A Maid, a Mood and a Song
In Golden Crescent Bay things moved quietly, almost drowsily. There
were the routine of hurried work and the long spells of comparative
idleness.
As for the people over the way, I saw little of them outside of
business.
I had not spoken to Mary Grant since the peremptory dismissal I had
received from her during her recovery from the drowning accident.
I had not acknowledged her note by a visit, as probably I should have
done; but, then,--how was I to know but that the note had been sent
merely as a matter of form and common courtesy? She had no reason to
think me other than what I showed myself to be,--an ordinary
store-clerk; and this being so she might have considered it
presumptuous had I endeavoured in any way to avail myself of the
advantage I had secured in being of service to her, for, despite her
endeavours, she could not disguise from me,--who was in a position to
judge in a moment,--that her upbringing and her education had been such
as only the richest could afford and only the best families in America
and Europe could command. Yet she had a dash and wayward individualism
that were all her own;--savouring of the prairies and the wilder life
of the West.
To me, she was still an enigma.
Mrs. Malmsbury had been making all the purchases at the store; and,
naturally, conversation with her was of a strictly business order. She
seldom had a word to say that was not absolutely necessary, because,
from long experience, she had gathered wisdom and knew that talking
begot answering and questioning, and when these answers and questions
were unheard conversation was apt to become a monologue.
She had no information to impart, no reminiscences to recount, no pet
theories to voice on evolution or female suffrage, no confessions or
professions to make, no prophecies to advance even regarding the
weather.
As for Mary Grant,--she was seldom idle. I had seen her make her own
clothes, I had seen her over the washtub with her sleeves rolled up to
her fair, white shoulders, I had seen her bake and houseclean; sharing
the daily duties with her elderly companion.
Yet she enjoyed to the full the delights that Golden Crescent afforded.
In her spare time, she rowed on the water, bathed, roved the forests
behind for wild flowers and game, read in her hammock and revelled in
her music.
And she was not the only one who revelled in that glorious music, for,
unknown to her, Jake and I listened with delight to her uplifting
entertainment; I from the confines of my front veranda and Jake, night
after night, from his favourite position on the cliffs.
He confessed to me that it was a wonderful set-off to the cravings that
often beset him for the liquor which he was still fighting so nobly and
victoriously.
Poor old Jake! More than once I had almost been tempted to coax him to
go back to his nightly libations, for, since he had begun his fight for
abstinence, he seemed to be gradually going down the hill; losing
weight, losing strength, losing interest in his daily pursuits, and,
with it all, ageing.
The minister had noticed the change and had expressed his concern.
Rita also had talked of it to me; and her visits to the old man had
become more frequent, her little attentions had grown in number and her
solicitude for his bodily comfort had become almost motherly.
Rita always could manipulate Jake round her little finger. He was clay
in her hands, and obeyed her even to the putting of a stocking full of
hot salt round his neck one night he had a hoarseness in his throat.
"If she ever insists on me puttin' my feet in hot-water and mustard,"
he confessed to me once, "God knows how I shall muster up the courage
to refuse."
I had sent to Vancouver for the grammar-book with which I intended
starting Rita's tuition, but it had only arrived,--its coming having
been delayed on account of the book-sellers not having it in stock and
having to fill my requirement from the East,--but I had promised Rita,
much to her pleasure, that we should start in in earnest the following
evening.
I had been reading in my hammock until the daylight had failed me. And
now I was lying, resting and hoping that any moment Miss Grant would
commence her nightly musicale.
Jake, and his dog Mike, I presumed, were already in their accustomed
places, Jake smoking his pipe and Mike biting at mosquitoes and other
pestiferous insects which lodged and boarded about his warm, hairy
person.
The cottage door opened and our fair entertainer stepped out.
She came across the rustic bridge and made straight for my place,
humming softly to herself as she sauntered along. She was hatless as
usual and her hair was done up in great, wavy coils on her well-poised
head. Her hands were jammed deep into the pockets of her pale-green,
silk sweater-coat. She impressed me then as being at peace with the
world and perfectly at ease; much more at ease than I was, for I was
puzzling myself as to what her wish with me could be, unless it were
regarding some groceries that she might have overlooked during the day.
She smiled as she came forward.
I rose from the hammock.
"Now, don't let me disturb you," she said. "Lie where you are.
"I shall do splendidly right here."
She sat down on the top step of the veranda and turned half round to me.
"Do you ever feel lonely, Mr. Bremner?"
"Yes!--sometimes," I answered.
"What do you do with yourself on such occasions?"
"Oh!--smoke and read chiefly."
"But,--do you ever feel as if you had to speak to a member of the
opposite sex near your own age,--or die?"
She was quite solemn about this, and seemed to wait anxiously as if the
whole world's welfare depended on my answer.
