Free The Wind and the Spray by Joyce Dingwell Page A

there’s more time?”
    “What’s wrong? Scared?”
    “Yes.” She said it quite honestly. She was scared.
    He laughed. “You’ll be all right, child. Remember how you were looked after on the Leeward .” As though she could ever forget. “Besides—”
    “Yes?”
    “The Clytie is much bigger, so she rides better.” His eyes flickered authoritatively at her. “We’ll take off at five a.m.”
    Without any more argument on the matter he turned her round and impelled her down to the house.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    DURING the meal Laurel babbled about her trip tomorrow. She spoke lightly, hoping her voice did not falter as she felt sure her courage already had.
    Peter told her eagerly ... almost anxiously ... that it was going to be good weather, perfect chasing weather.
    She gave him a covert look. There was something secret about him. What had she thought before of him? ... Something up his sleeve. That was it. Peter was rather transparent, really. He could not entirely hide things. There was something there now.
    His innocent smile denied this, nonetheless Laurel felt oddly dubious. Surely Nor, sharp, discerning, incisive Nor, must see it too. But Nor Larsen had other things on his mind. He even nodded absentmindedly when Meredith told him lengthily about her doll-baby’s malady.
    “Lumps, it is, Nor.”
    “Mumps.” That was Jill, of course.
    “ Lumps, but no old Island doctor is going to look at my child, she’s going to Sydney Town to see a special. That’s what a very good doctor is called, Nor, a special. ”
    “Is it now?” yawned Nor.
    Peter drew Meredith’s attention to something else. He did it too hastily, Laurel thought.
    During the afternoon she experienced the same unease.
    Peter did not leave the children for a moment. When Laurel suggested taking them for a walk, he came too.
    He said, a little awkwardly, “Laurel, you’re a good sport, I don’t want you to think—”
    “Yes Peter?”
    “Well, Nathalie and I appreciate you tremendously. It’s just that in a thing like this—”
    “A thing like what?”
    “Daddy,” said Jill, “did you pack my shells?”
    “And doll-baby’s feeding bottle?” Meredith asked.
    “Last one back to the house is a duffer,” Peter said a little desperately, and he started racing off. The children raced too. Only Laurel walked home.
    Something up his sleeve, something kept ticking. As she went down the hall she saw a bag on Peter’s bed and some sleeves of folded clothes hanging out of it. Children’s clothes. Jill’s and Meredith’s little things.
    What am I to do? Laurel thought. She considered it the rest of the afternoon.
    At dinner Nor teased her over her preoccupation and said she was working herself up even before the chase began.
    “Either that or you have a guilty conscience,” he accused.
    For the briefest of moments Laurel caught Peter’s eye. There was no secrecy now, there was open, desperate appeal. She could not turn away from that appeal. After all, she thought, I actually know nothing, and even if I did know, it still is not my business. It’s not my right to go to Nor Larsen and say, “I have reason to suspect that Peter is planning something, and I want to report it to you.”
    Her eyes flickered back at Peter, and almost visibly he relaxed.
    She was awakened at four the next morning.
    “Hurry up,” Nor ordered, “the bacon and eggs are on.”
    She climbed into the clothes she had put out ready. Proofed pants in as small a size as Nor could borrow, windcheater, rubber boots. She came into the lighted kitchen, carrying her sou’wester in her hand.
    “I don’t want bacon and eggs.”
    “You’re having them.”
    “I never eat breakfast, and I certainly wouldn’t before a trip like this.”
    “ You certainly would. Probably that’s why you were sick last time. Nothing under your belt. Sit down and get this into you and be quiet.”
    There was no getting out of it, no sneaking it away while his back was turned. She had