The first stone of the system of enrockment had been bedded!
Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering chain, waited until the water cleared, knocked out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus freeing the chain, and signaled “All clear—hoist.” Then he hauled the crowbar towards him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, moved away from the reach of falling bodies, and sank into a bed of sea-kelp as comfortably as if it had been a sofa-cushion.
These breathing spells rest the lungs of a diver and lighten his work. Being at rest he can manage his dress the better, inflating it so that he is able to get his air with greater ease and regularity. The relief is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the sea.
Caleb did none of these things. He was too expert a diver to allow himself to go to sleep, and he had too much to think about to play with the fish. He sat quietly awaiting his call, his thoughts on the day of the week and how long it would be before Saturday night came again, and whether, when he left that morning, he had arranged everything for the little wife, so that she would be comfortable until his return. Once a lobster moved slowly up and nipped his red fingers with its claw, thinking them some tidbit previously unknown. (The dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof and air-tight band, leaving the hands bare.) At another time two tomcods came sailing past, side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, and scampered off. But Caleb, sitting comfortably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed thirty feet under water, paid little heed to outside things. His eyes only saw a tossing apron and a trim little figure on a cabin porch, as she waved him a last good-by.
In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds and shimmering sea, some changes had taken place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. Hardly had the second stone been made ready to be swung overboard, when there came a sudden uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp waves preceding a heavy storm had strayed in from Montauk and was making straight for the Ledge.
Captain Joe sprang on the sloop’s rail and looked seaward, and a shade of disappointment crossed his face.
“Stand by on that outboard ha’sser!” he shouted in a voice that was heard all over the Ledge.
The heavy outboard hawser holding the sloop whipped out of the sea with the sudden strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and quivered like a fiddle-string. The sloop staggered for an instant, plunged bow under, careened to her rail, and righted herself within oar’s touch of the Ledge. Three feet from her bilge streak crouched a grinning rock with its teeth set!
Captain Joe smiled and looked at Captain Brandt.
“Ain’t nothin’ when ye git used to’t, Cap’n Bob. I ain’t a-goin’ ter scratch ’er paint. Got to bank yer fires. Them other two stone’ll have to wait till the tide turns.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the skipper, throwing the furnace door wide open. The danger was passed for the second time, and in the final test his boat had proved herself. Yet again he did not boast. There was only a fearless ready-to-meet-anything air about him as, with shoulders squared and head up, he walked down the deck and said to Captain Joe, in a tone as if he were only asking for information, but without the slightest shade of anxiety, “If that ’ere ha’sser’d parted, Cap’n Joe, when she give that plunge, it would ’a’ been all up with us,—eh?”
“Yes,—’spec’ so,” answered the captain, his mind, now that the danger had passed, neither on the question nor on the answer. Then suddenly awakening with a look of intense interest, “That line was a new one, Cap’n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose; them kind don’t part.”
Sanford, who had been standing by the tiller, anxiously watching the conflict with the sea, walked forward and grasped the skipper’s hand.
“I want to congratulate you,” he said, “on your sloop and on your pluck. It is not every man can lie around this stone-pile for the first time and keep his head.”
Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, and turned away his face. “Well, sir—ye see”—He never finished the sentence. The compliment had upset him more than the escape of the sloop.
All was bustle now on board the Screamer. The boom was swung in aboard, lowered, and laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up to the surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his shoes and breast-plate taken off. He still wore his dress, so that he could be ready for the other two stones when the tide turned. Meanwhile he walked about the deck looking like a great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard puffed out over his copper collar.
During the interval of the change of tide dinner was announced, and the Screamer’s crew went below to more sizzle and doughballs, and this time a piece of corned beef, while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and Lacey sprang into the sloop’s yawl and sculled for the shanty and their dinner, keeping close to the hawser still holding the sloop.
The unexpected made half the battle at the Ledge. It was not unusual to see a southeast roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the smoothness of a mill-pond by a northwest gale, and before night to find this same dead calm followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an expert could checkmate the consequences of weather manoeuvres like these. Before Captain Joe, sitting at the head of the table, had filled each man’s plate with his fair proportion of cabbage and pork, a whiff of wind puffed in the bit of calico that served as a curtain for the shanty’s pantry window,—the one facing east. Captain Joe sprang from his seat, and, bareheaded as he was, mounted the concrete platforms and looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he saw a little wrinkling line of silver flashing out of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch Island scattered flurries of wind furred the glittering surface of the sea with dull splotches,—as when one breathes upon a mirror. The captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and examined the barometer. It had fallen two points.
“Finish yer dinner, men,” he said quietly. “That’s the las’ stone to-day, Mr. Sanford. It’s beginnin’ ter git lumpy. It’ll blow a livin’ gale o’ wind by sundown.”
