Chapter XVIII

While these amorous events thus shaped themselves, a surge of tensity and disquiet began almost imperceptibly to undermine the tranquillity of the Green Dolphin. The transformation, however, was too subtle a one to be evident upon the surface. The tea, cakes, and sandwiches were as delicious as of yore and presented the same appetizing appearance. Nor did the patronage of the place decrease; on the contrary, if anything a greater number of guests crowded house and veranda than before. Mr. Haverford, in the custody of the cautious Sophie and watchful Clara, had become an habitué, and regardless of his digestion indulged in every tempting viand the menu afforded. Long ago his daughters, realizing the futility of attempting to thwart his gastronomic orgies, had abandoned him to his fate, daily expecting to see him barter away his life in exchange for a broiled live lobster or a Welsh rarebit. Up to date, however, no such tragedy had befallen him. The irascible invalid actually appeared to thrive on cheese dreams and fudge cake, not only gaining weight on this ambrosial fare but juvenility as well. And there were other regular visitors who, ferreting out the system Althea pursued, motored miles on the days fried chicken and waffles were served, declaring no other spot on the Cape furnished such faultless cooking.

No, there certainly was no cause for the Holmes to worry lest their enterprise fail for want of financial support.

Neither did Althea or the faithful Rebecca Crosby slacken in their devotion to the undertaking. They offered up as painstaking service as ever, and if their ardor betrayed any signs of abating it was rather because experience had solved for them their most balking problems, and routine rendered the excessive effort they had formerly displayed unnecessary.

Oh, no one could accuse the Dolphin of change. The mutation so gradually taking place was in the temper of its staff. Althea was slowly developing an edge of sharpness quite new to her, and even the constantly serene Rebecca showed symptoms of possessing nerves. As for Lemmy Gill, he had lapsed into periodic spells of melancholy and absent-mindedness that totally unfitted him for any work.

Hence of the charter members of the Dolphin’s retinue, Asaph Holmes alone remained normal, and even his tranquillity was little by little being sapped away by the odd behavior of his associates.

“What in the name of goodness has got everybody?” he one day demanded of Lemuel, dragging his comrade into the seclusion of the vine-covered arbor that flanked the garden. “It’s gettin’ to be like a funeral round here--or a volcano.”

“You couldn’t ’xactly say the two were off the same piece,” grinned the Captain.

Asaph, however, was too deeply in earnest to be deterred by jest.

“Ain’t you noticed nothin’?” persisted he.

Lemmy pursed his lips as if to consider the matter.

“U----m. If you mean Althea I’ll own she’s waxin’ a mite tart,” he admitted. “Only the other day I asked her was she sick or only spleeny from spreadin’ so many sandwiches, an’ she well-nigh took the head off my shoulders. She’s tired and putchicky, I reckon.”

“But Rebecca?”

“Miss Crosby?” The little man glared down at his boots. “Damn those shoe lacin’s!” he abruptly exclaimed. “If I’ve tied ’em once today I’ve tied ’em a hundred times. They must be greased or somethin’. They undo quick’s I fasten ’em. Did you ever have shoe strings that slipped? That’s what these do--they slip--slip like the devil!”

Waiting until Lemuel had snapped the offending laces into a tight knot Asaph innocently repeated his question:

“But what’s come over Rebecca?”

Seeming not to hear the query Lemmy wandered off to the adjacent grass, from which he selected a long spray and began chewing it.

“Ears goin’ back on you, Lemuel?”

“Eh? Oh, you were askin’ me somethin’, warn’t you? What was it?”

“I was talkin’ of ’Becca.”

“So you was. Rebecca. Miss Rebecca Crosby. To be sure. You were speakin’ about her, warn’t you?” The Captain’s gaze was centered upon the sweep of distant sea.

“I maintain she ain’t the same, either,” continued Asaph. “Somethin’ strange has got her, though what it is I can’t for the life of me make out.”

“Likely she’s just wore out, same’s Althea. They say women haven’t much endurance.”

“But I don’t recall Althea ever mindin’ work before.”

“It’s all this cussed Dolphin!” Lemuel burst out with sudden vehemence. “What we’re runnin’ it for beats me. Althea’s boasted from the outset she didn’t want the money. ’Twas her idea merely to get fun out of it--see folks an’ listen to their gossip. But fur’s I can make out she ain’t enjoyed it much.”

“I’m afraid she ain’t lately,” admitted Asaph, with a perplexed frown.

