A MISHAP.
Mackerel Cove was surrounded by high banks, the path from the grove
above being very steep and difficult. A rude hand-rail had been nailed
to the trees to assist the visitor in descending; but the feat was
still any thing but an easy one.
As Flossy and her cousin, with young Toxteth following, took the path
through the grove to the top of the embankment, they fell in with
several of their friends going in the same direction.
Clarence saw, to his intense annoyance, Mr. Putnam take his place at
Patty's side; while he himself was forced to drop into step with Miss
Purdy. The etiquette of Montfield was rather primitive, and demanded
that a gentleman should bestow his attentions exclusively upon the
lady whose escort he was for the time being. A picnic was a gathering
of couples, not a homogeneous mixture of friends; and the young people
trooped along in pairs, with a prim and decorous consciousness of doing
the proper thing.
Miss Flora Sturtevant, however, was above any such rustic etiquette.
Miss Sturtevant, like Flossy, was a Boston girl; and although at home
there stretched between them that fathomless abyss which is supposed
to divide the South End from the sacred precincts of the West End,
they met on a common footing at Montfield; and Miss Plant was too
good-humored to show the superiority which her residence might give
her reason to feel. Flora was a cousin of Mrs. Brown, who had passed
several summers in Montfield, pecuniary reasons having forbidden those
excursions to more expensive resorts for which her heart yearned.
She was rather stylish, and her pursuit of Mr. Putnam was scarcely
disguised. She was several years his senior; but nature, having
fashioned her face so that she had never looked young, now apportioned
to her some compensation by preserving her from looking old. On the
present occasion she hovered about the lawyer, asking his help at
every obstacle, and so managing, that, when they came to the edge of
the embankment, Patty, who had been gathering the red clusters of the
bunch-berry and the silvery blossoms of the "wild everlasting," was a
few steps behind. Mr. Putnam turned to the latter, and held out his
hand.
"O Mr. Putnam!" Flora cried, stepping into the narrow descending path,
"do hold me! Oh, I shall fall! I shall fall!"
She clutched his arm, and dragged him forward so violently, that it
was with difficulty he retained his foothold, supporting as he did
the entire weight of Miss Sturtevant. He caught at the rail with so
sudden a wrench, that it was started from its fastenings. He was able,
however, to get the young lady to the bottom unhurt, although they
rushed down the path in a way scarcely dignified, nearly overturning
Burleigh Blood and Flossy, who had just descended. Patty was less
fortunate. She had stepped forward, and extended her hand to take that
of her escort, only to see that gentleman seized, and whirled down the
precipitous way like an unfortunate sinner in the clutch of fiends, as
portrayed in the frescos of the old masters. Thrown from her balance,
she sought the hand-rail; but, already loosened, it gave way, and
she plunged headlong. Fortunately Putnam had time to turn before she
reached him, half falling, half running; and he caught her in his arms.
"What a performance!" she exclaimed, laughing and breathless. "I came
down like a falling star. I beg your pardon."
She extricated herself from the arms of the lawyer, and planted her
feet on the shingle, beginning to smooth her dress. Suddenly she gave a
smothered scream, and for the first time in her life fainted dead away,
falling back again into the arms of her escort. She had sprained her
ankle badly, but in the excitement had not noticed the mishap, until
her weight was thrown upon the injured limb.
"And then and there was hurrying to and fro." Patty's cry was
re-enforced by a shriek loud, shrill, and long, from Miss Sturtevant,
who, with no apparent provocation, threw her arms about the lawyer's
neck, and went into violent hysterics.
"For Heaven's sake, Burleigh," Mr. Putnam cried angrily, "take that
girl off!--Spread out that shawl, please, Miss Plant.--Bring some
water, Will."
Miss Flora's hysterics were not so violent as to need any stronger
restorative than the lawyer's words, and she left him unhampered. Under
the kindly offices of her friends, Patty soon opened her eyes, and sat
up upon the shawls which had been hastily spread for her.
"Oh, what a goose I am!" she cried, as the situation dawned upon her.
"I never fainted in my life before; but my ankle hurt terribly."
Dr. Sanford was soon on the spot, and proceeded to put a compress upon
the injured limb; the girls standing about in a protecting circle. Mrs.
Sanford stood upon the bank above, unable to descend, but showering
down pathetic remarks.
"I knew something would happen," she said. "I had a foreboding in my
mind when I put my left foot on my right shoe--no, I mean my right foot
on my left shoe. That isn't what I mean, either. But I told Charles
then I doubted something would happen to this picnic.--Does it pain
you much, Patty? I can't get down without breaking my neck, and that
wouldn't do you any good.--Do you think she's lamed for life, Charles?"
"Father," Patty said, forcing a smile, "I am really very comfortable
now, and don't need you: so you can climb up, and quiet mother."
Patty now arranged herself picturesquely upon a pile of shawls as on a
divan, and held an impromptu levee. Flora Sturtevant persisted in going
down upon her knees, and with a flood of tears begging forgiveness for
having caused the accident.
"Don't be a goose, Miss Sturtevant!" the other laughed. "It was my own
fault--or it isn't anybody's fault. There is salt water enough here
now: so don't shed any more tears."
