"Is there a kiss on those fingers?" I cried, in a blaze. "He never
kissed my hands or my lips. Dan is your husband, Faith!"
For all answer Faith hid her head and gave a little moan. Somehow I
couldn't stand that; so I ran and put my arms round her neck and lifted
her face and kissed it, and then we cried together. And Dan, walking the
floor, took up his hat and went out, while she never cast a look after
him. To think of such a great strong nature and such a powerful depth of
feeling being wasted on such a little limp rag! I cried as much for that
as anything. Then I helped Faith into my bedroom, and running home, I
got her some dry clothes,--after rummaging enough, dear knows! for you'd
be more like to find her nightcap in the tea-caddy than elsewhere,--and
I made her a corner on the settle, for she was afraid to stay in the
bedroom, and when she was comfortably covered there she fell asleep.
Dan came in soon and sat down beside her, his eyes on the floor, never
glancing aside nor smiling, but gloomier than the grave. As for me, I
felt at ease now, so I went and laid my hand on the back of his chair
and made him look up. I wanted he should know the same rest that I
had, and perhaps he did,--for, still looking up, the quiet smile came
floating round his lips, and his eyes grew steady and sweet as they used
to be before he married Faith. Then I went bustling lightly about the
kitchen again.
"Dan," I said, "if you'd just bring me in a couple of those chickens
stalking out there like two gentlemen from Spain."
While he was gone I flew round and got a cake into the bake-kettle, and
a pan of biscuit down before the fire; and I set the tea to steep on the
coals, because father always likes his tea strong enough to bear up an
egg, after a hard day's work, and he'd had that to-day; and I put on the
coffee to boil, for I knew Dan never had it at home, because Faith liked
it and it didn't agree with her. And then he brought me in the chickens
all ready for the pot, and so at last I sat down, but at the opposite
side of the chimney. Then he rose, and, without exactly touching me,
swept me back to the other side, where lay the great net I was making
for father; and I took the little stool by the settle, and not far from
him, and went to work.
"Georgie," said Dan, at length, after he'd watched me a considerable
time, "if any word I may have said to-day disturbed you a moment, I want
you to know that it hurt me first, and just as much."
"Yes, Dan," said I.
I've always thought there was something real noble between Dan and me
then. There was I,--well, I don't mind telling you. And he,--yes, I'm
sure he loved me perfectly,--you mustn't be startled, I'll tell you how
it was,--and always had, only maybe he hadn't known it; but it was deep
down in his heart just the same, and by-and-by it stirred. There we
were, both of us thoroughly conscious, yet neither of us expressing it
by a word, and trying not to by a look,--both of us content to wait for
the next life, when we could belong to one another. In those days I
contrived to have it always pleasure enough for me just to know that Dan
was in the room; and though that wasn't often, I never grudged Faith her
right in him, perhaps because I knew she didn't care anything about it.
You see, this is how it was.
When Dan was a lad of sixteen, and took care of his mother, a ship went
to pieces down there on the island. It was one of the worst storms that
ever whistled, and though crowds were on the shore, it was impossible to
reach her. They could see the poor wretches hanging in the rigging, and
dropping one by one, and they could only stay and sicken, for the surf
stove the boats, and they didn't know then how to send out ropes on
rockets or on cannon-balls, and so the night fell, and the people wrung
their hands and left the sea to its prey, and felt as if blue sky could
never come again. And with the bright, keen morning not a vestige of the
ship, but here a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill
a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept warm all night.
Dan, he'd got up at turn of tide, and walked down,--the sea running over
the road knee-deep,--for there was too much swell for boats; and when
day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He
didn't take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very
finest,--made as delicately,--with seams like the hair-strokes on that
heart's-ease there; and he concluded that he couldn't bring her up as
she ought to be. So he took her round to the rich men, and represented
that she was the child of a lady, and that a poor fellow like
himself--for Dan was older than his years, you see--couldn't do her
justice: she was a slight little thing, and needed dainty training
and fancy food, maybe a matter of seven years old, and she spoke some
foreign language, and perhaps she didn't speak it plain, for nobody knew
what it was. However, everybody was very much interested, and everybody
was willing to give and to help, but nobody wanted to take her, and the
upshot of it was that Dan refused all their offers and took her himself.
His mother'd been in to our house all the afternoon before, and she'd
kept taking her pipe out of her mouth,--she had the asthma, and
smoked,--and kept sighing.
"This storm's going to bring me something," says she, in a mighty
miserable tone. "I'm sure of it!"
"No harm, I hope, Miss Devereux," said mother.
"Well, Rhody,"--mother's father, he was a queer kind,--called his girls
all after the thirteen States, and there being none left for Uncle Mat,
he called him after the state of matrimony,--"Well, Rhody," she replied,
rather dismally, and knocking the ashes out of the bowl, "I don't know;
but I'll have faith to believe that the Lord won't send me no ill
without distincter warning. And that it's good I _have_ faith to
believe."
