Rilla of the Lighthouse
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“Now what shall I get for Linda Wixon? Something bright and pretty to wear. That’s what she was always wishing for,” Muriel ended breathlessly.
Miss Gordon leaned back in the shadow and watched the eager face of the girl whose hair was growing coppery in the firelight. Then suddenly Muriel’s eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered. “I’m trying not to think how lonely I’ll be without Grand-dad,” she said, “but somehow I’d rather go home this first Christmas than anywhere else. I really would.” Then she added ruefully: “Miss Gordon, here I am chattering on just as though we were really going, and you haven’t even said that you like the plan. Would you rather go somewhere else, for, if you would, I can visit Faith or Joy, for they have both invited me.”
“I really want to go with you to Tunkett, Muriel,” was the earnest reply. “I think it is a beautiful plan. I want to just rest and feel the sweep of the salt wind, and forget, for a time, that I have the responsibility of training sixty-two young ladies in the ways that they should go.”
Then, as was their wont, these two who understood each other sat quietly gazing into the fire, dreaming their dreams. To Miss Gordon, who for so many years had had no one to lean upon, it seemed indeed wonderful to find someone at last who wanted to plan for her comfort and happiness, and lonely Muriel felt that she would rather spend this first Christmas since her grand-dad had gone with the simple folk who had known him and loved him. Faith and Joy indeed were disappointed when they heard that their beloved Muriel was not to spend the holidays with them in their New York homes.
These girls had planned to share their island friend and many were the surprises they had in store for her, but when they realized how much it meant to Rilla to go to the little fishing village that she called home, they did not let her know of the plans they had made for her pleasure, nor need they be entirely abandoned, merely postponed.
“How I do wish you could both come down to Tunkett for a week-end while I am there,” Muriel exclaimed one day when Joy and Faith had dropped into her cupola room for a moment.
“Is there a hotel in the town?” Joy asked eagerly.
How Rilla laughed. “Nothing like the one to which Miss Widdemere took us last week when we were in New York,” she said. “However there is an inn very like the one about which you were reading, Faith, in that magazine story. In fact, the fishing village might almost have been Tunkett, I do believe. Perhaps all New England coast towns are much alike.”
“That settles it,” Faith declared. “I’ve always wanted to really see with my own eyes a village like the one in that story, haven’t you, Joy?”
Their Dresden China girl laughingly agreed that the one desire of her life was to visit just such a place, and that, if all went well, they would surprise Muriel by appearing at the inn in Tunkett for at least one week-end of the vacation which was but a fortnight away.
“Oh, what jolly fun that will be,” Rilla exclaimed. “Girls, I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me during the Christmas holidays. I feel it, though I can’t tell what it is to be.”
“I sincerely hope so,” Faith said. Then, after a hesitating moment, she asked: “Dear, have you ever wished that you might know who your own father is?”
Muriel’s face grew suddenly pale and there were tears in her eyes.
“Why should I want him,” she said slowly and in a voice quivering with emotion, “since he did not care for me?”
Faith’s arms were about her. “Dear, dear girl,” she said, “do forgive me for having spoken of your father. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.”
“Nor do I understand.” Muriel smiled through her tears as she held out a hand to her other dearest friend, who stood silently near, her sweet face expressing tender sympathy. “I know nothing whatever about my father. If Grand-dad knew about him, he never told me. He had promised to tell me all about my girl-mother’s marriage when I was eighteen years of age. I am nearly that now, but Grand-dad is not here. I do not believe that anyone else knows. I have often wanted to ask Uncle Barney, but since Grand-dad died I haven’t seemed to care. I have felt that if my own father could desert his baby girl, surely he would not want her when she was grown.”
How deeply Faith regretted that she had spoken to Muriel of her unknown father, but it was done and could not be helped.
All that day, as Rilla went about her tasks, she could think of nothing else. How she hoped that some day she would find that she had been wronging the man whom her girl-mother had loved.
How wonderful it would be, she thought, to have someone who would be her very own to love her as her grand-dad had loved her. Everyone was kind, but no one could quite take the place in the heart of Muriel of the three for whom she prayed ever since she was a child – the girl-mother who had died, the grand-dad who had sheltered her, and the father who never came. How she loved them all, and how she longed for them.
