Primmie wept no more into the dishwater nor sighed despairingly when serving breakfast. She sang now and, although an unprejudiced person might not have found the change an unmixed delight, Galusha did. Miss Phipps sang, too, occasionally, not with the camp-meeting exuberance of her maid, but with the cheery hum of the busy bee. She was happy; she said so and looked so, and, in spite of his guilty knowledge of the deceit upon which that happiness was founded, her lodger was happy because she was.
“Do you know,” he observed, on Saturday morning of that week, as, coated and capped for his daily walk, he stood by the door of the dining room, “it's quite extraordinary, really. I have been thinking, you know, and it really is quite extraordinary.”
Martha was sitting in the rocker by the window, the morning sunshine streaming in through the leaves and blossoms of the potted plants on the brackets dappling her hair and cheek with cheery splashes of light and shade. She was consulting the pages of her cookbook, as a preliminary to preparing a special dessert for Sunday's dinner, and was humming as she did so.
She looked up when he spoke.
“What is extraordinary?” she asked. “Your thinkin', do you mean? I don't see anything very extraordinary about that. You're thinkin' most of the time, seems to me.”
“Oh, I don't mean that. I meant what I was thinking was extraordinary. Or not precisely that, either. I—ah—I mean—well, you see, when I was in Washington—at the Institute, you know—it used to annoy me—ah—extremely, to have any one sing or whistle in my vicinity. Really, it did. I sometimes spoke very sharply—ah—irritably to any one who did that. And now, as I stood here and heard you singing, Miss Martha, it suddenly came over me that I do not mind it at all. I—ah—actually like to hear you. I do, very much, indeed. Now, isn't that extraordinary!”
Martha laughed aloud. “Why, yes,” she declared; “I think it is. Anybody likin' to hear me sing is about as extraordinary as anything that ever was, I guess. Mr. Bangs, you're awfully funny.”
Galusha nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I am sure I must be. I think if I were any one else I should laugh at myself a great deal. I mean—ah—I mean in that case I should laugh, not at myself, but at me. Good gracious, I haven't made that very clear, have I?”
His smile was so contagious that she laughed again.
“I didn't mean you were funny to laugh at, but to laugh with,” she said. “You're goin' to have an especially nice walk this mornin'. It's such a lovely forenoon I almost wish I was goin' with you.”
Galusha beamed. “Why—why, so do I!” he exclaimed, in delighted surprise. “Yes, I do, I do, indeed! Ah—ah—why don't you?”
“Mercy me, I couldn't think of it! I must stay here and get to cookin' or we'll have no puddin' to-morrow noon. I'll be with you in spirit, as the books say; how will that do?”
Whether or not she was with him in spirit, she was very much in her lodger's thoughts as he walked down the path to the gate. It was such a beautiful forenoon, with the first promise of spring in the air, that, instead of starting toward the village, as was his usual custom, he turned in the other direction and strolled toward the lighthouse. The sea view from the cliff edge should be magnificent on a morning like this.
But it was not of the view, or the beauty of the morning, that he thought as he wandered slowly on. His mind, for some reason or other, seemed to be filled with the picture of Martha Phipps as she sat in the rocking-chair, with the background of old-fashioned plants and blossoms, and the morning sunshine illumining her pleasant, comely face. He could visualize every feature of that face, which fact was extremely odd, for it had been many years since he had noticed a female face sufficiently for that face to impress itself upon his memory. Years and years before Galusha Bangs had been forced to the conclusion that the interest of attractive feminity was not for him and he had accepted the inevitable and never permitted his own interest to stray in that direction. A few feminine faces he could, of course, recall; the face of his Aunt Clarissa, for instance, and—dear me, yes! that of the pestiferous Mrs. Worth Buckley, his—ah—not his “old man of the sea” exactly, but his equally troublesome, middle-aged woman of the mountains. Mrs. Buckley had not attracted his notice, she had seized it, served a subpoena upon it, and his provokingly contrary memory persisted in recalling her face, probably because he so earnestly desired to forget it.
But he found a real pleasure in visualizing the face of Miss Martha Phipps. Her eyes now—her eyes were—ah—um—they were blue; no, they were gray—or a sort of gray-blue, perhaps, or even a shade of brown. But the precise color made no real difference. It was the way they looked at one, and—ah—smiled, so to speak. Odd, because he had never before realized that one could—ah—smile with one's eyes. Attractive, too, that smile of hers, the eyes and the lips in combination. A sort of cheerful, comfortable smile—yes, and—ah—attractive—ah—inviting, as one might say; a homelike smile; that was the word he wanted—“homelike.” It had been a long, long time since he had had a home. As a matter of fact, he had not cared to have one. A tent in Egypt or Syria, furnished with a mummy or two, and with a few neighborly ruins next door—this had been his idea of comfort. It was his idea still, but nevertheless—
And then he became aware that from somewhere, apparently from the heavens above, a voice was shouting—yes, roaring—his name.
“Mr. Bangs!... Hi-i, Mr. Bangs!”
Galusha came out of his walking dream, stared about him, found that he had walked almost to the fence surrounding the light keeper's home and would have collided with that fence in another stride or two, looked around, down, and finally up—to see Captain Jethro leaning over the iron rail surrounding the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse.
“Oh! Why—ah—good gracious!” he exclaimed. “Were you calling me, Captain Hallett?”
Captain Jethro shook his big head. “Callin'!” he repeated. “I've been bellerin' like the foghorn for five minutes. A little more of it and I'd have run out of steam or bust a b'iler, one or t'other. Ain't been struck deef, have you, Mr. Bangs?”
