by Peters, Sue
She was glad she had thought of it when Julian did not appear at lunch time, and she turned down the light under the hotpot so that it could go on cooking until Dan and Lance put in an appearance. It did not matter if the meal was eaten at one o’clock or three, she did not intend to disturb them.
`Tell me what happened last night, Sis? It’s something awful, isn’t it?’ Together she and Chris went out to feed the seabirds in the cages, so that Dan should not have to worry about them when he woke. She bent down and scratched the guillemot’s neck, talking to the bird rather than to her brother, compassionately turning her back on a ten-year-old boy who was desperately trying to behave like a man.
`It was the Sea Swallow …’ She told him all she knew.
`We can best help by doing the chores here, and keeping out of the way,’ she finished quietly. ‘They won’t want strangers at a time like this. You know how it is?’ Chris knew, and so did she. And somehow, during the black days that followed, she coped with running the household for Hannah; supplied meals that were hot and appetising, despite the erratic coming and going of the three men, and now the funeral was over, and Roddy was to be released from hospital within twenty-four hours, Hannah would return on the morrow. And she herself, Jo realised with weary relief, felt tired out, not only from the physical work, but from the nervous strain. She and Dan had not been able to talk, after all. There had been no opportunity for a word alone together, the whole of the week, it seemed, someone or other was there discussing ‘the arrangements’, as they tactfully put it. Dan and Lance were pallbearers, and out of respect for their feelings Jo put her own to one side for the time being. And now, tomorrow, Hannah would be back and the house would take up its normal routine again. Next week Chris had to travel back to school, and she herself would have to come to a decision.
It seemed a lifetime since they came to stay at Penderick House. The daffodils on the lawns outside told her how the weeks had fled, their shrunken brown heads blew where the once bright blooms had been. Soon the wild pink thrift would carpet the cliffs, from where muffled thuds told her the Council men were heeding Dan’s advice and were busy putting a fence round the daffodil field. She would have to start making the bracelet for Melanie. Chris wanted to give it to her as a going-away present. It would be a special one, she decided. Amos had given her those stones … She filled a jug with water at the sink, and gave Hannah’s potted plants a drink.
`Quite the little housewife, aren’t you?’ She jumped and spun round, spilling some of the water, and Tessa laughed.
`I suppose you thought it was a good opportunity to get your foot in here.’ Her suggestion was as unpleasant as it was uncalled-for, and Jo stared at her in silence. The last thing she wanted was a scene with Tessa. There had been trouble enough in the house during the last days, without encouraging more.
`You can’t say anything, because it’s true.’ Tessa misunderstood her silence, and went on vindictively, ‘After the way Dan tried to keep you out of the cottage, I’d have thought you’d be only too glad to go.’
`Whatever reason Dan had for reserving the cottage, I’m sure it wasn’t to keep me from settling in the district, like you said.’ Jo found her voice, and by a great effort of will kept it even. It would be unseemly to shout, now.
`Tell me what other reason there can be,’ Tessa sneered. `You can’t!’ Her whole bearing challenged Jo to find one.
`I can.’ A stern voice from behind them spun both the girls round, and Jo’s heart lifted as Dan appeared through the door from the hall. She did not care what Dan’s reason might have been, only for the warm, secure feeling that had borne her through the last dreadful week, and sustained her still in the face of Tessa’s malice. She and Dan would talk, later. Meantime …
`I can tell you the real reason. The only reason.’ Dan’s voice, too, was quiet, and he did not look at Jo, but directly—angrily—at Tessa. ‘I reserved that cottage, not to prevent Jo from settling in the district, as you tried to make her think,’ he had heard the two girls talking, and his opinion of their visitor was clear on his face. ‘I reserved it to try and keep her here—at Penderick House.’ He emphasised his meaning.
An early nesting blackbird carolled in the garden outside, and Jo’s heart sang with him. It was doubtful if either of her companions heard the song. She stole a glance at Dan’s face. It was grim and set. Tessa’s had gone white with
anger. And now, briefly, Dan’s eyes sought Jo’s. They held the same look of entreaty that had filled them the night of the S.O.S.
