Anne's House of Dreams
you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
life-book into a harmonious whole.”
Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
plan. At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
“life-book” given to the world. He was also pleased that the story of
lost Margaret should be woven into it.
“It will keep her name from being forgotten,” he said wistfully.
“That’s why I want it put in.”
“We’ll collaborate,” cried Owen delightedly. “You will give the soul
and I the body. Oh, we’ll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
And we’ll get right to work.”
“And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster’s grandson!”
exclaimed Captain Jim. “Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
I thought there was nobody like him. I see now why I had to wait so
long. It couldn’t be writ till the right man come. You BELONG
here--you’ve got the soul of this old north shore in you--you’re the
only one who COULD write it.”
It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop. It was
necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
Owen was quite ignorant.
He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
it heart and soul. As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
see the manuscript.
“You must wait until it is published,” he said. “Then you’ll get it
all at once in its best shape.”
He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely. He
dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
to him and lived in his pages. As the book progressed it took
possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He let
Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie’s.
Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
“I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,”
she told Gilbert. “Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
the writing of such a book. As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
predestined for the part.”
Owen Ford wrote in the mornings. The afternoons were generally spent
in some merry outing with the Blythes. Leslie often went, too, for
Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
wild ducks in the cove--at least, the men did. In the evenings they
rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
find to talk about.
Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
had been a changed creature. There was no trace of her old coldness
and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness. The girlhood of which
she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
enchanted summer. When she could not be with them all felt that some
exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was
illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne’s
eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford, the
“Margaret” of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, “pillowed where
lost Atlantis sleeps,” had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one of those summers
which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
memories in their going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
“Too good to last,” Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
his vacation must come to an end.
“I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and pruning and so
forth,” he said, “but in the main it’s done. I wrote the last sentence
this morning. If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
next summer or fall.”
Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher. He knew that
he had written a great book--a book that would score a wonderful
success--a book that would LIVE. He knew that it would bring him both
fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time. And his
thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
CHAPTER 26
OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
“I’m so sorry Gilbert is away,” said Anne. “He had to go--Allan Lyons
at the Glen has met with a serious accident. He will not likely be
home till very late. But he told me to tell you he’d be up and over
early enough in the morning to see you before you left. It’s too
provoking. Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
your last night here.”
She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
Gilbert had built. Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
bronze column of a yellow birch. He was very pale and his face bore
the marks of the preceding sleepless night. Anne, glancing up at him,
wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
should. Had he worked too hard over his book? She remembered that for
a week he had not been looking well.
“I’m rather glad the doctor is away,” said Owen slowly. “I wanted to
see you alone, Mrs. Blythe. There is something I must tell somebody,
or I think it will drive me mad. I’ve been trying for a week to look
it in the face--and I can’t. I know I can trust you--and, besides, you
will understand. A woman with eyes like yours always understands. You
are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. Mrs. Blythe,
I love Leslie. LOVE her! That seems too weak a word!”
His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. His whole form
shook. Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast. She had never
thought of this! And yet--how was it she had never thought of it? It
now seemed a natural and inevitable thing. She wondered at her own
blindness. But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
conventions and laws--but not HERE, surely. Leslie had kept summer
boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this! Why hadn’t Miss Cornelia
thought of it? Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
against Miss Cornelia. Then she gave a little inward groan. No matter
who was to blame the mischief was done. And Leslie--what of Leslie?
It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
“Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?” she asked quietly.
“No--no,--unless she has guessed it. You surely don’t think I’d be cad
and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn’t help loving
her--that’s all--and my misery is greater than I can bear.”
“Does SHE care?” asked Anne. The moment the question crossed her lips
she felt that she should not have asked it. Owen Ford answered it with
overeager protest.
“No--no, of course not. But I could make her care if she were free--I
know I could.”
“She does care--and he knows it,” thought Anne. Aloud she said,
sympathetically but decidedly:
“But she is not free, Mr. Ford. And the only thing you can do is to go
away in silence and leave her to her own life.”
“I know--I know,” groaned Owen. He sat down on the grassy bank and
stared moodily into the amber water beneath him. “I know there’s
nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, ‘Good-bye, Mrs.
Moore. Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,’ just as I
would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
expected her to be when I came. Then I’ll pay my board money like any
honest boarder and go! Oh, it’s very simple. No doubt--no
perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
“And I’ll walk it--you needn’t fear that I won’t, Mrs. Blythe. But it
would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares.”
Anne flinched with the pain of his voice. And there was so little she
could say that would be adequate to the situation. Blame was out of
the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man’s
stark agony. She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
regret. Her heart ached for Leslie! Had not that poor girl suffered
enough without this?
“It wouldn’t be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,”
resumed Owen passionately. “But to think of her living death--to
realize what it is to which I do leave her! THAT is the worst of all.
I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
help her--nothing. She is bound forever to that poor wretch--with
nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
meaningless, barren years. It drives me mad to think of it. But I
must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
is enduring. It’s hideous--hideous!”
“It is very hard,” said Anne sorrowfully. “We--her friends here--all
know how hard it is for her.”
“And she is so richly fitted for life,” said Owen rebelliously.
“Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful
woman I’ve ever known. That laugh of hers! I’ve angled all summer to
evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it. And her
eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there. I never saw
such blueness--and gold! Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?”
“No.”
“I did--once. I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back. She had taken the
opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold. When
she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
all around her--Danae in her cloud. Somehow, just then the knowledge
that I loved her came home to me--and realized that I had loved her
from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that