When Martha, with Meg at her heels, passed Ann Gossaway's cottage the next morning on her way to the post-office—her daily custom—the dressmaker, who was sitting in the window, one eye on her needle and the other on the street, craned her head clear of the calico curtain framing the sash and beckoned to her.
This perch of Ann Gossaway's was the eyrie from which she swept the village street, bordered with a double row of wide-spreading elms and fringed with sloping grassy banks spaced at short intervals by hitching-posts and horse-blocks. Her own cottage stood somewhat nearer the flagged street path than the others, and as the garden fences were low and her lookout flanked by two windows, one on each end of her corner, she could not only note what went on about the fronts of her neighbors' houses, but much of what took place in their back yards. From this angle, too, she could see quite easily, and without more than twisting her attenuated neck, the whole village street from the Cromartins' gate to the spire of the village church, as well as everything that passed up and down the shadow-flecked road: which child, for instance, was late for school, and how often, and what it wore and whether its clothes were new or inherited from an elder sister; who came to the Bronsons' next door, and how long they stayed, and whether they brought anything with them or carried anything away; the peddler with his pack; the gunner on his way to the marshes, his two dogs following at his heels in a leash; Dr. John Cavendish's gig, and whether it was about to stop at Uncle Ephraim Tipple's or keep on, as usual, and whirl into the open gate of Cobden Manor; Billy Tatham's passenger list, as the ricketty stage passed with the side curtains up, and the number of trunks and bags, and the size of them, all indicative of where they were bound and for how long; details of village life—no one of which concerned her in the least—being matters of profound interest to Miss Gossaway.
These several discoveries she shared daily with a faded old mother who sat huddled up in a rocking-chair by the stove, winter and summer, whether it had any fire in it or not.
Uncle Ephraim Tipple, in his outspoken way, always referred to these two gossips as the "spiders." "When the thin one has sucked the life out of you," he would say with a laugh, "she passes you on to her old mother, who sits doubled up inside the web, and when she gets done munching there isn't anything left but your hide and bones."
It was but one of Uncle Ephraim's jokes. The mother was only a forlorn, half-alive old woman who dozed in her chair by the hour—the relict of a fisherman who had gone to sea in his yawl some twenty years before and who had never come back. The daughter, with the courage of youth, had then stepped into the gap and had alone made the fight for bread. Gradually, as the years went by the roses in her cheeks—never too fresh at any time—had begun to fade, her face and figure to shrink, and her brow to tighten. At last, embittered by her responsibilities and disappointments, she had lost faith in human kind and had become a shrew. Since then her tongue had swept on as relentlessly as a scythe, sparing neither flower nor noxious weed, a movement which it was wise, sometimes, to check.
When, therefore, Martha, with Meg now bounding before her, caught sight of Ann Gossaway's beckoning hand thrust out of the low window of her cottage—the spider-web referred to by Uncle Ephraim—she halted in her walk, lingered a moment as if undecided, expressed her opinion of the dressmaker to Meg in an undertone, and swinging open the gate with its ball and chain, made her way over the grass-plot and stood outside the window, level with the sill.
"Well, it ain't none of my business, of course, Martha Sands," Miss Gossaway began, "and that's just what I said to mother when I come home, but if I was some folks I'd see my company in my parlor, long as I had one, 'stead of hidin' down behind the House o' Refuge. I said to mother soon's I got in, 'I'm goin' to tell Martha Sands fust minute I see her. She ain't got no idee how them girls of hers is carryin' on or she'd stop it.' That's what I said, didn't I, mother?"
Martha caught an inarticulate sound escaping from a figure muffled in a blanket shawl, but nothing else followed.
"I thought fust it was you when I heard that draggle-tail dog of yours barkin', but it was only Miss Jane and Bart Holt."
"Down on the beach! When?" asked Martha. She had not understood a word of Miss Gossaway's outburst.
"Why, yesterday afternoon, of course—didn't I tell ye so? I'd been down to Fogarty's; it's my week. Miss Jane and Bart didn't see me—didn't want to. Might a' been a pair of scissors, they was that close together."
"Miss Jane warn't on the beach yesterday afternoon," said Martha in a positive tone, still in the dark.
"She warn't, warn't she? Well, I guess I know Miss Jane Cobden. She and Bart was hunched up that close you couldn't get a bodkin 'tween 'em. She had that red cloak around her and the hood up ever her head. Not know her, and she within ten feet o' me? Well, I guess I got my eyes left, ain't I?"
Martha stood stunned. She knew now who it was. She had taken the red cloak from Lucy's shoulders the evening before. Then a cold chill crept over her as she remembered the lie Lucy had told—"not a soul on the beach but Meg and the sandsnipe." For an instant she stood without answering. But for the window-sill on which her hand rested she would have betrayed her emotion in the swaying of her body. She tried to collect her thoughts. To deny Jane's identity too positively would only make the situation worse. If either one of the sisters were to be criticised Jane could stand it best.
"You got sharp eyes and ears, Ann Gossaway, nobody will deny you them, but still I don't think Miss Jane was on the beach yesterday."
"Don't think, don't you? Maybe you think I can't tell a cloak from a bed blanket, never havin' made one, and maybe ye think I don't know my own clo'es when I see 'em on folks. I made that red cloak for Miss Jane two years ago, and I know every stitch in it. Don't you try and teach Ann Gossaway how to cut and baste or you'll git worsted," and the gossip looked over her spectacles at Martha and shook her side-curls in a threatening way.
Miss Gossaway had no love for the old nurse. There had been a time when Martha "weren't no better'n she oughter be, so everybody said," when she came to the village, and the dressmaker never let a chance slip to humiliate the old woman. Martha's open denunciation of the dressmaker's vinegar tongue had only increased the outspoken dislike each had for the other. She saw now, to her delight, that the incident which had seemed to be only a bit of flotsam that had drifted to her shore and which but from Martha's manner would have been forgotten by her the next day, might be a fragment detached from some floating family wreck. Before she could press the matter to an explanation Martha turned abruptly on her heel, called Meg, and with the single remark, "Well, I guess Miss Jane's of age," walked quickly across the grass-plot and out of the gate, the ball and chain closing it behind her with a clang.
