear to be little more
than a friendly gesture.

"You're very kind . . ." he began, and then, with the others, he became
aware of the plunging beam of a flashlight and then a man emerging from
the tree darkness above the beach. They all turned at once, as though
the man was waited for, as though he was the bearer of news.

Cynthia's voice, low and urgent, greeted the newcomer. "Edwin? Is she
... is everything all right?"

"Of course, fine," said the new voice, a musical tenor, the voice of an
actor or a teacher, a cultivated voice. "I came down to pick up her
camera; she was afraid it would be forgotten and washed away by the
tide. Does anyone know where she left it?"

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"Yes, it's here. I was showing it to ... We have a guest, Edwin! Mr.
Loeb, this is my husband. It's pretty dark for introductions?you'll have
to take each other on faith."

David supposed they made some acknowledgement, but the introduction was
given scant notice. The man was too full of what he had to say, and the
others too intent on hearing it.

"She recovered as soon as we got away from the smoke. But it was getting
so dark and chilly, and we were so near the house by then, I thought it
better to bring her supper there. We'll just warm up whatever she feels
like eating. You say you found her camera?"

David could see something of the man now, slender as a pine tree,
silhouetted against the firelight. The voice burbled on, seemingly
unaware of the silence of the others. He was perhaps a little drunk.
"It's this marvelous air that revived her so quickly. Do you realize how
big cities are polluted? Why, automobile exhausts alone . . . You know,
Cynthia, I think we should move. I have an idea?we must ask Healy about
it?that Trudy is particularly susceptible to impurities in the air. You
saw what a whiff of smoke did to her! That if we stayed long enough in a
place like this, all her trouble would clear up."

"That's what Mr. Loeb was saying, that the air was so wonderful," Gran
said staunchly.

In the darkness, David felt Eloise move nearer to him so that her arm
just brushed his.

"Mr. Loeb is spending the night with us," Bradley announced, and around
him David felt a stirring of the family, a reaching toward him, not only
in Eloise but in them all. Yet there was nothing personal in it, nothing
that he could quite take to himself.

He recalled an evening when he was counselor at the boys' camp, when a
group of children who had frightened themselves with ghost stories had
clung to him

171

for no reason except that he didn't believe in ghosts. He felt a little
as he had felt then. He didn't know why.

For the first time, Trudy was almost alone in the house. Mrs. Coffin
didn't count. The picnic had given her a night off?she was up in her
room, probably with a nice little tray she'd fixed for herself and her
new copy of The Reader's Digest. She wouldn't appear again till morning.

It hadn't been easy to persuade Papa to leave her here while he went
back to the others. She had had to alarm him a little by telling him she
was not really up to walking back in the fading light (taking care that
they were near the house when she said it) and then reassure him that
she was really perfectly well in spite of that, and at the same time
making a great fuss about her camera?he just must go back for it.
Meanwhile, she'd light some lamps so they could all see their way back
better. Reluctantly he left her.

She couldn't wait for the moment when she would be alone. Because they
could be waiting for her. She didn't know why she felt this, but she
did. She felt an urgent need to communicate with them, to tell them that
although she seemed to be in the enemy's camp, actually she had become
their sister, their daughter, because she knew now that their real enemy
was time itself, as it was hers. Once they understood that, they must
set up a kind of truce. The conditions were very clear to her, but
difficult. Somehow she must make it possible from her vantage point in
the family for them to stay on here, undisturbed; in return, they must
agree to stop these harassments, the frightening of a small boy, the
destruction of the dock.

Most difficult of all would be to think of a way she could remain here
with them. She might need Papa's help for that. Could he somehow raise
enough money to buy the island from Uncle Brad? It wouldn't be hard to
convert her father from hope to faith. But then . . .

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what? Maybe once they understood, they would help her. Didn't wisdom
come with great age? Or did they perhaps have access to some power
beyond wisdom? A chilling streak of knowledge threaded through these
feverish speculations?the knowledge that Dr. Healy or her mother or any
rational person would, if able to see into her mind, consider them the
fantasies of a very sick girl. But she wasn't sick! She felt calm and
well. Was it sick to obey that most basic instinct of all?the struggle
for survival?

She hadn't lit the lamps. She went to the open doorway between living
room and breakfast porch and stood there several moments listening. But
she saw nothing but trees moving in a rising wind, heard nothing but the
endless surge and retreat of the waves below.

From the other side of the house, voices gradually became audible. The
family was coming back. She sighed, closed the door, and lit a lamp. She
heard her Aunt Gert's voice: "Trudy, honey, we've got your camera. Not
only that?a visitor! Robinson Crusoe just landed on the island!"

Gran walked into Mildred's and Ollie's room without knocking, and sat
down with chunky satisfaction in the one comfortable chair. "Well," she
informed them, "they've gone out for a little evening stroll. Took a
flashlight and just cut off by themselves."

Ollie, unbuttoning his shirt by the kerosene lamp, had his back to her
and didn't turn around, but Mildred clucked her disapproval. "That's
very foolish. A flashlight is no protection. Why, it's black dark! They
could get completely turned around, lost, even. Eloise has no sense of
direction whatever."

Oliver gave her a disgusted look. "Is that all you're worried
about?their getting lost?"

"Well, it just seems ridiculous for them to traipse around in the dark
when they could wait till morning and see something."

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Ollie laughed sardonically. "I would hardly say that sightseeing is what
they're interested in. I would say that what Eloise and her boyfriend
have in mind, taking a walk this time of night, is not going to be much
affected by the visibility."

He didn't really believe the implication of this remark ?it was too
abhorrent to believe?but he felt that Mildred should be punished for
abetting the others in keeping the man here. "I'm glad he's here," Gran
said, as though she'd read Oliver's mind. "He's an outsider?to him we're
a family getting together for a good time. Long as he's here, we go
through the motions, and believe me, it helps."

"You mean . . ." Mildred hugged her bony little arms across her chest.
"You mean we don't have to quite . . . face it."

Gran nodded.

"That's all very well," Oliver said angrily. "Nevertheless, I have some
concern for my own daughter."

"Speaking of that," Gran said innocently, "you didn't give me the right
picture this morning, Ollie. He's quite attractive."

"He's not attractive!" Oliver exploded.

"Ask Millie," Gran said, getting up to go. She glanced at the window.
"Beautiful night for sleeping out. We found an old Abercrombie and Fitch
sleeping bag under the stairwell. A handy two-pack, junior size, but I
guess if you felt friendly, you could entertain a guest in it."

"Good night," Mildred said before Oliver could answer.

Gran opened the door. "I wouldn't sit up for them, Ollie?it won't change
anything." Mildred closed the door after her.

"She's an old witch," Ollie muttered, "even if she is my own mother."

The reference to David's sex appeal infuriated him. He could not believe
David appealed to Eloise that way.

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He preferred to think of her as bewitched against her will by some dark
power.

"What's this about your giving Gran a picture of David Loeb before you
met him?" Mildred was asking. "Did Eloise talk to you about him?"

"No," he said unwillingly. "Matter of fact, I met Mm. He came around to
the office one day and introduced himself. I was not favorably impressed."

"But if you'd met him, why didn't you say so? What was there to hide?"

"Hide? Nothing ... it was awkward. Obviously he didn't care to go into
it any more than I did." He was preparing for a session of reading in
bed, arranging pillows and fussing with the lamp wick to see if he
couldn't get a better light. "The reason I hadn't told Eloise was, I was
waiting to see if she'd bring up his name herself. She never did. She
was the one that had something to hide. How do we know he's not already
married?man his age? He's no young man, you know!"

"I never thought of his age," Mildred said.

Irritably he flicked open the magazine.

"If you try to read in that light, you'll ruin your eyes."

She was right. He had turned the wick too high; it was smoking and
covering the inside of the chimney with black soot. Impossible to read.
He turned down the wick and flung the magazine aside.

Mildred was undressing as she always did, putting her nightgown over her
head before she stepped out of her clothes.

Oliver reared up under the covers. "Besides, his background is so
different from ours!" he exploded. "Will you kindly explain to me what
attraction he has for her? He's about as safe as a loaded pistol."

Mildred continued with her hair. "I think he wants to take care of
Eloise. That's his main attraction for her."

"Don't tell me his main attraction! I've heard enough of that from Gran."

"No, that's not what I'm talking about. The main

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attraction is, he's strong. He gets his own way, he can . . . can
control circumstances. That's why she feels safe with him. To have a man
like that taking care of her makes a woman feel safe."

"Even when he's getting his own way with her?" he asked brutally.

"Would I have married you if you hadn't gotten your own way?"

Suddenly, looking at Mildred, he saw her as she had been thirty years
ago, prettier and younger than Eloise, touch-me-not as a china doll in a
store window. The other boys had only looked at her, sweatily keeping
their distance; only he, Ollie, lusty and headstrong as a young bull,
had waded in.

Damned near raped her one summer night when he came to her house and
found her alone. Not quite, though. That wasn't what she meant by having
his own way. She had married him because he had bullied her into it,
wouldn't take no for an answer. Had that seemed like strength to her?

Small, worn, but still maidenly in her blue robe, she was now making up
her cramped little bed on the chaise across the room. For a moment he
watched her, his big heavy body sprawled out over the soft, saggy double
bed.

"Never mind all that," he said roughly. "You're going to sleep over here
tonight where you belong." And when she hesitated, her arms clasped
around a pillow, "Come on, now, bring your pillow. I'm going to blow out
the light."

She came. He was gratified. At the same time, it made him sick to think
of David Loeb or any other man treating Eloise like that. As it would
any father. A wave of pity for Edwin washed over him, but the next
minute he was thinking of himself again. He wasn't like Edwin; he didn't
want his daughter treated like a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. All
he wanted for her was a decent man with the right background and fair pros-

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pects, marriage, children; he couldn't bear to see youth dying out of
Eloise, to watch her retreat from life as Mildred might have.

Would have, but for him. Pulling her childish small body toward him, he
thought how lucky Millie had been he had had his way with her, given her
children and now a grandson. And they weren't through with each other
yet. This quickened breathing, her mouth opening under his?how long
since they had kissed this way?opening, opening, her legs, too. Was this
a memory of youth, or some craziness? Raw clams, he thought, well-known
aphrodisiac, as he entered her, and his last conscious thought was: I'm
a healthy man in the prime of my life.

Half an hour later they were both peacefully asleep, although they had
fully intended to sit up until Eloise came back.

Eloise had removed her contact lenses; folded into a handkerchief, they
nestled safely in David's buttoned shirt pocket. Sight was of no
importance in this black dark. They walked, hand in hand, David leading,
with only a flashlight to guide him, stumbling through the woods, the
hindering underbrush, the knotted roots, and pine needles, until they
emerged onto an open ledge high above the ocean.

There was no moon, but the sky, sheeted with stars, cast a faint glint
on the sea, and the narrow ray of their flashlight showed them a
flattish mossy place, a temporary home. They sat down, close together,
knees drawn up, shoulders overlapping. Suddenly she picked up his hand
and buried her face in it.

"I'll tell you something. If you had stepped out of that boat this
afternoon and said, 'Well, here I am, I've come for you,' and then
picked me up in front of them all and carried me off, I would have been
thrilled."

"You'd have fought every inch of the way."

"Maybe, maybe not. You see what it is, don't you?

177

A schoolgirl's dream of romance. Even those women who most loudly
denounce all male dominance, even they have fantasies of being raped.
I've read about it."

"I don't want a schoolgirl, Eloise. I want a woman who commits herself
to me openly. I don't want to carry her off."

"I nearly committed myself to you openly this afternoon on the beach. To
them all. Before you got there, as soon as I could see it was you in the
boat. But then you were there, so cool, so ... so offhand, that you put
down all the feelings that were boiling up in me. As though you were
pushing a kettle to the back of the stove."

"You know why. I had to play it by ear. I had no idea what you had told
them. What had you to tell them? Since we're not lovers, what are we?"

"We are lovers, in the simplest sense of all?we love each other. I know
that's not often how the word is used, but . . . Oh, David, now I want
us to be that, too. . . . How shall I say it? Bodies as well as minds.
Ever since I read your letter, I've thought of nothing else. Loving you
physically?it's been like an obsession. I thought it might wear off,
but, no, all those hours, day and night, it has stayed the same?the
wanting you! I want you now, David?now."

"You mean that? Not just for me, for you, too? You're sure of that, Eloise?"

"For me. Especially for me."

"All right, darling. So be it."

She had stripped herself before he did. They were finished with words.
Wordless, thoughtless, given over utterly to her senses, to the feel of
his lips on her mouth, her breasts, lips moving down her body, and
everything in her, mouth, arms, thighs opening to him, pulling him in. A
moan of what? Some rising urgency escaped her, and then came his
weight?oh, how good, how satisfying was his weight! And the enormous
wonder of that hard

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rigid thrust driving into her, pain and pleasure fused into pure sensation.

After that, the slow fading into the long shudder of release, and at
last a blessed calm. Not until he rose did she realize how cold the
night air was to her nakedness, the hard prickle of the mossy rocky
ledge, the chilly alarming wetness between her legs.

"Put your clothes on, darling. This is a rugged place for a honeymoon."

He had clicked the hold switch on the flashlight and balanced it in some
underbrush nearby so that they could dress. She dabbed at the wetness
with her panties, tossed them seaward, pulled on her white sweater top,
and fastened her long skirt over it.

"Well," he said, "you'll have to say something, you know?it's expected.
Was it so bad? Was it ... all right?"

"Yes . . . right." Anxious. He had sounded anxious. Could it be he was
the one who needed reassuring now? It struck her as so absurd she began
to laugh, a little hysterical perhaps. "Right, yes?I waited for Mr.
Right, so that was what it was, naturally. Right."

She couldn't stop laughing, although she wasn't amused. It was like a
convulsion until he silenced her with his mouth, and then his voice,
very quiet and gentle. "The name is Loeb, not Right. You will be Eloise
Loeb. Can your father ever accept that?"

She mused for a moment, sighing. "If he has to. If only he could know
how much worse were your intentions than he had suspected. My poor
father! What has he to cope with now? No simple seduction, but a
respectable marriage that he must not only accept but be witness to.
Because we won't elope, will we?"

"We won't elope." He gave a dry little laugh. "In a way, I admire your
dad. He was the only one who didn't put on a phony show of welcoming me
here. All that cordiality from your other relatives. Didn't it astonish
you?"

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She was silent, then said evasively, "Why should it? They were only
being civilized."

"More than that. I was grateful, and after what you'd led me to expect,
puzzled, too. Particularly after I met your Uncle Edwin and the girl. I
felt something about all three Sutherlands?is that the name??unexplained."

"Trudy's not well. They've been worried about her. Yet she's been on the
whole quite well since she's been here. Let's not talk about Trudy. I
don't want to talk at all now. Keep tonight untouched, all ours, as it was."

"Just tell me this. Are you happy, Eloise?"

"Can't you tell? I'm a different woman."

"I realize that. I wish I could take all the credit. I can't, quite?I
don't know why."

"Take it all. I give it to you. I'm shivering, David. I think we should
go back now."

He felt on the ground for the flashlight, beamed it ahead, held back
branches behind him for her passage as they made the difficult trip back
to the house.

Truth was the nugget of pure gold hidden somewhere on this island. Edwin
thought of it that way?truth so hard and indestructible he could put it
between his teeth and bite down, and it would not crack. Only facts
could lead him to it. In the notebook of his mind he had set down all
those available to him?the food that didn't spoil, the flowers that
didn't fade, the toys that stayed unblemished, the lobsters that would
not die?nothing in the house worn or rusted or bearing any imprint of
all the years of its calendar age.

Nor did anything grow or ripen; the crate of green avocados Brad had had
airlifted from California remained still hard and inedible. Neither, he
felt sure, would Jody's field mice ever grow beyond the blind embryo
stage in which they had emerged from then-mother's womb. When was that?
Could it be fifty years ago?

He had made a private inspection of the children's

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sleeping porch, looking at everything but touching nothing. Wasn't that
a primary rule, that no evidence be tampered with? He saw the two
roughly made-up beds and the squirrel's-nest crumple of blankets of the
third, the discarded bits of food in and around it. A fact, but unreadable.

Against all these, he must set other facts. The measuring charts that
marked the children's growth from year to year, the ghost trees, long
dead, sea urchins dead, too, washed ashore long ago and caught wedged
into rocks so tides could no longer wash them out. And phrases from the
ship's logs: "the jingle-tree outside the window is dropping golden
coins." It was late August when Mr. Wyndom wrote that, as it was now,
but no tinge of autumn color had yet touched the green of aspen and
birch. And the baby born here two weeks before it was due?surely time
had not lagged then!

Only one conclusion could be drawn from it. Once Wyndom Island, like
everywhere else on this little planet, had obeyed earthly laws. Birth
and growth and death had once been natural here. What had changed it?
And he realized that the answer had been there from the beginning?the
meteor.

Suddenly he recalled a film he had once seen, made not by a mad
scientist, but by a serious documentarian, and taken seriously, which
proposed the possibility that our earth had once been visited by
extraterrestrials who possessed the secret of immortality. And left it,
taking the secret with them. Certainly the fact that time, as we know
it, can be quite different in distant planets is quite meaningless to
the average man, as is the term "light-years"; only scientists really
understand that deep-space travel will never be possible until man
learns the secret of incredible longevity.

If he was right, the meteor had carried with it a modicum of
extraterrestrial immortality, burned into it, so that in this place
where it fell, time was suspended or

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so glacier-slowed that it bore less resemblance to earth time than it
did to eternity.

He found the engraving in the geography book and studied it again. He
thought of bringing it to Dr. Healy, to make him see that time is not
necessarily linear, but omnipresent, surrounding us, as the universe does.

But Healy's mind was too confined to medical science and case histories
for such noble concepts; he could not understand that reality lives only
in the eye of the beholder, of the believer.

He went back to the log for 1926, the year of the meteor. An entry early
in that summer stopped him.

"I taught each of the boys to swim at age four, in spite of the fact the
water here is much too cold to swim in for pleasure, but because if they
should ever fall off the dock or a boat, a few moments of managing to
stay afloat before being rescued could make all the difference. Eleanor
will be four this year, but somehow I cannot subject her to these icy
waters! Next summer seems soon enough. She tags everywhere after her
brothers, and they are very protective of her."

Protective? Ah, now. Suppose that the day the meteor fell the children
were caught in the cave. Suppose the boys had managed to lift the little
sister onto that high inner ledge where Jody found her doll. Perhaps
they left her there while they swam out for help?and never made it.

At low tide he took a flashlight and made his way to the pirate's cave.
He saw the opening to the upper passage, leading presumably to the high
ledge, but too small for anyone but an agile child to enter. The doll
had been preserved there for a half a century. Suppose, instead of a
toy, Jody had found a living child who had remained a four-year-old
since 1926? Edwin shuddered. He had come to the enigma that stopped him.
Why had not the island preserved the child as well as the doll? What had
happened to the little girl?

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Had the parents found her, after all, even if the children had kept the
cave secret from them? Why, then, had they left here (by all reports)
childless; why no mention of a daughter in their will? If she had been
found later by scientists or curious sightseers and had been returned to
her parents, that, too, would have been part of the legend in North
Fork. She was gone. Only that was clear. Gone where?

He thought of all the stories he had heard from Mrs. Coffin and Mariner,
even from Eloise, with her strange overheard tale of the family who had
brought the chickens here to be killed for a picnic. And the fishermen
who must have landed here, stray outsiders cruising here from other
places, the teenage boys who had braved the haunted island. Among them
all, not one word of a little girl ever found or seen here!

And he thought of what he had known all along?that he must invade the
privacy of the old couple in the cabin. They had been a part of the
island almost as long as the meteor had. If anyone had found that nugget
of truth that eluded him, it must be the Learnings.

But Edwin was afraid. Afraid. If he found what no one in his right mind
would doubt, a time-weathered couple, grown like lichen into the rocks
they'd lived on since their youth, then this wild dream of his would be
shattered forever. And Trudy would die.

183 The morning was as fair as yesterday. At breakfast there had been a
lot of talk of comings and goings, of the month drawing to an end, plans
made for their various departures, and of the expected arrival of the
architect for the Bradley's new enterprise, who was to be their guest
after the family was gone. Edwin could only shut his ears to it.

As he looked at Trudy, clear-eyed and pink from the sun, it seemed
incredible to him that Cynthia could accept so calmly the prospect of
taking her away from here. Because one plain fact had emerged from all
the mysteries, speculations, and unanswered questions that had assailed
them here: the island had done for Trudy what no doctor or drug could
do?restored her to health.

He felt that his mind was more lucid and rational than it was yesterday,
and so, ready to accept compromises and what passed for reason among
these people. To accept even the probability that the Learnings were as
old as their years, might be willing, even

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glad to give up their hermitage for some of the normal comforts due to age.

Brad had already found a snug little house for them in town. All this
past month he had been spreading the word, through Mariner, of the new
prosperity the resort would bring to the people of North Fork. Softening
them up. Brad was a natural salesman, which, God knew, Edwin was not.
But now he had a plan which he must sell to Brad.