`I wanted you to have time to think—to understand—what marriage to a seaman could mean,’ he said humbly, his eyes asking her the question that she dreaded, and for the moment could not answer. He had faith in her strength. It was she who did not have faith in herself.
`If she’s got any sense she’ll think twice,’ Tessa spat out furiously. ‘A girl wants to be married for keeps, not to have a few years and then spend the rest of her life as a seaman’s widow, like Hannah, bringing up other people’s children, in someone else’s house. It was Hannah I came to see, anyway,’ she added, with an attempt at offhandedness that for the moment made Jo feel almost sorry for her.
`Hannah won’t be home until tomorrow.’ Unconsciously Jo called it ‘home’.
`What did you want with Hannah?’ Dan’s voice was curt.
`I’ve brought the usual flowers for the house, of course.’
`From now on, we won’t need them,’ he answered her
abruptly.
`But what about my fish?’ Tessa looked staggered as the meaning of his words sank in.
`You’ll have to get it from the butcher’s, the same as the other folk in the village do.’ The butcher in St Mendoc sold both meat and fish, the community was too small to support separate shops, and the men from the trawlers took home their own.
`Forget what Tessa said,’ Jo urged later, after the girl had gone. She eased her fingers in the handle of the wicker crate that contained Flippers the guillemot and a number of the other seabirds that were capable now of fending for themselves again, and walked beside Dan along the path towards the end of Penderick Head. She could hear the guillemot’s indignant Unk ! at thus being confined.
`It won’t be long now,’ she sent her voice through the wickerwork to comfort him. ‘We’re nearly there.’ Her feet lagged at the thought. From the end of the Head they would be in full view of the Claw Rocks.
`Couldn’t you set the birds free from the beach?’ How could Dan bear it? she wondered.
`The birds have a better take-off point from the end of the Head,’ he responded. ‘If you’d rather not come …?’ He gave her the opportunity to remain behind.
`I’ll come with you.’ She could not let him go alone, though she did not want to look when they reached the end of the headland, and the stark, pointed spears of rock came plain into view.
`I thought Ned said the Sea Swallow would float off with the tide, and sink?’ Surprise conquered her aversion, and she stared uncomprehending at the familiar lines of the trawler, tilted now at a wild angle between two upthrusts of rock, and two more boats, seemingly unharmed, afloat hard by. ‘Not two more?’ she whispered, horror-struck. Dan had told her it was just the Sea Swallow that had foundered.
`No, they’re working to salvage the Sea Swallow,’ he reassured her quickly.
But what if they foul the rocks, too?’ How could he let them risk it?
`There’s no danger from the Claw if a boat is under power,’ he explained patiently. ‘The water’s deep there, and they can get close in. It’s only if a boat drifts out of control that the current can take it. That’s what the Sea Swallow did …’ His face took on grim lines, then cleared, as if with a supreme effort. ‘Come, let’s loose these birds, before they eat their way out of the basket.’ A chorus of impatience drew their attention to their burden, and he lowered the basket on to the sparse turf. ‘They’ve been fed, so they’ve got nothing to draw them back ashore.’
`Won�
�t they come back when they get hungry?’ Jo gave a yearning look at the guillemot.
‘No, when they need to feed again, their natural habits will reassert themselves. Within an hour or two they’ll forget they’ve ever been ashore.’ He threw up the lid and held the basket slightly tilted to one side. ‘Stand clear,’ he advised her. ‘When they make up their minds, they’ll go off in a rush.’
`They don’t seem in any hurry.’
`They’re only taking stock,’ he assured her. ‘Wild things don’t do anything in a hurry unless they’re afraid, and they’ve learned not to fear us because we’ve fed them.’
`There goes the gull !’ With a peculiar, harsh cry a big blackheaded gull took to its wings. With a wide sweep it soared for a second over the cliff, banked steeply in an air current, and with a wild, laughing chatter it was gone. As if the call had been a signal, the other birds tumbled from the basket, and took to their wings. The guillemot was the last to go. Unable to resist the impulse, Jo reached out to scratch its neck for the last time, but with a quick twist it evaded her hand, and followed the others out over the water.