A second and stronger puff now swayed the men’s oilskins, hanging against the east door. This time the air was colder and more moist. The sky overhead had thickened. In the southeast lay two sun-dog clouds, their backs shimmering like opals, while about the feverish eye of the sun itself gathered a reddish circle like an inflammation.
Sanford was on the platform, reading the signs of the coming gale. It was important that he should reach Keyport by night, and he had no time to spare. As the men came out one after another, each of them glanced toward the horizon, and quickening his movements fell to work putting the place in order. The loose barrow planks were quickly racked up on the shanty’s roof, out of the wash of the expected surf; an extra safety-guy was made fast to the platform holding the hoisting-engine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the cement and lashed fast. Meanwhile Captain Joe busied himself in examining the turnbuckles of the holding-down rods, which bound the shanty to the Ledge, and giving them another tightening twist, ordering the heavy wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty to be put up, and seeing that the stove-pipe that stuck through the roof was taken down and stored inside.
All this time the Screamer tugged harder at her hawser, her bow surging as the ever-increasing swell raced past her.
Orders to man the yawl were now given and promptly obeyed.
“Keep everything snug, Caleb, while I’m gone!” Captain Joe shouted, as he stepped into the boat. “It looks soapy, but it may be out to the nor’ard an’ clear by daylight. Sit astern, Mr. Sanford. Pull away, men, we ain’t got a minute.”
When the Screamer, with two unset stones still on her deck, bore away from the Ledge with Sanford, Captain Joe, and Lacey on board, the spray was flying over the shanty roof.
Caleb stood on the platform waving his hand. He was still in his diving-dress. His helmet only had been removed, and his bushy beard was flying in the wind.
“Tell Betty I’ll be home for Sunday,” the men heard him call out, as they flew by under close reef.
CHAPTER V—AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN
The storm was still raging, the wind beating in fierce gusts against the house and rattling the window-panes, when Sanford awoke in the low-ceiled room always reserved for him at Captain Joe’s.
“Turrible dirty, ain’t it?” the captain called, as he came in with a hearty good-morning and threw open the green blinds. “I guess she’ll scale off; it’s hauled a leetle s’uth’ard since daylight. The glass is a-risin’, too. Aunty Bell says breakfas’ ’s ready jes’ ’s soon’s you be.”
“All right, captain. Don’t wait. I’ll come in ten minutes,” replied Sanford.
Outside the little windows a wide-armed tree swayed in the storm, its budding branches tapping the panes. Sanford went to the window and looked out. The garden was dripping, and the plank walk that ran to the swinging-gate was glistening in the driving rain.
These changes in the weather did not affect his plans. Bad days were to be expected, and the loss of time at an exposed site like that of the Ledge was always considered in the original estimate of the cost of the structure. If the sea prevented the landing of stone for a day or so, the sloop, as he knew, could load a full cargo of blocks from the wharf across the road, now hidden by the bursting lilacs in the captain’s garden; or the men could begin on the iron parts of the new derricks, and if it cleared, as Captain Joe predicted, they could trim the masts and fit the bands. Sanford turned cheerfully from the window, and picked up his big sponge that lay by the tin tub Aunty Bell always filled for him the night before.
The furniture and appointments about him were of the plainest. There were a bed, a wash-stand and a portable tub, three chairs, and a small table littered with drawing materials. Dimity curtains, snow-white, hung at the windows, and the bureau was covered with a freshly laundered white Marseilles cover. On the walls were tacked mechanical drawings, showing cross-sections of the several courses of masonry,—prospective views of the concrete base and details of the cisterns and cellars of the lighthouse. Each of these was labeled “Shark Ledge Lighthouse. Henry Sanford, Contractor,” and signed, “W. A. Carleton, Asst. Supt. U. S. L. Estb’t.” In one corner of the room rested a field transit, and a pole with its red-and-white target.
The cottage itself was on the main shore road leading from the village to Keyport Light, and a little removed from the highway. It had two stories and a narrow hall with rooms on either side. In the rear were the dining-room and kitchen. Overlooking the road in front was a wide portico with sloping roof.
There were two outside doors belonging to the house. These were always open. They served two purposes,—to let in the air and to let in the neighbors. The neighbors included everybody who happened to be passing, from the doctor to the tramp. This constant stream of visitors always met in the kitchen,—a low-ceiled, old-fashioned interior, full of nooks and angles, that had for years adapted itself to everybody’s wants and ministered to everybody’s comfort,—and was really the cheeriest and cosiest room in the house.