And so when the child appeared, and had no name, and couldn't answer for
herself, Mrs. Devereux called her Faith.
We're a people of presentiments down here on the Flats, and well we
may be. You'd own up yourself, maybe, if in the dark of the night, you
locked in sleep, there's a knock on the door enough to wake the dead,
and you start up and listen and nothing follows; and falling back,
you're just dozing off, and there it is once more, so that the lad in
the next room cries out, "Who's that, mother?" No one answering, you're
half lost again, when _rap_ comes the hand again, the loudest of the
three, and you spring to the door and open it, and there's nought there
but a wind from the graves blowing in your face; and after a while you
learn that in that hour of that same night your husband was lost at sea.
Well, that happened to Mrs. Devereux. And I haven't time to tell you the
warnings I've known of. As for Faith, I mind that she said herself, as
we were in the boat for that clear midnight sail, that the sea had a
spite against her, but third time was trying time.
So Faith grew up, and Dan sent her to school what he could, for he set
store by her. She was always ailing,--a little, wilful, pettish thing,
but pretty as a flower; and folks put things into her head, and she
began to think she was some great shakes; and she may have been a matter
of seventeen years old when Mrs. Devereux died. Dan, as simple at
twenty-six as he had been ten years before, thought to go on just in
the old way, but the neighbors were one too many for him; and they all
represented that it would never do, and so on, till the poor fellow got
perplexed and vexed and half beside himself. There wasn't the first
thing she could do for herself, and he couldn't afford to board her out,
for Dan was only a laboring-man, mackerelling all summer and shoemaking
all winter, less the dreadful times when he stayed out on the Georges;
and then he couldn't afford, either, to keep her there and ruin the poor
girl's reputation;--and what did Dan do but come to me with it all?
Now for a number of years I'd been up in the other part of the town with
Aunt Netty, who kept a shop that I tended between schools and before and
after, and I'd almost forgotten there was such a soul on earth as Dan
Devereux,--though he'd not forgotten me. I'd got through the Grammar
and had a year in the High, and suppose I should have finished with an
education and gone off teaching somewhere, instead of being here now,
cheerful as heart could wish, with a little black-haired hussy tiltering
on the back of my chair.--Rolly, get down! Her name's Laura,--for his
mother.--I mean I might have done all this, if at that time mother
hadn't been thrown on her back, and been bedridden ever since. I haven't
said much about mother yet, but there all the time she was, just as she
is to-day, in her little tidy bed in one corner of the great kitchen,
sweet as a saint, and as patient; and I had to come and keep house for
father. He never meant that I should lose by it, father didn't; begged,
borrowed, or stolen, bought or hired, I should have my books, he said:
he's mighty proud of my learning, though between you and me it's little
enough to be proud of; but the neighbors think I know 'most as much as
the minister,--and I let 'em think. Well, while Mrs. Devereux was sick I
was over there a good deal,--for if Faith had one talent, it was total
incapacity,--and there had a chance of knowing the stuff that Dan was
made of; and I declare to man 'twould have touched a heart of stone to
see the love between the two. She thought Dan held up the sky, and Dan
thought she was the sky. It's no wonder,--the risks our men lead can't
make common-sized women out of their wives and mothers. But I hadn't
been coming in and out, busying about where Dan was, all that time,
without making any mark; though he was so lost in grief about his mother
that he didn't take notice of his other feelings, or think of himself at
all. And who could care the less about him for that? It always brings
down a woman to see a man wrapt in some sorrow that's lawful, and tender
as it is large. And when he came and told me what the neighbors said he
must do with Faith, the blood stood still in my heart.
"Ask mother, Dan," says I,--for I couldn't have advised him. "She knows
best about everything."
So he asked her.
"I think--I'm sorry to think, for I fear she'll not make you a good
wife," said mother, "but that perhaps her love for you will teach her to
be--you'd best marry Faith."
"But I can't marry her!" said Dan, half choking; "I don't want to marry
her,--it--it makes me uncomfortable-like to think of such a thing. I
care for the child plenty----Besides," said Dan, catching at a bright
hope, "I'm not sure that she'd have me."
"Have you, poor boy! What else can she do?"
Dan groaned.
"Poor little Faith!" said mother. "She's so pretty, Dan, and she's so
young, and she's pliant. And then how can we tell what may turn up about
her some day? She may be a duke's daughter yet,--who knows? Think of the
stroke of good-fortune she may give you!"
"But I don't love her," said Dan, as a finality.
"Perhaps----It isn't----You don't love any one else?"
"No," said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all with reflection.
And then, as his eyes went wandering, there came over them a misty look,
just as the haze creeps between you and some object away out at sea, and
he seemed to be searching his very soul. Suddenly the look swept off
them, and his eyes struck mine, and he turned, not having meant to, and
faced me entirely, and there came such a light into his countenance,
such a smile round his lips, such a red stamped his cheek, and he bent
a little,--and it was just as if the angel of the Lord had shaken his
wings over us in passing, and we both of us knew that here was a man and
here was a woman, each for the other, in life and death; and I just hid
my head in my apron, and mother turned on her pillow with a little moan.