"Sometimes!" I replied again, with a laugh.
"What do you do then?"
"I lie down and try to die."
"--and find you can't," she put in.
"Yes!"
"Just the same as I do. Well!--" she sighed, "I have explored all the
beauties of Golden Crescent; I have fished--and caught nothing. I have
hunted,--and shot nothing. I have read,--and learned nothing, or next
to it, until I have nothing left to read. So now,--I have come over to
you. I want to be friends."
"Are we not friends already?" I asked, sitting on the side of my
hammock and filling my vision with the charming picture she presented.
She sighed and raised her eyebrows.
"Oh!--I don't know. You never let me know that you had forgiven me for
my rudeness to you."
"There was nothing to forgive, Miss Grant."
"No! How kind of you to say so! And you are not angry with me any
more?"
"Not a bit," I answered, wondering at the change which had come over
this pretty but elusive young lady.
"Well, Mr. Bremner,--I see you reading very often. I came across to
inquire if you could favour me with something in the book line to wile
away an hour or so."
"With pleasure," I answered.
"Mr. Horsfal, my employer, has a well-stocked little library here and
you are very welcome to read anything in it you may fancy. Will you
come inside?"
She looked up shyly, then her curiosity got the mastery.
"Why, yes!" she cried, jumping up. "I shall be delighted."
I led the way into the front room, fixing the lamp and causing a flood
of mellow light to suffuse the darkness in there. I went over and
threw aside the curtains that hid the book-shelves.
"You have a lovely place here," she exclaimed, looking round in
admiration. "I had no idea ... no idea----"
"--That a bachelor could make himself so comfortable," I put in.
"Exactly! Do you mind if I take a peek around?" she asked, laughing.
"Not a bit!"
She "peeked around" and satisfied her curiosity to the full.
"I am convinced," she said at last, "that in all this domestic artistry
there is the touch of a feminine hand. Who was, or who is,--the lady?"
"I understand Mrs. Horsfal furnished and arranged this home. She lived
here every summer before she died. That made it very easy for me. All
I had to do was to keep everything in its place as she had left it."
Miss Grant was enraptured with the library. I thought she would never
finish scanning the titles and the authors.
"This is a positive book-wormery," she exclaimed.
She chose a volume which revealed her very masculine taste in
literature, although, after all, it did not astonish me greatly but
merely confirmed what I already had known to be so;--that, while boys
and men scorn to read girls' and women's books, yet girls and women
seem to prefer the books that are written more especially for boys and
men and the more those books revel and riot in sword play, impossible
adventure and intrigue, the more they like them.
"Might I ask if you would be so good as to return my visit?" said my
visitor at last. "You saved my life, you know, and you have some right
to take a small friendly interest in me.
"If you could spare the time, I should be pleased to have you over for
tea to-morrow evening and to spend a sociable hour with us
afterwards;--that is, if you care for tea, sociability and--music."
I looked across at her,--so straight, so ladylike, so beautiful; almost
as tall as I and so full of bubbling mischief and virile charm.
"I am a veritable drunkard with tea, and as for music--ask Jake, out
there sitting on the cliffs in the darkness, if I like music. He
knows. Ask me, as I lie in my hammock here, night after night, waiting
for you to begin,--if Jake likes music, and the answer will satisfy you
just how much both of us appreciate it.
"But, I am very sorry I shall be unable to avail myself of your kind
invitation to come to-morrow evening."
My new friend could not disguise her surprise. I almost fancied I
traced a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks.
"No!" was all she said, and she said it ever so quietly.
"I have a pupil coming to-morrow evening for her first real lesson in
English Grammar. She has waited long for it. The book I desired to
start her in with has only arrived. She would be terribly disappointed
if I were now to postpone that lesson."
"Your pupil is a lady?"
"Yes!--a sweet little girl called Rita Clark, who lives at the ranch at
the other side of the Crescent. She comes here often. You must have
noticed her."
"What!--that pretty, olive-skinned girl, with the dark hair and dark
eyes?
"Yes! I have noticed her and I have never since ceased to envy her
complexion and her woodland beauty. I would give all I have to look as
she does.
"You are most fortunate in your choice of a pupil?"
"Yes! Rita is a good-hearted little girl," I lauded unthinkingly.
"I spoke to her once out on the Island," said Miss Grant, "but she
seemed shy. She looked me over from head to heel, then ran off without
a word.
"Well,--Mr. Bremner, days and evenings are much alike to some of us in
Golden Crescent. Shall we say Wednesday evening?"
"I shall be more than pleased, Miss Grant," I exclaimed, betraying the
boyish eagerness I felt, "if----?"
"If?" she inquired.
