A part of Hollis’s description: “So then her sister Idora started on the piano an accompaniment that went like this: Bang! la-la-la. Bang! la-la-la, and Miss Parthenia, she began singing:
‘O why-ee should the white man follow my path
Like the hound on the tiger’s track?’
And then, with her hand over her mouth, she gave us a regular Indian war-whoop.”
“How I wish I had been there!” said Cicely, with sudden laughter.
“She’ll whoop for you at any time; proud to,” continued Hollis. “Well, after the song was over, Mother Drone she sat back in her chair, and she loosened her cap-strings on the sly. Says she: ‘I hope the girls won’t see me doing this, Mr. Hollis; they think tarlatan strings tied under the chin for a widow are so sweet. I told them I’d been a widow fifteen years without ’em; but they say, now they’ve grown up, I ought to have strings for their sakes, and be more prominent. Is Idora out on the steps with Wolf Roth? Would you mind peeking? ’ So I peeked. But Wolf Roth was there alone. ‘He don’t look dangerous,’ I remarked, when I’d loped back. Says she: ‘He’d oughter, then. And he would, too, if he knew it was me he sees when he comes serenading. I tap the girls on the shoulder: ‘Girls? Wolf Roth and his guitar!’ But you might as well tap the seven sleepers! So I have to cough, and I have to glimp, and Wolf Roth—he little thinks it’s ma’am!”
“Oh, what is glimp?” said Cicely, still laughing.
“It’s showing a light through the blinds, very faint and shy,” answered Hollis.
”‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on me face,
Else would a maid-en blush bepaint me cheek,’”
he quoted, gravely. “That’s about the size of it, I guess.”
Having drawn the last smile from Cicely, he went off to his tent, and presently he and the judge started for the nearest trout-brook together.
Paul came up from the beach. “There’s an Indian village two miles above here, Cicely; do you care to have a look at it? I could take you and Miss Bruce in the little canoe.”
But Cicely was tired: often now, after a sudden fit of merriment (which seemed to be a return, though infinitely fainter, of her old wild moods), she would look exhausted. “I think I will swing in the hammock,” she said.
“Will you go, then, Miss Bruce?” Paul asked, carelessly.
“Thanks; I have something to do.”
Half an hour later, Paul having gone off by himself, she was sitting on a fallen tree on the shore, at some distance from the tents, when his canoe glided suddenly into view, coming round a near point; he beached it and sprang ashore.
“You surely have not had time to go to that village?” she said, rising.
“Did I say I was going alone? Apparently what you had to do was not so very important,” he added, smiling.
“Yes, I was occupied,” she answered.
“We can go still, if you like; there is time.”
“Thank you;—no.”
Paul gave her a look. She fancied that she saw in it regret. “Is it very curious—your village? Perhaps it would be amusing, after all.”
He helped her into the canoe, and the next moment they were gliding up the lake. The village was a temporary one, twenty or thirty wigwams in a grove. Only the women and children were at home, the sweet-voiced young squaws in their calico skirts and blankets, the queer little mummy-like pappooses, the half-naked children. They brought out bows and arrows to sell, agates which they had found on the beach, Indian sugar in little birch-bark boxes, quaintly ornamented.
“Tell them to gather some bluebells for me,” said Eve. Her face had an expression of joyousness; every now and then she laughed like a merry girl.
Paul repeated her request in the Chippewa tongue, and immediately all the black-eyed children sallied forth, returning with large bunches of the fragile-stemmed flowers, so that Eve’s hands were full. She lingered, sitting on the side of an old canoe; she distributed all the small coins she had. Finally they were afloat again; she wondered who had suggested it. “There’s a gleam already,” she said, as they passed Jupiter Light. “Some day I should like to go out there.”
“I can take you now,” Paul answered. And he sent the canoe flying towards the reef.
She had made no protest. “He wished to go,” she said to herself, contentedly.
The distance was greater than she had supposed; it was twilight when they reached the miniature beach.
“Shall we make them let us in, and climb up to the top?” suggested Paul.
She laughed. “No; better not.”
She looked up at the tower. Paul, standing beside her, his arms folded, his head thrown back, was looking up also. “I can’t see the least light from here,” he said. Then again, “Don’t you want to go up?”
“Well—if you like.”
It was dark within; a man came down with a lantern, and preceded them up the narrow winding stairway. When they reached the top they could see nothing but the interior of the little room; so down they came again, without even saying the usual things: about the probable queerness of life in such a place; and whether any one could really like it; and that some persons might be found who would consider it an ideal residence and never wish to come away. Though their stay had been so short, their going up so aimless, the expedition did not seem to Eve at all stupid; in her eyes it had the air of an exciting adventure.
“They will be wondering where we are,” said Paul, as he turned the canoe homeward. She did not answer, it was sweet to her to sit there in silence, and feel the light craft dart forward through the darkness under his strong strokes. Who were “they"? Why should “they” wonder? Paul too said nothing. Unconsciously she believed that he shared her mood.
When they reached the camp he helped her out. “I hope you are not too tired? At last I can have the credit of doing something that has pleased you; I saw how much you wanted to go.”
He saw how much she had wanted to go!—that spoiled all. Anger filled her heart to suffocation.
