Friday arrived, the omnibus came round to the door, and Maida Springer bade Mrs Denwiddie farewell. Circumstances had made these two intimate, though they had little in common. Both were solitary, and neither had the talent of attracting strangers. They were a mutual resource, keeping each other in countenance, and enabling both to mix in the general company without the apologetic feeling which either would have experienced had she been alone. They had grown to have a kindness for each other; and it was with quite a warm embrace and a moistening of the eye that they parted, each feeling the world emptier for the absence of the other.
The omnibus started in the afternoon, trundling leisurely along the quiet country roads, stopping here and there by the way to put down or take up baskets and an occasional passenger; and on reaching Narwhal Junction it remained there for some hours, till a train from the North, another from the South, and a third going West, should all have come in.
Maida procured a paper at the bookstall, and sat down on the platform to await her train, which was the latest of the three. There was not much in the paper--there never is, when one tries to read it against time; but there were a few arrivals and departures by the other trains, to break the tedium; and as the dusty afternoon wore by, and the lengthening purple shadows stole out from their lurking-places in the woods and under the hill-tops, there was enough to interest any one who had eyes to see.
The Junction stood on a middle level, near the edge of a wide extent of cultivated land which sloped down towards a quiet river flowing away behind; and beyond that were low swelling hills, covered with woods, shining like bronze where they caught the slanting light, and melting into waves of blue below the horizon. In front, toward the south-west, the land sloped up to meet the shadows of overhanging thickets, dipping down on the right where a brook in its rocky dell escaped from the mountain country farther back, filling the air with sound, and babbled onward to the river among the fields. Hills shaggy with bush and boulder concealed the streamlet's source; and behind, a heaven-piercing peak lifted its reddened profile to the light, while blue dim greyness veiled its storm-scarred bosom. A mile distant, on the right, the village of Narwhal, with its little tin steeple twinkling like a star, was seated where the brook and river met, weltering with its surrounding fields in a haze of gold and crimson, with purpled woods behind, and all the glorious pomp of sinking day above it and beyond--the saffron-coloured sky, the waiting flakes of cloud, flashing in scarlet fire to let the sun-god pass, and then to draw the curtain on his exit.
The level crimson rays shot for a space along the glorified valley, kindling the distant reaches of the river into flame, and impurpling the long-drawn shadows with the hue of violets; and then the pageant vanished like a dream. Cool, low-toned greys stole out along the river; the rosy day-dream of the village paled into common wreaths of thin blue smoke; the starry twinkle of the steeple-vane went out in a moment, like an extinguished spark. The cirrhus clouds high up in the zenith, or far off in the cool east, still showed a rosy tint; but excepting these, the war of the giants--the ever-recurring tragedy of light and darkness--had played itself to an end. Already the shadows of the night were out among the hills, and stealing down in troops to overspread the land.
Maida stood and watched the spectacle. She was abundantly read in the literature of the magazines. The Solar Myth had always impressed her, and now the pomp of sunset recalled the story of Herakles, enthralled in Nessus' shirt, leaping on the altar and vanishing in flame. "The end of a hero!" she whispered to herself, there being no one else to hear--though, if there had been, it would have made no difference. Being a free-born American, she felt no false shame about giving utterance to her thoughts, however high-stepping they might sound at times. If her auditor did not appreciate, it only showed his dulness.
She had removed her spectacles some time before, when the daylight grew less glaring. Her hat was pushed back, and her hair rumpled out of its usual primness. The pinched, worn, and disappointed set of her features--the livery of hard-worked governesses--was lost for the moment in the sweet light reflected from the rosy clouds, and the natural intelligence always dwelling in her eyes was now warmed into enthusiasm over the drama of the elements. She looked pleasing, and even pretty, for the moment--her figure slight and girlish, rather than skinny, as it had appeared at times under the trying contrasts of the crowded hotel. In the elation of her feelings she stood erect with head well up, and altogether different from the neglected schoolma'am of other times. Wherever the divine gift of intelligence resides, there are possibilities of beauty; and the mantle of the flesh at times will fall into graceful lines, even though the bufferings of circumstance may toss and twist it awry in the general. We are lamps of clay through which the inner brightness shines more or less clearly; and it is or the flame's being trimmed, or burning low, that good looks worth the having mostly depend.
There was a whistle up the track, and presently, with a tempestuous rush which made the station tremble, a train swept up to the platform and stopped. A big bell was jangled in front of the dining-room, and nasal voices yelled--"Narwhal Junction! Twenty minutes for ree-freshment!" The passengers alighted and hurried across the platform, and Maida bade adieu to her musings and hastened to get her luggage checked for her journey.
A gentleman was coming from the distant end of the train. He too was hastening, but in the opposite direction. Both were intent on their own affairs, the platform was crowded, and ere they knew it, each was in the other's arms. Both recoiled, and stood to recover breath and apologise. Both looked. Both started in surprise.