`Be glad that they’re free.’ Dan pulled her to him, sensing her need, and with his arm around her she felt happier as they stood and watched their erstwhile charges vanish in different directions as the whim took them.
`I am, but …’
`It’s best for them,’ Dan insisted. ‘They’ve got their own lives to lead, just the same as we have.’
`Dan, don’t heed what Tessa said.’ Quickly she turned to face him, her own bleak moment forgotten at the flat, weary sound in his voice. ‘She was only being cruel.’ She pressed her hands against his shoulders, willing him away from the darkness of the past week.
`The truth is often cruel,’ he tightened his grip on her
and drew her slight form to him. ‘What Tessa said was true, Jo. There’s always the risk … Those trawlers down there—they’re not making a film. They’re real. Last week was real …’
`I love you.’ The words were drawn out of her, and she did not wish them back.
`And I love you. How I love you!’ His admission was almost a groan, and she pressed soft palms against his lips, as if by her touch she could still the pain of the sound. ‘But you must be sure, Jo. It isn’t easy for the women. You’ve seen—you know ‘ He caught her hands in his and pressed his lips against her fingers, crushing them in a grip that the force of his feelings made stronger than he realised. She winced at the pain of it, but refused to draw away, grasping the sweet agony of the moment to still the conflict in her heart. If she married Dan, she would have to be strong, for them both.
`I’d leave the sea, if it would make you happier …’ He declared the depths of his love by offering to sacrifice that which was life to him.
`No, not that.’ Jo shook her head. That was not the way. Better by far to leave him, as Hannah said, than destroy his life.
`Dan! Cooee !’ Running footsteps pounded towards them, and skidded to a halt in the shape of Chris, panting from his run. ‘Lance says will you come?’ He gulped a lungful of much needed air, and went on excitedly, ‘There’s a marine Sir something or other come to see you. He said it was about the Gull.’
`He’s a marine surveyor, not a knight of the realm,’ Dan laughed, and the tension between them was broken. ‘I’d forgotten about him. And Lance had too, I reckon.’
`Is something wrong with the Gull?’ Don’t let anything else go wrong this week, Jo begged silently.
`No, the marine surveyors attend the trials of a new
vessel. We made the appointment to see him a couple of weeks back.’
`You go on and see him, Chris and I’ll bring the basket back,’ she offered.
`There’s no need, Lance followed me.’ Chris pointed back towards the house, where a tall, balding man who did not look in the least nautical walked beside Lance towards them.
`Hello, Mr Chataway.’ Dan shook hands in a friendly fashion with the newcomer, and apologised ruefully. ‘Sorry I was out, I’m afraid it slipped my mind we’d asked you to call.’
`It’s understandable in the circumstances.’ A pair of kindly grey eyes smiled a greeting at Jo, and she went pink, not sure what he meant by ‘the circumstances’. No doubt he meant the trauma of the week just gone, but there was a twinkle hidden in his look that might have meant something else.
`You really don’t need to see me about the Gull.’ Dan spoke again and diverted his attention. ‘The boat has been built for Lance here. He’ll be the owner and the master. It’ll be Lance who’ll take her on her maiden voyage, and attend to her trials.’ He looked directly across at Lance, watched incredulity dawn, and astounded disbelief.
`Dan, you can’t mean … a brand new trawler … I thought she’d be yours?’
‘I told you, the Kittiwake is my boat,’ Dan retorted. ‘I had her from new, the same as you’ll have the Gull. It’s good for a boat to know only one master, it makes her—sort of—special,’ he admitted.
`Yippee !’ Lance let out a whoop and grabbed Chris. He swung the boy off his feet in an excess of exuberance, and Jo smiled. His unrestrained joy did not seem amiss, even with the Sea Swallow caught on the rocks below. Amos would understand.
`You’ll launch her, won’t you, Jo? I asked you before, but I didn’t know she was mine, then.’
`Yes, I’ll launch her for you. But it’ll have to be with real champagne, mind.’
