The Tides of Barnegat Part 25

"No," laughed Jane, "only her little daughter Ellen, the sweetest little girl you ever saw, she writes."

"How old is she?"

He had slipped his arm around his mother's waist now and the two were "toeing it" up the path, he stopping every few feet to root a pebble from its bed. The coming of the aunt was not a great event in his life.

"Just seven her last birthday."

"All right, she's big enough. We'll take her out and teach her to fish.

h.e.l.lo, granny!" and the boy loosened his arm as he darted up the steps toward Martha. "Got the finest mess of fish coming up here in a little while you ever laid your eyes on," he shouted, catching the old nurse's cap from her head and clapping it upon his own, roaring with laughter, as he fled in the direction of the kitchen.

Jane joined in the merriment and, moving a chair from the hall, took her seat on the porch to await the boy's return. She was too happy to busy herself about the house or to think of any of her outside duties.

Doctor John would not be in until the afternoon, and so she would occupy herself in thinking out plans to make her sister's home-coming a joyous one.

As she looked down over the garden as far as the two big gate-posts standing like grim sentinels beneath the wide branches of the hemlocks, and saw how few changes had taken place in the old home since her girl sister had left it, her heart thrilled with joy. Nothing really was different; the same ma.s.s of tangled rose-vines climbed over the porch--now quite to the top of the big roof, but still the same dear old vines that Lucy had loved in her childhood; the same honeysuckle hid the posts; the same box bordered the paths. The house was just as she left it; her bedroom had really never been touched. What few changes had taken place she would not miss. Meg would not run out to meet her, and Rex was under a stone that the doctor had placed over his grave; nor would Ann Gossaway peer out of her eyrie of a window and follow her with her eyes as she drove by; her tongue was quiet at last, and she and her old mother lay side by side in the graveyard. Doctor John had exhausted his skill upon them both, and Martha, who had forgiven her enemy, had sat by her bedside until the end, but nothing had availed. Mrs. Cavendish was dead, of course, but she did not think Lucy would care very much. She and Doctor John had nursed her for months until the end came, and had then laid her away near the apple-trees she was so fond of. But most of the faithful hearts who had loved her were still beating, and all were ready with a hearty welcome.

Archie was the one thing new--new to Lucy. And yet she had no fear either for him or for Lucy. When she saw him she would love him, and when she had known him a week she would never be separated from him again. The long absence could not have wiped out all remembrance of the boy, nor would the new child crowd him from her heart.

When Doctor John sprang from his gig (the custom of his daily visits had never been broken) she could hardly wait until he tied his horse--poor Bess had long since given out--to tell him the joyful news.

He listened gravely, his face lighting up at her happiness. He was glad for Jane and said so frankly, but the situation did not please him. He at heart really dreaded the effect of Lucy's companions.h.i.+p on the woman he loved. Although it had been years since he had seen her, he had followed her career, especially since her marriage, with the greatest interest and with the closest attention. He had never forgotten, nor had he forgiven her long silence of two years after her marriage, during which time she had never written Jane a line, nor had he ever ceased to remember Jane's unhappiness over it. Jane had explained it all to him on the ground that Lucy was offended because she had opposed the marriage, but the doctor knew differently. Nor had he ceased to remember the other letters which followed, and how true a story they told of Lucy's daily life and ambitions. He could almost recall the wording of one of them. "My husband is too ill," it had said, "to go south with me, and so I will run down to Rome for a month or so, for I really need the change." And a later one, written since his death, in which she wrote of her winter in Paris and at Monte Carlo, and "how good my mother-in-law is to take care of Ellen." This last letter to her sister, just received--the one he then held in his hand, and which gave Jane such joy, and which he was then reading as carefully as if it had been a prescription--was to his a.n.a.lytical mind like all the rest of its predecessors. One sentence sent a slight curl to his lips. "I cannot stay away any longer from my precious sister," it said, "and am coming back to the home I adore. I have no one to love me, now that my dear husband is dead, but you and my darling Ellen."

