THE DESCENT OF AUNT EUPHEMIA
It was mid forenoon the following day, and quite a week after Louise
Grayling's arrival at Cap'n Abe's store on the Shell Road, that the
stage was set for a most surprising climax.
The spirit of gloom still hovered over Betty Gallup in the rear
premises where she was sweeping and dusting and scrubbing. Her idea of
cleanliness indoors was about the same as that of a smart skipper of an
old-time clipper ship.
"If that woman ain't holystonin' the deck ev'ry day she thinks we're
wadin' in dirt, boot-laig high," growled Cap'n Amazon.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness!" quoted Louise, who was in the store
at the moment.
"Land sakes!" ejaculated the captain. "It's next door to a lot of
other things, seems like, too. I shouldn't say that Bet Gallup was
spillin' over with piety."
Louise, laughing softly, went to the door. There was a cloud of dust
up the road and ahead of it came a small automobile. Cap'n Amazon was
singing, in a rather cracked voice:
"'_The Boundin' Biller, Captain Hanks,
She was hove flat down on the Western Banks_;------"
With a saucy blast of its horn the automobile flashed past the store.
There were two young women in it, one driving. Louise felt sure they
were Miss Louder and Miss Noyes, mentioned by Gusty Durgin the day
before, and their frocks and hats were all that their names suggested.
"Them contraptions," Cap'n Amazon broke off in his ditty to say, "go
past so swift that you can't tell rightly whether they got anybody to
the helm or not. Land sakes, here comes another! They're getting as
common as sandfleas on Horseneck Bar, and Washy Gallup says that's
a-plenty."
He did not need to come to the door to make this discovery of the
approach of the second machine. There sounded another blast from an
auto horn and a considerable racket of clashing gears.
"Land sakes!" Cap'n Amazon added. "Is it going to heave to here?"
Louise had already entered the living-room, bound for her chamber to
see if, by chance, Betty had finished dusting there. She did not hear
the second automobile stop nor the cheerful voice of its gawky driver
as he said to his fare:
"This is the place, ma'am. This is Cap'n Abe's."
His was the only car in public service at the Paulmouth railroad
station and Willy Peebles seldom had a fare to Cardhaven. Noah
Coffin's ark was good enough for most Cardhaven folk if they did not
own equipages of their own.
When Willy reached around and snapped open the door of the covered car
a lady stepped out and, like a Newfoundland after a plunge into the
sea, shook herself. The car was a cramped vehicle and the ride had
been dusty. Her clothing was plentifully powdered; but her face was
not. That was heated, perspiring, and expressed a mixture of
indignation and disapproval.
"Are you sure this is the place, young man?" she demanded.
"This is Cap'n Abe Silt's," repeated Willy.
"Why--it doesn't look------"
"Want your suitcase, ma'am?" asked Willy.
"Wait. I am not sure. I--I must see if I----. I may not stay.
Wait," she repeated, still staring about the neighborhood.
As a usual thing, she was not a person given to uncertainty, in either
manner or speech. Her somewhat haughty glance, her high-arched nose,
her thin lips, all showed decision and a scorn of other people's
opinions and wishes. But at this moment she was plainly nonplused.
"There--there doesn't seem to be anybody about," she faltered.
"Oh, go right into the store, ma'am. Cap'n Abe's somewheres around.
He always is."
Thus encouraged by the driver the woman stalked up the store steps.
She was not a ponderous woman, but she was tall and carried
considerable flesh. She could carry this well, however, and did. Her
traveling dress and hat were just fashionable enough to be in the mode,
but in no extreme. This well-bred, haughty, but perspiring woman
approached the entrance to Cap'n Abe's store in a spirit of frank
disapproval.
On the threshold she halted with an audible gasp, indicating amazement.
Her glance swept the interior of the store with its strange
conglomeration of goods for sale--on the shelves the rows of glowingly
labeled canned goods, the blue papers of macaroni, the little green
cartons of fishhooks; the clothing hanging in groves, the rows and rows
of red mittens; tiers of kegs of red lead, barrels of flour, boxes of
hardtack; hanks of tarred ground-line, coils of several sizes of
cordage, with a small kedge anchor here and there. It was not so much
a store as it was a warehouse displaying many articles the names and
uses for which the lady did not even know.
The wondrous array of goods in Cap'n Abe's store did not so much
startle the visitor, as the figure that rose from behind the counter,
where he was stooping at some task.
She might be excused her sudden cry, for Cap'n Amazon was an apparition
to shock any nervous person. The bandana he wore seemed, if possible,
redder than usual this morning; his earrings glistened; his long
mustache seemed blacker and glossier than ever. As he leaned
characteristically upon the counter, his sleeves rolled to his elbows,
the throat-latch of his shirt open, he did not give one impression of a
peaceful storekeeper, to say the least.
