IV
Three years after the brief episode of Hubert Russell’s two meetings with Agnes Benedict he found himself enjoying a hard-earned holiday in camp on an island in Georgian Bay. Since graduating, he had made a quick climb up the ladder of success. A series of fortunate circumstances had enabled him to conquer difficulties apparently insuperable. His residence in a progressive town of the Middle West, congenial occupation, and the sense of work well bestowed, had done much to restore the healthy tone of his mind, biased to melancholy through another’s crime. He had corresponded intermittently with Jack Benedict, but without touching upon the subject of Jack’s domestic or sentimental ties. He had read, in the “society” columns of certain New York newspapers, of various occasionsupon which the three Misses Benedicthad appeared before the world; of their summers abroad and at home; of the marriage of Margaret; and recently of the more than amateur achievement of Agnes as the artist of some pastels displayed at an exhibition in the spring.What he had expected to read—the announcement of her marriage with her cousin Jack—had not yet reached Russell’s eye. When that event should occur, and not till then, Russell said to himself, he would give up, once and for all, the haunting witchery of Agnes Benedict’s fair face. Through the mists of three years of memory it shone upon him still!
One day in August a little pleasure-yacht of light draft and dainty build (meant to thread her way between innumerable rocky islands and dally beside tempting bits of shore, rather than to brave the rough water of the open bay) passed into an inlet where its owner had decided to throw a rope over a large rock and stop to lunch!
This primitive method of anchorage was a favorite one with the owners of the Juanita, the Cartwrights, a benevolent elderly couple from New York, who, owning a summer residence upon one of the islands lower down the bay, often took their house-parties away for days of pleasuring afloat. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright had now as their guests several young men and maidens, among them Jack Benedict, his sister Louisa, and his Cousin Agnes. All day the Juanita had run through narrow channels of pale green water, between rocky ramparts crownedwith spruce and birch, around the gray flanks of which sprang from the water forests of bulrushes, sprinkled with cardinal flowers and water-lilies. As they now steered skillfully into the channel, in which it was expected to find their usual landing-place open to approach, an expression of disappointment arose from the forward deck, where gathered a little group of voyagers in the gay attire of summer on the wave.
“A camp of men! Horrid things! Why did they choose our island!” cried Lou Benedict, pouting.
A rough house-boat anchored near the shore formed the center of supplies for the camp, often replenished by a tri-weekly steam launch from the mainland. Around a fire built upon stones a party of young men were making rather bored preparations for their mid-day meal. As the whistle of the toy yacht sounded a salute they arose to their feet and came hurrying down to the water’s edge, evidently not displeased at the invasion of their privacy.
“Hubert Russell!” exclaimed Benedict, joyfully, as he identified among them his old friend. “Who would have dreamed of our meeting here?”
Greetings and introductions followed, and from this point no expression was heard from the girls of disapproval of “those horrid men.”
It was in truth a stalwart and good-looking band of which Russell was the leader. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright, nominally joining forces with them for luncheon, brought joy to the hearts of these weary cooks and bottle-washers by the unpacking of a dainty meal, well served by the yacht’s cook and stewards. As the party grouped itself under the shade of glimmering birches, Russell, as if through a mockery of Fate, found himself next to the lady of his dreams. The talk, at first general, subsided into chat between persons sitting at a picnic casually side by side. Russell, almost fearing to continue where he was, looked over the circle to see Jack Benedict half reclining on the moss at the feet of an extremely pretty girl in white duck, a sailor-hat tied down with a white veil half covering her face. Seeing him thus provided for, Russell had less scruple in accepting his own half-hour of joy.
He thought Agnes sweeter, more womanly, more to his taste than ever. The rare experience was his of finding one’s self confirmed in a predilection after three years of total separation from the object. They talked easily, without reference to the past, without touching upon intimate topics. He fancied, without being sure, that Agnes knew the incidents of his advance sinceleaving college. That she had thus kept track of him was a flattery he must accept only because he was Jack’s friend. When he left her, his pulses bounding with delight of her presence, Jack Benedict took him off to the roof of the yacht’s deck, where they sat by the pilot-house and smoked and chatted through a long and lazy hour. During this time the rest of the party had scattered for various enterprises—exploring the waters in canoes, fishing, reading novels under the deck-awning, or lounging beneath the trees and overhanging rocks.
And as yet no word had passed Jack’s lips concerning his sentimental relations with the sex. Suddenly Mrs. Cartwright’s voice called up to him:
“Mr. Benedict, won’t you please take a canoe and paddle up that inlet yonder in search of your cousin and Miss Clare? We shall be starting before long, and I must begin to gather my chickens under my wings.”
Jack blushed as he prepared to obey the chaperon’s behest.
“You will think that for an engaged man I’m rather forgetful of my treasure,” he said, smiling. “I meant to tell you, Russell, that I’m to be married in October.”
Russell’s heart gave a despairing leap.“Wasn’t it to be expected?” he said, smiling also.
“Well—I—there were reasons why I couldn’t bring myself to write to you, old chap,” rejoined Jack, as he dropped lightly into the canvas canoe a deck-hand had put into the water, Russell following. “And perhaps we need not discuss it further. But I’m happier than I deserve to be, and I have won a gem of purest ray.”
As they paddled rapidly around the sharp projection of rocks that had seemed to block the way ahead of them, they saw the girls’ canoe in the center of a field of lily-pads bordering another one of the rocky points here so numerous in the channel. When the lily-gatherers, who had half filled their craft with masses of gleaming flowers and long, curling stems, espied the search-party, they waved them a merry welcome.
