Miranda, meekly. She was thinking that if she were as well off as
Mrs. Topliff, and toward seventy years of age, she would never show a
matrimonial disappointment in this open way. It was ridiculous for a
woman who had any respect for herself and for the opinion of society.
Miranda had much more dignity, and tried to cool off Mrs. Topliff's
warmth by discussion of the black gown.
"'T ain't pleasant to have such a character among us. Do you think it
is, Mirandy?" asked Mrs. Topliff, after a few minutes of silence.
"She's a good-looking person, but with something sly about her. I
don't mean to call on her again until she accounts for herself. Livin'
nearer than any of Ann's friends, I thought there would be a good many
ways I could oblige the cap'n if he'd grant the opportunity, but 't
ain't so to be. Now Mr. Topliff was such an easy-goin',
pleasant-tempered man, that I take time to remember others is made
different."
Miranda smiled. Her companion had suffered many things from a most
trying husband; it was difficult to see why she was willing to risk
her peace of mind again.
"Cap'n Asaph looks now as meek as Moses," she suggested, as she pared
a newly basted seam with her creaking scissors. "Mis' French, whoever
she may be, has got him right under her thumb. I, for one, believe
she'll never get him, for all her pains. He's as sharp as she is any
day, when it comes to that; but he's made comfortable, and she
starches his shirt bosoms so's you can hear 'em creak 'way across the
meeting-house. I was in there the other night--she wanted to see me
about some work--and 't was neat as wax, and an awful good scent o'
somethin' they'd had for supper."
"That kind's always smart enough," granted the widow Topliff. "I want
to know if she cooks him a hot supper every night? Well, she'll catch
him if anybody can. Why don't you get a look into some o' the clusets,
if you go there to work? Ann was so formal I never spoke up as I
wanted to about seeing her things. They must have an awful sight of
china, and as for the linen and so on that the cap'n and his father
before him fetched home from sea, you couldn't find no end to it. Ann
never made 'way with much. I hope the mice ain't hivin' into it and
makin' their nests. Ann was very particular, but I dare say it wore
her out tryin' to take care o' such a houseful."
"I'm going there Wednesday," said Miranda. "I'll spy round all I can,
but I don't like to carry news from one house to another. I never was
one to make trouble; 't would make my business more difficult than't
is a'ready."
"I'd trust you," responded Mrs. Topliff, emphatically. "But there,
Mirandy, you know you can trust me too, and anything you say goes no
further."
"Yes'm," returned Miranda, somewhat absently. "To cut this the way you
want it is going to give the folds a ter'ble skimpy look."
"I thought it would from the first," was Mrs. Topliff's obliging
answer.
III.
The captain could not believe that two months had passed since his
sister's death, but Mrs. French assured him one evening that it was
so. He had troubled himself very little about public opinion, though
hints of his housekeeper's suspicious character and abominable
intentions had reached his ears through more than one disinterested
tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his wife were the only persons
among the old family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse with
Mrs. French. The ladies of the parish themselves had not dared to
asperse her character to the gruff captain, but were contented with
ignoring her existence and setting their husbands to the fray. "Why
don't you tell him what folks think?" was a frequent question; but
after a first venture even the most intimate and valiant friends were
sure to mind their own business, as the indignant captain bade them.
Two of them had been partially won over to Mrs. French's side by a
taste of her good cooking. In fact, these were Captain Dunn and
Captain Allister, who, at the eleven o'clock rendezvous, reported
their wives as absent at the County Conference, and were promptly
bidden to a chowder dinner by the independent Captain Ball, who
gloried in the fact that neither of his companions would dare to ask a
friend home unexpectedly. Our hero promised his guests that what they
did not find in eatables they should make up in drinkables, and
actually produced a glistening decanter of Madeira that had made
several voyages in his father's ships while he himself was a boy.
There were several casks and long rows of cobwebby bottles in the
cellar, which had been provided against possible use in case of
illness, but the captain rarely touched them, though he went regularly
every morning for a social glass of what he frankly persisted in
calling his grog. The dinner party proved to be a noble occasion, and
Mrs. French won the esteem of the three elderly seamen by her discreet
behavior, as well as by the flavor of the chowder.