How long that lasted I can't say, but by-and-by I heard mother's
voice, clear and sweet as a tolling bell far away on some fair Sunday
morning,--
"The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his
eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men."
And nobody spoke.
"Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Thou wilt
light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For with
thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light."
Then came the hush again, and Dan started to his feet, and began to walk
up and down the room as if something drove him; but wearying, he stood
and leaned his head on the chimney there. And mother's voice broke the
stillness anew, and she said,--
"Hath God forgotten to be gracious? His mercy endureth forever. And none
of them that trust in him shall be desolate."
There was something in mother's tone that made me forget myself and my
sorrow, and look; and there she was, as she hadn't been before for six
months, half risen from the bed, one hand up, and her whole face white
and shining with confident faith. Well, when I see all that such trust
has buoyed mother over, I wish to goodness I had it: I take more after
Martha. But never mind, do well here and you'll do well there, say I.
Perhaps you think it wasn't much, the quiet and the few texts breathed
through it; but sometimes when one's soul's at a white heat, it may be
moulded like wax with a finger. As for me, maybe God hardened Pharaoh's
heart,--though how that was Pharaoh's fault I never could see. But
Dan,--he felt what it was to have a refuge in trouble, to have a great
love always extending over him like a wing; he longed for it; he
couldn't believe it was his now, he was so suddenly convicted of all sin
and wickedness; and something sprang up in his heart, a kind of holy
passion that he felt to be possible for this great and tender Divine
Being; and he came and fell on his knees by the side of the bed, crying
out for mother to show him the way; and mother, she put her hand on his
head and prayed,--prayed, oh, so beautifully, that it makes the water
stand in my eyes now to remember what she said. But I didn't feel so
then, my heart and my soul were rebellious, and love for Dan alone kept
me under, not love for God. And in fact, if ever I'd got to heaven
then, love for Dan'd have been my only saving grace; for I was mighty
high-spirited, as a girl. Well, Dan he never made open profession; but
when he left the house, he went and asked Faith to marry him.
Now Faith didn't care anything about Dan,--except the quiet attachment
that she couldn't help, from living in the house with him, and he'd
always petted and made much of her, and dressed her like a doll,--he
wasn't the kind of man to take her fancy: she'd have maybe liked some
slender, smooth-faced chap; but Dan was a black, shaggy fellow, with
shoulders like the cross-tree, and a length of limb like Saul's, and
eyes set deep, like lamps in caverns. And he had a great, powerful
heart,--and, oh, how it was lost! for she might have won it, she might
have made him love her, since I would have stood wide away and aside for
the sake of seeing him happy. But Faith was one of those that, if they
can't get what they want, haven't any idea of putting up with what they
have,--God forgive me, if I'm hard on the child! And she couldn't give
Dan an answer right off, but was loath to think of it, and went flirting
about among the other boys; and Dan, when he saw she wasn't so easily
gotten, perhaps set more value on her. For Faith, she grew prettier
every day; her great brown eyes were so soft and clear, and had a wide,
sorrowful way of looking at you; and her cheeks, that were usually pale,
blossomed to roses when you spoke to her, her hair drooping over them
dark and silky; and though she was slack and untidy and at loose ends
about her dress, she somehow always seemed like a princess in disguise;
and when she had on any thing new,--a sprigged calico, and her little
straw bonnet with the pink ribbons, and Mrs. Devereux's black scarf, for
instance,--you'd have allowed that she might have been daughter to the
Queen of Sheba. I don't know, but I rather think Dan wouldn't have said
any more to Faith, from various motives, you see, notwithstanding the
neighbors were still remonstrating with him, if it hadn't been that Miss
Brown--she that lived round the corner there; the town's well quit
of her now, poor thing!--went to saying the same stuff to Faith,
and telling her all that other folks said. And Faith went home in a
passion,--some of your timid kind nothing ever abashes, and nobody gets
to the windward of them,--and, being perfectly furious, fell to accusing
Dan of having brought her to this, so that Dan actually believed he had,
and was cut to the quick with contrition, and told her that all the
reparation he could make he was waiting and wishing to make, and then
there came floods of tears. Some women seem to have set out with the
idea that life's a desert for them to cross, and they've laid in a
supply of water-bags accordingly,--but it's the meanest weapon! And then
again, there's men that are iron, and not to be bent under calamities,
that these tears can twist round your little finger. Well, I suppose
Faith concluded 'twas no use to go hungry because her bread wasn't
buttered on both sides, but she always acted as if she'd condescended
ninety degrees in marrying Dan, and Dan always seemed to feel that he'd
done her a great injury; and there it was.
