Robert Reeves looked somewhat curiously at the girl who was waiting on
him at his solitary breakfast. He had not seen her before, arriving at
his summer boarding house only the preceding night.
It was a shabby farmhouse on the inland shore of a large bay that was
noted for its tides, and had wonderful possibilities of light and
shade for an impressionist. Reeves was an enthusiastic artist. It
mattered little to him that the boarding accommodations were most
primitive, the people uncultured and dull, the place itself utterly
isolated, as long as he could revel in those transcendent sunsets and
sunrises, those marvellous moonlights, those wonderful purple shores
and sweeps of shimmering blue water.
The owner of the farm was Angus Fraser, and he and his wife seemed to
be a reserved, uncouth pair, with no apparent interest in life save to
scratch a bare living out of their few stony acres. He had an
impression that they were childless and was at a loss to place this
girl who poured his tea and brought in his toast. She did not resemble
either Fraser or his wife. She was certainly not beautiful, being very
tall and rather awkward, and dressed in a particularly unbecoming dark
print wrapper. Her luxuriant hair was thick and black, and was coiled
in a heavy knot at the nape of her neck. Her features were delicate
but irregular, and her skin was very brown. Her eyes attracted
Reeves's notice especially; they were large and dark and full of a
half-unconscious, wistful longing, as if a prisoned soul behind them
were vainly trying to reveal itself.
Reeves could find out nothing of her from herself, for she responded
to his tentative questions about the place in the briefest fashion.
Afterwards he interviewed Mrs. Fraser cautiously, and ascertained that
the girl's name was Helen Fraser, and that she was Angus's niece.
"Her father and mother are dead and we've brought her up. Helen's a
good girl in most ways--a little obstinate and sulky now and then--but
generally she's steady enough, and as for work, there ain't a girl in
Bay Beach can come up to her in house or field. Angus calculates she
saves him a man's wages clear. No, I ain't got nothing to say against
Helen."
Nevertheless, Reeves felt somehow that Mrs. Fraser did not like her
husband's niece. He often heard her scolding or nagging Helen at her
work, and noticed that the latter never answered back. But once, after
Mrs. Angus's tongue had been especially bitter, he met the girl
hurrying along the hall from the kitchen with her eyes full of tears.
Reeves felt as if someone had struck him a blow. He went to Angus and
his wife that afternoon. He wished to paint a shore picture, he said,
and wanted a model. Would they allow Miss Fraser to pose for him? He
would pay liberally for her time.
Angus and his wife had no objection. They would pocket the money, and
Helen could be spared a spell every day as well as not. Reeves told
Helen of his plan himself, meeting her in the evening as she was
bringing the cows home from the low shore pastures beyond the marsh.
He was surprised at the sudden illumination of her face. It almost
transfigured her from a plain, sulky-looking girl into a beautiful
woman.
But the glow passed quickly. She assented to his plan quietly, almost
lifelessly. He walked home with her behind the cows and talked of the
sunset and the mysterious beauty of the bay and the purple splendour
of the distant coasts. She listened in silence. Only once, when he
spoke of the distant murmur of the open sea, she lifted her head and
looked at him.
"What does it say to you?" she asked.
"It speaks of eternity. And to you?"
"It calls me," she answered simply, "and then I want to go out and
meet it--and it hurts me too. I can't tell how or why. Sometimes it
makes me feel as if I were asleep and wanted to wake and didn't know
how."
She turned and looked out over the bay. A dying gleam of sunset broke
through a cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the
spirit of the shore personified--all its mystery, all its uncertainty,
all its elusive charm.
She has possibilities, thought Reeves.
Next day he began his picture. At first he had thought of painting her
as the incarnation of a sea spirit, but decided that her moods were
too fitful. So he began to sketch her as "Waiting"--a woman looking
out across the bay with a world of hopeless longing in her eyes. The
subject suited her well, and the picture grew apace.
When he was tired of work he made her walk around the shore with him,
or row up the head of the bay in her own boat. He tried to draw her
out, at first with indifferent success. She seemed to be frightened of
him. He talked to her of many things--the far outer world whose echoes
never reached her, foreign lands where he had travelled, famous men
and women whom he had met, music, art and books. When he spoke of
books he touched the right chord. One of those transfiguring flashes
he delighted to evoke now passed over her plain face.
"That is what I've always wanted," she said hungrily, "and I never get
them. Aunt hates to see me reading. She says it is a waste of time.
And I love it so. I read every scrap of paper I can get hold of, but I
hardly ever see a book."
The next day Reeves took his Tennyson to the shore and began to read
the _Idylls of the King_ to her.
"It is beautiful," was her sole verbal comment, but her rapt eyes said
everything.
After that he never went out with her without a book--now one of the
poets, now some prose classic. He was surprised by her quick
appreciation of and sympathy with the finest passages. Gradually, too,
she forgot her shyness and began to talk. She knew nothing of his
world, but her own world she knew and knew well. She was a mine of
traditional history about the bay. She knew the rocky coast by heart,
and every old legend that clung to it. They drifted into making
excursions along the shore and explored its wildest retreats. The girl
had an artist's eye for scenery and colour effect.
