THE GREEN DOLPHIN
[Illustration: PEGGY HAD HER HANDS FULL BEHIND THE SCENES]
_The Green Dolphin_
_by_
_Sara Ware Bassett_
_Author of “The Harbor Road,” etc._
THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY · PHILADELPHIA
1926
[Illustration]
COPYRIGHT
1926 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY
[Illustration]
_The Green Dolphin_
_First Printing, September, 1926_
_Second Printing, October, 1926_
_Third Printing, October, 1926_
_Fourth Printing, December, 1926_
_Fifth Printing, February, 1927_
_Made in the United States of America_
CHAPTER I
Probably the thought most remote from the mind of Asaph Holmes, as his
dingy wagon gritted along the ribbon of sand that bound together the
hamlets of Belleport and Wilton, was matrimony.
He was a shy man with only a limited acquaintance among women. Moreover
he considered himself to be well enough off as he was. His small
cottage overlooking the horseshoe enclosure of Belleport harbor was
cosy as a schooner’s cabin and within it he could do as he pleased
without running the risk of being nagged, prodded or reformed.
Just why Asaph should have associated a wife with this trilogy of vices
was an enigma, for his mother, gentle soul, had never been a nagging,
prodding, or reforming woman and hers was the only marriage he had had
opportunity to study at close range. Certainly the theory had not been
deduced from viewing her tyrannies, and from what source Asaph had
evolved it was a puzzle difficult of solution.
Perchance Hannah Dole was responsible for the credo.
She was a lean, stern-visaged Cape Codder who came periodically from
the village to clean him up. Asaph Holmes dreaded her visits as he
dreaded the Day of Judgment and would joyfully have done away with
them had they not become indispensable. Gradually, however, it had
developed that whenever his solitary existence waxed too complex and
he found himself face to face with a state of things he was powerless
to untangle, he summoned Hannah Dole, that paragon of method and
orderliness, to extricate him from his unhappy dilemma.
The feat sounded simple enough and under ordinary conditions would
doubtless have proved so, but in Asaph’s case the conditions were not
ordinary.
Unfortunately he was possessed of two hobbies: an admiration for Daniel
Webster abnormal in its proportions; and a passion for horticulture
in consequence of which he collected everything having even a remote
connection with this delightful pursuit. He sent far and wide for
flower catalogues; he invested in patent seed shakers, pruning shears,
and self-watering window boxes; he dabbled in every heralded variety
of fertilizer and insecticide; he spent his last jingling copper
for perennials that never came up. To these heterogeneous treasures
he added reels of wire, tags, balls of twine, markers, volumes of
garden lore, not to mention innumerable clippings culled from every
periodical he could lay hands on.
It was these latter intellectual wisps that complicated his existence.
He could have managed very well had he not had them to reckon with.
But as they were of a precarious nature and must be guarded against
the gusts that howled through his wind-swept abode, he found it
necessary to make them secure by weighting them down with books, vases,
candlesticks, or any other object that chanced to be within reach. He
tucked pearls of wisdom beneath the clock, behind the mirror, under
the chair legs. He was never separated from his pocket scissors and
whenever he read (and he read a great deal), snip, snip, snip they went
and more information was added to his mounting pile of knowledge.
As a result his dwelling was a place perilous of habitation. Whenever
the door opened a snowstorm of whirling paper greeted the visitor,
forcing him to grope his way through its blinding thickness as through
a winter’s blizzard. Ordinarily Asaph was a mild-tempered person who
seldom raised his voice in anger; but on such occasions he would bawl
shrilly:
“Shut that door, can’t you, you blasted idiot! Don’t you see you’re
turnin’ loose all my cuttin’s?”
Then the unlucky invader, startled by this wrathful reception, would
bang the door with a vim that did but increase the havoc he sought to
check. What a scramble would ensue forthwith, what a chase to recapture
the winged fragments of learning! Behind pictures they skimmed; they
lodged in odd cracks and unfrequented corners, sailing away as if
bewitched. Often, in the excitement of the moment, the hunters would
inadvertently release wisdom already imprisoned and this would augment
the squall.
When at length as many items as it was possible to corral had been
gathered together and anchored, Asaph Holmes would drop panting into a
chair, if he could find one not already preëmpted as a paper-weight;
but when it proved that every seat the room possessed had been pressed
into service and the interior rendered uncomfortable he would gaze
about him for a moment in helpless irritation, then sigh deeply,
and tiptoeing out would turn the key in the door and move into the
adjoining apartment where in due time he repeated the drama.
A month of hoarding would usually throw the four modestly proportioned
rooms on the ground floor out of commission and another month serve to
make the bedrooms uninhabitable; and then, chagrined and mortified,
Asaph Holmes would creep out the back window to the shed roof, drop
softly to the ground, lock up his abode and flee to Lemmy Gill’s,
from which haven he would telephone Hannah Dole to come and set him to
rights.