With the Learnings gone, why shouldn't he and Trudy move into the
cottage on the point? Let Cynthia go home now, as she planned to, while
the enervating summer heat of Virginia lingered into September. He and
Trudy could escape it, have that month or even two more weeks here,
where perhaps she could store up enough of this bracing salt air to
fortify her for months. No fantasies when he talked to Brad and Gert, no
mystic overtones, he resolved, just common sense.

They would be quite independent of the Bradleys, supply their own needs,
and far enough away from all the activity that would evolve from the
resort program ?the woodsmen clearing sites for the individual units to
be built next spring, the endless details to be worked out. Brad had
said himself that nothing much could be done with that little place
beyond the neck, at least for a time; he and Trudy would be quite
undisturbed there. He could hardly wait to talk to Brad about it. No
need to discuss it with Trudy. He knew her feelings as well as his own.

The voices at the table began to register in his ears again. Eloise's
boyfriend was talking about rowing back after breakfast, which produced
a chorus of protests that sounded almost sincere. He mustn't think of
leaving until he'd had a good look around the island by daylight! Brad
began to talk of different viev/s he'd like to get a good shot of, if a
professional like David could use Trudy's little camera. So it was
settled that he would stay on for another day.

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185

But there was little chance to talk to Brad that day. All morning he and
Gert and David and Eloise were out finding the most scenic views of the
island to illustrate resort brochures. After lunch Jody provided a small
crisis that so upset Brad and Gert that Edwin knew it was no time to
discuss his proposal. Jody had been playing in a tree house built into
the lowest branches of a half-grown spruce easily reached by a rope
ladder attached to it. But the tree house was too safe to interest him
for long. He had managed to reach across from it to a lower branch of a
much taller tree that grew beside it, and somehow been able to climb
upward, branch by branch, to a notch forty feet over an outcropping of
bare rock.

Clearly Jody himself was appalled at what he had done. He was looking
down as if in wonderment?how had he got himself up here when there
appeared to be no way down? Mildred, out looking for him, was first
alerted to his predicament; she let out an anguished cry. Four people
heard it?the Bradleys, Edwin, and Trudy. When they came onto the scene,
Millie was standing at the base of the tree, looking up, frozen silent,
realizing now that her outcry had so startled the boy that his hold on
his precarious perch was further endangered.

Edwin was astonished to see Trudy step forward as though it were quite
natural for her to take charge of the situation. Her voice, head tilted
back to reach up to the boy, was strong and confident.

"Jody, it's time for you to come down now. Mrs. Coffin has been looking
for you. She's just baked a fresh batch of cookies. Do you think you can
get down by yourself? You got up there, didn't you? So try to find the
same way down."

In sheer bravado the boy climbed a notch higher. "I don't want to come
down. It's neat up here." He held to a swaying branch and gave a lordly
glance downward. "I guess you're all pretty scared, aren't you? I

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guess you wish you had a fireman's net you could hold under me."

"Nobody's scared, Jody. Neither are you. Just do it. There's no hurry,
you know. We just want to see how you manage it."

He jounced the branch a little to save face and said, "All right. I
guess I'll come down now."

Three or four minutes of silent terror while they watched the small red
sneakers inch downward, reaching blindly for a toehold, branches bending
perilously under the child's weight. When Brad was able to reach up and
pull Jody into his arms, he was shaking with rage and relief, and
Mildred burst into angry sobs.

"Don't you ever do that again! That was a wicked, dangerous thing to do!
You could have fallen onto this rock and smashed yourself into little
pieces, and spoiled this beautiful island for all of us forever. You
realize that?"

Safe again in his uncle's arms, the child began to wail at this vision
of himself lying bloody and broken on the rock, until Trudy put her hand
on his shoulder. "It's all right, Jody. Nothing bad could have happened
to you. You knew that, didn't you? Not here."

Gert said solemnly, "Trudy, you were . . . well, I just can't get over
it! How you could have handled that! So calm and all. I wish your mother
had been here. Weren't you proud of her, Edwin?"

Edwin was staring misty-eyed at his daughter. "She had faith," he said
huskily. "Faith can accomplish anything."

Brad set his nephew on the ground and blew his nose loudly. "I'll tell
you one thing. Mildred was right. If anything had happened to that boy,
it would have finished this place for all of us."

By midafternoon the weather began to change. An overcast had moved like
gauze across the sun, changing the sea to a glinting silver. Brad,
listening to his radio,

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predicted rain. The barometer was dropping, and the broadcast said the
storm was moving steadily up the coast, had gone out to sea and then
moved shoreward again near Boston.

The household assembled for early cocktails, like a picture puzzle put
together with some pieces missing. Jody and Trudy were in the kitchen
with Mrs. Coffin, and Eloise and David were still out somewhere roaming
the island. This occasioned some comment, as big loose drops were
already blowing against the window.

"Well, we got something out of our uninvited guest," Brad said with
satisfaction. "He took some pictures this morning that ought to make our
publicity department very happy. Of course, he had nothing but that
little camera, but he certainly knew what he was doing with it."

"Probably send you a bill," Oliver said sourly, starting to pour out
Mildred's sherry, but his face lightened when she said, "You know, I
think I'll have something different. Maybe an old-fashioned."

Brad was still talking about David. A trifle condescending, but
indulgent. "You know, he's not bad company, get him talking on his own
subject."

"Oh, he's interesting enough," Oliver agreed, "Maybe a little too
interesting."

"Well," Gert asserted, "I'll tell you my opinion. I think he's quite a
gentleman!"

"But you'd expect something better for Eloise, wouldn't you?" Oliver
asked bluntly.

"Now, Ollie," Mildred pleaded, "let's not start on that. They'll be
walking in here any minute."

Brad changed the subject. "It's past five-thirty. They're giving weather
reports every half-hour. Let's see if we can get anything more on that
storm."

There was a succession of meaningless sounds, finally a remotely human
voice, threaded through the crackle of static, saying: "Northeast of
Boston, some destruction is reported, attributable to wind and high seas, in

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addition to a heavy persistent rain which is causing damage and
discomfort. The storm is still moving along the Atlantic coastline,
although it appears that the initial force has diminished ..."

The voice was swallowed up in static. Brad was still fiddling with the
dials, and presently a clipped, assertive voice emerged from the radio.
"Canadian," he muttered. "You can always tell those phony English accents."

"The storm," said the voice, "is moving along the coast in a
northeasterly direction. Small-craft warnings are out from Cape May to
Provincetown. Winds are expected to reach gale proportions. It is only
hoped that before it moves much farther northward, the storm will blow
itself out to sea again."

"Oh, great," Gert croaked. "Out to sea?right Mo our laps."

Brad threw her an exasperated glance. "We're less than two miles
offshore, for Crissakes! Is that out to sea? Remember Prohibition? Gran
does. She said you had to be three miles out before you could consider
yourself outside the USA and have a drink. We're a stone's throw from
the mainland."

"Some throw," Gert commented.

"Hush up?let's listen to this."

But the newscaster had gone on to speak of something else. Brad turned
off the radio. "What have we got to be worried about? We have plenty of
everything right here! Be kind of a thrill to get stuck here for a
couple of days of rough weather, if it came to that."

Cynthia rose abruptly and went to the window. Suddenly chastened, Brad
and Gert looked after her guiltily. The unsaid thought "What if
something happened to Trudy?" hung heavily in the room, a ghostly presence.

Cynthia turned and said clearly into the silenced group, "If the weather
is too bad tomorrow for Mariner to get over, then all we have between us
and the mainland will be David Loeb's little rowboat, is that it? Well,
that's something, I suppose. He's proved that he

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is a strong and competent person and can handle a boat."

"Jesus," Brad burst out, "I don't care if he could handle an ocean
liner. If we get any kind of weather, that junky little bait box of his?"

"Nonetheless," Cynthia broke in, "I'm glad he's staying over."

"Cynthia," Edwin said, "you've given up Dr. Healy, haven't you? Surely
you're no longer expecting him to drop in and leave us ... some of his
catch."

She gave him a level look. "Why, no, I haven't given him up. I think
that he is simply, for some reason . . . delayed. He usually does what
he says he's going to do."

She opened the door for a second onto the breakfast porch. The sound of
the ocean seemed suddenly very loud in the room, and there was a
constant movement of wind in the trees. Rain, not yet very heavy, blew
slantwise, wind-driven.

Eloise and David came in, shaking themselves like wet dogs, Jody behind
them. "We ran into a bit of weather," David said, half-rueful,
half-laughing. "I guess you're stuck with me till it lets up. I'm
beginning to feel like the man who came to dinner."

"We had to turn over his boat, it was getting so much rain in it!" Jody
said excitedly, and Eloise added, "You should see the waves from the
dock?that boat looked as big as a soap dish beside them."

Mildred, who hadn't known Jody was out, began to cluck over his wet clothes.

Nonetheless, they had brought in with them a sense of exhilaration; in
spite of Cynthia, the family could not help being infected with it.

"Come over to the fire," Gran said heartily. "Drinks on the house.
Nothing like a storm outside to snug up a house and sweeten your liquor."

There was a flicker of lightning visible even in the firelight, and then
a warning roll of thunder. Trudy came in from the kitchen.

190

"Isn't it exciting? I feel like the Swiss Family Robinson?marooned!"

No one answered her. Trudy had reminded them again. Nearly all of them
were thinking the same thought ?so innocent, so brave and . . . doomed.

They had made up a bed for David on the long padded window seat in the
living room, but the storm struck the island in full force by evening,
and at night the wild beat of rain against the big window disturbed him.
He unrolled the sleeping bag and cradled into it on the floor. Still he
could not sleep; the night was too full of uproar?wind, rain, heavy
seas. He had been shown around the island during the morning; he had
seen the gutters and leaders that caught the rain and emptied it into
the cistern just below where he lay.

So he had a vantage point with his ear against the floor; he heard the
alien sound that would be inaudible to anyone else in the house. A
purposeful, methodical striking of metal against v/ood; he guessed it
was just at the edge of the cistern.

For a couple of minutes he lay there listening. The sound stopped.
Abruptly, into the loud chorus of rain and ocean there came a fresh
outpour of water, rushing from somewhere?the cistern? Not evenly, as an
overflow would have been, but concentrated into a small torrent. He got
up and felt his way in the dark to the stairs. In the upper hall he
knocked firmly on the door (no need for caution on this wild night) of
what he had been shown earlier as the master bedroom. Presently he heard
Brad's voice, his feet already hitting the floor. The door opened. "What
the hell??"

"Listen a minute. I heard something down at the cistern I don't like.
Somebody's down there. Or has been. Better get a lantern."

Gert was up now. "Brad, it can't be anything. David's from the city?he's
not used to a storm like this out at sea ..."

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191

"What I heard wasn't just storm. It was nothing natural."

Brad was already in his robe and shoes, electric lantern in hand. As
they passed through the upper hall, other doors opened. Apparently no
one ever slept in weather like this. Soon after Brad and David got down
to the cistern, most of the family, huddled into slippers and raingear,
had followed.

Water was tumbling steadily and fast through the outlet pipe of the
cistern, and pouring over the cliff into the ocean. Oliver, squatting
beside it, saw what had happened.

"Some crazy son of a bitch pulled out the plug! Wooden plug, four or
five inches long, fitted into that open pipe. Mariner showed it to me
first day I was here."

David crawled in beside him. "Fellow loosened it up with a hammer
first?that's what I heard?until he could work it out with his hands. I'd
say water's going out a lot faster than rain's filling it up."

Brand panicked then. "My God, that'll mean when the rain stops we'll
have no water! For Christ's sake, we've got to get us some kind of a plug!"

"Where?" Oliver yelled. "You can't pick up something just lying around
that'll plug a hole that size. It's coming out of there strong enough to
knock you down!" And he shouted at the huddled, stunned group, "Get
pails, pitchers, pans?anything we can store water in while we've got it!"

Edwin turned a stricken face to Cynthia. "Where's Trudy?"

"In her room. Not asleep, but I made her promise to stay there. I told
her it was only an overflow from the storm. I told her it was important
for her to be there if Jody wakes up."

"You think she believed you?that it was just an overflow?"

"I think so. I gave her a sleeping pill."

192

Suddenly David, crawling around to the far side of the cistern wall, let
out a whoop. "I've found it! The plug. You won't believe it, but I think
it must have been left here for us to find!"

It was too much to believe. The men bent double and pushed in behind
David. There was the long, thick, heavy plug, tapered toward the end,
set back far enough to be safe from the outpour, and lying beside it on
the concrete lip of the cistern, the hammer used to loosen the plug,
leady at hand to pound it in again.

No one doubted that David, as the youngest and limberest of the men, was
the one to do it. It took strength, plus the agility to exert and
sustain it in so cramped a position, probably the hardest physical job
he had done since he was twenty, and it took a good twenty minutes
against that powerful thrust of water. But it got easier as the plug
homed into the pipe, the flow diminished, and the last hammer blow
stopped it altogether.

It was a one-man job, but the others stood around and watched, and in
each man's mind was the thought: Even though this Loeb is the youngest
and fittest of us, it is not by very much. This outsider is really not a
young man. Younger and more powerful muscles than his had been required
to remove the plug. And for what reason, since it had been handily left
in sight to be replaced? What did the whole crazy episode translate
into?a prank, a challenge, a warning? The same questions they had asked
themselves after the smashed dock.

Only for Edwin was there any answer. Lunatic as it would seem to the
others, still a kind of an answer.

The frightened, exhausted family went back to their separate beds. Edwin
hesitated at Trudy's closed door, but he heard nothing. The sleeping
pill must have worked. Afraid to disturb her, afraid of questions he was
not prepared to answer, he went on into his own

193

room to lie on the bed beside Cynthia's. Either she was asleep or too
tired to talk; she neither stirred nor spoke. The relentless rain still
whipped against the windows, and Edwin lay awake trying to reconcile the
two un-reconcilable aspects of Wyndom Island?the good and the evil.

Trudy had not been taken in by her mother's soothing talk of the
household's arousal to nothing more than an overflow of rain-choked
gutters and cistern. Cynthia had laid a sleeping pill beside her water
glass on the bed table, then turned to look out the window. When she
turned back, Trudy was drinking from the glass, the pill hidden in her hand.

After Cynthia had closed the door, the girl blew out her lamp, got up,
opened the window a crack, and listened. She could barely hear all the
voices from the far side of the house, raised though they were to carry
over the storm. The voices had a hollow resonance that could mean only
that they were gathered at the very edge of the cistern. In the nearly
empty house itself, she felt an atmosphere of panic, acrid as the smell
of gunpowder, left in the wake of the feet that had scurried by her door.

She got out her own little flashlight, kept under her pillow, found her
flannel robe and her sturdiest shoes, and put a sweater over her head.
She left her room, closing the door behind her, went to the little room
at the end of the hall over the woodshed, and listened briefly to Jody's
steady breathing. He could, of course, waken and spread the alarm of her
absence, but she would simply have to take that chance.

It was too much?too much! If she didn't go to them now, didn't make them
understand, negotiate some kind of peace, she never would. And she must.
No one else could do it. Getting away from the house was easy, with
everyone concentrated in one spot. She could leave boldly by the front
door and take the straight inland

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route to the raspberry meadow, to the meteor pit, stumbling and running
and breathless. But, oh, she knew the way so well now; so many times
this past month this path had pulled her like a magnet, just so far and
no farther!

The black yawn of the crater, more felt than seen in the black night,
the rain falling soundlessly into those secret depths, stopped her only
for a moment. She had never passed this barrier. But tonight she would.
And now she had help beyond the feeble beam of her little light. The
cabin was lit?it made a beacon for her. Lighted windows, a good omen
perhaps; she could believe that they had known she would come, were even
waiting for her. It was enough to lift her feet onto the small deck
outside the cabin, to lift her hand to knock on the door.

But no door was opened. It was quieter here, since the cabin was built
on a low flat rocky area, sloping gently toward the sea, so the waves
need not hurl themselves against a cliff, as at the big house. Still, no
one seemed to hear her. Three times she knocked, courage draining out of
her, and then, like a second wind, it came back, or anger perhaps. Anger
had saved her before. She let the sweater slip from her head, and
lifting both fists, pounded on the door. Almost instantly, as if she had
given a password, it opened.

A tall, broad, dark-bearded young man stood there, and behind him a girl
in an old-fashioned granny gown that covered her from throat to feet. A
ripple of brown hair fell to her waist. Trudy gave a long sigh; she felt
nothing but relief?why should she be surprised? She and the girl had met
in that long wordless look exchanged between them when Trudy first saw
her lying in the sun. And the man was just as Jody had described him.
She sank into a chair by the apron hearth of the little cast-iron stove,
holding out her hands to the warmth as if she had come home. While she
looked

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around her, the girl knelt at her feet and took off her wet shoes.

The room was fair size, with a wide built-in bed, rough chairs and table
holding an oil lamp, a rag rug on the floor, and bright patchwork
curtains. It smelled sweet and spicy; she guessed the mattress on the
bed was stuffed with balsam. A framed photo on an unpainted pine dresser
showed a bridal couple, the girl in a white dress, the groom, mustached
but beardless, in a stiff collar. The bride's hair was piled high on her
head. Otherwise, from where Trudy sat, the pair looked as they did now.

"Give me your bathrobe," the girl said softly. "I'll get you a blanket."
She took a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around Trudy's blue
pajamas. Then she opened a can of milk into a pan, added water from a
scoop hanging on a barrel in an alcove, and put it on the stove to warm.

The man said nothing. He took the wet robe and hung it on a hook, and
then he stuffed dry kindling into the stove so the whole room lighted
up. He spoke at last in a deep gentle voice full of slow surprise.

"So the mesage finally got to them. And they sent you to answer it?a
little girl child. Why would they do that?"

"No one sent me. They think of you only as you want them to, an old
couple, harmless, but to be got rid of. Only I knew better. Not one of
my family would ever dream that I would come here tonight."

"Why did you?" And then, his voice grown harsher, he answered his own
question., "Because the boy told you he saw me in the woodshed, and you
guessed?"

"Yes, but that's not the real reason. Because I had to tell you that I
understand why you have done . . . had to do all of it, the wood, the
dock, tonight the cistern, not hurting anyone, not wanting to hurt, just
meaning to frighten us, get us to leave. As you have, or this island
has, others not wanted here." She smiled. "I keep

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saying us. But the truth is, I'm not really one of them anymore. I
belong here with you."

The Learnings said nothing. Their eyes never left her face; they were
waiting. And looking back at them, she began to feel doubtful and
confused, because how could she know what generation she was speaking
to?her own, or her grandmother's? She shook it off; all she could do was
to speak the truth as simply as she could.

"Because we're fighting for the same thing. I guess I have to say . . .
our lives. If any of us leave this island for any length of time, we
will die. You weren't much older than I am when you came here; you look
and feel and act the same way now. But away from here, we both know
you'll live only a little while, and you'll be old?old. As for me, I'll
die more surely and sooner. I have a disease that is nearly always
fatal. There's really no hope for me. Unless I can stay here. That's the
most important thing I came to tell you."

"It's hard to believe," the girl said, "from the look of you."

"Yes. But no harder than for me to believe you two are my grandmother's
age."

"Let her go on, Beth," the man said. "What else did you want to tell us?
You had more reason that that."

"I came to bargain with you. Don't you see, the very fact that I talk to
you and not to my family puts me on your side? Yet I can't think of them
as enemies, as you do. I love them, some very much. My father is the
closest. What I know about you and the island, he guesses. No one else.
You have alarmed and troubled and puzzled all of them, but my uncle who
owns Wyndom now is very determined and optimistic?he really believes all
the mysteries will disappear, once the big house is down. A haunted
house, he calls it, half-joking. He never guesses the mystery is in the
island itself." And she said earnestly, "You see how much you need me?to
argue your case! Without me, there's no chance for you, none at all. The
bargain is: if I do

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this, or even try, you must give me your promise not to play these
tricks on us anymore."

The man stared at her. "What could you do, little sick child-girl like
you, with a man like your uncle?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe nothing. I can only try. Maybe I'll have to have
the help of my father. He loves me very much, he'd do anything he could.
Still, I'm your only hope. And I'm not sick. I have a very strong will
to live?a rage to live, a writer called it. Do you think if I didn't,
I'd ever have had the courage to come here?"

"A rage to live," the girl repeated. She stirred, flinging back her
hair. "Yes, we have that, too, Jason and I."

A kitten, curled into a ball on the bed beside the girl, was disturbed
by her gesture, yawned, leaped down, and rubbed against Trudy's bare
ankles. She scooped it up and looked into the little round pansy face.
It looked six weeks old. "Did ydu bring this here with you when you
first came?"

"Yes," Beth Learning said. "Fifty years ago. It was one of the first
clues we had?that first year, when it never grew into a cat."

"One of the first?"

"That was the first." Beth pointed to a table set against the wall. On
it stood a salt shaker, a sugar bowl, and, in a china pitcher, a bouquet
of white roses and honeysuckle. "Our bridal bouquet. You can see me
holding it in our wedding picture."

Trudy set down the kitten and went over to the table. The roses were
just past their prime, as they must have been when brought here, but
still lovely, and as she stood over them, the sweetness of a summer
garden enveloped her.

