Chapter X: Introduction: I (9)

She felt that Françoise was a “good girl,” who should be treated generously, and the maid, stout, handsome, and slyly officious, with the characteristics of a peasant initiate in the ways of the rich, adopted in her manner toward her prosperous mistress, the attitude of a mother. The old lady was not deceived as to the motives which prompted this consideration, yet, in the passiveness of temperament engendered by old age, did not condemn. “Well, poor girl. I must try and do something for her. I’ll leave her something in my will.” And the old lady felt drawn to the girl by the very exposure of self-interest which, it seemed, should have been repelling. To know that some one depended on you, if only for money, made you feel that your presence in the world was yet of importance. Generous pity relieved the heart of the old lady from the oppression of exhausted but persistent emotions which had no outlet. There was no one to whom the old lady could express herself.

Yes, she was lonely, though had she been asked if, in this loneliness, she wished to depart to an oblivion in which loneliness is not felt, she would have said, “No,” sincerely and emphatically. Trifles which had once been of no account to her, objects and incidents which, in her youth, had failed to interest her, now compelled her whole attention and were infinitely precious. She loved her careful walks through the French town. She loved the hardy appearance of the cabbages planted in small gardens behind low fences covered with creepers. A neglected bush of marigolds, jutting ruddy-coloured blossoms beyond a wall, excited in her a tenderness for growing things. She watched the dark swallows in their bat-flights above a puddle in the road, and their shrill bleats, coming vaguely to her deaf ears, made her think of them innocently as lambs. Strong sunlight, stagnant upon the plaster façade of a dwelling, enchanted her. When, with a final exertion of her ever-waning strength, she climbed slowly, among heaps of refuse, to the summit of a crooked street which terminated on a hillside, and could gaze below her, between ancient roofs which interceded in the view, at the countryside--the still avalanches of the mountains, the small villages crushed under the red roofs that surmounted the houses, the acres of vines, tremblingly outspread in the soaring light of morning and resembling still lakes of green silk--the immense silence which lay beyond the town in which she was visiting seemed to her to enwrap her benevolently, and the whole world, dissension and struggle obliterated, was a friendly place.

It was only at noontime, in the heat of the day, when, after taking her luncheon in the table d’hôte downstairs and, with nodding head, listening for half an hour to some Spanish singers who, on a terrace ornamented with palms and young trees in pots and covered over by a pergola on which roses twined, were entertaining the guests of the hotel, she rested in her bedroom, that she felt depressed. The sunshine filled the street below her window, but the stillness it made, as the heat arrested the play of children and hushed their voices, and footsteps became so occasional that they echoed on the cobbles as footsteps echo in the night--this stillness was terrible and oppressive.

She lowered the Venetian blinds upon her balconies, and, in a semi-glow, in which the unchanging aspect of objects in her room became pronounced, she lay on her bed again, her eyes closed, and tried to sleep. Sleep was impossible. Her cheeks, pale and withered and covered by a scarcely-perceptible down of white, were hot and parched. With no relief from the violence of the light, that, even through drawn curtains could be discerned in the stolid brilliance of a stucco building opposite the hotel, she moistened her lips, several times adjusted the pillow beneath her head, and, without being conscious of the sounds she uttered, moaned slightly.

Her health was bad. At any moment she might have a recurrence of the heart trouble from which she suffered, a malady from which she would, at last, most certainly die. But it was not of death that she thought. Indeed she refused to think of death. It pleased her better to imagine that she would live a long time--a long, long, long time. And when, in her promenades, her steps turned inadvertently toward the cemetery, with its crumbling mausoleums making little intimate avenues for the dead below the black-green lines of conical cypress trees, she experienced, in her first glimpse of the tombs, decorated as for a perpetual holiday with wreaths of colored beads, black, violet, pale-blue, and white, and with bouquets of artificial flowers, a sudden shock of fright, of amazement--of some emotion which she did not attempt to describe--and turned back.

Why was she traveling like this, going all over Europe, from one hotel to another, rarely encountering an acquaintance and certainly not amusing herself in the ways habitual with tourists? In her young days she had been too much occupied with personal affairs to give much of her energy to travel. There was a great deal of the world that she had never seen. Now that her daughter was married, absorbed by interests in which the old lady had but slight part, and her son was dead, she, the old lady, had uninterrupted opportunity to see odd corners of the globe that had always intrigued her--even the names of the towns she visited were those that had, years ago, seemed to her remarkable. Besides she had a terror, continual if not dwelt upon, of being unwanted, and so, rather than remain as a tolerated outsider in her daughter’s home, she had preferred the company of strangers who were not obliged to show her any attentions that were not quite spontaneous.

On the terrace of the hotel, under the pergola covered with roses and with foliage which had turned blue and artificial in the glow of the electric lamps, the old lady sat in the evenings, watching those who came and went from the dancing in the saloon, while she tried to make herself unobtrusive. If a young couple, approaching her, ignored her, and it could be seen that they were covertly making love to one another, the old lady moved further away into the shadows and out of hearing. There she was able, when lifting her gaze, to discern the stars which, at one instant, appeared to her quite brilliant, while the next minute she saw only darkness, and could hear, distant under the rotating melody of a waltz played by an orchestra, a rushing sound in her ears which might be the sea and might only be the beating of her own heart. She always preferred to think the sound was the sea, and then she would rise and walk about, still clinging to the shadows and, because she was forgotten, feeling her own person as the person of another whom she also desired to forget.

No, the day was happier than the night. She loved children. In her black dress and bonnet, she often walked, with her stick, along the beaches. There she encountered children. She recalled the delights of her own childhood and longed to be able, in some manner, to indicate to the children, in some way which would convince them, that she had been a child, and that childhood was not foreign to her, as they supposed. And she was humiliated by something grotesque in this longing, as if she had convicted herself of a jealousy of youth.

