CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mac was at his evening devotions.
"And not squeal at Aunt Phebe, A-ah-nen!" he concluded in a gusty sforzando. Then he reached up and took his mother's face between his two pink palms. "I hit Aunt Phebe, to-day, mamma. Vat was very naughty; but I 'scused her, so it don't make any matter."
The fact was that Mac and his Aunt Phebe were not on intimate terms. Never fond of children and none too fond of being disturbed in the pursuit of her varying hobbies, Phebe had scant patience with the vagaries of her small nephew. His ingratiating ways annoyed her; his shrill babble distracted her; her sense of order revolted at the omnipresent pails of sand which marked his pathway. Mac was revelling, that summer, in the possession of unlimited supplies of sand, and, not content with having it on the beach, he surreptitiously lugged it up to Valhalla and constructed little amateur beaches wherever he could escape from Phebe's searching eyes.
Phebe protested loudly over the beaches. They were in the way; they rendered it unsafe to cross the floors, since they had a trick of appearing in new and unsuspected localities. Moreover, they afforded a source of constant interest to Melchisedek, who appeared to be secreting an anatomical collection beneath them, and spent long hours on guard above his latest addition to his hoard. It offended Phebe to be growled at, just at the moment when her foot struck a heap of sand and bones which should have had no place in a well-ordered home; it offended her still more to listen to Mac's shrill unbraidings, when he found her ruthlessly sweeping the whole deposit out of doors. Hence Mac's blow. Hence his forgiveness.
"I wish you were my brother, and I would see if this couldn't be stopped," Phebe had said, in the fulness of her wrath.
Mac surveyed her blandly.
"But I don't want you for a brovver. You're nofing but a girl, and if I had a little brovver, I'd ravver have a he-brovver," he returned dispassionately.
"All the same, I'd make you mind me," she said vengefully, as she gave the broom a final flirt.
"But you doesn't own me, Aunt Babe; every one else doesn't own me, just myse'f."
What remote memory of past Sunday stories had asserted itself, the next day, it would be impossible to tell; but Mac suddenly projected himself into the long-ago, and out from the long-ago he addressed Phebe.
"You are Pharaoh, you know, and you kills babies."
"Don't be silly, Mac." Phebe was writing a letter and was in no mood for historical conversation.
Sitting on the floor at her feet, Mac clasped his shabby brownie to his breast.
"Yes, you are Pharaoh, you know; naughty old Pharaoh! But you wouldn't kill vis little baby; would you, Pharaoh?"
"I'd like to, if it would clean him up a little," Phebe returned, for she had an antipathy to the brownie which usually took its meals in company with Mac.
"Do peoples be clean, all ve time, in heaven?"
"Of course."
"Ven I don't want to go vere, Pharaoh."
"Mac, you must stop calling me Pharaoh. Aunt Phebe is my name."
The next instant, the baby came flying straight into Pharaoh's face, and
Mac fled, weeping, to his mother.
"Mam-ma!"
"Yes, Mac."
"I'd be glad if I was dead."
"Why, dear?" Hope looked startled.
"'Cause peoples are happy when vey are up in ve sky."
"But you can be happy here, Mac, if you are good," Hope said gently.
"Yes; but I aren't happy; I are cross."
Hope sighed and laid away the letter she was writing to her husband. There were days when she regretted that she had brought this restless, tempestuous child into so large a family circle, days when Mac's cherubic qualities appeared to be entirely in abeyance. Gentle as she was, her own influence over him was of the strongest; but here she felt that she had less chance to exert this influence. In spite of her efforts, Mac was running wild, this summer. The smallest child on the beach, he was petted and spoiled by every one, and Hope disliked the inevitable pertness which followed so much attention. Most of all, she disliked the constant friction with his Aunt Phebe, and she felt that the blame was by no means entirely upon the one side. Mac was no heavenly child, and it was only by dint of much tact that he could be managed at all; but tact in dealing with children was not Phebe's strong point.
The summer, then, was not proving altogether restful to Hope. To one person, however, she felt an overwhelming gratitude. Of all the people on Quantuck beach, Gifford Barrett had been the only one who appeared to have either conscience or common sense in dealing with Mac's idiosyncrasies. The child never seemed to bore him, or to come into collision with him, yet there was never any question who was the master. Again and again, Hope had wondered at the dexterity with which the young musician had led Mac away from his small iniquities, had coaxed him into giggling forgetfulness of his bad temper. She wondered yet more at the obedience which Mac readily accorded to his new friend, an obedience which she was accustomed to win only after long and persistent siege.
"My papa couldn't come here, vis summer," he had said gravely to Mr.
Barrett, one day. "Will you please be my papa while we stay here?"
And Gifford Barrett's smile was not altogether of amusement, as he accepted the adoption. Hope saw it and understood; and hereafter she ranged herself on Cicely's side when Mr. Barrett was being discussed in the family circle.
That same afternoon Gifford Barrett strolled down to the beach. The wind had been on shore for the past two days, and the breakers, too heavy now to allow any bathing, crashed on the sand with a dull booming that sounded far inland, while close at the water-side was heard the crash of the grinding pebbles. Under the McAlister awning, Mrs. McAlister, Hope and the Farringtons sat in a cozy group, and Mac, close by, was devoting his small energies to burying his grandfather. The young man stopped to speak to them for a minute; then he moved away towards the spot where Phebe sat alone under her umbrella.
"Isn't the surf superb, Miss McAlister?"
