Further Chronicles of Avonlea Page 14

came of a strange breed, as had been said

  disapprovingly when Luke Carewe married her. There was

  a strain of insanity in the Lincolns. A Lincoln woman

  had drowned herself once. Chester thought of the river,

  and grew sick with fright. For a moment even his

  passion for Damaris weakened before the older tie.

  "Mother, calm yourself. Oh, surely there's no need of

  all this! Let us wait until to-morrow, and talk it over

  then. I'll hear all you have to say. Come in, dear."

  Thyra loosened her arms from about him, and stepped

  back into a moon-lit space. Looking at him tragically,

  she extended her arms and spoke slowly and solemnly.

  "Chester, choose between us. If you choose her, I shall

  go from you to-night, and you will never see me again!"

  "Mother!"

  "Choose!" she reiterated, fiercely.

  He felt her long ascendancy. Its influence was not to

  be shaken off in a moment. In all his life he had never

  disobeyed her. Besides, with it all, he loved her more

  deeply and understandingly than most sons love their

  mothers. He realized that, since she would have it so,

  his choice was already made - or, rather that he had no

  choice.

  "Have your way," he said sullenly.

  She ran to him and caught him to her heart. In the

  reaction of her feeling she was half laughing, half

  crying. All was well again - all would be well; she

  never doubted this, for she knew he would keep his

  ungracious promise sacredly.

  "Oh, my son, my son," she murmured, "you'd have sent me

  to my death if you had chosen otherwise. But now you

  are mine again!"

  She did not heed that he was sullen - that he resented

  her unjustice with all her own intensity. She did not

  heed his silence as they went into the house together.

  Strangely enough, she slept well and soundly that

  night. Not until many days had passed did she

  understand that, though Chester might keep his promise

  in the letter, it was beyond his power to keep it in

  the spirit. She had taken him from Damaris Garland; but

  she had not won him back to herself. He could never be

  wholly her son again. There was a barrier between them

  which not all her passionate love could break down.

  Chester was gravely kind to her, for it was not in his

  nature to remain sullen long, or visit his own

  unhappiness upon another's head; besides, he understood

  her exacting affection, even in its injustice, and it

  has been well-said that to understand is to forgive.

  But he avoided her, and she knew it. The flame of her

  anger burned bitterly towards Damaris.

  "He thinks of her all the time," she moaned to herself.

  "He'll come to hate me yet, I fear, because it's I who

  made him give her up. But I'd rather even that than

  share him with another woman. Oh, my son, my son!"

  She knew that Damaris was suffering, too. The girl's

  wan face told that when she met her. But this pleased

  Thyra. It eased the ache in her bitter heart to know

  that pain was gnawing at Damaris' also.

  Chester was absent from home very often now. He spent

  much of his spare time at the harbor, consorting with

  Joe Raymond and others of that ilk, who were but sorry

  associates for him, Avonlea people thought.

  In late November he and Joe started for a trip down the

  coast in the latter's boat. Thyra protested against it,

  but Chester laughed at her alarm.

  Thyra saw him go with a heart sick from fear. She hated

  the sea, and was afraid of it at any time; but, most of

  all, in this treacherous month, with its sudden, wild

  gales.

  Chester had been fond of the sea from boyhood. She had

  always tried to stifle this fondness and break off his

  associations with the harbor fishermen, who liked to

  lure the high-spirited boy out with them on fishing

  expeditions. But her power over him was gone now.

  After Chester's departure she was restless and

  miserable, wandering from window to window to scan the

  dour, unsmiling sky. Carl White, dropping in to pay a

  call, was alarmed when he heard that Chester had gone

  with Joe, and had not tact enough to conceal his alarm

  from Thyra.

  "'T isn't safe this time of year," he said. "Folks

  expect no better from that reckless, harum-scarum Joe

  Raymond. He'll drown himself some day, there's nothing

  surer. This mad freak of starting off down the shore in

  November is just of a piece with his usual

  performances. But you shouldn't have let Chester go,

  Thyra."