The children paid no heed to her, and, screaming as they ran, they brushed past her blowing skirts, brushed past her and ran down to the sea. Feeling a pain which was so ignoble that she refused to recognize it, she thought, “They are so young. They don’t understand.” And she prayed to be able always to love children as she did now, and to wish for them, with her whole being, saturate with gratitude for a happy past, a continuance of their light-heartedness.

After such an experience, returning to the hotel, she wrote letters, to keep herself from growing “stale,” as she smilingly called it, letters to her daughter, letters to old acquaintances--some of them had almost ceased to take account of her existence--and the reward for this insistent attention to those who were far away, perhaps forever, was an interest in the coming of the postman, so keen that it embarrassed her. Often the mails brought her nothing at all, or there came a letter from some old friend who, burdened with age, expressed herself entirely in the utterance of complaints. “Poor Jane, poor Sally, poor Louisa,” the old lady would say, and try to evade the fact that she had anticipated a letter of a different kind, a letter containing something stimulating, something of especial interest, or something complimentary to herself. It seemed to her that her own troubles would have been quite bearable if only her dear old friends could find, as she did, the philosophical compensations of maturity. Occasionally, in her travels, she encountered a woman like herself, old, isolate, seeking, in new sights and scenes, a substitute for the personal drama which was finished. “Poor woman,” the old lady would say of the other old woman, then, suddenly, realizing that the one she pitied was like herself, and alarmed by the sense of an intolerable identity, she would conjure up cheerful thoughts and, from that time forward, gently avoid the new acquaintance, and this without any intention of being cruel, but simply to preserve something necessary to her.

“We must all live our own lives. We old people have no right to prey upon our children,” she often said. And it was this conviction which made her, secretly, a little afraid of her grandchildren of whom her daughter sent her photographs--the daughter who, with the dead son, had been for many years the one absorption of the old lady’s life. When she meditated upon the joys of maternity and the intimate relations of a family, the old lady became confused. In some manner, in spite of her devotion, her attitude toward her children had been an error, but an error which she would never be able to localize within her or describe to herself accurately. She only felt that such error, or its equivalent, must be common to all the world, and, in apologizing so constantly for herself, she apologized for others, too, and found that any emotion which was not pity had become incomprehensible to her. The most frightening thing of all was that pity itself required a defence, and her very desire to confess for herself and admit for others inadequacy, without condemning it, was the basis of her real apartness from her former life. She wanted to state all this intelligibly, but she had never been able to do so. Her thoughts became lost again in the past, when her eyes filled with tears and the grief she had felt at her husband’s death came back to her--not the grief she had experienced at the time, to which her health had succumbed while her reason was threatened, but another despair which was without any quality of protest and which she vainly attempted to unify with the emotions of twenty years before. She even tried to grieve more, but without success.

It was her present incapacity for strong passion which drove her, in her phantomlike existence, to dependence on routine, and the concrete regularity of meal hours had become as important to her as any critical event. In the vast dining saloon with its glass front overlooking the water, she was punctual at one o’clock and at half-past seven, and, though her appetite was variable, she was always one of the last to leave the table. What nice young people those two in the corner were, the ones who were newly married, and what an excellent mamma was the stout woman of thirty with the little daughter. The old lady usually had some pleasant remark for the waiter who, good-humored and polite, was ready to serve her immediately upon her entrance into the room, though he was somewhat perfunctory and reserved his most refined solicitude for persons who, not poorer than she was, were more difficult to please. She liked hot coffee that burned her withered lips, and Michael was careful to bring coffee steaming and perfumed, and she drank it on the terrace. Yet she bored him. There was nothing beyond her guessed-at fortune to supply material for scandals or invite interest.

She did not resent living alone, but she was often conscious of her lonely appearance and of what it might suggest to others. She wished, on that account, to exhibit an occupation. When she went to the writing room or sat on the beach, she carried a book with her, turned over the pages carefully, and appreciated, perhaps, a paragraph of what she read, but many of the lines she perused might have been inscribed in some strange language as remote as a language of the Orient. Refusing to confront this incapacity to receive, mentally, the new impression, the secret of the universe was, to her, as if buried inscrutably in her own soul, and to be divulged--if ever--in a reconstructed understanding of what had happened to her, an understanding which included even the most trivial incidents of former days. To have lived, loved, borne children, and grown old was to have known everything. Why could she find no words to make this meaning of intimate things intelligible to her fellow men? Because she could not speak and make herself heard, it was often as though, in living so fully, she had never lived. Her heart beat in a troubled way. Her hands, on the leaves of her book, trembled, and she resisted being sorry for herself. She tried to take comfort in a religion in which her faith was no longer orthodox, and ended, finally, with this great pity for the world which did not ask to be pitied and despised pity--pity which was--she sometimes doubtfully conjectured it--the reflection of her own weakness. Then the only recourse from these vague and half-comprehended thoughts was to consider a change to a new scene, a journey which would tax her strength, in which, in speaking to Françoise, the old lady would ridicule weakness and make light of it. Or she would rise from her deck-chair and walk in the sunshine along the beach.

The blue waters, angry and violent in the wind that flapped her skirts, suggested to her a darkness of night in which green fields are visible. The poetry of the comparison pleased her, as the image appeared unpremeditatedly from her mind, and was like a memory of youth. As she watched that steady onward movement of waters upon the land, she experienced what was to her, in this day, a rare moment, a moment of positive happiness.

