Terrible, Horrible Edie

by E. C. Spykman

  Hubert put the glasses down on the table. “They’re under the lee,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait.” Something made him look down at his feet. “Holy Christmas! What’s this!”

  Their feet were splashing in water that Edie had not noticed because she was so wet already, and they became conscious that there was water everywhere; the beach below the house had become part of the harbor, the lawn was a salt lake, and the drive at the right, which dipped through a mound at the back of the house, was filling up with water that ran down from the lawn. It was not rushing water; it came in little waves that kept getting deeper. They had the same feeling at the same time and turned toward the hall. There was water there too, and in the dining room where they looked next, and coming downstairs, to their astonishment, there was a little brook.

  “That’s from the cupola,” said Hubert. “And it’s mixed with Chris’s black paint.”

  “What I would like to know,” said Edie, “is whether all this”—she kicked a foot—“is coming from outside or down cellar.”

  Funnily enough there was no water in the kitchen yet. It must have been afraid of Cook, Edie thought, like everybody else, forgetting the steps up to the kitchen. But when they opened the cellar door, they were horrified. The whole cellar was full, and on top floated a ghastly murky mess of the dirt of ages mixed up with Cook’s cotton uniforms and Gander’s dish towels.

  But what was the worst of all, there was Widgy soaked and shivering on the top step. “Oh,” said Edie, “oh, my dear little dog! I forgot you. I’m so sorry I forgot you.” She grabbed him up and wrapped him in her dress while Hubert closed the door hurriedly. Then they sloshed back to the hall.

  “Do you hear that?” said Hubert, listening.

  The wind had taken to a high singing and was not so much blowing in gusts now as pushing with a steady terrible pressure that could almost be felt through the walls. But yes, there were gusts too that whanged things against the house or sent them hurtling past the windows before it could be seen what they were. It rattled the windows and each time seemed to fly off screeching afterwards. It was a sound that, if you were a dog, would make your hair stand up, which was what reminded Edie that no matter what was happening she would have to rub Widgy and leave him in a safe place.

  As soon as she had used up her own bath towel and Jane’s and commanded Widgy to stay in his bed and shut the door of her room so that he would do it, she came down again.

  “Look who’s coming,” said Hubert, noticing her as she came up to him in the hall, his voice suddenly cheerful, and sure enough, there were Jane and Theodore sailing into the filled-up ravine as smoothly as if they were boats. What’s more, as if they were being chased, a boat was coming after them, a big, elegant, white sloop—crickets! Shaw Wells’s sloop had broken her mooring and was simply scudding before the wind. Theodore and Jane steered themselves neatly toward the house, swam a little way, and got to their feet in water up to their knees. The sloop just nicked the corner of the boathouse with her stern, turned in their direction, and looked as if she might still catch them before they got to the house, but she drew more water than they did, and when she met the lawn, she heeled over and had to slow down. Hubert again had the door open a crack, Theodore and Jane slid through, and everybody leaned against it to get it shut again.

  “Quite a blow,” said Theodore without noticing the flood and went to look out the window for the P.D.Q. The twenty-one footer was still there, but by this time she had settled deep in the water. It looked as if the anchors were still holding, however. It was the best he could hope for her. If she went ashore, she would be banged to bits on the rocks at the back of the sandy beaches.

  “She may make it,” said Hubert.

  “With luck,” said Theodore, “with the sky’s own luck.”

  They could see that the harbor was being swept clean, and it wasn’t taking long either. The boats looked as if they had gotten wills of their own, broken their bonds, and were all off willingly to other lives. Once free, they raced before the wind, especially the big ones. Shaw Wells was lucky. All four of them gazed and gazed, forgetting their feet and all the wet, and not even realizing that they could see more plainly from the parlor window than ever before, because one of the pines had gone, until there was a second crash and splintering and the top of another one flew over the lawn.

  “Maybe we better move a bit,” said Theodore. They had to walk now like ducks, lifting their feet.

  “It just occurs to me that perhaps we ought to try to get some of this furniture upstairs. This tide is pretty strong.”

  Each one started toward what they thought they could carry, but they were too late. Ted had just spoken when the tide itself decided to take care of the furniture. They had been looking at too many other things to pay attention to the little waves that had become surges, slow, but big and very strong. There was a bash at the French door that opened toward the sea. It did not quite give, but they could hear the wave swirling off at the house corners.

  “I don’t believe we’re going to wait,” said Theodore. “Get going, kids!”

  “Where?” said Jane.

  “The stairs!”

  They reached them just as the next bash came, and they turned on the landing. The sea curled into Aunt Louise’s by way of the French doors, which it had opened, slithered through the chintz room and the hall, and swashed against the door that led out to the drive. They watched it withdraw for a minute and then come again with greater power, feeling around the legs of the chairs and trying to pull out the carpets and open the other doors. There was no letup to the wind, and there seemed to be no end to the tide. It was long past time for it to turn. They knew, because they usually went swimming at high tide and kept track of it. It was just as if the whole ocean, moon pull or no moon pull, had decided to come ashore and eat up the land.

