Читать книгу The Heart that Knows - Charles George Douglas Roberts - Страница 7

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During the next eighteen months,—from the hour when she saw that Jim understood her and trusted her in the trouble with his mother, to the day when the G. G. Goodridge went out on the yellow tide,—Luella was happy. Mrs. Calder’s animosity, acquiring some discretion, held itself in abeyance,—a truce, not a peace. Jim made only short voyages,—none farther than to Key West or Havana or Matanzas,—and managed to spend a good half his time ashore, feverishly studying navigation in order to pass his examinations for mate’s certificate. While he was at home Luella had nothing more to desire, and their little world, for the most part, looked kindly upon their young content. Both sang in the choir of the parish church; and on those evenings, once a week, when the rector would give up a couple of hours to the task of helping Jim through the mysteries of latitude and longitude, right ascension and circle-sailing, Mrs. Goodridge would always invite Luella up to tea. The walk home from the parsonage, through the quiet Westcock night, with never a sound but the soft rush of the tide on Tantramar, seemed always a little more wonderful than any of the other walks they took together. Their hopes were gay with all the colours that youth, and the wide imaginations of their seafaring kind, could create; and fulfilment seemed very near.

During Jim’s absences, Luella’s time was well filled by her duties as housekeeper to her Uncle Abner, and by her devoted attendance on the church and the parsonage. Being the betrothed of Jim Calder, she received no attentions from any of the other young men of the village, except, once in awhile, from her scapegrace cousin, the ne’er-do-well shad-fisherman, Bud Whalley. From their smallest childhood Bud had been like a brother to her; and she loved him all the more resolutely because, as he grew up to a reckless and irresponsible manhood, Westcock turned the cold shoulder upon him. He drank disastrously, at times. He loafed shamelessly all the time, except when the shad were running. He openly jeered at Westcock opinion. So Westcock said he was a reprobate, and drew its skirts aside as he passed. He had no friends in the village but Luella, who tried in vain to reform him, and the rector, who believed there was a lot of good in him which he would some day manage to get at. Bud would sometimes go to church, sitting like a pariah in a dark seat under the gallery. And sometimes, to the scandal of the congregation, Luella would let him walk home with her afterward. When Jim was home, Bud sometimes went walking with him and Luella together, for Jim was determined to be friendly to any relation of Luella’s, and had amiable designs for Bud’s future. And Bud rewarded Luella’s loyalty with a reverent devotion which was altogether the best thing in his futile life.

Abner Baisley’s house, the wide-roofed, story-and-a-half, white cottage overlooking the “Bito,” was a large domain for Luella to rule unaided. But with the store portion,—which consisted of a large, square room, smelling of molasses, fish, and kerosene, and a little, dark back room subtly scented with tobacco and West Indies rum,—she had nothing whatever to do. Her uncle and the chore-boy attended to that part of the establishment. The rest—the house proper—Luella cared for with no help but that of a scrub-woman at the seasons of spring and fall house-cleaning. She was housemaid, cook, and housekeeper, all at the same time; and having a talent for method combined with a calm, unwasteful energy, she could find time to live a little, and think a little, outside the rut of her daily task. Her chintz-decked bedroom under the eaves, and the cosy, though cluttered, sitting-room, with its outlook upon the changeful channel of the creek, showed that her natural love of beauty had profited by her intimacy at the parsonage. The sleek, flashy-framed chromos and the gaudy green and magenta carpet in the sitting-room she could not change, for her Uncle Abner delighted in both. But in spite of them she managed, somehow, to make the room look pretty and fit, so that it drew frequent compliments not from the rector only, but even from Mrs. Goodridge, who was much harder to please. Through spring, summer, and fall both the sitting-room and her own bedroom were kept bright with all blooms of the season, for the steep-sloped, narrow garden, which seemed likely at any time to slide down into the vast, red, seething basin of the “Bito,” rewarded richly the pains she put upon it. It had the earliest blossoms of the year, and the latest. She was a skilful gardener, and under her grave but cunning cajolery the chore-boy, Andy, became almost as interested in the garden as she was herself. In fact, even her Uncle Abner, who would rather have seen the patch blue-green with cabbages for the store, became reconciled to its beauty at last, and ceased to grumble. It was worth quite a number of cabbages to him, to have people talking about his garden. Many, indeed, driving through from Wood Point to Sackville, would stop their horses to look at the steep glory of bloom and green, and end by coming into the store to buy something. Above all, the garden became a pride to Mr. Baisley, when, every Sunday at church, he could look at the fresh flowers on the altar and remember that they were his. There was no other garden in the parish to be depended upon but Luella’s, so the rector fell into the way of leaving the matter of the flowers altogether to her.

