The Opened Shutters: A Novel

by Clara Louise Burnham

  CHAPTER XIX

  A NOR'EASTER

  Anemone Cottage was built partly of boulders taken from the shore. Itsroomy porch was supported by pillars of the same stone. The bluish tintof balsam firs stood out against the darker foliage of the evergreensthat surrounded it, and such trees as cut off the superb view from thepiazza had been removed, leaving vistas which were an exaltation to thebeholder.

  The beauty of the place sank into Sylvia's heart, and as Miss Marthaappeared on the porch to meet the guests, the light of hospitalityshone in her face, and the girl forgot that it had ever been difficultto greet her aunt warmly.

  "Your sail has given you sharp appetites, I'm sure," said Miss Martha,"and dinner is just going to be put on the table."

  They all moved into the living-room. It ran the full width of thecottage and had a wide, deep fireplace opposite the door. A roundcentre-table covered with books and periodicals, an upright piano, andnumerous armchairs as comfortable as they were light, furnished theroom.

  "How charming!" exclaimed Sylvia, looking from the rugs on the floor tothe cushions in the window-seats.

  "Yes, it is," said Edna. "It's a fine port in a storm, but in alldecent weather we scorn it."

  Sylvia went to a window. A rocky path led between the symmetrical firsdown toward the shore where far below boomed the noisy surf.

  "And how is the boat, Sylvia?" asked Miss Martha.

  "It's a joy," replied the girl, looking around brightly.

  "Oh, yes, your boat," said Edna. "I'm going to invite myself over onpurpose to row with you. Miss Lacey has told me all about it and itsmysterious name."

  Her eyes twinkled at Sylvia.

  "It is--very mysterious," returned the latter, laughing.

  Miss Lacey gave a quick nod. "I'm going to ask Judge Trent what itmeans when he comes," she declared.

  "Fie, Miss Martha! How indiscreet!" laughed Edna. "Can't he have alittle undisturbed flirtation with his best girl?"

  She was surprised at the suddenness and depth of Miss Lacey's blush,but the little woman bustled out to the dining-room and shortlyannounced dinner.

  It seemed to Sylvia that she had never been so hungry and that food hadnever tasted so delicious. She remarked upon it somewhatapologetically, and Edna laughed at her. "My dear girl, it's the way ofthe place," she said. "Of course we eat nothing prosaic here. Thesepotatoes grew at the Mill Farm, these lobsters were swimming thismorning. This lamb, I'm afraid, was skipping around only a few days agoon Beacon Island. This salad grew just over the fence from that daisyfield we passed through this morning,--and so on."

  For dessert they had a deep huckleberry pie.

  "How's this, Sylvia, eh?" asked Thinkright, after the first juicymouthful. "I thought Mrs. Lem was pretty good at it."

  "It is perfect," returned Sylvia, "but how we shall look!" she added.

  "Don't worry," said Edna. "I always keep a box of tooth-brushesupstairs for wanderers trapped just as you are. Of course it is a goodpie. These berries were growing on the shore of Merriconeag Soundyesterday, and Miss Lacey and I picked them ourselves. Weren't we ahappy, disreputable pair, Miss Martha? Our dresses were stained, ourfingers were a sight, and our lips,--I'll draw a veil! We both wouldhave done so then if we'd had any."

  Sylvia listened, smiling. In her preoccupation she let her fork veeraway from her plate.

  "Oh!" she ejaculated regretfully. "See what I've done!" A drop of therich dark juice had fallen on the spotless cloth and seemed to spreadmischievously. "Dear, I meant to be so careful."

  "Not a bit of harm," returned Edna. "That is a feature of thehuckleberry season. The stain vanishes under hot water."

  Sylvia's eyes clung to the spot. A thought had suddenly come to herlike a lightning flash. She knew vaguely that her hostess was sayingpleasant things, but she could not follow them.

  "Eat your pie, Sylvia," said her aunt. "We always have a second piece.Jenny's feelings would be hurt if we didn't."

  The girl commenced eating again, mechanically. "You picked theseyourselves?" she said. "They grow for anybody to pick?"

  "Yes, indeed," replied Edna. "I enjoy it. I think Miss Lacey considersa berrying expedition a good deal of a pleasure exertion."

  "They always ripen first in such shut-in fields," objected Miss Lacey.

  Edna laughed. "The kind Mrs. Lem would call hot as Topet."

  "Oh, I'd love to pick them," said Sylvia. "Do they grow around the MillFarm, Thinkright?"

  Her eyes were shining as she asked her question.

  "No. Nowhere around us,--that is, nowhere near. I've often wondered atit."

  "Stay here, and go with me, Sylvia," said Edna cordially. "We'll letMiss Martha off, and you and I will take Benny and make a day of it."