Its fittings and furnishings were as simple as they were convenient. On one side, opposite the door, were the windows, looking out upon the garden, their sills filled with plants in winter and sou’wester hats in summer. In the far corner stood a pine dresser painted bright green, decorated with rows of plates and saucers set up on edge, besides various dishes and platters, all glistening from the last touch of Aunty Bell’s hand polish. Next to the dresser was a broad, low settle, also of pine and also bright green, except where countless pairs of overalls had worn the paint away. Chairs of all kinds stood about,—rockers for winter nights, and more ceremonious straight-backs for meal-times. There was a huge table, too, with always a place for one more, and a mantel-rest for pipes and knickknacks,—never known to be without a box of matches or a nautical almanac. There were rows of hooks nailed to the backs of the doors, especially adapted to rubber coats and oilskins. And tucked away in a corner under the stairs was a fresh, sweet-smelling, brass-hooped cedar bucket with a cocoanut dipper that had helped to cool almost every throat from Keyport Village to Keyport Light.
But it was the stove that made this room unique: not an ordinary, commonplace cooking-machine, but a big, generous, roomy arrangement, pushed far back out of everybody’s way, with out-riggers for broiling, and capacious ovens for baking, and shelves for keeping things hot, besides big and little openings on top for pots and kettles and frying-pans, of a pattern unknown to the modern chef; each and every one dearly prized by the cheery little soul who burnt her face to a blazing red in its service. This cast-iron embodiment of all the hospitable virtues was the special pride of Aunty Bell, the captain’s wife, a neat, quick, busy little woman, about half the size of the captain in height, width, and thickness. Into its recesses she poured the warmth of her heart, and from out of its capacious receptacles she took the products of her bounty. Every kettle sang and every griddle “sizzed” to please her, and every fire crackled and laughed at her bidding.
When Sanford entered there was hardly room enough to move. A damp, sweet smell of fresh young grass came in at an open window. Through the door could be seen the wet graveled walks, washed clean by the storm, over which hopped one or more venturesome robins in search of the early worm.
Carleton, the government superintendent, sat near the door, his chair tilted back. In the doorway itself stood Miss Mary Peebles, the schoolmistress, an angular, thin, mild-eyed woman, in a rain-varnished waterproof. Even while she was taking it off, she was protesting that she was too wet to come in, and could not stop. Near the stove stooped Bill Lacey, drying his jacket. Around the walls and on the window-sills were other waifs, temporarily homeless,—two from the paraphernalia dock (regular boarders these), and a third, the captain of the tug, whose cook was drunk.
All about the place—now in the pantry, now in the kitchen, now with a big dish, now with a pile of plates or a pitcher of milk—bustled Aunty Bell, with a smile of welcome and a cheery word for every one who came.
Nobody, of course, had come to breakfast,—that was seen from the way in which everybody insisted he had just dropped in for a moment out of the wet to see the captain, hearing he was home from the Ledge, and from the alacrity with which everybody, one after another, as the savory smells of fried fish and soft clams filled the room, forgot his good resolutions and drew up his chair to the hospitable board.
Most of them told the truth about wanting to see the captain. Since his sojourn among them, and without any effort of his own, he had filled the position of adviser, protector, and banker to half the people along the shore. He had fought Miss Peebles’s battle, when the school trustees wanted the girl from Norwich to have her place. He had recommended the tug captain to the towing company, and had coached him over-night to insure his getting a license in the morning. He had indorsed Caleb West’s note to make up the last payment on the cabin he had bought to put his young wife Betty in; and when the new furniture had come over from Westerly, he had sent two of his men to unload it, and had laid some of the carpets himself on a Saturday when Betty expected Caleb in from the Ledge, and wanted to have the house ready for his first Sunday at home.
When Mrs. Bell announced breakfast, Captain Joe, in his shirt-sleeves, took his seat at the head of the table, and with a hearty, welcoming wave of his hand invited everybody to sit down,—Carleton first, of course, he being the man of authority, and representing to the working-man that mysterious, intangible power known as the “government.”
The superintendent generally stopped in at the captain’s if the morning were stormy; it was nearer his lodgings than the farmhouse where he took his meals—and then breakfast at the captain’s cost nothing. He had come in on this particular day ostensibly to protest about the sloop’s having gone to the Ledge without a notification to him. He had begun by saying, with much bluster, that he didn’t know about the one stone that Caleb West was “reported” to have set; that nothing would be accepted unless he was satisfied, and nothing paid for by the department without his signature. But he ended in great good humor when the captain invited him to breakfast and placed him at his own right hand. Carleton liked little distinctions when made in his favor; he considered them due to his position.
