II
The instinct was that of the social rebel. The house seemed too plainly the comfortable summer cottage of sophisticated people. He had not been in that atmosphere since the days when his uncle and aunt had dragged him to the seashore, to dress, and eat, and talk, and—among rich women growing fat and rich men growing bald—to plan trivial monotonies beside the moving eternity of the ocean. It was to escape just this that he had turned sailor, and set his own naked character to wrestle with life. So now he turned to go away.
But the girl's ears must have been sharp. "There's some one at the door, father," he heard her say. Instantly perceiving that it would not do to disappear and leave them alarmed, he stood where he was on the door-step. But he afterward remembered that the girl's voice showed merely surprise, and no trace of fear.
The figures disappeared from the room, he heard the scratch of a match, and presently footsteps approached the door. It opened to show the light of a shaking candle, the little man's peering face, smooth-shaven but lined with years, and over his narrow shoulders the face of the girl, alert, clear, large-eyed, in a dusky radiance of brown hair that glimmered in the uncertain light. Their shadows leaped and swung on the walls behind them. Dim eyes and bright, sharpened brows and serene, both fixed their sight on the burly young sailor-man before them.
"Who is it?" said the man, in a gentle voice.
Archer, who had easily met the hostile looks of the revelers in Black Harbor, was abashed before this girl.
"Never mind," he said confusedly, "that is—I was looking for a night 's lodging,—and they—over in the harbor—they told me that Mr. Powell— But of course," he floundered, "I didn't know what you were like—or your house—I beg your pardon."
The little man laughed quietly, as one not given to laughter. The girl's eyes shone with encouraging merriment.
"What am I like, then?" asked Mr. Powell, holding up the candle, so that the girl's head disappeared in his shadow. It was a sad face, long, thin, very pale, with black eyes. He was bald over the temples, and a triangle of gray hair ran to a point midway above a forehead engraved with parallel lines. "I had hoped to seem no worse than other men," he continued, with an irony not unkind. "And as for my house, if you will come in, you will find it tolerable."
"Why, sir," replied Archer, somewhat nettled, "of course I did n't mean that. The others seemed a rough lot, and I expected— Your house is too good, sir,—too good for a sailor. I would n't have disturbed you"—
"My dear young man," said the owner of the island soberly, "there's no place but this fit for you to sleep in. Besides that, I'd be heartily glad to have you here. We have no visitors year in and out." He shifted his candle, so that the girl's face reappeared, shining with undisguised interest in the situation. "But you'll be able to sleep here,—better than I, at least. A sailor—and of your age—you 're doubly welcome. Come in." With the stiffness of courtesy in disuse, he stepped back to make room. The girl retreated into the shadows.
"You 're very kind, sir," said Archer, entering. As the man set his candle down on a low table, the light revealed a little hall and staircase of brown butternut wood. The absence of ornament might have made the place severe, had it not been for candlelight and soft shadows, and the presence of the girl, a slim white figure against the dark panels.
"You called yourself a sailor," the man continued; "the navy, perhaps?"
"Tramp sailing vessels, mostly, sir," Archer replied with some stiffness.
"Ah,—English, I should say?"
"American."
His host's face fell somewhat. It brightened as he ventured:—
"Did you ever chance to be in Eastern ports with any of Her Majesty's ships?" And when Archer, wondering, gave a negative answer, there was silence for a time.
"It is a pity," the little man reflected. "It was a foolish hope, of course,—but we like to reach out after all the little fragments—glimpses"—he ended with something like a sigh. This time the silence grew embarrassing.
"Father," said the girl quietly, "don't you think"—
The large eyes of the pale little man came back sadly, as from a distance. "Your pardon, Helen," he said. "I have long since forgotten my manners. This is my daughter, Mr."—
Archer, supplying the name, spoke to the girl for the first time face to face. Her words were as conventional as his, but something in voice and manner, something frank, bright, and simple, made them her own. The girls among whom his aunt had so carefully brought him he had known at first glance for natural enemies and strategists. This one seemed as naturally a direct and wholesome character. He liked her brown face, her speech, and above all the light, free motion of her walk as she crossed the hall and led them into the lighted room where he had first seen them sitting.