"Gilbert Roe!" It was the lady who was the first to speak.
"Maida----?" responded the gentleman, and then he looked apologetic. He might be taking a liberty, he thought, and looked about to see if there was a husband to resent so familiar a use of his wife's name. "Are you travelling alone?" he asked, after a minute's silence, during which the lady's eyes had been so intently busy with him that she forgot to speak.
"You look older," she said at last. "Of course you must, after ten years' absence; but you are only improved--broad-chested and prosperous-looking;" and she wrung his hand in an intensity of welcome. "Where are you travelling to? What a strange place to meet in! Were you coming to----" but she did not finish her sentence. It occurred to her that it was her friend's turn to say something now.
"I am on my way to Clam Beach," he answered. "I shall put in a few days there, and then try some of the other places along the coast. Have been at several already. Not much account, any of them; but this is the season for being away. Nothing astir in Chicago at this time of year."
"Clam Beach? I've come from there. You'll find it pleasant. The house is full; but of course they can put up a single gentleman."
"You are there? Come, that's nice! I declare I'm in luck at last. My trip has been real lonesome, so far. I have been so long West that I have lost sight of my old friends, and can't scare up one, now I want 'em."
"You don't deserve to, if you serve them all as you did me. How many years is it since you wrote last, do you think? It's eight."
"Eight years? Ah, well, but that is different," he answered, with a laugh. "Who is with you at Clam Beach?"
"Who would be? The teachers at our college are mostly home with their friends. I'm an orphan, as you know, and I don't make very free with strangers; so I come to the shore, like other folks who have no friends to visit;" and she heaved a little sigh, but not a painful one. If life had been rather empty for her, that was forgotten now; "over," I daresay she would have said just then, if her feelings had fallen into words, for her eyes were on his face, her lips were parted, and her countenance was alight, more brightly than when the sunset clouds had lit it up a while ago. This was a rosier, warmer light, shining from within. It transfigured her for the moment, casting back the gathering years with their encrusting vapours, and disclosed her again as the enthusiastic maiden from whom the young man had parted ten years before, but purified and brightened by the struggles, and the victories, and the wisdom painfully acquired--for the moment, that is: there are no tabernacles or abiding-places on our mounts of transfiguration, and their glories are evanescent.
"You mean that you are still unmarried? Strange!"
"Strange that a woman should keep her troth, Gilbert? There came no word of your death. I only had patience--only waited, just as any right woman would have done."
"Hm----" It was not the answer which Gilbert had anticipated, if indeed he anticipated any. It startled him, and made him look more carefully in her face. Illuminated by the momentary exaltation of her nerves, she really looked attractive then, and there was a glowing warmth in her eyes resting on his own which thrilled him, and held him in a spell not to be shaken off, though he tried. It turned back the pages of his memory and opened a far-back chapter where ardent passages were inscribed--a chapter broken off in the middle; and then a leaf had been turned, and new chapters with new interests and new ardours had written themselves in--the stirring interests and eager ardours of an intenser life--and the old chapter had remained unfinished, and even the part written had been forgot.
Now, the old passage was again before him, and he felt a drawing back to the old-time idyl, and an impulse to carry it on and complete it. Yet there was a thinness in this proffered draught of love, which did not now as of old attract his sophisticated palate. It seemed like whey to the shepherd's son who has sojourned in cities and revelled in stronger drinks--wholesome, but not exhilarating. The bowl was at his lips, but he hesitated to drink. His glance waxed unsteady beneath the gaze of blissful trust which beamed on him. He coughed again to break the confusing silence, and would have spoken, but he could think of nothing to say.
And then the damsel's look grew clouded, in sympathy with, or in consequence of, his confusion; and with a little gasping sob and a tighter clutch at his hand, which she still was holding, she spoke, half whispering--
"And you? You--you are not married, Gilbert?" and her eyes rose shrinkingly to his face, with an eager frightened look, as if she dreaded to hear his answer.
"N--no--that is--no--certainly not! What makes you suppose such things? I have no thought----Tush! you put me out asking ridiculous questions. I forget what I am saying;" and he laughed uneasily, looking most unnecessarily confused over so simple an avowal.
His confusion was unnoticed, however. Maida looked up in his face once more, as trustingly as ever; or more so, for now there was the triumph of proud possession. Her ten years' waiting was accomplished; her love was come to claim her. The stony road she had been travelling so wearily and alone, was behind her now. It grew radiant in retrospect by the light of the joy she had now attained, even as the toils of battle seem glorious in the lustre of the victory which they have achieved. Her love was come to claim her! She stood up closer and looked into his face, with upturned lips, awaiting the seal of their reunion.
