Ever since she could remember Nancy has called her a chatterbox, and she'd stopped trying to change long ago. Even now, exhausted by a long day afloat and the heavy tropical air, a stream of cheerful words flows from her and trails astern over the dark sea, fading above the green fire of the wake's phosphorescence. Susan doesn't seem to care, though. They walk the leeward deck together, each comfortable in the familiar coat of their manners; one cheerful and garrulous, the other sensible and calm.
The bell rings out the change of watch, the start of night routine. Only John and Nancy stand watches, helping Uncle Jim and Mr Duck steer through the night, but that bell is the signal for Titty and Roger to turn in and the mates usually aren't far behind. Tonight, though, Susan says nothing. Perhaps, Peggy thinks as she speculates out loud about whether Crab Island will have bananas, this heat that lies on them like a damp eiderdown has sapped even Susan's formidable powers of organisation. Or perhaps she's simply relaxed under this magical night.
The sky is a swathe of black velvet, the stars a handful of crushed diamonds scattered across it. Nights were never like this on the lake. In those long northern summer evenings they were all in their tents soon after sunset, and rose in the bright dawn. Even after nightfall their view was studded with the lights of farmhouse windows and the loom of streetlamps over Rio Bay. Here, even when they move away from the yellow glow coming through the deckhouse scuttles, Wild Cat sits alone in a circle of black sea beneath the infinity of the tropical dark. Only that swiftly fading bar of pale green astern shows that they're moving. By day their progress is marked as much by water tanks crossed off as by the daily cast of the log; by night it shows in the cold fire behind them.
Uncle Jim throws the door open; the low conversation that John and Nancy have been carrying on is suddenly cut off.
"What course is she making? Still Sou'west by west? Good. I knew she would, with this wind. Nancy, you rapscallion, what are you still doing there? It's your watch below!"
Peggy has never thought of herself as a lonely girl. She has friends at school, and she knows the children of every farm on the Beckfoot side of the lake - and of course there's Nancy, always Nancy, who flies through life in a whirlwind of enthusiasm that picks up everyone around her. In the years since she met the Swallows, though, she's come to miss them dreadfully when they're not around, and most of all she misses Susan. "It'll be fine if Susan says so," people always say, or "Susan will make sure they get to bed on time," but Susan herself treats Peggy as an equal. Nancy thinks of adventures and John helps plan them, but without the mates none of it would be possible. The captains of Swallow and Amazon are tough, assured and awesomely competent, but they could never keep the whole group fed.
Nancy appears from behind the deckhouse, throwing a last laughing comment over her shoulder to John as she strides for the companionway. She smiles at the mates. "Good night, Susan. Good night, Peg." Then she's past; her long hair, even plastered down by the tropical damp, wants to stream out under her cap from the untameable energy of her passage. "Night, Nance," Peggy replies, standing in her sister's wake as always. She turns back to Susan.
Susan's eyes are on Nancy's back, something unreadable in them, and just for a moment Peggy feels a miserable stab of hurt. Then Su looks back at her. There's a strange moment of silence as those clear grey eyes drop to her sweat-stained shirt, then return to her face. Whatever was in them is gone, and the warmth that floods in to replace it makes something deep inside Peggy turn to water. Without thinking she smiles and reaches out, and Susan's sweaty hand feels almost cool against her burning skin. She grips it firmly and then, suddenly appalled by her own audacity and sure that she's about to be turned to stone, says the first thing that comes to mind. "What a lovely night."
Susan's answering smile tells her that she's not the only one aflame with this sudden, slightly weak-kneed happiness, and Peggy feels her own hand squeezed in return.
"Yes," says Susan, "Yes, it certainly is."