Here there was comfort,—the soft radiance of the yellow-shaded lamp, the warmth of a fire that tempered the fresh evening air from the open windows. The rows of books that lined the walls from floor to ceiling gave out a faint, pleasant smell, indefinable. Over the fireplace, in the only space left vacant of books, looked forth the white cast of a head, the tragic beauty of Meleager.
After a few questions and answers as to Archer's presence on the island, "You will pardon me," said the prim little man, motioning him to an armchair by the fire, "if we continue our reading and finish the chapter. I have perhaps become too methodical in my habits. It is not a merry book, but you can warm yourself meanwhile."
The girl said nothing, though she looked possibly a little disappointed. As they took their places, she became once more for Archer a voice from behind the lamp, and a white skirt flowing down beyond the edge of the table. But the sound of her was, in a way, as good as the sight; and the voice was filled with reality, with the meaning of the words:—
"And finally, the first night that followed that day! …
"Lying in the 'Arabian room,' I felt constantly through my weary half sleep the haunting impression, infinitely sad, of the unaccustomed silence that had fallen on the other side of the wall—and forever—in the room of Aunt Claire. Oh! the dear voices and the dear protecting sounds that I had heard there for so many years through this wall, when the quiet of night had come in the house! Aunt Claire opening her great closet that creaked in a peculiar fashion (the closet where they had put away forever the Ours aux pralines); Aunt Claire exchanging a few words, which I could just hear, with my mother, who lay in the room beyond: 'Are you asleep, sister?' And her great clock on the wall—now stopped—that used to strike so loud; the clock which made so much noise when it was wound, and which, to our great amusement, she used sometimes to wind on the stroke of midnight,—so that it had become a traditional pleasantry in the house, whenever we heard any noise at night, to lay the blame on Aunt Claire and her clock. … Ended, all this, ended. Gone to her place of burial, Aunt Claire,—and my mother, doubtless, will prefer not to return to the room next to hers; silence, then, has fallen there forever. For so many years, it was my joy and my peace to hear them both, to recognize their dear, good old voices that came clearly through the wall in the stillness of the night. … Ended, now; never, never shall I hear them more."
Archer was happily ignorant of what the book might be. But when the girl's voice had ceased, he was aware that her father, forgetful of guest and daughter, was staring into the fire, lost in remote thoughts; that Helen herself had risen, and stood looking on them doubtfully; and that the silence in the room was insufferably mournful. At last, as he was about to make a rough attempt at breaking it, his host rose, picked up the book, and, crossing to the inmost corner of the library, copied out something upon the broad page of another book that lay open on a desk. "A bad rendering, but it will do," he said. Then, stooping, he carefully took from against the bookshelves a violoncello which had stood gleaming soft and brown in the lamplight.
The girl turned and smiled at Archer, as if reassured, and yet appealing.
"Now you will have better entertainment," she said, with a gayety that seemed not quite so natural as the rest of her ways. "Perhaps you would rather have something to eat," she added, as her father tuned the strings. "I'll get it for you when he has played."
Archer smiled in return, but only shook his head, for her father was already waiting, and now formally announced:—
"Bach—Suite for violoncello—præludium."
The fervent voice of the 'cello filled the room. Archer, who knew good playing, listened in delight; but presently his eyes wandered to the girl, as she now sat looking into the fire in her turn, and to the sad, pale face of her father, bending over, rapt in his music. Strange entertainers; yet stranger still was the calm, unconscious egotism of sorrow in this host who had forgotten him. Through præludium the music ran, through sarabande, and into bourrée, when of a sudden it stopped lamely.
"I 've not the heart for it to-night," said the player, as he restored the violoncello to its place. "This young man from the sea has set me thinking about Arthur."
"He must be hungry, father," the girl suggested, with something like timidity. "Shall I get"—
"No," he decided. "Tell Barbara to come here."
The girl's face darkened, and she went out with visible reluctance. Presently came a shuffle of feet, and through curtains at the back of the room there entered a tall old woman, bent but strong, who at the sight of Archer spread apart her clumsy hands in surprise.
"Barbara," said her master, "please bring us something to eat and drink."
