Angel Island, Inez Haynes Gillmore [the two towers ebook txt] 📗

believe they’ll ever be frightened of us

again. Hello!”

 

Lulu had tottered over to their group, supporting herself by the ledge

of rock. She pulled herself upright, balancing precariously. She put her

sharp little teeth close, parted her lips and produced:

 

“K-K-K-K-K-K-Kiss-S-S-S-S-S-S Me!”

 

The men burst into roars of laughter. Lulu looked from one face to the

other in perplexity. In perplexity, the other women looked from her to

them and at each other.

 

“Sounds like the Yale yell!” Pete commented.

 

“But what I can’t understand,” Billy said, reverting to his thesis, “is

that they don’t realize instantly that we wouldn’t hurt them for any

thing - that that’s a thing a fellow couldn’t do.”

 

C.

 

Twilight on Angel Island.

 

The stars were beginning to shoot tiny white, five-pointed flames

through the purple sky. The fireflies were beginning to cut long arcs of

gold in the sooty dusk. The waves were coming up the low-tide beach with

a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floated on the

air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering with liquid

footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bass roar of

the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting of the women, came from

the group. The girls were reciting their lessons.

 

“Three little girls from school are we,

Pert as schoolgirls well can be,

Filled to the brim with girlish glee,

Three little maids from school!”

 

intoned Lulu, Chiquita, and Clara together.

 

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

Silver bells and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row.”

 

said Peachy.

 

“The hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,” began Julia. With no

effort of the memory, with a faultless enunciation, a natural feeling

for rhythm and apparently with comprehension, she, recited the Atalanta

chorus.

 

“That’s enough for lessons,” Honey demanded.

 

“Wait a moment!”

 

He rushed into the bushes and busied himself among the fireflies. The

other four men, divining his purpose, joined him. They came back with

handkerchiefs tied full of tiny, wriggling, fluttering green creatures.

 

In a few moments, the five women sat crowned with carcanets of living

fire.

 

“Now read us a story,” Lulu begged.

 

Pete drew a little book from his pocket. Discolored and swollen, the

print was big and still black.

 

“‘Once upon a time,’” he began, “‘there was a little girl who lived with

her father and her stepmother - ’”

 

“What’s ‘stepmother’?” Lulu asked.

 

Pete explained.

 

“The stepmother had two daughters, and all three of these women were

cruel and proud - - ’”

 

“What’s ‘cruel and proud’?” Chiquita asked.

 

Pete explained.

 

“‘And so between the three the little girl had a very hard time. She

worked like a slave all day long, and was never allowed to go out of the

kitchen. The stepmother and the proud sisters, used to go to balls every

night, leaving the little girl alone. Because she was always so dusty

and grimy from working over the fire, they called her Cinderella. Now,

it happened that the country was ruled by a very handsome young

prince -’”

 

“What’s ‘handsome young prince’?” Clara asked.

 

Pete explained.

 

“‘And all the ladies of the kingdom were in love with him.’”

 

“What’s ‘in love’?” Peachy asked.

 

Pete closed the book.

 

“Ah, that’s a question,” he said after an instant of meditation, “that

will admit of some answer. Say, you fellers, you’d better come into

this.”

 

D.

 

Moonlight on Angel Island.

 

The sea lay like a carpet of silver stretched taut from the white line

of the waves to the black seam of the sky. The land lay like a crumpled

mass of silver velvet, heaped to tinselled brightness here, hollowed to

velvety shadow there. Over both arched the mammoth silver tent of the

sky. In the cleft in the rock on the southern reef sat Julia and Billy.

Under a tree at the north sat Peachy and Ralph. Scattered in shaded

places between sat the others. The night was quiet; but on the breeze

came murmurs sometimes in the man’s voice, sometimes in the woman’s.

Fragmentary they were, these murmurs, and inarticulate; but their

composite was ever the same.

 

E.

 

Sunrise on Angel Island.

 

In and out among the trees, wound a procession following the northern

trail. First came Lulu, white-clad, serious, pale, walking with Honey.

The others, crowned with flowers and carrying garlands, followed,

serious and silent, the women clinging with both hands to the men, who

supported their snail-like, tottering progress with one arm about their

waists. On the point of the northern reef, a cabin made of round

beach-stones fronted the ocean. It fronted the rising sun now and a

world, all ocean and sky, over which lay a rose dawnlight. Still silent,

the procession paused and grouped about the house. Frank Merrill stepped

forward and placed himself in front of Honey and Lulu.

 

“We are gathered here this morning,” Frank said in his deep academic

voice, “to marry this man to this woman and this woman to this man. If

there is any reason why you should not enter into the married state,

pause before it is too late.” His voice came to a full stop. He waited.

“If not, I pronounce you man and wife.”

 

Silently still, the others placed their garlands and wreaths at the feet

of the wedded pair. Turning, they walked slowly back over the trail.

 

F.

 

Midnight on Angel Island.

 

Julia sat alone on the stone bench at the door of the Honeymoon House.

She gazed straight ahead out on a starlighted sea, which joined a

starlighted sky and stretched in pulsating star-gleams to the end of

space. She gazed straight out, but apparently she saw nothing. Her eyes

were abstracted and her brow furrowed. Her shoulders drooped.

 

A man came bounding up the path.

