VIII.
When they came to the wharf, several carriages were waiting. Some were handsome equipages with silver-mounted harnesses (for nabobs then were in Nahant); others were the familiar New England carryalls. Mercedes looked for Mr. Bowdoin, hoping he had come to meet her in one of the former, but was disappointed, for that gentleman was seen running down the hill as if too late, his blue dress-coat tails streaming in the wind, his Panama hat in one hand, and a large brown-paper bag, bursting with oranges, in the other. By accident or design, as he neared the wharf, the bag did burst, and all the oranges went rolling down the road.
"Pick 'em up, children, pick 'em up!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin. "Findings keepings, you know." And he broke into a chuckle as the two smaller girls precipitated themselves upon the rolling orange-spheres as if they were footballs, and Master Harley, in his anxiety to stop one that was rolling over the wharf, tripped upon the hawser, and was grabbed by a friendly sailor just as he himself was rolling after it into the sea.
"You don't seem to care for oranges, Miss Dolly," said Mr. Bowdoin, as Miss Dowse stood haughtily aloof; and he looked then at Mercedes, who was left quite alone, yet followed Miss Dowse's example of dignity; Jamie standing behind, not beside her, hat in hand.
"Ah, Ja— Mr. McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, doffing his own. "And so this is our Miss Mercy again? Why don't you chase the oranges, my dear?"
Mercedes looked at the old gentleman a moment, then ran after the oranges.
Dolly still made excuses. "It is so hot, and I have clean gloves on."
Mr. Bowdoin cast a quick glance at the envied gloves, and then at Mercedes' brown hands. "Here, Dolly, chuck those gloves in the carriage there: they're not allowed down here. McMurtagh, I'm glad to see your Mercy has more sense. Can't stay to luncheon? Well, remember me to Mr. James!"
Ah, the marvelous power of kindliness that will give even an old merchant the perception of a woman, the tact of a diplomat! McMurtagh went back with a light heart, and Mercedes jumped with delight into the very finest of the carriages, and was given a seat ("as the greatest stranger") behind with Mr. Bowdoin, while the other three girls filled the seat in front, and Harley held the reins upon the box, a process Mr. Bowdoin affected not to see.
They drove through the little village in the train of other carriages; and Mercedes sat erect and answered artlessly to Mr. Bowdoin's questions. He asked her whether she was happy in her home, and she said she was. (In his kindness the simple-hearted old gentleman still knew no other way to make a woman tell the truth than by asking her questions!) Jamie was very good to her, she said, and grandpa most of all; grandma was cross sometimes. ("Jamie"! "grandpa"! Old Mr. Bowdoin made a mental note.) But she was very lonely: she had no children to play with.
Mr. Bowdoin's heart warmed at once. "You must come down here often, my dear!" he cried; thus again laying up a wigging from his auguster spouse. But "Jamie"! "Why don't you call your kind friend father, since you call old McMurtagh grandpa?"
The child shook her head. "He has never asked me to," she said. "Besides, he is not my father. My father wore gold trimmings and a sword."
This sounded more like De Soto than Silva. "Do you remember him?"
"Not much, sir."
"What was his name?"
The child shook her head again. "I do not know, sir. He only called me Mercedes."
Mr. Bowdoin was fain to rummage in his pocket, either for a handkerchief or for a lump of Salem "Gibraltars:" both came out together in a state of happy union. Mercedes took hers simply. Only Miss Dolly was too proud to eat candy in the carriage. The Salem Gibraltar is a hard and mouth-filling dainty; and by its administration little Ann and Jane, who had been chattering in front, were suddenly reduced to silence.
By this time they had come through to the outer cliff, and were driving on a turf road high above the sea. The old gentleman was watching the breakers far below, and Mercedes had a chance to look about her at the houses. They passed by a great hotel, and she saw many gayly dressed people on the piazza; she hoped they were going to stop there, but they drove on to a smallish house upon the very farthest point. It was not a pretentious place; but Mercedes was pleased with a fine stone terrace that was built into the very last reef of the sea, and with the pretty little lawn and the flowers.
As the children rushed into the hall, Ann and Jane struggling to keep on Mr. Bowdoin's shoulders, they were stopped by a maid, who told them Mrs. Bowdoin was taking a nap and must not be disturbed. So they were carried through to the back veranda, where Mr. Bowdoin dumped the little girls over the railing upon a steep grass slope, down which they rolled with shrieks of laughter that must have been most damaging to Mrs. Bowdoin's nerves. Dolly and Mercedes followed after; and the old gentleman settled himself on a roomy cane chair, his feet on the rail of the back piazza, a huge spy-glass at his side, and the "Boston Daily Advertiser" in his hand.