The superintendent was a type of his class. His appointment at Shark Ledge Light had been secured through the efforts of a brother-in-law who was a custom-house inspector. Before his arrival at Keyport he had never seen a stone laid or a batch of concrete mixed. To this ignorance of the ordinary methods of construction was added an overpowering sense of his own importance coupled with the knowledge that the withholding of a certificate—the superintendent could choose his own time for giving it—might embarrass everybody connected with the work. He was not dishonest, however, and had no faults more serious than those of ignorance, self-importance, and conceit. This last broke out in his person: he wore a dyed mustache, a yellow diamond shirt-pin, and on Sundays patent leather shoes one size too small.
Captain Joe understood the superintendent thoroughly. “Ain’t it cur’us,” he would sometimes say, “that a man’s old’s him is willin’ ter set round all day knowin’ he don’t know nothin’, never larnin’, an’ yit allus afeard some un’ll find it out?” Then, as the helplessness of the man rose in his mind, he would add, “Well, poor critter, somebody’s got ter support him; guess the guv’ment’s th’ best paymaster fur him.”
When breakfast was over, the skipper of the Screamer dropped in to make his first visit, shaking the water from his oilskins as he entered.
“Pleased to meet yer, Mis’ Bell,” he said in his bluff, wholesome way, acknowledging the captain’s introduction to Mrs. Bell, then casting his eyes about for a seat, and finally taking an edge of a window-sill among the sou’westers.
“Give me your hat an’ coat, and do have breakfast, Captain Brandt,” said Mrs. Bell in a tone as hearty as if it were the first meal she had served that day.
“No, thank ye, I had some ’board sloop,” replied Captain Brandt.
“Here, cap’n, take my seat,” said Captain Joe. “I’m goin’ out ter see how the weather looks.” He picked up the first hat he came to,—as was his custom,—and disappeared through the open door, followed by nearly all the seafaring men in the room.
As the men passed out, each one reached for his hat and oilskins hanging behind the wooden door, and waddling out stood huddled together in the driving rain like yellow penguins, their eyes turned skyward.
Each man diagnosed the weather for himself. Six doctors over a patient with a hidden disease are never so impressive nor so obstinate as six seafaring men over a probable change of wind. The drift of the cloud-rack scudding in from the sea, the clearness of the air, the current of the upper clouds, were each silently considered. No opinions were given. It was for Captain Joe to say what he thought of the weather. Breaking clouds meant one kind of work for them,—fitting derricks, perhaps,—a continued storm meant another.
If the captain arrived at any conclusion, it was not expressed. He had walked down to the gate and leaned over the palings, looking up at the sky across the harbor, and then behind him toward the west. The rain trickled unheeded down the borrowed sou’wester and fell upon his blue flannel shirt. He looked up and down the road at the passers-by tramping along in the wet: the twice-a-day postman, wearing an old army coat and black rubber cape; the little children crowding together under one umbrella, only the child in the middle keeping dry; and the butcher in the meat wagon with its white canvas cover and swinging scales. Suddenly he gave a quick cry, swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy, and threw both arms wide open in a mock attempt to catch a young girl who sprang past him and dashed up the broad walk with a merry ringing laugh that brought every one to the outer door.
“Well, if I live!” exclaimed Mrs. Bell. “Mary Peebles, you jes’ come here an’ see Betty West. Ain’t you got no better sense, Betty, than to come down in all this soakin’ rain? Caleb’ll be dreadful mad, an’ I don’t blame him a mite. Come right in this minute and take that shawl off.”
“I ain’t wet a bit, Aunty Bell,” laughed Betty, entering the room. “I got Caleb’s high rubber boots on. Look at ’em. Ain’t they big!” showing the great soles with all the animation of a child. “An’ this shawl don’t let no water through nowhere. Oh, but didn’t it blow round my porch las’ night!” Then turning to the captain, who had followed close behind, “I think you’re real mean, Cap’n Joe, to keep Caleb out all night on the Ledge. I was that dead lonely I could’er cried. Oh, is Mr. Sanford here?” she asked quickly, and with a little shaded tone of deference in her voice, as she caught sight of him in the next room. “I thought he’d gone to New York. How do you do, Mr. Sanford?” with another laugh and a nod of her head, which Sanford as kindly returned.
“We come purty nigh leavin’ everybody on the Ledge las’ night, Betty, an’ the sloop too,” said Captain Joe, “cutting” his eye at the skipper as he spoke. Then in a more serious tone, “I lef’ Caleb a-purpose, child. We got some stavin’ big derricks to set, an’ Mr. Sanford wants ’em up week arter next, an’ there ain’t nobody kin fix the anchor sockets but me an’ Caleb. He’s at work on ’em now, an’ I had to come back to git th’ bands on ’em. He’ll be home for Sunday, little gal.”