It did not come. The omnibus was drawing up at the platform, and Gilbert, calling a porter, turned away to point out his luggage. Maida went in pursuit of her own, and to the surprise of the driver, had it restored to the place on the roof whence it had been lifted an hour or two before, and then followed Gilbert inside, to return to Clam Beach.
The daylight was stealing swiftly yet imperceptibly away. There was no moon, and the occupants of the omnibus were speedily wrapped in gloom. Besides the two we know of, there were others sitting in silence, and in wait for anything to amuse them on the monotonous journey. The vehicle rolled easily along the sandy road, without noise or jar to drown the sound of conversation, and Maida dared not give voice to the many things with which her happy heart was overflowing, before the inquisitive strangers, while Gilbert was far from indisposed to hold his tongue.
To participate with enthusiasm in a réchauffé of feeling, after ten years, and in other scenes and circumstances, demands an effort. If the feeling has been one merely of friendship, such participation is no doubt possible--nay, the long interval lends an atmosphere of pensive charm to the revival, clothes it in roseate hues, and tempts one, in looking down the vista of the years, to see the bond as closer than it really was. But if the friendship was one "touched with emotion," as it mostly is when the parties are a young man and a maid, it is different. The aroma of such a tie is far too subtile and evanescent to survive much keeping. Cherish the memories ever so carefully, as Maida had done, it is only like the storing away of roseleaves. The perfume waxes even stronger, but it is not the same; it is musty and heavy, like spice or drugs--a mummy of the old sweet breath of flowers. Cherish not, as was Gilbert's case, and what is left? The roses have withered, the petals crumbled and blown away, and what remains but the memory of a remembrance?
Had this meeting come ten years later, when the effervescence of the emotions, and the expectation of new sweetness still to be extracted from the dregs of youth, had subsided, then doubtless it would have been pleasant to recur to a tender friendship, and to trick it out in such shreds of sentiment as could be picked from out the lumber of the past. Self-love and self-pity would have delighted to dwell on such a memento of departed youth, when the time for new attachments had passed away. But at thirty a man is still young, except to his juniors. There may yet be loves and friendships to come, more precious than any which have gone before. He looks back upon his past as a mere introduction to his full-fledged present--the raw and callow time of his probation--and early kindnesses seem pale, watery, and insipid.
Gilbert was pleased enough to meet an old friend; especially just then, when he was bound for a pleasure resort, where, as always, those who have friends are tempted to season their social enjoyments with as much exclusiveness as they can afford, and enhance the satisfaction of being within the ring, by keeping as many as possible outside. But this new-found friend claimed so much for their intimacy in the past--so much which was special and particular, and for which he really doubted in himself if there had been warrant. It was an affair of ten years ago. Since then he had led a busy life, overflowing with all the excitements; and he wondered now if there could have been ground for the meaning she appeared to attribute to it. There might have been once, or there nearly might have been--and if the intimacy had lasted longer, perhaps there would have been; but they had now been ten years apart, and who could resurrect a sentiment buried under ten years of oblivion? There had been time for many another tenderness since then. And were not attachments like the herbage of the fields, of which each season produces its own luxuriant crop? Besides, since then a plant more vigorous than any had sprung up, one with deeper-reaching root and wider branches, which had usurped the space and choked all weaker growths. It was a plant whose fruit had been tart as well as sweet; but the complex flavour of it had made his palate critical, and anything more luscious would be mawkish now. Again, had she not been a little abrupt? Was it nice in her to speak so openly--to step so unhesitatingly across the chasm of a ten years' separation, into a past as to which he really had forgotten the particulars? He doubted if that past had been as she would represent it; and even if it had, was it maidenly in her to be the first to speak of it?
Still, he was going amongst strangers. This old friend would be a resource, and would help to break the ice for him; and no doubt, with judgment, he would be able to lead her into seeing things as they were, instead of as she wished them to be. And after all, it was a kindly trait in her to have remembered him so long, poor girl! He hoped it had not interfered with her prospects, much, or made her measure others who were candidates for her favour by too high a standard. Yet it was well, perhaps, to have a high standard, "a noble ideal." That was the way it was expressed by the winter-evening lecturers, and the magazine writers; who, as far as he recollected, always spoke of it as "precious." And he spread himself a little wider in his dark corner of the omnibus, expanded his chest, and felt pleased with himself in the new character of "element in a woman's higher culture." Ah! what a fellow he was, to be sure! If the girls did see his perfections, poor things, it was not his fault. It showed only that they had eyes to see, and he could not wish them blind. It was impossible, of course, that he could be in love with them all; but it was consoling to think that, in being a "noble ideal," he was conferring a moral benefit on those whose attachment he could not return. And through his mind there ran the familiar lines--
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
And he sighed contentedly, feeling very kindly towards poor Maida Springer.
