by May Sarton
“I bet he was,” Jane laughed. John, a teacher of math in a high school, was not the most practical of men.
“And is Nancy all settled?” Lucy asked then. “She did look pretty wan, didn’t she?”
“The best thing is that I remembered the board for the bed. We had it years ago when I had trouble with my back—and Sarah remembered it had been stowed upstairs. What luck!”
Sarah suggested it might be a good idea to make some plans for the next day. “Maybe Sylvie, Tom, and Wylie could help me with the boat—it’s going to be about three days’ work, I’m afraid, before we can put her in the water and have a sail.”
“Well,” Jane mused, “I’ll take Bobbie and Amy on a walk through the woods.”
“Last year,” Lucy reminded her, “Bobbie was crazy about making a Japanese garden, do you remember?”
Sarah smiled and Jane caught her smile and asked her what that was all about. “Don’t you remember how you really hated his pulling up a tiny spruce tree?”
“Oh dear,” Jane laughed. “It’s quite true. There are literally thousands of tiny spruces, but I did mind. How foolish can I be?”
“Quite chauvinistic when it comes to the island,” Lucy said.
“Am I?” Jane looked dismayed. “Do you think so?”
“Reedy, I’m only teasing! You treasure every blade of grass, and why shouldn’t you?”
“I suppose it has become a sort of country in itself, this island,” she mused, then she laughed with Lucy. “I pledged allegiance to this country, Wilder, a long time ago.”
But over brownies and tiny cups of coffee she was still thinking about what Lucy had said. And it turned into quite a discussion about chauvinism before they separated, Sarah to go down to the boathouse, and Lucy and Jane to have a nap, stopping on the way to tell Nancy the news and to take her tray out.
“Now rest, dearie, and no one will whisper a word to you until suppertime, when your brood will all be coming over, you know.”
“It’s an awful lot for you to do,” Nancy murmured.
“Nonsense, that’s what a holiday is all about.”
It was after three when Jane got down to the little house and rescued John, who had stayed with the little ones while Tom, Wylie, and Sylvie went down to the boathouse to help Sarah get Siren ready.
“Where have you been?” Bobbie said quite crossly, “we’ve been waiting and waiting.…”
“We thought you were dead.” Amy said, giggling uncontrollably and rushing to hug Jane.
“I have to pick you up for a proper hug, don’t I?” Jane lifted her up and swung her around in her arms.
“Let’s go,” Bobbie said.
“Bobbie, thee had really better learn patience,” John admonished. And then to Jane with a shake of his head, “I’ve been trying to read.”
“Well, I see you have two tyrants to contend with. We’ll be off to the moss drawing room and see what we can find. What do you suppose I was doing that took so long?” she asked Bobbie as they set off, Amy holding Jane’s hand and dragging her big bear along on the other side.
“It’s not good for that bear to be dragged like that,” Bobbie said. “You had better leave him at home.”
“I don’t want to,” said Amy firmly. “He needs exercise.”
“He does seem to rather drag his feet,” Jane said. “Maybe he needs a long snooze on your bed.”
Amy considered this, wrinkling her nose. “I think I’ll let him lie here on this big rock. Then he can rest his back. It hurts, you know.”
“What were you doing so long?” Bobbie came back to the subject with determination as they made their way along the lumber road.
“Want to guess?”
“Talking with Mummy?”
“No, she’s fast asleep, I hope.”
“Writing a letter?”
“That’s what I should have been doing,” Jane said. “Oh dear. Well, I have to confess that I went fast asleep after lunch.”
“Do you sleep a lot?” Amy asked.
“She’s old, Amy, of course she does,” Bobbie said with conviction.
“Aunt Jane is not old,” Amy said with sudden passion. “She’s not. She’s not.”
Bobbie frowned and Jane laughed. “The truth is, kids, I usually take a nap after lunch, don’t you?”
“Not on the island,” Bobbie said at once. “There’s too much to do.”
“I can’t walk so fast,” Amy said. “Please wait for me.”