They walked out into the old garden when the feast was over, and
continued their somewhat excited discussion of the decline of
shipping, on the seats of the ancient latticed summer-house. There
Mrs. French surprised them by bringing out a tray of coffee, served in
the handsome old cups which the captain's father had brought home from
France. She was certainly a good-looking woman, and stepped modestly
and soberly along the walk between the mallows and marigolds. Her
feminine rivals insisted that she looked both bold and sly, but she
minded her work like a steam-tug, as the captain whispered admiringly
to his friends.
"Ain't never ascertained where she came from last, have ye?" inquired
Captain Alister, emboldened by the best Madeira and the
good-fellowship of the occasion.
"I'm acquainted with all I need to know," answered Captain Ball,
shortly; but his face darkened, and when his guests finished their
coffee they thought it was high time to go away.
Everybody was sorry that a jarring note had been struck on so
delightful an occasion, but it could not be undone. On the whole, the
dinner was an uncommon pleasure, and the host walked back into the
house to compliment his housekeeper, though the sting of his friend's
untimely question expressed itself by a remark that they had made most
too much of an every-day matter by having the coffee in those best
cups.
Mrs. French laughed. "'T will give 'em something to talk about; 't was
excellent good coffee, this last you got, anyway," and Captain Asaph
walked away, restored to a pleased and cheerful frame of mind. When he
waked up after a solid after-dinner nap, Mrs. French, in her decent
afternoon gown, as calm as if there had been no company to dinner, was
just coming down the front stairs.
She seated herself by the window, and pretended to look into the
street. The captain shook his newspaper at an invading fly. It was
early September and flies were cruelly persistent. Somehow his nap had
not entirely refreshed him, and he watched his housekeeper with
something like disapproval.
"I want to talk with you about something, sir," said Mrs. French.
"She's going to raise her pay," the captain grumbled to himself.
"Well, speak out, can't ye ma'am?" he said.
"You know I've been sayin' all along that you ought to get your
niece"--
"She's my _great_-niece," blew the captain, "an' I don't know as I
want her." The awful certainty came upon him that those hints were
well-founded about Mrs. French's determination to marry him, and his
stormy nature rose in wild revolt. "Can't you keep your place, ma'am?"
and he gave a great _whoo!_ as if he were letting off superabundant
steam. She might prove to carry too many guns for him, and he grew
very red in the face. It was a much worse moment than when a vessel
comes driving at you amidships out of the fog.
"Why, yes, sir, I should be glad to keep my place," said Mrs. French,
taking the less grave meaning of his remark by instinct, if not by
preference; "only it seems your duty to let your great-niece come some
time or other, and I can go off. Perhaps it is an untimely season to
speak, about it, but, you see, I have had it in mind, and now I've got
through with the preserves, and there's a space between now and
house-cleaning, I guess you'd better let the young woman come. Folks
have got wind about your refusing her earlier, and think hard of me:
my position isn't altogether pleasant," and she changed color a
little, and looked him full in the face.
The captain's eyes fell. He did owe her something. He never had been
so comfortable in his life, on shore, as she had made him. She had
heard some cursed ill-natured speeches, and he very well knew that a
more self-respecting woman never lived. But now her moment of
self-assertion seemed to have come, and, to use his own words, she had
him fast. Stop! there was a way of escape.
"Then I _will_ send for the gal. Perhaps you're right, ma'am. I've
slept myself into the doldrums. _Whoo! whoo!_" he said,
loudly--anything to gain a little time. "Anything you say, ma'am," he
protested. "I've got to step down-town on some business," and the
captain fled with ponderous footsteps out through the dining-room to
the little side entry where he hung his hat; then a moment later he
went away, clicking his cane along the narrow sidewalk.
