Fog Magic (7 page)

“And the man o' war? Hadn't anybody else seen her?”

“That man o' war, or whatever she was, didn't aim to be seen, Greta. She put in for one purpose and then she vanished.”

Greta was silent for a minute, thinking.

“What do you believe about him yourself?” she asked.

“I don't know, child. In my day I've believed one thing after another. But no theory holds water. Except,” she paused for a minute and then went on slowly, “I can never believe that Anthony is simple. There's a brain and intelligence at work behind those fine eyes. I've always believed he could hear, too, but Retha's father laughs at me. No, Anthony's helpless but he's not hopeless. And he's looking for someone, I'll be bound. Whether it's a friend or a foe, I don't presume to guess. You've noticed how he looks at every stranger? Well, some day I'm hoping that Anthony finds the face he is looking for.”

“Mother! You mean someone who's
wronged
him? So he could take a last revenge?” Quiet Retha was all excitement.

“Well,” her mother answered, “I've never seen a caged eagle, but from descriptions I've heard its eyes must look the way Anthony's have—once or twice in my memory. Revenge—and that sort of thing—is romantic, Retha. What I'd like best would be to see Anthony's face soften just once when those piercing eyes of his fall on someone from home.” She smiled at their earnest faces. “I doubt it will ever happen,” she concluded.

“It's like a riddle, Mrs. Morrill.” Greta was almost in tears. “And every riddle has an answer. There's
got
to be an answer.”

“Of course, there's an answer, Greta,” Mrs. Morrill told her. “But that doesn't mean
we
need to know the answer. Maybe nobody in Blue Cove—or Little Valley, either—will ever know the answer to the mystery of Anthony. And maybe we'll all be just as well off as if we did.”

Greta looked at her quickly. The thought of Ann had come to them both at the same moment.

“Did—did the men find—Ann?” she whispered.

Mrs. Morrill didn't speak but she shook her head and there were tears in her eyes.

“Look,” she said quickly. “They must be through next door. There's the sailor out on the steps.”

They all stepped out to the gate. Father Amiraux stood in the doorway. He raised his hand for attention and everyone edged closer.

“My friends,” he said slowly in his tired, pleasant voice. “My friends, the language this sailor speaks is nothing that Anthony can understand.”

They made way for him to pass. Someone offered the sailor tobacco, and his teeth flashed in a wide smile. Everyone seemed more relieved than disappointed. They began to talk and laugh a little as they fell in around their visitors to see them aboard their boat.

8
.

SEPTEMBER and October are the golden months of the year in the province, the fishermen say. There was hardly a haze on the sea and the Tollerton foghorn was silent day after day. Greta wondered if she would get over the mountain again before spring. Even November was unusually clear.

“Do you think we'll have any more heavy fogs this season, Father?” she asked him one evening as he sat milking. She tried to make the question sound casual.

“I doubt it, Greta,” he said. “You'd best work hard at your school work if you are going to write your tenth year in June,” he added. Greta waited for him to say more. She knew he was just being “fatherly” and not thinking at all of the tenth year examinations she would have to take in another year. But he filled the pail to the brim and gave it to her to carry to the house before he spoke again. Then, finally, just as she turned away, he said, “There's disappointment over the mountain, little girl.” His half-smile and the feeling of understanding between them took away the sense of foreboding that lay in the words themselves. Greta smiled back but she could think of nothing to say.

The winter was a busy one. There was the musicale to practice for, the school play, the benefit entertainment in the Hall; there was Red Cross knitting to be done, and all sorts of war work. Blue Cove and the people there seemed to Greta like something she had read in a book. But spring came early. The ice broke up a month sooner than usual, the men said. And when she opened her eyes one morning to the first dense fog of the season, Greta knew in her heart that the story of Blue Cove might seem like a book she had read, but it was an unfinished book—a book put down unwillingly. The tingling excitement that came with the fog was as strong as ever within her.

A month went by before a Saturday afternoon and a fog came conveniently together.