“No—ah—no, I trust not. I was—ah—thinking, I presume, and I did not hear you. I'm very sorry.”
“That's all right. Glad you was only thinkin' and no worse. I didn't know but you'd been struck by walkin' paralysis or somethin'. Say,” he leaned further over the rail and lowered his voice. “Say,” he said again, “would you mind comin' up here a minute? I want to talk to you.”
Mr. Bangs did not mind and, entering the round tower, he climbed the spiral stair to the little room at the top. The great lantern, with its glittering facets and lenses filled that room almost entirely, and the light keeper's great form filled it still more. There was scarcely space for little Galusha to squeeze in.
Jethro explained that he had been cleaning the lantern. “It's Zacheus' job really,” he observed, “but I have to do it myself once in a while to keep it shipshape. Say,” he added, opening the door which led to the balcony, “look out yonder. Worth lookin' at, ain't it?”
It was. The morning was dry and clear, a brisk wind from the west, and not a cloud. The lighthouse, built as it was upon the knoll at the edge of the bluff, seemed to be vastly higher than it actually was, and to tower far above all else until the view from its top was almost like that from an aeroplane. The horizon swept clear and unbroken for three quarters of a circle, two of those quarters the sharp blue rim of the ocean meeting the sky. The white wave-crests leaped and twinkled and danced for miles and miles. Far below on the yellow sand of the beach, the advancing and retreating breakers embroidered lacy patterns which changed constantly.
“Worth looking at, ain't it?” repeated the captain.
Galusha nodded. “Indeed it is,” he said, with emphasis. Yet it surprised him slightly to find the gruff old light keeper enthusiastic concerning a scene which must be so very much a matter of course to him.
“The Almighty done a good job when He built that,” observed Captain Jethro, waving his hand toward the Atlantic. “Don't never get tired of lookin' at salt water, I don't, and yet I've been in it or on it or around it pretty much all my life. And now I'm up above it,” he added, thoughtfully. “We're pretty high up where we are now, Mr. Bangs. I like to set up here and—er—well, kind of think about things, sometimes.... Humph!... Do you cal'late we're any nigher when we're up aloft here than we are down on the ground yonder; nigher to THEM, I mean?”
His visitor was puzzled. “I—I beg your pardon?” he stammered. “Nigher—ah—nearer to—ah—what?”
“Nigher to them—them that's gone afore. Seems sometimes, when I'm alone up here, particular of a foggy day, as if I was consider'ble nigher to them—to HER, especial—than when I'm on the ground. Think there's anything in it, do you?”
Galusha said he didn't know; we know so little about such things, really. He wondered what the captain had invited him up there to talk about. Some spiritualistic subject, very likely; the conversation seemed to be tending that way. Jethro appeared to have forgotten altogether the seance and his, Galusha's, assumption of the character of the small, dark “evil influence.” It looked very much as if that assumption—so far as it entailed the permanent shifting of prejudice from Nelson Howard to himself—had been effort wasted.
Captain Jeth pulled at his beard and seemed to be dreaming. Galusha pitied the old fanatic as he stood there, massive, rugged, brows drawn together, sturdy legs apart as if set to meet the roll of a ship at sea—a strong figure, yet in a way the figure of a wistful, dreaming child, helpless—
“Mr. Bangs,” said the light keeper, “don't you cal'late, if you set out to, you could sell my four hundred Wellmouth Development same as you sold Martha's two hundred and fifty?”
Galusha would have sat down, if there had been anything except the floor to sit down on. As a matter of fact, even that consideration might not have prevented his sitting; his knees bent suddenly and he was on his way to the floor, but his shoulders struck the wall behind him and furnished the support he so very much needed. So far as speech was concerned, that was out of the question. His mouth opened and shut, but nothing audible issued therefrom. Mr. Bangs, at that moment, gave a very good imitation of a fish unexpectedly jerked out of deep water to dry, very dry land.
Captain Jethro did not seem to realize the effect of his question upon his visitor. His big fist moved downward from his chin to the tip of his beard, only to rise and take a new hold at the chin again. His gaze was fixed upon the rolling sea outside.
“You see,” he went on, “I kind of figger it out this way: If them folks who bought Martha's stock are cal'latin' to buy up Development they'll want more'n two hundred and fifty. I'll sell 'em mine at a reasonable figger; sha'n't ask much over what I paid for it, I sha'n't. If they ain't buyin' for anything 'special, but just 'cause they think it's a good thing to keep—well, then—”
Galusha interrupted. The faculty of framing words and uttering them was returning to him, albeit slowly and jerkily.
“Why—why, Captain Hallett,” he faltered. “How—how—who—who—”
“Martha didn't tell me nothin' except that she had sold her stock,” broke in the light keeper. “I guessed that, too, afore she told me. She never mentioned your name, Mr. Bangs, nor where she sold it, nor nothin'. But, of course, when I found out 'twas you who went to Boston and fetched home the five thousand dollars I didn't need to be told—much. Now, Mr. Bangs, I wish you'd see if you can't sell my four hundred shares for me. It'll be consider'ble of a favor if you will. You see, them shares—”
But Galusha did not wait for him to finish. His alarmed protests fairly tumbled over each other.
“Why—why, Captain Hallett,” he cried, “really I—I... ah... What you ask is quite impossible. Oh, very much so—ah—very. You see... Well, really, I... Captain Hallett, this entire matter was supposed to be a secret, an absolute secret. I am surprised—and—ah—shocked to learn—”
The captain's big paw was uplifted as a signal. “Sshh! Heave to! Come up into the wind a minute, Mr. Bangs. 'Tis a secret, fur's I'm consarned, and 'twill be just the same after I've sold my stock. I realize that business men don't want business matters talked about, 'tain't likely. All I'd like to have you do is just see if you can't dispose of that four hundred of mine, same as you done with Martha's. Just as a favor I'm askin' it.”