“You can run ahead if you want to,” Jane said to Bobbie. “See if you can find the moss drawing room and give a shout when you do.”
But Bobbie stopped to kick a stone, catching up with it and kicking it again. “I think I’ll stay with you,” he decided, and Jane realized that the deep woods, quite dark even on a sunny afternoon like this one, might be rather scary.
So they came upon it together, the secret, enclosed place carpeted in many kinds of mosses.
“Let’s take off our shoes,” Jane suggested, “so we can feel how soft it is.”
When Amy had finally managed to untie her sneakers and slip them off, she lay on her back while Bobbie walked very softly off to try out the mosses. It was such a silent place; the silence enveloped them and no one said a word for a few moments. Jane was lying down beside Amy, looking up into the trees and through them to the blue sky. “Smell the smells,” she murmured. “Isn’t it delicious?”
But as she turned her head to see where Bobbie had gone, she saw that he was uprooting one of the pale green rounded cushions. “Oh Bobbie,” she said sharply. “Must you do that?”
“I want to see what it is like,” he answered.
“But it will just die without its bed of pine needles and loam. If I were you I would try to put it back exactly where it was. Do you think you can?”
“I’m not you,” Bobbie said crossly, “and besides I’ve lost the place where it was.”
“Bobbie, thee is being very bad,” Amy said with some satisfaction, sitting up to survey the scene. “Thee kills moss.”
“Good-bye, then. I’m going home.” Bobbie was red in the face with rage. Jane swallowed a smile. It would never do to laugh.
“Come on, little brother,” she said, “let’s go to the house and find a cookie, and maybe your mother would like a cup of tea, who knows?”
“It’s very hard to have Amy for a sister,” he announced to the world at large, as he ran down the path and away from the other two. So much anger to run out of his system, Jane thought, as she watched him.
They found Lucy sitting out on the porch mending a pillowslip, but when Jane went out to the kitchen with Bobbie to make their tea, she found the tray all laid and the kettle boiling … and that was Lucy’s doing, of course. Bobbie helped by eating two cookies in about thirty seconds. “It might be a good idea to leave a few for your mother,” Jane observed with a twinkle in her eye. “Besides, at that rate you might burst like the frog in the fable! Lucy, you wizard, I’m going to take a cup to Nancy before I have mine. I’ll be right back,” she said, laying the tray down.
“Take your time,” Lucy said, smiling. “We’ll try to do without you.”
Nancy was sitting up and looked quite pink, Jane was glad to note. “That’s just what I needed.”
“Shall I bring mine up and have it with you?”
“That would be lovely.”
So Jane sat in the flowery armchair for a half-hour and they talked about Bobbie and Amy. “It’s been hard on Bobbie because Amy came as such a surprise and I’m afraid she is rather spoiled. He was the baby and now has to be a good brother to what he must feel sometimes is an impossible little person whom everyone loves for reasons he cannot imagine.” Nancy smiled her charming smile thinking about this.
“You are feeling a little better?”
“That wonderful sleep …” Nancy sighed. “Sheer heaven. It’s so silent.”
“Yes, I always feel enveloped by the silence when I first arrive. It might be a good idea if you didn�
��t try to come down for supper, speaking of silence; there won’t be much!”
“Do you think I could? It’s an awful nuisance bringing up a tray, I’m afraid.”
“Dearie, it’s no trouble at all. John can bring it up and you’ll have a chance to talk about the day.”
“Good,” Nancy sighed and slipped down into the the bed to lie flat. “He wants so much to do some work while we are here, so I am letting him down, I’m afraid.”
“But Sarah and I can keep the children from bothering him most of the day and the three older ones are working away on the boat. My idea is that you must have at least three days without moving around. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“It is the most extraordinary place … imagine taking seven people in and putting one of them to bed. You are so marvelous, Jane.” Nancy had tears in her eyes.
“Not quite as marvelous as you are, dearie,” Jane said.