"Mornin', ma'am," said Cap'n Amazon, not at all embarrassed. "What can
I do for you, ma'am?"
"You--you are not Captain Silt?" the visitor almost whispered in her
agitation.
"Yes, ma'am; I am."
"Captain Abram Silt?"
"No, ma'am; I ain't. I'm Cap'n Am'zon, his brother. What can I do for
you?" he repeated. The explanation of his identity may have been
becoming tedious; at least, Cap'n Amazon gave it grimly.
"Is--is my niece, Louise Grayling, here?" queried the lady, her voice
actually trembling, her gaze glued to the figure behind the counter.
"'Hem!" said the captain, clearing his throat. "Who did you say you
was, ma'am?"
"I did not say," the visitor answered stiffly enough now. "I asked you
a question."
"Likely--likely," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But you intimated that you was
the a'nt of a party by the name of Grayling. I happen to be her uncle
myself. Her mother was my ha'f-sister. I don't remember--jest _who'd_
you say you was, ma'am?"
"I am her father's own sister," cried the lady in desperation.
"Oh, yes! I see!" murmured Cap'n Amazon. "Then you must be her A'nt
'Phemie. I've heard Louise speak of you. Tubbesure!"
"I am Mrs. Conroth," said Mrs. Euphemia Conroth haughtily.
"Happy to make your acquaintance," said Cap'n Amazon, bobbing his head
and putting forth his big hand. Mrs. Conroth scorned the hand, raised
her lorgnette and stared at the old mariner as though he were some
curious specimen from the sea that she had never observed before.
Cap'n Amazon smiled whimsically and looked down at his stained and
toil-worn palm.
"I see you're nigh-sighted, ma'am. Some of us git that way as we grow
older. I never have been bothered with short eyesight myself."
"I wish to see my niece at once," Mrs. Conroth said, flushing a little
at his suggestion of her advancing years.
"Come right in," he said, lifting the flap in the counter.
Mrs. Conroth glared around the store through her glass. "Cannot Louise
come here?" She asked helplessly.
"We live back o' the shop--and overhead," explained Cap'n Amazon.
"Come right in, I'll have Betty Gallup call Louise."
Bristling her indignation like a porcupine its quills, the majestic
woman followed the spry figure of the captain. Her first glance over
the old-fashioned, homelike room elicited a pronounced sniff.
"Catarrh, ma'am?" suggested the perfectly composed Cap'n Amazon. "This
strong salt air ought to do it a world of good. I've known a sea
v'y'ge to cure the hardest cases. They tell me lots of 'em come down
here to the Cape afflicted that way and go home cured."
Mrs. Conroth stared with growing comprehension at Cap'n Amazon. It
began to percolate into her brain that possibly this strange-looking
seaman possessed qualities of apprehension for which she had not given
him credit.
"Sit down, ma'am," said Cap'n Amazon hospitably. "Abe ain't here, but
I cal'late he'd want me to do the honors, and assure you that you are
welcome. He always figgers on having a spare berth for anybody that
boards us, as well as a seat at the table.
"Betty," he added, turning to the amazed Mrs. Gallup, just then
appearing at the living-room door, "tell Louise her A'nt 'Phemie is
here, will you?"
"Say Mrs. Conroth, woman," corrected the lady tartly.
Betty scowled and went away, muttering: "Who's a 'woman,' I want to
know? I ain't one no more'n _she_ is," and it can be set down in the
log that the "able seaman" began by being no friend of Aunt Euphemia's.
It was with a sinking at her heart that Louise heard of her aunt's
arrival. She had written to her Aunt Euphemia before leaving New York
that she had decided to try Cape Cod for the summer and would go to her
mother's relative, Captain Abram Silt. Again, on reaching the store on
the Shell Road, she had dutifully written a second letter announcing
her arrival.
She had known perfectly well that some time she would have to "pay the
piper." Aunt Euphemia would never overlook such a thing. Louise was
sure of that. But the idea that the Poughkeepsie lady would follow her
to Cardhaven never for a moment entered Louise's thought.
She had put off this reckoning until the fall--until the return of
daddy-professor. But here Aunt Euphemia had descended upon her as
unexpectedly as the Day of Wrath spoken of in Holy Writ.
As she came down the stairs she heard her uncle's voice in the
living-room. Something had started him upon a tale of adventure above
and beyond the usual run of his narrative.
"Yes, _ma'am_," he was saying, "them that go down to the sea in ships,
as the Good Book says, sartain sure meet with hair-raisin' experiences.