Galusha shook his head violently. His agitation was as great as ever. After going through the agony of the frying pan and congratulating himself that that torment was over, then to find he had escaped merely into the fire was perfectly maddening—not to say frightening—and—oh, dear, dear, dear!
“Really, I'm very sorry, very,” he reiterated. “But I am QUITE sure I can do nothing with your shares, Captain Hallett. It—it—such a thing would be absolutely impossible. I'm sorry.”
Captain Jethro's calm was unshaken. “We-ll,” he said, slowly, “I ain't altogether surprised. Course I could see that maybe you wouldn't want to go cruisin' up to them folks again, 'specially they bein' relations. I don't blame you for that, Mr. Bangs. But, in case you did feel that way, I'd made up my mind I'd go up there myself and see 'em.”
“Eh? Ah—ah—See? See whom?”
“Why, them relations of yours. Them Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot folks. I know OF 'em; everybody that knows anything about bankin' does, of course. I don't know any of 'em personal, but I cal'lated maybe you'd be willin' to give me a note, a letter introducin' me, you see. Then I could tell 'em why I come, and how I wanted to talk with 'em about sellin' some more of the same stock they sold for you. That would be all right, wouldn't it, Mr. Bangs?”
Galusha did not answer. The absolute hopelessness of the situation was beginning to force itself upon his understanding. Whether or not he gave the letter of introduction, the light keeper would go to Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot—oh, how on earth did he ever learn that THEY had anything to do with it?—and begin talkin' about Martha Phipps' stock; and they would deny knowing anything of it; and then the captain would persist, giving details; and Barbour and Minor and the rest would guess the truth and probably write Thomas, who would eventually tell Cousin Gussie; and the light keeper would return home and tell Martha, and she would learn that he had lied to her and deceived her—
“Well, what do you say, Mr. Bangs?” inquired Captain Jethro.
Bangs turned a haggard gaze in the speaker's direction. The latter was standing in exactly the same attitude, feet apart, hand to beard, sad eyes gazing out to sea; just as he had stood when Galusha's sympathy had gone out to him as a “helpless, dreaming child.”
“What are you laughin' at?” asked Captain Jeth, switching his gaze from old ocean to the face of the little archaeologist.
Galusha had not laughed, but there was a smile, a wan sort of smile, upon his face.
“Oh, nothing in particular,” he replied. “I was reflecting that it seemed rather too bad to waste pity in quarters where it was not—ah—needed, when there was such a pressing demand, as one might say, at home.”
The earnest young man behind the counter in the office of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot—the young man who had so definitely classified Galusha Bangs as a “nut”—was extremely surprised when that individual reappeared before his window and, producing the very check which he had obtained there so short a time before, politely requested to exchange it for eighty-two hundred dollars in cash and another check for the balance.
“Why—why—but—!” exclaimed the young man.
“Thank you. Yes, if—ah—if you will be so good,” said Galusha.
The young man himself asked questions, and then called Mr. Minor into consultation, and Mr. Minor asked more. The answers they received were not illuminating, but in the end the transaction was made as requested.
“But, Bangs,” said Minor, laughing, “what I can't understand is why you want to bother with the check for eleven hundred and odd—whatever it is. Why not take the whole amount in cash and be done with it?”
Galusha shook his head. “I prefer it the—ah—other way. If you don't mind,” he added, politely.
“Oh, we don't mind. But—well, it seems rather funny, that's all. Ha, ha!”
“Does it? Yes, I—ah—dare say it does.”
“Ha, ha! Yes, rather. Of course, it is your business, you know, but—”
He laughed again. The harassed Galusha waited until the laugh was over. Then he said, gently, “Yes, I was under that impression.”
“Eh? What impression?”
“That it was, as you say, my—ah—business.”
“Yes. Why... Eh? Oh!... Humph!... Why, yes, surely, certainly. Here,” turning briskly to the clerk, “give Mr. Bangs what he wishes at once.”
He walked away, pulling thoughtfully at his mustache. Galusha, rubbing his chin, looked gravely after him. The clerk began making out the check. This done and the check entrusted to a messenger to be taken to the private office for signing, the next business was the counting of the money.
“Eighty-two hundred, you said?” asked the clerk.
“Eighty-two hundred—ah—yes,” said Galusha.
Eight thousand was, of course, the price at par of Jethro Hallett's four hundred shares of Wellmouth Development stock. The additional two hundred was a premium paid, so to speak, to the departed spirit of the late Mrs. Jethro Hallett. She, by or through the Chinese control of Miss Marietta Hoag, had notified her husband that he was destined to sell his Development shares at a profit, a small profit perhaps, but a profit, nevertheless.
So, when at that point of their conversation in the lantern room of the Gould's Bluffs light, Galusha, recognizing his helpless position and the alternative of buying the Hallett holdings or being exposed to Cousin Gussie as a sentimental and idiotic spendthrift and to Martha Phipps as a liar and criminal—when Galusha, facing this alternative, stammered a willingness to go to Boston and see if he could not dispose of Jethro's stock as he had Martha's, the captain added an additional clause.
“I won't sell for par,” he declared stubbornly. “Julia revealed to me that I wouldn't, and so I sha'n't. I'll sell for fifty cents a share extry, but I won't sell for twenty flat. Rather than do that I'll go to them Cabot folks myself and see if I can't find out who's buyin' and why. Then I'll go to the real buyers and make the best trade I can with them. If they really want to get hold of that stock, fifty cents a share won't stand in their way, I'll bet you.”