I kept in the house for a time; mother was worse.--and I thought the
less Dan saw of me the better; I kind of hoped he'd forget, and find his
happiness where it ought to be. But the first time I saw him, when Faith
had been his wife all the spring, there was the look in his eyes that
told of the ache in his heart. Faith wasn't very happy herself, of
course, though she was careless; and she gave him trouble,--keeping
company with the young men just as before; and she got into a way of
flying straight to me, if Dan ventured to reprove her ever so lightly;
and stormy nights, when he was gone, and in his long trips, she always
locked up her doors and came over and got into my bed; and she was one
of those that never listened to reason, and it was none so easy for me,
you may suppose.
Things had gone on now for some three years, and I'd about lived in my
books,--I'd tried to teach Faith some, but she wouldn't go any farther
than newspaper stories,--when one day Dan took her and me to sail, and
we were to have had a clam-chowder on the Point, if the squall hadn't
come. As it was, we'd got to put up with chicken-broth, and it couldn't
have been better, considering who made it. It was getting on toward the
cool of the May evening, the sunset was round on the other side of the
house, but all the east looked as if the sky had been stirred up
with currant-juice, till it grew purple and dark, and then the two
light-houses flared out and showed us the lip of froth lapping the
shadowy shore beyond, and I--heard father's voice, and he came in.
There was nothing but the fire-light in the room, and it threw about
great shadows, so that at first entering all was indistinct; but I heard
a foot behind father's, and then a form appeared, and something, I never
could tell what, made a great shiver rush down my back, just as when a
creature is frightened in the dark at what you don't see, and so, though
my soul was unconscious, my body felt that there was danger in the air.
Dan had risen and lighted the lamp that swings in the chimney, and
father first of all had gone up and kissed mother, and left the stranger
standing; then he turned round, saying,--
"A tough day,--it's been a tough day; and here's some un to prove it.
Georgie, hope that pot's steam don't belie it, for Mr. Gabriel Verelay
and I want a good supper and a good bed."
At this, the stranger, still standing, bowed.
"Here's the one, father," said I. "But about the bed,--Faith'll have to
stay here,--and I don't see--unless Dan takes him over"----
"That I'll do," said Dan.
"All right," said the stranger, in a voice that you didn't seem to
notice while he was speaking, but that you remembered afterwards like
the ring of any silver thing that has been thrown down; and he dropped
his hat on the floor and drew near the fireplace, warming hands that
were slender and brown, but shapely as a woman's. I was taking up the
supper; so I only gave him a glance or two, and saw him standing there,
his left hand extended to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and
then earnestly on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning away much as
one turns from a picture. At length I came to ask him to sit by, and at
that moment Faith's eyes opened.
Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and bewildered, and the
fire had flushed her cheeks, and her hair was disordered, and she fixed
her gaze on him as if he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half
parted and then curling in a smile,--but in a second he moved off with
me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bedroom.
Well, we didn't waste many words until father'd lost the edge of his
appetite, and then I told about Faith.
"'F that don't beat the Dutch!" said father. "Here's Mr.--Mr."------
"Gabriel," said the stranger.
"Yes,--Mr. Gabriel Verelay been served the same trick by the same
squall, only worse and more of it,--knocked off the yacht--What's that
you call her?"
"La belle Louise."
"And left for drowned,--if they see him go at all. But he couldn't 'a'
sinked in that sea, if he'd tried. He kep' afloat; we blundered into
him; and here he is."
Dan and I looked round In considerable surprise, for he was dry as an
August leaf.
"Oh," said the stranger, coloring, and with the least little turn of his
words, as if he didn't always speak English, "the good captain reached
shore, and, finding sticks, he kindled a fire, and we did dry our
clothes until it made fine weather once more."
"Yes," said father; "but 't wouldn't been quite such fine weather, I
reckon, if this 'd gone to the fishes!" And he pushed something across
the table.
It was a pouch with steel snaps, and well stuffed. The stranger colored
again, and held his hand for it, and the snap burst, and great gold
pieces, English coin and very old French ones, rolled about the table,
and father shut his eyes tight; and just then Faith came back and
slipped into her chair. I saw her eyes sparkle as we all reached,
laughing and joking, to gather them; and Mr. Gabriel--we got into the
way of calling him so,--he liked it best--hurried to get them out of
sight as if he'd committed some act of ostentation. And then, to make
amends, he threw off what constraint he had worn in this new atmosphere
of ours, and was so gay, so full of questions and quips and conceits,
all spoken in his strange way, his voice was so sweet, and he laughed so
much and so like a boy, and his words had so much point and brightness,
that I could think of nothing but the showers of colored stars in
fireworks. Dan felt it like a play, sat quiet, but enjoying, and I saw
he liked it;--the fellow had a way of attaching every one. Father was
uproarious, and kept calling out, "Mother, do you hear?--d' you hear
_that_, mother?" And Faith, she was near, taking it all in as a flower
does sunshine, only smiling a little, and looking utterly happy. Then I
hurried to clear up, and Faith sat in the great arm-chair, and father
got out the pipes, and you could hardly see across the room for the wide
tobacco-wreaths; and then it was father's turn, and he told story after
story of the hardships and the dangers and the charms of our way of
living. And I could see Mr. Gabriel's cheek blanch, and he would bend
forward, forgetting to smoke, and his breath coming short, and then
right himself like a boat after lurching,--he had such natural ways, and
except that he'd maybe been a spoiled child, he would have had a good
heart, as hearts go. And nothing would do at last but he must stay and
live the same scenes for a little; and father told him 't wouldn't
pay;--they weren't so much to go through with as to tell of,--there was
too much prose in the daily life, and too much dirt, and 't wa'n't fit
for gentlemen. Oh, he said, he'd been used to roughing it,--woodsing,
camping and gunning and yachting, ever since he'd been a free man. He
was Canadian, and had been cruising from the St. Lawrence to Florida,
--and now, as his companions would go on without him, he had a mind to
try a bit of coast-life. And could he board here? or was there any handy
place? And father said, there was Dan,--Dan Devereux, a man that hadn't
his match at oar or helm. And Mr. Gabriel turned his keen eye and bowed
again,--and couldn't Dan take Mr. Gabriel? And before Dan could answer,
for he'd referred it to Faith, Mr. Gabriel had forgotten all about it,
and was humming a little French song and stirring the coals with the
tongs. And that put father off in a fresh remembrance; and as the hours
lengthened, the stories grew fearful, and he told them deep into the
midnight, till at last Mr. Gabriel stood up.
