CHAPTER XVII
Within a week most of the summer cottages were boarded up and closed for the winter. Only a few lights still twinkled out at night along shore. The crickets sang in the dry grass or under some still warm hearthstone. The waxy cranberries had turned a rosier pink and down in the marsh hardhack and roseberries disputed the sway of golden rod and asters. Outside Ira Baldwin's barn was a row of newly hewn decoy ducks, freshly painted and ready for use. The report of the hunters' rifles was already heard in the early morning as the "honk! honk!" of wild geese betokened a flight southward. Strange weirdly-moving fingers of light played across the northern skies at night, rosy pulsings and quivering gleams travelled from left to right and back again, growing and fading and growing again mysteriously.
Still Miss Elliott and Gwen stayed on, and though from the cottage by the cove the tenants had all gone, Kenneth remained, having persuaded Cap'n Ben to take him in for the little time he should be on the island. He had seen his sister, with her children and the maid, safely on the steamer which should bear them to New York, and then he had returned with a feeling of possessing the beauty of Fielding's Island in a new sense, since now, in all its length and breadth were no summer visitors remaining except himself and the dwellers at Wits' End. Sheldon woods seemed a vast silence, the barrier of rocks along the ocean front a fortress with but a solitary sentinel left to watch. Jagged Island, afar off, appeared unapproachable. The Domhegan's single trip a day served to give one the feeling of not being cut off entirely from the outside world, though there was an ever present sense of indifference to what might be going on in other places. The wizard's most triumphant hour was near when his fetters would bind so tightly that no one could set foot outside his realm.
Miss Phosie coddled her new boarder unremittingly, and, because of their nearer association, Luther Williams and the young man became closer friends than ever, and spent much time together. Frequently Gwen made a third in long walks in the crisp air, and sometimes Kenneth would go on a cruise to a near island with Luther Williams as skipper, and it was seldom that they returned without a cargo of sketches.
To Daddy Lu Gwen had opened her heart and he had received her confidences, as she knew he would, sympathetically and with grave interest. "Of course we are not engaged," Gwen told him. "That wouldn't do, but I suppose it is what people call an understanding, and we are very happy. It will be years before we can think of marrying, perhaps we shall never be able to, but it doesn't matter so long as we love each other. So, dear Daddy Lu, you will probably see us mooning about the island for many summers to come. So long as we shall not be living in the same city we shall have to be separated in winter, but we hope our summers can be spent here. I shall go on teaching while he is working, and it will not seem hard to either of us."
"Do you like teaching?" asked Mr. Williams.
"I don't mind it. I love the dear babies, and I get interested when I am fairly started. Now, with the beautiful summers up here to look forward to, I shall mind less than ever. I should hate to think I must do it always till I became a worn-out decrepit old hack. I often wonder how I should feel to be going on without Aunt Cam, and the three or four rooms we call home. Sometimes I think that day may come, for now I don't believe I could ever go to China if occasion offered."
Mr. Williams looked startled. "Do you think it will ever come? Does she speak of going back?"
"She hints at it sometimes. Perhaps I ought not to tell even you, though I know you are not a gossip." She smiled, for anything further from a gossip than Luther Williams could not be imagined. "There is some one in China," she went on, "some one Aunt Cam met when she went over there, a man who has been, and still is, devoting his life to the people in a far-off district. He has been the one man to Aunt Cam, a hero above all others. She would willingly have joined him in his work, but he felt that it would be insupportable for a woman in the place where he believed himself to be the most needed, and so they parted, although each cared more for the other than for anyone else in the world. If he should need her at any time, if his health should fail, and he should go to a more comfortable place, leaving his work to a younger man, I think she would not hesitate to devote the rest of her life to him. She put the case before me once, and asked me if I would be willing to go with her. She feels very responsible for me, dear Aunt Cam, and I know it is mainly on my account that she stays here and does not go back."
"There are few women who love like that," said Mr. Williams, after a pause.
"There are a good many, I think," returned Gwen. "I used to believe I could be easily persuaded to go with her, but now I know I could not go, for there is some one as dear to me here as there is dear to me there. It would tear out Aunt Cam's heart to leave me behind unless it were in a home of my own, but so would it distress her to stay if she were needed there."
