CHAPTER XXI.
[IS SHE HERE?]
The house was very quiet when Gilbert Roe met Maida and Mrs Denwiddie at breakfast on the morning after his arrival. Only an invalid, one or two old people, some dull ones who had no friends, and a few young children with nurses, were scattered here and there at the deserted tables. He adjusted his eyeglass and looked about. He saw as well as other people; but, like them, he found the glass useful as a demonstration on many occasions.
"I thought," he said, "you told me the house was full. This is the poorest showing I have come on yet for a seaside resort in August. Not by any means a promising crowd to live in--and to-morrow is Sunday. One can't well get away before Monday morning."
"There was not a vacant place yesterday at this hour," Maida answered, a little hurt. "That I can tell you. Can you tell, Mrs Denwiddie, what has become of them all?"
"Did you not hear the fuss an hour ago or more? It woke me out of my morning sleep. Such gabble and uproar I never did hear--slamming doors and scuttling feet, everybody speaking at once, enough to wake the dead. And when I got up and looked out, there they were, just starting away in buggies and 'buses and rockaways, the whole lot of boarders it seemed to me, and it just astonishes me to see so many left behind. Jest those that couldn't go, I guess, or didn't care to go, because there was nobody to mind them."
"Where have they gone, then?" asked Maida. "As I went away, so to speak, yesterday, I was taking no interest in the plans; but I am real sorry for Gil----for Mr Roe's sake, that I did not know; and I wonder you did not go with the rest, Mrs Denwiddie."
"So I would, perhaps, if it had not been for promising to breakfast along with you, under the circumstances;" and she looked most knowingly into the other's eyes with her head on one side. But seeing the humour was not appreciated, she went on--"though I don't know either. I don't much hold with boat-rides, and there'll be sech a crush! Jest think of a boat on the water in Lippenstock Bay a day like this! for it's there they're gone to, and Fessenden's Island, for a picnic. And won't they find they've had enough of their steamboat-ride afore they're done with it! I went last summer, and I know."
"We must resign ourselves to a quiet day on the sands, then," said Maida, with a little sigh which expressed nothing but satisfaction. "Let's go at once, Gilbert, before the heat comes on. There's a nice grove down near the shore, about three miles along, and it'll be just splendid to rest there about noon."
"Three miles, Maidy--and three back! And how am I to go that far in the heat?" exclaimed the widow.
Maida opened her eyes, just a little. It was convenient to have her aged friend--for so she was now for the first time disposed to consider her--sit by her at table, and fend off curious remark; but to have her make a third in her intercourse with Gilbert was more than flesh and blood could be expected to bear. Her lips tightened, and there was a quiver of the nostril suggestive of a sniff; but she took care to make no emendation of her first proposal.
"I think, now," said Mrs Denwiddie, "the best thing Mr Roe can do would be to give us a ride along the sands in one of the landlord's rockaways. He'd find it real smooth and pleasant for conversation." She was indeed loath to part from "these two interestin' young things," as she would have called them now, though twenty-four hours earlier she would certainly have spoken of Maida as a forlorn old maid; so completely will circumstances alter cases. The young man made the difference--the old, old story which is always new. She was too old herself for these sweet passages; but if she could no longer hope to woo or be wooed, it was pleasant to assist at the wooing of some one else. People do not cease to be hungry when they lose their teeth, and a Barmecide banquet is better than no feast at all. Is not this "the long-felt want," to quote the prospectus-writers, which finds readers for the shoal of love-tales published every week?
"I'm going for a smoke," Gilbert observed, after an interval in which the play of knife and fork had absorbed their undivided attention; and marshalling his companions out of the dining-room, he withdrew to the male lounging-ground of the establishment. There he found the "proprietor" and his clerk, each with a newspaper and a toothpick, arranging themselves on three chairs apiece to ruminate on the breakfast they had eaten, and to anticipate the meal which was to come next. The day was dies non with them, their customers being away at the picnic, and they were promising themselves a morning of complete repose. Gilbert's appearance was not particularly welcome; however, they both favoured him with an inclination of the head, the proprietor combining his with a flourish of his toothpick towards the regiment of empty chairs, by way of inviting him to take a few and make himself at home.
