THE WHITE BAG
Edna's responsibilities and nap-time came to an end simultaneously, and
Dunham proposed that they take their book to the Fir Ledges, as a spot
where the waves were not too noisy and the outlook was superb for such
luxurious mortals as need lend their ears only, and not their eyes, to
the story.
They came into the living-room as he made his suggestion, and saw Miss
Lacey just coming downstairs.
"Where is Sylvia?" asked Edna.
"I don't believe she's up yet," replied Miss Martha. "She went to her
room at the same time I did, and she certainly did look tired out. I
begged her to show common sense and not run around so incessantly. I
told her to lie down and not move until she was rested. Foolish child!
She's so in love with this place she seems to think she's wasting time
unless she's on the keen jump from morning until night."
"Wouldn't it rest her to come with us?" asked Dunham. "We're going to
the Fir Ledges to read."
"Well, I don't know,"--Miss Lacey tossed her head doubtfully,--"it's
quite a walk down there, and her door is tight shut."
John looked at Edna.
"I suppose the kindest thing to do would be to let her alone," said
Edna. "When she comes down. Miss Martha, please tell her where we are,
and ask her to join us. Perhaps she can bring you and Judge Trent with
her. I see he is still motionless in that hammock."
"Yes, tell her to be sure to come," said Dunham; and the two left the
house and started off through the wood road.
Edna did not regret her words to Sylvia, but she could not help
connecting them with Miss Lacey's description of the girl's fagged
appearance. So temperamental a creature as Sylvia would be prone to
exaggerate a situation. Very well, Edna would take the earliest
opportunity--bedtime this evening--for an open talk with her. Perhaps
it was the excitement of having given John that which she had prepared
for him which had left her pale by the time her aunt met her,--that and
the sudden realization that her hostess understood her motives and
actions. What a mercy that big, blundering, honest John Dunham had not
connected himself with Sylvia's fantasies, although his joking had
fitted in so well with her plans!
In the absence of other interests, and the idleness of pleasant hours,
John had shown considerable interest in Sylvia. Edna had on several
occasions resented the trifling signs of his admiration, fearing they
might mislead so inexperienced a girl as her guest, even supposing the
girl were not already making a hero of him, and bent upon his
subjugation.
The thoughts of the pair were running along parallel lines as they
pursued the woodland path, and at last John came to himself.
"Pardon my stupidity, Edna. Sylvia says it's a great proof of
friendship for two people to be silent when together."
"Especially if they tell their thoughts afterward," rejoined the girl.
"What were yours?"
Dunham hesitated a moment. "I was thinking it was a pity if Miss Sylvia
has overtired herself."
"And I," said Edna, "was thinking it was a pity for you to pursue even
a mild flirtation with her. She hasn't met many men of your stamp,--she
is only a grown-up child, as you have seen."
"I don't know," replied John deliberately. "I'm making up my mind
slowly but surely that she is a jewel."
Surprise and something like contempt flashed over Edna's face. "Is it
since you drank the blueberry juice?" she asked, and the next moment
could have bitten her tongue for its rashness.
Dunham showed no surprise. "Oh, it's a gradual estimate," he said.
The girl laughed. "Very gradual. Is it three days or four?"
"Time doesn't enter much into that sort of impression."
"Well, it should," responded Edna decidedly.
They said no more, but reaching the ledges seated themselves in the lee
of a sheltering rock, and read, and gazed, until the swift passing
hours brought them to a realizing sense that the anxious housekeeper
would begin to be on the lookout.
"Well," remarked John with a luxurious sigh, "our friends don't know
what they missed by scorning our invitation."
Edna said nothing, but the memory of her parting words with Sylvia
began to be an uncomfortable one. The situation was emphasized by her
guests' failure to join them here. She had not really supposed that
Sylvia could feel easy to be with her again until they had been able to
talk alone, but she told herself that she could not have left John to
his own devices this afternoon. This evening she would surely make
everything understood with Sylvia, show the girl how her behavior had
appeared, and, she hoped, give her a new standard.