  "I couldn't prevent him. Say what I could, he would go.

  He laughed when I spoke of danger. Oh, he's changed

  from what he was! I know who has wrought the change,

  and I hate her for it!"

  Carl shrugged his fat shoulders. He knew quite well

  that Thyra was at the bottom of the sudden coldness

  between Chester Carewe and Damaris Garland, about which

  Avonlea gossip was busying itself. He pitied Thyra,

  too. She had aged rapidly the past month.

  "You're too hard on Chester, Thyra. He's out of

  leading-strings now, or should be. You must just let me

  take an old friend's privilege, and tell you that

  you're taking the wrong way with him. You're too

  jealous and exacting, Thyra."

  "You don't know anything about it. You have never had a

  son," said Thyra, cruelly enough, for she knew that

  Carl's sonlessness was a rankling thorn in his mind.

  "You don't know what it is to pour out your love on one

  human being, and have it flung back in your face!"

  Carl could not cope with Thyra's moods. He had never

  understood her, even in his youth. Now he went home,

  still shrugging his shoulders, and thinking that it was

  a good thing Thyra had not looked on him with favor in

  the old days. Cynthia was much easier to get along

  with.

  More than Thyra looked anxiously to sea and sky that

  night in Avonlea. Damaris Garland listened to the

  smothered roar of the Atlantic in the murky northeast

  with a prescience of coming disaster. Friendly

  longshoremen shook their heads and said that Ches and

  Joe would better have kept to good, dry land.

  "It's sorry work joking with a November gale," said

  Abel Blair. He was an old man and, in his life, had

  seen some sad things along the shore.

  Thyra could not sleep that night. When the gale came

  shrieking up the river, and struck the house, she got

  out of bed and dressed herself. The wind screamed like

  a ravening beast at her window. All night she wandered

  to and fro in the house, going from room to room, now

  wringing her hands with loud outcries, now praying

  below her breath with white lips, now listening in dumb

  misery to the fury of the storm.

  The wind raged all the next day; but spent itself in

  the follo
wing night, and the second morning was calm

  and fair. The eastern sky was a great arc of crystal,

  smitten through with auroral crimsonings. Thyra,

  looking from her kitchen window, saw a group of men on

  the bridge. They were talking to Carl White, with looks

  and gestures directed towards the Carewe house.

  She went out and down to them. None of these who saw

  her white, rigid face that day ever forgot the sight.

  "You have news for me," she said.

  They looked at each other, each man mutely imploring

  his neighbor to speak.

  "You need not fear to tell me," said Thyra calmly. "I

  know what you have come to say. My son is drowned."

  "We don't know that, Mrs. Carewe," said Abel Blair

  quickly. "We haven't got the worst to tell you -

  there's hope yet. But Joe Raymond's boat was found last

  night, stranded bottom up, on the Blue Point sand

  shore, forty miles down the coast."

  "Don't look like that, Thyra," said Carl White

  pityingly. "They may have escaped - they may have been

  picked up."

  Thyra looked at him with dull eyes.

  "You know they have not. Not one of you has any hope. I

  have no son. The sea has taken him from me - my bonny

  baby!"

  She turned and went back to her desolate home. None

  dared to follow her. Carl White went home and sent his

  wife over to her.

  Cynthia found Thyra sitting in her accustomed chair.

  Her hands lay, palms upward, on her lap. Her eyes were

  dry and burning. She met Cynthia's compassionate look

  with a fearful smile.

  "Long ago, Cynthia White," she said slowly, "you were

  vexed with me one day, and you told me that God would

  punish me yet, because I made an idol of my son, and

  set it up in His place. Do you remember? Your word was

  a true one. God saw that I loved Chester too much, and

  He meant to take him from me. I thwarted one way when I

  made him give up Damaris. But one can't fight against

  the Almighty. It was decreed that I must lose him - if

  not in one way, then in another. He has been taken from

  me utterly. I shall not even have his grave to tend,

  Cynthia."