“Well, you jes’ better, or I’ll lock up my place an’ come right down here to Aunty Bell. Caleb wasn’t home but two nights last week, and it’s only the beginnin’ of summer. I ain’t like Aunty Bell,—she can’t get lonely. Don’t make no difference whether you’re home or not, this place is so chuck-full of folks you can’t turn round in it; but ’way up where I live, you don’t see a soul sometimes all day but a peddler. Oh, I jes’ can’t stand it, an’ I won’t. Land sakes, Aunty Bell, what a lot of folks you’ve had for breakfast!”
“Swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy”
With another laugh she turned to the table, picked up a pile of plates, and carried them into the pantry to Miss Peebles, who was there helping in the wash-up.
Lacey, who had stopped to look after his drying coat when the men went out, watched her slender, graceful figure, and bright, cheery, joyous face, full of dimples and color and sparkle, the hair in short curls all over her head, the throat plump and white, the little ears nestling and half hidden.
She had been brought up in the next village, two miles away, and had come over every morning, when she was a girl, to Miss Peebles’s school. Almost everybody knew her and loved her; Captain Joe as much as if she had been his own child. She filled a place in his heart of which he seldom spoke,—never to Aunty Bell,—a place empty until Betty came, and always aching since he and his wife had laid away, on the hill back of the village church, the only child that had ever come to them.
When Caleb gave up the lightship Captain Joe had established him with Betty’s mother as boarder, and that was how the marriage came about.
When Betty returned to the room again, her arms loaded with plates, Carleton and Lacey were standing.
“Take this seat; you must be tired walking down so far,” said Carleton, with a manner never seen in him except when some pretty woman was about.
“No, I’m not a bit tired, but I’ll set down till I get these boots off. Aunty Bell, can you lend me a pair of slippers? One of these plaguy boots leaks.”
“I’ll take ’em off,” offered Carleton, with a gesture of gallantry.
“You’ll do nothin’ of the kind!” she exclaimed, with a toss of her head. “I’ll take ’em off myself,” and she turned her back, and slipped the boots from under her dress. “But you can take ’em to Aunty Bell an’ swap ’em for her slippers,” she added, with a merry laugh at the humor of her making the immaculate Carleton carry off Caleb’s old boots. The slippers on, she thanked him, with a nod, and, turning her head, caught sight of Lacey.
“What are you doing here, Bill Lacey?” she asked. “Why ain’t you at the Ledge?”
Although the young rigger had been but a short time on the captain’s force, he had employed every leisure moment of it in making himself agreeable to the wives of the men. To Betty his attentions had been most marked.
He had saved her the best of the long thin shavings that curled from his spoke-shave when he was planing the huge derrick masts on the wharf. And when she came to gather them as kindling for her stove, he had done everything in his power to win her confidence, detaining her in talk long after the other women had departed with their loads.
When he answered her sally to-day, his white teeth gleamed under his curling mustache.
“Captain wants me,” he said, “to fit some bands round the new derricks. We expect ’em over from Medford to-day, if it clears up.”
“An’ there ain’t no doubt but what ye’ll get yer job, Billy,” burst out the captain; “it’s breakin’ now over Crotch Island,” and he bustled again out of the open door, the men who had followed him turning back after him.
Carleton waited until he became convinced that no part of his immaculate personality burdened Betty’s mind, and then, a little disconcerted by her evident preference for Lacey, joined Sanford in the next room. There he renewed his complaint about the enrockment block having been placed without a notification to him, and it was not until Sanford invited him on the tug for a run to Medford to inspect Mrs. Leroy’s new dining-room that he became pacified.
As Mrs. Bell and the schoolmistress, Miss Peebles, were still in the pantry, a rattling of china marking their progress, the kitchen was empty except for Lacey and Betty. The young rigger, seeing no one within hearing, crossed the room, and, bending over Betty’s chair, said in a low tone, “Why didn’t you come down to the dock yesterday when we was a-hoistin’ the stone on the Screamer? ’Most everybody ’longshore was there. I had some chips saved for ye.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Betty indifferently.
“Ye ought’er seen the old man yesterday,” continued Lacey; “me an’ him held the guy, and he was a-blowin’ like a porpoise.”
Betty did not answer. She knew how old Caleb was.
“Hadn’t been for me it would’er laid him out.”
The girl started, and her eyes flashed. “Bill Lacey, Caleb knows more in a minute than you ever will in your whole life. You shan’t talk that way about him, neither.”
“Well, who’s a-talkin’?” said Lacey, looking down at her, more occupied with the curve of her throat than with his reply.
“You are, an’ you know it,” she answered sharply.
“I didn’t mean nothin’, Betty. I ain’t got nothin’ agin him ’cept his gittin’ you.” Then in a lower tone, “You needn’t take my head off, if I did say it.”
