The Dawning of the Day by Elisabeth Ogilvie

Author:Elisabeth Ogilvie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781608933341
Publisher: Down East Books

CHAPTER 29

She was working in her room that night when Foss and Helen Campion came to call. With her register shut and her radio on, their conversation was a blur, but sometimes Helen’s voice pierced through.

Philippa had not met Helen or Foss face to face since the incident in the schoolroom. She had been disturbed by it, but there was no reason to suppose Mrs. Campion, once she had had her say, held a grudge. When her schoolwork was done, Philippa brushed her hair and put on fresh lipstick, and went downstairs.

The silence began in the kitchen as she started down the stairs. When she reached the doorway, Suze Campion was already manifesting the wan confusion Philippa had seen so often; she was hovering aimlessly around the stove, whisking off nonexistent crumbs with the turkey wing and trying to make the teakettle handle stand up straight. Helen Campion sat erect in her chair. She stared before her; her face had become very red. The men, in the captain’s chairs drawn up to the stove, glanced around at Philippa. Asanath nodded.

“Shut up shop for the night, have ye?”

“Yes, and I thought I was just in time for a mug-up, but I guessed wrong.” Asanath did her the favor of smiling. But Foss, who had never spoken to her without the caress in his voice that showed his affectionate toleration of all women, looked right past her. The intention was as tangible as a slap, and she felt a physical reaction she had not felt when Helen came to the schoolroom.

Foss pushed back his chair and stood up. “Time we were pushing off.”

“Don’t be in such a pucker to get under the kelp, boy,” said Asanath. “It’ll be no day to haul tomorrow. Full moon, flood tide, and easterly. That’s what it’ll be.”

“Just the same, Asanath,” Helen said portentously, “we shouldn’t have come out tonight. Peggy’s so nervous lately. I’m thinking we’ll have to take her to the doctor.”

“If she starts developing headaches,” Foss said grimly, “there’ll be some actions around here, I can tell you that.”

“Oh, dear,” Suze murmured. The teakettle handle fell down with a small crash. Asanath, sighing, pushed himself up out of his chair and went to the door behind them. Suze gave Philippa a distracted glance and followed.

It was time that she talked with Asanath, Philippa thought. She sat down in the chair Foss had left, trying to ignore the murmur out in the entry. Once Helen’s voice rose shrilly, “I haven’t forgotten it, Asa Campion, and I won’t! If your Terence was school age—and Vi said—” The squeal dropped all at once, as if Foss had prodded her. What had Vi to say, Philippa thought cynically. No one had bothered Ellie.

When Suze and Asanath came back, she said to him, “I didn’t tell you what happened in school the other day, did I?”

He propped his foot on the stove hearth and sucked on a cold pipe. “No, you didn’t,” he drawled. “No more’n you told me you’d fetched the Webster young ones into the fold.

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