Why, just then, she should have thought of her brother-friend she could not have told, but she did think of him, and she resolved that just as soon as the lessons for the day were done she would write Gene Beavers that first letter for which he had so long and patiently waited.
* * * * * * * *Gene Beavers was just leaving the house in which he lived with his parents and sister on the outskirts of London when a maid recalled him to give him the morning mail. She wondered at the sudden brightening of his expression. He glanced at the several envelopes, tossed all but one back upon the hall table unopened, slipped that one into his pocket and again went out. He wanted to read this very first letter from his “storm maiden” by the stream in the Wainwater Woods. He was on his way to spend the day with his boon companion, the viscount. Wonderful days they were that these two spent together, sometimes galloping across country on horseback and at other times hiking, stopping in lovely secluded places to rest, read and dream.
A stranger would not have guessed that the lad had so recently been an invalid, for his face once more was bronzed by the wind and sun, and in his eagerness to reach his destination, he fairly ran down the deserted highway. Having reached a sheltered spot, he threw himself down upon the bank of the stream, took the letter from his pocket and looked admiringly at the neat and really pretty handwriting. He had known that Muriel did not intend to send him a letter until she could write well and form her sentences correctly, but, even so, he was surprised with the contents of her missive.
“Dear Brother-Friend,” he read:
“When I first came here, I felt as one of my white gulls might if after years of winging through the sunlit air, being swept hither and thither and yon by restless winds, of dipping into the surf when it would, it had suddenly found itself in a cage, barred in. But now I am glad that I was caught and kept in a cage, for I have learned much. I have always known how to dream, Brother-Friend, but, oh, the wonder of it, for now I can write my dreams and send them to the far-away place where you are.
“This cannot be a real letter but I did so want to tell you that the cage door is to be open for two long weeks, and that I am going with our dear Miss Gordon, whom you know, to spend the Christmas vacation at Tunkett. How I wish that you were going to be there, as you were last year.
“Do you remember the day we raced with Shags on the sand, and your sister came and Marianne Carnot? How long, long ago that seems.
“The bell calling us to Politeness Class is ringing, and I’ll have to say goodbye for now, but I’ll write you from Tunkett and tell you how everything and everyone looks. You quite won the heart of Brazilla Mullet. Shall you write to me while I am there?
“Your Sister-Friend,Rilla of the Storms.“P. S. – Of course you may show ‘The Lonely Pelican’ to your new friend if you wish, although it will not interest a real poet, as Miss Gordon tells me that Waine Waters truly is.
“M. S.”Leaping to his feet, Gene continued on his way to the cabin hidden in the depths of the wood, where his comrade, the Viscount of Wainwater, was impatiently awaiting his coming.
The older man was growing restless. He seldom remained so long in England, and he was preparing to start on a journey, perhaps to the Nile, and he wanted Gene to be his traveling companion.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MURIEL VISITS TUNKETT AGAIN
Doctor Winslow accompanied Miss Gordon and Muriel to the little coast village of Tunkett. It was twilight when the leisurely train at last stopped at the station and Jabez appeared through the flurry of snow driving the doctor’s old horse and two-seated buggy. The side curtains were up and on the back seat the woman and the girl were soon made comfortable.
How Miss Gordon was enjoying every moment of the quaint experience of being suddenly transported from the atmosphere of a fashionable girls’ school and from the most modern city in the world to this old-fashioned hamlet which had changed but little in one hundred years.
The wagon jolted along, for the road was full of frozen ruts, and Muriel laughed gleefully as she was thrown against the older woman. She knew that she was laughing to keep from crying, but, oh, how hard it was, how much harder even than she had supposed that it would be, this coming back to Tunkett and no grand-dad there to meet her. But she would lock her grief in her heart, she bravely resolved, and devote the next two weeks to bringing rest and recreation to the dear friend who had devoted so much of her free time during the past months to teaching and helping her.
As they turned into the road, the booming of the breakers could plainly be heard and the penetrating cold, salty wind from the sea reached even the sheltered back seat; but, before Miss Gordon or Muriel could be chilled, they were turning into a driveway, and, with unexpected suddenness, Methuselah stopped at a stepping block near the side veranda.
“Don’t have to say whoa to this ol’ horse,” Jabez boasted. “Allays knows when he’s put into the home port and just whar he’s to dock without tellin’.”
Doctor Winslow laughed as he sprang out and unfastened the side curtains preparatory to assisting Miss Gordon to alight.
