It snowed and melted, sleet turned to rain, December was mild enough so far. She knew that her father would come out only through open water, and she walked to the shore to see if the coves were clear. Not even a rim of ice.
The school was electric with the approach of the holidays. Youth milled about in its small enclosed world restless to break away. It poured its energy into the Christmas party which would celebrate the coming of freedom. No one mentioned work and the faculty wearily held only to the letter of it. The place would be emptied out and they were glad of it.
If Thankful could not get out to the island she would have to stay with her brothers on the mainland, and that was a dreary enough prospect. It made the figures on the thermometer more important than those attached to algebra. It made the matter of the holiday dance secondary though she had no dread of it now. The clothes of Selina’s choice seemed to carry with them some small share of Selina’s confidence. Or it may have been the way the work had gone, or the friendliness of Orin Fletcher, Thankful could not have told herself why she felt comfortable where she had been uneasy. She knew that she would look well enough at the party, and that now she could dance. Of much greater importance was a kindly temperature.
Even with the rhythmic beat of the music in her ears she gave it a thought. “It’s down to thirty-seven tonight,” she told Bill who led her off.
“You don’t say so,” he murmured.
“But salt water freezes late.” She looked hopefully up at him.
“Is this chemistry or a dance?” he asked.
“It’s a dance,” she agreed, and because the bay could not freeze, and Bill liked her and danced well, and she was going home next day, she gave up the weather and attended to him.
Once she had a fleeting glimpse of herself stumbling through the dragging hours of that first party, but it only heightened tonight. Her youth shook off its growing pains and danced with light feet.
No doubts tonight about Robert. He had been lighting her days with that flashing smile of his. He had included her with Selina and then left Selina out. Selina took it philosophically. “He always likes to rush a good-looking girl,” she said, “and he thinks he has discovered your looks. He’ll drop you if you stay around long enough.”
But Thankful knew better. That warm intimate look of his belonged to her. His quick grace, his clipped words, his dark clear face, that were all so new to her island experience with its towering men. He came across to her now, and she slipped like water away from Bill.
“Come out.” He was brusque. “Want to tell you something.”
She followed to a window seat in the gallery. His dark looks made her tremble a little. “What is it?” she said. “Oh, what is it?”
“Hung up for the holidays,” and would say no more until she had coaxed him. There were certain examinations, she found out, if he was to enter his junior year at Harvard in the fall, and they had specially arranged to accommodate him during the holidays. But couldn’t he go home first? Chicago did not seem so far away to Thankful now. No, his father insisted on his studying before the exams, and when they were over the holiday was done. He glowered down at the dancers and Thankful longed to touch his smooth dark hair in comfort.
“Where can I stay?” he demanded of her. “Where can I stay? Dad wants me to move straight to Cambridge but what would I do there with everyone off for Christmas? This place is shut up. Where can I stay?”
Thankful felt a quicker beat than the music stir her. Why not? Her mother would welcome him as she had Selina. She might even help him in his study. Her words stuttered and stammered these things to Robert without hope that he would understand. But it was all that she could offer him.
“Do you mean it! Thankful!” He seized her hands, and she thought for one breathtaking moment that he meant to kiss her. “Thankful, you’ve saved my life again!” The smile flashed back again. “Save it enough times, and it will be yours. Will I come!”
He leaped up and pulled her back among the dancers. Never had she moved so lightly, so surely, as if a warm surge of life caught her and carried her with it. Robert talked of what they would do until she feared the ideas that Selina might have given him, and tried to face him back to reality. But he swept them both on with his charm. Would tomorrow ever come? And could it, whatever its enchantment, make her a more lovely gift than tonight?
By suppertime all the school world knew of their plans. Robert filled her plate and stood looking down on her. “It’s as if we were getting engaged, they’re so excited,” and laughed at the color in her upturned face.
All but Selina. She caught Thankful a moment in the cloakroom and talked gravely to her. “Head this visit off if you can,” she said. “You’ll both regret it.” A little jealousy? But Thankful thought not. Selina’s interest in Philadelphia and a West Point boy was too wholehearted just now.