It did not stand in Galusha's way, either. In his desperate position he would have paid any amount obtainable rather than have the light keeper go to Boston on such an errand.
Leaving the clerk's window with his pocket bulging with bank notes, Mr. Bangs proceeded sadly, but with determination, to the private office of Mr. Barbour, his cousin's “second secretary.” There, producing from another pocket a huge envelope, portentously daubed and sealed with red wax, he handed it to Barbour. It contained the two stock certificates, each signed in blank, Martha's for two hundred and fifty shares, Captain Jethro's for four hundred. The envelope and the wax he had procured at a stationer's near the South Station. The obliging salesman had permitted him to do the sealing on the premises.
“Mr. Barbour,” he faltered, “I should like to leave this with you, if—if quite convenient, that is to say.”
Barbour turned the big envelope over.
“Yes, Mr. Bangs, surely,” he said, but he looked puzzled. “What is it?”
Galusha blushed and stammered. “Why—why—” he began; “I—ah—you see—it is—ah—something of mine.”
“Something you wish me to take care of?” asked Barbour, still looking at the envelope.
His caller grasped at the straw.
“Yes—yes, that is it,” he said, eagerly. “Dear me, yes. If you will be so kind.”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Bangs. No trouble at all. I'll put it—”
But the little man stopped the sentence in the middle.
“If—if you please,” he protested. “Ah—please don't. I don't wish to know where you put it. Really, I don't, not in the least. I very much prefer not to know where it is.... Ah—good-day, Mr. Barbour. Thank you very much.”
The general opinion in the office of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot concerning the senior partner's queer cousin was strengthened by this visit. The surmise that Galusha Bangs was a “nut” became a conviction.
But, for the “nut” himself, life during the coming weeks and months became a much less worrisome struggle. Returning to East Wellmouth, for the second time laden with legal tender, he delivered his burden to Captain Jethro, who, in return, promised faithfully never to reveal a word concerning the sale of his Development stock or drop a hint which might help to locate its purchasers.
“Course I won't say nothin',” vowed the captain. “I realize that business men don't want their business talked about. And if them Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot folks are tryin' to buy in the stock, whether it's for themselves or somebody else, they'll want it kept dark. No, I ain't told a soul on this earth and I WON'T tell one. That is satisfactory, ain't it?”
The shadow of a smile passed across Galusha's face. “Quite, quite,” he replied. “Nothing could be more so unless—”
“Well, unless what?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing. Thank you—ah—thank you very much.”
It had occurred to him that, considering the light keeper's peculiarities, the promise not to tell a soul on earth might be stretched to include those elsewhere; but he kept the thought to himself. Captain Jethro did not press his question. The shrewd old captain was so thoroughly delighted at having sold, and at the prophesied profit, his troublesome holdings in the Wellmouth Development Company, that his mood was neither combative nor inquisitive.
Galusha did not tell Miss Phipps of his business deal with the light keeper. In the first place, his telling her would involve more deception and, also, might lead to more possibilities of discovery. The average, well-meaning person, having been driven by relentless fate to the committing of murder, could scarcely have felt more conscience-stricken and depraved than did little Galusha Bangs at having lied to Martha Phipps. Of course, the lies and deceit had resulted in a distinct benefit to her and had been perpetrated solely with that idea, but this fact he ignored entirely. And no murderer could have been more anxious to hide his guilty secret than was he. So, for the first few days after his return with the light keeper's money, he was inclined to be thoughtful and nervous, to fall into troubled trances at table or in the middle of a conversation, and to start rather violently when aroused from those trances. Primmie was disposed to attribute these lapses to disease. She confided her fears to her employer.
“You know what I think 'tis makes him act so, Miss Martha?” she asked, on one occasion.
“Makes who act how?”
“Makes Mr. Bangs set there and go moonin' off and not pay no attention and then jump when you wake him up as if you'd stuck a pin in him. You know what I think 'tis? I think maybe it's dropsy.”
“WHAT?”
“Um-hm. I had a great-aunt once; had a slew of 'em, fur's that goes, 'cause my grandmother on the starboard side—”
“WHAT side?”
“Eh! Oh, that's what pa used to call his side of the family, the starboard side. All ma's folks was port side, 'cordin' to his tell. He'd worked aboard vessels, pa had; that is, as much as he ever worked anywheres. Well, anyhow, his grandmother she had eight sisters and three brothers, so I had great-aunts thicker'n miskeeters in a swamp hole—my savin' soul, yes! Well, anyhow, one of 'em, Aunt Lucifer 'twas—”
“PRIMMIE! WHAT was her name?”
“Lucifer. Ma and us children always called her Aunt Lucy, though; she liked it better.”
“Heavens and earth! I should think she might. WHAT possessed anybody to name a child Lucifer? And a girl-child at that!”
“Does sound kind of funny, don't it? Folks 'most always used to laugh when they heard what her name was. That is, fust along they did; but they never laughed but once when she was around. Talk about makin' anybody mad! And temper—my Lord of Isrul! Why, if they laughed at her name she was li'ble to grab hold of the fust thing come to hand, flatiron or frying pan or chunk of stove wood or anything, and let 'em have it rattlety-bang-jing.Inever seen her do it, of course—all that was afore MY time—but pa used to say it never made no difference whether 'twas the man come tryin' to collect the store bill or the minister or anybody, she'd up and flatten him just the same. Course pa said 'twas a whole lot more li'ble to be the bill man than the minister 'cause there was precious few ministers ever—”
“There, there, Primmie! I can't stop to listen any longer, I'm busy. But do tell me why they named the poor thing Lucifer? How did they ever hear the name, anyway; way over in those Mashpaug woods?”