The news of Lucy's expected return spread rapidly. Old Martha in her joy was the mouthpiece. She gave the details out at church the Sunday morning following the arrival of Lucy's letter. She was almost too ill to venture out, but she made the effort, stopping the wors.h.i.+ppers as they came down the board walk; telling each one of the good news, the tears streaming down her face. To the children and the younger generation the announcement made but little difference; some of them had never heard that Miss Jane had a sister, and others only that she lived abroad. Their mothers knew, of course, and so did the older men, and all were pleased over the news. Those of them who remembered the happy, joyous girl with her merry eyes and ringing laugh were ready to give her a hearty welcome; they felt complimented that the distinguished lady--fifteen years' residence abroad and a rich husband had gained her this position--should be willing to exchange the great Paris for the simple life of Warehold. It touched their civic pride.

Great preparations were accordingly made. Billy Tatham's successor (his son)--in his best open carriage--was drawn up at the station, and Lucy's drive through the village with some of her numerous boxes covered with foreign labels piled on the seat beside the young man--who insisted on driving Lucy and the child himself--was more like the arrival of a princess revisiting her estates than anything else. Martha and Archie and Jane filled the carriage, with little Ellen on Archie's lap, and more than one neighbor ran out of the house and waved to them as they drove through the long village street and turned into the gate.

Archie threw his arms around Lucy when he saw her, and in his open, impetuous way called her his "dear aunty," telling her how glad he was that she had come to keep his good mother from getting so sad at times, and adding that she and granny had not slept for days before she came, so eager were they to see her. And Lucy kissed him in return, but with a different throb at her heart. She felt a thrill when she saw how handsome and strong he was, and for an instant there flashed through her a feeling of pride that he was her own flesh and blood. Then there had come a sudden revulsion, strangling every emotion but the one of aversion--an aversion so overpowering that she turned suddenly and catching Ellen in her arms kissed her with so lavish a display of affection that those at the station who witnessed the episode had only praise for the mother's devotion. Jane saw the kiss Lucy had given Archie, and a cry of joy welled up in her heart, but she lost the shadow that followed. My lady of Paris was too tactful for that.

Her old room was all ready. Jane, with Martha helping, had spent days in its preparation. White dimity curtains starched stiff as a petticoat had been hung at the windows; a new lace cover spread on the little mahogany, bra.s.s-mounted dressing-table--her great grandmother's, in fact--with its tiny swinging mirror and the two drawers (Martha remembered when her bairn was just high enough to look into the mirror), and pots of fresh flowers placed on the long table on which her hooks used to rest. Two easy-chairs had also been brought up from the sitting-room below, covered with new chintz and tied with blue ribbons, and, more wonderful still, a candle-box had been covered with cretonne and studded with bra.s.s tacks by the aid of Martha's stiff fingers that her bairn might have a place in which to put her dainty shoes and slippers.

When the trunks had been carried upstairs and Martha with her own hands had opened my lady's gorgeous blue morocco dressing-case with its bottles capped with gold and its brushes and fittings emblazoned with cupids swinging in garlands of roses, the poor woman's astonishment knew no bounds. The many scents and perfumes, the dainty boxes, big and little, holding various powders--one a red paste which the old nurse thought must be a salve, but about which, it is needless to say, she was greatly mistaken--as well as a rabbit's foot smirched with rouge (this she determined to wash at once), and a tiny box of court-plaster cut in half moons. So many things, in fact, did the dear old nurse pull from this wonderful bag that the modest little bureau could not hold half of them, and the big table had to be brought up and swept of its plants and belongings.

The various cosmetics and their uses were especial objects of comment.

"Did ye break one of the bottles, darlin'?" she asked, sniffing at a peculiar perfume which seemed to permeate everything. "Some of 'em must have smashed; it's awful strong everywhere--smell that"--and she held out a bit of lace which she had taken from the case, a dressing-sacque that Lucy had used on the steamer.