You jumped then, ma'am, when old Jerry let out a peep. He was just
tryin' his voice I make no doubt. Ain't sung for months they say. I
didn't know why till I--I found out t'other day he was blind---stone
blind.
"Some thinks birds don't know nothing, or ain't much account in this
man-world----But, as I was sayin', I lay another course. I'll never
forget one v'y'ge I made on the brigantine _Hermione_. That was 'fore
the day of steam-winches and we carried a big crew--thirty-two men
for'ard and a big after-guard.
"Well, ma'am! Whilst she was hove down in a blow off the Horn an
albatross came aboard. You know what they be--the one bird in all the
seven seas that don't us'ally need a dry spot for the sole of his foot.
If Noah had sent out one from the ark he'd never have come back with
any sprig of promise for the land-hungry wanderers shut up in that
craft.
"'Tis bad luck they do say to kill an albatross. Some sailors claim
ev'ry one o' them is inhabited by a lost soul. I ain't superstitious
myself. I'm only telling you what happened.
"Dunno why that bird boarded us. Mebbe he was hurt some way. Mebbe
'twas fate. But he swooped right inboard, his wing brushing the men at
the wheel. Almost knocked one o' them down. He was a Portugee man
named Tony Spadello and he had a re'l quick temper.
"Tony had his knife out in a flash and jumped for the creature. The
other steersman yelled (one man couldn't rightly hold the wheel alone,
the sea was kicking up such a bobberation) but Tony's one slash was
enough. The albatross tumbled right down on the deck, a great cut in
its throat. It bled like a dog shark, cluttering up the deck."
"Horrid!" murmured Mrs. Conroth with a shudder of disgust.
"Yes--the poor critter!" agreed Cap'n Amazon. "I never like to see
innocent, dumb brutes killed. Cap'n Hicks--he was a young man in them
days, and boastful--cursed the mess it made, yanked off the bird's
head, so's to have the beautiful pink beak of it made into the head of
a walking-stick, and ordered Tony to throw the carcass overboard and
clean up the deck. I went to the wheel in his stead, with Jim Ledward.
Jim says to me: 'Am'zon, that bird'll foller us. Can't git rid of it
so easy as _that_.'
"I thought he was crazy," went on Cap'n Amazon, shaking his head. "I
wasn't projectin' much about superstitions. No, ma'am! We had all we
could do--the two of us--handlin' the wheel with them old graybacks
huntin' us. Them old he waves hunt in droves mostly, and when one did
board us we couldn't scarce get clear of the wash of it before another
would rise right up over our rail and fill the waist, or mebbe sweep
ev'rything clean from starn to bowsprit.
"It was sundown (only we hadn't seen no sun in a week) when that
albatross was killed and hove overboard. At four bells of the mornin'
watch one o' them big waves come inboard. It washed everything that
wasn't lashed into the scuppers and took one of our smartest men
overboard with it. But there, floatin' in the wash it left behind, was
the dead albatross!"
"Oh, how terrible!" murmured Mrs. Conroth, watching Cap'n Amazon much
as a charmed bird is said to watch a snake.
"Yes, ma'am; tough to lose a shipmate like that, I agree. But that was
only the beginning. Cap'n Hicks pitched the thing overboard himself.
Couldn't ha' got one of the men, mebbe, to touch it. Jim Ledward says:
'Skipper, ye make nothin' by that. It's too late. Bad luck's boarded
us.'
"And sure 'nough it had," sighed Cap'n Amazon, as though reflecting.
"You never did see such a time as we had in gettin' round the Cape.
And we got it good in the roarin' forties, too--hail, sleet, snow,
rain, and lightnin' all mixed, and the sea a reg'lar hell's broth all
the time."
"I beg of you, sir," breathed the lady, shuddering again. Cap'n
Amazon, enthralled by his own narrative, steamed ahead without noticing
her shocked expression.
"One hurricane on top of another--that's what we got. We lost four men
overboard, includin' the third officer, one time and another. I was
knocked down myself and got a broken arm--had it in a sling nine weeks.
We got fever in a port that hadn't had such an epidemic in six months,
and seven of the crew had to be took ashore.
"Bad luck dogged us and the ship. Only, it never touched the skipper
or Tony Spadello--the only two that had handled the albatross. That
is, not as far as I know. Last time I see Cappy Hicks he was carryin'
his cane with the albatross beak for a handle; and Tony Spadello has
made a barrel of money keeping shop on the Bedford docks.
"But birds have an influence in the world, I take it, like other folks.
You wouldn't think, ma'am, how much store my brother Abe sets by old
Jerry yonder."
Aunt Euphemia jumped up with an exclamation of relief. "Louise!" she
uttered as she saw the girl, amusement in her eyes, standing in the
doorway.