Maida sat in the opposite corner of the omnibus, tumultuously happy. She felt garrulous at first in her elation, but the presence of fellow-passengers--staid country folks, who did not speak, but looked inquisitively at her and her friend, as strangers in those parts, and then communicated with each other in interjectional observations about the crops--compelled her to silence; and she had so much to fill her thoughts, that soon she fell into a delightful reverie, and had no wish to converse.
As the daylight grew more dim, she lost sight of her recovered Gilbert; but there he sat before her, all the same--his outline clear against the quiet sky seen through the open window, broad-shouldered, tall and strong, a very rock of manhood; and every thread and tendril of her heart seemed to go out and twine itself around him, as she sat nestled in spirit within his shadow, in a passion of trusting adoration.
How fine of him to have kept true through all the years!--through vicissitudes and seductions such as she could not imagine or particularise, but which yet must have been most trying. And now they were re-united. And yet, how diffident and even shy he had seemed, at meeting her! and with so little to say. Depth of feeling!--to which language was too poor to give expression. It was beautiful. And what a joy for her, by-and-by, to lend his dumb soul language!--and to encourage his faltering emotions to body themselves in words.
"Douglas! Douglas! tender and true!" were the words which kept hymning themselves through her brain in a continuous rapture. Ah, what a hero! and how goodly was his shadow! It seemed but yesterday that they had parted. Ten years of dreariness, the worries and petty scufflings, small aims and smaller disappointments, which had seemed so long and dull and wearing in their passage, were all forgot and put away, like the flatness of a rainy afternoon, when it is over. She was in her teens again, strolling in the fields with Gilbert on Sunday afternoons, or reading with him on winter nights in the parlour of his uncle's homestead, when the children, her charges, were gone to bed.
The air from the fields blew in through the open windows, as the omnibus lumbered on, dewy and cool, and sweet with the scent of second-growth clover; and she thought of the humming of bees, and the sunshine and the peace of the long vacation, when Gilbert was home from college, and their talks about the world, and books, and college lore, which had been so inspiring, and had filled her with ambitions, and tempted her to break from rustic life, and work and struggle, till now she was a professor in the Female College of Montpelier. What poor dry husks it had all appeared to her but that very morning! And now it was past, clean vanished out of her life; and she felt like a moth when it casts the chrysalis and spreads its wings to sport upon the scented air. The wonder of it all! and the beauty! Now that they were past, she would not have had the times of dark probation shortened by a day.
The omnibus jogged tranquilly on its way in the sweet summer night, diverging here and there to drop a passenger at his own gate, and then resuming its course, no one remonstrating at delay or seeking to quicken the pace. The casuals were all and severally deposited at last. A little longer, and the journey was completed; the dark bulk of the hotel, with its countless lights in ranges long-drawn-out and twinkling tier on tier, a garish illumination intruding on the stillness and mystery of night, loomed up before them, and the travellers drew rein before the entrance at Clam Beach.
It was almost with regret that the two found themselves at their journey's end, so pleasant had it been; and yet they had not exchanged a word. Their musings, different as they were, had been alike pleasurably engrossing, and alike productive in each of kindness for the other. No two people could have been mutually better disposed than were Gilbert and Maida as he handed her out, and waving the porter aside, insisted on carrying in her rugs with his own hands.
"Maidy Springer! you back!" was ejaculated, as Maida reached the hall-way landing; and out of the darkness of the outside gallery swooped Mrs Denwiddie in a whirlwind of flapping drapery, enveloping Maida in a cloud of kisses and black grenadine.
"So glad to have you back again, my dear. It's been real lonesome this afternoon without you. But what has brought you? I thought you were gone to be made a doctoress of philosophy,--and here you are again; and not alone either! Is that the philosophy we study? No better than the rest, for all your learning. It's woman's subjick you incline to after all--a young man--when you can get him. Sly-boots! And me never to suspect it. It's not an hour since I was argying with that stuck-up old Mrs Wilkie, and insistin' that you was all intelleck; and here you are, back with a gentleman to disprove my words."
Maida felt doubtful how she should reply, and but for the joy which filled her she would have resented the other's inquisitive freedom. It seemed to her at that moment, however, that nothing could ever vex her more, and a reproachful look was all she could call up, by way of self-assertion.
"Well, yes, my dear," the widow answered to the look, "I'll own to it. I am making free. But it comes of the interest I feel in you; though many's the spat you and me has had together. But who's the gentleman? A mighty fine man. Is it HIM? the one you kind of let on about, that was away making a fortune to marry you on? Sakes alive, now! Ain't that pretty! If this ain't true love, there's no sich thing. And so little as you said! And so despondent-like you used to seem! I reely thought the whole a flam, and you just makin' believe a bit, because the gentlemen here didn't much mind you. And now, perhaps, you'll be married the first, for all the airs some tries to put on." And again she pumped Maida's hands up and down by way of congratulation.
