The Tides of Barnegat Part 2

Since then she had been the one strong hand in the home, looking after its affairs, managing their income, and watching over every step of her sister's girlhood and womanhood. Two years before she had placed Lucy in one of the fas.h.i.+onable boarding-schools of Philadelphia, there to study "music and French," and to perfect herself in that "grace of manner and charm of conversation," which the two maiden ladies who presided over its fortunes claimed in their modest advertis.e.m.e.nts they were so competent to teach. Part of the curriculum was an enforced absence from home of two years, during which time none of her own people were to visit her except in case of emergency.

To-night, the once famous house shone with something of its old-time color. The candles were lighted in the big bronze candelabra--the ones which came from Paris; the best gla.s.s and china and all the old plate were brought out and placed on the sideboard and serving-tables; a wood fire was started (the nights were yet cold), its cheery blaze lighting up the bra.s.s fender and andirons before which many of Colonel Cobden's cronies had toasted their s.h.i.+ns as they sipped their toddies in the old days; easy-chairs and hair-cloth sofas were drawn from the walls; the big lamps lighted, and many minor details perfected for the comfort of the expected guests.

Jane entered the drawing-room in advance of Lucy and was busying herself putting the final touches to the apartment,--arranging the sprays of blossoms over the clock and under the portrait of Morton Cobden, which looked calmly down on the room from its place on the walls, when the door opened softly and Martha--the old nurse had for years been treated as a member of the family--stepped in, bowing and curtsying as would an old woman in a play, the skirt of her new black silk gown that Ann Gossaway had made for her held out between her plump fingers, her mob-cap with its long lace strings bobbing with every gesture. With her rosy cheeks, silver-rimmed spectacles, self-satisfied smile, and big puffy sleeves, she looked as if she might have stepped out of one of the old frames lining the walls.

"What do ye think of me, Miss Jane? I'm proud as a peac.o.c.k--that I am!"

she cried, twisting herself about. "Do ye know, I never thought that skinny dressmaker could do half as well. Is it long enough?" and she craned her head in the attempt to see the edge of the skirt.

"Fits you beautifully, Martha. You look fine," answered Jane in all sincerity, as she made a survey of the costume. "How does Lucy like it?"

"The darlin' don't like it at all; she says I look like a pall-bearer, and ye ought to hear her laughin' at the cap. Is there anything the matter with it? The pastor's wife's got one, anyhow, and she's a year younger'n me."

"Don't mind her, Martha--she laughs at everything; and how good it is to hear her! She never saw you look so well," replied Jane, as she moved a jar from a table and placed it on the mantel to hold the blossoms she had picked in the garden. "What's she doing upstairs so long?"

"Prinkin'--and lookin' that beautiful ye wouldn't know her. But the width and the thickness of her"--here the wrinkled fingers measured the increase with a half circle in the air--"and the way she's plumped out--not in one place, but all over--well, I tell ye, ye'd be astonished! She knows it, too, bless her heart! I don't blame her. Let her git all the comfort she kin when she's young--that's the time for laughin'--the cryin' always comes later."

No part of Martha's rhapsody over Lucy described Jane. Not in her best moments could she have been called beautiful--not even to-night when Lucy's home-coming had given a glow to her cheeks and a l.u.s.tre to her eyes that nothing else had done for months. Her slender figure, almost angular in its contour with its closely drawn lines about the hips and back; her spare throat and neck, straight arms, thin wrists and hands--transparent hands, though exquisitely wrought, as were those of all her race--all so expressive of high breeding and refinement, carried with them none of the illusions of beauty. The mould of the head, moreover, even when softened by her smooth chestnut hair, worn close to her ears and caught up in a coil behind, was too severe for accepted standards, while her features wonderfully sympathetic as they were, lacked the finer modeling demanded in perfect types of female loveliness, the eyebrows being almost straight, the cheeks sunken, with little shadows under the cheek-bones, and the lips narrow and often drawn.

And yet with all these discrepancies and, to some minds, blemishes there was a light in her deep gray eyes, a melody in her voice, a charm in her manner, a sureness of her being exactly the sort of woman one hoped she would be, a quick responsiveness to any confidence, all so captivating and so satisfying that 'those who knew her forgot her slight physical shortcomings and carried away only the remembrance of one so much out of the common and of so distinguished a personality that she became ever after the standard by which they judged all good women.

