Instead of the Thorn

CHAPTER XV

THE HARBOR

Blanche Aurora's prey could not so easily escape her. She had been left in charge of Linda and she followed her now to the porch: that exciting porch surmounting a castle wall of rock, with soft niches of green where Nature's mother-hand found vulnerable spots to plant her lovely ferns and flowers.

To Blanche Aurora the situation of the cottage was objectionably noisy and windy, and she often wished her employer's house could be moved back on the road where one could see the passing. She scowled now against the dazzling sun and boisterous wind.

"Be you goin' to set out here?" she roared at Linda.

"How beautiful it is!" escaped involuntarily from the guest.

"Then I'll git you some warm things. You're sick and delicate!" yelled Blanche Aurora as one whom the roar of old Ocean could not down.

Linda looked at the slim child in the faded gingham. The salt air went through her piercingly.

"I'm not delicate at all!" she protested, but little cared her mentor for her defense.

She straightway brought a steamer-rug, shawl and pillows from a near-by closet.

"There!" she said, depositing them in the hammock on the glassed-in end of the porch. She gave her queer little grimace of a smile and again her thin cheeks wrinkled. "Miss Barry said you looked like a hothouse plant, so I guess you'd better stay under glass for a spell."

"Aren't you cold yourself in that cal – that thin dress?" asked Linda.

"I dunno. I don't believe so."

Linda's eyes grew softer. It was so evident that the little caretaker had small leisure to think of her sensations.

"Lay down and I'll cover you," commanded Blanche Aurora.

"Lie down? No, indeed. I'm just up."

The help paused with the rug in her thin arms. She was undecided as to whether to humor this rebellion.

"Blanche Aurora, do you like candy?"

The slender face lost its worried expression and grew younger.

"There ain't much sense to that question," she returned.

"Then come into the house with me," said Linda.

The wraps were dropped in the hammock and willing feet followed the guest.

From a cabinet in the corner of the room Linda chose the reddest of red boxes, generous in size, and placed it in a pair of eager hands.

Blanche Aurora viewed the prize, amazed. "I ain't ever in my life had all the candy I wanted," she said in such awed tones that Linda smiled and reached for a violet box which she piled upon the other.

"Oh!" gasped the recipient. She looked up at the pale guest with a new realization of what it meant to be a millionaire's daughter. Gold plates and carriages sounded fine, but it was only like hearing about Cinderella and other impossible maidens. Here were tangible chocolates given away recklessly and with nonchalance. What a consciousness that bespoke!

As they stood there, Linda, watching her erstwhile mentor endure an ecstatic paralysis, Miss Barry and Mrs. Porter entered.

"What are you doing, Linda Barry!" exclaimed her aunt. "I'll keep those boxes myself and give the child a few at a time. She'll make herself sick." She hurried forward, but Linda pressed her back.

"Let her make herself sick," she pleaded. "I'll take care of her."

Miss Barry looked from one to the other undecidedly. She recognized this surprisingly good symptom in her niece, but such a wholesale relaxation of discipline toward the most willful, stubborn child on the Cape was unheard of.

While she hesitated, Linda stepped to one side and made room for the "help" to pass, which Blanche Aurora made haste to do, the wonderful boxes clutched in her arms, and the fishhook braids vibrating with the double excitement of her gift and getting the better of her employer.

Mrs. Porter watched Linda thoughtfully. When she and Miss Barry a few minutes ago had left Luella Benslow and her pampered hens, and their hilarious mood had quieted, the younger woman had at once brought up the subject of Bertram King, whose situation dwelt much in her mind. As they walked across the soft grass she took Miss Barry's arm.

"Tell me about my cousin, Mr. King. How does he look?"

"Like the last run o' shad," returned Miss Barry promptly.

"I never met a belated shad."

"Well, you've eaten 'em, haven't you? I'd just as soon eat a fried paper of pins."

"You mean that Bertram is thin?"

"Just so. He looks as if he'd been through the war, and so he has."

"I feel as if I ought to go back to him."

"Law! Don't leave me yet!" exclaimed Miss Barry in a panic. "You're the only person Linda can stand the sight of. Oh! if I'm not glad to get home!" The speaker inflated her lungs and stepped lightly.

"You say she blames Bertram for her father's misfortunes."

"Yes; and I guess she ain't the only one, from what Harriet says. Lots o' folks think my brother pinned his faith to Mr. King's judgment in taking on a new proposition."

"Yes," returned Mrs. Porter thoughtfully. "I've heard it said."

Miss Barry glanced around at her companion quickly. "Well, I hope you didn't take any stock in it," she returned sharply. "Lambert Barry had a backbone of his own. I'm surprised at his own daughter's not knowing him well enough to scout such a notion."

"Bertram is very clever. He had been with him a long time."