She looked up from her book rather ungraciously.
"Yes, it's very fine."
"How does it happen you are not at the golf links?"
"There's a tournament, to-day."
"And you didn't enter?"
"No; they didn't play well enough to make it worth my while."
Deliberately he settled himself at her side.
"Am I interrupting?" he asked. "That book looked rather indigestible for an August day."
"I prefer it. I can't spend my time over novels," Phebe said.
The strong wind had ruffled her bright hair and deepened the pink in her cheeks. The young man looked at her admiringly. Up to this time, he had only seen her in her short blue suit, and he told himself that this fluffy pink muslin gown was vastly more becoming to her.
"Don't you ever do frivolous things?" he asked in some amusement.
"No. What's the use?"
"There's going to be a dance, next week."
"Is there?" Phebe's tone betrayed no interest in the tidings.
"Yes. I came down to see if I could induce you to go with me."
"I hate dancing in August," she said flatly.
"I'm sorry. Besides, one must do something down here."
"One can, if one wants to. I don't. There's no sense in coming to this kind of a place, just to put on one's best clothes and dance all night in a stuffy room."
"You might take Lear's method," he suggested;
"'And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.'"
For one instant, Phebe relaxed her severity.
"Do you like Lear, too?" she asked.
"Of course. What sensible person doesn't?" He stretched himself out at full length, resting his head on his hand, and, for the moment, Phebe, as she looked at him, felt that he was almost handsome enough to atone for his lack of energy. "But you haven't accepted my invitation," he added persuasively.
"I know it."
"Please do."
"What for? I told you I don't like hops in August."
"But I can't hop alone."
"Ask somebody else, then."
"Don't want to. Well, I'll consider it an engagement."
"Why don't you play golf?" Phebe demanded.
"Too energetic for me. I want something more restful."
His languid tone annoyed Phebe, and she dropped her indifferent manner.
"Mr. Barrett, did it ever occur to you that you were lazy?"
He flushed.
"No; it hadn't occurred to me in that light before. Am I?"
"Very."
He sat up.
"I am sorry. Miss McAlister, had it ever occurred to you that you are outspoken?"
"I don't care if I am."
For an instant, he looked at her angrily. It was a new experience to him to have any one take that tone in addressing him. Then he rose to his feet.
"I am afraid I have been intruding upon your time, Miss McAlister," he said stiffly.
"You needn't get mad," Phebe observed. "People don't all think alike, you know; and I only told you my opinion."
He bowed in silence; then he walked away his hands in his pockets and his cap tilted backwards aggressively. Half-way to the row of awnings, he spoke.
"Little vixen!" he said forcibly. Then he dropped down on the sand at Hope's feet, with his back turned flatly towards the figure under the blue umbrella.
"Then you are coming to supper with us, to-morrow night," Theodora said, as at length he rose to his feet. "I suppose music is a forbidden subject, Mr. Barrett; you probably get very tired of the things people say to you. Still, I have a little cousin staying with me, who is anxious to meet you, and—"
Her sentence was never finished, and Cicely's anxiety was left hanging in mid air, for there came a cry from Phebe,—
"Oh, Hope! Mac! Help!"
Mr. Barrett whirled about to face the surf just in time to see Mac swept off his feet by an incoming wave, drawn back under the next one and hidden from sight beneath the awful weight of water. With a quick exclamation, he ran forward into the edge of the water. Then he drew back.
"Save him," Phebe commanded. "Go in! I can't do anything in this horrid gown." As she spoke, she tugged fiercely at her fluffy skirt which, wet to her knees, clung closely about her feet. "Go in and get him!" she commanded again.
Then for the hour, Gifford Barrett wished that the sand would close over him.
"I can't," he said through his shut teeth. "It would be of no use."
"Coward!" she said fiercely. "And you would let the boy drown!"
The words had been low and hurried, and no one was near to hear them, or to check Phebe. For a moment, Mr. Barrett turned white. He started to reply; then he controlled himself and was silent. This was not the time to seek to justify himself. The little scene was ended before Billy Farrington, stripped to his waist, rushed past them and plunged into the pounding surf.
To the watchers on the shore, it seemed hours since he had disappeared, days since chubby little Mac had been swept out of sight. The beach chanced to be deserted, that afternoon; Dr. McAlister could not swim a stroke, Phebe was powerless to do anything in such clothing as she wore, and Billy was not an expert swimmer. Hope's anguish was almost unbearable; yet, for the moment, Theodora's suffering was greater than that of her sister. She spoke no word; she only stood, tall and stately and dry-eyed, staring into the great green, curving waves that had swallowed up her husband and, with him, all the best that had made life for her since her girlhood. There was small chance for an inexperienced swimmer in such a sea as that, least of all for one burdened with the weight of a four-year-old child.
One. Two. Three. Four. Slowly the pitiless waves came crashing down on the sand. They were so mighty, so unrelenting in their grim beauty. If one must be drowned, it would have been better to die in a sunless sea, not in the gorgeousness of a day like this. Five. Six. Then Theodora sprang forward with a little, low, choking moan. The seventh wave washed up at her very feet the form of her husband, still breathing and with Mac's body dangling from his unconscious grasp.
Under such circumstances, some men would have thanked Providence. Dr.
McAlister was of other stuff.
"Phebe, come here!" he commanded. "You know what to do. You go to work on Mac, while I try to see if anything can be done for Billy. Work for your life, for there's a life hanging on yours now."