A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
Miss Elliott was right. The next morning a soft gray mist enveloped the
island, pearling each separate blade of grass and gemming each twig and
leaf with tiny brilliants. The cottages appeared great confused shapes
shrouded in gray. Voices coming from a distance had a queer smothered
quality. The sea was shut out by a curtain of fog. "A veil before our
ways," quoted Gwen, as, cloaked and booted, she stood ready to issue
forth. On her way to Almira Green's she met Cap'n Ben in his sou'wester.
"Pretty thick fawg!" he remarked as the girl came up. "I couldn't quite
make out whether you was coming or going, or whether you was male or
female. I was hopesing for a handsome day to take Ora up to Portland."
"Has she gone?"
"Hm, hm," Cap'n Ben nodded. "Couldn't hold her back once she got the
notion in her head. Went on the first boat, though when she'll get
there's another thing. It'll be everlasting slow travel. Guess you'll
find most folks to hum to-day. Boat she blowed and blowed this morning
before she could make her wharf. Going up along? Drop in when you're
passing." He gave his characteristic jerky nod, and passed on while
Gwen pursued the way "up along" which brought her to Almira Green's
house, a white cottage, set in amidst trees, with a little garden in
front. Now the bright hues of zinnias, nasturtiums and sweet peas were
clouded by fog, and the rigid lines of the house itself melted into the
background of slim birches and poplars.
In answer to Gwen's knock, Almira herself came to the door, an angular
woman with melancholy eyes. "Well, the land's sakes!" she exclaimed.
"You don't mind fawg, do you? I cal'lated 'twas Zerviah Hackett.
Nawthin' keeps her to hum. Step right in. You must be wet through. We
haven't had such a thick fawg this summer. Give me your cloak and I'll
dry it by the kitchen fire."
"I'm not very wet," returned Gwen. "My cape and the edge of my skirt.
Thank you, Mrs. Green. I love this soft silent fog. It doesn't chill
one in the least. It is quite different from those cold easterly
sea-turns they have further down the coast. Is Miss Fuller in?"
"I cal'late she's up in her room. She's not one to venture out, I know.
Manny was so sot on going to Portland to-day, that nothing would do but
he must up and take the first boat. He's going sword-fishing soon as
Cap'n 'Lias Hooper's vessel's ready, so it'll be his last chance to get
to the city for some time." She gave a deep sigh.
"I suppose you hate to have him leave you."
"Yes, I do. His father was lost off the Banks, and my husband too.
We was cousins, my husband and me, so I lost two in one as you might
say. Manny's all I've got left, and I did hope he'd take to clerking
or something. He did work for Ira Baldwin one summer, but he said he
couldn't stand that kind of a job."
"There seems to be very little loss of life among the fishermen about
here," responded Gwen cheerfully, "and I have no doubt Manny will come
back safe and sound, and all the better for his experience."
"Maybe," said Almira, shaking her head dubiously. "Will you go up, Miss
Whitridge, or shall I ask Miss Fuller to come down?"
"I'll go up," Gwen told her, and mounted the stairs leading to the
upper room occupied by Ethel. The house was not a large one, and the
only spare room down stairs was given over to Mrs. Dow. In answer to
Ethel's "Come in," Gwen entered a low room with sloping ceiling. The
walls were covered with paper of a lively pattern, violets of heroic
size flung in massive bunches upon a buff ground. The border, to match,
looked like a wild flight of young chickens pursuing one another around
the room. The floor was covered with a bright red and green ingrain
carpet. The furniture, a cottage set, painted yellow with blue and
white roses upon it, added to the variety of color. Ethel was sitting
by the window absorbed in running ribbons in some dainty underwear.
"Well," she exclaimed, "you are a brave somebody. Isn't it a vile day?"
"I think it is lovely," Gwen declared. "Who would have eternal
sunshine? I'd like to walk from one end of the island to the other."
"You certainly have more vim than I have. What in the world is there to
see on a day like this?"
"Queer ghostly shapes looming up out of the mist, beautiful jewel-hung
grasses and weeds. Then to feel the soft fog in your face and not to
care about hurting your clothes, or getting your feet wet, or any such
trivial things. I love it all. I saw a ship stealing by just now, and
it looked as if it had come straight from a land of dreams."