“’Twas a fool scheme anyhow,” blustered Captain Gill. “I’ve no opinion of all this tea drinkin’. Stuffin’ folks up between meals so’st they’ve no hankerin’ for their supper--folks that have plenty to eat at home, too! It warn’t worth workin’ Althea an’ ’Becca to the bone for.”

Not wishing to cast fuel on the flames Asaph prudently held his tongue.

“I never did like dolphins either,” Lemmy grumbled on. “Didn’t I tell you long ago they always brought bad luck?”

“But we ain’t had any bad luck,” was the mild demurrer.

“Mebbe not yet; but we ain’t through,” retorted the Captain with sinister emphasis. “What are you goin’ to say of Peggy Davidson an’ the Doctor? You certainly can’t call the breakin’ up of that match ’xactly a pleasant happenin’.”

“But you surely can’t lay that at the Dolphin’s door!”

“How do you know I can’t?” blustered Lemmy. “How do you know that ain’t precisely where the blame belongs? Are you able to prove the varmint had no hand in it?”

“Dolphins don’t have hands.”

For the space of a second Lemuel Gill appeared nonplussed.

“No matter if they don’t,” he growled. “This particular Dolphin had his part in stirrin’ up trouble--you can bank on that.”

“Mebbe he did, Lemuel--mebbe he did,” his companion hastened to affirm. “P’raps he did sorter cast an evil eye round an’ start the fuss. An’ yet if Peggy an’ her lieutenant, an’ Eric an’ the Parker girl are satisfied, I don’t see’s there’s call for us to worry.”

“But they ain’t satisfied--I’m moral certain they ain’t,” announced the little man with a sage shake of his head.

“Heavens, Lemmy! How’d you come to be such an authority on love affairs?” questioned Asaph, making a jocose attempt to divert the discussion into less irritating channels.

“I ain’t an authority,” flushed Lemmy. “I wish to mercy I was.”

“What!”

“I mean,” amended the Captain with flurried haste, “that if I knew more of women I might be wiser at straightenin’ out the mess we’re in. But how’s a human bein’ goin’ to fathom ’em?” Moodily he dug his heel into the turf. “Take Rebecca Crosby for example-- One minute she’s kindness itself, admirin’ my flowers; savin’ cakes for me; advisin’ about next season’s plantin’. Then when I go to bein’ friendly an’ bring her a bunch of roses--ones that kinder needed clippin’ off--she turns her shoulder plumb upon me an’ goes shootin’ off into the house as if I’d offered her a rattlesnake. How’s that for Christian conduct? I’m blessed if I can solve her--blowin’ first hot an’ then cold, an’ all in the same breath.”

“I never saw ’Becca behave like that.”

“Mebbe you think she don’t. Mebbe you fancy I’m imaginin’ it,” Lemuel said in an aggrieved tone. “But just you watch her some day. Keep an eye on her when I’m by. Then you’ll see how she smiles one minute an’ the next tosses her head like a pert schoolgirl an’ whiffles out of sight.”

“You ’pear to have made quite a study of Rebecca, Lemuel,” jested Asaph.

“Study? Lord, no! Why should I spend time thinkin’ of her? It’s only that bein’ right here under my nose an’ I can’t help noticin’ her goin’s on.”

“You don’t have to bring her roses,” objected Asaph mildly.

“If there don’t go that blasted shoe string again!” cried Lemuel, bending once more to adjust the dangling lacing and continuing his conversation with averted head. “N--o. No, I grant I don’t have to do that. Still, the bushes need prunin’ an’ it seems sorter a pity to toss the blooms on the rubbish heap. Givin’ ’em to Miss Crosby is a good way to use ’em up.”

Asaph ruminated.

“Ain’t all this prunin’ somethin’ new?” he asked. “I don’t recall your ever thinnin’ down your bushes at such a rate before.”

Lemuel straightened up and smiled pleasantly.

“It is kinder a new notion,” admitted he suavely. “In fact it’s an experiment. Mebbe I never shall try it again. It’ll depend on how it works out.”

“It oughter benefit the plants,” asserted the literal-minded Asaph. “Books say it will. I’ll be interested to see what comes of it.”

“So shall I.” Smiling to himself Lemmy began to hum a little tune.

For an interval neither man spoke. Then Asaph presently continued:

“Puttin’ Rebecca aside, what of Peggy Davidson? You say you ain’t comfortable in your mind about her.”

