“Now, Mary, really!” she began.
“Mother, I don’t care! I don’t like to say a thing like that, though I’m sure I always try to speak politely. But it’s the truth, and to save you I would tell the truth no matter how painful it was to do so.”
“But I enjoy seeing people, and – ”
“It is bad for you to be tired,” Mary said, her thin face quivering still with the effort she had made; “and they sha’n’t tire you while I am here to protect you.” And her protection never flagged. When Captain Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise was bad for her mother. “He had been here a good while before I came in,” she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; “and I’m sure I spoke politely.”
The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother had seen him pounding up the street, and hurrying to the door, called out, gayly, in her little, old, piping voice, “Alfred – Alfred Price!”
The Captain turned and looked at her. There was just one moment’s pause; perhaps he tried to bridge the years, and to believe that it was Letty who spoke to him – Letty, whom he had last seen that wintry night, pale and weeping, in the slender green sheath of a fur-trimmed pelisse. If so, he gave it up; this plump, white-haired, bright-eyed old lady, in a wide-spreading, rustling black silk dress, was not Letty. She was Mrs. North.
The Captain came across the street, waving his newspaper, and saying, “So you’ve cast anchor in the old port, ma’am?”
“My daughter is not at home; do come in,” she said, smiling and nodding. Captain Price hesitated; then he put his pipe in his pocket and followed her into the parlor. “Sit down,” she cried, gayly. “Well, Alfred!”
“Well —Mrs. North!” he said; and then they both laughed, and she began to ask questions: Who was dead? Who had so and so married? “There are not many of us left,” she said. “The two Ferris girls and Theophilus Morrison and Johnny Gordon – he came to see me yesterday. And Matty Dilworth; she was younger than I – oh, by ten years. She married the oldest Barkley boy, didn’t she? I hear he didn’t turn out well. You married his sister, didn’t you? Was it the oldest girl or the second sister?”
“It was the second – Jane. Yes, poor Jane. I lost her in ’forty-five.”
“You have children?” she said, sympathetically.
“I’ve got a boy,” he said; “but he’s married.”
“My girl has never married; she’s a good daughter,” – Mrs. North broke off with a nervous laugh; “here she is, now!”
Mary North, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, gave a questioning sniff, and the Captain’s hand sought his guilty pocket; but Miss North only said: “How do you do, sir? Now, mother, don’t talk too much and get tired.” She stopped and tried to smile, but the painful color came into her face. “And – if you please, Captain Price, will you speak in a low tone? Large, noisy persons exhaust the oxygen in the air, and – ”
“Mary!” cried poor Mrs. North; but the Captain, clutching his old felt hat, began to hoist himself up from the sofa, scattering ashes about as he did so. Mary North compressed her lips.
“I tell my daughter-in-law they’ll keep the moths away,” the old gentleman said, sheepishly.
“I use camphor,” said Miss North, “Flora must bring a dust-pan.”
“Flora?” Alfred Price said. “Now, what’s my association with that name?”
“She was our old cook,” Mrs. North explained; “this Flora is her daughter. But you never saw old Flora?”
“Why, yes, I did,” the old man said, slowly. “Yes. I remember Flora. Well, good-bye, – Mrs. North.”
“Good-bye, Alfred. Come again,” she said, cheerfully.
“Mother, here’s your beef tea,” said a brief voice.
Alfred Price fled. He met his son just as he was entering his own house, and burst into a confidence: “Cy, my boy, come aft and splice the main-brace. Cyrus, what a female! She knocked me higher than Gilroy’s kite. And her mother was as sweet a girl as you ever saw!” He drew his son into a little, low-browed, dingy room at the end of the hall. Its grimy untidiness matched the old Captain’s clothes, but it was his one spot of refuge in his own house; here he could scatter his tobacco ashes almost unrebuked, and play on his harmonicon without seeing Gussie wince and draw in her breath; for Mrs. Cyrus rarely entered the “cabin.” “I worry so about its disorderliness that I won’t go in,” she used to say, in a resigned way. And the Captain accepted her decision with resignation of his own. “Crafts of your bottom can’t navigate in these waters,” he agreed, earnestly; and, indeed, the room was so cluttered with his belongings that voluminous hoop-skirts could not get steerageway. “He has so much rubbish,” Gussie complained; but it was precious rubbish to the old man. His chest was behind the door; a blow-fish, stuffed and varnished, hung from the ceiling; two colored prints of the “Barque Letty M., 800 tons,” decorated the walls; his sextant, polished daily by his big, clumsy hands, hung over the mantel-piece, on which were many dusty treasures – the mahogany spoke of an old steering-wheel; a whale’s tooth; two Chinese wrestlers, in ivory; a fan of spreading white coral; a conch-shell, its beautiful red lip serving to hold a loose bunch of cigars. In the chimney-breast was a little door, and the Captain, pulling his son into the room after that call upon Mrs. North, fumbled in his pocket for the key. “Here,” he said; “(as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina) – Cyrus, she handed round beef tea!”