“You did it,” Thankful laughed at her, “it was you who told him so much about Bright Island.”
“Yes, I did,” Selina agreed gloomily and departed.
Only once more she spoke of it. In their room she looked anxiously at Thankful hanging away her dress full of soft tired wrinkles. An odd light was in her face and her lips curved into laughter at nothing. “He’s not the boy to hang your hat on,” she told Thankful. “Believe me.”
For the first time in her life Thankful could not sleep. She lay flat like a frail figure on a sarcophagus and watched the stars move down the sky. Tomorrow night from her window under the eaves she would see them in their march, a bright battalion in the wider, colder sky. And beyond her in the boys’ room he could watch them too—only he would be asleep, she thought, and touched his closed lids with tender fingers. She would see that he rested well, away from all these demands upon him. She made her plans smiling in the dark.
It was a fresh morning full of the gayety of departure when return is certain. Selina said casually, “I can’t kiss you because I’ve just used my lipstick. Almost had forgotten how. Listen, Thankful”—she had an open letter in her hand—“I just heard from Evelyn Norris.” Thankful remembered the name with quick hurt through her happiness. “But I don’t see much sense in changing roommates this time of the year, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” said Thankful and the tide of her happiness rose higher around her.
“All right then. We’ll let it ride.” Selina was business-like. “I’ll tell Miss Haynes. Good-bye. Have a swell time.” She was off for the railroad bus.
Since no one traveled their way, the gardener was driving Thankful and Robert in his old Ford. Jed at the last moment had agreed to meet them and Thankful thought contentedly of the size and comfort of his powerboat. The Ford grumbled behind the bus which flung back to them greetings, cheers, advice, farewells, until its high-powered engine left them behind.
“You’d think it was a honeymoon.” Robert drew in his head, brilliant with excitement. He turned his attention closely to her. “When I get through Harvard”—his hand shut over hers an instant—“when I’m through Harvard, we’ll see!”
The tide of happiness was too high. Thankful choked under its pressure on her heart. She had no answer ready, and in the silence Robert sank back as if deflated. His head pushed spent into the corner, his eyes closed. “The morning after!” he murmured, and Thankful could not bear to rouse him to the first sight of a roughened ocean. He breaks himself up into shiny bits, she thought. Someone should look out for him.
Jed was at the lunch counter finishing a thick cup of steaming coffee. “Better have one,” he advised. “Warm you up. Got a cold trip ahead of you.”
Thankful drank her bitter cup though she needed no warmth. Robert looked at it with distaste and left it. Jed reached over and drank it. “You’ll be sorry, young man.” He was jovial. “Well, all aboard!” He loaded an armful of bundles into the shelter of the bow. “Christmas for the kids,” he explained. And Thankful looked around startled at Robert because she had nothing for him. He stood beside her on the deck staring at Jed’s
boat. “Is—is this—the yacht, the boat, that Selina sailed in?”
“She went over to the island in it,” Thankful explained carefully. “She came back on the government cutter.”
“Oh, I see.” He smiled at her and she cheered. “Well, here goes.” He backed down the ladder, his raccoon coat brushing the slimy slats. She was suddenly glad of that coat. Though Jed looked at it oddly.
But Robert was too thorough a sailor not to find enjoyment in any kind of boat. Thankful saw him putting away his ideas about a steam yacht and adjusting himself to lesser ones. He was man to man with Jed and before Thankful knew it he had the wheel sitting there in the wind with his collar turned up until she could see only the brilliant dark eyes. “A good coat for this kind of weather,” Jed even said, “though a sheepskin does me.”
Thankful settled contentedly into the bow. She had not meant to wear her new clothes but Robert’s presence demanded high celebration. She pulled her slicker up to protect her fur collar. Jed had looked with approval at her. She grinned to think of the girls.