"No more, good friend," said he. "But I will have a taste of this life
perilous. And now where is it that I go?"
Dan also stood up.
"My little woman," said he, glancing at Faith, "thinks there's a corner
for you, Sir."
"I beg your pardon"--And Mr. Gabriel paused, with a shadow skimming
over his clear dark face.
Dan wondered what he was begging pardon for, but thought perhaps he
hadn't heard him, so he repeated,--
"My wife"--nodding over his shoulder at Faith, "she's my wife--thinks
there's a"----
"She's your wife?" said Mr. Gabriel, his eyes opening and brightening
the way an aurora runs up the sky, and looking first at one and then at
the other, as if he couldn't understand how so delicate a flower grew on
so thorny a stem.
The red flushed up Dan's face,--and up mine too, for the matter of
that,--but in a minute the stranger had dropped his glance.
"And why did you not tell me," he said, "that I might have found her
less beautiful?"
Then he raised his shoulders, gave her a saucy bow, with his hand on
Dan's arm,--Dan, who was now too well pleased at having Faith made
happy by a compliment to sift it,--and they went out.
But I was angry enough; and you may imagine I wasn't much soothed by
seeing Faith, who'd been so die-away all the evening, sitting up before
my scrap of looking-glass, trying in my old coral earrings, bowing up my
ribbons, and plaiting and prinking till the clock frightened her into
bed.
The next morning, mother, who wasn't used to such disturbance, was ill,
and I was kept pretty busy tending on her for two or three days. Faith
had insisted on going home the first thing after breakfast, and in
that time I heard no more of anybody,--for father was out with the
night-tides, and, except to ask how mother did, and if I'd seen the
stray from the Lobblelyese again, was too tired for talking when he came
back. That had been--let me see--on a Monday, I think,--yes, on a
Monday; and Thursday evening, as in-doors had begun to tell on me, and
mother was so much improved, I thought I'd run out for a walk along the
seawall. The sunset was creeping round everything, and lying in great
sheets on the broad, still river, the children were frolicking in
the water, and all was so gay, and the air was so sweet, that I went
lingering along farther than I'd meant, and by-and-by who should I see
but a couple sauntering toward me at my own gait, and one of them was
Faith. She had on a muslin with little roses blushing all over it,
and she floated along in it as if she were in a pink cloud, and she'd
snatched a vine of the tender young woodbine as she went, and, throwing
it round her shoulders, held the two ends in one hand like a ribbon,
while with the other she swung her white sun-bonnet. She laughed, and
shook her head at me, and there, large as life, under the dark braids
dangled my coral ear-rings, that she'd adopted without leave or license.
She'd been down to the lower landing to meet Dan,--a thing she'd done
before I don't know when,--and was walking up with Mr. Gabriel while Dan
stayed behind to see to things. I kept them talking, and Mr. Gabriel was
sparkling with fun, for he'd got to feeling acquainted, and it had put
him in high spirits to get ashore at this hour, though he liked the sea,
and we were all laughing, when Dan came up. Now I must confess I hadn't
fancied Mr. Gabriel over and above; I suppose my first impression had
hardened into a prejudice; and after I'd fathomed the meaning of Faith's
fine feathers I liked him less than ever. But when Dan came up, he
joined right in, gay and hearty, and liking his new acquaintance so
much, that, thinks I, he must know best, and I'll let him look out for
his interests himself. It would 'a' been no use, though, for Dan to
pretend to beat the Frenchman at his own weapons,--and I don't know that
I should have cared to have him. The older I grow, the less I think of
your mere intellect; throw learning out of the scales, and give me a
great, warm heart,--like Dan's.
