THE HARBOR
Blanche Aurora's prey could not so easily escape her. She had been left
in charge of Linda and she followed her now to the porch: that exciting
porch surmounting a castle wall of rock, with soft niches of green
where Nature's mother-hand found vulnerable spots to plant her lovely
ferns and flowers.
To Blanche Aurora the situation of the cottage was objectionably noisy
and windy, and she often wished her employer's house could be moved
back on the road where one could see the passing. She scowled now
against the dazzling sun and boisterous wind.
"Be you goin' to set out here?" she roared at Linda.
"How beautiful it is!" escaped involuntarily from the guest.
"Then I'll git you some warm things. You're sick and delicate!" yelled
Blanche Aurora as one whom the roar of old Ocean could not down.
Linda looked at the slim child in the faded gingham. The salt air went
through her piercingly.
"I'm not delicate at all!" she protested, but little cared her mentor
for her defense.
She straightway brought a steamer-rug, shawl and pillows from a near-by
closet.
"There!" she said, depositing them in the hammock on the glassed-in end
of the porch. She gave her queer little grimace of a smile and again
her thin cheeks wrinkled. "Miss Barry said you looked like a hothouse
plant, so I guess you'd better stay under glass for a spell."
"Aren't you cold yourself in that cal--that thin dress?" asked Linda.
"I dunno. I don't believe so."
Linda's eyes grew softer. It was so evident that the little caretaker
had small leisure to think of her sensations.
"Lay down and I'll cover you," commanded Blanche Aurora.
"Lie down? No, indeed. I'm just up."
The help paused with the rug in her thin arms. She was undecided as to
whether to humor this rebellion.
"Blanche Aurora, do you like candy?"
The slender face lost its worried expression and grew younger.
"There ain't much sense to that question," she returned.
"Then come into the house with me," said Linda.
The wraps were dropped in the hammock and willing feet followed the
guest.
From a cabinet in the corner of the room Linda chose the reddest of red
boxes, generous in size, and placed it in a pair of eager hands.
Blanche Aurora viewed the prize, amazed. "I ain't ever in my life had
all the candy I wanted," she said in such awed tones that Linda smiled
and reached for a violet box which she piled upon the other.
"Oh!" gasped the recipient. She looked up at the pale guest with a
new realization of what it meant to be a millionaire's daughter. Gold
plates and carriages sounded fine, but it was only like hearing about
Cinderella and other impossible maidens. Here were tangible chocolates
given away recklessly and with nonchalance. What a consciousness that
bespoke!
As they stood there, Linda, watching her erstwhile mentor endure an
ecstatic paralysis, Miss Barry and Mrs. Porter entered.
"What are you doing, Linda Barry!" exclaimed her aunt. "I'll keep those
boxes myself and give the child a few at a time. She'll make herself
sick." She hurried forward, but Linda pressed her back.
"Let her make herself sick," she pleaded. "I'll take care of her."
Miss Barry looked from one to the other undecidedly. She recognized
this surprisingly good symptom in her niece, but such a wholesale
relaxation of discipline toward the most willful, stubborn child on the
Cape was unheard of.
While she hesitated, Linda stepped to one side and made room for the
"help" to pass, which Blanche Aurora made haste to do, the wonderful
boxes clutched in her arms, and the fishhook braids vibrating with the
double excitement of her gift and getting the better of her employer.
Mrs. Porter watched Linda thoughtfully. When she and Miss Barry a few
minutes ago had left Luella Benslow and her pampered hens, and their
hilarious mood had quieted, the younger woman had at once brought up
the subject of Bertram King, whose situation dwelt much in her mind. As
they walked across the soft grass she took Miss Barry's arm.
"Tell me about my cousin, Mr. King. How does he look?"
"Like the last run o' shad," returned Miss Barry promptly.
"I never met a belated shad."
"Well, you've eaten 'em, haven't you? I'd just as soon eat a fried
paper of pins."
