Chapter XV

Monday proved to be a record-breaking afternoon at the Dolphin. Golden with sunshine and cooled by a gentle southwest wind, it was one of those rarely beautiful days that seldom fail to lure pleasure-seekers out into its glory. Never had the sky arched over a bluer sea, or meadow and marsh been clothed in more vividly resplendent green. Through the wee Cape villages motor cars raced this way and that, and long before tea time every table on the Holmes’s piazza brimmed with guests.

All the morning Althea and Rebecca had been preparing for the rush experience had taught them such weather was sure to bring, and the reluctant Asaph, who had sneaked surreptitiously away to dig a bit of bone meal in around his hollyhocks, was promptly recalled from this congenial task and set to gathering fresh bayberry for jars and baskets.

He lent his services grudgingly. The fascinations of tea drinking were beginning to pall on him, and now that his wife had a competent helper he had fallen into the habit of letting one after another of his former duties slip off on to Rebecca’s willing shoulders.

Today he obeyed Althea’s summons with even less alacrity than usual, causing her to exclaim with impatience:

“Do hurry up, Asaph. Seem’s if it’s the least you can do to fetch the greens if ’Becca an’ I ’tend to the rest of the work. Since you’re bound to potter with flowers anyhow, why not do it to some purpose? All that diggin’ don’t amount to anything except to make the hollyhocks shoot up higher, an’ goodness knows we can hardly see the tips of ’em as ’tis.”

“Cultivatin’ keeps ’em bloomin’.”

“I wouldn’t have the face to urge human plants to blossom more’n they have,” was the curt retort. “Ain’t they crowded with buds this minute?”

“That’s ’cause I’ve put fertilizer on ’em,” returned the man with triumph.

“Pooh! How can you be sure they wouldn’t ’a’ bloomed that way anyhow?”

Asaph sighed. To prove horticultural truths to one as skeptical as Althea was well-nigh hopeless.

“Here’s a basket to gather the bayberry in,” went on his wife, in no mind to abandon her purpose until she beheld her victim safely on his way. “An’ before you go, do move these cloth-covered boxes off the back steps. Somebody’s goin’ to break their neck over ’em if you don’t. I thought I asked you yesterday to tote ’em round behind the house.”

“These are others.”

“What’s in ’em?”

“Young asters, a new kind. I got the seed from a New Jersey nursery an’ am tryin’ it.” Asaph bent tenderly over his treasures. “They ain’t very strong yet, so I’m protectin’ ’em from the sun for a few days.”

“You ain’t got my cheese-cloth duster over ’em!”

“I don’t know. It’s a piece of thin stuff I found lyin’ round.”

“It is my duster--one of my weddin’ ones--all feather-stitched round the edge. I hunted high an’ low for it yesterday,” announced Althea. “An’ that muslin--if it ain’t the shed sash curtain that I took down to wash!”

“Is it?” The florist, interested in his plants, spoke with indifference.

“Yes, it is!” reproached Althea. “Now, you can’t have either of those things. The very idea! A good sash curtain to cover over your boxes of dirt. It’s a wonder you wouldn’t take the parlor draperies. Why don’t you ask me when you want somethin’ instead of catchin’ up whatever’s in sight without so much as lookin’ to see what it is? My nice scrim curtain--an’ scrim costin’ what it does today!” She sighed a disheartened sigh. “Likely it’s torn, stained, an’ good for nothin’ now.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured the penitent. “I’d no idea ’twas of any account.”

“Nothin’s of account to you ’cept that garden,” flared Althea in an outburst of indignation. “I’m actually gettin’ so I dare not put a thing out of my hand lest it be grabbed up an’ used for plant growin’. Every tin in the pantry would ’a’ had poison mixed in it if I hadn’t set my foot down. As ’tis it’s a marvel we ain’t all been killed long before this with your blue sprays, brown sprays, an’ yaller sprays. Now you take my sash curtain straight off that soap box; an’ the duster, too.”

“But, Althea, I’ve got to have somethin’ thin to shade them seeds,” protested her husband.

At precisely this juncture Rebecca Crosby, bearing a basketful of freshly washed silver towels, sauntered carelessly out the door.

“My, what a day!” exclaimed she, breaking cheerily in on the scene. “These towels will dry in no time.” Then glancing down she remarked casually: “What you got there, Mr. Holmes? The new pink asters? I’d no idea they were up so far. Ain’t they a mite young for the bright sunlight? I’ve a scrap or two of muslin you might spread over ’em if you’d like it. ’Twas an apron I thought mebbe I’d take a stitch in sometime; but it’s really too old to mend.”

