Further Chronicles of Avonlea, Lucy Maud Montgomery [top ten ebook reader .TXT] 📗

The big man sat down on a bleached log of driftwood and smiled at her.

“No, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t. But I have seen many other very wonderful things. I might tell you about some of them, if you would come over here and sit by me.”

Rachel went unhesitatingly. When she reached him he pulled her down on his knee, and she liked it.

“What a nice little craft you are,” he said. “Do you suppose, now, that you could give me a kiss?”

As a rule, Rachel hated kissing. She could seldom be prevailed upon to kiss even her uncles—who knew it and liked to tease her for kisses until they aggravated her so terribly that she told them she couldn’t bear men. But now she promptly put her arms about this strange man’s neck and gave him a hearty smack.

“I like you,” she said frankly.

She felt his arms tighten suddenly about her. The blue eyes looking into hers grew misty and very tender. Then, all at once, Rachel knew who he was. He was her father. She did not say anything, but she laid her curly head down on his shoulder and felt a great happiness, as of one who had come into some longed-for haven.

If David Spencer realized that she understood he said nothing. Instead, he began to tell her fascinating stories of far lands he had visited, and strange things he had seen. Rachel listened entranced, as if she were hearkening to a fairy tale. Yes, he was just as she had dreamed him. She had always been sure he could tell beautiful stories.

“Come up to the house and I’ll show you some pretty things,” he said finally.

Then followed a wonderful hour. The little low-ceilinged room, with its square window, into which he took her, was filled with the flotsam and jetsam of his roving life—things beautiful and odd and strange beyond all telling. The things that pleased Rachel most were two huge shells on the chimney piece—pale pink shells with big crimson and purple spots.

“Oh, I didn’t know there could be such pretty things in the world,” she exclaimed.

“If you would like,” began the big man; then he paused for a moment. “I’ll show you something prettier still.”

Rachel felt vaguely that he meant to say something else when he began; but she forgot to wonder what it was when she saw what he brought out of a little corner cupboard. It was a teapot of some fine, glistening purple ware, coiled over by golden dragons with gilded claws and scales. The lid looked like a beautiful golden flower and the handle was a coil of a dragon’s tail. Rachel sat and looked at it rapt-eyed.

“That’s the only thing of any value I have in the world—now,” he said.

Rachel knew there was something very sad in his eyes and voice. She longed to kiss him again and comfort him. But suddenly he began to laugh, and then he rummaged out some goodies for her to eat, sweetmeats more delicious than she had ever imagined. While she nibbled them he took down an old violin and played music that made her want to dance and sing. Rachel was perfectly happy. She wished she might stay forever in that low, dim room with all its treasures.

“I see your little friends coming around the point,” he said, finally. “I suppose you must go. Put the rest of the goodies in your pocket.”

He took her up in his arms and held her tightly against his breast for a single moment. She felt him kissing her hair.

“There, run along, little girl. Good-by,” he said gently.

“Why don’t you ask me to come and see you again?” cried Rachel, half in tears. “I’m coming ANYHOW.”

“If you can come, COME,” he said. “If you don’t come, I shall know it is because you can’t—and that is much to know. I’m very, very, VERY glad, little woman, that you have come once.”

Rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came back. They had not seen her leaving the house, and she said not a word to them of her experiences. She only smiled mysteriously when they asked her if she had been lonesome.

That night, for the first time, she mentioned her father’s name in her prayers. She never forgot to do so afterwards. She always said, “bless mother—and father,” with an instinctive pause between the two names—a pause which indicated new realization of the tragedy which had sundered them. And the tone in which she said “father” was softer and more tender than the one which voiced “mother.”

Rachel never visited the Cove again. Isabella Spencer discovered that the children had been there, and, although she knew nothing of Rachel’s interview with her father, she told the child that she must never again go to that part of the shore.

Rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command; but she obeyed it. Thenceforth there had been no communication between her and her father, save the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them.

