More to regain her confidence than to get information she asked him, “Why didn’t you take the boat?”
“What?” He looked at her quickly and just as quickly looked away.
“You said you were waiting to get to Dominique. The Seabird is docked. If you’ve been to sea, you could have managed the boat.”
He stared at his plate and said nothing.
“Boats are highly visible, dear,” Valerian said to Jadine, “and call a great deal of attention to themselves.” He smiled at the man and went on. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”
“That makes us even,” said the man with a wide smile. “I don’t know yours either.”
And they still didn’t, but Valerian instructed him to be put up in the guest room anyway. And Sydney’s jawbones were still working back and forth the next morning as he told his wife and niece about putting silk pajamas out for him. Jadine laughed and said he would slide out of bed in them, but Sydney couldn’t see any humor in that, and Ondine was too concerned about her husband to join the pretty careless girl in laughter.
ONDINE picked up an onion and pressed it for soft spots. Things went back to their natural state so quickly in that place. A layer of slippery skin gave way beneath her thumb, but the onion was firm underneath. At that moment, Yardman scratched the screen door and when Ondine turned to look she saw his bloody shirt first and then his foolish smile.
“Leave it.” She turned back to her table and tossed the words over her shoulder. “Put some newspaper down out there.”
He broadened his smile and nodded vigorously, but Ondine did not see that; she assumed it and, as an afterthought lest he think she had no manners at all, she said, “Thanks.” She put down the onion and turned one eye of the gas range up high. In fact, the “thanks” was sincere for she felt guilty about letting him do what was once a marked skill of her own.
Can’t do it anymore, she thought. Have to chase around too much. She didn’t like asking Yardman to do it for her, but her feet were too tender and her ankles too swollen to manage, so when he brought four or five young hens tied in a crate, she told him she needed only one at a time—let the others pick around behind the washhouse and to “wring one of them for me while you’re at it.”
“Yes, madame,” he said as he always said.
“Are they young? Tender?” she had asked him.
“Yes, madame.”
“Don’t look it. Look like brooders.”
“No, madame. Pullet every one.”
“We’ll see,” she answered him. “Mind how you go. I don’t want to be scrubbing up blood all afternoon.” But he was bloody anyway so she said, “Leave it,” to let him know that he had killed it wrong and also to remind him that she did not want him in her kitchen. And there it was on the newspaper and wouldn’t you know he had not plucked one single feather, heavenly Father? That’ll take me forever.
She lifted her head to call him back, come right back here, she was going to say, but suddenly she was too tired. Too tired to fuss, too tired to even have to confront him with his sloppiness. She sighed, picked up the chicken and brought it into the kitchen.
She hoisted a large pot of water onto the burning eye and wondered what he did with the head and feet. When the water was hot enough she dropped the chicken in and held it down with a wooden ladle long enough to loosen the pins. Then she removed it from the hot water and with newspaper spread out, started to pluck. She was still nimble at it but slower than she would have been if she wasn’t being careful about where the feathers went. A big nuisance to have to do it herself; it was going to make Sydney’s lunch late, but she didn’t feel up to seeing Yardman again, or giving him an order angrily, firmly or even sweetly. Yesterday everything was all right. The best it could be and exactly the way she had hoped it would be: a good man whom she trusted; a good and permanent job doing what she was good at for a boss who appreciated it; beautiful surroundings which included her own territory where she alone governed; and now with Jadine back, a “child” whom she could enjoy, indulge, protect and, since this “child” was a niece it was without the stress of a mother-daughter relationship. She was uneasy about the temporary nature of their stay on the island and Margaret’s visits always annoyed her—but it was being there that made Jade want to stay with them for a longish spell. Otherwise their niece would light anywhere except back in Philadelphia. She hoped Mr. Street would stay on in spite of his addled wife. Now here come this man upstairs in the guest room. Maybe Jadine was right, she thought, he would be gone today or, certainly, the next and they were making too much of it. Ondine stopped plucking and lifted her eyes slowly to the place where the window shutters did not quite close. A bit of the sky was unhidden by foliage. She thought she heard a small, smooth sound, like a well-oiled gear shifting. Not a sound really—more of an imagined impression, as though she were a dust mote watching an eye blink. There would be the hurricane wind of eyelashes falling through the air and the weighty crash of lid on lid.
Slowly she returned to the white hen in her hands. She was down to the pinfeathers when Sydney walked in with a small basket of mail.
“Already?” she asked him.
“No. I just thought I’d finish it up in here.”
“It’ll be at least an hour. Maybe two.”
“What are you doing that for?” He pointed at the pile of feathers on the floor.
“That’s the way I got it.”
“Call him. You want me to call him back here?”
“No. I’m just about finished now.”
“He knows better than that. Where is he?” Sydney moved toward the door.
“Sit down, Sydney. Don’t bother yourself.”
“I’m already bothered. I can’t run a house like this with everybody doing whatever comes to mind.”
“Sit down, I say. Hen’s done.”
He sat at the table and began sorting letters, circulars, magazines, and putting them into piles.
“Maybe we should look for somebody else. I’ll speak to Mr. Street.”
“It’s not worth the trouble, Sydney. Unless you can guarantee the next one won’t be worse. On balance, he’s still reliable and he does keep the place up, you got to give him his due.”
“You don’t sound like yourself, Ondine.” He looked at her heavy white braids sitting on her head like a royal diadem.
“Oh, I’m fine, I guess,” but her voice was flat, like a wide river without any undertow at all.
“I never heard you stand up for Yardman when he does something contrary to what you tell him.”
“I’m not standing up for him. I just think he’s a whole lot better than nobody and a little bit better than most.”
“You the one doing the plucking. I’m trying to make it easier for you—not me.”
“He is easier for me. I was just thinking how I used to be able to get my own yard hens. Not no more. If they tear loose from me, they free. I can’t chase em anymore. I don’t even know if I got the strength to wring their necks.”
“Well, what you don’t have the strength for, Yardman is supposed to do. I don’t want you running all over the yard after chickens. Killing them neither. We long past that, Ondine. Long past that.” He rested his hands on a letter for a minute as he recollected the bloody, long-legged girl in the back of Televettie Poultry sitting with three grown women, ankle deep in feathers among the squawks of crated fowl. At their feet two troughs of dead birds, one for the feathered ones, one for the newly plucked.
“I know, and we’re going to stay past it, too.”
“Not if you start changing up on me, we won’t. Not if you start letting people run over you. Start changing the rules in the middle of the stream.” He pushed the stack of magazines to one side.