In spite of the raccoon coat Robert was shivering before they were halfway to the island. Thankful beckoned him down to the shelter beside her. He gave the wheel promptly to Jed who said, “Bet you wish that coffee was in you instead of me now,” and opened the top button of his sheepskin.
Thankful peered up over the rail now and then to point out the light, Goose Island, Egg Rock, but Robert ducked back out of the wind so quickly that she gave up sightseeing. The smell of the engine was heavy in her nostrils, and she knew that with the old coat she would be outside at the wheel with Jed. She reached up her head to catch the cold wind in her face. Robert was here beside her incredibly sailing out to Bright Island.
Even through the noise of the engine Thankful heard the crash of the tide on the bar, and knew exactly how high it was, and how near the cove, and when she could see gleam of the white boulders, and then the house. Here, and here, and here, yet she sat without moving in the shelter of the deck, Bright Island submerged by Robert. He was cold and uncomfortable but they would soon have him in the warm kitchen. Kitchen? He wasn’t used to kitchens. Ah, but this one, sunned and spicy, anyone would like this kitchen. Hadn’t Selina? Jed was waving and she plunged to her feet.
Though Robert stood beside her, she forgot him for one moment. The house, low-roofed and bare against the frozen slope of the island which lay behind it brown in a December cold that had as yet brought no snow, her father shoving his peapod down the beach, her mother’s face between the curtains, all there, all waiting for her.
“Whose house is that?” Robert was there again. “I thought you had the whole island to yourself.”
“Why, it’s our house, of course,” Thankful laughed at him. “Whose else would it be?”
Robert said nothing while Thankful caught the mooring with the boat hook. Her father was almost out to them when he stood up in his peapod and stretched to see them better. He took to his oars again with a grunt and pulled alongside. Then he rose again staring at Robert.
“I thought to God you had a b’ar aboard!” he said astounded. Jed’s roars sounded as if they had been long held back.
Robert looked over at him coldly, and Thankful saw him with those critical eyes, woolen cap tied over his ears, long, lanky, brown, grizzled. “Bar, did you say? Your son is too good a sailor to run on the bar.” The silky reassurance of the words stung Thankful. Jed’s roars abruptly ceased. Jonathan said huh uncomfortably, and sat down to wait for them to come aboard.
The encounter seemed to rouse Robert to his old elation. He swung his leather suitcase into the peapod and followed it with an armful of bundles from the shelter of the deck. Jonathan took them automatically without looking at Robert.
“Hey, there!” shouted Jed. “The kids’ Christmas presents! Put ’em back!”
Thankful got into the peapod and handed the parcels back to Robert who took them with an intimate flashing smile at her that drew her to him against the other two. Thankful tried to include her father by a belated clumsy introduction which he ignored. Off on the wrong foot! she thought despairingly.
But Robert had just got into his stride. When Mary Curtis met them at the door he delivered himself into her hands with such courtesy and charm that she took him to her heart at once. Another boy, and she was used to boys, who was cold and probably hungry, and undeniably handsome. A bonny lad if she had ever seen one. Not too strong either, her shrewd eye told her. And it took less than a day for her to check up on her surmise. She knew then exactly when Robert had been laid low by infantile paralysis and the kind of childhood that grew out of it. She knew why he was spoiled, and how, what he needed, and was careful that Thankful learned nothing of it. “He’s a right to outgrow it,” she said to Jonathan who had to be told in order to make him live in the house with Robert.
“If he can!” Jonathan grunted. “He’ll get no help from me.”
But now she put an extra plate on the table and lighted the Franklin stove in his room before she would let him go to it. The winter fare had set in. Mary Curtis fed her family bountifully but the island had to furnish supplies. She thriftily put the meat which Jed had brought into the cellar way, and served the dinner already cooked for Thankful. Creamed codfish and baked potatoes with Thankful’s favorite Indian pudding. Thankful ate it hungrily until she saw Robert’s plate. Her mother met her puzzled look and rose to pour him another glass of the top of the milk.
Robert, who had given up rising when she stood, thanked her and thirstily drank the milk.