When the old woman had disappeared, the girl looked in again at the door of the hall, mystically bright once more above the candle flame.
"Good-night to you both," she called. Once more the cheeriness of her voice was troubled. "I'll show you about the island in the morning, Mr. Archer. You will like it, I hope." She stood for a moment undecided, then slowly went up the stairs, a shining figure against the brown panels.
Archer, replying with some commonplace, was conscious that she had stolen the brightness from the room. Though hungry after his wandering, he hardly noticed what the old servant left on the table before him. While he nibbled at something, and slowly drank the whiskey-and-water that Mr. Powell had poured out, his interest, for the time, became merely polite. And his host, though helping himself rather freely from the fat-bellied bottle, was calmly distant in his own thoughts.
"Do you come here every summer, Mr. Powell?" asked Hugh, after an interval.
The sad, prophetic eyes returned to the present, and as they studied the young man anew, their melancholy look was modified by a smile that was essentially kind.
"Every summer?" the little man repeated. " My boy, we live here all the year round, and have lived here since—for the last fourteen years. You look astonished. But why is not this island as good to live and die on as the mainland? They send us over clothing, and food, and books. You see for yourself how comfortable"—and he waved his hand about.
"And your daughter is always with you here?" asked the visitor, amazed at this new aspect of the case.
"Yes, indeed—like the best of daughters," was the calm reply.
Archer meditated, with thoughts unfriendly. There was some hidden malice in his next words,—
"Why, sir, you're like Prospero and Miranda."
The other started in his chair, suddenly wide awake. But the hint was lost.
"Prodigiously apt!" he exclaimed, all in a flutter. "So simple, but so good. It holds closely. And I had never once thought of it! Young man," he cried, almost beaming, "why did n't you tell me you were no common sailor?" In his joy, he poured for himself from the bottle. "A boy who has read, in these days!" He drained his glass and refilled it. "You must stay with me—a week at least—and we shall have good talk, I foresee.—This parallel of yours—I am ashamed never to have seen it—showing that an outsider has the better perspective of one's life." He got up and walked about nervously before the fire. "I am Prospero, to be sure,—and my book—and as for Trinculos and Stephanos, Black Harbor is lousy with them. Here is my cell—and Helen is Miranda—and luckily there are no Ferdinands"—
Suddenly he stopped, glanced at Archer's broad shoulders and shining head, and then stared into the fire.
"Hm!" he said, his enthusiasm gone. After a silence, his voice was sad again. "Yes, though I am Prospero, I have no magic." And he sighed. "But you shall see my book. No one else has read it, not even Helen."
Stepping to the desk in the corner, he brought over and laid in the lamplight a large book in black leather,—the same into which he had been copying. Archer, looking on over his shoulder, could see in his movements a tremulous pride.
On the first page they read the title,—"This Bank and Shoal of Time."
"You see," said the little man, already transformed into the explanatory author, "the title is naturally suggested to one living, as I do, on an island surrounded by the eternal sea. But I must explain that you will find here not so much my own thoughts as those of other men in all ages and countries,—their most serious thoughts, and far-reaching. I have not yet connected them with my own interpretation, or indeed arranged them in any orderly fashion."
Archer could hardly forbear to smile. But he had no such difficulty when he had once begun to read. Under the title stood a quotation,—
"So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men.
And death once dead, there 's no more dying then."
The other pages were a kind of nightmare hodge-podge, in neat manuscript, of mortuary fragments. A few he could recognize, many he could not. He read rapidly, with the assistance of his host, who turned the pages eagerly.
"Sancti Ambrosii: de Excessu Fratris Sui, Satyris, lib. i, 18.—Habeo plane pignus meum, quod nulla mihi peregrinatio jam possit avellere: habeo quas complectar, reliquias: habeo tumulum, quem corpore tegam: habeo sepulcrum, super quod jaceam."
"Life is like traveling backward in a cart; we see only what has passed and is moving away from us."
"Meleager, fragm. 532.—All men, once dead, are nothing more than earth and shadow. Nought returns to nought."
"Von Hartmann: Philosophy of the Unconscious, ii, p. 480.—After a serious consideration we have been obliged to reply that all existence in this world brings with it more pain than pleasure; that consequently it would be preferable that the world should not exist."