He condescended to accept one of Gilbert's cigars; and finding it good, he relaxed so far as to vouchsafe a reference from the paper he was still reading, with regard to the state of politics in "Bhoston,"--to which Gilbert replied, alluding in passing to affairs in the West. Thereupon the proprietor woke up sufficiently to put one of his feet to the ground, and proceeded to interrogate him as to where was his home, what was his occupation, why was he travelling in the East, &c. Having received all the particulars which his guest seemed disposed to communicate, his interest subsided again, his leg resumed the horizontal position, his eyes returned to his paper, and his answers to Gilbert's efforts to converse became so brief and indifferent that the latter gave it up, and pored over his own newspaper in silence. The captain of a ship may be an important person on his own deck, but his grandeur is nothing to that of a hotel proprietor when his house is full. He is so accustomed to be spoken fair by guests desiring improved accommodation and eccentric et-ceteras, that he stiffens into an autocrat of the severest type.
Gilbert smoked, and read till he grew tired of it, and then he got up and sauntered away. He was becoming a bore unto himself, and longed for other company. On the gallery near the entrance he espied Maida hatted and gloved, awaiting an invitation to walk. She was alone; he had only to signify his wish, and away they strolled along the sands. It was not unpleasant, he found, now that the restlessness of his spirit had been chastened by the proprietor's severe neglect, to be looked up to, made of, and courted. His weed became more fragrant in the freshness of the air and sunshine as they wandered along by the water's-edge. Maida's low eager tones mingled agreeably with the babble of the breakers coming on, curling and retreating respectfully within some inches of his feet, and made him realise once more that he was lord of the creation, and a very fine fellow indeed.
Maida's flow of conversation trickled on without intermission. It was wonderful, indeed, how she found so much to say; but the well of happy feeling within yielded a steady flow of purling talk, not deep, perhaps, but clear and cheerful, with opportunities for him to answer if so it pleased him, yet able to babble along pleasantly if he said nothing. She did not talk about herself, which might have grown tedious, nor did she trouble him with questions about his own career. He must tell her of that, she thought, when he chose, though she longed to know. Her thoughts were back in the time when she used to know him, and her talk was reminiscences, touched with the ideal brightness which the days of our youth never assume till after they are fled.
Gilbert listened, remembering enough to verify her words; but yet it seemed most different, as she described it, from what he had supposed. It was like being told about some one else, especially when she recalled their conversations in those ancient days. To think that he, a weather-beaten worldling, shrewd, clear-headed, and cool, could ever have been given up to fancies and enthusiasms such as she spoke of--such as she seemed to cling to still! There had been no changes of circumstance and position with her, to show things in new lights and under new aspects; and so she had continued to serve the old gods. They had flown away from him long ago, as birds escape from their nesting-places when the sun is up. He knew them no more, immersed as he was in the hurry of workaday life, and it seemed strange to have them brought before him now. They were pretty and curious, but oh, so narrow and mistaken! A moth may feel as he did, when, shown the chrysalis out of which it crept, it realises how impossible it would be for it to fold and compress itself again within the old limits.
For one morning, the sensation of being made love to by Maida, and being courted under the form of his older self, was distinctly pleasurable, though mild. She thought all the world of him--that he could see--and he would be kind to her by way of making some small return, especially in the absence of any one else to amuse him. After their early dinner, the house being still in its deserted condition, he brought her into the billiard-room to teach her the game. It was her first lesson, and she was eager to learn; but she could not do so quickly enough to play with him that day, however many points he might give her--so he tired of that, and then, being still in a gracious mood, he remembered Mrs Denwiddie's suggestion of the morning, that he should give them a drive, and he fulfilled her desire. Both ladies enjoyed it immensely; and to crown their triumph, they found that the picnickers had returned only a minute before them, and had the gratification of alighting in state with their escort, in full view of the whole houseful of guests.
The thunderstorm which had reached Fessenden's Island an hour before, came on shortly after; wherefore the remainder of the evening was spent within doors, in the usual way, save that the company were more disposed to sit still after their long day in the open air. Music, singing, and conversation were the occupations at first; but the quicksilver in Lucy Naylor and one or two more prevailed at last, and by the time it grew dark the dance was in full force as on other evenings.
