IN WHICH MISS SULLIVAN FINDS MANY REASONS FOR DEPARTURE
Uncle Jake and his giant progeny made light of their burden, all the
half-mile to old Dempster’s. They were confident, feeling their own
vigorous blood beating healthily from end to end of their great bodies,
that no man, not dead, could die. In their experience as farmers and
fishermen, they had seen much more dangerous hurts recovered from than
any of the stranger’s.
“He’s pretty well bunged up an’ has swallered an almighty lot o’
salt water; but that’ll do him good an’ cure the bruises. Why, I
shouldn’t wonder,” continued Uncle Jake, gradually talking himself
into positiveness, “ef he was jumpin’ ’round by day after to-morrer,
as spry as a two-year-old. He ain’t a sailor. I kind er guess he was
a passenger aboard some ’long-shore craft. That wrecked stuff looked
like it belonged to some Down East schooner. I hope it warn’t Bill
Dempster’s. Now, Mirandy, you take good keer o’ this here chap an’
p’r’aps he’ll be a-buckin’ up to yer, when he’s so’s to be ’round.”
Miranda and Miss Sullivan smiled. Uncle Jake was evidently a little
more concerned than he pretended, and chatted to keep up their spirits.
Once or twice when the bearers paused to shift hands or rest a moment,
their burden seemed to make a futile attempt toward life. There was a
tremor of eyelid and lip--perhaps a slight unclosing of the eye. Still,
if there was any change, deathliness soon came again.
Miss Sullivan and Miranda ran on to make preparations.
“I think,” said the latter, “that we’d better put him in your room, if
you still mean to go, as you decided yesterday.”
“I must go,” replied the other, with a quick intaking of the breath,
“unless I can be of some service to this gentleman.” Was it her fine
instinct that had recognised the gentleman?
“I don’t see what you can do more than mother and I will--except that
you have kinder, pleasanter ways,” Miranda assured her. “P’r’aps this
man will turn out to be a sailor ’long shore, after all, and we’ll know
how to nuss him better than you would.”
“Well,” said Miss Sullivan, “we shall see;” but it was evident that in
her heart she was quite certain he was no sailor.
Mrs. Dempster flurried about and had everything ready in the invalid’s
room by the time Uncle Jake arrived. The three men carried their burden
into his hospital, while the women waited anxiously for a report. Life
or Death?
Old Dempster and Dan’l at this moment returned from catching and
feeding White Socks and preparing the buggy for Miss Sullivan’s
journey. While they were hearing the history of the rescue, Uncle Jake
came out with a cheerful look.
“He ain’t no sailor,” he announced. “Here’s his pocket-book with three
hundred an’ fifty dollars in gold. You just take that, old woman, and
don’t let Dan’l use any on ’em for buttons to his new swaller-tail.
Wal, Miss Sullivan, I guess your man’ll git well. He’s breathin’
reg’lar, but don’t seem to know nothin’ yit.”
Miranda went to take her place as nurse by the bedside. By-and-by, her
mother needing her for a few moments, she called Miss Sullivan.
The wrecked man was beginning to stir about uneasily. He murmured
and muttered names, evidently those uppermost in his waking thought.
Life was struggling to regain voluntary control. He was feverish.
Miss Sullivan gave him from time to time spoonfuls of stimulant; his
weakness and exhaustion needed this. It was a new position for her,
and she managed rather awkwardly,--more awkwardly than one would
have expected who knew her usual deftness. Once, when his eyes again
half opened, she shrank away, and when he again became delirious and
rejected his restorative and went on speaking wildly and incoherently,
mingling names, words of hate and words of love and words of dreary
despair, she burst into a sudden passion of excited tears and called
Miranda to come immediately and relieve her. She evidently was not fit
to be a calm nurse to the stranger: a fact sufficiently curious, since
her temperament was quite the nursely one. But perhaps she was too much
concerned for her protégé.
The afternoon hastened away. The sufferer seemed momentarily improving.
He had now fallen into a quiet sleep. Mr. Dempster appeared to ask the
plans of his guest--to go or not to go?
Miss Sullivan said she felt that she could be of no real service; she
was, of course, much interested in the final recovery of her waif, but
she could have news of him from Miranda; she ought not to detain her
friends at Loggerly.
What she did not say, in spite of a somewhat evident anxiety to find
reasons for departure, was that she did not dare trust herself to
encounter the stranger on his recovery, so shaken was she by certain
inward tremors, so prostrated in strength and spirits--the result, no
doubt, of her efforts in his behalf. An instinct of self-protection
urged to flight. She gave the word, “Go.”
White Socks and the buggy came to the door. Dan’l stepped forward
with a bunch of hollyhocks, pink, yellow, and purple. He got a very
unexpected kiss--unexpected by giver and receiver.
“Thank you for your boots, Dan’l. I could not have gone a step without
them.”
There was a very blushing Dan’l, a very pensive Dan’l, a very manly
Dan’l, a very like-a-first-lover Dan’l, about the premises that
evening. He doubled his fists and said “Durn it!” very often, but
always ended with a pleased smile. Dan’l was having his first glimpses
into fairyland; his world seemed enchanted, as he wandered out through
the ferns to sunset--strawberries his pretence.
Everyone was sorry to part with Miss Sullivan. With Miranda especially,
her adieux were most affectionate. These two had been engaged in the
romantic duty of saving a life.
“Write me every day, Miranda,” were Miss Sullivan’s last words, and she
quite blushed as she uttered them. “Write me every day and tell me how
he does.”
Old Dempster drove her away in the delicious summer evening. White
Socks made good play and brought them into Loggerly at late twilight.