“Half the time I fail,” Nancy said. “I’m always being taken by surprise by things I should have foreseen.” Again she was close to tears. “This back … I know I did too much last week. The Vietnam War. It seems as though the country were being torn to pieces. I felt I must take part in the vigil the Quakers organized, but we had to stand for four hours.”
“And that was a bit much,” Jane said. “How hard these decisions are, when to push beyond the limit and when to be careful. I know a little about backs, you know. A couple of years ago mine just gave way and I had to waste a month of that summer in bed here. It taught me a lot, as I think back on it now. My body has not let me down before; how lucky I have been! And I had to learn what it feels like to be dependent, and, gosh, I felt such new understanding of what people bear!” And she smiled. “How hard it is to be cheerful through pain and frustration.”
“We so rarely have time for a talk,” Nancy said, “so my poor old back has provided one real pleasure already.”
“Blessings on thee,” Jane said as she got up, then stood for a moment looking out at the sound. “One thing that sometimes is hard here, because there is just so much going on, is to find time for real talks. I long for that.”
“But somehow you manage to make each person, young and old, feel cherished. That’s the miracle.”
“Do I?” And Jane laughed. “I guess I am always hungry for more.”
They were interrupted then by a loud knock on the door. “And who can that be?” Jane asked with a twinkle in her eye as she opened to Bobbie, who charged in with a small sailboat in his hands.
“I just wanted to know if I can take this down to the pool and sail it!”
“And maybe you just wanted to know how your mother is,” Jane said, smiling at him.
“Maybe,” Bobbie admitted, giving Nancy an anxious look.
“I’m being terribly spoiled,” Nancy reached out an arm to give him a hug, “and I’m feeling a lot better already.”
“Has it ever occurred to you, little brother, that sometimes mothers need mothering?” Jane said, “and what your mother needs is to be allowed to rest?” But this was too much for Bobbie to answer. “You may take the boat down and sail it, of course, as long as you bring it back before you leave. Come along, it’s time to get ready for supper. Want to help me set the table?”
“Outdoors?”
“I think it’s warm enough if everyone brings a sweater.” And off they went, Bobbie dispatched to the little house to get the others, carrying the boat in his arms. “Tell them to make it snappy,” Jane called after him. “It’s nearly time now.”
But when she went into the kitchen Annie teased her. “It’ll be a piece of luck if they get here in an hour. I know Sarah when she’s working on that boat!”
Nancy was amused to discover, as she lay in perfect peace and listened to the laughter and thumpings around downstairs, that it might be one definition of heaven to be as she was, high up, happily aware of what was going on somewhere below, but not to be for once a participant, a responder to half a dozen human personalities and needs for her attention. She was wide awake, and as long as she lay still, not in pain, so she lay there quite blissfully until her own supper appeared on a tray and John sat down for a moment to tell her what was happening.
“Jane is going to read some of Charlotte’s Web after supper. We decided that was a book we could all enjoy, after some rather hot discussion,” he chuckled.
“Can you manage for another day or so?” Nancy asked. “It still bothers me rather a lot to move around.”
“Jane and Sarah are wonderful about keeping the kids busy, so I even got some reading done this afternoon. Not to worry, dear.”
Nancy reached out to take his hand and squeeze it. “Good,” she sighed.
“I guess I’d better go down.”
“Maybe Sylvie could bring my dessert.”
“I’ll send her up. Sleep well, won’t thee?” and he bent down to kiss her mouth. “We can manage, but thee knows how much thee is missed.”
Another thing Nancy was discovering was that when one is awfully tired, any emotion is a strain. She was relieved when John had closed the door. She was suddenly hungry. Roast lamb, mashed potatoes, and peas tasted very good indeed. As well as a large glass of milk.
“Oh Mummy,” Sylvie said when she brought apple pie a little later, “are you getting a real rest?”
“Wonderful … are you having fun?”
“Well, we’re working hard on Sarah’s boat so we can have a sail. She is such a fine workman herself, she holds us to a high standard and sometimes Tom rebels. This afternoon he just went off and had a swim!”