Miss Lacey and Judge Trent were seated on the piazza when they
approached.
"Just in time," said Miss Martha.
"Where's that lazy Sylvia? Not down yet?" asked Edna.
"No," replied Judge Trent; "I was just telling Miss Lacey I should go
up and knock on her door. She assures me that laziness is not one of my
niece's characteristics."
"Decidedly not," returned Edna.
"Quite the opposite," said Miss Martha. "That is why, if she sleeps
right through supper time, I knew Edna would excuse her. I can't forget
how she looked when she came upstairs. All the life seemed gone out of
her. Folks come to those spots, if they will keep themselves keyed up
all the time."
Edna began to have very uncomfortable sensations. She passed into the
house and upstairs. Pausing before Sylvia's door, she listened. There
was a little rapping sound within, all else was still. The girl knocked
softly. There was no response. She turned the handle quietly. If,
possibly, her guest were asleep, she would not awaken her. Slowly,
slowly she opened the unresisting door, and her expression changed from
expectancy to blankness as she perceived that the room was empty. The
fair white pillow bore no imprint of a curly head. The curtain ring was
striking rhythmically against the window sill in the breeze.
Edna walked in, and looked about the orderly apartment. An envelope on
the dresser caught her eye. It was addressed to herself, and the
contents were as follows:
DEAR EDNA,--With a thousand thanks for the hospitality you have
shown me here, I am going back to the Mill Farm. I have known since
yesterday that something was wrong, but I am glad I came back last
evening to learn how wrong. There is no question of staying now,
because no good could come of our attempting to talk. My thoughts
are my own; no one else can have jurisdiction over them. I cannot
think of one act of mine as your guest which you could disapprove.
Therefore there is nothing to discuss; but the grief it is to me to
have offended you, you will never know. You can tell the others
that this note confesses to you that I was suddenly overwhelmed
with homesickness and felt I could not stay for argument. It will
be the simple truth. They will set it down to my bad manners, and
let it go.
We may never meet again intimately, and I want my last word to you
to be heartfelt thanks for giving me the happiest experience of my
life. We both know that Love will heal every hurt. I hope it isn't
wrong for me to go in this way. I cannot stay.
SYLVIA.
Edna read the letter twice before she laid it down. She caught the
reflection of her own face in the glass. More than anything else, it
expressed vexation. Sylvia had crowned her unconventional behavior by
the most annoying move of all. To a girl of Edna's traditions it was
excessively mortifying to be obliged to own to others that her friend
and guest had fled from her roof, even though they would have no
suspicion that Sylvia had been driven away. In an instant she made up
her mind not to destroy the comfort of the supper hour with the news,
but to wait until later.
Hastening out into the hall, she softly closed the door again, and
proceeded to make her own preparations for the evening meal. She could
hear Dunham moving about in his room, and knew that he was forbearing
on Sylvia's account from the whistling obligato which usually
accompanied his toilet.
It would have been difficult for any average man to express
irritability while discussing the appetizing dishes which Miss Lacey
and Jenny had placed on that supper table, but the judge was displeased
by his niece's non-appearance, and made it evident.
"I hope you're not spoiling the girl, Martha," he said. "If she's ill,
say so; but if she isn't, don't let there be any carrying up of trays
or nonsense of that kind."
Edna feared from Miss Martha's look that she was going to rise from the
table and call the absent one, and she hastily interposed:--
"I assure you, Judge Trent, Sylvia is promptness itself. This is the
exception that proves the rule."
"It seems to me that my niece is always proving rules in that fashion,"
he returned, glancing at Dunham. "Of course, you are a polite hostess,
Edna, and wouldn't allow a crumpled rose leaf to annoy a guest of
yours."
At these words Sylvia's note seemed to burn in Edna's pocket, and her
cheeks grew warm.