He had escaped that time, and wrote the brief note to his great-niece,
Ann Ball--how familiar the name looked!--with a sense of victory. He
dreaded the next interview with his housekeeper, but she was
business-like and self-possessed, and seemed to be giving him plenty
of time. Then the captain regretted his letter, and felt as if he were
going to be broken up once more in his home comfort. He spoke only
when it was absolutely necessary, and simply nodded his head when
Mrs. French said that she was ready to start as soon as she showed the
young woman about the house. But what favorite dishes were served the
captain in those intervening days! and there was one cool evening
beside, when the housekeeper had the social assistance of a fire in
the Franklin stove. The captain thought that his only safety lay in
sleep, and promptly took that means of saving himself from a dangerous
conversation. He even went to a panorama on Friday night, a diversion
that would usually be quite beneath his dignity. It was difficult to
avoid asking Mrs. French to accompany him, she helped him on with his
coat so pleasantly, but "she'd git her claws on me comin' home
perhaps," mused the self-distrustful mariner, and stoutly went his way
to the panorama alone. It was a very dull show indeed, and he bravely
confessed it, and then was angry at a twinkle in Mrs. French's eyes.
Yet he should miss the good creature, and for the life of him he could
not think lightly of her. "She well knows how able she is to do for
me. Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," sighed the captain as he went
upstairs to bed.
"Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," he repeated, in solemn confidence to
one of his intimate friends, as they stood next day on one of the
deserted wharves, looking out across the empty harbor roads. There was
nothing coming in. How they had watched the deep-laden ships enter
between the outer capes and drop their great sails in home waters! How
they had ruled those ships, and been the ablest ship-masters of their
day, with nobody to question their decisions! There is no such
absolute monarchy as a sea-captain's. He is a petty king, indeed, as
he sails the high seas from port to port.
There was a fine easterly breeze and a bright sun that day, but
Captain Ball came toiling up the cobble-stoned street toward his house
as if he were vexed by a headwind. He carried a post-card between his
thumb and finger, and grumbled aloud as he stumped along. "Mis'
French!" he called, loudly, as he opened the door, and that worthy
woman appeared with a floured apron, and a mind divided between her
employer's special business and her own affairs of pie-making.
"She's coming this same day," roared the captain. "Might have given
some notice, I'm sure. 'Be with you Saturday afternoon,' and signed
her name. That's all she's written. Whoo! whoo! 'tis a dreadful close
day," and the poor old fellow fumbled for his big silk handkerchief.
"I don't know what train she'll take. I ain't going to hang round up
at the depot; my rheumatism troubles me."
"I wouldn't, if I was you," answered Mrs. French, shortly, and turned
from him with a pettish movement to open the oven door.
The captain passed into the sitting-room, and sat down heavily in his
large chair. On the wall facing him was a picture of his old ship the
Ocean Rover leaving the harbor of Bristol. It was not valuable as a
marine painting, but the sea was blue in that picture, and the white
canvas all spread to the very sky-scrapers; it was an emblem of that
freedom which Captain Asaph Ball had once enjoyed. Dinner that day was
a melancholy meal, and after it was cleared away the master of the
house forlornly watched Mrs. French gather an armful of her own
belongings, and mount the stairs as if she were going to pack her box
that very afternoon. It did not seem possible that she meant to leave
before Monday, but the captain could not bring himself to ask any
questions. He was at the mercy of womankind. "A jiggeting girl. I
don't know how to act with her. She sha'n't rule me," he muttered to
himself. "She and Mis' French may think they've got things right to
their hands, but I'll stand my ground--I'll stand my ground," and the
captain gently slid into the calmer waters of his afternoon nap.
When he waked the house was still, and with sudden consciousness of
approaching danger, and a fear lest Mrs. French might have some last
words to say if she found him awake, he stole out of his house as
softly as possible and went down-town, hiding his secret woes and
joining in the long seafaring reminiscences with which he and his
friends usually diverted themselves. As he came up the street again
toward supper-time, he saw that the blinds were thrown open in the
parlor windows, and his heart began to beat loudly. He could hear
women's voices, and he went in by a side gate and sought the quiet
garden. It had suffered from a touch of frost; so had the captain.
Mrs. French heard the gate creak, and presently she came to the garden
door at the end of the front entry. "Come in, won't ye, cap'n?" she
called, persuasively, and with a mighty sea oath the captain rose and
obeyed.
The house was still. He strode along the entry lite a brave man: there
was nothing of the coward about Asaph Ball when he made up his mind to
a thing. There was nobody in the best parlor, and he turned toward the
sitting-room, but there sat smiling Mrs. French.
