Читать книгу Time Out Of Mind - Rachel Field - Страница 9

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For me, the launching must always stand for the beginning and the end of many things. For one, the long summer of close companionship with Nat and Rissa was over, and I must set out alone each morning early with my lunch and schoolbooks. Somehow I couldn't feel as easy with the boys and girls from Little Prospect as I had, not after taking on so many of the Fortune ways. I was always having to remember not to say this or that before Jake and the rest, or if I forgot, as I sometimes did, I must face their ready jeers. Looking back on it now through all these years, I wonder I managed as well as I did, not being gifted at play-acting.

Feeling ran high against Major Fortune in Little Prospect after the launching. I caught echoes of this from my school, mates. It was partly because of the accident, for though Cousin Sam Jordan didn't die as a result of it, he had suffered serious injury. In all fairness it must be said of the Major that he did all anyone could be expected to do for him. He had a doctor come from Boston to examine him, and I know that all through that winter and the next he continued to pay him wages. Still, Cousin Martha complained that Fortune's didn't care how many good men were sacrificed so long as one of their vessels got launched with plenty of hurrahs. Her complaints had more weight with the rest of Little Prospect because a captain from Boston had been chosen to take the "Rainbow" on her first voyage. There were at least three men in the neighborhood who were qualified for such command and who had expected to get it. It rankled the whole community that this had been given to an outsider.

"Little Prospect men knew enough to take Fortune ships out in his father's and grandfather's day," they complained in the village. "You didn't catch them sending off for any Boston or New Bedford skippers."

"And if Abe Morse is good enough for first mate, he's good enough to take command. Nathaniel Fortune needn't set himself up so."

"It don't look too good, Sam Jordan getting struck. Say what you want to, it's a bad sign for a first voyage and he'd better watch out."

So, though the work of fitting out the "Rainbow" was pushed forward, the old zest and spirit had gone out of the undertaking. I heard more than mother and George and Annie guessed. Young as I was, I put two and two together, and knew that the Fortune family had fallen out of favor. But this only made me the more stubborn in my devotion.

If the Major heard echoes of dissatisfaction he never let on by so much as a look. He picked his crew from up and down the coast according to his own judgment, and when the cargo of Maine spruce and pine planks was cut and ready at the Fortune sawmill, he had the "Rainbow" towed into Little Prospect where he might see to her final fitting and loading. Henry Willis and he and the Captain from Boston were in and out of the house all the time those days.

"He's horrid," Nat told me of the newcomer. "He bellows like Sawyer's bull, and he's always slapping me on the back and saying 'Hey, there, my hearty!'—"

"Yes," Rissa was in full agreement, "and he calls me 'Sissy'. His hands are too big and all covered with red hairs."

We children were united in our dislike of Captain Mac Murty. He was a huge, red haired man in the fifties, with a voice so used to quarter deck commands, that he could be heard all over Fortune's Folly when he came in for his meals and long conferences in the Major's study. We shrank from all encounters with him, though he tried to make jovial remarks to us and even presented Rissa with a piece of carved ivory he had carried for years in his pocket. Nat particularly resented him, and shrank away when he was near.

"I wish he'd hurry up and take the 'Rainbow' out of these parts." He told me after one of the Captain's efforts at friendliness. "I hate him."

But it was mid-October before the sailing day was set. The line storm had come late that year, and when it was past a kind of brief and beautiful second summer lingered along the coast. Birches and maples stayed yellow, and swamp and rock-maples were bright flares by any bit of water. In The Folly garden we gathered fierce last blooms of dahlias, zinnias and asters. Everywhere the smell of ripe apples mingled with sea-salt. We three played in the cornfield among the bunched stalks that looked like an Indian village with pumpkins between every wigwam. Only the crickets, shrilling more frantically from brown grass, were not deceived by this false trickery of warmth and royal color.

On one October Saturday the Major took us aboard the "Rainbow". It was the first time I had ever set foot upon a vessel and the height of her masts, so tremendous as we stood below and stared up at the yard arms through all the maze of rigging, was a wonder to me. So was the galley with its stove and pots and crockery, and the quarters for Captain and Mate, with those high bunks above the built-in drawers. Nat could not look long at the masts. It turned him dizzy to think of men climbing so high to reef sail in a strong blow. So we stayed longest hanging over the stern, watching the men who sat on swinging seats painting lines of color just above the letters of her name. The Major had taken a fancy to have a rainbow done there in a bright arch.

