THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
“Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?” Anne
asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
“Was she a part of the story I’ve heard was connected with this house?”
asked Gilbert. “Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.”
“Well, yes, I know it. I reckon I’m the only person living in Four
Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster’s bride as she was when
she come to the Island. She’s been dead this thirty year, but she was
one of them women you never forget.”
“Tell us the story,” pleaded Anne. “I want to find out all about the
women who have lived in this house before me.”
“Well, there’s jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
Russell, and the schoolmaster’s bride. Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too. But they
weren’t ever like the schoolmaster’s bride.
“The schoolmaster’s name was John Selwyn. He came out from the Old
Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen. He
wasn’t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
P.E.I. to teach school in them days. Most of them were clever, drunken
critters who taught the children the three R’s when they were sober,
and lambasted them when they wasn’t. But John Selwyn was a fine,
handsome young fellow. He boarded at my father’s, and he and me were
cronies, though he was ten years older’n me. We read and walked and
talked a heap together. He knew about all the poetry that was ever
written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
evenings. Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
it, hoping it’d put me off the notion of going to sea. Well, nothing
could do THAT--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
in me. But I loved to hear John read and recite. It’s almost sixty
years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
Nearly sixty years!”
Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
quest of the bygones. Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
“I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills. He looked
sorter uplifted--jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
Mistress Blythe in tonight. I thought of him the minute I seen you.
And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
coming out to him. I wasn’t more’n half pleased, ornery young lump of
selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn’t be as much my friend
after she came. But I’d enough decency not to let him see it. He told
me all about her. Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
out with him if it hadn’t been for her old uncle. He was sick, and
he’d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn’t leave him.
And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
’Twasn’t no easy journey for a woman in them days. There weren’t no
steamers, you must ricollect.
“‘When do you expect her?’ says I.
“‘She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,’ says he, ‘and so
she should be here by mid-July. I must set Carpenter Johnson to
building me a home for her. Her letter come today. I know before I
opened it that it had good news for me. I saw her a few nights ago.’
“I didn’t understand him, and then he explained--though I didn’t
understand THAT much better. He said he had a gift--or a curse. Them
was his words, Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse. He didn’t know
which it was. He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
they burned her for a witch on account of it. He said queer
spells--trances, I think was the name he give ’em--come over him now
and again. Are there such things, Doctor?”
“There are people who are certainly subject to trances,” answered
Gilbert. “The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
medical. What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?”
“Like dreams,” said the old Doctor skeptically.
“He said he could see things in them,” said Captain Jim slowly.
“Mind you, I’m telling you jest what HE said--things that were
happening--things that were GOING to happen. He said they were
sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror. Four nights before
this he’d been in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at the
fire. And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy. So he
knew he was going to hear good news of her.”
“A dream--a dream,” scoffed the old Doctor.
“Likely--likely,” conceded Captain Jim. “That’s what _I_ said to him
at the time. It was a vast more comfortable to think so. I didn’t
like the idea of him seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
“‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t dream it. But we won’t talk of this again.
You won’t be so much my friend if you think much about it.’
“I told him nothing could make me any less his friend. But he jest
shook his head and says, says he:
“‘Lad, I know. I’ve lost friends before because of this. I don’t
blame them. There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
because of it. Such a power has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a
good or an evil divinity who shall say? And we mortals all shrink from
too close contact with God or devil.’
“Them was his words. I remember them as if ’twas yesterday, though I
didn’t know jest what he meant. What do you s’pose he DID mean,
doctor?”
“I doubt if he knew what he meant himself,” said Doctor Dave testily.
“I think I understand,” whispered Anne. She was listening in her old
attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes. Captain Jim treated himself
to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
“Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
schoolmaster’s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
thought so much of him. And everybody took an interest in his new
house--THIS house. He picked this site for it, because you could see
the harbor and hear the sea from it. He made the garden out there for
his bride, but he didn’t plant the Lombardies. Mrs. Ned Russell
planted THEM. But there’s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
schoolmaster’s bride. He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
for her brow and red for her lips. He’d quoted poetry so much that he
sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
“Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
furnishing of the house. When the Russells came into it they were
well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
first furniture that went into it was plain enough. This little house
was rich in love, though. The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
on. Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass. The schoolmaster’s wife used it
for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
“Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big
fireplace ready for lighting. ’Twasn’t exactly THIS fireplace, though
’twas in the same place. Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
the house over fifteen years ago. It was a big, old-fashioned
fireplace where you could have roasted an ox. Many’s the time I’ve sat
here and spun yarns, same’s I’m doing tonight.”
Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with
him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
heaving leagues of sea. Here on olden nights children had tossed
laughter lightly to and fro. Here on winter evenings friends had
gathered. Dance and music and jest had been here. Here youths and
maidens had dreamed. For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
with shapes entreating remembrance.
