THE CAPE
Maine. Mrs. Porter loved the very word. Always when the train left the
North Station in Boston she sank into her chair with a sense of shaking
off the cares of life; and to-day the smile she gave the porter as he
placed her suit-case beside that chair was valued, even by him, more
than the coin she placed in his hand.
The cares of life in her case were represented by a busy music studio,
where, luckily for her, every half-hour was a busy one; but there were
the pupils who didn't supply their own steam, but had to be urged
laboriously up the steeps of Parnassus; there were those in whom a
voice must be manufactured if it ever appeared; and those whose talent
was great and whose application was fitful; those whose vanity was
fatuous, and those whose self-depreciation was a ball and chain; those
who had been badly taught and who must be guided through that valley of
humiliation where bad habits are overthrown. Taking into account all
the trials of the profession, any voice teacher in Mrs. Porter's place
to-day might give a Boston and Maine porter a seraphic smile as if he
were opening to her the gate leading to Elysian Fields where pianos and
_vocalises_ have no place.
"That woman sure do look happy," was the soliloquy of this particular
red-cap as he pocketed the silver and left the car.
The traveler leaned back in her chair with a glorious sense of
unlimited leisure, and prepared to recognize the landmarks grown as
familiar to her as the scenes on the Illinois Central suburban railroad.
Probably none of her pupils save Linda Barry, although there were
other hero-worshipers among them, would deny that Mrs. Porter's nose
was too short, her mouth too wide, and her eyes too small; but the
kindly lips revealed such even teeth, and the eyes such light, that no
one commented on Maud Porter's looks, nor cared what shape her nose
was. One saw, as she leaned back now in her chair, that her brown hair
was becoming softly powdered with gray. Her eyes half closed as the
express train gained speed, flying away from care, and her humorous
lips curved as she considered the mild adventure on which she was
embarking.
When Miss Belinda Barry had visited her brother during the holidays,
she had dropped some remarks concerning her home which had roused
Mrs. Porter's curiosity and interest. The idea had been growing on
her all the spring that, instead of going out as usual to one of the
islands in Casco Bay, she would explore this corner of the mainland
from whence had sprung the Chicago financier. She had not, however,
communicated since with Miss Barry. She did not wish that lady to feel
any responsibility for her.
A picture of Linda's aunt rose before her mind as she reflected. Tall,
thin, with a scanty coiffure and long onyx earrings. These ornaments
Miss Barry had donned in her youth, and declined to renounce with the
fashion; so that when they began to be worn again by the daring, they
gave her the effect, as Linda had confided to her teacher, of being
"the sportiest old thing in town."
The naturally severe cast of Miss Barry's features, Mrs. Porter had
always observed, rather increased in severity when the good lady looked
at her niece, and that holiday visit had been a strain on both sides.
It was happy history repeating itself when the traveler alighted
to-day at the Union Station in Portland. The same involuntary wonder
rose within her that any face could look harassed, ill, or care-worn
here. It was Maine. It was the enchanted land! the land of pines, of
unmeasured ocean, of supernatural beauty in sunset skies; of dreamful
days and dreamless nights.
She smiled at her own childish ignoring of the seamy side of existence
as evidenced in the look of many of the crowd hurrying through the
busy clearing-house of the station. She beamed upon a porter who took
her to a waiting carriage--a sea-going hack, Linda would have called
it--and drove to a hotel. She would not risk arriving in the evening in
a locality where the only inn might be that of the Silver Moon.
Till supper time--it would be supper, she considered exultantly--she
wandered up Congress Street to some of her favorite shops. Undeniably
there are other streets in Portland, but to the summer visitor the
dignified city is much like a magnified village with one main street
where its life centers.
Maud Porter entered one shop after another, repressing with difficulty
her longing to tell every clerk how happy she was to be back, and
enjoying all over again the good manners and obligingness of everybody.
Next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, she made her inquiries and
took her train. It was one that stopped at every station, and when,
after three quarters of an hour of this sauntering, she alighted on a
desolate and unpromising platform, her first thought was to inquire in
the small depot for the first train back. The little house seemed to
be deserted for the moment, however, and she observed an elderly man
with a short white beard, who, with trousers tucked into his boots and
thumbs hooked in his armholes, stood at a little distance, regarding
speculatively the lady in the gray suit and floating gray veil. Near
where he was standing a carryall was waiting by the platform.
In Mrs. Porter's indecision she looked again within the weather-beaten
station, then across at the motionless, weather-beaten face.
"There doesn't seem to be any one in here," she said.
"I cal'late Joe's out in the shed luggin' wood," responded the man.
His pleasant tone, his drawl, the sea-blue of his eyes, caused her to
move toward him as the needle to the magnet. She knew the type. All the
suspended Maine exhilaration rushed back upon her. How clean he was!
How rough! How adorable!
"I've come," she said, gazing up into the eyes regarding her steadily,
and said no more.