  "As near to a mad woman as anything you ever saw, with

  her awful eyes," Cynthia told Carl, afterwards. But she

  did not say so there. Although she was a shallow,

  commonplace soul, she had her share of womanly

  sympathy, and her own life had not been free from

  suffering. It taught her the right thing to do now. She

  sat down by the stricken creature and put her arms

  about her, while she gathered the cold hands in her own

  warm clasp. The tears filled her big, blue eyes and her

  voice trembled as she said:

  "Thyra, I'm sorry for you. I - I - lost a child once -

  my little first-born. And Chester was a dear, good

  lad."

  For a moment Thyra strained her small, tense body away

  from Cynthia's embrace. Then she shuddered and cried

  out. The tears came, and she wept her agony out on the

  other woman's breast.

  As the ill news spread, other Avonlea women kept

  dropping in all through the day to condole with Thyra.

  Many of them came in real sympathy, but some out of

  mere curiosity to see how she took it. Thyra knew this,

  but she did not resent it, as she would once have done.

  She listened very quietly to all the halting efforts at

  consolation, and the little platitudes with which they

  strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.

  When darkness came Cynthia said she must go home, but

  would send one of her girls over for the night.

  "You won't feel like staying alone," she said.

  Thyra looked up steadily.

  "No. But I want you to send for Damaris Garland."

  "Damaris Garland!" Cynthia repeated the name as if

  disbelieving her own ears. There was never any knowing

  what whim Thyra might take, but Cynthia had not

  expected this.

  "Yes. Tell her I want her - tell her she must come. She

  must hate me bitterly; but I am punished enough to

  satisfy even her hate. Tell her to come to me for

  Chester's sake."

  Cynthia did as she was bid, she sent her daughter,

  Jeanette, for Damaris. Then she waited. No matter what

  duties were calling for her at home she must see the

  interview between Thyra and Damaris. Her curiosity

  would be the last thing to fail Cynthia White. She had

  done very well all day; but it would be asking too much

  of her to expect that she would consider the meeting of

  these two women sacred from her eyes.

  She half believed that Damaris would refuse to come.

  But Damaris came. Jeanette brought her in amid the

  fiery glow of a November sunset. Thyra stood up, and

  for a moment they looked at each other.

  The insolence of Damaris' beauty was gone. Her eyes

  were dull and heavy with weeping, her lips were pale,

  and her face had lost its laughter and dimples. Only

  her hair, escaping from the shawl she had cast around

  it, gushed forth in warm splendor in the sunset light,

  and framed her wan face like the aureole of a Madonna.

  Thyra looked upon her with a shock of remorse. This was

  not the radiant creature she had met on the bridge that

  summer afternoon. This - this - was her work. She held

  out her arms.

  "Oh, Damaris, forgive me. We both loved him - that must

  be a bond between us for life."

  Damaris came forward and threw her arms about the older

  woman, lifting her face. As their lips met even Cynthia

  White realized that she had no business there. She

  vented the irritation of her embarrassment on the

  innocent Jeanette.

  "Come away," she whispered crossly. "Can't you see

  we're not wanted here?"

  She drew Jeanette out, leaving Thyra rocking Damaris in

  her arms, and crooning over her like a mother over her

  child.

  When December had grown old Damaris was still with

  Thyra. It was understood that she was to remain there

  for the winter, at least. Thyra could not bear her to

  be out of her sight. They talked constantly about

  Chester; Thyra confessed all her anger and hatred.

  Damaris had forgiven her; but Thyra could never forgive

  herself. She was greatly changed, and had grown very

  gentle and tender. She even sent for August Vorst and

  begged him to pardon her for the way she had spoken to

  him.

  Winter came late that year, and the season was a very

  open one. There was no snow on the ground and, a month

  after Joe Raymond's boat had been cast up on the Blue

  Point sand shore, Thyra, wandering about in her garden,

  found some pansies blooming under their tangled leaves.