"Where is the gal?" blew the captain.
"Here I be, sir," said Mrs. French, with a flushed and beaming face.
"I thought 't was full time to put you out of your misery."
"What's all this mean? _Whoo! whoo!_"
"Here I be; take me or leave me, uncle," answered the housekeeper: she
began to be anxious, the captain looked so bewildered and irate.
"Folks seemed to think that you was peculiar, and I was impressed that
it would be better to just come first without a word's bein' said, and
find out how you an' me got on; then, if we didn't make out, nobody 'd
be bound. I'm sure I didn't want to be."
"Who was that I heard talking with ye as I come by?" blew the captain
very loud.
"That was Mis' Cap'n Topliff; an' an old cat she is," calmly replied
Mrs. French. "She hasn't been near me before this three months, but
plenty of stories she's set goin' about us, and plenty of spyin' she's
done. I thought I'd tell you who I was within a week after I come, but
I found out how things was goin', and I had to spite 'em well before I
got through. I expected that something would turn up, an' the whole
story get out. But we've been middlin' comfortable, haven't we, sir?
an' I thought 't was 'bout time to give you a little surprise. Mis'
Calvinn and the minister knows the whole story," she concluded: "I
wouldn't have kep' it from them. Mis' Calvinn said all along 't would
be a good lesson"--
"Who wrote that card from the post-office?" demanded the captain,
apparently but half persuaded.
"I did," said Mrs. French.
"Good Hector, you women-folks!" but Captain Ball ventured to cross the
room and establish himself in his chair. Then, being a man of humor,
he saw that he had a round turn on those who had spitefufly sought to
question him.
"You needn't let on, that you haven't known me all along," suggested
Mrs. French. "I should be pleased if you would call me by my Christian
name, sir. I was married to Mr. French only a short time; he was taken
away very sudden. The letter that came after aunt's death was directed
to my maiden name, but aunt knew all about me. I've got some means,
an' I ain't distressed but what I can earn my living."
"They don't call me such an old Turk, I hope!" exclaimed the excited
captain, deprecating the underrated estimate of himself which was
suddenly presented. "I ain't a hard man at sea, now I tell ye," and he
turned away, much moved at the injustice of society. "I've got no head
for geneology. Ann usually set in to give me the family particulars
when I was logy with sleep a Sunday night. I thought you was a French
from Massachusetts way."
"I had to say somethin'," responded the housekeeper, promptly.
"Well, well!" and a suppressed laugh shook the captain like an
earthquake. He was suddenly set free from his enemies, while an hour
before he had been hemmed in on every side.
They had a cheerful supper, and Ann French cut a pie, and said, as she
passed him more than a quarter part of it, that she thought she should
give up when she was baking that morning, and saw the look on his face
as he handed her the post-card.
"You're fit to be captain of a privateer," acknowledged Captain Asaph
Ball, handsomely. The complications of shore life were very
astonishing to this seafaring man of the old school.
Early on Monday morning he had a delightful sense of triumph. Captain
Allister, who was the chief gossip of the waterside club, took it upon
himself--a cheap thing to do, as everybody said afterwards--to ask
many questions about those unvalued relatives of the Balls, who had
settled long ago in New York State. Were there any children left of
the captain's half-brother's family?
"I've got a niece living--a great-niece she is," answered Captain
Ball, with a broad smile--"makes me feel old. You see, my
half-brother was a grown man when I was born. I never saw him
scarcely; there was some misunderstanding an' he always lived with his
own mother's folks; and father, he married again, and had me and Ann
thirty year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been 'most a hundred; I
don't know but more."
Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone; the audience meditated, and
Captain Allister mentioned meekly that time did slip away.
"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired. In some way public interest was
aroused in the niece.
"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the captain, in a loud tone. "You
fool, Allister, who's keepin' my house this minute? Why, Ann French;
Ann Ball that was, and a smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a
marryin' man: there's been plenty o' fools to try me. I've been picked
over well by you and others, and I thought if 't pleased you, you
could take your own time."