“I’d admire to have it.” There was no mistaking Asaph’s gratitude.

“You would? Well, well! I hardly thought you’d care for it. I’ll run an’ fetch it. Goodness knows I’ll be only too thankful to have it used an’ out of the way.”

In a trice Rebecca returned, the cobweb of cloth in her hand.

“It don’t look worn,” commented Althea as she stooped to reclaim her property.

“I know it,” agreed ’Becca, her cheeks turning pink. “But for all that it’s rotten as can be. A touch would send it into ribbons. However, I guess ’twill serve to shade these seedlin’s till they’re big enough to do without protection.” Then addressing Asaph she said in a lower tone: “Why don’t you lay a board or two out beyond the currant bushes an’ put your boxes there? Then they’ll be out of harm’s way an’ certain not to get stepped on.”

“I s’pose I might.”

“Here’s Captain Gill a-comin’,” proceeded the diplomatist swiftly. “Like’s not he’ll help you move ’em an’ help about gettin’ the bayberry, too.” As she spoke she whisked about and caught up her basket.

“’Mornin’, Miss Rebecca,” called the new arrival when he was within hailing distance.

“Good-mornin’, Cap’n.”

“Not leavin’ us, are you?”

“Yes, I must go an’ hang out my towels. We’ve a busy day ahead.”

“Expectin’ lots of folks for tea?” It was a foolish question and Lemuel knew it, but at the moment it was the only one he could think of to arrest Rebecca’s departing footsteps.

Miss Crosby, however, was not to be detained by so transparent a ruse. She even scorned to reply to it. Instead she nodded over her shoulder and moved unrelentingly off in the direction of the clothes yard.

“What’s she always in such a damned hurry for?” Lemmy interrogated.

“Has things to do, I reckon,” was his crony’s guarded answer.

“So do I,” grumbled Lemuel. “I have oceans of things to do. So does everybody. All the same I don’t set about ’em as if I’d been shot out of a gun.”

“Mebbe you’d have more to show for it if you did,” grinned the other man. “Come, bear a hand an’ help me h’ist these boxes, will you, Lemmy? I’m goin’ to move ’em over beyond the currants.”

“What for? I thought we decided yesterday this exposure would be--”

“Althea says--”

“Oh!”

Without further argument Lemuel rolled up his sleeves and the two confederates tugged the offending seedlings away.

When they were well out of sight Rebecca came with deliberation back from behind the house. She was humming softly and the sunshine or some other agency as potent had brought a flush of rose into her cheeks. If she had previously been in haste, her hurry was to all appearances now forgotten, for she stopped and, as if she had the whole day before her, centred her attention on fastening into her crisp print gown a spray of heliotrope she had gathered. It was while she was thus engaged that Eric Hollingsworth turned in at the gate.

Rebecca greeted him with a welcoming smile.

“A glorious mornin’, Doctor.”

“M--yes. The weather’s all right.”

“Where’s Peggy?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“You’ve not seen her today?”

“Oh, I’ve seen her. She’s got company though.”

The newcomer gazed moodily out to sea.

“Company! Now that’s nice,” returned Miss Crosby, with instant interest. “I was thinkin’ only the other day how pleasant ’twould be if there were more young folks over at the Inn. Some friend of hers from Cambridge?”

No answer came from the Doctor.

“I reckon it must be,” soliloquized Rebecca, after having waited a second and received no reply. “Likely it’s some girl from Cambridge--or mebbe Boston.”

“It isn’t a girl,” burst out Eric irritably. “It’s some darn navy chap plastered all over with brass buttons.”

“My soul an’ body! An’ when did he arrive?”

“Saturday night, just before the dance.”

“You don’t say! He was a dancin’ man, I s’pose.”

“All those popinjays dance,” growled the physician.

“Prob’ly they do,” came serenely from Rebecca, who bent to smooth out the hem of her apron. “They’re taught on shipboard most likely to make themselves agreeable no matter what.”

“Well, they can be agreeable for all me,” sneered Doctor Hollingsworth with a short laugh. Nevertheless the rebuke had its effect, for the frown furrowing his brow lessened and he contrived to direct toward the woman at his elbow a wry smile.

Faint as was this apology, it had upon Rebecca, accustomed habitually to go more than her half way, immediate effect.

“Prob’ly he won’t stay long,” soothed she in a voice reassuring with comfort and sympathy. “Those officers only have short spells of shore leave. They always have to get back to their ships within a few days.”

