A Dozen Ways Of Love, Lily Dougall [best book club books of all time txt] 📗

to leave him to his own devices, for through the open window he caught sight of Helen Johns doing her gymnastics. Her figure was all aglow with the yellow lamplight; she was happy in the poetry of her motions and in the delight that the family circle took in watching them. The Baby was in the dark and the falling dew; he was uncomfortable, for he had to stand on tiptoe, but nothing would have induced him to ease his strained attitude. The pangs of a fierce discontent took possession of his breast.

Art was consulted in the gymnasium in which Miss Johns had studied; the theory was that only that which is beautiful is healthful. Sometimes she poised herself on tiptoe with one arm waved toward heaven, an angel all ready, save the wings, for aerial flight. Sometimes she seemed to hover above the ground like a running Mercury. Sometimes she stood, a hand behind her ear, listening as a maid might who was flying from danger in some enchanted land. Often she waved her hands slowly as if weaving a spell.

A spell was cast over the soul of the Baby; he held himself against the extreme edge of a verandah; his mouth remained open as if he were drinking in the beams from the bright interior and all the beautiful pictures that they brought with them. It was only when the show was over that he noiselessly relaxed his strained muscles, and crept away over the dew-drenched grass, hiding under the shadow of maple boughs, guilty trespasser that he was.

After that, one evening, Farmer Johns and his niece had an errand to run; at a house about two miles away on the other side of the bay there was a parcel which it was their duty to fetch. They had started out in the calm white light of summer twilight; a slight wind blew, just enough to take their sail creeping over the rippled water, no more. The lake within a mile of the shore was thickly strewn with small yachts, boats, and canoes. Upon the green shore the colours of the gaily painted villas could still be seen among the trees, and most conspicuous of all the great barn-like boat-house of the Syndicate, which was painted red. By and by the light grew dimmer and stars came out in the sky; then one could no longer distinguish the outline of the shore, but in every window a light twinkled, like a fallen star.

Helen sat in the side of the tiny ship as near the prow as might be; her uncle sat at the tiller and managed the sails. They were a silent pair, the one in a suit of tweeds with a slouch hat, the other in a muslin gown with a veil of black lace wrapped about her head.

The sailing of the boat was an art which Helen had not exerted herself to understand; she only knew that every now and then there was a minute of bluster and excitement when her uncle shouted to her, and she was obliged to cower while the beam and the sail swung over her head with a sound of fluttering wind. When she was allowed to take her seat after this little hurly-burly the two lighthouses upon the lake and all the lights upon the shore had performed a mysterious dance; they all lay in different places and in different relation to one another. She had not learned to know the different lights. When dusk came she was lost to her own knowledge. She only knew that the sweet air blew upon her face and that she trusted her uncle.

The moonless night closed in. Now and then, as they passed a friendly craft, evening greetings were spoken across the dark space. By the time they got to the place for which they were bound they were floating almost alone upon the black water.

Johns descended into a small boat and secured the sailing-boat to the buoy which belonged to the house whither he was going, or rather, he thought that he secured it.

Helen heard the plash of his oars until he landed. The shore was but twenty yards away, but she could hardly see it. The sail hung limp, wrinkled, and motionless. She began to sing, and there alone in the darkness she fell in love with her own voice, and sang on and on, thinking only of the music.

Her uncle was long in coming; she became conscious of movement in the water, like the swell of waves outside rolling into the cove. She heard the sound of swaying among all the trees on the shore. She looked up and saw that the stars of one half the sky were obscured, that the darkness was rolling onward toward those that were still shining.

She stopped her own singing, and the song of the waters beneath her prow was curiously like the familiar sound when the boat was in motion. She strained her eyes, but could not see how far she was from the near shore. She looked on the other side and it seemed to her that the lights on the home-ward side of the bay were moving. That meant that she was moving, at what speed and in what direction she had no means of knowing.

She stood up, lifted her arms in the air and shouted for help; again and again her shouts rang out, and she did not wait to hear an answer. She thought that the masters of other boats had seen the storm coming and gone into shore.

