"Quite right," returned Philip, putting in her lap one of the magazines he had bought on the wharf.
"No, thank you," she returned. "I shan't read. I'm going to look. Puppa'll expect me to tell him all about it. He was delighted at my having a chance to come to the seashore. He thought it would do my health so much good."
Philip regarded her round cheeks, round eyes, and round, rosy mouth.
"Your health? You look to me as though if you felt any better you'd have to call the doctor."
"Yes, I'm not really ailing – but I freckle. Isn't it a shame?" She put one hand to her nose which had an upward tilt.
"Oh, that's all right," laughed Philip. "Call 'em beauty spots."
She sat, pensively continuing to cover her nose with her silk-gloved hand.
"Perhaps you're hungry. I ought to have bought you some chocolates," said Philip. "Perhaps there's time still." He looked at his watch.
Veronica smiled. It was a pleasant operation to view and disclosed a dimple. "Did Aunt Priscilla give you money to buy me candy? Don't bother. I have some gum. Would you like some?" As she spoke, she opened her handbag.
Philip bent a dreadful frown upon her. "Do you chew gum?" he asked severely.
"Yes, sometimes, of course. Everybody does."
"Then you deserve to freckle. You deserve all the awful things that can befall a girl."
"Well, for a hired man," said Veronica, her hand pausing in its exploration, "you have the most nerve of any one I ever saw."
She seemed quite heated by this condemnation, and instead of the gum drew out a vanity box and, looking in the mirror, powdered her nose deliberately.
Philip opened his magazine. The whistle blew and the boat began to back out of the slip. Veronica regarded her companion from time to time out of the tail of her eye, and at a moment when his manner indicated absorption in what he was reading, she replaced the vanity case in her bag and when her hand reappeared, it conveyed something to her mouth.
"I wouldn't," said Philip, without looking up. She colored hotly.
"Nobody asked you to," she retorted.
Then all was silence while the steamer, getting its direction, began moving toward the islands that dotted the bay.
The girl suddenly started.
"If there aren't those people!" she ejaculated.
"What people?" asked Philip.
"They came on in the same car with me from Boston. See that dark man over there with a young boy? I couldn't help noticing them on the train. You see how stupid the boy looks. He seemed so helpless, and the man just ignored him when he asked questions, and treated him so mean. I just hate that man."
Philip regarded the couple. They presented a contrast. The man was heavily built with a sallow, dark face, his restless eyes and body continually moving with what seemed an habitual impatience. The boy, perhaps fourteen years of age, had a vacant look, his lips were parted, and his position, slumped down in a camp-chair, indicated a total lack of interest in his surroundings.
"Tell me about Aunt Priscilla," said Veronica suddenly. "I haven't seen her since I was twelve years old. My mother died then. She was Aunt Priscilla's sister and Aunt Pris was willing to take me if Pa wanted her to, but he didn't and we moved away, and I've never seen her since. Of course, she writes sometimes and so do I. Has she many boarders?"
"Only one so far, but then she's a goddess. You've read your mythology, haven't you? This is the goddess Diana."
"Say, you're awfully fresh, do you know that?" remarked Veronica. "You treat me all the time as if I was a baby. I've graduated from high school and very likely I know just as much as you do."
"I shouldn't doubt that," returned Philip. "On the level, you'll see when you get to the Inn that I'm telling the truth. Diana is passing for the present under the title of Miss Wilbur."
"One boarder!" exclaimed Veronica with troubled brow. "Why, Aunt Priscilla doesn't need two helpers like you and me."
"Oh, there are plenty more boarders coming," said Philip. "This boat may be full of them for all we know. She is expecting people to-night. Let's look around and decide who we'll take up there with us."
"I'll tell you one person I'd choose first of all. See that woman with her back to us with a blue motor veil around her shoulders? I noticed her just when I was pointing out that devil and the boy to you."
"You use strong language, Miss Trueman. Couldn't you spare my feelings and call our dark friend Mephisto?"
"Sounds too good for him. I'd like to use me-fist-o on him, I know that." Veronica giggled, and went on: "Do you see her?"