Beyond the pier, where she walked, leaning on her stick, the sea surrounded the dripping rocks of a headland. The rocks were bronze-colored and porous, like gutted and petrified combs of honey, left there by bees of a giant size. Above them, in jagged curtains of white foam, in the glow of the sun, the surf towered. For an instant the suspended curtain hung twinkling in the light, to descend, with the transcience of dew and the indolence of a floating veil, upon the agitation of waves which had conveyed it. The surface of glass which was the ocean, voluminous and rocking, like the sun-inflamed canopy of a glass tent, washed up and down magnificently, somnolently, as a cradle gently rocked, and the enormous tents of water, built up one after another, were covered all over with globules of sunshine, round and crystal, trembling like the drops that fall hesitatingly from metal which, made over-warm, has begun to cool again.

Once more the foam concentrated in seething currents, rushing together with subterranean hisses. The foam concentrated, lifted, and made a glittering edifice of snow, harsh, exquisite, and momentary, like the Gothic traceries of frost. The tower of marble, of a lacy substance, of the purity of linen left long to bleach, but with the adamant glitter of diamonds, sank easily, waned in prismatic reflections, and was no more than a pale breath, breathed on the distance of the intense sky and evaporating like mist. Little water-spouts, such as pour from the gargoyle-mouths of old fountains, ran steadily downward from crevices in the stones. The tide rattled among the boulders. The sea had subsided, only to come forward as before, but with a more implacable ease. A glass tube, transparent on the length of the shore, showed, in a bottle-blue wall, ribbon-tangles of reddish seaweed, designed in the clear substance with the design of objects caught in amber. The swell, with its mounting undulations, resolved in long blades of crystal, run high in the air in a concave symmetry in which sank massive and transparent shadows that were the reflections of the waves themselves, carving the beaches.

The old lady’s bonnet-strings whipped out under her chin, her wide black dress was full like a banner and beat her legs, yet, though she steadied herself against the onslaught of winds, felt salt vapors upon her face, and was obliged to squint and lower her wrinkled lids against the glare, she saw everything vividly. The foam, curdling the sands, sticky amber and smooth as mirrors, was a flat scallop, like a ruffle of soapsuds, and the scallops ran down coruscations and runnels that were the imprints of wavy hair, faintly golden. A cold smell of rotted fish and kelp came to the old lady on the same breeze that wafted to her the screams of the children, of the little boys in their striped bathing costumes who were wading in the shallows. And little girls in white, little girls, barefoot, with sand-buckets and shovels, their short skirts tilted behind their flying legs, were heard shrieking happily as they swooped, like a flock of small gulls, straight down to the water’s edge. More obscurely, as from a more vast distance, the old lady heard the voices of the grown-up bathers, who, swimming far out into the breakers, were carried, with heads bobbing, to an immense height, lifted, by the indifferent sapphire waters, as upon the flashing shoulders of armored giants.

Then she turned toward the sultry horizon, where the brilliance of the day succumbed to the overshadowing of clouds, and to something less visible--perhaps an emanation from the light itself--which was like unseen smoke. Beyond the cobalt welter of sun and waves, incessantly flaked as with white flowers, a boat balanced quietly under one sail, stood, upon the emptiness, like a swan upon a still lake, its head under its wing.

The old lady was fatigued by this unforeseen intensity of visual appreciation. She had come to the end of the pier, and, turning reluctantly, began to retrace her footsteps to the hotel. On the shore she noted the rosy and dusked loftiness of the retreating mountains, their peaks somber under the fogs of a summer rainstorm, while on the rusted slopes the deep green of the trees suggested a relief of velvet on an old brocade, the crushed foliage of the pines and cork oaks hinting at the tactile qualities of variegated mosses. The fashionable hotels along the waterfront, built in stucco and somewhat in the Spanish style, ancient houses in the town with walls of plaster or rubble, all showed in a violent radiance of sinking sun in which the pallor of white surfaces and the redness of far-off roofs received a remote emphasis on objects which seemed the minute dwellings of dolls.

And the old lady was suddenly overcome by an emotion which she afterwards preferred to forget. What she felt, as she turned from her promenade, the sea-wind stinging her flaccid cheeks, was an immanence of death, which came to her from nowhere out of nothing--from the cries of the children, from the boat, the breeze, from the vast water that flowed after her. Yes, most of all from the sea, the sea flashing in the sunshine, the great sea, monotonous, voracious, untouched, and merciless. “I shall die,” she thought, “but _they_ will die, too.” In “they” she included the people in the village, the bathers in the surf, and the ladies in their organdie frocks and flowered hats, with the gentlemen in flannels, gentlemen dressed so precisely, if carelessly, in imitations of the English style--the old lady, as she approached the termination of her walk, could now see them all. And the quiet gale that swept past her from some space infinitely distant, beyond even the clouds of the coming rainstorm, was the breath of a holocaust. “_They_” were all dead, all the people who covered the security of the land, people the old lady loved and had loved, indeed people who were dead already. That the sea was, had been, and always would be--long, long after these, the young, the happy, the oblivious, had ceased to live--this sea, of which she herself was afraid, so that she had never undertaken an ocean voyage without a tremor, the sea comforted her with an immense and terrible comfort, so that, for an instant, her spirit flamed coldly and intensely. All was light, sunshine, happiness, and moving waters, and all was death, forever and ever death--though she scarcely called it so exactly, or by that name.

Then her eyes grew dim. The peculiar accuracy with which, the moment before, she had viewed and absorbed the details of her surroundings, faded in her habitual hesitance and vagueness. She began to think of saving her strength, of getting back to the hotel in time for her tea when she would eat some nice little _brioches_, of buying Françoise a new dress. Entering the hotel lobby at just quarter to five o’clock, weak and at peace as after some exhausting victory, she gave to her heart the shadowy acknowledgment of its new strength, and, in spite of her cheerful resolutions, was conscious of a faint, austere bitterness.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Copyright, 1925, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright, 1926, by Evelyn Scott.

