MRS. MARX'S OPINION.
A few more days went by; and then Mrs. Wishart began to mend; so much
that she insisted her friends must not shut themselves up with her. "Do
go down-stairs and see the people!" she said; "or take your kind aunt,
Lois, and show her the wonders of Appledore. Is all the world gone yet?"
"Nobody's gone," said Mrs. Marx; "except one thick man and one thin
one; and neither of 'em counts."
"Are the Caruthers here?"
"Every man of 'em."
"There is only one man of them; unless you count Mr. Lenox."
"I don't count him. I count that fair-haired chap. All the rest of 'em
are stay in' for him."
"Staying for him!" repeated Mrs. Wishart.
"That's what they say. They seem to take it sort o' hard, that Tom's so
fond of Appledore."
Mrs. Wishart was silent a minute, and then she smiled.
"He spends his time trollin' for blue fish," Mrs. Marx went on.
"Ah, I dare say. Do go down, Mrs. Marx, and take a walk, and see if he
has caught anything."
Lois would not go along; she told her aunt what to look for, and which
way to take, and said she would sit still with Mrs. Wishart and keep
her amused.
At the very edge of the narrow valley in which the house stood, Mrs.
Marx came face to face with Tom Caruthers. Tom pulled off his hat with
great civility, and asked if he could do anything for her.
"Well, you can set me straight, I guess," said the lady. "Lois told me
which way to go, but I don't seem to be any wiser. Where's the old dead
village? South, she said; but in such a little place south and north
seems all alike. _I_ don' know which is south."
"You are not far out of the way," said Tom. "Let me have the pleasure
of showing you. Why did you not bring Miss Lothrop out?"
"Best reason in the world; I couldn't. She would stay and see to Mrs.
Wishart."
"That's the sort of nurse I should like to have take care of me," said
Tom, "if ever I was in trouble."
"Ah, wouldn't you!" returned Mrs. Marx. "That's a kind o' nurses that
ain't in the market. Look here, young man--where are we going?"
"All right," said Tom. "Just round over these rocks. The village was at
the south end of the island, as Miss Lois said. I believe she has
studied up Appledore twice as much as any of the rest of us."
It was a fresh, sunny day in September; everything at Appledore was in
a kind of glory, difficult to describe in words, and which no painter
ever yet put on canvas. There was wind enough to toss the waves in
lively style; and when the two companions came out upon the scene of
the one-time settlement of Appledore, all brilliance of light and air
and colour seemed to be sparkling together. Under this glory lay the
ruins and remains of what had been once homes and dwelling-places of
men. Grass-grown cellar excavations, moss-grown stones and bits of
walls; little else; but a number of those lying soft and sunny in the
September light. Soft, and sunny, and lonely; no trace of human
habitation any longer, where once human activity had been in full play.
Silence, where the babble of voices had been; emptiness, where young
feet and old feet had gone in and out; barrenness, where the fruits of
human industry had been busily gathered and dispensed. Something in the
quiet, sunny scene stilled for a moment the not very sensitive spirits
of the two who had come to visit it; while the sea waves rose and broke
in their old fashion, as they had done on those same rocks in old time,
and would do for generation after generation yet to come. That was
always the same. It made the contrast greater with what had passed and
was passing away.
"There was a good many of 'em."--Mrs. Marx' voice broke the pause which
had come upon the talk.
"Quite a village," her companion assented.
"Why ain't they here now?"
"Dead and gone?" suggested Tom, half laughing.
"Of course! I mean, why ain't the village here, and the people? The
people are somewhere--the children and grandchildren of those that
lived here; what's become of 'em?"
"That's true," said Tom; "they are somewhere. I believe they are to be
found scattered along the coast of the mainland."
"Got tired o' livin' between sea and sky with no ground to speak of.
Well, I should think they would!"
"Miss Lothrop says, on the contrary, that they never get tired of it,
the people who live here; and that nothing but necessity forced the
former inhabitants to abandon Appledore."
"What sort of necessity?"
"Too exposed, in the time of the war."
"Ah! likely. Well, we'll go, Mr. Caruthers; this sort o' thing makes me
melancholy, and that' against my principles to be." Yet she stood
still, looking.
"Miss Lothrop likes this place," Tom remarked.
"Then it don't make her melancholy."
"Does anything?"
"I hope so. She's human."
"But she seems to me always to have the sweetest air of happiness about
her, that ever I saw in a human being."
"Have you got where you can see _air?_" inquired Mrs. Marx sharply. Tom
laughed.
"I mean, that she finds something everywhere to like and to take
pleasure in. Now I confess, this bit of ground, full of graves and old
excavations, has no particular charms for me; and my sister will not
stay here a minute."
"And what does Lois find here to delight her?