“Jabez,” he exclaimed, “you and Methuselah belong to a mutual admiration society, don’t you?”
“We’re fust rate friends, if that’s what yer meanin’,” the old man declared with a chuckle, “but horses are much the same as humans, I take it; if you like them, why turn about they like you.” Then, as the suitcase had been removed, he picked up the reins. “Heave ahead, Methuselah, we’ll cruise down to your anchorage.”
Miss Gordon laughed. “Does the old horse understand what he means?” “Indeed, he does,” the physician assured her; then, as the side door opened letting out into the snowy dusk a welcome flood of light, he called to the thin, neatly dressed woman who appeared there: “Here we are, Brazilla, bag and baggage! Miss Gordon, this is the sister of Jabez Mullet and the maker of the most famous chowder on the coast.”
The housekeeper accepted Miss Gordon’s hand, but turned at once to the tall, slender girl who stood in the background smiling at her just a bit wistfully. “Rilla, Rilla Storm, ’tain’t you! It can’t be! They’ve gone and made you over into a young lady such as comes here summers to the point.”
The housekeeper actually was wiping tears from her eyes with one corner of her immaculate apron. In a moment the girl’s arms were about her. “’Tis me, Brazilla. Maybe my clothes are different, but my heart’s the same. I couldn’t ever change inside.” Doctor Winslow had led Miss Gordon into the warm, cheerful living room, and so, for a moment, the two old friends were alone in the entry.
“I dunno what made me cry,” Miss Mullet was saying. “You can’t guess what it means to me havin’ you come for Christmas, Rilla. I sorter wish Gene Beavers was comin’, too. It’d be kind of a family gatherin’. But thar, I’m forgettin’ the biscuits that’s in the oven and me wantin’ ’em to be just the crispy brown the way Doctor Lem likes ’em.”
For a moment Muriel stood alone in the entrance hall, thinking of all that had happened since she stood there before. Then she heard a sweet voice calling to her. “Yes, Miss Gordon, I’m coming,” she replied.
Half an hour later all were seated about a festive board and Miss Gordon declared that of such delicious homey cooking she had not partaken since she was a girl.
A kerosene lamp, with a rose-colored shade, hung above the middle of the table and on the snowy cloth were the old-fashioned white dishes with gold borders that had belonged, in the long ago, to the mother of Doctor Lem.
The physician glanced over a flowering rose geranium which adorned the center of the table and smiled at Miss Gordon, who sat opposite, as he exclaimed with sincere appreciation: “You are right, Helen; I have traveled the world over, but nowhere have I found anyone who can cook to please me as can Brazilla Mullet.”
That was what Doctor Lem said, but in the silent moment that followed his thoughts added that it was indeed pleasant to see the sweet face of Miss Gordon smiling at him from the other end of the table. The old house had not really been a home to him since his sister and mother had died but a few months apart.
The color in Miss Gordon’s checks deepened as she met his gaze, or, perhaps, it was but the reflection from the rose-colored lampshade.
“Brazilla, do tell me the news,” Muriel was saying. “I’m just sure that something interesting must have happened. Have you seen Shags, and poor little crippled Zoeth lately, and how are Mrs. Sol and little Sol and – ”
“One question at a time if you want them answered, Rilla,” Doctor Lem smiled at the girl, who was seated at his right.
“I see little Zoey every day, and Shags, too,” Miss Brazilla replied, “and as for news, I should say there was some. Hasn’t Doctor Lem told you – oh, I guess he wants to surprise you with it,” she concluded as she caught a glance from the physician’s smiling grey eyes which she rightly interpreted.
“You’ll be surprised, all right,” Jabez remarked, “an’ glad, too, like the rest of us was.”
“Oh, Uncle Lem, when am I to know?” The girl turned eager, glowing eyes toward the physician and searched his face, but his expression was inscrutable.
“What has happened? I do believe that it is something about the Wixons.”
Brazilla rose just then to replenish the biscuits, and when she returned she exclaimed beamingly: “Jabe and I have another surprise for you, Rilla, and this one even Doctor Lem don’ know. He’ll be jest as s’prised an’ pleased as you’ll be.”
“Oh, goodie!” ejaculated Muriel in little girl fashion. “Then there are two surprises awaiting me. When am I to find them out?”