OLD MAN LEDGE[15]

By MAY STANLEY

(From _The Pictorial Review_)

Beyond Bald Head a long white curve of beach held the old house in an encircling arm. There were no other buildings in sight. A thick growth of stunted spruces ran down to a meadow covered with coarse beach-grass, and the house stood on a small rise of ground at the edge of the meadow, commanding an unbroken view seaward. On one side the foundation had rotted away, so that the gray, weather-beaten dwelling leaned slightly as though striving to catch the faint murmur of the tides.

Out at sea the waters glowed vividly, reflecting the brilliant colors of sunset in wavering bars of rose and mauve and gold. The surface of the bay heaved gently, thrusting long rollers beneath the fishing boat as it swung in a wide curve around Bald Head.

“Thar she is!” Orin Pettishall twitched the tiller-ropes as he spoke. The boat swung obediently toward an old dock which made a gray blot against the background of white sand.

The girl nodded. “Bigger’n I thought ’twuz,” she said happily. “I wuz over here onct cranberryin’ when I wuz leetle, but it’s bigger’n I thought ’twuz then.”

“Yeah, it’s a good house,” he agreed, “even ef ’tis kind uv old. Still an’ all, ’tain’t old when ye think they’s oak beams in it. Paw says Captain Beath got some uv the beams fer his house outer his vessel--arter she wuz wrecked on Old Man Ledge out thar.”

“Wonder how long ago ’tis?” Emily Widden glanced seaward. Half-tide revealed the jagged rocks of Old Man Ledge standing up sharply above the water.

“Dunno. ’Fore paw’s time, fer ’twuz grampy told him.” He swung the boat deftly in beside the dock and made it fast. “Looks like the house’s kinder settlin’ ter the one side. Hev ter straighten her up fust uv all. Come on! I got ter see how much fixin’ the dock’ll need.”

With Emily beside him he went proudly across the dock, keeping a sharp lookout for loose or rotting boards. Reaching shore, they paused involuntarily and stood, hand in hand, looking up at the old house.

“Nicer’n I thought ’twuz goin’ ter be,” the girl murmured.

“Guess she’s goin’ ter be wuth what I’m payin’ fer her.” He tried to speak calmly. “Seven hundred dollars ain’t sich a lot when ye think ’at they’s twenty acres goes with it--all this here shore-front an’ back inter the woods a piece. Paid the real estate fellers two hundred dollars cash money, an’ I got three years ter find the rest in.”

Emily nodded. She had heard the story from Orin a half-dozen times today, but it did not lose interest with repetition.

“We kin do ’at easy,” she said. “I kin hev chickens an’ put in a garden. ’Twon’t cost us much ter live.”

“An’ they ain’t no reason ter put off gittin’ married,” he declared. “We kin git married soon ez I git the house fixed up a mite an’ a fish-house built.”

“Guess we kin,” she assented shyly.

They went quickly up the slope, along a path overgrown with weeds and blackberry brambles. Emily cried out with pleasure at sight of a great hedge of yellow lilies which lifted their slender stalks defiantly above the encroaching weeds. At the front of the house a bricked walk led up to a hooded doorway. High-backed seats had once stood on either side. One of them was still in good repair, but the other sagged forlornly on its broken supports.

“’Nough fixin’ ter keep me busy fer a while, I guess,” Orin commented as he unlocked the front door. It swung open with painful creakings, showing a square hall with doors on either side. “S’pose this must ’a’ been the parlor.” He led the way into a fair-sized room with windows looking directly toward sea. Now they were so dark with dust and spider-webs that little light came through. Opposite the door a stone fireplace yawned.

“It’ll be nice here when we git it fixed up.” Emily looked about the room curiously. “Le’s see the rest uv it.”

They passed through the door at the back which led into a small bedroom, returned to the hall, and inspected in turn the dining room, kitchen, and woodshed on the opposite side of the house.

“Le’s go down in the yard an’ see what the well’s like,” Emily proposed.

“I’d oughter go down cellar an’ hev a look at the foundation,” he objected. “Ef I wait any longer it’ll be too dark ter see anythin’. You go an’ hev a look at the well while I’m down cellar.”

“A’ right. I won’t be long.”

She ran down the steps, paused for a moment while her eyes searched for a path, found it, and ran lightly along, pushing aside weeds and brambles. Near a clump of spruces she saw the well-sweep and was going toward it when her glance was caught by something at the left of the house--something which showed gray in the surrounding greenness.

“Wonder what’s thar?” Making her way through the intervening growth, she cautiously lifted a matted bramble, then dropped it with a startled exclamation and began to run back toward the house.

“Orin!” she called. “Orin!”

Orin came out on the back porch, his face reflecting the satisfaction he felt.

“’Tain’t goin’ ter be much work ter fix up the foundation. Not near so much----” He paused at sight of her white face. “What’s come ter ye?”

“Thar’s a grave out thar!” Her voice was trembling. “Somebody’s grave! I see it when I wuz goin’ down ter the well.”

“Guess ye must be mistook,” he said wonderingly. “Never heared tell uv nobody bein’ buried here.”

“I see the gravestun ez I wuz goin’ down ter the well,” she explained breathlessly. “It’s kind uv layin’ down. Ye kain’t hardly see it ’ceptin’ it ketches the light. Come an’ see fer yerself.” She led him down the path, unmindful of the brambles which caught and tore at her skirt. “Thar ’tis!”

Orin Pettishall stared at it thoughtfully, then stooped and tried to read the words cut in the moldy stone.

“Too dark,” he said at length. “Torch’s down in the boa-at. I’ll go git it.”

“Let me go fer it--I’d ruther.”

“What’s the matter?” He glanced up, conscious of the fear in her voice. “Ain’t scart uv an ol’ gravestun, air ye?”

“N-o. Only I’d ruther go.” She hurried off.