But Cyrus was to receive still further enlightenment on the subject of his opposite neighbor:
“She called him in. I heard her, with my own ears! ‘Alfred,’ she said, ‘come in.’ Cyrus, she has designs; oh, I worry so about it! He ought to be protected. He is very old, and, of course, foolish. You ought to check it at once.”
“Gussie, I don’t like you to talk that way about my father,” Cyrus began.
“You’ll like it less later on. He’ll go and see her to-morrow.”
“Why shouldn’t he go and see her to-morrow?” Cyrus said, and added a modest bad word; which made Gussie cry. And yet, in spite of what his wife called his “blasphemy,” Cyrus began to be vaguely uncomfortable whenever he saw his father put his pipe in his pocket and go across the street. And as the winter brightened into spring, the Captain went quite often. So, for that matter, did other old friends of Mrs. North’s generation, who by-and-by began to smile at one another, and say, “Well, Alfred and Letty are great friends!” For, because Captain Price lived right across the street, he went most of all. At least, that was what Miss North said to herself with obvious common-sense – until Mrs. Cyrus put her on the right track…
“What!” gasped Mary North. “But it’s impossible!”
“It would be very unbecoming, considering their years,” said Gussie; “but I worry so, because, you know, nothing is impossible when people are foolish; and of course, at their age, they are apt to be foolish.”
So the seed was dropped. Certainly he did come very often. Certainly her mother seemed very glad to see him. Certainly they had very long talks. Mary North shivered with apprehension. But it was not until a week later that this miserable suspicion grew strong enough to find words. It was after tea, and the two ladies were sitting before a little fire. Mary North had wrapped a shawl about her mother, and given her a footstool, and pushed her chair nearer the fire, and then pulled it away, and opened and shut the parlor door three times to regulate the draught. Then she sat down in the corner of the sofa, exhausted but alert.
“If there’s anything you want, mother, you’ll be sure and tell me?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“I think I’d better put another shawl over your limbs?”
“Oh no, indeed!”
“Mother, are you sure you don’t feel a draught?”
“No, Mary; and it wouldn’t hurt me if I did!”
“I was only trying to make you comfortable – ”
“I know that, my dear; you are a very good daughter. Mary, I think it would be nice if I made a cake. So many people call, and – ”
“I’ll make it to-morrow.”
“Oh, I’ll make it myself,” Mrs. North protested, eagerly; “I’d really enjoy – ”
“Mother! Tire yourself out in the kitchen? No, indeed! Flora and I will see to it.”
Mrs. North sighed.
Her daughter sighed too; then suddenly burst out: “Old Captain Price comes here pretty often.”
Mrs. North nodded pleasantly. “That daughter-in-law doesn’t half take care of him. His clothes are dreadfully shabby. There was a button off his coat to-day. And she’s a foolish creature.”
“Foolish? she’s an unladylike person!” cried Miss North, with so much feeling that her mother looked at her in mild astonishment. “And coarse, too,” said Mary North; “I think married ladies are apt to be coarse. From association with men, I suppose.”
“What has she done?” demanded Mrs. North, much interested.
“She hinted that he – that you – ”
“Well?”
“That he came here to – to see you.”
“Well, who else would he come to see? Not you!” said her mother.
“She hinted that he might want to – to marry you.”
“Well – upon my word! I knew she was a ridiculous creature, but really – !”
Mary’s face softened with relief. “Of course she is foolish; but – ”
“Poor Alfred! What has he ever done to have such a daughter-in-law? Mary, the Lord gives us our children; but Somebody Else gives us our in-laws!”
“Mother!” said Mary North, horrified, “you do say such things! But really he oughtn’t to come so often. People will begin to notice it; and then they’ll talk. I’ll – I’ll take you away from Old Chester rather than have him bother you.”
“Mary, you are just as foolish as his daughter-in-law,” said Mrs. North, impatiently.
And, somehow, poor Mary North’s heart sank.
Nor was she the only perturbed person in town that night. Mrs. Cyrus had a headache, so it was necessary for Cyrus to hold her hand and assure her that Willy King said a headache did not mean brain-fever.
