The Magnificent Spinster (36 page)

“This is your chance to rest,” Jane said, standing by the bed and giving Nancy's foot under the covers a pat. “I think sleep is going to help that back more than anything.”

“I don't know what's the matter with me.”

“Well, I can guess,” and Jane smiled. “Packing for seven people might explain quite a lot.”

“And then it's always hard at the end of the school year”—for Nancy taught in a kindergarden, as well as all the rest she managed to do. It was clearly comforting to imagine for the moment that her back was only fatigued. Smiling, she closed her eyes, and after gently touching her forehead Jane slipped away.

At nearly forty, Jane was thinking, Nancy looked amazingly young. She was very small-boned, with curly black hair cut short, and a narrow, intense face that lit up when she smiled and her very dark eyes twinkled. But there was strain. Nancy had always carried the world on her shoulders and Jane suspected that the war in Vietnam and all the protest meetings and marches had taken a toll. It had been a hard year all round, and the demands on good Quakers like John and Nancy were heavy.

She considered all this on her way downstairs to see about a tray for Nancy's lunch, with suddenly a warmth of thanksgiving about her heart, because, after all, this was what the island was for, to give a hard-pressed friend a respite, to shelter and make well. As she set up a tray, choosing a lovely cloth with flowers embroidered on it, she was singing “Over the sea to Skye.…”

It was after one when Sarah, Lucy, and Jane sat down to their lunch out on the big porch, the first meal out there since Sarah had arrived.

Lucy had been amused by the chaos at the little house and decided finally that she was not being a great deal of help, as the children fought over who would sleep where and John struggled to get the kerosene stove working.

“John seemed quite relieved when I reminded him that they would all be expected up here for supper at half-past six.”

“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.