TO HIM THE WORLD WAS GAY.
Captain White was just getting home. For twenty years he had boarded with his cousin, Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, and now neither the near prospect of seeing her again after an absence of some months, nor any dislike for a smart rain that had begun to fall, made him quicken his footsteps as he sauntered deliberately along the concrete sidewalks of the little town.
He was a short, dark man, with a slender body, a pair of waggish, twinkling, black eyes, a sleek, dark head, and an ever present smell of fish about his garments. By fish he breathed and moved and had his being, and from the instant that the profitable herring was drawn from its native element, Captain White hung over it, superintending every detail of its curing, preparation, and shipping, for home and foreign markets.
Being a retired sea-captain and present fish merchant, his duties were supposed to end with the placing of a cargo of fish on board a vessel, but attimes his affection for his old employment would break forth so strongly that, without a word of warning to Mrs. Prymmer, he would precipitate himself upon a departing schooner, and the town of Rossignol would know him not for a month or two.
It was after one of these hasty departures that he was now returning. He strolled along the lower streets of the town, his fun-loving eyes rolling inquiringly at every one he met, his hands in the pockets of his short nautical jacket, his elbows swaying gently like two pectoral fins propelling him through the air, until he arrived below the old stone mansion, when he drew his hands from his pockets, ran briskly up the three short flights of steps, and rang the bell.
"How de do, Mary," he said, briefly, to the maid when she opened the door.
Upon ordinary occasions he never spoke to her. This greeting was reserved for the important event of his return from a voyage.
Mary smiled, and, not daring to return his salutation lest she should incur a reprimand from the highest authority in the house for undue familiarity with the masculine part of it, made haste to disappear down a back stairway.
Captain White shook himself, thereby scattering a shower of wet on the oil-cloth of the floor, hung up his cap, and walked down the hall to the dining-room.
"I'll find them just the same as usual, I suppose," he muttered, giving a slap to his sleek head that always looked as if he had just dipped it in water, "same old table, same old chairs around it, same old fire, same old girl with same old stocking or same old death-book."
He opened the door. Yes, there she sat, her thick hair parted decently in the middle, her black gown decently disposed about her portly figure, her lips decently compressed, her fingers clicking the needles of the knitting with which she invariably disciplined or amused herself during the successive evenings of her life, her eyes fixed on her son, who sat in a loose coat and carpet slippers, diligently reading the evening paper as Captain White had seen him read it a thousand times before.
The very fire was crackling as it had crackled ever since he had had acquaintance with this hearthstone. He could even tell the hour of the evening by it, for Mrs. Prymmer from motives of economy always started it with wood but continued it with coal. It was now just eight o'clock, for the wood was nearly gone. A match had been touched to it at seven precisely, and at a quarter to eight a shovelful of coal had been lifted on it by the careful hand of his cousin.
"Well, Micah," she said, deliberately, "you have got back."
Captain White did not answer her. It did not seem worth while to confirm a statement that bore truth on the face of it, and moreover he, though a man possessing a fair amount of composure, was completely dumbfounded by his discovery of a curious addition to this hitherto contracted family circle.
The big family lounge, commonly pushed away in a corner, was drawn up near the fire, and on it, comfortably surrounded by cushions, reclined a girl who was not a Rossignol girl, nor anything approaching to a Rossignol girl, as far as Captain White could make out. She had been reading and had fallen asleep over her book, and she lay like a beautiful statue while Justin and his mother were apparently paying no more attention to her than if she really were something without life.
Captain White rubbed his hand across his eyes and looked again. The girl was still there, and, with a puzzled expression of face equivalent to a spoken "I give it up," he sat down beside the door, one of his peculiarities being a reluctance to approach a fire.
"How are you, Micah?" said Justin, laconically.
"First-rate," responded Captain White, "and how's yourself?"
"All right."
"You don't look it."
"I've been away. I guess a long journey doesn't agree with me."
"Where have you been?"
"To California."
"To California!" exclaimed Captain White, in a surprise that was ludicrous, and his gaze again went to the girl as if seeking from her a reason for this extraordinary departure on the part of his hitherto home-loving cousin.
Justin's eyes went with him, then, to the further mystification of Captain White, the young man's face took on an expression more soft, more tender, than any that he had ever seen there before, while he murmured some unintelligible remark below his breath.
