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Sheila of Big Wreck Cove by James A. Cooper

J >> James A. Cooper >> Sheila of Big Wreck Cove




Even then Orion Latham assumed altogether too much authority.
Sheila had been about to send little John-Ed around for Queenie and
the carryall, but Orion put the boy aside with a self-assured grin.

"Nobody ain't going to put you in the carriage, Ida May, but me," he
declared. "I'll get the old mare."

He seized his cap and went out. In a few minutes they had said
good-bye, and the old couple and the girl went out on the church
steps. Sheila saw the carryall standing before the door. A figure
stood at the old mare's head which she presumed to be Orion's.

"The chariot is ready, I cal'late," said Cap'n Ira. "Come on,
Prudence."

Sheila helped the old woman into the rear seat and then aided Cap'n
Ira as well. She got in quickly in front, but as she was about to
gather up the reins the man holding Queenie's head came around
swiftly and stepped in beside her to the driver's place.

"I swan! That you, Tunis?" exclaimed Cap'n Ira.

"Looks like it," the captain of the _Seamew_ said gravely. "All
clear aft?"

"You can pay off, Tunis," returned the old man. "Tuck that robe
around your knees, Prudence. This night air is as chill as a breath
off the ice barrens."

Orion loafed into the lamplight by the steps before Queenie got
into action. His scowl was unseen, but his voice was audible--as it
was meant to be--to Sheila's ears.

"There he is--hoggin' everything, same as usual. How did I know he
was hanging around outside here, waiting to drive her home? Just as
though he owned her! Huh! He may be skipper aboard that dratted
schooner, but that gives him no right to boss me ashore. I won't
stand it."

"Sit down to it, then, 'Rion," snickered one of the other young
fellows. "I cal'late Tunis has got the inside course on all of us."

The girl said nothing to the captain of the _Seamew_ at first. It
was Prudence who asked him why he had not been in the church.

"I could not get over here until just now," Tunis replied quietly.

Sheila wondered if he really had been detained on the schooner.
Perhaps he had refrained from coming to the festival for fear the
good people of Big Wreck Cove would notice his attentions to her. He
had never been publicly in her company since he had brought her down
from Boston. Orion Latham's outburst there at the church door was
the first cue people might have gained of anything more than a
passing acquaintanceship between the captain of the _Seamew_ and the
girl who had come to live with the Balls.

These thoughts bore down the girl's spirits tremendously. The
simple pleasure of the evening was quite erased from her memory. She
remained speechless while old Queenie climbed the hill to the Head.

The desultory conversation between Cap'n Ira, Prudence, and the
young shipmaster scarcely attracted the girl's attention. If Tunis
looked at her curiously now and then, she did not see his glances.
And she merely nodded her understanding of his statement when Tunis
said, speaking directly to her:

"The _Seamew's_ going to lie here over Sunday this time, Ida May."

"That'll be nice for you, Tunis," Aunt Prue put in. "You can go to
church. You don't often have that privilege. Seafarin' is an awful
godless life."

Queenie sprang ahead gallantly at the sound of a hearty sneeze from
Cap'n Ira, just then, and they were soon at home. Tunis jumped out
and aided the old woman and then the captain to alight. Sheila got
out on the other side of the carriage. She would have preferred to
run on into the house, but she could not really do that. Queenie
must be unharnessed and put in her stable and given a measure of
oats to munch. Of course, Tunis would offer to do this, but she
could not leave him to attend to it without a word.

"I'll help you with Queenie, Ida May," said the captain of the
_Seamew_.

That settled it. She had to remain outside while Cap'n Ira and
Prudence went into the house. Tunis led the old mare toward the
barn. A lantern, burning very dimly, was in a box just outside the
big door, and Sheila got this and held it while Tunis busied himself
with the buckles.

"I didn't mean to interfere," the man said, suddenly breaking the
silence between them. "But as I was coming this way, of course, I
expected to ride along with you. So--"

"What do you mean, Captain Latham?" the girl asked wonderingly.

"Orion said you sent him out to get Queenie."

"Why, I--"

"Of course, you didn't know I was there. I had just reached the
church. But 'Rion is so fresh--"

"He took it upon himself to go," said the girl calmly. "I did not
send him. I guess you know how your cousin is."

"He is too fresh. I'd like to punch him," growled Tunis, to the
girl's secret delight. It sounded boyish, but real. "I don't know
that I can stand him aboard the _Seamew_ much longer. He attends to
everybody's business but his own."

"He means you no good, Captain Latham," she said frankly. "To-night
he was repeating that silly story about the _Seamew_ being haunted."