“I ain’t takin’ your head off, Billy.” She looked into his eyes for the first time, her voice softening. She was never angry with any one for long; besides, she felt older than he, and a certain boyishness in him appealed to her.
“You spoke awful cross,” he said, bending until his lips almost touched her curls, “an’ you know, Betty, there ain’t a girl, married or single, up ’n’ down this shore nor nowheres else, that I think as much of as I do you, an’ if”—
“Here, now, Bill Lacey!” some one shouted.
The young rigger stepped back, and turned his head.
Captain Joe was standing in the doorway, with one hand on the frame, an ugly, determined expression filling his eyes.
“They want ye down ter the dock, young feller, jes’ ’s quick ’s ye kin get there.”
Lacey’s face was scarlet. He looked at Captain Joe, picked up his hat, and walked down the garden path without a word.
Betty ran in to Aunty Bell.
When the two men reached the swinging-gate, Captain Joe laid his hand on Lacey’s shoulder, whirled him round suddenly, and said in a calm, decided voice that carried conviction in every tone, “I don’t say nothin’, an’ maybe ye don’t mean nothin’, but I’ve been a-watchin’ ye lately, an’ I don’t like yer ways. One thing, howsomever, I’ll tell ye, an’ I don’t want ye ter forgit it: if I ever ketch ye a-foolin’ round Caleb West’s lobster-pots, I’ll break yer damned head. Do ye hear?”
CHAPTER VI—A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE
Sanford’s apartments were in gala-dress. Everywhere there was a suggestion of spring in all its brightness and promise. The divans of the salon were gay with new cushions of corn-yellow and pale green. The big table was resplendent in a new cloth,—a piece of richly colored Oriental stuff that had been packed away and forgotten in the Venetian wedding-chest that stood near the window. All the pipes, tobacco pouches, smoking-jackets, slippers, canes, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, and other bachelor belongings scattered about the rooms had been tucked out of sight, while books and magazines that had lain for weeks heaped up on chairs and low shelves, and unframed prints and photographs that had rested on the floor propped up against the wall and furniture, had been hidden in dark corners or hived in their several portfolios.
On the table stood a brown majolica jar taller than the lamp, holding a great mass of dogwood and apple blossoms, their perfume filling the room. Every vase, umbrella jar, jug, and bit of pottery that could be pressed into service, was doing duty as flower-holder, while over the mantel and along the tops of the bookcases, and even over the doors themselves, streamed festoons of blossoms intertwined with smilax and trailing vines.
Against the tapestries covering the walls of the dining-room hung big wreaths of laurel tied with ribbons. One of these was studded with violets, forming the initials H. S. The mantel was a bank of flowers. From the four antique silver church lamps suspended in the four corners of the room swung connecting festoons of smilax and blossoms. The dinner-table itself was set with the best silver, glass, and appointments that Sanford possessed. Some painted shades he had never seen before topped the tall wax candles.
Sanford smiled when he saw that covers had been laid for but five. That clever fellow Jack Hardy had carried his point,—all those delicate questions relating to the number and the selection of the guests had been left to Mrs. Leroy. She had proved her exquisite tact: Bock had been omitted, there were no superfluous women, and Jack could have his tête-à-tête with Helen undisturbed. It was just as well, Sanford thought. With these two young persons happy, the dinner was sure to be a success.
Upon entering his office, he found that the decorative raid had extended even to this his most private domain. The copper helmet of a diving-dress—one he sometimes used himself when necessity required—had been propped up over his desk, the face-plate unscrewed, and the hollow opening filled with blossoms, their leaves curling about the brass buttons of the collar. The very drawing-boards had been pushed against the wall, and the rows of shelves holding his charts and detailed plans had been screened from sight by a piece of Venetian silk exhumed from the capacious interior of the old chest.
The corners of Sam’s mouth touched his ears when Sanford looked at him, and every tooth was lined up with a broad grin.
“Doan’ ask me who done it, sah. I ain’t had nuffin to do wid it,—wid nuffin but de table. I sot dat.”
“Has Mrs. Leroy been here?” Sanford asked, coming into the dining-room, and looking again at the initials on the wall. He knew that Jack could never have perfected the delicate touch alone.
“Yaas ’r, an’ Major Slocomb an’ Mr. Hardy done come too. De gen’lemen bofe gone ober to de club. De major say he comin’ back soon’s ever you gets here. But I ain’t ter tell nuffin ’bout de flowers, sah. Massa Jack say ef I do he brek my neck, an’ I ’spec’s he will. But Lord, sah, dese ain’t no flowers. Look at dis,” he added, uncovering a great bunch of American Beauties,—“dat’s ter go ’longside de lady’s plate. An’ dat ain’t ha’f of ’em. I got mos’ a peck of dese yer rose-water roses in de pantry. Massa Jack gwine ter ask yer to sprinkle ’em all ober de table-cloth; says dat’s de way dey does in de fust famblies South.”
