Читать книгу Shifting Sands - Sara Ware Bassett - Страница 3

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The Widder lived on the spit of sand jutting out into Crocker's Cove.

Just why she should have been singled out by this significant sobriquet was a subtle psychological problem. There were other women in Belleport and in Wilton, too, who had lost husbands. Maria Eldridge was a widow and so was Susan Ann Beals. Indeed death had claimed the head of many a household in the community, for to follow the sea was a treacherous business.

Nevertheless, despite the various homes in which solitary women reigned, none of their owners was designated by the appellation allotted to Marcia Howe.

Moreover, there seemed in the name the hamlet had elected to bestow upon her a ring of satisfaction, even of rejoicing, rather than the note of condolence commonly echoing in the term. Persons rolled it on their tongues as if flaunting it triumphantly on the breeze.

"Marcia ought never to have married Jason Howe, anyway," asserted Abbie Brewster when one day she reminiscently gossiped with her friend, Rebecca Gill. "She was head an' shoulders above him. Whatever coaxed her into it I never could understand. She could have had her pick of half a dozen husbands. Why take up with a rollin' stone like him?"

"She was nothin' but a slip of a thing when she married. Mebbe she had the notion she could reform him," Rebecca suggested.

"Mebbe," agreed Abbie. "Still, young as she was, she might 'a' known she couldn't. Ten years ago he was the same, unsteady, drinkin' idler he proved himself to be up to the last minute of his life. He hadn't changed a hair. Such men seldom do, unless they set out to; an' Jason Howe never set out to do, or be, anything. He was too selfish an' too lazy. Grit an' determination was qualities left out of him. Well, he's gone, an' Marcia's well rid of him. For 'most three years now, she's been her own mistress an' the feelin' that she is must be highly enjoyable."

"Poor Marcia," sighed Rebecca.

"Poor Marcia?" Abbie repeated. "Lucky Marcia, I say. 'Most likely she'd say so herself was she to speak the truth. She never would, though. Since the day she married, she's been close-mouthed as an oyster. What she thought of Jason, or didn't think of him, she's certainly kept to herself. Nobody in this village has ever heard her bewail her lot. She made her bargain an' poor as 'twas she stuck to it."

"S'pose she'll always go on livin' there on that deserted strip of sand?" speculated Rebecca. "Why, it's 'most an island. In fact, it is an island at high tide."

"So 'tis. An' Zenas Henry says it's gettin' to be more an' more so every minute," Abbie replied. "The tide runs through that channel swift as a race horse an' each day it cuts a wider path 'twixt Marcia an' the shore. Before long, she's goin' to be as completely cut off from the mainland at low water as at high."

"It must be a terrible lonely place."

"I wouldn't want to live there," shrugged the sociable Abbie. "But there's folks that don't seem to mind solitude, an' Marcia Howe's one of 'em. Mebbe, after the life she led with Jason, she kinder relishes bein' alone. 'Twould be no marvel if she did. Furthermore, dynamite couldn't blast her out of that old Daniels Homestead. Her father an' her grandfather were born there, an' the house is the apple of her eye. It is a fine old place if only it stood somewheres else. Of course, when it was built the ocean hadn't et away the beach, an' instead of bein' narrow, the Point was a wide, sightly piece of land. Who'd 'a' foreseen the tides would wash 'round it 'til they'd whittled it down to little more'n a sand bar, an' as good as detached it from the coast altogether?"

"Who'd 'a' foreseen lots of pranks the sea's played? The Cape's a-swirl with shiftin' sands. They drift out here, they pile up there. What's terra firma today is swallered up tomorrow. Why, even Wilton Harbor's fillin' in so fast that 'fore we know it there won't be a channel deep enough to float a dory left us. We'll be land-locked."

"Well, say what you will against the sea an' the sand, they did a good turn for Marcia all them years of her married life. At least they helped her keep track of Jason. Once she got him on the Point with the tide runnin' strong 'twixt him and the village, she'd padlock the skiff an' there he'd be! She had him safe an' sound," Abbie chuckled.

"Yes," acquiesced Rebecca. "But the scheme worked both ways. Let Jason walk over to town across the flats an' then let the tide rise an' there he be, too! Without a boat there was no earthly way of his gettin' home. Marcia might fidget 'til she was black in the face. He had the best of excuses for loiterin' an' carousin' ashore."

"Well, he don't loiter and carouse here no longer. Marcia knows where he is now," declared Abbie with spirit. "I reckon she's slept more durin' these last three years than ever she slept in the ten that went before 'em. She certainly looks it. All her worries seem to have fallen away from her, leavin' her lookin' like a girl of twenty. She's pretty as a picture."

"She must be thirty-five if she's a day," Rebecca reflected.