"Cat's-foot!" ejaculated Tunis. "I wish I'd fired old Horry Newbegin
for starting _that_."

"But 'Rion keeps it up."

"If he believed she was hoodoed, you wouldn't get him aboard with a
wire cable," growled Tunis.

"It would be better for you and for the success of your business,
Captain Latham, if 'Rion was really afraid of going aboard the
_Seamew_," she said with confidence.

"Well, I don't see how I can fire him. He's my cousin--in a way. And
there is enough ill feeling in the family now. Gran'ther Peleg left
all his money to me, and it made Orion and his folks as sore as can
be."

"You are inclined to be too kind. I am not sure it is always wise to
be too easy."

"Like chopping off the dog's tail an inch at a time, so's not to
hurt him so much, eh?" he chuckled.

"Something like that."

"Well, I'm almost tempted to give 'Rion his walking ticket. I've
reason enough. He can't even keep a manifest straight."

"Does he even try?"

"And that also is in my mind," acknowledged Tunis. "I'm pretty well
fed up on 'Rion, I do allow. But I don't know what Aunt 'Cretia
would say." Then he laughed again. "Just about what she usually
says, I guess; nothing at all. But she abhors family squabbles.

"That reminds me, Ida May. This being the first Sunday I've been
home since you came here, I want you should go over with me after
church to-morrow and have dinner at our house."

"Oh, Captain Latham! I--"

"And don't you guess you could employ some other term when speaking
to me, Ida May?" he interrupted. "I get 'captained' almost enough
aboard the schooner and up to Boston. Just plain 'Tunis' for those
that are my friends suits me a sight better."

"I shall call you 'Tunis,' if you like," she said composedly. "But
about taking dinner with you--I am not so sure."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Your aunt has never called here since I have been on the Head."

"She don't call anywhere. She never did that I can remember. She
goes to church on Sunday sometimes. Occasionally she has to go to
town to buy things. Once in a dog's age she leaves anchor and gets
as far as Paulmouth. But other times she's never off the place."

"I--I feel hesitant about doing what you ask, Captain--Tunis, I
mean."

"Why?"

"You know well enough," said Sheila. "If anything should turn up--if
the truth should come out--"

"Now, are you still worrying about that, Ida May?"

"Don't you think of it--Tunis?"

"Not a bit! We're as safe as a church. That girl will never show up
here on Wreckers' Head. Of course not!"

He seemed absolutely confident. In the dim illumination of the
lantern she looked very closely into his face. Then it was not fear
of exposure that kept Tunis Latham silent. She moved closer to him,
looking up into his countenance, holding the lantern so that her own
face was in the shadow.

"Who suggested my coming to dinner, Tunis? You, or your Aunt
Lucretia?"

"If you knew my aunt! Well! She seldom says a word. But when I have
anything to say, I talk along just as though she answered back like
an ordinary person would. I can tell if she's interested."

"Yes?"

"She's been interested in you from the start, I know. She showed it
in her look the very first time I spoke of you--that day I brought
you here to Wreckers' Head."

"But--but you have never spoken of this before. She did not come to
call."

"I'll tell you," said Tunis earnestly. "I wanted to be sure. Aunt
'Cretia knew your--er--Sarah Honey very well."

"Oh."

"Just about as well as Mrs. Ball did. When she was staying here
with Aunt Prue, she used to run over to our place a lot.

"You don't remember it," continued Tunis, grinning suddenly; "but
you were taken over there when you were a baby."

"Oh, don't! Don't!" cried the girl. "Let us not speak so lightly--so
carelessly. Suppose--suppose--"

"Suppose nothing!" exclaimed Tunis. "Don't have any fears. She
wanted to know just how you looked--every particular. Oh, she has
ways of showing what she wants without getting what you'd call
voluble! I told her about your hair--your eyes--everything. I know
from the way she looked that she accepts the fact of your being the
real Ida May without more question than Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prue."

She was silent, thinking. Then she sighed.

"I will accept the invitation, Tunis. But I feel--I feel that all is
not for the best. But what must be must be. So--oh, I'll go!"




CHAPTER XVI

MEMORIES--AND TUNIS


The benison of that most beautiful season of all the year, the
autumn, lay upon Wreckers' Head and the adjacent coast on that
Sunday morning. Alongshore there is never any sad phase of the fall.
One reason is the lack of deciduous trees. The brushless hills and
fields are merely turned to golden brown when the frosts touch them.