Two hours later she stood looking from her tent for a moment. Cicely and Jack, with whom she shared it, were asleep, and she herself was wrapped in a blue dressing-gown over her delicate night-dress, her hair in long braids hanging down her back. The judge and Hollis had gone to bed, the Indians were asleep under their own tent; all was still, save the regular wash of the water on the beach. By the dying light of the camp-fire she could make out a figure—Paul, sitting alone beside one of their rough tables, with his elbow upon it, his head supported by his hand. Something in his attitude struck her, and reasonlessly, silently, her anger against him vanished, and its place was filled by a great tenderness. What was he thinking of? She did not know; she only knew one thing—that she loved him. After looking at him for some minutes she dropped the flap of the tent and stole to bed, where immediately she began to imagine what she might say to him if she were out there, and what he might reply; her remarks should be very original, touching, or brilliant; and he would be duly impressed, and would gradually show more interest. And then, when he began to advance, she would withdraw. So at last she fell asleep.
Meanwhile, outside by the dying fire, what was Paul Tennant thinking of? His Clay County iron. He had had another offer, and this project was one in which he should himself have a share. But could he accept it? Could he pledge himself to advance the money required? He had only his salary at present, all his savings having gone to Valparaiso; there were Ferdie’s expenses to think of, and Ferdie’s wife, that little wife so unreasonable and so sweet, she too must lack nothing. It grew towards midnight; still he sat there pondering, adding figures mentally, calculating. The bird which had so insistently cried “Whip-po-Will,” “Whip-po-Will,” had ceased its song; there came from a distance, twice, the laugh of a loon; Jupiter Light went on flashing its gleam regularly over the lake.
The man by the fire never once thought of Eve Bruce.
XVII.
PAUL’S arrangements, as regarded Cicely, had been excellent. But an hour arrived when the excellence suddenly became of no avail; for Cicely’s mood changed. When the change had taken place, nothing that any of these persons, who were devoting themselves to her, could do or say, weighed with her for one instant. She came from her tent one morning, and said, “Grandpa, please come down to the shore for a moment.” She led the way, and the judge followed her. When they reached the beach the moon was rising, its narrow golden path crossed the lake to their feet. “I can’t stay here any longer, grandpa.”
“We will go back to Port aux Pins, then, dearie; though it seems a pity, you have been so well here.”
“I don’t mean Port aux Pins; I am going to Romney.”
“But I thought Ferdie had written to you not to come? Tennant certainly said so, he assured me that Ferdie had written, urging you to stay here; he has no right to deceive me in that way—Paul Tennant; it’s outrageous!”
“Ferdie did write. And he didn’t urge me to stay, he commanded me.”
“Then you must obey him,” said the judge.
“No; I must disobey him.” She stood looking absently at the water. “He has some reason.”
“Of course he has—an excellent one; he wants to keep you out of the mess of a long illness—you and Jack.”
“I wish you would never mention Jack to me again.”
“My dear little girl,—not mention Jack? Why, how can we talk at all, without mentioning baby?”
“You and Eve keep bringing him into every conversation, because you think it will have an influence—make me give up Ferdie. Nothing will make me give up Ferdie. So you need not talk of baby any more.”
The judge looked at her with eyes of despair.
Cicely went on. “No; it is not his illness that made Ferdie tell me to stay here. He has some other reason. And I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know,—that is the worst of it! Since his letter, I have imagined everything. I cannot bear it any longer; you must take me to him to-morrow, or I shall start by myself; I could easily do it, I could outwit you twenty times over.”
“Outwit? You talk in that way to me?”
Cicely watched him as his face quivered, all his features seeming to shrink together for an instant. “I suppose I seem selfish, grandpa.” She threw out her hands with sudden passion. “I don’t want to be, I don’t mean to be! It is you who are keeping me here. Can’t you see that I must go? Can’t you?”
“Why no, I can’t,” said the old man, terrified by her vehemence.
“There’s no use talking, then.” She left him, and went back through the woods towards the tents.
The judge came up from the beach alone. Hollis, who was sitting by the fire, noted his desolate face. “Euchre?” he proposed, good-naturedly. (He called it “yuke.”) But the judge neither saw him nor heard him.
As Cicely reached her tent, she met Eve coming out, with Jack in her arms. She seized the child, felt of his feet and knees, and then, holding him tightly, she carried him to the fire, where she seated herself on a bench. Eve came also, and stood beside the fire. After a moment the judge seated himself humbly on the other end of the bench which held his grandchild. There was a pause, broken only by the crackling of the flame. Then Cicely said, with a dry little laugh, “You had better go to your tent, Mr. Hollis. You need not take part in this family quarrel.”
“Quarrel!” replied Hollis, cheerily. “Who could quarrel with you, Mrs. Morrison? Might as well quarrel with a bobolink.” No one answered him. “Don’t know as you’ve ever seen a bobolink?” he went on, rather anxiously. “I assure you—lively and magnificent!”
“It is a pity you are so devoted to Paul,” remarked Cicely, looking at him.
“Devoted? Well, now, I never thought I should come to that,” said Hollis, with a grin of embarrassment, kicking the brands of the fire apart with, his boot.