"Clever! I guess he is clever. I could just about worship that man for all he's done," was the warm rejoinder; "and if that cock-and-bull story was true about Bertram King dragging the bank into that Antlers thing that broke the camel's back, he's made up for it with pretty near his life's blood, working night and day to undo the damage."

Mrs. Porter's eyes glowed with interest and surprise at such heat from the reserved New England woman.

"You do feel that way! I'm so glad. Then, why doesn't Linda?"

"Because if Mr. King laid down and died it couldn't bring back her father," returned Miss Barry slowly.

Mrs. Porter looked away and shook her head. "How dreadful it seems," she said in a low tone. "Then you have no blame for Bertram?"

"Not a particle."

"What is the situation now? What has he been able to do?"

"Wonders," returned Miss Barry sententiously. "He sent me a letter to the train. I ought to have given it to you as soon as I touched home. I ought to have realized that you were so close to Mr. King that it would mean a lot to you as well as to us. You'll never see the Linda that was before that letter came. It gave her new life."

"Then didn't it make her feel kindly toward Bertram?" asked Mrs. Porter.

"No. She just accepted it as penance and the best restitution the poor fellow could make for a tragic and unpardonable – mind you, unpardonable mistake."

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," murmured Mrs. Porter.

"I know it," returned Miss Barry; "and you'll see when you read that letter that he has some forgiveness to do himself. He never mentioned Linda in it, and good enough for her. She had flouted him and refused to see him for days before he rightly sensed how deep her feeling was against him. It was at a business meeting we had that she came out flat with her suspicion and meanness. Oh, it was perfectly awful. I just have to remember and remember how much provocation she would have had if all she believed was true. That poor boy nearly fainted away in his tracks, the way she spoke to him."

Mrs. Porter bit her lip. She could picture the scene and her eyes filled.

"He loved her so!" she said softly.

"Yes, and there's that Fred Whitcomb, too: as nice a boy as ever lived. He just adores Linda; and it seems there's lots of others. I didn't believe before that I could ever get sick of arranging flowers; but really they were a pest. Linda wouldn't look at one, and I got so I passed them over to the waitress. She fixed them perfectly awful, too. They looked like crazy quilts when she got through – such colors together! Linda was a buxom, healthy girl, and good-looking enough, but for the life of me I can't see why she's such a snare."

"Poor child. She shows how she has suffered, but why didn't it soften her? How could she inflict suffering at such a time? I can hardly wait to see that letter," added Mrs. Porter, unconsciously hurrying her steps.

"I haven't got it. I gave it to Linda for her comfort, and hoping, too, that she'd get some punishment out of Mr. King's ignoring her. Never mentioned her name, you know."

"And didn't she feel it at all?"

"Not a mite."

"Then I suppose, after all, she never did care anything for Bertram," mused Mrs. Porter. "It was as well, perhaps, for him that she shocked him out of his dream. As well for him – not for her, poor child, it wasn't well for her to be cruel."

"I don't want to be too hard on her," said Miss Barry. "Maybe she wasn't really responsible. Land! What we went through! Well," she added, briskness coming into her voice, "that chapter's closed."

"Let me," said Mrs. Porter, "let me be the one to ask Linda for the letter. You have been so tried, Miss Barry. I don't want to ask you to reopen the sorrowful chapter; but I long to see what Bertram has to say. I have always thought him an extraordinary young fellow and respected him as much as I loved him."

"Just so. Just so," responded Miss Barry warmly. "All right. You ask for the letter. I pass my niece over to you now."

They had reached the porch of the shingled cottage and in another minute they walked in upon Linda's presentation scene.

Miss Barry was quite prompt in following her maid into the kitchen, but the minute's delay in hanging up her hat and coat was sufficient for all sign of the candy boxes to have disappeared. When she opened the door Blanche Aurora was at the sink letting floods of hot water into the dishpan and singing with vigor, "A charge to keep I have," meanwhile rattling pans and china, the whole giving an amazing effect of clatter.

Miss Barry involuntarily clapped her hands to her ears.

"You needn't sing," she remarked loudly.

"All right," returned the help, ceasing, "but you told me 'twas good for my lungs."

"That's all very well when you're alone, Blanche Aurora; but I'm going to be busy out here seeing what shape you've got the closets into while I've been gone and how many dishes I've got left. To-morrow I'm going to begin putting up strawberries."

Miss Barry was in the habit of preparing in the summer time of peace for the war of winter, when boarding-houses could not supply her with home-prepared fruit.

Meanwhile, in the living-room the light of amusement had died from Linda's pale face and she sank into a chintz-cushioned wicker rocker. Mrs. Porter took a neighboring chair.

"You had a good sleep, I hope, Linda."

"Wonderful. I went completely out of the world for the first time in – I don't know how many weeks." The girl met the kind regard fixed upon her. "I can't get used," she added, "to seeing you far away from your busy life. It seems as if I must hurry to say what I wish because in half an hour I shall be turned out by another pupil."