Left to himself, the boy sat down beside the grave and gazed proudly up at the house. His house! Pretty nice to be able to buy it and move into his own home this fall, when he and Emily were married. Pretty nice! If lobster prices stayed up he’d maybe be able to pay something more on it before Christmas. He was whistling jubilantly when Emily, hurrying back, thrust the torch into his hands.

“Read what it says!” she directed.

Holding the light close to the moldy stone, he read slowly: “‘Sacred--to the m--Nehemiah Hill--departed’--they’s a big chip out uv the stone here--‘May thirtieth, eighteen hundred an’ fifty-two--Greater love hath no man than this’--I kain’t read no more; it’s chipped off some.”

“‘That a man lay down his life for his friends.’” The girl finished the quotation in a hushed voice.

“Wonder who he wuz--Nehemiah Hill? I ain’t never heared tell uv no Hills ’round here.”

“Dunno.” She rose, shivering. “Le’s go back, Orin. It’s gittin’ late.”

“I wanted ye ter see the cellar afore we go.”

“At’ll keep,” she said hastily, and turned to the path which led down to the dock.

When he had started his engine and the fishing boat was chug-chugging its way back to West Harbor, Pettishall turned to the girl.

“What come ter ye, Em’ly?” he asked. “Ye ain’t said a word sense we started. ’At grave didn’t upset ye none, did it?”

“Yes--kind uv.”

“It don’t do no hurt, fur ez I kin see.” Disappointment made his voice cold. “Thought ye liked the place.”

“So I do, only----”

“Only what?”

She turned to face him. “Dunno ez I c’d live whar they’s a grave,” she said slowly. “It’s a nice place an’ all, only I dunno ez I c’d live whar they’s a grave.”

“Dunno what makes ye feel like ’at. An’ anyways we got ter live thar. I bought the place, ain’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Wa-al, we got ter live thar, ain’t we?”

She was silent.

“We got ter live thar, ain’t we? Seein’ I bought it, we got ter live thar.” Frustration, injured pride, bewilderment, were in the words.

“Dunno ez we hev,” she retorted. “Leastways, dunno ez _I_ hev. They ain’t nothin’ ter _make_ me!”

He did not reply, but stared straight in front of him, head up and lips set in a stubborn line. She could talk like that! That was all she thought of their home, the home he was planning to get ready for her! Well, if that was the way she felt about things----

“Orin!” Her voice was timid.

“Yes.”

“I ain’t meanin’ ter be cross ner spiteful. It’s only----”

“Only ye don’t like the place I bought fer us. Wa-al, guess they ain’t nothin’ more ter be said.”

“A’ right,” she replied coldly, “ef ’at’s the way ye feel. I ain’t goin’ ter stay by myself, day in an’ day out, ’ith a grave ter keep me comp’ny. I’d like the place fine ef the grave wa’n’t thar. Even ef we knowed who ’twuz----”

“I kain’t he’p it, way things air,” he interrupted. “I didn’t know ’bout the grave when I bought the place, but it wouldn’t uv made no diff’rence ter me ef I hed knowed. Way I see it we got ter live thar, grave er no grave.”

She shook her head sorrowfully. “No, I ain’t goin’ ter live thar. I knowed I wouldn’t soon ez ever I see the grave. I jes’ kain’t an’ they ain’t no use in talkin’ uv it!”

“Wa-al,” Mrs. Widden said cheerfully, “what ye think uv the place Orin bought?”

Her daughter, heavy-eyed from a sleepless night, looked up and said drearily, “A’ right, I guess.”

“Mercy me! Is ’at all ye think uv it?”

“Did ye know somebody wuz buried thar?” Emily demanded. “Right beside the house?”

“Mercy me!” Mrs. Widden exclaimed again. “I been cranberryin’ in the medder a coupla times sense the ol’ captain died, but I never seed no grave. Whose is it?”

“Dunno. Name on it’s Nehemiah Hill. D’ye know who ’at is?”

“Never heared tell uv no Hills in these here parts,” Mrs. Widden shook her head solemnly. “They’s Hills over Lewiston way an’ they’s a fambily--say, Paw,” as the door opened to admit Jeremy Widden’s bulk, “did ye know somebody wuz buried over ter the ol’ Beath place?”

“Never heared tell uv it.” Widden clumped across to the sink and drank hugely from a tin dipper. “Here’s Hannah Anne Pettishall comin’. Mebbe she’ll know.”

“’Lo, ev’ybody!” Mrs. Pettishall panted genially. She was a huge woman whose bulk almost filled the doorway and quite overflowed the rocking-chair which Mrs. Widden pushed forward. “I’m all outer crochet-cotton,” she explained, “an’ I thought I’d run over an’ borrer a mite ter last till I kin git some f’om Po’tland.”

“Yeah, I got some,” Mrs. Widden replied, “same number ez what ye’re usin’. D’ye know ’bout thar bein’ a grave on the place Orin jes’ bought?”

“Never heared tell uv one. Mebbe ’at’s what made Orin so grumpy--wouldn’t say a decent word breakfus’-time.” She wiped her face meditatively with a corner of her apron. “My, it’s hot fer this time uv year! Ef ye hurry up an’ git married, Em’ly Widden, ye’ll still hev summer fer yer weddin’.”

“I ain’t goin’ ter git married,” Emily said dully.

“Ye ain’t _what_?” her elders demanded in chorus.

“Me an’ Orin hed words las’ night,” Emily replied in a dull voice, “’bout ’at grave. An’--an’--we hed words.”

“D’ye mean ter say you an’ Orin fit?” Mrs. Pettishall demanded. “Wisht ye’d hurry an’ make up ef ye did, so’s he won’t be so grumpy.”

“I tol’ him I wouldn’t live no place whar they’s a grave ’longside uv the house.”