“Tomorrow, if the weather’s fine, or even if ’tisn’t. I don’t suppose that foul weather could keep you anchored in port when ye’ve friends expectin’ you over on the sand dunes.” This from Jabez.
“I should say not,” the girl retorted. “The wildest tempest that ever raged over this coast couldn’t keep me from going to see Zoey and Shags the first thing tomorrow morning. There’s one thing, though, I’m sort of dreading, and that’s seeing dear old Uncle Barney’s cabin boarded up and looking so lonesome.”
Then, turning to Captain Mullet, she continued: “Jabez, some day soon will you sail Miss Gordon and me over to Windy Island? I want to find my lame pelican if he is there and feed the gulls.”
“Yeah, Rilla, I’ll cruise ye over thar mos’ any time the wind’s right.”
“Don’t take any chances,” Doctor Winslow warned.
He suddenly realized that the two who would be passengers were very precious to him and he did not want to lose them. Then he rebuked himself. It was presumptuous for a man nearing sixty to think that as wonderful a woman as Miss Gordon could care for him. He would put the thought from him and think of her only as a dear friend.
Doctor Lem returned to the city that night, but promised to run down again in a few days and if possible remain over Christmas. Miss Gordon and Muriel retired early to the big upper chamber, where a glowing bed of embers on the hearth was sending forth its warmth, but it was long before either of them slept, for each was dreaming dreams as they listened to the intermittent wail of the foghorn, to the distant boom of the surf on the rocks, and to the rush and swish of the snow beating against the windows.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MURIEL SURPRISED
Muriel had intended to arise very early the next morning, but so late had she fallen asleep, though she had retired early enough, that it was not until Brazilla came to make a fire on the hearth that the girl awakened.
Miss Gordon, too, opened her eyes, and Muriel, sitting up in bed, exclaimed joyfully: “Oh, what a wonderful day! All out-of-doors is white and sparkling; the sky is so blue and the sunshine so bright.
“Brazilla, would right after breakfast be too soon to start out to find those two surprises?”
“You’ll have to wear my leggins, I’m thinkin’,” Brazilla declared. “The snow’ll be above your shoe-tops easy and more than that at the drifts.”
An hour later Muriel appeared in the doorway of the large sun-flooded living room and Miss Gordon glanced up at her from the book she was reading.
“Why, Muriel, you look stouter than usual,” was her puzzled comment.
“No wonder,” Rilla laughingly confessed. “I do believe that Brazilla has put on me two layers of everything that she could find, including the leggins and her warm red hood. Jack Frost will have a hard time finding a place to nip. Goodbye, Miss Gordon. I’ll be back by noon. I know that you are going to have a wonderful two hours just resting and reading.” Then she was gone.
“I never knew that one could have so many different kinds of emotions at the same time,” Muriel was thinking as she started down the snowy road that led to the sand dunes where stood the scattered homes of her fisherfolk friends.
A queer looking settlement it was, for each squatter had built his cabin facing in whatever direction his particular fancy had suggested. A few had preferred to face the town and others had their front dooryards on the side toward the sea, but as there were from one hundred to two hundred feet of sand dune between each shack no one interfered with his neighbor.
Muriel purposely went a roundabout way to avoid passing the boarded-up cabin of her Uncle Barney. Tears sprang to her eyes as she thought of him. How she longed to see that dear, faithful old man who had been her grand-dad’s closest friend and comrade through many years, but she would have to wait until spring. Even then she doubted if he would be able to bring his old mother, who was very feeble.
She did not even glance in that direction when she reached the sand dunes, but went at once to the cabin of the Wixons.
She whistled the old familiar call. A short, joyous bark was heard in reply, the cabin door opened and out leaped a dog, grown larger, perhaps; her own beloved Shags! If there had been in her heart a fear that he might have forgotten her, it was soon dispelled. The joy expressed in every move that he made told as plainly as words could have done that here was the one person in all the world whom he loved best. Down on the snow the girl knelt, her arms were about her shaggy friend, her face for a moment hidden in the long, silky hair at his neck. Oh, how hard it was not to sob!
“Shagsie! My Shagsie!” the girl cried, but just at that moment the joyous voice of a boy was heard. Looking up, Rilla saw a little lad emerging from the cabin. She sprang to her feet and stared in uncomprehending amazement.