Beth poured a cup of warm milk and handed it to Trudy. "There was
another sign." Before she went on, she picked up the kitten again and
held it against her breast like a shield. "When we came here so ... so
unprepared for marriage, the reason was ... I was going to have a baby.
It was only two months along;

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no one knew except Jason and me, but we got married right away. Jason's
ma had died, having her seventh baby, and his pa took off with some
girl?the county had to raise the children. My parents were poor, but
they did what they could, gave us a little wedding and an old jalopy to
set out and find ourselves a life.

"We always meant to get married, there wasn't anybody else for either of
us, we knew that. But later, when Jason had a steady job. Only, those
days, a baby coming, you just had to get married. And then . . . then
the baby never came. And after a while, when we'd lived here a while, we
began to think . . . something about this place . . . just stopped it."

Nothing showed on Trudy's face, but a small shock went through her. An
article she had read in a doctor's office about an autopsy on an old
woman, and a picture of a shrunken fetus never developed or miscarried
but just lying dead in her all the long years since her youth. Only, in
Beth it would be?what? A two-month-old living embryo? She tried to put
the image, the question out of her mind. She asked, "How did it happen
that you came to Wyndom Island?"

Jason answered that. "We were on our way to Canada ?I'd heard it was
easy to find work there. But the car was just about fit for the
junkyard, and in North Fork it just lay down and gave up. I couldn't fix
it, and we'd about run out of what little money we had. There were some
good people at the hotel, saw we were newlyweds and spread the word
around. Everybody was good to us.

"Pair of lobstermen, brothers, told us about this place, the shack, the
island the meteor fell on. Oh, that was a big story, not as big as the
hurricane that hit Florida that year, but pretty big, happened only a
couple of months before. The people who lived in the big house had left,
maybe they'd come back, maybe not. Anyway, no reason why we shouldn't
move into the shack?they'd never used it. So they brought us here."

"People were so kind, so open-handed," Beth re-

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membered. "We had nothing here to start with but a rusty stove and a
rain barrel outside, but, still, it was a roof over our heads. The hotel
people got up like a collection?food and blankets and pots and pans. Of
course, it was just going to be for a couple of weeks, till we settled
on what we'd do. Then the Aiken brothers offered Jason a job. Lobstering
was big those days?plenty of them, and plenty of buyers, far away as New
York City. Aikens were young, but they could use another big strong man
like Jason."

Jason laughed, recalling it. "That summer and fall, I was the busiest
man you ever saw. Up at four, out hauling traps, fixing up this cottage,
building furniture for it. Beth had prettied up the inside so
cozy?curtains and carpet pieced together from scraps the ladies gave
her. She didn't want to leave. So I saw I'd have to winterize the place.
The Aikens kept telling me it couldn't be done, nobody could live a
winter through here, but that kind of challenged us. So I added that
little lean-to for an indoor water supply."

He pointed proudly to the alcove opening into the stove-warm room, where
the water barrel stood with pipes leading from the roof. There was a dry
sink, and under it a pail to catch the drain. "Then I built outside
walls to the cabin, with a good fill of sawdust in between for
insulation. Every fall we put in a good supply of canned goods, and I
stacked up plenty of wood to keep that stove hot all winter. Lot of the
winter, we have to melt snow for water, but we keep the barrel full one
way or another. We keep pretty snug here till spring."

"But the winters must be so long! What do you do all day? I should
think, especially when you were young, you'd have got restless, lonely
for company."

"No," Jason said. "I had plenty to do, fishing during the thaws, fitting
up firewood. Then, the Aikens got over when they could, brought us old
magazines and like that. Every fall during hunting season the three of
us would each get ourselves a deer. We'd eat what we

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could and store the rest. She always had her winter makepiece, patchwork
quilt or ... see that fancy bedspread? She spent a whole winter
crocheting it. First few years, we made ourselves a calendar, but we
gave that up?how could you measure time when it didn't mean anything here?"

Trudy persisted. "But when spring came, you'd get out, get into town?"

Beth said reluctantly, "For a time we did. But as years passed, people
began to look at us kind of funny. They were getting older, that was the
truth of it, and we still seemed . . . looked the same. We got uneasy
about how they stared at us, and seeing them change?even the Aikens were
getting middle-aged, depending more and more on Jason to do a young
man's work. Oh, yes, he still worked with the Aikens?we had to have some
money?but he began to stay away from other people out of North Fork.
Sometimes other lob-stermen would see the Aikens' boat, far enough away
so they could just see Jason's bare back and shoulders, and if they ran
into the brothers in town, they'd ask, 'Who's that young fella you've
got doing all your hauling for you while you old geezers loll around?'
'Why, you know Jason Learning,' the Aikens would say with those sly
smiles they had, and then there'd be a big guffaw, because everybody
knew Jason had to be near fifty by then."

"And the Aikens would tell us, a lot of folks thought we were dead,
drowned or something, all these years passing and you never seeing us in
North Fork. They'd tell their children that Wyndom Island was
haunted?too many peculiar things happened here. Bad things. People got
scared, even some of the lobstermen started to keep their distance."

"Peculiar things, yes," Beth agreed, "but not bad. The bad things all
happened offshore. Nobody seemed to realize that. Like for instance, I
never changed at all; Jason did some, because he spent more time off the

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island lobstering. We were both twenty when we came here, and he looks
now . . . what, thirty? So he began to get afraid, afraid to leave the
island too much. He fished only enough to earn us the things that we
just had to buy."

"But the Aiken brothers. Didn't they wonder too? How could you explain
it to them?"

"We didn't try." Jason frowned, thinking how to say it. "Well, now, the
brothers are kind of touched in the head. Maybe just this side of crazy.
What they did was to treat us as if we were some kind of a secret
joke?-how we were different from other people, a joke they was proud to
be a part of, but not to be told around. Their little joke."

"Didn't they envy you?"

"I don't think so, no. Most people seem content to take life at is is.
They don't want to be different." For a moment the room was silent
except for the rain on the roof and the crackle of the firewood.

"So, more and more," Trudy said softly, "you had only each other."

Beth flared up. "We didn't need anybody else! We never had. Maybe we saw
enough of what life did to people. Jason was the oldest of his family,
he remembers when his ma and pa were lovey-dovey, before she had seven
kids and he walked out on them; we saw all the middle-aged people and
what time did to 'em, aging them into somebody else and wearing 'em out
with working too hard, and too many kids and debts and mortgages and
getting ahead, so they were just too tired and beat to remember they
were once fresh-faced kids just out of high school, maybe lovers just as
we were. When we found a way to keep that from happening to us, you
think we wouldn't latch on to it?"

"No," Trudy said. "Why shouldn't you?" She looked at the bed under the
crocheted cover, so long and lovingly made by Beth, and thought of them
lying there together entwined?fifty years of nights like that. What

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did a sixteen-year-old virgin know of what that had meant to them? Was
love between man and woman an appetite renewed day after day like any
other? Did the body, like this island, have no concern for yesterday or
tomorrow, knowing only that it must be fed today? Unanswerable
questions; sighing, she returned to those she could ask.

"What will happen when you no longer have your friends to supply your
needs? The Aikens must be old now?they can't live forever."

"We've thought of it. So have they. It gets longer and longer between
their visits?it's over two months now. Last time, Lester?he's the older
one?said, 'Jason, most everyone who knew you as a young man is gone. If
you walked into North Fork tomorrow, who'd be there now to know you?
Nobody'd look twice except to see you was a stranger in town. You could
start here all over again as a young couple, and only a few old buzzards
that no one would pay any mind to anyhow would be the wiser.' "

"I see. And then you'd find another young tight-mouthed fisherman to be
your contact with the world, and watch him grow old over the years, just
as you did the Aiken brothers."

"Something like that." Jason stood up and poked at the fire again.
"Looks like we're letting you pretty far into our lives, telling you all
this. I don't rightly know why we're doing it."

"Yes you do," Beth said softly. "It's because of her. Because this girl
might have been her."

Trudy saw the quick warning look Jason gave his wife. Could they have
meant that poor little baby that had never got itself born? Better not
refer to that again! "Did you ever go up to the big house?" she asked.
"Go inside?"

"Never," Jason said quickly, too quickly. "Outside, yes, the toolshed,
the cistern, but inside was not our place. This is our place."

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His body shifted, and his voice hardened. "Time we asked the questions.
Time you told us a few things we've got the right to hear. Like how you
come to know about us, about this island. Not from anybody in your
family ?that you already said. Not just from seeing Beth that day on the
rock, or from what the kid told you when he come on me that night in the
woodshed. That's not enough to satisfy me."

Trudy shook her head. "I can't tell you. I don't know myself. It was
like going to sleep with some problem nagging at you and waking up with
the answer. Oh, there were times that I could see the truth. The day we
all left here to go to the fair and my illness came back like an enemy
that had been lying in wait for me. Papa knew then, too, he knew he had
to get me back here. But he needed proof, he kept looking for proof. I
didn't.

"I thought you recognized me as I did you. That I belonged with you. I
think I loved you, in spite of what you were doing to my family. I
understood why you did it."

"We could love you," the girl said gently, "if we really believed you'd
help us?if we believed we could trust you to tell us the truth."

"Try me. I'll tell you all the truth I know."

Jason gave her a long speculative look. "Start by telling us just what
exactly you know about Wyndom Island."

"Only that nothing can die here. Or grow old. Or change. That time
stands still. Seasons and weather change, tides go in and out, but
nothing rooted here or living here can change or die."

"You know why? Why this island doesn't have to obey earth laws? There's
good reason for it."

When she shook her head, he pointed to a narrow shelf set over the stove
like a mantelpiece. In the center, a chip was posed against the wall,
maybe three or four inches across at the widest, but irregularly shaped,
a dark glassy metallic fragment?of what? The shelf

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held nothing else, as if nothing else was worthy to stand beside it.

"It's a piece of the meteor," Jason said. "The 'star chip,' Beth calls
it. It was flung off when the meteor buried itself in the crater. Those
scientist fellows that came from Boston never found it, but I did.
Brought it into the cottage first as a curiosity. Oh, it was quite some
time before I realized what it was. Now we know. So long as it stays, no
earth laws can touch us, no more than gravity can touch those men in
spaceships once they get out of the earth's orbit. Not just this
cottage?it controls every acre of Wyndom Island, it obeys laws from some
other part of the universe?I don't know all the names and big words,
except from newspapers Lester brought us . . ."

"Extraterrestrial," Trudy murmured. "That's Papa's word for it."

"You talk too much about your father. Because you're here, come to us of
your own free will, and we'll talk freely together, don't take it that
means we accept your pa, too. He's not part of the bargain."

They watched her while she thought about that. "Then you'll have to
trust me to tell him only what I must, to get his help. Not just for
you, but for me, too." Suddenly she burst out, "Do you think I want to
die?at my age? Do you think I won't do anything in my power to stay
alive? I look gentle and harmless, I know that, but I'm not?I'll fight
them all, even my father, to live, to stay on here with you! How can you
not trust me?"

"Maybe so," Jason said. "Maybe that's all we can do."

Beth looked at him. "Why don't you admit it, Jason, we have to trust her
because for the first time . . . we're afraid."

Jason was silent. There was no more to say. Trudy sat for a moment more,
then thrust her feet into her shoes and stood up. "I think the rain is
letting up?I'll have to get back before I'm missed."

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They got up with her, and she stood there a second more, hoping for ...
what? Some loving gesture perhaps, but it didn't come. She picked up her
flashlight and walked to the door.

Behind her Jason said, "Nothing said here tonight will ever be
repeated." It was half-question, half-statement.

"No. Or ever forgotten." Jason opened the door for her. The wind and
storm had moved on, but the rain still fell, leaving a dawn gray and wet
as an oyster. Still huddled into the blanket, she walked into it.

Cynthia was still asleep when Edwin slid out of bed, pulled on his
bathrobe, slid his feet into slippers, and closed the door behind him.
When he found Trudy's bed empty, and the panic struck him, it didn't
occur to him to alert Cynthia. He moved swiftly through the sleeping
house, past the dark shape of David silent in his sleeping bag in the
living room, and headed for the raspberry meadow. He knew where she
would go, he had known almost from the day they came here, that the
seaward tip of the island drew her like a lodestone.

The sky was graying toward dawn, the rain slackening, but still the
visibility was so poor that she was only a few yards aways before he saw
her. For a moment they stood and looked at each other across the meteor
pit; she was huddled, hooded into something unfamiliar, a plaid blanket.

"Papa?" she called out, her voice thin and high, and then they both
skirted the pit?bottomless it looked in the steely rain light?and came
together. She tried to pull him inside the blanket with her, because he
was shivering.

"You saw them?you've been with them all this time? Tell me, Trudy, you
saw them with your own eyes?"

"Yes . .. yes, I did, Papa."

"Well, tell me ... tell me!"

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She didn't answer at once. Then, pulling away from him, she said
quickly, grievingly, but as if she had resigned herself to her own shock
and dismay, "Just a dear old couple, Papa. They wouldn't even open the
door at first, but finally, when they let me in, they were very shy but
kind. They kept me there during the worst of the storm and quieted me,
and gave me hot milk, and when the rain began to let up, and I knew you
might wake and be worried, they wrapped me in this blanket and let me
go. I had to see them, Papa?I knew you'd understand that. We both had to
know."

"You thought he might have done it?Learning . . .; pulled the plug. As
he smashed the dock."

"Yes, but no longer, Papa?he's an old man. He can lift small stove logs
to keep the fire going, but it would be impossible . . . He's in his
seventies, Papa! An old man and an old woman. As they should be after
fifty years."

Edwin stood motionless. Rain streamed down his neck; his fists, clenced
in his bathrobe pockets, felt like two blocks of wood.

So there was no hope, no miracle. He stood inert, a man with nowhere to go.

"We must get back," Trudy said gently. "They'll all be waking, and we
must get into dry clothes."

She had to take her father's hand and lead him back to the house.

207

The water crisis had been averted, but the dreadful and awesome question
remained: What human or non-human force had pulled the heavy deep-set
plug loose and then left it so teasingly available for replacing? Brad
and Gert were practical people, indeed Gert was so stolid of mind that
she would never have believed that man had invaded outer space if Walter
Cronkite hadn't told her so. But who could have an answer for this? And
as rational human beings, the Bradleys felt a terrible need for an answer.

Adding to the gloom was the fact that Brad's hopeful prophecy that the
rain wouldn't last out the night proved wrong. Persistently, it
continued to fall. Not only must their anxious guests, eager now to
depart, remain until the weather cleared, but somehow they must be
entertained all day. The stock remark, always made to paying guests at
the Cape Cod resort?that bad weather gave them all a chance to really
get acquainted?would hardly do for this houseful: they were all too well
acquainted as it was.

"I'll tell you one thing, Gert," Brad said staunchly,

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"I'm not going to be scared off this place by a haunted house. Once we
get this old relic down, the ghosts will go with it. Fill the island
with plenty of fun-loving, well-heeled people?what will all the
mysteries be then? I'll tell you . . . added attractions! Disneyland
fantasies. Glamour stuff."

"Sure, sure," Gert agreed. But she couldn't match Brad's cheerfulness.
"Still, all I want now is one sensible possible answer for what happened
last night."

"Well, let's not mull over it now?at least this rain is going to fill
that cistern again. Let's get going."

Rising and dressing, moving briskly, as they always did when there was
anything to cope with, they discussed in low voices the situation in
regard to Trudy.

"This Dr. Healy," Gert said, "you heard Cynthia say he was going to be
fishing around here somewhere in a nice big comfortable boat."

"Who'd go fishing on a day like this?"

"That's just it. Seeing that it's a day like this, he could very likely
realize that they'd be worried about being stuck here with Trudy. Come
over for just that reason. Now, if he does, and they decide to go back
with him . . ."

"You don't need to tell me?don't lift a finger to keep them. I guess it
would be a relief, actually, to have her taken care of."

"Poor innocent baby!" Tears flowed into Gert's eyes. "She'll be the one
who'll want to stay. I wish Cynthia had never told us. How she can stand
it, or we can, or any of us?to know that lovely child . . ."

"Only way we can stand it is that Trudy doesn't have to know."

"I guess so."

They crept downstairs. It was still very early. No one, not even Mrs.
Coffin, was in evidence. Then they saw David on the far side of the
room. He was still rolled in his sleeping bag on the living-room floor.
Only one hunched shoulder was visible, and the back of his head,

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the wiry black-gray hair still rain-curled. Gert was embarrassed at the
sight.

"We could have put him up in the sleeping porch perfectly well?we all
act as if it were some kind of a shrine to three kids that died fifty
years ago! Look at him, lying there like a stray dog, when he was the
one who saved the whole situation last night."

"Leave him alone. Nobody asked him to sleep on the floor?that window
seat's plenty big enough. Besides, if he'd been upstairs, he'd never
have heard what was going on."

Mrs. Coffin appeared. She stood in the kitchen door and asked stoically,
"Well, everybody going to eat breakfast as usual this morning?"

"Why, certainly," Brad said, stoking up his professional heartiness.
"Tell you what?we'll build a big fire in here and move the dining table
in front of it. Nothing like a roaring fire to greet guests on a damp
morning." He turned his back on the rain and walked over to the cold
hearth, spreading his hands as though already enjoying the warmth of the
fire.

David stirred, sat up, and rubbed his hands over his stubbled jaw. "I
didn't mean to be caught napping." He extricated himself from the
sleeping bag and stood up, fully dressed except for his shoes.

"Oh, everyone's still asleep," Gert assured him. "At least, I hope so,
after last night. It's just that Brad and I were born with alarm clocks
in our heads. If you want to shave, the bathroom's all yours, and Brad
will lend you a razor and dry bathrobe."

Mrs. Coffin said like a scolding mother, "You still look pretty soggy to
me. Bring your shoes out to the kitchen and I'll dry them out. I've got
a good fire going right now, and coffee on."

"Thanks ... a very tempting offer, but I was thinking of making a quick
trip down to the dock to see if my boat's still all in one piece, but I
suppose in this weather it doesn't make much difference."

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"Boat?" Mrs. Coffin bristled. "I forgot you got a boat. And you think it
makes no difference? Well, let me tell you what I'd do. If I had a boat
and the muscle to handle it, I'd get right into it, rain or not, and row
myself away from this island as fast as I could. That's how I feel about
it. A month of Wyndom Island is just about enough." She looked balefully
around the room and went back to her kitchen.

David laughed. "A shining example of down-east forthrightness. No, I'll
forget the boat in favor of domestic comforts. Let me lay a little fire
in here before I avail myself of the bathroom. At the boys' camp, I was
known as Big Chief Firemaker."

Brad had his radio on again. "Listen, the static's not so bad this
morning." He got a Bangor station and waited for a weather report.

After Trudy had slipped up the back stairs to get into bed before her
mother discovered her absence, Edwin went on into the living room.
David, wearing Brad's expensive plaid robe, sat alone by a small hearth
fire, a pot of coffee beside him. In the kitchen Edwin could hear the
Bradleys talking to Mrs. Coffin. No one else seemed to be around.

"Ah, our good angel," Edwin said. "I've been down at the cistern looking
at the job you did last night. I doubt anyone could get that plug loose
again."

"I'm told there's a special suction tool they use to winter-drain it.
But all that guy had last night was a hammer. I heard it?I was lying
right over it."

"A young and very strong man, you assume, then?"

"At least twenty years my junior. Tarzan, is what I'd assume."

Edwin sat down and cupped his hand around the coffeepot. "Still quite
hot. May I join you?"

"If you don't mind using Mrs. Bradley's cup there."

A lunatic little flicker of hope had sprung up in Edwin. Suppose Trudy
had been fooled. Suppose one of

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the old Aiken brothers had been there impersonating Learning. Suppose
the woman stayed in the background, shapeless under a Mother Hubbard
robe and wearing a gray wig she kept in case of a surprise visit. He
recalled what Trudy had said: "They wouldn't let me in at first. . . ."
Of course, they needed a few moments to prepare themselves. Resolutely
he pushed this mad notion out of his head. Still, inexplicably, what
David had said had lightened his mood.

Pouring Edwin's coffee and handing it to him, David said, "Eloise tells
me your daughter is a musical prodigy. She's been boasting about her."

"Trudy has talent," Edwin couldn't forbear saying. "She made a recording
when she was twelve, a piano arrangement of Stravinsky's that the
critics found quite remarkable."

"Really? You know, it's interesting, the relationship between
mathematics and music. That's so often where you find the prodigies.
Why? Is it because, of all the arts and sciences, they are the purest,
the most abstract, the furthest removed from daily life? Is it that they
require the least apprenticeship in living?"

"Perhaps."

"I suppose," David went on, "that no one has a more respectful regard
for God-given talent than a strictly self-made artist like myself. Oh,
yes, I paint, too, you know. But I don't think God gave me much to start
with except appreciation and . . . well, diligence. I sold everything I
had to get through art school?my time, my vitality, my youth, even my
blood.to the blood bank at a hospital. . . . Sure, I've got something
for it. But only as a man who has learned how to plant a pearl in an
oyster has got something. It looks real to even the experts, but it will
never be quite real to him."

