Shifting Sands

by Sara Ware Bassett

  Chapter II

  In the meantime, Marcia Howe, the heroine of this escapade, comfortablyensconced in her island homestead, paid scant heed to the fact thatshe and her affairs were continually on the tongues of the outlyingcommunity.

  She was not ignorant of it for, although too modest to think herself ofany great concern to others, her intuitive sixth sense made her wellaware her goings and comings were watched. This knowledge, however, farfrom nettling her, as it might have done had she been a woman blessedwith less sense of humor, afforded her infinite amusement. She likedpeople and because of her habit of looking for the best in them sheusually found it. Their spying, she realized, came from motives ofinterest. She had never known it to be put to malicious use. Hence, shenever let it annoy her.

  She loved her home; valued her kindly, if inquisitive, neighbors attheir true worth; and met the world with a smile singularly free fromhardness or cynicism.

  Bitter though her experience had been, it had neither taken from,nor, miraculously, had it dimmed her faith in her particular star.On the contrary there still glowed in her grey eyes that sparkle ofanticipation one sees in the eyes of one who stands a-tiptoe on thethreshold of adventure. Apparently she had in her nature an unquenchablespirit of hope that nothing could destroy. No doubt youth had aided herto retain this vision for she was still young and the highway of life,alluring in rosy mists, beckoned her along its mysterious path withpersuasive hand. Who could tell what its hidden vistas might contain?

  Her start, she confessed, had been an unpropitious one. But startssometimes were like that; and did not the old adage affirm that a badbeginning made for a fair ending?

  Furthermore, the error had been her own. She had been free to choose andshe had chosen unwisely. Why whine about it? One must be a sport andplay the game. She was older now and better fitted to look after herselfthan she had been at seventeen. Only a fool made the same blunder twice,and if experience had been a pitiless teacher, it had also been ahelpful and convincing one.

  Marcia did not begrudge her lesson. Unquestionably, it had takenfrom her its toll; but on the other hand it had left as compensationsomething she would not have exchanged for gold.

  The past with its griefs, its humiliations, its heartbreak, its failurelay behind--the future all before her. It was hers--hers! She would bewary what she did with it and never again would she squander it fordross.

  Precisely what she wished or intended to make of that future she did notknow. There were times when a wave of longing for something she couldnot put into words surged up within her with a force not to be denied.Was it loneliness? She was not so lonely that she did not find joy inher home and its daily routine of domestic duties.

  On the contrary, she attacked these pursuits with tireless zeal. Sheliked sweeping, dusting, polishing brasses, and making her house asfresh as the sea breezes that blew through it. She liked to brew andbake; to sniff browning pie crust and the warm spiciness of gingercookies. Keen pleasure came to her when she surveyed spotless beds,square at the corners and covered with immaculate counterpanes. Shefound peace and refreshment in softened lights, flowers, the glow ofdriftwood fires.

  As for the more strenuous tasks connected with homemaking, they servedas natural and pleasurable vents for her surplus energy. She revelled inpainting, papering, shingling; and the solution of the balking enigmaspresented by plumbing, chimneys, drains and furnaces.

  If there lingered deep within her heart vague, unsatisfied yearnings,Marcia resolutely held over these filmy imaginings a tight rein. To bebusy--that was her gospel. She never allowed herself to remain idle forany great length of time. To prescribe the remedy and faithfully applyit was no hardship to one whose active physique and abounding vigordemanded an abundance of exercise. Like an athlete set to run a race,she gloried in her physical strength.

  When she tramped the shore, the wind blowing her hair and the rich bloodpulsing in her cheeks; when her muscles stretched taut beneath an oar orshot out against the resistance of the tide, a feeling of unity with apower greater than herself caught her up, thrilling every fibre of herbeing. She was never unsatisfied then. She felt herself to be part of aforce mighty and infinite--a happy, throbbing part. Today, as she movedswiftly about the house and her deft hands made tidy the rooms, she hadthat sense of being in step with the world.

  The morning, crisp with an easterly breeze, had stirred the sea into aswell that rose rhythmically in measureless, breathing immensity faraway to its clear-cut, sapphire horizon. The sands had never glistenedmore white; the surf never curled at her doorway in a prettier, morefeathery line. On the ocean side, where winter's lashing storms hadthrown up a protecting phalanx of dunes, the coarse grasses she had sownto hold them tossed in the wind, while from the Point, where her snowydomains dipped into more turbulent waters, she could hear the gratingroar of pebbles mingle with the crash of heavier breakers.

  It all spoke to her of home--home as she had known it from childhood--asher father and her father's father had known it. Boats, nets, thescreaming of gulls, piping winds, and the sting of spray on her facewere bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. The salt of deep buriedcaverns was in her veins; the chant of the ocean echoed the beating ofher own heart.

  Lonely?

  If she needed anything it was a companion to whom to cry: "Isn't itglorious to be alive?" and she already had such a one.

  Never was there such a comrade as Prince Hal!

  Human beings often proved themselves incapable of grasping one another'smoods--but he? Never!

