CHAPTER IX

THE OLD FASCINATION

In spite of André's interference and her grandfather's mild questionings, in spite, even, of Nora Gage's curious and sly looks, Rachel continued to take Emil out in the boat every day. But on the fifth day when she went to the beach, he did not appear. For a time she waited in acute loneliness, then, with a magnificent effort, she returned to the house, deliberately donned her best dress, and, haughtily, under Nora's little inquisitive eyes, started for Old Harbour. Some powerful law of existence was at work driving her blindly forward to realize a distant idea in the face of the challenges of her maidenhood.

She walked rapidly until she gained the main street of the little village. Then her steps flagged, and with her head turning idly from side to side, she noticed, as if for the first time, the names over the doors of the storm-beaten shops:--"Old Harbour Yacht Yard," "Ship Chandlery and Hardware," "Paint, Cordage and Boat Trimmings."

In her dainty trappings, with the shadow from her hat in her eyes and folds of her crisp muslin dress in one sunburnt hand to keep it from the soil of the road, she might have been a stranger on a first stroll through the curious little town that smelled rankly of fish, instead of a maid born and bred in those parts. Finally she paused before a window where yellow oilskin coats were grotesquely displayed, together with lanterns and canvas pails and other objects of signal interest to one of her sex and age; and at that instant Emil, lounging in the door of the hotel opposite with a pipe planted between his lips, spied her.

For two blocks she walked rapidly, and when she did permit him to overtake her, she scarcely gave answer to his greeting. As if by mutual consent they turned their steps in the direction of the old Burying Point, a rocky promontory at the town's edge where for two centuries Old Harbour had persistently discovered graves for its dead among the boulders. Rocks and bones of men disputed the place, and yet, what more fit than that they should be laid to rest there, those staunch old captains and brave wives, whose very spirits had more in common with rocks than with flowers? Yet flowers bloomed there in scanty elegance, and sprays of 'lady's ear-drop' and 'Queen Anne's lace,' testifying to some feminine grace hidden away in neighbouring graves, caught and clung to Rachel's dress as she passed.

Emil, who was frankly pleased to see her, kept laughing loudly as he switched off the heads of the tall grass: but Rachel turned away her face and bit her lip; now that she saw him, she was indifferent to him. She was not thoroughly aware of her own actions until they were accomplished. Constantly something vast fought within her. Indeed, in this scrap of a girl was manifest one of the greatest desires, the greatest volitions of the universe.

Reaching the edge of the cemetery where it ran out in a jutting cliff that commanded a view of extended range and beauty, she sank down on an old seat and cast a challenging glance at Emil.

"Is the _depth indicator_ complete?" she asked. "I did not know that you considered it finished."

"Yes, it's practically finished," he answered; "anyhow, I shan't be able to do anything more to it for the present. I've got to finish my lithographic outfit. They're hurrying me. I'm heartily sick of it, but there's nothing else to be done."

"Of course you must finish it," she agreed quickly, and the last little cloud vanished from her eyes.

With instinctive tact she began making more attractive to him the duty that lay before him. She made him explain the salient features of the lithographic improvement and she nodded her head sagely at each point as if she understood. Then she praised its ingenuity. Finally, having divined his feeling for his mother, she hinted at her pleasure in his success.

"Your mother must be excited these days," she said, "and proud, too."

The glow in his glance had been deepening, and pride was visible all over him, but at the mention of his mother his expression changed.

"Yes, it must go through for her sake," he said soberly. "Oh, I'm a queer devil," he continued, hitching his shoulders in some impatience; "I've a brain exactly like one of the monkeys in the Zoo--attracted first by this thing, then by that, just like one of the monkeys in the Zoo. I say, you're coming to-morrow?" he asked, as she rose. "If I'm to finish in time, someone's got to bring me to account."

He stood smiling at her, the sun lighting up his rough locks and causing him to half close his questioning, eager eyes in which there was a touch of anxiety.

She lifted toward him her sensitive and responsive face.

"Will you come?" he insisted. His eyes held hers.

Her brows rose ingenuously, her lips parted, though no word passed them. Then, with a mute gesture of assent, she turned away.

Reaching home, she deemed it expedient to conceal her towering spirits. But even so, it seemed extraordinary that her grandfather did not surprise the thought that informed her cheeks, her eyes and every curve of her body with witchery. In Emil's presence her bearing had not been what she could have wished, but now it was that of a queen.

At bedtime, before her mirror, she arranged her hair after a new fashion. She stared into her bright soft face. Standing in her nightgown she hugged closely to her breast her happiness that was young and young and once again young.