“Oh, there was a story about that, kind of a pretty story 'twas, too. 'Cordin' to pa's tell, the fust time Aunt Lucy's ma—my great grandmother, and the land knows what HER name was,Idon't—the fust time she went out after the baby was born she went to camp meetin'. And one of the ministers there he talked some consider'ble about a critter name of Lucifer that was a fallen-down angel, whatever that is. Well, my great-grandmother she didn't understand much about what he was talkin' about—I cal'late none of 'em did fur's that goes, and no wonder—but the name of Lucifer sort of stuck in her head 'cause she thought 'twas kind of pretty. And when she got back home they told her the baby had fetched loose from the bed where it had been asleep and fell onto the floor and pretty nigh busted itself in two. And it never hardly cried at all—was a reg'lar angel they said—and that made her think about the fallen-down angel she'd just heard tell of to camp meetin' and its name was Lucifer. And they hadn't named the baby yet, so—”
“I see. Ha, ha! Primmie, you are—well, there aren't many like you, I'm sure. Now I must go. Well, what is it?”
“Oh, nothin', only I ain't told you why I think Mr. Bangs may be comin' down with dropsy. You see, Aunt Lucy—this Lucifer one I've been tellin' you about—she had it. I only remember her 'long towards her last. She wan't heavin' any teakittles at folks then; my savin' soul, no! She used to set in a big rockin'-chair over by the stove and was all puffed-up like—like a featherbed, you might say; and she'd kind of doze along and doze along and you could holler your head off and she wouldn't pay no attention, and then she'd kind of wake up, as you might say, and sing out, 'Hey? What say?' just like Mr. Bangs, for all the world. And 'twas dropsy she had, so now you see, don't you, Miss Martha?”
“Yes, yes, Primmie, I see. Tut, tut, tut! You certainly have a great imagination, of its kind. I shouldn't worry about Mr. Bangs' disease, if I were you. The poor man isn't really strong yet and he has been runnin' back and forth to Boston lately altogether too much for his own good. He is tired and his nerves are tired, too; so we must make it as easy as we can for him, Primmie, you and I.”
“Yes'm. He's a good man, ain't he?”
“Indeed he is!”
“Yes'm. Even if he is so kind of—of funny.”
Often, in earlier conversations with her housemaid, Miss Phipps had agreed that her lodger was, to say the least, “funny”; but now she seemed to resent the word.
“Humph!” she observed, crisply, “if he is, I presume likely he has the right to be. And I know this, if there were more 'funny' people like him in this world it would be a big improvement. Primmie, go and do your sweepin'.”
With the end of the following week spring came in earnest to Gould's Bluffs, not yet as a steady boarder—spring in New England is a young lady far too fickle for that—but to make the first of her series of ever-lengthening visits. Galusha found her, indeed, a charming young person. His walks now were no longer between snowdrifts or over frozen fields and hills. Those hills and fields were still bare and brown, of course, but here and there, in sheltered hollows, tiny bits of new green began to show. In April, by disturbing the layers of dead leaves and sodden vegetation through which these hints of greenness peeped, one was likely to come upon fragrant treasures, the pink and white blossoms of the trailing arbutus.
There was a superfluity of mud, of course, and as Miss Phipps often informed him, Galusha's boots and lower trouser legs were “sights to see” when he came back from those walks. He expressed contrition and always proclaimed that he should be much more careful in future—much more, yes. But he was not, nor did he care greatly. He was feeling quite well again, better than he had felt for years, and spring was in his middle-aged blood and was rejuvenating him, just as it was rejuvenating the world and its creatures about him, including Lucy Larcom, Martha's ancient and rheumatic Thomas cat. Lucy—an animal as misnamed as Primmie's “Aunt Lucifer”—instead of slumbering peacefully and respectably in his cushioned box in the kitchen, which had been his custom of winter nights, now refused to come in at bedtime, ignored his mistress' calls altogether, and came rolling home in the morning with slit ears and scarred hide and an air of unrepentant and dissipated abandon.
Galusha, inspecting the prodigal's return one morning, observed: “Luce, when I first met you, you reminded me strongly of my Aunt Clarissa. The air of—ah—dignity and respectable disapproval with which you looked me over was much like hers. But now—now, if you wore a hat on one side and an—ah—exuberant waistcoat, you would remind me more of Mr. Pulcifer.”
With April came the fogs, and the great foghorn bellowed and howled night after night. Galusha soon learned to sleep through the racket. It was astonishing, his capacity for sleep and his capability in sleeping up to capacity. His appetite, too, was equally capable. He was, in fact, feeling so very well that his conscience began troubling him concerning his duty to the Institute. He wrote to the directors of that establishment suggesting that, as his health was so greatly improved, perhaps he had better return to his desk. The reply was prompt. The directors were, so the letter said, much pleased to hear of his improved health, but they wished him to insure the permanence of that improvement by remaining away for another six months at least. “We have,” the writer added, “a plan, not yet definite and complete, although approaching that condition, which will call for your knowledge and experienced guidance. Our plan will probably materialize in the fall or winter. I can say no more concerning it now, except to add that we feel sure that it will be acceptable to you and that you should take every precaution to gain strength and health as a preparatory measure.”