“Because if you weren’t, I might take you into my confidence—I need some one; I want to run away from grandpa and Eve.”
“Oh, I dare say,” said Hollis, jocularly. But his eyes happening to fall first upon Eve, then upon the judge, he grew suddenly disturbed. “Why don’t you take Paul?” he suggested, still trying to be jocular. “He is a better helper than I am.”
“Paul is my head jailer,” answered Cicely. “Grandpa and Eve are only his assistants.”
The judge covered his face with his hand. Hollis saw that he was suffering acutely. “Paul had better come and defend himself,” he said, still clinging to his jocosity; “I am going to get him.” And he started towards Paul’s tent with long swinging strides, like the lope of an Indian.
“Cicely,” said Eve, coming to the bench, “I will take you to Romney, if that is what you want; we will start to-morrow.”
“Saul among the prophets!” answered Cicely, cynically. “Are you planning to escape from me with Jack, as I am planning to escape from grandpa?”
“I am not planning anything; I only want to help you.”
Cicely looked at her. “Curiously enough, Eve, I believe you. I don’t know what has changed you, but I believe you.”
The judge looked up; the two women held each other’s hands. The judge left his seat and hurried away.
He arrived at Paul’s tent breathless. The hanging lamp within illuminated a rude table which held ink and paper; Paul had evidently stopped in the midst of his writing, for he still held his pen in his hand.
“I was saying to Paul that he really ought to come out now and talk to the ladies, instead of crooking his back over that writing,” said Hollis.
But the judge waved him aside. “For God’s sake, Tennant, come out, and see what you can do with Cicely! She is determined to go to that murdering brother of yours in spite of—“
“Hold up, if you please, about my brother,” said Paul, putting down his pen.
“And Eve is abetting her;—says she will take her to-morrow.”
“Not Miss Bruce? What has made her change so?—confound her!”
The judge had already started to lead the way back. But Hollis, who was behind, touched Paul’s arm. “I say, don’t confound her too much, Paul,” he said, in a low tone. “She is a remarkably clever girl. And she thinks a lot of you.”
“Sorry for her, then,” answered Paul, going out. As Hollis still kept up with him, he added, “How do you know she does?”
“Because I like her myself,” answered Hollis, bravely. “When you’re that way, you know, you can always tell.”
He fell behind. Paul went on alone.
When he reached the camp-fire, Cicely looked up. “Oh, you’ve come!”
“Yes.”
“There are two of us now. Eve is on my side.”
“So I have heard.” He went to Eve, took her arm, and led her away almost by force to the shadow at some distance from the fire. “What in the world has made you change so?” he said. “Do you know—it’s abject.”
“Yes, it’s abject,” Eve answered. She could see him looking at her in the dusky darkness; she had never been looked at in such a way before. “It’s brave, too,” she added, trying to keep back the tears.
“I think you understand mine.” She had said it. She had been seized with a sudden wild desire to make an end of it, to put it into words. The overweight of daring which nature had given her drew her on.
“Well, if I do, then,” answered Paul, “why don’t you want to please me?”
She turned her head away, suffocated by his calm acceptance of her avowal. “It would be of no use. And I want to make one woman happy; so few women are happy!”
“Do you call it happy to have Ferdie knocking her about?”
“She does.”
“And knocking about Jack, too?”
“I shall be there, I can take care of Jack.”
“I see I can do nothing with you. You have lost your senses!”
He went back to Cicely. “Ferdie has his faults, Cicely, as we both know; but you have yours too, you make yourself out too important. How many other women do you think he has cared for?”
“Before he saw me, five hundred, if you like; five thousand.”
“And since he saw you—since he married you?”
Cicely laughed happily.
“I will bring you something,” said Paul. He went off to his tent.
Eve came rapidly to Cicely. “Don’t believe a word he tells you!”
“If it is anything against Ferdie, of course I shall not,” answered Cicely, composedly.
The judge had followed Paul to his tent. He waited anxiously outside, and then followed him back.
“I don’t believe, after all, Cicely, that you are going to do what I don’t want you to do,” said Paul, in a cheerful tone, as he came up. He seemed to have abandoned whatever purpose he had had, for he brought nothing with him—his hands were empty.
Cicely did not reply, she played with a curl of Jack’s hair.
“Ferdie himself doesn’t want you to go; you showed me his letter saying so.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that enough, then? Come, don’t be so cold with me,” Paul went on, his voice taking caressing tones.
Cicely felt their influence. “I want to go, Paul, because that very letter of Ferdie’s makes me afraid,” she said, wistfully; “I feel that there is something behind, something I do not know.”
“If there is, it is something which he does not wish you to know.”
“That could never be; it is only because I am not with him; when I am with him, he tells me everything, he likes to tell me.”
“Will you take my word for it if I assure you that it is much better for both of you, not only for yourself, but for Ferdie, that you stay here awhile longer?”
“No,” replied Cicely, hardening. Her “no” was quiet, but it expressed an obstinacy that was immovable.
Paul looked at her. “Will you wait a week?”
“No.”
“Will you wait three days?”
“I shall start to-morrow,” replied Cicely.