Borne forward in obedience to an irresistible command of nature, she continued to meet St. Ives. In spite of tears and passionate revolts and innumerable petty hypocrisies by which she strove to put another face on her actions, that was awake in her which would not be gainsaid. And, thanks to her sex which so readily can blind itself, her movements for the most part remained superbly instinctive and unconscious.

When she set out of an afternoon for Old Harbour she caught and held every eye, like something bright and sparkling. Nora Gage observed her and malignity appeared to deepen the creases of her fat; while Lizzie Goodenough longed for the temerity to give warning to the motherless slip. All unmindful of them, Rachel, with such bravery of raiment as she could command, pursued her course. And her accoutrement, which was always the same, was by no means inconsiderable. The dress was of yellow barred-muslin and the skirt swayed as she walked like the corolla of a drooping flower. The waist fitted her closely, save at the bosom where there was an over-lapping fulness and in this surplice front was pinned carelessly, surely with the height of art, a cluster of evening primroses. These frail flowers, constantly agitated by the mad beating of her heart, drooped finally, as if in sheer delight at their enviable position. Fastened beneath her chin was the ribbon of her flower-decked hat. This ribbon, passing round that little smooth face and seeming to hold it in a dainty embrace, was a triumph of coquetry: it had life and spoke, calling attention to the down on the cheek, to the lift of the upper lip, finally to the eyes, innocent as a stag's--eyes that never the less revealed in this ardent, complex, highly-spiritual creature intense aspirations towards a fuller existence.

One afternoon on arriving at the cemetery she seated herself on a certain flat-topped tomb, and there some minutes later Emil joined her. The look from under his rough mane came at her diagonally, as with head lowered on his hand, he sat beside her. His eyes shed on her admiration; his moustache leaped against his cheek as he smiled.

"It's good to be near you."

Rachel glanced at him askance, and one little hand trembled so on the other that she had to intertwine their fingers strongly. Though she drank in these words like wine, she did not know how to prolong the moment. Instead,--O perverse instinct that frequently dominates helpless youth!--she inquired about his work. For interminable hours she had longed for this very moment, yet here she was shortening it!

Emil rose joyously to her question. Not only did he reply to it, but he amplified his explanation and finally launched into a detailed description of the instrument on which he was then engaged.

Once started on the subject, she knew he would not abandon it until she rose as a signal that the interview must end.

Happiness was diminished, but for an instant only. Disappointment was drowned in pride. It was something to have demonstrated to her her value as a confidante. To her imagination this stranger dropped by Fate at her feet, was all that the childish André was not. He appealed to her by reason of his stronger magnetism and his greater mind. Not only did he seem to her to possess every quality of the ideal lover, but,--and the discovery completed her subjugation and was essential to it,--he was the eternal child of genius whom she longed to protect.

The moment came when they had to part. Sometimes they separated at the gate of the cemetery; sometimes, if dusk had overtaken them, Emil walked home with her. Frequently, at the moment of parting, he caught her hand and looked fixedly at her eyes and mouth. Though judging from the expression of both eyes and mouth, the permission he sought was not absolutely withheld, the firm, round face fronting his in the evening light seemed to mask a host of imperious possibilities. Its look, on the whole, was equivocal. Scarcely aware of what restrained him, he pressed her trusting little fingers and let her go. Rachel was one of those fortunate maidens who are never treated with levity by men.

After the young girl had disappeared in the house, the spell she had cast over Emil's restless heart was in a measure dissipated. He straightened his cap, thrust his hands into his pockets and swung away, his thoughts once more on his work.

But for Rachel there existed no such opposing interest. Each day, through the hours of separation, she lived on the exhaustless, ardent vitality absorbed during their last interview. But it was not long ere the glory of her dream was partially eclipsed. The guileless disturber of her bliss was a certain Lottie Loveburg who caught up with her one afternoon as she was striking into the road for Pemoquod Point. As she had parted from Emil some minutes earlier, Rachel was not averse to Lottie's company.

"I'm going your way, at least as far as Mr. Patch's," Lottie announced with a panting breath. "Mother wants me to get a mess of pease for supper. Bliss and Mason are all sold out."

The two girls went on side by side.

Lottie was a few years older than Rachel. In school she had been considered an out-and-out stupid, but once released from school she was acknowledged a belle. She was a large full-bosomed lass with a head of heavy blond hair. The one misfortune of her face was the slight crossing of the blue eyes. As far as possible, she remedied the defect by a frequent lowering of the lids, though the precaution was one which she did not trouble herself to take when walking, as at present, with one of her own kind. From this big lazy girl there issued a compelling and entirely innocent charm that attacked the opposite sex. To the absorbed and dreamy Rachel she was as cornet to flute, when both blow the same ravishing air.

