CHAPTER VI

THE INSISTENT PAST

As in death there takes place a loosening, a lifting, a withdrawing of the spiritual part, so, too, in love. The soul, made daring through love, seeks to support a separate existence; but the attempt is pitiful, doomed to frustration; for clamorous and insistent, the ordinary conditions of life make themselves felt. The descent in Rachel's case to the normal state, wherein duties and scruples play their part, was realized at the moment Emil climbed into the boat.

Before starting for the beach she had put on her head a travelling cap that belonged to Simon. It had been almost made way with by the wind; but, still held by its long pin, it had slipped to her shoulders with the mass of her hair. Now, with the oscillation of the skiff caused by Emil's movements as he drew himself from the water, the cap dropped to the seat beside her, and thence was carried by a puff of wind to the floor of the boat. Not a garment of Simon's but closely resembled him; this cap of hunter's green with a tiny stripe of red in the flannel, was instinct with his personality. As it lay before her, Rachel shuddered and the expression that filled her eyes kept Emil from any indiscretion into which the situation might otherwise have betrayed him. Before the mute appeal of her look he was powerless.

She crouched in the end of the boat and with a motion of the hand indicated that he was to put back to the land. Before obeying, he wrung the water from the sleeves of his coat. He was trembling and as she perceived the power of his love, perceived the amazing and terrifying force leaping out upon her from under his scowling brows,--a sudden pity took her; and she dared not look upon him because of that tenderness which is more disarming to a woman than her fear.

"Well, that was a race!" he remarked unsteadily. "Are you tired?"

"Not very--a little."

"I'll row you home."

"With one oar?"

"There's another on the beach that you didn't see."

"I didn't take the time to look."

As the boat had drifted with the tide, the return to the shore was accomplished with difficulty. When he was once more seated opposite her, rowing with even strokes, he noticed that she shivered and a gentleness softened his face.

"You are very cold, aren't you?"

"The air has changed."

"Here, take my coat; it's soaking, but your dress is soaking too."

"It's--very heavy. I don't see how you ever swam in it; it's weighted down,--" and from the pockets she drew forth first a coil of wire, then a wrench, then several drills.

He watched her and delight shone in his face.

"I could have swum the Atlantic in armour to reach you. Do you know, you look like a mermaid with your hair hanging down that way." He was laughing now and the old lazy fondness sounded in his voice. Leaning toward her he rested on the oars. "Rachel, why did you run away from me like that?" he asked, smiling confidentially, and suddenly one of his hands went out to hers.

She drew back and for a moment enveloped herself in taciturnity, but all at once, as if compelled, she brought a defiant glance around to meet his.

"Why because you started to run--and I ran, too."

"Well, it's useless; you can never elude me again. Do you know," he continued, "it seems to me that this crazy race has been going on ever since the first time I saw you in the mist? Do you remember the day? You were perched on a rock, I recollect, and the cow--you were leading a cow--pushed up behind you in such a way that her horns curved up about your feet for all the world like a little crescent moon. I swear it had that look. Lord, but you made a picture! Do you remember the day?"

"Yes, I remember the time, but I didn't know I looked like that."

She opened her eyes very wide and her lips parted with the movement of an expanding flower. Vanity kindled in her face as light kindles in a jewel. There is in a woman's inner nature a sensitive something that constitutes the very essence of her charm, that informs her physical features with vivacity, with seduction. The craving to have this secret attribute recognized, causes her to discover in every compliment a spiritual significance; causes her to wrap herself in its fancied meaning, as in a shawl; causes her to live in it, breathe it in--in short to discover in it an atmosphere of inspiration in which she manages to exist for the briefest fraction of time. Indeed, the longing for the caress of words addressed to her very soul, is as natural to an imaginative and ardent woman, as the longing for the caress of light is to a flower. And with Rachel, as with many another young girl of New England traditions, the craving had never been gratified. Now Emil's praise of her was so alluring that she was trapped into listening; had he paused for a word, involuntarily she would have supplied it.

But he required no urging to finish his speech which dropped from his lips with all the precipitancy of fruit from an overladen branch.

"You were just like a figure from some church altar," he told her fervently. "Your dress was blue, and the fog rolled about you in clouds. All the same, you know, your expression wasn't exactly saintly; it was too--"

"Too what?" she whispered.

"Well, just what it is now," and with that he looked at her until she was obliged to avert her eyes.

"I mean that your face is very innocent," he explained, "and at the same time, it is all alive with--well, with a sort of curiosity. But to-day you were Diana of the Chase with your skirts all ruffling around your feet and blowing to the side in folds. However I'm not up in mythology; all I know is, my own, you'll never succeed in fencing yourself off from me again. But don't look at me like that!" And with an indefinable glance at her as she sat, suddenly converted to sternness, he took up the oars.