Edwin didn't answer. The reference to the blood-selling stabbed at him,
a knife turning in his middle. David continued to talk. Edwin tried to
release himself from listening, to simply sit there and drink the cooling

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coffee, to sink into a comfortable stupor. But his companion's vitality
irritated and nagged at him. The quick expressive gestures, the
too-white teeth, the glint of dark eyes behind the glasses, the
springing black hairs on his wrists.

He closed his eyes against these images. But David would not let him go.
He was still talking about Trudy's music. "What she ought to do is to
get herself discovered abroad as soon as she's ready for it. Not only
does it impress the critics, but it's a great boon to international
relations. Look at Van Cliburn?he was first discovered as a youngster in
Russia; on the other hand, several Russian artists have defected and
found their first appreciative audiences here."

Edwin looked at David wonderingly. For a moment he almost loved him
because David had no doubt whatsoever that Trudy had before her a long
and glorious future. "That's right," he agreed. "Artists and scientists
don't seem to care about politics, do they? There are no cold wars
between them."

"They can't be bothered?they haven't the time. Believe me, if I were
sixteen again and had your daughter's talents, I'd get the best manager
available and take all the advantages."

Edwin set down his cup. "Of course, that's what we want for her. Exactly."

Cynthia was already dressed. Suitcases half-packed stood open around the
room. Edwin came in and closed the door behind him.

"Have you seen Trudy this morning?" he asked her.

"Yes. She's up and dressing."

"How does she seem to you?"

Cynthia took a deep breath and burst out, "In radiant health! Edwin, I
don't understand it. She's not even taking her pills anymore?she
confessed to me. A remission as long as this, and yet, that day at the
county

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fair when she could barely lift her head?you remember ?and I called
Ralph Healy . . ."

"Ah, so you did call him. And now you see how needless it was."

"It seemed to me then that to come back here would be the height of
folly, and . . . yes, I still think that, because she can change
overnight, as you well know, to a desperately sick child, and now we're
caught here?"

"Lower your voice, Cynthia. She's just across the hall."

Her voice dropped to a furious whisper. "I blame Ralph as well as you.
He got us into this?let him get us out of it."

"Now, wait . . . wait." Edwin was pacing; he spoke with a spurious
reasonableness. "Yes, he encouraged us to make this trip. I recall what
he said, that he did not see that it would affect her progress, her . .
. illness, one way or another. She wanted to come; to refuse might have
endangered her confidence that she's going to get well. That was of
prime importance?even Healy knew that. He's a very competent man,
brilliant even, as you once informed me; I'm surprised that you question
his judgment now."

It seemed to her that the foolish words had no relation to reality.
Still, she was quieted. She stood at the streaming window taking a
bitter relish in his defense of Ralph Healy. Of course, Ralph was right,
it didn't really matter where Trudy was, since her illness progressed as
inexorably as the tick of a clock. Yet, she was angrier at him than she
was at Edwin. Why? Be honest with herself. Because she wanted not the
doctor now, but the man. Because she had called him and he had not come.
Perhaps the lusts of the flesh, lapped about by guilt and anguish, took
on a sharper savor.

Edwin was saying, "There's no point in having a doctor unless you trust
him."

Abruptly the lover vanished. Ralph, the doctor, tilted back into focus.
She turned and said earnestly, "All

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right, I do trust him. But suppose this rain continues, or the storm
comes back and Ralph never comes, and Mariner doesn't come, and Trudy
becomes ill again and there's nothing between us and the mainland but
David Loeb's flimsy rowboat. What would happen, Edwin?what could we do?"

A ripple went over Edwin's face. Deliberately he stretched his narrow
length on the bed, arms pillowed under his neck. He took deep, unhurried
breaths, as though doing an exercise in relaxation.

"Nothing ... is ... going ... to ... happen," he said quietly. "Trudy is
in excellent health. There is no emergency. We are well prepared for a
siege of weather. It's raining, yes?is that a thing to get hysterical
about? Think of the rain as beneficent. Did you ever notice the
peculiarly lovely crystalline light it makes in a room? It sounds like
little feet on the roof, doesn't it? 'We must hope for rain'?the captain
wrote that in his log when the cistern was no more than a third full.
Well, the cistern is well filled again, after having been depleted by
gremlins which inhabit this island?look it up in the dictionary.
Gremlins are small household elves, mischievous, but essentially harmless."

Cynthia closed her eyes, unable to look at him. From below, Brad's voice
boomed up the stairs. "Breakfast?come and get it!" And as Edwin rose and
opened the door, the triumphant voice bellowed up the stairwell. "Great
morning for ducks, but nothing to worry about. The hurricane got as far
as forty miles south and veered off. Never touched us!"

"You see?" Edwin said, smiling. "You see?"

Gert passed the open door of Cynthia's and Edwin's room, and saw Cynthia
alone staring out the window. She sat down on the bed, trying to think
of something to say to animate that immobile profile.

"Too bad you missed all the excitement about Jody.

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Trudy deserves all the credit for getting him down safe. Honestly, she's
a wonder?we were all impressed."

"So I heard."

"She's certainly matured this past year, that girl."

"She's had to."

"It's so hard to realize, when she seems, she looks ... so well."

"It's like the weather, it can change overnight."

"I guess so." Gert sighed and stood up. Her natural quality, a
rough-and-ready grappling with circumstances, took over. "Looks as if
this rain would never stop. Mariner said that even if we missed the
worst of the storm, it still looked like rain all weekend. Said that
before it even started. You still looking for your doctor friend to show
up?"

"I... yes, I think he may, if he ever gets my message. He and his
sporting buddies sometimes go into the woods for several days, maybe
into Canada. I know this: if he thought I was really worried about
Trudy, the bad weather wouldn't stop him. You see, Gert... we haven't
talked much to Edwin about it, but very soon now Trudy should be
reaching a stage where she'll have to start having transfusions. Dr.
Healy knows that. They have no lasting value, speaking practically. Yet,
as he's explained to me, a transfusion could pull her out of a bad spell
such as she had that day on the mainland. Which he would gather from the
mesage I left for him."

"Well, she certainly doesn't seem to be in need of a transfusion now."

"Still, if he thought she might, I'd expect him to come."

"You put a lot of faith in him, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

"Is he a young man? What does he look like?"

"Does that matter?a doctor's age or appearance?"

"I've got a feeling it does in this case. Matters to you."

Cynthia moved from the window, went to her dresser,

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and began to rearrange small objects on it. Taking a few moments to pull
herself together, Gert thought, to decide whether she can bluff it out.
One side of her was desperately sorry for her sister, the other watched,
beady-eyed.

"So it was you," Cynthia said, her back to Gert. "You were the one who
found the card in my handbag."

Gert stood up, flustered. She hadn't expected this frontal attack!
"Listen, I don't snoop around. You know me better than that. I was
looking for Trudy's pills. Why should I have any reason to snoop in your
handbag, to suspect you of any funny business?"

"No, of course not. But now you do ... have reason."

Cynthia went back to the high dresser, folded her arms across it, and
buried her face in them. "Help me," she said in a muffled broken voice.
"I'm a mother, Gert. At a time like this I should be able to forget
everything else. But I don't, I don't. I'm still a woman."

Gert was thunderstruck. Was she admitting to the whole sordid business?
She said roughly, "If you know what you're talking about, I wish you'd
let me in on it. I haven't accused you of anything. Sure, you're a
woman, for God's sake. What kind of mind-reading am I supposed to get
out of a crazy remark like that?"

"Oh, let's not pretend, Gert. You know what I'm talking about! Can't you
see that I'm relieved that you know? At least now I won't have to feel
your eyes crawling over me, your suspicions, putting two and two
together. I'd rather tell you straight out. Because if he comes here?and
he will, he will?I've got to have moral support. Now, that's the truth,
Gert?I've got to have you on my side!"

"On your side . . . how?" Gert asked in a harsh, reluctant voice.

"Oh, please, please. I'm not asking you to connive with me." Cynthia put
her hands to her temples as if to calm herself. When she continued, her
voice was lower, more reasonable.

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"I guess what it comes down to is just that I want you to build me some
kind of moral alibi. Tell me I can't be blamed for what I was born with,
that nothing is my fault, that Edwin has defaulted as a husband. Gran
would tell me that?oh, she'd understand, but at the same time, she'd
gloat. She never thought much of Edwin. Maybe I come to you because you
don't understand: Oh, Gert, I'm all mixed up! I don't want to feel
guilty if and when Ralph Healy walks into this house. I don't want to
feel anything at all, except what I should feel?deep concern for my
daughter."

"How did you manage to get around these guilt feelings before?" Gert
demanded. "All the times you and this Healy had to put on an act in
front of people, in front of Edwin or Trudy?"

"I think because although the attraction was there, we both knew that...
nothing had been spoken out, we hadn't accepted it." Cynthia looked
blindly at the camera case on the dresser, at the name trudy stamped on
it in gold letters. "Well, of course, it's much more difficult now we
have accepted it, have . . . have given in to it even."

Gert stared at her. "You're trying to tell me that you and this Healy
are sleeping together regularly?"

"Regularly?no! A few times, a very few. But, oh, Gert, when it happens,
I want it as much as he does. That's the guilt, that's the thing that's
absolutely destroying me, to know that, feeling as I do about my child,
I can still feel this other thing, this crass physical thing." She gave
Gert a pleading look. "Couldn't you say something, some loving sisterly
thing, so that I needn't feel I'm altogether bad?"

Gert was stonily silent, but as Cynthia began to cry, a host of
unwilling memories invaded the older sister: Cindy the little girl that
she, as an energetic bossy teenager, had practically raised. Oliver, the
oldest, had been off and away. Gran, with or without a husband, was

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always on the go, leaving her?practical, competent, no-nonsense Gert?in
charge at home.

Cindy had been a handful, all right, and Gert had been a disciplinarian,
as she'd had to be, but she had never allowed anyone else, not even
Gran, to lay a finger on the girl. In a way, Cynthia had been the child
of Gert's youth, as Trudy was of her middle age.

She asked abruptly, "You think Gran has any ideas about you and Healy?"

"She may have." Cynthia stifled her tears. "I think she'll be looking
for something. She wants to believe that we all go to her with our
troubles, and the fact that I didn't tell her about Trudy long ago?I
think she resents that, would like to punish me for it."

"Huh! What has Gran ever done in the good-example department to hand out
punishment?" Gert rose briskly, got a box of tissues from the bed table,
and handed it to Cynthia. "Listen," she said, grimly determined, "let
her start looking?she's going to be good and disappointed. If Dr. Healy
shows up here today, he came to see a sick child, a child he thought to
be sick. You're just the mother of the patient. Far as Gran or anybody
else is concerned, that's that."

"Oh, Gert, thank you, thank you!"

"Okay, let's skip the dramatics."

But, like an afterecho in her mind, she heard again Cynthia's sensuous
broken whisper: "I can still feel this other thing, this crass physical
thing."

And Gert felt a painful warmth spread up her neck like a blush. What
would it be like to live, week after week, with death, while your body
still lusted after life?

Not until Gert had left did Cynthia realize: I never even told her I was
pregnant. Why? Because it was impossible to communicate to a childless
woman the feel of a new life growing in you? No. The real reason was her
own sense of uncertainty. That moment in the phone booth when she had
felt?she had been so sure!?the

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child move was beginning to seem an illusion. Because since then she had
felt nothing?nothing.

It was past midday now, and Mildred and Gert had set out a cold lunch of
canned meat, cheese, and fruit. The family was gathered in the living
room, huddled close to the fire. But it was more than food and warmth
that brought them together. The weather closed them in, as in a capsule;
the rain continued like a child that goes on crying, too tired and inert
to stop. It beat relentlessly on the gabled and turreted roof, wept
against the windows, and ran noisily through the gutters.

From the ocean side of the house they could see a torrent of overflow
from the cistern, rushing out over the rocky cliff to spill into the
sea. Outside the big window, the leaves of the jingle tree no longer
danced, but drooped listlessly, waterlogged.

The family was restless. They were mostly packed and ready to leave
now?all caught up in an emotional paralysis of waiting. They had given
up Mariner by midday, they had given up the Sutherlands' Dr. Healy, whom
they had hoped for, not only as a diversion, but because, if he came at
all, it would be in a big luxurious motor launch, a real link to
civilization.

Meanwhile, they listened to old records on an ancient wind-up
phonograph, with a picture of a perk-eared dog on it bearing the legend
"His Master's Voice." Some of the records were musical: Caruso, World
War One songs like "Over There"; some were comic, such as Harry Lauder
and "Cohen on the Telephone." David and Eloise and Jody sat on the floor
playing Parcheesi. None of them knew how to play, but David made up the
rules for them.

In the late afternoon Edwin put on one of the old yellow slickers that
hung in the entryway and wandered down the soaked rocky path toward the
dock. It looked desolate and useless. The makeshift lower level that
Mariner and his helper had put up, meant to last only the remaining
weeks the Bradleys and their architect

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would stay here, had been smashed by storm waves and hung, swaying, just
over the water.

He looked across the stretch of rocks to the little beach where they had
had the clambake. Someone, probably David, had turned his dory upside
down so that it wouldn't need bailing. It looked small and frail lying
there, not like anything that could possibly link them to the mainland.
No, they were quite stranded except for the increasingly dim possibility
that Ralph Healy might still turn up in his cabin cruiser.

Edwin turned his thoughts to what would happen if Healy did appear. A
doctor was required by his pro-fesion to be a dedicated pessimist, to
expect the worst, to insure himself against any charge of negligence, At
his first sight of Trudy he would be too blinded by all the facts and
precedents he knew of her disease to even see the extraordinary change
in her. And once ashore, if she collapsed again, as she had that other
time she left the island, Dr. Healy would not be surprised; he would
take her at once to the nearest hospital for a transfusion. Not once
would he consider the horrifying effect upon Trudy's all-important
self-image as a convalescent. No, Healy was concerned only with his
blood counts, his lymph glands and bone marrow.

A staggering thought occurred to him. Healy was not the arbitrator of
this inevitable train of events. He was no more than a doctor engaged by
Trudy's parents to offer opinions and suggest remedies. Any course of
action should be decided by the three people involved ?the patient, her
mother, and her father. And in all fairness, the decision should be
Trudy's and his, since they were two-to-one against her mother. Agreed,
Trudy was underage, but suppose she simply refused to leave here, and
her father backed her up. What then? There were plenty of witnesses to
prove that from the moment she had stepped foot on this island she had
been in perfect health, health that had been miraculously restored when
she returned to it after that bad day in

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North Fork. And yet, how could he keep her here? Sick or well, what
possible way?

One by one he discarded the desperate hopeless schemes and solutions.
Even if he could find some way to liquidate the trust fund his father
had left him, or borrow enough from his rich friends, Brad would never
sell him the island; as for his mad idea that he and Trudy move into the
empty Learning cottage, it would not even be taken seriously. There was
no solution?he must accept that.

The afternoon was already darkening. A pinpoint of light winked at him
far out. He thought it must be from another island, perhaps where
Mariner and his wife lived in summer. Surely it was too late to look for
the cruiser today; another day's grace had been granted him. A stiff
wind was now blowing off the ocean, chilling him through. He clambered
up from the dock and opened the door of the old icehouse.

The roof was steeply angled, peaked and windowless; the only light came
from the door opening. He saw nothing but a large pair of ice tongs
hanging from the back wall. But it was snug and windless, a good place
to think. He sank down and leaned against the wall. A rank odor breathed
up from the surface damp of the sawdust, but his fingers pushing through
it felt the un-derlayer bone-dry.

His mind brooded despairingly over the Learnings. The picture built up
in his mind, when David was telling him about the young Tarzan under the
house, of the masquerade prepared by Trudy's entrance to the cottage now
seemed to him absurd. A new thought occurred to him: Trudy had not told
him the truth. She had never lied to him before, and yet, could she not
have been ashamed to tell him she had lost her courage and turned back
from the cottage without seeing the Learnings at all? Because how could
they have grown old when nothing else on the island had changed in fifty
years?

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Suddenly he remembered Jody and the field mice and that Eloise had made
him return them here. He got up, opened the door wide for more light,
and crawled on his hands and knees over the sawdust looking for them.
Then his hand, thrusting down, touched something warm and wettish and
writhing?a mass of something alive.

He staggered to his feet, flung himself outside, banging the door behind
him. Instantly, wind and rain beat at him again, but he was hardly aware
of them. The last of the daylight lay, a steel-cold ribbon above the
heaving ocean, and now again he saw the yellow light he had judged to be
on a far island. It was not, it was moving toward him, much nearer and
brighter now, just a little way off the dock. It was the riding light of
a vessel.

He opened his mouth in a soundless shout, tasting] salt on his tongue.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that David was running down the path
and that he had seen the light. He stood there a moment looking at the
unstable dock, and then turned to scramble up the path toward the house
again.

"I'm going to get some lanterns," he called back. "Brad and Oliver, too.
If it's the doctor, I guess landing with that busted dock will be kind
of a job!"

Edwin stood and watched the yellow light edge nearer. Wind whipped at
his hair and his garments, but under this surface animation, he was
motionless. All he could think was that the terrible sequence had begun.
What could he do to halt it?

His mind was a blank. He might have been one of the wet planks that hung
from the broken dock, wind-buffeted but inert, helpless.

223

From the moment that David walked into the house with the news that Dr.
Healy had arrived, and summoned Oliver and Brad down to the dock to help
with the landing, Cynthia could see that Gert was girding herself to
take charge of the situation.

It was Gert's destiny that she must always live at one remove from life;
she had given herself without stint to a hotel instead of a home, to her
husband's career in place of her own abandoned interests, to a niece
instead of a daughter.

Now, with a hissing stage whisper as she passed Cynthia on her way to
the kitchen?"For God's sake, go and put on some lipstick . . . you look
like a ghost!"?she took on the moral responsibility of her sister's
illicit love affair.

Loyalty, yes, that was a part of it, but no matter what her feelings,
being Gert, she could hardly have refused so delicate and tempting a
role as the one Cynthia had offered her. She saw herself now as a kind
of mistress of ceremonies; she was to preside over the smoldering
reunion of the lovers, the doctor here ostensibly to

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administer to a mortally ill child, and all under the merciless radar
eyes of Cynthia's nearest and dearest.

Cynthia perceived all this and was grateful. Already his sister was
exerting a therapeutic effect upon her. Seeing Gert's agitation, her
rushing about to get Jody fed and out of the way, conferring busily with
Mrs. Coffin ("Be sure there's plenty of hot coffee, or what'll they
want?whiskey? These men are all going to be wet and miserable!"),
Cynthia felt calmer.

Months before, she had experienced the same thing with Edwin. Since he
had elected himself Trudy's alter-ego, grief had come to Cynthia
diluted, the unabsorbed residue of Edwin's grief. A great blessing, as
Gert was now, an absorber.

The wind was letting up, the rain small and thin; it had become a
constant; the eye and ear recorded it without awareness. The big room
had entered a small interlude of peace. The men were still down at the
dock, Mildred had taken Jody upstairs for a supper tray in bed, Mrs.
Coffin and Gert were in the kitchen, Gran was catnapping on the window
seat but ready to spring up at the first sign of action.

Trudy sat at a window, now framing the deep swimming blue of twilight.
Cynthia stood for a moment looking at her. What was she thinking,
feeling? She wanted to mother her in some way, but the girl seemed to
need nothing.

"It's cold over by that window, darling?let me get you a sweater."

"No, Mama, I'm all right."

"Just a light one. We don't want Dr. Healy to think we're being careless
with you." A faint smile was Trudy's only reply.

Cynthia went upstairs and found the sweater. In her room she carried a
lipstick and her hand mirror to the window and daubed at her mouth. In
the dim bluish light, the red looked the color of a bruise; it didn't mat-

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ter, the lipstick was only a gesture. I am a mother, she whispered to
herself?no more, no less than that.

Passing the little alcove bedroom, she saw Eloise drying her wet hair
with a towel. "Well, now your nice Mr. Loeb won't have to row back after
all," Cynthia said. "He can go back on the crusier with us if we can
find a towrope for his boat."

"When will you be going?"

"I should think not till morning. I'm sure the doctor will sleep on his
boat. It sleeps four people?quite roomy, really. I should think we might
all go back on it."

"I hope not till morning. It would be nice if we could have one more
evening here together."

"Well, we'll see." Before Cynthia turned away, an intimation reached hr,
dimly perceivd through her own engrossment, of some new ease, a faint
radiance even, in Eloise, and she said impulsively, "I want to tell you,
Eloise, he's quite a person?your David. I like him very much."

Eloise breathed, her face half-hidden by the towel, "Thank you, oh,
thank you!"

Cynthia thought, faintly surprised: Why, she's really in love with him!
And starting downstairs with the sweater, she sighed, because Eloise in
love seemed so vulnerable, and because all the wounds and humiliations
of love?yes, and the delights, too?still lay ahead of her.

The men came in together, four of them, Gran counted?Oliver, Brad, David
Loeb, and the new one, Dr. Healy. Besides these, a boy to carry up some
gear. All but the boy, middle-aged, all over forty, but to Gran they
seemed young and at the height of their powers. The strong hearty aroma
of masculinity that they exuded, entering, stamping off boots, shaking
off rain, the deep chorus of their voices, invigorated her. She no
longer felt sleepy at all. Briefly she considered why Edwin wasn't with
them, then promptly forgot him.