The Doctor did not appear to have heard the words, but the viciousness with which he kicked the turf abated noticeably.

Rebecca eyed him from under her lashes.

“I don’t s’pose you’d have the leisure to stay an’ help us a bit today,” ventured she presently. “I’ve no business to ask you, an’ Althea’ll likely trounce me for doin’ it. But we’re kinder put to it to get ready for the throngs of folks we’re expectin’ this afternoon, an’ if you could give us a little lift--”

“I’ve all the time in the world.”

“Really? You’re sure I’m not takin’ you away from somethin’ you’d planned on doin’?”

“Certain sure!”

“Now ain’t that lucky! You couldn’t ’a’ happened along at a better time. With the weather what it is another pair of hands will be a positive blessin’.”

The subtle implication that somebody was eager for his society flattered the disheartened lover, who brightened very considerably.

“I’ll do anything you order--gather greens or slice lemon,” laughed he magnanimously.

“Gather greens! Now how did you come to think of that? Mr. Holmes an’ Cap’n Gill are settin’ out this very minute to cut bayberry an’ cedar. If only you’d go along with ’em an’ see they get the right sort of sprays it would be the biggest comfort. You know what we want so much better’n they do.”

Ah, Eric knew! Had he not helped Peggy arrange the decorations scores of times?

“You can take my basket,” pursued Rebecca, giving him the empty one that was in her hand. “Get cedar that has berries on it if you can; it’s so much prettier.”

With boyish jubilance the Doctor caught up the basket. Already the spell of the summer day was upon him, its enchantment, like an opiate, deadening the poignancy of his wounds.

Rebecca waved him out of sight. Then when he was lost amid the pines that edged the little lane she hastened indoors.

“What do you s’pose has happened?” cried she, bursting breathlessly in on Althea. “One of those brass-trimmed navy chaps has chased Peggy down here!”

“Land alive! How’d you know?”

“The Doctor was here an’ told me. Gloomy as the grave he was; an’ mad as a hatter. We’ve got to do somethin’ with him or he may get himself into mischief. I’ve sent him off gatherin’ evergreens. When he comes back we’ll put him to work. Can’t he slice bread?”

“Oh, he’d get it too thick.”

“Well, some chore has got to be provided for him till he pulls himself together.” Rebecca pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I have it!” she exclaimed. “We’ll set him to foldin’ paper napkins.”

“Law! That’s child’s play. He’d have ’em done in no time.”

“Let him fold a lot--dozens of ’em. Trot out all you have stowed in the attic. They’ve got to be folded sometime, an’ may’s well be done one time as another. They’ll take his mind up an’ keep him from thinkin’ of himself.”

“I can’t for the life of me see why he didn’t clinch matters with Peggy an’ make sure of her when the coast was clear an’ he had the chance,” grumbled Althea. “Here he’s had her to himself since June. Why ain’t he perked up an’ said somethin’ instead of dallyin’ round day after day?”

“Mebbe he hadn’t the nerve to speak,” excused the more charitable Rebecca. “Brother Thomas used often to say the bravest men turned weak-kneed when it came to proposin’.”

“Well, his philanderin’ may cost him a good wife,” sniffed her companion.

“Not if he goes at things right,” asserted Miss Crosby sagely.

Curiously enough, despite her spinsterhood, it was Rebecca who was conceded to be the authority in all affairs of the heart. Her lynxlike eyes were ever on the unconscious Peggy and her swain, studying the amatory barometer and passing on her observations to her less acutely observant associate.

The times she had coaxed Asaph out of the grape arbor that the youthful pair might enjoy its seclusion, and prevented Lemuel Gill from breaking in upon a tête-à-tête of delicious nothings were innumerable. Like an anxious mother bird fluttering protectingly over her fledglings she would remark:

“Seem’s if she’s sorter offish this afternoon. When I took in their tea they weren’t speakin’. She was just settin’ lookin’ at the table an’ playin’ with her spoon. I hope to mercy nothin’s wrong.”

Or:

“He’s terrible cast down today. I’m most afraid they’ve had a fallin’ out.”

“They were all right when I saw ’em five minutes ago,” Althea would respond.

“A lot of damage can be done in five minutes,” would be the oracle’s sagacious answer.

So the days had passed, Cupid’s temperature being taken every time his form ventured into sight.

Hence it was scarcely a wonder that the advent of a hero bedizened with gold braid set both Althea and the watchful Rebecca into almost as violent a flurry as it had Eric Hollingsworth.