Surely it was Zoeth; but where were his crutches? He was running toward her down the recently shoveled path, his arms held out to her.
“Zoey!” Muriel exclaimed, catching the little fellow and holding him close. “You’re not crippled any more. Darling laddie, what has happened?”
The small boy clapped his hands and hopped up and down. “I wanted to s’prise you. I tol’ Doctor Lem not to tell you. He did it, Rilla! He mended me, an’ he’s been months doin’ it! He’s goin’ to send me to a boys’ school next year, Rilla. Doctor Lem says he’s going to make me into a shipbuilder.” How the lad’s eyes were glowing. “You know how Uncle Barney used to teach me to make little ships and how I’d love to draw pictures of ’em. Well, Doctor Lem looked ’em over once, and that’s how he got the notion of sendin’ me away to a school whar I could learn how to do it right.”
In the midst of this joyous chatter, the small boy stopped as though he had suddenly thought of something. “Rilly,” he said, his face eagerly questioning, “you didn’t come along by the sand dunes, did you?”
Muriel gazed down at the snow or out at the ocean, anywhere but ahead where she knew she would have to see the boarded-up cottage toward which Zoeth was fairly dragging her. Shags bounded along at her side barking joyfully.
At last the child could keep quiet no longer. “Why don’t you look, Rilly?” he queried eagerly. “Why don’t you look?”
He had stopped directly in front of the cabin which had been so much in her thoughts, and so Muriel was obliged to lift her eyes. Why, what could it mean? The windows were not boarded up as she had expected to find them. There was smoke coming out of the chimney and a geranium was blossoming on the sun-flooded window sill. For a moment the girl felt rebellious.
Was some one else living in Uncle Barney’s house? She was sure that he would not wish it to be occupied until he came, and yet, on second thought, she knew that it could be inhabited only with his consent. Then she looked down at her companion’s glowing face. All at once she read the meaning of the happy light that she saw in his eyes. “Zoey,” she cried. “Uncle Barney has come back?” At the sound of his name, the door was thrown open and the bronzed old sea captain sprang out and caught the amazed girl in his arms.
“Oh, I’ll just have to cry now,” Rilla sobbed as she clung to him. “I’ve tried so hard not to. I tried to be brave when I saw Shags and Zoey, but, Uncle Barney, how I have wanted you since my grand-dad left me.”
“I know, I know, colleen. Cry all you want to. It’s yer Uncle Barney that understands. It’s me as lost me ol’ mither, an’ so arter all, she niver can come to see the little home I had a-waitin’ for her here by the sea; but, dearie, it’s better off she is in the lovely land she’s gone to.” Then, almost shyly, he added: “But I didn’t come back alone, Rilly. ’Twas me mither’s dyin’ wish that I bring Molly O’Connell to be keepin’ the little cabin for me. Dry yer tears now, mavourneen, and come in an’ meet me Molly, and try to be lovin’ her, too, for yer ol’ Uncle Barney’s sake.”
He led the girl into the cabin and called to someone who was busy in the kitchen corner. Muriel decided at once that it would not be hard to love the Irish woman, who, though elderly, was as blooming as a late rose, with her ruddy cheeks and twinkling blue eyes that held in their merry depths eternal youth.
“Molly’s the wife I’ve been waitin’ for ever since she was a gal,” Uncle Barney said as he laid an arm lovingly on the shoulders over which a gay red and yellow plaid shawl was folded.
Then he told how they had been sweethearts when they were lad and lassie in the long, long ago, but that his Molly had married another, and that was why Barney had come to America to live, but he had always been faithful to his first love, and at last they were to be together through the sunset of life. “This little ol’ cabin’s a real home now, Rilly gal,” the old man said, “an’ it’s yer home, too, colleen, if ever yer needin’ it.”
* * * * * * * *An hour later, when Muriel stood in Doctor Lem’s kitchen warming her fingers over the fire in the great old-fashioned stove, she said: “Brazilla, I hardly know which of your two surprises was the most wonderful. To think that dear, brave little Zoey is to have his chance and all because of that kind man, Doctor Winslow. I am sure that Zoeth Wixon will make us all proud of him, but weren’t you surprised when Uncle Barney came home with a wife?”
“I reckon I was. Nothin’ could surprise me more ’less ’twould be Doctor Lem’s comin’ home with a wife; but that’s not likely to happen, though I sure sartin wish it might.”