Once on the street Martha paused with her brain on fire. The lie which Lucy had told frightened her. She knew why she had told it, and she knew, too, what harm would come to her bairn if that kind of gossip got abroad in the village. She was no longer the gentle, loving nurse with the soft caressing hand, but a woman of purpose. The sudden terror aroused in her heart had the effect of tightening her grip and bracing her shoulders as if the better to withstand some expected shock.
She forgot Meg; forgot her errand to the post-office; forgot everything, in fact, except the safety of the child she loved. That Lucy had neglected and even avoided her of late, keeping out of her way even when she was in the house, and that she had received only cool indifference in place of loyal love, had greatly grieved her, but it had not lessened the idolatry with which she worshipped her bairn. Hours at a time she had spent puzzling her brain trying to account for the change which had come over the girl during two short years of school. She had until now laid this change to her youth, her love of admiration, and had forgiven it. Now she understood it; it was that boy Bart. He had a way with him. He had even ingratiated himself into Miss Jane's confidence. And now this young girl had fallen a victim to his wiles. That Lucy should lie to her, of all persons, and in so calm and self-possessed a manner; and about Bart, of all men—sent a shudder through her heart, that paled her cheek and tightened her lips. Once before she had consulted Jane and had been rebuffed. Now she would depend upon herself.
Retracing her steps and turning sharply to the right, she ordered Meg home in a firm voice, watched the dog slink off and then walked straight down a side road to Captain Nat Holt's house. That the captain occupied a different station in life from herself did not deter her. She felt at the moment that the honor of the Cobden name lay in her keeping. The family had stood by her in her trouble; now she would stand by them.
The captain sat on his front porch reading a newspaper. He was in his shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, his straight hair standing straight out like the bristles of a shoe-brush. Since the death of his wife a few years before he had left the service, and now spent most of his days at home, tending his garden and enjoying his savings. He was a man of positive character and generally had his own way in everything. It was therefore with some astonishment that he heard Martha say when she had mounted the porch steps and pushed open the front door, her breath almost gone in her hurried walk, "Come inside."
Captain Holt threw down his paper and rising hurriedly from his chair, followed her into the sitting-room. The manner of the nurse surprised him. He had known her for years, ever since his old friend, Lucy's father, had died, and the tones of her voice, so different from her usual deferential air, filled him with apprehension.
"Ain't nobody sick, is there, Martha?"
"No, but there will be. Are ye alone?"
"Yes."
"Then shut that door behind ye and sit down. I've got something to say."
The grizzled, weather-beaten man who had made twenty voyages around Cape Horn, and who was known as a man of few words, and those always of command, closed the door upon them, drew down the shade on the sunny side of the room and faced her. He saw now that something of more than usual importance absorbed her.
"Now, what is it?" he asked. His manner had by this time regained something of the dictatorial tone he always showed those beneath him in authority.
"It's about Bart. You've got to send him away." She had not moved from her position in the middle of the room.
The captain changed color and his voice lost its sharpness.
"Bart! What's he done now?"
"He sneaks off with our Lucy every chance he gets. They were on the beach yesterday hidin' behind the House o' Refuge with their heads together. She had on Miss Jane's red cloak, and Ann Gossaway thought it was Miss Jane, and I let it go at that."
The captain looked at Martha incredulously for a moment, and then broke into a loud laugh as the absurdity of the whole thing burst upon him. Then dropping back a step, he stood leaning against the old-fashioned sideboard, his elbows behind him, his large frame thrust toward her.
"Well, what if they were—ain't she pretty enough?" he burst out. "I told her she'd have 'em all crazy, and I hear Bart ain't done nothin' but follow in her wake since he seen her launched."
Martha stepped closer to the captain and held her fist in his face.
"He's got to stop it. Do ye hear me?" she shouted. "If he don't there'll be trouble, for you and him and everybody. It's me that's crazy, not him."
"Stop it!" roared the captain, straightening up, the glasses on the sideboard ringing with his sudden lurch. "My boy keep away from the daughter of Morton Cobden, who was the best friend I ever had and to whom I owe more than any man who ever lived! And this is what you traipsed up here to tell me, is it, you mollycoddle?"
Again Martha edged nearer; her body bent forward, her eyes searching his—so close that she could have touched his face with her knuckles.
"Hold your tongue and stop talkin' foolishness," she blazed out, the courage of a tigress fighting for her young in her eyes, the same bold ring in her voice. "I tell ye, Captain Holt, it's got to stop short off, and NOW! I know men; have known 'em to my misery. I know when they're honest and I know when they ain't, and so do you, if you would open your eyes. Bart don't mean no good to my bairn. I see it in his face. I see it in the way he touches her hand and ties on her bonnet. I've watched him ever since the first night he laid eyes on her. He ain't a man with a heart in him; he's a sneak with a lie in his mouth. Why don't he come round like any of the others and say where he's goin' and what he wants to do instead of peepin' round the gate-posts watchin' for her and sendin' her notes on the sly, and makin' her lie to me, her old nurse, who's done nothin' but love her? Doctor John don't treat Miss Jane so—he loves her like a man ought to love a woman and he ain't got nothin' to hide—and you didn't treat your wife so. There's something here that tells me"—and she laid her hand on her bosom—"tells me more'n I dare tell ye. I warn ye now ag'in. Send him to sea—anywhere, before it is too late. She ain't got no mother; she won't mind a word I say; Miss Jane is blind as a bat; out with him and NOW!"
The captain straightened himself up, and with his clenched fist raised above his head like a hammer about to strike, cried:
"If he harmed the daughter of Morton Cobden I'd kill him!" The words jumped hot from his throat with a slight hissing sound, his eyes still aflame.
"Well, then, stop it before it gets too late. I walk the floor nights and I'm scared to death every hour I live." Then her voice broke. "Please, captain, please," she added in a piteous tone. "Don't mind me if I talk wild, my heart is breakin', and I can't hold in no longer," and she burst into a paroxysm of tears.
The captain leaned against the sideboard again and looked down upon the floor as if in deep thought. Martha's tears did not move him. The tears of few women did. He was only concerned in getting hold of some positive facts upon which he could base his judgment.
"Come, now," he said in an authoritative voice, "let me get that chair and set down and then I'll see what all this amounts to. Sounds like a yarn of a horse-marine." As he spoke he crossed the room and, dragging a rocking-chair from its place beside the wall, settled himself in it. Martha found a seat upon the sofa and turned her tear-stained face toward him.
