Rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came back. They had not seen her leaving the house, and she said not a word to them of her experiences. She only smiled mysteriously when they asked her if she had been lonesome.
That night, for the first time, she mentioned her father"s name in her prayers. She never forgot to do so afterwards. She always said, "bless mother--and father," with an instinctive pause between the two names--a pause which indicated new realization of the tragedy which had sundered them. And the tone in which she said "father" was softer and more tender than the one which voiced "mother."
Rachel never visited the Cove again. Isabella Spencer discovered that the children had been there, and, although she knew nothing of Rachel"s interview with her father, she told the child that she must never again go to that part of the sh.o.r.e.
Rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command; but she obeyed it. Thenceforth there had been no communication between her and her father, save the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them.
David Spencer"s invitation to his daughter"s wedding was sent with the others, and the remaining days of Rachel"s maidenhood slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which her mother reveled, but which was distasteful to the girl.
The wedding day came at last, breaking softly and fairly over the great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose, a September day, as mild and beautiful as June.
The ceremony was to be performed at eight o"clock in the evening.
At seven Rachel stood in her room, fully dressed and alone. She had no bridesmaid, and she had asked her cousins to leave her to herself in this last solemn hour of girlhood. She looked very fair and sweet in the sunset-light that showered through the birches. Her wedding gown was a fine, sheer organdie, simply and daintily made. In the loose waves of her bright hair she wore her bridegroom"s flowers, roses as white as a virgin"s dream.
She was very happy; but her happiness was faintly threaded with the sorrow inseparable from all change.
Presently her mother came in, carrying a small basket.
"Here is something for you, Rachel. One of the boys from the harbor brought it up. He was bound to give it into your own hands--said that was his orders. I just took it and sent him to the right-about--told him I"d give it to you at once, and that that was all that was necessary."
She spoke coldly. She knew quite well who had sent the basket, and she resented it; but her resentment was not quite strong enough to overcome her curiosity. She stood silently by while Rachel unpacked the basket.
Rachel"s hands trembled as she took off the cover. Two huge pink-spotted sh.e.l.ls came first. How well she remembered them!
Beneath them, carefully wrapped up in a square of foreign-looking, strangely scented silk, was the dragon teapot. She held it in her hands and gazed at it with tears gathering thickly in her eyes.
"Your father sent that," said Isabella Spencer with an odd sound in her voice. "I remember it well. It was among the things I packed up and sent after him. His father had brought it home from China fifty years ago, and he prized it beyond anything.
They used to say it was worth a lot of money."
"Mother, please leave me alone for a little while," said Rachel, imploringly. She had caught sight of a little note at the bottom of the basket, and she felt that she could not read it under her mother"s eyes.
Mrs. Spencer went out with unaccustomed acquiescence, and Rachel went quickly to the window, where she read her letter by the fading gleams of twilight. It was very brief, and the writing was that of a man who holds a pen but seldom.
"My dear little girl," it ran, "I"m sorry I can"t go to your wedding. It was like you to ask me--for I know it was your doing. I wish I could see you married, but I can"t go to the house I was turned out of. I hope you will be very happy. I am sending you the sh.e.l.ls and teapot you liked so much. Do you remember that day we had such a good time? I would liked to have seen you again before you were married, but it can"t be.
"Your loving father, "DAVID SPENCER."
Rachel resolutely blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. A fierce desire for her father sprang up in her heart--an insistent hunger that would not be denied. She MUST see her father; she MUST have his blessing on her new life. A sudden determination took possession of her whole being--a determination to sweep aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not been.
It was now almost dark. The guests would not be coming for half an hour yet. It was only fifteen minutes" walk over the hill to the Cove. Hastily Rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat, and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. She opened the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. Mrs. Spencer and her a.s.sistants were all busy in the back part of the house. In a moment Rachel was out in the dewy garden. She would go straight over the fields. n.o.body would see her.
It was quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not.
His heart yearned after his daughter--yes, and after a long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own under all his old anger and stubbornness.
The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.
"Father," she cried, brokenly, and her father"s eager arms closed around her.
Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting.
The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing.
"I want to see Rachel before we go down," he said, blushing.
Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of Rachel"s room, and called her. There was no reply; the room was dark and still. In sudden alarm, Isabella Spencer s.n.a.t.c.hed the lamp from the hall table and held it up. The little white room was empty.
No blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. But David Spencer"s letter was lying on the stand. She caught it up and read it.
"Rachel is gone," she gasped. A flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone.
"Gone!" echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly little laugh.
"Oh, you needn"t look so scared, Frank. She hasn"t run away from you. Hush; come in here--shut the door. n.o.body must know of this. Nice gossip it would make! That little fool has gone to the Cove to see her--her father. I know she has. It"s just like what she would do. He sent her those presents--look--and this letter. Read it. She has gone to coax him to come and see her married. She was crazy about it. And the minister is here and it is half-past seven. She"ll ruin her dress and shoes in the dust and dew. And what if some one has seen her! Was there ever such a little fool?"
Frank"s presence of mind had returned to him. He knew all about Rachel and her father. She had told him everything.
"I"ll go after her," he said gently. "Get me my hat and coat.
I"ll slip down the back stairs and over to the Cove."
"You must get out of the pantry window, then," said Mrs. Spencer firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion. "The kitchen is full of women. I won"t have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped."
The bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood. Mrs.
Spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared.
So Rachel had gone to her father! Like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like.
"It isn"t much use fighting against nature, I guess," she thought grimly. "I"m beat. He must have thought something of her, after all, when he sent her that teapot and letter. And what does he mean about the "day they had such a good time"? Well, it just means that she"s been to see him before, sometime, I suppose, and kept me in ignorance of it all."
Mrs. Spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud.
"If only she"ll come quietly back with Frank in time to prevent gossip I"ll forgive her," she said, as she turned to the kitchen.
Rachel was sitting on her father"s knee, with both her white arms around his neck, when Frank came in. She sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears.
Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely.
"Oh, Frank, is it very late? Oh, are you angry?" she exclaimed timidly.
"No, no, dear. Of course I"m not angry. But don"t you think you"d better come back now? It"s nearly eight and everybody is waiting."
"I"ve been trying to coax father to come up and see me married,"
said Rachel. "Help me, Frank."
"You"d better come, sir," said Frank, heartily, "I"d like it as much as Rachel would."
David Spencer shook his head stubbornly.
"No, I can"t go to that house. I was locked out of it. Never mind me. I"ve had my happiness in this half hour with my little girl. I"d like to see her married, but it isn"t to be."
"Yes, it is to be--it shall be," said Rachel resolutely. "You SHALL see me married. Frank, I"m going to be married here in my father"s house! That is the right place for a girl to be married. Go back and tell the guests so, and bring them all down."
Frank looked rather dismayed. David Spencer said deprecatingly: "Little girl, don"t you think it would be--"