The Stolen Singer Part 15

The roses came into Melanie's cheeks, and she forgot all about the professional advice which she had been at such pains to procure in New York. There was happiness in her eyes when she looked on her lover, even though she had repulsed him. As for Mr. Chamberlain, he breathed the very air of content. Madame Reynier, with her inscrutable grand manner, confessed that she had never before been able precisely to locate Boston, and now that she had seen it, she felt much better.

Even Aleck's lean bulk seemed to expand and flourish in the atmosphere of happiness about him. His sudden venture was a success, beyond a doubt. The party had many merry hours, many others full of a quiet pleasure, none that were heavy or uneasy.

If Aleck's outer man prospered in this unexpected excursion, it can only be said that his spiritual self flowered with a new and hitherto unknown beauty. It was a late flowering, possibly--though what are thirty-four years to Infinity?--but there was in it a richness and delicacy which was its own distinction and won its own reward.

Melanie's words, spoken in their long interview in the New York home, had contained an element of truth. There was a poignant sincerity in her saying, "You do not love me enough," which touched Aleck to the center of his being. He was not n.i.g.g.ardly by nature; and had he given stintingly of his affection to this woman who was to him the best? His whole nature shrank from such a role, even while he dimly perceived that he had been guilty of acting it. If he had been small in his gift of love, it was because he had been the dupe of his theories; he had forsworn gallantry toward women, and had unwittingly cast aside warmth of affection also.

But such a condition was, after all, more apparent than real. In his heart Aleck knew that he did love Melanie "enough," however much that might be. He loved her enough to want, not only and not mainly, what she could give to him; but he wanted the happiness of caring for her, cheris.h.i.+ng her, rewarding her faith with his own. She had not seen that, and it was his problem to make her see it. There was only one way. And so, in forgetting himself, forgetting his wants, his comforts, his studies and his masculine will--herein was the blossoming of Aleck's soul.

Melanie instinctively felt the subtle change, and knew in her heart that Aleck had won the day, though she still treated their engagement as an open question. Aleck would read to her in his simple, unaffected manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for audience, sometimes to her alone. And since they lived keenly and loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love. A line, a phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all over. They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, and then insisted on them all the harder; they learned, each from the other, some bit of robust optimism, some happiness of vision, some further reach of thought.

After they had read, they would play at quoits, struggling sternly against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Melanie in nautical lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations in the heavens. During their first week they were in the edge of a storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were comfortable and safe, and merry as larks through it all.

So, day by day, Aleck hedged Melanie about with his love. Was she thoughtful? He let her take, as she would, his thoughts, the best he could give from his mature experience. Was she gay? He liked that even better, and delighted to cap her gaiety with his own queer, whimsical drolleries. Whatever her mood, he would not let her get far from him in spirit. It was not in her heart to keep him from her; but Aleck achieved the supermundane feat of making his influence felt most keenly when she was alone. She dwelt upon him in her thoughts more intensely than she herself knew; and that intenseness was only the reflection of his own thought for her.

They had been sailing a little more than a week, changing the low, placid Connecticut fields for the rougher northern sh.o.r.es, going sometimes farther out to sea, but delighting most in the sweet, pine-fringed coast of Maine. There were no more large cities to visit, only small villages where fishermen gathered after their week's haul or where slow, primitive boat-building was still carried on. Most of the inhabitants of the coast country appeared to be farmers as well as fishermen, even where the soil was least promising. The aspect of the sh.o.r.es was that of a limited but fairly prosperous agricultural community. Under the shadow of the hills were staid little homes, or fresh-painted smart cottages. Sometimes a bold rock-bank formed the sh.o.r.e for miles and miles, and the hills would vanish for a s.p.a.ce.

Here and there were headlands formed by mighty boulders, against which the waves endlessly dashed and as endlessly foamed back into the sea.

Such a headland loomed up on their starboard one evening when the sun was low; and as the plumes of spray from the incoming waves rose high in the air a rainbow formed itself in the fleeting mist. It was a fairy picture, repeating itself two or three times, no more.

"That's my symbol of hope," said Aleck quite impersonally, to anybody who chose to hear.

Mr. Chamberlain turned to Aleck with his ready courtesy. "Not the only one you have received, I hope, on this charming voyage."

Madame Reynier was ready with her pleasant word. "Aren't we all symbols for you--if not of hope, then of your success as a host? We've lost our aches and our pains, our nerves and our troubles; all gone overboard from the _Sea Gull_."

"You're all tremendously good to me, I know that," said Aleck, his slow words coming with great sincerity.

Melanie kept silence, but she remembered the rainbow.

The headland was the landward end of a small island, one part of which was thickly wooded. A large unused house stood in a clearing, evidently once a rather pretentious summer residence, though now there were many signs of delapidation. The pier on the beach had been almost entirely beaten down by storms, and a small, flimsy slip had taken its place, running far down into the water. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney of one of the outbuildings; and while they looked and listened the raucous cry of a peac.o.c.k came to them over the still water. Presently Chamberlain suggested:

"I feel it in my bones that there'll be lobsters over there to be had for the asking. I heard your man say he wanted lobsters, Van; and I believe I'll row over there and see. I'm feeling uncommonly fit and need some exercise."

"All right, I'll go too," said Aleck.

"I'll bet a bouquet that I beat you rowing over--Miss Reynier to furnish the bouquet!" was Chamberlain's next proposition. "Do you agree to that, my lady?"

"And pray, where should I get a bouquet?"