"It's a beauty," Nat said, "just like the one we saw over the Narrows last summer, do you remember?"

"Yes," I told him, "and it'll last lots longer in paint."

Even the Major had to laugh at that as he came by to take us back.

We were so happy together that afternoon. As I look back on it, there was a kind of frantic delight about our walk home through the woods from the old landing by the bridge, and when we stopped for another game of hide-and-seek among the corn stalks. We were like the fall crickets in our shrillness, and I hope they guessed as little as we did how shortly frost and other changes would come upon us. Nat was the liveliest of us three. It seems strange to think of that now.

The "Rainbow" was all set to sail on the following Wednesday morning. There was more bustle than ever in the village and Major Fortune on board most of the time. On Tuesday I went off to school as usual, and those two walked part way with me in the crisp morning freshness. Lessons had not yet begun for them and I felt low spirited as they turned back and I ran on to a long day at my desk. It was longer than ever as it turned out, for I made so many mistakes in fractions that the teacher kept me after school. Before I reached the last mile it was nearly five and a chill wind blowing up from sea. Fog had swallowed the sunset and the islands were faint beyond the Narrows. By looking over my shoulder I could make out the shape of the "Rainbow" riding at anchor near the harbor; her bows dark and pointing; her rigging thin as threads of spider web. But I gave little thought to it as I hurried on. Just where the road dipped into a wooded patch, I heard a cry and a figure rose from between the tree trunks to meet me.

"Rissa!" I cried, startled, for she had never come alone to meet me so far. Even before I reached her I could see she was all upset. Her red cape blew out half fastened and her hair streamed wildly on her shoulders. "You're crying," I said, "what's the matter?"

I knew it was Nat, even before she told me.

"Oh, Kate," she began to sob, her eyes running over and her clear, pale face all mottled with tears, "I've been waiting and waiting, I thought you'd never come. Something terrible's happened—"

She shook so she couldn't go on for a minute and we stood close together there, among dusty goldenrod and asters.

"Is it about Nat?"

She gulped and nodded.

"This morning," she managed to tell me between sobs, "after we came back. Father—he was talking to Captain Mac Murty, and then—he—he called Nat in to the study. I listened, and it was awful—"

"Did he take the whip to him again?"

"Lots worse than that. He's going to send him away—on the 'Rainbow' tomorrow."

I guess I must have looked more scared than she thought I would for she began to cry harder than before. I felt suddenly dull and queer inside my chest, the way I always did when the teacher called on me for things I didn't know how to answer. Then it spread all over me till I grew sick feeling and empty.

"He said he'd been planning it a long time, ever since he caught us at the piano," she went on. "He said it was the only way to make a man of him. Nat cried and I ran right in and cried, too, but it didn't do any good, not a bit."

"And it's tomorrow," I kept saying that over to myself.

It was growing dim at the edge of the woods as we stood there together. Rissa, with all her pride and corn-starch airs gone, was clinging to me with cold fingers. Our tears mingled in the dust at our feet. There was nothing I could do and she knew it, but we were very close in our despair.

"There's Henry Willis," I said, "maybe he could do something."

"He tried. He was up for dinner and he tried to talk father out of it. Nat and I listened, but it wasn't any use."

"Did Nat promise he'd never play anything again?"

"He promised everything he could think of, and I did too. Nothing's any use with father when he's made his mind up. You know it isn't, Kate."

"I know. Where's Nat now?"

"They took him down to the yard with them. They went hours ago and I got so I couldn't stay alone up there anymore waiting for you."

We hurried back through the fall twilight, talking in broken snatches, even making wild, impossible schemes for hiding Nat; for outwitting the Major before sailing time next day. But all the time we knew there would be no chance to carry them out. Nat was as lost to us as if the "Rainbow" was already past Old Horse Ledges and the outer islands. Neither of us could eat a mouthful of supper or heed anything mother and Annie said to us.