  "Oh, I'd love to!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I'll try to come over soon."

  "Not at all. Always make the most of a bird in the hand. You're herenow. I'm going to keep her,--oh, as long as I can, Thinkright."

  He smiled at Sylvia, who smiled back, still with the excited shining inher eyes. "She seems willing, I must say," he remarked, pleased at theprospect of the two girls thus becoming acquainted.

  The hour before he had to start back was spent by them all together, atfirst on the rocky ledges below the house where the caldrons of foamand fountains of spray made the finest show, and then roaming throughthe fragrant woods. At each new vista Miss Martha noted the narrowingof her niece's eyes and the absorption of her gaze.

  "I guess you have some of your poor father's artistic taste," she saidto her at one pause.

  "I wish my father could have seen this place," was Sylvia's reply.

  When the time came for Thinkright to make his adieux she clung to him.

  "I declare I believe she's homesick at the parting," said Miss Lacey toEdna. They two were standing on the piazza and the others a little wayoff on the grass; but Sylvia was not homesick, she was whispering toher cousin: "I'm staying for a reason, Thinkright!" she said. "I've hadan idea. I believe it's a good one."

  He patted her shoulder. "That's right, that's right." He gesturedtoward the rolling expanse about them. "For every drop of water in thatocean there are thousands of possibilities of good for every one ofGod's children. The shutters are open, little one. Why shouldn't theblessing flow in?"

  And so began for Sylvia the visit which always afterward stood out inher memory unique in the poignancy of its novel impressions. Despitethe simplicity of life at Anemone Cottage, there was an order andsmoothness in the management of details which constantly attracted andcharmed the guest. The poetry of the wild enchanting surroundings wasever sounding a new note in sky or sea or flower, and the companionshipof Edna Derwent was an experience which Sylvia seized upon with aneagerness wholly devoid of worldly considerations.

  It was on a Friday that Thinkright had left her at the island. Duringthat night a northeast wind sprang up, and on Saturday a stormprevented the expedition after berries. It was a wonderful day toSylvia.

  Torrents of rain beat upon the windows, the atmosphere was a blurthrough which the surf thundered mysteriously.

  Logs blazed merrily in the great fireplace. Sylvia found a feast ofmany courses in the illustrations of the magazines. Edna was interestedto see her discrimination.

  "Oh, I remember," she said. "Miss Lacey told me your father was anartist."

  Miss Martha was sitting by the fire darning stockings, and at this shegave an involuntary alert glance at her niece where she sat with Ednaby the round table, her head bent above one of the periodicals.

  "My father never learned to apply himself. He was not deeply interestedin his work," replied Sylvia. The blue eyes looked up into Edna's darkones. "No one ever taught my father how to think right," she added.

  "I see," returned Miss Derwent; "but your interest must have been agreat help to him."

  "No, I was never any help to him. As I look back I seem to myself tohave been only a chrysalis. I had eyes and saw not, and ears and heardnot. I only began to live when I came to t
he Mill Farm. Poor father!"

  Edna's eyes were soft. "I understand," she said.

  Miss Lacey did not understand, but she suspected. She saw the look thatpassed between the two girls, and remembered Thinkright's peculiarviews and Edna's adherence to them.

  "'Tisn't doing Sylvia any harm, anyway," she reflected, "and I knowshe'll never have a disloyal thought of her father," and she pulledanother stocking over her hand.

  "Well, you are interested now, certainly," remarked Edna, increasinglysurprised at the girl's perception of the quality of the work of thevarious artists, combined with such comparative ignorance of theirnames and reputations.

  "I have never had much opportunity," said Sylvia simply, "and, as youcan see, I never made the most of what I did have. I suppose father hadambition once"--

  "Indeed he did, my dear!" put in Miss Lacey emphatically.

  Sylvia started. In her absorption she had forgotten her aunt'spresence.

  "Yes, I suppose so," she replied; "but things went hard with him, andfor years past the only work he could depend upon were the pictures hemade for advertisements and an occasional cartoon for a paper."

  "Indeed," returned Miss Lacey, leaning forward and poking the fire inher embarrassment. This was entirely gratuitous frankness on Sylvia'spart. "Well, I can assure you he was made for better things," she wenton, bridling. "When you visit me I will show you a landscape in myparlor worth a thousand of the daubs people rave over. Half the timeyou can't tell whether they're trying to paint a tulip field or aprairie fire. Ridiculous! You can almost count the rings on the hornsof the cows in this landscape. It's what I call a _picture_."

  It was well that Miss Lacey enjoyed this work of art, for it was allshe had to show for many a squeeze given to her slender purse by theartist.

  Edna paused in the talk she was led into by her guest's eager attentionand questions.