"Everything!" said Tom with enthusiasm. "I was with her the first time
she came to this corner of the island,--and it was a lesson, to see her
delight. The old cellars and the old stones, and the graves; and then
the short green turf that grows among them, and the flowers and
weeds--what _I_ call weeds, who know no better--but Miss Lois tried to
make me see the beauty of the sumach and all the rest of it."
"And she couldn't!" said Mrs. Marx. "Well, I can't. The noise of the
sea, and the sight of it, eternally breaking there upon the rocks,
would drive me out of my mind, I believe, after a while." And yet Mrs.
Marx sat down upon a turfy bank and looked contentedly about her.
"Mrs. Marx," said Tom suddenly, "you are a good friend of Miss Lothrop,
aren't you?"
"Try to be a friend to everybody. I've counted sixty-six o' these old
cellars!"
"I believe there are more than that. I think Miss Lothrop said seventy."
"She seems to have told you a good deal."
"I was so fortunate as to be here alone with her. Miss Lothrop is often
very silent in company."
"So I observe," said Mrs. Marx dryly.
"I wish you'd be my friend too!" said Tom, now taking a seat by her
side. "You said you are a friend of everybody."
"That is, of everybody who needs me," said Mrs. Marx, casting a side
look at Tom's handsome, winning countenance. "I judge, young man, that
ain't your case."
"But it is, indeed!"
"Maybe," said Mrs. Marx incredulously. "Go on, and let's hear."
"You will let me speak to you frankly?"
"Don't like any other sort."
"And you will answer me also frankly?"
"I don't know," said the lady, "but one thing I can say, if I've got
the answer, I'll give it to you."
"I don't know who should," said Tom flatteringly, "if not you. I
thought I could trust you, when I had seen you a few times."
"Maybe you won't think so after to-day. But go on. What's the business?"
"It is very important business," said Tom slowly; "and it
concerns--Miss Lothrop."
"You have got hold of me now," said Lois's aunt. "I'll go into the
business, you may depend upon it. What _is_ the business?"
"Mrs. Marx, I have a great admiration for Miss Lothrop."
"I dare say. So have some other folks."
"I have had it for a long while. I came here because I heard she was
coming. I have lost my heart to her, Mrs. Marx."
"Ah!--What are you going to do about it? or what can _I_ do about it?
Lost hearts can't be picked up under every bush."
"I want you to tell me what I shall do."
"What hinders your making up your own mind?"
"It is made up!--long ago."
"Then act upon it. What hinders you? I don't see what I have got to do
with that."
"Mrs. Marx, do you think she would have me if I asked her? As a friend,
won't you tell me?"
"I don't see why I should,--if I knew,--which I don't. I don't see how
it would be a friend's part. Why should I tell you, supposin' I could?
She's the only person that knows anything about it."
Tom pulled his moustache right and left in a worried manner.
"Have you asked her?"
"Haven't had a ghost of a chance, since I have been here!" cried the
young man; "and she isn't like other girls; she don't give a fellow a
bit of help."
Mrs. Marx laughed out.
"I mean," said Tom, "she is so quiet and steady, and she don't talk,
and she don't let one see what she thinks. I think she must know I like
her--but I have not the least idea whether she likes me."
"The shortest way would be to ask her."
"Yes, but you see I can't get a chance. Miss Lothrop is always
up-stairs in that sick-room; and if she comes down, my sister or my
mother or somebody is sure to be running after her."
"Besides you," said Mrs. Marx.
"Yes, besides me."
"Perhaps they don't want to let you have her all to yourself."
"That's the disagreeable truth!" said Tom in a burst of vexed candour.
"Perhaps they are afraid you will do something imprudent if they do not
take care."
"That's what they call it, with their ridiculous ways of looking at
things. Mrs. Marx, I wish people had sense."
"Perhaps they are right. Perhaps they _have_ sense, and it would be
imprudent."
"Why? Mrs. Marx, I am sure _you_ have sense. I have plenty to live
upon, and live as I like. There is no difficulty in my case about ways
and means."
"What is the difficulty, then?"
"You see, I don't want to go against my mother and sister, unless I had
some encouragement to think that Miss Lothrop would listen to me; and I
thought--I hoped--you would be able to help me."
"How can I help you?"
"Tell me what I shall do."
"Well, when it comes to marryin'," said Mrs. Marx, "I always say to
folks, If you can live and get along without gettin' married--don't!"
"Don't get married?"
"Just so," said Mrs. Marx. "Don't get married; not if you can live
without."
"You to speak so!" said Tom. "I never should have thought, Mrs. Marx,
you were one of that sort."
"What sort?"
"The sort that talk against marriage."
"I don't!--only against marryin' the wrong one; and unless it's
somebody that you can't live without, you may be sure it ain't the
right one."
"How many people in the world do you suppose are married on that
principle?"
"Everybody that has any business to be married at all," responded the
lady with great decision.