“Fer any sakes!” Mrs. Pettishall stared at her prospective daughter-in-law in frank amazement. “Ye don’t mean ter say ’at jes’ ’cause they happens ter be a grave----”

“Wa’al, ef’ ’at’s the way Em’ly feels I guess she’s got a right,” Mrs. Widden broke in.

“Now, Maw!” Widden counseled. “Stay out uv it an’ let the young folks fight things out fer tharselves.”

But his wife was not to be so easily silenced. “Tell yer maw ’bout it, Em’ly,” she commanded soothingly. “Tell yer maw what the trouble is. Ye didn’t want ter live thar ’count uv the grave? Wuz ’at it?”

Emily nodded.

“Wa-al, I mus’ say--” Mrs. Pettishall began heavily.

“Orin said we’d hev ter live thar,” Emily explained. “An’ I said I didn’t hev ter. An’ he said--” She dissolved into tears.

“Wa-al, he didn’t hev no right ter say it!” Mrs. Widden stormed. “Guess my girl ain’t goin’ ter set up housekeepin’ in no graveyard!”

“Orin didn’t aim ter live in no graveyard,” Mrs. Pettishall returned sharply. “I mus’ say, Lucindy----”

“An’ he kin jes’ stay ’way f’om Em’ly!” Mrs. Widden threw down the wooden needle with which she had been knitting trap-heads, crossed the kitchen, and took her disconsolate daughter into her arms. “Thar! Ye don’t need ter take on! Ye don’t hev ter do nothin’ ye don’t want ter!”

Mrs. Pettishall got to her feet.

“Ef ye’d leave the young ’uns ’lone, Lucindy, an’ mind yer own business,” she said angrily, “they’d mebbe git things patched up! Stan’s ter reason they won’t so long ez ye keep interferin’!”

“Who’s interferin’?” Mrs. Widden demanded belligerently.

“You, fer one! I mus’ say I think Orin’s patient to put up ’ith Em’ly actin’ like she’s doin’----”

“Thar now, Maw! Ca’m yerself!” Widden interposed.

“An’ ef I wuz in his place I wouldn’t stand fer it!” Mrs. Pettishall continued bitterly. “They’s other girls----”

“Now, now, Hannah Anne!”

“Ez fer you, Jeremy Widden,” Mrs. Pettishall turned to him, the slowly kindling wrath of a fat woman in her voice, “ef ye wuzn’t so petticoat-ruled an’ put upon in yer own house ye’d do better----”

But here Mrs. Widden found voice. “Ef ye’ll jes’ go out uv my house, Hannah Anne,” she said majestically, “an’ stay out it’s all I ask. I don’t want you ner none uv your fambily ter darken my doors ag’in!”

“Now, Maw--” but the sound of the kitchen door slamming to behind Mrs. Pettishall drowned Widden’s vain attempts to make peace.

Before nightfall every one in West Harbor knew that Lucinda Widden had put Hannah Anne Pettishall out of her house because Hannah Anne didn’t want Orin to marry Emily Widden, that some one of whom no one had ever heard was buried over on the old Beath place, and that the real estate people had given Orin Pettishall a hundred dollars to take the place off their hands. Additional zest was given to these rumors when, in the store that afternoon, the elder Pettishall told Jeremy Widden that he’d just as soon have back the trawl which Widden had borrowed, and Widden had retorted that any time Pettishall wanted to pay for having the new engine put in his boat he’d better do it.

West Harbor gasped! Nothing so exciting had happened since the time Hepsibah Gutch and Lefey Williams quarreled one day at dinner and threw hot soup at each other. This was even worse than Hepsibah and Lefey!

Fred Hosmer said that in his opinion “growed-up folks hed oughter hev more sense’n ter fight like kids.”

Will Ellery retorted that “it’s all in the way a feller looks at things. Some folks ain’t got ’nough spunk ter start a fight.”

On which Fred Hosmer promptly invited Ellery out into the back yard if he had any doubts about there being enough spunk around to lick any Ellery that ever walked!

Some one intervened and a truce was patched up. Thereupon Mrs. Will Ellery, indignant at the insinuation directed against her husband, instituted a campaign against Mrs. Fred Hosmer, whose dearest wish it was to be elected president of the church sewing-circle. She was defeated by three votes and indignantly resigned, taking with her six devoted friends who were among the best workers and who had always cooked lavishly for box socials and baked-bean suppers.

Mrs. Uriah Goomes was heard to say that no one but a fool would think of marrying Orin Pettishall, anyway. He was too smart and always trying to get ahead of other folks. It was time he stubbed his toe. Which remark, duly repeated, immediately dissolved friendly relations between the Goomes and Pettishall families and led Mrs. Widden to remark caustically that maybe Emily wasn’t such a fool as some people seemed to think and, anyway, she wouldn’t ever be fool enough to marry any one as lazy as Uriah Goomes, who, with his family, would have starved last winter if every one in the Harbor hadn’t turned to and fed them!

Alva Ryder, the storekeeper, told some one that in his opinion the whole trouble started with the Widdens and Pettishalls and ought to have stayed there. Folks were foolish, he said, to mix up in other folks’ rows. Every one on hearing this said that it was no wonder Alva Ryder thought West Harbor folks foolish. The way they’d dealt with him, year in and year out, paying the awful prices he charged for everything, would make any one think they were weak in the head! Hereafter they would buy groceries in Bath or Portland or else do without.

Meetings at the schoolhouse had to be discontinued. No one but old Uncle Henry Breedon, who was too deaf to hear anything, would go to meeting after the Sunday when the Reverend Amos Putney preached from the text, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and referred pointedly to local difficulties. Every one felt that Brother Putney might say what he liked about people who danced or played cards or smoked--that was his business. But any disagreement we might have with the Goomeses or the Pettishalls or the Widdens was our own business and why did he want to interfere? Besides, hadn’t the Widdens and the Pettishalls and the Goomeses been the first to start trouble? Well, then, what could you expect?