She observed complete silence, and for some moments all that was heard about them was the ripple of the water as it met the sides of the boat. The waves like a lover approached the boat, touching it lightly, tentatively and timidly caressing it with eager lips. But occasionally waves larger than the rest seized the skiff and upbore it as in the powerful embrace of arms, dipped and sank with it; while a sound of multiplied kisses ran over the surface of the glancing ocean, which was tremulous as a breast heaving with love. And the influence of that universal caress mounted to the air, which was like a stinging breath crossed with tears of spray; even reached the low-stooping western heavens where sailed largely great cloud masses, like huge embarrassed lovers, that never the less, with a sudden darting of colour along their edges, strange and fiery smiles, approached--melted softly and completely into one.

The sea was a theatre and the play enacted on that broad expanse, in the swiftly falling twilight, for the bewilderment of that pair of human mites,--the play was Love. For Nature, the great scene shifter, who causes the mists to rise above swamps that she may bring about the love and mating of midges, is the artist incomparable when she sets out to glamour and bend to her will the least significant of these struggling, valiant creatures called men, these creatures that dare, with a law opposed to hers, to defy her.

Rachel had crept to the extreme end of the skiff and when the water rose to the edge it often dashed across her knees. Her head was flung back, but for all that, she saw nothing. She was holding her emotions well in leash and the effort drew from her now and then a sigh. Where the fingers of one hand met the back of the other, for she had them tight clasped, there were white marks on the flesh. She sat before him with the impassive countenance of an image, though internally she was consumed with flames.

Time passed imperceptibly, but all at once she pointed to the shore.

"Emil," she said, in a muffled voice, "there's Gray Arches among the trees. The lamps are lighted. Make haste."

He had been doubling on his course, and, unnoticed by her, even striking out to sea, with the object of delaying the moment of landing. Now the dusk, which had descended insidiously, was close about them.

At her words, he headed the boat for the shore. But after an instant he leaned forward. "Before I take you in, I want you to tell me when I'm to see you again."

She drew herself up: "I don't know when you'll see me--never, I think." She spoke in a throbbing, suppressed way, exactly as if she were forcing back from the edge of her lips and to the depths of her heart, some secret. "There is the pier; don't you see it?"

The young man nodded. "Yes, I see it all right. Rachel, I'm going to Barbieri Brothers to-morrow to see how that marble-cutting device of mine works. Come there in the afternoon and see the machine with me, won't you?"

She shook her head.

"Very well then," and he began paddling out to sea.

"You think you'll frighten me or annoy me," she cried, moved to scorn, "but you won't succeed. I can swim as well as you."

He laughed and the boat, quivering in a bewildered sort of way, once more approached the land, noisily cleaving the water.

"Rachel, you'll come and see that machine, won't you? I'll never ask you again. But it's an interesting thing, really it is, and they're cutting the figures for the Century Library with it. Can't you understand that I'd like to have you see my work? It isn't much that I ask, and you can get the five o'clock train out here if you like. Promise me you'll come."

Through the gloom on the pier she saw a lonely figure intent on the antics of the boat. She looked at Emil and the impulse of her tenderness carried her beyond the barrier imposed by her will. In one instant she had passed beyond the outworks of her usual self. When she answered him in low, vibrant tones, it was a message, if he had but understood, from the very depths of her heart:

"Yes, I'll come--you've no business to ask me, and I've no business to promise; I'll come, but there must be no more of this; it's ended." These words were at once an appeal and a command.

But Emil, ignoring the nervous shrinking that came over her, caught her hand under cover of the gloom and held it to his cheek--his lips. Then cleverly, easily, he brought the boat to the pier.

The next instant Rachel was confronted by her husband. Giving Emil his coat, she stepped from the boat, refusing assistance. As she swayed on gaining the pier, Simon took hold of her arm; then passed his hand over her shoulders.

"Why you're wet--you're wet through," he exclaimed, and as he turned to Emil she noticed that he spoke in a manner unusually cordial and spontaneous. "So you were caught in the rain? If you'll just step to the house, St. Ives, I'll give you something to ward off a chill; a nip of whiskey wouldn't come amiss."

But Emil, muttering something about returning the fisherman's boat, disappeared in the twilight and Rachel, stumbling like one who walks in a dream, accompanied Simon to the house.

"The rain won't harm you, my love," he was saying as they gained the porch, "if you change your clothing at once. It's remaining in damp garments that's the imprudent thing."

As they crossed the threshold Rachel caught his hand. "Simon, I--I want to speak to you." And half dragging, half pushing him, she urged him into the front room.

This room was large and shadowy, with a row of French windows commanding a view of the sea. The shades were drawn and the light from a small fire on the hearth sparkled on a glass dome beneath which were placed specimens of sea moss and shells. The dome stood at one end of a long table and a candelabrum hung with glass prisms at the other end; above one candle hung a red spark,--the wick needed snuffing. The room was damp. As she spoke Rachel, passing her arm behind her, clasped the glass knob of the door.

"Simon--I don't want to stay here any longer."

He confronted her in surprise: "Not stay here any longer? Why, Rachel, you astonish me; I thought you loved the sea."

"So I do--but this coast--it oppresses me. Simon, I want to go back to the city at once, do you understand,--at once; can't we move to-morrow?"

"But you're irrational, my dear. In fact the doctor whom I saw only yesterday, counselled just the opposite course. He said to me, speaking of you, 'the sea air is what she needs; she grew up in such a climate. You keep her on the shore until late fall!"