The sea--ever changing in aspect, yet changeless in tide and
restraint--was as bright and sparkling as at midsummer. Along the
distant beaches the white ruffle of the surf seemed to have just
been laundered. The green of the shallows and the blue of the deeper
sea were equally vivid.

When she first arose Sheila Macklin looked abroad from that favorite
north window of her bedroom, and saw that all the world was good. If
she had felt secret misgivings and the tremor of a nervous
apprehension, these feelings were sloughed away by this promising
morning. The fear she had expressed to Tunis Latham the evening
before did not obsess her. She continued placid and outwardly
cheerful. Whatever threatened in the immediate future, she
determined to meet it with as much composure as she could summon.

Nobody but Sheila Macklin knew wholly what she had endured since
leaving her childhood's home. When Tunis Latham had come so
dramatically into her life she had been almost at the limit of her
endurance. To him, even, she had not confessed all her miseries. To
escape from them she would have embraced a much more desperate
expedient than posing as Ida May Bostwick.

The ethics of the situation had not really impressed her at first.
The desire to get away from her unfortunate environment, from the
city itself, and to go where nobody knew her history, not even her
name, was the main thought at that time in the girl's mind. Tunis
Latham's confident assurances that she would be accepted without
question by Cap'n Ball and Prudence caused her to put aside all fear
of consequences at the moment. It was a desperate stroke, but she
had been in desperate need, and she had carried the matter through
boldly.

Now that she seemed so securely established in the Ball household
and was accepted by all the community of Big Wreck Cove as the real
Ida May, it seemed foolish to give way to anxiety. Discovery of the
imposture was remote.

Yet, as she had hinted to Tunis, she had an undercurrent of
feeling--a more-than-faint apprehension--that all was not right.
Something was lurking in the shadows of the future which menaced
their peace and security.

She was ever mindful of the fact that Tunis had gone sponsor for her
identity as Ida May. Should her imposture be revealed, her first
duty would be to protect him. How could she do this? What tale could
she concoct to make it seem that he was as much duped as were Cap'n
Ball and Prudence?

This seemed impossible. She saw no way out. He had met the real Ida
May Bostwick, and then had deliberately introduced Sheila Macklin as
the girl he had been sent for! If the truth were revealed, what
explanation could be offered?

Had she allowed her mind to dwell upon this phase of the affair she
would surely have revealed to those about her, unobservant as they
might be, that she had a secret cause for worry. She must drive it
into the back of her mind--ignore it utterly.

And this she did on this beautiful Sabbath morning. When Tunis came
up to the Head to accompany the Balls to church--Aunt Lucretia did
not attend service on this day--a very close observer would have
seen nothing in the girl's look or manner to suggest that so keen
an anxiety had touched her.

This should have been Sheila's happy day--and it was. For the first
time, the young captain of the _Seamew_ linked his interest with her
in a deliberate public appearance. Although she feared in secret the
result of that appearance at church with Tunis Latham, it
nevertheless thrilled her.

He harnessed Queenie after giving that surprised animal such a
curry-combing and polishing as she had not suffered in many a day.
Sheila rode with Prudence on the rear seat of the carryall.

"I'm berthed on the for'ard deck along o' you, Tunis," said the old
man, hoisting himself with difficulty into the front seat. "If the
afterguard is all ready, I be. Trip the anchor, boy, and set sail!"

As they passed down through Portygee Town the denizens of that part
of Big Wreck Cove were streaming to their own place of worship. It
was a saint's day, and the brown people--both men and women, ringed
of ears and garbed in the very gayest colors--gave way with smiles
and bows for the jogging old mare and the rumbling carryall. Some of
the _Seamew's_ crew were overtaken, and they swept off their hats to
Prudence and the supposed Ida May, grinning up at Tunis with more
than usual friendliness.

"Ah!" exclaimed Eunez Pareta to Johnny Lark, the _Seamew's_ cook.
"So you know she of the evil eye, eh?"

"What do you mean?" asked Johnny. "That pretty girl who rides behind
Captain Latham?"

"_Si!_"

"She has no evil eye," declared the cook stoutly.

"It is told me that she has," said the smiling girl. "And she has
put what you call the 'hoodoo' on that schooner. She come down in
her from Boston."

"What of it?" retorted the cook. "She is a fine lady--and a pretty
lady."

"So Tunis Latham think--heh?" demanded Eunez fiercely.

"And why not?" grinned Johnny.

"Bah! Has not all gone wrong with that _Seamew_ ever since she sail
in the schooner?" demanded the girl. "An anchor chain breaks; a rope
parts; you lost a topmast--yes? How about Tony? Has he not left and
will not return aboard the schooner for a price? Do you not find
calm where other schooners find fair winds? Ah!"

