Chapter 19

A NOR'EASTER

Anemone Cottage was built partly of boulders taken from the shore. Its roomy porch was supported by pillars of the same stone. The bluish tint of balsam firs stood out against the darker foliage of the evergreens that surrounded it, and such trees as cut off the superb view from the piazza had been removed, leaving vistas which were an exaltation to the beholder.

The beauty of the place sank into Sylvia's heart, and as Miss Martha appeared on the porch to meet the guests, the light of hospitality shone in her face, and the girl forgot that it had ever been difficult to greet her aunt warmly.

"Your sail has given you sharp appetites, I'm sure," said Miss Martha, "and dinner is just going to be put on the table."

They all moved into the living-room. It ran the full width of the cottage and had a wide, deep fireplace opposite the door. A round centre-table covered with books and periodicals, an upright piano, and numerous armchairs as comfortable as they were light, furnished the room.

"How charming!" exclaimed Sylvia, looking from the rugs on the floor to the cushions in the window-seats.

"Yes, it is," said Edna. "It's a fine port in a storm, but in all decent weather we scorn it."

Sylvia went to a window. A rocky path led between the symmetrical firs down toward the shore where far below boomed the noisy surf.

"And how is the boat, Sylvia?" asked Miss Martha.

"It's a joy," replied the girl, looking around brightly.

"Oh, yes, your boat," said Edna. "I'm going to invite myself over on purpose to row with you. Miss Lacey has told me all about it and its mysterious name."

Her eyes twinkled at Sylvia.

"It is--very mysterious," returned the latter, laughing.

Miss Lacey gave a quick nod. "I'm going to ask Judge Trent what it means when he comes," she declared.

"Fie, Miss Martha! How indiscreet!" laughed Edna. "Can't he have a little undisturbed flirtation with his best girl?"

She was surprised at the suddenness and depth of Miss Lacey's blush, but the little woman bustled out to the dining-room and shortly announced dinner.

It seemed to Sylvia that she had never been so hungry and that food had never tasted so delicious. She remarked upon it somewhat apologetically, and Edna laughed at her. "My dear girl, it's the way of the place," she said. "Of course we eat nothing prosaic here. These potatoes grew at the Mill Farm, these lobsters were swimming this morning. This lamb, I'm afraid, was skipping around only a few days ago on Beacon Island. This salad grew just over the fence from that daisy field we passed through this morning,--and so on."

For dessert they had a deep huckleberry pie.

"How's this, Sylvia, eh?" asked Thinkright, after the first juicy mouthful. "I thought Mrs. Lem was pretty good at it."

"It is perfect," returned Sylvia, "but how we shall look!" she added.

"Don't worry," said Edna. "I always keep a box of tooth-brushes upstairs for wanderers trapped just as you are. Of course it is a good pie. These berries were growing on the shore of Merriconeag Sound yesterday, and Miss Lacey and I picked them ourselves. Weren't we a happy, disreputable pair, Miss Martha? Our dresses were stained, our fingers were a sight, and our lips,--I'll draw a veil! We both would have done so then if we'd had any."

Sylvia listened, smiling. In her preoccupation she let her fork veer away from her plate.

"Oh!" she ejaculated regretfully. "See what I've done!" A drop of the rich dark juice had fallen on the spotless cloth and seemed to spread mischievously. "Dear, I meant to be so careful."

"Not a bit of harm," returned Edna. "That is a feature of the huckleberry season. The stain vanishes under hot water."

Sylvia's eyes clung to the spot. A thought had suddenly come to her like a lightning flash. She knew vaguely that her hostess was saying pleasant things, but she could not follow them.

"Eat your pie, Sylvia," said her aunt. "We always have a second piece. Jenny's feelings would be hurt if we didn't."

The girl commenced eating again, mechanically. "You picked these yourselves?" she said. "They grow for anybody to pick?"

"Yes, indeed," replied Edna. "I enjoy it. I think Miss Lacey considers a berrying expedition a good deal of a pleasure exertion."

"They always ripen first in such shut-in fields," objected Miss Lacey.

Edna laughed. "The kind Mrs. Lem would call hot as Topet."

"Oh, I'd love to pick them," said Sylvia. "Do they grow around the Mill Farm, Thinkright?"

Her eyes were shining as she asked her question.

"No. Nowhere around us,--that is, nowhere near. I've often wondered at it."

"Stay here, and go with me, Sylvia," said Edna cordially. "We'll let Miss Martha off, and you and I will take Benny and make a day of it."