There was a change, too, in Mrs. Prymmer. She had laid down her knitting, and her mouth was slowly opening and shutting as it had a habit of doing when she was surprised or deeply moved, and before it settled down to the firm compression of displeasure.
Captain White's glance wandered to the third member of this eccentric family circle. There was a change in her, too. The Sleeping Beauty was waking up. With a yawn and a little stretch of her rounded limbs, she had lifted the heavy lids of her light blue eyes, and was staring at him with a curious intentness of gaze that reminded him, in a casual way, of the expression he had seen on thefaces of children who were grappling with and about to seize upon some problem hitherto beyond their solution.
"Derrice," said Justin, quietly, "this is Cousin Micah."
She was smiling at him now, gently and wistfully, and, like a baby learning to walk, was slowly putting her small feet to the floor, trying them, as if doubtful whether she could stand on them.
A flood of benevolence came over Captain White. "Give her a hand," he said to Justin. "Steady her off that lounge."
The young man drew back. "Go yourself, Micah. You have aroused her."
Justin's tone was distinctly mischievous, and Captain White's surprised eyes forgot to twinkle and went in a maze of bewilderment toward Mrs. Prymmer, whose countenance was slowly taking on a frozen aspect.
Who was this girl, who was alternately stopping and advancing in a peculiar kind of a walk that he had never seen before off the stage? Perhaps she was some actress who, for reasons best known to herself, had descended upon his puritanical cousins. Well, he had never yet run from a woman, and he didn't propose to do so now, and, drawing a long breath, he stood up and manfully awaited her approach.
Now she was sentimental. There was a tear in her eye, and her lip was trembling, as she stretched out her hand to him. "Captain White, I am glad to see you. It was stupid in me to fall asleep over my book. I would have kept awake if I had known you were coming."
"Say something sympathetic, can't you?" said Justin, stepping forward, and whispering in his ear.
"Bless my heart and soul, how can I?" ejaculated Captain White. "Now, if I had her alone—" and confusedly folding his arms, he retired to his seat.
To Justin's irrepressible delight, his young wife, in a state of utter fascination, drew nearer to the rough-coated stranger. "You go away from home a good deal, don't you?" she said, wistfully. "I hope that you will be able to stay with us now."
"Now, for the love of mercy," said the sea-faring man, turning in quiet desperation to Justin, and speaking under his breath, "tell me who this is?"
"She is my wife," said the young man.
Captain White fell into a state of speechless unbelief until he found confirmation of the announcement in the expression of Mrs. Prymmer's face. Justin must indeed be married to this lovely creature. Where had he got her? He rubbed both hands over his smooth head and was about to subside into stupid perplexity, when he discovered that the girl's face was quivering in a pitiful manner that threateneda feminine outbreak of some sort. Her face did not belie its promise. In one minute she had burst into violent weeping, and Justin, springing forward, was leading her from the room.
Captain White fixed his attention on the only member of the family left to him. "Hippolyta, can you let a little light in on these queer proceedings? What, you are not cracked, too,—you, best hope of the elect in Rossignol?"
His cousin was, indeed, in a state of collapse. She had just seen tumbling to the ground a fragile house of cards that she had been erecting, or, rather, a castle in Spain,—for she would be shocked at the mention of anything so worldly and pernicious as bits of painted cardboard in connection with her name. All day long she had contemplated with the utmost satisfaction the prostration of her daughter-in-law after her long journey. Derrice had lain in bed till the evening; she had been on the sofa until Captain White's arrival. She seemed utterly overcome. Perhaps it was the will of the Lord that, in a short time, this flaxen-haired doll should be laid in the grave, and she would then again have her son to herself. Now, in some unaccountable way, the girl had been roused to unusual animation by the appearance of Captain White. Her cheeks had flushed, she had seemed interested and pleased. This fit of tears was but a manifestation of temper,—"girls'tricks," she muttered, angrily. The will of the Lord was not to have her sicken and die,—it was clashing with her will, with hers, acknowledged saint, the most devout woman in the town of Rossignol. There was something radically wrong with the order of things, and she felt stunned, and in no condition to talk.
One or two ineffectual attempts she made to answer her cousin's inquiries, then, with a ponderous and unsteady step, she rushed from the room.
Captain White stretched his lean neck around the door-post. "She's off on a gale with passion for her sail. Never saw such queer doings in this house before. That lass has doddered them,—guess I'll get something to eat. In every sudden squall of life, fortify yourself by a visit to the pantry. It's wonderful how the stomach backs up your staying powers," and, wandering out into the hall, he sauntered down a staircase to the lower part of the house.