For a space the pair followed the road in silence. Had any observer been present, he might well have asked himself how much of the hope depicted on the countenances of these two young creatures was destined to be fulfilled. Were they destined to be mothers of sons and daughters who, in turn, would inhabit this desolate coast?--or was it written that something of their superabundance of dream and romance be realized? It was significant that they set their faces toward the immense infinite ocean, suggestive that their skirts, whipped to the side by the breeze, seemed waving a farewell to the rude life of the land.

Though their shoulders touched, for sometime each seemed unconscious of the other. Lottie was the first to speak.

"Well," she cried, "here we are at Mr. Patch's and I haven't said a word of what's weighing on my mind."

Rachel started and glanced sideways at her. She feared some allusion to her meetings with Emil.

But Lottie was too much engrossed in her own affairs to give a thought to her companion's. "Yes, I think I must tell you," she continued with a sigh that was a frank announcement of vanity. "Well then, Mr. Forebush intends to fight Jim Wright. He's going to follow Jim as he goes along home past the cemetery, and when they reach a lonely place, he's going to drag Jim in behind the wall and settle things."

"The cemetery?" cried Rachel sharply. The cemetery was her territory.

"They won't be disturbed there--that's all Mr. Forebush is thinking of. He travels for a New York shoe firm, you know, and he says he's sick of finding Jim hanging round our house every time he comes to town."

"Then does Mr. Forebush--does he like you?" Rachel questioned. Though she made free use of a warmer term in her meditations, she hesitated to pronounce it.

But the more experienced Lottie had no such scruple. "Like me!" She threw her hands apart with an expansive motion. "Why he loves me!" And to cover her embarrassment she burst into laughter.

Rachel crimsoned. "Yes, but how do you know he does?" she persisted.

Lottie continued laughing. "Oh, you queer child! You understand nothing!" Then, as the other darted an angry look at her,--"Why, doesn't the fight prove it, even if he hadn't said it? But he has said it. I wouldn't take stock in him if he hadn't. No looks and kisses without words for me! But I'm leaving you here. Wonder if Mr. Patch is at home." Then, as she was passing in at the gate she added with a return of the sentimental manner, "I'm sure I hope Jim won't hurt Mr. Forebush; he's some bigger, you know."

Rachel did not remain to discuss this possibility. Instead, she threw over her shoulder a curt "good-bye" and pursued her course.

When she was with Emil what did he talk about? Try as she would she could recall no topic on which he dwelt save his own work. Ideas for new inventions, for wonderful instruments jostled each other on his lips. He explained them with fire;--plans, details, he mapped them all out before her. "Fine to do!" he would cry, and while the words came forth in the most ringing tones of his voice and his eyes constantly sought hers, conscious that he revived in her presence his courage and light-heartedness, she herself was tricked into contentment. But now she questioned the extent of her power over him.

Until she had covered the distance from Zarah Patch's to "the barn," her feeling was nicely balanced between dejection and hope. But from "the barn" onward to her grandfather's house, hope flagged. Presently, in the privacy of her own room, she succumbed to despair:

"It may be that I'm not good-looking enough!"

This was the thought that caused her the most exquisite pang. If she failed on that score, as well yield up all hope at once. And in fancy she ranged herself beside this spinster and that of her acquaintance until the consciousness of the contrast between eighteen and fifty brought a smile flickering to her lips. But did she fail in the matter of looks? When dressed in her best, didn't she look as well as Lottie Loveburg? To be sure Lottie had a rope of hair as big as your arm, but then, there were her eyes!

To glance in the mirror over her bureau at her own resources of face and figure was a natural action for a young thing in such harassing doubt. At present, however on the subject of her looks, Rachel had all of a child's ignorance. She was no more capable of appreciating the sensitive changeful beauty of her colouring and expression than a canary bird is of appreciating the beauty of its yellow plumage.

Turning from the mirror to a window, she lost herself in reverie. Her thoughts returned again and again to the vision of two eyes that entered audaciously into hers,--two eyes with a mind in them,--two good lips laughing and talking from the covert of a curling beard; and as she studied the exciting vision, the gloom lifted from her face. It was indeed a great honour to be the confidante of such a man, she assured herself; and once more was isolated by the realization on a dizzy eminence above all her girl companions.