"Well, honestly, I don't feel as if I could live without Miss Lothrop.
I've been thinking about it for months."
"I wouldn't stay much longer in that state," said Mrs. Marx, "if I was
you. When people don' know whether they're goin' to live or die, their
existence ain't much good to 'em."
"Then you think I may ask her?"
"Tell me first, what would happen if you did--that is, supposin' she
said yes to you, about which I don't know anything, no more'n the
people that lived in these old cellars. What would happen if you did?
and if she did?"
"I would make her happy, Mrs. Marx!"
"Yes," said the lady slowly--"I guess you would; for Lois won't say yes
to anybody _she_ can live without; and I've a good opinion of your
disposition; but what would happen to other people?"
"My mother and sister, you mean?"
"Them, or anybody else that's concerned."
"There is nobody else concerned," said Tom, idly defacing the rocks in
his neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. And Mrs. Marx
watched him, and patiently waited.
"There is no sense in it!" he broke out at last. "It is all folly. Mrs.
Marx, what is life good for, but to be happy?"
"Just so," assented Mrs. Marx.
"And haven't I a right to be happy in my own way?"
"If you can."
"So I think! I will ask Miss Lothrop if she will have me, this very
day. I'm determined."
"But I said, _if you can_. Happiness is somethin' besides sugar and
water. What else'll go in?"
"What do you mean?" asked Tom, looking at her.
"Suppose you're satisfied, and suppose _she's_ satisfied. Will
everybody else be?"
Tom went at the rocks again.
"It's my affair--and hers," he said then.
"And what will your mother and sister say?"
"Julia has chosen for herself."
"I should say, she has chosen very well. Does she like your choice."
"Mrs. Marx," said the poor young man, leaving the lichens, "they bother
me to death!"
"Ah? How is that?"
"Always watching, and hanging around, and giving a fellow no chance for
his life, and putting in their word. They call themselves very wise,
but I think it is the other thing."
"They don't approve, then?"
"I don't want to marry money!" cried Tom; "and I don't care for
fashionable girls. I'm tired of 'em. Lois is worth the whole lot. Such
absurd stuff! And she is handsomer than any girl that was in town last
winter."
"They want a fashionable girl," said Mrs. Marx calmly.
"Well, you see," said Tom, "they live for that. If an angel was to come
down from heaven, they would say her dress wasn't cut right, and they
wouldn't ask her to dinner!"
"I don't suppose they'd know how to talk to her either, if they did,"
said Mrs. Marx. "It would be uncomfortable--for them; I don't suppose
an angel can be uncomfortable. But Lois ain't an angel. I guess you'd
better give it up, Mr. Caruthers."
Tom turned towards her a dismayed kind of look, but did not speak.
"You see," Mrs. Marx went on, "things haven't gone very far. Lois is
all right; and you'll come back to life again. A fish that swims in
fresh water couldn't go along very well with one that lives in the
salt. That's how I look at it. Lois is one sort, and you're another. I
don't know but both sorts are good; but they are different, and you
can't make 'em alike."
"I would never want her to be different!" burst out Tom.
"Well, you see, she ain't your sort exactly," Mrs. Marx added, but not
as if she were depressed by the consideration. "And then, Lois is
religious."
"You don't think that is a difficulty? Mrs. Marx, I am not a religious
man myself; at least I have never made any profession; but I assure you
I have a great respect for religion."
"That is what folks say of something a great way off, and that they
don't want to come nearer."
"My mother and sister are members of the church; and I should like my
wife to be, too."
"Why?"
"I told you, I have a great respect for religion; and I believe in it
especially for women."
"I don't see why what's good for them shouldn't be good for you."
"That need be no hindrance," Tom urged.
"Well, I don' know. I guess Lois would think it was. And maybe you
would think it was, too,--come to find out. I guess you'd better let
things be, Mr. Caruthers."
Tom looked very gloomy. "You think she would not have me?" he repeated.
"I think you will get over it," said Mrs. Marx, rising. "And I think
you had better find somebody that will suit your mother and sister."
And after that time, it may be said, Mrs. Marx was as careful of Lois
on the one side as Mrs. and Miss Caruthers were of Tom on the other.
Two or three more days passed away.
"How _is_ Mrs. Wishart?" Miss Julia asked one afternoon.
"First-rate," answered Mrs. Marx. "She's sittin' up. She'll be off and
away before you know it."
"Will you stay, Mrs. Marx, to help in the care of her, till she is able
to move?"
"Came for nothin' else."
"Then I do not see, mother, what good we can do by remaining longer.
Could we, Mrs. Marx?"
"Nothin', but lose your chance o' somethin' better, I should say."
"Tom, do you want to do any more fishing? Aren't you ready to go?"
"Whenever you like," said Tom gloomily.