Lucy laughed. "And you don't like it? How funny, you dear old thing!

That was made specially for me; no one else in Paris has a drop."

And then the dresses! Particularly the one she was to wear the first night--a dress flounced and furbelowed and of a creamy white (she still wore mourning--delicate purples shading to white--the exact tone for a husband six months dead). And the filmy dressing-gowns, and, more wonderful than all, the puff of smoke she was to sleep in, held together by a band of violet ribbon; to say nothing of the dainty slippers bound about with swan's-down, and the marvellous hats, endless silk stockings of mauve, white, and black, and long and short gloves.

In all her life Martha had never seen or heard of such things. The room was filled with them and the two big closets crammed to overflowing, and yet a dozen trunks were not yet unpacked, including the two small boxes holding little Ellen's clothes.

The night was one long to be remembered. Everyone said the Manor House had not been so gay for years. And they were all there--all her old friends and many of Jane's new ones, who for years had looked on Lucy as one too far above them in station to be spoken of except with bated breath.

The intimates of the house came early. Doctor John first, with his grave manner and low voice--so perfectly dressed and quiet: Lucy thought she had never seen his equal in bearing and demeanor, nor one so distinguished-looking--not in any circle in Europe; and Uncle Ephraim, grown fat and gouty, leaning on a cane, but still hearty and wholesome, and overjoyed to see her; and Pastor Dellenbaugh--his hair was snow-white now--and his complacent and unruffled wife; and the others, including Captain Holt, who came in late. It was almost a repet.i.tion of that other home-coming years before, when they had gathered to greet her, then a happy, joyous girl just out of school.

Lucy in their honor wore the dress that had so astonished Martha, and a diamond-studded ornament which she took from her jewel-case and fastened in her hair. The dress followed the wonderful curves of her beautiful body in all its dimpled plumpness and the jewel set off to perfection the fresh, oval face, laughing blue eyes--wet forget-me-nots were the nearest their color--piquant, upturned nose and saucy mouth.

The color of the gown, too, harmonized both with the delicate pink of her cheeks and with the tones of her rather too full throat showing above the string of pearls that clasped it.

Jane wore a simple gray silk gown which followed closely the slender and almost attenuated lines of her figure. This gown the doctor always loved because, as he told her, it expressed so perfectly the simplicity of her mind and life. Her only jewels were her deep, thoughtful eyes, and these, to-night, were brilliant with joy over her sister's return.

As Jane moved about welcoming her guests the doctor, whose eyes rarely left her face, became conscious that at no time in their lives had the contrast between the two sisters been greater.

One, a b.u.t.terfly of thirty-eight, living only in the glow of the sunlight, radiant in plumage, alighting first on one flower and then on another, but always on flowers, never on weeds; gathering such honey as suited her taste; never resting where she might by any chance be compelled to use her feet, but always poised in air; a woman, rich, brilliant, and beautiful, and--here was the key-note of her life--always, year in and year out, warmed by somebody's admiration, whose she didn't much mind nor care, so that it gratified her pride and relieved her of ennui. The other--and this one he loved with his whole soul--a woman of forty-six, with a profound belief in her creeds; quixotic sometimes in her standards, but always sincere; devoted to her traditions, to her friends and to her duty; unselfish, tender-hearted, and self-sacrificing; whose feet, though often tired and bleeding, had always trodden the earth.

As Lucy greeted first one neighbor and then another, sometimes with one hand, sometimes with two, offering her cheek now and then to some old friend who had known her as a child, Jane's heart swelled with something of the pride she used to have when Lucy was a girl. Her beautiful sister, she saw, had lost none of the graciousness of her old manner, nor of her tact in making her guests feel perfectly at home.

Jane noticed, too--and this was new to her--a certain well-bred condescension, so delicately managed as never to be offensive--more the air of a woman accustomed to many sorts and conditions of men and women, and who chose to be agreeable as much to please herself as to please her guests.