"And now, my dear," the widow resumed, "you must make me acquainted with the gentleman himself. I'm fairly dyin' to know him. So true and so constant! I wonder if there's more like him where he comes from. I never saw the man myself would be so faithful. But maybe it's yourself, Maidy Springer, has some knack of bindin' them to you; though that's a notion never struck me before."
Maida smiled and held up her chin, while her eyes modestly sought the ground. She mentioned that she and her friend were going to supper, and if Mrs Denwiddie cared to accompany her to the dining-room, she would introduce Mr Roe. That gentleman reappearing at the moment, the three went in together, and Mrs Denwiddie's sentimental tendencies had a treat in watching over the reunion and refreshment of two faithful lovers. Her eyes dwelt on the face of the gentleman with smiles of motherly solicitude, and she ministered to his wants whenever the waiter turned his back, passing him the sugar-basin, handing him jam and pickles, and pointing out the nicest kinds of cake, in a way as troublesome as it was well intended.
Maida was in glory--too happy to eat or drink. Her credit among women was vindicated at last. Evidence of her prowess was there present; the victim, a man of six feet stature, acknowledging her silken fetters. No one would ever say "old maid" to her again, or think it. She was transferred from the forlorn to the triumphant division of her sex, and it was altogether "just too delightful." Her merit, even in her own eyes, took new proportions. How true she must have been, and constant! And she began to perceive what a very superior nature was hers, to have cherished this beloved image for ten long years. And yet, in her modesty, she had been as little aware of the tenacity of her affection as of the enduring influence of her conquering charms. To think that she could have loved and waited so long! As if, poor soul, there had since appeared in her life any man on whom to bestow the treasure of her love. She had not hoped, far less expected, this felicity. The memory of ten years back had been but the remembered gleam of sunshine in a clouded existence, to be recurred to when other women flaunted their successes before her eyes--a testimony that she, too, had had her sip of love. Her soul overflowed with gratitude to this champion who had vindicated her equality with other women to herself and them, with humble trustful devotion.
The sensations were all so new as yet. By-and-by, doubtless, when ideas had had time to ferment, it would be different. Victorious beauty would as usual demand its dues, trifle with the captive's chains, and play at being imperious and exacting. For the present the game was all too new; she was too happy for common food, and pastured her eyes on the goodly proportions of her hero--his noble brow, his moustache, his nose, and all his manifold perfections. Timidly she pushed the buttered toast within his reach, and the anchovy paste, and watched the carefully divided mouthfuls of his meal as they were made away with.
Maida's heart was too full for speech, Gilbert's jaws were employed in mastication; wherefore they sat in silence, and Mrs Denwiddie, facing them with attentive eyes, was forced to feed her curiosity with sympathetic fancies.
"How much the poor dears must be thinking, when they speak so little! and how devoted Maida is, to be sure, pressing toast and anchovy upon her companion, and never touching a morsel herself! And what a very fine man the gentleman is, to be sure! And as for Maida herself, she really is not at all amiss--quite spry, in fact, and with a good colour, if she do be a little thin. But that will mend soon. There's nothing like a good heart to put flesh on the bones."
The next morning early, ere yet the last night's arrivals were astir, there was bustle in the hotel. Omnibuses, carriages, buggies, and a few saddle-horses, waited before the door, and soon a loquacious company of pleasure-seekers, comprising three-fourths of all the guests, came down and were borne away.
Joseph Naylor had the buggy which led, Rose Hillyard by his side, as nearly always happened now--though he had many competitors who strove hard to supplant him. His luck or good management was remarkable; for somehow, though the lady was conspicuously gracious and encouraging to the rest, it was nearly always to him that it fell to escort her. Lucy Naylor and Lettice Deane were provided each with a horse and a cavalier; Margaret, in her riding-habit, was following; Peter Wilkie sprang forward to hold her stirrup, but it felt so warm that she changed her mind and followed her mother into a carriage, which changeableness the latter was far from approving; but Mrs Petty was beside her, and young Walter on the box, so nothing could be said, and if Peter's mother muttered "whimsical monkey," and looked cross, nobody minded. In ten minutes every one had mounted or scrambled into a place, and the company started away.
The air was still. The sea stretched like a mirror beneath the limpid sky, repeating in livelier tones its cerulean blueness and the pearly brightness of the clouds, save near the shore, where the reflections grew troubled in the swinging of the glassy swell which broke and crumbled in a fringe of glittering surf. There was no breeze, but the sun was low as yet, and the coolness of night still lingered in the air with a pleasant saltness and the scent of fresh sea-wrack cast up along the shore. It was a charming drive, that summer morning, along the even firmness of the beach, so smooth, and free from noise, jolt, or rattle. The fall of the horses' feet was scarcely audible, and the air was astir with the plashing of the breakers in faint monotonous resonance, a low and unobtrusive accompaniment to the blithesome voices of the merry-makers as they wended along.