For a moment Rachel dropped her head against the panels of the door and closed her eyes; then raising her head, she looked intently at her husband:

"Simon, you asked Mr. St. Ives to come here; you asked him without consulting me and now--I want to go away."

For an instant he studied her, then he crossed to her side and took her hand.

"My dear Rachel," he said, "I thought perhaps you understood without anything being said. Rachel, believe me, I have not the feeling now about your friendship with St. Ives that I once had. That feeling of jealousy,--for it was jealousy--I do not deny it--was degrading to us both, but particularly it was insulting to you. And during your illness it left me; thank Heaven, it left me," he repeated. "And now be generous--don't take from me the happiness I feel. You think I objected to your being out with him, but when I saw you in the boat, I was conscious only of a serene friendship for St. Ives."

A flash of firelight illumined his face and she saw to her surprise that his usually enigmatic eyes held a look that completely transformed him. The explanation she had intended to make died on her lips. With a bewildered gesture she turned as if to leave the room; and at that moment they were interrupted. There was a knock, and the caretaker questioningly opened the door.

"If you please, Mrs. Hart," she began, "there's a strange young man down in the kitchen who is asking to see you."

"A young man?"

"Yes, a lad. My husband thinks he ain't just right, he's so sort of wild looking; but the boy says he's from your old home and nothing for it but he must see you."

"Why it's André!" Rachel cried in amazement, and, before the woman had finished speaking, she darted from the room.

Simon's voice pursued her: "Your clothing, change it first, I beg of you."

Rachel had vanished.

The next moment she was standing before André. Catching him by the arms, she shook him; then pressed her head to his shoulder. "Oh, André," she whispered, "Is it you--is it really?" And passing her arms about him, she clung to him.

The young fellow suffered the embrace and his hands hung motionless at his sides, though in his great eyes a spark kindled as he looked down at her.

"Tell me," she asked breathlessly, "how did you ever manage to find me--and what brings you, André dear? Explain--tell me everything, but not here," catching sight of the caretaker who had reëntered the kitchen. "Come to the front room where there is a fire.--Simon, this is André," she cried as they encountered her husband on his way through the hall. And taking the young fellow's hand, she placed it in Simon's.

"Yes, I'm going now," she added. "I'm dying of curiosity, but I'll change my dress first. And do you make André comfortable. I'll be back in a minute," she cried.

Rachel's welcome of her childhood's friend was all the more eager because she looked to him to save her from the difficulties of her situation and from herself. While she dressed, she thought only of André and as she drew on a pair of dry shoes and tightened the crossed lacings with excited jerks, she said his name over and over like a child bubbling with joy.

"Now for the news?" she cried, entering the front room; and seating herself beside André, she took his hand. "Something special brought you, I know it. Now tell me."

The story at any other time would have held her spellbound, but in her present mood she had difficulty in grasping it. Constantly her thoughts wandered, now to Emil, now to André. She drew such profound comfort from the touch of André's strong young fingers.

The facts as he related them were as follows: A man in the last stage of consumption and calling himself, "John Smith" had made his appearance in Old Harbour a few days before. Desiring news of Lavina Beckett's daughter, he had asked to be directed to André. When he learned from André that Rachel was living in New York city, he had burst into tears. He had declared he must see her before he died. He had persuaded André to accompany him to the city as he feared to travel farther alone. But before leaving Old Harbour he had deposited a sum of money in the bank and had written a long letter which he addressed to Rachel. On the journey he had read and reread this epistle. He was very weak and when they reached their destination, collapsed in the great bustling station. After much parley over the telephone, a station attendant had arranged for his reception at a hospital. Thither he had been taken. The physician who attended him assured him he would be much stronger after a few hours' rest, and on hearing this, John Smith had begged André to find Rachel and bring her to the hospital the following day. "Afternoon's always my best time, bring her then," he had implored.

"I understand; it's poor Father's friend," Rachel whispered dreamily, when André concluded; "he didn't send all the money Father gave him that time, and now he wants to give me the rest. That's the whole sad story. But André, I can't seem to think about it," she murmured after a moment. "I'll go to the hospital without fail, but now let's talk about you. Do you know, I think you managed splendidly to ferret me out in this way. You went to the house, first, of course, and Theresa told you where I was."

While André's voice ran on detailing the news: how his mother and he now performed every duty about the lighthouse as the Captain was in his cups most of the time (Oh, but the Captain, he was a clever one at concealing the state of things!) how Nora Gage had gone into the shop with Katherine Fry, how Zarah Patch had increased the size of his vegetable garden, and Lottie Loveburg had taken up with Jim Wright after all--Rachel scarcely listened to him. A danger confronted her, and, try as she would, she could think of nothing but the decisive interview of the morrow,--that battle that must be waged in spite of her own deadly weakness and overwhelming love.

She asked herself a question. Why at this time, rather than any other, were the facts relating to her father's life to be revealed to her? And, as she sat by André's side, she was conscious of a mysterious influence, like a warning, reaching her from the insistent past.