"I do. My vision is excellent."
"Well, she was on the train, too, and once I saw her smile at that poor shy boy and show him how to get a drink of water. We were all in a day car. Chair car crowded. You can't see her face, but she's the sweetest thing." Then with a change of voice: "Oh, wouldn't it jar you! There's fuss-tail. See that dame with the white flower in her hat, looking over the rail? I suppose she's watching to see if the fishes behave themselves. She was on the train, too, and nothing suited her from Boston to Portland. She was too hot, or she felt a draught, or she didn't like the fruit the train-boy brought, or something else was wrong, every minute."
"We won't take her, then," said Philip.
"I should say not. She'd sour the milk. What's the island like?"
"Diana says it resembles Arcadia strikingly, and she ought to know."
"But I never was in Arcadia," objected Veronica.
"Well, it is just a green hill popping right up out of the Atlantic, with plenty of New England rocks in the fields, and drifts of daisies and wild roses for decoration, and huge rocky teeth around the shore that grind the waves into spray and spit it up flying toward the sky."
"What kind of folks? Just folks that come in summer?"
"Not at all. Old families. New England's aristocracy. These islands are the only place where there are no aliens, just the simon-pure descendants of Plymouth Rock. As I say aristocrats. I was born there."
"You were?" returned Veronica curiously.
"I were."
"Well, I was born in Maine, in Bangor. I guess that's just about as good."
"No, it's not as good," said Philip gravely. "Nevertheless, I forgive you."
"Tell me more about the island."
"Well, it has one road."
"Only one street?"
"No, no street. Just one road which has its source in a green field on the south and loses itself in the beach on the north after it has passed the by-path that leads to the haunted farm."
"Oh, go away!" scoffed Veronica.
"I can't. The walking won't be good for another hour."
"Who lives at the farm?"
"The ha'nts."
"Nobody else?"
"No, it isn't likely. It's at the head of Brook Cove where the pirates used to come in at a day when it was laughable to think that passenger boats would ever touch at this island."
Veronica's eyes grew rounder than before.
"Do you suppose there's gold packed in around there if people could only find it?"
"I don't, but a great many people thought there might be. It is much more fun to hunt for pirate gold than to go fishing in squally weather, and it has been hunted for, faithfully."
"And not any found?" said Veronica sympathetically.
"That's the mournful fact."
"But who were the farmers, and why did they stop farming? Was it the ghosts?"
"No, I think it was the rocks. It was found more profitable to farm the sea. You know abandoned farms are fashionable in New England, anyway, so the ghosts have a rather swell residence at the old Dexter place. I spent the first eight years of my life on the island. Then it was an undiscovered Arcadia. Now – why, you will go up to The Wayside Inn in a motor – that is, if I can get hold of Bill Lindsay before somebody else grabs him. Lots of people know a good thing when they see it, and lots of people have seen the island."
The wharf was full of people to welcome the little steamer as it drew in, and there was a grand rush of passengers for the coveted motor. It seemed to Veronica that she heard her aunt's name on many lips, and Philip found himself feeling responsible for the trunk checks of everybody who was seeking Miss Burridge.
The upshot of it all was, by the time he had safeguarded the baggage of the arrivals and sent them on their way, he and Veronica were left to climb the road and pursue the walk toward home.
"Didn't that old hawk-nose say he was going to Aunt Priscilla's?"
"It's a very good-looking nose," remarked Philip. "But so far as I could see, all your friends of the train were bound for the same place."
"He'll be lucky," said Veronica viciously, "if I don't put Paris green in his tea. Oh, what a beautiful view of the sea!" she exclaimed as they reached the summit of the hill.
They had not walked far when Bill Lindsay's Ford came whirring back over the much-traveled road, and he turned around for them.
"After all," said Philip, as the machine started back up the island, "your lady of the blue veil should set off the affliction of Mephisto's presence."
"Did she come?" asked Veronica delightedly.
"Yes, didn't you see me pack her in with the woman whose halo won't fit? The dull boy sat between them."
"Well," said Veronica, "then there's no great loss without some small gain."