Galusha could not guess what the plan might be, but he was a bit surprised to find himself so willing to agree to the directors' mandate that he remain in East Wellmouth for the present. His beloved desk in his beloved study there in Washington had been torn from him, or rather he had been torn from it, and for a time it had really seemed as if the pangs of severance might prove fatal. By all that was fit and proper he should fiercely resent the order to remain away for another six months. But he did not resent it fiercely; did not resent it at all; in fact, to be quite honest, he welcomed it. He was inwardly delighted to be ordered to remain in East Wellmouth. Such a state of mind was surprising, quite nonunderstandable.
And, day by day and week by week, the fear that his guilty secret concerning the Wellmouth Development stock might be discovered became less and less acute. Captain Jethro never mentioned it; Martha Phipps, when she found that he preferred not to discuss it, kept quiet, also. Perhaps, after all, no one would ever know anything about it. And the change in Martha's spirits was glorious to see.
He and Lulie Hallett had many quiet talks together. Ever since the evening of the seance when, partially by craft and partially by luck, he had prevented her father's discovering young Howard's presence in the house, she had unreservedly given him her friendship. And this gift Galusha appreciated. He had liked her when they first met and the liking had increased. She was a sensible, quiet, unaffected country girl. She was also an extremely pretty girl, and when a very pretty girl—and sensible and unaffected and the rest—makes you her confidant and asks your advice concerning her love affair and her heart's most precious secrets, even a middle-aged “mummy duster,” whose interest in the female sex has, until very recently, centered upon specimens of that sex who have been embalmed several thousand years—even such a one cannot help being gratified by the subtle flattery.
So when Lulie asked his advice Galusha gave it, such as he happened to have in stock, whole-heartedly and without reserve. He and she had many chats and the subjects of these chats were almost invariably two—her father and Nelson Howard. How could she reconcile the one with and to the other? Mr. Bangs' council was, of course, to wait and hope, but a council of procrastination is, to say the most, but partially satisfying.
One afternoon, in the middle of May, he met her on the way back from the village and, as they walked on together, he asked her if there were any new developments in the situation. She looked troubled.
“I don't exactly know what you mean by developments,” she said. “If you mean that father is any more reconciled to Nelson, he isn't, that's all. On any other subject he is as nice as he can be. If I wanted anything in the world, and he had money enough to buy it, I do believe I could have it just for the asking. That is a good deal to say,” she added, with a half smile, “considering how fond father is of money, but honestly, Mr. Bangs, I think it's true.”
Galusha declared that he had no doubt of its truth, indeed, no.
“But, you see,” continued Lulie, “the one thing I do want—which is for father to like Nelson—can't be bought with money. I try to talk with him, and argue with him; sometimes when he is especially good-natured and has been especially nice to me, I try to coax him, but it always ends in one way; he gets cross and won't listen. 'Don't talk to me about that Howard swab, I won't hear it.' That's what he always says. He always calls Nelson a 'swab.' Oh, dear! I'm so tired of it all.”
“Yes—ah—yes, I'm sure you must be. Ah—um—swab? Swab? It doesn't sound agreeable. What is a—ah—swab, may I ask?”
“Oh, I believe it's a kind of mop that the sailors use aboard ship to clean decks with. I believe that is what it is.”
“Indeed? Yes, yes, of course. Now that is quite interesting, isn't it? A mop—yes. But really, I don't see why Mr. Howard should be called a—ah—mop. There is nothing about him which suggests a mop to me. Now in my case—why, this very morning Miss Mar—Miss Phipps suggested that my hair needed cutting very badly. I hadn't noticed it, myself, but when she called my attention I looked in the mirror and—ah—really, I was quite a sight. Ah—shaggy, you know, like a—like a yak.”
“A what?”
“A yak. The—ah—Tibetan animal. I spent a season in Tibet a number of years ago and they use them there for beasts of burden. They have a great deal of hair, you know, and so did I—ah—this morning. Dear me, yes; I was quite yaklike.”
Lulie turned an amused glance at him. “So Martha tells you when—” she began, and then stopped, having spoken without thinking. But her companion was not offended.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he said cheerfully. “She tells me many things for my own good. She quite manages me. It is extremely good of her, for goodness knows I need it. Dear me, yes!” He thoughtfully rubbed his shorn neck and added, “I told that barber that my hair needed cutting badly. I—ah—fear that is the way he cut it.... I read that joke in the paper, Miss Lulie; it isn't original, really.”
He smiled and she burst out laughing. But she did not laugh long. When she next spoke she was serious enough.
“Mr. Bangs,” she said, “you don't think it dishonorable, or mean to father, for me to keep on seeing Nelson, do you? Father keeps ordering me not to, but I never say I won't. If he asked me I should tell him that I did.”
Galusha's answer was promptly given.
“No, I don't think it dishonorable,” he said. “Of course, you must see him. It is too bad that you are obliged to see him in—ah—ah—dear me, what is the word I want? Clan—clan—sounds Scottish, doesn't it?—oh, yes, clandestine! It is too bad you are obliged to see him clandestinely, but I suppose your father's attitude makes anything else impossible. I am very sorry that my claiming to be the evil influence has had so little effect. That was a mistake, I fear.”
“Don't say that, Mr. Bangs. You saved us all from a dreadful scene, and father himself from—I hate to think what. Don't ever say that it was a mistake, please. But I do so hate all this hiding and pretending. Some day it will have to end, but how I don't know. Nelson comes first, of course; but how can I leave father? I shall see him—Nelson, I mean—to-night, Mr. Bangs. He has written me saying he is coming over, and I am going to meet him. He says he has good news. I can't think what it can be. I can't think of any good news that could come for him and me, except that father has stopped believing in Marietta Hoag's spirits and has gotten over his ridiculous prejudice; and that WON'T come—ever.”
“Oh, yes, it will! I'm sure it will. Dear me, you mustn't lose heart, you know.”