Patty was a leader among the girls of Montfield; and now they served
her like a queen. They brought her various rustic treasures,--red
checkerberries, long wreaths of ground-pine, the white, waxy
Indian-pipes, and mosses from the grove or from the water. Burleigh
Blood sat for half an hour breaking open live mussels; and when at last
a pearl rewarded his persistence, he brought it to her as proudly as if
it had been already set in a betrothal ring. Dessie Farnum and Emily
Purdy came, dragging between them a crooked tree-root, washed ashore
by the waves, which was pronounced just the thing for the back of a
rustic chair; and Clarence Toxteth undertook that the chair should be
manufactured accordingly.
The afternoon sped on happily and brightly. The salt breeze always
inspired Tom Putnam; and he was the life of the party. Older than
most of them, and passing for a taciturn man, because he talked with
few people, the lawyer had yet a vivid fancy, a quick wit, and a dry
humor, which made him a charming companion to those who shared his
friendship. The day, the lovely scene, the sea-air, the presence of the
girl he worshipped, and her escape from a fall which might have been so
much more serious, all tended to render him joyous; and his gladness
overflowed to all the company.
Not all the picnickers, however, remained with Patty. Frank Breck
wanted to talk with Ease Apthorpe; and Flora Sturtevant longed for the
society of Mr. Putnam. Being unable to compass their desires, the two
were forced to look to each other for consolation, and went strolling
among the rocks in an aimless fashion. Flora had known Frank too well
to waste upon him those coquetries which she lavished upon his uncle.
They had been neighbors in their young days, and had at various times
been useful to each other: they had reached a period of intimacy where
many of the fictions which disguise the true purposes of conversation
were between them laid aside, although it is doubtful if they were the
more honest in consequence.
The two strolled for some distance in comparative silence. Flora
stopped at length by a rock which the waves had fashioned into the rude
likeness of a seat; and here she seated herself with a deft adjustment
of the blue draperies of her yachting dress. "She gets herself up
well," her companion mused. "She certainly doesn't look a day older
than she did five years ago."
"Frank," the lady said, breaking the silence, "wasn't it the Samoset
and Brookfield stock that Montfield people lost so heavily on?"
"Yes," he answered, dropping upon the shingle. "Uncle Tom has a small
fortune in the bonds, if they were worth any thing. Half the people in
town got bitten on it."
"Then I suppose the bonds could be bought for a song."
"No doubt. Why? Are you going into railroad speculation?"
"I may," she said thoughtfully, looking out over the sea, and letting
the quiet of the afternoon envelop them a moment. "If"--She watched a
white sail disappear over the horizon's rim, before she completed her
sentence. "If I only had a hold over uncle Jacob, I'd make my fortune;
but I haven't."
"How?" Breck asked.
"Never mind, I haven't, so _n'importe_. If there's an opening, I'll
tell you. What was it you had to tell me, by the way?"
"I want help," he answered; "but I don't see how you can help me. You
have had some clever ideas, though, before now."
"Thanks!" she returned, turning the rings upon her white fingers. "Say
on."
"It is about that Smithers woman."
"Who is she?"
"Nonsense! Don't bother to pretend you don't know, Flora. You can't
expect me to be honest, unless you are."
"Well," Miss Sturtevant smiled, "let us assume that I do know who
the Smithers woman is. An old friend of your father, if I remember
correctly."
"Bother!" he said impatiently. "Why do you tease so to-day? Do you want
me to relate all the details of her disreputable relations with my
father?"
"Oh, no! Nothing disreputable," Flora exclaimed with a deprecatory
gesture of her small hands. "But what about her now?"
"You've heard how madly fond of her old Mullen became in his last
days?"
"Yes: it was as romantic as it was improper."
"Mullen put into her hands papers which related to my father's affairs,
and I want them."
"It is strange how that woman held both your father and Mr. Mullen,"
Miss Sturtevant said reflectively. "I should like to see her."
She seemed to become more and more indifferent as the conversation
proceeded; while, in reality, reasons of which Breck could know
nothing, made her intensely interested.
"She is at Samoset," Frank said. "You may see her any day."
"And she has these papers?" Flora asked.
"No, she has not."
"Who has?"
"Will you help me get them?"
"If I can, of course I will."
"I'll make it worth your while," he said, taking out his tablets.
He leaned towards her, and wrote a name before her eyes, as if he
feared to speak what some unseen listener might overhear. Then, in
answer to her puzzled look, he added an explanatory word or two.
* * * * *
The afternoon sun was declining swiftly when the party prepared to
leave the beautiful cove. Many of the elder people had gone, Mrs.
Sanford among them, the worthy dame having first come to the top of the
bank, and poured out a flood of directions to her daughter, to all of
which, an impartial historian is compelled to add, Patty gave not the
slightest heed.
A rope had been fastened to a tree standing near the head of the path
leading up the embankment, and supplied the place of the broken rail.
When Patty was ready, a discussion arose how she should be got up
the steep. Putnam cut it short by taking her, blushing as a modest
maiden should, in his arms, and climbing up with her, she assisting by
clinging to the rope.
"You are something of a load," he said, puffing as they reached the top.
"I shall be as heavy as mother some day, I don't doubt," she replied
demurely; "but it isn't grateful of you to speak of it, when I pulled
you up by the rope."
"You are not the first lady who has pulled a man up by a rope," he
replied, tucking her into the carriage with great tenderness; "but they
generally do it by means of the hangman."