“Read this, then.” He took a letter from his pocket and held it towards her, his name, “Paul Tennant, Esq.,” clearly visible on the envelope in the light of the flame.
But at the same instant Eve bent forward; she grasped his arm, drawing his hand back.
“Don’t you interfere,” he said, freeing himself.
Eve turned to the judge. “Oh, take her away!”
“Where to? I relied upon Tennant; I thought Tennant would be able to do something,” said the old man, miserably.
Paul meanwhile, his back turned squarely to Eve, was again holding out the letter to Cicely.
Cicely did not take it.
“I’ll read it aloud, then.” He drew the sheet from its envelope, and, opening it, began, “‘Dear old Paul—’”
Cicely put out both her hands,—“Give it to me.” She took it hastily. “Oh, how can you treat him so—Ferdie, your own brother!” Her eyes were full of tears.
“I cared for him before you ever saw him,” answered Paul, exasperated. “What do you know about my feelings? Ferdie wishes you to stay here, and every one thinks you exceedingly wrong to go—every one except Miss Bruce, who seems to have lost her head.” Here he flashed a short look at Eve.
“I shall go!” cried Cicely.
“Because you think he cannot get on without you?”
“I know he cannot.”
“Read the letter, then.”
“No, take the letter away from her,” said Eve. She spoke to Paul, and her tone was a command. He looked at her; with a sudden change of feeling he tried to obey her. But it was too late, Cicely had thrust the letter into the bodice of her dress; then she rose, her sleeping child in her arms. “Grandpa, will you come with me? Will you carry Jack?”
“I will take him,” said Paul.
“No, only grandpa, please; not even you, Eve; just grandpa and I. You may come later; in fifteen minutes.” She spoke with a dignity which she had never shown before, and they went away together, the old man carrying the sleeping child.
“What was in that letter?” Eve demanded accusingly, as soon as they were left alone.
“Well, another woman.”
“Cruel!”
“Yes, it seems so now,” said Paul, disturbed. “My one idea about it was that it might make her less confident that she was all-important to him; in that way we could keep her on here a while longer.”
“Yes, with a broken heart.”
“Oh, hearts! rubbish!—the point was to make her stay. You haven’t half an idea how important it is, and I can’t tell you; she cannot go back to him until I have been down there and—and changed some things, made new arrangements.”
“I think it the greatest cruelty I have ever heard of!” She hurried through the woods towards the tents; Paul followed her.
The judge came out as they approached. “She is reading it,” he said in a whisper. “Tennant, I hope you know what you are about?”
“Yes; that letter will make her stay,” answered Paul, decisively.
Eve turned to enter the tent.
“The fifteen minutes are not up,” said Paul, holding her back.
She drew away from him, but she did not try to enter again; they waited in silence.
Then came a sound. Eve ran within, the two men behind her.
Little Jack, on the bed, was sleeping peacefully. Cicely had fallen from her seat to the matting that covered the floor.
Eve lifted her; kneeling on the matting, she held her in her arms.
XVIII.
THE letter, though it was only a partial revelation, roused in Ferdie’s wife a passion of anger so intense that they were all alarmed. She did not speak or stir; she sat looking at them; but her very immobility, with the deep spot of red in each cheek, and her darkened narrowed eyes, made her terrible. This state lasted for twenty-four hours, during which time the poor old judge, unable to sit down or to sleep, wandered about, Hollis accompanying him silently, and waiting outside when he went every now and then to the entrance of the tent to look in. Paul came once. But Cicely’s eyes darkened so when she saw him that Eve hurriedly motioned him away. She followed him out.
“Do not come again until I send for you.”
“If there is nothing for me to do then, I might as well go to bed.”
“You are fortunate in being able to sleep!”
“I shall sleep a great deal better than I did when I thought she would be starting south in spite of us,” retorted Paul. “Imagine her arriving there and finding out—It’s much worse than she knows; that letter only tells a little. There are others, telling more, which I have kept back.”
“Did you really, then, keep back anything!”
“She’ll forgive me. She’ll forgive me, and like me better than ever; you’ll see.”
“And is it a question of you? It is her husband, her faith in him, her love for him,” said Eve, passionately.
“Oh, as to that, she will forgive him the very first moment she sees him,” answered Paul, going off.
Early in the morning of the second day, Cicely sent for him. “If you don’t still believe in him, if you don’t still love him—” she began the instant he entered, her poor little voice trying to be a threat.
“Of course I believe in him.”
“And he is noble? and good?”
“If you can call him that—to-day—you are a trump,” said Paul, delightedly.
He had gained his point; and, by one of the miracles of love, she could forgive her husband and excuse his fault; she could still worship him, believe in him. Paul also believed in him, but in another way. And upon this ground they met, Paul full of admiration for what he called her pluck and common-sense (both were but love), and she adoring him for his unswerving affection for his brother. Paul would go South soon; he would—he would make arrangements. She pinned all her faith upon Paul now; Paul was her demi-god because he believed in his brother.
And thus the camp-life went on again.
One morning, not long after this, Hollis and the judge were sitting at the out-door table, engaged with their fishing-tackle. Hollis was talking of the approaches of old age.