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All the preliminary gabble about how Dr. Healy would have got here
earlier if the island had been correctly placed on the chart, and Brad's
argumentative response, Gran let go in one ear and out the other. She
was too occupied in studying Dr. Healy.

He was not as tall as Edwin or Ollie, nor as short as Brad, about
five-ten, she decided, a good solid man-height, fleshier than David,
with a short blunt face and wide-set eyes, kind of a bulldog face.

She watched his meeting with Trudy. The girl was waiting for him. He had
only the briefest of greetings for Cynthia before his searching eyes
went to his patient. He was silent a moment, while his big square hands
moved independently on the girl's wrist and forehead, as though they
needed no direction from his brain; then his breath came out in a little
whistle.

"Well, missy, I must say you're looking well. From the last report I
had, I had expected you might be a bit under the weather." Shaking down
a thermometer, he added, smiling, casual, "As who wouldn't be, after
these last few days?"

"I feel perfectly well," Trudy said, before she opened her lips
obediently for the thermometer.

"She was definitely not well that day I sent you the message from town,"
Cynthia said defensively. "But since then, since we got back here, as
I'm sure Edwin told you, she's made a quite remarkable recovery."

"He told me down at the dock."

"I can't understand why he didn't come back up here with you."

The local boy who had come in with the other men spoke up. "The tall
thin man that we saw first? He went on board. When he heard the doctor
say he had old man Aiken with him, he said he wanted to talk to him a
minute."

"Aiken? Now, why on earth would he want to do that?" Gran began, but at
that moment Dr. Healy took the thermometer out of Trudy's mouth and
looked at it.

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Everyone stopped talking; even Gert and Brad, fussing around with
bottles and ice, stopped to hear the verdict.

"Well?" Cynthia said tensely.

"A thermometer is not what you'd call a sophisticated instrument, but
her temperature is normal, and to all appearances Trudy appears to be in
excellent health." He turned and smiled at Cynthia. 'You know, I think
you got me here under false pretenses, Cindy."

Cynthia flushed, the deep rose color rising over her full throat. Gert,
watching, was instantly alerted. "For heaven's sake, Cynthia, get out
some glasses. These fellows need a drink. Ollie's teeth are chattering.
I bet it was no picnic landing a big boat at our little dock."

The doctor sat back and looked around him. "It was worth it?wonderful
old house. Speaking of weather, the natives thought I was crazy taking
the boat out so late in the day, but I couldn't get here any earlier. I
left Bar Harbor as soon as I got back from a little side trip and got
Cynthia's message. I'm a pretty good navigator, and the worst of the
storm was over. I suppose you heard about the hurricane south of Boston?"

"Sure . . . sure," Brad said, rising exultantly on the balls of his
feet. "Didn't worry us at all. Oh, we had plenty of wind and
rain?nothing to get alarmed about. What'll it be, Doc?"

"Scotch would be fine. Well, I thought about you. I decided I'd better
look in and see if you needed anything."

"Didn't need a thing. Except the pleasure of your company."

"Thanks." The doctor took the drink Brad held out to him. "I tell you,
though, I'd have had a hard time if I hadn't had the luck to run into
old Aiken. Seems he just sits around the hotel since his brother died,
and when he heard me talking to the desk clerk about Wyn-dom Island?I
had the chart spread out that Edwin gave me?this old fellow got very
agitated and came

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over to look at it and says they put Wyndom in the wrong place. Says he
knows it like the palm of his hand. So I persuaded him to come along."

"He must be one of that old pair that took care of the Learnings," Gert
said. "So his brother died?" And she added significantly to Brad, "May
simplify the move ?cutting into their supply system."

"Might at that." Brad turned back to the doctor. "We're a pretty
self-sufficient bunch here. Our handyman hasn't made it over for two
days?we hardly missed him. Oliver's been doing the pumping. Did you hear
about the water system we have here?"

There was a lot to talk about. The doctor had to hear about the house,
the mysterious Wyndoms, Brad's plans for a resort. Cynthia, sitting on
the landing step of the staircase, waited through it. In the first pause
she asked her question. "So you think then that there's no emergency,
Ralph? That tomorrow's soon enough to go back, as we planned?"

"Tomorrow's fine." He smiled at Brad. "You're not kicking out your
guests till the first, are you? I'll lay over here tonight, but I
needn't infringe on your hospitality. I have everything I need on board.
Plenty of food for my crew here." He nodded toward the boy. "This is
Tom, from the North Fork hotel. And old Mr. Aiken, whom we left on board
with a bottle. We sleep four, so that's no problem."

"Only problem is, who needs a drink?" Brad said. The lift of family
feeling was clearly following the upward rise of the barometer. They
were released of the nagging sense of responsibility for Trudy?there was
a doctor in the house.

Gert, now free to resume her proper role of hostess, sprang up, saying
briskly that, being short of beds, she would not insist on the doctor's
sleeping under this roof, but if he thought he was going to eat dinner
with his crew, he was certainly mistaken! She was already laying another
place at the table.

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"Well, doctor, the pill business must be pretty good," Oliver said
genially. "That's quite a tub you've got down there."

"Well, it's roomy. I should think I can take you all over tomorrow, with
a bit of crowding. How many will be leaving besides the Sutherlands?"

"We have quite a bit of luggage," Mildred worried, "but it certainly
would be wonderful . . ."

"The last weather report said clearing," David said. "If so, I have my
own transportation. No luggage, and one less body."

"The rowboat? We've got a towline for that." The doctor rose to accept a
second drink from Brad, and when he sat down again, it was on the bottom
stair step beside Cynthia. Gert, at the kitchen door, halted abruptly,
looking back at the two.

"Cynthia," she began, her tone heavily meaningful, "you want to come out
and give us a hand with dinner?"

The doctor was leaning forward, his hands loosely cradling the glass
between his knees. Gran noticed that his spread thigh just touched
Cynthia's.

She replied in a moist murmur, "Isn't Mrs. Coffin out there? You don't
need me, Gert, really."

"Well, but you?"

"I'd just be in the way." A shade of impatience colored Cynthia's refusal.

Gert stood there a moment, her brows drawn together in disapproval and
reproach. Then she sighed sharply and went out to the kitchen.

Gran missed none of it. Cynthia literally couldn't drag herself away
from the man! She tried to put herself in her younger daughter's place,
to feel some of the lift and excitement of a secret love affair. But it
was like trying to relive a dream; the essence was gone. She took a deep
drink of whiskey for warmth, put a cigarette in her mouth, and scratched
a match on her thumbnail, a feat she had preserved from her youth. Just
as well Edwin hadn't come up right away, she decided.

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Her eyes moved across the room to David, and Eloise sitting curled
against him on the window seat. As Gran watched, they lifted their
glasses, touched them lightly, smiling faces close?apparently some small
and private celebration.

Well, Gran thought, what have we here? Did he really make it, did little
Eloise finally yield up woman's most sacred possession? Come to think of
it, not since that fellow got here?no, before that?not since the day
they returned from the fair, had Eloise been the same girl. She had not
seemed exhausted by that long day; returning to the island, her head had
lifted thirstily into the salt wind; ashore, she had sprung,
nimble-footed, from the boat. She had received a letter that day, Gran
recalled?clear enough now who it was from. The letter or the
island?which had been responsible for that new Eloise, or was it a
combination of both? In any case, Gran felt enlivened.

"Hey, you two," she called out to them, "whatever you're drinking to,
let me in on it." She held up her glass, grinning. "Cheers!"

The top board of the dock was still holding; from it Edwin lowered
himself into the landing dinghy in which the others had come in from the
cruiser and rowed out to where it was moored. He secured the painter,
stepped into the large open cockpit, and went down the short steep steps
into the galley. Beyond that there was a bunkroom with two layers of
bunks on either side and a narrow corridor between.

On the bottom bunk of one lay an old man. A half-full bottle of whiskey
with a glass stood on the floor beside him. Edwin went past him, past a
head and a shower and looked into a storage area at the bow. No one else
was aboard. He returned to the old man.

"Mr. Aiken?" he asked, sitting down across from him.

The man sat up, crouching a bit to fit under the

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upper bunk, and peered at Edwin. "Who're you? You weren't on board
coming over. Only young Tom and the doctor."

"No, I'm staying at the house where the others are now. I wanted to talk
to you. They told me about your brother. I'm sorry. You must miss him
terribly."

A deep sigh came out of Mr. Aiken, smelling strongly of whiskey. "What I
feel is, half of me went with him. I'm half a man you see sitting here
now. Him and me been together all our lives. I was two years
older?should have went first. Lived to ourselves in the cottage where we
was born. Now I can't stand it to stay there. I go to the hotel." He
poured himself a short snifter and looked into it. "Had nobody but each
other. Had no need of company. Him and me and lobstering?that was all."

"Not quite all. You had the;Learnings."

The old man's head lifted, his voice sharpened. "You know the Learnings?"

"No, but my daughter does. They told her about you and your brother. You
four had known each other since you were all young, had grown old together."

Aiken looked at him craftily. "Your daughter seen the Learnings? Old
like me, she told you?"

"She told me?yes. But I'm not sure I believe her. I don't want to
believe her." He leaned toward the old man, his whole body yearned
toward him. "I've got to have the truth. And you're the only one who can
give it to me. Your brother's gone now, and you must tell someone before
you die. Let me be that one." He was pleading now, trying to let his
terrible need speak for him. "I've got a bigger stake in preserving this
island for the Learnings than you ever had. My daughter's life ?that's
my stake in it."

"That don't make much sense to me. How old's your daughter?"

"Sixteen. She has a ... a sicknes no doctor can cure. If she leaves this
island, she won't live a year."

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Aiken sloshed the whiskey around in his glass. "You know about this
place, then. Or guessed it." He swallowed the drink, wiped his mouth on
his sleeve, and when his arm came away, his face wore a sly smile. "The
little joke God played on Wyndom Island."

"I think I know. I've seen the proof in my daughter. The disease can't
grow in her here. Nothing here changes or grows old or dies. Do you see
what it means to me? If it's true that the Leamings have grown old, then
. . . nothing else is true. My whole belief, faith, hope, falls into
nothing."

Aiken gave him a narrow speculative look, let a moment or two go by,
then stood up and said almost harshly, "All right, mister, you guessed
it right. Your daughter stays here, she'll live. She'll stop like a
clock you throw against the wall, but she'll live. If you call that living."

He walked to the galley steps and stared up them to open sky. The rain
was gone; a white disk of moon was emerging from the dissolving mist.
"You see that moon up there? It don't change either. They tell us men
walked on it, but it don't look any different to me. It don't belong to
the earth, it ain't human. The Leamings ain't hardly human either. Human
is to grow and change. But you don't care about that. All you want is
your girl goes on living, looks good, feels good, like any other
sixteen-year-old."

"Yes. That's all I want."

The old man came back and poured out the last of the whiskey. "Why you
figure your girl didn't tell you the truth? That the
Leamings?seventy-odd years they are now . . . none of us much more than
twenty when we first helped 'em out?still got the looks and strength of
what they had when they first come here? Why didn't your daughter tell
you that? You figure it could be they didn't make her welcome, didn't
even maybe let her in the cottage?"

"She said she spent several hours there. That they

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were good to her, fed her, sheltered her, appealed to her for help. Of
course, she would have told them about herself. If so, how could they
not welcome her, as one of them?"

Aiken sipped thoughtfully at his drink. "The Learnings had a daughter
once. Not their own?a foundling. Belonged to the Wyndom family that
moved away."

"Ah," Edwin breathed, "yes. We read about her in the log?a kind of
record book Mr. Wyndom left here. Nothing was written after the meteor
fell, nothing mattered then, I suppose, except to find the children. I
think the children had kept the cave secret from them for fear they
wouldn't be allowed in it. Even the entrance must have been hidden
during the tidal wave that followed. Anyway, all I hear points to one
fact: they never found the cave, never found the children, and in the
end gave them up for lost.

"But here's what haunted me?this was clearly spelled out in the log?the
boys could swim, and the little girl could not. Then, after my
nephew?the child who is staying here now?found the cave at low tide soon
after our arrival, actually found a child's toy in a protected higher
level deep inside, and from that . . . well, I pieced together a story,
purely speculative, perhaps ridiculous, but ... It seemed to me that if
her brothers left her there on the ledge high enough so the water never
reached the toy, and the boys swam out and left their sister and
drowned, why then, the little

girl ? ? ?"

Aiken nodded and took over the story. "The Learnings found her. I'd say
about two months later, soon after they got here. Till then the little
tyke made out by herself. Learnings told me and my brother how it all
happened, but, mister, you're the only other living soul to hear. Thing
is, I've been thinking on what you said. That I'm not going to last a
hell of a lot longer, don't want to, now I'm alone and too old for
hauling traps,

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ayuh, somebody ought to be told. So I guess you're elected."

"Yes." Edwin knew he had to keep the old man talking before someone came
to find him. "You can trust me?I swear to it."

"Well, the Learnings made themselves a rule. They was squatters, moving
into a place that nobody wanted, but they wasn't thieves, and they
wasn't trespassers. That meant staying clear of the big house, occupied
or not. They had their own pride?they'd never take anything except what
was give 'em. But once they broke that rule?they went into that house
and took something. Took that little leftover girl. You want the whole
story? It could turn your stomach a little."

"Yes, I want it all. What happened to the child?"

"Well, then. Jason and Beth was out one day to that side of the island
looking for those big old dead trees, dead from before the meteor?the
dry wood was fine for kindling?and passing the big house, they heard
something, sounded like a child crying. Stopped 'em cold. Easy enough to
get in?it was before October, before some fellows was sent here to board
up the place ?and inside they follow the sound up some stairs, kind of a
whimper like they told it, like it had give up hope. And out on a
sleeping porch, there it was, like a little animal, they said, burrowed
into some blankets.

"Well, they picked her up and got some clothes for her and went down to
the kitchen and saw what she'd been living on. First she'd et out all
the fresh stuff they had in that big old icebox, probably enough there
to last her two or three weeks, and fresh as the day it was stored in.
Then she started on the cereals and crackers and raw rice and potatoes.
Canned stuff was no use to her, she was too little to open a can."

"But before all that, she must have gotten out of the cave and back to
the house by herself."

"That she did. What I'd think was, she stayed there for some time,
waiting for somebody to come and get

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her. And when nobody came, finally the cold and the dark and her little
empty belly and a tide low enough so she could feel her way out gave her
the gumption to get herself out of that cave and back up to the house.
And nobody there. So then I'd guess she lived mostly in her bed, waiting
for her folks to come back. But who finally come was Beth and Jason
Learning. She was going to have to make do with them. Never gave up
hope, though, never did stop thinking her real folks would come back
someday to get her."

"She told the Learnings all that?"

"In bits and pieces. Wouldn't talk at all for a while when they took her
home with them. But gradually it all come out, like with any little kid,
few words here, few there, and there's the story."

"Not all the story. She's not with the Learnings now, obviously. What
happened to her?"

"Well, they kept her for two years. By then they could see she was never
going; to be more than four years old, never going to be any bigger or
smarter. Jason was the one got most attached, pretty little thing, she
was. We saw her, Brother and I. He taught her to swim in the rock pools
when the tide was out. We got the feeling, times we saw the three of
them together, Beth didn't like it too much, Jason cuddling the kid in
his lap and making so much of her.

"Oh, Beth tried to be a good mother, hardly ever left home after little
Ellie came, she couldn't be left alone and couldn't be took into North
Fork either. That was early times, when the Learnings wasn't so afraid
of being seen. But they didn't want Ellie seen."

"Because she'd be recognized as a Wyndom? But the only decent thing to
do was to find the child's parents and return her to them!"

"Mebbe so, it's how most people would think on it, but, well, Brother
and I kind of saw how it was with the Learnings and little Ellie. Like
coming on something you'd find unexpected, like you'd open up an oyster and

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there was a pearl, it would be yours, wouldn't it? Meant for them,
because God never sent them a child of their own. In the beginning, Beth
was as took up with her as Jason was. All she'd had to play with was a
kitten; now it was like she had a live doll. Later, when she changed,
began to feel tied down by Ellie, and seeing Jason still so sweet on her
she wasn't getting his full attention like she used to ... well, it was
too late then to do much about it?too many questions they'd have to answer."

"I see that. But two years, you say?what after that?"

The old man was silent. He picked up the empty bottle, then set it down
and shoved it under the bunk with his foot. "What I tell you now is what
Brother and I saw with our own eyes. Why or how or if it happened the
way it looked to us, we don't know. It ain't a pretty story, but here it is.

"We were on our way over to Wyndom?early September it was, 1928?to pick
up Jason, and soon's we hit open water, we see this great big white
thing, like a Bar Harbor yacht, coming in so close to the island you'd
think she was headed for it. We never laid eyes on it before, but we
could see that it looked enough like the Wyndom's old cabin cruiser so a
four-year-old could take it for that, and think her folks had come back
to get her. Brother got out the glasses, and we could make out Beth in
the cottage door and little Ellie watching from a high rock. No
Jason?must have been off somewhere cutting wood or whatever. Ellie was
jumping up and down, arms waving, and then the big boat starts to veer
off, and suddenly the kid jumps into the water and starts to swim after it.

"Well, we couldn't do anything, far off as we were, but ... but what we
thought . . . that Beth would rush out of that door and jump in after
her . . . fast enough, she could have done it, Beth's a strong woman,
she can run like a deer. But by God, she never moved. Just stood there
and watched a big wave swallow up her baby. Time we got there, Jason was
back and Beth was

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carrying on all hysterical, like her heart was broke forever. Brother
and I never judged her. Could be she was so stunned she couldn't move,
like a horse caught in a barn fire. Fearstruck. That can happen to
folks. Leave the judging to the Almighty. But there they was, the two of
them alone again. And after a few months, it was like there never had
been any little Ellie. Or that they needed her or anybody else."

Edwin had stopped listening. He had his answers. Beth's a strong woman,
she can run like a deer. Not was. Is.

He stood up. "Thank you," he said, and stepped over the old man's
sprawled-out legs. "I'll see the boy brings you down some dinner. And
more whiskey, if you'd like it."

The first thing Edwin heard as he came to the big house was Trudy's
high, challenging voice. He stopped in the dark entryway to listen.

"Mama, if I'm so well, why must I leave tomorrow? I want to ask a favor
of Uncle Brad and Aunt Gert. The storm is over, and everyone says
September is the best month of the year here. And Papa and I love it so,
could we possibly, Uncle Brad, stay on with you for a bit?maybe a couple
of weeks? Aunt Gert will need someone to help her, with Mrs. Coffin
leaving. And Richmond is still so ghastly hot in September?I know Papa
will agree with me." Edwin came into the room, and she turned to him
eagerly. "Papa, I have this wonderful idea for us . . ."

"I know, I heard the gist of it, and, yes, of course?I do agree! Brad, I
know I haven't been doing much to earn my keep around here, but with a
little help from Mariner, I'm sure I could free you and your architect
to... to go about your plans. For instance, this delicate business of
evicting the old couple?you leave that to us. Trudy has already had a
glimpse of them, established a waving relationship."

No one spoke for a moment. Brad said in an aston-

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ished stumble of words, "Well, that's very thoughtful, but. . . but I'm
afraid Cynthia and Dr. Healy wouldn't feel they could just leave Trudy
here on her own."

"She'd hardly be on her own. After all, she's my child as well as
Cynthia's."

Gert appealed to the doctor. "How would you feel about it, Dr. Healy?
Trudy and her father ... Of course, we're flattered to pieces that they
want to, but . . ."

"I really couldn't answer that on the basis of her temperature and pulse
test. As I say, she seems quite remarkably well, but . . . well, there
are tests I'd want to make that could best be done in a hospital. I'm
sure your local hospital would be quite adequate."

"What kind of tests?" Edwin asked bluntly.

"A blood count, to be definite. Of her white corpuscles."

"Suppose I refuse to let her go."

"I don't think you'd do that. You'd have better sense."

"Perhaps. Or better understanding. In spite of your professional
expertise, there are areas of understanding between a parent and a
child, based on long association, on the flesh-and-blood bond, that you
cannot conceive of." Silently Brad put a glass in Edwin's hand. Clearly
this was a contest between father and doctor; the family fell back from it.

"Very true," Dr. Healy admitted, "but in this case?"

Edwin interrupted him. "Doctors are not omniscient, or even
indispensable. We were reading only recently of an episode that occurred
to a family that lived in this very house. A man, presumably with no
knowledge of obstetrics, delivered his wife of a baby. No elaborate
equipment, no one standing around in white masks. You see . . ."

Edwin leaned toward the doctor, the whiskey in his glass trembling.
"What you must realize is that there are no germs here. No disease. In a
sense, we are more antiseptic than a hospital. We are protected on all
sides from contamination. Not only is the air pure, there is

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an aura about this place conducive to health. Brad can tell you, even
the hurricane glanced off into harmless rain!

"Trudy . . ." he appealed to the girl, "you feel it too ?remember, we
discussed it on that sunny hillside, gathering the raspberries? Bees
buzzing all around us, we had to literally brush them off, but none of
them stung?you remember we remarked on that?"