  She was picking them for Damaris when she heard a buggy

  rumble over the bridge and drive up the White lane,

  hidden from her sight by the alders and firs. A few

&nb
sp; minutes later Carl and Cynthia came hastily across

  their yard under the huge balm-of-gileads. Carl's face

  was flushed, and his big body quivered with excitement.

  Cynthia ran behind him, with tears rolling down her

  face.

  Thyra felt herself growing sick with fear. Had anything

  happened to Damaris? A glimpse of the girl, sewing by

  an upper window of the house, reassured her.

  "Oh, Thyra, Thyra!" gasped Cynthia.

  "Can you stand some good news, Thyra?" asked Carl, in a

  trembling voice. "Very, very good news!"

  Thyra looked wildly from one to the other.

  "There's but one thing you would dare to call good news

  to me," she cried. "Is it about - about - "

  "Chester! Yes, it's about Chester! Thyra, he is alive -

  he's safe - he and Joe, both of them, thank God!

  Cynthia, catch her!"

  "No, I am not going to faint," said Thyra, steadying

  herself by Cynthia's shoulder. "My son alive! How did

  you hear? How did it happen? Where has he been?"

  "I heard it down at the harbor, Thyra. Mike McCready's

  vessel, the Nora Lee, was just in from the Magdalens.

  Ches and Joe got capsized the night of the storm, but

  they hung on to their boat somehow, and at daybreak

  they were picked up by the Nora Lee, bound for Quebec.

  But she was damaged by the storm and blown clear out of

  her course. Had to put into the Magdalens for repairs,

  and has been there ever since. The cable to the islands

  was out of order, and no vessels call there this time

  of year for mails. If it hadn't been an extra open

  season the Nora Lee wouldn't have got away, but would

  have had to stay there till spring. You never saw such

  rejoicing as there was this morning at the harbor, when

  the Nora Lee came in, flying flags at the mast head."

  "And Chester - where is he?" demanded Thyra.

  Carl and Cynthia looked at each other.

  "Well, Thyra," said the latter, "the fact is, he's over

  there in our yard this blessed minute. Carl brought him

  home from the harbor, but I wouldn't let him come over

  until we had prepared you for it. He's waiting for you

  there."

  Thyra made a quick step in the direction of the gate.

  Then she turned, with a little of the glow dying out of

  her face.

  "No, there's one has a better right to go to him first.

  I can atone to him - thank God, I can atone to him!"

  She went into the house and called Damaris. As the girl

  came down the stairs Thyra held out her hands with a

  wonderful light of joy and renunciation on her face.

  "Damaris," she said, "Chester has come back to us - the

  sea has given him back to us. He is over at Carl

  White's house. Go to him, my daughter, and bring him to

  me!"

  Chapter XI

  The Education Of Betty

  WHEN Sara Currie married Jack Churchill I was broken-

  hearted . . . or believed myself to be so, which, in a

  boy of twenty-two, amounts to pretty much the same

  thing. Not that I took the world into my confidence;

  that was never the Douglas way, and I held myself in

  honor bound to live up to the family traditions. I

  thought, then, that nobody but Sara knew; but I dare

  say, now, that Jack knew it also, for I don't think

  Sara could have helped telling him. If he did know,

  however, he did not let me see that he did, and never

  insulted me by any implied sympathy; on the contrary,

  he asked me to be his best man. Jack was always a

  thoroughbred.

  I was best man. Jack and I had always been bosom

  friends, and, although I had lost my sweetheart, I did

  not intend to lose my friend into the bargain. Sara had

  made a wise choice, for Jack was twice the man I was;

  he had had to work for his living, which perhaps

  accounts for it.

  So I danced at Sara's wedding as if my heart were as

  light as my heels; but, after she and Jack had settled

  down at Glenby I closed The Maples and went abroad . .

  . being, as I have hinted, one of those unfortunate

  mortals who need consult nothing but their own whims in

  the matter of time and money. I stayed away for ten