“Yes, two sure signs of it are a real liking for getting up early in the morning, and a promptness in doing little things. Contrariwise, an impatience with the younger people, who don’t do ’em.”
“Stuff!” said the judge. “The younger people are lazy; that’s the whole of it.”
“Yet they do all the important work of the world,” Hollis went on; “old people only potter round. Take Paul, now—he ain’t at all keen about getting up at daylight; in fact, he has a most uncommon genius for sleep; but, once up, he makes things drive all along the line, I can tell you. Not the trifles” (here Hollis’s voice took a sarcastic tone); “not what borrowed books must be sent here, nor what small packages left there; you never saw him pasting slips out of a newspaper in a blank-book, nor being particular about his ink, with a neat little tray for pens; the things he concerns himself about are big things: ore contracts, machinery for the mines, negotiations with thousands of dollars tacked to the tail of ’em.”
“I dare say,” said the judge, with a dry little yawn; “Mr. Tennant is, without doubt, an excellent accountant.”
The tone of this remark, however, was lost upon Hollis. “That Paul, now, has done, since I’ve known him, at least twenty things that I couldn’t have done myself, any one of them, to save my life,” he went on; “and yet I’m no fool. Not that they were big undertakings, like the Suez Canal or the capture of Vicksburg; but at least they were things done, and completely done. Have you ever noticed how mighty easy it is to believe that you could do all sorts of things if you only had the opportunity? The best way, sir, to go on believing that is never to let yourself try! I once had a lot of that kind of fool conceit myself. But I know better now; I know that from top to bottom and all round I’m a failure.”
The judge made no effort to contradict this statement; he changed the position of his legs a little, by way of answer, so as not to appear too discourteous.
“I’m a failure because I always see double,” pursued Hollis, meditatively; “I’m like a stereoscope out of kilter. When I was practising law, the man I was pitching into always seemed to me to have his good side; contrariwise, the man I was defending had his bad one; and rather more bad because my especial business was to make him out a capital good fellow.”
There was a sound of voices; Paul came through the wood on his way to the beach, with Cicely; Eve, behind them, was leading Jack.
“Are you going out again?” said the judge.
“Yes. Paul can go this morning,” Cicely answered.
“But you were out so long yesterday,” said the old man, following them.
“Open air fatigue is a good fatigue,” said Paul, as he lifted Cicely into one of the canoes.
The judge had stopped at the edge of the beach; he now went slowly back into the wood and joined Hollis.
“Your turn, Miss Bruce,” said Paul. And Eve and Jack were placed in a second canoe. One of the Indians was to paddle it, but he was not quite ready. Paul and Cicely did not wait; they started.
“I’s a-goin’ wis old Eve!—old Eve!—old Eve!”
chanted Jack, at the top of his voice, to the tune of “Charley is my darling,” which Hollis had taught him.
“Seems mean that she should have to go with a Chip, when there are white men round,” said Hollis.
The judge made no reply.
But Eve at that moment called, “Mr. Hollis, are you busy? If not, couldn’t you come with me instead of this man?”
Hollis advanced to the edge of the woods and made a bow. “I am exceedingly pleased to accept. My best respects.” He then took off his coat, and, clucking to the Indian as a sign of dismissal, he got into the canoe with the activity of a boy, and pushed off.
It was a beautiful day. The thick woods on the shore were outlined sharply in the Northern air against the blue sky. Hollis paddled slowly.
“Why do you keep so far behind the other boat?” said Eve, after a while.
“That’s so; I’m just loafing,” answered Hollis.
“Christopher H., paddle right along,” he went on to himself. “You needn’t be so afraid that Paul will grin; he’ll understand.”
And Paul did understand. At the end of half an hour, when Eagle Point was reached, and all had disembarked, he came to Hollis, and stood beside him for a moment.
“This canoe is not one of the best,” Hollis remarked.
“No,” said Paul.
“I think we can make it do for a while longer, though,” Hollis went on, examining it more closely.
“I dare say we can,” Paul answered.
They stood there together for a moment, rapping it and testing it in various ways; then they separated, perfectly understanding each other. “I really didn’t try to come with her:” this was the secret meaning of Hollis’s remark about the canoe.
And “I know you didn’t,” was the signification of Paul’s answer.
Cicely and Eve were sitting on the beach. It was a wild shore, clean, untouched by man; the pure waters of the lake rolled up and laved its glistening brown pebbles. Jack ramped up and down against Eve’s knees. “Sing to Jacky—poor, poor Jacky!” he demanded loudly.
“That child is too depressing with his ‘Poor Jacky’!” said Cicely. “Never say that again, Jack; do you hear?”
“Poor, poor Jacky!” said the boy immediately, as though he were irresistibly forced to try the phrase again.
“He heard some one say it to that parrot in Port aux Pins,” explained Eve.
“Oh, I shall never be able to govern him!” Cicely answered.
“Sing to Jacky, Aunty Eve—poor, poor Jacky!”
And in a low tone Eve began to sing:
”‘Row the boat, row the boat up to the strand;
Before our door there is dry land.
Who comes hither all booted and spurred?
Little Jacky Bruce with his hand on his sword.’”
Paul came up. “Now for a walk,” he said to Cicely.