"Yes, yes, I remember!"

"I'm putting dinner on," Mrs. Coffin announced at the door. "You folks
ready?"

Gert glanced around nervously at her guests. "Perhaps dinner would be a
good idea. A little nourishment before we make all these big decisions.
By the way, Dr. Healy, I sent your boy, Tom, down to your boat with a
good hot meal for himself and the old man."

"You're very kind."

A little awkwardly, papering over the occasion with small talk, the
family and the two outsiders, David and Ralph, found their places at the
table.

The doctor, pipe in hand, came into the kitchen, where Cynthia and
Eloise were washing up after dinner. Mrs. Coffin had begged off to go
upstairs and pack. The wall brackets holding oil lamps were haloed with
reflecting disks, turning the light back into the room. It flickered on
the broad plane of the doctor's jaw, leaving the other side in shadow.

"May I speak out, Cynthia?" he asked softly. His pipe stem indicated
Eloise at the sink. "Is the situation understood?"

"Yes." Cynthia dried her hands on a towel and faced him. But Eloise, her
back turned, continued to work, taking clean dishes from the drainer,
drying and setting them down soundlessly so as not to intrude on the
conversation.

"In spite of your husband's persuasive talents, I've got to know Trudy's
true condition. As I've told you

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before, remissions are typical of the disease, in which the patient
appears to be in good health, in a sense is ?even to having a normal
blood count?but a remission must never be taken for a cure. She had a
fairly serious relapse a week ago, as you told me. She could have
another. She's overspending herself here. I recommended a change of
scene?yes. Not that she overdo it, hiking up and down cliffis, exploring
caves. She's no longer up to all that, even if she feels she is. You
should have known, Cindy."

"I did know. She and Edwin have taken it out of my hands. As you can
see." A short silence. Then Cynthia asked, "Where would she have
them?the tests?"

"I'd have to find out the nearest place we could get the necessary units
if she did need to be transfused for the trip home. I certainly don't
expect that, but I must provide for that contingency. The move itself,
since she is so set against it, could upset her. With units available, a
transfusion can be done almost anywhere?a local hospital, even a
doctor's office if he had elementary equipment."

Another pause. "You think this is really essential, before any decision
is made?"

"I think I could not in all conscience leave her here otherwise."

"Suppose, as you expect, the tests show her to be as well as she appears
to be. Suppose some miracle of recovery has taken place, as Edwin so
devoutly believes. What then? Would you consider then . . ." She threw
out her hands. "Oh, Ralph, you know I'm talking about your
interpretation of a miracle, a normal blood count, for instance?would
you think then that she and Edwin might stay on her for a couple of
weeks? Assuming, of course, that the Bradleys would agree to it?"

"I might. So long as the weather permitted regular passage between here
and the mainland, and Edwin had his car available to get her to a
hospital to which I could fly in an emergency. He'd have to agree to that."

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"I think he'd agree to anything not to have to leave now. But, Ralph, I
don't want to stay with them."

"Nor now do I want you to. Naturally, you'd drive back to Richmond with
me. Leaving your car here for Edwin. I've overstayed my holiday anyway,
and I think perhaps you have too. I prescribe a change for you, Cindy."

"It would be that, wouldn't it? A change."

Eloise turned from the sink and looked at her aunt. Her voice had been
very low, almost faltering, but she stood erect, her dark eyes fixed on
Ralph. The doctor was leaning against the wall, bare muscular arms
folded, and the long full look sustained between him and Cynthia made
Eloise feel invisible. She began to put away the pots and pans, making a
little clatter now, uncomfortable that they seemed to be unaware of her
presence.

Then, with a sense of relief she saw Edwin come to the door, peering
into the lamplight and oven heat of the big kitchen. She saw that he was
quite drunk and said quickly, "Do you want some coffee, Uncle Edwin?
There's some hot here."

She poured out coffee for him, but he didn't seem to see it; he was
looking at Dr. Healy. Eloise could see the quiver in the pale full mouth
and the twitch of muscles in the long jaw. Abruptly he began to speak.

"Do you think I'm unaware of what the discussion is here? You think I
haven't read every word I could find on the subject? Oh, yes, I'm
well-acquainted with standard procedures in the treatment of leukemia!
You see, Cynthia, I pronounce that word just as freely as you and Ralph
do?the difference is that I'm not afraid of it.

"What is indicated at this point, according to the medical books, 'at
this point in time,' as we so glibly put it, is a transfusion of new
blood. An influx of fine new red corpuscles. Well, why not? Why not
proceed in an orderly fashion, if it would make you both happier? There
must be six or eight people under this

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roof who'd be glad to contribute to such a cause, including the girl's
own parents. All right, you're a doctor, give her the tests here."

"Don't be ridiculous," Dr. Healy said. "I have no equipment."

"Improvise. As Mr. Wyndom did when he delivered his baby. I'm sure you
have needles in your bag, a syringe?all doctors carry things like that,
don't they? Perhaps even a small miscroscope? There's no necessity to
leave the island. Do the job, and then go home, take Cynthia with you if
she wants that, leave Trudy and me to finish out our holiday."

"I'm afraid you flatter my ingenuity," Dr. Healy said, knocking out his
pipe on the stove. "Even if I had the instruments, we have no hematology
laboratory here. No, Edwin, I'm sorry."

"Now, wait . . . wait." Edwin held up a finger for patience; he bent on
the doctor a crafty and swimming regard. "Now . . . yes, I flatter your
ingenuity, or rather I have confidence in it. There must be some
rough-and-ready method, short of a laboratory test, that would indicate
to your practiced eye?"

The doctor laughed, a bark of a laugh. "Oh, I could make a rough test on
a piece of glass. Prick Trudy's ringer. Take a smear, and get a crude
visual idea of the proportion of white to red corpuscles. Yes, I have a
small microscope. If the thing had to be done, and I had no other
resource." He made a gesture of dismisal. "This is an absurd
discussion?I refuse to continue it!

"To improvise the necessary equipment out of what I have with me, plus
odds and ends of junk I might find on the premises, is a feat I would
attempt only in the direst emergency."

Edwin pounced on the word. "So you admit this is not an emergency! That
is only a routine procedure which you, as a doctor, are constrained to
follow, rather than to allow her to regain her strength normally."

"You're so right." The doctor lifted a stove lid and

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emptied his pipe into the red coals. He turned and looked impassively at
Edwin. "Shall I tell you what the word 'emergency' means to a doctor? A
case of life hanging in the balance. If I had an accident victim here,
healthy, with a normally long life expectancy, who had lost a lot of
blood and whose recovery depended on a prompt replacement of it?yes, I'd
attempt some such makeshift operation. But no life is hanging in the
balance here. In the end, it isn't going to make any difference to Trudy
whether she has the test here, in a hospital, or not at all."

Brutal, Eloise thought. How could Cynthia love a man like that! She
couldn't bear to look at Edwin. She went to the outer door and opened
it, letting wet salt air slice into the room. There was no rain, but
gusts of wind still blew hard showers from the drenched trees. Behind
her she heard Dr. Healy say, "Get him a drink, Cynthia?this is no time
for him to sober up."

And Edwin's voice, beating at them like a frantic caged bird, "I tell
you this ... I tell you this! If Trudy is as well tomorrow as she has
been ever since we brought her back from that day we left the island,
she and I are staying here, as long as they'll have us. Until she's
built up the strength to fight you all, to fight what you know is going
to happen because it's always happened before. To fight your
son-of-a-bitch professional resignation?yes, Cynthia's too . . . you've
fobbed it off on her?to what all the medical books call the normal
course of the disease. Well, we're off that course! Now you want to put
her back on it?hospital, transfusions . . . Where does it all lead? Only
in one direction, only one. No, I say! She's safe here?and here's where
I'll keep her. Safe."

244

The morning breathed an air of penitence and exhaustion after the stormy
tantrum of the past two days. Only the teary dripping from the trees
made a watery echo to yesterday, and the ocean, subsiding, rolled
heavily in toward shore.

David had slept this night on the cruiser, but waking before the others,
he went out on deck, first passing the sleepers?the doctor, young Tom,
and old Aiken?and, clad only in shorts, dived into the water, swam a few
strokes until he could wade ashore. Then he righted his dory and rowed
back to the cruiser for dry clothes. An elaborate procedure, but it left
the cruiser's dinghy unused so the doctor could use it. He dressed,
rowed ashore again, beached his own boat, and started up the path to the
house.

He was occupied with a question that had now become almost academic: As
far as the family was concerned, had his visit to the island been a
success or failure? He had been of some use here, yes, and in return had
received a measure of friendliness, perhaps something more from Eloise's
mother, but, once back

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in their own world, he was cynically certain that the tribal doors would
be only as grudgingly opened to him as before. Or would be if Mr.
Osborne had his way. It wasn't important now. Eloise's loyalties were no
longer divided. She would never be afraid, now, to go against them. He
would have her, family or not. Detachment comes easily to the victor,
even generosity.

He walked into the big room. It was empty except for Edwin, who sat by
the dead ashes of last night's fire, an old logbook in his lap. He
looked like a wraith, yet he greeted David with a serene smile.

"She's in excellent health this morning. My daughter. She was awake
early, we had a little talk, then she went peacefully back to sleep."

"I'm happy to hear that. She's a very beautiful girl."

"Yes, but still a little thin. When she's put on a few more pounds, I'd
like you to do some portraits of her; we haven't had any taken for some
time, and of course, since she's to have a musical career, we'll have
constant requests for pictures."

"Yes, of course, I'd be delighted."

But the possessive note irked David. He had had enough of possessive
fathers?Oliver Osborne, and now this tired tortured man. But weren't
mothers of sons just as bad? He remembered his own mother's anguished
cries when he married a gentile girl, and was sure she would protest
again when he married Eloise.

"I thought," Edwin was saying now, "perhaps Dr. Healy might be up early.
He was so ... so unnecessarily worried about Trudy last night that I
wanted to reassure him."

"He hadn't stirred when I left the cruiser." And David added curiously,
"Will you be taking your daughter away today with the doctor?"

"Oh, no, we're staying on. Trudy and I. Since she's so well, and the
weather so improved. Look over there." Edwin pointed to the window that
faced east. "Doesn't

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it look as though the sun were trying to come out?" It was true?a faint
golden streak widened on the horizon.

"You must have turned in early," Edwin said presently. "I don't recall
seeing much of you last night after dinner."

"I was down on the boat, talking to that boy, Tom. Or rather, listening.
The old man was stoned, contributed nothing but snores to the
conversation. But the boy was full of stories about this place."

"What do you mean, stories? About this seacoast? About North Fork?"

"No, this island. Things he had heard from his parents. Or grandparents,
more likely."

"What kind of stories?" Edwin asked in a strained voice.

David hesitated, thinking: I'd better backtrack. He doesn't want to hear
anything unpleasant about the island, he's too in love with it.

"What kind of stories?" Edwin repeated.

"Oh, anecdotes, hearsay?the sort of thing you read in there." David
nodded toward the logbook. "Old Boston family, inherited money, several
handsome children. I gather Papa Wyndom was not very popular. The family
came here for years, and aside from getting a man over now and then to
work on the place, they never had any truck with the natives. Which made
them a natural target for speculation."

Edwin nodded. "People always resent self-sufficiency, the closed circle.
They have attached the derogatory term 'narow-mindedness' to the word
'insular,' which, in its original sense, means only 'pertaining to an
island.' A purely defensive connotation."

The gaunt, handsome face, haggard with sleeplessness, but peaceful,
turned again to the horizon.

The guests were waking to what would be for most of them their last day
on the island. For some time there had been sounds from the kitchen;
now, footsteps and

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voices were audible from the upper floor. Cynthia appeared on the stairs
and greeted the two men.

"Shall I pack your things, Edwin? I expect we'll have to stay over a
night at the hospital, and surely you'll want to be there."

Edwin's head lifted toward her. His voice was calm and decisive. "Pack
for yourself. As I told you last night, Trudy and I are remaining here."

Cynthia came down into the room. She ignored David. "Edwin, let's not
struggle about this. I am not precluding the possibility that you and
Trudy are returning here for those extra two weeks. She may very well be
in as stable condition as you believe. We just want to be sure. You and
Trudy may feel that you do not need that reassurance, but why not have
it? Not for your sakes?for ours! Especially for Gert and Brad. If they
are good enough to take on the responsibility of keeping you here, then
the least you can do?"

"I'll do anything except let Trudy leave the island. You saw what
happened before. I can't risk its happening again."

"Edwin, be reasonable! She was due for a relapse, and it was merely a
coincidence?"

"No. I'll agree to anything else. I'll pay Mariner handsomely to phone
you from North Fork with a daily report. I'll give him the keys to my
car . . ." His eyes narrowed, and a faint smile colored his next words.
"It won't be an unpleasant trip for you and Ralph to drive home
together, will it? You can't make it to Richmond without a stop
overnight somewhere."

David rose quietly and left the room. He had not been told the true
nature of Trudy's condition; by now he knew that Eloise's vague
references to a virus infection were no more than a mask for certain
facts the family was privy to. Keep out of it, he told himself. Eloise
and I have our own lives to live. He wandered out to the kitchen. It was
empty at the moment, but the stove was glowing, the coffeepot full. Just
then Jody

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came pounding down the back stairs, Mrs. Osborne after him. They
exchanged good mornings, and Mrs. Osborne exclaimed, looking around her,
"No Mrs. Coffin at this hour? She must consider herself already off
duty. This boy's hungry!"

"There's coffee. Let me give you some."

"Well, all right. Here, Jody, I'll fix you a peanut-butter-and-jelly
sandwich till breakfast."

The boy took his sandwich and went out with it. David and Mrs. Osborne
sat down at the table with their coffees. Immediately she began
chattering. "I'm so relieved that the doctor's going to make room on his
boat to take us all ashore. I've been almost crazy?that active child in
a place like this. Cliffs, caves, that tree-climbing stunt of his, to
say nothing of his racing out in that downpour yesterday and getting
soaked through. How people ever raised a family of children here, I
don't know." She glanced over at him. "You've been on the doctor's boat.
Do you think, with the crew and Trudy and her parents, there'll be room
for all of us?"

"There'll be room. Trudy and her father are staying here."

"What? Oh, but they can't do that!" She stared at him with her big
anxious eyes. "Trudy's got to get to a hospital, you know. She . . .
really needs medical attention!"

"Her father doesn't agree?he just told his wife as much."

"He must be out of his mind. Can't you talk to him, make him see that he
has no right to set himself up against the doctor?"

"I? I'm practically a stranger. Why should I talk to him?"

She knelt to pick up a dropped spoon, the fringed eyelids lowered almost
girlishly over her meager face. "I just had an idea that a man like you
. . . your opinion might carry some weight."

_

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"Well . . . thanks. I appreciate your confidence."

"I mean it sincerely."

"Well . . . I'll see what I can do. He's obviously obsessed by some
feeling about the beneficence of this island. The idea, as I see it, is
to change that image." He looked at her, half-rueful, half-tender.

Eloise's mother. Extraordinary how women like this, no matter what their
age, could involve him against his own judgment.

He made no conscious decision. But as he walked back to the other room,
it became increasingly clear to him what he meant to do. Eloise was just
coming downstairs, but that didn't stop him. Nor did the fact that,
sensing the mortal conflict between husband and wife, he recoiled from
intrusion, as he would have backed away from a couple making love.

He made his voice loud and clear, the voice of a raconteur, the voice of
a bore. "Were you looking for me, Eloise? I've been out in the kitchen
entertaining your mother with local folklore. That boy, Tom, down on the
cruiser, is full of it?turns out he's a grandson of the elderly couple
who run the hotel."

Eloise asked faintly, "What folklore?"

"The saga of the Wyndom family according to North Fork. Eventually, I
think one of the native bards will turn it into a ballad?you know, the
mournful dirges that preserve local history? This is a natural?it has
all the essential elements of tragedy and retribution."

"What are you talking about?" Edwin was regarding him, stony-eyed. David
turned a guileless storyteller's face to Edwin. "Why, what happened to
the Wyndoms. In particular, what happened that summer of 1926, the last
they ever spent here."

He picked up the log which Edwin had left on a table. "I've been
skimming through some of these?fascinating. But naturally they give you
the family only as Mr. Wyndom saw them. The devoted parents, the
peaceful ordered lives of the children, the faithful

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servants, the charming episode of the baby's birth . . . one summer
idyll after another, until disaster struck?the meteor. Seven people
arrived here in June of that year?the five Wyndoms, plus two servants.
When they left, at the end of August, only a few hours after the meteor
fell, they were seen only briefly in North Fork, in particular by the
man who owned the only gas station in town.

"As he told it, there were only three people in the big family
Cadillac?the servants in the front seat, the man driving, his wife
beside him, and in back only Mr. Wyndom, who said nothing. The
manservant ordered the tank filled, and they drove immediately out of
town. No Mrs. Wyndom, the gas-station owner reported, and no children.

"North Fork published a weekly newspaper then, and that's how they
reported it. Tom has seen a copy that his grandparents preserved. "The
Cadillac was gone before the scientists and the reporters arrived?they'd
come for the meteor story. Apparently the personal drama got swallowed
up in that."

He felt like a witness who destroys a defendant in the interest of his
own self-rightousness. But this was not for him. It was for the girl,
Trudy, and, yes, for Edwin, too. He went on, not looking at Edwin,
hearing his own voice as if it came out of a machine.

"The North Fork version has it that the children might have been saved
if the search party had been more thorough or outside help called in.
The North Fork weekly clearly implied that the adults were too
hysterically intent on saving their own skins. Of course, they couldn't
have known what hit them; it could have been the start of World War Two.
As for the missing Mrs. Wyndom?this came out later, when her body was
found?it appeared that on that final trip from the island to the
mainland, she either leaped or fell into the water. Then comes the
picture of her husband sitting in the back seat of the car like a
zombie, the servants in

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charge. What happened? Did he suffer a stroke that immobilized him? All
we hear is that he died sometime later in an asylum for the insane?there
were no euphemisms for it then."

"How could anyone from North Fork possibly know that?" Edwin asked
between stiff lips.

"Seems some local man in the lumbering business wanted to get the rights
to thin out some of the trees here. He was told that much, and that the
estate had gone to his heirs. The lumberman let it drop; it wasn't that
important. Now, here's an interesting point. Town records show that Mrs.
Wyndom's body was washed ashore and that later the bodies of the two
boys were also found, but no girl child ever was. A myth sprang up that
she had survived. A fisherman claimed once to have seen a small child on
the island with the Learnings, but the Aiken brothers denied that, and
since she was never seen again, it simply became part of the legend. The
natives reacted differently to the tragedy; some were sorry, but overall
thinking seems to have been that the Wyndoms had it coming to them.
There was a long buildup of resentment toward the family, especially
their indifference to people in need?fishermen caught in a storm, or
when their motors conked out. Requests for shelter or hospitality were
curtly refused. That went very much against the grain of local tradition.

"Anyway, after the Wyndoms abandoned the place, there was bad feeling
about the island itself. Several unexplained mishaps occurred in the
vicinity; in a small way, a kind of Bermuda Triangle mystique grew up
about it. Now?and I know Mr. Bradley will be glad to hear this?I gather
from Tom that there's a sense of relief that the place is to have new
and wholesome associations. Up to now, it appears to have had nothing
but the worst."

No one spoke. David gave them a moment to digest the implications of Ms
gloomy recital; then he looked

252

at Eloise. "I'm going down to see if Dr. Healy's awake. I've decided to
accept his offer to give me a tow back to the mainland."

"I'll go with you," Eloise said, and followed kim outside.

Cynthia moved very quietly and efficiently around the room. She was
preparing to leave. She had stripped the beds, emptied closets and
drawers of her own things. She touched nothing of Edwin's. And she had
hardened herself. Her life divided here from Edwin's and Trudy's. She
loved her daughter and would do all she could to convince her that she
needed the blood tests, but she could not save her, because the truth
was that in the end, as Ralph had said last night, it didn't matter how,
where, or?given a few weeks more or less?even when the end came for her.
All she could do was to give Trudy, herself, the choice. As for Edwin .
. . How did she feel about Edwin?

She watched her two hands working together like two long-acquainted
friends, neatly packing bottles and jars into her dressing case, and she
thought about the early years of her marriage, before Trudy was born.
She had been a girl, but she had seen herself through Edwin's eyes as a
woman. She had been so much more competent than he, so much better
fitted to deal with the difficult and distasteful side of life.

She remembered the tall old brick house on Floyd Avenue that had been
converted into apartments?their first home. She and Edwin had the top
floor, and he would never allow her to carry the garbage down to the
incinerator in the backyard. But she would trot after him, two long
flights, and then way out back, because she had to be the one to empty
the smelly refuse into the burner. If Edwin tried to do it, his upper
chest reddened with an angry rash, his habitual reaction to anything
that disturbed his delicate sensibilities.

Once at a party she had made a funny story of it.

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Later she had seen his fierce humiliation. "Do you think I like being
the way I am?" She had never mentioned it again.

Gently and patiently, as you would win the trust of a skittish horse,
she had won Edwin. He had come to accept their relationship, to be
almost comfortable in it. As she had told Ralph, it had been a fair
marriage then, and it seemed to her, now, a happy time in her life.