"Now, what's these young people been doin' that makes ye so almighty narvous?" he continued, lying back in his chair and looking at her from under his bushy eyebrows, his fingers supporting his forehead.
"Everything. Goes out sailin' with her and goes driftin' past with his head in her lap. Fogarty's man who brings fish to the house told me." She had regained something of her old composure now.
"Anything else?" The captain's voice had a relieved, almost condescending tone in it. He had taken his thumb and forefinger from his eyebrow now and sat drumming with his stiffened knuckles on the arm of the rocker.
"Yes, a heap more—ain't that enough along with the other things I've told ye?" Martha's eyes were beginning to blaze again.
"No, that's just as it ought to be. Boys and girls will be boys and girls the world over." The tone of the captain's voice indicated the condition of his mind. He had at last arrived at a conclusion. Martha's head was muddled because of her inordinate and unnatural love for the child she had nursed. She had found a spookship in a fog bank, that was all. Jealousy might be at the bottom of it or a certain nervous fussiness. Whatever it was it was too trivial for him to waste his time over.
The captain rose from his chair, crossed the sitting-room, and opened the door leading to the porch, letting in the sunshine. Martha followed close at his heels.
"You're runnin' on a wrong tack, old woman, and first thing ye know ye'll be in the breakers," he said, with his hand on the knob. "Ease off a little and don't be too hard on 'em. They'll make harbor all right. You're makin' more fuss than a hen over one chicken. Miss Jane knows what she's about. She's got a level head, and when she tells me that my Bart ain't good enough to ship alongside the daughter of Morton Cobden, I'll sign papers for him somewhere else, and not before. I'll have to get you to excuse me now; I'm busy. Good-day," and picking up his paper, he re-entered the house and closed the door upon her.
Should Miss Gossaway have been sitting at her lookout some weeks after Martha's interview with Captain Nat Holt, and should she have watched the movements of Doctor John's gig as it rounded into the open gate of Cobden Manor, she must have decided that something out of the common was either happening or about to happen inside Yardley's hospitable doors. Not only was the sorrel trotting at her best, the doctor flapping the lines along her brown back, his body swaying from side to side with the motion of the light vehicle, but as he passed her house he was also consulting the contents of a small envelope which he had taken from his pocket.
"Please come early," it read. "I have something important to talk over with you."
A note of this character signed with so adorable a name as "Jane Cobden" was so rare in the doctor's experience that he had at once given up his round of morning visits and, springing into his waiting gig, had started to answer it in person.
He was alive with expectancy. What could she want with him except to talk over some subject that they had left unfinished? As he hurried on there came into his mind half a dozen matters, any one of which it would have been a delight to revive. He knew from the way she worded the note that nothing had occurred since he had seen her—within the week, in fact—to cause her either annoyance or suffering. No; it was only to continue one of their confidential talks, which were the joy of his life.
Jane was waiting for him in the morning-room. Her face lighted up as he entered and took her hand, and immediately relaxed again into an expression of anxiety.
All his eagerness vanished. He saw with a sinking of the heart, even before she had time to speak, that something outside of his own affairs, or hers, had caused her to write the note.
"I came at once," he said, keeping her hand in his. "You look troubled; what has happened?"
"Nothing yet," she answered, leading him to the sofa, "It is about Lucy. She wants to go away for the winter."
"Where to?" he asked. He had placed a cushion at her back and had settled himself beside her.
"To Trenton, to visit her friend Miss Collins and study music. She says Warehold bores her."
"And you don't want her to go?"
"No; I don't fancy Miss Collins, and I am afraid she has too strong an influence over Lucy. Her personality grates on me; she is so boisterous, and she laughs so loud; and the views she holds are unaccountable to me in so young a girl. She seems to have had no home training whatever. Why Lucy likes her, and why she should have selected her as an intimate friend, has always puzzled me." She spoke with her usual frankness and with that directness which always characterized her in matters of this kind. "I had no one else to talk to and am very miserable about it all. You don't mind my sending for you, do you?"
"Mind! Why do you ask such a question? I am never so happy as when I am serving you."
That she should send for him at all was happiness. Not sickness this time, nor some question of investment, nor the repair of the barn or gate or out-buildings—but Lucy, who lay nearest her heart! That was even better than he had expected.
"Tell me all about it, so I can get it right," he continued in a straightforward tone—the tone of the physician, not the lover. She had relied on him, and he intended to give her the best counsel of which he was capable. The lover could wait.
"Well, she received a letter a week ago from Miss Collins, saying she had come to Trenton for the winter and had taken some rooms in a house belonging to her aunt, who would live with her. She wants to be within reach of the same music-teacher who taught the girls at Miss Parkham's school. She says if Lucy will come it will reduce the expenses and they can both have the benefit of the tuition. At first Lucy did not want to go at all, now she insists, and, strange to say, Martha encourages her."
"Martha wants her to leave?" he asked in surprise.
"She says so."
The doctor's face assumed a puzzled expression. He could account for Lucy's wanting the freedom and novelty of the change, but that Martha should be willing to part with her bairn for the winter mystified him. He knew nothing of the flirtation, of course, and its effect on the old nurse, and could not, therefore, understand Martha's delight in Lucy's and Bart's separation.
"You will be very lonely," he said, and a certain tender tone developed in his voice.
"Yes, dreadfully so, but I would not mind if I thought it was for her good. But I don't think so. I may be wrong, and in the uncertainty I wanted to talk it over with you. I get so desolate sometimes. I never seemed to miss my father so much as now. Perhaps it is because Lucy's babyhood and childhood are over and she is entering upon womanhood with all the dangers it brings. And she frightens me so sometimes," she continued after a slight pause. "She is different; more self-willed, more self-centred. Besides, her touch has altered. She doesn't seem to love me as she did—not in the same way."
"But she could never do anything else but love you," he interrupted quickly, speaking for himself as well as Lucy, his voice vibrating under his emotions. It was all he could do to keep his hands from her own; her sending for him alone restrained him.
