Chapter XIX

It was an alluring spot, the little lane through which his path took him. Hedged in between sweet fern and bayberry, and tangles of wild grape that climbed the stunted oaks until their faint pink tips levelled one’s head, it was a place to bewitch the eye and charm the imagination. Across its shade danced fantastic splashes of sunlight, and far at the end of its green-arched vista lay the sea, brilliant as sapphire and shimmering with gold.

Whenever Lemuel traversed this dim, silent path the spell of its loveliness smoothed every wrinkle from his brow and brought to his heart a sense of companionship and peace. But today, although his feet lagged along the shadowy expanse, the tranquillity he sought eluded him. Instead, out of a turmoil of misery that seethed like a tempestuous sea, there crystallized the realization that his whole future was futile and hopeless.

What had he to live for? A few roses; a stalk or two of delphinium; a blaze of dahlias--fair weather comrades who deserted when blue skies and sunshine gave way to the chill of winter. That was all raising flowers amounted to.

To be sure, he had Asaph Holmes. But even Asaph’s friendship, stanch as it was, was not what it had been in the halcyon days before his marriage. Not but that he was every inch as loyal. Indeed, whenever occasion presented he took particular pains to exaggerate the unalterableness of his affection. Nevertheless, for all his bravado he was different. Marriage was bound to transform a man. The very fact of a wife’s presence restricted the old-time freedom.

Lemuel had not been blind to his crony’s frenzied diplomacy, or the attempts he made to cajole, translate, smooth, and keep the peace. To be sure, he and Althea, by mutual forbearance, had succeeded in getting on surprisingly well together. He would not have dreamed he could come to regard her with such a measure of esteem. Nevertheless, he was perfectly aware he was not her sort.

Was he anybody’s sort, he speculated. An indulgent world overlooked his faults and even good-humoredly applauded his virtues in a careless sort of way. But did anyone really entertain for him more than a surface regard? Did Eric Hollingsworth rate him as worthwhile? Did Peggy Davidson? Or, to narrow the interrogation down to a very specific point, did Rebecca Crosby?

Ah, that was the all-important question. To deny it and beat about the bush was useless. Rebecca was the one individual out of the entire universe who mattered. The others, worthy and delightful as they were, were mere flotsam and jetsam on the tide of humanity. Peggy Davidson was uncontestably a gem of her sex; but Rebecca! There was a woman for you! Beside her the fascinations and virtues of every other female paled into nothingness.

What a tower of strength she was! How versatile and many sided! Why, she was resourceful as a magician and yet withal so simple, modest, and human. How could she have escaped being arrogant and self-esteeming when everything she turned her hand to was done so well? Her cooking now--it couldn’t be surpassed; you could tell with your eyes shut just which dishes were of her concocting. She never over-salted or under-sweetened; never used too much pepper or too little butter. And her darning! It looked better than the cloth itself. As for her buttons, they seemed to be held in place by a superhuman power, so firm and immovable were they.

Then she was such a cheery person--always with something sparkling at the tip of her tongue. She was never at a loss for words, as he was. Strange how stupid he had become of late. He used to be quite a wit--at least Zeke Barker and the men down on the shore seemed to consider him so. But, alas, whatever brilliancy he had once boasted had vanished, leaving him tongue-tied and abashed as a gawky schoolboy.

Rebecca Crosby must consider him a clumsy hulk of a man. Indeed, it was evident she did by the fashion in which she avoided him. He could see her now whisking into the house or out into the garden every time he put in his appearance. What a figure she had! Trim and neat as a girl’s. And how up-and-coming she held her head!

Then there was her love for flowers. Didn’t it beat all how she understood their ways and liked the very kinds he was most partial to?

And her disposition! She was never ruffled or flurried, never impatient or on edge, like Althea.

And to cap these many virtues she could see a joke!

Oh, she was a rare woman truly--one out of a hundred, a thousand, a million; in fact she was the only absolutely perfect being on the globe.

He could, he confessed, do with less of Brother Thomas. But was not that, perhaps, because he was peeved that another man should hold in Rebecca’s affections a position of such paramount importance? Who could help being jealous of a smug ghost that so proudly flaunted his supremacy in one’s face? And yet during his lifetime Brother Thomas, despite the halo that now encircled his head, had undoubtedly been a faulty bit of clay like everybody else. Affection certainly minimized flaws and magnified virtues; so did absence--there could be no question about that. Deeply as he respected Rebecca’s sisterly devotion, he could not but wish she would let the dead past bury its dead, banish the shade to the background of her thoughts, and put her mind on the present, or rather on the future, for after all the present was well enough as it was.