When the motor reached the Inn, Miss Priscilla was pleased with the way Veronica dropped her hat and jacket in the kitchen, and after drinking the one cup of cocoa upon which her aunt insisted, was ready to help her carry in the late supper for the new guests with whom Philip sat down at table. Veronica, coming and going, tried to make out his status in the house.
"That Mr. Barrison you sent to meet me," she said to her aunt when the meal was over, "told me he was your man-of-all-work. He don't act much like it."
"Law, child," Miss Priscilla laughed. "He has been lately. Phil's a dear boy when he isn't a wretch, and he's helped me out ever since I came. I won't ever forget how good he's been. Now, let's sit down and let me see you eat this fresh omelette and tell me all about yourself. I see you're just like your mother, handy and capable, and let me tell you, it takes a big load off me, Veronica."
Just as she finished speaking, Diana Wilbur came in from the twilight stroll she had been taking.
"Miss Wilbur, this is my little niece, Veronica Trueman," said Miss Priscilla. "She has come to help me, and high time, too. Four people came to-night and there will be more to-morrow."
Diana approached the newcomer and looked down upon her kindly after taking her offered hand.
"You must have had an inspiring ride down the bay, Miss Veronica," she said. "I have been taking a walk to see the sun set. It was heavenly to-night. Such translucent rose-color, and violet that shimmered into turquoise, and robin's-egg blue. How fortunate for the new people to get that first impression! Well, Miss Burridge," Diana sighed. "Of course we must be glad to see them, but it has been a very subtle joy to retire and to waken with no human sounds about us. I shall always remember this last two weeks."
"I'm glad you feel that way," said Miss Priscilla. "I thought, though, that you'd heard lots o' sounds. Phil makes enough noise for a regiment when he is dressin' in the mornin'."
"You can scarcely call such melodious tones noise, can you?" replied Miss Wilbur gently. "His flute is more liquid than that of the hermit thrush."
"I never heard him play the flute." Miss Priscilla looked surprised.
"I refer to the marvelous, God-bestowed instrument that dwells within him," explained Diana.
"I think myself," said Miss Priscilla, clearing her throat, "that it's kind o' cozy to hear a man whistlin' and shoutin' around in the mornin' while he's dressin'. I suppose he'll be leavin' us pretty soon now. I hate to see him go, he's gettin' the plants into such good shape; and wasn't he good about scythin' paths so we wouldn't get wet to our knees every time we left the house? I don't know how you ever had the courage to wade over to this piazza before I came, Miss Wilbur."
"Mr. Barrison certainly did smooth our paths."
"He told me he was Aunt Priscilla's man-of-all-work," said Veronica, busy with her omelette.
"So he has been," replied Diana seriously: "out of the goodness of his heart and the cleverness of his hands; but he is a great artist, Miss Veronica, or at least he will be."
"Do you mean he paints?"
"No, he sings: and it is singing – such as must have sounded when the stars sang together."
"Dear me," said Veronica, "I wish I'd asked him to pipe up when we were on the boat."
Diana let her gaze rest for a moment of silence on the sacrilegious speaker, then she excused herself, saying she would go up to her room.
As soon as the door had closed behind her, Veronica looked up and bestowed upon her aunt a meaning wink.
"She's got it bad, hasn't she?" she said.
Miss Burridge put her finger to her lips warningly. "Sh!" she breathed. "Sometimes I think she has: but, law, Phil's nothing but a boy."
"And she's nothing but a girl," said Veronica practically. "That's the way it usually begins."
Miss Burridge laughed. "What do you know about it, you child?"
"Not so much as I'd like to. Puppa would never let anybody stay after ten o'clock, and you don't really get warmed up before ten o'clock."
"Why, Veronica Trueman, how you talk!"
"Don't speak of how I talk!" said Veronica. "Hasn't that Miss Wilbur got language! I guess Mr. Barrison likes her, too. He told me she was a goddess."
"Oh, Phil's just full of fun. He always will be a rapscallion at heart, no matter how great he ever gets to be."
"Well, he doesn't want anybody else to stop saying prunes and prisms. He didn't even want me to chew gum. Anybody that's as unnatural as that had better marry a goddess. Now, let's go for those dishes, Aunt Priscilla."
