Concerning the Doynes
ANNE DOYNE was a really striking personality. Had she been born in a
different class of society, she might have been a reigning beauty, so
perfectly moulded were face and figure, so beautiful her colouring, and
so regal the manner in which she carried herself. But she was only the
orphan of a Nova Scotian clergyman, with two younger sisters more or
less dependent on her, and if sometimes the sense of her overwhelming
responsibilities made her a trifle dictatorial, she was surely to be
forgiven.
The mother of the three girls had died when Anne was twelve and Bertha
only six years old. But then Cousin Grace had been there to mother them,
and life had been fairly easy until the death of their father, just five
years ago, had thrown the three girls upon their own resources, and this
time without any Cousin Grace to bear the heaviest end of the troubles,
for she had married and gone west two years before the death of Mr.
Doyne. Since then Anne had been the head of the family—father, mother,
and breadwinner rolled into one.
Hilda, the middle sister, was bright, keen, and clever. She lacked the
beauty of Anne, but she made up for it by a sparkling wit, which, if
sometimes a trifle caustic in its tone, was at least always meant
good-naturedly.
The two sisters were a really fine pair, and they had made a splendid
fight against narrow means, uncongenial surroundings, and those other
evils which vex the hearts of girls who, having lost their natural
defenders, must face the world and make the best of it for themselves.
Anne taught the township school, earning enough to keep home together,
and out of school hours she made their frocks, and did all sorts of
things to make the little income go as far as possible. Hilda, on her
part, worked away at scales, exercises, and fugues on the little old
piano, which had been a wedding present to their dead mother. Then, when
by sheer pluck and perseverance she had pulled through sufficient exams
to give her a teaching certificate, she had hunted round for pupils.
There had been few enough to be found in Mestlebury, which was on the
northern coast of Nova Scotia, but she had gone inland among the farmers
who were well-to-do, and so had gathered a little teaching connection,
the fees from which were added to the family funds.
But Hilda knew very well that she had touched only the barest fringe of
musical knowledge, even though she was the best player and the best
teacher for many miles round. It was the dream of her life to go to
Europe, to get at least a year of study in Germany, and to hear some
really good musicians. The dream seemed very far off realization,
however, and meanwhile she was travelling long distances, getting cheap
pupils, and struggling to keep herself in the public eye, which, after
all, is the only way to get on as a travelling music teacher. This she
had long since discovered, and she was astute enough to take the utmost
advantage of every opportunity which presented itself for making her
way.
Bertha was the disappointment of the family, for she was only a dreamer,
while the other two were workers, and very hard workers, their lot being
all the more toilsome because she did so little. She wrote little poems,
in which heart rhymed with part, and that contained many references to
soulful yearnings which stayed unsatisfied. Sometimes she even attempted
short stories; but these were so morbid in sentiment, that Anne would
have turned sick at such mawkish rubbish, while Hilda would have gone
into fits of laughter and made fun of them for months afterwards.
But neither sister ever did see them, and Bertha wasted precious hours
over her futile scribbling which had been much more usefully employed in
looking after the comfort of the two elder sisters, who worked so hard
and had no time to waste in dreaming at all.
Poor child! she believed herself to be a genius, and secretly she looked
forward to the time when she should burst upon the world with a
full-blown literary reputation, without any preliminary preparation of
climbing and falling, only to climb again. If anyone had told her that
genius was only an infinite capacity for hard work in any given
direction, it is to be feared that she would not have believed it, but
would have still dreamed on, expecting to wake some day to find herself
famous.
If there had been anyone in her little world of whom she could have made
a confidante, her eyes might have been the sooner opened to her
mistakes; but the three girls kept very much to themselves, and Bertha
would just as soon have thought of standing on her head in Mestlebury
Main Street, as of confiding any of her aspirations to her sisters.
So she emerged slowly from girlhood, growing more dreamy and futile with
every month that passed over her head, until that day in the autumn when
she had walked to Paston in the morning with Hilda to help carry some
music to the train depot, and had come back by way of the shore, to find
the man on the Shark’s Teeth. It was old Jan Saunders who had torn the
veil from her eyes and had made her see that it is a finer thing to be
up and doing, ready to help where help is needed, than to spend one’s
time in thinking noble thoughts, which never by any chance developed
into works of practical kindness and utility.
And the firstfruits of her awakening had been an intense but wholly
salutary disgust of herself and all her previous doings. It was this
feeling which had sent her scurrying along Mestlebury Main Street
half-clad, and dripping with water from her swim, in order that she
might be home in time to get supper ready for Anne.