And yet with all this poise of manner and condescending graciousness, there would now and then dart from Lucy's eyes a quick, searching glance of inquiry, as she tried to read her guests' thoughts, followed by a relieved look on her own face as she satisfied herself that no whisper of her past had ever reached them. These glances Jane never caught.

Doctor John was most cordial in his greeting and talked to her a long time about some portions of Europe, particularly a certain cafe in Dresden where he used to dine, and another in Paris frequented by the beau monde. She answered him quite frankly, telling him of some of her own experiences in both places, quite forgetting that she was giving him glimpses of her own life while away--glimpses which she had kept carefully concealed from Jane or Martha. She was conscious, however, after he had left her of a certain uncomfortable feeling quivering through her as his clear, steadfast eyes looked into hers, he listened, and yet she thought she detected his brain working behind his steadfast gaze. It was as if he was searching for some hidden disease. "He knows something," she said to herself, when the doctor moved to let someone else take his place. "How much I can't tell. I'll get it all out of sister."

Blunt and bluff Captain Holt, white-whiskered and white-haired now, but strong and hearty, gave her another and a different shock. What his first words would be when they met and how she would avoid discussing the subject uppermost in their minds if, in his rough way, he insisted on talking about it, was one of the things that had worried her greatly when she decided to come home, for there was never any doubt in her mind as to his knowledge. But she misjudged the captain, as had a great many others who never looked beneath the rugged bark covering his heart of oak.

"I'm glad you've come at last," he said gravely, hardly touching her hand in welcome, "you ought to have been here before. Jane's got a fine lad of her own that she's bringin' up; when you know him ye'll like him."

She did not look at him when she answered, but a certain feeling of relief crept over her. She saw that the captain had buried the past and intended never to revive it.

The stern look on his face only gave way when little Ellen came to him of her own accord and climbing up into his lap said in her broken English that she heard he was a great captain and that she wanted him to tell her some stories like her good papa used to tell her. "He was gray like you," she said, "and big," and she measured the size with her plump little arms that showed out of her dainty French dress.

With Doctor John and Captain Holt out of the way Lucy's mind was at rest. "n.o.body else round about Yardley except these two knows," she kept saying to herself with a bound of relief, "and for these I don't care. The doctor is Jane's slave, and the captain is evidently wise enough not to uncover skeletons locked up in his own closet."

These things settled in her mind, my lady gave herself up to whatever enjoyment, compatible with her rapidly fading mourning, the simple surroundings afforded, taking her cue from the conditions that confronted her and ordering her conduct accordingly and along these lines: Archie was her adopted nephew, the son of an old friend of Jane's, and one whom she would love dearly, as, in fact, she would anybody else whom Jane had brought up; she herself was a gracious widow of large means recovering from a great sorrow; one who had given up the delights of foreign courts to spend some time among her dear people who had loved her as a child. Here for a time would she bring up and educate her daughter.

"To be once more at home, and in dear old Warehold, too!" she had said with upraised Madonna-like eyes and clasped hands to a group of women who were hanging on every word that dropped from her pretty lips. "Do you know what that is to me? There is hardly a day I have not longed for it. Pray, forgive me if I do not come to see you as often as I would, but I really hate to be an hour outside of the four walls of my precious home."

CHAPTER XV

A PACKAGE OF LETTERS

Under the influence of the new arrival it was not at all strange that many changes were wrought in the domestic life at Cobden Manor.

My lady was a sensuous creature, loving color and flowers and the dainty appointments of life as much in the surroundings of her home as in the adornment of her person, and it was not many weeks before the old-fas.h.i.+oned sitting-room had been transformed into a French boudoir.

