CHAPTER XXX
SHIP OF DREAMS
THE sunshine poured in through the windows of Garth's room, across the bed and across the floor. The reflection of light on sparkling water below danced on the ceiling like a moving network of quicksilver, a cool, liquid filigree rippling back and forth. Elspeth sat beside the bed, sewing. Her smooth, dark hair was bound by a blue fillet, and at her throat she wore a silver clasp with peacocks fashioned upon it in green-blue enamel. Sometimes she looked up from her work at Garth, who was sleeping, one arm outflung. Beneath the white sleeve a dull mark still showed where his wrist had been bound cruelly tight. As the advancing sunshine touched his face, Elspeth rose to arrange the shade. He turned his head away from the light, moved his hand uncertainly, and opened his eyes.
"Hello, Mudder," he said.
"Hello, my darling," said Elspeth, smiling.
He rubbed his fingers over his forehead and came upon the bandage above his eyes. For a moment he looked very much puzzled. Then he said:
"Oh—a lot happened. I remember now. Where's Fogger? And Joan?"
"Fogger is ashore, and Joan's lying down," Elspeth said. "You've been asleep such a splendid long time."
"Have I?" he said. "Why, it's still morning, isn't it? And I didn't go to sleep till after sunrise."
"Yes, but this is to-morrow morning. I mean, you've been asleep a day and a night and a little bit over."
"I have?" cried Garth. "Why, how awfully queer! Then to-day is to-morrow."
"Exactly! And if this is to-morrow, what—"
"Then it's my birthday!"
"Yes, my dearest, it's your birthday; and I'm going to give you twice as many kisses as you have years, and a few more for good measure."
The kisses were given and returned, and Garth lay holding his mother's hand against his cheek.
"But what have you been doing all this time?" he asked.
"We slept a good deal ourselves," she replied. "Fogger and Joan wrote their report, and of course we talked and talked. Fogger's gone in to-day to see lots of officials who have come down, and the spies are in prison."
"I don't know yet what happened to you," Garth said. "And when may I get up?"
"I'll tell you our adventures now," she said; "and this afternoon, if you're really rested, I think you may get up for a while. Because we must have just a tiny celebration. There are so many things to celebrate—your birthday, beloved one, and the transport's being saved, and Fogger's getting into the Navy, and—and all of us being together—safe."
There was a curious quality of solemn elation about the birthday party. The bandaged foreheads of two of its members made it seem quite strange—"like an entertainment for convalescent officers, or something!" Jim said. The feast had concluded with peach ice-cream, almost unknown at the lighthouse.
"It's even better than the battleship kind," Garth said.
He sat in the big armchair at the head of the table, and he was wearing the ceremonial sailor-suit with long trousers. On the table before him stood the birthday cake, its eight pink candles blazing gallantly. He leaned forward and lifted the plate, and the warm orange light shone into his clear eyes and glowed on his face, very brown beneath the straight, white line of the bandage.
"You must all wish on it," he said, "and then I'll blow out the candles."
They passed the cake from one to the other, gazing over the gusty candle-flames at Garth, while their lips moved solemnly. Jim held it longest and looked so hard at Garth that he was quite abashed.
"What a long one!" he said. "Now if I can blow all the candles out at once, all the wishes will come true."
He took a very deep breath for the purpose, and was about to dispatch the candles, when two long arms came over his shoulders and seized the plate.
"Wait a minute!" cried a gay voice. "There's another wish belonging to you!"
"Uncle Brob!" shouted Garth. "I didn't hear you coming!"
"Hi! What sort of Maxim silencer did you attach to 'Bijah's old tub?" exclaimed Jim. "I didn't know the hilarity in here was high enough to cloak your arrival."
"I was so afraid you'd given it up entirely," Elspeth said.
She turned toward Joan, but a sentence of introduction died on her lips, because Joan's face was such a strange mixture of bewilderment, pleasure, and dawning wrath, that it held her silent. For the man who stood with his arm about Garth, gazing at Joan above the flickering candles, was no other than Robert Sinclair.
There followed ten minutes of cross-questioning which left every one but Sinclair gasping with amazement.
"How could I have guessed that you knew each other!" Elspeth said. "Oh, my brain is completely tangled up."
But Joan looked across at Sinclair, and her eyes demanded an explanation later that should satisfy her more thoroughly.
"And now," Sinclair said, "I demand the reason for the strange headgear of the men of the house?"