"Vacation is astonishingly pleasant when you've earned it," replied her friend. "I fancy that a lot of people who thought it would be great fun to retire from business soon made the discovery that when one stops working he stops playing too, because vacation has lost its zest. Familiarity breeds contempt in lots of ways."

Linda's large eyes rested upon the speaker, who had retained an orange silk sweater over her white waist and white corduroy skirt. The hero-worship that for two years she had laid at the feet of this woman was among the enthusiasms of that vital past, now gone forever. Once it would have meant wild elation to claim unlimited companionship with the adored one in this isolated, romantic spot. To-day, as she gazed at the wholesome, calm face of her teacher, it was that other teaching she had received from her, those words of balm that had proved the first comfort in her affliction, which gave her friend value.

"I owe you so much, Mrs. Porter," she said suddenly, after a mutual silence, full to each of them.

"I'm glad," returned the other as simply. "My heart cried out to help you, Linda."

The speaker knew that if the hurt, groping soul can find something for which to feel gratitude, healing has begun.

She came no nearer to the girl nor took her hand. It was a new Linda, cold, white, and undemonstrative except for her cruelty to Bertram King. Mrs. Porter steadied her own thought as it fled to him, and tried to think only of the needy one before her.

"You believed in my father – believed in him from the first. Bertram says now that he will be vindicated to all before very long; but I shall never forget those who believed in him from the first."

Mrs. Porter listened quietly to the low, vibrating voice. She saw the girl swallow and exercise self-control.

"Miss Barry tells me that my cousin wrote a letter to her, telling of hopeful conditions. She says that you have it. May I see it?"

"Yes. You deserve to see it. It is in my envelope of treasures: your letters." Linda's heart spoke through her eyes, then she arose.

"Let us go out of doors and read it," said Mrs. Porter. "We waste time in the house on such a day. Bring a warm wrap when you come down."

Linda went upstairs slowly. Her friend's eyes followed her inelastic, slow movements. Could this be Linda Barry!

She returned wearing a white sweater and Mrs. Porter pinned a white corduroy hat on the dark head and flung a polo coat over her own arm. She also took a cushion from the hammock as they passed.

"We won't sit on the piazza this morning," she said. "I have a surprise for you."

Leading the way around the corner of the house, the two walked away from the blue breakers, across a wide, grassy field.

"Your father did a fine thing in buying so much ground for his sister," said Mrs. Porter. "She says when he built the house he was afraid she would be lonely and he planned to build other attractive cottages through here, but she told him she didn't want any one near enough to shoot. She says he laughed and gave her the deed to all this land and told her to go ahead and suit herself. Do you see that mowing machine at work? That is Cap'n Jerry, who brought your trunk. See him mounted on his little throne and driving Molly – that wonderful horse that he says 'ain't afraid o' no nameable thing.' He is opposed on principle to doing anything 'sudden,' so he has taken his time to get at the mowing; but how sweet it will smell here to-morrow! Passengers will have to get over from the train the best way they can to-day. Cap'n Jerry says, very reasonably, that he can't be 'in two places to once,' and he's just a little bit afraid of your Aunt Belinda. He won't put off her work too long."

Linda's grave lips were parted as she looked across the field toward the machine where Captain Jerry was cheering Molly on and calming her disgust when the clipping knife encountered a stone, balking her efforts.

"He is the one who went to school with my father?"

"They all did. You'll meet others." They crossed the field, then Mrs. Porter turned inland. "Now, down this path, Linda. See, it is a path. I made it myself. Partly by constant use, partly with a sickle. I wish Miss Barry would sell me this spot. I don't believe she could shoot as far as this, do you? And – what do you think of it?"

Mrs. Porter paused and regarded her companion in triumph. She had led her around a clump of white birches, the advance guard of a forest of pine and balsam which held back the prevailing south wind. The zephyrs, forcing their way through, here and there, brought delicious odors of the firs. The ocean was sufficiently distant for its roar to be muffled, and an enchanting spring bubbled up in a natural rock pool, falling like liquid crystal over the granite barrier, and meandering away toward the steep bluff where it fell in a narrow rivulet down to the sea. The brooklet had worn a rut for itself and was bordered by greener grass and larger flowers than dotted the surrounding field. It made a gurgling sound, dear to its discoverer, and one of the gray, slanting rocks of a New England pasture rose in the bower of the birches, rising to a sufficient height to serve as a comfortable back for two people sitting side by side on the green couch, secure from the wind.

"See what a proof of my affection," said Mrs. Porter, "that I bring you here. I sneak away – I steal away! Not even Blanche Aurora knows where I am when I come here."

"I should incline to doubt that," returned Linda.