All the party greeted Miss Sullivan cordially and gaily asked her
experiences of storm life. She did not dwell upon her share in the
rescue--some occult influence seemed to hold her back from speaking of
it--and soon retired. Extreme fatigue saved her from the excitement of
dreams, and she sank into the blessedness of a sleep undisturbed by
storminess either from within or without. Sleep and change of scene
will draw a blank between her and the adventures of to-day: but she
will hardly forget them. Mad storms by the maddened sea are not daily
events in the lives of quiet ladies of fortune; nor does it happen
to every promenader by a beach to be the point of safety whither a
returning wanderer may drift away from his death.
After Miss Sullivan’s disappearance, her companions all talked of her,
as people always do of the dear departed.
“Odd idea, that of hers--to go out in the wet,” observed Gyas. “How
would you and I look, old Clo, taking a picturesque ducking?”
“Did anyone ever see you doing anything picturesque, Mr. Cutus?”
inquired Miss Julia innocently.
“Pictures are done of him--lots of ’em by Scalper,” said Cloanthus.
“Scalper says his name describes him exactly--he’s the best guy he can
find. There--I wouldn’t have told that, Gyas, if you hadn’t called me
old Clo. You know I don’t like nicknames.”
“I wonder Miss Sullivan never married,” remarked someone, to end this
controversy.
“Miss Sullivan has not been rich very long,” said Mrs. Wilkes, in a
tone to indicate that no further explanation was needed; “only since
the death of her step-father. He had some property in Chicago which
suddenly became of enormous value. He left everything to her. You know
her own family were great people once, but lost caste and wealth by a
transaction of her father’s. After that, she was obliged to teach in a
public school for a while. Then she became governess to Clara Waddie
and Diana, Mr. Waddie’s ward. When they went to Europe, she came to us.”
“Yes!” said Julia, with ardency. “I was an immense little fool, till
then. But, mamma, wasn’t there a story of a love affair of hers, while
she was young?”
“Horace Belden hinted something of the kind,” replied her mother, “and
that he was the object. But he is very willing to claim conquests. As
soon as the news of her great inheritance came, while she was with us
in Paris, Mr. Belden called upon her. He pretended great surprise that
she was our governess and regret that he had not seen his old friend
before.”
“He knew it, I’m sure he did!” cried Julia. “Miss Sullivan and I met
him twice in the Louvre, and both times he dodged--palpably. I could
not understand why.”
“Well,” continued Mrs. Wilkes, serenely picking up her story where she
had been interrupted, “with the news of the fortune came Mr. Belden.
Miss Sullivan was in the salon with me. He went up to her with that
soft manner which he thinks so irresistible. ‘My dear Miss Mary,’ he
said, ‘I had no idea that you were here with my friends. Permit me
to be among the first to congratulate you. It seems that the Fates do
not always err in distributing their good gifts. How long it is since
we have met! Where have you been this age?’ Mary received him rather
icily; and afterwards she would never speak of him, except to say that
they were neighbours in childhood. I suspect that it was merely his
slights during her poverty that displeased her--I don’t believe she was
ever in love with him.”
“Was not that the time when he was so attentive to Diana?” asked Julia.
“Yes, my dear,” babbled the good, gossipy Mrs. Wilkes, “and she
liked him, as débutantes are very apt to like men of the world; but
Clara Waddie and Diana and Miss Sullivan were always together, and
whenever Mr. Belden went, he found his ‘old friend’ cool and distant
as possible. I don’t think Mary ever spoke of him to Diana, but there
came a sudden end of sentimental tête-à-têtes such as they had had in
Switzerland, and when he proposed to Diana to go off and look at some
picture, or point of view, she always made it a condition to invite
Miss Sullivan.”
“Ah, these duennas!” said the brave Gyas, who had frequently found his
bravery of heart and toilet to become naught in their presence. “But
who is this Diana? Is her other name Moonshine? I know everybody and
don’t know her. Where did you pick her up?”
“Pick her up!” exclaimed Julia, in wrath. “Diana! Why, she would hardly
touch anyone with her parasol, except for friendship’s sake--and she’s
the dearest girl! You’ll see her this summer, but she won’t let you
talk to her, because you are not agreeable enough,” and Miss Julia
blushed a little the next moment and was sorry for her wrath at the
brave Gyas.
“Is she rich?” asked the prudent Cloanthus.
“Of course; she is very rich. She owns Texas,” replied Julia
confidently.
“Texas!” echoed Cloanthus, bewildered by the spacious thought. “Isn’t
that a state or a country, or a part of Mexico, or something?”
“Perhaps it is,” admitted Julia; “perhaps she only owns half of it. But
I am sure I’ve heard her speak of riding for a day over her own land.”
Mrs. Wilkes was now asleep in her chair--hence, and hence only, her
silence. She awoke suddenly and reminded her friends of their early
morning start. They separated for the night.
Next day, when the conductor of the railroad train came to Miss
Sullivan for her fare, she transferred her purse from her bag to the
pocket of her travelling dress. As she did so, she felt an unfamiliar
object. It proved to be the book she had taken from the drowning man’s
hand, and, without thinking, dropped into her pocket. It had been
protected by a covering of oiled silk. The stitches in drying had given
way and the book was slipping out. She thought there could be no harm
in her opening it.
It was an old, well-worn Testament. On the title-page was the
inscription “M. Janeway to I. Waddy.” It was very touching to think of
this drowning man clinging to the last to this emblem of his religion,
and perhaps token of an early love. No doubt it was in sympathy with
some such thought as this that Miss Sullivan’s hands began suddenly to
tremble, and her eyes to fill with tears as she turned over the sacred
pages.
The book opened naturally in her hand at a familiar passage; she read a
few lines; then the hot tears blinded her and she put the book hastily
away.