THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
We have in the last three chapters brought up the history of our
characters to the time when our story opens, when Mara and Sally
Kittridge were discussing the expected return of Moses. Sally was
persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night with her, and did so
without much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; for
though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations of authority,
it was quite evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had
got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the full
confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother
into all her views.
So Sally stayed--to have one of those long night-talks in which girls
delight, in the course of which all sorts of intimacies and confidences,
that shun the daylight, open like the night-blooming cereus in strange
successions. One often wonders by daylight at the things one says very
naturally in the dark.
So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated upon his
handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had appeared in Harpswell
meeting-house.
"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said Sally. "I was
standing with father when he came out, and he shook hands with him, and
looked at me as if I'd been an entire stranger."
"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're grown so and
altered."
"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. "He is a man--a
real man; everything about him is different; he holds up his head in
such a proud way. Well, he always did that when he was a boy; but when
he speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in a year or
two!"
"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said Mara; "at least, do you
think _he_ would think so?"
"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I can't tell. We don't
notice what goes on before us every day. I really should like to see
what Moses Pennel will think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't
order you about with such a grand air as he used to when you were
younger."
"I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," said Mara.
"Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of myself by one or two
little ways," said Sally. "I'd plague him and tease him. I'd lead him
such a life that he couldn't forget me,--that's what I would."
"I don't doubt you would, Sally; and he might like you all the better
for it. But you know that sort of thing isn't my way. People must act in
character."
"Do you know, Mara," said Sally, "I always thought Moses was hateful in
his treatment of you? Now I'd no more marry that fellow than I'd walk
into the fire; but it would be a just punishment for his sins to have to
marry me! Wouldn't I serve him out, though!"
With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally Kittridge fell asleep,
while Mara lay awake pondering,--wondering if Moses would come
to-morrow, and what he would be like if he did come.
The next morning as the two girls were wiping breakfast dishes in a room
adjoining the kitchen, a step was heard on the kitchen-floor, and the
first that Mara knew she found herself lifted from the floor in the
arms of a tall dark-eyed young man, who was kissing her just as if he
had a right to. She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed strange as a
dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand.
He kissed her over and over, and then holding her off at arm's length,
said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be a beauty!"
"And what was she, I'd like to know, when you went away, Mr. Moses?"
said Sally, who could not long keep out of a conversation. "She was
handsome when you were only a great ugly boy."
"Thank you, Miss Sally!" said Moses, making a profound bow.
"Thank me for what?" said Sally, with a toss.
"For your intimation that I am a handsome young man now," said Moses,
sitting with his arm around Mara, and her hand in his.
And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he was in the promise
of his early childhood. All the oafishness and surly awkwardness of the
half-boy period was gone. His great black eyes were clear and confident:
his dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-shaped head; his
black lashes, and fine form, and a certain confident ease of manner, set
him off to the greatest advantage.
Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this brother who was
not a brother,--this Moses so different from the one she had known. The
very tone of his voice, which when he left had the uncertain cracked
notes which indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled.
Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, and drew away
from his arm around her, as if this handsome, self-confident young man
were being too familiar. In fact, she made apology to go out into the
other room to call Mrs. Pennel.
Moses looked after her as she went with admiration. "What a little woman
she has grown!" he said, naively.
"And what did you expect she would grow?" said Sally. "You didn't expect
to find her a girl in short clothes, did you?"
"Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his attention to her;
"and some other people are changed too."
"Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. "I should think so, since
somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday he was at meeting."
"Oh, you remember that, do you? On my word, Sally"--
"Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning round with the
air of an empress.
"Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a bow; "now let me
finish my sentence. I never dreamed who you were."
"Complimentary," said Sally, pouting.
"Well, hear me through," said Moses; "you had grown so handsome, Miss
Kittridge."
"Oh! that indeed! I suppose you mean to say I was a fright when you
left?"
"Not at all--not at all," said Moses; "but handsome things may grow
handsomer, you know."
"I don't like flattery," said Sally.
"I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses.
Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island went through with
this customary little lie of civilized society with as much gravity as
if they were practicing in the court of Versailles,--she looking out
from the corner of her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he
laying his hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They
perfectly understood one another.
But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does all the talking!
So she does,--so she always will,--for it is her nature to be bright,
noisy, and restless; and one of these girls always overcrows a timid and
thoughtful one, and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does
rose color when put beside scarlet.
Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to want to flirt
with every man she saw, as for a kitten to scamper after a pin-ball.
Does the kitten care a fig for the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which
she whisks, and frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round
after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of her fur is alive
with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing, are full
of it; and though she looks wise a moment, and seems resolved to be a
discreet young cat, let but a leaf sway--off she goes again, with a
frisk and a rap. So, though Sally had scolded and flounced about Moses's
inattention to Mara in advance, she contrived even in this first
interview to keep him talking with nobody but herself;--not because she
wanted to draw him from Mara, or meant to; not because she cared a pin
for him; but because it was her nature, as a frisky young cat. And Moses
let himself be drawn, between bantering and contradicting, and jest and
earnest, at some moments almost to forget that Mara was in the room.
She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, sometimes breaking
into the lively flow of conversation, or eagerly appealed to by both
parties to settle some rising quarrel.
Once, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw Mara's head, as a
stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair seemed to make a halo around
her face. Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so
intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness.
"What makes you look at me so, Mara?" he said, suddenly.
A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I didn't know I was
looking. It all seems so strange to me. I am trying to make out who and
what you are."
"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing, but with a
slight shade of uneasiness.
When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she must go home, she
couldn't stay another minute, Moses rose to go with her.