“Mustn't I? No, I suppose I mustn't. Thank you, Mr. Bangs. Nelson and I are ever and ever so much obliged to you. You are a great comfort to me. I told Martha that very thing yesterday,” she added.
Galusha could not help looking pleased. “Did you, indeed?” he observed. “Well, well—ah—dear me, that was a rather rash statement, wasn't it?”
“Not a bit. And do you want to know what she said? She said you were a great comfort to a good many people, Mr. Bangs. So there; you see!”
That evening the moon rolled, like a silver bowl, over the liquid rim of the horizon, and, upsetting, spilled shimmering, shining, dancing fire in a broad path from sky edge to the beach at the foot of Gould's Bluffs. At the top of that bluff, in the rear of a clump of bayberry bushes which shielded them from the gaze of possible watchers at the lighthouse, Nelson Howard and Lulie, walking slowly back and forth, saw it rise.
Nelson told her the good news he had mentioned in his letter. It was that he had been offered a position as operator at the great wireless station in Trumet. It was what he had been striving for and hoping for and his war record in the radio service had made it possible for him to obtain it. The pay was good to begin with and the prospect of advancement bright.
“And, of course, the best of it is,” he said, “that I shall be no further away from you than I am now. Trumet isn't a bit farther than South Wellmouth. There! Don't you think that my good news IS good news?”
Of course she did and said so.
“And I'm awfully proud of you, too,” she told him.
“Nothing to be proud of; I'm lucky, that's all. And don't you see, dear, how this is going to help us? I shall be earning good pay and I shall save every cent possible, you can bet on that. Rooms are furnished by the company for single men, and houses, nice, comfortable houses, for the married ones. In three months, or in six at the most, I shall have added enough to what I have saved already to make it possible for us to be married. And we WILL be married. Just think of you and me having one of those pretty little houses for our own, and being there together, in our home! Just think of it! Won't it be wonderful!”
He looked down into her face and smiled and she, looking up into his, smiled, too. But she shook her head, nevertheless.
“Yes, dear,” she said, “it would be wonderful. But it's too wonderful to be true, I'm afraid.”
“Why? Nonsense! Of course it can be true. And it's going to be, too, in six months, perhaps sooner.”
But still she shook her head.
“It can't be, Nelson,” she said, sadly. “Don't you see it can't? There is father.”
“Your father will be all right. That's one of the good things about this new job of mine. You will be only a little way from him. He'll be here at the light, with Zach to look after him, and you can come over every few days to make sure things are going as they should. Why—”
She touched his lips with her fingers.
“Don't, dear,” she begged. “You know you're only talking just because it is nice to make-believe. I like to hear you, too; but what is the use when it's ONLY make-believe? You know what father's health really is; you know how nervous he is. Doctor Powers told me he must not be overexcited or—or dreadful things might happen. You saw him at that horrid seance thing.”
He shrugged. “If I didn't see I heard,” he admitted.
“Yes, you heard. And you know how near—Now suppose I should tell him that you and I intended getting married and going to Trumet to live; what do you think would happen?”
“But, look here, Lulie: You've got to tell him some time, because we ARE going to be married, you know.”
“Are we? Yes, I—I hope we are. But, oh, Nelson, sometimes I get almost discouraged. I CAN'T leave him in that way, you know that. And, in a sense, I don't want to leave him, because he is my father and I love him.”
“But, confound it, you love me, too, don't you?”
“You know I do. But—but—oh, dear! What can I do?”
He did not answer at once. After a moment he said, rebelliously: “You have got your own life to live. Your father has lived the biggest part of his. He hasn't any right to prevent your being happy. It would be different if he had any excuse for it, reasonable excuse. I'm a—well, I'm not a thief—or a fool, quite, I hope. I can provide for you comfortably and I'll do my level best to be a good husband to you. If there was any excuse for his hating me, any except that idiotic spirit craziness of his. And what right has he to order you around? A hundred years or so ago fathers used to order their sons and daughters to marry this one or the other, and if they didn't mind they disinherited 'em, or threw 'em out of doors, or some such stuff. At least, that's the way it worked, according to the books and plays. But that doesn't go nowadays. What right has he—”
But again she touched his lips.
“Don't, Nelson, please,” she said, gently. “Rights haven't anything to do with it, of course. You know they haven't, don't you? You know it's just—just that things are AS they are and that's all. If father was as he used to be, his real self, and he behaved toward you as he is doing, I shouldn't hesitate at all. I should marry you and feel I was doing exactly right. But now—”
She stopped and he, stooping, caught a gleam of moisture where the moonlight touched her cheek. He put his arm about her waist.
“Don't, dear,” he said, hastily. “I'm sorry. Forgive me, will you? Of course you're dead right and I've been talking like a jackass. I'll behave, honest I will.... But what ARE we going to do? I won't give you up, you know, no matter if every spirit control in—in wherever they come from orders me to.”
She smiled. “Of course we're not going to give each other up,” she declared. “As for what we're going to do, I don't know. I suppose there is nothing to do for the present except to wait and—and hope father may change his mind. That's all, isn't it?”
He shook his head. “Waiting is a pretty slow game,” he said. “I wonder, if I pretended to fall in love with Marietta Hoag, if those Chinese spooks of hers would send word to Cap'n Jeth that I was really a fairly decent citizen. Courting Marietta would be hard medicine to take, but if it worked a cure we might try it. What do you think?”
“I should be afraid that the remedy might be worse than the disease. Once in Marietta's clutches how would you get away?”
“Oh, that would be easy. I'd have Doctor Powers swear that I had been suffering from temporary softening of the brain and wasn't accountable for what I'd been doing.”