The dog-cart was not back yet and we took refuge, as we had often done before, in an old closet under the stairs. It was a favorite hiding spot, and smelled of leather and woolen garments, hanging from their pegs. It was somehow comforting to feel the familiar folds of capes and coats so close about us. Perhaps, we told each other as we listened for the thud of hoofs on the drive, there might be some way out. We even prayed, separately and together, but as Rissa pointed out, she had been praying ever since morning without any effect. The clock in the east parlor struck seven and eight and then half past, before we heard wheels. Our tears and long stay in the dark closet made us blink as we came out into the hall. It took a minute to see things right.

"Nat!" Rissa ran to him with a quick cry that ended in a fresh burst of tears.

But I couldn't move or speak. I just stood there staring to see the change one afternoon had made in him. He wasn't the same Nat who had walked down the road with me that morning. There he stood, fitted out in long, dark trousers much too big for him. A rough pea-jacket was buttoned up to his chin, and a round cap was clutched in one hand. His waving mane of dark hair was gone, clipped sailor-fashion so close to his head he looked like a skinned rabbit. His eyes had the scared, half-glazed look of a rabbit, too, as he shrank, shorn and spindling, between his father and Captain Mac Murty.

"Well, no wonder you're surprised!" the Captain let out a tremendous laugh, seeing our two faces. "Wouldn't know him for the same boy, would you?"

I could see Nat's chin begin to shake and his teeth catch his underlip in the way I knew so well. But I couldn't move from my place by the closet door or fling myself sobbing upon him as Rissa was doing.

"Come, Rissa, none of that!" The Major spoke to her with unaccustomed sharpness.

Nat stiffened and drew away from her, frowning in a last fierce effort not to cry. His eyes reached out to me across the hall. He must have seen the horrified pity in mine, for suddenly he flung his arm across his face and stumbled past us up the stairs.

I had no chance to see, much less to speak to him next morning. Rissa walked with me as far as the gate, but neither of us said a word till we reached the road.

"Father says he doesn't trust me to go down and see them off," she said at last.

"I guess it don't matter now," I told her, shifting my lunch and books.

"No," she agreed, and then her eyes darkened harshly as I had never seen them do before. "If we were older we could do something," she went on, her hands pressed tight together. "Father needn't think I'll ever forgive him for being so mean to Nat, for I won't."

I was almost frightened by her look and voice. Neither of us could cry anymore, all our tears were spent. So at last I turned away.

"Do you want me to tell Nat good-bye for you?" She asked me.

"Yes," I said, "you tell him."

I went on by myself, but when I reached the other side of the wooden bridge, something made me look back. A flash of something white showed at the upper hall window. It moved in the strong October sunshine. I reached in my pocket for my own handkerchief and waved back till my arm ached clear to the socket. Then I had to run every step of the way to the schoolhouse. All that morning I sat with a book propped open on my desk, but my eyes stared straight ahead of me. I saw and heard nothing, and for once the teacher spared me any questions.

"Come on down to the point and see the 'Rainbow' clear the Narrows," Jake urged me as soon as we streamed into the yard for recess.

But I shook my head and waited till they were all gone off in that direction. My head ached dully and my feet felt like clods as I went off by myself to an old pasture higher up. It was thick with juniper, and blueberry leaves were blood-red underfoot. I remember that I stooped and picked a sprig of wintergreen to chew as I went. It seemed queer that I could still taste it, yet I could. I was even hungry for the lunch in my pail, and when the bread and butter and cookies and apple were gone, I climbed higher still and sat down on a great gray outcrop of boulder, warm in the noon sun. It had burned off the fog of early morning and the sea was blue beyond the wooded points of headland. And then I saw the long, lovely shape of the "Rainbow" going out to sea, with all her new sails spread in the sun. Yesterday it had seemed to fill the nearer waters; now it looked small as its own model the Major kept on his desk. Gulls followed like a whirling fall of snow-flakes at the stern. I can see it yet as clearly as if it had been scratched with a pen point on the surface of my eleven year old mind.

I had no tears or feelings left as I watched it head out between the islands. But I knew in the sudden, sure way that children do, that nothing would ever be the same again for the three of us.