“I am sorry, Paul. But if I sit here it will be lovely; if I walk, I am afraid I shall be too tired.”
“I’ll stay here, then; I am not at all keen about a tramp.”
“No, please go. And take Eve.”
“Uncly Paul, not old Eve. I want old Eve,” announced Jack, reasonably.
“You don’t seem to mind his calling you that,” said Paul, laughing.
“Why should I?” Eve answered. “I don’t care for a walk, thanks.”
“Make her go,” continued Cicely; “march her off.”
“Will you march?” asked Paul.
“Not without a drum and fife.”
Jack was now cooing without cessation, and in his most insinuating tones, “Sing to Jacky—poor, poor Jacky. Sing to Jacky—poor, poor Jacky!”
She took him in her arms and walked down the beach with him, going on with her song in a low tone:
”‘He knocks at the door and he pulls up the pin,
And he says, “Mrs. Wingfield, is Polly within?”
“Oh, Polly’s up-stairs a-sewing her silk.”
Down comes Miss Polly as white as milk.’”
“Eve never does what you ask, Paul,” remarked Cicely.
“Do I ask so often?”
“I wish you would ask her oftener.”
“To be refused oftener?”
“To gain your point—to conquer her. She is too self-willed—for a woman.” She looked at Paul with a smile.
The tie between them had become very close, and it was really her dislike to see him rebuffed, even in the smallest thing, that made her say, alluding to Eve, “Conquer her; she is too self-willed—for a woman.”
Paul smiled. “I shall never conquer her.”
“Try, begin now; make her think that you want her to walk with you.”
“But I don’t.”
“Can’t you pretend?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, to please me.”
“You’re an immoral little woman,” said Paul, laughing. “I’ll go; remember, however, that you sent me.” He went up the beach to meet Eve, who was still walking to and fro, singing to Jack, Hollis accompanying them after his fashion; that is, following behind, and stopping to skip a stone carelessly when they stopped. Paul went straight to Eve. “I wish you would go with me for a walk,” he said. He looked at her, his glance, holding hers, slowly became entreating. The silence between them lasted an appreciable instant.
“I will go,” said Eve.
Jack seemed to understand that his supremacy was in danger. “No, old Eve—no. I want old Eve, Uncly Paul,” he said, in his most persuasive voice. Then, to make himself irresistible, he began singing Eve’s song:
”‘Who pums idder, all booted an’ spurred?
Little Jacky Bruce wiz his han’ on his sword.’”
Hollis came up. “Were you wanting to go off somewhere? I’ll take Jack.”
“Old man, you get out,” suggested Jack, calmly.
“Oh, where does he learn such things?” said Eve. She thought she was distressed—she meant to be; but there was an undertide of joyousness, which Hollis saw.
“On the contrary, Jackum, I’ll get in,” he answered. “If it’s singing you want, I can sing very beautifully. And I can dance too; looker here.” And skipping across the beach in a Fisher’s Horn-pipe step, he ended with a pigeon’s wing.
Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, sprang up and down in Eve’s arms. “’Gain! ’gain!” he cried, imperiously, his dimpled forefinger pointed at the dancer.
Again Hollis executed his high leap. “Now you’ll come to me, I guess,” he said. And Jack went readily. “You are going for a walk, I suppose?” Hollis went on. “There’s nothing very much in these woods to make it lively.” He had noted the glow of anticipation in her face, and was glad that he had contributed to it. But when he turned to Paul, expecting as usual to see indifference, he did not see it; and instantly his feelings changed, he felt befooled.
Jack made prodding motions with his knees. “Dant! dant!”
“I’ll dance in a few minutes, my boy,” said Hollis.
Paul and Eve went up the beach and turned into the wood. It was a magnificent evergreen forest without underbrush; above, the sunlight was shut out, they walked in a gray-green twilight. The stillness was so intense that it was oppressive.
XIX.
THEY walked for some distance without speaking. “I have just been writing to Ferdie,” Paul said at last.
The gray-green wood had seemed to Eve like another world, an enchanted land. Now she was forced back to real life again. “Oh, if he would only say nothing—just go on without speaking; it’s all I ask,” she thought.
“I shall go down there in ten days or so,” Paul went on. “Ferdie will be up then—in all probability well. I shall take him to Charleston, and from there we shall sail.”
“Sail?”
“To Norway.”
“Norway?”
“Didn’t I tell you?—I have made up my mind that a long voyage in a sailing vessel will be the best thing for him just now.”
“And you go too?”
“Of course.”
“Four or five weeks, perhaps?”
“Four or five months; as it grows colder, we can come down to the Mediterranean.”
A chill crept slowly over Eve. “Was it—wasn’t it difficult to arrange for so long an absence?”
“As Hollis would phrase it, ‘You bet it was!’” answered Paul, laughing. “I shall come back without a cent in either pocket; but I’ve been centless before—I’m not terrified.”
“If you would only take some of mine!”
“You will have Cicely. We shall both have our hands full.”
She looked up at him more happily; they were to be associated together in one way, then, after all. But a vision followed, a realization of the blankness that was to come. Less than two weeks and he would be gone!
“When the journey is over, shall you bring Ferdie to Port aux Pins?”