She snapped the lock on her big suitcase, left the room, and put her
head inside Gran's door.

"Gran, you about ready to go? Tom is coming up pretty soon to help with
the heavy pieces. Ralph wants to get an idea of how much luggage we have
before he starts stowing it aboard. He may have to make two trips."

Gran nodded indifferently. "All I have to do is throw my things
together." But she made no move to get up. She sat in a rocking chair by
the window, smoking, looking out at the pale sunlight of the late
morning. "Where is everybody? What are they doing?"

Cynthia was getting down Gran's gaudy striped luggage from the closet
shelf. "David and Oliver and Eloise are helping with the closing up.
Even if Trudy and Edwin do come back here for a week or so to stay with
Gert and Brad, some of the rooms can be closed off. The architect will
be here only a short time. With Mrs. Coffin gone, it will be like
camping out."

"No man is an island," Gran quoted morosely. "Get away from it all,
that's the expression Brad used when he invited us, and that's what he's
going to put in his brochure. Well, he's as wrong as that fellow Wyndom
who wrote the logs. Nobody ever gets away from anything?least of all
from himself."

Cynthia was opening and slamming dresser drawers. "I'm in no mood for
pearls of philosophy. All I can think of is how to get Trudy into a
hospital. Let Edwin stay here if that's what he wants. But Trudy has got to

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have those blood tests. The very fact that she has strength enough to
fight them so gives me hope. I'm counting on their being favorable. If
so, I'll leave the car here for Edwin. Dr. Healy has to get back to his
practice, so I may drive back with him. If we get an early start
tomorrow, we could drive all night if necessary, one of us at the wheel
while the other sleeps in the back seat."

Gran gave her a cynical look. "You expect me to swallow that? With Edwin
bowing himself out of the picture? You and this Healy have got a pretty
good thing going for you, and neither of you is fool enough to throw it
away just because it's got grief piled up all around it. Wouldn't help
anybody, would it? Oh, no, my girl, you and Healy have got better ways
to spend the night than driving straight through to Richmand."

Cynthia laughed shortly. "You like him, don't you? I saw you watching
him. Ralph Healy, all man. If he gave you so much as a pat on the
behind, you'd rear up like an old firehorse hearing the siren."

Gran sighed. "That's a very coarse remark, Cynthia. You talk like that,
and I see very clearly you're not ready to take the veil. Any more than
I would have been at your age."

"Gran, he's married. I have no future with Ralph."

"Future never carried much weight with me. Present was where I lived.
Where you're living now."

Suddenly Cynthia dropped onto the bed. "All right, Gran, perhaps, after
all, you're the only one who can understand. Because it's all true?and
worse! I'm pregnant by Ralph Healy. He doesn't know it, no one knows it.
I told Gert I was sleeping with him, but I couldn't tell her that I'm
pregnant and I'm glad?future or no future."

Gran peered at her. Craftily, foxily, she asked, "Is the situation
between you and Edwin such that he might be persuaded that it was his
child?"

"Oh, I thought of that?naturally! I tried, succeeded,

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too, in deliberately . . . forcing it. Maybe the best way to say it is
that if he had been a woman you could call it rape. Because sex is not
on Edwin's mind now ever ?only Trudy. But I don't know?it was like
insuring a house after it's burned down. A month could make the
difference, but as it is, he'd have to be pretty naive." She stopped,
shrugged. "Forget it?it's my little problem. One way or another, I'll
solve it."

"A month, you say. That's an interesting coincidence, Cynthia. Because a
month is just the period that we've been here. Suppose Edwin's nutty
little notion that time stops here?and I'm not as inclined as the rest
of you are to think it's all that nutty?is true. Then your baby could
have stopped?gone into a state of remission, as your boyfriend would say."

Cynthia stared at her mother. Tears swelled into her eyes. "What. . .
what a horrible thing to say. What are you telling me? That my baby
could be ... could be abnormal, could be . . ."

"I'm telling you nothing. I'm just a nosy, prattling, mean old woman.
Ignore me."

Cynthia sat there a moment trembling; then she dabbed at her eyes,
fished Gran's sneakers out from under the bed, and dumped them at her
feet. "Here. You're going to have to change into these to get over those
wet rocks. Put them on." When Gran didn't move, she knelt and untied the
stubby childish oxfords.

"That's right," Gran said, "wait on me. At my age it's time I was waited
on." After a moment she said, "You've never respected me, have you,
Cynthia? None of my children has."

"We've loved you. Isn't that enough?"

"Is it?" Gran asked. "I've always thought so. But is it? I don't suppose
you'd ever have confessed this Healy affair to me if I'd been a proper
mother."

Cynthia straightened up and looked at her mother with some concern.

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"What's the matter with you, Gran? Don't you feel well?"

"I feel all right for seventy-two years old. Do you expect me to do
handsprings? What I feel is gloomy. The truth is, I don't want to leave
here any more than Trudy and Edwin do. Once I leave, I know the only way
open to me leads to ... the jumping-off place. Trudy knows it for
herself, too. Don't you think she doesn't."

Cynthia stopped packing. "That's an irresponsible supposition. And
utterly untrue!" she said in a low, passionate voice. "When Edwin and I
have been so careful to never, by one word or gesture, let her suspect .
. ." She began to cry harshly now, abandoning herself to grief.

Gran looked at her with detachment. "People don't have to be told about
their own bodies. The body knows a thing or two without having to have
it spelled out. Trudy is just a little bit smarter than you give her
credit for. Edwin, too. They weren't taken in by all that propaganda
that David Loeb gave us about the tragedies of Wyndom Island. I suspect
Eloise or Mildred put him up to it. No, the tragedies begin when you
leave it. Believe me, if I could stay on here, I would."

Gran had a sudden vivid memory of herself as a little girl, four or five
years old. She had come across a drawing in an encyclopedia, of a human
skeleton, recognizing it instantly as an inmate of the dark scary world
of witches, ghosts, and hobgoblins. She had experienced, looking at the
drawing, a delicate shivery horror, almost enjoyable, since all she need
do to escape it was to close the book.

Then some adult (father? uncle?) had leaned over the page and carefully
explained that, within her tender little-girl flesh, there was a
miniature skeleton like the one in the drawing. For weeks she had lived
in a nightmare. There was no escape; the terror was within. If she tried
to run away, it ran with her. She had never

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told anyone. The family would be astonished to know that she had ever
been afraid of anything.

With an effort she pulled herself back to Cynthia. "Oh, well," she said,
standing up, seeing that she had to repair the damage she had done to
her daughter, "at my age you learn not to let the bad things spill over
into the good things. I wouldn't want to forget any part of this month
we've all had here together. You know, if Edwin stays on awhile here, he
ought to start a new log for this summer?all that happened here these
last few weeks. It might make some good reading for Brad's sun-bathers
and cocktail drinkers. Show them some real people stayed here once, that
something real happened to."

While the women did the packing, Oliver worked with David on the roof of
the tall house. They were disconnecting the leaders that drained into
the cistern underneath. There was planty of water for the little time
Brad would remain here, even if Edwin and Trudy stayed too. When
everyone left, the cistern would be drained to prevent freezing during
the winter and cracking of the concrete. Although the house was to come
down and the water system to be reconstructed, the architects might find
use for the cistern, maybe even make a solar-heated swimming pool out of it.

The men had stopped for a smoke. For a brief moment Oliver felt a tug of
companionship?he and David had worked together wordlessly and well?but
he rejected it, summoning back his original distrust and animosity. This
man Loeb was an interloper, a presumer; he seemed to see no reason why
he shouldn't be accepted by them all, as friend of the family, inspired
meddler, Eloise's suitor?what, exactly? Oliver didn't want to know.

He was furthermore irked by being pushed by this feeling into a role he
didn't like?a bigot, a wet blanket, a stuffed shirt. Ollie was by nature
a decent and friendly man, he wanted to like people and be liked; he would

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have had no trouble with this fellow in any casual relationship. But it
wasn't casual. Loeb wouldn't let it be. Every word he said, every
gesture, was quietly presumptuous.

Well, then he'd have to be taken down a peg! Against his nature, as he
would gouge into his own flesh to remove a foreign body, Oliver went to
work to bring the thing out into the open.

"I suppose if you run into Eloise when we get back to Boston, you'll
have a lot to talk about?how your little drop-in visit here turned out."

"We will, indeed."

"Well... ah ... you must come out to the house in Newton Highlands
sometime. Now that you know us, drop in on us there."

"Thanks. I intend to." David slid forward on the roof, so that his
strong aquiline face looked straight into Oliver's. A slight smile
quirked up his mouth and one eyebrow, and he spoke in the arrogant drawl
that rubbed Ollie just the wrong way. "You're going to see a lot of me,
Mr. Osborne. You must have realized that by now."

Oliver mumbled something?he wasn't going to agree out loud to any such
implication as that! Just then Eloise came out of the house and stood
looking up at them. With relief, Ollie directed his attention to her.
"Where'd you disappear to? I wanted you to take a look around and see if
Jody left anything."

"He did?one skateboard, unused, one pajama top. I've been helping Gert
and Brad pick up some of the stuff they brought from the Boston hotel."

"Well, if we don't get away and into town pretty soon, your mother will
have hysterics. Isn't it time we got ourselves and our gear all together
down at the dock?" He hated the sound of his own voice; he sounded like
a cross, angry old man.

"Relax," Eloise said lightly, "it's not noon yet. We have the whole
afternoon ahead of us." She said to

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David, "Aren't you through up there? You've done nothing but earn your
keep ever since you arrived."

"I'm going to coast from now on."

David started gathering the tools, but Oliver sat astride the gable,
ignoring the exchange between the two, still obstinately committed to
nagging his daughter.

"We ought to be right down there, ready to go, the minute that doctor
fellow gives us the word. You know how your mother worries. She'll slip
and sprain an ankle getting into the boat, fog'll come in and start up
my sinusitis. It'll be long business getting our stuff off the boat and
packing up the car. Then we'll have to eat something in North Fork
before we get on the road for Boston."

"David will take care of a lot of that for us." Looking up at her
father, Eloise gave a tender little laugh. "We can't go on treating
David as an outsider, can we? Mother doesn't."

He stared down at her, shocked at the light and ruthless tone of her voice.

"Listen," David said. "That's Mariner's outboard. Hear the motor?" He
stood upright and walked carelessly down the steep slant of the roof on
the sea side. "There he is. He'll be docking in about ... oh, seven
minutes, I'd say. That'll start things moving."

"All right," Oliver said to Eloise as though she were ten years old.
"Now, I don't want any delays. Get your things together and get down
there. I have a six- or seven-hour drive ahead of me, with no relief,
and I want to get on with it."

He was hinting at her neurotic refusal to get behind the wheel of a car
since she had killed the little dog, and he did it to punish her, he
wasn't quite sure what for. All he knew was that any mention of the dog
episode usually reduced her to tears, and from the look of her now,
leaning back against a tree, her dark head tilted, and a fawn leather
jacket laid across her shoulders, he felt that she needed to be put down
a bit.

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"I'm not driving back to Boston with you, Dad," she said gently. "I'm
going with David."

"I see."

Words stormed up inside him, but they seemed all spit and chatter, like
pebbles in a slingshot. A feeble weapon. He didn't speak them. He
scowled helplessly down from the roof peak, seeing the top buttons of
her blouse unfastened so that the swell of her breasts was visible. He
had never visualized Eloise as having real breasts.

"Your mother won't allow it," he said in a loud and hollow voice.

"I'm not asking her."

David had lowered himself to the porch roof, and from there jumped to
the ground. Now he was walking toward Eloise, and even from the back of
his head, from the crisp curl of his hair, Oliver knew that he was smiling.

"Button up, darling, the fog's coming in," he said in a low, proprietary
voice. "It will be damned chilly going over in that dinghy before we're
aboard." He held the jacket off her as she put her arms into it. Then he
walked back to the house, tested the ladder leaning against it, looked
winningly up at Oliver, and said, "Coming down? Let me give you a hand."

"No, thanks, I can make it."

Cautiously Ollie inched his way to the roof edge and down the ladder.
The fellow must be forty-five, he thought resentfully, only a few years
younger than I am! Where does he get all his boyish agility?

Then, as he reached the ground, a little shaky (he was a heavy man, and
the ladder was old) David said, as though he had read Oliver's mind,
"I'm not much younger than you are, I guess. If I act younger, it's
because I'm in love with your daughter."

Oliver felt as if a custard pie had hit him in the face. In love! Here
it was, a sweet sticky mess, and you

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couldn't fight it, all you could do was to try to preserve a vestige of
dignity.

"Suppose we let the young lady in question make a statement of her
feelings," he said, his face stiff with outrage.

They both looked at Eloise. There was a moment's quiet, and beyond it
Oliver could hear Gert's shrill voice calling from somewhere to Brad
that Mariner was back and would transport all the luggage that was
ready. Then Eloise began to talk in a small rapid voice, her big dark
eyes, so like Mildred's, bright and moist.

"All right, Dad, I'll make a statement. David and I are going to be
married as soon as we get back to Boston. As to my feelings?it's funny
how hard it is for me to put it into words. But I will. I'll just come
right out with it?I love him. Please don't lecture me about being hasty,
or waiting awhile to see if I still feel the same, because I've been
doing that for twenty-seven year. Not living, just waiting to live. Time
is to terribly valuable, and you never know how much of it you have."

"Well," Oliver said heavily, "that sort of clinches things, doesn't it?"

He stood there, a little numb, letting it sink in. A Jew, he thought.
They'll have children, I'll have little dark curly grandchildren, not
blond and familiar like Jody. Mildred will have a fit. The whole family
will.

"She'll be all right," David was saying with all the easy comfort of the
victor. "Don't take it so hard. She'll be all right with me."

"I hope so," Oliver said gruffly.

He could do no more. Eloise was a grown woman??that was his only
comfort, knowing that he could do no more. Picking up his jacket from
the porch step, he thought: Trudy's responsible for this! This
life-is-too-valuable-to-waste business.

He remembered his private hope the night they all got here, seeing
Eloise's meek head bent over the St. Nicholas book, in the shadow of her
cousin's smiling

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animated face. Who knows? Trudy may have known the truth about herself
all along, and she had still been living every minute. Afraid of
nothing, OUie remembered, his thought backing and filling, bumping into
each other like cargo on a heaving ship. Even tried to console her own
father. He had hoped some of Trudy's spirit would rub off on Eloise.
Well, by God, he'd got his wish.

What he meant to say now was: All right, I wash my hands of it; you'll
have the job of telling your mother. But he didn't say it, because then
he remembered the other thing. Why, Mildred liked this fellow, Loeb?she
had said she knew how Eloise felt about him!

He lit a cigarette, striking the match on his pants, although he had
already smoked his quota for the day.

"I'll break the news to your mother," he told Eloise. "I know how to
handle her."

Did he, though? he thought, walking away from them. How could it be,
that after thirty years of trying to dry all the juices out of him, all
his heritage from Gran, something in Mildred's mysterious feminine soul
still responded to this . . . this primitive?

He found Mildred in the living room with the Brad-leys, Gran, and
Cynthia, surrounded by assorted luggage strapped and ready to go.
Mildred turned a distraught face toward Oliver as he came in.

"Where's Jody? Isn't he with you?"

"Jody? I haven't seen him since breakfast."

Mildred set up an instant wail. "I thought he must be with you! I've
looked everywhere else. We've searched the house and the tree house?he
knew we were getting ready to leave, he packed his little treasures, the
rubber boat and the Kewpie doll. Oh, Ollie, he wouldn't go far, would
he? He wouldn't be playing a trick just to frighten us?"

"I don't think so?no. But if you've looked through the house and around
it, why, I guess we'll have to look further."

263

Brad said, "Boy that age doesn't have much sense of time. But he sure
wouldn't want to get left behind. He was way ahead of himself?"

Gert broke in. "Couldn't wait to get home and tell some special friend
of his how neat this place was, that someday he was going to be the boss
here like his Uncle Brad was now."

This inspired Brad. "Say, how about that old ship's bell we found under
the sairs? Let's get it out and give it a good whack of two. That could
bring him running."

Upstairs in Trudy's room, father and daughter faced each other behind
the closed door. Between them the truth lay open to them both, a
Pandora's box of good and evil.

"Why did you lie to me, Trudy? That the Learnings had grown old and
helpless, that we were wrong in everything that we dreamed? You've never
lied to me before."

"Because I promised them. They would accept me only because I was under
a sentence of death, just as they were. Not you?you were a stranger to
them, like everyone else. I lied to save my life, Papa! And now I've
broken the promise."

"So you lied to me that other way, too. Letting us believe you didn't
know what was wrong with you. Why, Trudy?"

"As you and Mama lied to me. Out of love."

He was silent a moment, absorbing the revelation. Then, accepting it, he
said, "You broke no promise to the Learnings. It was old Aiken who told me."

"I'm glad he told you. Because it's true, Papa. I can live here, as they
have, and never change. Stay just as I am now?in perfect health. And
nothing else matters, does it?" She came to him and let him hold her,
and she whispered, seductive as a siren, against his cheek, "Will you
stay here with me, Papa? We'll live here in the big house all winter.
Caretakers. I can persuade

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Uncle Brad, if you're with me, and we might even get Dr. Healy and Mama
to agree, because . . . You've guessed about them, haven't you? It would
leave them free, and since they've given up on me anyway, why should it
matter where . . . ?"

He struggled toward reason, thinking of what Brad, Cynthia, any normal
person would say to this. "Trudy, can you imagine this place in winter?
Great chunks of ice in the bay, gale winds that can crack windows?they
have to board them up against the storms. We couldn't do it, darling."

"Yes, we could. The Learnings have, and they would be our teachers and
show us how. At first I'd be the go-between, but when the others go and
you stay, gradually they'd have to accept you, too. By spring, before
the wreckers arrive, we'll have thought of something else. Papa, I can
be ruthless if I have to. So can you."

"I suppose."

A loud brassy clang from below assaulted their ears. The old ship's
bell! What was this? Trudy went to the door, and Edwin followed her into
the hall.

"I'm going down under the house," Cynthia was saying. "Eloise, you and
David can move fastest?you better go to the cave. Oliver, how about the
icehouse? He could have gone there for his field mice."

Gert's voice came up loud and clear. "Now, Gran, you and Mildred stay
right here. In case he just comes home. Brad and I will head for that
cliff where he found the little rubber boat."

Trudy said, "Jody's missing! I think just maybe . . ."

Before Edwin could stop her, she was running down the hall toward the
back stairs.

265

A child living in a world of adults, in theory the responsibility of
all, answers really only to himself. Who would guess that he was alone
and free to make his own plans in the midst of so many variously
concerned and busy people? Jody's decision as to his own unique part in
this leavetaking was to take care of David's rowboat for him. He had had
a proprietary interest in the boat since the beginning of the storm,
when he had tagged along to the picnic beach with David and Eloise and
had been allowed to help turn the boat over before it was so heavy with
rainfall that it would have to be bailed out.

Jody knew that it was to be towed back to the mainland behind the motor
cruiser; his plan was to facilitate this, to surprise David with his
daring and enterprise by rowing it out for him, and with the help of the
old guy left on board, securing the towline so that it was all set to go.

He wasn't at all sure he could do it. It all depended on whether the
boat was still beached or half in water, which in turn depended on the
tide. But as he came out of a thicket of trees into view of the ocean,
his assur-

266

ance returned. Everything was perfect. David had already put the boat in
the water, the painter looped over a stake driven between some rocks,
and only a little way out, thirty or forty oar strokes ought to do
it?easy for a strong boy who knew how to row?he could see the old man
sitting in the open cockpit of the cruiser.

He had to work a few minutes on the rope, although it was loosely tied;
then, with his box of personal treasures (they'd take care of his
clothes, so there was no need for him to return), he jumped into the
rowboat. The oars were heavier than he had expected, but he managed to
fit them into the locks. He pushed away from the mooring and headed for
the cruiser. Almost at once he knew that it wasn't going to be all that
easy.

This was an ebbtide, still high, but beginning to go out hard; a strong
tug was pulling him along shore south toward the small end of this
island instead of straight out toward the cruiser. He began to struggle,
still hoping to handle the boat by himself, but then, as the distance
widened between him and both mooring and cruiser, he glanced around to
see who was witness to his predicament. No one, no one at all! Some
luggage was piled up at the wharf, but at that moment everyone else
seemed to be still occupied up at the house. As for the old man, he was
clearly unaware; his head had drooped forward; it could be that he was
half-asleep.

Jody realized that he had taken too much on himself. He stood up in the
boat and shouted. Pale sun glinted on top of the dark rolling waves;
noonday calm surrounded him, but the boy felt small and helpless. A
porpoise popped up near the boat, gave a quick breathy sigh, and
disappeared again. In the cruiser the old man stirred, his head lifted,
and he looked toward the row-boat. His figure grew smaller. Then a turn
in the shoreline hid him from sight. The waves were bigger here,
breaking and spilling over the bow. The boy crouched down in the boat,
holding to the sides, the oars abandoned. For a few minutes panic took over.