"Perhaps the question will never arise," said Mr. Williams, "but it ought to be provided for if it does." He spoke half to himself.
"Perhaps I could find some nice quiet people to board with," Gwen went on. "At all events I can take care of myself. I don't know why all this has come up to-day, unless it is because there was a letter from China in yesterday's mail and Aunt Cam has had a far-off look ever since. She is splendid, that dear aunt of mine, and I should feel pretty forlorn and desolate without her. I should pity myself for being an orphan if it were not for her. As it is, I suppose my lack of relatives has been a bond of sympathy between Ethel Fuller and myself, for she has no parents, either, though I don't think her aunt is half so dear as mine."
"If you could marry, you and the boy," said Mr. Williams after a silence, "it would settle it all, wouldn't it? You could have the home and the protection without the necessary parents. It would have to come some day. You would leave your parents, if you had them, for the boy." He always spoke thus of Kenneth.
"Oh yes, no doubt, for it is what girls do every day."
"That is what I mean. Well, my dear, when the time comes it is probable there will be a way provided."
"If it hadn't been for you," said Gwen softly, "I might never have come to my own. I think you scared me, dear Daddy Lu, into giving up any thought of marrying for money."
"I'm glad of that, very glad," he answered smiling. "I've done something then to be thankful for."
"I'm the one to be thankful. To think of my losing the 'boy' through any such hallucination as the idea that I could be happy with anyone else. I realize that more and more every day in proportion as I know him better and he grows dearer to me. You've saved me, Daddy Lu. You've saved my life."
He laid his hand gently on hers. "That's a big thing to say, but I think maybe you're right. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose—"
"His own soul," Gwen finished the text. "It amounts to that when one forfeits his best self to a craving for luxury and ease. Aunt Cam says our best development always comes through sacrifice of some kind."
"She's right."
"So you have helped me to my best development, by showing me how the life can be more than meat and the body than raiment. I was thinking more of the meat and the raiment, I am afraid. Dear me, what a serious talk we are having, full of texts and such things. I feel as if I were actually preparing for the missionary field. However I am glad to have had the talk, and shall think of it many times when I am far away."
"That's a time I don't like to think about."
"Then you'd better come, too."
He shook his head. "I'm like a barnacle, glued to the rock by my own inner forces. I couldn't leave now."
He went to Portland the next day. Kenneth met him as he was coming home from the boat. "We missed you, old man," said Kenneth. "Gwen and I thought maybe you'd like a trip to Birch Island or somewhere. It's pretty sharp, but we shouldn't mind that. We were both saying that it would be harder to leave you than anybody or anything else." He put his hand affectionately on the older man's shoulder. "I am thinking of spending part of my winters in Washington where Gwen will be. Life is too short for us to waste it apart, if it can be avoided. Say, old man, why don't you come too? It would do you good to get into the world again. Why not come down and see the White House?"
Mr. Williams shook his head. "I've been here too long in my shell. I shouldn't know how to stand a city, now. You would be ashamed of your old fisherman."
"Not a bit of it. You'd soon fall into the old ways, for I know well enough you've been a city man."
"Yes," answered Mr. Williams slowly, "I've been a city man." Then, after a pause, "Do you expect to settle in Washington eventually? Perhaps, if you do, you'd be willing some time to take in an old fellow who'd be ready to bear up his end of the householder's burden. It might make that studio apartment come a little sooner."
"New York is the only place where I could make my bread and butter, I'm afraid," returned Kenneth. "My mother will be living there, and I shall put my pride in my pocket—who wouldn't for such a girl as Gwen?—and shall hope for a mad rush for my pictures from the moneyed friends of my new papa. Wouldn't New York suit you as well?"
"Never New York, never—" said Mr. Williams with intensity.
"Too bustling and noisy after this beautiful silence, isn't it? Still it is about the best place for an artist. What city would you suggest, if we didn't take New York into consideration?"
"Paris maybe, or somewhere abroad would suit me."