  "Listen to the surf!" she exclaimed. "You must see that show, Sylvia.We must go down to the rocks."

  "Fine! But I haven't any other clothes if I wet these," returned thegirl, looking down.

  "Oh, it's bathing suits to-day, and rubbers, and mackintoshes."

  Soon they were equipped; and leaving the cottage by the back door theyworked their way around the corner of the house to the sea front, andby the help of the sturdy trees that were making their usual good fightwith the elements managed to creep down to the upper tier of rocks.Here it was impossible to hear one another speak, and the girls'exhilaration could be expressed only by glances as they clung to eachother and the rocks, where to-day the foam flakes flew about them,although it was usually high and dry for some distance below this. Thefine sharp needles of rain, which at first made their eyes smart,ceased for a time, and they watched the giant waves at their hoarse,clamorous revel, joining the roar with their own shrieks of mirth andexcitement whenever some reckless fling of spray drenched them fromhead to foot.

  Edna had placed Turkish towels and their clothing in a shed at the backof the house, and when finally the rain began again to cut their eyesand shut away even the nearest view, she succeeded in dragging thereluctant and dripping Sylvia thither, and they again made ready forthe house.

  "Come in, you two mermaids," exclaimed Miss Lacey when they appeared.She threw more logs on the fire. "I began to think you had gone to seethe land 'where corals lie.'"

  Edna laughed and took the pins out of her hair, so that it rolled indamp lengths about her. Sylvia's curls were gemmed with bright drops,and both girls were rosy and sparkling from their tussle with the gale.

  "Sylvia has the only hair that ever ought to go to the seashore,"remarked Edna, looking with open admiration at the piquant face underthe jeweled diadem. "You can take a chair, Sylvia, but I shall have toturn my back to that lovely fire."

  Sylvia stretched herself luxuriously in a reclining chair before theblaze while her hostess sank on the rug and spread her dark locks tothe heat.

  "You do look like a mermaid," said Sylvia.

  "Mermaids sing," remarked Edna. "Would you like to hear me sing?"

  "I don't know," replied the other slowly, "whether I could stand onemore thing. I think I might pass away if you should sing, the way youlook now."

  Edna laughed. "I feel like singing," she said, and jumping up, went tothe piano and pulled over the music.

  "I think Miss Lacey started me by speaking about 'Where Corals Lie.'I'll sing the Elgar 'Sea Pictures.'"

  Edna had an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm oftemperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the seaseemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparklingdrops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange andmoving music. It stirred Sylvia to the depths.

  At the close of the song "Where Corals Lie," she sighed some comment,and Miss Martha spoke:--

  "That isn't what you'd call a _pretty_ tune, not near as pretty as alot that Edna sings," she remarked, "but that song goes right to mybackbone somehow and chills right up and down it; and the way shesays,--

  'Leave me, leave me, let me go And see the land where corals lie,'

  it sort of comes over me when she stays long down on the rocks in astorm, and makes me feel queer."

  "That's right, Miss Lacey," remarked Edna, without turning around. "I'ma very sentimental and desperate person."

  "You are when you sing, my dear," retorted Miss Martha with conviction.

  "Now I'll give you the Capri one," said Edna, "but I never saw a day atCapri that fitted it as every day does here;" and with wind and waveoutside making an obligato to her flowing accompaniment, she sang "InHaven."

  "Closely let me hold thy hand, Storms are sweeping sea and land, Love alone will stand.

  "Closely cling, for waves beat fast, Foam flakes cloud the hurrying blast, Love alone will last.

  "Kiss my lips and softly say, 'Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day; Love alone will stay.'"

  Sylvia's hands were pressed to her eyes when the song was finished, andher aunt looked at her curiously, for she saw that she could not speak.Had Miss Martha been told that the young man in Judge Trent's officehad any part in the tumult of feeling that sent the color to Sylvia'stemples and the tears to her eyes she would have scouted the idea astoo wild for consideration.

  "That _is_ a very pretty one," Miss Martha remarked in the silence thatfollowed. She spoke to ease what she felt to be a tense situation. Atthe same time she winked at Edna, who had turned about to face herauditors. Sylvia's eyes remained hidden so Miss Martha continued:--

  "There's something about those words that makes me think of 'Oh,Promise Me.' That's my favorite song. Do see if you can't remember it,Edna."

  But the latter rose and came back to the fire.

  "I must dry my hair," she said. "That's the drawback of not being areal mermaid."

  She sank again on the rug near Sylvia.

  The latter uncovered her flushed eyes and reached one hand down toEdna, who took it.

  "If you hadn't--hadn't had anything," said Sylvia unsteadily, "you'dunderstand."

  "I do," replied Edna; but she was mistaken. Though she pressed the handvery sympathetically she did not understand.