"Pooh!" ejaculated Johnny Lark. "Old woman's talk!"

"Not!" cried the girl hotly. "It is a truth. The saints defend us
from the evil eye! And Tunis Latham is under that girl's spell."

Johnny Lark tried to laugh again, but with less success. Many little
things had marred the fair course of the _Seamew_ and her captain's
business. He, however, shook his head.

"Not that pretty girl yonder," he said, "has brought bad luck to the
_Seamew_. No, no!"

"What, then?" asked Eunez, staring sidewise at him from eyes which
seemed almost green.

"See!" said Johnny, seizing her wrist. "If the _Seamew_ is a Jonahed
schooner, it is because of something different. Yes!"

"Bah!" cried Eunez, yet with continued eagerness. "Tell me what it
may be if it is not that girl with the evil eye?"

"Ask 'Rion Latham," whispered Johnny. "You know him--huh?"

The Portygee girl looked for a moment rather taken aback. Then she
said, tossing her head:

"What if I do know 'Rion?"

"Ask him," repeated Johnny Lark. "He is cousin of our captain. He
knows--if anybody knows--what is the trouble with the _Seamew_." And
he shook his head.

Eunez stared at him.

"You know something you do not tell me, Juan?"

"Ask 'Rion Latham," the cook said again, and left her at the door of
the church.

* * * * *

Those swains who had been "cluttering the course"--to quote Cap'n
Ira--did not interfere in any way with the Balls' equipage on this
Sunday at the church. There was none who seemed bold enough to
enter the lists with Tunis Latham. He put Queenie in the shed and
backed her out again and brought her around to the door when the
service was ended without having to fight for the privilege.

'Rion Latham, however, was the center of a group of young fellows
who were all glad to secure a smile and bow from the girl, but who
only sheepishly grinned at Tunis. 'Rion was not smiling; there was a
settled scowl upon his ugly face.

"I cal'late," said Cap'n Ira, as they drove away, "that 'Rion must
have eat sour pickles for breakfast to-day and nothing much else.
Yet he seemed perky enough last night at the sociable. I wonder
what's got into him."

"I'd like to get something out of him," growled Tunis, to whom the
remark was addressed.

"What's that?"

"Some work, for one thing," said the captain of the _Seamew_. "He's
as lazy a fellow as I ever saw. And his tongue's too long."

"Trouble is," Cap'n Ira rejoined, "these trips you take in the
schooner are too short to give you any chance to lick your crew into
shape. They get back home too often. Too much shore leave, if ye ask
me."

"I'd lose Mason Chapin if the _Seamew_ made longer voyages. And I
have lost one of the hands already--Tony."

"I swan! What's the matter with him?"

"His mother says Tony is scared to sail again with the _Seamew_.
Some Portygee foolishness."

"I told you them Portygees warn't worth the grease they sop their
bread in," declared Cap'n Ira.

The two on the rear seat of the carryall paid no attention to this
conversation.

"I'm real pleased," said the old woman, "that you are going to
dinner with Lucretia Latham, Ida May. Your mother thought a sight of
her, and 'Cretia did of Sarah Honey, too. Sarah was one of the few
who seemed to understand Lucretia. She's so dumb. I declare I can't
never get used to her myself. I like folks lively about me, and I
don't care how much they talk--the more the better.

"Lucretia Latham might have got her a good man and been happily
married long ago, if it hadn't been that when a feller dropped in to
call on her she sat mum all the evening and never said no more than
the cat.

"I remember Silas Payson, who lived over beyond the port, took quite
a shine to Lucretia, seeing her at church. Or, at least, we thought
he did. Silas began going down to Latham's Folly of an evening, now
and then, and setting up with Lucretia. But after a while he left
off going and said he cal'lated he'd join the Quakers over to
Seetawket. Playing Quaker meeting with just one girl to look at
didn't suit, noway." And the old woman laughed placidly.

"Tunis says he understands his aunt," ventured the girl.

"Tunis has had to put up with her. But he can say nothing a good
deal himself, if anybody should ask ye. That's the only fault I've
found with Tunis. I've heard Ira talk at him for a straight hour in
our kitchen, and all the answer Tunis made was to say 'yes' twice."

The girl did not find the captain of the _Seamew_ at all
inarticulate later, as they crossed the old fields of the Ball place
and walked down the slope into the saucerlike valley where lay
Latham's Folly. She had never known Tunis to be more companionable
than on this occasion. He seemed to have gained the courage to
talk on more intimate topics than at any time since their
acquaintanceship had begun.