"Paris sounds seductive. We'll have to talk this scheme over, we three. It's good of you to think of it, dear old man. I know what you have in mind, and that is only the happiness of us two. You're the best friend I ever had. By the way, you told me once you had been married, that your wife died years ago. Were there any children?"
"There was a boy—a little fellow. He lived only a week. I think of him sometimes when I am talking to you. He would have been about your age. I can't tell you what I felt at losing him. The parental feeling is pretty strong in me, and I grieved terribly for that little week old baby. I grieve yet. Things might have been different if he had lived. He would have been an anchor I could not have cut loose from. As it was—well, it's a long time ago. One cannot alter the past."
"He can make his future, though," said Kenneth with the hope of youth strong within him.
"He can in a great measure, if there's much future left him, though it does appear sometimes as if there must be such a thing as inexorable fate."
"It was a happy fate that sent us your way," said Kenneth affectionately. "I think I must adopt you, too, as Gwen has done. You stand for a good deal more than the pork-packer who has recently become my step-father."
They went into the house together. Miss Phosie was watching for them, and had a table spread. The odor of fish and coffee, fresh gingerbread and baked apples filled the air. The room was piping hot. Under the stove lay Tinker snoring comfortably. Cap'n Ben was poring over his paper—now-a-days the mail was soon distributed. Miss Phenie in the most comfortable chair was knitting a pink "sweaterette" while she exchanged gossip with Zerviah Hackett. Ground was soon to be broken for two new cottages which would be ready for the next year, this was one item of news. Miss Elliott's well was to be started in a few days. Effie Jackson was going to teach school over on the Neck, and was keeping company with a young man of that neighborhood who was no one less than Ora's former lover, Al Daly,—and so it went.
Miss Phenie had lately arisen to the glory of a pompadour, thus emulating Mrs. Dow. "Who's ten years older than I am, if she's a day," said Miss Phenie to Zerviah. The pompadour, very heavy, very black, overhung Miss Phenie's forehead like a beetling crag. She was very conscious of it and bore it stiffly, as if she expected it momentarily to topple over and crush her. Cap'n Ben never tired of poking fun at it. He looked up now and said, "Why don't you take off your hat, Phenie, and stay with us awhile?"
Miss Phenie ignored the question and went on with her talk. "As I was saying, Zerviah, Ora's duty was just as much to me as to Almira, and her going leaves me pretty much cramped for time."
"She comes over every day and helps a lot," put in Miss Phosie, who more than Miss Phenie, missed her helper.
"I cal'late you wouldn't be so cramped for time, if you wasn't so everlastingly particular about that new hair contrivance of yours," spoke up Cap'n Ben. "Phenie cal'lates she'll prepare for cold weather in season," he said with a grin and a nod, as he turned to Miss Zerviah. "I guess I'll get myself one o' them warm pillows for the top o' my head," he went on. "Hair's getting kinder thin." He passed his hand over his bald pate and chuckled. "Keeps the sun out of your eyes pretty good, too, don't it, Phenie? I never thought your eyes was weak, but maybe it'll prevent you from having to get glasses. I had to put 'em on before I was your age."
Miss Phenie arose majestically, gathering up her knitting and saying, "Suppose we go to the settin'-room, Zerviah."
"I saw Obadiah Foster yist'day," shouted out Cap'n Ben, after her. "He'd just shot a coot. Wanted to know if you wouldn't like a wing to stick in that new cap he saw you was wearing." Obadiah Foster was a widower of some months standing. He had already buried three wives, and it was reported that he was looking out for the fourth, and therefore Cap'n Ben's witticism was not without point. Every available spinster or widow on the island had been mentioned by Miss Zerviah as "settin' her cap" for Obadiah, as Cap'n Ben well knew. He followed the departing pair to the door and continued his pleasantries by calling, "I say, Zerviah, why don't you git one of them caps like Phenie's? Obadiah might shoot another coot." This was too much, as the slamming of the sitting-room door proclaimed, and Cap'n Ben having had his joke, returned chuckling, to his paper.
"Now, father, you hadn't ought to be such a tease," said Miss Phosie, pouring out a cup of coffee for Mr. Williams.
