UNDER THE WILLOWS
The mile or more of shore skirting the curve of Keyport harbor from
Keyport Village to Captain Joe’s cottage was lighted by only four
street lamps. Three of these were hung on widely scattered
telegraph-poles; the fourth was nailed fast to one end of old Captain
Potts’s fish-house.
When the nights were moonless, these faithful sentinels, with eyes
alert, scanned the winding road, or so much of it as their lances
could protect, watching over deep culverts, and in one place guarded a
treacherous bridge without a rail.
When the nights were cloudy and the lantern-panes were dimmed by the
driving sleet, these beacons confined their efforts to pointing out
for the stumbling wayfarer the deep puddles or the higher rows of
soggy seaweed washed up by the last high tide into the highway itself.
Only on thick nights, when the fog-drift stole in from the still sea,
and even Keyport Light burned dim, did their scouting rays retreat
discomfited, illumining nothing but the poles on which the lanterns
hung.
Yet in spite of this vigilance there were still long stretches of road
between, which even on clear nights were dark as graveyards and as
lonesome. Except for the ruddy gleam slanted across the path from some
cabin window, or the glare of a belated villager’s swinging lantern
flecking the pale, staring fences with seesawing lights and shadows,
not a light was visible.
Betty knew every foot of this road. She had trundled her hoop on it,
her hair flying in the wind, when she first came to Keyport to school.
She had trodden it many a time with Caleb; had idled along its curves
with Lacey before the day when her life came to an end, and had
plodded over it many a weary hour since, as she went to her work in
the village or returned to Captain Joe’s. Every stone and tree and
turn were familiar to her, and she could have found her way in the
pitch-dark to the captain’s or to Caleb’s, just as she had done again
and again in the days before the street lights were set, or when Caleb
would be standing on the porch, if she were late, shading his eyes and
peering down the road, the kitchen lamp in his hand. “I was gittin’
worrited, little woman; what kep’ ye?” he would say. She had never
been afraid in those days, no matter what the hour. Everybody knew
her. “Oh, that’s you, Mis’ West, is it? I kind o’ mistrusted it was,”
would come from some shadowy figure across the road.
All this was changed for her now. There were places along the highway
that made her draw her shawl closer, often half hiding her face. She
would shudder as she turned the corner by the church, the one where
the captain and Aunty Bell had taken her the first Sunday after her
coming back. The big, gloomy oil warehouse where she had nursed Lacey
seemed to her haunted and uncanny, and at night more gloomy than ever
without a ray of light in any one of its broken, staring windows. Even
the fishing-smacks, anchored out of harm’s way for the night, looked
gruesome and mysterious, with single lights aloft, and black hulls and
masts reflected in the water. It was never until she reached the
willows that her agitation disappeared. These grew just opposite
Captain Potts’s fish-house. There were three of them, and their
branches interlocked and spread across the road, the spaces between
the trunks being black at night, despite the one street lamp nailed to
the fish-house across the way. When Betty gained these trees her
breath always came freer. She could then see along the whole road,
away past Captain Joe’s, and up the hill. She could see, too, Caleb’s
cabin from this spot, and the lamp burning in the kitchen window. She
knew who was sitting beside it. From these willows, also, she could
run for Captain Joe’s swinging gate with its big ball and chain,
getting safely inside before Caleb could pass and see her, if by any
chance he should be on the road and coming to the village. Once she
had met him this side of their dark shadows. It was on a Saturday, and
he was walking into the village, his basket on his arm. He was going
for his Sunday supplies, no doubt. The Ledge gang must have come in
sooner than usual, for it was early twilight. She had seen him coming
a long way off, and had looked about for some means of escape. There
was no mistaking his figure. She would know him as far as she could
see him,—that strong, broad figure, with the awkward, stiff walk
peculiar to so many seafaring men, particularly lightship-keepers like
Caleb, who have walked but little. She knew, too, the outline of the
big, fluffy beard that the wind caught and blew over his ruddy face.
No one could be like her Caleb but himself.
These chance meetings she dreaded with a fear she could not overcome.
On this last occasion, finding no concealing shelter, she had kept on,
her eyes on the ground. When Caleb had passed, his blue eyes staring
straight ahead, his face drawn and white, the lips pressed close, she
turned and looked after him, and he turned, too, and looked after
her,—these two, man and wife, within reach of each other’s arms and
lips, yet with only the longing hunger of a dead happiness in their
eyes. She could have run toward him, and knelt down in the road, and
begged him to forgive her and take her home again, had not Captain
Joe’s words restrained her: “Caleb says he ain’t got nothin’ agin ye,
child, but he won’t take ye back s’ long ’s he lives.”
Because, then, of the dread of these chance meetings, and because of
the shy looks of many of the villagers, who, despite Captain Joe’s
daily fight, still passed her with but a slight nod of recognition,
she was less unhappy when she walked the road at night than in the
daylight. The chance of being recognized was less. Caleb might pass
her in the dark and not see her, and then, too, there were fewer
people passing after dark.
On the Saturday night succeeding that on which they had met and looked
at each other, she determined to wait until it was quite dark. He
would have come in then, and she could slip out from the shop where
she worked and gain the shore road before he had finished making his
purchases in the village.
