The Green Dolphin
reaching over she patted the hand of the big, clumsy man at her elbow.
There was time for no further demonstration for just at this juncture
the stage drew up before Asaph’s door, and Lemuel Gill, hatless and
smiling, came forward to greet the travelers.
His welcome carried something that would instantly have disarmed
antagonism had Althea been armed with it. Good will spoke in his every
gesture, and even a tender solicitude was evident in the care with
which he helped her out of the grimy wagon and took her bag.
His eyes, as Asaph had surmised, were blue, and they shone now with
bright, unwavering friendliness. But prejudiced indeed must one have
been who failed to recognize his hair as carroty. Yet, notwithstanding
the hue of his locks and the casualness of the garments that covered
his loose, slouching figure, there was a buoyant youthfulness about
him, a warmth and sincerity that charmed.
Althea gave him her hand and felt the color flood her face as with
curiosity his artless gaze swept it.
Then Asaph put to rout the tension of the moment by exclaiming jovially:
“Bless my soul, Lemmy! If you ain’t all dolled out in a collar an’
necktie! Althea can’t say you ain’t paid her the highest honors.”
“I meant to,” was the grave retort.
What woman could resist such homage?
Certainly not Althea, who saw in the little man a quality all women
love.
“I hope we’re goin’ to be friends--you an’ I,” she responded timidly.
“We’re goin’ to if it rests with me,” beamed Lemuel.
They had gone indoors and the bride turned to look about her.
“My, Asaph, how neat your house looks!” commented she. “I’m glad to
find you such an orderly housekeeper. If there’s anything I can’t abide
it’s dirt an’ untidiness.”
Lemuel cast a quick glance at his comrade, and seeing him on the brink
of a confession interrupted with feverish haste:
“Asaph’s an all-right housekeeper in his way, marm; but his biggest
talents show outdoors. Did you twig his garden as you came along?”
“Phoo, phoo, Lemmy--nonsense! Why, I ain’t ever raised a thing could
compare with your lilies an’ delphinium.”
They were sauntering from the hall into the sitting room and a cry from
Althea cut short the argument.
“Oh!” murmured she, pointing to the mass of bloom that all but
concealed the motto opposite her.
“You didn’t cut down your larkspur, Lemmy,” gasped Asaph, aghast at the
sight.
“I snipped some of it off,” answered Lemuel, lightly. “Folks ain’t
married every day.”
“But your best hybrids--an’ the peonies!”
“They’re beautiful,” broke in Althea softly. “I couldn’t have had,
Lemmy, a present that would have pleased me more.”
With feminine understanding she laid her hand shyly on the arm of the
little man.
The Rubicon had been crossed. They were friends.
* * * * *
“I reckon ’twas worth it,” drawled Lemmy Gill, when, that evening,
alone in his garden, he ruefully surveyed the naked stalks that towered
into the gloom. “Flowers have a way of sayin’ for you things you can’t
say yourself. Had I tried a lifetime I couldn’t ’a’ made clear to
Althea what them delphiniums did.”
CHAPTER IV
Belleport experienced no slight shock in the whirlwind courtship and
marriage of Asaph Holmes, and immediately the romance became the chief
topic of interest in the town’s social calendar. Curiosity to see the
bride and hear about her obsessed old and young.
A few of the villagers had been fortunate enough to meet Althea at the
Brewsters, and these found themselves besieged with queries concerning
her. She must be a paragon indeed to have transformed a confirmed
bachelor like Asaph into a benedict. Why, nobody dreamed he would ever
marry. He wasn’t the marrying sort. Moreover, were not he and Lemuel
Gill almost twin souls?
What did poor Lemmy think of the affair? It must have been a staggering
blow to him.
Thus they whispered and speculated together.
It was not malicious gossip, merely the chatter of neighbors who
had known Asaph from boyhood and known his father and mother before
him. Not a twist of his character was there with which they were not
familiar. They knew of his veneration for Webster; his garden, his
clippings, his catalogues; knew, too, of the visitations of Hannah
Dole with an intimacy that would have appalled the shy man had he been
aware of their knowledge. Oh, there was little about him they did not
know. Hence when it came to checking him up there was no need for them
to give his personal history more than a cursory glance.
But the woman he had married, this outlander from down the Cape, who
was she and what was her ancestry? These were the burning questions.
The seal of friendship set upon her by the Brewsters counted, to
be sure, for something, for they were persons of standing whose
sanction carried weight. Sensing this and hopeful of wresting from
them more information, some of the more inquisitive Belleporters made
a pilgrimage to Wilton to glean from Zenas Henry and his wife such
facts as were procurable. Zeke Barker, in the meantime, outdid them in
enterprise and became the hero of the hour by driving to Provincetown
and acquiring from Althea’s neighbors additional data with which to
augment the common fund. By piecing these scattered fragments together,
and putting with them items contained in a letter Mattie Bearse
received from her Abington cousin, a fairly accurate idea of Althea
Holmes and her forebears was obtained, and, disappointed that the
investigation yielded such a meagre foothold for scandal, the populace
was obliged to concede there seemed to be nothing in the past of
Asaph’s bride for which she need blush.