"Phenie hadn't ought to be such an everlasting fool, then," answered her father. "You'd think she hadn't a namable thing to do, but dress up her head like a Guinea nigger's. She behaves like a year old colt, instead of a settled down old mare. Makes me sick." Cap'n Ben gave a mighty yawn, readjusted his spectacles, and betook himself again to his paper.
Miss Phosie, having finished serving her boarders, began to clear the table. Her eyes followed the two men wistfully as they left the room together. She did not wish Kenneth to go, but she would be pleased when, for lack of other company, Luther Williams would tarry longer in the kitchen, to talk to her while her father was absorbed in his paper. She wondered what had been the errand to town, for it was rarely that Mr. Williams went. Perhaps he thought he needed winter flannels; she could tell him that those he had, well mended, would last quite a while yet. She soon finished washing the few dishes, and sat down to her knitting. She was making wristlets for her father, and for Luther Williams. She kept both pairs going, and when Zerviah was present she always worked on Cap'n Ben's, which were red. Just now she preferred to work on the others, which were gray. Cap'n Ben liked lively colors, Luther Williams always chose quiet ones.
Presently the door opened and Ora came in. The pretty color was coming back to her cheeks, but she looked older, and her blue eyes had an expression in them which only a woman who has suffered, may know. "Just a little too late, ain't I, Aunt Phosie?" she said. "I see you have everything done up. I heard Mr. Williams went to town this morning, and I knew you'd be later'n usual getting through. You had two dinners to get, didn't you?"
"Oh, it wasn't a mite of trouble just to set his things on the table," returned Miss Phosie.
"Nothing is a trouble to you," said Ora. She had grown much gentler, and liked to be with her younger aunt more than formerly. "There doesn't seem to be much to do at our house," she went on. "We clear up and there's nobody to put things out of order. It's harder work having men-folks around, but I'd rather have 'em." She sighed a little.
"It must be dull for a young thing like her to spend her days with just one quiet woman," thought Miss Phosie. "Zerviah and Phenie are in the other room," she remarked to Ora. "Go in and hear the news. Zerviah's fetched quite a budget to-day."
Ora shook her head. "I don't want to, Aunt Phosie. She speaks so loud and says such things about—our needing a man about the house, and about its being wrong to hug our sorrow and waste our lives in useless repining, and all that—as if—as if I could ever forget Manny."
"She means well," responded Miss Phosie, "but she's so fond of managing other folks she can't see beyond her own ideas for 'em. Don't you mind her, Ora. You ain't wasting your life, not a mite. You've had what a good many would be thankful for, and that's the love of the man you cared for. There wasn't ever any clouds between you, and you was free to love each other all you wanted. It's a good thing to be free to do that; some never are. They have to hide their feelings from all eyes, and if the time comes that's come to you they wouldn't be free even to mourn, except in secret."
"That's true, Aunt Phosie," replied Ora. "And now that the worst has come I'm glad we did really belong to each other, and were husband and wife; that's a great comfort to me.
"I'm sure it must be," returned her aunt. "I'm glad, too, Ora."
"Aunt Phenie isn't. She talks about my throwing myself away, and all that—even now she does."
"Never you mind what folks say. You ain't wasting your life, and it ain't likely you ever will. I guess as time goes on your duties will be marked out pretty plain for you, and nobody'll gainsay that they're not duties. How's Almira?"
"She's pretty smart. She eats better. That reminds me. I thought I'd get you to let me have some of grandpap's nice good apples, if you have any to spare. She's real fond of apples."
"Of course you shall have some," Miss Phosie responded cordially. "We gathered some to-day from the trees down by the potato patch; they're proper good, too." She went through to the pantry, and saw, passing the window, Luther Williams and Kenneth pacing slowly. She gave a quick sigh. "Yes," she murmured, "it's a great thing to have the right to speak out your feelings. Ora hasn't lived very long, but she's had more than I've had." Then because it seemed too bold a thought, she thrust it from her, and diving down into the bag of apples, selected the finest for Almira who, too, had loved and lost, but had mourned openly.