at about ten o'clock the rev. needham took out his watch and thought it was time he and his little party set their faces homeward. mrs. needham had been talking gentle gossip with mrs. blake and the wife of the minister from dubuque; but she got up at once and obediently took her husband's arm.
"we go to bed early at beachcrest," she explained. they went to bed early in town, for that matter, though the full truth went uncommunicated.
"where are the girls?" demanded the rev. needham, looking anxiously round.
louise came up hurriedly, followed by barry. "are you starting home now, papa?" she asked, with what sounded strangely like eagerness.
"well, we thought we'd just be starting along. it's—it's not late yet, you know. we'll just slip on ahead and get the cottage lighted."
"i think we'll go along now too."
"oh, i wouldn't hurry. the fire's quite good yet."
"lynndal is tired," she insisted. "he didn't sleep more than a couple of hours on the boat." and she gave him a very complex glance in which there was something whisperingly like an element of tenderness.
[pg 263]
"well," capitulated mrs. needham.
but louise was only one daughter. where was hilda?
where indeed? where was she?
anxious eyes explored the assembled company. most of the young people had mysteriously made off, some this way and some that, but all alike into the friendly embrace of the darkness which lay so thick beyond the glow of the fire. where was hilda?
"i think i saw her with the lad—is it leslie?" said lynndal barry.
"oh—leslie," repeated mrs. needham.
"you didn't notice which way they went?" asked the minister.
"no, i'm afraid i didn't."
then louise came to the rescue. she pointed miserably, yet also with a faint, new fact-facing grimness, toward the lake.
"they haven't taken out the canoe ...!" alfred needham was horror struck.
"it's perfectly calm, papa," louise reminded him dryly.
then, indeed, they saw the canoe, on the moonlit water. both leslie and hilda were paddling. but they were not exactly paddling toward the shore.
"she knows it's not allowed, out like this at all hours of the night!" cried the minister.
but his wife reassured him in her gentle way. "alf, i wouldn't worry. leslie will look out for her."
[pg 264]
louise lowered her head. then she moved almost imperceptibly closer to lynndal. at length the homeward march was begun. but the rev. needham stopped again suddenly, looking at his wife in a helpless way.
"anna, where's your sister?"
"dear me!" cried anna needham. "we were starting right off without her!"
"is that miss whitcom?" asked barry.
"who?"
"where?"
"the lady just ahead, coming this way."
it was true. there was a lady approaching along the beach. but she was with a man, and the man....
"alf!" whispered anna, gripping her husband's arm.
"well?"
"oh—look!"
"what is it, anna?"
she murmured in almost an ecstasy: "why, he's got his arm right round her waist!"
the awful intelligence that this was indeed marjory, and that a man had his arm around her waist, smote the minister's consciousness with peculiar and climactic force.
hilda and leslie took their own good time about coming in off the lake. it was so wonderful out there in the moonlight.
"i've had a perfectly grand time!" she told him,[pg 265] her voice thrilling richly with conviction. she knew she had had a grand time, and whatever might be the sequel when she faced her parents, the grandness would never, never diminish.
they ascended the slight sand elevation and reached the steps leading up to the porch. moonlight patched and patterned the steps. they did not go any farther.
hilda sat down, drawing her knees and chin together, while leslie whistled softly.
"will your father be mad?" he asked.
"oh, no!" the girl exclaimed, with the full and emphatic authority of one who is gravely in doubt. "why?" she added. "it isn't late, is it?"
leslie pulled out his watch. "n-o-o. only twenty after eleven."
"twenty after eleven? twenty after eleven! oh, my goodness! i didn't have any idea it was so late. it seemed as though we were only out there a couple of minutes!"
"it did to me, too," admitted leslie.
the lateness of the hour, however, appeared to exert no immediate influence upon either his recognition of the wisdom of departure or hers of withdrawal to bed. leslie swung back and forth, clinging to a slender birch tree which grew quite close to the cottage. its silver leaves crashed gently together, as though a breeze were thrusting its way through.
"i could simply sit out here all night!" hilda declared.
[pg 266]
leslie admitted he could too. presently he did sit down. he sat down beside hilda, but, as before, one step below her. it was certainly a lovely night. his head somehow found her knee; then eros could hardly contain himself! hilda ran her fingers very lightly through his hair. they did not bother to talk much.
at length he asked: "shall we go out after raspberries tomorrow? would you like to?"
"oh, les—that would be lots of fun!"
"all right."
"shall we take a lunch so we won't have to hurry?"
"good idea."
"what time will you come, les?"
"what time do you want me?"
"oh—i don't know."
"right after breakfast?"
"oh, yes!" her answer to this question held no slightest inflection of doubt.