“I'd hoped you'd outgrown that nonsense of going off alone in the fog,” her mother said, but she offered no real objection.

Greta wondered a little, as she sped along the familiar lane toward the fork, if an adventure like hers could have outlived the winter. Or had it been something so fragile that it would winterkill like other lovely, delicate things? It was an effort to look toward the spot where Old Man Himion's house would stand if all were well. But it was there—its sharp pointed gable rising unmistakably among the spruces. Blue Cove, too, would be waiting for her.

The Old Road was more washed out than ever after the spring rains. There were low places or spots crossed by streams where you had to jump from rock to rock. Road building in the early days must have been a gigantic task if it required such stones as these for a foundation. But once across the high pasture it was smoother going. Tollerton was silent here and the road was in good repair. The road commissioner might have finished only yesterday.

The village street looked the same as usual and Princess sat watching at the Morrills' gate. With her heart thumping Greta burst into the kitchen and flung herself into Mrs. Morrill's arms. It was as if she had just come home from a voyage, and there were long, long days of separation to be crushed out of existence. Mrs. Morrill was glad to see her but she seemed surprised, and Greta reminded herself that time meant nothing in Blue Cove.

“Why, Greta, you've been running,” Mrs. Morrill laughed. “Did you see a bear in the clearing? Ronnie and Edgar saw one a week ago near the Sentinel Rocks, and Guy saw one yesterday when he brought the mail down. But they never do you any harm.”

“I'm just glad to be here, that's all,” Greta told her. Mrs. Morrill smoothed back her hair with the quick stroke that Greta liked.

“I see,” was all she said but she looked at Greta closely. “You are growing up,” she added as if she had only just noticed it. “When will you be twelve?”

Greta was troubled. “In the fall,” she answered. “But why did you ask me—just that way, Mrs. Morrill? I mean—you didn't ask me how old I was—but when I'd be twelve.”

Mrs. Morrill dropped down into the Loyalist rocker and drew Greta to her. She did not try to explain what lay back in her own childhood that made her so sure Greta was under twelve.

“Don't you want to be twelve?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Greta said honestly. “I always think of my birthdays as a flight of stairs,” she went on a little shyly. “Up to twelve it's been fun to look up. But after twelve—the stairs turn. I can't see around the bend.”

“I know,” Mrs. Morrill said. “Not
now,
you can't. But when you get to that twelfth step you
will
be able to see ‘around the bend,' as you put it. Seeing ahead, or looking ahead—is something we do with our hearts—it takes nothing but time and courage. The one is given to us; the other we must provide.” It was never so much what Mrs. Morrill said as the quiet, understanding way in which she spoke that Greta found comforting. And now she let all vague dread of the dignity and importance of being twelve slip from her.

“That's right,” Mrs. Morrill smiled approvingly as she watched Greta's face brighten. “And now I have something to tell you. Princess has had some kittens since you were here,” she said. “I'd like you to have one when they are older. They haven't got their eyes open yet but you can see them next time you come.”

“Oh, I'd
love
a kitten—specially one of Princess's!” Greta was delighted until a thought came to her. “Could I—could I keep it—do you think?” she asked. The same thought must have crossed Mrs. Morrill's mind, too, because she said “Oh” and then hesitated. “Well, we'll think about it,” she added. “But you had better run along now to find Retha. She's down at the shore. Something must have happened down there, I guess. I heard Burton and Kelsey calling her to come a while back.”

Down on the beach it was very quiet. Greta passed two ox teams left standing in the middle of the road; the smith had left his forge and the store was empty. She ran out onto the wharf. Here they all were, gathered in groups or pacing slowly up and down—an unusually silent throng of men and children looking out to sea. She found Retha among them.

“Retha,” she whispered, “what's happened? Has there been an accident?”

“No,” Retha told her. “But, can you see? There's a big vessel standing off shore. And we don't know what she is.”

Greta could just make out a vague pattern of masts and spars where Retha was pointing. “Yes, I can see,” she said. “But why is everyone so—so kind of—solemn?”