No one in Westcock begrudged Luella this unprofitable honour, except Melissa Britton. Melissa, at last, as she contemplated the abundant blooms every Sunday from her place in the choir, came to remember that she had a garden of her own. As it stood, to be sure, it was not much of a garden; but she bethought herself that she had both the money and the intelligence to make it something that would far outshine Luella’s. Melissa had not a spark of cheap envy in her make-up. If she had not got the idea into her cool and clever head that it would really interest her to attend to the decorations of chancel and pulpit every Sunday,—that it would be a delight to grow such lilies, roses, pinks, stocks, gladioli, dahlias, and then contemplate her handiwork enshrined, Luella might have had all the honour, and welcome. But with Melissa, to want a thing was to set about making ready to get it. She developed a sudden enthusiasm for Luella’s garden. She cultivated Luella, to learn how Luella cultivated flowers. Then she sent away to Boston for several books on horticulture, and to the great advertising seedsmen and florists for their catalogues. Work was begun at once on her own neglected plot, which she astonished with such profusion of fertilizers as warmed it to its impoverished heart. And for several months her imagination was filled with the glowing colour-plates of her catalogues, her memory with an entrancing confusion of unknown names, mostly Latin.

The scheme, which no one but Melissa for a single moment suspected, was making fine progress, when one Sunday morning in church Jim Calder’s confident baritone, exulting through the Te Deum, caught her ear.

In an indifferent way, Melissa had always recognized that Jim had a good voice. The rector said so, and he knew. But to-day, for the first time, she felt the virile beauty of it, and its vibration started a strange thrill in her nerves and veins. She looked at him with an absolutely new interest, an unwonted brightness and depth of colour coming into her eyes. Jim was just home from a two months’ voyage to the West Indies. Melissa, hitherto, had seen him without differentiating him, so to speak. She was amazed, now, at his beauty. All at once he had matured. His boyish mouth had gained mastery. His face of ruddy tan was adorned by a soft little golden brown moustache. His clear, greenish hazel eyes, dancing and fearless, met Melissa’s and held them for a moment, and Melissa tingled from her forehead to her toes.

From that moment Melissa’s interest in her garden and her seed catalogues entered upon a rapid decline. She no longer wanted to relieve Luella of the duty of supplying the church with flowers. Luella had something else, in Melissa’s eyes better worth appropriating.

Melissa knew very well, of course, about Jim’s engagement to Luella, but that knowledge troubled her little. Her confidence in her own resources had never been shaken. She was troubled rather more, however, by the knowledge presently thrust upon her, that Jim, who sat directly opposite her in the little choir, was obviously unconscious of her presence. After church she went around, as was usual now, to see Luella’s garden, and found an opportunity to compliment Jim, with careless frankness, on his voice, his colour, and his newly achieved moustache. Jim was cordial, in his happy fashion, and appreciative of her compliments, which gained by a certain judicial air with which she conveyed them. Two or three discreet experiments, however,—so discreet that not even Luella’s feminine vigilance took alarm,—convinced her that Luella had the young sailor absolutely at her feet. Melissa saw that she would need all her wits in this enterprise. She set herself to consider, at the same time taking care that Jim should happen to see her so often that he could not quite forget her existence. Out of this considering came a gradual, unobtrusive friendliness, which flattered Jim while it troubled no one, not even Luella. Then, by a master-stroke of ingenuity, she made the unsuspicious Luella her ally against herself. She frankly and laughingly challenged Luella to a contest of flowers, vowing that her little garden on the high shoulder of Wood Point should utterly eclipse the steep close of bloom overlooking the “Bito.” She got Luella so interested in this contest that she was for ever talking to Jim about it,—and about Melissa. Thus it was Luella herself, more than any one or anything else, that gave Melissa Britton her first importance in Jim’s eyes.

When, at last, Melissa announced her sudden resolve to go sailing around the world with her father on his next voyage, of course this stimulating rivalry in gardens came to an end; but it had accomplished its purpose. Melissa was an acknowledged friend and well-wisher of both Jim and Luella. It was not till some months later that Captain Britton took command of the new barquentine, the G. G. Goodridge, and gave Jim the berth of second mate aboard her. In this Melissa’s hand did not appear; and there was nothing extraordinary in it, anyhow. Every one in Westcock knew that the rector was deeply interested in the ship which bore his name. Every one knew, also, that he was deeply interested in Jim Calder. What more natural than that Captain Britton, who loved the rector, should please him in the appointment of his second mate? Melissa was far too wise to let even Jim know that she had had a hand in the business. She was pleasantly surprised at the news; but not a shade more cordial about it than good compliment required.

So far, all was going well with Melissa’s purpose. A weaker girl, however, would have realized with dismay that in furthering Jim Calder’s advancement she was hastening the hour of his marriage. Westcock had known for a year that the wedding was to take place “when Jim gits to be mate.” But Melissa would not let impatience or oversolicitude force her hand. She had a faith that fate, as usual, would furnish her occasion in good time. If she could not prevent the marriage without betraying herself,—well, it would not be prevented. Jim would have to leave Luella in St. John, a few days after the wedding,—not to see her again for perhaps two years. In those two years would lie her opportunity. It would be strange thing, she thought, setting her mouth hard, if, with two years of unlimited opportunity, she could not triumph over a girl like Luella Warden!