“They’ve got everything here,” he said as he pointed to the corner where he had made his find. “Not alone all the supplies, but two first-class cameras and a projector. I suppose some of the family took it up for a fad.”
Mrs. Cornell opined it was to occupy the young men. There were several Driscoll boys and if you didn’t give them something to do they’d get into mischief. Though, if you asked her, she didn’t see any chances for mischief in this jumping-off place, unless the high tide washed in a few mermaids.
Then they passed on through the left doorway, into the side wing of the house. Here Shine, who was domiciled in the butler’s bedroom, disappeared into the adjoining pantry and Mrs. Cornell trod resolutely on into the kitchen, being one of the few members of the company who was not afraid of the housekeeper.
Miss Pinkney, who was sitting upright in a stiff-backed chair, rose respectfully. She was a lean slab-sided woman of fifty, with tight-drawn hair and a long horse face. She had disapproved bitterly of the intrusion of the actors upon the sacred precincts of Gull Island and though she had been rigidly polite hoped that her disapproval had got across. Anyway, she had had the satisfaction of putting cotton sheets on their beds and serving their meals on the kitchen china. If they did any damage to the house or premises she was ready to assert her authority, and she had been on the watch. But they had been careful and orderly and treated her with the proper deference, and in her heart the revolutionary thought had arisen that they were equally considerate and more amusing than the usual run of Gull Island guests. Also they gave her a subject of conversation that would last out the winter.
Mrs. Cornell broached her request and Miss Pinkney agreed. She was even very pleasant about it, showing a brisk friendly alacrity—with the helper gone there’d only be a cold supper and she could dish that up in two shakes. Together they left the kitchen and on the stairs Mrs. Cornell hooked her plump arm inside Miss Pinkney’s bony one and said when Mr. Shine took the flashlights that night he must take one of them as the “feeder” and the other as the “fed.”
IV
Bassett had gone into the house too. As he crossed the living-room he noticed its deserted quietude, in contrast to the noise and bustle that had possessed it an hour ago.
It was a rich friendly room, comfortably homelike in spite of its size, for it crossed the center of the house, its rear door opening on the garden as the one opposite did on the path. It was spacious in height as well as width, its walls rising two stories. Midway up a gallery ran, on three sides of which the bedrooms opened. The fourth side, on the seaward front, was flanked by a line of windows, great squares of unsullied glass that looked over the garden and the amphitheater to the uplands and the open ocean. There were tables here, raking wicker chairs, and low settees with brilliant cushions, books lying about and smokers’ materials. In the room below the character of a hunting lodge had been suggested by mounted deer heads, Indian blankets, baskets of cunning weave and animal skins on the floor. But it was an idealized hunting lodge, with seats in which the body sank luxuriously, and softly shaded lights. Round the deep-mouthed chimney the scent of wood fires lingered, the fires of birch logs that leaped there when Gull Island lay under storm and mist. The architect had not diminished the effect of size and unencumbered space by stairs. The second story was reached by two flights, one in the entrance hall, one in the kitchen wing.
Bassett opened the door into the hall where again all was quiet, none of the jarring accents that occasionally rose from the Stokes’ room. He walked across the gleaming parquette to the library which he had used for his office. There were no signs of the hunting lodge here—a scholarly retreat, book-lined, with leather armchairs and lights arranged for readers’ eyes, a place for delightful hours if one had time to drowse and poke about on the shelves. Two long French windows framed a view of the channel and Hayworth dreaming among its elms. He went to one of the windows and looked out. The girls were still sitting there, and, as he looked at them, an expression of infinite tenderness lay like a light on his face. It was the light Shine had noticed, allowed to break through clearly now that no one was there to see.
He sat down at the desk; there were letters for him to answer, addenda of the performance to check up. He moved the papers, looked at them, pushed them away, and, resting his forehead on his hands, relinquished himself to a deep pervading happiness. Yesterday Anne had promised to marry him.