The honest captain for once lent himself to deception. One would have
thought that he had planned the siege himself. He took his stick from
where it leaned against a decaying piece of ship-timber and went
clicking away. The explanation of his housekeeping arrangements was
not long in flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain Topliff made an
early call to say that she had always suspected it from the first,
from the family likeness.
From this time Captain Ball submitted to the rule of Mrs. French, and
under her sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody said, more
like other people than ever before. As he grew older it was more and
more convenient to have a superior officer to save him from petty
responsibilities. But now and then, after the first relief at finding
that Mrs. French was not seeking his hand in marriage, and that the
jiggeting girl was a mere fabrication, Captain Ball was both surprised
and a little ashamed to discover that something in his heart had
suffered disappointment in the matter of the great-niece. Those who
knew him well would have as soon expected to see a flower grow out of
a cobble-stone as that Captain Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment
in his honest breast. He had fancied her a pretty girl in a pink
dress, who would make some life in the quiet house, and sit and sing
at her sewing by the front window, in all her foolish furbelows, as he
came up the street.
BY THE MORNING BOAT.
On the coast of Maine, where many green islands and salt inlets fringe
the deep-cut shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry bushes send
their fragrance far seaward, and song-sparrows sing all day, and the
tide runs plashing in and out among the weedy ledges; where cowbells
tinkle on the hills and herons stand in the shady coves,--on the
lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray house facing the morning
light. All the weather-beaten houses of that region face the sea
apprehensively, like the women who live in them.
This home of four people was as bleached and gray with wind and rain
as one of the pasture rocks close by. There were some cinnamon rose
bushes under the window at one side of the door, and a stunted lilac
at the other side. It was so early in the cool morning that nobody was
astir but some shy birds, that had come in the stillness of dawn to
pick and flutter in the short grass.
They flew away together as some one softly opened the unlocked door
and stepped out. This was a bent old man, who shaded his eyes with his
hand, and looked at the west and the east and overhead, and then took
a few lame and feeble steps farther out to see a wooden vane on the
barn. Then he sat down on the doorstep, clasped his hands together
between his knees, and looked steadily out to sea, scanning the
horizon where some schooners had held on their course all night, with
a light westerly breeze. He seemed to be satisfied at sight of the
weather, as if he had been anxious, as he lay unassured in his north
bedroom, vexed with the sleeplessness of age and excited by thoughts
of the coming day. The old seaman dozed as he sat on the doorstep,
while dawn came up and the world grew bright; and the little birds
returned, fearfully at first, to finish their breakfast, and at last
made bold to hop close to his feet.
After a time some one else came and stood in the open door behind him.
"Why, father! seems to me you've got an early start; 't ain't but four
o'clock. I thought I was foolish to get up so soon, but 't wa'n't so I
could sleep."
"No, darter." The old man smiled as he turned to look at her, wide
awake on the instant. "'T ain't so soon as I git out some o' these
'arly mornin's. The birds wake me up singin', and it's plenty light,
you know. I wanted to make sure 'Lisha would have a fair day to go."
"I expect he'd have to go if the weather wa'n't good," said the woman.
"Yes, yes, but 'tis useful to have fair weather, an' a good sign some
says it is. This is a great event for the boy, ain't it?"
"I can't face the thought o' losin' on him, father." The woman came
forward a step or two and sat down on the doorstep. She was a
hard-worked, anxious creature, whose face had lost all look of youth.
She was apt, in the general course of things, to hurry the old man and
to spare little time for talking, and he was pleased by this
acknowledged unity of their interests. He moved aside a little to give
her more room, and glanced at her with a smile, as if to beg her to
speak freely. They were both undemonstrative, taciturn New Englanders;
their hearts were warm with pent-up feeling, that summer morning, yet
it was easier to understand one another through silence than through
speech.
"No, I couldn't git much sleep," repeated the daughter at last. "Some
things I thought of that ain't come to mind before for years,--things
I don't relish the feelin' of, all over again."
"'T was just such a mornin' as this, pore little 'Lisha's father went
off on that last v'y'ge o' his," answered the old sailor, with instant
comprehension. "Yes, you've had it master hard, pore gal, ain't you? I
advised him against goin' off on that old vessel with a crew that
wa'n't capable."