She liked Clark Bryant well enough, but just at the moment he was in the way. She did not want to take him over to Racicot — just why she could not have explained. There was in her no snobbish shame of her humble home. But he did not belong there; he was an alien, and she wished to go back to it for the first time alone.
At the boathouse Davy launched the small sailboat and Nora took the tiller. She knew every inch of the harbour. As the sail filled before the wind and the boat sprang across the upcurling waves, her brief sullenness fell away from her. She no longer resented Clark Bryant’s presence — she forgot it. He was no more to her than the mast by which he stood. The spell of the sea and the wind surged into her heart and filled it with wild happiness and measureless content. Over yonder, where the lights gleamed on the darkening shore under the high-sprung arch of pale golden sky, was home. How the wind whistled to welcome her back! The lash of it against her face — the flick of salt spray on her lips — the swing of the boat as it cut through the racing crests — how glorious it all was!
Clark Bryant watched her, understanding all at once that he was nothing to her, that he had no part or lot in her heart. He was as one forgotten and left behind. And how lovely, how desirable she was! He had never seen her look so beautiful. The shawl had slipped down to her shoulders and her head rose out of it like some magnificent flower out of a crimson calyx. The masses of her black hair lifted from her face in the rush of the wind and swayed back again like rich shadows. Her lips were stung scarlet with the sea’s sharp caresses, and her eyes, large and splendid, looked past him unseeing to the harbour lights of Racicot.
When they swung in by the wharf Nora sprang from the boat before Bryant had time to moor it. Pausing for an instant, she called down to him, carelessly, “Don’t wait for me. I shall not go back tonight.”
Then she caught her shawl around her head and almost ran up the wharf and along the shore. No one was abroad, for it was supper hour in Racicot. In the Shelley kitchen the family was gathered around the table, when the door was flung open and Nora stood on the threshold. For a moment they gazed at her as at an apparition. They had not known the precise day of her coming and were not aware of the Camerons’ arrival at Dalveigh.
“It’s the girl herself. It’s Nora,” said old Nathan, rising from his bench.
“Mother!” cried Nora. She ran across the room and buried her face in her mother’s breast, sobbing.
When the news spread, the Racicot people crowded in to see Nora until the house was full. They spent a noisy, merry, whole-hearted evening of the old sort. The men smoked and most of the women knitted while they talked. They were pleased to find that Nora did not put on any airs. Old Jonas Myers bluntly told her that he didn’t see as her year among rich folks had done her much good, after all.
“You’re just the same as when you went away,” he said. “They haven’t made a fine lady of you. Folks here thought you’d be something wonderful.”
Nora laughed. She was glad that they did not find her changed. Old Nathan chuckled in his dry way. There was a difference in the girl, and he saw it, though the neighbours did not, but it was not the difference he had feared. His daughter was not utterly taken from him yet.
Nora sat by her mother and was happy. But as the evening wore away she grew very quiet, and watched the door with something piteous in her eyes. Old Nathan noticed it and thought she was tired. He gave the curious neighbours a good-natured hint, and they presently withdrew. When they had all gone Nora went out to the door alone.
The wind had died down and the shore, gemmed with its twinkling lights, was very still, for it was too late an hour for Racicot folk to be abroad in the mackerel season. The moon was rising and the harbour was a tossing expanse of silver waves. The mellow light fell on a tall figure lurking at the angle of the road that led past the Shelley cottage. Nora saw and recognized it. She flew down the sandy slope with outstretched hands.
“Rob — Rob!”
“Nora!” he said huskily, holding out his hand. But she flung herself on his breast and clung to him, half laughing, half crying.
“Oh, Rob! I’ve been looking for you all the evening. Every time there was a step I said to myself, ‘That is Rob, now.’ And when the door opened to let in another, my heart died within me. I dared not even ask after you for fear of what they might tell me. Why didn’t you come?”
