Chapter X: A Call From Notely's Yacht

"Why did you never come? I sent for you."

"I was afraid, Vesty, that new burden of motherhood, which you carried, might take some physical mark or blight from a presence like mine. But he is beautiful!"

He lay upon her arm, and he was beautiful, full fed from her breasts, formed large and fair, his hair already waved as by a court barber! Her eyes rested on him. Would all the weak and miserable of the world be well-nigh forgotten now? She raised them to me again--Basin eyes--all the weak and miserable of the world were dearer.

"He looks that proud way," she laughed, "when the boys play him to sleep; they played him to sleep again before they went to their traps this morning. They used to play me to sleep, before baby came. I used to think of so many things. I wanted to see you."

"Things cannot ever be thought out, after all, Vesty; but if the boys can play one to sleep--well, that is best."

She took my hand; the tenderness in her eyes covered their pity. I felt no sting. "I feel safe when you will come sometimes," she said; "you are so strong--so strong!" She touched my hand admonishingly; it was as though she lifted me.

"I misjudged your husband, Vesty; rather, I did not know him. He is a good lad, this Gurdon."

"Oh, he is!" A dream swept over her face, as dreams will; the mad birds whistling "love" down by the sea-wall, the gay waters flashing--Notely Garrison.

"And so the father plays him to sleep? Many a duke would give half his possessions for a boy like that!"

She buried her face rapturously beside him for a moment, then turned to me calmly:

"What do you know of Notely?" she said.

"Only what rumor knows, what may have been told you. His wife found no enduring attractions in this locality, you know: they have built a summer place at Bar Harbor; his wife and his mother and Mrs. Langham, it is said, are all devoted to his happiness. He has a fine yacht now, and is sometimes seen skipping by off shore. He is gifted in address and with the pen. His name is seen often."

Vesty listened hungrily.

"Have you seen him? Is he happy?"

"I saw him only as he was passing me, with some of his companions; they had come ashore to see the old Garrison place. He looked very happy."

"Then I am glad!" said Vesty of the Basins, clasping her hands. I looked at her; if he was happy she was utterly glad.

"He will be a great man," she said: "he is already famous, that _is_ to be great."

"As Christ went down the Lonesome Road,"

sang Uncle Benny, who was voluntary housekeeper at Vesty's during some hours of the day, while the father and boys were away at the fishing:

"As Christ went down the Lonesome Road--
Sail away to Galilee.
He left the Crown and He took the Cross!
Sail away to Galilee.
Sail away to Galilee--
Oh, He left the Crown and He took the Cross--
Sail away to Galilee!"

He came forward to take the baby, who had awakened before he began to sing. The Basin matrons ran in very much, but there was no "Vesty" to enter and take the continued care, in this case, until the young mother should be strong again.

"You can sweep up, major," said Uncle Benny, cheerfully pointing me to the broom.

"Sail away to Galilee,
Sail away to Galilee--"

he sang, walking so proudly with the infant that his gait was most innocently jaunty and affected.

Vesty laughed and shook her head at me, but I had the broom and was hobbling about at work with it, pleased to find that Uncle Benny had rather neglected this humble office for the more important one of minding the baby.

He next set me to washing the dishes and turning the churn; he would not trust me with the child, and wisely. That he held in his own strong arms, but he sat down beside me after my work was done and gently commiserated me.

"Nature has not done so much for you as she has for some, you know," he said.

"No, indeed," I murmured.

At that he took off his blue necktie and held it toward me, with a tear of pity in his eye.

I took it and tied it simply around my neck above the collar.

"It improves you--some," he said, but his look only too plainly indicated that there was still much to be desired.

We were sitting thus on the doorstep, Uncle Benny with the baby, and I peeling the potatoes, with his blue ribbon tied around my neck, when I heard a half-familiar little scream and laugh, and, looking up, beheld a fashionable company.

"We hailed Gurdon, off Reef Island, and he said we might come and see the son and heir--hurrah!"

Notely spoke in his gay voice, but the look he gave Vesty's child--Vesty's sweet self in that form--leaped with a passionate pain.

There was a small, brilliant-looking woman beside him, with eye-glasses. "O you divine infant!" she exclaimed, regarding the child. "Where is the Madonna?"

Now, I was purposely gathering up the potato peelings very slowly from the doorway, so that the "Madonna" might have time to take down a certain blue sack from the bedpost at hand, and put it on, and give those little finger-touches to the hair that women covet; so I stumbled over the peelings and got mixed up with them, until even Uncle Benny felt called upon to apologize for me.