"I know that, but it is not in the old way. It used to be 'Sister, darling, don't tire yourself,' or 'Sister, dear, let me go upstairs for you,' or 'Cuddle close here, and let us talk it all out together.' There is no more of that. She goes her own way, and when I chide her laughs and leaves me alone until I make some new advance. Help me, please, and with all the wisdom you can give me; I have no one else in whom I can trust, no one who is big enough to know what should be done. I might have talked to Mr. Dellenbaugh about it, but he is away."
"No; talk it all out to me," he said simply. "I so want to help you"—his whole heart was going out to her in her distress.
"I know you feel sorry for me." She withdrew her hand gently so as not to hurt him; she too did not want to be misunderstood—having sent for him. "I know how sincere your friendship is for me, but put all that aside. Don't let your sympathy for me cloud your judgment. What shall I do with Lucy? Answer me as if you were her father and mine," and she looked straight into his eyes.
The doctor tightened the muscles of his throat, closed his teeth, and summoned all his resolution. If he could only tell her what was in his heart how much easier it would all be! For some moments he sat perfectly still, then he answered slowly—as her man of business would have done:
"I should let her go."
"Why do you say so?"
"Because she will find out in that way sooner than in any other how to appreciate you and her home. Living in two rooms and studying music will not suit Lucy. When the novelty wears off she will long for her home, and when she comes back it will be with a better appreciation of its comforts. Let her go, and make her going as happy as you can."
And so Jane gave her consent—it is doubtful whether Lucy would have waited for it once her mind was made up—and in a week she was off, Doctor John taking her himself as far as the Junction, and seeing her safe on the road to Trenton. Martha was evidently delighted at the change, for the old nurse's face was wreathed in smiles that last morning as they all stood out by the gate while Billy Tatham loaded Lucy's trunks and boxes. Only once did a frown cross her face, and that was when Lucy leaned over and whispering something in Bart's ear, slipped a small scrap of paper between his fingers. Bart crunched it tight and slid his hand carelessly into his pocket, but the gesture did not deceive the nurse: it haunted her for days thereafter.
As the weeks flew by and the letters from Trenton told of the happenings in Maria's home, it became more and more evident to Jane that the doctor's advice had been the wisest and best. Lucy would often devote a page or more of her letters to recalling the comforts of her own room at Yardley, so different from what she was enduring at Trenton, and longing for them to come again. Parts of these letters Jane read to the doctor, and all of them to Martha, who received them with varying comment. It became evident, too, that neither the excitement of Bart's letters, nor the visits of the occasional school friends who called upon them both, nor the pursuit of her new accomplishment, had satisfied the girl.
Jane was not surprised, therefore, remembering the doctor's almost prophetic words, to learn of the arrival of a letter from Lucy begging Martha to come to her at once for a day or two. The letter was enclosed in one to Bart and was handed to the nurse by that young man in person. As he did so he remarked meaningly that Miss Lucy wanted Martha's visit to be kept a secret from everybody but Miss Jane, "just as a surprise," but Martha answered in a positive tone that she had no secrets from those who had a right to know them, and that he could write Lucy she was coming next day, and that Jane and everybody else who might inquire would know of it before she started.
She rather liked Bart's receiving the letter. As long as that young man kept away from Trenton and confined himself to Warehold, where she could keep her eyes on him, she was content.
To Jane Martha said: "Oh, bless the darlin'! She can't do a day longer without her Martha. I'll go in the mornin'. It's a little pettin' she wants—that's all."
So the old nurse bade Meg good-by, pinned her big gray shawl about her, tied on her bonnet, took a little basket with some delicacies and a pot of jelly, and like a true Mother Hubbard, started off, while Jane, having persuaded herself that perhaps "the surprise" was meant for her, and that she might be welcoming two exiles instead of one the following night, began to put Lucy's room in order and to lay out the many pretty things she loved, especially the new dressing-gown she had made for her, lined with blue silk—her favorite color.
All that day and evening, and far into the next afternoon, Jane went about the house with the refrain of an old song welling up into her heart—one that had been stifled for months. The thought of the round-about way in which Lucy had sent for Martha did not dull its melody. That ruse, she knew, came from the foolish pride of youth, the pride that could not meet defeat. Underneath it she detected, with a thrill, the love of home; this, after all, was what her sister could not do without. It was not Bart this time. That affair, as she had predicted and had repeatedly told Martha, had worn itself out and had been replaced by her love of music. She had simply come to herself once more and would again be her old-time sister and her child. Then, too—and this sent another wave of delight tingling through her—it had all been the doctor's doing! But for his advice she would never have let Lucy go.
Half a dozen times, although the November afternoon was raw and chilly, with the wind fresh from the sea and the sky dull, she was out on the front porch without shawl or hat, looking down the path, covered now with dead leaves, and scanning closely every team that passed the gate, only to return again to her place by the fire, more impatient than ever.
Meg's quick ear first caught the grating of the wheels. Jane followed him with a cry of joyous expectation, and flew to the door to meet the stage, which for some reason—why, she could not tell—had stopped for a moment outside the gate, dropping only one passenger, and that one the nurse.
"And Lucy did not come, Martha!" Jane exclaimed, with almost a sob in her voice. She had reached her side now, followed by Meg, who was springing straight at the nurse in the joy of his welcome.
The old woman glanced back at the stage, as if afraid of being overheard, and muttered under her breath:
"No, she couldn't come."
"Oh, I am so disappointed! Why not?"
Martha did not answer. She seemed to have lost her breath. Jane put her arm about her and led her up the path. Once she stumbled, her step was so unsteady, and she would have fallen but for Jane's assistance.
The two had now reached the hand-railing of the porch. Here Martha's trembling foot began to feel about for the step. Jane caught her in her arms.
"You're ill, Martha!" she cried in alarm. "Give me the bag. What's the matter?"
Again Martha did not answer.
"Tell me what it is."
"Upstairs! Upstairs!" Martha gasped in reply. "Quick!"
"What has happened?"
"Not here; upstairs."
They climbed the staircase together, Jane half carrying the fainting woman, her mind in a whirl.
"Where were you taken ill? Why did you try to come home? Why didn't Lucy come with you?"
They had reached the door of Jane's bedroom now, Martha clinging to her arm.
Once inside, the nurse leaned panting against the door, put her bands to her face as if she would shut out some dreadful spectre, and sank slowly to the floor.
"It is not me," she moaned, wringing her hands, "not me—not—"
"Who?"