"You mean that Bertram is thin?"
"Just so. He looks as if he'd been through the war, and so he has."
"I feel as if I ought to go back to him."
"Law! Don't leave me yet!" exclaimed Miss Barry in a panic. "You're the
only person Linda can stand the sight of. Oh! if I'm not glad to get
home!" The speaker inflated her lungs and stepped lightly.
"You say she blames Bertram for her father's misfortunes."
"Yes; and I guess she ain't the only one, from what Harriet says. Lots
o' folks think my brother pinned his faith to Mr. King's judgment in
taking on a new proposition."
"Yes," returned Mrs. Porter thoughtfully. "I've heard it said."
Miss Barry glanced around at her companion quickly. "Well, I hope you
didn't take any stock in it," she returned sharply. "Lambert Barry had
a backbone of his own. I'm surprised at his own daughter's not knowing
him well enough to scout such a notion."
"Bertram is very clever. He had been with him a long time."
"Clever! I guess he is clever. I could just about worship that man for
all he's done," was the warm rejoinder; "and if that cock-and-bull
story was true about Bertram King dragging the bank into that Antlers
thing that broke the camel's back, he's made up for it with pretty near
his life's blood, working night and day to undo the damage."
Mrs. Porter's eyes glowed with interest and surprise at such heat from
the reserved New England woman.
"You do feel that way! I'm so glad. Then, why doesn't Linda?"
"Because if Mr. King laid down and died it couldn't bring back her
father," returned Miss Barry slowly.
Mrs. Porter looked away and shook her head. "How dreadful it seems,"
she said in a low tone. "Then you have no blame for Bertram?"
"Not a particle."
"What is the situation now? What has he been able to do?"
"Wonders," returned Miss Barry sententiously. "He sent me a letter to
the train. I ought to have given it to you as soon as I touched home. I
ought to have realized that you were so close to Mr. King that it would
mean a lot to you as well as to us. You'll never see the Linda that was
before that letter came. It gave her new life."
"Then didn't it make her feel kindly toward Bertram?" asked Mrs. Porter.
"No. She just accepted it as penance and the best restitution the
poor fellow could make for a tragic and unpardonable--mind you,
_unpardonable_ mistake."
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," murmured Mrs. Porter.
"I know it," returned Miss Barry; "and you'll see when you read that
letter that he has some forgiveness to do himself. He never mentioned
Linda in it, and good enough for her. She had flouted him and refused
to see him for days before he rightly sensed how deep her feeling was
against him. It was at a business meeting we had that she came out flat
with her suspicion and meanness. Oh, it was perfectly awful. I just
have to remember and _remember_ how much provocation she would have had
if all she believed was true. That poor boy nearly fainted away in his
tracks, the way she spoke to him."
Mrs. Porter bit her lip. She could picture the scene and her eyes
filled.
"He loved her so!" she said softly.
"Yes, and there's that Fred Whitcomb, too: as nice a boy as ever lived.
He just adores Linda; and it seems there's lots of others. I didn't
believe before that I could ever get sick of arranging flowers; but
really they were a pest. Linda wouldn't look at one, and I got so I
passed them over to the waitress. She fixed them perfectly awful,
too. They looked like crazy quilts when she got through--such colors
together! Linda was a buxom, healthy girl, and good-looking enough, but
for the life of me I can't see why she's such a snare."
"Poor child. She shows how she has suffered, but why didn't it soften
her? How could she inflict suffering at such a time? I can hardly wait
to see that letter," added Mrs. Porter, unconsciously hurrying her
steps.
"I haven't got it. I gave it to Linda for her comfort, and hoping, too,
that she'd get some punishment out of Mr. King's ignoring her. Never
mentioned her name, you know."
"And didn't she feel it at all?"
"Not a mite."
"Then I suppose, after all, she never did care anything for Bertram,"
mused Mrs. Porter. "It was as well, perhaps, for him that she shocked
him out of his dream. As well for him--not for her, poor child, it
wasn't well for her to be cruel."
