Lucius asked her to describe Rob’s visit of a few years before. Did she recall just when it was? When she figured out the approximate date, he realized that Rob’s return corresponded closely with the arrival at the Hardens of the stranger who had called himself “John Tucker.”
“One day Eddie turned up with a bearded man in worn-out clothes, a merchant seaman. Eddie called him ‘our half brother Robert,’ right in front of him. Not having laid eyes on Rob in almost thirty years-since before my wedding-I might not have believed that this was him except for those feverish red points on his cheeks, remember? The dark hollow eyes? With that beard, he looked like some poor martyr out of those old paintings. ‘Calls himself Collins these days,’ Eddie announced, rolling his eyes the way he does. ‘I use my mother’s maiden name,’ Rob explained for my sake.
“I said, ‘Rob? Is that really you behind that beard? Oh, Rob, for goodness sake!’ And I grabbed him and hugged him hard, though he didn’t want that. For a man who supposedly lived at sea, he was so pale that I thought he must be ill.
“ ‘He’s looking for Lucius,’ Eddie said, to hurry us. Eddie was sulky. I confessed to Rob that I’d scarcely laid eyes on you since your return from the Great War. I felt ashamed. I told him how much it worried me that you were living at the mercy of those people. ‘He was safer in the War than he is down there,’ Rob said. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ Eddie snapped, ‘Sure took you long enough,’ and Rob said he was unable to come sooner. He did not say why and we did not dare ask him: he was just as prickly as the Rob of old but had turned a little hard, a little scary. He refused a drink. ‘I can’t handle it,’ he said.
“Eddie was still sulking so I led Rob outside. I took his arm and we walked a little ways along the river. I said, ‘It’s your first visit in thirty years, Rob. Can’t you stay for supper? Stay the night?’ No, he said, he had to catch the ship that was sailing that evening to the Islands. Said good-bye and turned and walked away. I never learned if he had a family or even where he’d lived since I’d last seen him.”
“He’s back,” said Lucius. He told his sister the whole story of Arbie Collins.
“Oh Lord, we have to help him,” Carrie said. At a loss, they sat quiet a while. “We’ll think of something, won’t we, Lucius?” She did not seem hopeful and soon relapsed into resentment. “Have you called on Nell? That girl adored you, Lucius. To go off to war without a word then run away to the Islands after she’d sacrificed her reputation? Did you care? Were you even aware of the guts it took to live on in a small nosy town after you disappeared? Of how much she was willing to give up for you against all advice? Including mine?”
Carrie’s indignation on Nell’s behalf was tinged by her own hurt. “Knowing how sensitive you are, I’ll bet you felt injured when she finally gave up on you and accepted that old man. She’s poor, you idiot! She has no family worthy of the name and no security. Women need security. Are you really so damn blind?”
He sat quiet. Made unhappy by her own remarks, she said, “We did our best to forgive you, Lucius, because after Papa died, you weren’t yourself. Where was our old easygoing Lucius? You were fun, remember?” She took his hand. “Nell loved talking about you. She still does! Your ‘shy bent smile,’ she called it-came straight from Mama, by the way-your ‘deep-shadowed wistful eyes.’ ” Mocking Nell gently, Carrie squinted to verify those eyes. “And Chatham Bend. It seems you protected her from her awful brother, she imagined that Lucius Watson was some sort of angel. She told me how quick and merciful you were around your otter traps and even killing chickens for the table-that made a great impression. The pains you took to remove your fish hook gently: more than he ever did for this poor fish! Nell can laugh at herself even when she’s sad, and she never complains-I love that about her.”
Carrie stopped smiling when her brother said, “Is that Nell’s joke or yours? About the fish hook?” Although he tried to say this lightly, his lungs were heavy with remorse for his utter failure to protect the eager feelings of sister and lover who had cherished him so much more faithfully than he’d deserved.
Watching his face, his sister grew alarmed. “Lucius? What is it? Are you all right? Listen-it’s important that you know-Nell never spoke out against you this way-the way I do, I mean.” She was silent a moment before whispering, “I’m truly sorry. I didn’t want to do this.”
He sat down again. “Don’t apologize. I’ve neglected you both shamefully, and Pearl, too.”
Though Carrie resisted the mention of Pearl, she was anxious to mend things before he went away again. Before Nell’s marriage, that girl had called on Nell. Nell brought her here. It was Pearl who told them that Lucius lived in a driftwood shack at Lost Man’s River: she sought their help in persuading him to leave the Islands before he was harmed. A little miffed, she parodied Pearl’s accent: “ ‘He’ll surely lissen to yew, Miz Nell! Ah seen how much he pahns fer yew, Miz Nell!’ No mention of Miz Carrie, you notice.”
Nell had sent no message back with Pearl. What good would it do to plead with Lucius once he’d learned that his true love and dearest friend had given up on him and was marrying another? Slightly shopworn, a bit “dog-eared,” as she described herself to Carrie, Nell had accepted the spavined hand of Mr. Summerlin, an elderly gentleman with a kind heart and a secure place in society and also an indomitable itch to stroke his young bride’s person. About all he ever did, Carrie suspected, though Nell was too loyal to confirm this. “Nothing much to be jealous about, anyway,” she assured her brother.
Why, he thought, had Carrie mentioned jealousy if not to make him jealous?
“That girl knew you well, you know.”
“Too well for her own good,” he answered glumly.
“Stop that! What a fool you are! Go call her up!”
He did. He arranged to go meet her. He came back smiling.
At the door, he turned and they hugged at last. “You must never forsake your silly old sister again,” she said. “No,” Lucius said. She knew he meant this for she went up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Like the bossy older sister he remembered, she nagged after him, “Don’t you ever come to town again, Mr. Lucius Watson, without letting us know.”
He waved from the rose gate. Carrie sang out, “She’s a rich widow, don’t forget! Maybe it’s not too late!”