"You good child!" said Miss Burridge appreciatively. "I can't really ask Genevieve to stay in the evenin'. She's the little girl who comes every day and prepares vegetables and washes dishes. Now, one minute, Veronica, while I get the names o' these new people straight. I've got their letters here." Miss Priscilla took them down from the chimney-piece. "There's Mrs. Lowell,
she
's alone, and Miss Emerson,
she
's alone, and Mr. Nicholas Gayne and his nephew, Herbert Gayne. I wonder how long I'll remember that."
"I know them all," said Veronica sententiously. "The whole bunch came on in the same car with me from Boston. It's my plan to poison Mr. Gayne."
"Don't talk that way, child."
"You'll agree to it when you see how mean he is to his nephew. The boy isn't all there."
"What do you mean?"
"Has rooms to let in the upper story, you know." Veronica touched her round forehead. "Mrs. Lowell is a queen and Miss Emerson isn't; or else Miss Emerson is a queen and Mrs. Lowell isn't. I'll know which is t'other to-morrow."
"You seem to have made up your mind about them all."
"Oh, yes!" said Veronica. "You don't have to eat a whole jar of butter to find out whether it's good. All I need is a three-minute taste of anybody, and I had three hours and a half of them. Now, come on, Aunt Priscilla, let's put some transparent water in the metal bowl, and the snowy foam of soap within it." She rolled up her naughty eyes as she spoke.
Miss Burridge gave the girl a rebuking look, and then laughed. "Don't you go to makin' fun of her now," she said. "She's my star boarder, no matter who else comes, I'm in love with her whether Phil is or not. She's genuine, that girl is, – genuine."
"And you don't want me to be imitation," giggled Veronica. "I see."
Then the two went at the clearing-up and dish-washing in high good-humor.
CHAPTER III
A FRIENDLY PACT
"You, Veronica," said Miss Burridge one morning, looking out of the kitchen window. "I feel sorry for that young boy."
"I told you you would. Old Nick should worry what his nephew does with himself all day."
"Veronica!" Miss Priscilla gave the girl a warning wink and motioned with her hand toward the sink where Genevieve, her hair in a tight braid and her slender figure attired in a scanty calico frock, was looking over the bib of an apron much too large for her, and washing the breakfast dishes.
"Excuse me," said Veronica demurely. "I meant to say Mr. Gayne. Genevieve, you must never call Mr. Gayne 'Old Nick.' Do you hear?"
"Veronica!" pleaded Miss Burridge.
"Oh, we all know Mr. Gayne," said Genevieve, in her piercing, high voice which always seemed designed to be heard through the tumult of a storm at sea.
"He has been here before, then?" asked Miss Burridge.
"Pretty near all last summer. He comes to paint, you know."
"No, I didn't know he was an artist."
"Oh, yes, he paints somethin' grand, but I never saw any of his pitchers."
"Was his nephew with him last summer?"
"No, I don't believe so. I never saw anybody around with him. He spent most of his time up to the Dexter farm. He said he could paint the prettiest pitchers there. It was him seen the first ghost."
"What are you talking about, Genevieve?" asked Miss Burridge, while Veronica busied herself drying the glass and silver.
"Oh, yes," she put in. "That is the haunted farm. Mr. Barrison was telling me about it."
"Yep," said Genevieve. "Folks had said so a long time and heard awful queer noises up there, but Mr. Gayne was the first who really seen the spook."
"I'm not surprised that he had a visitor," said Veronica. "Dollars to doughnuts, it had horns and hoofs and a tail."
"That's what Uncle Zip said," remarked Genevieve. "He said 't wa'n't anything but an old stray white cow."
Veronica laughed, and her aunt met her mischievous look with an impressive shake of the head. "Mind me, now," she said, and Veronica did not pursue the subject.
The long porch across the front of the Inn made, sometimes a sunny, and sometimes a foggy, meeting-place for the members of the family. It boasted a hammock and some weather-beaten chairs, and Miss Myrna Emerson was not tardy in discovering the one of these which offered the most comfort. She was a lady of uncertain age and certain ideas. One of the latter was that it was imperative that she should be comfortable.