Time failed to heal the dissensions, which, indeed, grew in number and bitterness as the weeks went by. Two of West Harbor’s most respected citizens charged two others, equally respected, with stealing lobsters from the former’s traps. The fish warden was pressed into service and spent several long, chilly, and fruitless nights in watching for the supposed offenders. He did not catch any one, but the sight of a mysterious figure “pokin’ ’round” on Jim Mears’s dock so upset Mrs. Mears that she took to her bed and remained there until Jimmy, junior, was born. Thereafter she laid blame for the undeniable fact that Jimmy wasn’t very bright to the scare which Warden Jim had given her, and talked darkly of suing the State and getting even with somebody.

With the Sunday meetings discontinued and the sewing-circle disrupted West Harbor women no longer convened save in groups of two or three. Friendly borrowing of a cup of sugar or the “lend uv ’nough flour ter make a mess uv biscuits” had ceased. Crochet- and dress-patterns were no longer exchanged.

When the Fred Hosmers drove to Bath in their car they did not, as in former days, stop to ask folks if they wanted anything from town, but drove straight ahead. Fishermen no longer gathered in Alva Ryder’s store in the evenings to exchange news of the Portland market or to “swap yarns.” The chair dedicated to the fisherman who could tell the best story was empty evening after evening. Down at the fish-houses or out in the boats solitary figures worked sullenly, refraining from looking up or giving a friendly hail when another boat passed.

Such was the state of things when Grammy Tagel--grandmother to the Ellerys and the Tagels and great-aunt of Hannah Anne Pettishall--came over from Augusta for a visit.

At first Emily Widden had refused to admit even to herself that her quarrel with Orin was serious. He would come over to see her, she was quite sure, and they would talk things over. Then Orin would sell the old Beath place and buy somewhere else. She _couldn’t_ live beside a grave. Nobody could! But Orin would see how things were, once they had a good talk.

But Orin did not come. The days became weeks, and still, to Emily’s dismay and hurt surprise, he made no sign. She couldn’t believe he meant to stay away. Surely he was just mad at the fuss every one was making and the things she herself had said. But he would get over it soon. Then he would come to see her and they would talk things over. From her father Emily learned that Orin had begun to “fix up” the old house in his spare time. Mereen Tagel had gone over to help him repair the foundation and build a fish-house.

The girl’s spirits sank at the news. She was forced to admit to herself that Orin had no intention of selling. And that meant he didn’t really care for her or how she felt about things. He had never cared! Perhaps--the awful thought smote her like a blow--Orin must be going to marry some one else. He wouldn’t be fixing up the house unless he planned to live there soon. The girl ceased to watch for his coming. At night she cried into her pillow quietly and unobtrusively as she did everything else. She refused to say anything when her mother railed angrily at the Pettishals, and only her pale, miserable face and red-rimmed eyes told Mrs. Widden her daughter was not forgetting Orin Pettishall--that she would never forget him.

And Orin was no happier. A hundred times he planned to see Emily, to talk with her. Then he would remember that Emily did not really care for him, that she had turned her back on the home he had bought for her, refusing to live there. What was the use of going to see her when she didn’t think enough of him to give up that silly feeling about a grave? Some time she would be sorry for acting like she did!

He would fix up the old place and live there alone, the way Captain Beath had done. Perhaps he would die there, alone. Emily would come to the funeral. Maybe she would cry when she saw what she had done--sent him away to die. Or, perhaps, she wouldn’t care enough to come to the funeral. She would marry some one else, and when she heard the news she would say, “He was always queer. Went away to live alone with nothing to keep him company but a grave. No wonder he died!” Orin resolved bitterly to live. What was the use of dying when nobody would care what happened to you?

The only comfort he found was in hard work. He rose before dawn, hauled trawl, carried his fish to market, then came back to work on the old house until approaching twilight warned him it was time to bait trawl for the next day’s set.

All through the quiet afternoons of late August he worked about the place, completing his fish-house, cutting away weeds and brambles from paths long unused, resetting bricks in the walk, repairing the broken settle. Sometimes he pictured Emily sitting here in the long summer evenings, busy with her sewing. He would be down at the fish-house baiting trawl. Emily would come out after the supper dishes were washed and wait here for him. When all the tubs of trawl were finished he would come up to sit in the other high-backed seat. They would talk or, perhaps, just sit listening to the tides along the beach.

He shook his head angrily, winking back unmanly tears. Emily would never sit there in the quiet evenings. One seat would always be empty. When his work was done he would come up to the house. There would be no one to welcome him. He would sit there, watching the empty place--an old, old man--alone.

West Harbor folks looked on Grammy Tagel as a “character.” Perhaps, in days not so far gone, she would have been known as a soothsayer, and people would have consulted her when grave decisions were to be made and followed her shrewd advice. But now she was just an old woman with a philosophy wrought out of long, hard years, an old woman who didn’t hesitate to tell folks what she thought of their words and actions, and who took an unbounded interest in the affairs of those about her.

Although more than ten years had passed since Grammy Tagel moved to Augusta to make her home with a married granddaughter she still kept in touch with all the principal events of the Harbor. She knew about all births, marriages, and deaths. She could tell you who had moved away in recent years and who had “built new”; had accurate information regarding those who had “perfessed” religion at the annual revival meetings and those who were still unsaved.

Today, with her chair drawn comfortably close to the stove, the old woman turned inquiring eyes on Hannah Anne Pettishall.

“What’s wrong ’ith Orin?” she asked. “Looks kinder meachin’ ter me.”