“It was the first of July when the house was finished. The
schoolmaster began to count the days then. We used to see him walking
along the shore, and we’d say to each other, ‘She’ll soon be with him
now.’
“She was expected the middle of July, but she didn’t come then. Nobody
felt anxious. Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
The Royal William was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.
And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
Fin’lly I couldn’t bear to look into John Selwyn’s eyes. D’ye know,
Mistress Blythe”--Captain Jim lowered his voice--“I used to think that
they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother’s must have
been when they were burning her to death. He never said much but he
taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn. People said he was
losing his mind. Everybody had given up hope--the Royal William was
eight weeks overdue. It was the middle of September and the
schoolmaster’s bride hadn’t come--never would come, we thought.
“There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
after it died away I went to the shore. I found the schoolmaster
there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
sea.
“I spoke to him but he didn’t answer. His eyes seemed to be looking at
something I couldn’t see. His face was set, like a dead man’s.
“‘John--John,’ I called out--jest like that--jest like a frightened
child, ‘wake up--wake up.’
“That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
“He turned his head and looked at me. I’ve never forgot his
face--never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
“‘All is well, lad,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen the Royal William coming
around East Point. She will be here by dawn. Tomorrow night I shall
sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.’
“Do you think he did see it?” demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
“God knows,” said Gilbert softly. “Great love and great pain might
compass we know not what marvels.”
“I am sure he did see it,” said Anne earnestly.
“Fol-de-rol,” said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
usual.
“Because, you know,” said Captain Jim solemnly, “the Royal William came
into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
“Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
meet her. The schoolmaster had been watching there all night. How we
cheered as she sailed up the channel.”
Captain Jim’s eyes were shining. They were looking at the Four Winds
Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
the sunrise splendor.
“And Persis Leigh was on board?” asked Anne.
“Yes--her and the captain’s wife. They’d had an awful passage--storm
after storm--and their provisions give out, too. But there they were
at last. When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
her in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry. I cried
myself, though ’twas years, mind you, afore I’d admit it. Ain’t it
funny how ashamed boys are of tears?”
“Was Persis Leigh beautiful?” asked Anne.
“Well, I don’t know that you’d call her beautiful
exactly--I--don’t--know,” said Captain Jim slowly. “Somehow, you never
got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not. It jest
didn’t matter. There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
you had to love her, that was all. But she was pleasant to look
at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
English skin. John and her were married at our house that night at
early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
and we all brought them down here afterwards. Mistress Selwyn lighted
the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
seen in that vision of his. A strange thing--a strange thing! But
I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
enough romance to satisfy her. “How long did they live here?”
“Fifteen years. I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
the young scalawag I was. But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
about it. Fifteen happy years! They had a sort of talent for
happiness, them two. Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened. They
quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited. But
Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
of hers, ‘I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
and make it up with.’ Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
Russell bought this house and brought his bride here. They were a gay
young pair, as I remember them. Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
sister. She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
creature of mirth, too. The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
with laughing and good times. You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
here, Mistress Blythe--and the handsomest.”
Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
a violet, and Anne wore it proudly. She was looking her best that
night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
boy’s was something of a beauty.
“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim. “I’ve
enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
“I do, ‘cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
“Then I’ll come. You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
sociable heart. He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
conversationalist. You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
the same age, I reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
“Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the
race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter
sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race
that knows Joseph.”
“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
“It’s what I used to call--and still call in quotation marks ‘kindred
spirits.’”
“Jest so--jest so,” agreed Captain Jim. “We’re it, whatever IT is.
When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
‘Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’ And mighty glad I was, for
if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
I reckon.”
The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
their guests. Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
ever ravin. The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
“They’re the trees of princesses. They’re out of fashion now. Folks
complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking. So they
do--so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
light ladder to trim them out. I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows. She was especially fond of
them. She liked their dignity and stand-offishness. THEY don’t hobnob
with every Tom, Dick and Harry. If it’s maples for company, Mistress
Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
the Doctor’s buggy.
“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim. “But I ’low that
moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
heaven. The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe. I’ve
loved her ever since I can remember. When I was a little chap of eight
I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed. I woke up
along in the night and I was most scared to death. What shadows and
queer noises there was! I dursn’t move. Jest crouched there quaking,
poor small mite. Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
meself and it was mighty big. Then all at once I saw the moon looking
down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend. I was
comforted right off. Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
lion, looking at her. Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
of my vessel, on seas far away from here. Why don’t you folks tell me
to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
The laughter of the goodnights died away. Anne and Gilbert walked hand
in hand around their garden. The brook that ran across the corner
dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches. The poppies along
its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight. Flowers that had been
planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said. “You get hold of
their soul then. Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
it. And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
tryst here!”