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267

Suddenly his heart lifted. He saw that he was just drifting abreast of
the cabin on the point. On the near side of it there was a man splitting
logs over a block, the same big man with the dark beard he had seen in
the woodshed. Not a frightening sight now, but reassuring. He felt a
brief pang of guilt because he hadn't given the family the warning
message as the man had told him to; he had told no one but Trudy. But
the guilt evaporated into his enormous relief; even if he were to be
punished for it, the man would rescue him first.

He stood up in the careening boat and yelled. The man put down the ax,
turned, and looked seaward. An enormous green roller was forming and
heading for the boat, but Jody was no longer afraid. The big man was
much closer than he had ever got to the old guy in the cruiser?he would
know what to do. He was still yelling, but confidently now; already he
had put himself into the man's care.

Mrs. Coffin was going ashore with Mariner on his outboard, along with
some excess luggage. They came down to the dock, and he added her bags
to those already there. Then he looked out to the cruiser and saw old
Aiken standing up in the cockpit and shouting at him through the
megaphone. He was vaguely alarmed and told Mrs. Coffin she better wait
there a few minutes till he found out what was wrong. He loosed his
boat, jumped in, started his motor smartly, and took himself out to
within hearing distance:of Aiken's voice. As he drew nearer, he could
tell the old man had been drinking again, but also that something had
sobered him up, scared him sober.

Jody was always fascinated by the meteor pit, Trudy thought, running
toward it. And beyond. He always wanted her to take him beyond, but she
never would, and he didn't dare go alone. Still, even at seven going on
eight, the macho spirit was budding in Jody. Would

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Mono Williams

he now, knowing that he was leaving, dare risk confronting the man with
the black beard again? As a farewell act of courage, to prove himself?
Only she could find out, only she knew how Jody had felt about
Blackbeard. Fear, yes, but a kind of fascination, too, the bad-guy folk
hero of all boys like Jody.

She came in sight of the cabin and saw Jason standing at the chopping
block. She called out to him, but he seemed not to hear. He continued to
stand there, un-moving, staring out to sea. Now she was near enough to
see what held his attention. A small boat foundering in a big roller
just a little way offshore. And Jody was in it?Jody! A strong swimmer
could reach him easily, but Jason did not stir. Why not. . . why not?

Her lips moved, but no words came out. Yet her limbs continued to propel
her forward. At that moment the big roller swallowed the boat. It bobbed
upside down, almost at once reappearing, with Jody clinging to it. Now
Trudy was near enough to see Beth standing at a little distance from her
husband, watching with him. Neither of them spoke or moved a muscle, yet
every line of their bodies showed their intent absorption in the boy's
struggle. It became clear to her that they intended to let Jody die?to
save themselves. Of course! Children had drowned here before, and their
families had left forever. Why not again?

For a moment both her mind and body were paralyzed by the enormity of
this realization. Her own voice echoed in her ear: "I can be ruthless,
Papa!" Now she saw her words as meaningless, a chasm opened up between
her and the Learnings, bigger than the meteor pit She had not known what
ruthless meant until now.

All right, except that?think of nothing now but how to save Jody. What
could she do?what possible move could she make, a girl who was applauded
if she swam to the end of a swimming pool and back? Very suddenly the
answer came to her like a revelation, clear and foreseen in every
detail. Since he was beyond the

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269

island's protection, then she must bring the island to him. Or a piece
of it, the only piece she could bring. If he could only hold on to the
swamped boat a few minutes longer! She began to go forward again, every
muscle controlled and cautious now, approaching the cabin from the other
side from where the Learnings stood, sliding through the open door so
swiftly and silently that their heads never turned. Once inside, she
went straight to the meteor fragment on the shelf over the stove, and
from that moment every move she made went with magical speed.

The meteor chip was zipped safely into her jeans pocket; her shoes, her
jersey top, were discarded; and now she was running out and toward the
ocean, seeing blood where the rocks cut her bare feet, but feeling
nothing but the sharp-edged chip in her pocket that would save them
both?and so, into the water, pitting her tiny-doll self against the tide
pull, one arm raised toward Jody.

Jody? Where was he? The last thing she saw was the overturned boat, and
then, just before the water engulfed her, she imagined that she heard,
at a little distance, the comforting buzz of Mariner's outboard motor.

When Edwin flung open the door to the cottage, he saw the man and the
woman sitting at the table, their heads bent in a posture of mourning.
For a moment he stood there, stunned. How had he imagined the Learnings?
As young lovers stopped in time, as Rodin had stopped his lovers in cold
marble? But when these two lifted their heads to his tormented cry,
their faces were young and gravely beautiful, warm and breathing.

Then the black-haired man spoke. "Have you come about the boy? I'm
sorry, because it's too late. It was not our fault that he was allowed
to take the boat out alone."

"I didn't come about the boy!"

As though he hadn't heard Edwin, the man went on. "We saw that he was in
trouble, and we were sorry, but

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Mona Williams

we could do nothing. We had to let him go. You see, we were not given a
choice. No one heeded our warning."

"Where is my daughter?"

"So you are her father. We know what you must be feeling." Tears swelled
into the lovely eyes of the young woman. "The boy, we did not know. But
believe me, we truly grieve for your daughter. We had come to love her.
She was to have been one of us, to live with us here."

"Grieve?" Edwin stared at them. "Are you speaking of Trudy, my daughter?
What do you mean, grieve?"

"Didn't you know? She tried to save the boy. When we came inside, he was
already lost, there was only the boat. But she had been here?there are
her shoes, her sweater. We knew she must have come looking for the
child. Then we were afraid for her. We called her by name, but she
didn't hear, she was already far out from shore. We saw her then; she
had nearly reached the boat when she went under. Still, Jason would have
gone in after her. I had to hold him back, because already the outboard
was in sight, and moving much faster than he could. We knew Trudy would
understand?we had to come back inside, because we couldn't afford to be
seen. We hoped . . . expected the man in the boat could save her."

Edwin's knees buckled, and he half-fell into a chair. He couldn't speak.
His eyes fell on the robe Trudy had worn here the night of the storm,
hanging from a hook on the wall. These people had befriended her, they
had wrapped her in a blanket from their own bed?could they have let her die?

He moistened his dry lips and heard his own voice emerge from them. "If
Mariner saved her, then why are you suffering? He was near enough; you
implied that he was near enough. She could swim a little. So I'll go
back to the house and find her waiting there for me! Of course, the boy
was of no concern to you, you allowed

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him to die?'murder,' I'm sure you will tell me, is too extravagant a
word. Still, you let him drown because you had good reason, a precedent.
The Wyndoms had left when the ocean swallowed their children, hadn't
they? But you loved my daughter, and you made sure she was safe before
you abandoned her. I'll go back to the house and find her waiting for
me. You are sure of that, aren't you?"

Jason said in a slow, sorrowing voice, "No, Mr. Sutherland, we are not
sure. The outboard, and now the cruiser, are still out there searching.
Part of the rowboat is still above water, nothing else. We watched from
the window until we couldn't bear to watch any longer. They have found
no one. Go to the window and see for yourself."

Edwin went to the window on the sea side. It was true. He turned back to
the room and said wildly, "You're hiding her?trying to take her away
from me. You don't want me?only her!"

"Hiding her?where? No, Mr. Sutherland, in the end, if she had lived, she
may have chosen you over us. But, believe me, we wanted her."

// she had lived. Was he then being asked to believe that Trudy was . .
. gone? He lashed out again. "I don't believe you! I know how you've
tried to alienate her from me. But that you saw two children drown and
did nothing to save them?who will believe that? Because this is the end
of your masquerade, you know?you'll be questioned! The coast guard has
been notified by now. The cruiser is equipped to radio them."

Jason shrugged. "I doubt that we'll be questioned. It is well known that
we are too old and shy of intruders to ever venture outside this cottage
if any strange craft comes near. The Aiken brothers will testify to that."

Edwin fell silent, slumped in his chair. The Aiken brothers? The thought
drifted into his mind to tell them that only one brother was left now,
and all that he, Edwin, knew, he had learned from him. But his mouth

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Mona Williams

was too dry; he said nothing. A curious easing came into him, a sense of
irresponsibility. He felt that he had drowned, too, abandoned himself to
the engulfing waters, and could no longer be held to account for himself.

The man went on. "The coast guard is made up of young men, not native to
North Fork. Even if they do question us, they will learn nothing. We
will simply be an unsociable couple, not old, no, but maybe a little
slow-witted, a couple who keep to ourselves, see nothing, hear nothing
that doesn't concern us. In the end, they will go away, you will go away
and leave us alone."

The easement left him, and black despair came to Edwin like an
inheritance from that other man who had so long ago loved this place,
who had deluded himself into believing that because it was cut off from
the mainland, it was cut off from life, too, and peril and suffering. A
brief picture came to him of the childless Wyndoms stepping for the last
time into the boat that would take them away forever. How beautiful the
island would have looked, innocent and peaceful! Perhaps it was then
that Mrs. Wyndom stood up and fell or leaped to her death, which turned
her husband into a madman.

He turned away from the Learnings and stumbled out of the cottage to
take the inland path back to the house. He could still hear the cruiser
and the outboard circling endlessly around the sinking waterlogged
rowboat, all that was left to mark the place where two young lives had
ended. He supposed the search would go on as long as daylight held.
Perhaps the coast guard was already here to take over.

Why should it matter now? He had no hope?it was all over. Everything was
over. He went into the house and up to Trudy's room. He opened the
wardrobe door, hung with her clothes. He knelt on the floor, burying his
face in them. Cynthia found him there when she came to look.

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273

The family reacted to the double tragedy according to their varied
temperaments. Edwin retreated into a kind of nonbeing; Mildred provided
a continuing muted background, like the whimpering of some mortally
wounded creature; Eloise wept; Oliver cursed a cruel God; Gran was
stoic. Brad, bereft of his normal self as host and cheerleader, seemed
bewildered by this fatal end to his so joyfully planned house party.

Something else affected them?the unspoken but subtly realized hierarchy
in the order of suffering. Supreme place was awarded to Edwin. No one
could deny that a part of him had died with his daughter, and because he
took this primal blow, the natural grief of a mother was just enough
cushioned for Cynthia so that she could build up a counterstrength to
fill Edwin's need.

Next in line, since, as grandparents, they were once removed from Jody,
stood Mildred and Oliver; Eloise, as close to both victims, came next.
Gran was felt to be slightly immunized to shock by her own mortality; at
her age, she was expected to be on friendlier terms with death than the
others. The childless Bradleys came in last. Except, of course, for the
outsiders, David and the doctor, whose quickly assumed roles were to
lead and smooth the way for the bereaved family through the dreadful
decisions and practicalities that must be dealt with.

Mariner and Mrs. Coffin had already left the island. But Mariner had
played a special part in the drama as eyewitness to both drownings. He
had not been blamed, because the alert came to him too late for him to
do more. Dr. Healy, who had followed on Mariner's heels down to the dock
and got his cruiser under way minutes later, to arrive on the scene
after the boy went under, but in time to witness Trudy's futile attempt
to save him, had borne the heavy burden of bringing the horrors home to
the family. He knew, even as he had

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Mona Williams

accepted this task, that like all bearers of ill tidings, some of the
horror would rub off on him.

At the time, Mrs. Coffin had been no more than a bystander, forgotten,
as was Tom, the native lad who crewed for the doctor. Their parts would
be played long after the principal characters had departed, when they
would be spreaders of the story in North Fork; whether old Aiken chose
to be silent or not, Mrs. Coffin and Tom would be enough to enhance the
legend of Wyn-dom Island.

All of this, although not yet admitted into their conscious minds, was
tacitly realized by everyone except Gert, who defiantly, tactlessly,
was, of them all, the loudest of her lamentations.

"I will never, never get over it," she burst out. "Not one of us ever
will, if we live to be a hundred! I loved Jody, and I loved that girl as
if she were my own." Her teeth began to chatter. "Always, when I felt so
bad that I never had a child, I thought of that wonderful girl named
after me?"

Brad's sober voice silenced her. "Maybe you don't want to get over it.
Maybe none of us do. What happened here today is an unforgettable thing.
Maybe we ought not to get over it." His voice strengthened, making the
irretrievable decision. "One thing I do know??we've got to get away from
it. You all are packed and ready to leave. It won't take long for Gert
and me to get our things together. I don't think any of us wants to
spend another night on this island."

Gert stared at him. "Brad, you mean we're going back with them? Not
staying on here?"

"Staying on? Staying on for what? Could anybody in this room think that
I'm so ... so callous I could still go ahead with the resort? Here? Now?
After what's happened?" He took off his big horn rims, and his round
blue eyes were naked to them all, brimming so full of tears that they
rolled down his broad face. Brad

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crying! It was a moving and cleansing sight for them all.

"We're hotel people," he reminded his wife. "We're geared to making
folks happy. How could we do that here, when it's become like a morgue
to us?"

"But, Brad, what will we ... ?"

His handkerchief was out now; he blew his nose, wiped his face, and put
back his glasses. "We'll send somebody over to close the place. And put
it back on the market. Oh, some other gullible fool will buy it,
somebody else with some crazy dream about an island. But that'll be
another story. Go upstairs, Gert, and start packing. There's still
enough daylight left to get us all aboard."

"All right," Dr. Healy said. "Tom and I will go down to the dock now and
get all your luggage on as you come down. Mariner's already taken over a
lot of it when he left with Mrs. Coffin."

"Listen," Eloise said, holding up her hand. They all heard it, a
purposeful drone of big motors in the distance.

"That's the coast guard," David said. "They were at Bar Harbor when we
gave up and radioed them. They should be arriving about now."

The last tender intimation of daylight gave a luminous quality to the
sky and dropped a pearly gleam on the long subsiding shudders of the
ocean. The cabin cruiser rode the swells solidly, moored some fifty
yards off the sagging dock. This was mid-tide, and embarking was
difficult and tedious, with many preliminaries. With the dock so shaky,
only the younger and lighter of the passengers dared use it to descend
into the dinghy; for the others the dinghy would have to be rowed in,
stern first, to a ledge of rock that could, if very carefully
approached, be reached without wetting the feet.

By twos and threes the family gathered at the point

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Mona Williams

of departure. The doctor, burdened with hand luggage, went out first so
that he could prepare for his guests, while Tom handled the dinghy.
Ralph Healy worked automatically, his mind elsewhere, full of
speculation as to what this tragedy would do to the powerful but doomed
chemistry between him and Cynthia. He was not prepared to break up his
family for her; neither was he sure that now she would feel she could
abandon Edwin. As a doctor, he was much concerned with Edwin?the man was
in shock now; when he came out of it, he could break down completely.
Aside from his own domestic involvement, was he pitiless enough to be a
party to Edwin's destruction?

He glanced back at the island, where Edwin waited beside Gran. He had
instructed Tom to leave them both for the second load, since the motion
of the cruiser as it rode at anchor might upset the elderly or anyone in
an unstable condition. Once the motor was functioning, the boat would be
steadier. The Bradleys would be in the second load, too. One last look
around was due them before they said good-bye to their Utopian vision.

Gran sat on an old crate watching the proceedings, a cigarette wagging
in her mouth. She looked out at the solid blocklike figure of Dr. Healy,
now standing in the cruiser cockpit waiting to help the first load
aboard ?Mildred, Eloise, David, and Cynthia. She was aware of Edwin
standing just above her, looking outward. His bleak, bereft gaze was
fixed on Cynthia, and just as Gran's eyes returned to the dinghy,
Cynthia's head turned back toward Edwin. Something uncertain, unresolved
in the twist of her body, polarized as she was at this moment, between
the two men, struck Gran. Which would be the stronger, she pondered,
want or need? Edwin was a husk of a man, burned out; his only strength
lay in his weakness. And Cynthia was strong. There was some odd
magnetism between strength and weakness, not quite sexual, but it had
won over Cynthia

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once; it could again. And if Edwin won her back, that extra month when
the baby lay fallow in Cynthia's womb could make all the difference. If
Edwin could accept the baby, it would make them a family again.

Because in her bones, Gran knew that Edwin and Trudy were right. Had
been right. She glanced up at the sky. Fog was rolling in now, but
behind it were millions of planets, all of them separate worlds, free of
the ancient bondages of earth. As was Wyndom Island.

Would a baby grow in a woman's womb in that uncharted universe, would
the lusty young woman she had once been ever have grown old? One thing
was sure. Once back on the mainland, she would begin to grow again
toward death, just as inevitably as Cynthia's baby would begin to grow
again toward life. As very likely Eloise would slide back toward the
timid little-girl self she had been before she came here. Never mind,
the island had committed her to David. A life-giving man to transfuse
her whenever she needed it.

Gran sighed deeply, tossing away her cigarette, seeing it was time to
get up. The dinghy was returning for the second load.

By the time they were all aboard, the fog was settling over the ocean,
and the red and green riding lights of the cruiser had been turned on.
They would take the shorter, more direct route to the mainland, sparing
the passengers the sight of the cottage on the point and the dark water
beyond, which held the little boy and the girl who would be left behind.

Jason, hidden in darkness, stood on the shore side of the island's end,
where he could see the lights of the cruiser. Then it crossed some
invisible point in space and was lost to him. The sound persisted awhile
longer, diminished, and then, too, was lost, and then there was only a
foghorn that poked a long mooing finger at his listening ear.

It was low tide. The dank odor of mud, eelgrass, and

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Mona Williams

mussels rose about him, and a few sandpipers still stood about in tidal
pools engaged in their endless pecking. An osprey rose silently near him
and was swallowed in the mist. He had heard the drone of a larger motor
awhile back, which might have been the coast guard, but he no longer
heard it. The fog was a good thing?it wouldn't be easy to find a
smallish island, misplaced on the chart, on a night like this. Likely
they'd wait till morning. Now, only the ocean remained.

Suddenly and swiftly Jason stripped off his clothes and crossed the
rocky area between him and the water. He waded in, and, breast-high,
began to swim in long sure strokes toward a certain point on the exposed
side of the island. He had hardly to exert himself, so powerful was the
underwater tug that pulled him toward this particular point. He felt
buoyant, filled with exultation. He had known it would be like this.

Fantasies of life and death filtered through her, as though her head was
porous; they came in cycles, they were like the old childish dreams she
had had after reading a ghost story about a girl who was buried alive
?how would it be to still live with your eyes, nostrils, and mouth
filled with earth? Only this was not earth, it was water. She breathed
water as easily as a fish, and it rocked her gently from side to side,
as if her body was a loved and cherished plaything, sending to the
surface the pale-green radiance of phosphorescence. This had gone on for
a long time, perhaps forever, she thought. Perhaps she was a sea anemone
whose home was the sea.

But now something new was happening. She was being lifted in strong
arms, and fresh moist air was in her face. She was breathing air again.
She lay limp and passive in the arms, and felt herself carried across a
nameless space.

Then, another change. Light and warmth surrounded her; she could see?or
feel??firelight glowing through

279

279

the open grate of a stove, and she was now laid down on a soft,
sweet-smelling bed. Someone was leaning over her and stripping off her
wet jeans. Through slitted eyes she saw the man feel for the pocket and
cut it open?was the zipper jammed??and take out the meteor fragment and
put it back on the shelf over the stove.

The young woman leaned tenderly over her and covered her naked body with
a blanket. She felt very snug and comfortable lying on the big double
bed with the hand-crocheted cover, and at first she didn't listen to the
voices. But gradually, as full consciousness returned to her, although
she made no move, she began to let the words come into her mind.

"It was so strong," the man, Jason, was saying, "it must have kept
pulling her back, even against the tide. I felt it. I found her only a
few yards offshore. Too near for them ever to think of looking for her,
when the natural thing would have been for her to be carried farther out
to sea beyond the rowboat."

"Then she must have known what she was doing when she took the star chip."

"She knew, all right. Beth, she belongs to us now. We have her, and we
have the island." He laughed. "I figure they'll all stay in the hotel
tonight. Likely they'll be too worn out to start driving this late. By
the time they leave tomorrow, the story will be all over North Fork. It
will be a long, long time before anybody bothers us again."

"Yes." Beth's face lifted to her husband's. "Oh, Jason, I'm so happy ...
so happy. We have a daughter again."

Jason rose and came over to the bed. He pulled back the blanket and
looked down at her nakedness. Trudy felt her own body through that long
gaze, its slender whiteness, the pink-tipped buds of her breatsts, the
little blond curl cluster where her thighs came together. She

280

Mona Williams

could not see Beth, but she knew she would be watching Jason, seeing
what Jason saw.

"From now on," he said huskily, replacing the blanket, "it will be just
the three of us. And we will live forever."

Now Beth was bringing her something hot to drink. Lovingly she lifted
Trudy's shoulders and put a pillow behind her. Trudy pulled herself up,
clutching at the blanket. For how long? she thought, savoring the hot,
life-giving taste of the clam broth. A year, perhaps two, before Beth
decided that three is always an odd number?

"Thank you," she murmured. "You're so good to me."

Jason put fresh firewood in the stove. Trudy looked at the fire
reflected in the window opposite her. The tree just outside appeared to
be leaping into flame.

281 MONA WILLIAMS has been published in Redbook, McCall's, Cosmopolitan,
and Ladies' Home Journal. The Messenger is her first novel. She lives in
Carmel, California.

281

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