“I didn’t know that I’d be welcome,” he whispered, holding her closer to him. “I’ve been hanging about thinking to get a glimpse of you unbeknown. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see me tonight.”
“Not want to see you! Oh, Rob, this evening at Dalveigh, when I looked across to Racicot, it was you I thought of before all — even before Mother.”
She drew back and looked at him with her soul in her eyes.
“What a splendid fellow you are — how handsome you are, Rob!” she cried. All the reserve of womanhood fell away from her in the inrush of emotions. For the moment she was a child again, telling out her thoughts with all a child’s frankness. “I’ve been in a dream this past year — a lovely dream — a fair dream, but only a dream, after all. And now I’ve wakened. And you are part of the wakening — the best part! Oh, to think I never knew before!”
“Knew what, my girl?”
He had her close against his heart now; the breath of her lips mingled with his, but he would not kiss her yet.
“That I loved you,” she whispered back. “Oh, Rob, you are all the world to me. I belong to you and the sea. But I never knew it until I crossed the harbour tonight. Then I knew — it came to me all at once, like a flood of understanding. I knew I could never go away again — that I must stay here forever where I could hear that call of wind and waves. The new life was good — good — but it could not go deep enough. And when you did not come I knew what was in my heart for you as well.”
That night Nora lay beside her sisters in the tiny room that looked out on the harbour. The younger girls slept soundly, but Nora kept awake to listen to the laughter of the wind outside, and con over what she and Rob had said to each other. There was no blot on her happiness save a sorry wonder what the Camerons would say when they knew.
“They will think me ungrateful and fickle,” she sighed. “They don’t know that I can’t help it even if I would. They will never understand.”
Nor did they. When Nora told them that she was going back to Racicot, they laughed at her kindly at first, treating it as the passing whim of a homesick girl. Later, when they came to understand that she meant it, they were grieved and angry. There were scenes of pleading and tears and reproaches. Nora cried bitterly in Mrs. Cameron’s arms, but stood rock-firm. She could never go back to them — never.
They appealed to Nathan Shelley finally, but he refused to say anything.
“It can’t be altered,” he told them. “The sea has called her and she’ll listen to naught else. I’m sorry enough for the girl’s own sake. It would have been better for her if she could have cut loose from it all and lived your life, I dare say. But you’ve made a fair trial and it’s of no use. I know what’s in her heart — it was in mine once — and I’ll say no word of rebuke to her. She’s free to go or stay as she chooses — just as free as she was last year.”
Mrs. Cameron made one more appeal to Nora. She told the girl bitterly that she was ungrateful.
“I’m not that,” said Nora with quivering lips. “I love you, and I’m grateful to you. But your life isn’t for me, after all. I thought it was — I longed so for it. And I loved it, too — I love it yet. But there’s something stronger in me that holds me here.”
“I don’t think you realize what you are doing, Nora. You have been a little homesick and you are glad to be back. But after we have gone and you must settle into the old Racicot life again, you will not be contented. You will find that your life with us will have unfitted you for this. There will be no real place for you here — nothing for you to do. You will be as a stranger here.”
“Oh
, no. I am going to marry Rob Fletcher,” said Nora proudly.
“Marry Rob Fletcher! And you might have married Clark Bryant, Nora!”
Nora shook her head. “That could never have been. I thought it might once — but I know better now. You see, I love Rob.”
There did not seem to be anything more to say after that. Mrs. Cameron did not try to say anything. She went away in sorrow.
Nora cried bitterly after she had gone. But there were no tears in her eyes that night when she walked on the shore with Rob Fletcher. The wind whistled around them, and the stars came out in the great ebony dome of the sky over the harbour. Laughter and song of the fishing folk were behind them, and the deep, solemn call of the sea before. Over the harbour gleamed the score of lights at Dalveigh. Rob looked from them to Nora.
“Do you think you’ll ever regret yon life, my girl?”