“I knew they were not fishing; she’s too tender-hearted by far,” exclaimed Jack, with a lover’s pride.
Simultaneously the smiles vanished from his handsome face. A naphtha launch just then passing into this inlet had left behind it a swell that made the canoe containing the two girls rock perilously from side to side. Agnes, evidently recognizing the danger, sat quite still, but EdithClare threw herself forward with a scream and clasped her companion in her arms. The canoe, upsetting, plunged both occupants into the broad-leafed greenery, under which they sank at once out of sight.
“Can they swim?” asked Russell, quickening his stroke.
“Yes, both of them, if they are not caught below,” answered Benedict, hoarsely.
Their canoe shot madly forward. Prompt as were the people in the naphtha launch in turning back to attempt rescue, they could not vie with these men in their eager effort to reach the scene of the disaster. It was soon fatally evident that while one of the young women had arisen to the surface and was keeping herself afloat, something had happened to prevent the reappearance of the other. Jack was not so quick as Hubert Russell to see that it was Agnes who was missing. With misery clutching at his heart-strings, Russell said, entreatingly:
“Let me save her for you, Jack! It will be something to pay back all you’ve done for me if I can put the woman I’ve loved ever since I first laid eyes on her into your arms again.”
He could not see that Jack was not even looking toward the place where Agnes had gone down. All his thoughts were directed to thespot whence Edith Clare called out to him to save her. “Coming, my darling; have no fear,” Jack answered her, tenderly.
“RUSSELL REAPPEARED, BRINGING WITH HIM THE SODDEN FORM OF AGNES.”
“RUSSELL REAPPEARED, BRINGING WITH HIM THE SODDEN FORM OF AGNES.”
Russell, without an instant’s further delay, dived overboard. The canoe, violently shaken, was yet steadied by the other occupant, who succeeded in reaching Edith and extricating her in safety from her perilous surroundings.
An anxious interval, and Russell reappeared, bringing with him the sodden form of Agnes, who, snared and held under water by the green serpents of the lily-stems, was quite inanimate. They got her aboard the launch and hurried back to the yacht, where poor Mrs. Cartwright received them wringing her hands over this sad ending of her day of pleasure. During the hour while Russell waited in an agony of fear on deck, Jack Benedict, who stood beside him, became for the first time aware of his friend’s long ordeal of repressed feeling for Agnes.
“And I might have spared you so much of it; it was my fault; I only was to blame,” Jack said, sorrowfully. “Ages ago, had I known this, I might have told you how she gently and tenderly—poor soul—but with finality, put a stop to my boy’s dream of winning her. Now, when God only knows whether she will be with us in the future, I can say no more. I think, Hubert—mind,I can’t say I am sure, but I think—she must have loved you from the first.”
Russell could not speak. He wrung Benedict’s hand, looking at him with hollow, haggard eyes.
“So many people have known for the last two years of my attentions to Edith Clare, we have been so frequently announced by our friends to be engaged, that, even before the engagement was a fact, it did not occur to me that you, though living so far from us, were in total ignorance of our relations. You can see, Hubert, that Edith is my other self. My fancy for Agnes grew up with me, but the love for Edith came with my maturer manhood. Our engagement was announced only just before we all came off here to visit Mrs. Cartwright, or I should have written to inform you of it officially and of my approaching marriage.”
“There!” exclaimed Russell, who was straining his ears to hear sounds from the little inner cabin, where Agnes lay under the care of Mrs. Cartwright and a doctor—found, fortunately, among the campers on the island. “I am sure I heard her voice.”
Jack’s sister Lou came out to them, her face beaming with delight. “She has stirred—has spoken; she breathes easily now,” was what theyheard. “In a little while, the doctor says, she will be herself again,” Lou tried to add, but was choked by her excitement.
An hour or two later Russell, who had been invited by their hostess to go back with them for a little visit to her island villa, sat beside the lounging-chair of Indian bamboo heaped with rugs and cushions, in which they had placed Agnes upon deck—clad for the occasion in things they always carried aboard in a wardrobe assembled for such emergencies. The yacht was speeding merrily homeward over a track of westering sunshine. Forest fires upon the small islands along their route glowed like jewels under canopies of dense, pearly smoke. In the wake of the boat violet shadows appeared and vanished into the water. All ahead of the two was bright as the Promised Land.
What had so long seemed impossible to these lovers had come about in the simplest fashion. Their hands meeting had conveyed the joy of each at reunion with the other. A few broken words from Russell told Agnes that he had no dearer wish than to win her love. And Agnes—Now she was pouring out to him the confidences of three years past; was claiming his in return; was hanging upon his words, her face so full of happiness as to tell its own story.
“We are all avoiding that part of the deck as if it were a region of pestilence,” said Lou to her future sister-in-law. “I don’t think I ever saw such bare-faced love-making in public. I have had to put up a parasol so as not to see them. As for you and Jack, Edith, you may step down from your pedestal as fiancés. Although mamma will be very much taken by surprise to hear that Agnes has come up into these remote waters to annex a young man from off an island, I think Jack will induce her to feel resigned. Certainly, Russell is a fine, manly fellow. From all I can see, I fancy there will soon be only one Miss Benedict.”
“And for how long will there be even one?” asked Edith, teasingly.
Lou blushed, and would not answer.
A GIRL OF THE PERIOD