"You should have been an artist," Reeves told her one day when she had
pointed out to him the exquisite loveliness of a shaft of light
falling through a cleft in the rocks across a dark-green pool at their
base.
"I would rather be a writer," she said slowly, "if I could only write
something like those books you have read to me. What a glorious
destiny it must be to have something to say that the whole world is
listening for, and to be able to say it in words that will live
forever! It must be the noblest human lot."
"Yet some of those men and women were neither good nor noble," said
Reeves gently, "and many of them were unhappy."
Helen dismissed the subject as abruptly as she always did when the
conversation touched too nearly on the sensitive edge of her soul
dreams.
"Do you know where I am taking you today?" she said.
"No--where?"
"To what the people here call the Kelpy's Cave. I hate to go there. I
believe there is something uncanny about it, but I think you will like
to see it. It is a dark little cave in the curve of a small cove, and
on each side the headlands of rock run far out. At low tide we can
walk right around, but when the tide comes in it fills the Kelpy's
Cave. If you were there and let the tide come past the points, you
would be drowned unless you could swim, for the rocks are so steep and
high it is impossible to climb them."
Reeves was interested.
"Was anyone ever caught by the tide?"
"Yes," returned Helen, with a shudder. "Once, long ago, before I was
born, a girl went around the shore to the cave and fell asleep
there--and the tide came in and she was drowned. She was young and
very pretty, and was to have been married the next week. I've been
afraid of the place ever since."
The treacherous cave proved to be a picturesque and innocent-looking
spot, with the beach of glittering sand before it and the high gloomy
walls of rock on either hand.
"I must come here some day and sketch it," said Reeves
enthusiastically, "and you must be the Kelpy, Helen, and sit in the
cave with your hair wrapped about you and seaweed clinging to it."
"Do you think a kelpy would look like that?" said the girl dreamily.
"I don't. I think it is a wild, wicked little sea imp, malicious and
mocking and cruel, and it sits here and watches for victims."
"Well, never mind your sea kelpies," Reeves said, fishing out his
Longfellow. "They are a tricky folk, if all tales be true, and it is
supposed to be a very rash thing to talk about them in their own
haunts. I want to read you 'The Building of the Ship.' You will like
it, I'm sure."
When the tide turned they went home.
"We haven't seen the kelpy, after all," said Reeves.
"I think I shall see him some day," said Helen gravely. "I think he is
waiting for me there in that gloomy cave of his, and some time or
other he will get me."
Reeves smiled at the gloomy fancy, and Helen smiled back at him with
one of her sudden radiances. The tide was creeping swiftly up over the
white sands. The sun was low and the bay was swimming in a pale blue
glory. They parted at Clam Point, Helen to go for the cows and Reeves
to wander on up the shore. He thought of Helen at first, and the
wonderful change that had come over her of late; then he began to
think of another face--a marvellously lovely one with blue eyes as
tender as the waters before him. Then Helen was forgotten.
The summer waned swiftly. One afternoon Reeves took a fancy to revisit
the Kelpy's Cave. Helen could not go. It was harvest time, and she was
needed in the field.
"Don't let the kelpy catch you," she said to him half seriously. "The
tide will turn early this afternoon, and you are given to
day-dreaming."
"I'll be careful," he promised laughingly, and he meant to be careful.
But somehow when he reached the cave its unwholesome charm overcame
him, and he sat down on the boulder at its mouth.
"An hour yet before tide time," he said. "Just enough time to read
that article on impressionists in my review and then stroll home by
the sandshore."
From reading he passed to day-dreaming, and day-dreaming drifted into
sleep, with his head pillowed on the rocky walls of the cave.
How long he had slept he did not know, but he woke with a start of
horror. He sprang to his feet, realizing his position instantly. The
tide was in--far in past the headlands already. Above and beyond him
towered the pitiless unscalable rocks. There was no way of escape.
Reeves was no coward, but life was sweet to him, and to die like
that--like a drowned rat in a hole--to be able to do nothing but wait
for that swift and sure oncoming death! He reeled against the damp
rock wall, and for a moment sea and sky and prisoning headlands and
white-lined tide whirled before his eyes.
Then his head grew clearer. He tried to think. How long had he? Not
more than twenty minutes at the outside. Well, death was sure and he
would meet it bravely. But to wait--to wait helplessly! He should go;
mad with the horror of it before those endless minutes would have
passed!
He took something from his pocket and bent his, head over it, pressing
his lips to it repeatedly. And then, when he raised his face again, a
dory was coming around the headland on his right, and Helen Fraser was
in it.
Reeves was dizzy again with the shock of joy and thankfulness. He ran
down over the little stretch of sand still uncovered by the tide and
around to the rocks of the headlands against which the dory was
already grating. He sprang forward impulsively and caught the girl's
cold hands in his as she dropped the oars and stood up.
"Helen, you have saved me! How can I ever thank you? I--"
He broke off abruptly, for she was looking up at him, breathlessly and
voicelessly, with her whole soul in her eyes. He saw in them a
revelation that amazed him; he dropped her hands and stepped back as
if she had struck him in the face.