"He looks some better," he said dubiously, touching his neck: "but," he continued, in a very soft and confidential tone, "Nature has not done so much for him as she has for some, you know."

All the party had the air of having just had a very merry luncheon on board the yacht.

By the side of Notely's bride was one of the handsomest young athletes, almost as handsome as Fluke and Gurdon Rafe.

"What-th--what-th the admithion?" he whispered to Grace, plunging his hand in among the coin in his pockets; "ith--ith there any more of the thame kind inthide?"

"Hush!" said she quickly, for she knew that I had heard. She lifted a hand impulsively toward his mouth: he caught her hand and looked as though he would have held it; she drew it away, blushing sweetly, and sighed, as she had sighed at Notely.

Vesty saw that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an air, to his old violin.

He touched a strain or two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, drawing nearer, "this?--and this? You have such a beautiful little boy, Vesty! I am so glad!--so glad! And this?--do you remember?" He played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine little blue sack added to it. I had left the dust-pan loaded with its spoils, the ragged handle, as I now perceived, not quite hidden behind the door: it caught on to the skirts of the brilliant lady with the eye-glasses, and went trailing loudly after her along the floor. As I stooped down to detach it, sheltered behind those fine draperies, I gave Vesty such a side glance that a smile and color came over her face in spite of herself.

"Such power of attraction!" said Notely, turning to the lady his laughing eyes, with that unconscious pathos which a lovely woman never failed to discover in them; "even the dust-pans"--he swept the strings of the violin--"even the dust-pans become attached to you."

"On the contrary," said she, giving him a sharp glance which he relished from her very bright though near-sighted eyes; "it is not often that I have become attached to anything so useful."

He laughed with mettlesome good-nature.

The bride, with her attendant brave, had gone up to Uncle Benny and the baby.

"Let me take him," she said, holding up her beautiful arms.

Uncle Benny smiled at her, half remembering her--it was an old joke, his becoming engaged to every pretty woman he met--but shook his head.

"It 's a particular trust," he said, in his very soft, sweet voice; "from Jesus Christ and mother. What if somebody should drop him, or hurt him? I have to be very careful, for it 's a trust.

"'There 's a tree I see in Paradise--'"

he suddenly broke into the song again in a loud and perfectly unembarrassed tone:

"'Sail away to Galilee.
It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life--
Sail away to Galilee.
Sail away to Galilee.'"

* * * * * *

"Good gwaciouth!" said the young man, fumbling the coin in his pockets and listening in a dazed state of appreciation at the unexpected resources of this menagerie.

"Doctor!" cried Notely--and that address delighted Uncle Benny--"Dr. Spearmint, let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Forrester"--some wailing strains from the violin--"she could get a divorce from her present consort, I suppose--ahem!--if there were encouragement enough from some one sufficiently endowed by nature."

"It is better to be simple than to be wicked," instantly retorted the bright little woman, regarding Uncle Benny humorously and not without compassion.

But Uncle Benny was not to be disturbed again; he had his cue.

"Oh, thank you!" he murmured; "but I couldn't think of it, anyway. I've got so many trusts. There 's Vesty's baby, and there 's the little children I take to school every day and go to fetch them. I'm very careful, because they're trusts, you see;" and he marched on gladly with the baby, singing.

"You ought to be ashamed, all of you!" said Mrs. Forrester; and sat down by Vesty with friendly advice and prattle about her own babies.

Notely dreamed away on his violin: that made it easy for the rest. His bride and the handsome young man flirted with ardor, yet quite transparently: there was a smile wholly devoid of bitterness on Notely's lips.

"Grace!" cried the sharp little woman at last; "we've some superfluous shawls on board the yacht that would make such charming rugs for Mrs. Rafe's baby. If Mrs. Rafe could send one of her servants down to the shore to call a man from the boat."

"I'd thend--thend the one with the body," said the young man, still afflicted with wonder at Uncle Benny and myself, and indicating Uncle Benny the more hopefully.

"I prefer the one with the mind," said Mrs. Forrester gravely, snapping a glance at him that was not without meaning. "Why, when you have been drinking too much wine, Cousin Jack, can you not go and sit down in a corner and amuse yourself innocently by yourself as Mr. Garrison does?"

At that Notely looked up and shot at her a long, gay challenge without words: his eyes in themselves seemed to fascinate her, as they did most people; she brightened with a caressing, artistic sense of pleasure in them.

"Well, I like that!" said her cousin, having by this time framed a rejoinder to her question. "Grace and I haven't thpooned anything like you and Note did, thailing down, only you're so deuced thly about it!"