"Oh, the next time we get on land. And we won't put up with any old bouquet of juniper bushes and rocks, either. We want a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned round bouquet of garden posies, with mignonette round the edge and a rose in the middle; a sure-enough token of esteem--that kind of thing, you know. Is it a bargain, Miss Reynier?"

"Very well, it is a bargain," agreed Melanie; "but I shall choose bachelors' b.u.t.tons!"

So they took the tender and got off, with a great show of exactness as to time and strictness of rules. Madame Reynier was to hold the watch, and Aleck was to wave a white handkerchief the minute they touched sand. Mr. Chamberlain was to give a like signal when they started back. The yacht slowed down, and held her place as nearly as possible.

Chamberlain pulled a great oar, and was, in fact, far superior to Aleck in point of skill; but his stroke was not well adapted to the choppy waves insh.o.r.e. He had learned it on the sleepy Cam, where the long, gliding blade counts best. The men stayed ash.o.r.e a long time, disappearing entirely beyond the clump of trees that screened the outbuildings. When they reappeared, an old man was with them, following them down to the boat. Then the white handkerchief appeared, and the boat started on its return.

Aleck profited by Chamberlain's work, and made the boat leap forward by a shorter, almost jerky stroke. He came back easily with five minutes to spare.

"Good work!" said Mr. Chamberlain. "You have me beaten, and you'll get the bachelors' b.u.t.tons; but you had the tide with you."

"Nonsense! I had the lobsters extra!" a.s.serted Aleck.

"Well, if you had been born an Englishman, we'd make an oarsman out of you yet!"

"Huh!" said Aleck.

But they had news to tell the ladies, and while they were having their dinner their thoughts were turned to another matter. The island, it appeared, had for some years been abandoned by its owner, and its only inhabitant was a gray and grizzly old man, known to the region as the hermit. His fancy was to keep a light burning always by night in the landward window of his cabin, so as to warn sailors off the dangerous headland. There was no lighthouse in the vicinity, and by a kindly consent the people on the neighboring islands and on the mainland opposite encouraged his benevolent delusion, if delusion it might be called. They contrived to send him provisions at least once a week; and they had supplied him with a flag which, it was understood, he would fly in case he was in actual need. So, alone with his cow and his fowls, the old hermit spent his days, winter and summer, tending his lamp when the dark came on.

Aleck and Mr. Chamberlain had picked up some of this information at the last port which the _Sea Gull_ made; but what was of new and real interest to them now was the story which the old man told them of a castaway on the island a few days before.

"All hands had abandoned the yacht just before she went down, it appears. The owner was robbed by his own men and marooned on the hermit's island--that's the gist of it," said Aleck.

"The hermit said the man wouldn't eat off his table," went on Mr.

Chamberlain; "but asked him for raw eggs and ate them outdoors. Said that except when he asked for eggs he never spoke without cursing. At least, the hermit couldn't understand what he said, so he thought it was cursing. And while the old man was talking," added Chamberlain resentfully, "that blooming peac.o.c.k squawked like a demon."

"The yacht that went down, according to the man, was the _Jeanne D'Arc_," said Aleck, who had been grave enough between all their light-hearted talk. "I didn't tell you, Chamberlain, that my cousin, my old chum, went off quite unexpectedly on a boat called the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Where he went or what for, I don't know. Of course, it may have been another _Jeanne D'Arc_; it probably was. But it troubles me."

Melanie was instantly aroused. "Oh, I had an uncanny feeling when you first mentioned the _Jeanne D'Arc_!" she cried. "But could you not find out more? What became of the man that was marooned?"

"He got off the island a day or two ago," said Aleck. "The people that brought provisions to the old man took him to the mainland, to Charlesport."

"The beggar left without so much as thanking the old man for his eggs,"

added Chamberlain.

"We'll put into Charlesport to-night, if you don't mind," said Aleck.

"If I can find the man that was marooned, I may be able to learn something about Jim, if he really was on the yacht. You can all go ash.o.r.e, if you like. There's a big summer hotel near by, and it's a lovely country."

"We'll stay wherever it's most convenient for you to have us," said Melanie, looking at Aleck; for once, with more than a friendly interest in her eyes.

"And perhaps I can help you, Van; two heads, you know," said Chamberlain.

Aleck, troubled as he was, could not help being grateful to his friends. So the _Sea Gull_, turned suddenly from her holiday mood, headed into the harbor of Charlesport.

The village still rang, if so staid a community could be said to ring, with reports of the event of the week before. Doctor Thayer had been sphinx-like, and Little Simon had been imaginative and voluble; and it would have been difficult to say which had teased the popular curiosity the more. Aleck found a tale ready for his ears about the launch and its three pa.s.sengers, with many conflicting details. Some said that a great singer had been wrecked off Ram's Head, others that it was the captain and mate of the _Jeanne D'Arc_, others that it was a daughter of old Parson Thayer's sweetheart and two sailors that came ash.o.r.e.

Little or nothing was known about the island castaway. Aleck followed the only clue he could find, thinking to get at least some inkling of the truth.

CHAPTER XIII

ALECK SEES A GHOST

Little Simon drove leisurely up the long, rugged hill over which Agatha and James had so recently traveled, and drew rein in the shade at a distance of a long city block from his destination. He pointed with his whip while he addressed Aleck, his sole pa.s.senger.

"Yonder's the old red house, Mister. The parson, he hated to have his trees gnawed, and Major here's a great horse for gnawing the bark offer trees. So I never go no nearer the house than this."