CHAPTER XIX
WILD CAT ISLAND
As they all left the house and crossed the lawn to the boathouse Dick held back so he was able to walk with Dot at the rear of all the others.
"Are you feeling alright this morning?"
"Yes, yes, I slept well, I always do here."
"I'm sorry about last night, it was partly my fault." Dot looked confused.
"Why was it your fault?"
"Well, I wrote to them all warning them you had something you wanted to talk about, I'm not sure what they expected, Titty and I thought it best that we let them know."
"That's fine, you're right, it would have been a bigger shock had you not said anything. I don't know what they thought was worse, me and Timothy as lovers or the amount of money!"
"Neither, they really do understand, everyone does. We don't care he was married, we all knew she was horrible, but it's hard to talk about it."
Their conversation was interrupted by Nancy shouting from the boathouse.
"Are you two coming or not! Scarab needs to get out second once Amazon is away from the boathouse!" Dick and Dot ran the last couple of yards to the boathouse, dropped their knapsack in to the bottom of their boat and they both climbed in. Dot had not sailed for years, and allowed Dick to organise things and just waited for his instructions, using one of the oars he manoeuvred Scarab our of the boat house and towards the Amazon river.
"Shall I row until we get out on the lake?" He shouted to Nancy who was already on her way with Peggy at the tiller.
"You better, then you can get the sail up more easily!" As Dick sculled the boat out with an oar Dot took charge of the tiller and between them managed to follow Amazon on to the river and then on to the lake. Dot glanced behind her to see John doing the same with Swallow, Susan at the tiller; all of them looking as relaxed and as if they had last gone out on their respective boats the day before.
The raising of the sail on each one had not been as smooth on each vessel as it should have been, and though Dick and Dot had the least practice their dogged determinism to 'do it by the book' meant they were slower than the others but did it first time. It was not long before all three sails had caught the wind and Beckfoot was behind them, they were heading towards Wild Cat Island.
Once they approached Rio on the opposite shore the amount of water traffic increased, much of it power and little sail; thankfully once they had passed Rio and its jetties there was less activity on the lake, visitors still avoided going too far away from what they regarded as civilisation.
Ahead of them they could all see Captain Flint's houseboat, except it no longer was. The houseboat had been sold some years before, Nancy and Peggy had no choice, the repairs to Beckfoot had begun to mount up costing way beyond what they could afford. Selling the houseboat was the only option for them. As they passed it on the way to the island it occurred to Nancy there was irony that the last of them to use it had been Timothy. Their mother had offered it to him and his new wife for a holiday, by all accounts it had been a disaster and they had gone home after just one night. These thoughts were interrupted by a shout from Peggy.
"Wild Cat Island ahead!" The others in their own boats had noticed too. John called out.
"We'll make for the Landing Place, there isn't room for three boats in the harbour."
"Aye, aye sir!" responded Nancy, with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. John ignored her.
Reaching the Island all three boats hit the Landing Place beach with a satisfying crunch on the sand and stones at the same moment, one of each of the pairs of crew from each boat climbed out, the days of jumping ashore were long gone, then pulled the boats further up the beach.
As the others all got out and secured their respective boat's painters to the small trees that now seemed to surround the Landing Place, Susan stated what they must have all been thinking even thought it was the most obvious thing to say.
"It all looks so small!" Nancy laughed.
"I know, I think that every time I land here, but I remember when Uncle Jim brought us here the first time, it seemed so big and far away from home!"
Susan wasted no more time and started to walk off in the direction of the campsite, the others followed and she was not disappointed with what she found there. The ring of stones of her fireplace, were still in position, and by the fresh ashes she could tell it had been used quite recently.
"Do people come here?" Peggy answered her.
"We think so, when John and I have been here we've never seen anyone but often the fireplace has been used and the pathway to the harbour as sometimes been cleared of over-hanging branches." Susan wondered out loud.
"Are they the same stones? They can't be!"
"They're always here, but I suppose one or two must be different." Dick was intrigued.
"But who comes here? It's your island." Nancy answered him.
"A few locals we know about, some visitors do in the summer, trouble is to stop them we'd have to put a sign up telling them it was private property, years ago everyone knew who it belonged to, the Swallow's mother got permission, that's how she met mother." John interrupted.
"Did she! I never knew that, she never said."
"Nor did me and Peggy, mother told us not long before she died, when she started to get her papers in order." Susan was more surprised by her brother's reaction than this revelation.
"I did wonder, I couldn't believe she'd just let us camp here not knowing whose it was, and then when you two turned up saying you'd been here for years that seemed to confirm things." Nancy looked surprised.
"Did we really?"
"Yes Nancy you did!" Peggy wanted to put the blame on to Nancy. "It was your idea to shoot an arrow at them too!" Dot looked shocked.
"You didn't! Did you hurt anyone?"
"No Dot, I just shot it in to the camp over their heads just to surprise them, worked too!" Nancy sounded pleased with herself even after so many years.
"We were so envious when you told us about the island in the winter, Dick and I had never done anything like that, weren't we Dick?" Dick visibly jumped, he had clearly been thinking.
"Oh yes. Do you really own this island?"
"Peggy and I do, well I've never seen any documents, but I'm fairly sure we do. Mother and Uncle Jim always told us they did and they both left it to us in their wills."
"But who looks after it?"
"Nobody really, Peggy and John come and check things are alright every so often, they used to bring the children here in the Summer holidays but now they're too busy with university and their own lives. Most visitors respect it, thank goodness. We'd hate to put up chains across the harbour or anything like that."
"Of course. It does seem very odd to own and island!" Nancy looked at Dick.
"No odder than owning a house in Hampstead!"
Daisy, who had said little and had never visited the island before, suggested it was time they had something to eat. Susan agreed.
"Let's go up to the look-out point!" They all made their way to the hillock at the end of the island that gave them a clear view across the lake, made themselves comfortable and munched away on cake, chocolate and apples and quenched their thirsts with grog. The peace and quiet they all felt as they looked across the lake was what Dick had in mind for Dot when he asked John if they could organise the weekend.
They all repacked their respective knapsacks and having done so John had an idea.
"Lets go and look at the harbour." Walking back they way they had arrived they deposited their knapsacks in a heap in the camping site and made their way to the opposite end of the island to the secret harbour. The trees were much overgrown, despite the efforts of some visitors to trim them. But they were still able to just see the white cross on the tree that made the leading lights. John looked more carefully than the others.
"There still a rusty nail here!" Nancy was sceptical.
"The same one you put in?"
"Why not, who would know what it was and why would anyone take it out?"
"I suppose not." Susan thought to herself that it would be surprising if it was the same nail, but if it was there was something quite comforting about it, that after all these years an symbol of their childhood still existed, untouched.