The motion was smooth, but the progress was not rapid. The sand was heavy beneath the wheels and the horses' feet, and offered a dead impediment to speed. But speed was not a thing to be greatly desired. The morning, with its brightness, its freshness, and its waxing warmth, was something to be lingered in, and breathed with long deep inspirations of enjoyment; and no one thought of haste or complained of delay, though it took an hour to do the five miles' distance which brought them to Lippenstock Bay and the wooden jetty, where a steamboat was waiting to take them on board. Out upon the water was a new and fresh sensation, and one which arrived just as the other was losing its charm. The sands, when they left them, were not as cool as they had been an hour before--the genial warmth was beginning to verge on heat; and the party crowded on board with enthusiasm, in haste to secure commodious corners and lounge at ease, inhaling new freshness as the boat put off from the shore with a screech like the cry of a sea-gull, and breasted the glassy waters on its voyage round the bay.
Lippenstock Bay is an inlet of eight miles' width, running deep into the land, and guarded at its mouth by a double row of islands, which shelter it from the outer ocean, breaking the lines of westward-driven billows, and rendering it a sheltered roadstead in all weathers. It cuts into the gently swelling country which comes down upon the sea, with its sandy pasture-tracks, and scattered farmhouses nestling in sheltered spots among meadows and shady trees, so snug and thrifty, but, alas for the landscape! so aglare with whitewash. If ever the spirit of the picturesque shall invade those shores, her first exploit, I fear, will be to scatter something of neglect, if not decay, upon the scene. In that transparent atmosphere, with its sharp uncompromising lights and shadows, the human element of the present is aggressively manifest. Each dwelling, in its flagrant paint or whiteness, obtrudes itself upon the eye, and insists on being counted in, one more residence of a citizen of the Great Republic. The fields and roads, the fences and blocks of bush, are scrupulously rectangular, without one softening curve: illustrated in the varying greens and yellows of the different crops, the country looks as if it were covered with a vast patch bed-quilt.
The hills of the rougher country, backed by the blue outline of distant mountains, come into view at the upper end of the bay, basking sweetly in the light, and clothed in pearly greys where their verdure falls in shadow. They relieve the scene from the sense of vulgar commonplace which the rawness of nearer objects might impose, and above is the immeasurable vault filled with transparent air suffused with brightness, including all, and reducing stretches of monotonous country within symmetrical limits. The hills behind send down a spur across the lower levels to the sea. This ends in a ridge which enters the head of the bay, and on it stands the pretty old town of Lippenstock.
Lippenstock is one of the oldest settlements on the Atlantic coast; and being old, it is rich in the mellowness of tone so sadly wanting in other places. Having grown with the community, it harmonises like a natural production with surrounding nature, free from the harsh obtrusiveness of a brand-new construction, and might almost be a cutting from the Old World ingrafted on the still scarce-ripened New. Clustered on its tongue of land, it stretches out into the blue deep water, a lesser bay margined with yellow sand confining and compacting it on either hand; fringed on three sides with wharfs, whose tar-black timbers lend a solid definition to the base from which it rises, in blocks of russet brown, red brick, and grimy stone, with roofs and steeples rising tier on tier in jagged outline backward and upward, spreading as they recede, in every tone of blue and purple grey, among the tops of the embowering elms which line the quiet streets. A ship or two is moored along the quays; for the drowsy place has considerable trade, and fishing-boats, with half-reefed umber sails and their red-shirted crews, are sleeping on the water.
The throbbing of the steamer's engine sounded far and wide across the tranquil calm, the gurgling waters parting at its bow and speeding backward in a trail of troubled undulations. The air seemed quickened into life by the motion, and fanned the voyagers gently as they reclined upon the deck, steeping themselves in sunshine, which, now they were on the water, seemed less ardent than it had been ashore.
Mrs Naylor, being an invalid, had had her choice of places. Reclining near the bow, where the air was untainted by engine-room vapours, she sat in the shadow of her white umbrella in perfect comfort, Margaret beside her, with her book and fan and other paraphernalia at hand when wanted.
At Margaret's elbow, leaning against the bulwarks, stood Walter Petty in watchful patience, waiting for something to say when opportunity should arise, though his mind felt too blank to originate an observation, while he watched and admired in a worshipful silence which ought to have gratified her if she had understood it; but she did not. She liked him as a young fellow always kind and nice, but he bored her, rather, with his superfluity of still life and lack of initiative; or, to put it plainly, she found him much too diffident and young.