“That depends. On the whole, I think not; Ferdie would hate the place; it’s comical what tastes he has—that boy! My idea is that he will do better in South America; he has already made a beginning there, and likes the life. This time he can take Cicely with him, and that will steady him; he will go to housekeeping, he will be a family man.” And Paul smiled; to him, Ferdie was still the lad of fifteen years before.
But in Eve’s mind rose a recollection of the light of a candle far down a narrow road. “Oh, don’t let her go with him! Don’t!”
Paul stopped. “You are sometimes so frightened, I have noticed that. And yet you are no coward. What happened—really? What did you do?”
She could not speak.
“I’m a brute to bother you about it,” Paul went on. “But I have always felt sure that you did more that night than you have ever acknowledged; Cicely couldn’t tell us, you see, because she had fainted. How strange you look! Are you ill?”
“It is nothing. Let us walk on.”
“As you please.”
“If they go to South America, why shouldn’t you go with them?” he said, after a while, returning to his first topic. “You will have to go if you want to keep a hold on Jack, for Cicely will never give him up to you for good and all, as you have hoped. If you were with them, I should feel a great deal safer.”
Well, that was something. Was this, then, to be her occupation for the future—by a watch over Ferdie, to make his brother more comfortable? She tried to give a sarcastic turn to this idea. But again the feeling swept over her: Oh, if it had only been any one but Ferdinand Morrison!—Ferdinand Morrison!
“How you shuddered!” said Paul. Walking beside her, he had felt her tremble. “You certainly are ill.”
“No. But don’t let us talk of any of those things to-day, let us forget them.”
“How can we?”
“I can!” The color rose suddenly in her cheeks; for the moment she was beautiful. “My last walk with him! When he is gone, the days will be a blank.”
—“It is my last walk with you!” she said aloud, pursuing the current of her thoughts.
He looked at her askance.
His glance brought her back to reality. She turned and left him; she walked rapidly towards the lake, coming out on the beach beyond Eagle Point.
He followed her, and, as he came up, his eyes took possession of and held hers, as they had done before; then, after a moment, he put his arm round her, drew her to him, and bent his face to hers.
She tried to spring from him. But he still held her. “What shall I say to excuse myself, Eve?”
The tones of his voice were very sweet. But he was smiling a little too. She saw it; she broke from his grasp.
“You look as though you could kill me!” he said.
(And she did look so.)
“Forgive me,” he went on; “tell me you don’t mind.”
“I should have thought—that what I confessed to you—you know, that day—
But there were no subtleties in Paul. “Why, that was the very reason,” he answered. “What did you tell me for, if you didn’t want me to think of it?” Then he took a lighter tone. “Come, forget it. It was nothing.—What’s one kiss?”
Eve colored deeply.
And then, suddenly, Paul Tennant colored too.
He turned his head away, and his glance, resting on the water, was stopped by something—a dark object floating. He put up a hand on each side of his face and looked more steadily. “Yes. No. Yes! There’s a woman out there—lashed to something. I must go out and see.” He had thrown his hat down upon the sand as he spoke; he was hastily taking off his coat and waistcoat, his shoes and stockings; then he waded out rapidly, and when the rock shelved off, he began to swim.
Eve stood watching him mechanically. “He has already forgotten it!”
Paul reached the dark object. Then, after a short delay, she could see that he was trying to bring it in.
But his progress was slow.
“Oh, there must be something the matter! Perhaps a cramp has seized him.” A terrible impatience took possession of her; it was impossible for him to hear her, yet she cried to him at the top of her voice, and fiercely: “Let it go! Let it go, I say! Come in alone. Who cares for it, whatever it is?” It was not until his burden lay on the beach that she could turn her mind from him in the least, or think of what he had brought.
The burden was a girl of ten, a fair child with golden curls, now heavy with water; her face was calm, the eyes peacefully closed. She had been lashed to a plank by somebody’s hand—whose? Her father’s? Or had it been done by a sobbing mother, praying, while she worked, that she and her little daughter might meet again.
“It’s dreadful, when they’re so young,” said big Paul, bending over the body reverently to loosen the ropes. He finished his task, and straightened himself. “A collision or a fire. If it was a fire, they must have seen it from Jupiter Light.” He scanned the lake. “Perhaps there are others who are not dead; I must have one of the canoes at once. I’ll go by the beach. You had better follow me.” He put on his shoes, and, dripping as he was, he was off again like a flash, running towards the west at a vigorous speed.
Eve watched him until he was out of sight. Then she sat down beside the little girl and began to dry her pretty curls, one by one, with her handkerchief. Even then she kept thinking, “He has forgotten it!”
By-and-by—it seemed to her a long time—she saw a canoe coming round the point. It held but one person—Paul. He paddled rapidly towards her. “Why didn’t you follow me, as I told you to?” he said, almost angrily. “Hollis has gone back to the camp for more canoes and the Indians; he took Cicely, and he ought to have taken you.”
“I wanted to stay here.”
“You will be in the way; drowned people are not always a pleasant sight. Sit where you are, then, since you are here; if I come across anything, I’ll row in at a distance from you.”
He paddled off again.
But before very long she saw him returning. “Are you really not afraid?” he asked, as his canoe grated on the beach.