"You sentimental thing! You ought never to marry an ordinary mortal."
"That's just what I came to talk about."
"To tell me that nothing could induce you to link your fate with steel
rails?"
"Not quite that. I came to say that it is silly and ignoble, and
material and all the rest of it, to talk about running races to win a
man, and so, for my part, I shall leave it all to chance. You can use
your eyes, and your wits too, all you choose, and I shall do whatever
the moment suggests. I shall not refuse any good time that comes my
way, but I'll make no promises about anything. I think such things
aren't worthy of girls like us, Ethel."
"I just now said you were deadly sentimental. All right, but you must
not wax indignant if I do my best to come out winner. I give you fair
warning, I shall make my best effort."
"I am willing. If a thing must be fought for it isn't worth having."
"If a thing is worth having it is worth fighting for, would be my way
of putting it."
"I shall not fight for a poor miserable thing which can be easily
turned aside. Let it go; it is not worth the keeping."
"And I am quite welcome to this poor miserable, uncertain thing, if so
it proves itself?"
"Quite welcome."
"Thanks, dear. I feel ready to buckle on my armor for the fray. It was
sweet of you to come and tell me. Must you go so soon?"
"Yes, I must. I promised Aunt Cam to send off a money order for her,
and you know that takes time. Good-by."
Ethel arose, took her friend by the shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"You don't despise me, Gwen, and you're not angry?"
"Neither. We have different points of view, that's all. You revel
in little schemes. You enjoy lying in ambush and stealing along
unsuspected routes. I like the open. I hate to manoeuvre and contrive.
Whatever comes to me I must get as a free untrammelled gift, not by
out-generalling some one else, and then falling on the prize as if it
were plunder, or loot or something of that kind."
Ethel laughed. "I am glad you are so magnanimous as to call it
out-generalling instead of using some horrid word which your present
virtuous state of mind might suggest. I don't say that to be nasty, my
dear--about your state of mind I mean. It is only this: if for steel
rails you were to read tubes of paint and rolls of canvas I don't
believe you would be quite so top-loftical."
"I think you are perfectly horrid," cried Gwen, feeling the color rise
to her face. "The case would be quite the same. I should never, never,
never want what did not come to me freely and naturally. I'd despise
myself if I won anything by scheming for it."
"Tut! tut! I am getting it now!" exclaimed Ethel. "Who says it is
scheming to do your best to be sweet and agreeable, in exerting such
powers of fascination as Heaven has bestowed upon you? Don't tell me
you wouldn't do your level best to be nice to--"
Gwen put her hand over Ethel's mouth. "I won't hear you," she cried.
"Then don't call me names," said Ethel, freeing herself.
"I didn't."
"You said I was a schemer."
"I didn't mean exactly that. I meant--oh, I don't know just what I did
mean. Go along and do your own way, and I'll do mine."
"Sensible girl! I am glad you have come down from your high horse. Our
tactics may be different but the end is the same. To the conqueror come
the spoils. Really good-by?"
"Yes, or the mail will be closed."
She ran down stairs, took the now dry golf-cape from Mrs. Green's hands
and went forth again to perform her errand. As she turned into the road
she saw Kenneth Hilary, color-box in hand, trudging along. He was near
enough to recognize her, which he did by a lifting of the cap, then he
plunged into the path which led to Captain Purdy's wharf and she saw
him disappear in the fog. Yet she was glad at heart to have met him.
She remembered that he, too, exulted in storm and fog and rain. But
suddenly she was chilled by the remembrance of their last talk. Perhaps
he would never give her a chance to renew their friendship. He had
taken her words so seriously that he might go away and--forget. Men did
that. "Oh dear, what can I do?" she said aloud. "I must do something."
Then with a flush of shame she remembered her lofty attitude with
Ethel, and what Ethel had said about steel rails and tubes of paint.