 

“Has Ralph been here?” he asked curtly. Billy’s face was fiery. His eyes

blazed.

 

“He’s been here,” Julia answered immediately. “He’s gone!”

 

“By God, I’ll kill him!” Billy turned white.

 

Julia’s brow smoothed. She smiled a little. “No, you will not kill him,”

she said with her old serene air. “You will not have to kill him. He

will never come again.”

 

“Did he try to make love to you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How did he justify himself?”

 

“He appealed to me to save him. I did not quite understand from what. He

said I could make a better man of him.” Julia laughed a little.

 

“How did you know he was here?”

 

“I stopped at their cabin. He was not there. Peachy did not know where

he was. Of course, I guessed at once. I came here immediately.”

 

“Did Peachy seem troubled?”

 

“No. She doesn’t care. Pete was there, examining her drawings. They’re

half in love with each other. And then again, Pete doesn’t know, or if

he does know, he doesn’t care, that Clara is doing her damnedest to

start a flirtation with Honey. And Lulu has walked about like a woman in

a dream for weeks. What are we all coming to? There’s nothing but

flirting here!”

 

“It must be so,” Julia said, “as long as men and women are idle.”

 

“But how can we be anything but idle? There’s nothing to do on this

island.”

 

“I don’t know,” said Julia slowly; “I don’t know.”

 

“Julia,” Billy said in a pleading voice, “marry me!”

 

A strange expression came into Julia’s eyes. Part of it was irresolution

and part of it was terror. But a poignant wistful tenderness fused. both

these emotions, shot them with light.

 

“Not yet,” she said in a terrified voice. “Not yet!”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t know - why. Only that I cannot.”

 

“Then, when will you marry me? Julia, I see all the others together and

it - - . You don’t know what it does to me.”

 

“Yes, I know! It kills me too.”

 

“Then why wait?”

 

“Because - - .” The poignant look went for an instant from Julia’s eyes.

A strange brooding came in its place. “Because a little voice inside

says, ‘Wait!’”

 

“Julia, do you love me?”

 

Julia did not answer. She only looked at him.

 

“You are sure there is nobody else?”

 

“I am sure. There could never be anybody else - after that first night

when I waked you from sleep.”

 

“It is forever, then?”

 

“Forever.”

 

Billy sighed. “I’ll wait, then - until eternity shrivels up.”

 

They sat for a long time, silent.

 

“Here comes somebody,” Billy said suddenly. “It’s one of the girls,” he

added after a moment of listening. “I’ll leave you, I guess.”

 

He melted into the darkness.

 

A woman appeared, dragging herself along by means of the rail. It was

Lulu, a strange Lulu, a Lulu pallid and silent, but a Lulu shining-eyed.

She pulled herself over to Julia’s side. “Julia!” “Julia! Oh, Julia!”

 

Lulu’s voice was not voice. It was not speech. Liquid sound flowed from

her lips, crystallizing at the touch of the air, to words. “Julia, I

came to you first, after Honey. I wanted you to know.”

 

“Oh, Lulu,” Julia said, “not - - .”

 

Her eyes reflected the stars in Lulu’s eyes. And there they stood, their

two faces throwing gleam for gleam.

 

“Yes,” said Lulu. Suddenly she knelt sobbing on the floor, her face in

Julia’s lap.

 

G.

 

Mid-afternoon on Angel Island.

 

Four women sat in the Honeymoon House, sewing. Outside the world still

lay in sunshine, the land cut by the beginning of shadow, the sea

streaked with purple and green.

 

“Why didn’t you bring the children?” Julia, asked.

 

Lulu answered. “Honey and Frank were going in swimming this morning, and

they said they’d take care of them. I’m glad to get Honey-Boy off my

hands for an afternoon.”

 

“And why hasn’t Peachy come?” Julia asked. I stopped as I went by,” Lulu

explained. Oh, Julia, I wish you didn’t live way off here - it takes us

an hour of crawling to pull ourselves along the path. Angela hadn’t

waked up yet. It was a longer nap than usual. Peachy said she’d come

just as soon as she opened her eyes. I went in to look at her. Oh, she’s

such a darling, smiling in her sleep. Oh, I do hope I have a girl-baby

sometime.”

 

“I do, too,” said Clara. “Peterkin’s fun, of course. But I can’t do the

things for a boy that I could for a girl.”

 

“I’d rather have boys,” Chiquita said; “they’re less trouble.”

 

“Would you rather have boys or girls, Julia?” Lulu asked.

 

“Girls!” said Julia decisively. “A big family of girls.”

 

“Then,” Lulu began, and a question trembled in her bright eyes and on

her curved lips.

 

But, “Here’s Peachy!” Julia exclaimed before she could go on.

 

Peachy came toiling up the path, pulling herself along, both hands on

the wooden rail. She tottered, but in spite of her snail-like progress,

it was evident that she hurried. A tiny bundle hung between her

shoulders. It oscillated gently with her haste.

 

“Let me take Angela,” Julia said as Peachy struggled over the threshold.

 

“Wait!” Peachy panted. She sank on a couch.

 

There was a strange element in her look, an overpowering eagerness. This

eagerness had brimmed over into her manner; it vibrated in her trembling

voice, her fluttering hands. She sat down. She reached up and lifted the

baby from her shoulders to her lap. Angela still slept, a delicate bud

of a