Hannah was quite accustomed to the summonses; indeed she looked
for them as a means of making both ends meet and would have been
disappointed enough had they not been received. It was never necessary,
therefore, to explain details or give her instructions. She arrived
with her apron under her arm, took the key from behind the kitchen
blind, and opening the door just wide enough for her spare body to
wriggle through the crack she went to work. She knew before leaving
home exactly what she would find and she invariably found precisely
what she expected.
Her only comment was a muttered: “Humph! At it again!”
With that she would start in unceremoniously gathering up the clippings
and jamming them along with hundreds of their predecessors into the
faded blue sea chest beneath the stairs. It mattered not to her that
they were gems of learning. Helter-skelter, in they went! Then she
would collect the stray trowels, shears, envelopes of seed, boxes of
sifted loam, and, having sorted the collection, would transfer it to
the destination she deemed most suitable. The tools she carted to the
shed; armfuls of pamphlets and catalogues were borne to the attic;
boxes of sprouting plants were thrust out of doors. Afterward, having
emptied the various poisonous sprays out of pails, teapots and pitchers
and scoured the premises from top to bottom, she would return the key
to its accustomed peg behind the blind and telephone the master of the
house that he might come home.
She never supplemented the permission with social pleasantries nor did
he. There was a quality in her tone that discouraged airy nothings even
had Asaph been skilled to utter them. The crisp timbre of her voice
and her scantily worded message was courteous enough but somehow it
conveyed a rebuke that caused the proprietor of the estate to shrivel
and feel sheepish as a whipped schoolboy. To carry off the situation
and make possible a continuance of their relations he habitually
scrawled a jaunty line of commendation and, enclosing it with his
check, sent it promptly away to the autocrat by mail.
He could as well have left the money behind the blind in advance,
for Mrs. Dole was unimpeachably honest, and, being a rutty creature,
never varied her charges by the fraction of a cent. But, although
he knew beforehand what the bill would be, he invariably mailed the
wage. The more formal method restored to some extent his injured
dignity and at the same time avoided the possibility of an encounter
with his rescuer. He had not looked Hannah in the face since he could
remember. The acquaintance of these two being of such limited and
laconic a character, it can easily be seen that to accuse Hannah Dole
of _naggin’, proddin’ an’ reformin’_ was base injustice. And yet so
cameo-cut are certain personalities that all unvoiced their opinions
emanate from them. Thus it was with Mrs. Dole.
Never in her life had she been guilty of uttering the assertion that
Asaph Holmes was a disorderly old fogy or framed the sarcasm that he
never would glance a second time at the litter of printed matter he
amassed. Yet in spite of her forbearance she might as well have voiced
the charges, for they breathed in the very corner-to-corner precision
with which the seed catalogues were stacked and the firmness with which
the cover of the sea chest was clamped down.
Nevertheless, if the spirited and flawless performance of her task was
intended as an example, the lesson she sought to convey made but a
shallow imprint on Asaph Holmes’s conscience, for, beyond the fact that
he shrank more timidly each time from sending for his deliverer and
confessing he had again perpetrated the crimes he knew her to deplore,
he did no better for all her teaching.
Whenever he returned from exile he would beam upon his domain from the
threshold and after a second or two of pleased contemplation would
proceed to search out the sprouting seeds and the dislodged trowels.
Other penates, too, he would restore to their accustomed haunts until
before an hour had elapsed one might well have questioned whether the
beneficent presence of Hannah Dole had pervaded the place or not.
Still, there undeniably was in the interior a subtle sense of
spaciousness that awakened in its owner a feeling of luxury and the
impulse to expand. With zeal he immediately set about culling more
clippings, mixing fresh sprays, recruiting additional catalogues even
though all the time he was doing it he was dimly aware of the abyss
of disgrace into which such backsliding would lead him. Hence by the
end of the allotted two months he was again an outlaw and compelled to
subpoena Hannah Dole.
As this cycle of events made its rotation, he resolved every time
that this visit should be her last. He would no longer submit to the
ignominy of being chided by a supercilious female. Tomorrow he would
begin to peruse, classify, and arrange his cuttings and paste them into
books. He would sort his bulb from his seed catalogues and tie them in
bundles. But the utopian tomorrow he pictured never came.
Having been born into the world with a personality of this ilk, is it
to be marvelled at that Asaph Holmes prized his bachelorhood as his
brightest jewel and in no unmistakable terms derided matrimony?
As he bowled along to Zenas Henry Brewster’s to haggle about the wood
he proposed to purchase, who would have imagined an event of such
stupendous proportions impended? Certainly not he. He turned into the
yard trustingly as a child and, pulling up at the back door, dismounted
from his wagon. Even when he entered the kitchen he had no premonition
that Fate stood jeering impishly at his elbow.
Then without warning he spied the woman!
She was, as it happened, washing dishes, but she might as well have
been gathering the apples of the Hesperides, so glorified seemed her
task.
Meantime Abbie, Zenas Henry’s wife, came forward.