At the foot of the lawn was the cliff; and below, a lovely little pebble beach covered with the most wonderful shells. Never were such shells as abounded upon that beach!—tropical, exotic varieties, such as were found nowhere else. And then—most ideal place of all for a child—there was a fascinating rocky island in the sea, connected by a neck of twenty yards of pebble covered hardly at high water; and on one side of this pebble isthmus was the full surf of the sea, and on the other the quiet ripple of the waters of the bay. But such an island! All their own to colonize and govern, and separated from home by just a breadth of danger.
All good children have some pirate blood; and I doubt if Mercedes enjoyed it more than Ann and Jane and even haughty Dolly did. And to the right was the wide Massachusetts Bay, and beyond it far blue mountains, hazy in the southern sun. Then there were bath-houses, and little swimming-suits ready for each, into which the other children quickly got, Mercedes following their example; and they waded on the quiet side; Mercedes rather timidly, the other children, who could swim a little, boldly. Old Mr. Bowdoin (who was looking on from above) shouted to them to know "if they had captured the island."
"Grapes grow on the island," said Ann and Jane.
Dolly was silent; Mercedes would have believed any fairy tale by now. And they started for it, Harley leading; but the tide was too high, and at the farther end of the little pebble isthmus the higher breakers actually came across and poured their foam into the clear stillness. Ann and Jane were afraid; even Dolly hesitated; as for Harley, he was stopped by discovering a beautiful new peg-top which had been cast up by the sea and was rolling around upon the outer beach.
"Discoverers must be brave!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin from above. And Mercedes shut her eyes and made a dash through the yard of deeper water as the breaker on the other side receded. She grasped the rock by the seaweed and pulled herself up to where it was hot in the sun, and sat to look about her. There were numerous lovely little pink shells; and in the crevices above, some beautiful rock crystals, pink or white. Mercedes touched one, and found it came off easily. She put it to her lips.
"Why, it's rock candy!" she exclaimed.
There was an explosive chuckle from the old gentleman across the chasm, and the others swarmed across like Cabot and Pizarro after Columbus.
"Remember, children, she's queen of the island to-day,—she got there first!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin, and went back to his spy-glass and his armchair.
So that day Mercedes was queen; and her realm a real island, bounded by the real Atlantic, and Harley, at least, was her faithful subject. At the water's edge was great kelp, and barnacles, and jellyfish, all pink and purple; and on the summit was a little grove of juniper and savin bushes, with some wild flowers; and on the cedar branches grew most beautiful bunches of hothouse grapes. To be sure, they were tied on by a string.
"'’Tis grandpa's put them there," said Dolly, of superior knowledge already in the world's ways.
"Sh! how mean to tell!" cried Harley.
"And he puts rare shells upon the beach, and tops!"
But Mercedes only thought how nice it was to have such a gentleman for grandfather; and when she got back to the little house on Salem Street she acted out all the play to an admiring audience. Jamie met her at the wharf and walked home with her. It was hot and stuffy in the city streets, but the flush of pleasure lasted well after she got home. And she told what soft linen they had had at dinner, and pink bowls to rinse their hands, and a man in a red waistcoat to wait upon them.
"Isn't she wonderful! Just like a lady born," said Jamie.
John Hughson, a neighbor, took his pipe from his mouth and nodded open-mouth assent.
"And she talks a little Spanish, and can dance!"
"It's time such little tots were in bed," said Mrs. Hughson, a large Yankee person, mother to John.
"Just one dance first, Mercy; show the lady," said old Mrs. McMurtagh.
But Mercedes was offended at being called a little tot, and pouted her lip.
"Come here, dearie," said Jamie.
She went to him; and while he held her with his left hand awkwardly, he pulled a tiny pair of gloves from his pocket. Mercedes seized them quickly, and kissed him for it.
"Well, I never! Jamie, ye'll spoil the lassie," said his mother.
But Jamie heeded not. "Now, dearie, dance that little Spanish dance for me, and you can wear the gloves next Sunday."
But Mercedes looked up at Mrs. Hughson sullenly; then broke away from Jamie's arms and ran upstairs. And the laugh was at poor Jamie's expense.