The Magnificent Spinster (37 page)

“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.

“Oh dearie, I bet you're starving! Have your breakfast with us. But do, if you can, go back to bed for one more morning, will you? This is your chance, after all.”

“But there are only five more days!”

“You must do what you feel you want to do,” Jane said firmly.

“I want to get going,” Nancy said, “but my ornery back is still rather reluctant.”

“Scrambled eggs and bacon for the invalid.” Annie set a plate before her. “And more toast for all of you.”

Lucy suggested then that Nancy have a try at getting up for midday dinner and maybe go down to the little house in the afternoon, “but tomorrow there's a picnic on Baker's Island … and maybe you could sleep here tonight and take that day in perfect peace with Frances and Erika.”

“The children will mind,” Nancy murmured.

“But getting in and out of that rowboat is not the best thing for a lame back,” Lucy insisted.

“I'll just have to see,” Nancy said. Jane felt she was depressed, near to tears perhaps. She got up and put an arm round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

“This is the place where you can let down, dearie, so don't let the gremlins plague you. What the children need more than anything is a rested mother.”

She looked at her watch. “Good heavens, it's after nine. We'd better go and find some flowers for Frances. Where does time go on this island? It just vanishes!”

Luckily, perhaps, the search for flowers—there were none yet in the formal garden—led Jane and Lucy down to the pool, and on the way they noticed that a rowboat was out near the dock with Bobbie and Wylie in it alone.

“Come on, Lucy, we can't have that!” At seventy-five Jane could not run as fast as she used to do, but she outdistanced Lucy and was on the dock waving and calling, “Come right back, boys!” by the time Lucy caught up with her.

The currents were quite strong, especially when the tide was going out, and it was clear that Wylie, who had the oars, was not finding it easy to bring the boat around.

“That's it,” Jane called, “pull on the right oar. There you go … now pull hard on both oars!”

“It's all right, Jane,” Lucy said as she caught up. “They'll make it.” But she saw that Jane was flushed, and her unusually sharp commands showed that she was angry and upset.

“It's not all right,” Jane answered. “They know perfectly well what the rules are.”

“What's the matter?” Wylie said when the boat was firmly tied up and he and Bobbie were safely on the dock again.

“Wylie, you know very well that no child is to take a boat out without a grown-up. You found out that the current is strong, and if I hadn't happened along you might be drifting away now and not able to get back!”

Wylie put his hands in his pockets and stood his ground. “I'm twelve,” he said, “after all. It's a foolish rule.”

“Last summer a boy drowned right out there. You were risking Bobbie's life.”

“I have my Junior Lifesaver's badge. I could save him.”

“Wylie,” Jane said quietly, “I think you have to accept that there are rules on this island, and whether you like them or not, they have to be obeyed.”

“I'm too hot,” Bobbie announced, ripping off his tee shirt. “Let's have a swim.”

“Not without a grown-up, I'm afraid,” Jane said. “We'll all be down around noon and then you can have a swim.”

But this edict was apparently the last straw, and Wylie glared at Jane with something like hatred in his face. “It's stupid,” he said. “We can't have any fun.”

“There are only five more days. You'll just have to stick it out,” Jane said, smiling now.

“What
can
we do?” Bobbie asked.

“In about half an hour you can come down to the main dock with me and welcome Miss Thompson and Erika. Right now we must pick some daisies and buttercups for Miss Thompson's room.”

“Come on, Bobbie, let's go to the boathouse,” Wylie said, and off they went without looking back.

“Well,” Jane laughed, “that was quite a row!”

While they picked the flowers, Jane stopped for a moment and stood looking out to the bay. “It's awfully hard to be stopped short in the middle of an adventure.”

“Children have to rebel, you know. It's part of growing up … but you were very effective, Jane, I must say.”

“I'm remembering one bitter moment in my life, the summer before Vassar. I wanted desperately to see an old school friend to say good-bye, over at Northeast Harbor. Pappa absolutely refused to let me row over! I
still
mind,” Jane said ruefully. “I was outraged. And, you know, I could have done it perfectly well.”

“That, I expect, is what Wylie is telling Sarah now.”

“Yes, but I was grown-up, Lucy, after all!”

“Some people might say you're not quite grown-up even now,” Lucy was laughing. “Oh Jane!”

“At seventy-five? I'm afraid I'm a hopeless case.” But then Jane looked at the straggly bunch of flowers in her hands. “What can we do to make this look a little less forlorn?”

“A little laurel might help,”

Jane looked at her watch. “Mercy, we'd better hurry!”

It was always like this, a slow start to the morning and then at some point a wild rush. But by half past eleven they were all waiting at the dock, Lucy and Jane sitting and talking on the benches at the top before the steep descent to the float itself, for the tide was low. Even John had come with Amy on his shoulders. Bobbie and Wylie were down on the rocks examining the mussels that clustered on the pier supports.

“Hey,” John called, when he saw them, “maybe we could find a pail and have mussels for lunch.”

“I bet it's not allowed,” Wylie said, looking up at Jane.

“Oh yes, it's allowed,” Jane answered, “if you like mussels, go to it, kids.”

But just then
West Wind
was sighted in the distance and everyone ran down onto the float and started waving.

“It's a perfect day,” Lucy said. “What luck!”

Every arrival was momentous on the island, as though they had been marooned and were now about to be rescued. Such shouts of joy and hugs and lifting-out of luggage and large containers of the food Captain Fuller had fetched and, of course, the leather mail pouch.

Frances was helped out by Jane, who treated her like Venetian glass, for Frances did look awfully tall and frail these days, laughing as she nearly stumbled when she stepped down off
West Wind
.

“I'm here!” she said, holding fast to Jane's supporting hand. “How wonderful!”

Erika was already carrying her bag up, waving off help with a characteristic nonchalance. “I can carry it perfectly well. It's the briefcase that is heavy.”

“It will all fit in the wheelbarrow, won't it, Captain Fuller?” And once on land, it did, so they all walked up slowly, without impediments, while Captain Fuller followed, taking his time. Frances was a little out of breath after climbing the porch stairs.

“Come and sit on the porch for a minute,” Jane suggested. “It will take a minute for Captain Fuller to get your things stowed away.”

“Erika is going to do nothing but work,” Frances said, “and I am going to do nothing but sleep and read.”

“I do have a horrible load of papers,” Erika said, “but I intend to have some swims, willy-nilly.”

“Splendid! I told the Speedwell boys we'd be down at noon. The water will still be rather cold, I'm afraid. But do let's go!”

“I think I'll just settle in,” Frances decided. “It's so lovely to be here.…”

“Maybe a glass of sherry and a biscuit before you go up?”

“That would be welcome.”

Was Jane herself aware of some almost imperceptable changes in the customs of the island? No liquor had been served in her parents' day. Now there was always a bottle of sherry to be produced on special occasions, and most of the older guests, like Frances Thompson, brought bottles of Scotch or Bourbon in their luggage.