  When the next surge opened the hall door and the waters met, the ocean rushed boiling into the wicker chair room and the wicker chairs followed it out as if they had been called by the Pied Piper. They had to watch them go. But Theodore and Hubert were not quite able to bear it. They thought they could do something. They both stepped out into the hall as the flood receded, and they both were hit by the returning wave. It took their legs out from under them, and Jane had to step down and rescue them from being hit on the head by the floating sofa. She gave it a shove so that it swirled away.

  “Phew,” said Theodore, when they were back on the landing again. “No more of that.”

  “Not for me at any rate,” said Hubert rather sheepishly.

  From then on they just had to watch the water take everything away. As it tugged away the tables, the lamps and ornaments splashed into it onto the floor, but it came back for them later. They could hardly believe their eyes at the neat way the water managed to get everything out. The sofas hardly nicked their wood.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Theodore when the hall and the two sitting rooms were empty and the dining-room furniture was knocking and grinding itself to pieces. “I hope it leaves the house standing.”

  They all began to hope so, as they had time now to notice that Aunt Louise’s was being hit over and over again by the wind and sea. Thoughtfully they crowded up a few steps above the landing. The water had swept up to just below them and was being added to by the brook they had forgotten that was still running neatly down the stairs.

  “By the way,” said Theodore, “does anybody know where those two women are?”

  There was a general shaking of heads. It was the first time anyone had thought of Cook and Gander for what seemed ages.

  “I have an idea we better find them.”

  They left the landing reluctantly, all except Edie who raced upstairs to be the first to get down the back way to the kitchen. On the way she stopped to take one look out of the upstairs hall window and make a report. “You know the bridge to the island?” she said, running ahead of them again. “That’s not there any more and the Burtons’ yawl is right on top
of the causeway, but that’s under water and it’ll probably fall over the other side.”

  “You keep away from the windows,” said Theodore.

  “That’s right,” said Hubert. “Do you want to be sliced in two?”

  But Edie was halfway down the back stairs. “It’s coming into the kitchen now,” she said, “and Cook and Gander are yowling.”

  “Now, Miss Edith,” Gander’s voice said loudly but calmly. But still they could hear her using it for something else.

  “Come up here,” said Theodore, starting down.

  “Get on with you now, get on, I say,” said Gander’s voice from below.

  There was a noise they could not understand that followed. “Did you hear the young man, you loon?” said Gander. “Holy Mary, get down from there and get goin’.”

  Theodore bellowed once more, and Gander’s face shone up as white as a sheet from the bottom of the stairs, where the water was sloshing. “Master Theodore,” she said. “I can’t move the old basheen. She’s lost her wits. Can I leave her to be drownded, sir?”

  “Not yet,” said Theodore. “Come on, Hubert.”

  The boys stepped out into the kitchen, and Jane and Edie came down far enough to see Cook sitting on the kitchen table with her eyes closed, saying her rosary. The water was curling gently here and there, but it was not very deep.

  “Get up,” shouted Theodore.

  “I’ll not move,” said Cook. “Holy Mary, Mother of God. Hail Mary, full of grace.”

  “You’ll drown pretty soon,” said Theodore.

  “Do I know it,” said Cook, without opening her eyes. “Leave me say me prayers in peace.”

  “The old abadan,” said Gander. “Sure, give her a pinch, your honor.”

  “ ’Tis better than having the roof on me head,” said Cook.

  Theodore could feel the water creeping up on his ankles. It must somehow be coming in from the front part of the house now, and who could tell how high it would go, but how—just how—could you lift a mountain like Cook? While he was thinking, Hubert came and stood beside him, gave him a look, and made a heaving motion with his hands. Theodore understood him.

  “Are you ready?” said Hubert softly, but Ted could hear him. “One, two, three!”

  “Heave ho, and a bottle of rum,” shrieked Gander. “There’s the laddies.”

  As they tipped the table, Cook slid gently but decidedly toward the water. When her feet touched it, they began automatically to move, and Gander piloted her toward the stairs. “I’ve got her now, your honor,” she said. “We’ll sit in the middle here, and should the house come down, we’ll take the bash of it and die quick.”

  Theodore and Hubert sped past them back to the upstairs hall. What for the love of heaven had happened to their other females? Jane and Edie had disappeared. “Well of all the—” Theodore said, but was unable to find words for them. He gave them up as a bad job. The wind was still pounding the windows and smashing at the roof, but he couldn’t keep them from being fools if that’s the way they were made. Still, he would have to make one more try. He stood at the top of the stairs and opened his mouth as wide as it would go. “Everybody,” he roared. “Come here!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” said Jane just above him.

  “Come here,” said Theodore, “sit down right here, and stay down, darn you.” As soon as he could stop roaring, he sent Hubert to shut all the room doors and stood with his head cocked. The wind was now one thin, continuing scream, and the house seemed to be leaning to it. Hubert, who was on the second floor by now, called to him, and as he went down, Jane and Edie followed.

  “Take a look,” said Hubert who was on the landing.