In this metamorphosis she had used but few pieces of new furniture--one or two, perhaps, that she had picked up in the village, as well as some bits of mahogany and bra.s.s that she loved--but had depended almost entirely upon the rearrangement of the heirlooms of the family. With the boudoir idea in view, she had pulled the old tables out from the walls, drawn the big sofa up to the fire, spread a rug--one of her own--before the mantel, hung new curtains at the windows and ruffled their edges with lace, banked the sills with geraniums and begonias, tilted a print or two beside the clock, scattered a few books and magazines over the centre-table, on which she had placed a big, generous lamp, under whose umbrella shade she could see to read as she sat in her grandmother's rocking-chair--in fact, had, with that taste inherent in some women--touched with a knowing hand the dead things about her and made them live and mean something;--her talisman being an unerring sense of what contributed to personal comfort. Heretofore Doctor John had been compelled to drag a chair halfway across the room in order to sit and chat with Jane, or had been obliged to share her seat on the sofa, too far from the hearth on cold days to be comfortable. Now he could either stand on the hearth-rug and talk to her, seated in one corner of the pulled-up sofa, her work-basket on a small table beside her, or he could drop into a big chair within reach of her hand and still feel the glow of the fire. Jane smiled at the changes and gave Lucy free rein to do as she pleased. Her own nature had never required these nicer luxuries; she had been too busy, and in these last years of her life too anxious, to think of them, and so the room had been left as in the days of her father.

The effect of the rearrangement was not lost on the neighbors. They at once noticed the sense of cosiness everywhere apparent, and in consequence called twice as often, and it was not long before the old-fas.h.i.+oned sitting-room became a stopping-place for everybody who had half an hour to spare.

These attractions, with the aid of a generous hospitality, Lucy did her best to maintain, partly because she loved excitement and partly because she intended to win the good-will of her neighbors--those who might be useful to her. The women succ.u.mbed at once. Not only were her manners most gracious, but her jewels of various kinds, her gowns of lace and frou-frou, her marvellous hats, her a.s.sortment of parasols, her little personal belongings and niceties--gold scissors, thimbles, even the violet ribbons that rippled through her transparent underlaces--so different from those of any other woman they knew--were a constant source of wonder and delight. To them she was a beautiful Lady Bountiful who had fluttered down among them from heights above, and whose departure, should it ever take place, would leave a gloom behind that nothing could illumine.

To the men she was more reserved. Few of them ever got beyond a handshake and a smile, and none of them ever reached the borders of intimacy. Popularity in a country village could never, she knew, be gained by a pretty woman without great discretion. She explained her foresight to Jane by telling her that there was no man of her world in Warehold but the doctor, and that she wouldn't think of setting her cap for him as she would be gray-haired before he would have the courage to propose. Then she kissed Jane in apology, and breaking out into a rippling laugh that Martha heard upstairs, danced out of the room.

Little Ellen, too, had her innings; not only was she prettily dressed, presenting the most joyous of pictures, as with golden curls flying about her shoulders she flitted in and out of the rooms like a sprite, but she was withal so polite in her greetings, dropping to everyone a little French courtesy when she spoke, and all in her quaint, broken dialect, that everybody fell in love with her at sight. None of the other mothers had such a child, and few of them knew that such children existed.

Jane watched the workings of Lucy's mind with many misgivings. She loved her lightheartedness and the frank, open way with which she greeted everybody who crossed their threshold. She loved, too, to see her beautifully gowned and equipped and to hear the flattering comments of the neighbors on her appearance and many charms; but every now and then her ear caught an insincere note that sent a s.h.i.+ver through her.

She saw that the welcome Lucy gave them was not from her heart, but from her lips; due to her training, no doubt, or perhaps to her unhappiness, for Jane still mourned over the unhappy years of Lucy's life--an unhappiness, had she known it, which had really ended with Archie's safe adoption and Bart's death. Another cause of anxiety was Lucy's restlessness. Every day she must have some new excitement--a picnic with the young girls and young men, private theatricals in the town hall, or excursions to Barnegat Beach, where they were building a new summer hotel. Now and then she would pack her bag and slip off to New York or Philadelphia for days at a time to stay with friends she had met abroad, leaving Ellen with Jane and Martha. To the older sister she seemed like some wild, untamable bird of brilliant plumage used to long, soaring flights, perching first on one dizzy height and then another, from which she could watch the world below.