But she had not reckoned upon a visitor, and when Anne appeared with the
stranger, who was introduced as Mr. Roger Mortimer, from Adelaide,
Australia, Bertha was so upset by the thought of what she must look
like, that she would thankfully have run away if she could.
There was no chance of this, however, for Mr. Mortimer at once proceeded
to make himself so much at home and to engross her attention, that
presently she even forgot how frightfully untidy she was. He toasted
more bread while she buttered the slices and spread the white monkey
upon them; he even made the coffee while she finished setting the table,
and by the time that Anne came out of her bedroom ready for supper,
Bertha felt as if she had known the genial Australian for quite a long
time.
Indeed, as it turned out, he was not a stranger, for he had been an old
friend of the Doynes many years before, and he had, as he declared,
carried Bertha on his back more times than he could count.
“Do you remember the day we went sleighing to Micmac Cove, Anne, and how
the sleigh came to grief, and we had to carry the kids home between us?”
he asked, looking across the table at Anne, who appeared to have
blossomed into a greater beauty than ever, as she presided over the
humble little supper table, with a sweet dignity and graciousness that
would not have been out of place in a mansion.
“Oh yes, I remember it perfectly,” replied Anne, with a merry laugh.
“But it was Hilda whom you carried then, for she had a bad foot and
could not walk; so I stumbled along under the weight of Bertha, and my
arms ached more or less for a whole week afterwards, although I do not
think that she could have been very heavy, because she was always so
small and thin for her age.”
“She is small and thin now, and her face is so white. Don’t you feel
well, Miss Bertha?” asked the visitor abruptly.
Bertha, who was conscious of feeling extremely queer, roused herself
with an effort, declaring that there was nothing the matter with her
except that she was rather tired.
“Girls like you ought never to be tired, not until bedtime, that is, and
then they ought to sleep like logs until morning. What have you been
doing to get tired?” he asked.
It was Anne who answered, for Bertha was struggling with a desire to
laugh or to cry, it did not seem to matter which, so long as she could
make a noise or a fuss over something.
“Oh, Bertha never does very much; she has not begun to take life very
seriously yet, you see. But she walked to Paston to-day to help Hilda
carry some music, and I expect the extra exertion has knocked her up a
little.”
Bertha clenched her hands so tightly that the nails entered into the
flesh. A little extra exertion—what a joke it was! She wondered what
Anne would have said to have seen the struggle to reach the Shark’s
Teeth, with the rope that was to save the life of a man. A little extra
exertion, indeed! Well, it was quite true it was extra, and then the
funny thing was that she suddenly seemed to be in the water again, and
doing battle for her own life and for the life of the man whom she was
trying so hard to save. She seemed to be crying and laughing all in a
breath, then there was more confusion, the sound of many waters in her
ears; and then she came to herself to find that Mr. Mortimer was holding
her in his arms at the open door, while Anne bent over her with a face
full of concern.
“Bertha, darling, what is the matter? Are you ill, dear? You have given
us such a shock!” cried Anne, whose eyes were swimming in tears.
Somehow it was the sight of the tears which helped Bertha to rally her
flagging powers, and to keep from slipping back into that gulf from
which she had but just emerged. It was so rarely that Anne showed any
sign of tears, and surely it must be something very much out of the
common to induce them.
“Oh, I am all right,” said Bertha slowly. “I was tired, you know, and I
was so afraid that I should not have supper ready in time for you.”
A cloud crept over the face of Anne. To her there seemed no reason why
Bertha should have been overdone by the walk to Paston and back, while
supper had not called for very active preparation. But Bertha always
took so long to do the simplest thing, and even then the doing was
mostly unsatisfactory.
“She looks clean worn out; I should put her to bed,” said the visitor,
with such a clear understanding of just how Bertha felt, that she
blessed him in her heart and wondered that he should be so wise.
“Yes, I should like to go to bed,” she murmured faintly, and then
suddenly remembering all those new resolutions that she had made, she
said hurriedly, as she tried to free herself from the arms which held
her, “But I will wait and wash the supper dishes first, for Anne must be
so tired with working all day.”
There was a note of derisive laughter from the man, but which was
promptly checked as Anne exclaimed, in very real concern, “Oh, I am sure
that she is ill, poor darling, because she does not trouble about the
supper dishes as a rule!”