“Have the flowers I ordered come?” Sanford asked, as he turned towards the sideboard to fill his best decanter.
“Yaas ’r, got ’em in de ice-chest. But Massa Jack say dese yer rose-water roses on de table-cloth’s a extry touch; don’t hab dese high-toned South’n ladies ebery day, he say.”
Sanford reëntered the salon and looked about. Every trace of its winter dress too had gone. Even the heavy curtains at the windows had been replaced by some of a thin yellow silk.
“That’s so like Kate,” he said to himself. “She means that Helen and Jack shall be happy, at any rate. She’s missed it herself, poor girl. It’s an infernal shame. Bring in the roses, Sam: I’ll sprinkle them now before I dress. Any letters except these?” he added, looking through a package on the table, a shade of disappointment crossing his face as he pushed them back unopened.
“Yaas ’r, one on yo’ bureau dat’s jus’ come.”
Sanford forgot Jack’s roses, and with a quick movement of his hand drew the curtains of his bedroom and disappeared inside. The letter was there. He seldom came home from any journey without finding one of these little missives to greet him. He broke the seal and was about to read the contents when the major’s cheery, buoyant voice was heard in the outside room. The next instant he had pushed the curtains aside and peered in.
“Where is he, Sam? In here, did you say?”
Not to have been able to violate the seclusion of Sanford’s bedroom at all times, night or day, would have grievously wounded the sensibilities of the distinguished Pocomokian; it would have implied a reflection on the closeness of their friendship. It was true he had met Sanford but half a dozen times, and it was equally true that he had never before crossed the threshold of this particular room. But these trifling drawbacks, mere incidental stages in a rapidly growing friendship, were immaterial to him.
“My dear boy,” he cried, as he entered the room with arms wide open, “but it does my heart good to see you!” and he hugged Sanford enthusiastically, patting his host’s back with his fat hands over the spot where the suspenders crossed. Then he held him at arm’s length.
“Let me look at you. Splendid, by gravy! fresh as a rose, suh, handsome as a picture! Just a trace of care under the eyes, though. I see the nights of toil, the hours of suffering. I wonder the brain of man can stand it. But the building of a lighthouse, the illumining of a pathway in the sea for those buffeting with the waves,—it is gloriously humane, suh!”
Suddenly his manner changed, and in a tone as grave and serious as if he were full partner in the enterprise and responsible for its success, the major laid his hand, this time confidingly, on Sanford’s shirt-sleeve, and said, “How are we getting on at the Ledge, suh? Last time we talked it over, we were solving the problem of a colossal mass of—of—some stuff or other that”—
“Concrete,” suggested Sanford, with an air as serious as that of the major. He loved to humor him.
“That’s it,—concrete; the name had for the moment escaped me,—concrete, suh, that was to form the foundation of the lighthouse.”
Sanford assured the major that the concrete was being properly amalgamated, and discussed the laying of the mass in the same technical terms he would have used to a brother engineer, smiling meanwhile as the stream of the Pocomokian’s questions ran on. He liked the major’s glow and sparkle. He enjoyed most of all the never ending enthusiasm of the man,—that spontaneous outpouring which, like a bubbling spring, flows unceasingly, and always with the coolest and freshest water of the heart.
“And how is Miss Shirley?” asked the young engineer, throwing the inquiry into the shallows of the talk as a slight temporary dam.
“Like a moss rosebud, suh, with the dew on it. She and Jack have gone out for a drive in Jack’s cyart. He left me at the club, and I went over to his apartments to dress. I am staying with Jack, you know. Helen is with a school friend. I know, of co’se, that yo’r dinner is not until eight o’clock, but I could not wait longer to grasp yo’r hand. Do you know, Sanford,” with sudden animation and in a rising voice, “that the more I see of you, the more I”—
“And so you are coming to New York to live, major,” said Sanford, dropping another pebble at the right moment into the very middle of the current.
The major recovered, filled, and broke through in a fresh place. The new questions of his host only varied the outlet of his eloquence.
“Coming, suh? I have come. I have leased a po’tion of my estate to some capitalists from Philadelphia who are about embarking in a strawberry enterprise of very great magnitude. I want to talk to you about it later.” (He had rented one half of it—the dry half, the half a little higher than the salt-marsh—to a huckster from Philadelphia, who was trying to raise early vegetables, and whose cash advances upon the rent had paid the overdue interest on the mortgage, leaving a margin hardly more than sufficient to pay for the suit of clothes he stood in, and his traveling expenses.)
