Fair Harbor Part 51

"Where is mother?" asked Elizabeth. "Have you seen her, Elvira?"

Elvira's thin lips were shut tight.

"Don't ask _me_," she snapped, viciously. "She's out trapping, I suppose."

"Trapping!" Elizabeth stared at her. "What are you talking about?

Trapping what?"

"I don't know. _I'm_ not layin' traps to catch anything--or any_body_ either."

She sailed out of the room. Miss Berry turned to Sears.

"Do you know what she means, Cap'n Kendrick?" she asked.

Sears did know, or would have bet heavily on his guess. But he shook his head. Elizabeth was not satisfied.

"Why do you look like that?" she persisted. "_Do_ you know?"

"Eh?... Oh, no, no; of course not.... I--I think I saw your mother goin'

out of the gate as I came across lots. She--I presume likely she was goin' to the store or somewhere."

"She didn't tell me she was going. Was she alone?"

"Why--why, no; I think--seems to me Mr. Phillips was with her."

For the next few minutes the captain devoted his entire attention to the letter he was writing. He did not look up, but he was quite conscious that her eyes were boring him through and through. During the rest of his stay she was curt and cool. When he went she did not bid him good-by.

So the fuse was burning merrily and the inevitable explosion came three days later. The scene was this time not the Fair Harbor office, but the Minot kitchen. Judah was out and the captain was alone, reading the _Item_. The fire in the range was a new one and the kitchen was very warm, so Sears had opened the outer door in order to cool off a bit. It was a beautiful late October forenoon.

The captain was deep in the _Item's_ account of the recent wreck on Peaked Hill Bars. A British bark had gone ash.o.r.e there and the crew had been rescued with difficulty. He was himself dragged, metaphorically speaking, from the undertow by a voice just behind him.

"Well, you're takin' it easy, ain't you, Cap'n Sears?" observed Mrs.

Tidditt. "I wish _I_ didn't have nothin' to do but set and read the news."

"Oh, good mornin', Esther," said the captain. He was not particularly glad to see her. "What's wrong; anything?"

"Nothin' but my batch of gingerbread, and a quart of mola.s.ses'll save that. Can you spare it? Oh, don't get up. I know where Judah keeps it; I've been here afore."

She went to the closet, found the mola.s.ses jug, and filled her pitcher.

Then she came back and sat down. She had not been invited to sit, but Esther scorned ceremony.

"No, sir," she observed, as if carrying on an uninterrupted conversation, "_I_ can't set and read the newspapers. And I can't go to walk neither, even if 'tis such weather as 'tis to-day. Some folks can, though, and they've gone."

Sears turned the page of the _Item_. He made no comment. His silence did not in the least disturb his caller.

"Yes, they've gone," she repeated. "Right in the middle of the forenoon, too.... Oh, well! when the Admiral of all creation comes to get you to go cruisin' along with him, you go, I suppose. That is, some folks do.

I'd like to see the man _I'd_ make such a fool of myself over."

The captain was reading the "Local Jottings" now. Mrs. Tidditt kept serenely on.

"I wouldn't let any man make such a soft-headed fool of me," she declared. "'Twould take more than a mustache and a slick tongue to get _my_ money away from me--if I had any."

Sears was obliged to give up the Jottings. He sighed and put down the paper.

"What's the matter, Esther?" he asked. "Who's after your money?"

"n.o.body, and good reason why, too. And I ain't out cruisin' 'round the fields with an Eg neither."

"With an egg? Who is?"

"Who do you think? Cordelia Berry, of course. Him and her have gone for what he calls a little stroll. He said she was workin' her poor brain too hard and a little fresh air would do her good. Pity about her poor brain, ain't it? Well, if 'twan't a poor one he'd never coax her into marryin' _him_, that's sartin."

"Esther, don't talk foolish."

"Nothin' foolish about it. If them two ain't keepin' company then I never saw anybody that was. He's callin' on her, and squirin' her 'round, and waitin' on her mornin', noon and night. And she--my patience! she might as well hang out a sign, 'Ready and Willin'.' She says he's the one real aristocrat she has seen since she left her father's home. Poor Cap'n Ike, he's all forgotten."

Sears stirred uneasily. Barring Tidditt exaggeration, he was inclined to believe all this very near the truth. It merely confirmed his own suspicions.

His visitor went gayly on. "I'm sorry for Elizabeth," she said. "I don't know whether the poor girl realizes how soon she's liable to have that Eg for a step-pa. I shouldn't wonder if she suspected a little. I don't see how she can help it. But, Elviry Snowden--oh, dear, dear! If _she_ ain't the sourest mortal these days. I do get consider'ble fun out of Elviry. She's the one thing that keeps me reconciled to life."

The captain thought he saw an opportunity to shift Mrs. Berry from the limelight and subst.i.tute some one else.

"I thought Elvira Snowden was the one you said meant to get Egbert," he suggested.

"So I did, and so she was. But she don't count nowadays."

"Why doesn't she?"

"Well, if you ask me I shall give you an answer. Elviry Snowden ain't fell heir to five thousand dollars and Cordelia Berry has. That's why."

Sears uneasily shifted again. This conversation was following much too closely his own line of reasoning.

"Five thousand isn't any great fortune," he observed, "to a man like Phillips."

The little woman nodded. "It's five thousand dollars to a man just _like_ Phillips--now," she said, significantly. "And, more'n that, Cordelia's matron at the Harbor. The Fair Harbor ain't a Eyetalian palace maybe, but it's a nice, comf'table place where the matron's husband might live easy and not pay board.... That's _my_ guess. Other folks can have theirs and welcome."

"But----"

"There ain't no buts about it, Cap'n Kendrick. You know it's so. Eg Phillips is goin' to marry Cordelia Berry. My name ain't Elijah nor Jeremiah--no, nor Deuteronomy nuther--but I can prophesy that much."

She rose with a triumphant bounce, turned to the open door behind her, and saw Elizabeth Berry standing there. Sears Kendrick saw her at the same time.

There are periods in the life of each individual when it seems as if Fate was holding a hammer above that individual's head and, at intervals, as the head ventures to lift itself, knocking it down again.

Each successive tap seems a bit harder, and the victim, during the interval of its falling, wonders if it is to be the final and finishing thump.

Sears did not wonder this time, he knew. His thought, as he saw her there, saw the expression upon her face and realized what she must have heard, was: "Here it is! This is the end."

Yet he was the first of the two to speak. Elizabeth, white and rigid, said nothing, and even Mrs. Tidditt's talking machinery seemed to be temporarily thrown out of gear. So the captain made the attempt, a feeble one.