"what time do you have breakfast?"
"never later than eight o'clock, and it only takes me a minute to eat!"
leslie appeared to have forgotten all about going back to the city, after all....
there was another warm silence. the boy had no idea of starting for his own cottage, nor had hilda any idea of going to bed. it didn't, for some strange reason, occur to either that the parent needhams might be waiting up in there, and that the minister, harassed over dim prospects of ruin perceived in the[pg 267] relationship of his daughter and the man who handled the western interests, was attaining an attitude of really appalling austerity. no, they didn't bother their spoony young heads about any of these things, until all at once the cottage door opened, letting out upon them a flood of light from the living room.
"hello, papa!" cried hilda, guiltily and very affectionately. she jumped up.
the rev. needham did not say much out on the porch; but when leslie had crept off, after hurriedly squeezing the girl's hand, and hilda had been marshalled within, the law was laid down with unusual vigour. mrs. needham took it all rather more quietly, primarily because she did not share, in its full poignancy, her husband's alarm over louise. of course she was concerned. but the poise of climax was beginning to assert itself. no doubt tomorrow, if a reign of chaos really did set in, mrs. needham would rule over the turmoil like a very judge. she would become dominant, as when she went to rescue her daughter from the potomac. it was perhaps her only complex.
hilda had just been sent up to bed, rather subdued, but in her heart immensely radiant, when marjory arrived home. o'donnell wanted to hang around awhile, but she wouldn't let him. no, she positively refused to linger any longer in the moonlight. she reproved herself a little. she reproved him a little, too. they had already been quite romantic enough[pg 268] for one night. and she hustled him off with a lack of ceremony which went with her years and her temperament. all the same, he managed to steal a glancing kiss. and eros—who i forgot to say had remained in hiding out there—eros told himself that this was infinitely better for his purposes than a mere handshake!
when he had gone, she sat down on the steps alone, for a moment. it was so wonderful—life was—and the night. she watched the moon declining over a just-troubled sea. then abruptly she became conscious of voices in the cottage living room.
"now, your sister!"
"well, alf?"
"she's still out!"
"oh, marjory knows the way."
"but at such an hour!"
"it's only a quarter to twelve, alf."
"i know how the point will be talking tomorrow!"
"alf, i—"
"oh—i've nothing to say. no, anna, i realize she's your sister. but i must tell you what i think." and he was back once more on the topic that so turbulently absorbed him. "i think marjory has been led into an unfortunate way of living. she's always run so free and never cared what people thought or said. i really don't know how the point is going to take her." and after a moment's pause, during which the minister could be heard pacing up and down: "anna, what do we know about the nature of[pg 269] her life in tahulamaji? has she told you anything definitely about that? no. but she's hinted...." he paced on, and presently added: "now here she is, just back; and the very first thing she does is walk all over with a man's arm round her!"
miss whitcom abandoned the wonderful night. when she entered, her sister smiled and brightened generally. but her brother-in-law seemed rather taken off his feet.
marjory wanted to make the minister feel perfectly at home, so she sat down and began rocking cosily.
"how snug you're fixed here!" she murmured. "how happy you ought to be, alfred, in your little nest! ah, it's fine to be in the bosom of a family again. you know, i feel somehow as though i'd come back from an absence of nearly a lifetime. it's a curious feeling, to come back like this. like a sort of prodigal, alfred—just fancy! but i did have to go away," she pleaded earnestly. "in the beginning, it was quite necessary! you see there were such a lot of things i wanted to find out, and i felt from the very first—anna, you remember how i used to talk to you about life, and all that?—well, i somehow felt i shouldn't find out anything just sitting in the front parlour with a family album spread open on my lap. you see, it wasn't what the others were like that i wanted to be like, and it wasn't what all the others had done that i wanted to do in the world. so i broke away. yes, the prodigal left, to roam far and wide. now that we're chatting here all snug, i[pg 270] may tell you, alfred, that it's been pretty interesting and pretty broadening."
"marjie, dear—"
"now, anna, don't let's go up to bed just yet. not just yet. it is so cosy down here, and i'm much too excited to sleep. just a little while. i—i want to visit with alfred a little about my life in tahulamaji." the atmosphere in the living room grew subtly electric. the minister sat rigid. but the speaker went on in a cheery, simple way: "just think, just think! when you would be sitting down in your nice house in ohio, there i was...." she interrupted herself with a laugh. "it does sound rather dreadful, now doesn't it? you in ohio and me.... fancy my going way off there alone—for you know the tahulamajians were once cannibals!—all by myself, and—and living! gracious, how extraordinary it does sound!"
she rocked with folded arms and peeped at her brother-in-law out of the wicked corners of her eyes.