By this time the constantly increasing pressure of his caller’s enthusiasm had seriously endangered the possibility of Sanford’s dressing for dinner. He glanced several times uneasily at his watch, lying open on the bureau before him, and at last, with a hurried “Excuse me, major,” disappeared into his bathroom, and closed its flood-gate of a door, thus effectually shutting off the major’s overflow, now perilously near the danger-line.
The Pocomokian paused for a moment, looked wistfully at the blank door, and, recognizing the impossible, called to Sam and suggested a cocktail as a surprise for his master when he appeared again. Sam brought the ingredients on a tray, and stood by admiringly (Sam always regarded him as a superior being) while the major mixed two comforting concoctions,—the one already mentioned for Sanford, and the other designed for the especial sustenance and delectation of the distinguished Pocomokian himself.
This done he took his leave, having infused into the apartment, in ten short minutes, more sparkle, freshness, and life than it had known since his last visit.
Sanford saw the cocktail on his bureau when he entered the room again, but forgot it in his search for the letter he had laid aside on the major’s entrance. Sam found the invigorating compound when dinner was over, and immediately emptied it into his own person.
“Please don’t be cross, Henry, if you can’t find all your things,” the letter read. “Jack Hardy wanted me to come over and help him arrange the rooms as a surprise for the Maryland girl. He says there’s nothing between them, but I don’t believe him. The blossoms came from Newport. I hope you had time to go to Medford and find out about my dining-room, and that everything is going on well at the Ledge. I will see you to-night at eight. —K. P. L.”
Sanford, with a smile of pleasure, shut the letter in his bureau drawer, and entering the dining-room, picked up the basket of roses and began those little final touches about the room and table which he never neglected. He lighted the tapers in the antique lamps that hung from the ceiling, readjusting the ruby glass holders; he kindled the wicks in some quaint brackets over the sideboard; he moved the Venetian flagons and decanters nearer the centrepiece of flowers,—those he had himself ordered for his guests and their chaperon,—and cutting the stems from the rose-water roses sprinkled them over the snowy linen.
With the soft glow of the candles the room took on a mellow, subdued tone; the pink roses on the cloth, the rosebuds on the candle-shades, and the mass of Mermets in the centre being the distinctive features, and giving the key-note of color to the feast. To Sanford a dinner-table with its encircling guests was always a palette. He knew just where the stronger tones of black coats and white shirt-fronts placed beside the softer tints of fair shoulders and bright faces must be relieved by blossoms in perfect harmony, and he understood to a nicety the exact values of the minor shades in linen, glass, and silver, in the making of the picture.
The guests arrived within a few minutes of one another. Mrs. Leroy, in yellow satin with big black bows caught up on her shoulder, a string of pearls about her throat, came first: she generally did when dining at Sanford’s; it gave her an opportunity to have a chance word with him before the arrival of the other guests, and to give a supervising glance over the appointments of his table. And then Sanford always deferred to her in questions of taste. It was one of the nights when she looked barely twenty-five, and seemed the fresh, joyous girl Sanford had known before her marriage. The ever present sadness which her friends often read in her face had gone. To-night she was all gayety and happiness, and her eyes, under their long lashes, were purple as the violets which she wore. Helen Shirley was arrayed in white muslin,—not a jewel,—her fair cheeks rosy with excitement. Jack was immaculate in white tie and high collar, while the self-installed, presiding genial of the feast, the major, appeared in a costume that by its ill-fitting wrinkles betrayed its pedigree,—a velvet-collared swallow-tail coat that had lost its onetime freshness in the former service of some friend, a skin-tight pair of trousers, and a shoestring cravat that looked as if it had belonged to Major Talbot himself (his dead wife’s first husband), and that was now so loosely tied it had all it could do to keep its place.
“No one would have thought of all this but you, Kate,” said Sanford, lifting Mrs. Leroy’s cloak from her shoulders.
“Don’t thank me, Henry. All I did,” she answered, laughing, “was to put a few flowers about, and to have my maid poke a lot of man-things under the sofas and behind the chairs, and take away those horrid old covers and curtains. I know you’ll never forgive me when you want something to-morrow you can’t find, but Jack begged so hard I couldn’t help it. How did you like the candle-shades? I made them myself,” she added, tipping her head on one side like a wren.
“I knew you did, and I recognized your handiwork somewhere else,” Sanford answered, with a significant shrug of his shoulders towards the dining-room, where the initial wreath was hung.
“It is a bower of beauty, my dear madam!” exclaimed the major, bowing like a French dancing-master of the old school when Sanford presented him, one hand on his waistcoat buttons, the right foot turned slightly out. “I did not know when I walked through these rooms this afternoon whose fair hands had wrought the wondrous change. Madam, I salute you,” and he raised her hand to his lips.