"Want me to haul ye?" he asked kindly, not changing his position.
"Yes."
"Where to?"
"I don't know." The sunlight of her smile evoked a grin from him.
"Come on a chance, have ye?"
"Yes, So did you, I should think. Nobody but little me getting off
here."
"No, 't ain't time for 'em really to come yet."
"Who? Summer people, do you mean?"
"Yes. Folks is beginnin' to think they like it down here; but we don't
take summer boarders to the Cape, ye'll have to know that."
A prodigious wink enveloped one sea-blue eye.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Mrs. Porter's smile vanished in her earnestness.
"Wouldn't--wouldn't your wife, perhaps--"
"Haven't got none."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"I ain't. Ben glad on't always. Hain't ever repented."
"Then you mean you never were married."
"That's what I mean." The speaker nodded as if to emphasize a triumph.
"But isn't there some one in your--your village--I suppose it's a
village, isn't it?"
"Shouldn't wonder if 'twas."
The visitor tasted that "'t wa-a-as" with appetite, and echoed it
mentally.
"Some one who would take a boarder if--if I want to stay?" The
monotonous landscape was not inviting.
"Wall, for accawmodation's sake I cal'late they would; but it's only
for accawmodation's sake, ye understand." The speaker winked again.
"The Cape don't take boarders."
"Oh, I see," laughed the visitor. "But you must have expected somebody.
You're here."
"Usually git somebody. I haul 'em for hard cash, not for
accawmodation's sake, so ye see I'm on hand."
"I should hope so. What should I have done if you hadn't been here?"
"Oh, they'se a car you could git over there a little piece." The
speaker unhooked one thumb and gestured.
"I'd far rather go with you, Mr.--Mr.--"
"Holt. Jerry Holt. Most folks forgit the Mister. Shall I take yer bag?"
It was standing where Mrs. Porter had descended from the train, and
Jerry unhooked his thumbs and clumped across the platform in the heavy
boots in which he had gone clamming that morning.
Maud Porter, her spirits high, entered the old carryall. She suddenly
decided not to mention her acquaintance with Miss Barry, but to pursue
her way independently.
Deliberately her companion placed her bag in the carriage, then lifted
the weight which anchored his steed to duty, and took his place on the
front seat, half turning with a sociable air to include his passenger.
"Git ap, Molly," he remarked, and Molly somewhat stiffly consented to
move.
"You have a nice horse," remarked his passenger fatuously. She knew her
own folly, but reveled in it. Pegasus himself could not have pleased
her at this moment so well as Jerry Holt's bay. It proved that her
remark was the open sesame to her driver's heart.
"There's wuss," he admitted. "Ye see me lift that weight jest now?
It's nonsense to use it, but Molly's a female, after all, and in-gines
comin' and goin' might git on her nerves; but take her in the ro'd,
now, that hoss, she ain't afraid o' no nameable thing!" The sea-blue
eyes met his listener with a challenge.
"Not autos even?" with open admiration.
Jerry Holt snorted. "Shoot! She looks down on 'em. Miss--Miss--"
"Oh, excuse me. I forgot you didn't know me. I'm Mrs. Porter, from
Chicago."
"Chicago, eh? We've got a neighbor out there. Barry his name is. A
banker. Ever hear of him?"
"Oh, yes, certainly."
"Sister lives here still. We all went to school together."
They were driving on a good road between green fields, and Mrs. Porter
scented the crisp sea air.
"There's a handsome new house started over there," she said, indicating
a hill which was to their left. "Who's building that?"
"Wall, now," the driver responded in his slow, mellifluous tones, "I
couldn't tell ye--sudden."
Mrs. Porter leaned back in the carriage with a sigh of ineffable
contentment, and thought of the corner of State and Madison streets.
In a minute more the glorious blue of the ocean came in sight, and
scattered cottages, which with delightful irregularity were set down at
random, some of them surrounded with trees and shrubs.
Mrs. Porter leaned forward with sparkling eyes.
"Don't take me anywhere just yet," she said. "Drive about a little.
Have you time?"
"Plenty," declared her companion. "Hain't got to go to the station only
once more to-day. Git ap, Molly."
"Oh, let her walk if she wants to. This is beautiful!"
The Cape ran out into the sea, bearing lighthouses, and was bordered
with high, jagged rocks among which the clear waves rushed and broke in
gay, powerful confusion. As they neared the water the visitor observed
on the side toward the ship channel a cottage whose piazza touched the
rocks. The hill upon which it stood ended abruptly at the water, and
daisies waved in the interstices of the natural sea-wall.
"Who is the lucky woman who lives clinging to the rocks like that?"
asked Mrs. Porter, indicating the shingled house with her slender
umbrella.
"That? Oh, that's Belinda Barry's cottage. Might's well live in the
lighthouse and done with it, I say; but she's got a spyglass and likes
to watch the shippin'. See the New York bo't out there comin' in now?
There! Hear her blow? Bet Belinda's got her eye on her this minute.