"but it's such fun," she went on, a little solemnly, "keeping your personal life all ship-shape—all ship-shape, alfred—and yet really feeling, as you go along, that you're not missing a single thing that's worth while. no, not a single blessed thing, alfred. when i went to tahulamaji i hadn't an awfully clear notion of what i was going to do there. you see i thought i'd just have a look-around, as we say. oh, alfred," she chatted, "such a lovely spot! so warm[pg 271] and tropical, with music at night over the water.... alfred, how you would love it there!"
he shifted uneasily, and she went on: "what i did, though—what my life in tahulamaji really turned out to be—wasn't after all very poetic, or even essentially tropical, when it comes to that. yes, i've often thought i might have chosen a more harmonious vocation. but one must grasp what one can and be content. the fact is, alfred, i went into the drygoods business."
"drygoods!" cried her sister.
"yes—just think of that—and after all the really exciting things i've done in my life! but that's exactly what i did, anna. yes, that's what my life was in tahulamaji. and you've simply no idea how the thing took! the natives, you see, were just beginning to wear clothes—regular clothes, i mean, dear brother. and in a few months i had an establishment—an establishment, i tell you, with departments and counters and clerks.... it was perfectly beautiful to see them skipping about, and the little cash boxes running on their tracks overhead...."
"marjie, really?"
"yes, indeed. of course that came just a little later on, after electricity had been introduced. the arrangement was somewhat crude, but it worked. anna, you've no idea the things you can do if you really set your heart on them! yes, in time we even had cash boxes overhead, and there was i, up in the[pg 272] cage where all the cash boxes went to, making change and keeping the books! that's what makes me laugh so, when i think of it: you living in your nice house in ohio, and me up in the little cage with the cash coming in by trolley!"
"marjory, marjory!"
"the third year i had a dressmaker over from san francisco, and the business trebled at once. the poor dears had been trying to make their own clothes, but of course they didn't know much about styles. i had a circulating library of pattern books, but it was a great day, i tell you, when the dressmaker arrived! they closed the schools, and a reception was held. even the queen came down the line! i have a manager now," she concluded, "running the business. i said i simply had to get off for a rest. alfred," she soared to her climax, "your sister has worked herself weary and rich. how much will the new parish house cost?"
the rev. needham gasped. this is really not an exaggeration. he gasped—and it was, this time, no merely inner gasping, either. marjory—the new parish house ...!
"why, marjory!" he cried, his heart deeply touched. there sounded again here that former note of appeal or even pathos.
nevertheless, long afterward, when the fine new parish house was all finished, and the church could hold its own a little while longer in a world which was changing so rapidly, a grim spectre stalked[pg 273] between the minister and her magnificent donation. it was the spectre of the bishop whose bed she had seen made up. did marjory think he would sleep on two mattresses, like the bishop? and buy an upper for his golf sticks?
miss whitcom had risen to bid them good night. the indignant cottage lamp had begun to sputter and fail. it had never before been kept burning so late. but she lingered long enough to give them the full benefit of one of her delightful and so characteristic shafts of bluntness.
"o'donnell," she said, "has stood by all these years. think of it! think of its taking so long as that to be sure! of course it wasn't that i ever cared two straws for anybody else. o'donnell's never had any active competition, except from my overwhelming notions about being free to work out my life. well, i've had my freedom, and i've worked it out. and now—well, he's asked me again—tonight. but what do you think? i haven't given him a definite answer yet—not yet! i'm going over to the elmbrook inn as soon as the sun's up, though. i guess i'll stand down under his window and call out to him softly. and when he comes to the window, i'll say: 'barrett, i've had my fling!' alfred—you don't think i could find my way through tonight ...?"
"marjory! of course not! tomorrow, if you must...."
[pg 274]
but she chattered gaily and unquenchably on. "i don't know how it's all going to turn out, i'm sure—about our future, i mean. you see, if he'll come along to tahulamaji, i'll sell him a half interest in the business, and we could let the manager go. but i doubt if he'll do it. it's so far, and then, you see, he's been with the babbits so long. i can fancy one's growing very much attached to the babbits!"
"and if he doesn't want to go to tahulamaji?" asked her sister.
"if he doesn't? if he doesn't? well, then i'll have to follow his lead."
the rev. needham had a sudden flash of wholly disorganizing inspiration. "marjory, you don't mean babbit & babbit?"
but it was just exactly what she did mean! "yes, in that case i'll travel for babbit & babbit. must be doing something, i can tell you, with all these parish houses to be built! and it won't be my first job on the road, by any manner of means, either!"
then she kissed her sister affectionately on the mouth and her brother-in-law affectionately on the cheek. and then the cottage lamp went out.