“Wait until the morning before making up your mind that she is bad,”
said Roger Mortimer. “She may be quite all right when she has had a
night of sleep. I will carry her to her room now, then you can put her
to bed, and afterwards we will wash up the supper dishes together, you
and I; it will be like old times.”
Bertha was drifting again, but she roused at this speech to make quite a
vigorous protest—she could not, and would not, be carried to her room
by this man, who was a stranger, or almost a stranger. The thought of
the awful muddle—the unmade bed and the wild disorder which reigned
there—seemed to give her a momentary spurt of strength. She must walk
to her bed on her own feet—she must, she must!
But Anne broke in upon her gasping, half-incoherent protests with a
quick word of common sense. “Bring her into my room, please. I must have
her with me to-night, and mine is the only double bed in the house.”
Bertha dropped quiet with a sigh of relief. If there was no danger of
her room being seen, she would just as soon be carried as walk, for her
limbs seemed to have lost all power, and she felt quite stupid.
Mr. Mortimer carried her into Anne’s room, which was just a picture of
neatness, and laid her on the bed. But Bertha would not let Anne stay
for any work of undressing, declaring that as she was so tired, it was
too much trouble to take her clothes off yet awhile.
Perhaps Anne did not require much persuading, for sounds from the outer
room seemed to point to the fact of the visitor being engaged in very
active clearing of the supper table. But she left the door ajar, and
Bertha lay for a time in a state of dreamy content, listening to the
voices in the next room.
Presently she drifted into slumber, and she must have been sleeping for
some time, for the room was quite dark when she awoke, while a gleam of
lamplight showed faintly from the room beyond. It was the sound of
voices that roused her, a woman’s tones, eager and agitated, while
Anne’s voice replied in surprised, almost unbelieving, query.
“But, Mrs. Saunders, Bertha did not say anything about it, and she
cannot swim very much, certainly not well enough to take the risk of
swimming out to the Shark’s Teeth with a rope in a sea like this, for
there has been a heavy swell on all day from the storm of yesterday.”
“Well, Miss Doyne, she did it—as true as I am sitting here, she did
it—and we towed the boat ashore with the gentleman in it, though I’m
sorry to say the boat fouled the rocks just as we were drawing her
inshore, and he got a nasty knock on the head which, he said, made him
feel downright stupid. But he was so upset because your sister went away
without his having so much as a chance to say thank you to her, so I
said that I would just come along and see how she was after getting such
a chill and a wetting, for the water is real cold to-day,” replied the
voice of Mrs. Saunders in very real concern.
“Then, of course, it was the shock and the excitement which upset her
and gave us such a bad scare at supper, when she was first hysterical
and then fainted,” said Anne. “I was afraid that she was going to have a
bad illness, poor child!”
The voice of Mrs. Saunders took a lower key, and presently Bertha fell
asleep again.
It was later still when she roused once more, to find this time that
Anne was kneeling beside the bed sobbing, and sobbing in a fashion more
stormy than Bertha had ever heard before.
“What is the matter, Anne?” asked Bertha in alarm, in that first moment
of confused awakening. She had forgotten all about her brave deed of the
afternoon, and only wondered why it was that every bone in her body
seemed to be aching with a separate and individual pain.
“My darling, my baby, why did you not tell me how brave you had been,
and how you had saved that poor man’s life?” cried Anne, with so much
keen reproach in her tone that Bertha was roused to fresh wonder, though
the pain of her limbs demanded so much in the way of endurance, that she
had little attention to bestow on anything else.
“Mr. Mortimer was here—I could not tell you in front of him; besides,
it would not have made any difference,” replied Bertha languidly, not
liking to admit that she would hardly have screwed her courage to the
pitch necessary to the telling, even if Anne had been alone.
“It would have made a difference—it would have made all the
difference!” cried Anne sharply, and her arms, which were round Bertha,
tightened their clasp.
“How?” There was a dreamy wonder in Bertha’s tone, but she was so tired,
and her limbs ached so badly, that she was only about half-conscious of
what was going on, or what Anne was saying.
“Because I have done something to-night that I do not think I should
have done, if I had even dreamed that you were going to wake up like
this!” said Anne, her voice breaking in another sob. “Don’t blame me,
dear, for I was so tired of my heavy responsibility, so I took the
easiest way out; but I never would have done it if I had known.”
“It does not matter, things happen so sometimes,” said Bertha vaguely,
and then she went to sleep again.