Seems if Belinda set on them rocks a lot when she was a girl, and had a
cottage in the air, ye might say, 'bout livin' there some day; so when
her brother began to have more money'n he knew what to do with, he give
Belinda that place. Nobody else wanted it, I can tell ye that. When I'm
ashore I'd ruther _be_ ashore, myself."
A man with a bucket of clams passed their slow-moving carriage, and
looked curiously at Mrs. Porter.
"Hello, Cy," said Jerry Holt, jerking his head toward the other's nod.
The visitor looked after the figure in the dilapidated coat. "That man
had a fine head," she said.
"H'm," ejaculated the other. "A pity there ain't more in it."
"Oh, is the poor creature--do you mean--"
"Oh, no, not so bad as that; but ye know how there are some folks no
matter what they try at, they 're allers poundin' and goin' astern.
Cy's that kind."
"It's a mercy there are always clams," said Mrs. Porter, and Jerry
Holt's sea-blue eyes twinkled at her.
The visitor's plans for independence suddenly weakened. That cottage
clinging to the rocks was undermining it more swiftly the further the
carriage advanced.
"I believe, Mr. Holt, you'd better leave me at Miss Barry's," she said
suddenly.
He shook his head. "Not a bit o' use," he replied. "She won't even
accawmodate ye, let alone takin' a boarder. Belinda ain't stuck up. Her
worst enemy can't say it changed her a mite to have a brother that eats
off gold plates. She was always jest that way."
"What way?"
"Oh, high-headed ye might call it. I dunno exactly what; but Belinda
allers claimed to steer; and now she lives to Portland winters in any
hotel she's a mind to, she don't act a mite different from what she
allers did, though lots o' folks claim she does. 'T ain't no use,
though, Mis' Porter, your goin' there. I'd--I'd kind o' hate to have
Belinda refuse ye."
The speaker cast a kindly glance at his passenger, who smiled back at
him appreciatively.
"Thank you, but I do know Miss Barry. I met her in Chicago, and I'll
just stop for a call, and she'll advise me where to go; for I tell you
I'm going to stay, Mr. Holt, even if you have to let me sleep in your
carryall. Why haven't you a nice wife, now, who would take me in?"
"That's jest why. 'Cause that's the specialty o' wives, and I didn't
want to be took in."
Mrs. Porter laughed, and the carryall drew up beside Miss Barry's
sunlit piazza. She opened her purse. "How much, Mr. Holt?"
"Well, I'll have to charge ye twenty-five cents for this outin'," he
returned with deliberate cheerfulness. "One minute, till we see if Miss
Barry's to home."
He got out upon the piazza and knocked on the cottage door, opening it
at the same time.
"Belinda!" he called.
"Leave it on the step," came a loud voice from the back of the house.
"Hear that?" he grinned, turning. "She's home, and I'm to leave ye on
the step."
"That's all right," said Mrs. Porter, alighting. Jerry Holt's clean,
rough hand assisted her, and lifted out her suit-case "I'm perfectly
charmed to be left on the step," she added, handing her guide a
quarter, which he pocketed with a nod. "I'll try not to envy the girl
who sat on these rocks and built a cottage in the air that came to
earth."
"She's welcome to it, welcome to it," observed Jerry, as he climbed
back into the carriage. "When I'm to sea I want to be to sea. When I'm
ashore I druther be to shore."
"Did you ever go to sea?"
"Cap'n of a schooner fifteen year or more."
"Why didn't you tell me? You're Captain Holt, of course."
"Oh," he shook his head, "hain't got nothin' to steer but Molly now."
He smiled, nodded a farewell, and turned his horse around with many a
cluck of encouragement.
The sound of departing wheels was lost in the swish of surf on the
rocks. Maud Porter stood looking seaward. Again the New York boat in
the distance, lost to sight now, boomed its signal to smaller fry as
it advanced to the harbor. The rioting wind carried her thin gray veil
out straight. She heard the house door open, and turned to meet the
surprised gaze of Miss Barry, in a checked gingham gown, but with her
scanty coiffure and long onyx earrings precisely as she had seen them
last.
Mrs. Porter smiled radiantly, and captured her streaming veil.
"I'm what he left on the step," she said.
Miss Barry's surprised gaze grew uncertain. There was a familiar look
about this radiant face, but where--
"Was you one of the Portland Aid--" she began.
"No, no!" Mrs. Porter stepped forward and held out both her hands.
"Don't let my suit-case frighten you, dear Miss Barry. I've only come
to call. Remember last Christmas in Chicago, and Linda's teacher, Mrs.
Porter?"
"Mrs. Porter!" exclaimed Miss Barry, letting her hand be captured in
the two outstretched ones. "Do excuse me!" Her face beamed welcome. She
had liked Linda's voice teacher, and when Belinda Barry liked a person
it was once and forever. "Come right into the house this minute," she
said cordially. "I'm ashamed o' myself!"