WHEN A MAN'S HAPPY.
April drifted after March. May came, then June and July, and with them the opening of the summer hotels on the Bay, and the usual influx of visitors.
Derrice was very much occupied now. She knew nearly all the residents of the town, and a great many of the visitors, and Justin was obliged to check her in her too great devotion to literary clubs and social gatherings, and to work for the church of which she was now a zealous member.
With more pleasure than he had ever before experienced in holiday-making in his busy life, he often started from home with her in the morning, and installing her in his blue-lined boat would row across the Bay and out its mouth to the wild and rocky shore beyond.
Out there were green islands, white villages hidden in smiling coves, passing ships, and many excursion boats. He knew well every point of interest, but each successive discovery was a new pleasure for Derrice, and, filled with the rapture of exploration,she would urge him on until the shades of evening warned them to return.
In spite of her appreciation of the world outside the Bay, she liked better the five small rivers with the Indian names that went leaping merrily down into it. Only one was navigable,—its rapids were far up,—and of this one she never tired. Day after day when bank hours were over she begged Justin to conduct her to it, and when she found herself alone with him in its sylvan solitudes she invariably fell into a state of mental intoxication.
With her hat off, one hand trailing behind her in the cool black water, shafts of sunlight flickering down between jealous leaves that endeavoured to screen from them the flaxen head and white dress, she babbled joyous self-revealings whose lightest phases were treasured by the quiet young man who sat opposite her.
She was as free and as gay as the fishes below, the birds above, or the shy wild creatures peeping timidly at her through the underbrush. Why had she been given to him? Would he ever lose her? He was not worthy of such a blessing! And sometimes he trembled in an excess of happiness that was not happiness until he had tortured himself with some suggestion of pain.
When she gently rallied him on his seriousness, he explained that at all times he experienced the deepest awe when in the presence of works fresh from the hands of the Creator. A budding tree, an opening flower, charmed him into an ecstasy beyond expression, and, although only vaguely comprehending this ecstasy, she would smile sweetly and relapse into silence herself.
Sometimes she would motion to him to change the boat's course. He did not at all times care to run into the lively picnic parties from the hotels, the sole thought of whose members was to utilise the most exquisite retreats of the river for purposes of eating and drinking. Yet he was glad to see them come,—all those strangers who made Rossignol so prosperous. He was an enthusiast on the subject of the development of his native State, and talked at length to Derrice of the great tide of travel floating ever northward, of the millions of dollars brought annually into the State by summer visitors, of the building of hotels and cottages, and of the quantity of game slaughtered in the wildernesses up the great rivers. All these were sure and certain signs that his beloved Pine Tree State was to become more and more the pleasure-ground and place of relaxation for the denizens of other States less favoured by nature.
Derrice always listened intently, then becoming a greater enthusiast than he was himself, she, to his diversion and gratification, retailed among the many strangers thronging the place, not only what he hadtold her, but also a vast deal of miscellaneous information that she collected relating to the industrial progress of the State, its old and successful enterprises and its new and tentative ones.
The comparatively new sardine industry she was most interested in, first on account of Captain White's connection with it, and secondly because she had in her Sunday School class some young "dressers" from the factories.
She begged Captain White to conduct her over one of the factories, and in great good-humour he complied with her request, whereupon for some days she discoursed learnedly of the various methods of catching and packing the wary herring, of the difference between home-made "Russians" and foreign "Russians," of "bar," "channel," and "shore weirs," and of other technical matters that filled her husband with amused admiration.
She was essentially domestic and home-loving in her instincts, and Justin was amazed at the rapidity with which this new trait in her character had developed.
She had submitted to a wandering life on account of the innate sweetness of her disposition, and because she had known no other life. Happy now in the love of her husband and the co-operation and not obstruction of her mother-in-law, she was gathering around her a circle of staunch friends, and her dearest wish now was to attract within this circle the father whose absence was the one dark spot in her life.
Would he ever come? He had partly promised her to do so, but she rejoiced in fear and trembling over the partial promise, for her husband preserved an ominous silence.
Poor unhappy wanderer. There was no quiet haven for him. His bark had been trimmed for stormy seas. He had cast behind him his last anchor to peace and respectability. The dearer his idol to him, the farther must he keep from it, and Justin's heart grew sick as he contemplated future possibilities.
In mid-July the first boating carnival of the season took place. The Casino, already too ornate but re-embellished every year, was a-flutter with flags; guests poured from the hotels, and Captain White, standing on a wharf with eyes screwed up in the bright sunshine, quizzically watched the procession of young men and girls filing into place under the snowy canopies of the white-draped boats.
He waited until the boats like a bevy of white swans went dipping and gliding out to the Bay, then he hurried home as fast as his feet would carry him to relate this latest bit of news to the partner of his bosom.