"Now!" said Maida to Gilbert. "Are there enough people for your idea of being sociable, now? You are always the same old man, as fond of company as ever. Do you remember the country-dances and cotillions at Deacon Benson's? How we used to keep it up! And the walking home afterwards in the early morning--with the grass running dew, and taking the starch out of my flounces! But you don't remember that, I guess. Ah, those parties! They were just too sweet to last. I have never been at any, since, I cared so much for.... Do you know the cotillion now as well as you used to? My! how you did know it! We girls were always wishing to have you call the figures. Nobody could ever guess what you were going to make us do next. It kept up the interest, and was real exciting. When we'd expect to have 'ladies' chain,' it would be 'set to partners,' or 'ladies in the centre,' or 'first gentleman to the right,' or something quite unexpected. They don't dance cotillions here. I guess it's because they don't know how; though they pretend it's because they've gone out, and the upper circles don't dance them. It's all round-dancing here, except when it's lancers; and then they don't call the figures, so I never know what to do next."
"Well, this is a round-dance. Come! No use sitting here the whole night."
"I'll try," said Maida, delighted to be taken out, but with a misgiving. She did not dance often, and she felt doubtful whether she would acquit herself to the satisfaction of her hero. "Not too fast, please--not any faster than you can help. The waltz is apt to make me giddy," she ejaculated as they started off; but then she was in rapture, and said nothing more. Were not his arms around her? and was it not he whom she held and clung to as the room began to swim, and her sense of terra firma to grow vague and indistinct?
"Don't hang on quite so altogetherly, Maida. And if you could keep your feet to the ground, it would look better, you know. You're more hefty, as we used to say, than when you were a baby," Gilbert observed, as they swung and revolved laboriously round the room; but at length he got out of breath, and they had to stop.
"Oh!" sighed Maida, with closed eyes, clinging to her partner for support because she was giddy, and also, perhaps, because she liked to do it. "I am quite run out! But it was lovely."
"Come and sit down then, and rest," said the matter-of-fact Gilbert, "and get back your breath;" which was not just the form of answer which Maida had looked for. However, the music was ending and it could not be helped.
And now Gilbert, having done his duty by his old friend, thought it was time for her to be of some little service to him in return. He asked her to introduce him to some of the other young ladies whom he might ask to dance; and she could not but consent. It seemed a strange request to make, she thought, a strange desire to feel, when she was by--so soon after returning from so long an absence! It was a masculine caprice, she supposed. And those men! Who could understand them? She could take care, however, that the ladies she presented him to were not more than moderately endowed with beauty. And she did. One cannot be expected to court misfortune--to introduce rivals to even the most loyal of swains--to fetch a stick from the wood to break one's own back with. Perhaps she rather overdid it, in fact; at least Gilbert did not invite many of her beauties to dance, and when the introductions were over he could not help saying, "What a homely lot of friends you have, Maida! They must be awful good, if appearances are as deceitful as folks say. Now there's a little girl over yonder, a peart little filly, that it would be a real pleasure to dance with. What's her name? Can you not introduce me there?"
"I don't know her. She's a stuck-up little thing; and if I'm any judge of girls, as I ought to be, there's not much in her. I hear them call her Fanny Payson, and she belongs to Senator Deane's party--Deane of Indiana, you know."
"I knew Deane well; he lives part of the time in Chicago. Is his family with him?"
"Oh yes; but they put on airs, no end of. We poor New Hampshire folks ain't good enough for them to know."
Gilbert was not listening now. He had fallen into a brown study, and presently without any explanation he left her. He wandered up and down the rooms, wearing a look of impatient eagerness, and peering into faces as though in search of some one. At length he darted forward to the side of a lady standing up to dance. "Miss Deane," he whispered hoarsely, "is she here?"
Lettice turned. "You, Mr Roe?" Then, recovering from her surprise, she assumed a manner of great coldness, and opening her eyes, as if in wonder at his audacious intrusion, she limited her answer to a clearly articulated "No."
"Where is she? Pray tell! I----"
He had stretched out his hand as if to lay hold on her skirt to detain her; but with a motion of her hand she swept it beyond his reach, saying severely, "I cannot tell you;" and then, in turning away, she added, "Do not expose yourself in this public place;" and giving her hand to her partner, she was whirled away among the dancers.
Gilbert set his teeth, and a look of despairing woe passed across his features. He traversed the crowded rooms once more, and then, too miserable to remain, he went out upon the dripping galleries, where darkness and the cooled and moistened air yielded a kind of consolation. There he paced and smoked, till life grew bearable again, though still ungenial, and then he went to his room and turned in.
Maida sat where he had left her on the brink of the dance, and grew very sad when he did not return to her side. What had she done to offend or weary him? But at least he was not dancing--that was something. Yet where could he be? A heaviness came over her spirits, and she felt depressed for the first time in the last four-and-twenty hours.