Although she scoffed at him, avoided him, tossed her head and laughed at him over her shoulder, he at least had the morbid satisfaction of seeing her do it. That was something. Tantalizing as it was, it was better than the future Asaph Holmes so vividly pictured--the time when she would be far away and the sun descend from its heaven into an abyss of blackness--that was a day that would mark the end of the world so far as he was concerned. What was to become of him then?

What would be the use of dwelling longer upon such an empty and purposeless planet? How futile it would be to go on living, moving, and raising flowers! Why, there would be nobody to enjoy them; nobody to hold them up, caress their curling petals, sniff their perfume, touch them with gentle fingers. In fact, flowers would no longer thrive if Rebecca left Belleport, for there would be no more sunshine.

He had just reached this dismal conclusion and sunk unresistingly into the Slough of Despond, when, behold, down the vista of the fairy lane came Rebecca herself! In a limp white gown that clung to her figure, and a violet scarf that floated out against the green of the landscape, she seemed an apparition of his own conjuring, a phantom beautiful and unreal. Breathlessly he watched, fearful lest the vision perish. Airily she moved along, a veritable dryad of the woodland. Then of a sudden she spied him, faltered, started to turn back, thought better of it, and resolutely came on.

“What a day!” called she in her full, clear voice.

“It is fine weather.”

“And the lane--I never saw it lovelier.”

With desperate determination Lemmy pulled himself together.

“A regular lovers’ lane, ain’t it?” quavered he.

“‘Hamlet’ with Hamlet left out, I’m afraid,” fluted Miss Crosby. “However, it is just as pretty for all that. Youth is wonderful, though, isn’t it?”

“Bein’ young is in the feelin’s,” replied the Captain gallantly.

“So they say. And yet when rheumatism cricks my fingers I know better.”

So grave was her smile and so positive the assertion, Lemuel decided to abandon that tack and try another.

“Age ain’t so bad,” he ventured. “Folks come to a time when they’re full as willin’ to settle down.”

“I don’t mean ever to settle down,” was the disconcerting response.

“But--”

“What is the use of becomin’ stodgy an’ old until you have to?” continued Rebecca with spirit.

“There ain’t none. I didn’t mean that. What I was intendin’ to say was folks reach an age when it seems good to ’em to set an’--an’--let the world go by.” Inspired by a memory from his tangled past he seized avidly upon the words.

“I sha’n’t sit an’ let the world go by--not till I have to,” Rebecca announced. “I mean to enjoy life till I collapse into my grave. Brother Thomas used often to declare that was the way to do. Why, on the very mornin’ of the day he died he was out puttin’ in onion sets.”

Feeling that some expression of sympathy should be forthcoming, Lemuel leaped frantically into the breach.

“I never was partial to onions,” he murmured.

“Thomas’s death had nothin’ to do with the onions,” Miss Crosby said with dignity.

“No, likely not--no, indeed! Nevertheless you must always sorter associate him with ’em.” Then catching a glimpse of his lady’s stiffening countenance he hurriedly added: “I mean they must always kinder remind you of him.”

“I associate my Brother Thomas with far more beautiful things,” was the icy retort.

“Yes, of course!” Lemuel wretchedly agreed. He took a wild, quick breath and an onlooker might have seen his figure straighten as if for a plunge.

“He certainly had the most beautiful thing in the world handy by him,” gasped he.

Rebecca turned and as he met her puzzled gaze he crumpled weakly. Still, clinging tenaciously to his purpose he floundered on:

“I mean bein’ brother to you he--you--you were his--his sister.”

“I should hope so.” Rebecca’s laughter echoed down the lane like a chime of bells.

The Captain mopped his brow.

“Oh, damn it!” he burst out. “What I want to say is--wall, you must have some notion. Ain’t you got no inklin’ at all?”

With averted head he moodily scanned the turf, fearing to confront the eyes of the coy Rebecca.

Silence greeted his query.

Ah, she was, perhaps, as shy as he. The possibility reënforced his waning courage and prompted him to look up. He even took a bold step forward, but the next minute recoiled, aghast.

The lady of his heart was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished!

“Now I’ve made a nice variety of ass of myself,” soliloquized the dejected lover, dismally kicking the grass. “I was fool enough before. But after this she’ll rate me a jibberin’ idiot. ’Twas Brother Thomas did it. I got launched an’ away all right an’ could, mebbe, have breasted the current but for him. A plague on him an’ his onions!”