David Spencer’s invitation to his daughter’s wedding was sent with the others, and the remaining days of Rachel’s maidenhood slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which her mother reveled, but which was distasteful to the girl.

The wedding day came at last, breaking softly and fairly over the great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose, a September day, as mild and beautiful as June.

The ceremony was to be performed at eight o’clock in the evening. At seven Rachel stood in her room, fully dressed and alone. She had no bridesmaid, and she had asked her cousins to leave her to herself in this last solemn hour of girlhood. She looked very fair and sweet in the sunset-light that showered through the birches. Her wedding gown was a fine, sheer organdie, simply and daintily made. In the loose waves of her bright hair she wore her bridegroom’s flowers, roses as white as a virgin’s dream. She was very happy; but her happiness was faintly threaded with the sorrow inseparable from all change.

Presently her mother came in, carrying a small basket.

“Here is something for you, Rachel. One of the boys from the harbor brought it up. He was bound to give it into your own hands—said that was his orders. I just took it and sent him to the right-about—told him I’d give it to you at once, and that that was all that was necessary.”

She spoke coldly. She knew quite well who had sent the basket, and she resented it; but her resentment was not quite strong enough to overcome her curiosity. She stood silently by while Rachel unpacked the basket.

Rachel’s hands trembled as she took off the cover. Two huge pink-spotted shells came first. How well she remembered them! Beneath them, carefully wrapped up in a square of foreign-looking, strangely scented silk, was the dragon teapot. She held it in her hands and gazed at it with tears gathering thickly in her eyes.

“Your father sent that,” said Isabella Spencer with an odd sound in her voice. “I remember it well. It was among the things I packed up and sent after him. His father had brought it home from China fifty years ago, and he prized it beyond anything. They used to say it was worth a lot of money.”

“Mother, please leave me alone for a little while,” said Rachel, imploringly. She had caught sight of a little note at the bottom of the basket, and she felt that she could not read it under her mother’s eyes.

Mrs. Spencer went out with unaccustomed acquiescence, and Rachel went quickly to the window, where she read her letter by the fading gleams of twilight. It was very brief, and the writing was that of a man who holds a pen but seldom.

“My dear little girl,” it ran, “I’m sorry I can’t go to your wedding. It was like you to ask me—for I know it was your doing. I wish I could see you married, but I can’t go to the house I was turned out of. I hope you will be very happy. I am sending you the shells and teapot you liked so much. Do you remember that day we had such a good time? I would liked to have seen you again before you were married, but it can’t be.

“Your loving father, “DAVID SPENCER.”

Rachel resolutely blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. A fierce desire for her father sprang up in her heart—an insistent hunger that would not be denied. She MUST see her father; she MUST have his blessing on her new life. A sudden determination took possession of her whole being—a determination to sweep aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not been.

It was now almost dark. The guests would not be coming for half an hour yet. It was only fifteen minutes’ walk over the hill to the Cove. Hastily Rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat, and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. She opened the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. Mrs. Spencer and her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house. In a moment Rachel was out in the dewy garden. She would go straight over the fields. Nobody would see her.

It was quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not. His heart yearned after his daughter—yes, and after a long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own under all his old anger and stubbornness.

The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.

“Father,” she cried, brokenly, and her father’s eager arms closed around her.

Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting. The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing.

“I want to see Rachel before we go down,” he said, blushing.

Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of Rachel’s room, and called her. There was no reply; the room was dark and still. In sudden alarm, Isabella Spencer snatched the lamp from the hall table and held it up. The little white room was empty. No blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. But David Spencer’s letter was lying on the stand. She caught it up and read it.

“Rachel is gone,” she gasped. A flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone.

“Gone!” echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly little laugh.

“Oh, you needn’t look so scared, Frank. She hasn’t run away from you. Hush; come in here—shut the door. Nobody must know of this. Nice gossip it would make! That little fool has gone to the Cove to see her—her father. I know she has. It’s just like what she would