"Oh, I can't say it!"
"Lucy?"
"Yes"
"Not ill?"
"No; worse!"
"Oh, Martha! Not dead?"
"O God, I wish she were!"
An hour passed—an hour of agony, of humiliation and despair.
Again the door opened and Jane stepped out—slowly, as if in pain, her lips tight drawn, her face ghastly white, the thin cheeks sunken into deeper hollows, the eyes burning. Only the mouth preserved its lines, but firmer, more rigid, more severe, as if tightened by the strength of some great resolve. In her hand she held a letter.
Martha lay on the bed, her face to the wall, her head still in her palms. She had ceased sobbing and was quite still, as if exhausted.
Jane leaned over the banisters, called to one of the servants, and dropping the letter to the floor below, said:
"Take that to Captain Holt's. When he comes bring him upstairs here into my sitting-room."
Before the servant could reply there came a knock at the front door. Jane knew its sound—it was Doctor John's. Leaning far over, grasping the top rail of the banisters to steady herself, she said to the servant in a low, restrained voice:
"If that is Dr. Cavendish, please say to him that Martha is just home from Trenton, greatly fatigued, and I beg him to excuse me. When the doctor has driven away, you can take the letter."
She kept her grasp on the hand-rail until she heard the tones of his voice through the open hall door and caught the note of sorrow that tinged them.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Poor Martha!" she heard him say. "She is getting too old to go about alone. Please tell Miss Jane she must not hesitate to send for me if I can be of the slightest service." Then she re-entered the room where Martha lay and closed the door.
Another and louder knock now broke the stillness of the chamber and checked the sobs of the nurse; Captain Holt had met Jane's servant as he was passing the gate. He stopped for an instant in the hall, slipped off his coat, and walked straight upstairs, humming a tune as he came. Jane heard his firm tread, opened the door of their room, and she and Martha crossed the hall to a smaller apartment where Jane always attended to the business affairs of the house. The captain's face was wreathed in a broad smile as he extended his hand to Jane in welcome.
"It's lucky ye caught me, Miss Jane. I was just goin' out, and in a minute I'd been gone for the night. Hello, Mother Martha! I thought you'd gone to Trenton."
The two women made no reply to his cheery salutation, except to motion him to a seat. Then Jane closed the door and turned the key in the lock.
When the captain emerged from the chamber he stepped out alone. His color was gone, his eyes flashing, his jaw tight set. About his mouth there hovered a savage, almost brutal look, the look of a bulldog who bares his teeth before he tears and strangles—a look his men knew when someone of them purposely disobeyed his orders. For a moment he stood as if dazed. All he remembered clearly was the white, drawn face of a woman gazing at him with staring, tear-drenched eyes, the slow dropping of words that blistered as they fell, and the figure of the nurse wringing her hands and moaning: "Oh, I told ye so! I told ye so! Why didn't ye listen?" With it came the pain of some sudden blow that deadened his brain and stilled his heart.
With a strong effort, like one throwing off a stupor, he raised his head, braced his shoulders, and strode firmly along the corridor and down the stairs on his way to the front door. Catching up his coat, he threw it about him, pulled his hat on, with a jerk, slamming the front door, plunged along through the dry leaves that covered the path, and so on out to the main road. Once beyond the gate he hesitated, looked up and down, turned to the right and then to the left, as if in doubt, and lunged forward in the direction of the tavern.
It was Sunday night, and the lounging room was full. One of the inmates rose and offered him a chair—he was much respected in the village, especially among the rougher class, some of whom had sailed with him—but he only waved his hand in thanks.
"I don't want to sit down; I'm looking for Bart. Has he been here?" The sound came as if from between closed teeth.
"Not as I know of, cap'n," answered the landlord; "not since sundown, nohow."
"Do any of you know where he is?" The look in the captain's eyes and the sharp, cutting tones of his voice began to be noticed.
"Do ye want him bad?" asked a man tilted back in a chair against the wall.
"Yes."
"Well, I kin tell ye where to find him,"
"Where?"
"Down on the beach in the Refuge shanty. He and the boys have a deck there Sunday nights. Been at it all fall—thought ye knowed it."
Out into the night again, and without a word of thanks, down the road and across the causeway to the hard beach, drenched with the ceaseless thrash of the rising sea. He followed no path, picked out no road. Stumbling along in the half-gloom of the twilight, he could make out the heads of the sand-dunes, bearded with yellow grass blown flat against their cheeks. Soon he reached the prow of the old wreck with its shattered timbers and the water-holes left by the tide. These he avoided, but the smaller objects he trampled upon and over as he strode on, without caring where he stepped or how often he stumbled. Outlined against the sand-hills, bleached white under the dull light, he looked like some evil presence bent on mischief, so direct and forceful was his unceasing, persistent stride.
When the House of Refuge loomed up against the gray froth of the surf he stopped and drew breath. Bending forward, he scanned the beach ahead, shading his eyes with his hand as he would have done on his own ship in a fog. He could make out now some streaks of yellow light showing through the cracks one above the other along the side of the house and a dull patch of red. He knew what it meant. Bart and his fellows were inside, and were using one of the ship lanterns to see by.
This settled in his mind, the captain strode on, but at a slower pace. He had found his bearings, and would steer with caution.
Hugging the dunes closer, he approached the house from the rear. The big door was shut and a bit of matting had been tacked over the one window to deaden the light. This was why the patch of red was dull. He stood now so near the outside planking that he could hear the laughter and talk of those within. By this time the wind had risen to half a gale and the moan on the outer bar could be heard in the intervals of the pounding surf. The captain crept under the eaves of the roof and listened. He wanted to be sure of Bart's voice before he acted.
At this instant a sudden gust of wind burst in the big door, extinguishing the light of the lantern, and Bart's voice rang out:
"Stay where you are, boys! Don't touch the cards. I know the door, and can fix it; it's only the bolt that's slipped."
As Bart passed out into the gloom the captain darted forward, seized him with a grip of steel, dragged him clear of the door, and up the sand-dunes out of hearing. Then he flung him loose and stood facing the cowering boy.
"Now stand back and keep away from me, for I'm afraid I'll kill you!"
"What have I done?" cringed Bart, shielding his face with his elbow as if to ward off a blow. The suddenness of the attack had stunned him.