"The fact is, I'd like to see something of the girl," went on the
judge.
"I shall go up to her room the instant supper is over," responded Edna.
"Do have some more lobster Newburg, Judge Trent. Don't you think it's
pretty good?"
"I think it's perfect; but I'd better not tempt Fate with any more."
"Oh, lobster here isn't the same as anywhere else. You can eat it right
out of this sea as you can ripe apples out of an orchard."
"Indeed? The more the merrier, instead of the sadder?"
"Certainly," replied Edna with conviction, and the judge allowed his
plate to be replenished. "You shall go out after supper to see my
alterations," went on Edna. "Willis is going to let the other man come
to-morrrow to finish up, for he told me he 'couldn't put off no longer
goin' to Portland to have a tooth hauled.'"
The girl continued to keep the conversation in safe channels until the
trying hour was over, then, asking Miss Martha to take the men around
the house to exhibit her improvements, she ran upstairs again to
Sylvia's room. Shutting herself in, she stood considering in what form
she should put the news to those below. The gulf between herself and
her guest still yawned; and, while she regretted to have hurt her, she
felt that her words had not been unwarranted.
It was hard to forgive Sylvia for being so different from any girl of
her own world, and yet to have strongly attracted so fastidious a man
as John Dunham.
Edna caught herself up sharply. Was it possible that the least shadow
of jealousy had influenced her treatment of Sylvia? She was given to
uncompromising self-examination, and she knew that it had been a
surprise to her to discover in the past days that she was not John's
chief interest. She accused herself now of a snobbish inclination
toward Sylvia, entirely aside from the perplexity and disapproval the
girl had caused her. Edna knew herself to be accustomed to a pedestal.
She feared that she had come to taking it for granted that even among
her peers she should be preëminent, and that, as for this Western
protégée whom she had patronized for Thinkright's sake, it had been a
surprise to find her considered, socially speaking.
Edna set aside the tangled web of unsatisfactory thought, to be
straightened and corrected at a more convenient season. Miss Martha
might come upstairs at any moment. She must decide what to say to them
all.
She wondered if Sylvia had fled too hastily to take her few belongings.
She crossed the room to the closet, and opened the door. It was empty,
but on the floor lay the pillow slip which Sylvia had defended from
John so heatedly. Edna looked at the white bag with some repugnance.
There recurred to her the appealing look in the girl's eyes as she had
hurried into the house yesterday noon. Edna stooped and lifted the bag.
It was heavy and stiff. She brought it out into the room, and opened it
with some shrinking. What met her eyes were a number of sheets of brown
wrapping-paper. She drew one partly out. It was apparently smeared with
dark paint. Hastily pulling the paper from the bag, she beheld a sketch
of Beacon Island. She hurried over to the bed, and with eager hands
drew sheet after sheet from the bag and spread them out. They formed
three rows of sketches on the white coverlet, and Edna's eyes sparkled
with interest as she recognized the subjects. The work had apparently
been done with some blunt instrument instead of a brush. The effects
were broad, after the manner of a charcoal drawing.
Edna compressed her lips as she gazed. Suddenly she crossed to an open
window and leaned out. Fortune favored her. John Dunham was strolling
in sight beyond the piazza. She called him softly. He heard, and she
beckoned him beneath the window. "Can you come up here," she asked,
"without letting the others know?"
Dunham assented with alacrity; but thought flies fast, and he had time
for many misgivings as he mounted the stairs in bounds. Was Edna about
to have it out with Sylvia, and was he being called as a witness to
face a culprit and prove a position? If so, he promptly decided to have
an acute attack of paresis.
Sylvia's door was ajar, and Edna standing by the bedside. "I needed
somebody, and I chose you," she said over her shoulder. "Come and see
what Sylvia has done."
Her tone was excited, and Dunham's heart beat fast as he paused at the
door. What had Sylvia done?