He found her in a sedate attitude beside one ofthe open windows of the dining-room. Existence had recently shed its dull gray hues for the late Mrs. Prymmer and present Mrs. White, and had taken on an exquisite tint of rose-colour. She was permeated with bliss, absorbed in admiration for this peculiar man, her sailor-cousin. She was superlatively happy in his presence, superlatively lonely in his absence. He fascinated and entertained her. He was never still, never dull! Was always laughing, joking, teasing,—why, she might be a young girl judging by the amount of attention he paid her, and in placid rapture she listened to his statement that he had taken in the carnival on his way home from the canneries.
"Did it look pretty, Micah?"
"Pretty?—a hundred thousand pretties. I say there is no sight ahead of a flock of girls dressed in white, with flowers in their hair, sitting in boats that look like nests of snow. They might have been angels, Hippy, let right down out of the sky, and our Derrice was the cutest of all. Hello, there's the postman's ring. I'll go," and he rushed from the room.
Mrs. White put down her knitting, and, resting one elbow on the window-sill, enjoyably inhaled the delicious perfume from her garden of roses below.
"Only a newspaper for me, Hippy," said her husband coming back. "Just stop talking for a few minutes, will you?"
As Mrs. White since her marriage rarely opened her mouth, this injunction was an easy one for her to obey, and she again turned her attention to the roses until her husband began to kick out his feet and to exhibit other signs of mental disquiet.
"You're wondering what's the matter with me, Hippy?" he said, at last.
"Yes, Micah."
"I believe I'll tell you," he said; "let me look at you."
Emitting light without heat, his dancing eyes played over her face. "You've nothing to hide from me, Hippy?" he said, at last. "Your heart lies bare before me, just like that," and he made some cabalistic signs on his palm.
"Does it?" she replied, tranquilly, then she asked, with some anxiety, "What is worrying you, Micah?"
"I'll tell you,—I'll cleave my mind open just like a herring. You'll not tell what you see inside,—will you hold my feet while I talk?" and he tentatively laid one slim ankle across her lap.
"Yes, seeing you are troubled with rheumatism, I will," she said, affectionately smoothing his instep.
"Stop that,—you're tickling me," he ordered, then he went on. "Hippy, are you happy?"
"You know I am," she said, phlegmatically.
"Do you like me better than you liked Zebedee Prymmer?"
"Yes, Micah, I do."
"Better than Sylvester Mercer?"
She hesitated, not in any doubt of her own feelings on the subject, but from anxiety as to the propriety of answering such a question.
"Do you?" he asked, peremptorily.
"Sylvester is dead and gone to heaven," she remarked, with extreme amiability.
"Yes,—peace to his ashes,—he'll not care. Answer me, Hippy."
"Yes," she said, blushing and bridling a trifle. "I like you better than Sylvester."
"Do you like me better than Justin?"
She nervously leaned over and picked a hair off his coat sleeve. Surely this was a cruel question.
"Do you like me better than Justin?" he repeated, tyrannically.
She did, but she did not like to say so.
"Go on, Hippy," he commanded. "You're dead honest now, you know."
"Yes, I do," she whispered, with hanging head.
"Kiss me," he said, unexpectedly.
She meekly embraced him, then his countenance cleared, and he vouchsafed her an explanation. "I just wanted to make sure of you, dear. This is aserious matter, and women's tongues are such delicate things that a secret trembles off them as if they were oiled. I've known a woman mad with another,—so mad that she'd vow to die rather than tell her a certain thing that would be to her interest to know, yet she'd run faster than a deer and tell her that very thing."
"Some women are as safe as a bank," observed Mrs. White, mildly.
"Yes, ma'am, and you're one of them. Listen now, till I make those plump ears of yours rustle with curiosity,—you see this newspaper?"
"Yes, Micah."
"I sent to Boston for it. What do you suppose I did that for?"
"I don't know."
"Do you remember seeing Derrice come in a week ago with some books wrapped up in a newspaper?"
"No, Micah."
"Well, she did, and I picked up the paper, and in that paper was a piece cut out."
"Was there?"
"Yes, and if there's one thing more than another that stirs the old Adam in me it is for a man to hand me a paper with a piece cut out."
"But a man didn't hand you this, did he?"
"No; but that don't matter. The piece was gone. I turned the paper over. I found written on it,'Miss Chelda Gastonguay, Rossignol.' Now, what do you suppose was my next move?"
"You tried to get another like it."
"Precisely. You caught your fish that time. I sent to Boston for another copy of that same paper. Now, here's the ad. that was cut out. I've marked it with my pencil. Read it, Hippy."
"'H. Robinson, private detective, 10 Smith Street, Boston. All communications strictly confidential. Secret and expeditious service.'"
Mrs. White was in the dark, and without a word returned the newspaper to him.
