The Green Dolphin
Holmes,” announced Marcia Snow to the assembled sewing circle. “He
may be deliberate and scant of talk, but he’s kindness itself an’ as
dependable as the sun. He won’t go whiskin’ round an’ start chasin’ off
in some other direction after he’s married. The wife that’s got him has
got him for life.
“But what’s he drawn, I’d like to know? Oh, I’ve seen her an’ I
don’t deny she’s pleasant to meet; good lookin’, too, with her curly
hair, red cheeks an’ all. But what kind of a wife is she goin’ to
make him--that’s the question I’m askin’? She must be younger than
he by a dozen years an’ is evidently one of those chatty, sociable
creatures that’ll drag him round a-visitin’ an’ break up all the
quiet of his home. She ain’t a-goin’ to be no person to live out on
that lonely point of sand with a bookworm like Asaph Holmes. She’ll
never be contented there in the world. Before a year’s out there’ll be
ructions--you see if there ain’t!”
The pair concerning whom this dubious prophecy was uttered were in
the meantime evidently oblivious to their impending fate, and not
anticipating any violent domestic upheaval Althea took possession of
her new home with interest. She hung ruffled curtains at the windows,
invested in additional china, put plants, table-covers, and bric-à-brac
about, made fresh sofa cushions.
With conflicting emotions her husband surveyed her innovations.
There was no disputing the fact that they rendered the cottage more
pretentious and up to date. But did they make it more homelike? Amid
the galaxy of objects that now adorned the rooms little space was to be
found for his catalogues and clippings. To be sure he still collected
them, tucking them into obscure corners, since he dared not weight them
down with Althea’s bridal ornaments. As a result they more frequently
took wing. For these literary cyclones he was always apologetic and
his wife forgiving. Nevertheless, beneath their courtesy simmered
mutual irritation.
Then there were the tools, the cans of insecticide, the boxes of
loam, the strings, wires, and markers that gradually stole beyond the
confines allotted them by Hannah Dole. Althea did not allude to their
presence at first, and mistaking tolerance for sanction her helpmate
gave his repressed impulses freer scope and proceeded to drag out
his entire array of agricultural paraphernalia. He splashed Bordeaux
and Pyrox about the shed until its floor was blue; he brewed bottle
after bottle of evil brown, yellow, or black liquids and whistled
with complete contentment as he stirred the deadly mixtures, thinking
all the while what a fortunate marital choice he had made and what a
blessing wedlock was under conditions such as these. Had a woman been
created purposely for him she could not have been a more perfect wife.
Occasional clouds, to be sure, blurred his sunshine. There was no
denying Lemuel Gill was sensitive, and Althea--well, perhaps all
women were jealous. Be that as it may, jars did occur and moments of
tension when he was compelled to flit solicitously between the opposing
factions, soothing Lemmy and comforting Althea. Gradually he realized
that this rôle of peacemaker was to be a more or less permanent one.
It was a taxing post, the office of interpreter between the two
individuals who loved him best; but since the friction rose because of
him, he granted he was preeminently the one to bear its annoyances.
Moreover, the strife never expanded into open warfare; it remained
petty and unacknowledged, taking vent in a toss of the head, an upward
tilt of the chin, or a whiffle out the front gate.
In the meantime, notwithstanding these rifts in the general serenity,
the months wore tranquilly along, and by the time winter came the trio
had learned to adapt themselves more amiably to one another’s crooks
and corners. This was indeed fortunate, for as the Holmeses and Lemuel
Gill were the sole residents of the bluff where their houses stood,
they had few outside resources and were continually thrown upon each
other’s society.
Asaph had never found cold weather irksome. Incontestably gales did
howl round his cottage, and a northeaster with the ocean lashed into
fury and sending the spray high in air was a sight not to be lightly
contemplated. Nevertheless, there was grandeur and exhilaration in the
spectacle as well as awe and terror. Besides, the sea was not always in
cruel humor. Often it was merely sullen, its leaden expanse flooding
out to meet a lowering sky. Or the sun shone on it from a cloudless
heaven flashing on waves that curled white and fretted with feathery
beauty the vast sweep of sapphire. Oh, there was many and many a
winter’s day when in spite of snow-buried dunes and tingling fingers it
was good to be alive!
These kaleidoscopic moods of the deep Asaph Holmes knew and loved, and
the season meant to him a warm kitchen; a high-backed rocker before
the fire; chowder steaming on the stove; and a well-thumbed volume of
Webster or one of his precious seed annuals before him. At such moments
Paradise had seemed very near, and now, with Althea and her knitting
added to the picture, it seemed nearer than ever.
Each morning Lemuel Gill dropped in to bring the mail and retail
the village gossip, and while the men talked, smoked, and built air
castles around their summer gardens, Althea baked, cleaned, and mended.
Sometimes she would join them; but more frequently she seized the
opportunity to steal off by herself and pursue interests of her own.
She always returned, however, in time to press Lemmy to remain to
dinner, which he usually did after having protested there were a
hundred reasons why he must immediately return to his shanty.
