BROKEN RESOLUTIONS
For the preliminary stages in the making of love there is scarcely
anything that is so delightful and convenient as a small boat just
large enough for two.
[Illustration: For the preliminary stages in the making of love there
is scarcely anything that is so delightful ... as a boat just large
enough for two]
Emily sat aft in the seat of honor, holding the yoke-lines and
steering the skiff. In front of, and facing, her was Revere, with the
oars, which, impelled by his powerful arms, afforded the motive power
that speeded the boat on her way. He had been well trained, of course,
and he rowed with the skill of a practised oarsman, a long, steady
man-o'-war stroke, quick on the recover, delicate in the feather, deep
and strong in the pull, which sent the boat flying over the water.
It was a sunny, delightful morning. The breeze blew soft over the
harbor, and the water, rippling, bubbling, and lipping around the
prow, made music suited indeed to words of love and beating hearts.
Yet what they said was commonplace enough, after all. They did not say
anything, in fact, for a few moments after they had pushed off from
the little wharf. Revere was quite content to drink in the exquisite
beauty of the young girl reclining in the stern-sheets before him.
He marked the freshness and sweetness of her face, the graceful curves
of her vigorous, yet lissome, young body, and her dainty feet--the
admiral was too thorough an aristocrat not to see his granddaughter
well booted--peeping out from beneath the hem of her cool, flowing
muslin skirt before him. From under her quaint, old-fashioned
bonnet--a species of poke in vogue a year or two before--her blue eyes
fearlessly and happily returned the ardent and admiring glances of his
own. Lest the silence should prove embarrassing to her, however, and
noticing, at last, that she dropped her eyes before him, he said,--
"I'd give a penny for your thoughts, Miss Emily, if I thought the coin
would prove the open sesame to your mind."
"I was only thinking how beautifully you row, and wondering----"
"Yes, wondering?"
"How soon you had recovered from your accident, and how much better
and stronger you seem than when I had to help you up the hill
yesterday morning."
He laughed at this clever thrust, rather shamefacedly, it must be
admitted, and flushed at the same time, while he answered her.
"I am afraid you will think me a great hypocrite," he admitted,
contritely, realizing that he could lose nothing by frankness;
"certainly, I am feeling very delightful--I mean, well and
comfortable, now."
"Yet you are rowing in the hot sun! Now, I do not see how you can be
comfortable at all, and I do not believe, since you feel so well now,
that you needed any assistance whatever in getting up the hill. You
deceived me. Neither my grandfather nor Captain Barry ever do that,"
she continued, gravely, at the same time looking reprovingly at him.
She leaned back in the boat, as if the matter was decided. "I wanted
to speak to you about it before, but there was always some one
around."
"Miss Emily, let me explain," he exclaimed, filled with shame,
surprised, yet pleased, to think she should take so trifling a matter
so seriously. "You see," he added, half in jest and half in earnest,
"after saving my life so gallantly the other night, I had rather a
feeling of--er--dependence upon you, you know, the next morning, and
it seemed natural and appropriate to ask you to help me up the hill. I
could have gone up myself I--I suppose----"
"I am glad you are honest now, at any rate. I must say you seemed to
acquire the feeling very lightly."
"Of honesty? Thank you!"
"I mean of dependence."
"I didn't. I never had it before. You see, it's dangerous to save a
life. The one who is saved always feels that he belongs to the one who
saves. Now, I----"
"How do you know so much about it?" she broke in, with instinctive
promptness. She would like to have him complete his sentence, and yet,
like all women, she tried to put it off; hence her interruption. "Did
you ever save any one's life?"
"Yes, once," he replied, rather reluctantly, inwardly perturbed at the
turn the conversation was taking.
"Oh, how was it?" she questioned, interestedly, dropping her tone of
banter instantly. "Was it a fellow-officer?"
"No."
"A sailor, then?" anxiously.
"No; a young lady," desperately.
"Oh, a young lady!" she exclaimed in dismay, with a note of
disappointment in her voice that she endeavored in vain to suppress,
and which he was very glad indeed to recognize.
"Yes; one summer at Cape May. She got beyond her depth in the surf,
and I swam out and brought her ashore without any great difficulty.
Not a very romantic story, is it? Not half as much as--I mean, not at
all----"
"Oh, I think it very romantic indeed," answered this child of nature,
whose notions of romance and love and other things were drawn from the
antique novels of her grandfather's library; "if I had saved any one's
life I should----"
She stopped and blushed furiously as the natural answer to her
impetuous remark sprang into her mind.