"She ain't. She's scarce over thirty. I can tell you 'xactly when she was born," disputed the other woman. "But thirty or even more, she don't look her age."

"S'pose she'll marry again?" ventured Rebecca, leaning forward and dropping her voice.

"Marry? There you go, 'Becca, romancin' as usual."

"I ain't romancin'. I was just wonderin'. An' I ain't the only person in town askin' the question, neither," retorted Mrs. Gill with a sniff. "There's scores of others. In fact, I figger the thought is the uppermost one in the minds of 'most everybody."

Abbie laughed.

"Mebbe. In fact, I reckon 'tis," conceded she. "It's the thought that come to everyone quick as Jason was buried. 'Course, 'twouldn't be decent to own it—an' yet I don't know why. Folks 'round about here are fond of Marcia an' feel she's been cheated out of what was her rightful due. They want her to begin anew an' have what she'd oughter have had years ago—a good husband an' half a dozen children. There's nothin' to be ashamed of in a wish like that. I ain't denyin' there are certain persons who are more self-seekin'. I ain't blind to the fact that once Jason was under the sod, 'bout every widower in town sorter spruced up an' began to take notice; an' before a week was out every bachelor had bought a new necktie. Eben Snow told me so an' he'd oughter know bein' the one that sells 'em."

"Abbie!"

"It's true. An' why, pray, shouldn't the men cast sheep's eyes at Marcia? Can you blame 'em? She'd be one wife in a hundred could a body win her. There ain't a thing she can't do from shinglin' a barn down to trimmin' a hat. She's the match of any old salt at sailin' a boat an' can pull an oar strong as the best of 'em. Along with that she can sew, cook, an' mend; plow an' plant; paper a room. An' all the time, whatever she's doin', she'd bewitch you with her smile an' her pretty ways. It's a marvel to me how she's kept out of matrimony long's this with so many men millerin' 'round her."

"She certainly's takin' her time. She don't 'pear to be in no hurry to get a husband," smiled Rebecca.

"Why should she be? Her parents left her with money in the bank an' the Homestead to boot, an' Marcia was smart enough not to let Jason make ducks and drakes of her property. She dealt out to him what she thought he better have an' held fast to the rest. As a result, she's uncommon well-off."

"All men mightn't fancy havin' a wife hold the tiller, though."

Rebecca Gill pursed her lips.

"Any man Marcia Howe married would have to put up with it," Abbie asserted, biting off a needleful of thread with a snap of her fine white teeth. "Marcia's always been captain of the ship an' she always will be."

Gathering up her mending, Rebecca rose.

"Well, I can't stay here settlin' Marcia's future," she laughed. "I've got to be goin' home. Lemmy'll be wantin' his supper. He can't, though, accuse me of fritterin' the afternoon away. I've darned every pair of stockin's in this bag an' there was scores of 'em. You turn off such things quicker when you're in good company."

A scuffling on the steps and the sound of men's voices interrupted the words.

The kitchen door swung open and Zenas Henry's lanky form appeared on the threshold. Behind him, like a foreshortened shadow, tagged his crony, Lemuel Gill.

"Well, well, 'Becca, if here ain't Lemmy come to fetch you!" Abbie cried. "'Fraid your wife had deserted you, Lemmy? She ain't. She was just this minute settin' out for home."

"I warn't worryin' none," grinned Lemuel.

"What you two been doin'?" Abbie inquired of her husband.

"Oh, nothin' much," answered the big, loose-jointed fellow, shuffling into the room. "We've been settin' out, drinkin' in the air."

The carelessness of the reply was a trifle overdone, and instantly aroused the keen-eyed Abbie's suspicions.

She glanced into his face.

"Guess we're goin' to have rain," he ventured.

"I wouldn't wonder," rejoined Lemuel Gill.

Humming to prove he was entirely at his ease, Zenas Henry ambled to the window and looked out.

"Where you been settin'?" demanded Abbie.

"Settin'? Oh, Lemmy an' me took sort of a little jaunt along the shore. Grand day to be abroad. I never saw a finer. The sea's blue as a corn-flower, an' the waves are rollin' in, an' rollin' in, an'—"

"They generally are," Abbie interrupted dryly. "Just where'd you particularly notice 'em?"

Lemuel Gill stepped into the breach.

"'Twas this way," began he. "Zenas Henry an' me thought we'd take a bit of a meander. We'd been to the postoffice an' was standin' in the doorway when we spied Charlie Eldridge goin' by with a fish-pole—"

"Charlie Eldridge—the bank cashier?" Rebecca echoed. "But he ain't no fisherman. What on earth was he doin' with a fish-pole?"

"That's what we wondered," said Lemuel.