Thus the winter passed, and with spring all unforeseen came the
earthquake that turned peace into chaos and the grey cottage on the
Belleport sands into a maelstrom of activity.
Alas for Asaph! Alas, too, for Lemuel Gill!
Out of a sky placid as a noonday in June fell the bolt that left the
former man dazed and breathless and the latter murmuring to himself:
“Certainly marriage does lead folks into unexpected byways!”
CHAPTER V
Of course it was all Althea. But for her it would never have happened.
One must, however, be just, and taking the bitter with the sweet
concede that had Asaph Holmes never ventured upon matrimonial seas he
would have missed immeasurable depths of happiness. Indeed, he himself
granted that after having once been blessed with such a wife he looked
back on the empty years that preceded his marriage and marvelled how he
had even contrived to get on without this peerless woman.
It was not yet a year since the wedding, and in that brief interval
Althea had become a prop he could not well have lived without. How
capable she was! What a caretaker!
Before her advent he had often been wont, when engrossed in
horticultural pursuits or the allurements of a Websterian oration, to
become oblivious to the milk bottles, the ice card, or the pan beneath
the refrigerator. Now these nagging duties along with a score of others
like them Althea had taken into her keeping. She never suffered lapses
of memory; never even tied strings round her finger to help her to
remember details. Responsibility came so easily to her one felt she
could carry in her head ten times the number of things she did, and
still not be conscious of having anything on her mind.
Care, on the other hand, nettled her husband. When in addition to
weeding and transplanting he had the milk bottles, the ice card and
the refrigerator to remember, he veered as close to irritation as his
phlegmatic temperament ever approached. This Althea speedily sensed,
and after her arrival it took her not more than twenty-four hours to
shift from his shoulders to her own all the harassing routine of the
household.
She did not, however, make the transfer to the blowing of trumpets.
That was the delightful part of it. So quietly was the exchange
accomplished that Asaph could not have told the moment when the
burden slipped from him. All he was conscious of was his wife’s voice
announcing with a finality not to be questioned:
“I will attend to the ice-chest and the other things in future, dear.”
And yet for all her amazing executive ability Althea was very modest.
She did not perch herself on a pedestal and from its elevation look
down with superiority on her less capable helpmate. In fact it is
doubtful whether the idea that she was superior ever occurred to her.
She was a proud woman, to whom the bare notion of being linked with
an inferior husband would have been unendurable. No, she certainly did
not hold Asaph to be lower down the evolutionary ladder than herself.
Instead, she evidently considered he maintained the intellectual
balance of their union by making up in information with regard to
Saturn’s rings, the campaigns of Napoleon, and Webster’s reply to Haine
what he lacked in knowledge concerning the catch on the back door or
the leak in the shed roof. She was immensely proud of his learning. Not
every woman in Belleport was married to a man who could tell offhand
the name of the hero who first glimpsed the Pacific. To be sure, Balboa
and his discoveries offered no remedy for the door that continually
blew open, nor were they of assistance in tarring over the shed roof.
Nevertheless as a background they lent dignity to these commonplace
phenomena.
When, therefore, such a pillar as Althea casually declared on an
afternoon in late May: “I’ve had a letter from Sister Sarah, Asaph,
an’ she sounds to be in such a sea of trouble that I’ve decided to go
up to Abington an’ straighten her out,” what wonder the blow was more
overwhelming than the fall of Sebastopol or the destruction of the
Spanish Armada?
Asaph cringed before it in consternation.
Not that Abington was far away. In actual miles it was no great
distance off. But it might as well have been at the other end of the
world if Althea were to betake herself hither. As Mercutio remarked of
his death wound, _it would serve_.
Deep in his heart Asaph cursed Sarah Tyler. She was constantly
foundering into calamities that all but submerged her, and then
appealing to Althea to rescue her from them. He did not for the moment
appreciate that he himself committed dozens of similar offenses, and
if he had he would doubtless have offered the excuse that a husband’s
privileges were very different from those of a sister. If he chose to
amble into seas of tribulation and then shout to Althea for help he had
a perfect right to do so; but Sarah Tyler should keep her troubles to
herself.
Possibly had the hapless Sarah been born with a relative less capable
she would have pursued this very policy; but to be linked with Althea
by ties of blood and aware of her ability was fatal. Why endure the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune when succor so potential was
within reach? In every crisis of her life Althea had been her guiding
star. Why shift pilots at this late hour? Therefore, if the children
had the mumps (and they had a faculty for catching everything within
catching distance); if Jabez was out of work; if her taffeta silk had
to be made over, Sarah sat down and graphically described on paper the
nature of her dilemma; then having gummed her trials up in a pale blue
envelope and hurried them into the mail box she sat serenely down to
await the magic solution which experience had taught her would surely
follow.
Asaph had come to dread the appearance of those blue envelopes. Had he
dared, he would have burned them unopened as fast as they arrived. Not
possessing this measure of courage he habitually delivered them to his
wife with the edged interrogation:
“Well, what’s up with the Tylers now?”