"What are you getting up for?" she said to Moses, as he took his hat.
"To go home with you, to be sure."
"Nobody asked you to," said Sally.
"I'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses.
"Well, I suppose I must have you along," said Sally. "Father will be
glad to see you, of course."
"You'll be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, "will you not? Grandfather
will be home, and want to see you."
"Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, "I have a little business to
settle with Captain Kittridge."
But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge, who looked
graciously at him through the bows of her black horn spectacles, having
heard her liege lord observe that Moses was a smart chap, and had done
pretty well in a money way.
How came he to stay? Sally told him every other minute to go; and then
when he had got fairly out of the door, called him back to tell him that
there was something she had heard about him. And Moses of course came
back; wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret;
and then he would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go
straight home; and then when he got a little farther off she called
after him a second time, to tell him that he would be very much
surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,--till at last tea
being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have a cup. And so it
was sober moonrise before Moses found himself going home.
"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know what she's about,
though?"
There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know what she was
about,--had no plan or purpose more than a blackbird; and when Moses was
gone laughed to think how many times she had made him come back.
"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for our little Mara
than a dozen of her; and what have I been fooling all this time
for?--now Mara will think I don't love her."
And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart on the sensation
he was going to make when he got home. It is flattering, after all, to
feel one's power over a susceptible nature; and Moses, remembering how
entirely and devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never
doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure in her
heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use as he pleased. He
did not calculate for one force which had grown up in the meanwhile
between them,--and that was the power of womanhood. He did not know the
intensity of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the female
nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and
retiring.
Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and religious, but
she was woman after all to the tips of her fingers,--quick to feel
slights, and determined with the intensest determination, that no man
should wrest from her one of those few humble rights and privileges,
which Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled in her when
she felt the confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist,--like
the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep, manly voice,
the determined, self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance
and resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself. Was
he to assume a right to her in this way without even asking? When he
did not come to tea nor long after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grandfather
wondered, she laughed, and said gayly,--
"Oh, he knows he'll have time enough to see me. Sally seems more like a
stranger."
But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined to go and console
Mara for his absence, he was surprised to hear the sound of a rapid and
pleasant conversation, in which a masculine and feminine voice were
intermingled in a lively duet. Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara
sitting knitting in the doorway, and a very good-looking young man
seated on a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung on the ground,
while he was looking up into her face, as young men often do into pretty
faces seen by moonlight. Mara rose and introduced Mr. Adams of Boston to
Mr. Moses Pennel.
Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he could have shot him
with a good will. And his temper was not at all bettered as he observed
that he had the easy air of a man of fashion and culture, and learned by
a few moments of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance had
commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston.
"I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said, carelessly, "and
the night was so fine I couldn't resist the temptation to row over."
It was now Moses's turn to listen to a conversation in which he could
bear little part, it being about persons and places and things
unfamiliar to him; and though he could give no earthly reason why the
conversation was not the most proper in the world,--yet he found that it
made him angry.
In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found the Kittridges, and
reproved him playfully for staying, in despite of his promise to come
home. Moses answered with an effort to appear easy and playful, that
there was no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her account, since she
had been so pleasantly engaged.
"That is true," said Mara, quietly; "but then grandpapa and grandmamma
expected you, and they have gone to bed, as you know they always do
after tea."
"They'll keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, rather gruffly.
"Oh yes; but then as you had been gone two or three months, naturally
they wanted to see a little of you at first."
The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began talking with
Moses about his experiences in foreign parts, in a manner which showed a
man of sense and breeding. Moses had a jealous fear of people of
breeding,--an apprehension lest they should look down on one whose life
had been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas; and
therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of mind to acquit
himself to advantage in this conversation, it gave him all the while a
secret uneasiness. After a few moments, he rose up moodily, and saying
that he was very much fatigued, he went into the house to retire.
Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt in a more Christian
frame of mind, had he listened to the last words of the conversation
between him and Mara.
"Do you remain long in Harpswell?" she asked.
"That depends on circumstances," he replied. "If I do, may I be
permitted to visit you?"
"As a friend--yes," said Mara; "I shall always be happy to see you."
"No more?"
"No more," replied Mara.
"I had hoped," he said, "that you would reconsider."
"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pronounce that word,
_impossible_, in a very fateful and decisive manner.
"Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he said, and was gone.
Mara stood in the doorway and saw him loosen his boat from its moorings
and float off in the moonlight, with a long train of silver sparkles
behind.
A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her shoulder.
"Who is that puppy?" he said.
"He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said Mara.
"Well, that very fine young man, then?"
"I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston, and a distant
connection of the Sewells. I met him when I was visiting at Judge
Sewell's in Boston."
"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time together?"
"We were," said Mara, quietly.
"It's a pity I came home as I did. I'm sorry I interrupted you," said
Moses, with a sarcastic laugh.
"You didn't interrupt us; he had been here almost two hours."
Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased and hurt, and had
it been in the days of her fourteenth summer, she would have thrown her
arms around his neck, and said, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man,
and I love you better than all the world." But this the young lady of
eighteen would not do; so she wished him good-night very prettily, and
pretended not to see anything about it.
Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever is; but--she was a
woman saint; and therefore may be excused for a little gentle
vindictiveness. She was, in a merciful way, rather glad that Moses had
gone to bed dissatisfied, and rather glad that he did not know what she
might have told him--quite resolved that he should not know at present.
Was he to know that she liked nobody so much as him? Not he, unless he
loved her more than all the world, and said so first. Mara was resolved
upon that. He might go where he liked--flirt with whom he liked--come
back as late as he pleased; never would she, by word or look, give him
reason to think she cared.