"I don't want to be too hard on her," said Miss Barry. "Maybe she
wasn't really responsible. Land! What we went through! Well," she
added, briskness coming into her voice, "that chapter's closed."
"Let me," said Mrs. Porter, "let me be the one to ask Linda for the
letter. You have been so tried, Miss Barry. I don't want to ask you
to reopen the sorrowful chapter; but I long to see what Bertram has
to say. I have always thought him an extraordinary young fellow and
respected him as much as I loved him."
"Just so. Just so," responded Miss Barry warmly. "All right. You ask
for the letter. I pass my niece over to you now."
They had reached the porch of the shingled cottage and in another
minute they walked in upon Linda's presentation scene.
Miss Barry was quite prompt in following her maid into the kitchen,
but the minute's delay in hanging up her hat and coat was sufficient
for all sign of the candy boxes to have disappeared. When she opened
the door Blanche Aurora was at the sink letting floods of hot water
into the dishpan and singing with vigor, "A charge to keep I have,"
meanwhile rattling pans and china, the whole giving an amazing effect
of clatter.
Miss Barry involuntarily clapped her hands to her ears.
"You needn't sing," she remarked loudly.
"All right," returned the help, ceasing, "but you told me 'twas good
for my lungs."
"That's all very well when you're alone, Blanche Aurora; but I'm going
to be busy out here seeing what shape you've got the closets into
while I've been gone and how many dishes I've got left. To-morrow I'm
going to begin putting up strawberries."
Miss Barry was in the habit of preparing in the summer time of peace
for the war of winter, when boarding-houses could not supply her with
home-prepared fruit.
Meanwhile, in the living-room the light of amusement had died from
Linda's pale face and she sank into a chintz-cushioned wicker rocker.
Mrs. Porter took a neighboring chair.
"You had a good sleep, I hope, Linda."
"Wonderful. I went completely out of the world for the first time in--I
don't know how many weeks." The girl met the kind regard fixed upon
her. "I can't get used," she added, "to seeing you far away from your
busy life. It seems as if I must hurry to say what I wish because in
half an hour I shall be turned out by another pupil."
"Vacation is astonishingly pleasant when you've earned it," replied her
friend. "I fancy that a lot of people who thought it would be great
fun to retire from business soon made the discovery that when one
stops working he stops playing too, because vacation has lost its zest.
Familiarity breeds contempt in lots of ways."
Linda's large eyes rested upon the speaker, who had retained an orange
silk sweater over her white waist and white corduroy skirt. The
hero-worship that for two years she had laid at the feet of this woman
was among the enthusiasms of that vital past, now gone forever. Once
it would have meant wild elation to claim unlimited companionship with
the adored one in this isolated, romantic spot. To-day, as she gazed at
the wholesome, calm face of her teacher, it was that other teaching she
had received from her, those words of balm that had proved the first
comfort in her affliction, which gave her friend value.
"I owe you so much, Mrs. Porter," she said suddenly, after a mutual
silence, full to each of them.
"I'm glad," returned the other as simply. "My heart cried out to help
you, Linda."
The speaker knew that if the hurt, groping soul can find something for
which to feel gratitude, healing has begun.
She came no nearer to the girl nor took her hand. It was a new Linda,
cold, white, and undemonstrative except for her cruelty to Bertram
King. Mrs. Porter steadied her own thought as it fled to him, and tried
to think only of the needy one before her.
"You believed in my father--believed in him from the first. Bertram
says now that he will be vindicated to all before very long; but I
shall never forget those who believed in him from the first."
Mrs. Porter listened quietly to the low, vibrating voice. She saw the
girl swallow and exercise self-control.
"Miss Barry tells me that my cousin wrote a letter to her, telling of
hopeful conditions. She says that you have it. May I see it?"
"Yes. You deserve to see it. It is in my envelope of treasures: your
letters." Linda's heart spoke through her eyes, then she arose.