Well, it was getting on in the evening, when the latch lifted, and in
ran Faith. She twisted my ear-rings out of her hair, exclaiming,--
"Oh, Georgie, are you busy? Can't you perse my ears now?"
"Pierce them yourself, Faith."
"Well, pierce, then. But I can't,--you know I can't. Won't you now,
Georgie?" and she tossed the ear-rings into my lap.
"Why, Faith," said I, "how'd you contrive to wear these, if your ears
aren't"--
"Oh, I tied them on. Come now, Georgie!"
So I got the ball of yarn and the darning-needle.
"Oh, not such a big one!" cried she.
"Perhaps you'd like a cambric needle," said I.
"I don't want a winch," she pouted.
"Well, here's a smaller one. Now kneel down."
"Yes, but you wait a moment, till I screw up my courage."
"No need. You can talk, and I'll take you at unawares."
So Faith knelt down, and I got all ready.
"And what shall I talk about?" said she. "About Aunt Rhody, or Mr.
Gabriel, or--I'll tell you the queerest thing, Georgie! Going to now?"
"Do be quiet, Faith, and not keep your head flirting about so!"--for
she'd started up to speak. Then she composed herself once more.
"What was I saying? Oh, about that. Yes, Georgie, the queerest thing!
You see, this evening, when Dan was out, I was sitting talkin' with Mr.
Gabriel, and he was wondering how I came to be dropped down here, so I
told him all about it. And he was so interested that I went and showed
him the things I had on when Dan found me,--you know they've been kept
real nice. And he took them, and looked them over, close, admiring them,
and--and--admiring me,--and finally he started, and then held the frock
to the light, and then lifted a little plait, and in the under side of
the belt-lining there was a name very finely wrought,--Virginie des
Violets; and he looked at all the others, and in some hidden corner of
every one was the initials of the same name,--V. des V.
"'That should be your name, Mrs. Devereux,' says he.
"'Oh, no!' says I. 'My name's Faith.'
"Well, and on that he asked, was there no more; and so I took off the
little chain that I've always worn and showed him that, and he asked if
there was a face in it, in what we thought was a coin, you know; and I
said, oh, it didn't open; and he turned it over and over, and finally
something snapped, and there _was_ a face,--here, you shall see it,
Georgie."
And Faith drew it from her bosom, and opened and held it before me; for
I'd sat with my needle poised, and forgetting to strike. And there was
the face indeed, a sad, serious face, dark and sweet, yet the image of
Faith, and with the same mouth,--that so lovely in a woman becomes weak
in a man,--and on the other side there were a few threads of hair, with
the same darkness and fineness as Faith's hair, and under them a little
picture chased in the gold and enamelled, which, from what I've read
since, I suppose must have been the crest of the Des Violets.
"And what did Mr. Gabriel say then?" I asked, giving it back to Faith,
who put her head into the old position again.
"Oh, he acted real queer. 'The very man!' he cried out. 'The man
himself! His portrait,--I have seen it a hundred times!' And then
he told me that about a dozen years ago or more, a ship sailed
from--from--I forget the place exactly, somewhere up there where _he_
came from,--Mr. Gabriel, I mean,--and among the passengers was this
man and his wife, and his little daughter, whose name was Virginie des
Violets, and the ship was never heard from again. But he says that
without a doubt I'm the little daughter and my name is Virginie, though
I suppose every one'll call me Faith. Oh, and that isn't the queerest.
The queerest is, this gentleman," and Faith lifted her head, "was very
rich. I can't tell you how much he owned. Lands that you can walk on a
whole day and not come to the end, and ships, and gold. And the whole of
it's lying idle and waiting for an heir,--and I, Georgie, am the heir."
And Faith told it with cheeks burning and eyes shining, but yet quite as
if she'd been born and brought up in the knowledge.
"It don't seem to move you much, Faith," said I, perfectly amazed,
although I'd frequently expected something of the kind.
"Well, I may never get it, and so on. If I do, I'll give you a silk
dress and set you up in a book-store. But here's a queerer thing yet.
Des Violets is the way Mr. Gabriel's own name is spelt, and his father
and mine--his mother and--Well, some way or other we're sort of
cousins. Only think, Georgie! isn't that--I thought, to be sure, when he
quartered at our house, Dan'd begin to take me to do, if I looked at
him sideways,--make the same fuss that he does, if I nod to any of the
other young men."
"I don't think Dan speaks before he should, Faith."
"Why don't you say Virginie?" says she, laughing.
"Because Faith you've always been, and Faith you'll have to remain, with
us, to the end of the chapter."
"Well, that's as it may be. But Dan can't object now to my going where
I'm a mind to with my own cousin!" And here Faith laid her ear on the
ball of yarn again.
"Hasten, headsman!" said she, out of a novel, "or they'll wonder where I
am."
"Well," I answered, "just let me run the needle through the emery."
"Yes, Georgie," said Faith, going back with her memories while I
sharpened my steel, "Mr. Gabriel and I are kin. And he said that the
moment he laid eyes on me he knew I was of different blood from the rest
of the people"--.