"If you will return the compliment by allowing me to take you out some
evening in the boat to the end of Rita's Isle there, where the sea
trout are,--or away out to the passage by The Ghoul where the salmon
are now running. I have seen you fishing very often and with the
patience of Job, yet not once have I seen you bring home a fish. Now,
Rita Clark can bring in twenty or thirty trout in less than an hour,
any time she has a fancy to.
"I should like to break your bad luck, for I think the trouble can only
be with the tackle you use."
Mary Grant's brown eyes danced with pleasure, and in the lamplight, I
noticed for the first time, how very fair her skin was,--cream and pink
roses,--tanned slightly where the sun had got at it, but without a
blemish, without even a freckle, and this despite the fact that she
seldom took any precautions against the depredations of Old Sol.
"I shall be glad indeed. You are very kind; for what you propose will
be a treat of treats, especially if we catch some fish."
She held out her hand to me. Mine touched hers and a thrill ran and
sang through my fingers, through my body to my brain; the thrill of a
strange sensation I had never before experienced. I gazed at her
without speaking.
She raised her eyes and mine held hers for the briefest of moments.
To me it seemed as if a world of doubt and uncertainty were being swept
away and I were looking into eyes I had known through all the ages.
Then her golden lashes dropped and hid those wonderful eyes from me.
Impulsively, yet fully knowing what I did, I raised her hand and
touched the back of her fingers with my lips.
She did not draw her hand away. She smiled across to me ever so
sweetly and turned from me into the darkness.
Not for an hour did I wake from my reveries. The spell of new
influences was upon me; the moon, climbing up among the scudding
night-clouds, never seemed so bright before and the phosphorescent glow
and silver streaks on the water never so beautiful.
A light travelled across the parlour over the way. I saw Miss Grant
seat herself by the piano, and soon the whole air became charged with
the softest, sweetest cadences,--elusive, faint and fairylike.
How I enjoyed them! How old Jake on the cliffs must have enjoyed them!
What an artist the lady was, and how she excelled herself that evening!
I lay in a transport of pleasure, hoping that the music might never
cease; but, alas for such vain hoping,--it whispered and died away,
leaving behind it only the stillness of the night, the sighing of the
wind in the tops of the tall creaking firs, the chirping of the
crickets under the stones and the call of the night bird to her mate.
I raised my eyes across to the cottage.
In the lamplight, I could discern the figure of the musician. She was
seated on the piano stool, with her hands clasped in front of her and
gazing out through the window into the darkness of the night.
Surely it was a night when hypnotising influences were at work with all
of us, for I had not yet seen Jake return; he was evidently still
somewhere out on the cliffs communing with the spirits that were in the
air.
Suddenly I observed a movement in the room over the way.
Miss Grant had roused herself from her dreaming. She raised her hand
and put the fingers I had kissed to her own lips. Then she kissed both
her hands to the outside world. She lowered the light of the lamp
until only the faintest glow was visible.
She ran her fingers over the piano keys in a ripple of simple
harmonies. Sweet and clear came her voice in singing. I caught the
lilt of the music and I caught the words of the song:--
A maid there was in the North Coun-tree,
A shy lit-tle, sweet lit-tle maid was she.
She wished and she sighed for she knew-not-who,
So long as he loved her ten-der-lee;
And day by day as the long-ing grow,
Her spin-ning-wheel whirred and the threads wove through.
It whirred, It whirred, It whirred and the threads wove through.
[Illustration: Song fragment]
A maid there was in the North Countree;
A gay little, blythe little maid was she.
Her dream of a gallant knight came true.
He wooed her long and so tenderlee.
And, day by day, as their fond love grew,
Her spinning wheel stood with its threads askew;
It stood.--It stood.--It stood with its threads askew.
A maid there was in the North Countree;
A sad little, lone little maid was she.
Her knight seemed fickle and all untrue
As he rode to war at the drummer's dree.
And, day by day, as her sorrow grew,
Her spinning wheel groaned and the threads wove through.
It groaned.--It groaned.--It groaned and the threads wove through.
A maid there is in the North Countree;
A coy little, glad little maid is she.
Her cheeks are aglow with a rosy hue,
For her knight proved true, as good knights should be.
And, day by day, as their vows renew,
Her spinning wheel purrs and the threads weave through;
It purrs.--It purrs.--It purrs and the threads weave through.
Why she had not sung before, I could not understand, for a voice such
as she had was a gift from heaven, and it was sinful to keep it hidden
away. It betrayed training, but only in a slight degree; not
sufficient to have spoiled the bewitching, vagrant plaintiveness which
it possessed; an inexpressible allurement of tone which a few untrained
singers have, trained singers never, for the rigours of the training
steal away that peculiar charm as the great city does the bloom from
the cheek of a country maiden.
I listened for the verses of the song which I knew should follow, but
the singer's voice was still and the faint glow of the lamp was
extinguished.