“I ain’t. I can’t for the life of me help feelin’ that navy feller ain’t the one for her to marry; an’ what’s more I suspect both Althea an’ Rebecca feel same’s I do about it.”

“Althea ain’t never breathed any such word to me.”

“Mebbe not. Mebbe she wouldn’t think she’d oughter express an opinion concernin’ Peggy’s affairs. She might rate ’em as none of her business. I know she holds marriages to be terrible solemn, an’ don’t approve of ordinary mortals meddlin’ with ’em. She told me so once herself.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t ketch Althea meddlin’ with matrimonial doin’s,” agreed Asaph. “She believes matin’ folks is the Lord’s lookout. Still, her convictions wouldn’t prevent her bein’ distressed if she saw a match goin’ awry.” He paused to twine a slender tendril of the grapevine round an adjacent wire. “What makes you think she an’ ’Becca are bothered about Peggy?”

“I dunno. I ain’t really got no reason. I just sorter feel it in my bones. Now an’ then I’ve caught Althea eyin’ Eric an’ the Parker girl almost as if she somehow held herself to blame for their bein’ together.”

“Nonsense! Why, she’s pleased to death they’re so happy.”

The argument did not appear to convince Lemuel. However, he did not pursue the subject, but occupied himself for a time by cramming fresh tobacco into his pipe. Then at last when the smoke began to ascend skyward in a thin blue spiral, he inquired in a musing voice:

“Do you subscribe to your wife’s notion that marriages are made in heaven, Asaph?”

Asaph deliberated.

“Wall, as to that I ain’t fully prepared to say,” returned he with judicial caution. “’Course I believe the Lord throws folks in other folks’ way.”

“But after gettin’ ’m there?”

His crony rocked back and forth on his heels.

“That’s where the rub comes. I’d hardly be ready to state He then left ’em there high an’ dry--kinder washed His hands of ’em,” philosophized he. “Still, you couldn’t actually expect Him to do more, could you? ’Tain’t ever His policy to put through the whole of a job. He always shifts some part of it off onto us. For example He leaves us to save our own souls. He don’t land us in the Kingdom of Heaven without we make some effort of our own to get there. An’ I call that square dealin’, too.”

“Then as you figger it, Peggy, Eric, that Lieutenant Shattuck, Eleanor Parker, an’ Rebecca Crosby were all of ’em kinder coaxed to Belleport a-purpose,” Lemuel said, with an earnestness he seldom displayed.

“What you includin’ Rebecca for? She’s got nothin’ to do with marriage.”

“No,” squeaked Lemmy. “No, of course not. She’s got nothin’ in the world to do with it. I only mentioned her ’cause she happened to be here.”

“True enough! So she does. Likely, too, the Lord had an aim in sendin’ her hither. When I see what a place she’s made for herself here at the Dolphin I can well believe it. She an’ Althea are like sisters. Even I feel towards ’Becca as if she was my own flesh an’ blood. ’Twill be a sad day for us when she leaves town.”

“Leaves town!”

“Why, yes. Much as I hate to think of it, I s’pose she will have to go when the season’s over. There won’t be any cause for her to stay on after the tea-shop closes. The Dolphin will be shuttin’ its doors by October.”

“But--but--” Helplessly Lemuel halted.

“Not but what we’d admire to keep ’Becca with us an’ give her a home through the winter,” Asaph went on. “But she has her livin’ to earn an’ I s’pose must go where folks can pay her. We couldn’t afford to do that. Already Althea’s suggested her remainin’ an’ she’s refused.”

“When did you say the Dolphin would be closin’ up?”

“By the middle of October, at the latest.”

Lemuel began to count in absent fashion on his fingers.

“What you doin’?” demanded Asaph, watching him curiously.

“I? Doin’?” He started. “I--I--dunno. I was just kinder--”

“I’ll bet I know,” came in triumph from his comrade. “You were figgerin’ how many weeks it would be before the green china would be in dry dock an’ we’d be free to work in our gardens. Now warn’t you?”

But to the prophet’s astonishment the suggestion failed to produce a jubilant echo in his brother horticulturist. Instead, Lemmy looked gravely before him out over the water.

“I ain’t minded the tea drinkin’ a mite; nor the green china neither,” said he. “In fact, I’ve enjoyed ’em.”

Having delivered himself of this astounding intelligence, he turned abruptly on his heel and without another word walked moodily off in the direction of his own domicile.