His brief warning ejaculations of "Hey! Hist! Hello!" at the kitchen door not being answered, he pushed it open and walked in, saying, "Just as I thought. She's off. Never saw such a house; whenever they've nothing to do they sneak off to bed."
Adjoining the kitchen was a small pantry where Captain White was soon standing beside sparsely laden shelves. There was nothing on the lowerones worthy of his famished condition but a beef bone destined for the soup pot on the morrow. This he seized, and while gnawing the meat from it with his strong sailor's teeth that had been sharpened during the early part of his life by attacks on salt junk and hard tack, his scintillating eyes flashed longingly up to the top shelf where stood an inviting procession of newly baked mince pies.
"Most women wouldn't make soup of that bone," he said, as he rapped a tune on the shelf with the denuded bone, "but it's a chance if Hippolyta doesn't wash and dress it and put it in a pot and make a liquor that we'll drink and all go staggering about with weakness from it. Clever woman that. Most women would have wasted a supper on me to-night, but she never thought of it. However, I'm not one to sing sour grapes. Here goes," and being too short to reach the pies he drew up his legs, sprang in the air like a jack-in-the-box and seized one of them.
"It's a good big pie, but I can manage a quarter," he said, and drawing a clasp-knife from his vest he cut out a wedge-shaped piece that he transferred by slow degrees to his mouth. "That's a superfine pie," he said, presently, "but flat,—on account of me, poor miserable sinner," and rolling his glance upward, he drew a flask from the breast of his coat and sprinkled a part of its contents over the pie.
In a few minutes the entire pie was disposed of, and he was deep in another. "Guess I'd better stop," he said, presently, "or a herring with a mouth as big as a church will swallow me to-night. Is there any further iniquity I can commit? Cousin Hippolyta can't be any madder than she will be when she sees those empty plates—Oh, here's the cream for breakfast. I'll drink that," and he seized a flat-bottomed dish and carried it to his mouth.
"Now seeing I've been as bad as I can be," he said, after he had chased a remaining skin of cream around the dish until he had caught it with his little finger, "I'll go above. I wish I could put this thing on Mary," and he set one plate inside another, "but even if this crockery was found in her pocket, they'd get after me. Mary is a church-member, and I'm a reprobate," and wiping his creamy lips and gaily humming, "We were three jolly sailors," he went up-stairs.
He found the parlour deserted. The fire that he had left burning cheerily was now sulking under a heap of ashes, and the lights were turned out,—sure proofs that his Cousin Hippolyta, supposing him to be in bed, had descended and made preparations for the night.
"Just nine o'clock," he said, leaning over the grate to examine his battered silver watch by a persevering gleam of firelight. "I wonder whatJustin is doing. I'll take an observation," and he went up-stairs on tiptoe.
The door of a small dressing-room adjoining Justin's bedroom stood open, and Captain White, who possessed an uncommon sharpness of hearing, thought that he detected a faint noise as he peered in.
"Hello, Justin, are you there?" he whispered.
"Yes," said the young man, leaving the dark window where he was standing and coming out into the dimly lighted hall.
"Won't she let you in?"
"She isn't here, Micah."
"Where do you keep her?"
"On the flat above you."
"Up with Mary—in the attic. What's that for?"
"Well—you might be able to guess if you tried," said the young man, and he glanced toward the closed door of his mother's room.
"H'm—doesn't want to be too near her mother-in-law," reflected Captain White. Then he seized Justin by the arm as if he were a prisoner. "Come up to my den."
Marching him up another flight of stairs, he conducted him to a front room. "There, now," he said, "sit down. I know that Morris chair is in the exact place I left it, in this well-rigged house. I can giveyou a push that will land you in it, though I can't see a thing with those confounded curtains down. You'd better keep on your feet, though, till I strike a light. Your mother'd get after me if I broke one of your legs. Jemima Jane, here we are as snug as possible," and he turned up two gas-jets to the extent of their lighting ability, and then, dropping into a chair, reached out his hand to a drawer and took from it a pipe.
Justin, who did not smoke, took off his glasses and indulged in his frequent occupation of polishing them with his handkerchief, blinking his eyes meanwhile in the strong light.
"How old are you?" asked Captain White, as he stuffed his pipe full of tobacco.
