The Opened Shutters Part 55

"No, some sort of a stump; and it's such a queer color. I've been trying to make out--John Dunham!" Edna's tone suddenly changed. "This is that blueberry juice!"

Dunham's mouth fell open. The two stood staring at each other, and, as many perceptions and explanations flowed into their thought, they colored slowly, and as richly as sunburn would permit.

"That is the love philtre, John," said Edna, when they had been a long time silent, and she caught her lip between her teeth, for her own condemnation pressed upon her more heavily with each enlightening consideration.

Dunham's feelings were inexpressible, and his one devout thanksgiving was that Edna was ignorant of his own ba.n.a.lity.

Suddenly she ran out of the room to the head of the stairs. "Miss Lacey," she called, "will you bring Judge Trent up here?"

The request startled Miss Martha into a sudden panic. "Dear me, Calvin, Edna wants us. I'm afraid Sylvia is ill. She looked it this noon. Oh, I a.s.sure you she never would have stayed upstairs from laziness, never in this world. She"--

But Judge Trent was already far in advance of the speaker, and Miss Lacey tripped upstairs after him, briskly.

"Come here, both of you, and I will make you proud," said Edna as they entered the room. "These sketches are your niece's work."

"Aren't they the queerest things you ever saw?" asked Miss Martha, adjusting her eyegla.s.ses the better to peer at the brown sheets. "But there's the Ledges, and there's Beacon Island, and the West Sh.o.r.e, and our own swimming pool from over on the Point, and"--

"Judge Trent, do you know about such work?" asked Edna. "Do you care for this sort of thing?"

"Yes, in an ignorant sort of a way. Certainly I do."

"If you found Sylvia talented, you'd help her, I'm sure you would."

"Of course. Why? You appear excited."

Edna touched the lawyer's black sleeve as he stood in his customary att.i.tude, his hands behind his back. As she went on it was evident that she fought with tears.

"Pardon me for asking if Sylvia has any money? Has any allowance been made her?"

"Not by me, and it's not likely by Thinkright."

"It must be so! She can't have any money." The girl paused to swallow.

Judge Trent regarded her, the corners of his mouth drawn down, at a loss to understand her manner, and ready to defy whatever accusation she was about to bring against him.

Edna continued: "Sylvia went into the field, and spent hours selecting the largest, darkest berries she could find. She came home and stewed them into a subst.i.tute for paint. You remember, Miss Martha, the evening you thought she was cooking. Then she found this rough manila paper, and contrived a stump out of something. Think how she must have longed to paint, how she longed for materials"--

"Why didn't you tell me?" demanded Judge Trent brusquely. "How was I to know?"

"I didn't know myself," returned Edna. "None of us knew. She was too modest, too delicate, to tell. She went alone to do these things, to try her powers. She had come to the place where she meant to tell me.

She said so to-day. Doubtless she believed in her ability at last."

Edna again seized the pillow slip and shook out a number of bits of paper that had sunk to the bottom. There fell out with them various stained, tightly-rolled paper stumps, which had evidently been used in lieu of brushes.

The three heads gathered together to look at the sketches of themselves and the family at the Mill Farm.

"By Jove, she has got it in her," repeated Dunham, regarding a drawing of himself as he had appeared to be asleep in the boat.

Judge Trent was examining his own penciled face, frowning beneath the silk hat. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "I shall have to speak to Sylvia about this. Call her in, Edna."

It was the judge's last consecutive sentence for some time. All the company stared in equal amazement and apprehension, as Edna suddenly bowed her head on the lawyer's little broadcloth shoulder, and shook him with her sobs.

"Edna!" exclaimed Dunham, stepping forward, and he was unconscious of the severity of his voice. "Do you know you're frightening us? Where is Sylvia?"

"G-gone!"

"Where, for mercy's sake?" demanded Miss Martha tremulously.

"H-home, to the Tide Mill." Edna managed to jerk out the words. "W-wait a minute."

As soon as she could lift her head and wipe her eyes, a process which gave Judge Trent infinite relief, she saw John's face grown so white under its tan that it helped her to become steady.

"She's--safe, I'm sure," she said. "We had--a misunderstanding, and it was all my fault, and I suppose she left this noon as soon as she could get away from us. She left a note for me. I found it when I came up to knock on her door. She said she was homesick."

"I don't understand at all," said Judge Trent. "Sylvia gone back to the farm, without a by-your-leave to her hostess? Confoundedly bad manners I call it." The lawyer's thought was creaking through unaccustomed ruts. He had been cheated out of Sylvia's companions.h.i.+p, after all, and his favorite Edna was in tears. He could _not_ understand, and his frown was portentous.

"It is my fault," repeated Edna. "Spare me from explaining, because in the morning I shall go over to the farm myself and make things right."

"Just like that erratic father of hers. No manners," declared the lawyer.

"Calvin Trent!" Miss Martha's eyes sparkled through her excited tears.

"I'll thank you to be careful how you insult my dead brother in my presence. Your own manners in doing so are worse than anything Sam was ever guilty of!"

"Right you are, Martha," returned the startled lawyer with prompt meekness.

"Moreover," added Edna, indicating the sketches, "see Sylvia's inheritance from that father. You've nothing to blame her for, Judge Trent, in the manner of her leaving. I understand it perfectly. Please fix your mind only on her talent. Come with me to-morrow, and make her happy by the a.s.surance of your interest and a.s.sistance."

Judge Trent as he left the room muttered something to the effect that things had come to a pretty pa.s.s when he was forced at his age to spend his time on the water, tagging back and forth after a chit of a girl who didn't know her own mind. At the same time he recalled that Sylvia had returned to Hawk Island with reluctance, and that Edna Derwent was not the girl to shake him with her sobs for nothing; so he set himself to the task of being civil to Miss Lacey for the following half-hour, with intent to make amends for his offense to her.

Dunham, left alone with Edna, asked the question which was consuming him. Edna was placing the sketches in one of the empty drawers of the chiffonier.

"You must have had some talk with Sylvia this noon after I came upstairs for the book," he began.

She lifted her shoulder and shook her head with a gesture of repugnance. "Oh, yes. Don't remind me."

Dunham feared the worst. If Edna had accused Sylvia of giving him that potion, he would forswear the Mill Farm forever.

He continued: "Sylvia had already felt that you were offended with her.

She mentioned it in the boat yesterday. Did your interview to-day go into detail? Did,"--John cleared his throat,--"did you tell her what her offense was?"

"No,"--Edna shook her head,--"and don't ask me what it was, John. I told her we would talk later; but I hurt her. I hurt her, because I didn't know." She paused, and her next words caused further relief to overspread Dunham's countenance. "I'm glad that you understand nothing about it, John."

"So am I," he returned cheerfully. "I know you'll fix things up all right. I think I'll just wander down the island now, and find Benny Merritt and see if he was her boatman. Cheer up, Edna. I know you can get whatever you want out of Judge Trent, and by this time to-morrow night everything will be going as merry as a marriage bell."

A shrewd guess helped Dunham to find the object of his search at the post office, where Benny was seated on a barrel, pensively kicking his heels. Dissembling his eagerness, John nodded a greeting in his direction, and, pa.s.sing over to the corner of the grocery sacred to the Government pigeonholes, asked for the Derwent mail.

The portly wife of the postmaster replied that the evening boat was late and that they were waiting for the mail.

John accepted this information with proper surprise, and, turning away, looked through the window at the lights on a swordfisher standing in the cove. He thought he would first give Benny the chance to volunteer information.