"I will finish for you," interrupted Revere, eagerly, his resolution
of reticence recorded in his determination of the previous night
growing decidedly faint in the face of the fascination she exercised
over him. "I----"
He would have gone on, but something in her glance stopped him. With
the quickness of love and intense sympathy he divined that the hour
was not yet. There was an unspoken appeal in her eyes, in her burning
cheek, her trembling hand, her heaving breast, which he could not
disregard. He had been on the brink of an avowal. Thank heaven, he had
stopped in time! For her sake and for his own he would be on his
guard. He would not transgress again. He vowed it in his soul.
"I am deeply grateful," he went on, after a pause which somehow, in
spite of him, expressed all he wished her to understand, "both to you
and the sailor, and I hope to evidence my devotion and gratitude in
some tangible way. By the way, what a strange character he seems! He
appears to have taken a dislike to me. He said this morning he wished
he had not saved me."
"How dared he speak so?" cried the girl, sitting up in the boat, her
face flushed this time with indignation. "Not save your life? Why--but
there," she went on, swiftly recovering herself, "he is a strange
creature, as you say, and moody at times. He lives alone on the ship,
and sees no one but grandfather and me. He is devoted to me. He would
do anything for me."
"Those queer things in your room,--the harpoon, the shark's tooth, the
model of the ship?"
"He put them there. They are odd things for a girl's room, are they
not? but when you realize that they express the affection of an
honest, faithful heart, they become quite fitting for any woman. Yes,
I am fond of him, and I love those things for his sake. He is devoted
to the admiral and to the ship, too."
Mr. Richard Revere was too profoundly conscious of the vast difference
between Emily Sanford and any common sailor to feel the slightest
jealousy at her ungrudging praise; indeed, he liked it.
"So I discovered," he assented, appreciatively. "Miss Emily, you go
down to that ship sometimes; often, I suppose. Please do not go any
more."
"Why not?" curiously.
"It is very insecure. I do not see how it can last much longer. Some
day it will collapse into shapeless ruin; soon, I think. And if you
were there----" He hesitated and looked at her. "Please do not go," he
continued.
"But it will break Captain Barry's heart to have me refuse. I've
always gone."
She spoke doubtfully, as if seeking a further reason.
"Better break his heart than throw away your life. Believe me, I have
made a thorough inspection of the ship. It's unsafe. It's almost gone.
I marvel that it stands now."
"Poor old ship!"
"Yes, 'tis sad indeed. But you won't go, will you?"
"Not--not--if you do not wish me,--I mean, not if it is unsafe," she
answered, softly, looking down.
He had shot the boat in toward the shore of a little island in the
harbor, and there, under the deep shadow of some overhanging trees, he
stopped rowing, as he said, to rest a moment, just keeping the boat
under control with the oars.
"Poor old ship!" continued the girl, mournfully, as she dabbled her
sunburnt but shapely hand in the water; "when it goes, grandfather
will go, Captain Barry will go, and I will be left--alone."
"No, no!" he exclaimed, softly, all his resolution gone in the face of
the powerful yet innocent appeal. "Not alone, for I----"
"That girl?" she interrupted, meaningly.
"What girl?" impatiently.
"The one you saved. Is she beautiful?"
"Some people consider her so, I believe."
"What is she like?" breathlessly.
"She is tall and rather large. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She
has been beautifully educated, and she is exquisitely bred."
"She sings, too, I suppose?"
"Yes; her voice has been very highly cultivated."
"And you have sung to her, with her?" sadly.
"Sometimes."
"That song we sang together last night?"
"Oh, no; she only sings classical music. I think she would disdain a
simple ballad."
"Oh!" said the girl, with much disappointment, and humiliation as
well; "I suppose they are simple, after all."
"I prefer them myself," answered Revere, tenderly.
The conversation was getting dangerous. She changed the subject at
once.
"Have you made many cruises?"
"Only one. As soon as I was graduated I was ordered to the _Hartford_;
but I was abroad when a lad, before I entered the Naval Academy."
"I suppose you have seen a great many beautiful and high-bred ladies
in Boston and elsewhere?"
"Yes, a great many, indeed."
"Are they all very beautiful and charming?"
"Some of them are," he answered.
"I suppose," she said at last, desperately, "there are none of them
like me?"
"No!" he replied, decisively.
"Is it so?" sadly. "Am I so different?"
"As different as day from night," joyously.