"What people?" asked I.
"Why, you, and Dan, and all these. And he said he was struck to stone
when he heard I was married to Dan,--I must have been entrapped,--the
courts would annul it,--any one could see the difference between us"--
Here was my moment, and I didn't spare it, but jabbed the needle into
the ball of yarn, if her ear did lie between them.
"Yes!" says I, "anybody with half an eye can see the difference between
you, and that's a fact! Nobody'd ever imagine for a breath that you were
deserving of Dan,--Dan, who's so noble he'd die for what he thought was
right,--you, who are so selfish and idle and fickle and"--
And at that Faith burst out crying.
"Oh, I never expected you'd talk about me so, Georgie!" said she between
her sobs. "How could I tell you were such a mighty friend of Dan's? And
besides, if ever I was Virginie des Violets, I'm Faith Devereux now, and
Dan'll resent _any one's_ speaking so about his wife!"
And she stood up, the tears sparkling like diamonds in her flashing dark
eyes, her cheeks red, and her little fist clenched.
"That's the right spirit, Faith," says I, "and I'm glad to see you show
it. And as for this young Canadian, the best thing to do with him is to
send him packing. I don't believe a word he says; it's more than likely
nothing but to get into your good graces."
"But there's the names," said she, so astonished that she didn't
remember she was angry.
"Happened so."
"Oh, yes! 'Happened so' A likely story! It's nothing but your envy, and
that's all!"
"Faith!" says I, for I forgot she didn't know how close she struck.
"Well,--I mean----There, don't let's talk about it any more! How under
the sun am I going to get these ends tied?"
"Come here. There! Now for the other one."
"No, I sha'n't let you do that; you hurt me dreadfully, and you got
angry and took the big needle."
"I thought you expected to be hurt."
"I didn't expect to be stabbed."
"Well, just as you please. I suppose you'll go round with one ear-ring."
"Like a little pig with his ear cropped? No, I shall do it myself. See
there, Georgie!" and she threw a bit of a box into my hands.
I opened it, and there lay inside, on their velvet cushion, a pair of
the prettiest things you ever saw,--a tiny bunch of white grapes, and
every grape a round pearl, and all hung so that they would tinkle
together on their golden stems every time Faith shook her head,--and she
had a cunning little way of shaking it often enough.
"These must have cost a penny, Faith," said I. "Where'd you get them?"
"Mr. Gabriel gave them to me, just now. He went up-town and bought them.
And I don't want him to know that my ears weren't bored."
"Mr. Gabriel? And you took them?"
"Of course I took them, and mighty glad to get them."
"Faith, dear," said I, "don't you know that you shouldn't accept
presents from gentlemen, and especially now you're a married woman, and
especially from those of higher station?"
"But he isn't higher."
"You know what I mean. And then, too, he is; for one always takes rank
from one's husband."
Faith looked rather downcast at this.
"Yes," said I,--"and pearls and calico"----
"Just because you haven't got a pair yourself! There, be still! I don't
want any of your instructions in duty!"
"You ought to put up with a word from a friend, Faith," said I. "You
always come to me with your grievances. And I'll tell you what I'll do.
You used to like these coral branches of mine; and if you'll give those
back to Mr. Gabriel, you shall have the coral."
Well, Faith she hesitated, standing there trying to muster her mind to
the needle, and it ended by her taking the coral, though I don't believe
she returned the pearls,--but we none of us ever saw them afterwards.
We'd been talking in a pretty low tone, because mother was asleep; and
just as she'd finished the other ear, and a little drop of blood stood
up on it like a live ruby, the door opened and Dan and Mr. Gabriel came
in. There never was a prettier picture than Faith at that moment, and so
the young stranger thought, for he stared at her, smiling and at ease,
just as if she'd been hung in a gallery and he'd bought a ticket. So
then he sat down and repeated to Dan and mother what she'd told me, and
he promised to send for the papers to prove it all. But he never did
send for them,--delaying and delaying, till the summer wore away; and
perhaps there were such papers and perhaps there weren't. I've always
thought he didn't want his own friends to know where he was. Dan might
be a rich man to-day, if he chose to look them up; but he'd scorch at a
slow fire before he'd touch a copper of it. Father never believed a word
about it, when we recited it again to him.
"So Faith 'a come into her fortune, has she?" said he. "Pretty child!
She 'a'n't had so much before sence she fell heir to old Miss Devereux's
best chany, her six silver spoons, and her surname."