“Willy King doesn’t know everything. If he had headaches like mine, he wouldn’t be so sure. I am always worrying about things, and I believe my brain can’t stand it. And now I’ve got your father to worry about!”
“Better try and sleep, Gussie. I’ll put some Kaliston on your head.”
“Kaliston! Kaliston won’t keep me from worrying. Oh, listen to that harmonicon!”
“Gussie, I’m sure he isn’t thinking of Mrs. North.”
“Mrs. North is thinking of him, which is a great deal more dangerous. Cyrus, you must ask Dr. Lavendar to interfere.”
As this was at least the twentieth assault upon poor Cyrus’s common-sense, the citadel trembled.
“Do you wish me to go into brain-fever before your eyes, just from worry?” Gussie demanded. “You must go!”
“Well, maybe, perhaps, to-morrow – ”
“To-night – to-night,” said Augusta, faintly.
And Cyrus surrendered.
“Look under the bed before you go,” Gussie murmured.
Cyrus looked. “Nobody there,” he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus’s heart reproached him.
“How’s her head, Cy?” the Captain called out.
“Oh, better, I guess,” Cyrus said. (“I’ll be hanged if I speak to Dr. Lavendar!”)
“That’s good,” said the Captain, beginning to hoist himself up out of his chair. “Going out? Hold hard, and I’ll go ’long. I want to call on Mrs. North.”
Cyrus stiffened. “Cold night, sir,” he remonstrated.
“‘Your granny was Murray, and wore a black nightcap!’” said the Captain; “you are getting delicate in your old age, Cy.” He got up, and plunged into his coat, and tramped out, slamming the door heartily behind him – for which, later, poor Cyrus got the credit. “Where you bound?”
“Oh – down-street,” said Cyrus, vaguely.
“Sealed orders?” said the Captain, with never a bit of curiosity in his big, kind voice; and Cyrus felt as small as he was. But when he left the old man at Mrs. North’s door, he was uneasy again. Maybe Gussie was right! Women are keener about those things than men. And his uneasiness actually carried him to Dr. Lavendar’s study, where he tried to appear at ease by patting Danny.
“What’s the matter with you, Cyrus?” said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him over his spectacles. (Dr. Lavendar, in his wicked old heart, always wanted to call this young man Cipher; but, so far, grace had been given him to withstand temptation.) “What’s wrong?” he said.
And Cyrus, somehow, told his troubles.
At first Dr. Lavendar chuckled; then he frowned. “Gussie put you up to this, Cy —rus?” he said.
“Well, my wife’s a woman,” Cyrus began, “and they’re keener on such matters than men; and she said, perhaps you would – would – ”
“What?” Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe, so loudly that Danny opened one eye. “Would what?”
“Well,” Cyrus stammered, “you know, Dr. Lavendar, as Gussie says, ‘there’s no fo – ’”
“You needn’t finish it,” Dr. Lavendar interrupted, dryly; “I’ve heard it before. Gussie didn’t say anything about a young fool, did she?” Then he eyed Cyrus. “Or a middle-aged one? I’ve seen middle-aged fools that could beat us old fellows hollow.”
“Oh, but Mrs. North is far beyond middle age,” said Cyrus, earnestly.
Dr. Lavendar shook his head. “Well, well!” he said. “To think that Alfred Price should have such a – And yet he is as sensible a man as I know!”
“Until now,” Cyrus amended. “But Gussie thought you’d better caution him. We don’t want him, at his time of life, to make a mistake.”
“It’s much more to the point that I should caution you not to make a mistake,” said Dr. Lavendar; and then he rapped on the table again, sharply. “The Captain has no such idea – unless Gussie has given it to him. Cyrus, my advice to you is to go home and tell your wife not to be a goose. I’ll tell her, if you want me to?”
“Oh no, no!” said Cyrus, very much frightened. “I’m afraid you’d hurt her feelings.”
“I’m afraid I should,” said Dr. Lavendar, grimly.
“She’s so sensitive,” Cyrus tried to excuse her; “you can’t think how sensitive she is, and timid. I never knew anybody so timid! Why, she makes me look under the bed every night, for fear there’s somebody there!”
“Well, next time, tell her ‘two men and a dog’; that will take her mind off your father.” It must be confessed that Dr. Lavendar was out of temper – a sad fault in one of his age, as Mrs. Drayton often said; but his irritability was so marked that Cyrus finally slunk off, uncomforted, and afraid to meet Gussie’s eye, even under its bandage of a cologne-scented handkerchief.
