On an orthodox June morning, rare and radiant, but verging on a heat which increased Miss Lacey"s appreciation of her happy destiny, she turned the key of her house.
Her carpets were rolled up, and her curtains rolled down; her thin, worn, solid silver was packed in a neighboring attic. Nothing portable of any value was left for a marauding hand, and, moreover, the neighbors on both sides always willingly kept an eye on Miss Martha"s interests. They rejoiced generously in that summer work of hers, which she a.s.sured them was just play. One summer, several years ago, it had been generally known among Miss Lacey"s friends that she had been ailing for some time. Judge Trent was abroad that season, and he made a suggestion to Thinkright, which resulted in an invitation to Miss Martha to visit the Mill Farm. It was then that she made the acquaintance of Edna Derwent, who, when the girl came to need a companion in her playhouse, remembered the smart, stirring woman who had been so happy in the peace and quiet of the locality. The result was several summer outings for Miss Martha, and she never knew that she owed them to the man with whom she had just missed spending her life.
Serene in the safety of her niece, and of her goods, and in the prospect before her, she waited at the station for the train to Portland. Her gray lisle-thread gloves were new, so was her tissue veil and her straw hand-bag. She was conscious that she looked genteel, and her mental sky was as cloudless as the firmament above her while she watched the train draw into the station. She scanned each platform as the cars slowly pa.s.sed, and soon her search was rewarded by the sight of Miss Derwent"s brown-clothed figure and the eyes that laughed a response to the eager face below. Miss Martha trotted briskly up the steps.
"Here you are, my dear. What a day! Did you remember to send that grocery list to Shaw"s? Did Jenny come? Oh, yes. There she is. How do you do, Jenny?" greeting Edna"s cook, whose stolid rosy face gazed from the chair opposite the one to which Miss Derwent led her friend.
All the way to Portland Miss Martha"s tongue kept pace with the velocity of the train. The one subject upon which it halted was her niece. She longed to know all that Edna could tell her, but she hesitated to reveal how slight was her own knowledge.
She cleared her throat before speaking tentatively.
"Judge Trent tells me you saw my niece at the farm."
"Yes, indeed," replied Edna. "I begged her to stay long enough for me to have the pleasure of bringing you together, but she felt that she couldn"t do so."
Miss Lacey flushed. "Oh, we"ve met, you know," she replied.
"Indeed? I didn"t understand, then."
"Oh, certainly. Of course I met her in Boston when she came on from the West. Judge Trent,"--Miss Martha swallowed and moved uneasily,--"it wasn"t exactly convenient for him to go into the city that day. He"s just now been up to the farm to see Sylvia,--and of course _my_ visit with her was very hurried and--unsatisfactory." Miss Martha swallowed the obstacle in her throat again, whatever it was. She had a vague idea that her conscience was rising in revolt against the impression she was endeavoring to make. She was wont to say that some folks might have consciences that spoke in still small voices, but that hers was the yelling kind. On this occasion she repressed it firmly, although the effort reddened her cheeks still further. Conscience or no conscience there were moments when consideration for the proprieties should be paramount.
She continued: "Possibly Sylvia told you that she was still convalescing from a severe illness when she was called upon to pa.s.s through the sorrow of losing her dear father,--a very artistic, unpractical soul, my poor brother,--and really it was a mercy the judge had the farm to send her to. Thinkright was of course ready to take her, as he is for every good word and work, and it has turned out so well. He and she have taken the greatest fancy to one another"--
"Then is she there still?" asked Edna, as Miss Lacey paused for a hasty selection of further detail.
"Yes, indeed. We shouldn"t think of allowing her to leave, and," very confidentially, "I don"t know whether you ever heard of the romance of Thinkright"s life?"
Edna shook her head. Miss Martha nodded hers impressively. "Yes.
Sylvia"s mother. Mh"m. There"s something quite touching about this outcome. He seems to consider that he has almost adopted Sylvia,--that she belongs to him."
Edna gave a little exclamation. "Any girl would be fortunate to belong to Thinkright," she returned.
"Yes, indeed. He"s a good man, and the judge and I feel perfectly easy"--Miss Martha used that form of speech with subtle satisfaction--"to leave her with him. Of course we"re three lone, lorn people, and Thinkright"s less closely related to the child than we; but neither the judge nor I would feel it right"--here conscience reared until it threatened to stop her speech altogether. "Will you wait till your advice is asked?" she demanded in fierce, silent parenthesis. Then with a vigorous swallow she finished her sentence,--"feel it right to take her away from him."
Miss Martha leaned back in her chair flushed and guiltily content. She had made her impression, and she was willing to pay for it with vigils if necessary.
"The girl certainly couldn"t be in a better place for either mind or body," returned Edna thoughtfully, looking out the window; "but I wonder, since you tell me this, why the evening I was there she was so insistent about going away."
Miss Martha recalled vaguely a quotation concerning the swiftness with which a start in deceit becomes a tangled web.