So the days passed, and the greater part of every one Mr. Gabriel was
dabbling in the water somewhere. There wasn't a brook within ten miles
that he didn't empty of trout, for Dan knew the woods as well as the
shores, and he knew the clear nights when the insects can keep free from
the water so that next day the fish rise hungry to the surface; and so
sometimes in the brightest of May noons they'd bring home a string of
those beauties, speckled with little tongues of flame; and Mr. Gabriel
would have them cooked, and make us all taste them,--for we don't care
much for that sort, down here on the Flats; we should think we were
famished, if we had to eat fish. And then they'd lie in wait all day for
the darting pickerel in the little Stream of Shadows above; and when
it came June, up the river he went trolling for bass, and he used
a different sort of bait from the rest,--bass won't bite much at
clams,--and he hauled in great forty-pounders. And sometimes in the
afternoons he took out Faith and me,--for, as Faith would go, whether or
no, I always made it a point to put by everything and go too; and I used
to try and get some of the other girls in, but Mr. Gabriel never would
take them, though he was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, and was
everybody's favorite, and it was known all round how he found out Faith,
and that alone made him so popular, that I do believe, if he'd only
taken out naturalization-papers, we'd have sent him to General Court.
And then it grew time for the river-mackerel, and they used to bring in
at sunset two or three hundred in a shining heap, together with great
lobsters that looked as if they'd been carved out of heliotrope-stone,
and so old that they were barnacled. And it was so novel to Mr. Gabriel,
that he used to act as if he'd fallen in fairy-land.
After all, I don't know what we should have done without him that
summer: he always paid Dan or father a dollar a day and the hire of the
boat; and the times were so hard, and there was so little doing, that,
but for this, and packing the barrels of clam-bait, they'd have been
idle and fared sorely. But we'd rather have starved: though, as for
that, I've heard father say there never was a time when he couldn't
go out and catch some sort of fish and sell it for enough to get us
something to eat. And then this Mr. Gabriel, he had such a winning way
with him, he was as quick at wit as a bird on the wing, he had a story
or a song for every point, he seemed to take to our simple life as if
he'd been born to it, and he was as much interested in all our trifles
as we were ourselves. Then he was so sympathetic, he felt everybody's
troubles, he went to the city and brought down a wonderful doctor to see
mother, and he got her queer things that helped her more than you'd have
thought anything could, and he went himself and set honeysuckles out
all round Dan's house, so that before summer was over it was a bower of
great sweet blows, and he had an alms for every beggar, and a kind word
for every urchin, and he followed Dan about as a child would follow some
big shaggy dog. He introduced, too, a lot of new-fangled games; he was
what they called a gymnast, and in feats of rassling there wasn't a man
among them all but he could stretch as flat as a flounder. And then he
always treated. Everybody had a place for him soon,--even _I_ did; and
as for Dan, he'd have cut his own heart out of his body, if Mr. Gabriel
'd had occasion to use it. He was a different man from any Dan 'd ever
met before, something finer, and he might have been better, and Dan's
loyal soul was glad to acknowledge him master, and I declare I believe
he felt just as the Jacobites in the old songs used to feel for royal
Charlie. There are some men born to rule with a haughty, careless
sweetness, and others born to die for them with stern and dogged
devotion.
Well, and all this while Faith wasn't standing still; she was changing
steadily, as much as ever the moon changed in the sky. I noticed it
first one day when Mr. Gabriel'd caught every child in the region and
given them a picnic in the woods of the Stack-Yard-Gate, and Faith was
nowhere to be seen tiptoeing round every one as she used to do, but
I found her at last standing at the head of the table,--Mr. Gabriel
dancing here and there, seeing to it that all should be as gay as he
seemed to be,--quiet and dignified as you please, and feeling every one
of her inches. But it wasn't dignity really that was the matter with
Faith,--it was just gloom. She'd brighten up for a moment or two and
then down would fall the cloud again, she took to long fits of dreaming,
and sometimes she'd burst out crying at any careless word, so that my
heart fairly bled for the poor child,--for one couldn't help seeing that
she'd some secret unhappiness or other; and I was as gentle and soothing
to her as it's in my nature to be. She was in to our house a good deal;
she kept it pretty well out of Dan's way, and I hoped she'd get over it
sooner or later, and make up her mind to circumstances. And I talked
to her a sight about Dan, praising him constantly before her, though I
couldn't hear to do it; and finally, one very confidential evening, I
told her that I'd been in love with Dan myself once a little, but I'd
seen that he would marry her, and so had left off thinking about it;
for, do you know, I thought it might make her set more price on him now,
if she knew somebody else had ever cared for him. Well, that did answer
awhile: whether she thought she ought to make it up to Dan, or whether
he really did grow more in her eyes, Faith got to being very neat and
domestic and praiseworthy. But still there was the change, and it didn't
make her any the less lovely. Indeed, if I'd been a man, I should have
cared for her more than ever: it was like turning a child into a woman:
and I really think, as Dan saw her going about with such a pleasant
gravity, her pretty figure moving so quietly, her pretty face so still
and fair, as if she had thoughts and feelings now, he began to wonder
what had come over Faith, and, if she were really as charming as this,
why he hadn't felt it before; and then, you know, whether you love a
woman or not, the mere fact that she's your wife, that her life is sunk
in yours, that she's something for you to protect and that your honor
lies in doing so, gives you a certain kindly feeling that might ripen
into love any day under sunshine and a south wall.
* * * * *