"Don't ask me, you whelp, or I'll strangle you. Look at me! That's what you been up to, is it?"
Bart straightened himself, and made some show of resistance. His breath was coming back to him.
"I haven't done anything—and if I did—"
"You lie! Martha's back from Trenton and Lucy told her. You never thought of me. You never thought of that sister of hers whose heart you've broke, nor of the old woman who nursed her like a mother. You thought of nobody but your stinkin' self. You're not a man! You're a cur! a dog! Don't move! Keep away from me, I tell ye, or I may lose hold of myself."
Bart was stretching out his hands now as if in supplication. He had never seen his father like this—the sight frightened him.
"Father, will you listen—" he pleaded.
"I'll listen to nothin'—"
"Will you, please? It's not all my fault. She ought to have kept out of my way—"
"Stop! Take that back! You'd blame HER, would ye—a child just out of school, and as innocent as a baby? By God, you'll do right by her or you'll never set foot inside my house again!"
Bart faced his father again.
"I want to tell you the whole story before you judge me. I want to—"
"You'll tell me nothin'! Will you act square with her?"
"I must tell you first. You wouldn't understand unless—"
"You won't? That's what you mean—you mean you WON'T! Damn ye!" The captain raised his clenched fist, quivered for an instant as if struggling against something beyond his control, dropped it slowly to his side and whirling suddenly, strode back up the beach.
Bart staggered back against the planking, threw out his hand to keep from falling, and watched his father's uncertain, stumbling figure until he was swallowed up in the gloom. The words rang in his ears like a knell. The realization of his position and what it meant, and might mean, rushed over him. For an instant he leaned heavily against the planking until he had caught his breath. Then, with quivering lips and shaking legs, he walked slowly back into the house, shutting the big door behind him.
"Boys," he said with a forced smile, "who do you think's been outside? My father! Somebody told him, and he's just been giving me hell for playing cards on Sunday."
Before another Sunday night had arrived Warehold village was alive with two important pieces of news.
The first was the disappearance of Bart Holt.
Captain Nat, so the story ran, had caught him carousing in the House of Refuge on Sunday night with some of his boon companions, and after a stormy interview in which the boy pleaded for forgiveness, had driven him out into the night. Bart had left town the next morning at daylight and had shipped as a common sailor on board a British bark bound for Brazil. No one had seen him go—not even his companions of the night before.
The second announcement was more startling.
The Cobden girls were going to Paris. Lucy Cobden had developed an extraordinary talent for music during her short stay in Trenton with her friend Maria Collins, and Miss Jane, with her customary unselfishness and devotion to her younger sister, had decided to go with her. They might be gone two years or five—it depended on Lucy's success. Martha would remain at Yardley and take care of the old home.
Bart's banishment coming first served as a target for the fire of the gossip some days before Jane's decision had reached the ears of the villagers.
"I always knew he would come to no good end," Miss Gossaway called out to a passer-by from her eyrie; "and there's more like him if their fathers would look after 'em. Guess sea's the best place for him."
Billy Tatham, the stage-driver, did not altogether agree with the extremist.
"You hearn tell, I s'pose, of how Captain Nat handled his boy t'other night, didn't ye?" he remarked to the passenger next to him on the front seat. "It might be the way they did things 'board the Black Ball Line, but 'tain't human and decent, an' I told Cap'n Nat so to-day. Shut his door in his face an' told him he'd kill him if he tried to come in, and all because he ketched him playin' cards on Sunday down on the beach. Bart warn't no worse than the others he run with, but ye can't tell what these old sea-dogs will do when they git riled. I guess it was the rum more'n the cards. Them fellers used to drink a power o' rum in that shanty. I've seen 'em staggerin' home many a Monday mornin' when I got down early to open up for my team. It's the rum that riled the cap'n, I guess. He wouldn't stand it aboard ship and used to put his men in irons, I've hearn tell, when they come aboard drunk. What gits me is that the cap'n didn't know them fellers met there every night they could git away, week-days as well as Sundays. Everybody 'round here knew it 'cept him and the light-keeper, and he's so durned lazy he never once dropped on to 'em. He'd git bounced if the Gov'ment found out he was lettin' a gang run the House o' Refuge whenever they felt like it. Fogarty, the fisherman's, got the key, or oughter have it, but the light-keeper's responsible, so I hearn tell. Git-up, Billy," and the talk drifted into other channels.
The incident was soon forgotten. One young man more or less did not make much difference in Warehold. As to Captain Nat, he was known to be a scrupulously honest, exact man who knew no law outside of his duty. He probably did it for the boy's good, although everybody agreed that he could have accomplished his purpose in some more merciful way.
The other sensation—the departure of the two Cobden girls, and their possible prolonged stay abroad—did not subside so easily. Not only did the neighbors look upon the Manor House as the show-place of the village, but the girls themselves were greatly beloved, Jane being especially idolized from Warehold to Barnegat and the sea. To lose Jane's presence among them was a positive calamity entailing a sorrow that most of her neighbors could not bring themselves to face. No one could take her place.
Pastor Dellenbaugh, when he heard the news, sank into his study chair and threw up his hands as if to ward off some blow.
"Miss Jane going abroad!" he cried; "and you say nobody knows when she will come back! I can't realize it! We might as well close the school; no one else in the village can keep it together."
The Cromartins and the others all expressed similar opinions, the younger ladies' sorrow being aggravated when they realized that with Lucy away there would be no one to lead in their merrymakings.
Martha held her peace; she would stay at home, she told Mrs. Dellenbaugh, and wait for their return and look after the place. Her heart was broken with the loneliness that would come, she moaned, but what was best for her bairn she was willing to bear. It didn't make much difference either way; she wasn't long for this world.
The doctor's mother heard the news with ill-concealed satisfaction.
"A most extraordinary thing has occurred here, my dear," she said to one of her Philadelphia friends who was visiting her—she was too politic to talk openly to the neighbors. "You have, of course, met that Miss Cobden who lives at Yardley—not the pretty one—the plain one. Well, she is the most quixotic creature in the world. Only a few weeks ago she wanted to become a nurse in the public hospital here, and now she proposes to close her house and go abroad for nobody knows how long, simply because her younger sister wants to study music, as if a school-girl couldn't get all the instruction of that kind here that is necessary. Really, I never heard of such a thing."