However, he had to meet it, and he tried to make the best of his own humiliation by saying that Dr. Lavendar was shocked at the idea of the Captain being interested in Mrs. North. “He said father had been, until now, as sensible a man as he knew, and he didn’t believe he would think of such a dreadful thing. And neither do I, Gussie, honestly,” Cyrus said.
“But Mrs. North isn’t sensible,” Gussie protested, “and she’ll – ”
“Dr. Lavendar said ‘there was no fool like a middle-aged fool,’” Cyrus agreed.
“Middle-aged! She’s as old as Methuselah!”
“That’s what I told him,” said Cyrus.
By the end of April Old Chester smiled. How could it help it? Gussie worried so that she took frequent occasion to point out possibilities; and after the first gasp of incredulity, one could hear a faint echo of the giggles of forty-eight years before. Mary North heard it, and her heart burned within her.
“It’s got to stop,” she said to herself, passionately; “I must speak to his son.”
But her throat was dry at the thought. It seemed as if it would kill her to speak to a man on such a subject, even to as little of a man as Cyrus. But, poor, shy tigress! to save her mother, what would she not do? In her pain and fright she said to Mrs. North that if that old man kept on making her uncomfortable and conspicuous, they would leave Old Chester!
Mrs. North twinkled with amusement when Mary, in her strained and quivering voice, began, but her jaw dropped at those last words; Mary was capable of carrying her off at a day’s notice! The little old lady trembled with distressed reassurances – but Captain Price continued to call.
And that was how it came about that this devoted daughter, after days of exasperation and nights of anxiety, reached a point of tense determination. She would go and see the man’s son, and say … That afternoon, as she stood before the swinging glass on her high bureau, tying her bonnet-strings, she tried to think what she would say. She hoped God would give her words – polite words; “for I must be polite,” she reminded herself desperately. When she started across the street her paisley shawl had slipped from one shoulder, so that the point dragged on the flagstones; she had split her right glove up the back, and her bonnet was jolted over sidewise; but the thick Chantilly veil hid the quiver of her chin.
Gussie met her with effusion, and Mary, striving to be polite, smiled painfully, and said:
“I don’t want to see you; I want to see your husband.”
Gussie tossed her head; but she made haste to call Cyrus, who came shambling along the hall from the cabin. The parlor was dark, for though it was a day of sunshine and merry May wind, Gussie kept the shutters bowed – but Cyrus could see the pale intensity of his visitor’s face. There was a moment’s silence, broken by a distant harmonicon.
“Mr. Price,” said Mary North, with pale, courageous lips, “you must stop your father.”
Cyrus opened his weak mouth to ask an explanation, but Gussie rushed in.
“You are quite right, ma’am. Cyrus worries so about it (of course we know what you refer to). And Cyrus says it ought to be checked immediately, to save the old gentleman!”
“You must stop him,” said Mary North, “for my mother’s sake.”
“Well – ” Cyrus began.
“Have you cautioned your mother?” Gussie demanded.
“Yes,” Miss North said, briefly. To talk to this woman of her mother made her wince, but it had to be done. “Will you speak to your father, Mr. Price?”
“Well, I – ”
“Of course he will!” Gussie broke in; “Cyrus, he is in the cabin now.”
“Well, to-morrow I – ” Cyrus got up and sidled towards the door. “Anyhow, I don’t believe he’s thinking of such a thing.”
“Miss North,” said Gussie, rising, “I will do it.”
“What, now?” faltered Mary North.
“Now,” said Mrs. Cyrus, firmly.
“Oh,” said Miss North, “I – I think I will go home. Gentlemen, when they are crossed, speak so – so earnestly.”
Gussie nodded. The joy of action and of combat entered suddenly into her little soul; she never looked less vulgar than at that moment. Cyrus had disappeared.
Mary North, white and trembling, hurried out. A wheezing strain from the harmonicon followed her into the May sunshine, then ended, abruptly – Mrs. Price had begun! On her own door-step Miss North stopped and listened, holding her breath for an outburst… It came: a roar of laughter. Then silence. Mary North stood, motionless, in her own parlor; her shawl, hanging from one elbow, trailed behind her; her other glove had split; her bonnet was blown back and over one ear; her heart was pounding in her throat. She was perfectly aware that she had done an unheard-of thing. “But,” she said, aloud, “I’d do it again. I’d do anything to protect her. But I hope I was polite?” Then she thought how courageous Mrs. Cyrus was. “She’s as brave as a lion!” said Mary North. Yet, had Miss North been able to stand at the Captain’s door, she would have witnessed cowardice…
“Gussie, I wouldn’t cry. Confound that female, coming over and stirring you up! Now don’t, Gussie! Why, I never thought of – Gussie, I wouldn’t cry – ”
“I have worried almost to death. Pro-promise!”