“I’m never hungry for lunch,” he apologized, “but I’ll make it up at dinner.”
Thankful could not swallow. Could they, she thought desperately, shift to dinner at night? And knew that they could not. But Mary Curtis had set a jar of golden apple jelly beside his plate and he was spreading his bread richly with it.
“I’ll warm this up for you then,” she said. “We have our hearty meal at noon.”
Robert did not seem to mind at all, and Thankful knew that her mother would always see that he had enough. So that hurdle was over. But Jed did not bother to say good-bye to him, and her father went out with his son and did not return until dark. There were other hurdles, Thankful saw.
Robert slept all the afternoon in a room glowing warm with the wood fire which Mary Curtis tiptoed in to replenish when it burned low. She and Thankful talked in low tones downstairs about him, and the dance last night, and Thankful gave her many facts empty of substance. That lovely evening. And to be talking it over in this sunny room with its familiar chairs and table and worn couch where she had lived before she ever knew Robert; it made her feel confused as if she were two persons and the one did not know the other. The confusion slipped over into drowsiness from the sleepless night, she leaned back against the old cushions, and her sentences came slower and slower.
Mary Curtis tucked her gray shawl around Thankful and stood looking a moment at the sleeping face, defenseless, innocent. Then she shook down the kitchen fire for a hot oven for her biscuits.
When Thankful woke, the room was so dark that the firelight made golden squares in the open damper of the stove. She watched it warm the colors of the old rugs on the painted floor, and thought drowsily of trees massive enough to furnish those wide boards. She heard her mother stirring about in the kitchen and knew from the smell of hot biscuits what she had been doing. For Robert—she plunged out of sleepiness, Robert was here! And suddenly the peace and security dropped away leaving her shivering with responsibility. What if he had spent a bored afternoon in his room while she slept? She threw off the shawl and hurried to the kitchen.
“Well, you had a sleep!” Her mother was setting the table for supper in the kitchen as usual. “And the lad’s still at it. Better call him. He won’t sleep a wink tonight.”
Thankful hesitated. She had often banged on Dave’s door and even pulled his hair when he refused to stir. She thought of Robert lying asleep with those long black lashes on his cheek.
“You go, mother, while I finish setting the table.”
Her mother was gone a long time and came down smiling absently. She put a small piece of beef on the toaster to broil. “He’ll be down in a minute. Robbie’s a bit peevish when he first wakes up,” and she chuckled.
Robbie! Thankful knew now that as far as her mother was concerned, the island was Robert’s. Well anyway, she thought, he can’t have Robbie’s plaid because that’s mine. But she was not at all sure but what she, herself, would have handed it over to him if he had wanted it. She sighed at her folly and brooded over its sweetness. When he came into the room it was as if a new lamp had been lighted. She saw him through its radiance.
Robert sniffed greedily. “Steak!” He took a look at it. “Please! It’s done, it’s done. Oh, please take it off! I like it rare.”
Mary Curtis removed it to a hot plate. “Well, Robbie, you’ve got to eat it, but it looks raw to me.”
Jonathan came in from the darkness and washed his hands at the sink. He sniffed, too. “You been hacking up that roast?” He peered at the plate. Thankful died a thousand deaths.
“Yes, I have.” Her mother patted a piece of butter into it serenely. “Want some?”
Jonathan answered only by helping himself to a hot biscuit. Robert shot him a triumphant gleam. He cast off the final remnant of after-sleep temper and cut vigorously into his steak. His gayety rose like a thermometer under the heat of discord. He likes it, Thankful thought uncomfortably, but could not believe herself.
The hot meal and his sleep seemed to pour energy into Robert. He was as restless as quicksilver while Thankful and her mother did the dishes. Mary Curtis handed him a dish towel but he held it helplessly and finally dropped it in a tour of the room.
“Looking for something?” she asked.
“I thought if you didn’t mind”—he smiled winningly at her—“I’d start the radio. Then maybe after you are through, we could dance.”
Bright Island Page 13