"You see, she wasn"t real well," she returned, "and I suppose she had fancies; but I"m expecting to find her settled and happy by this time.
She certainly would be excusable if she was a little notional and restless at first." Then with one deep breath she changed the subject.
"I wonder, Edna, if we"re going to need a new cook stove this summer?"
Miss Derwent rose to the fascinating bait. She considered it enchanting to live in a house where she could be acquainted with the cook stove; and Miss Martha felt that she had sheered off the thin ice upon solid ground at last.
Arriving in Portland, they took a carriage and drove about, attending to their list of errands, in that charmed air which makes the procession of doctors" signs which lines Congress Street appear an incomprehensible paradox to the exultant, antic.i.p.ating summer folk.
At last the little party boarded the island steamer, and though a light fog blew in from the sea, it failed to dampen the spirits of Miss Derwent and her chaperon. Even Jenny, the cook, drew a blanket shawl around her, and remained on deck. There was a certain stalwart fisherman at Hawk Island whose image had not been blotted out by the pale suitors of her winter.
The deep roar of the breakers below Anemone Cottage had been wont to have a depressing effect on Mrs. Derwent, and was one of the chief causes of the devout relief she experienced in bidding a permanent farewell to Hawk Island. The green field which lay at the back of the house, in front billowed across to ma.s.ses of rock leading sixty feet downward to the bottle-green water, churned at this point into a constant unrest by its never ceasing attack upon the gray confusion of points and ledges.
Calm as the sea might be, it never fell entirely quiet here; and as the wind and tide rose, the seething and spouting of foam and spray whitened the entire coast, the rising and bursting of the breakers being accomplished with a thunderous booming which was inspiring music in Miss Derwent"s ears.
To-day Benny Merritt was at the wharf with a carriage to meet the newcomers, and he drove them to the cottage under a running fire of questions from Miss Derwent, to which his slow drawl replied with relish.
Miss Lacey was a necessary accompaniment to Miss Derwent, and she therefore dwelt in a reflected light, which made her fussy catechisms and exactions endurable.
"Oh, hear it, hear it!" cried Edna, as the horse pulled up the green ribbon road which led to the cottage. "It"s always high tide when I come. I"m the luckiest girl in the world. Hear it, Miss Lacey."
"How can I help hearing it?" returned Miss Martha mildly.
"Isn"t it superb!" insisted Edna, looking over the miles of rocking blue as though for the first time.
"Oh, yes, I don"t mind it. That is, yes, indeed, it is splendid, Edna.
Benny, why haven"t you taken off those back shutters?"
Miss Derwent laughed softly. Miss Martha often told people that the surf did not affect her at all disagreeably, and Edna"s experience had taught her to appreciate this. After all, it was a good thing to have some one about who could think of shutters, even though the fog had drawn back to a low, smoke-colored fold that softly encircled the horizon, and the gulls were cresting the waves with their white wings.
CHAPTER XVI
EVOLUTION
It was only when they had guests at the Mill Farm that a seven o"clock breakfast was served, and as yet Sylvia was accounted one of that privileged cla.s.s. Thinkright had asked her when she arrived at what hour it was her custom to breakfast, and she had shrugged her shoulders.
"Father and I never liked to take it before nine o"clock," she said, "but it made the landlady so cross that when we owed for board we usually tried to get down by half past eight."
Thinkright smiled at this. "Here you can go to bed earlier," he returned. "We will try breakfast at seven o"clock." Sylvia looked somewhat aghast, and it was not for some time that she discovered what a concession had been made in her favor.
One morning, a fortnight after Judge Trent"s visit, she came out on the stone step at the kitchen door to scent the morning, while Mrs. Lem scoured the cooking dishes.
Cap"n Lem came along. His red face with its white fringe beamed kindly upon her under the old straw hat.
"Wall, now, you"re lookin" smaht, Sylvy," he said, as he paused.
"Beginnin" to look real kind o" sa.s.sy and rosy. I guess they use ye pretty well here." His shrewd blue eyes twinkled at her, and he gave a sharp nod of satisfaction. "Shouldn"t wonder if you"d be gittin" up in the mornin" some o" these days."
"Oh, I do," replied Sylvia. "It"s no trouble for me any more. Mrs. Lem let me make the coffee this morning, and we all sat down at seven o"clock promptly. Where were you? I don"t believe I"ve seen you at breakfast since I"ve been here."
The old man"s shoulders heaved in his toothless laugh. "Seven o"clock,"
he said scornfully. "Yew look through a knot-hole in your floor any mornin" when it"s handy to four o"clock and yew"ll see my breakfast doin"s."
Sylvia opened her eyes, genuinely bewildered. "But why do you want to get up in the night?" she asked.
"Night!" he repeated. "What ye talkin" abaout? It"s jest the hahnsomest time o" the hull day. I git up to go to the pound, o" course."