Apparently she came of the same rugged Cape stock as did they
themselves, and her history paralleled that of the average New
Englander of sea-faring ancestry. This summary must content them until
such time as she should make her advent into the community and they be
granted a more intimate glimpse of her.
When, therefore, the happy pair arrived in town the waiting hamlet was
a-tiptoe with excitement, and immediately a stream of visitors began to
flow toward the silver cottage on the bluff. Some came to bear friendly
greetings; others to invite the wedded couple to supper or urge Althea
to join the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, the Eastern Star, or the Reading
Club.
To the master of the house this influx of guests was a novel and, it
must be owned, a not altogether welcome experience. Shy by nature and
having fostered the tendency by a hermit-like existence, he found the
rôle of jovial host a difficult one to portray. He had at his command
little talk that did not relate to his hobbies and it hardly seemed
worthwhile to offer this to the flitting herd that swarmed his doors.
Furthermore, years of solitary living had solidified the ruts in
which he moved until to be jolted out of them by intruders jarred and
irritated.
When at last he had been constantly interrupted until the weeds were
knee deep in his iris border and his roses showed signs of blackspot,
he felt it necessary to offer the suggestion of an apology to Lemuel
Gill.
“’Course I s’pose it’s to be expected folks will come troopin’ here at
first,” remarked he. “Likely they consider it polite. Their galavantin’
will soon be over, though, an’ their curiosity gratified, an’ then I’ll
have a chance to get to work. I’m about beat out with company an’ I
guess Althea is, too.”
Later he ventured to commiserate his bride on their common misfortune.
“It’s too bad you’ve been so pestered with folks comin’ to see you,”
he said sympathetically. “I reckon, though, there’s nothin’ to be
done about it but brave through the hurricane till it blows over. Our
marryin’ seems to have stirred up quite a tempest. But it’ll calm down
before long an’ the public will leave us alone.”
Althea glanced quickly into his face.
“I hope not,” answered she. “I like visitors. At home folks were always
droppin’ in to talk or borrow somethin’. It livened us up an’ kept us
from gettin’ lonesome.”
Her husband sobered.
“I hope you ain’t goin’ to be lonesome here, Althea,” he returned, a
note of anxiety in his voice.
“I don’t look to be,” was the grave response. “I’ve my housework, an’
plenty to do don’t leave a body leisure for mopin’. Besides, ain’t you
here to cheer me up?”
The great fellow colored with pleasure. Until lately Althea had
maintained toward him a piquing reserve that continually left him
speculating as to the heights and depths of her regard; but since
marriage, although still charmingly elusive, she had gradually lowered
the bars that held him in check, a fact that delighted her husband.
Had he been of more intuitive a nature he would have understood that
this change of demeanor was largely the result of his own attitude
toward her. Asaph Holmes had been brought up under the tutelage of a
good mother, who early in life had instilled into him both chivalry and
consideration for all womanhood. Hence, although his circle of feminine
acquaintances did not extend any great radius beyond his own doorsill,
he was much better versed in what constituted a happy marriage than
was many a man of wider experience. This Althea was learning, and in
proportion as the truth seeped in upon her she gave freer rein to her
affection, congratulating herself that her union with this silent,
awkward man had been no mistake. To marry was at best a venture, and to
embark on the experiment late in life was, her level head told her, a
madness to be matched by no other human undertaking. Yet in her sudden
romance there had been qualities that convinced her the affair could
not culminate in disaster.
Had Asaph Holmes been an ardent, hot-blooded wooer she would have
feared to trust his promises. But this man, earnest, pleading,
self-effacing, scorning to pledge himself to more than he knew he could
honestly perform, appealed to her truth-seeking heart. What mattered
it that his words were few; that he was studious, matter-of-fact, and
a good ten years her senior? He could be trusted, and experience told
her every man could not. Long ago, in girlhood, a lover dashing and
debonair had crossed her path, and the black shadow he had left behind
him caused her even yet to shrink from any repetition of his type.
But Sarah Tyler, more worldly-minded and eager for family advancement,
could see in the match little to commend it.
“I can’t for the life of me, Althea, understand why you should want to
go marryin’ that big, hulkin’ fisherman. Not only is he years older
than you but he’s dumb as an oyster. A whistlin’ buoy off the coast
would be cheerful company compared to him. With your looks and figger
you ought to be able to do better’n that.”
Althea did not vouchsafe to this criticism any of the several retorts
she might have been justified in offering. She did not, for example,
reply that Asaph Holmes had plenty to say to anyone who had the brains
to talk with him; neither did she utter the tart response that when it
came to husbands she did not see that Sarah herself had selected from
the myriad masculine varieties with which the universe was peopled, a
particularly flawless specimen of the sex. She did not even trouble to
lay bare for her sister’s inspection the heart that like a jewel lay
beneath Asaph’s prosaic exterior. Instead, she laughed off the comment
by declaring good-humoredly:
“After all, Sarah, it’s I and not you that’s got to live with him,” and
ruefully acknowledging the truth of the assertion, Mrs. Tyler said no
more.
In Belleport, however, where Asaph was known and universally respected,
judgment assumed precisely the opposite tack.
“A woman don’t half know how lucky she is to get a husband like Asaph