To Mrs. Benson, a neighbor, she said, behind her hand and in strict confidence: "Miss Cobden is morbidly conscientious over trifles. A fine woman, one of the very finest we have, but a little too strait-laced, and, if I must say it, somewhat commonplace, especially for a woman of her birth and education."
To herself she said: "Never while I live shall Jane Cobden marry my John! She can never help any man's career. She has neither the worldly knowledge, nor the personal presence, nor the money."
Jane gave but one answer to all inquiries—and there were many.
"Yes, I know the move is a sudden one," she would say, "but it is for Lucy's good, and there is no one to go with her but me." No one saw beneath the mask that hid her breaking heart. To them the drawn face and the weary look in her eyes only showed her grief at leaving home and those who loved her: to Mrs. Cavendish it seemed part of Jane's peculiar temperament.
Nor could they watch her in the silence of the night tossing on her bed, or closeted with Martha in her search for the initial steps that had led to this horror. Had the Philadelphia school undermined her own sisterly teachings or had her companions been at fault? Perhaps it was due to the blood of some long-forgotten ancestor, which in the cycle of years had cropped out in this generation, poisoning the fountain of her youth. Bart, she realized, had played the villain and the ingrate, but yet it was also true that Bart, and all his class, would have been powerless before a woman of a different temperament. Who, then, had undermined this citadel and given it over to plunder and disgrace? Then with merciless exactness she searched her own heart. Had it been her fault? What safeguard had she herself neglected? Wherein had she been false to her trust and her promise to her dying father? What could she have done to avert it? These ever-haunting, ever-recurring doubts maddened her.
One thing she was determined upon, cost what it might—to protect her sister's name. No daughter of Morton Cobden's should be pointed at in scorn. For generations no stain of dishonor had tarnished the family name. This must be preserved, no matter who suffered. In this she was sustained by Martha, her only confidante.
Doctor John heard the news from Jane's lips before it was known to the villagers. He had come to inquire after Martha.
She met him at the porch entrance, and led him into the drawing-room, without a word of welcome. Then shutting the door, she motioned him to a seat opposite her own on the sofa. The calm, determined way with which this was done—so unusual in one so cordial—startled him. He felt that something of momentous interest, and, judging from Jane's face, of serious import, had happened. He invariably took his cue from her face, and his own spirits always rose or fell as the light in her eyes flashed or dimmed.
"Is there anything the matter?" he asked nervously. "Martha worse?"
"No, not that; Martha is around again—it is about Lucy and me." The voice did not sound like Jane's.
The doctor looked at her intently, but he did not speak. Jane continued, her face now deathly pale, her words coming slowly.
"You advised me some time ago about Lucy's going to Trenton, and I am glad I followed it. You thought it would strengthen her love for us all and teach her to love me the better. It has—so much so that hereafter we will never be separated. I hope now you will also approve of what I have just decided upon. Lucy is going abroad to live, and I am going with her."
As the words fell from her lips her eyes crept up to his face, watching the effect of her statement. It was a cold, almost brutal way of putting it, she knew, but she dared not trust herself with anything less formal.
For a moment he sat perfectly still, the color gone from his cheeks, his eyes fixed on hers, a cold chill benumbing the roots of his hair. The suddenness of the announcement seemed to have stunned him.
"For how long?" he asked in a halting voice.
"I don't know. Not less than two years; perhaps longer."
"TWO YEARS? Is Lucy ill?"
"No; she wants to study music, and she couldn't go alone."
"Have you made up your mind to this?" he asked, in a more positive tone. His self-control was returning now.
"Yes."
Doctor John rose from his chair, paced the room slowly for a moment, and crossing to the fireplace with his back to Jane, stood under her father's portrait, his elbows on the mantel, his head in his hand. interwoven with the pain which the announcement had given him was the sharper sorrow of her neglect of him. In forming her plans she had never once thought of her lifelong friend.
"Why did you not tell me something of this before?" The inquiry was not addressed to Jane, but to the smouldering coals. "How have I ever failed you? What has my daily life been but an open book for you to read, and here you leave me for years, and never give me a thought."
Jane started in her seat.
"Forgive me, my dear friend!" she answered quickly in a voice full of tenderness. "I did not mean to hurt you. It is not that I love all my friends here the less—and you know how truly I appreciate your own friendship—but only that I love my sister more; and my duty is with her. I only decided last night. Don't turn your back on me. Come and sit by me, and talk to me," she pleaded, holding out her hand. "I need all your strength." As she spoke the tears started to her eyes and her voice sank almost to a whisper.
The doctor lifted his head from his palm and walked quickly toward her. The suffering in her voice had robbed him of all resentment.
"Forgive me, I did not mean it. Tell me," he said, in a sudden burst of tenderness—all feeling about himself had dropped away—"why must you go so soon? Why not wait until spring?" He had taken his seat beside her now and sat looking into her eyes.
"Lucy wants to go at once," she replied, in a tone as if the matter did not admit of any discussion.
"Yes, I know. That's just like her. What she wants she can never wait a minute for, but she certainly would sacrifice some pleasure of her own to please you. If she was determined to be a musician it would be different, but it is only for her pleasure, and as an accomplishment." He spoke earnestly and impersonally, as he always did when she consulted him on any of her affairs, He was trying, too, to wipe from her mind all remembrance of his impatience.
Jane kept her eyes on the carpet for a moment, and then said quietly, and he thought in rather a hopeless tone:
"It is best we go at once."
The doctor looked at her searchingly—with the eye of a scientist, this time, probing for a hidden meaning.
"Then there is something else you have not told me; someone is annoying her, or there is someone with whom you are afraid she will fall in love. Who is it? You know how I could help in a matter of that kind."
"No; there is no one."
Doctor John leaned back thoughtfully and tapped the arm of the sofa with his fingers. He felt as if a door had been shut in his face.
"I don't understand it," he said slowly, and in a baffled tone. "I have never known you to do a thing like this before. It is entirely unlike you. There is some mystery you are keeping from me. Tell me, and let me help."
"I can tell you nothing more. Can't you trust me to do my duty in my own way?" She stole a look at him as she spoke and again lowered her eyelids.
"And you are determined to go?" he asked in his former cross-examining tone.
"Yes."
