It was an alluring spot, the little lane through which his path took
him. Hedged in between sweet fern and bayberry, and tangles of wild
grape that climbed the stunted oaks until their faint pink tips
levelled one’s head, it was a place to bewitch the eye and charm the
imagination. Across its shade danced fantastic splashes of sunlight,
and far at the end of its green-arched vista lay the sea, brilliant as
sapphire and shimmering with gold.
Whenever Lemuel traversed this dim, silent path the spell of its
loveliness smoothed every wrinkle from his brow and brought to his
heart a sense of companionship and peace. But today, although his
feet lagged along the shadowy expanse, the tranquillity he sought
eluded him. Instead, out of a turmoil of misery that seethed like a
tempestuous sea, there crystallized the realization that his whole
future was futile and hopeless.
What had he to live for? A few roses; a stalk or two of delphinium; a
blaze of dahlias--fair weather comrades who deserted when blue skies
and sunshine gave way to the chill of winter. That was all raising
flowers amounted to.
To be sure, he had Asaph Holmes. But even Asaph’s friendship, stanch
as it was, was not what it had been in the halcyon days before his
marriage. Not but that he was every inch as loyal. Indeed, whenever
occasion presented he took particular pains to exaggerate the
unalterableness of his affection. Nevertheless, for all his bravado he
was different. Marriage was bound to transform a man. The very fact of
a wife’s presence restricted the old-time freedom.
Lemuel had not been blind to his crony’s frenzied diplomacy, or the
attempts he made to cajole, translate, smooth, and keep the peace. To
be sure, he and Althea, by mutual forbearance, had succeeded in getting
on surprisingly well together. He would not have dreamed he could come
to regard her with such a measure of esteem. Nevertheless, he was
perfectly aware he was not her sort.
Was he anybody’s sort, he speculated. An indulgent world overlooked
his faults and even good-humoredly applauded his virtues in a careless
sort of way. But did anyone really entertain for him more than a
surface regard? Did Eric Hollingsworth rate him as worthwhile? Did
Peggy Davidson? Or, to narrow the interrogation down to a very specific
point, did Rebecca Crosby?
Ah, that was the all-important question. To deny it and beat about the
bush was useless. Rebecca was the one individual out of the entire
universe who mattered. The others, worthy and delightful as they were,
were mere flotsam and jetsam on the tide of humanity. Peggy Davidson
was uncontestably a gem of her sex; but Rebecca! There was a woman for
you! Beside her the fascinations and virtues of every other female
paled into nothingness.
What a tower of strength she was! How versatile and many sided! Why,
she was resourceful as a magician and yet withal so simple, modest, and
human. How could she have escaped being arrogant and self-esteeming
when everything she turned her hand to was done so well? Her cooking
now--it couldn’t be surpassed; you could tell with your eyes shut
just which dishes were of her concocting. She never over-salted or
under-sweetened; never used too much pepper or too little butter.
And her darning! It looked better than the cloth itself. As for her
buttons, they seemed to be held in place by a superhuman power, so firm
and immovable were they.
Then she was such a cheery person--always with something sparkling at
the tip of her tongue. She was never at a loss for words, as he was.
Strange how stupid he had become of late. He used to be quite a wit--at
least Zeke Barker and the men down on the shore seemed to consider him
so. But, alas, whatever brilliancy he had once boasted had vanished,
leaving him tongue-tied and abashed as a gawky schoolboy.
Rebecca Crosby must consider him a clumsy hulk of a man. Indeed, it
was evident she did by the fashion in which she avoided him. He could
see her now whisking into the house or out into the garden every time
he put in his appearance. What a figure she had! Trim and neat as a
girl’s. And how up-and-coming she held her head!
Then there was her love for flowers. Didn’t it beat all how she
understood their ways and liked the very kinds he was most partial to?
And her disposition! She was never ruffled or flurried, never impatient
or on edge, like Althea.
And to cap these many virtues she could see a joke!
Oh, she was a rare woman truly--one out of a hundred, a thousand, a
million; in fact she was the only absolutely perfect being on the globe.
He could, he confessed, do with less of Brother Thomas. But was not
that, perhaps, because he was peeved that another man should hold in
Rebecca’s affections a position of such paramount importance? Who
could help being jealous of a smug ghost that so proudly flaunted
his supremacy in one’s face? And yet during his lifetime Brother
Thomas, despite the halo that now encircled his head, had undoubtedly
been a faulty bit of clay like everybody else. Affection certainly
minimized flaws and magnified virtues; so did absence--there could
be no question about that. Deeply as he respected Rebecca’s sisterly
devotion, he could not but wish she would let the dead past bury its
dead, banish the shade to the background of her thoughts, and put her
mind on the present, or rather on the future, for after all the present
was well enough as it was.