“How did Sarah take that?”
“Oh, she just laughed a little and said maybe he heard a different drummer. You know, Mummy, there is something about this island … people are allowed to do what they feel like without feeling guilty. I love that.”
“Jane has that gift—Jane and Sarah together. How lucky we are to be here!”
“Mummy, please get well soon.”
Nancy caught the anxious look. And minded. “Mothers are not supposed to be ill,” she said with a rather wan smile.
“Because they hold everything together. When you’re not there, the center seems to go, you see.”
“I expect to be down at the little house after tomorrow. So hang in there, darling.”
“I’m not good at being the mother. I get awfully irritated with Amy and Bobbie saying, ‘What do we do now?’”
“Family life is overrated, isn’t it?” Nancy teased.
“Maybe, by people who don’t know what it’s really like. Jane seems to take it all as a lark. But she doesn’t really know.”
“Or she has a talent for making things into a lark even when they are not.”
“She loves little children. I don’t.”
“I think you’d better go down, Sylvie.”
“It’s nice to be with you alone, Mummy. That’s one good thing about your being ill. But I guess I had better go down before the dishes are all washed.”
When there are nine people at work things get done very fast. By the time Sylvie joined them the dishes were dried and put away, and Sarah had lit the fire and was busy getting the Aladdin lamp lit.
“Are we going to be too hot with the fire?” Jane asked as she came in.
“I couldn’t resist it,” Sarah said. “Firelight just seems part of reading aloud after supper.”
“And it was quite chilly on the porch,” Sylvie said as she joined them and slipped in to sit on the sofa between Tom and Wylie.
Jane sat down under the Aladdin lamp, Lucy on the corner bench with a basket of Jane’s stockings to mend in her lap.
It was a grand end to the day, this gathering-together to read something aloud. For a moment Jane’s eyes rested on the group and the firelight on their faces, on Amy, who had fallen asleep on the bear rug, as she herself so often had done when she was five or six. Then she took out the worn copy of Charlotte’s Web and began to read, savoring each word, a smile coming and going as some familiar
sentence delighted her again. It was now really dark outside and the night had become a presence, as people sitting in firelight must have felt it since time immemorial. After a few chapters, a yawn took her by surprise, and she laughed at herself and closed the book. “If you are as sleepy as I am, it’s time I stopped.”
“Just one more chapter,” Bobbie begged.
“But we have to leave some for tomorrow,” Lucy said, rolling up a stocking she had finished mending.
Sarah, who had been having a talk with Annie in the kitchen, appeared then with an armful of flashlights and offered to go down to the little house with them.
“Is it dangerous?” Bobbie asked, his eyes very bright.
“No bears have been seen,” Sarah assured him.
“Sleep well, all of you,” Jane said at the door.
“Frances and Erika tomorrow,” she said to Lucy as they lay in the dark talking a little. “Oh dear, and in a few more days you’ll be gone. Can’t you manage a week?”
But that, it seemed, would not be possible. Lucy always helped launch the summer and came back at the end to help close everything down, but she could rarely stay. Her own nieces and their children came to be with her in her little house in the country near Philadelphia.
“It will seem like an awfully empty space over there,” Jane murmured.
Next morning, while Lucy was still dressing, Jane sat in the kitchen with Sarah and Annie making plans for the new arrivals.
“My idea, Jane said, is to take all the Speedwells for a picnic on Baker’s Island tomorrow—that will give Frances and Erika time to settle in in peace.”
“What about swordfish for dinner?” Sarah asked.
“Too early for swordfish,” Annie, busy at the stove poaching eggs for Jane and Lucy, reminded them. “How about stuffed baked haddock with a tomato sauce?”
And by the time Lucy came down a lot of planning had been achieved, so she and Jane decided to have their breakfast in the dining room.
It was quite a surprise when Nancy appeared in her wrapper to join them. “It’s time I began to cease being a pampered invalid.” She slipped into a chair and sat stiffly, leaning against the straight back.