"You are disgusting," said she, too lofty and serene to be annoyed.

I had my hat and was slipping out on my errand to the boat. Vesty, with evident distress, was about to explain: I put my finger to my lips with another side glance of such meaning that she kept still and even smiled again.

I called a man and brought him to the house for Mrs. Forrester's directions. He soon returned with the rugs, which Vesty accepted for her baby as well as she could; Uncle Benny all the time singing gleefully.

The party moved to go; in passing through the door Mrs. Forrester dropped her handkerchief. I picked it up and handed it to her.

"Thank you, my poor fellow," she said; "you have the manners of a prince!" and put a coin in my hand--a piece of silver. I took the money.

Vesty was still, after they were gone, her hands over her face. I knew well what thoughts she was thinking.

"Do not go," she said to me, and her voice was like the low cry of her own child; "you are smiling still." She looked at me with strained eyes.

"Well, perhaps because I am glad Mrs. Garrison would not adopt you and take you away from the Basin; perhaps because I am glad no handsome rake will ever ogle you as our lisping young man did Mrs. Notely Garrison."

"It meant nothing between them all," said Vesty, her hand over her eyes; "you know that better than I. It is only the way they do."

"It meant nothing! It is only the way they do."

I put away the violin Notely's fingers had so lately touched. The tears stole down Vesty's cheeks and trembled on her lips.

"He does not care," she said; "that is the worst! He does not care as he did once."

"For what, Vesty?"

"For anything but having a good time and making fun with people, and all that. He used to talk with me--oh, so high and noble, about things!" Her eyes flashed, then darkened again with pain.

"Ay, I know he has seen the model and been pierced with it. He can never forget; he will come back."

"The model?"

"You know once there was a Master who was determined all his people should paint him a picture after a great model he had set before them. It seemed not to be an attractive model; it seemed full of pain and loss; the world looked to be full of other designs more desirable.

"So that there were hardly any but that wandered from it, to paint pictures of their own; there was hardly, if ever, a great or a true and patient artist--for they are the same thing.

"Some found the colors at hand so brilliant, and were so possessed with the beauty of dreams of their own, that they spent long years in painting for themselves splendid houses in bewitching landscapes, red passion roses, and heaps of glittering gold, that looked like treasures, but were nothing.

"Some painted dark, sad glimpses of earth and sea and sky that were called beautiful, the skill in them was so perfect. Looking at them, one saw only the drear night drawing on.

"But there were some who had no great dreams of their own to work out, or if they had they turned from them with obedience above all: and many, many, broken-hearted from their failure in their own designs, who turned now to follow the Master's model. And it was strange, but as they regarded it intently and faithfully there grew to be in it for them a beauty ever more and more surpassing all earthly dreams.

"They were dim of sight and trembling of hand; often they mixed the colors wrong, they spilled them, they made great blotches and mistakes; but they washed them out with tears and went to work again, yearning pitifully after the model; in hope or despair, living or dying, their fingers still moved at the task as they kept looking there.

"And always the Master knew. This was the strangest of all, that some of the dimmest, wavering outlines, some of the saddest blotted details, were the beautifullest in his eyes, because he read just the depth of the endeavor underneath; until, in this light, as he lifted it up, some poor, weary, tearful, bungled work shone fairer than the sun!"

Keeping faithful watch of the clock, Uncle Benny at the appointed hour had given up the baby to Vesty, to go and bring the children home from school. We heard him in the distance still singing joyfully his "Sail away to Galilee!"

"There is a faithful artist," I said, and smiled; "would God I had come up to him, with his unceasing watch over the little ones! And Blind Rodgers too, who never complains, and who will not trouble anybody, but keeps his life so spotless."

Vesty lay very still. "Do you think Notely was painting a picture of his own?" she said. "Do you think I was proud because he could paint such pictures of his own, and wanted him to? You said he had been pierced with it"--she was talking to herself now--"he will come back."

"He will come back."

"Who are you?" she said, her Basin eyes turned clear and full upon me. "You let them call you my servant!"

"Not because I was afflicted with humility, but because I was proud and happy to be that. And because it was a good joke: you do not mind my enjoying a good joke, I hope? Then you do not know how happy it made me; I have had so much done for me, and have been so little useful."

Vesty was not satisfied. Her clear, impersonal gaze held me with a look fearless of its compassion, single and direct.

"I wish you would not leave the Basin," she said. "I am never--I am never happy when you are away."

"God bless you, my little girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, like dove's wings. I forgot withal that I was lame.