Again the doctor kept silence. Despite her assumed courage and determined air, his experienced eye caught beneath it all the shrinking helplessness of the woman.
"Then I, too, have reached a sudden resolve," he said in a manner almost professional in its precision. "You cannot and shall not go alone."
"Oh, but Lucy and I can get along together," she exclaimed with nervous haste. "There is no one we could take but Martha, and she is too old. Besides she must look after the house while we are away."
"No; Martha will not do. No woman will do. I know Paris and its life; it is not the place for two women to live in alone, especially so pretty and light-hearted a woman as Lucy."
"I am not afraid."
"No, but I am," he answered in a softened voice, "very much afraid." It was no longer the physician who spoke, but the friend.
"Of what?"
"Of a dozen things you do not understand, and cannot until you encounter them," he replied, smoothing her hand tenderly.
"Yes, but it cannot be helped. There is no one to go with us." This came with some positiveness, yet with a note of impatience in her voice.
"Yes, there is," he answered gently.
"Who?" she asked slowly, withdrawing her hand from his caress, an undefined fear rising in her mind.
"Me. I will go with you."
Jane looked at him with widening eyes. She knew now. She had caught his meaning in the tones of his voice before he had expressed it, and had tried to think of some way to ward off what she saw was coming, but she was swept helplessly on.
"Let us go together, Jane," he burst out, drawing closer to her. All reserve was gone. The words which had pressed so long for utterance could no longer be held back. "I cannot live here alone without you. You know it, and have always known it. I love you so—don't let us live apart any more. If you must go, go as my wife."
A thrill of joy ran through her. Her lips quivered. She wanted to cry out, to put her arms around his neck, to tell him everything in her heart. Then came a quick, sharp pain that stifled every other thought. For the first time the real bitterness of the situation confronted her. This phase of it she had not counted upon.
She shrank back a little. "Don't ask me that!" she moaned in a tone almost of pain. "I can stand anything now but that. Not now—not now!"
Her hand was still under his, her fingers lying limp, all the pathos of her suffering in her face: determination to do her duty, horror over the situation, and above them all her overwhelming love for him.
He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her to him.
"You love me, Jane, don't you?"
"Yes, more than all else in the world," she answered simply. "Too well"—and her voice broke—"to have you give up your career for me or mine."
"Then why should we live apart? I am willing to do as much for Lucy as you would. Let me share the care and responsibility. You needn't, perhaps, be gone more than a year, and then we will all come back together, and I take up my work again. I need you, my beloved. Nothing that I do seems of any use without you. You are my great, strong light, and have always been since the first day I loved you. Let me help bear these burdens. You have carried them so long alone."
His face lay against hers now, her hand still clasped tight in his. For an instant she did not answer or move; then she straightened a little and lifted her cheek from his.
"John," she said—it was the first time in all her life she had called him thus—"you wouldn't love me if I should consent. You have work to do here and I now have work to do on the other side. We cannot work together; we must work apart. Your heart is speaking, and I love you for it, but we must not think of it now. It may come right some time—God only knows! My duty is plain—I must go with Lucy. Neither you nor my dead father would love me if I did differently."
"I only know that I love you and that you love me and nothing else should count," he pleaded impatiently. "Nothing else shall count. There is nothing you could do would make me love you less. You are practical and wise about all your plans. Why has this whim of Lucy's taken hold of you as it has? And it is only a whim; Lucy will want something else in six months. Oh, I cannot—cannot let you go. I'm so desolate without you—my whole life is yours—everything I do is for you. O Jane, my beloved, don't shut me out of your life! I will not let you go without me!" His voice vibrated with a certain indignation, as if he had been unjustly treated. She raised one hand and laid it on his forehead, smoothing his brow as a mother would that of a child. The other still lay in his.
"Don't, John," she moaned, in a half-piteous tone. "Don't! Don't talk so! I can only bear comforting words to-day. I am too wretched—too utterly broken and miserable. Please! please, John!"
He dropped her hand and leaning forward put both of his own to his head. He knew how strong was her will and how futile would be his efforts to change her mind unless her conscience agreed.
"I won't," he answered, as a strong man answers who is baffled. "I did not mean to be impatient or exacting." Then he raised his head and looked steadily into her eyes. "What would you have me do, then?"
"Wait."
"But you give me no promise."
"No, I cannot—not now. I am like one staggering along, following a dim light that leads hither and thither, and which may any moment go out and leave me in utter darkness."
"Then there is something you have not told me?"
"O John! Can't you trust me?"
"And yet you love me?"
"As my life, John."
When he had gone and she had closed the door upon him, she went back to the sofa where the two had sat together, and with her hands clasped tight above her head, sank down upon its cushions. The tears came like rain now, bitter, blinding tears that she could not check.
"I have hurt him," she moaned. "He is so good, and strong, and helpful. He never thinks of himself; it is always of me—me, who can do nothing. The tears were in his eyes—I saw them. Oh, I've hurt him—hurt him! And yet, dear God, thou knowest I could not help it."
Maddened with the pain of it all she sprang up, determined to go to him and tell him everything. To throw herself into his arms and beg forgiveness for her cruelty and crave the protection of his strength. Then her gaze fell upon her father's portrait! The cold, steadfast eyes were looking down upon her as if they could read her very soul. "No! No!" she sobbed, putting her hands over her eyes as if to shut out some spectre she had not the courage to face. "It must not be—it CANNOT be," and she sank back exhausted.
When the paroxysm was over she rose to her feet, dried her eyes, smoothed her hair with both hands, and then, with lips tight pressed and faltering steps, walked upstairs to where Martha was getting Lucy's things ready for the coming journey. Crossing the room, she stood with her elbows on the mantel, her cheeks tight pressed between her palms, her eyes on the embers. Martha moved from the open trunk and stood behind her.
"It was Doctor John, wasn't it?" she asked in a broken voice that told of her suffering.
"Yes," moaned Jane from between her hands.
"And ye told him about your goin'?"
"Yes, Martha." Her frame was shaking with her sobs.
"And about Lucy?"
"No, I could not."
Martha leaned forward and laid her hand on Jane's shoulder.
"Poor lassie!" she said, patting it softly. "Poor lassie! That was the hardest part. He's big and strong and could 'a' comforted ye. My heart aches for ye both!"