“She might not believe it.”
“Maybe not, but everybody else would. Nothing milder than softening of the brain would account for a fellow's falling in love with Marietta Hoag.”
A little later, as they were parting, she said, “Nelson, you're an awfully dear fellow to be so thoughtful and forbearing and—and patient. Sometimes I think I shouldn't let you wait for me any longer.”
“Let me! How are you going to stop me? Of course I'll wait for you. You're the only thing worth waiting for in the world. Don't you know that?”
“I know you think so. But, oh, dear, it seems sometimes as if there never would be any end to the waiting, and as if I had no right to ask—”
“There, there! Don't YOU begin talking about rights. There's going to be an end and the right kind of end. No Chinese spooks are going to keep us apart, my girl, not if I can help it.”
“I know. But can you help it?... I must go now. Yes, I must, or father will wonder where I am and begin looking for me. He thinks I am over at Martha Phipps', you know. Good-night, dear.”
“Good-night, girlie. Don't worry, it's coming out all right for us, I'm sure of it. This new job of mine is the first step in that direction. There! Kiss me and run along. Good-night.”
They kissed and parted, Lulie to hasten back along the path to the light and Nelson to stride off in the opposite direction toward South Wellmouth. Neither of them saw two figures which had, the moment before, appeared upon the summit of the knoll about thirty yards from the edge of the bluff and directly behind them. But the pair on the knoll saw them.
Martha Phipps had been standing by the window of the sitting room in her home looking out. She had been standing there for some minutes. Galusha Bangs, in the rocking-chair by the center table, was looking at her. Suddenly Martha spoke.
“I declare!” she exclaimed. “I do believe that's the loveliest moon I ever saw. I presume likely,” she added, with a laugh, “it's the same moon I've always seen; it just looks lovelier, that's all, seems to me. It will be beautiful to look at from the top of the bluff, the light on the water, I mean. You really ought to walk over and see it, Mr. Bangs.”
Galusha hesitated, rubbed his spectacles, and then was seized with an inspiration.
“I—I will if you will go, too,” he said.
Martha turned to see if he was in earnest.
“Mercy me!” she exclaimed. “Why should I go? I've seen that moon on that same water more times than I like to count.”
“But you haven't seen it—ah—recently. Now have you?”
“Why, no, I don't know as I have. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've been over to the top of the bank to see the moonlight since—well, since father died. Father loved to look at salt water by sunlight or moonlight—or no light. But, good gracious,” she added, “it seems awfully foolish, doesn't it, to go wading through the wet grass to look at the moon—at my age?”
“Why, not at all, not at all,” persisted Galusha. “I must be—ah—vastly older than you, Miss Phipps, and—”
“Nonsense!”
“Oh, but I am, really. One has only to look at me to see. And there are times when I feel—ah—incredibly ancient; indeed, yes. Now in your case, Miss Martha—”
“In my case I suppose I'm just a slip of a girl. For mercy sakes, don't let's talk ages, no, nor think about 'em, either.... Do YOU want to go out to-night to look at that moon, Mr. Bangs?”
“Why, yes—I—if you—”
“Then get your rubbers and cap. I'll be ready in a minute.”
The moon was well up now and land and sea were swimming in its misty radiance. There was not a breath of wind and the air was as mild as if the month had been June and not May. Under their feet the damp grass and low bushes swished and rustled. An adventurous beetle, abroad before his time, blundered droning by their heads. From the shadow of a bunch of huckleberry bushes by the path a lithe figure soared lightly aloft, a furry paw swept across, and that June bug was knocked into the vaguely definite locality known as the “middle of next week.”
Martha uttered a little scream. “Goodness gracious me!” she exclaimed. “Lucy Larcom, you bad cat, how you did scare me!”
Lucy leaped soundlessly over the clump of huckleberry bushes and galloped gayly into the distance, his tail waving like a banner.
“WELL!” observed his mistress; “for a cat as old as you are I must say!”
“He feels young to-night,” said Galusha. “It must be the—ah—moonlight, I think. Really, I—ah—I feel surprisingly young, myself. I do, indeed!”
Martha laughed blithely. They came to the abrupt little slope at the southwestern edge of the government property and when he offered to help her down she took his hand and sprang down herself, almost as lightly and easily as Lucy could have done it. Galusha laughed, too, light-heartedly as a boy. His spectacles fell off and he laughed at that.
The minute afterward they arrived at the crest of the knoll. Another moment and the silhouetted figures of Lulie Hallett and Nelson Howard appeared from behind the clump of bayberry bushes and walked onward together, his arm about her waist. The pair on the knoll saw the parting.
Lulie ran up the path and the door of the light keeper's cottage closed behind her. Howard disappeared around the bend of the hill. Martha and Galusha turned hastily and began walking toward home. Neither spoke until they were almost there. Then Miss Phipps, apparently feeling that something should be said, observed: “The moon was—was real pretty, wasn't it, Mr. Bangs?”
Galusha started. “Eh?” he queried. “Oh, yes! yes, indeed! Ah—quite so.”
He made the next remark also; it was quite irrelevant.
“Youth,” he said, musingly. “Youth is a wonderful thing, really it is.”
Possibly his companion understood his thought, or had been thinking along the same line herself. At all events she agreed. “Yes, it is,” she said. “It is so. And most of us don't realize how wonderful until it's gone.”
From the shadows by the gate Lucy Larcom sprang aloft to knock another beetle galley-west. Lucy was distinctly a middle-aged cat, but he did not allow the fact to trouble him. He gathered his June bugs while he might and did not stop to dream vain dreams of vanished youth.