Mrs. Porter laughed. "Those round eyes do see about all that's going on, I admit; but I like to believe in my own cleverness sufficiently to feel that I have guarded this."

The speaker proceeded to spread the polo coat in front of the rock. "Sit down," she said, and when Linda obeyed she fitted the pillow in behind her back.

"No, indeed," protested Linda. "Blanche Aurora cried aloud that I was sick and delicate, but it's nothing of the kind. You must take the pillow yourself."

"Oh, to please me," urged Mrs. Porter. "I never bring a pillow. This sun-warmed rock just fits my back. We haven't tried it on yours yet, and I wanted your first experience to be positively sybaritic."

"My first," returned Linda; "then you do intend to let me come again?"

"Indeed, I do," was the cheery reply. "I don't know a better object lesson in the fact that nothing is too good to be true."

CHAPTER XVI

THE VOICE OF TRUTH

"And I," returned Linda, clasping her hands behind her head as she leaned back beside her friend, "I have felt that nothing was too bad to be true."

Mrs. Porter did not speak; and after a short silence, the girl continued: —

"In the happy days, I tore off a leaf from your Bible calendar, and one morning, when everything was black and despairing, I found it in my bag. It read, 'Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.' I suppose I was like the drowning man, and this promise, impersonal and silent, was a straw to be clung to blindly. At any rate, I couldn't throw it away; and it persisted in ringing through my confused head. Soon your letter came. Oh, Mrs. Porter – " Linda choked and ceased.

Her companion laid a comforting hand upon her for a moment and withdrew it.

"You will never know what you did for me," went on the girl presently: "do you know what it means to a despairing one to be given a gleam of hope? You can't, unless you know it by experience."

"I know it by experience," returned Mrs. Porter quietly.

Her companion glanced around at the calm face for a fleeting instant. Could it be possible that such poise would ever be won for herself?

"It was a willingness to listen to you, and the hope that I could believe you, that brought me, shrinking and shuddering as I was, out of my home and into the train and here. Then, on the train, came this letter that Aunt Belinda told you about. It brought me more of peace and hope than I had dreamed of. I have dared to think since then. Here it is."

The speaker passed to her companion the envelope she had been holding tightly.

Mrs. Porter accepted it in silence and took out the letter. As she read, a deeper color mounted to her cheeks, but Linda did not observe this. She had dropped her hands in her lap and her eyes were fixed on the clear-cut horizon line.

"Dear Bertram!" exclaimed Mrs. Porter as she finished. Then she read the letter again. Finally, she folded the sheet, put it in its envelope and handed it back to Linda. Her face wore the radiance for which her pupils were wont to watch as the highest reward for achievement.

"Splendid," she said. "Tell me why news so vital should have been addressed to Miss Barry instead of to you."

Linda's grave gaze met hers.

"I don't like to tell you, Mrs. Porter," she answered.

"You needn't fear, dear child."

"Oh, I can't go into it again, I can't!" exclaimed Linda, suddenly averting her head.

"As you please, dear. I don't want to force you; but I know so well that what you quoted a few minutes ago is as true as that two and two make four. Instead of the thorn will come up the fir tree, as soon as you cease to give the thorn nourishment."

"I give it nourishment?" Linda's brow contracted. "Do you mean that I nurse grief? You're mistaken."

"No, I didn't mean that. I love Bertram, and something very wrong must have occurred to cause him not to mention you in that letter. I want you to be happy. I want for you just what your father is getting now: greater knowledge of God and His love and wisdom and guidance. You see that guidance is the most everyday thing in the world: the closest; not anything far away or mysterious. If it is your fault that Bertram ignores you in this – "

"Oh, no, no!" interrupted Linda. "It is not my fault. It is poor Bertram who brought us all to this. I appreciate more every time I read that letter – and I know it by heart – how valiantly he has worked to undo the mischief. At first I didn't pity him in the least, because the crime of getting my father into all that trouble overwhelmed my thoughts at every turn; but, of course, I can see now that it has been a hard experience for Bertram as well."

Linda ceased, catching her lower lip between her teeth.

"I know something of what you refer to," rejoined Mrs. Porter. "I know Bertram's reputation for influence in Barry & Co."

"And you have been so good to me," said Linda hurriedly, "and Bertram is your cousin, and, as you say, you love him, I – I can't bear to discuss him with you."

"But I can bear it, Linda, if you will allow me to ask you one question. Do you believe that Bertram intended any harm to your father?"

"No," came the quick answer; "but he is so conceited and so opinionated – "

"If you believe him innocent of wrong intention, should you become his enemy – "

Linda's pale cheeks flushed and she straightened up.

"When a person strikes you a murderous blow, Mrs. Porter, can you, before recovering breath, care much whether it was accidental or intentional?"

"No! but after recovering breath, you can. What do you believe your father would say to your treatment of Bertram?"