a remark, dreadful yet tantalizing in the vistas it opened up, was overheard by the rev. needham as he was coming out on to the screened porch. it was a remark which set on foot an increasingly turbulent desire to know, unequivocally and without expurgation, just what had been the nature of his sister-in-law's life on the distracting island of tahulamaji.
mrs. needham had retired to the kitchen for a final fling with eliza about breakfast, leaving the minister alone in the living room with his daughter. miss whitcom and mr. barry had passed out on to the porch, and louise had dropped down in a nice shadowy corner with a book—just as young ladies naturally and invariably do after dinner, when the light is beginning to fail, and their lover is waiting for them outside.
the rev. needham, whose suspicions had already been rather alarmingly roused, now felt sure not all was well. why should louise behave like this if all were well? and even barry—barry wasn't, of course, one of those romantic fellows who would always be sighing and rolling their eyes; but there were subtler manifestations.... they had gone[pg 240] walking together in the afternoon—thank god! there was that much to cling to. yes, thank heaven they had done that much anyway!
but the rev. needham was so full of perplexity that he hardly knew what to do next. he told himself, in desperation, that everything must, in reality, be all right—rather much as his daughter had assured herself on the train that all must work out for the best: her best. he knew, as a matter of fact, that this was not quite honest persuasion. but it helped. oh, it was a very present help. to tell the truth, it sufficed to carry him quickly out of his daughter's presence. in his heart, the minister knew that the issue ought to be faced at once. yes, he ought to call louise over on to his knee, just as in the old days, before any of the unhappy love troubles began, and ask her to tell him what had gone wrong. but he didn't call her over. instead he began humming in a perfectly unconcerned manner, and strolled outside.
it was just as he reached the door that the rev. needham overheard the all but blood-curdling remark.
"you must realize," miss whitcom was saying to his daughter's fiancé, "that it's much too hot there to wear any clothes!"
it being patently too late to turn back, the clergyman came on; somehow reached a chair. he sat down quickly and began rocking. he rocked helplessly, yet withal in a faintly ominous way—perhaps,[pg 241] deeper still, with a movement of guilty curiosity: for after all he was but human, poor man.
the sun had just dipped, and the sky and the sea were alive with the fire of this august departure. a wraith-like distribution of cloud still received direct beams and glowed like a bit of magic dream-stuff; but the lower world had to rest content now with reflected glory—a sheen of softening brightness which would grow steadily thicker and thicker, like quandary in the clergyman's breast, till at length the light was all gone and darkness had settled across the sea and the sand. ah, peaceful eventide! good-bye, sweet day! but the heart of the minister was all full of horrid little quick jerks and a settling mugginess.
the conversation his appearance had served to interrupt did not continue as it had evidently begun. yet even at its worst it appeared to have constituted merely a laughing digression from the major theme, which had to do with the perfectly proper topic of dry-farming. no one would think of calling the topic of dry-farming improper. but the tenor of the talk which succeeded the minister's arrival in their midst did not, for all its unimpeachable correctness, serve to diminish the poignancy of that awful phrase: too hot to wear any clothes!
"mr. barry," she explained to her brother-in-law, "has been telling me a lot of interesting things about the sorghums."
alfred needham cleared his throat—just as he[pg 242] always did, for instance, before ascending the pulpit on sunday—and nodded. but he was not thinking about the sorghums—just as sometimes, it is to be feared, in the very act of coming out of the vestry, and with the eyes of the congregation upon him, he failed to keep his mind entirely on the sermon he was about to deliver.
"it seems they've made enormous strides since my day," she went on. "mr. barry, how many varieties did you say are now possible?"
"well," he replied solemnly, his eyes large with helpless unhappiness, "the sorghums now include common or sweet sorghum, milo maize, kaffir corn—and of course broom corn. these have become standard crops, and we're introducing them more and more into the southern district." he rocked a trifle self-consciously. all three rocked a moment in silence.
"there's considerably less rainfall down there," commented the rev. needham.
the statement had been carefully equipped with earmarks of the interrogative, so that, should it happen to prove incorrect, refutation would take the form of a simple answer to an ingenuous and perfectly natural question. the rev. needham found it urgent to keep his inflections always slightly interrogative. there was even a sly, sneaking hint of the useful question mark throughout the reverend man's theology. ghastly as the thing must sound spoken right out, it is really doubtful whether the rev. needham would be caught altogether napping were the[pg 243] entire bible suddenly to be proved spurious! of course when barry admitted that there was less rainfall in the southern part, then the minister rocked with subtly renewed purpose, slapping the arms of his chair exactly as an acknowledged authority on rainfall might be expected to do. but of course it was all ever so much subtler than this makes it appear. it was infinitely more delicate than any mere i-told-you-so attitude.