Although she scoffed at him, avoided him, tossed her head and laughed
at him over her shoulder, he at least had the morbid satisfaction of
seeing her do it. That was something. Tantalizing as it was, it was
better than the future Asaph Holmes so vividly pictured--the time when
she would be far away and the sun descend from its heaven into an abyss
of blackness--that was a day that would mark the end of the world so
far as he was concerned. What was to become of him then?
What would be the use of dwelling longer upon such an empty and
purposeless planet? How futile it would be to go on living, moving, and
raising flowers! Why, there would be nobody to enjoy them; nobody to
hold them up, caress their curling petals, sniff their perfume, touch
them with gentle fingers. In fact, flowers would no longer thrive if
Rebecca left Belleport, for there would be no more sunshine.
He had just reached this dismal conclusion and sunk unresistingly into
the Slough of Despond, when, behold, down the vista of the fairy lane
came Rebecca herself! In a limp white gown that clung to her figure,
and a violet scarf that floated out against the green of the landscape,
she seemed an apparition of his own conjuring, a phantom beautiful and
unreal. Breathlessly he watched, fearful lest the vision perish. Airily
she moved along, a veritable dryad of the woodland. Then of a sudden
she spied him, faltered, started to turn back, thought better of it,
and resolutely came on.
“What a day!” called she in her full, clear voice.
“It is fine weather.”
“And the lane--I never saw it lovelier.”
With desperate determination Lemmy pulled himself together.
“A regular lovers’ lane, ain’t it?” quavered he.
“‘Hamlet’ with Hamlet left out, I’m afraid,” fluted Miss Crosby.
“However, it is just as pretty for all that. Youth is wonderful,
though, isn’t it?”
“Bein’ young is in the feelin’s,” replied the Captain gallantly.
“So they say. And yet when rheumatism cricks my fingers I know better.”
So grave was her smile and so positive the assertion, Lemuel decided to
abandon that tack and try another.
“Age ain’t so bad,” he ventured. “Folks come to a time when they’re
full as willin’ to settle down.”
“I don’t mean ever to settle down,” was the disconcerting response.
“But--”
“What is the use of becomin’ stodgy an’ old until you have to?”
continued Rebecca with spirit.
“There ain’t none. I didn’t mean that. What I was intendin’ to say was
folks reach an age when it seems good to ’em to set an’--an’--let the
world go by.” Inspired by a memory from his tangled past he seized
avidly upon the words.
“I sha’n’t sit an’ let the world go by--not till I have to,” Rebecca
announced. “I mean to enjoy life till I collapse into my grave. Brother
Thomas used often to declare that was the way to do. Why, on the very
mornin’ of the day he died he was out puttin’ in onion sets.”
Feeling that some expression of sympathy should be forthcoming, Lemuel
leaped frantically into the breach.
“I never was partial to onions,” he murmured.
“Thomas’s death had nothin’ to do with the onions,” Miss Crosby said
with dignity.
“No, likely not--no, indeed! Nevertheless you must always sorter
associate him with ’em.” Then catching a glimpse of his lady’s
stiffening countenance he hurriedly added: “I mean they must always
kinder remind you of him.”
“I associate my Brother Thomas with far more beautiful things,” was the
icy retort.
“Yes, of course!” Lemuel wretchedly agreed. He took a wild, quick
breath and an onlooker might have seen his figure straighten as if for
a plunge.
“He certainly had the most beautiful thing in the world handy by him,”
gasped he.
Rebecca turned and as he met her puzzled gaze he crumpled weakly.
Still, clinging tenaciously to his purpose he floundered on:
“I mean bein’ brother to you he--you--you were his--his sister.”
“I should hope so.” Rebecca’s laughter echoed down the lane like a
chime of bells.
The Captain mopped his brow.
“Oh, damn it!” he burst out. “What I want to say is--wall, you must
have some notion. Ain’t you got no inklin’ at all?”
With averted head he moodily scanned the turf, fearing to confront the
eyes of the coy Rebecca.
Silence greeted his query.
Ah, she was, perhaps, as shy as he. The possibility reënforced his
waning courage and prompted him to look up. He even took a bold step
forward, but the next minute recoiled, aghast.
The lady of his heart was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished!
“Now I’ve made a nice variety of ass of myself,” soliloquized the
dejected lover, dismally kicking the grass. “I was fool enough before.
But after this she’ll rate me a jibberin’ idiot. ’Twas Brother Thomas
did it. I got launched an’ away all right an’ could, mebbe, have
breasted the current but for him. A plague on him an’ his onions!”