"I should think Miss Burridge would have some decent chairs here," she said one morning, dilating her thin nostrils with displeasure as she took possession of the most hopeful of the seats.
The remark was addressed to Diana who was perched on the piazza rail.
"Doubtless they will be added," she said, "should Miss Burridge find that her undertaking proves sufficiently remunerative."
"She charges enough, so far as that goes," declared Miss Emerson curtly, but finding the chair unexpectedly comfortable, she settled back and complained no further.
Philip was out on the grass painting on a long board the words "Ye Wayside Inn." Herbert Gayne stood watching him listlessly. His uncle was stretched in the hammock. Mrs. Lowell came out upon the porch. Mr. Gayne moved reluctantly, but he did arise. Men usually did exert themselves at the advent of this tall, slender lady with the radiant smile and laughing eyes.
"Perhaps you would like the hammock, Mrs. Lowell," he said perfunctorily.
"Offer it to me some time later in the day," she responded pleasantly, and he tumbled back into the couch with obvious relief.
Mrs. Lowell approached the rail and observed Philip's labors.
"Where are you going to hang that sign?" she asked in her charming voice. "Across the front of the house, I judge."
"Oh, no," replied Philip. "We can't hope to attract the fish. I am going to hang it at the back where Bill Lindsay's flivver will feel the lure before it gets here."
"Across the back of the house," cried Miss Emerson in alarm. "I hope nowhere near my window."
"The sign will depend from iron rings," explained Diana.
"I know they'll squeak," said Miss Emerson positively; "and if they do, Mr. Barrison, you'll simply have to take it down."
No one replied to this warning. So Miss Emerson dilated her nostrils again with an air of determination and leaned back in her chair.
The eyes of both Mrs. Lowell and Diana were upon the young boy whose watching face betrayed no inspiration from the fresh morning. He had an ungainly, neglected appearance from his rough hair to his worn shoes. His clothes were partially outgrown and shabby.
"Bert," called his uncle from the hammock. The boy looked up. "Come here. Don't you hear me?" The boy started toward the piazza steps with a shuffling gait.
"You're slower than molasses in January," said Mr. Gayne lazily. "Go up to my room and get my field-glasses. They're on the dresser, I think."
Without a word the boy went into the house and Diana and Mrs. Lowell exchanged a look. Each was hoping the messenger would be successful and not draw upon himself a reprimand from the dark, impatient man smoking in the hammock.
The boy returned empty-handed. "They – they weren't there," he said.
"Weren't where, stu – " Mr. Gayne encountered Mrs. Lowell's gaze as he was in the middle of his epithet. Her eyes were not laughing now, and he restrained himself. "Weren't on the dresser, do you mean?" he continued in a quieter tone. "Well, didn't you look about any?"
"Yes, sir. I looked on the – the trunk and on the – the floor."
Mr. Gayne emitted an inarticulate sound which, but for the presence of the ladies, would evidently have been articulate. "Oh, well," he groaned, rising to a sitting posture on the side of the hammock, "I suppose I shall have to galvanize my old bones and go after them myself."
His nephew's blank look did not change. He stood as if awaiting further orders, and his listless eyes met Mrs. Lowell's kindly gaze.
"It is good fun to look through field-glasses in a place like this, isn't it, Bertie?" she said.
The boy's surprise at being addressed was evident. "I – I don't know," he replied.
His uncle laughed. "That's all the answer you'll ever get out of him, Mrs. Lowell. He's the champion don't-know-er."
The boy's blank look continued the same. It was evident that his uncle's description of him was nothing new.
"I don't believe that," said Mrs. Lowell. "I think Bertie and I are going to be friends. I like boys."
The look she was giving the lad as she spoke seemed for a moment to attract his attention.
"You won't – you won't like me," he said in his usual wooden manner.
"Children and fools," laughed his uncle, rising from the hammock.
"Mr. Gayne!" exclaimed Diana, electrified out of her customary serenity.