“Never, Rob. It seems to me now like a beautiful garment put on for a holiday and worn easily and pleasantly for a time. But I’ve put it off now, and put on workaday clothes again. It is only a week since I left Dalveigh, but it seems long ago. Listen to the wind, Rob! It is singing of the good days to be for you and me.”
He bent over and kissed her.
“My own dear lass!” he said softly.
The Martyrdom of Estella
Estella was waiting under the poplars at the gate for Spencer Morgan. She was engaged to him, and he always came to see her on Saturday and Wednesday evenings. It was after sunset, and the air was mellow and warm-hued. The willow trees along the walk and the tall birches in the background stood out darkly distinct against the lemon-tinted sky. The breath of mint floated out from the garden, and the dew was falling heavily.
Estella leaned against the gate, listening for the sound of wheels and dreamily watching the light shining out from the window of Vivienne LeMar’s room. The blind was up and she could see Miss LeMar writing at her table. Her profile was clear and distinct against the lamplight.
Estella reflected without the least envy that Miss LeMar was very beautiful. She had never seen anyone who was really beautiful before — beautiful with the loveliness of the heroines in the novels she sometimes read or the pictures she had seen.
Estella Bowes was not pretty. She was a nice-looking girl, with clear eyes, rosy cheeks, and a pervading air of the content and happiness her life had always known. She was an orphan and lived with her uncle and aunt. In the summer they sometimes took a boarder for a month or two, and this summer Miss LeMar had come. She had been with them about a week. She was an actress from the city and had around her all the glamour of a strange, unknown life. Nothing was known about her. The Boweses liked her well enough as a boarder. Estella admired and held her in awe. She wondered what Spencer would think of this beautiful woman. He had not yet seen her.
It was quite dark when he came. Estella opened the gate for him, but he got out of his buggy and walked up the lane beside her with his arm about her. Miss LeMar’s light had removed to the parlour where she was singing, accompanying herself on the cottage organ. Estella felt annoyed. The parlour was considered her private domain on Wednesday and Saturday night, but Miss LeMar did not know that.
“Who is singing?” asked Spencer. “What a voice she has!”
“That’s our new boarder, Miss LeMar,” answered Estella. “She’s an actress and sings and does everything. She is awfully pretty, Spencer.”
“Yes?” said the young man indifferently.
He was not in the least interested in the Boweses’ new boarder. Indeed, he considered her advent a nuisance. He pressed Estella closer to him, and when they reached the garden gate he kissed her. Estella always remembered that moment afterwards. She was so supremely happy.
Spencer went off to put up his horse, and Estella waited for him on the porch steps, wondering if any other girl in the world could be quite so happy as she was, or love anyone as much as she loved Spencer. She did not see how it could be possible, because there was only one Spencer.
When Spencer came back she took him into the parlour, half shyly, half proudly. He was a handsome fellow, with a magnificent physique. Miss LeMar stopped singing and turned around on the organ stool as they entered. The little room was flooded with a mellow light from the pink-globed lamp on the table, and in the soft, shadowy radiance she was as beautiful as a dream. She wore a dress of crepe, cut low in the neck. Estella had never seen anyone dressed so before. To her it seemed immodest.
She introduced Spencer. He bowed awkwardly and sat stiffly down by the window with his eyes riveted on Miss LeMar’s face. Estella, catching a glimpse of herself in the old-fashioned mirror above the mantel, suddenly felt a cold chill of dissatisfaction. Her figure had never seemed to her so stout and stiff, her brown hair so dull and prim, her complexion so muddy, her features so commonplace. She wished Miss LeMar would go out of the room.
Vivienne LeMar watched the two faces before her; a hard gleam, half mockery, half malice, flashed into her eyes and a smile crept about her lips. She looked straight in Spencer Morgan’s honest blue eyes and read there the young man’s dazzled admiration. There was contempt in the look she turned on Estella.
“You were singing when we came in,” said Spencer. “Won’t you go on, please? I am very fond of music.”