“I don't know,” Retha whispered back. “It's funny, isn't it? But the men seem to think there's something strange about her. They've sent a dory out to see what she is. Old Mr. Morehouse has gone, and two others. They say she's too big to land at this wharf even if it were clear enough to get in.”

They settled down to wait for the dory. The men talked in low voices. The vessel off shore might have been a ghost ship for the spell it cast. No one seemed to know why, but they waited on the wharf as shrouded in foreboding as they were in fog. When a gull mewed overhead they stirred nervously, and when their ears caught the creaking of oars, everyone surged to the edge to look over. The elder men gathered at the top of the iron ladder. Mr. Morehouse came up first and the rest of the dory's crew followed him onto the wharf. They stood in a close group and spoke together. One or two others were summoned, and the talking continued. Something at last seemed decided, and old Mr. Morehouse stepped out from among them as spokesman. He took off his cap before he began to speak and stood bareheaded before them.

“She's the
Emmeretta,
folks, Cap'n Cornwall's vessel,” he told them.

The
Emmeretta!
Why the
Emmeretta
was almost one of their own, sailing as she did out of Middle Harbour, not five miles up the shore. No mystery about
her
—except having Captain Ansel Cornwall anchor off shore here instead of going on home. They murmured among themselves and then were silent as Mr. Morehouse began to speak again.

“Mrs. Cornwall's in command of her,” he went on.

“Mrs.
Cornwall! Laleah Cornwall!” They couldn't believe it. She was no seafaring woman. This was her first voyage. She had gone as a bride from this very town on her honeymoon to the Far East. Even the children could remember the gay wedding not two years before. Captain Cornwall had at last won the bride that he had courted between voyages for twenty years.

To Greta the names “Cornwall” and “Laleah Cornwall” seemed familiar. Where had she heard them? There was no one of that name living in Little Valley. But she stopped wondering to listen to the people around her.

“But the Cap'n? Where's he?” voices asked.

“Cap'n Cornwall died aboard ship. He died in the roadstead of Bombay,” Mr. Morehouse continued slowly.

“But why's Laleah Cornwall bringing the vessel home? Where's the mate?” someone asked quickly.

“Young Eldridge, the mate, is my wife's cousin,” another added.

“There's been trouble aboard.” There was complete silence as the old man went on. “Cap'n Cornwall died in his own cabin. But he died of—of
yellow fever.
The mate wanted to bury him at sea as was right and proper. And then, I reckon, Laleah Cornwall went mad. You can understand how it'd be. She'd been married but a few months. Well, she got hold of the Cap'n's pistols and she threatened to kill every man in the crew if they didn't do her bidding. She swore she'd bring the Cap'n home for Christian burial in her family plot. There was no sense to it, of course, but she held the only firearms aboard. She meant what she said. And they knew it.

“Young Eldridge was between the devil and the deep sea—a crazed woman holding two guns on him and a crew well-nigh out of its wits with terror as long as the Cap'n's body was aboard. But he played a man's part, I'll say that for him, and he thought fast. He thought up a plan and he persuaded Laleah Cornwall to agree to it. Between them he and the ship's carpenter got the Cap'n sewed up in sailcloth; they lashed the body in the ship's longboat and they towed the Cap'n home. Young Eldridge says that Mrs. Cornwall never put her guns down until they were cleared for the open sea; and she kept vigil over that line for days for fear somebody'd cut the longboat loose. I guess after a time she must have let down a bit. She could see the crew was content—as long as there was a line between them and the longboat. It would have been a different story, though, if anybody else had been struck down with the fever. That would have started the panic all over again. She's quiet enough now,” he added. “She's a broken-hearted woman, and sort of dazed from all she's been through. But she's clear enough in her mind. And she wants to bury the Cap'n in her family's plot rather than where his folks lie. Ru pert, Burpee, and the rest of us here have agreed to let her. There's no danger now after the months the longboat's been tossing in the tropic sun. But we'll send someone down the shore to ask Dr. Ingraham for certain so the womenfolk won't fret about the children.”