“I like you,” said Ronny. “Didn’t I prove it with the fiddler?”
“I didn’t really know you were doing it for me,” replied June and because his shrill, sweet voice stirred her, she gave the mocking, sisterly smile which her brothers found so odious.
“The wicked fiddler!” cried Ronny suddenly. “I’m going to punish him.” And he ran to the edge of the marsh.
June followed and they stood side by side, peering into the creek. At first there was nothing to be seen for the tide had driven the crabs to their holes. Yet even as they watched, the water dropped. It raced swiftly through its channels to the bay and gradually, quarter-inch by quarter-inch, the mud reappeared; soft, black and reeking. An eel slithered down current, whipping its head from side to side, its snout pointed, its eyes blind as a mole’s.
Ronny stepped down onto the creek bed and under his foot a clam spouted, throwing a liquid jet as high as his knees. The water ran in rivulets through the caking slime in which holes could now be seen, holes where one could just spy the frantic, jerky movements of the crabs. Soon they began to move, pushing in front of them their huge, single fiddler claws. The young ones came out first, active and shiny. The larger ones followed at a slower pace. Ronny took a jackknife from his pocket, although as yet he remained upright. Then, immediately in front of him an old crab, a veteran, scuttled sideways towards the bank. Its fiddler’s claw, almost black with age, made the crustacean stagger and dwarfed its other limbs. Its hasty, almost obscene movements were too much for Ronny. June could hear his teeth grind as he released the catch of his knife and threw himself upon his knees in the slime. He thrust downwards and with a short, bitter movement severed the crab’s claw from its body.
To June it seemed as though the crab gave out a sound of anguish, but perhaps that sound had come from her own throat. All was so terribly clear beneath the glaring sun. June felt sick with revulsion, yet another feeling, too, welled from the core of her body; a primitive force she dared not name.
The fiddler, bereft now of all its strength, of its weapon, of the very symbol of its virility, appeared to shrivel. Its remaining claws, frail as those of a spider, could no longer balance its body. It jerked forlornly and frantically sideways; a humiliated creature in pain and without hope.
Looking at those absurd struggles, Ronny had to laugh. It knotted his throat like sobs and doubled him into the mud. June, overcoming her fear of the marsh, ran and tried to pull him from his knees. She half dragged him to the bank where they both collapsed in the undergrowth. Ronny continued to laugh and, holding up the claw which he had kept in his grasp, went into fresh paroxysms. June looked into his face.
“How could you?” she demanded, squeezing his shoulder. “How could you?” The agony of the crab suddenly took on for her an unbearable meaning; the sin of the world. Yet now she, too, found herself laughing. They clutched each other and rolled on the ground. They were convulsed and helpless. Never had anything been so funny before.
But their laughter ended very soon, cut off as abruptly and as mysteriously as it had begun. Ronny turned over and lay with flat shoulders face to the ground. June sat up and regarded him. She arranged her clothes and brushed the leaves from her hair. The feeling of guilt returned to engulf her like a wave. Ronny could not feel it, she thought. He remained untouched, lying there with the sun on his shoulders. She forced herself to look into the marsh, to observe on its caked and parching surface the struggles of the now dying crab. The crustacean had been unable to make its way back to its hole and the sun dried up the flow of its crab blood. Finally, after what seemed hours, it tipped over onto its back. The joints of its shell were visible on its underside; intricate and made by God.
Ronny now sat up also. Dragging back the hair from his face, he turned to her naturally and asked in an eager voice: “Did you see me? Did you see how I fixed that horrible old crab? Where’s the claw? I’ll give it to you as a trophy.” He searched around for it but it was lost amongst the grass and weeds. Then Ronny, too, caught sight of the fiddler lying on its back in the mud, its remaining claws still feebly stirring. His expression changed and he looked uncertainly at June. He jumped to his feet and ran to where Gambol was grazing.
“I thought you were lost,” he said, putting his hand on the firm neck and locking his fingers in Gambol’s mane. The horse lifted his eyes for an instant before he resumed his grazing and looked out onto the drying mud of the swamp. Ronny turned away and retraced his steps with a swagger. “I think I’ll just dig a little grave,” he said loudly to the air. “After all, that crab died honourably in battle.”
“Not much battle really,” observed June.
Ronny gave her a nervous smile. “It’s all the fault of James Stevens,” he said. He stepped down again into the marsh, sinking to his calf and fearful now of the other fiddlers who infested the mud and of the strange bugs, swift as lightning, that darted across the slime. With a shudder he picked up his victim, now motionless and rotting already beneath the sun. He made his way to the bank and then with his knife dug a little hollow in the ground beneath a tree. He put the remains in it, covered them and stamped once or twice on the spot. As a last touch he stuck his knife, blade in the ground, beside it.
“There,” he said, “that will be his gravestone. The handle is ivory so he will have a monument from the tusk of an elephant. A gravestone from Africa, or India maybe, for this poor crab.”
‘What am I to think of Ronny now?’ wondered June.
“I shan’t pray,” continued Ronny, “because I don’t think crabs need it.” He got up. The mud on him had dried green. It had smeared onto his shorts and his cotton pull-over. His hands and face were covered with it and it stank.
“You better rinse yourself at the spring,” suggested June, leading the way through the woods.
Ronny followed without a word and, crouching near the water, dipped his arms in its small, fresh flow. June plucked a stem of silver-weed and trailed it in the stream. The forest sounds closed about them but they could still hear the seagulls mewing over the bay.
When Ronny was quite clean he rose and, with a wistful movement, came near June and leaned against her.
CHAPTER SIX
Old Mrs. Grey sat out on the porch, knitting. As evening came on, the fireflies began to flash around her and, above, the first star of evening stared down surrounded by the fathomless azure of the sky. Mrs. Grey’s fingers slackened. She recalled how as a girl she had wished upon that star—Star light, star bright—Wishing gave such a lift to the heart. One believed at each moment of wishing that one’s desire would come to pass. How many desires she had had! How many wishes! And now they were done.
Mrs. Grey moved a little in her rocking chair so that it swayed gently. She was dressed all in white; a white silk dress with long sleeves, and white stockings and shoes. Her shoes had old-fashioned heels, thin as a man’s finger and curved in under her foot. They were pointed and small and she had worn them for years. Mrs. Grey, even in old age and with her cane, walked so haughtily that she never wore out a pair of shoes. The only untidy thing about her was her hair; of a harsh, grey colour which refused to turn white, it grew in wispy strands which escaped from her bun. She was forever raising a hand to tuck it in place.
‘I wonder,’ she thought, looking up once again at the evening star, ‘if I would go through it all a second time were I given the chance.’ Yet Mrs. Grey’s life had been a happy and successful one. She had been wealthy and loved, the mother of sons, the friend of great men. Since the death of her husband, however, a sort of refining process had begun. She had gradually shed, so to speak, the fat of life from her soul. Despite the petty habits and quirks of age she was gazing now austerely in the direction of God.
Her son John would sometimes tell his wife: “It’s really so nice for Mother to have us here in vacation time. How lonely she must be when we’re away.” But it was only the kind of thing people say to convince themselves, to make themselves believe they are wanted and necessary. Mrs. Grey was quite happy to be alone.
Now behind her the lower