"Charlie Eldridge with a fish-pole," repeated Abbie. "Mercy! Where do you s'pose he was goin'?"

"I never in all my life knew of Charlie Eldridge goin' a-fishin'," Rebecca rejoined. "Not that he ain't got a perfect right to fish if he wants to outside bankin' hours. But—"

"But Charlie fishin'!" interrupted Abbie, cutting her friend short. "Why, he'd no more dirty his lily-white hands puttin' a squirmin' worm on a fish-hook than he'd cut off his head. In fact, I don't believe he'd know how. You didn't, likely, see where he went."

"Wal—er—yes. We did."

Zenas Henry wheeled about.

Clearing his throat, he darted a glance at Lemuel.

"Havin' completed the business that took us to the store—" he began.

"Havin', in short, asked for the mail an' found there warn't none," laughed Abbie, mischievously.

Zenas Henry ignored the comment.

"We walked along in Charlie's wake," he continued.

"Followed him?"

"Wal—somethin' of the sort. You might, I s'pose, call it follerin'," Zenas Henry admitted shamefacedly. "Anyhow, Lemmy an' me trudged along behind him at what we considered a suitable distance."

"Where'd he go?" Rebecca urged, her face alight with curiosity.

"Wal, Charlie swung along, kinder whistlin' to himself, an' ketchin' his pole in the trees and brushes 'til he come to the fork of the road. Then he made for the shore."

"So he was really goin' fishin'," mused Abbie, a suggestion of disappointment in her voice.

"He certainly was. Oh, Charlie was goin' fishin' right 'nough. He was aimed for deep water," grinned Zenas Henry.

"He wouldn't ketch no fish in Wilton Harbor," sniffed Rebecca contemptuously. "Wouldn't you think he'd 'a' known that?"

"He warn't," observed Zenas Henry mildly, "figgerin' to. In fact, 'twarn't to Wilton Harbor he was goin'."

With a simultaneous start, both women looked up.

"No-siree. Bank cashier or not, Charlie warn't that much of a numskull. He was primed to fish in more propitious waters."

"Zenas Henry, do stop beatin' round the bush an' say what you have to say. If you're goin' to tell us where Charlie Eldridge went, out with it. If not, stop talkin' about it," burst out his wife sharply.

"Ain't I tellin' you fast as I can? Why get so het up? If you must know an' can't wait another minute, Charlie went fishin' in Crocker's Cove."

"Crocker's Cove!" cried two feminine voices.

Zenas Henry's only reply was a deliberate nod.

"Crocker's Cove?" gasped Abbie.

"Crocker's Cove?" echoed Rebecca.

"Crocker's Cove," nodded Zenas Henry.

"Mercy on us! Why—! Why, he—he must 'a' been goin'"—began Abbie.

"—to see The Widder," Rebecca interrupted, completing the sentence.

"I'd no notion he was tendin' up to her," Abbie said.

"Wal, he warn't 'xactly tendin' up to her—least-way, not today. Not what you could really call tendin' up," contradicted Zenas Henry, a twinkle in his eye. "Rather, I'd say 'twas t'other way round. Wouldn't you, Lemmy? Wouldn't you say that instead 'twas she who tended up to him?"

Sagaciously, Lemuel bowed.

The tapping of Abbie's foot precipitated the remainder of the story.

"You see," drawled on Zenas Henry, "no sooner had Charlie got into the boat an' pulled out into the channel than he had the usual beginner's luck an' hooked a stragglin' bluefish—one of the pert kind that ain't fer bein' hauled in. Law! You'd oughter seen that critter pull! He 'most had Charlie out of the boat.

"I shouted to him to hang on an' so did Lemmy. We couldn't help it. The idiot had no more notion what to do than the man in the moon.

"In our excitement, we must 'a' bellered louder'n we meant to, 'cause in no time The Widder popped outer the house. She took one look at Charlie strugglin' in the boat, raced down to the landin' an' put out to him just about at the minute he was waverin' as to whether he'd chuck pole, line, an' sinker overboard, or go overboard himself.

"Quicker'n scat she had the fish-pole, an' while we looked on, Charlie dropped down kinder limp on the seat of the boat an' begun tyin' up his hand in a spandy clean pocket handkerchief while The Widder gaffed the fish an' hauled it in."

"My soul!" exploded Abbie Brewster. "My soul an' body!"

"Later on," continued Zenas Henry, "Charlie overtook us. He'd stowed away his fish-pole somewheres. Leastway, he didn't have it with him. When Lemmy an' me asked him where his fish was, he looked blacker'n thunder an' snapped out: 'Hang the fish!'

"Seein' he warn't in no mood for neighborly conversation, we left him an' come along home."