  He knew when to speak and when to be silent; when to be in evidence andwhen to absent himself. His understanding was infinite; his fidelityas unchanging as the stars. Moreover, he was an honorable dog, athoroughbred, a gentleman. That was why she had bestowed upon him anaristocratic name. He demanded it.

  She would never want for a welcome while he had strength to wag hiswhite plume of tail; nor lack affection so long as he was able to raceup the beach and race back again to hurl himself upon her with hissharp, staccato yelp of joy.

  When easterly gales rocked the rafters and the wind howled with eeriemoanings down the broad chimney; when line after line of foamingbreakers steadily advanced, crashing up on the shore with a fury thatthreatened to invade the house, then it was comforting to have near-by acompanion unashamed to draw closer to her and confess himself humbled inthe presence of the sea's majesty.

  Oh, she was worlds better off with Prince Hal than if she were linked upwith someone of her own genus who could not understand.

  Besides, she was not going to be alone. She had decided to try anexperiment.

  Jason had had an orphaned niece out in the middle west--his sister'schild--a girl in her early twenties, and Marcia had invited her to theisland for a visit.

  In fact, Sylvia was expected today.

  That was why a bowl of pansies stood upon the table in the big bedroomat the head of the stairs, and why its fireplace was heaped withdriftwood ready for lighting. That was also the reason Marcia now stoodcritically surveying her preparations.

  The house did look welcoming. With justifiable pride, she confessed toherself that Heaven had bestowed upon her a gift for that sort of thing.She knew where to place a chair, a table, a lamp, a book, a flower.

  She was especially desirous the old home should look its best today, forthe outside world had contributed a richness of setting that left hermuch to live up to. Sylvia had never seen the ocean. She must love it.But would she? That was to be the test.

  If the girl came hither with eyes that saw not; if the splendorstretched out before her was wasted then undeterred, she might go backto her wheat fields, her flat inland air, her school teaching.

  If, on the other hand, Wilton's beauty opened to her a new heaven anda new earth, if she proved herself a good comrade--well, who could saywhat might come of it?

  There was room, money, affection enough for two beneath the Homesteadroof and Sylvia was alone in the world. Moreover, Marcia felt an oddsense of obligatio
n toward Jason. At the price of his life he had givenher back her freedom. It was a royal gift and she owed him something inreturn.

  She was too honest to pretend she had loved him or mourned his loss.Soon after the beginning of their life together, she had discovered hewas not at all the person she had supposed him. The gay recklessnesswhich had so completely bewitched her and which she had thought tobe manliness had been mere bombast and bravado. At bottom he was abraggart--small, cowardly, purposeless--a ship without a rudder.

  Endowed with good looks and a devil-may-care charm, he had called herhis star and pleaded his need of her, and she had mistaken pity for loveand believed that to help guide his foundering craft into port was aheaven-sent mission.

  Alas, she had over-estimated both her own power and his sincerity.Jason had no real desire to alter his conduct. He lacked not only theinclination but the moral stamina to do so. Instead, day by day heslipped lower and lower and, unable to aid him or prevent disaster, shehad been forced to look on.

  Her love for him was dead, and her self-conceit was dealt a humiliatingblow.

  She was to have been his anchor in time of stress, the planet by whichwhen he married her he boasted that he intended to steer his course. Butshe had been forced to stand impotent at his side and see self-respect,honor, and every essential of manhood go down and he shrivel to afawning, deceitful, ambitionless wreck.

  Sometimes she reproached herself for the tragedy and, scrutinizing thepast, wondered whether she might not have prevented it. Had she done herfull part; been as patient, sympathetic, understanding as she ought tohave been? Did his defeat lay at her door?

  With the honesty characteristic of her, she could not see that it did.She might, no doubt, have played her role better. One always could ifgiven a second chance. Nevertheless she had tried, tried with everyounce of strength in her--tried and failed!

  Well, it was too late for regrets now. Such reflections belonged to thepast and she must put them behind her as useless, morbid abstractions.Her back was set against the twilight; she was facing the dawn--the dawnwith its promise of happier things.

  Surely that magic, unlived future touched with hope and dim with theprophecy of the unknown could not be so unfriendly as the past had been.It might bring pain; but she had suffered pain and no longer fearedit. Moreover, no pain could ever be as poignant as that which she hadalready endured.

  And why anticipate pain? Life held joy as well--countless untriedexperiences that radiated happiness. Were there not a balance betweensunshine and shadow this world would be a wretched place in which tolive, and its Maker an unjust dealer.

  No, she believed not only in a fair-minded but in a generous God and shehad faith that he was in his Heaven.

  She had paid for her folly--if indeed folly it had been. Now withoptimism and courage she looked fearlessly forward. That was why, as shecaught up her hat, a smile curled her lips.

  The house did look pretty, the day was glorious. She was a-tingle witheagerness to see what it might bring.

  Calling Prince Hal, she stood before him.

  "Take good care of the house, old man," she admonished, as she pattedhis silky head. "I'll be home soon."

  He followed her to the piazza and stopped. His eyes pleaded to go, buthe understood his orders and obeying them lay down with paws extended,the keeper of the Homestead.