Miss LeMar turned again to the organ. The gleaming curves of her neck and shoulders rose out of their filmy sheathings of lace. Spencer, sitting where he could see her face with its rose-leaf bloom and the ringlets of golden hair clustering about it, gazed at her, unheeding of aught else. Estella saw his look. She suddenly began to hate the black-eyed witch at the organ — and to fear her as well. Why did Spencer look at her like that? She wished she had not brought him in at all. She felt commonplace and angry, and wanted to cry.
Vivienne LeMar went on singing, drifting from one sweet love song into another. Once she looked up at Spencer Morgan. He rose quickly and went to her side, looking down at her with a strange fire in his eyes.
Estella got up abruptly and left the room. She was angry and jealous, but she thought Spencer would follow her. When he did not, she could not believe it. She waited on the porch for him, not knowing whether she were more angry or miserable. She would not go back into the room. Vivienne LeMar had stopped singing. She could hear a low murmur of voices. When she had waited there an hour, she went in and upstairs to her room with ostentatious footsteps. She was too angry to cry or to realize what had happened, and still kept hoping all sorts of impossible things as she sat by her window.
It was ten o’clock when Spencer went away and Vivienne LeMar passed up the hall to her room. Estella clenched her hands in an access of helpless rage. She was very angry, but under her fury was a horrible ache of pain. It could not be only three hours since she had been so happy! It must be more than that! What had happened? Had she made a fool of herself? Ought she to have behaved in any other way? Perhaps Spencer had come out to look for her after she had gone upstairs and, not finding her, had gone back to Miss LeMar to show her he was angry. This poor hope was a small comfort. She wished she had not acted as she had. It looked spiteful and jealous, and Spencer did not like people who were spiteful and jealous. She would show him she was sorry when he came back, and it would be all right.
She lay awake most of the night, thinking out plausible reasons and excuses for Spencer’s behaviour, and trying to convince herself that she had exaggerated everything absurdly. Towards morning she fell asleep and awoke hardly remembering what had happened. Then it rolled back upon her crushingly.
But she rose and dressed in better spirits. It had been hardest to lie there and do nothing. Now the day was before her and something pleasant might happen. Spencer might come back in the evening. She would be doubly nice to him to make up.
Mrs. Bowes looked sharply at her niece’s dull eyes and pale cheeks at the breakfast table. She had her own thoughts of things. She was a large, handsome woman with a rather harsh face.
“Did you go upstairs last night and lea
ve Spencer Morgan with Miss LeMar?” she asked bluntly.
“Yes,” muttered Estella.
“Did you have a quarrel with him?”
“No.”
“What made you act so queer?”
“I couldn’t help it,” faltered the girl.
The food she was eating seemed to choke her. She wished she were a hundred miles away from everyone she ever knew.
Mrs. Bowes gave a grunt of dissatisfaction.
“Well, I think it is a pretty queer piece of business. But if you are satisfied, it isn’t anyone else’s concern, I suppose. He stayed with her till ten o’clock and when he left she did everything but kiss him — and she asked him to come back too. I heard.”
“Aunt!” protested the girl.
She felt as if her aunt were striking her blow after blow on a sensitive, quivering spot. It was bad enough to know it all, but to hear it put into such cold, brutal words was more than she could endure. It seemed to make everything so horribly sure.
“I guess I had a right to listen, hadn’t I, with such goings on in my own house? You’re a little fool, Estella Bowes! I don’t believe that LeMar girl is a bit better than she ought to be. I wish I’d never taken her to board, and if you say so, I’ll send her packing right off and not give her a chance to make mischief atween folks.”
Estella’s suffering found vent in a burst of anger.
“You needn’t do anything of the sort!” she cried.
“It’s all nonsense about Spencer — it was my fault — and anyhow, if he is so easily led away as that, I am sure I don’t want him! I wish to goodness, Aunt, you’d leave me alone!”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 634