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