“I wish to mercy this brass-buttoned chap had stayed away,” wailed Althea for the twentieth time. “What will happen now, I wonder? Ain’t you worried to death, ’Becca? I am. Girls are so foolish an’ those uniforms--” She paused helplessly.

“Pooh! Don’t go takin’ too much stock in all that gilt trumpery,” was Rebecca’s contemptuous response. “Let this navy officer be what he will, I’ll risk the Doctor against him. His good looks alone will carry him. Women think a lot of that.”

“Mebbe. Still I’m sorry the man’s turned up, ain’t you?”

“Not altogether. It makes things more excitin’. You certainly couldn’t expect a girl pretty as Peggy to have but one string to her bow. Livin’ in Cambridge as she does right alongside of that Harvard College crammed with men, ’twould be queer enough had no one noticed her.”

“Goodness, ’Becca! What an upsettin’ notion!”

Miss Crosby appeared to enjoy her friend’s chagrin.

“I don’t see how you can take it all so lightly,” went on Althea. “The whole thing is gettin’ me so on edge I feel’s if ’twas I the Doctor was in love with. Asaph’s growin’ jumpy, too; an’ only last night Lemmy Gill told me he thought fallin’s in love were terrible unsettlin’.”

“Captain Gill said that?”

“Yes. He declared a love affair was as uncomfortable as anything he’d ever had dealin’s with.”

“I wonder he don’t let ’em alone then,” sniffed Miss Rebecca. Nevertheless, something in the Captain’s observation seemed to amuse her vastly, for she laughed beneath her breath.

“What you laughin’ at?”

“Nothin’. Just somethin’ I was thinkin’ of.”

“I wish I could laugh as you do over Peggy an’ her concerns,” Althea sighed. “You ’pear to relish the mess. The more tangled up it gets the better you seem to like it. I believe you’re a born match-maker.”

“I’ll own to havin’ had my finger in quite a few love affairs in my day,” smiled Rebecca.

“How ever did you dare?”

“Providence needs aid occasionally,” was the retort. “I know the sayin’ goes that marriages are made in heaven; but they have to take place on earth for all that. I’ve made four marriages to my certain knowledge durin’ my lifetime--possibly five. An’ I’ve helped on dozens.”

“Rebecca Crosby!”

The horror in Althea’s ejaculation was unconcealed.

“Yes,” added Miss Crosby, ignoring the interruption and proceeding with serenity, “I’m sure I can take credit for five marriages at least.”

“How’d they turn out?”

“All right; as well as most. They had their ups an’ downs, to be sure, but that’s to be expected. The fifth one warn’t much to boast of. Still, I didn’t look for it to be ’specially successful. It wouldn’t ’a’ been anyhow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, both him an’ her were harpies. Either one of ’em was bound to make somebody miserable. So I conceived the idea they’d do less damage yoked together an’ I set ’em on one another,” answered Miss Crosby placidly.

“’Becca!”

“Well, warn’t that plain common sense? Warn’t it far better for their characters they should get as good as they sent than bully an’ tyrannize all their days over some meek, timid soul who’d knuckle under to ’em an’ just make ’em worse?”

“E--r--p’raps so,” foundered Althea, who obviously felt herself beyond her depth when confronted by such novel ethics.

“I reasoned that way, anyhow,” continued the philosopher, “an’ I ain’t ever seen cause to change my mind. It certainly was better two folks should be miserable than four.”

“I dunno but ’twas,” groped Althea uncertainly.

For an interval the loud ticking of the clock and the distant murmur of the surf were the only sounds in the room.

“Queer you never married yourself, ’Becca--an’ you so keen on match-makin’,” ventured Mrs. Holmes, having completed in thoughtful silence the buttering of the pyramid of bread before her.

“I? Oh, mercy! I’ve seen enough of men,” Rebecca bristled. “I wouldn’t be bothered with ’em. Besides, I had Mother an’ Aunt Feemie to think of; an’ afterward there was Brother Thomas.”

“You nursed all those folks?”

“I was glad to do it. It was because of Mother’s sickness I gave up teachin’, you know.”

Althea did not reply at once. Instead she meditatively beat to a cream the butter in the blue china bowl before her.

Then she remarked softly as if half to herself:

“It was kind of a pity, ’Becca.”

“My givin’ up teachin’ you mean?” came in an even tone from the other woman. “Well, I was sorter sorry because--”

“I didn’t mean that.”

For response Miss Crosby cocked her head critically to one side and let a spoonful of fragrant orange frosting drip with gentle, clock-like beats into the dish in her lap.

“Should you say this icin’ was stiff enough?” was her irrelevant query.