The man's restless, dark eyes glanced quickly from the face of one woman to another, even alighting upon Miss Emerson whose countenance only gave its usual indication that the lady had just detected a very unpleasant odor.
He laughed again, good-naturedly, and as he passed his nephew gave him a careless, friendly pat on the shoulder. The unexpected touch startled the boy and made him cringe.
"Bert believes honesty is the best policy," he said. "Don't you, Bert?"
"Yes, sir," replied the boy automatically.
"Sit down here a minute, won't you, Bertie?" asked Mrs. Lowell, making a place beside her on the piazza rail. The boy obeyed. "Have you ever seen this great ocean before?"
"No. Yes. I don't know."
"Why, yes, you do know, of course," said Mrs. Lowell, with a soft little laugh, very intimate and pleasant. "You know whether you have seen the ocean before."
The boy regarded her, and in the surprise of being really challenged to think, he meditated.
"No," he said, at last. "I've never been here before."
"Isn't it a beautiful place?" asked Mrs. Lowell.
"I don't know," returned the boy after a hesitation. Then he looked down on the grass at Philip.
"Do you want to go back and watch Mr. Barrison paint?"
"Yes."
"All right. Run along. We'll talk some other time."
The boy rose and shuffled across the porch and down the steps.
"Mrs. Lowell, it is heart-breaking!" exclaimed Diana softly.
Her companion nodded.
"The situation is incomprehensible," said Diana. "It seems as if Mr. Gayne had some ulterior design which impelled him to stultify any outcropping of intelligence in his nephew. Have you not observed it from the moment of their arrival?"
"Yes, and before we arrived. I noticed them on the train."
"If there's anything I can't bear to have around, it's an idiot," said Miss Emerson. "It gives me the creeps. If he hangs about much, I shall complain to Miss Burridge."
The sweep of the ocean and the rush of the wind made her remark inaudible beyond the piazza. Mrs. Lowell turned to her.
"I think we all have a mission right there, perhaps, Miss Emerson. The boy is not an idiot. I have observed him closely enough to be convinced of that. He is a plant in a dark cellar, and I wonder how many years he has been there. His uncle's methods turn him into an automaton. If you keep your arm in a sling a few weeks you know it loses its power to act. The boy's brain seems to have been treated the same way. His uncle's every word holds the law over him that he cannot think, or reason, and that he is the stupidest creature living."
"That is true," said Diana. "That is just what he does."
Miss Emerson sniffed. "Well, I didn't come up to Maine on a mission. I came to rest, and I don't propose to have that gawk prowling around where I am."
Nicholas Gayne appeared, his binoculars in his hand. "Would you ladies like to look at the shipping?" he said, approaching. His manner was ingratiating, and Diana conquered the resentment filling her heart sufficiently to accept the glasses from his hand. He was conscious that he had not made a good impression. "The mackerel boats are going out to sea after yesterday's storm," he remarked. "You will see how wonderfully near you can bring them."
Diana adjusted the glass and exclaimed over its power. Miss Emerson jumped up from her chair.
"That's something I want to see," she said, and Diana handed her the glass while Nicholas Gayne scowled at the spinster's brown "transformation." He was not desirous of propitiating Miss Emerson, who, however, pressed him into the service of helping her adjust the screws to suit her eyes, and was effusive in her appreciation of the effect.
"You surely are a benefactor, Mr. Gayne," she said at last, with enthusiasm.
"Let me be a benefactor to Mrs. Lowell, too," he returned, and the lady yielded up the glass.
"That is the great Penguin Light beyond Crag Island," he said, as Mrs. Lowell accepted the binoculars. "The trees hide it in the daytime, it is so distant, but at night you will see it flash out."
"It is so interesting that you are familiar here, Mr. Gayne," said Miss Emerson. "You must tell us all about the island and show us the prettiest places."
The owner of the binoculars stirred restlessly under the appealing smile the lady was bestowing upon him.
"For myself, I just love to walk," she added suggestively.
"I don't do much walking," he returned shortly. "I come here to sketch."
"Oh, an artist!" exclaimed Miss Emerson, clasping her hands