"Now, what does a young lady in Chelda Gastonguay's position want with a thing like that?" he asked, severely.
"Perhaps she didn't want it."
"She did. The paper was addressed to her. She cut the ad. out. I'll shift my ground a little, Hippy. What makes this same young lady come to this house so much?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied his wife, with some warmth. "She don't like me."
"Does she come here to look at my lovely countenance?"
His wife's face was a study. She tried not to express resentment, she tried to think graciously of the absent Chelda, but her effort was not crowned with success.
"You feel just the least little bit mad with her, Hippy, don't you?" asked Captain White, kindly, "because she don't treat your husband as if he was king of this castle."
Mrs. White did not speak, but her hand again encircled his arched and aristocratic instep, and this time she was not checked.
Captain White burst out laughing. "It's queer how these human beings play at fox and geese with each other. The stunning Chelda thinks it a mighty condescension to come here, and be friendly with Justin and Derrice. She thinks it don't matter about you and me, but if she's up to any tricks, we'll trap her yet. Hippy, that girl comes here for no good. I've watched her, and I'm sure of it."
His wife's expression gradually changed to one of mild protest against this suspicion.
"You're a good woman," he said, appreciatively. "You don't want to be sneaky, and I don't want to set you to spy on another woman, but if we let ourselves be fooled too easy, we are fools. Now Derrice ain't the kind to smell any kind of a rat but an honest rat, nor is Justin blessed with a much smarter nose in the Gastonguay direction, but I know something of that lot. They've cut some pretty tricks here in Rossignol, and I say, don't shut your eyes too tight when there's any of 'em round, and keep your nose wiggling just like a rabbit's.That Chelda has got some object in coming here, for she hates us all, kit and bunch, and without running afoul of the sacred laws of hospitality, I want you, Hippy White, to keep one of those handsome gray eyes of yours on her, 'cause you're older than your daughter-in-law, and know more of the world."
"I can't stop her from coming here, Micah. I like Jane Gastonguay."
"Jane Gastonguay's all right. She ain't Gastonguay at all. She's Harper, like her grandmother's folks, and you let her niece come here all she likes, but keep a kind of oversight of her, the way we do the weather after close time. Now do you understand?"
"Yes, Micah; but what do you think she is up to?"
"I don't know," he said, gloomily.
"Micah," she said, with some timidity, "I've got a kind of worry about Derrice's father. Sylvester was always so short about him, and what makes Derrice never write direct to him, but always send her letters to some friend in New York? And why don't he show himself here if he is so fond of his daughter? He hasn't any business to do that I have ever heard of. And what did he want to make Justin marry her for? I thought maybe he wanted to get rid of her, but I guess he likes her well enough."
"You've got questions enough there to keep you busy for some time, Hippy, but 'pon my word, I believe you've got the clue. There is something queer about the father, and Chelda's on the track of it."
"The witch!" ejaculated Mrs. White, in mild indignation. "What has Derrice done to her?"
"What made that young high-stepper next door go away?"
"I guess he wanted to get rid of his church. He acted as if he despised us."
"I guess he wanted to get rid of Chelda Gastonguay, and I guess Derrice and Justin helped him off. And what kind of a feeling do you suppose Miss Chelda has inside her when she sees her old aunt petting Derrice?"
"Well, why don't she keep out of their sight, if she don't like it?"
"That's where she's clever, my dear. A jealous woman's jealousy will slip into as many shapes as there are pebbles on the beach. Sometimes it's a sea-monster. Sometimes it's a sly little eel,—will you watch this particular eel?"
"Of course," she replied, in a tone that showed surprise that there should be any question about it.
He threw off his anxiety, and fell into an immediate ecstasy. "It's my belief, Hippolyta White, thatthere ain't one mite of happiness in the world for the average man till he gets one thing."
"What is it?" she asked, demurely.
"Some woman to boss just as he likes; none of your up-standing, high-headed creatures that won't bear a curb, but a nice, modest, good pink of perfection little creature just like—just like—"
"Like Derrice," continued his wife, with as roguish an accent as late middle age could attain.
"Like you," he roared, leaning forward and giving her a resounding and loving smack on her ruddy cheek.
Surprised by her sheepish expression, he looked round and found Justin regarding him with a dubious expression from the doorway.
The young man did not like to see his mother holding Captain White's feet, and furthermore, to see her taking such evident pleasure in the honour.
"I've got rheumatism most gripingly," explained Captain White, lifting the offending members to the floor, and twisting his face in pretended torture. "By the way, you're to take your boat and meet young missis down at Gull's Island, where the carnival suppers. She wants to come home with you, and left that message. Whew! there's a strange cat in the garden," and forgetting his rheumatism, he darted from the room, and went to whistle the intruder over the fence.