"That was a fine euphemism of the Greeks', to call the dead 'the tired ones.'"
"The prophet Silenus answered in these words the question of Midas, king of Phrygia: 'Children of a day, of a race doomed to pain and hard trials, why do you force me to say things that it were better for you not to know? For it is for those who are ignorant of their misfortunes that life has the least sorrow.—Of all things the best for man is not to live, even though he have an excellent nature; what is best for all men and for all women is not to be born.' Aristotle: on the Soul,"
"All this lamentable mockery: to love with all our heart beings and things which each day, each hour sets itself to wear away, to weaken, to carry off piecemeal;—and after having struggled, struggled with anguish to keep some few bits of all this which passes away, to pass in our turn."
Archer could read no more with patience. "It is a remarkable book," he commented with sincerity, and drew away from the table.
"Remarkable! You may venture as much," retorted the scholar, still bent over the melancholy pages, on which he seemed to batten. Then, slowly straightening himself, he closed the book and put it away in the desk. "The only book of its kind, and the deepest, the truest— These are only the crude material, but you shall see." He took a sip from his glass, wandered thoughtfully to the window,—which the old servant had closed,—and stood looking out. "It must be a calm night. The stars and the lights from the town—the reflections are very clear. It would be beautiful, but it is a symbol. Ah, 'this bank and shoal of time!' Out there in the dark are the whirlpools—and the channel"—he broke into muttered quotation:—
"'Compescitunda, scilicet omnibus,
Quicumque terrae munere vescimur
Enaviganda.'
"Enaviganda," he repeated, and was silent for a long time.
Archer was moved to question him:—
"Are n't those fellows in Black Harbor dangerous neighbors, sir?"
The scholar turned on him his long, pale face, showing eyes dull with indifference. "I hardly ever see them, even," he said.
"And your daughter?" the young man could not help persisting. But the answer missed his point surprisingly.
"Helen?—oh, you mean that it is lonely here?—Perhaps. But then, she is well and healthy, as you see. And she has lived here since a child. When my wife died, I came to this island, to retire for a time, as I thought. But when the news came that Arthur was gone, too—it was impossible to think of going back among men and cities. It is better here.—As for Helen,—why, after all, you know—
"'The summer's flower is to the summer as sweet
Though to itself it only live and die.'"
Archer could have struck the man. He held his peace with difficulty, until, after pacing up and down, smiling faintly at the aptness of his quotation, Mr. Powell came to himself again to say:—
"Here comes Barbara to show you your room. Good-night, sir, and I hope you will sleep well."
Archer followed the servant and her candle up the stairs to a landing and into a plain but pleasant little bedchamber, warmed by an open fire, and overlooking the cove, the water, and the long, reflected lights of the town. The tall old woman hesitated as she said good-night.
"It's good to have you here, sir," she ventured, in her timorous voice. "It is, indeed." And her face, brown and wrinkled as a walnut, shone with kindness.
Left to himself, he stood thinking over this strange landfall. The black glacier of firs over the hill had been gloomy enough, the inhabitants like the place; but this pastoral slope of the island—was it better? Pity for the girl was his uppermost thought,—a pity to which his rough, working life had rendered him unfamiliar. Sometimes in his youthful melancholy he had thought his own lot hard,—an orphan, too rich, among worldly relatives who could neither inspire nor direct a right ambition. But this girl, living alone here—
"The summer's flower is to the summer as sweet,"—
"Odious!" he almost cried aloud. He could not wait till morning to see her and talk to her. At least he could not sleep: for an hour or more he must have sat on the edge of his bed, thinking over this philosopher of charnel fragments, this vague egotist who could quote so inhumanly, and survey with such mournful gusto the transiency of things. At times a faint stir in the house showed that others were still awake.
His windows were open. So, apparently, were those on the landing of the staircase; for suddenly he heard a voice near at hand speaking into the night,—a muddled voice that ran the words together thickly:—
"Fair-ss-a-scar—when-on'y-one—is-s—shining-in-the-sty"—
Then collected, and very precise: "Disgusting metathesis!—No, that is not the word"—
"Come along, please, sir," whispered the old woman's voice plaintively.