"Oh," softly, and with deep disappointment; "I have never been
anywhere but just here. I have never seen any great ladies at all. I
have never met any gentlemen except grandfather and--you. I do not
know anything about the world beyond the horizon; but I have tried to
read and learn, and I have dreamed about it, too. But I suppose one
has to go and see before one can know of the people you speak of. You
must think me so----"
"Emily," he said, his voice quivering with his feelings, "I have known
you but two days, but I think you are the loveliest, the sweetest----"
She waved her hand in deprecation; but he would not be stopped this
time. Truly he had forgotten all but his love for her.
"You do not know what the others know; I love you for that," he went
on, impetuously. "You do not do what others do; I love you for that.
You are not what the others are; I love you for that. There, it is out
now. I did not mean to tell you just yet. I do not suppose that you
can love me; at least, not yet. There is nothing in me that would win
a woman's heart in two days, I know. But there is everything in you to
win a man's heart in one glance; and I swear mine went out to you when
I saw you holding the boat on the edge of the whirlpool, with your
golden hair blown back in the wind and your blue eyes shining with
encouragement and invitation."
It was heavenly to hear him, she thought. This was better than her
dreams. She sat silent and still, her eyes persistently averted,
quaffing deep draughts from a cup eternal, besides which even the
nepenthe of the gods is evanescent.
"I won't ask you to answer me now; but will you not give me a trial?"
he continued, hurriedly, fearing lest her silence might presage a
refusal. "Let me have a chance to win your love, if I can. Let me see
if I cannot make you love me. Won't you let me try? Emily, you are not
even looking at me."
He was quite beside himself with anxiety now. She had been still so
long. What could he do or say further? A small boat has its
disadvantages for the ending of a love affair. In all his impatience
he had to sit just where he was. He could come no nearer to her.
"If I could, Emily dear," he said, humbly beseeching her, "I would get
down on my knees before you; but I can't in this little boat. Won't
you please look at me? But perhaps you can more easily give me some
hope if you don't look at me. Don't look. I'm not a very attractive
fellow, I know."
This was an adroit move on his part, and his self-depreciation won a
reply instantly.
"I--I like you very much," she said at last and very frankly. "I think
I liked you when Captain Barry carried you up the hill,--even before,
when you stood on the wreck. I wanted to help him. I don't know
whether I--love you, but--what you have said has not been displeasing
to me--on the contrary----"
"And you will try, you will wait? May I----?"
He waited breathless for her answer.
"Yes," she said at last, "you may."
"Oh, Emily!" he cried; "you have made me the happiest fellow on earth;
and if I succeed in winning your love----"
"Do not despair," she whispered, softly, flashing a glance at him, her
lips smiling, her eyes ashine with tears. "I think it has come,"
laying her hand on her heart with a sweet, unconscious movement. "I
have dreamed ever since I was a woman that the prince would come some
day from over the sea."
She stopped again. He stared at her in adoring silence. Her lips
trembled, while her heart almost ceased to beat with the joy of it
all. And her eyes were looking far away--over the sea, perhaps.
"We must not stay here longer," she said at last; "they will wonder
what has become of us."
"You are the captain," he answered, laughing buoyantly in his
happiness; "give your crew the order."
"Get under way, then," she replied, meeting his mood.
The little love scene had put strength into his arms. It seemed as if
the power of his passion, failing other vent, had worked itself into
the oar-blades, for the boat skimmed over the water like a bird, and
in a few moments he unshipped his oars at the boat-landing. Swinging
the skiff about so that the stern would be nearest the landing-place
for her convenience, he stepped ashore, fastened the painter, and gave
her his hand. Her own small palm met his great one frankly, and the
two hands clung together in a clasp,--on his part of joy unspeakable,
on hers of happy foreshadowings of the future.
Neither said anything as he helped her gravely up the steps. To kiss
her then, even had they been alone, would have seemed to him
sacrilege; there was something so holy, so innocent, so pure about the
young girl, he thought, that he would like to throw himself upon his
knees before her and kiss the steps her feet had trodden, so rapturous
was his mood. Yet again, when he broke the silence, his words were
commonplace. The noblest word would be ordinary when matched against
his feelings then!
"What a sleepy, dull, dead little town this seems!" he remarked,
looking curiously about him; "if it were a little handsomer, and
overgrown with flowers and vines, it might be the town of the Sleeping
Beauty; but the Beauty----"
"Is wide awake," she interrupted, a charming color irradiating her
cheek, which made him sorry he had been so timid. "And awake without
the prince's kiss, too!" she added, smiling archly, in that she was a
very woman.
Perhaps, he thought, ruefully, she might not have resented that kiss,
after all.
Well, the next time would see!