“No.”
“There’s some one out there. But I find I can’t lift anything into this canoe alone—it’s so tottlish; I could swim and tow, though, if I had the canoe as a help. Can you paddle?”
“Yes.”
“Get in, then.” He stepped out of the boat, and she took his place. He pushed it off and waded beside her until the water came to his chin; then he began to swim, directing her course by a movement of his head. She used her paddle very cautiously, now on one side, now on the other, the whole force of her attention bent upon keeping the little craft steady. After a while, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw something dark ahead. Fear seized her, she could not look at it; she felt faint. At the same moment, Paul left her, swimming towards the floating thing. With a determined effort at self-control, she succeeded in turning the canoe, and waited steadily until Paul gave the sign. Keeping her eyes carefully away from that side, she then started back towards the shore, Paul convoying his floating freight a little behind her. As they approached the beach, he made a motion signifying that she should take the canoe farther down; when she was safely at a distance, he brought his tow ashore. It was the body of a sailor. The fragment of deck planking to which he was tied had one end charred; this told the dreadful tale—fire at sea.
The sailor was dead, though it was some time before Paul would acknowledge it. At length he desisted from his efforts. He came down the beach to Eve, wiping his forehead with his wet sleeve. “No use, he’s dead. I am going out again.”
“I will go with you, then.”
“If you are not too tired?”
They went out a second time. They saw another dark object half under water. Again the sick feeling seized her; but she turned the canoe safely, and they came in with their load. This time, when he dismissed her, she went back to the little girl, and, landing, sat down; she was very tired.
After a while she heard sounds—four canoes coming rapidly round the point, the Indians using their utmost speed. She rose; Hollis, who was in the first canoe, saw her, and directed his course towards her. “Why did you stay here?” he demanded, sternly, as he saw the desolate little figure of the child.
Eve began to excuse herself. “I was of use before you came; I went out; I helped.”
“Paul shouldn’t have asked you.”
“He had to; he couldn’t do it alone.”
“He shouldn’t have asked you.” He went off to Paul, and she sat down again; she took up her task of drying the golden curls. After a while the sound of voices ceased, and she knew that they had all gone out on the lake for further search. She went on with what she was doing; but presently, in the stillness, she began to feel that she must turn and look; she was haunted by the idea that one of the men who had been supposed to be dead was stealing up noiselessly to look over her shoulder. She turned. And then she saw Hollis sitting not far away.
“Oh, I am so glad you are there!”
Hollis rose and came nearer, seating himself again quietly. “I thought I wouldn’t leave you all alone.”
She scanned the water. The five canoes were clustered together far out; presently, still together, they moved in towards the shore.
“They are bringing in some one else!”
“Sha’n’t we go farther away?” suggested Hollis—“farther towards the point? I’ll go with you.”
“No, I shall stay with this little girl; I do not intend to leave her. You won’t understand this, of course; only a woman would understand it.”
“Oh, I understand,” said Hollis.
But Eve ignored him. “The canoes are keeping all together in a way they haven’t done before. Do you think—oh, it must be that they have got some one who is living!”
“It’s possible.”
“They are holding something up so carefully.” She sprang to her feet. “I am sure I saw it move! Paul has really saved somebody. How can you sit there, Mr. Hollis? Go and find out!”
Hollis went. In twenty minutes he came back.
“Well?” said Eve, breathlessly.
“Yes, there’s a chance for this one; he’ll come round, I guess.”
“I don’t know that he’s much worth the saving; he looks a regular scalawag.”
“How can you say that—a human life!”
Hollis looked down at the sand, abashed.
“Couldn’t I go over there for a moment?” Eve said, still excitedly watching the distant group.
“Better not.”
“Tell me just how Paul did it, then?” she asked. “For of course it was he, the Indians don’t know anything.”
“Well, I can’t say how exactly. He brought him in.”
“Isn’t he wonderful!”
“I have always thought him the cleverest fellow I have ever known,” responded poor Hollis, stoutly.
The next day the little girl, freshly robed and fair, was laid to rest in the small forest burying-ground belonging to Jupiter Light; Eve had not left her. There were thirty new mounds there before the record was finished.
“Steamer Mayhew burned, Tuesday night, ten miles east Jupiter Light, Lake Superior. Fifteen persons known to be saved. Mayhew carried twenty cabin passengers and thirty-five emigrants. Total loss.” (Associated Press despatch.)
Soon after this the camp was abandoned; as Paul was to go south so soon, he could not give any more time to forest-life, and they all, therefore, returned to Port aux Pins together. Once there Paul seemed to have no thought for anything but his business affairs. And Eve, in her heart, said again, “He has forgotten!”
XX.
FOURTH OF JULY at Port aux Pins; a brilliant morning with the warm sun tempering the cool air, and shining on the pure cold blue of the lake.
At ten o’clock, the cannon began to boom; the guns were planted at the ends of the piers, and the men of the Port aux Pins Light Artillery held themselves erect, trying to appear unconscious of the presence of the whole town behind them, eating peanuts, and criticising.
The salute over, the piers were deserted, the procession was formed. The following was the order as printed in the Port aux Pins Eagle: