earnestness, "I will take all possible chances! What I ask and implore
of you is, that if you should ever be able to do the least little thing
which would give me the opportunity to plead my own suit before Sylvia,
you would do it. I can give her position and fortune. I think I am
suited to her, and if love can make me better suited, I have love
enough. Now tell me, will you not do this thing? If you have the
opportunity, and see no reason against it, will you not help me?"
"This is a hard position for me," she said, after a pause, "and all I
can promise you is this: I love Sylvia, and I am going to do whatever I
think will be of the greatest advantage to her."
"Then," I asserted with continued earnestness, "it shall be my labor to
prove that to love the man who loves her as I do will be her greatest
good! If I do that, will you be on my side?"
She smiled, looked at me a few moments, and then answered, "Yes."
"Your hand upon it!" I cried, leaning still farther forward. She laughed
at the enthusiastic warmth of my manner, and gave me her hand.
"It is a promise!" I exclaimed, and was about to raise her fingers to my
lips when she quickly drew them away.
"I declare," she said, rising as she spoke, "I did not suppose that you
would forget that I am the Mother Superior of the House of Martha."
"Excuse me," I replied, "but you are not that; with your own mouth you
have assured me that you are an Interpolation, and there is nothing in a
social or moral law which forbids a suitable expression of gratitude to
an Interpolation."
"Sir," said she, "I think I have seen quite as much as is necessary of
the view which you asked me here to look upon."
XXVI.
MOTHER ANASTASIA.
In the half hour during which I remained alone upon the bluff, awaiting
the return of Walkirk and the fishing party, I thought as much of the
lady with whom I had been talking as the lady of whom I had been
talking.
"How is it possible," I asked myself, "that this gentlewoman, warm with
her rich blooded beauty, alive with ripe youth, born to delight the soul
of man and fire his heart, should content herself to be a head nurse in
a hospital; to wander in an unsightly disguise among dismal sick-beds;
to direct the management of measles-refuges; to shut herself up in a
bare-floored, cold-walled institution with narrow-minded Sister Sarahs;
to be, in a word, the Mother Superior of the House of Martha?"
That she should occupy this position seemed to me a crime. There were
many women in the world who could do all she was doing, but there were
few who could take her place in the world of full, true life.
When the fishing party returned, I went to the house to take leave of
our new friends.
"You must go?" said the Sand Lady. "And where, may I ask, is it
imperative that you should go?"
"To the island where you have so kindly allowed us to sojourn," I
replied.
"You sleep in the cabin of your boat, I believe?" she said; and I
answered that we did.
"Very well, then," continued she, "why not bring your floating home to
this island? It is in every way better than that. I will give you
exclusive rights over a little bay and an adjoining dell. There you can
cook your own meals when you like, or you can come to us when you like;
we always have more than enough for all who inhabit this island. In the
evening you can sit alone on the beach and think of the far-away loved
one, or you can come up to the house and play whist or twenty questions.
The Understudy can go fishing with my brother; they suit each other
admirably. What do you say?"
"I say, madam," I replied, with a bow, "the sands of which you are the
lady are the dust of diamonds, and your invitation is a golden joy."
"Bless me," she exclaimed, "what must you be out of check!"
That evening we sailed to Racket Island, brought away our belongings,
and established ourselves in the land-locked little bay, about a quarter
of a mile from the house of the Sand Lady.
Early the next morning I walked around to a pier where I had noticed a
good-sized yacht was moored. It was still there; apparently no one had
left the island. After our breakfast on the beach I told Walkirk to
devote himself to independent occupations, and walked up to the house. I
found the lady who had called herself a Person and the one of whom I did
not like to think as an Interpolation sitting together upon the piazza.
I joined them.
"Wouldn't you be very much obliged to me," asked the Person, after a
scattering conversation, in which I suppose I appeared as but a
perfunctory performer, "if I were to go away and leave you alone with
this lady?"
"As this is an island of plain speaking," I replied, "I will say, yes."
Both ladies laughed, and the Person retired to her hammock.
"Now, then," asked Mother Anastasia, "what is the meaning of this
alarming frankness?"
"I wish to talk to you of Sylvia," I answered.
"If you imagine," she said, "that I intend to spend the short time I
shall remain upon this island in talking of Sylvia, you are very much
mistaken."
"Then let us talk of yourself," I replied.
She turned upon me with a frown and a laugh.
"If I had known," she said, "your habits of ingenuousness and candor, I
should have made you dictate to Sylvia through a speaking-tube. You have
known me less than a day. You have known her for a month. Can it be
possible that you talk to her as freely as you talk to me?"
"Madam," I exclaimed, "I love Sylvia, and therefore could not speak
freely to her."
"Your distinctions are wonderfully clear-cut," she said; "but why do you
wish to talk of me? I suppose you want to know why I am Mother Superior
of the House of Martha?"
"Yes," I answered, "that is a thing I cannot understand; but of course I
should not feel justified in even alluding to it if, yesterday, you had
not so kindly given me your confidence in regard to yourself and
Sylvia."
"It seems to me," she remarked, "that, as you decline to recognize the
name given to that young woman by our institution, you should call her
Miss Raynor; but I will say no more of that."
"It would be well," said I. "She is Sylvia to me. You must remember that
I never met her in the circles of conventionalism."
She laughed. "This whole affair is certainly very independent of
conventionalism; and as to your curiosity about me, that is very easily
gratified. Nearly five years ago I connected myself with the House of
Martha. Although there were sisters older than myself, I was chosen
Mother Superior, because I possessed rather more administrative
abilities than any of the others. I think I have governed the House
fairly well, even if, in regard to the matter of furnishing secretaries
to literary men, there has been some dissatisfaction."
"You allude to Sister Sarah?" said I.
"Yes," she answered; "and had she been head of the House, your peace of
mind would not have been disturbed. But what I did in that case I did
conscientiously and with good intent."
"And you are not sorry for it?" I asked.
"It may be that I shall be sorry for you," she replied, "but that is all
I have to say on that point. In a very short time I shall return to my
duties and to my sombre bonnet and gown, and these interpolated days,
which in a manner have been forced upon me, should be forgotten."
"But one thing you must not forget," I exclaimed: "it was in this time
that you promised me"--
"You selfish, selfish man," she interrupted, "you think only of
yourself. I shall talk no more of yourself, of myself, or of Sylvia. My
friends are at the other side of the house, and I am going to them." And
she went.
While Walkirk and I were sailing that afternoon, he managing the boat
and I stretched upon some cushions, I told him of my conversations with
Mother Anastasia. I considered him worthy of my confidence, and it was
pleasant to give it to him.
"She is a rare, strange woman," said he. "I thought her very handsome
when I visited her at the House of Martha; but since I have seen her
here, dressed in becoming clothes, I consider that she possesses
phenomenal attractions."
"And I hope," I remarked, "that she may be phenomenally good-natured,
and give me some chances of seeing Sylvia Raynor."
"That would indeed be phenomenal," said Walkirk, laughing, "considering
that she is a Mother Superior, and the young lady is a member of the
sisterhood. But everything relating to the case is peculiar, and in my
opinion Mother Anastasia is more peculiar than anything else."
That evening we were invited to dine at the house of the Sand Lady. It
was a delightful occasion. Everybody was in good spirits, and the
general tone of the conversation was singularly lively and unrestrained.
Mother Anastasia would not play cards, but we amused ourselves with
various sprightly social games, in which the lady who preferred to be
called a Person showed a vivacious though sometimes nipping wit. I had
no opportunity for further private talk with Mother Anastasia, nor did I
desire one. I wished to interest her in my love for Sylvia, but not to
bore her with it.
The next day, at about eleven o'clock, the Sand Lady and the Shell Man
walked over to our little bay, where they found Walkirk and me fencing
upon the level beach.
"Stop your duel, gentlemen," said the lady. "I come to give you the
farewells of the Interpolation. She was sorry she could not do this
herself, but she went away very early this morning."
"Went away!" I cried, dropping my foil upon the sand. "Where did she
go?"
"She sailed in our yacht for Sanford," answered the Sand Lady, "to take
the morning train for her beloved House of Martha. My brother
accompanied her to the town, but he will be back to-day."
I was surprised and grieved, and showed it.
"We are all sorry to have her go," said the Sand Lady, "and sorry to see
her wearing that doleful gray garb, which my brother allowed her to
assume this morning."
"I am glad," I exclaimed, "that I did not see her in it!"
The lady looked at me with her pleasant, quiet smile.
"You seem very much interested in her."
"I am," I replied, "very much interested, both directly and indirectly,
and I am exceedingly sorry that she departed without my knowing it."
This time the Sand Lady laughed. "Good-morning, gentlemen," said she.
"Go on with your duel."
XXVII.
A PERSON.
I fenced no more. "Walkirk," I cried, "let us get our traps on board,
and be off!"
My under-study looked troubled,--more troubled than I had ever seen him
before.
"Why do you think of this?" he asked. "Where do you propose to go?"
"Home," said I, "to my own house. That is the place where I want to be."
Walkirk stood still and looked at me, his face still wearing an air of
deep concern.
"It is not my place to advise," he said, "but it seems to me that your
return at this moment would have a very odd appearance, to say the
least. Every one would think that you were pursuing Mother Anastasia,
and she herself would think so."
"No," said I, "she will not suppose anything of the kind. She will know
very well on whose account I came. And as for the people here, they
might labor under a mistake at first, because of course I should not
offer them any explanation, but they would soon learn the real state of
the case; that is, if they correspond with the Mother Superior."
"You propose, then," said Walkirk, "to lay siege to the House of Martha,
and to carry away, if you can, Miss Sylvia Raynor?"
"I have made no plans," I answered, "but I can look after my interests
better in Arden than I can here. I do not like this sudden departure of
the Mother Superior. I very much fear that something has induced her to
withdraw the good will with which she previously seemed to look upon my
attachment to Miss Raynor. Were this not so, she would have advised with
me before she left. Nothing could have been more natural. Now I believe
she has set herself against me, and has gone away with the intention of
permanently separating Sylvia and myself."
"Have you any reason," asked Walkirk, "to impute such an intention to
her?"
"Her sudden flight indicates it," I replied; "and besides, you know,
although she is not a Roman Catholic, she is at the head of a religious
house, and persons in that position are naturally averse to anybody
marrying the sisters under their charge. Even if she does not approve of
Miss Raynor's remaining in the House, she may not want her to date a
love affair from the establishment. If I remain here, Miss Raynor may be
spirited entirely out of my sphere of action."
"It strikes me," said Walkirk, "the way to get her spirited out of your
sight and knowledge is for you to go home at this juncture. In that
case, Mother Anastasia would be bound, in duty to the young lady and her
family, to send her away. Do you not agree with me that if you were to
reach Arden in the natural course of events, so to speak, and especially
if you got there after your grandmother had returned, you would avoid a
great deal of undesirable complication, and perhaps actual opposition?"
"You are right," I answered; "it would not look well for me to start
away so suddenly. We will wait a day or two, and then drop off
naturally."
Walking toward the house, in the afternoon, I met the Person. She
advanced toward me, holding out her hand with an air of peremptory
friendliness.
"I am heartily glad to see you. I want you to amuse me. I could not ask
this of you so long as that fascinating abbess was on the island."
I was a little surprised at this salutation, and not at all pleased. I
did not fancy this lady. She had an air as if she were availing herself
of her right to be familiar with her inferiors.
"I fear it is not in my power to do anything to amuse you," said I.
"Entirely too modest," she answered. "Let us walk over to this bench in
the shade. You are not desired at the house; everybody is taking a nap."
I went with her to the bench she had pointed out, and we sat down.
"Now, then," said she, turning toward me, "will you do me the favor to
flirt with me? Say for twenty-five minutes," looking at her watch; "that
will bring us to four o'clock, when I must go indoors."
At first I thought the woman was insane, but a glance at her face showed
that there was no reason for fear of that kind.
"That sounds crazy, doesn't it?" she asked, "but it isn't. It is an
honest expression of a very natural wish. Hundreds of ladies have
doubtless looked at you and had that wish; but social conventions
forbade their expressing it. Here we have no conventions, and I speak my
mind."
"Madam," said I, "or miss, there are few things I hold in such
abhorrence as flirtation." As I said this I looked at her severely, and
she looked at me quizzically. She had gray eyes, which were capable of a
great variety of expressions, and her face, suffused by the light of a
bantering jocularity, was an attractive one. I was obliged to admit
this, in spite of my distaste for her.
"I like that," she said; "it sounds so well, after your vigorous
flirtation with our abbess. If I had not seen a good deal of that, I
should not have dared to ask you to flirt with me. I thought you liked
it, and now that she is gone might be willing to take up with some one
else."
I was irritated and disquieted. I had been very earnest in my attentions
to Mother Anastasia. Perhaps this lady had seen me attempt to kiss her
hand. I must set myself right.
"You are utterly mistaken," said I. "What I had to say to Mother
Anastasia related entirely to another person."
"One of the sisters in her institution?" she asked. "She had nothing to
do with any other persons, so far as I know. Truly, that is a capital
idea!" she exclaimed, without waiting for response from me. "In order to
flirt with a member of the sisterhood, a gentleman must direct his
attentions to the Mother Superior who represents them, and the flirting
is thus done by proxy. Now don't attempt to correct me. The idea is
entirely too delightful for me to allow it to be destroyed by any bare
statements or assertions."
"I suppose," I answered, "that Mother Anastasia has taken you into her
confidence?"
"Thank you very much for that most gratifying testimony to my powers of
insight!" she cried. "The Mother Superior gave me no confidences. So you
have been smitten by a gray-gown. How did you happen to become
acquainted with her? I do not imagine they allow gentleman visitors at
the House of Martha?"
"Madam, you know, or assume to know, so much of my affairs," said I,
"that in order to prevent injurious conjectures regarding the House of
Martha, its officers and inmates, I shall say that I became acquainted
in a perfectly legitimate manner with a young lady living therein, who
has not yet taken the vows of the permanent sisterhood, and I intend, as
soon as circumstances will permit, to make her an offer of marriage. I
assure you, I regret extremely that I have been obliged to talk in this
way to a stranger, and nothing could have induced me to do it but the
fear that your conjectures and surmises might make trouble. I ask as a
right that you will say no more of the matter to any one."
"Would you mind telling me the lady's name?" she asked.
"Of course I shall do no such thing," I answered, rising from my seat,
with my face flushing with indignation.
"This is odd flirting, isn't it?" said she, still retaining her
seat,--"a quarrel at the very outset. I shall not be prevented from
informing you why you ought to tell me the name of the lady. You see
that if you don't give me her name my ungovernable curiosity will set me
to working the matter out for myself, and it is quite as likely as not
that I shall go to the House of Martha, and ask questions, and pry, and
watch, and make no end of trouble. If a blooming bride is to be picked
from that flock of ash-colored gruel-mixers, I want to know who it is to
be. I used to be acquainted with a good many of them, but I haven't
visited the House for some time."
I had never known any one assume toward me a position so unjustifiable
and so unseemly as that in which this lady had deliberately placed
herself. I could find no words to express my opinion of her conduct, and
was on the point of walking away, when she rose and quickly stepped to
my side.
"Don't go away angry," she said. "On this island we don't get angry; it
is too conventional. I am bound to find out all about this affair,
because it interests me. It is something quite out of the common; and
although you are in a measure right in saying that I have nothing to do
with your affairs, you must know you have in a measure mixed yourself up
with my affairs. I am one of the original subscribers to the House of
Martha, and used to take a good deal of interest in the establishment,
as was my right and privilege; but the sisters bored me after a time,
and as I have been traveling in Europe for more than a year I now know
very little of what has been going on there. But if there is a young
woman in that House who prefers marriage to hospital life and
tailor-made costumes to ash-bags, I say that she has mistaken her
vocation, and ought to be helped out of it; and although I know you to
be a pretty peppery gentleman, I am perfectly willing to help her in
your direction, if that is the way she wants to go. I offer myself to
you as an ally. Take me on your side, and tell me all about it. It would
be perfectly ridiculous to let me go down there imagining that this or
that underdone-griddle-cake-faced young woman was your lady-love. I
might make mistakes, and do more harm than good."
"Madam," I replied, "let us have done with this. I have never said one
word to the young lady in question of my feelings toward her, and it is
in the highest degree improper and unjust that she should be discussed
in connection with them. I have laid the matter before Mother Anastasia,
as she stands in position of parent to the young lady; but with no one
else can I possibly act, or even discuss the subject," and I bowed.
"I don't like this," she said, without noticing that I had taken leave
of her. "Mother Anastasia did not intend to leave here until to-morrow,
and she went away early this morning. She has some pressing business on
hand, and ten chances to one she has gone to fillip your young lady out
of your sight and hearing. Don't you see that it would not look at all
well for one of her sisters to marry, or even to receive the attentions
of a gentleman, immediately after she had left the institution?"
This suggestion, so like my own suspicions, greatly disturbed me.
"Are you in earnest," said I, "or is all this chaffer? What reasonable
interest can you take in me and my affairs?"
"I take no interest whatever," said she, "excepting that I have heard
you are both eccentric and respectable, and that I have found you
amusing, and in this class of people I am always interested. But I will
say to you that if there is a woman in that House who might make a
suitable and satisfactory marriage, if an opportunity were allowed her,
I believe she should be allowed the opportunity, and, acting upon
general principles of justice and a desire to benefit my fellow-mortals,
I should use my influence to give it to her. So you see that I should
really be acting for the girl, and not for you, although of course it
would amount to the same thing. And if Mother Anastasia has gone to pull
down the curtain on this little drama, I am all the more anxious to jerk
it up again. Come, now, Mr. Lover in Check,--and when I first heard your
name I had no idea how well it fitted,--confide in me. It would delight
me to be in this fight; and you can see for yourself that it would be a
very humdrum matter for me to join your opponents, even if I should be
of their opinion. They do not need my help."
This argument touched me. I needed help. Should Mother Anastasia choose
to close the doors of the House of Martha against me, what could I do?
It might divert this lady to act on my behalf. If she procured an
interview for me with Sylvia, I would ask no more of her. There was
nothing to risk except that Sylvia might be offended if she heard that
she had been the object of compacts. But something must be risked,
otherwise I might be simply butting my head against monastic brickwork.
"Madam," said I, "whatever your motives may be, I accept your offer to
fight on my side, and the sooner the battle begins the better. The young
lady to whom I wish to offer myself in marriage, and with whom I am most
eager to meet, is Miss Sylvia Raynor, a novice, or something of the
kind, in the House of Martha."
With her brows slightly knitted, as if she did not exactly understand my
words, my companion looked at me for an instant. Then her eyes sparkled,
her lips parted, and a flush of quick comprehension passed over her
face. She put back her head and laughed until she almost lost her
breath. I looked upon her, shocked and wounded to the soul.
"Pardon me," she said, her eyes filled with the tears of laughter, "but
it can't be helped; I withdraw my offer. I cannot be on your side, at
least just now. But I shall remain neutral,--you can count on that,"
and, still laughing, she went her way.
Any one more disagreeably unpleasant than this woman I had never met.
When I told Walkirk what had happened I could not restrain my burning
indignation, and I declared I would not remain another hour on the
island with her. He listened to me with grave concern.
"This is very unfortunate," he said, "but do not let us be precipitate."
XXVIII.
THE FLOATING GROCERY.
I now positively decided that the next day I would leave this island,
where people flew off at such disagreeable tangents; but as I was here
on invitation, I could not go away without taking leave of my hostess.
Accordingly, in the evening Walkirk and I went up to the house.
The Sand Lady was manifestly grieved when she heard of our intended
departure, and her brother was quite demonstrative in his expressions of
regret; even the Shell Man, who had discovered in Walkirk some tastes
similar to his own, demurred at our going. The Person, however, made no
allusion to the subject, and gave us, indeed, as little of her society
as she apparently did of her thoughts.
In order not to produce the impression that I was running after Mother
Anastasia, as Walkirk had put it, I announced that we should continue
our cruise for an indefinite time. I was sorry to leave these good
people, but to stay with that mocking enigma of a woman was impossible.
She had possessed herself, in the most crafty and unwarrantable manner,
of information which she had no right to receive and I had no right to
give, and then contemptuously laughed in my face. My weakness may have
deserved the contempt, but that made no difference in my opinion of the
woman who had inflicted it upon me. I was glad, when we bade good-night
and farewell to the little party, that the Person was not present.