“Good-mornin’, Asaph,” ejaculated she. “Why, we haven’t seen you for
weeks. Where have you been keepin’ yourself? Pity Zenas Henry or the
Captains ain’t in. They were speakin’ of you only the other day. Draw
up a chair. I want to make you acquainted with my friend Althea Morton
who’s up from Provincetown visitin’ me.”
In a haze of wonder such as that in which Adam must have first surveyed
Eve, Asaph turned toward the woman. He had, however, one advantage over
his distinguished progenitor--he had previously beheld the sex. But
alas! his superiority did him no good for the woman he now confronted
was like unto no other woman he had ever set eyes upon.
Not that she was so different in appearance, although with her bright
color, vivacity, encouraging smile, and well-proportioned figure she
presented a bewildering ensemble. The characteristic he found novel
and appealing was the gracious simplicity with which she welcomed
him. Females were wont to scent out the fact that he was shy in
their presence and make scant effort to draw him out. But this one
either failed to recognize his limitations or, having detected them,
overleaped them as matters of no consequence. Never had he been
approached with such a degree of understanding, never addressed with
so much courtesy and ease. Under the genial spell he waxed fluent or
thought he did until he afterward discovered that it was Circe and
not he who had done the talking. But he could have talked, that was
the miracle. His tongue was unloosed and to its tip came a score of
observations he might have uttered had the conversation lagged.
Half an hour later he drove home conscious that he had been transformed
into another being altogether. The silent, serene man who had gone to
Wilton to bargain for wood--where was he?
Next day he went to the Brewsters’ again, having recollected that he
had forgotten in his confusion to stipulate that he wished the wood
split, and once more he beheld Althea Morton. How full of spirit she
was! How wholesome and natural! He could not recall ever having met so
enthralling a woman. Asaph’s mental processes, however, were slow and
therefore the possibility of securing the continual companionship of
this peerless creature did not occur to him until a fortnight later,
during which interval he had repeatedly pondered on what a desirable
wife Althea would make for some lonely, quiet man like himself. How her
alert, ingratiating personality would enliven a home! Then gradually
out of these abstractions the realization took form that he was quiet
and lonely and Althea Morton might enliven him. It was a new and
disturbing idea yet withal a pleasant one. Idly conceived, it grew
until it assumed such compelling force that might became must and Asaph
set resolutely to work to possess himself of this gem of womanhood.
There was nothing to hinder the marriage, for he was well-to-do and
his solitary home stood ready to receive a mistress. Moreover, he had
neither kith nor kin to oppose the match. There was no one to object,
no one to rate the inspiration as preposterous except Lemuel Gill.
Here Asaph paused, his enthusiasm experiencing a check.
What was Lemmy going to think of the amazing move--Lemmy, who up to
the present moment had been the paramount consideration of his life?
He knew all too well without asking and if he entertained doubts he
could have them forever set at rest by inquiring, for not only was
Lemmy honesty itself but between the two men existed a friendship tough
of fibre and redolent with frankness. Lemmy could be depended upon to
state without reserve exactly what his opinion of the venture was.
Then of a sudden it came over Asaph that he did not want to know
what Lemuel thought, did not care. Should his crony’s judgment be
unfavorable to the plan it would in no way hinder it. It would merely
create disagreement and hard feeling. For Lemuel would disapprove, that
he knew perfectly well. Had they not often exchanged felicitations
on their untrammeled independence and dwelt with satisfaction on the
compensations of single blessedness?
Furthermore, his friend knew him through and through and was acquainted
with every quirk of his character--his absorption in books, his
horticultural bent, his unmethodical habits. These idiosyncrasies he
would feel it his Christian duty to drag into the daylight as barriers
to any matrimonial enterprise.
Indeed Asaph himself had been obliged to acknowledge there was
something to be said for such arguments. Having granted this, however,
he considered he had done all that honesty required and finding the
facts disagreeable he forthwith swept them aside. Much better reflect
on Althea and her varied charms.
But although he valiantly attempted to do this the thought of Lemmy
Gill would persist. It was going to be awkward to explain his change
of heart to Lemuel; to make clear just why he, who had revelled
in pursuing his tastes unmolested, should now prefer a stranger’s
continual companionship. Besides, Lemmy was sensitive and easily
aggrieved. It was going to cut him to the quick to have a third person
come between them.
Asaph frowned.
The entanglement in which he found himself was embarrassing and
unluckily it was not one from which Hannah Dole could deliver him. He
must face the perplexity alone.
He admitted it was only just, only decent, to consult Lemmy before
taking a step so revolutionary. Why, the two had never so much as
planted a rose-bush without first discussing for a good half-day all
the pros and cons of the project. But with regard to this larger and
more vital issue he confessed, after searching examination, he had not
the courage to take Lemuel into his confidence. He was determined to
wed Althea Morton whether or no, with Lemuel’s consent or without it.
That was what the matter sifted down to.
The discovery of this monstrous breach of friendship appalled and
dismayed him. What enchantment was upon him? What magic spell? It was
the first time during the long span of years they had known one another
that he had ever kept a secret from Lemuel Gill.