"Let us go out of doors and read it," said Mrs. Porter. "We waste time
in the house on such a day. Bring a warm wrap when you come down."
Linda went upstairs slowly. Her friend's eyes followed her inelastic,
slow movements. Could this be Linda Barry!
She returned wearing a white sweater and Mrs. Porter pinned a white
corduroy hat on the dark head and flung a polo coat over her own arm.
She also took a cushion from the hammock as they passed.
"We won't sit on the piazza this morning," she said. "I have a surprise
for you."
Leading the way around the corner of the house, the two walked away
from the blue breakers, across a wide, grassy field.
"Your father did a fine thing in buying so much ground for his sister,"
said Mrs. Porter. "She says when he built the house he was afraid she
would be lonely and he planned to build other attractive cottages
through here, but she told him she didn't want any one near enough to
shoot. She says he laughed and gave her the deed to all this land and
told her to go ahead and suit herself. Do you see that mowing machine
at work? That is Cap'n Jerry, who brought your trunk. See him mounted
on his little throne and driving Molly--that wonderful horse that he
says 'ain't afraid o' no nameable thing.' He is opposed on principle to
doing anything 'sudden,' so he has taken his time to get at the mowing;
but how sweet it will smell here to-morrow! Passengers will have to
get over from the train the best way they can to-day. Cap'n Jerry says,
very reasonably, that he can't be 'in two places to once,' and he's
just a little bit afraid of your Aunt Belinda. He won't put off her
work too long."
Linda's grave lips were parted as she looked across the field toward
the machine where Captain Jerry was cheering Molly on and calming
her disgust when the clipping knife encountered a stone, balking her
efforts.
"He is the one who went to school with my father?"
"They all did. You'll meet others." They crossed the field, then Mrs.
Porter turned inland. "Now, down this path, Linda. See, it is a path.
I made it myself. Partly by constant use, partly with a sickle. I wish
Miss Barry would sell me this spot. I don't believe she could shoot as
far as this, do you? And--what do you think of it?"
Mrs. Porter paused and regarded her companion in triumph. She had led
her around a clump of white birches, the advance guard of a forest
of pine and balsam which held back the prevailing south wind. The
zephyrs, forcing their way through, here and there, brought delicious
odors of the firs. The ocean was sufficiently distant for its roar to
be muffled, and an enchanting spring bubbled up in a natural rock pool,
falling like liquid crystal over the granite barrier, and meandering
away toward the steep bluff where it fell in a narrow rivulet down to
the sea. The brooklet had worn a rut for itself and was bordered by
greener grass and larger flowers than dotted the surrounding field. It
made a gurgling sound, dear to its discoverer, and one of the gray,
slanting rocks of a New England pasture rose in the bower of the
birches, rising to a sufficient height to serve as a comfortable back
for two people sitting side by side on the green couch, secure from the
wind.
"See what a proof of my affection," said Mrs. Porter, "that I bring you
here. I sneak away--I steal away! Not even Blanche Aurora knows where I
am when I come here."
"I should incline to doubt that," returned Linda.
Mrs. Porter laughed. "Those round eyes do see about all that's going
on, I admit; but I like to believe in my own cleverness sufficiently to
feel that I have guarded this."
The speaker proceeded to spread the polo coat in front of the rock.
"Sit down," she said, and when Linda obeyed she fitted the pillow in
behind her back.
"No, indeed," protested Linda. "Blanche Aurora cried aloud that I was
sick and delicate, but it's nothing of the kind. You must take the
pillow yourself."
"Oh, to please me," urged Mrs. Porter. "I never bring a pillow. This
sun-warmed rock just fits my back. We haven't tried it on yours yet,
and I wanted your first experience to be positively sybaritic."
"My first," returned Linda; "then you do intend to let me come again?"
"Indeed, I do," was the cheery reply. "I don't know a better object
lesson in the fact that nothing is too good to be true."