There were times, too--especially whenever Lucy entered the room or her name was mentioned--that there shone through Jane's eyes a certain instantaneous kindling of the spirit which would irradiate her whole being as a candle does a lantern--a light betokening not only uncontrollable tenderness but unspeakable pride, dimmed now and then when some word or act of her charge brought her face to face with the weight of the responsibility resting upon her--a responsibility far outweighing that which most mothers would have felt. This so dominated Jane's every motion that it often robbed her of the full enjoyment of the companions.h.i.+p of a sister so young and so beautiful.

If Jane, to quote Doctor John, looked like a lily swaying on a slender stem, Lucy, when she bounded into the room to-night, was a full-blown rose tossed by a summer breeze. She came in with throat and neck bare; a woman all curves and dimples, her skin as pink as a sh.e.l.l; plump as a baby, and as fair, and yet with the form of a wood-nymph; dressed in a clinging, soft gown, the sleeves caught up at the shoulders revealing her beautiful arms, a spray of blossoms on her bosom, her blue eyes dancing with health, looking twenty rather than seventeen; glad of her freedom, glad of her home and Jane and Martha, and of the lights and blossoms and the glint on silver and gla.s.s, and of all that made life breathable and livable.

"Oh, but isn't it just too lovely to be at home!" she cried as she skipped about. "No lights out at nine, no prayers, no getting up at six o'clock and turning your mattress and was.h.i.+ng in a sloppy little washroom. Oh, I'm so happy! I can't realize it's all true." As she spoke she raised herself on her toes so that she could see her face in the mirror over the mantel. "Why, do you know, sister," she rattled on, her eyes studying her own face, "that Miss Sarah used to make us learn a page of dictionary if we talked after the silence bell!"

"You must know the whole book by heart, then, dearie," replied Jane with a smile, as she bent over a table and pushed back some books to make room for a bowl of arbutus she held in her hand.

"Ah, but she didn't catch us very often. We used to stuff up the cracks in the doors so she couldn't hear us talk and smother our heads in the pillows. Jonesy, the English teacher, was the worst." She was still looking in the gla.s.s, her fingers busy with the spray of blossoms on her bosom. "She always wore felt slippers and crept around like a cat.

She'd tell on anybody. We had a play one night in my room after lights were out, and Maria Collins was Claude Melnotte and I was Pauline.

Maria had a mustache blackened on her lips with a piece of burnt cork and I was all fixed up in a dressing-gown and sash. We never heard Jonesy till she put her hand on the k.n.o.b; then we blew out the candle and popped into bed. She smelled the candle-wick and leaned over and kissed Maria good-night, and the black all came off on her lips, and next day we got three pages apiece--the mean old thing! How do I look, Martha? Is my hair all right?" Here she turned her head for the old woman's inspection.

"Beautiful, darlin'. There won't one o' them know ye; they'll think ye're a real livin' princess stepped out of a picture-book." Martha had not taken her eyes from Lucy since she entered the room.

"See my little beau-catchers," she laughed, twisting her head so that Martha could see the tiny Spanish curls she had flattened against her temples. "They are for Bart Holt, and I'm going to cut sister out. Do you think he'll remember me?" she prattled on, arching her neck.

"It won't make any difference if he don't," Martha retorted in a positive tone. "But Cap'n Nat will, and so will the doctor and Uncle Ephraim and--who's that comin' this early?" and the old nurse paused and listened to a heavy step on the porch. "It must be the cap'n himself; there ain't n.o.body but him's got a tread like that; ye'd think he was trampin' the deck o' one of his s.h.i.+ps."

The door of the drawing-room opened and a bluff, hearty, round-faced man of fifty, his iron-gray hair standing straight up on his head like a shoe-brush, dressed in a short pea-jacket surmounted by a low sailor collar and loose necktie, stepped cheerily into the room.

"Ah, Miss Jane!" Somehow all the neighbors, even the most intimate, remembered to prefix "Miss" when speaking to Jane. "So you've got this fly-away back again? Where are ye? By jingo! let me look at you. Why!

why! why! Did you ever! What have you been doing to yourself, la.s.sie, that you should shed your sh.e.l.l like a bug and come out with wings like a b.u.t.terfly? Why you're the prettiest thing I've seen since I got home from my last voyage."

He had Lucy by both bands now, and was turning her about as if she had been one of Ann Gossaway's models.

"Have I changed, Captain Holt?"

"No--not a mite. You've got a new suit of flesh and blood on your bones, that's all. And it's the best in the locker. Well! Well! WELL!"