“Yeah, he’s meachin’, a’ right,” Mrs. Pettishall agreed. She carried a pan of cookies to the oven, put them in, dusted the flour from her hands, and wiped her face thoughtfully with a corner of her blue-and-white-checked gingham apron.

Grammy Tagel waited patiently.

“I hate ter say it,” Hannah Anne went back to the table and began to roll out another mound of cooky dough, “but it looks ter me like he’s still takin’ on ’count uv Em’ly Widden.”

“Which Widden?”

“Em’ly--Lucindy Means’s girl. Ye mind ’at Lucindy married Jeremy Widden, Uncle Uriah’s first. The other boy, Lige, went ter Po’tland, an’ folks say he’s doin’ well workin’ in a garage. Makin’ money hand over fist, Uncle Uriah says. I dunno.”

“Don’t seem like Orin’s old ’nough ter be keepin’ comp’ny.” Grammy Tagel deftly brought the conversation back. “Wuzn’t nothin’ but a leetle squirt when I went off ter Augusty. Wuz they keepin’ comp’ny, did ye say?”

Mrs. Pettishall nodded. “Yeah, fer more’n a year. Right up ter the time Orin bought the ol’ Beath place----”

“Did he, now? Ye hedn’t told me afore. He’s a smart boy ter buy it. Reel sightly place.”

“’At’s what I say--mercy! I fergot the cookies!” Snatching the pan from the oven, she tested its contents anxiously, found them unharmed, and transferred the cookies to a plate. “Hev one, Aunt ‘Miry?”

“Don’t mind ef I do. An’ ’n what happened?”

“Wa-al, right arter he bought the place Em’ly found a grave thar--leastways she _says_ she did--an’ started actin’ up. Lucindy, who’d oughter hed more sense, ups an’ sides ’ith Em’ly. Says ’at no girl uv hern is goin’ ter set up housekeepin’ in a graveyard. The very idear! I’m a good-tempered woman, ez ev’ybody knows, but I don’t stand fer bein’ put upon, an’ I give the hull Widden fambily a piece uv my mind.”

“An’ ’n what happened?”

“Folks ’at hed any sense tuck my side an’ some tuck ’tother. Stirred up considerable to-do, ez ye might say.”

“Sh’dn’t wonder,” Grammy Tagel commented dryly. “What’d Orin an’ his girl do?”

“They ain’t spoke sense--not ’at I know uv. An’ ef Orin hez any right pride ’bout him----”

“Guess he’s got pride ’nough. I’ve allus noticed ’at young folks hez too much pride ’bout things ’at matter.” The old woman got stiffly to her feet. “Guess I’ll go ’long over an’ set ’ith Jerushy Spinney fer a spell. Still in bed, ain’t she?”

“Yes, an’ likely ter stay thar. Doctor said ’smornin’ ’twuz the wust stroke he’d ever see anybody hev.”

“Sh’dn’t wonder. Allus hed considerable temper, Jerushy hed, an’ temper brings its own reward. You comin’ ’long?”

“No, don’t guess I kin. Got a mess uv biscuits ter make when I git these here cookies done an’ a couple uv pies.”

“Wa-al, I won’t be long.”

Gathering an ample gray shawl about her shoulders and grasping her stick, Grammy Tagel went down the steps and along the path to the Spinney house. But she did not spend many minutes there. On learning that Mrs. Spinney was asleep she declined an invitation to come in and sit for a while, and turned to hobble along the road.

“Mercy me!” Mrs. Widden exclaimed, “ef ’at ain’t Grammy Tagel comin’ ter see us!” She hastened to the door. “Come right in, Grammy! I wuz kinder wonderin’ ef ye’d drop in ter see us er ef ye wouldn’t--things bein’ like they air.” She ushered her visitor into the kitchen.

“When ye git ter be my age, Lucindy,” Grammy Tagel replied, “ye won’t pay much ’tention ter folks’ foolishness”; then, as Emily put down her crocheting and came forward to place a chair for the old woman, “Ye don’t say this is Em’ly! My, ain’t she growed up!”

“Sure is,” Mrs. Widden rejoined. “Kain’t make myself b’lieve it sometimes.”

Grandmother Tagel regarded the girl searchingly, nodded as though some question in her mind had been answered satisfactorily, and said, “I stopped in ter see Jerushy Spinney on my way over. They been wonderin’ ef they’d oughter move her downstairs, but I tol’ ’em ter wait till they’d talked ’ith you. I said ef anybody’d know whether they’d oughter move her it’d be Lucindy Widden.”

“S’pose I best go over some time today,” Mrs. Widden mused.

“Yes, ef I wuz in yer place I’d go right now an’ see how things air. I’ll jes’ set here an’ talk whilst ye’re gone.”

“Wa-al, I won’t be long.”

When Mrs. Widden’s apron-clad form had disappeared up the road Grandmother Tagel beckoned to Emily.

“Come here an’ set down by me,” she said. “I got somethin’ ter tell ye ’at mebbe ye’ll be glad ter hear.”

* * * * *

The sunshine of early afternoon had disappeared, swallowed up in threatening, black clouds which trailed sooty vapors faster and faster across the sky. Fitful gusts of wind had begun to lash the tops of the long rollers into foam. Waves climbed higher and higher, vainly seeking to escape the fury of the wind. Like a toy in the hands of an angry child the fishing-boat was tossed and shaken violently to and fro. It slipped sideways in the trough of a wave, started sluggishly to climb, stopped half-way, and buried its nose in the water, which swept over the canvas covering the bow and flew backward in sheets of spray.

The girl, who had until now been working frantically over the engine, started up, grasped the tiller-ropes, and coaxed the bow up into the wind. With no power to keep it going the little craft dropped off again and swung about. The next wave caught it a violent blow and poured water over the canvas until the floor of the boat was awash.