"Oh dear, I'm no better than she, not a bit," she sighed. "I'd like
to run after him this minute and pretend that I had sprained my ankle
or lost my way or any other foolish thing, just that I might speak to
him. Oh dear, dear, it has come, that dreadful thing that I have been
so afraid of, and have been pushing away from me. I don't care one
little bit who bears off Cephas--and I do care a whole dreadful lot
because Kenneth would not stop and speak to me. Oh, dear, dear. I see
myself manoeuvring and scheming or else a lorn maid for the rest of my
life. I can't leave everything to Fate, for Fate is so stupidly cruel
sometimes."
So her thought ran as she continued along the road to the post-office.
At the top of the flight of steps she tried to penetrate the fog to see
if she could get a glimpse of Kenneth sketching from Captain Purdy's
wharf, but the fog dropped down its soft impenetrable veil and all she
could distinguish was the wharf and boat-house dimly outlined.
"He will paint beautiful things to-day," she told herself as she turned
homeward, "beautiful, mysterious, charming things that I would love to
see, and he will never show them to me--never. Some horrid, beastly
wealthy person will buy them, perhaps some one like Cephas Mitchell
with pop-eyes and lanky hair. He'll hang them up in his house and gloat
over them. Oh dear, I am more kinds of an idiot than I supposed, but I
cannot make up my mind to offer any advances."
As she entered the living-room of Wits' End, she saw Miss Elliott
kneeling before the open fire with a boxful of letters by her side.
She was laying them one by one on the burning logs, which shot up a
renewed flare at each fresh accession of kindling. "What are you doing,
Aunt Cam?" asked Gwen, throwing off her cape and joining her aunt.
"I am burning some letters which should have been destroyed long ago.
They have been packed away in this box for years, and I have never had
time to look over them. I found the box in the attic when we dismantled
the old house, and should have looked at them then, but I was too busy.
They were sent up here with the furniture, and this seemed a good day
to look at them."
"What letters are they?" Gwen leaned forward to decipher the address on
an envelope which was fast being consumed.
Miss Elliott was silent, and but for the ruddy glare from the fire Gwen
might have seen that she was very pale.
Getting no answer to her question Gwen remarked, "I see L. W., my
father's initials, signed to one of them. Oh, don't burn them, Aunt
Cam. Let me read them, too. Are they old love-letters? Oh, please."
She laid an arresting hand upon her aunt's which held another letter,
but Miss Elliott thrust the envelope and its contents deep into the
glowing heart of the fire, then quickly added the other letters,
poking them down between the logs, and quickening the blaze by stirring
the loose bits of paper. "They are only business letters," she said
presently. "Letters from your father to my father. It is strange they
were not destroyed before. They should have been."
"Why?"
"Because it is stupid to give house room to out-of-date things like
that, to things whose chief interest is to the person who wrote and the
one who received the letters." Miss Elliott gave an excited stir to the
charred heap, now slowly burning and showing brown, curled edges.
"Still," said Gwen, "I'd like to have seen them. I know so little of my
father, Aunt Cam."
"He was a noble man, a very noble man." Miss Elliott arose from her
knees and pushed the hair back from her forehead with a nervous gesture.
"You never said that before. I--I always thought you didn't like him,
Aunt Cam."
"I never knew him. At least I used to see him when he was but a lad,
when I was home from school for the holidays. I was ten years older
than your mother, you know, Gwen, and I went to China before she was
old enough to marry. When I came back your father was--gone."
"I am glad he was a noble man. No one ever seemed to care to tell me
much about him. I only know he was drowned on his way to Mexico. That
was where he was going, wasn't it?"
"He was going somewhere on business." Miss Elliott spoke heavily. "His
valuables were found in his state-room. The captain of the steamer
sent them home. It was believed he tried to save a sailor who became
entangled in some ropes. It was while the vessel was in port. Your
father was an expert swimmer, and the captain thought he must have been
pulled down by the desperate struggles of the sailor, for both were
missing that night."
"I remember the story. I have his watch and fob, and the purse he left
in his cabin. And that is why you think he was noble, Aunt Cam, because
he lost his life in trying to save another's. He did do that."
"Yes, it is true that he lost his life in trying to save another's.
Nothing could be nobler than that. 'Greater love hath no man than
this.' Oh yes, Gwen, you can give his memory all that a hero's should
have, honor and love and respect."
"I am glad," said Gwen. "I wish you had said so before. Sometimes I
have had doubts. I have been afraid he might not have been exactly
worthy. Why didn't you tell me, Aunt Cam?"
Miss Elliott's hands were tightly interlocked as she sat gazing at the
last blackened bits of paper. "I thought--it seemed to me best--that
you should not think too much about him. The more worthy you believed
him the harder it would seem to you to be deprived of him."
Gwen thoughtfully watched the flames, which, rekindled, were now
licking around the ends of the logs. "It is a strange argument," she
said to herself, "but I suppose Aunt Cam thought she was doing the best
for me. She certainly did gather up some queer theories out there in
China."
Miss Elliott was watching the girl's face wistfully. "I did what seemed
best at the time," she said tremulously. "I hope I didn't do you a
wrong, Gwen."
"Never mind, auntie dear." Gwen laid a caressing hand on her aunt's.
"So long as I know now it is all right. I suppose you thought I was too
young to appreciate exactly. I am glad to know the truth." Then after
a pause, "I suppose there was never any doubt that he was drowned."
"At first your grandfather hoped there might be, but as time went on
there could be no other conclusion to reach."
"Yes, of course. He would have come back otherwise." The subject ended
here, though Gwen still looked a little troubled and her aunt's face
wore a similar expression.
Toward night the wind veered around, and the fog lifted, showing first
the line of houses along the bluff, then the nearest reefs, and finally
lifting the veil which all day had obscured the furthest point of
mainland. At last but a dim line of gray along the horizon told that
out at sea the fog horns must continue to sound their warning. The long
grass, however, was still very wet, and Gwen decided that a second
tramp across the hummocks would be better left undone, so she and her
aunt, avoiding the dampness below, took refuge on the little balcony
over the porch where they were sheltered from the wind.
"Aunt Cam," said Gwen, leaning her chin on her hands and looking
off toward Seguin's shining light, "when we go back I'd like to see
something of my father's people. What relatives had he?"
"Very few are left," returned Miss Elliott. "His mother died when
he was still a child, his father before he married. He was an only
child, therefore there would be only some cousins. The family was from
northern New York. We could go there some time instead of coming here,
but I fancy you would not find any very near relatives, or indeed any
who could tell you much of your father. He had not been thrown with
them very often, and scarce at all after he was grown."
"His father was a great friend of grandfather's, wasn't he?"
"A great friend though a younger man by some fifteen years. Your
grandfather did not marry till he was thirty-five; Lewis Whitridge's
father married early."
"I see. Were there only business letters in that box, Aunt Cam? None
from my father to my mother?"
"No, as they lived in the same city there was little correspondence
between them. I had one or two letters from Lewis, while I was in
China, but I destroyed the most of my correspondence before I left
there, so those with others, were burned."
"Was my father ever well off? I know mamma had nothing, but had he?"
"He was supposed to be quite well off when your mother married him,
unusually so for so young a man."
"Was that why she married him?" Gwen shifted the position of her hands
that she might better see a figure on the rocks, distinct against the
sky, an immovable figure with back toward Wits' End.
"What a question, my dear," returned Miss Elliott. "Why should you
suppose such a thing?"
"I don't know. I only wondered. One likes to know--a girl does--all
about her father and mother's courtship."
"I was not there, as you well know," Miss Elliott spoke with emphasis.
"I could not possibly know what was going on in Lillian's brain. She
was so much younger than I that there could not be the confidence
between us as between girls nearer of an age. At all events your father
was worthy of any woman's love, so we ought to assume it was a love
match. He certainly adored her."
"If you know that he adored her, why don't you know whether she adored
him?" asked Gwen.
"What is the matter with you to-night, child?" said her aunt
impatiently. "It is too damp out here. I am going in. I have some
letters to write."
Gwen, wrapped in a fleecy scarf of white, sat watching the figure on
the rocks till the west faded from rose to gray and the shore's limits
were visible only when a white line of foam curled along the base of
the cliffs.