He was three years older than herself, it is true, and was looked on as a wonder of readiness and knowledge by his compeers among the budding lawyers of Toronto; but then he was in love, poor lad, in his first and earliest passion, which is like the measles, and deals more hardly with a man, when, having passed him by before, it falls on him out of season. He had studied hard, and his ambition had been so entirely in his profession that he had had no thought to waste upon young ladies; and often had he scoffed and pitied, to see the ridiculous figure his fellows cut in the ecstasies of their calf-love. He had listened to their idiotic raptures of hope and despair, and wondered how rational creatures could become such fools. Now, the fate had fallen on himself. It is decreed that man shall once in his life make an ass of himself in dealing with the other sex, however wise and prudent he may be in commerce with his own; and the man who never does so stumble must be a wiseacre, or worse, an imperfect organism, from whose construction the heart or the ideal impulses have been omitted.
Walter's hot fits and cold were like an ague, and left him as limp and powerless as an ague would. The briskest and most talkative of his set at other times, he found his mind under this new influence dried up and sterile, without an idea fit to put in words, now when he was most anxious to be amusing and to shine. His being seemed turned into a pool of receptivity, absorbing the worshipped image, but unable to give back a reflection. He was happy where he stood, within range of so much sweet influence, but he was scarcely agreeable; he had nothing to say, and he still retained sufficient common-sense to feel a little foolish.
Peter Wilkie, sitting beside him on a coil of rope, was under no such disadvantage. His feelings were in no wise overpowering, only sufficient to make him wish to be at his best. He had had both measles and calf-love in their appointed season, and in such easy form as his constitution allowed. He had been in love many times, according to his capacity--an easy-going and pleasant acceleration of the pulses, mental and bodily, without fever or foolishness of any kind. The thing ran its course, and went off again as judgment advised, leaving him none the worse, and ready to begin the pretty game again on proper occasion.
Mr Peter considered Margaret a remarkably fine girl--handsome, clever, and with money--who would do him credit as a wife, if he should make up his mind to take her. He had very nearly done so. He would have done so, but that there was another, a competing beauty, as eligible, seemingly, in all respects, and still more attractive. Miss Hillyard was quite as handsome; and if Clam Beach knew less about her fortune, that was the natural consequence of her being from Chicago. Her dress and appointments betokened wealth; and he had gathered from the American boarders that the Deanes, with whom she travelled, were people of note, and very rich. Her complete self-possession showed both that she had lived in the world, and had held a good place in it; and, for herself, she was perhaps handsomer than the other. Their styles were so different that they could not be compared; but if anything, he preferred Miss Hillyard's. Being sandy-haired and pale-eyed himself, the brilliant brunette, with her rich colour, bright eyes, and abundant hair, had the attraction which lies in opposites; and then her conversation and manner were so much more formed and matured than were Margaret's. She was a woman, in fact, while the other was a girl, and, he fancied, would suit him better as a companion.
Miss Hillyard, however, was at the other end of the boat with Mr Naylor, as she so often was now--"Why did she waste so much of her company on that old cod?" he wondered--in the centre of a knot of young people, whose frequent laughter showed that the conversation was general.
Margaret was before him, and glancing up at her where she sat, he doubted if anything could be prettier than the picture she made, under the shadow of her broad-leafed hat, bound with a copious scarf. She had little colour; but the healthy pallor harmonised with the blueness of her violet eyes, and the brown hair escaping into sunshine behind her ear, and flashing like ruddy gold. The colour of her eyes repeated itself in the handkerchief knotted at her throat; and her Holland riding-habit, fitting without a crease, displayed to perfection the lithe young figure, with arms so free and supple. "Cœlebs in search of a wife" began to doubt if this damsel were not the better choice. He coughed to clear his voice, and proceeded to make conversation in his best manner.
He talked about the scenery. The bay reminded him of the Bay of Salerno, and every other bay, seemingly, which he had ever seen in distant places--especially in the Mediterranean--which sounded picturesque and romantic to Margaret, who had never been out of Canada till now, and tended to impress her with his merit as an accomplished traveller and man of the world. He had maundered eastward as far as the Gulf of Corinth, and even alluded casually to the Golden Horn, with the intention of taking it next, waxing eloquent over the glories of Constantinople, and favouring her with recollections and anecdotes of Eastern life, when Petty, standing by disgusted at his exclusion from a conversation in which he could not gain standing-room, cried out--
"See! they are actually launching a big sail-boat up the cove yonder. What can people want with a sail-boat in a calm like this?"
Margaret started and turned round, regardless of the coast of Greece, Dardanelles, and Bosphorus, about which she had been expecting to hear.
"Where are they launching a boat, Mr Petty? Pray show me;" and there came a flush to her cheek, and she looked at him so brightly with a grateful smile, that the young fellow's heart beat faster than before, and he was very happy.