“Oh, your granny was Mur – Gussie, my dear, now don’t.”
“Dr. Lavendar said you’d always been so sensible; he said he didn’t see how you could think of such a dreadful thing.”
“What! Lavendar? I’ll thank Lavendar to mind his business!” Captain Price forgot Gussie; he spoke “earnestly.” “Dog-gone these people that pry into – Oh, now, Gussie, don’t!”
“I’ve worried so awfully,” said Mrs. Cyrus. “Everybody is talking about you. And Dr. Lavendar is so – so angry about it; and now the daughter has charged on me as though it is my fault! Of course, she is queer, but – ”
“Queer? she’s queer as Dick’s hatband! Why do you listen to her? Gussie, such an idea never entered my head – or Mrs. North’s either.”
“Oh yes, it has! Her daughter said that she had had to speak to her – ”
Captain Price, dumfounded, forgot his fear and burst out: “You’re a pack of fools, the whole caboodle! I swear I – ”
“Oh, don’t blaspheme!” said Gussie, faintly, and staggered a little, so that all the Captain’s terror returned. If she fainted!
“Hi, there, Cyrus! Come aft, will you? Gussie’s getting white around the gills – Cyrus!”
Cyrus came, running, and between them they got the swooning Gussie to her room; Afterwards, when Cyrus tiptoed down-stairs, he found the Captain at the cabin door. The old man beckoned mysteriously.
“Cy, my boy, come in here” – he hunted about in his pocket for the key of the cupboard – “Cyrus, I’ll tell you what happened; that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!” The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. “It scared the life out of Gussie,” he said; then, with sudden angry gravity, – “these people that poke their noses into other’s people’s business ought to be thrashed. Well, I’m going over to see Mrs. North.” And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus staring after him, open-mouthed.
If Mary North had been at home, she would have met him with all the agonized courage of shyness and a good conscience. But she had fled out of the house, and down along the River Road, to be alone and regain her self-control.
The Captain, however, was not seeking Miss North. He opened the front door, and advancing to the foot of the stairs, called up: “Ahoy, there! Mrs. North!”
Mrs. North came trotting out to answer the summons. “Why, Alfred!” she exclaimed, looking over the banisters, “when did you come in? I didn’t hear the bell ring. I’ll come right down.”
“It didn’t ring; I walked in,” said the Captain. And Mrs. North came down-stairs, perhaps a little stiffly, but as pretty an old lady as you ever saw. Her white curls lay against faintly pink cheeks, and her lace cap had a pink bow on it. But she looked anxious and uncomfortable.
(“Oh,” she was saying to herself, “I do hope Mary’s out!) – Well, Alfred?” she said; but her voice was frightened.
The Captain stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. “Mrs. North,” he said, his face red, his eye hard, “some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they’re females) into our affairs; and – ”
“Oh, Alfred, isn’t it horrid in them?” said the old lady.
“Darn ’em!” said the Captain.
“It makes me mad!” cried Mrs. North; then her spirit wavered. “Mary is so foolish; she says she’ll – she’ll take me away from Old Chester. I laughed at first, it was so foolish. But when she said that – oh dear!”
“Well, but, my dear madam, say you won’t go. Ain’t you skipper?”
“No, I’m not,” she said, dolefully. “Mary brought me here, and she’ll take me away, if she thinks it best. Best for me, you know. Mary is a good daughter, Alfred. I don’t want you to think she isn’t. But she’s foolish. Unmarried women are apt to be foolish.”
The Captain thought of Gussie, and sighed. “Well,” he said, with the simple candor of the sea, “I guess there ain’t much difference in ’em, married or unmarried.”
“It’s the interference makes me mad,” Mrs. North declared, hotly.
“Damn the whole crew!” said the Captain; and the old lady laughed delightedly.
“Thank you, Alfred!”
“My daughter-in-law is crying her eyes out,” the Captain sighed.
“Tck!” said Mrs. North; “Alfred, you have no sense. Let her cry. It’s good for her!”
“Oh no,” said the Captain, shocked.
“You’re a perfect slave to her,” cried Mrs. North.
“No more than you are to your daughter,” Captain Price defended himself; and Mrs. North sighed.