"Oh, I'd love to!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I'll try to come over soon."

"Not at all. Always make the most of a bird in the hand. You're here now. I'm going to keep her,--oh, as long as I can, Thinkright."

He smiled at Sylvia, who smiled back, still with the excited shining in her eyes. "She seems willing, I must say," he remarked, pleased at the prospect of the two girls thus becoming acquainted.

The hour before he had to start back was spent by them all together, at first on the rocky ledges below the house where the caldrons of foam and fountains of spray made the finest show, and then roaming through the fragrant woods. At each new vista Miss Martha noted the narrowing of her niece's eyes and the absorption of her gaze.

"I guess you have some of your poor father's artistic taste," she said to her at one pause.

"I wish my father could have seen this place," was Sylvia's reply.

When the time came for Thinkright to make his adieux she clung to him.

"I declare I believe she's homesick at the parting," said Miss Lacey to Edna. They two were standing on the piazza and the others a little way off on the grass; but Sylvia was not homesick, she was whispering to her cousin: "I'm staying for a reason, Thinkright!" she said. "I've had an idea. I believe it's a good one."

He patted her shoulder. "That's right, that's right." He gestured toward the rolling expanse about them. "For every drop of water in that ocean there are thousands of possibilities of good for every one of God's children. The shutters are open, little one. Why shouldn't the blessing flow in?"

And so began for Sylvia the visit which always afterward stood out in her memory unique in the poignancy of its novel impressions. Despite the simplicity of life at Anemone Cottage, there was an order and smoothness in the management of details which constantly attracted and charmed the guest. The poetry of the wild enchanting surroundings was ever sounding a new note in sky or sea or flower, and the companionship of Edna Derwent was an experience which Sylvia seized upon with an eagerness wholly devoid of worldly considerations.

It was on a Friday that Thinkright had left her at the island. During that night a northeast wind sprang up, and on Saturday a storm prevented the expedition after berries. It was a wonderful day to Sylvia.

Torrents of rain beat upon the windows, the atmosphere was a blur through which the surf thundered mysteriously.

Logs blazed merrily in the great fireplace. Sylvia found a feast of many courses in the illustrations of the magazines. Edna was interested to see her discrimination.

"Oh, I remember," she said. "Miss Lacey told me your father was an artist."

Miss Martha was sitting by the fire darning stockings, and at this she gave an involuntary alert glance at her niece where she sat with Edna by the round table, her head bent above one of the periodicals.

"My father never learned to apply himself. He was not deeply interested in his work," replied Sylvia. The blue eyes looked up into Edna's dark ones. "No one ever taught my father how to think right," she added.

"I see," returned Miss Derwent; "but your interest must have been a great help to him."

"No, I was never any help to him. As I look back I seem to myself to have been only a chrysalis. I had eyes and saw not, and ears and heard not. I only began to live when I came to the Mill Farm. Poor father!"

Edna's eyes were soft. "I understand," she said.

Miss Lacey did not understand, but she suspected. She saw the look that passed between the two girls, and remembered Thinkright's peculiar views and Edna's adherence to them.

"'Tisn't doing Sylvia any harm, anyway," she reflected, "and I know she'll never have a disloyal thought of her father," and she pulled another stocking over her hand.

"Well, you are interested now, certainly," remarked Edna, increasingly surprised at the girl's perception of the quality of the work of the various artists, combined with such comparative ignorance of their names and reputations.

"I have never had much opportunity," said Sylvia simply, "and, as you can see, I never made the most of what I did have. I suppose father had ambition once"--

"Indeed he did, my dear!" put in Miss Lacey emphatically.

Sylvia started. In her absorption she had forgotten her aunt's presence.

"Yes, I suppose so," she replied; "but things went hard with him, and for years past the only work he could depend upon were the pictures he made for advertisements and an occasional cartoon for a paper."

"Indeed," returned Miss Lacey, leaning forward and poking the fire in her embarrassment. This was entirely gratuitous frankness on Sylvia's part. "Well, I can assure you he was made for better things," she went on, bridling. "When you visit me I will show you a landscape in my parlor worth a thousand of the daubs people rave over. Half the time you can't tell whether they're trying to paint a tulip field or a prairie fire. Ridiculous! You can almost count the rings on the horns of the cows in this landscape. It's what I call a _picture_."

It was well that Miss Lacey enjoyed this work of art, for it was all she had to show for many a squeeze given to her slender purse by the artist.

Edna paused in the talk she was led into by her guest's eager attention and questions.