"Thirty."
"Lack-a-daisy, it seems only the other day you were born."
Justin did not reply to him. He was not much of a talker at any time, and at present he was in a reflective condition of mind in which he did not care to discuss any subject, not even the circumstances connected with his own birth.
"You have known me for a long time," said Captain White, brusquely, "do you happen to put any kind of trust in me?"
Justin struggled out of his reverie. "Yes, Micah, you know I do."
"Then for goodness' sake tell me what has brought this change in you, for, hang me, if you didn't look like all the minor prophets rolled in one when I went away. My namesake, and Habakkuk and Malachi and all the rest, would have appeared like grinning idiots alongside of you, and now I have actually seen your teeth six times since I entered this blessed door."
Justin not only favoured him with another sight of his big white teeth, that were set slab-like in his square jaw, but he burst into a low, hearty laugh.
"I guess it must be dolly, Micah."
"That's your wife."
"Yes, she's my wife fast enough."
"Did you marry her in California?"
"Yes."
"When did you get back?"
"Yesterday."
"What sent you there?"
"Mr. Lancaster was there; he telegraphed for me; she is his daughter."
Captain White took his pipe from his mouth, uttered a low, significant whistle, and measured Justin with a penetrating glance, but he asked no more questions, not being one to pry into another man's secrets.
"Your mother seems a trifle put out," he observed, after a time.
"Naturally she would be," replied Justin, significantly.
Captain White in his turn began to laugh, at first silently and noiselessly, then with such a hearty and irrepressible explosion that Justin gazed at him in some astonishment.
"Excuse me," said the elder man, waving his pipe, apologetically, "but it makes me curl up inside to think of you as a married man, you, a brat of a boy. I don't think I'm old enough yet to launch myself in the narrow matrimonial boat, and I've seen craft of all kinds sail in and out of this Bay for over fifty years."
"I'm not young,—I'm old," muttered the young man, suddenly getting up and stretching out his arms, "and I'm tired from that pull across the continent. I guess I'll go to bed."
"Wait a bit—what made your dolly cry to-night? I didn't frighten her, did I?"
"No; you reminded her of her father. She's been grieving all day for him."
"Her father—do I look like him?"
"I never thought so till you came in this evening. When she saw the resemblance I caught it. You are like him, only his hair isn't quite as smooth as yours, and he is taller, but he wears dark clothes like yours, and he is lean and swarthy-complexioned, and he has small eyes—"
"Small eyes—" repeated Captain White.
His companion did not hear him. He had sprung up with the utmost celerity, and had hurried to the hall and up the next staircase to the floor above, from whence there had been a sound of something falling.
"It's against orders to leave that door open when I smoke," said Captain White, following him; "however, the family is a trifle upset to-night, and I might as well be hanged for a sailor as a cabin-boy," and he continued to embrace affectionately with his lips the stem of his well-worn pipe, while he paced defiantly up and down the hall.
"What was the trouble?" he asked, when Justin came presently down the steps.
"She upset a table with a jug of water on it and wet her feet."
"You get a girl in the house and you'll have to dance attendance on her, young man. Has she got comfortable quarters up there?"
"Yes; we moved some furniture into those two empty front rooms, and I'm going to get her some more things."
"Why didn't you marry a Rossignol girl? Judging from the eye-snap I had at this one, she's about as much out of your line of life as the admiral of a fleet is out of mine."
"I guess all girls have spoiled ways, Micah."
"Oh, hooks and ninepins—what a baby you are, Justin," and Captain White wagged his head and burst into an uneasy chuckling laugh. "You don't know any more about women than a moon-calf, but she'll teach you, lad, she'll teach you."
Justin did not answer him. "Don't hear me," soliloquised Captain White, "the muscles of his ears are nearly tearing themselves out of place to hear if there is any sound from that girl. Oh, this is comedy to see young tombstone-face, young blank-wall prancing to the whims of a girl—I might as well retire—he don't pay any attention to me. I guess I better set my mind alarm for six o'clock in the morning. I've drunk up Pretty-face's cream, and I'll have to rise early and capture some milkman. I guess—" and he paused and raised one lean, hairy paw to the ceiling—"that you up there, young miss, won't ever sit down and cry because you threw this old sardine a sweet smile for your father's sake," and with this prophetic remark he put aside his pipe, and, stripping off his clothes with the rapidity of lightning, was in two minutes in bed and sound asleep.