"I guess you know," he observed, "that most all the money Uncle Peke
left me--after what the lawyers got--I put into that schooner.
There's a mortgage on her, too. You see, although the old place will
come to me by and by, Aunt Lucretia has rights in it while she
lives. It's sort of entailed, you know. I could not raise a dollar
on Latham's Folly, if I wanted to. So I am pretty well tied up, you
see.

"But the schooner is doing well. That is, I mean, business is good,
Ida May. Other things being equal, I will make more money with her
the way I am doing now than I could in any other business. My line
is the sea; I know that. I am fitted for it.

"And if I had invested Uncle Peke's legacy and kept on fishing, or
tried for a berth in a deep bottom somewhere, I would not get ahead
any faster or make so much money. Besides, long voyages would take
me away from home, and, after all, Aunt Lucretia is my only kin and
she would miss me sore."

"I am sure she would," said the girl with sympathy.

"But all ain't plain sailing," added the young skipper wistfully. "I
am running too close to the reefs right now to crow any."

"But I am sure you will be successful in the end. Of course you
will!"

"That's mighty nice of you," he said, smiling down into her vivid
face. "With you and Aunt Lucretia both pulling for me, I ought to
win out, sure enough.

"You can't fail to like her," he added. "If you just get the right
slant on her character, I mean, Ida May. Hers has been a lonely
life. Not that there has not almost always been somebody in the
house with her. But she has lived with her own thoughts. She reads a
great deal. There is not one topic I can broach of which she has
not at least a general knowledge. I was sent away to school, but
when I came home vacations I brought my books and she read them all.

"And she is a splendid listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out
for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to
her--when they have anything to say. Tell her things; that is what
she enjoys."

In spite of his assurances, Sheila Macklin approached the old, brown
house behind the cedars with much secret trepidation. Although Aunt
Lucretia had a neighbor's girl come in to help her almost daily, she
had preferred to prepare the dinner on this occasion with her own
hands. And, perhaps, she did not care to have the neighbor's child
around when the supposed Ida May came to the house for the first
time.

They saw her watching from the side door--a tall, angular figure in
a black dress. Her hair was done plainly and in no arrangement to
soften the gaunt outline of her face, but there was much of it, and
Sheila longed to make a change in that grim coiffure.

The woman smiled so warmly when she saw the two approach that almost
instantly the girl forgot the grim contour of Aunt Lucretia's face.
That smile was like a flash of sunshine playing over one of those
barren, brown fields through which they had passed so quickly on
the way down from the Ball house.

"This is Ida May, Aunt Lucretia," said Tunis, as they reached the
porch.

The smiling woman stretched forth a hand to the girl. Her eyes,
peering through the spectacles, were very keen, and when their gaze
was centered upon the girl's face it seemed that Aunt Lucretia was
suddenly smitten by some thought, or by some discovery about the
visitor, which made her greeting slow.

Yet that may have been her usual manner. Tunis did not appear to
observe anything extraordinary. But Sheila thought Aunt Lucretia had
been about to greet her with a kiss, and then had thought better of
it.




CHAPTER XVII

AUNT LUCRETIA


There was nothing thereafter in Aunt Lucretia's manner--surely not
in her speech--to lead Sheila to fear the woman did not accept her
at face value. Why should she suspect a masquerade when nobody else
did? The girl took her cue from Tunis and placidly accepted his
aunt's manner as natural.

Aunt Lucretia put the dinner on the table at once. They ate, when
there was special company, in the dining room. The meal was generous
in quantity and well cooked. It was evident that, like most country
housewives, Lucretia Latham took pride in her table. Had the visitor
come for the meal alone she would have been amply recompensed.

But the woman seldom uttered a word, and then only brief questions
regarding the service of the food. She listened smilingly to the
conversation between Tunis and the visitor, but did not enter into
it. It was difficult for the girl to feel at ease under these
circumstances.

Especially was this so after dinner, when she asked to help Aunt
Lucretia clear off the table and wash and dry the dishes. The woman
made no objection; indeed, she seemed to accept the girl's
assistance placidly enough. But while they were engaged in the
task--a time when two women usually have much to chatter about, if
nothing of great importance--Aunt Lucretia uttered scarcely a word,
preferring even to instruct her companion in dumb show where the
dried dishes should be placed.

Yet, all the time, the girl could not trace anything in Aunt
Lucretia's manner or look which actually suggested suspicion or
dislike. Tunis seemed eminently satisfied with his aunt's attitude.
He whispered to Sheila, when they were alone together:

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