"Listen to the surf!" she exclaimed. "You must see that show, Sylvia. We must go down to the rocks."

"Fine! But I haven't any other clothes if I wet these," returned the girl, looking down.

"Oh, it's bathing suits to-day, and rubbers, and mackintoshes."

Soon they were equipped; and leaving the cottage by the back door they worked their way around the corner of the house to the sea front, and by the help of the sturdy trees that were making their usual good fight with the elements managed to creep down to the upper tier of rocks. Here it was impossible to hear one another speak, and the girls' exhilaration could be expressed only by glances as they clung to each other and the rocks, where to-day the foam flakes flew about them, although it was usually high and dry for some distance below this. The fine sharp needles of rain, which at first made their eyes smart, ceased for a time, and they watched the giant waves at their hoarse, clamorous revel, joining the roar with their own shrieks of mirth and excitement whenever some reckless fling of spray drenched them from head to foot.

Edna had placed Turkish towels and their clothing in a shed at the back of the house, and when finally the rain began again to cut their eyes and shut away even the nearest view, she succeeded in dragging the reluctant and dripping Sylvia thither, and they again made ready for the house.

"Come in, you two mermaids," exclaimed Miss Lacey when they appeared. She threw more logs on the fire. "I began to think you had gone to see the land 'where corals lie.'"

Edna laughed and took the pins out of her hair, so that it rolled in damp lengths about her. Sylvia's curls were gemmed with bright drops, and both girls were rosy and sparkling from their tussle with the gale.

"Sylvia has the only hair that ever ought to go to the seashore," remarked Edna, looking with open admiration at the piquant face under the jeweled diadem. "You can take a chair, Sylvia, but I shall have to turn my back to that lovely fire."

Sylvia stretched herself luxuriously in a reclining chair before the blaze while her hostess sank on the rug and spread her dark locks to the heat.

"You do look like a mermaid," said Sylvia.

"Mermaids sing," remarked Edna. "Would you like to hear me sing?"

"I don't know," replied the other slowly, "whether I could stand one more thing. I think I might pass away if you should sing, the way you look now."

Edna laughed. "I feel like singing," she said, and jumping up, went to the piano and pulled over the music.

"I think Miss Lacey started me by speaking about 'Where Corals Lie.' I'll sing the Elgar 'Sea Pictures.'"

Edna had an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling drops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange and moving music. It stirred Sylvia to the depths.

At the close of the song "Where Corals Lie," she sighed some comment, and Miss Martha spoke:--

"That isn't what you'd call a _pretty_ tune, not near as pretty as a lot that Edna sings," she remarked, "but that song goes right to my backbone somehow and chills right up and down it; and the way she says,--

'Leave me, leave me, let me go And see the land where corals lie,'

it sort of comes over me when she stays long down on the rocks in a storm, and makes me feel queer."

"That's right, Miss Lacey," remarked Edna, without turning around. "I'm a very sentimental and desperate person."

"You are when you sing, my dear," retorted Miss Martha with conviction.

"Now I'll give you the Capri one," said Edna, "but I never saw a day at Capri that fitted it as every day does here;" and with wind and wave outside making an obligato to her flowing accompaniment, she sang "In Haven."

"Closely let me hold thy hand, Storms are sweeping sea and land, Love alone will stand.

"Closely cling, for waves beat fast, Foam flakes cloud the hurrying blast, Love alone will last.

"Kiss my lips and softly say, 'Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day; Love alone will stay.'"

Sylvia's hands were pressed to her eyes when the song was finished, and her aunt looked at her curiously, for she saw that she could not speak. Had Miss Martha been told that the young man in Judge Trent's office had any part in the tumult of feeling that sent the color to Sylvia's temples and the tears to her eyes she would have scouted the idea as too wild for consideration.

"That _is_ a very pretty one," Miss Martha remarked in the silence that followed. She spoke to ease what she felt to be a tense situation. At the same time she winked at Edna, who had turned about to face her auditors. Sylvia's eyes remained hidden so Miss Martha continued:--

"There's something about those words that makes me think of 'Oh, Promise Me.' That's my favorite song. Do see if you can't remember it, Edna."

But the latter rose and came back to the fire.

"I must dry my hair," she said. "That's the drawback of not being a real mermaid."

She sank again on the rug near Sylvia.

The latter uncovered her flushed eyes and reached one hand down to Edna, who took it.

"If you hadn't--hadn't had anything," said Sylvia unsteadily, "you'd understand."

"I do," replied Edna; but she was mistaken. Though she pressed the hand very sympathetically she did not understand.