Her heart had been very heavy all day. The night before she had left
her own bed and tapped at Aunty Bell’s door, and had crept under the
coverlid beside the little woman, the captain being at the Ledge, and
had had one of her hearty cries, sobbing on the elder woman’s neck,
her arms about her, her cheek to hers. She had gone over with her for
the hundredth time all the misery of her position, wondering what
would become of her; and how hard it was for Caleb to do all his work
alone,—washing his clothes and cooking his meals just as he had done
on board the lightship; pouring out her heart until she fell asleep
from sheer exhaustion. All of her thoughts were centred in him and his
troubles. She longed to go back to Caleb to take care of him. It was
no longer to be taken care of, but to care for him.
As she hurried through the streets, after leaving the shop, and gained
the corner leading to the shore road, she glanced up and down, fearing
to see the sturdy figure with the basket. But there was no one in
sight whom she knew. At this discovery she slackened her steps and
looked around more quietly. When she reached the bend in the road, a
flash of light from an open door in a cabin near by gave her a
momentary glimpse of a housewife bending over a stove and a man
putting a dinner-pail on the kitchen table. Then all was dark again.
It was but a momentary glimpse of a happiness the possibility of which
in her own life she had wrecked, but it sent the blood tingling to her
face. She stopped, steadying herself by the stone wall, then she
walked on.
When she passed into the black shadows of the overhanging willows, a
man stepped from behind a tree-trunk.
“Aren’t you rather late this evening?” he asked.
Betty stood still, the light of the street lamp full on her face. The
abruptness of the sound startled her.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid; I’m not going to hurt you.”
The girl peered into the gloom. She thought the voice was familiar,
though she was not sure. She could distinguish only a shadowy face.
“What makes you so skittish, anyhow?” the man asked again,—in a lower
tone this time. “You didn’t use to be so. I thought maybe you might
like to drive over to Medford and see the show to-night.”
Betty made no answer, but she took a step nearer to him, trying to
identify him. She was not afraid; only curious. Then all at once it
occurred to her that it could be for no good purpose he had stopped
her. None of the men had spoken to her in the street, even in the
daytime, since her return home.
“Please let me pass,” she said quietly and firmly.
“Oh, you needn’t be in a hurry. We’ve got all night. Come along, now,
won’t you? You used to like me once, before you shook the old man.”
Betty knew him now!
The terror of her position overcame her; a deathly faintness seized
her.
She saw it all; she knew why this man dared. She realized the
loneliness and desolation of her position, poor child that she was.
Every cabin near her filled with warmth and cheer and comfort, and she
friendless and alone! Not a woman near but had the strong arm of
husband or brother to help and defend her. The very boats in the
harbor, with their beacon-lights aloft, protected and safe. Only she
in danger; only she unguarded, waylaid, open to insult, even by a man
like this.
She stood shivering, looking into his cowardly face. Then rousing
herself to her peril, she sprang toward the road. In an instant the
man had seized her wrist. She felt his hot breath on her face.
“Oh, come now, none of that! Say, why ain’t I as good as Bill Lacey?
Give me a kiss.”
“Let me go! _Let me go!_ How dare you!” she cried, struggling in
his grasp. When she found his strength gaining on her, she screamed.
Hardly had she made her outcry, when from behind the fish-house a man
with a flowing beard darted into the shadows, flung himself on Betty’s
assailant, and dragged him out under the glare of the street lamp. The
girl fled up the road without looking behind.
“That’s what ye’re up to, is it, Mr. Carleton?” said the man, holding
the other with the grip of a steel vise. “I ’spected as much when I
see ye passin’ my place. Damn ye! If it warn’t that it would be worse
for her, I’d kill ye!”
Every muscle in the speaker’s body was tense with anger. Carleton’s
head was bent back, his face livid from the pressure of his
assailant’s fingers twisted about his throat.
The man slowly relaxed his hold. “Ain’t she got trouble ’nough without
havin’ a skunk like you a-runnin’ foul o’ her?”
Carleton made a quick gesture as if to spring aside and run. The diver
saw the movement and stepped in front of him.
“Ain’t ye ashamed o’ yerself? Ain’t it mean o’ ye to make up to a gal
like Betty?” His voice was low and measured.
“What’s it your business, anyhow?” Carleton gasped between his
breaths, shaking himself like a tousled dog. “What are you putting on
frills about her for, anyhow? She’s nothing to you, if she is your
wife. I guess I know what I’m doing.”
Caleb’s fingers grew hard and rigid as claws.
“So do I know what ye’re a-doin’. Ye’d drag that child down an’ stomp
on her, if ye could. Ye’d make a _thing_ of her,”—the words came
with a hiss,—“you—you—callin’ yerself a man!”
“Why don’t you take care of her, then?” snarled Carleton, with an
assumed air of composure, as he adjusted his collar and cuffs.
“That’s what I’m here for; that’s why I follered ye; there ain’t a
night since it begun to git dark I ain’t watched her home. She’s not
yourn; she’s mine. Look at me,”—Caleb stepped closer and raised his
clinched fist. “If ever ye speak to her agin, so help me God, I
_will_ kill ye!”
With one swing of his arm he threw the superintendent out of his way,
and strode up the street.
Carleton staggered from the blow, and would have fallen but for the
wall of the fish-house. For a moment he stood in the road looking
after Caleb’s retreating figure. Then, with a forced bravado in his
voice, he called out in the darkness, “If you think so damn much of
her, why don’t you take her home?” and slunk away toward the village.
The old man did not turn. If he heard, he made no sign. He walked on,
with his head down, his eyes on the road. As he passed Captain Joe’s
he loitered at the gate until he saw the light flash up in Betty’s
bedroom; then he kept on to his own cabin.