So there had to be a great deal more excited conversation, during which every one talked at once, and the candles on the birthday cake guttered and spilled drops of pink wax on the icing.
"Blow them out quickly!" said Sinclair; "on account of the wishes!"
So Garth blew, and all the flames lurched and vanished and the black wicks sent up little spirals of smoke.
"The biggest piece for Joan," said Garth, wielding the knife, "because she saved the Light, and everything; and the next biggest ones for Mudder and Fogger, because they had such adventures; and then Uncle Brob, and then me."
"Mine is the nicest piece," said Jim. "It has G. P. on it in pink icing."
While Elspeth was clearing away what remained of the birthday feast, Joan and Sinclair slipped out and stood on the rocks. The sky in the west was like a curved, rosy shell, glinting with misted color. Into it melted the sea, undulating smoothly with the long swell, a great wondrous pattern of shifting lavender and pink, shot with gleams of saffron. In the east a wisp of a twilight moon glimmered over the sea, scarcely more than a pearly flake in the paling blue of the sky.
"You must forgive me a great deal," begged Sinclair.
"Indeed, I think there is much to be forgiven," Joan assented. "It wasn't very nice of you."
"I sat up almost all of one night thinking it out," he said, "and then I decided not to tell Elspeth. I was so afraid of spoiling everything for you."
"I don't follow your reasoning," she remarked, staring at the burnished sky.
"I thought you'd be happier," he pleaded, "discovering Garth yourself, and all. I wanted you to find out about him—about everything—without having to mix in my point of view."
"The trouble was," Joan confessed, "that your point of view intruded in any case."
"You must forgive me much," he pleaded. "I misunderstood yours."
She shook her head quickly.
"No, you didn't. I've learned a lot, that's all, and I'm not ashamed to confess it. I must beg forgiveness, too. I said some very dis-agreeable things. I spoke out of impatient ignorance. I must learn a great deal, still."
"You could never think such things again, could you?" Sinclair ventured; "not even in argument with me?" He mused, smiling. "It is odd, isn't it, that Elspeth never mentioned my name. There's no reason why you should have, but she might easily have spoken of me."
"Very curious," Joan agreed. "She often talked of you—always as 'my brother'—and Garth sometimes spoke of 'Uncle Brob.' They even said that you painted; but there are other artists in the world. How could I suspect it? Oh, it was abominable of you!"
"Aren't you just a little glad that I annoyed you so?" he demanded. "If I hadn't, perhaps you mightn't have flown off in such a hurry to the providentially-full Harbor View House. And then you'd not have come to Silver Shoal, nor known Garth, nor anything."
"Fancy never knowing him!" Joan reflected. "Yes, perhaps it was providential."
"And I've quite forgotten to give him his present!" Sinclair exclaimed suddenly. "What an uncle!"
They returned to the living-room, and Sinclair brought a big flat package from beside the door.
"I've brought you a sort of present," he said, putting the parcel on a chair before Garth, "and I do hope you'll like it. It's not quite dry in some places," he added, peering inside the paper, "but it seems to be all right."
He pulled the wrappings away suddenly, and there stood revealed a picture, a rather large painting, Out through the dull green frame loomed a great full-rigged ship, coming head on out of the mist. Away from her lofty bow the clear emerald water curled, dashing spray against her carven figure-head. Every detail of her beautiful form was painted with exquisite care; not the least thing was lacking. Yet about her clung a strange atmosphere of unreality, as though she were almost a phantom ship. Her skysails were lost in the mist; her cloudy canvas merged into the gray behind her. Her utter silence was not altogether the silence of a pictured thing. She towered along like a ship in a dream, clothed in a mystic vesture of enchantment.
"She is your ship," said Sinclair gently. "You are her master, and she heeds no other hand at the helm but yours."
"Ship of Dreams," murmured Jim. "Per aspera ad astra."
Garth clung to his uncle in sober ecstasy.
"How could you think of such a wonderful, wonderful thing to give me!" he whispered. "And you painted it all for me. My own ship, the one I've always wanted. I didn't know I'd ever see a picture of her. But that's not just a picture. It's—it's her! Oh, Fogger, if I can have her in my room in town, it will help—lots."
Outside the window purple twilight deepened. In the fading light Garth's ship grew more gently ethereal. She loomed half seen out of the dusk, her shadowy sails filled with an unfelt breeze, her brave bows cleaving a soundless sea. And above, in splendid loneliness, Silver Shoal reached out its protecting arms of light and folded the world's rim with its radiance.