`I’ll see to it,’ he promised with a delighted grin, and he was as good as his word.
Jo felt a flash of pride as she surveyed the Gull a couple of weeks later, resplendent in new paint, and waiting like a leashed hound, impatient to be gone from the slips to her own true element. She was not a big, important liner. Just a small trawler, off to begin her trials that would confirm her fitness to join the others in the fleet, but Jo felt deeply involved in a way that she would not have believed possible a short time ago. She had seen the vessel built, almost from the start, and watched it grow. For the first time she really understood Dan’s love for the Kittiwake. Understood, and shared it.
There was no civic dignitary in the crowd who watched, just the folk of St Mendoc, and Jo did not feel at all shy. She was one of them now. She had shared their sorrow, and now she shared their joy.
`Will you come with me?’ Lance generously asked Dan to share the first trip.
`No, I’ll stay with Jo, and see your boat’s properly launched.’ As generously Dan refused. ‘Take Chris if you like, it’ll be his last chance of a run in her before school tomorrow. We’ll come another day—as passengers,’ he smiled
`I’ll crew with Roddy,’ the boy said promptly. Lance had signed Roddy on as crew, encouraging the boy’s wish to go straight back to sea the moment his injuries had healed, and Jo could see Hannah’s point when she said, ‘Let the lad go, the sea’s his life too.’ A few weeks ago she would not have shared the housekeeper’s view. Now—she understood.
Will it break first time, do you think?’ she whispered her panic to Dan as he stood beside her, and she held the bottle of champagne attached to a long cord.
`Swing it hard,’ he urged. ‘It’s extra good luck if it breaks clean.’ She looked up at him swiftly, but now was not the time to tease about being superstitious. They could all do with a bit of extra luck.
`Swing it with me, then, to make sure.’
His hands closed round hers on the glass neck lending his strength to her own as the bottle flew.
`I name this boat the Gull. May God bless her, and all who sail in her.’ Her voice rang clear and strong on the familiar words. It was the voice of a person who was completely sure of herself, and the man who stood with his one hand on her shoulder, warmly close. It was the voice of someone who had come to a decision, and knew it to be the right one.
The bottle exploded in frothy rivulets, and the Gull started to slip slowly away from them. It gathered momentum, and rushed towards the water with an eagerness that made it seem alive. No doubt it seemed s
o to Lance.
Slowly the crowd broke up into small chattering knots of people and began to disperse, and Jo and Dan were alone.
`Let’s walk home along the creek path.’ That was where she had first met Dan. It seemed fitting that he should hear what she had to say now, in the same spot.
`It was a good launching.’
They left the beach, with its crumbled debris of what was once the cottage garden. Jo spared it hardly a glance, it was not important now. A heron rose on slow flapping wings from further along the creek, disturbed by their unexpected appearance, and she suddenly chuckled, thinking of the other heron, and her first meeting with Dan.
`It’s not my fault he’s flown away this time,’ she turned
laughing eyes to her companion. ‘You’ve disturbed him as much as I have.’
`Don’t laugh at me, you little witch !’ He reached out for her playfully, and she turned to run, but he caught her up and held her by her hands, preventing her escape. With strong but gentle fingers he held her at arm’s length, looking at her with blue eyes that were dark now with longing which he refused to voice. He had given her time to think over what he said, and staunchly he kept to his part of the bargain.
`You broke that champagne bottle over the Gull as to the manner born.’ His voice was deliberately light, teasing her.
`I wish Amos could have been there.’ She caught her breath on a sharp sigh.
`Don’t grieve for Amos, Jo.’ Serious now, he pulled her closer, but still he did not take her in his arms. ‘He went the way he would have wanted to remember. At sea, and on his own ship. Amos has reached his harbour,’ he said gently.
`And I’ve reached mine.’ Sure of her way at last, she homed to his arms, that opened to receive her, and closed about her, like the arms of the harbour, safe and warm and strong. She raised her lips to his, sweetly offering him the answer he longed for, and he bent his head above her, folding her close to him in a way that said he would never let her go.