  The sloop, which had come up on the lawn, had moved closer and closer so that its bowsprit was almost in the front door.

  “If it comes in,” said Edie, “I’m going to get aboard.”

  “Will you shut up,” said Theodore.

  “You’re enough to tempt God to do anything,” said Jane, who did not like the sound of the wind or the feeling of the house any more than he did.

  It was impossible to answer because just then there was so loud a crash that nothing else could be heard. No one moved and no one spoke, but it made them all crouch as if they were going to be hit by something. Jane waited for the house to fall down, and Edie waited for something more exciting to happen, Theodore waited trying to think, and Hubert got up slowly and went upstairs to see if he could find out what had happened.

  “The float,” he said, when he came down and crouched on the stairs again. “It looks as if it had tried to get in the dining-room windows. I don’t think it did, though, because there’s no extra wind in here. It’s quite a sight, though.”

  Jane and Edie were getting up to go and look at it when Theodore clamped a hand on each of them and kept them there for what seemed hours, huddled and silent. Finally he said slowly: “I bet, but that is quite a sight, too, at least for me.” He pointed to a slimy, dingy mark on the glass of the flung-back French doors and gave a sort of groan of relief. The water was below it.

  “The tide’s turned,” said Hubert slowly.

  They all stood looking at it as if it could not really be there and they must keep on looking to make it true.

  “Of course I knew it would,” said Theodore, “but it took long enough. I’m going to change my clothes. You kids keep away from the windows just the same; the wind’s still going strong.”

  Everyone went to change his clothes, paying no attention to Ted at all. The wind was still going strong, but the scream was going out of it and the house now felt again as though it could stand anything. Pretty soon, they felt, it might just be a high wind, and when the water went down, they were not going to miss the chance to explore everything that had happened. It was long past lunchtime, but no one had thought about that and they weren’t going to now. There wasn’t much hope that Cook and Gander would feel well enough to produce anything, so they let it go in favor of seeing what was left of the world.

  When they came downstairs dry and shiny, they found Aunt Louise’s lower floor becoming just like the bottom of an empty aquarium. There was green slime floating in it, shells and sand and old seaweed at the bottom of it, and after the water had gone down still more, Edie saw a crab trying to get over the tread of the veranda door. With the tide and the wind both dying, it was not very long before they could slide along the slippery floors.

  “What a sight for sore eyes!” said Theodore sarcastically as they stood in front of the chintz room fireplace. The soot had been washed out and all over the walls. Hubert’s favorite lounging place squelched with salt water and its cushions were probably by this time half across the bay. There was not a stick or a stone or any sign of any piece of furniture or bric-a-brac in either sitting room, and in the dining room it was huddled like a herd of sheep by the pantry door. The float had indeed been trying to get in the dining-room windows and was now sitting jauntily half on and half off the piazza rails. After taking a good look at everything, Hubert summed up the general feeling. As it would certainly, he said, take a couple of years to clean this up, they might as well go out and look around. The sky was clearing. They were all sure that before long the sun would be out bright and gleaming, and before they were caught by the two ladies “so nobly saved” he said “to continue in our service,” they had better get out of sight.

  “A suggestion for which you should be knighted, old chap, wot, wot,” said Theodore, remembering Lord and Lady Throg.

  So that just as Gander came through the door pushing a mop ahead of her, they disappeared behind Shaw Wells’s sloop.

  They went first to the boathouse—a sorry, sorry, journey and not exciting in any way.

  “That’s the last of the old piano,” said Theodore, looking in the top and finding it full of water.

  “Oh no!” said Edie. “Can’t you fix it? Can’t you dump the water out? Can’t you think of a way to dry it? Can’t we do it now?”

 
The rolls from top to bottom of the pile were drenched and turning soft. Edie wanted to take them out and hang them on the bushes. “Look, guys, the wind’s gone down now, the sun’s blazing. Let’s do it.” Nobody would. They were too anxious to see what had happened on the beach.

  The mice were dead too—pinkly, wetly dead. Hubert was for dropping them into the bushes. “No,” said Edie, “maybe they’ll come to life like some people do.” She spread them out in a row in the sun.

  “When they begin to stink,” said Hubert comfortingly, “don’t ask me to bury them.”

  They were taking a last sad look at everything after examining the billiard table cover and the dripping flags when they heard calls from the house.

  “They’re after sending a boat from across the way,” called Gander. “Your aunt’s sticks of furniture’s beyond on the shore. Could you get over now before the next tide and pull it back with you behind your boat?”

  They thought this a delightful suggestion. The Edmunds lived almost exactly across the harbor. The tide in trying to take the furniture out to sea had been stopped by their sandbar evidently. They all started for the pier with one accord and stopped with one accord at the top of the little bluff. The float, they remembered, was sitting comfortably on the piazza, and the pier, they could see from there, had not only been turned to a semicircle as Hubert had reported but tipped over. Jane spied the skiff. It was upside down on top of the blueberry bushes that bordered the lawn.

  “The oars are probably in Spain by this time,” said Theodore.