She was out now full in the whistling wind and the boat was leaping. Her throat was hoarse with calling, her eyes dazzled by straining.

When she turned in despair from scanning the shore she saw a sight that was very strange. At the tiller where her uncle ought to have been, and just in the attitude in which he always stood, was a slight white figure. A new sort of fear took possession of Helen; at first she could not speak or move, but kept her eyes wide open lest the ghostly thing should come near her unawares.

This illusion might be a forerunner of the death to which she was hastening, the Angel of Death himself steering her to destruction!

Then in a strange voice came the familiar shout, the warning to hold down her head. The sail swung over in the customary way; every movement of the figure at the helm was so familiar and natural that comfort began to steal into her heart. Plainly, whoever had taken command of the drifting craft knew his business; might it not be an angel of life, and not of death?

Now in plain sober reality, as her pulses ceased to dance so wildly, Helen could not believe that her companion was angel or spirit. One does not believe in such companionship readily.

She scrambled to her knees and steadied herself by the seat. 'Who are you?' she asked.

The figure made a gesture that seemed like a signal of peace, but no answer was given.

The lights upon her own part of the shore were now not far distant. She looked above and saw breaks in the darkness that had hidden the stars; the clouds were passing over.

The squall that was taking them upon their journey was still whistling and blowing, but she feared its force less as she realised that she was nearing home.

She desired greatly to work herself along the boat and touch the sailor curiously with her hand, but she was afraid to do it, and that for two reasons: if he was a spirit she had reason for shrinking from such contact, and if he was a man--well, in that case she also saw objections.

The man at the helm dropped the sail; for a minute or two he stood not far from Helen as he busied himself with it.

'Who are you?' she asked again, but she still had not courage to put out her hand and touch him.

There was a little wooden wharf upon the shore, and to this the sailor held the boat while Helen sprung out. Her feet were no sooner safe upon it than the boat was allowed to move away. She saw the black mast and the white figure recede together and disappear in the darkness.

Johns had to walk home by the shore, and in no small anxiety. When he saw that his niece was safe he chuckled over her in burly fashion.

'Then I suppose,' he said, 'that some fellow got aboard her between the puffs of wind. I hope it was none of those Syndicate men; they're a fast lot. What was his name? What had he to say for himself?'

'She was flying far too fast for any one to get aboard,' asserted Helen. 'I don't know what his name was; he didn't say anything; I don't know where he went to.'

Then the uncle suggested toddy in an undertone to his wife. The aunt looked over her spectacles with solicitude, and then arose and put her niece to bed.

When Helen was left alone she lay looking out at the stars that again were shining; she wondered and wondered; perhaps the reason that she came to no definite conclusion was that she liked the state of wonder better. Helen was a modern girl; she had friends who were spiritualists, friends who were theosophists, friends who were 'high church' and believed in visions of angels.

In the morning Johns' boat was found tethered as usual to the buoy in front of his house.

Long before this the Syndicate had suspected the Baby's attachment. The strength of that attachment they did not suspect in the least; never having seen depths in the Baby, they supposed there were none. They had fallen into the habit of taking the Baby by the throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine parley and keep his secret.

Had the Baby taken the matter less to heart he would have been more rash in asserting his independence, but he meditated some great step and 'lay low.' What or when the irrevocable move was to be he had no definite idea, the thought of it was only as yet an exalted swelling of mind and heart.

There was a period, after the affair of the boat, when he spent a good deal of time haunting the sacred precincts of the house where Helen lived. The precincts consisted of a dusty lane, a flat, ugly fenced field where a cow and a horse grazed, and a place immediately about the house covered with thick grass and shaded by maple trees. There were some shrubs too, behind which one could hide if necessary, but they were prickly, uncomfortable to nestle against, and the unmown grass absorbed an immense quantity of dew. In imagination, however, the Baby wandered on pastoral slopes and in classic shades. At first he paid his visits at night when the family were asleep, and he slipped about so quietly that no one but the horse and the cow need know where he went or what he did. At length, however, he grew more bold, and took his way across the maple grove going and coming from other evening errands. Trespassing is not much of a fault at the lake of St. Jean. The Baby