"Do you think they will make out to sail to-day? I wish there would spring up a little wind. Do you not think they will manage to get along, Mr Petty, with skilful steering?"
"I fear, if they do not get under way, they will have little opportunity to steer. When a boat is lying at rest in the water, it does not make any difference how you turn the helm. But see! they are taking out the oars. They will kill themselves in this hot weather. Two men to go rowing a heavy boat like that!"
"Ah, poor fellows! And how they tug and strain to get the great unwieldy thing in motion! They will kill themselves, toiling in the heat--get sunstroke perhaps. How I wish----" but here she stopped short. Perhaps she knew in her heart that she did not wish the thing she had been going to say, or perhaps she thought best to keep her own counsel. She clutched her hands, and wrung them a little, but not enough to be remarkable, and watched the boat.
"What makes her take such interest in the boat?" said Peter within himself. "It sounded as if she wished they had not gone out. But who are they, that she should wish about them? Or perhaps she was wishing that she had not made them go. Ha! that must be it. How eagerly she turned to look when Petty spoke! And who could recognise any one at this distance? Aha! I smell a rat--a lover--a rival. Have a care, Master Peter, or you will miss your footing. Propose and be refused, and look like a fool! Take time, and make sure before you leap."
Walter Petty had heard Margaret's exclamation likewise, but it affected him differently. Either he was too much interested in the young lady, or he was too little interested and hopeful for himself. He had always thought of himself as but a poor creature by the side of Margaret. All that he perceived was, that Margaret took an interest in the boat which he had pointed out, and seemed uneasy about its men working so hard. Why she should be uneasy he did not stop to inquire. It might be the holy pity of her nature, which sympathised with the toils and sufferings of all mankind in a way beyond his ken. It might be anything. He only saw that she was troubled and anxious about that boat and its occupants, and he hastened to mitigate her anxiety.
"It will not be so very hard when they get the boat under way," he said. "Already it goes easier; and see how well they row! They are experienced hands. No; never fear. They will not hurt themselves. And see, out there upon the bay, those moving clouded places! 'Cats'-paws' the sailors call them. They are caused by a puff of air striking the water. When the boatmen get out there, their sail will help them, and I should not wonder but a breeze is springing up, which causes those cats'-paws. Never fear; the boat will do well enough."
He had his reward in the grateful smile with which Margaret regarded him, in looking past his ear at the evolutions of the boat in question, and which made him feel more adult than he had felt in her presence since his lunacy began. The climax of his satisfaction came when she began to speak--
"How much you know about sailing and the sea, Mr Petty! and how interesting it is, to be sure! Yes, really; I must watch that boat to see it work into the breezy water. But of course; there is breeze even here. See how my handkerchief flutters when I hold it out;" and it seemed to Peter Wilkie, looking on, that one of the boatmen thereupon drew out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
"Hm," he muttered below his breath. "Look out, Peter Wilkie!"
Walter Petty explained to Margaret that the breeze which stirred her handkerchief arose not from the motion of the air, but from their own motion through it.
"You seem to know everything, Mr Petty, about boats and sailing; and I am so ignorant. Tell me all you know. It seems so mysterious that--that pressing the tiller, for instance, to one side should make the boat go to the other;" and Margaret turned round full front to Petty--it may have been past his ear that she was looking--with her profile towards Wilkie, whose countenance fell a little as he asked himself--
"Does she guess that I have been smelling out her little game?"
The "smelling out" had seemed droll to him the moment before; but now, when this slight sign of displeasure--if it were a sign--might be taken as confirmation, it was not so amusing. And yet the girl seemed a finer girl than ever, now that he suspected a rival, and perhaps a favoured rival, in her regard. He was not going to be allowed to play sultan, it appeared, throwing his handkerchief as he pleased, without fear of refusal; wherefore he ceased to question the value of the prize, and began really to think that he desired it.
What would Mrs Naylor, sitting complacently within touch of her daughter, and accepting the conversation of her friends, have said, had she known the suspicion which had crossed the mind of Peter? Margaret was safe at her elbow, and receiving the attentions of the two most eligible young men on board. She would not have believed that her girl, open as the day, truehearted and candid to a fault, could be signalling to a man--a man unrecognisable for the distance--out there in an open boat on Lippenstock Bay. A proceeding on her part so bold and so underhand was impossible. And yet, if it were true, whose fault was it but her own? Oppression, it has been said, will drive a wise man mad. And this was only a girl, pushed, by nagging and injudicious curbing, after a course of equally imprudent liberty, to take her own way. She had but herself to thank, whatever might happen.
Mothers can remember their children as babies; they have tended and ruled them through the years of growth with undisputed sway, and maturity arrives so imperceptibly that it is natural they should not perceive when the term of their reign has come--that the sceptre has withered like a reed, and the children have grown to be women, with wills and rights and aspirations of their own.