He was still twisting her around. "She does ye proud, Martha," he called to the old nurse, who was just leaving the room to take charge of the pantry, now that the guests had begun to arrive. "And so ye're home for good and all, la.s.sie?"

"Yes--isn't it lovely?"

"Lovely? That's no name for it. You'll be settin' the young fellers crazy 'bout here before they're a week older. Here come two of 'em now."

Lucy turned her head quickly, just as the doctor and Barton Holt reached the door of the drawing-room. The elder of the two, Doctor John, greeted Jane as if she had been a d.u.c.h.ess, bowing low as he approached her, his eyes drinking in her every movement; then, after a few words, remembering the occasion as being one in honor of Lucy, he walked slowly toward the young girl.

"Why, Lucy, it's so delightful to get you back!" he cried, shaking her hand warmly. "And you are looking so well. Poor Martha has been on pins and needles waiting for you. I told her just how it would be--that she'd lose her little girl--and she has," and he glanced at her admiringly. "What did she say when she saw you?"

"Oh, the silly old thing began to cry, just as they all do. Have you seen her dog?"

The answer jarred on the doctor, although he excused her in his heart on the ground of her youth and her desire to appear at ease in talking to him.

"Do you mean Meg?" he asked, scanning her face the closer.

"I don't know what she calls him--but he's the ugliest little beast I ever saw."

"Yes--but so amusing. I never get tired of watching him. What is left of him is the funniest thing alive. He's better than he looks, though.

He and Rex have great times together."

"I wish you would take him, then. I told Martha this morning that he mustn't poke his nose into my room, and he won't. He's a perfect fright."

"But the dear old woman loves him," he protested with a tender tone in his voice, his eyes fixed on Lucy.

He had looked into the faces of too many young girls in his professional career not to know something of what lay at the bottom of their natures. What he saw now came as a distinct surprise.

"I don't care if she does," she retorted; "no, I don't," and she knit her brow and shook her pretty head as she laughed.

While they stood talking Bart Holt, who had lingered at the threshold, his eyes searching for the fair arrival, was advancing toward the centre of the room. Suddenly he stood still, his gaze fixed on the vision of the girl in the clinging dress, with the blossoms resting on her breast. The curve of her back, the round of the hip; the way her moulded shoulders rose above the lace of her bodice; the bare, full arms tapering to the wrists;--the color, the movement, the grace of it all had taken away his breath. With only a side nod of recognition toward Jane, he walked straight to Lucy and with an "Excuse me,"

elbowed the doctor out of the way in his eagerness to reach the girl's side. The doctor smiled at the young man's impetuosity, bent his head to Lucy, and turned to where Jane was standing awaiting the arrival of her other guests.

The young man extended his hand. "I'm Bart Holt," he exclaimed; "you haven't forgotten me, Miss Lucy, have you? We used to play together.

Mighty glad to see you--been expecting you for a week."

Lucy colored slightly and arched her head in a coquettish way. His frankness pleased her; so did the look of unfeigned admiration in his eyes.

"Why, of course I haven't forgotten you, Mr. Holt. It was so nice of you to come," and she gave him the tips of her fingers--her own eyes meanwhile, in one comprehensive glance, taking in his round head with its closely cropped curls, searching brown eyes, wavering mouth, broad shoulders, and shapely body, down to his small, well-turned feet. The young fellow lacked the polish and well-bred grace of the doctor, just as he lacked his well-cut clothes and distinguished manners, but there was a sort of easy effrontery and familiar air about him that some of his women admirers encouraged and others shrank from. Strange to say, this had appealed to Lucy before he had spoken a word.

"And you've come home for good now, haven't you?" His eyes were still drinking in the beauty of the girl, his mind neither on his questions nor her answers.

"Yes, forever and ever," she replied, with a laugh that showed her white teeth.

"Did you like it at school?" It was her lips now that held his attention and the little curves under her dimpled chin. He thought he had never seen so pretty a mouth and chin.

"Not always; but we used to have lots of fun," answered the girl, studying him in return--the way his cravat was tied and the part of his hair. She thought he had well-shaped ears and that his nose and eyebrows looked like a picture she had in her room upstairs.

"Come and tell me about it. Let's sit down here," he continued as he drew her to a sofa and stood waiting until she took her seat.

"Well, I will for a moment, until they begin to come in," she answered, her face all smiles. She liked the way he behaved towards her--not asking her permission, but taking the responsibility and by his manner compelling a sort of obedience. "But I can't stay," she added. "Sister won't like it if I'm not with her to shake hands with everybody."