"you know," continued barry, who felt an unpleasant thickness in his throat, "the sorghums have to be able to withstand a great deal of drought. they roll up their leaves and seem to sleep for months at a time; and when the rain comes again they revive quickly and make rapid strides."
inside the cottage sat louise. she was huddled miserably over a book. she was not reading the book, though it chanced to be a very absorbing historical novel. it is hard to conceive of a young lady's not reading such a work with avidity and even breathlessness, under the circumstances. but to be perfectly accurate, louise hadn't even opened the historical novel. it simply lay in her lap, and she was huddled over it. her eyes were dry. she was utterly miserable. and just outside, in the full, fresh sweetness of diminishing dayshine, sat the man who had come all this way to put a ring on her finger. he was sitting out there in the romantic richness of the tinted evening, and he was talking about the sorghums!
[pg 244]
oh, a wise plant is the sorghum. when there is a drought it rolls up its leaves and waits till it is time for the refreshment of another rain. the sorghum knows well how to plan and bide its time. the sorghum would not give itself too easily....
out on the rustic bench which her dear father had so laboriously constructed sat hilda. she was listening for steps in the sand. she would know whose steps they were when they drew close. it was growing quite dusky underneath the trees. the stars would soon be appearing. there had been a slight breeze all the afternoon, but it had died away; and on the beach the tiny waves were whispering that it had passed that way and was now still. the trees stood very quiet, but occasionally a squirrel would whisk by overhead. the squirrels, however, were turning in for the night now, and soon there would be no stir left save only the night stir of the woods. far off sounded at intervals the shouts of young children—children younger than hilda, and unfettered as yet by any sweet obligation of sitting very breathless, listening for steps in the sand.
"how lovely everything is!" thought hilda.
when she saw leslie she ran out to meet him—no mooning pretense at not having heard.
"oh, les, why don't you light it?"
he carried a japanese lantern and was swinging it about in a very reckless way.
"shall i?" he asked. "now?"
[pg 245]
"oh, yes! it isn't quite dark yet, but it will be so much fun!"
"the candle's pretty short, hilda. do you think it will last?"
"let me see." they bent their heads eagerly over the paper lantern.
"it isn't very long, is it les? i guess we'd better put in a new one. there are lots of them at the cottage."
and before he could protest she was flying off.
on the screened porch she found the entire household assembled. mrs. needham had completed her session with eliza and was now pleasantly rocking. ah, there was a rhythm in her rocking—especially of late years. it was the sort of rhythm the vers librists have so entirely broken away from. it was a rocking which rarely went slower or faster. perhaps it was the homeric hexameter. or it was stately blank verse, with maybe the quaint rhyming couplets of crabbe and cowper. no one could ever think of mistaking it for edgar lee masters!
louise had come out also. hilda, as she flew by and on into the cottage, saw her sister sitting beside lynndal barry on a rocking settee. there was, as a matter of fact, not a single stationary piece of furniture on the porch. to anna needham, rocking was pleasant and even actually profitable. to her husband—well, to the rev. needham it seemed a kind of muscular necessity. and the girls had always been used to it. so all the chairs rocked.
[pg 246]
aunt marjie sighed briefly as hilda ran by. boy-crazy. well, life wasn't made for waiting and working alone. somehow, this sea air—these lustrous, still nights—were stealing away her resistance. yes, o'donnell was a kind of mountain. and yet, curiously enough, he was only a travelling man, too, just as he had always been. yes, he travelled for babbit & babbit. but she would go home to him at last. she would put her head on his shoulder, if he would let her, just like a silly young thing. suddenly she saw her life as a restless confusion of ambitions and beginnings. oh, to have spent it so! to have waited as long as this! to have been so afraid of giving herself too easily....
hilda came running out again. she clutched a new candle in her hand. her eyes were quite wonderful.
"where are you going?" asked mrs. needham, appearing a little bewildered by this cyclonic going and coming.
"he's out there; we're going to start now!"
there was just sufficient coherence to bring miss whitcom to her feet. always impulsive, she stepped to the screen door and thence down on to the path.
"hilda!"
"yes, aunt marjie?"
"you're going to light o'donnell through to the point?"
"yes, aunt marjie."
[pg 247]
"well, be sure you don't lose yourselves!" no, even marjory, with her amazing retrospect of brass, did not quite dare to say: "don't lose him!" and yet, so far as her heart was concerned, it really amounted to that.
the last thing hilda heard, as she sped off, was the patient voice of lynndal barry. the minister had asked him another question about the sorghums.
"yes," barry was saying, "there are about as many varieties of kaffir corn and milo maize as of the saccharine sorghums. only a few have been tested in the south: red kaffir corn, black hulled white kaffir, standard milo maize, and dwarf milo maize. but we intend—"
hilda, skipping with happiness, heard no more.