Helen did not notice the change in him. She clasped her hands together
and her voice trembled.
"Oh, I was afraid I should be too late! When I came in from the field
Aunt Hannah said you had not come back--and I knew it was tide
time--and I felt somehow that it had caught you in the cave. I ran
down over the marsh and took Joe Simmon's dory. If I had not got here
in time--"
She broke off shiveringly. Reeves stepped into the dory and took up
the oars.
"The kelpy would have been sure of its victim then," he said, trying
to speak lightly. "It would have almost served me right for
neglecting your warning. I was very careless. You must let me row
back. I am afraid you have overtasked your strength trying to cheat
the kelpy."
Reeves rowed homeward in an absolute silence. Helen did not speak and
he could not. When they reached the dory anchorage he helped her out.
"I think I'll go out to the Point for a walk," he said. "I want to
steady my nerves. You must go right home and rest. Don't be anxious--I
won't take any more chances with sea kelpies."
Helen went away without a word, and Reeves walked slowly out to the
Point. He was grieved beyond measure at the discovery he believed he
had made. He had never dreamed of such a thing. He was not a vain man,
and was utterly free from all tendency to flirtation. It had never
occurred to him that the waking of the girl's deep nature might be
attended with disastrous consequences. He had honestly meant to help
her, and what had he done?
He felt very uncomfortable; he could not conscientiously blame
himself, but he saw that he had acted foolishly. And of course he must
go away at once. And he must also tell her something she ought to
know. He wished he had told her long ago.
The following afternoon was a perfect one. Reeves was sketching on the
sandshore when Helen came. She sat down on a camp stool a little to
one side and did not speak. After a few moments Reeves pushed away his
paraphernalia impatiently.
"I don't feel in a mood for work," he said. "It is too dreamy a
day--one ought to do nothing to be in keeping. Besides, I'm getting
lazy now that my vacation is nearly over. I must go in a few days."
He avoided looking at her, so he did not see the sudden pallor of her
face.
"So soon?" she said in a voice expressive of no particular feeling.
"Yes. I ought not to have lingered so long. My world will be
forgetting me and that will not do. It has been a very pleasant summer
and I shall be sorry to leave Bay Beach."
"But you will come back next summer?" asked Helen quickly. "You said
you would."
Reeves nerved himself for his very distasteful task.
"Perhaps," he said, with an attempt at carelessness, "but if I do so,
I shall not come alone. Somebody who is very dear to me will come with
me--as my wife. I have never told you about her, Helen, but you and I
are such good friends that I do not mind doing so now. I am engaged to
a very sweet girl, and we expect to be married next spring."
There was a brief silence. Reeves had been vaguely afraid of a scene
and was immensely relieved to find his fear unrealized. Helen sat very
still. He could not see her face. Did she care, after all? Was he
mistaken?
When she spoke her voice was perfectly calm.
"Thank you, it is very kind of you to tell me about her. I suppose she
is very beautiful."
"Yes, here is her picture. You can judge for yourself."
Helen took the portrait from his hand and looked at it steadily. It
was a miniature painted on ivory, and the face looking out from it was
certainly lovely.
"It is no wonder you love her," said the girl in a low tone as she
handed it back. "It must be strange to be so beautiful as that."
Reeves picked up his Tennyson.
"Shall I read you something? What will you have?"
"Read 'Elaine,' please. I want to hear that once more."
Reeves felt a sudden dislike to her choice.
"Wouldn't you prefer something else?" he asked, hurriedly turning over
the leaves. "'Elaine' is rather sad. Shan't I read 'Guinevere'
instead?"
"No," said Helen in the same lifeless tone. "I have no sympathy for
Guinevere. She suffered and her love was unlawful, but she was loved
in return--she did not waste her love on someone who did not want or
care for it. Elaine did, and her life went with it. Read me the
story."
Reeves obeyed. When he had finished he held the book out to her.
"Helen, will you take this Tennyson from me in remembrance of our
friendship and of the Kelpy's Cave? I shall never forget that I owe my
life to you."
"Thank you."
She took the book and placed a little thread of crimson seaweed that
had been caught in the sand between the pages of "Elaine." Then she
rose.
"I must go back now. Aunt will need me. Thank you again for the book,
Mr. Reeves, and for all your kindness to me."
Reeves was relieved when the interview was over. Her calmness had
reassured him. She did not care very much, after all; it was only a
passing fancy, and when he was gone she would soon forget him.
He went away a few days later, and Helen bade him an impassive
good-bye. When the afternoon was far spent she stole away from the
house to the shore, with her Tennyson in her hand, and took her way to
the Kelpy's Cave.
The tide was just beginning to come in. She sat down on the big
boulder where Reeves had fallen asleep. Beyond stretched the gleaming
blue waters, mellowing into a hundred fairy shades horizonward.
The shadows of the rocks were around her. In front was the white line
of the incoming tide; it had almost reached the headlands. A few
minutes more and escape would be cut off--yet she did not move.
When the dark green water reached her, and the lapping wavelets
swished up over the hem of her dress, she lifted her head and a sudden
strange smile flashed over her face.
Perhaps the kelpy understood it.